THE CANTERBURY TALES
he was full merry and well at ease. Yet sith I wot not whom I might offend if I should blame the counsel of women, pass on, for I said it in my sport. Read authors, where they treat of such matters, and ye may learn what they say of women. These be the cock's words; not mine. I can imagine no harm of any woman.
Fair in the sand lieth Pertelote, bathing her merrily and all her sisters nigh her in the sunshine ; and Chaunticleer, the noble, sang merrier than the mermaid in the sea; for Phisiologus saith in all sooth how they sing well and merrily. And it so befell, as he cast his glance among the herbs upon a butterfly, that he was ware of this fox, that lay full low. No lust had he then to crow but straightway cried "Cok! Cok!" and up he started as one that is afraid in his heart. For by nature a beast desireth to flee from his born foe, if he see it, even though he hath never before cast his eye upon it.
This Chaunticleer, when he espied him, would have fled, but that straightway the fox said: "Gentle sir, alas! where will ye go? Be ye afraid of me? Me, that am your friend? Certes, now, I were worse than a devil, if I would do you harm or discourtesy. I am not come to spy on your privacy, but truly the cause of my approach was only to hearken how ye sing. For truly ye have as merry a voice as hath any angel that is in heaven ; and eke ye have more feeling in music than had Boece, or any wight that can sing. My lord, your father (God bless his soul!), and eke your mother, of her courtesy, have been in my house—to my great ease. And certes, full fain would I do you a pleasure, sir. But I will say, sith we speak of singing, may I be blind if I ever heard, save you, a man so sing as did your father in
the morn. Certes, it was from the heart—all that he sung; and
86
