Page:The Canterbury tales of Geoffrey Chaucer.djvu/170

 heritage, for which we claim to be of high birth, yet in no wise may they bequeath to any of us their virtuous living which made them to be called gentlemen; and Christ bade us follow them in that respect.

"Well can the wise poet of Florence, Dante, speak in this regard ; lo! in such verse is Dante's tale :

'Full seldom upward into the small branches Riseth the worth of man ; for God desireth That we should claim from Him our gentleness'

For of our ancestors we may claim nothing but temporal things, which men may hurt and harm. Every wight eke wot this as well as I, that if gentleness were planted by nature in a certain lineage, then would they of that line cease never, privily or openly, to do the fair offices of gentleness; they could do no discourtesy or sin.

"Take fire, and bear it into the darkest house betwixt Mount Caucasus and here, and let men shut the doors and go thence; yet will the fire blaze and burn as fair as though twenty thousand men might behold it; on my life, it will perform its natural office till it die.

"Here may ye see well how gentility is not tied down to possession, sith folk perform not their proper functions alway as doth lo! the fire after its kind. For, God wot, men may full often see a lord's son do shame and dishonour. And he that would have praise for his gentility, because he was born of a gentle house, and had ancestors virtuous and noble, and will do no gentle deeds himself, nor imitate his gentle ancestor, he is not gentle, be he a duke or a prince ; for rude, sinful deeds make