From The Canterbury Tales
A Modern Translation
Now I pray to them all that read or listen to this little treatise, that if there may be any thing in it that pleases them, that they may thank for it our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom all intelligence and all goodness proceeds. And if there be any thing that displease them, I pray them also that they ascribe it to my lack of skill and not to my will, by which I would have gladly said better if I had had the skill. For our book says, “Al that is written is written for our instruction,” and that is my intent.
Therefore I beseech you meekly, for the mercy of God, that you pray for me that Christ may have mercy on me and forgive me my sins; and namely for my translations and compositions of worldly vanities, the which I revoke in this retraction: namely the book of Troilus; the book also of Fame; the book of the twenty-five Ladies; the book of the Duchess; the book of Saint Valentine’s day of the Parliament of Birds; the tales of Canterbury, those that pertain to sin; the book of the Lion; and many another books, if I could remember them, and many songs and many lecherous ditties, that Christ for his great mercy may forgive me the sin.
But of the translation of Boethius’ Consolation, and other books of Legends of Saints, and of Homilies and moral and devotional works, for which I thank our Lord Jesus Christ and his blessed Mother, and all the saints of heaven, beseeching them that they from this point to the end of my life may send me the grace to lament my sins and to study for the salvation of my soul, and grant me the grace of true penitence, confession and satisfaction to carry out in this present life, through the gentle grace of he who is king of kings and priest over all priests, of he who bought us with the precious blood of his heart, so that I may be one of those who shall be saved at the Day of Judgment.
Qui cum Patre et Spiritu Sancto vivit et regnat Deus per omnia secula.* Amen.
*Qui cum, etc. Who [Jesus Christ] with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns forever.
© Translation by Gerard NeCastro. All Rights Reserved. 2007.
Citation. Chaucer, Geoffrey. Chaucer's Retraction. NeCastro, Gerard, ed. and trans. eChaucer: https://www.echaucer.com. [Site Visit Date.]
