Classic Poem

A dreary season to a tragic tale
Should correspond and be equivalent;
In truth, wild winter weather did prevail
As I began to write this Testament;
When Aries set free in midst of Lent
Showers of hail that from the North descend,
Scarce from the cold could I myself defend.

Yet in my oratory none the less
I stood, when Titan had his beams of light
Withdrawn below and cloaked in cloudiness,
And Venus fair, the beauty of the night,
Arose and set unto the west full right
Her golden face, in opposition bound
To Phoebus the divine, descending down.

And through the pane her beams now burst so fair
That I could see on every side of me,
The northern wind had purified the air,
And swept the misty clouds from heaven free;
The white frosts froze, the night blasts bitterly
From Arctic Pole came whistling loud and shrill,
And caused me to withdraw against my will.

For I had hoped that Venus, Love's great Queen,
To whom I once had vowed obedience,
My withered heart with love would now make green,
And thereupon, with humble reverence,
I thought of praying to her Excellence,
But as the cold prevented my desire,
I stepped within my chamber to the fire.

Though love be hot, yet in a man of age
It kindles not so fast as in the young,
Whose blood flows swiftly in their passion's rage;
An outward fire is the best cure among
The old from whom all vigor has been wrung;
When Nature's forces fail, seek Physic's aid;
I am expert for both I have essayed.

I stirred the fire, and basking turned about,
Then took a drink my spirits to comfórt,
And armed myself against the cold without.
To cut the winter night and make it short,
I took a book and left all other sport,
Written by worthy Chaucer glorious,
Of fair Cresseid and worthy Troilus.

And there I found that after Diomede
Had thus received that lady bright of hue,
Troilus was near maddened by the deed,
And sorely wept with visage pale of hue;
For which Despair aroused his tears anew
Till Esperance did gladden him again;
Thus now in joy he lived, and now in pain.

But in her vow he found great comforting,
Trusting to Troy that she would homeward turn,
Which he desired o'er every earthly thing—
She was his only love and dear concern;
But when both day and hour for her return
Had passed, then sorrow did oppress
His woeful heart with care and heaviness.

Of his distress I do not need to tell,
For worthy Chaucer in that very book,
In goodly terms and lively verse as well,
Concluded has his cares, for all who look.
To break my sleep another work I took,
In which I found the fatal destiny
Of fair Cresseid, that ended wretchedly.

Who knows if all that Chaucer wrote were true?
Nor know I not if this tale actually
Is authorized or falsified anew
By some inventive poet, whose phantasy
Made him report the end in misery
And sad lament of amorous Cresseid,
And what distress and death upon her preyed.

When Diomede had all his appetite
And more fulfilled by her, then shamelessly
Upon another he set his whole delight,
Sent to Cresseid his own divorce decree
And thus he banned her from his company;
Then desolate, she wandered up and down,
And some men say turned woman of the town.

O fair Cresseid, the flower and paragon
Of Troy and Greece, compelled by evil fate
To drop thy virtue and such filth to don,
And be with fleshly lust so maculate,
And go among the Greeks from dawn till late,
So strumpet-like taking thy foul delight!
I grieve that thou shouldst suffer such a plight.

Yet nevertheless, whatever men deem or say
In scornful language of thy wantonness,
I shall defend as ably as I may,
Thy wisdom, womanhood, and loveliness,
Which Fortune since has put to such distress
As pleased her, ruining with Rumor's whine,
And not indeed through any guilt of thine.

This lady fair, deprived then in this wise
Of comfort and consoling sympathy,
Companionless, on foot, and in disguise,
From town a mile or two fled secretly
Unto a manse enriched with tracery
In which her father Calchas dwelt in peace
During this time among the knights of Greece.

When he saw her, the cause he did inquire
Of her return; she said, with sighs full sore:
“When Diomede had gotten his desire
He waxed weary and would of me no more.”
Quoth Calchas, “Daughter, weep thou not therefor;
Perchance all this has happened for the best:
Welcome to me, thou art full dear a guest.”

As priest,—such was the law of long ago,—
Old Calchas of the temple bore the care,
Where Venus and her son Dan Cupido
Were worshiped; thus Cresseid in her despair
Was wont to go unto his chamber there
So that in sacred silence she might pray.
Until at last upon a Sabbath day,

As custom was, the people far and wide
Devout in manner to the temple went
With sacrifice before the high noon-tide.
But still Cresseid, oppressed with thought and spent,
Within the church would not herself present,
For fear it would set people whispering
Of her divorce from Diomede the King.

She to a secret chapel passed, heart-sore,
Where she might mourn her woeful destiny,
Behind her back she bolted fast the door,
And fell upon her bare knees hastily;
On Venus and on Cupid angrily
She then cried out, and said in this same wise,
“Alas! that ever I made you sacrifice.

“Ye gave me once a sacrosanct reply
That I should be the flower of love in Troy.
An outcast now, in misery I lie,
And into care translated is my joy.
Who shall me guide? Who shall me now convoy,
Since I from Diomede and noble Troilus
Am banished clean, cast-off and odious?

