Womanly Noblesse
A Ballad That Chaucer Made
My heart has so caught in its memory your complete beauty and steadfast self-control, all your virtues, and your high nobility, that all my pleasure is set in serving you. So do I delight in your womanly bearing, your fresh features, and your loveliness, that my heart has fully chosen you as mistress so long as I live, in true constancy, never to change for any manner of grief.
And since I shall pay you this homage all my life without grudging, serving you with all diligence, keep me somewhat in your memory. My woeful heart is in great hardship. See how humbly, with all simplicity, I conform my will to your ordinance, so that, as it pleases you, you may heal my pains.
Considering also how I hang in the balance in your service, lo, such is my fortune! I await your grace, when your nobleness may be pleased to alleviate my woe, and through your pity may promote me somewhat, fully abate my heavy spirit, and deem it to be within reason that womanly nobility should not seek to inflict extremities where it finds no disobedience.
The Envoy
Source of gentle breeding, lady of delights, sovereign of beauty, flower of womanhood, regard not my ignorance, but receive this through your kindness, keeping in mind that I have caught in my memory your complete beauty and your steadfast self-control.
Translated and Edited by Gerard NeCastro
© Copyright, 2007, All Rights Reserved
Citation. Chaucer, Geoffrey. Womanly Noblesse. NeCastro, Gerard, ed. and trans. eChaucer: https://www.echaucer.com. [Site Visit Date.]
