Page:The Canterbury tales of Geoffrey Chaucer.djvu/233

 by no negligence or sloth, ye delay us here longer than tomorrow."

"Nay, have here my faith as pledge," quoth this clerk.

Aurelius, when he list, went to bed, and rested well nigh all that night. What with his labour and hope of bliss, his woful heart had a lull of its pain. Upon the morrow, when it was light, Aurelius and this magician took the straight way to Brittany, and went down where they would abide; and this, as the books put me in mind, was the cold, frosty season of December.

Phœbus, that in his hot declination had shone as the burnished gold with glittering beams, waxed now old, of a hue like latten; for now he lighted adown in Capricorn, where, I must needs say, he shone full pale. The bitter frosts, with the sleet and rain, had destroyed the green in every close. Janus sitteth by the fire, with double beard, and drinketh the wine from his bugle-horn; before him standeth brawn of the tusked boar, and every lusty man "Nowel" crieth.

Aurelius, in all that ever he is able, maketh cheer and reverence unto his master, and prayeth him either to do his best to bring him out of his wretched pain, or to pierce his heart with a sword. This subtle clerk hath such ruth of him, that night and day he speedeth him to watch for a time for his result ; that is to say, to make an illusion, by such an appearance or juggler's trick (I know not terms of astrology), that Dorigen and every wight should ween and confess that the rocks of Brittany were away, or else that they were sunk under ground. So at last he hath hit upon his time to make his wretched mummery of superstitious cursedness. He brought forth his Toletan tables, full well corrected, so that there lacked nothing, neither his round periods nor his separate years, nor his roots, nor his