The Canon's Yeoman's Tale
Folio 201v
16 of 17 folios
But wasten / al that ye / may rape and renne
Withdraweth the fir / lest it to faste brenne
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Medleth namoore / with that Art I mene
For if ye doon / youre thrift is goon ful clene
And rigħt as swithe / I wol yow tellen heere
What þt the Philosophres seyn in this mateere
LO / thus seith Arnold of the newe toun
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As his Rosarie / maketh mencioun
He seith rigħt thus / with outen any lye
Ther may no man / Mercurie mortifie
But it be / with his brother knowlechyng
How þt he / which þt first seyde this thyng
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Of Philosophres / fader first was hermes
He seith / how þt the dragon doutelees
Ne dyeth nat . but if that he be slayn
With his brother and that is for to sayn
By the dragon / Mercurie and noon oother
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He vnderstood / and Brymstoon by his brother
That out of Sol / and Luna were ydrawe
And therfore seyde he / taak heede to my sawe
Lat no man bisye hym / this Art for to seche
But if þt he / thentencioū and speche
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Of Philosophres / vnderstonde kan
And if he do / he is a lewed man
For this science / and this konnyng quod he
Is of the secree / of the secretes pardee
¶ Also / ther was a disciple of Plato
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That on a tyme / seyde his maister to
As his book senior / wol bere witnesse
And this was his demande in soothfastnesse
Telle me the name / of the piuee stoon
¶ And Plato answerde / vn to hym anoon
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Take the stoon / that Titanos men name
¶ Which is that quod he ; Magnasia is the same
Seyde Plato / ye sire / and is it thus ;
This is / ignotum par ignocius ;
What is Magnasia / good sire I yow preye ;
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¶ It is a water / that is maad I seye
Of elementes foure quod Plato
¶ Telle me the roote / good sire quod he tho
Of that water / if it be youre wille
¶ Nay nay quod Plato / certein that I nylle
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The Philosophres / sworn were euerychoon
That they sholdē discouere it vn to noon
Ne in no book it write / in no manere
For vn to Crist / it is so lief and deere
That he wol nat that it discouered bee
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But where it liketh / to his deitee