“O Cupid false, none is to blame but thou,
And thy blind mother, goddess of wantonness!
Ye caused me always to believe and trow
That seed of love was sown within my face
And aye grew green through your support and grace.
But now, alas, that seed with frost is slain,
And I, by lovers left, forlorn with pain.”

When this was said, down in an ecstasy,
Ravished in soul, into a dream she fell.
From where she lay, she heard apparently
Cupid the King ringing a silver bell,
Which men might hear from heaven unto hell,
And at whose sound a lustrous throng appears,—
The planets seven, descending from their spheres,

Which have the power o'er all things generable
To rule and move by their great influence,
Weather and wind, and courses variable.
Now Saturn, first to state his sentiments,
For Cupid had but little reverence,
But like a surly churl came crabbedly
With looks and mien of cold austerity,

With shriveled face, with livid skin like lead,
With teeth that chinked and chattered with his chin;
His sunken eyes were hollows in his head,
While from his nose streamed drops of crystaline;
His lips were pale, his cheeks were lean and thin;
The icicles that from his hair hung sheer,
Were wondrous great and long as any spear.

About his belt in silvery disarray,
His locks fell matted, flecked with twinkling frost;
His garments and his hood were pearly gray;
His tattered ashen rags were tempest tossed;
He bore in hand a sturdy bow, embossed;
A sheaf of arrows, by his girdle gripped,
Feathered with ice, by stones of hail were tipped.

Then Jupiter, so fair and amiable,
God of the stars within the firmament,
And mighty nurse to all things generable,
From his father Saturn far different,
With pleasant face and brows benevolent,
Upon his head a garland wondrous gay,
Of flowers fair, as if it were in May.

His voice was clear, his eyes were crystal keen,
Like golden wires his hair all glittering o'er;
His garment and his hood were gaily green,
With golden borders gilt on every gore;
A sturdy sword about his waist he wore;
In his right hand he had a sharpened spear,
His father's wrath away from us to veer.

Next after him came Mars, the god of ire,
Who ever strife, dispute, and discord made,
To chide and fight as fierce as any fire,
In armor, helm, and coat of mail arrayed,
And on his haunch a dreadful bronzy blade,
And in his hand he had a rust-red sword.
Twisting his face with many an angry word,

Shaking his sword, past Cupid he did come
With glowering eyes and face incarnadine,
While at his mouth a bubble stood of foam,
Thus like a boar whetting his tushes keen,
Cantankerous, without restraint of spleen;
A horn he blew with many a boisterous blast
Which shook this world with horror unsurpassed.

Then Phoebus fair, lantern and lamp of light
Of man and beast, both fruit and flowering,
The tender nurse, and banisher of night;
His moving and his influence can bring
Life in this world to every earthly thing,
Without whose comfort, all must come to naught
Perforce that ever on this earth was wrought.

His chariot, which Phaeton once dared
To guide, he rode, a royal king by right;
The brightness of his face when it was bared,
None might behold for dazzling of his sight.
This golden car with beams of flaming light,
His four yoked steeds each of a different hue,
Tirelessly through the spheres forever drew.

The sorrel first, with mane as red as rose,
Is called Eoye in the Orient;
The second steed, whose name is Ethios,
Whitish and pale, was somewhat ascendent;
The third Peros, aflame and candescént;
The fourth was black and callèd Phlegonie,
Which rolls fair Phoebus down into the sea.

Venus was present there, that goddess gay,
Her son's case to uphold, nor did she lack
Her own complaint, clad in her fine array,
The one half green, the other sable black;
Fair hair like gold, combed and parted in back;
But in her face great variance could be,
Now perfect truth, and now inconstancy.

A cold deceit lies coiled beneath her smiles;
Provocative, with glances amorous,
She swiftly changes and everything reviles,
Angry as any serpent venomous,
Ready to sting with words now odious;
Beware of her; from mood to mood she sweeps,
With one eye laughs, and with the other weeps.

Betokening that carnal love in men,
O'er which she has both rule and governance,
Is sometimes sweet and sometimes sour again,
Mercurial and full of variance,
With cheerless joy and false beneficence;
Now hot, now cold, now blithe, now full of woe,
Now green as leaf, now withered long ago.

All eloquent and full of rhetoric,
With book in hand, there hastened Mercury,
His terms delicious and most politic,
Prepared with pen and ink the clerk to be,
Composing songs and singing merrily;
His scalloped hood, wound in a scarlet pile,
Was like a poet's of old-fashioned style.

Boxes he bore with fine electuaries,
All sugared syrups for digestion known,
Spices belonging to apothecaries,
With wholesome sweet confections of renown;
Doctor of Physic, clad in scarlet gown,
Well trimmed with fur, befitting one so high,
Honest and good, he could not tell a lie.

