The Legend of Good Women by Geoffrey Chaucer - Delphi Classics (Illustrated)

By Geoffrey Chaucer

This eBook features the unabridged text of ‘The Legend of Good Women by Geoffrey Chaucer - Delphi Classics (Illustrated)’ from the bestselling edition of ‘The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer’.

Having established their name as the leading publisher of classic literature and art, Delphi Classics produce publications that are individually crafted with superior formatting, while introducing many rare texts for the first time in digital print. The Delphi Classics edition of Chaucer includes original annotations and illustrations relating to the life and works of the author, as well as individual tables of contents, allowing you to navigate eBooks quickly and easily.

eBook features:
* The complete unabridged text of ‘The Legend of Good Women by Geoffrey Chaucer - Delphi Classics (Illustrated)’
* Beautifully illustrated with images related to Chaucer’s works
* Individual contents table, allowing easy navigation around the eBook
* Excellent formatting of the textPlease visit www.delphiclassics.com to learn more about our wide range of titles

• Language: English
• Publisher: Publishdrive
• Release date: Jul 17, 2017
• ISBN: 9781788774789

Geoffrey Chaucer

Geoffrey Chaucer (1340s-1400) was an English poet and civil servant. Born in London to a family of wealthy vintners, Chaucer became a page to a noblewoman as a teenager, gaining access to the court of King Edward III. He served in the English army at the beginning of the Hundred Years’ War, was captured during the siege of Rheims, and returned to England after a sizeable ransom was paid by the king. Afterward, he travelled throughout Europe, married Philippa de Roet—with whom he had four children—and eventually settled in London to study law. In 1367, Chaucer joined the royal court of Edward III, serving in a variety of roles while also writing his earliest known poem, The Book of the Duchess. In 1373, following a military expedition in Picardy, he visited Genoa and Florence where he is believed to have met both Petrarch and Boccaccio, who introduced him to the Italian poetry that would heavily influence the form and content of his own work. Chaucer was appointed to the role of comptroller of customs for the port of London in 1374, a position he would hold for the next twelve years. He is believed to have written The Canterbury Tales—his most important work and an early masterpiece of English literature—in the early 1380s, was appointed clerk of the king’s works in 1389, and, in the last decade of his life, lived on an annual pension granted him by King Richard II. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, and is recognized today as the father of English literature.

Book preview

The Complete Works of

GEOFFREY CHAUCER

VOLUME 7 OF 16

The Legend of Good Women

Parts Edition

By Delphi Classics, 2012

Version 1

COPYRIGHT

‘The Legend of Good Women’

Geoffrey Chaucer: Parts Edition (in 16 parts)

First published in the United Kingdom in 2017 by Delphi Classics.

© Delphi Classics, 2017.

All rights reserved.  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form other than that in which it is published.

ISBN: 978 1 78877 478 9

Delphi Classics

is an imprint of

Delphi Publishing Ltd

Hastings, East Sussex

United Kingdom

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www.delphiclassics.com

Geoffrey Chaucer: Parts Edition

This eBook is Part 7 of the Delphi Classics edition of Geoffrey Chaucer in 16 Parts. It features the unabridged text of The Legend of Good Women from the bestselling edition of the author’s Complete Works. Having established their name as the leading publisher of classic literature and art, Delphi Classics produce publications that are individually crafted with superior formatting, while introducing many rare texts for the first time in digital print. Our Parts Editions feature original annotations and illustrations relating to the life and works of Geoffrey Chaucer, as well as individual tables of contents, allowing you to navigate eBooks quickly and easily.

Visit here to buy the entire Parts Edition of Geoffrey Chaucer or the Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer in a single eBook.

Learn more about our Parts Edition, with free downloads, via this link or browse our most popular Parts here.

GEOFFREY CHAUCER

IN 16 VOLUMES

Parts Edition Contents

The Poetry

1, The Romaunt of the Rose

2, The Book of the Duchess

3, The House of Fame

4, Anelida and Arcite

5, Parlement of Foules

6, Troilus and Criseyde - Original and Modernised Text

7, The Legend of Good Women

8, The Canterbury Tales - Original and Modernised Text

9, Minor Poems

The Non-Fiction

10, Boece

11, Treatise on the Astrolabe

The Criticism

12, The Criticism

The Biographies

13, Chaucer and His England by G. G. Coulton

14, Chaucer by Sir Adolphus William Ward

15, Chaucer’s Official Life by James Root Hulbert

16, Brief Life of Geoffrey Chaucer by D. Laing Purves

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The Legend of Good Women

Another poem composed in the form of a dream vision, The Legend of Good Women is the third longest of Chaucer’s works, after The Canterbury Tales and Troilus and Criseyde. Written in the mid 1380s, it is one of the first works in English literature to employ an iambic pentameter metre of decasyllabic couplets, which the poet later used in The Canterbury Tales. This form of the heroic couplet would go on to dominate English poetry for centuries.

The poem begins with a prologue, which portrays Chaucer being reprimanded by the god of love and his wife Alceste for depicting women, especially Criseyde, in a disparaging away in his works. Therefore, Alceste demands a poem of Chaucer extolling the virtues of women and their good deeds.  Throughout the poem, Chaucer recounts ten stories of virtuous women in nine sections, including Cleopatra, Thisbe, Dido, Hypsipyle, Medea, Lucrece, Ariadne, Philomela, Phyllis and Hypermnestra. The poem appears to be unfinished.

A depiction of Chaucer from Speght’s famous edition

CONTENTS

I. Cleopatra

II. Thisbe of Babylon

III. Dido, Queen of Carthage

IV. Hypsipyle and Medea

V. Lucretia

VI. Ariadne

VII. Philomela

VIII. Phyllis

IX. Hypermnestra

I. Cleopatra

Incipit Legenda Cleopatrie, Martiris, Egipti regine.

AFTER the deeth of Tholomee the king,

That al Egipte hadde in his governing,

Regned his quene Cleopataras;

Til on a tyme befel ther swiche a cas,

That out of Rome was sent a senatour,   5

For to conqueren regnes and honour

Unto the toun of Rome, as was usaunce,

To have the world unto her obeisaunce;

And, sooth to seye, Antonius was his name.

So fil hit, as Fortune him oghte a shame   10

Whan he was fallen in prosperitee,

Rebel unto the toun of Rome is he.

And over al this, the suster of Cesar,

He lafte hir falsly, er that she was war,

And wolde algates han another wyf;   15

For whiche he took with Rome and Cesar stryf.

  Natheles, for-sooth, this ilke senatour

Was a ful worthy gentil werreyour,

And of his deeth hit was ful greet damage.

But love had broght this man in swiche a rage,   20

And him so narwe bounden in his las,

Al for the love of Cleopataras,

That al the world he sette at no value.

Him thoughte, nas to him no thing so due

As Cleopatras for to love and serve;   25

Him roghte nat in armes for to sterve

In the defence of hir, and of hir right.

  This noble quene eek lovede so this knight,

Through his desert, and for his chivalrye;

As certeinly, but-if that bokes lye,   30

He was, of persone and of gentilesse,

And of discrecioun and hardinesse,

Worthy to any wight that liven may.

And she was fair as is the rose in May.

And, for to maken shortly is the beste,   35

She wex his wyf, and hadde him as hir