A Modern Translation
To you, my purse, and to no other creature I lament, for you are my lady dear! I am so sorry now that you are light;* for surely, unless you appear to me to be heavier, I may as well be laid upon my bier. Therefore unto your mercy thus I cry – be heavy again, or else surely I will die.
Promise this day, before night arrives, that I may hear the blessed sound of you, or see, like the bright sunshine, your color, whose yellowness none may match. You are my life, you are the rudder of my heart, the queen of comfort and of good company; please be heavy again, or else surely I will die.
Now, purse, who are to me my life’s one light and savior in this world down here, help me out of this city* through your might, since you refuse to be my treasurer. For I am clipped like priest or an austere monk. But yet I pray you of your courtesy, be heavy again, or else surely I will die.
L’Envoy* de Chaucer.
O conqueror of the isle of Brut’s Albion,* through whose lineage and our free choice you are King of it, this song to you I send; set your mind, you who can all our woes amend, upon my supplication.*
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1 Light. Though he does mean this in a physical way, the word “light” here also means cheerful or fickle; likewise “heavy” can mean serious.
2 City. The reference may be to his residence in Greenwich, where he may have been pursued by his creditors, from whom he might get relief if he could gain asylum among the monks at Westminster.
3 L’Envoy. An envoy is typically a post-script addressed directly to the audience or patron.
4 Brut’s Albion. Brutus, thirteenth-century conqueror of England, thus Brutain or Britain, from whose line came Henry IV, to whom the poem is addressed.
5 Supplication. This plea may have been successful, as it appears that on October 13, 1399, Henry IV granted Chaucer forty marks a year, which would have been rather generous.
Translated and Edited by Gerard NeCastro
© Copyright, 2007, All Rights Reserved
Citation. Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Complaint of Chaucer to His Purse. NeCastro, Gerard, ed. and trans. eChaucer: https://www.echaucer.com. [Site Visit Date.]