Next Lady Cynthia came after him,
The last of all and swiftest in her sphere,
Adorned with horns, of color black and grim,
And in the night she best likes to appear,
Livid as lead, of color nothing clear;
For all her light she borrows from her brother,
Titan, for by herself she has no other.

Her guise was gray, bespattered o'er with black,
And on her breast a churl was painted even,
Bearing a bunch of thorns upon his back,
Who for his theft might climb no nearer heaven.
Thus when the gods were gathered there, all seven,
Mercurius they chose with one assent,
To be chief speaker in the parliament.

Whoever had been there and wished to hear
His facile tongue and terms so exquisite,
Rhetoric's art might learn and well revere,
To brief discourse a pregnant thought might fit.
Confronting Cupid he doffed his cap a bit
And asked the cause of convocation there;
So Cupid then his purpose did declare.

“Lo!” said he, “whoever blasphemes the name
Of his own god, either in word or deed,
Unto all gods he brings both blame and shame,
And should have bitter anguish as his meed.
I speak of yonder wretch Cresseid, take heed!
Though once the flower of love by my decree,
She strongly has reproved my mother and me;

“Saying that her great infelicity
Was brought upon her by the two of us.
She said my mother was blind and could not see,
With slander and with lies injurious;
Thus her behavior foul and lecherous
She now would blame on me and on my mother,
To whom I show my grace above all other.

“And since ye seven all are deified,
All sharing in the sacred sapience,
Ye then should punish her who vilified
Our high estate for her great insolence,
For never Gods were done such violence.
As well for you as for myself I say;
So help me to obtain revenge I pray.”

To Cupid, Mercury replied with cheer
And said, “Sir King, my counsel is that ye
Refer thy case unto the highest here,
And take with him the lowest of degree,
As Saturn and the Goddess Cynthia be,
That they may well decide her punishment.”
“To take these two,” he said, “I am content.”

Thus Saturn and the Moon proceeded there,
When they the case had pondered to their best,
For wronging Cupid and his mother fair,
A crime so open and so manifest,
To sentence her with pain to be oppressed,
And torment sore, with ills incurable,
And to all lovers be abominable.

This sentence Saturn took in their behalf,
And glided down where cheerless Cresseid lay,
And laid upon her head his frosty staff;
Then in this wise he lawfully did say:
“Thy great fairness and all thy beauty gay,
Thy wanton blood, and e'en thy golden hair,
Are banished evermore, I now declare.

“I change thy mirth to sombre melancholy,
Which is the mother of all pensiveness;
Thy heat and moisture, cold and dry be wholly;
Thy insolence, thy play and wantonness
Be great disease; thy pomp and thy richéss
Be mortal need; and thou shalt poverty
Endure, and meet thy death in beggary.”

O cruel Saturn! angry and adverse,
Hard is thy doom and too invidious;
Why didst thou cast on fair Cresseid this curse,
Who was so gentle, sweet, and amorous?
Withdraw thy sentence and be generous
As thou hast never been nor e'er could be,
In sentencing Cresseid so ruthlessly.

Then Cynthia, when Saturn passed away,
Down from her seat descended instantly,
And read a bill o'er Cresseid where she lay,
Containing this definitive decree:
“I now divorce thy body's heat from thee,
And for thy sickness there shall be no cure,
But in distress thy days thou shalt endure.

“Thy crystal eyes with blood shall mingled be,
Thy voice so clear, be rough and hoarse apace,
Thy skin with blotches black spread loathsomely,
With livid lumps appearing on thy face.
Where goest thou, each man shall flee the place;
Thus begging shalt thou go from door to door,
With cup and clapper, leper evermore.”

This ugly dream, this vision of despair
Brought to an end, Cresseid her sleep forsook,
And all that court of gods assembled there
Vanished away. Then she arose and took
A polished glass from which her image looked,
And when she saw her face so changed, her throes
Of grief were terrible enough, God knows.

Weeping with woe, “Look what it is,” quoth she,
“To anger so our crabbed gods who hear
Our froward words; this may be seen in me!
Now have I bought my blasphemy full dear,
My earthly joy and mirth lie in arrear.
Alas this day, alas this woeful tide,
When I my gods began to taunt and chide.”

When this was said, a child came from the hall
To warn Cresseid that supper time drew nigh,
First knocked upon the door and then did call:
“Madame, your father bids you to him fly,
Your groveling so long does mystify
Him greatly, for he says that you can dwell
In prayer too long; your thoughts the gods know well.”

Quoth she: “Fair child, go to my father dear,
And beg him come to speak with me anon.”
And so he did and said: “Daughter, what cheer?”
“Alas,” quoth she, “Father, my mirth is gone.”
“How so?” quoth he; and then, as I have done,
She told him all, how Cupid ruthlessly
Had punished her for her iniquity.

He looked upon her ugly leper face,
Which once had been as white as lily flower;
Wringing his hands, he mourned her vanished grace,
And wept that he had lived to see that hour;
For he knew well there was no earthly power
Could cure her now, and that increased his pain;
Thus was there woe enough be