Page:The Canterbury tales of Geoffrey Chaucer.djvu/67

 steel, and the entrance was long and strait and ghastly to see, and thereout came a blast and rage that made all the gates to clatter. A light from the north shone in at the doors, for window on the wall there was none. The doors were all of eternal adamant, clamped along and across with toughest iron ; and to make the temple strong, every pillar that held it aloft was as great as a tun, of iron bright.—There saw I first the dark imagining of felony and all the consummation; the cruel ire, red as a coal, the pickpurse, and eke pale fear, the smiler with the knife under the mantle, the stables burning in black smoke, the treachery of the murder in the bed, open war with wounds all bleeding, strife with bloody blade and sharp threat. All full of shrieking was that sorry place. The slayer of himself I saw depicted on the wall; his heart's blood hath bathed all his hair. I saw the nail driven through the skull at night; I saw cold death lie with gaping mouth. Amid the temple sat mischance with woe and sorry visage. Madness I saw laughing in his frenzy, armed lament, outcry and fierce outrage; the corpse in the bush with throat cut through; men slain by thousands, the tyrant with his prey reft by force, the town all destroyed. Yet again, I saw burned the speedy ships, the hunter strangled by the wild bears, the sow devouring the child even in the cradle, the cook scalded for all his long spoon. No mischance was forgotten that Mars bringeth to pass; the carter run over by his cart—full low he lay under the wheel. There were also the craftsmen of Mars, the barber, the butcher and the smith, that on his anvil forgeth sharp swords. And all above, painted in a tower, sitting in great pomp saw I Conquest, with the sharp sword above him hanging by a subtle thread of twine. The slaughter of Julius was painted, of Antonius and of great Nero (albeit they were unborn at this