1379

THE HOUSE OF FAME

by Geoffrey Chaucer

Book I

GOD turn every dream to good for us! For to my wit it is wondrous, by the rood, what causes dreams by night or by morrow; and why some be fulfilled and some never, why that is a vision, and this a revelation, why this is one kind of dream, and that another, and not to every man alike; why this one is an illusion and that an oracle. I know not, but whosoever knows the causes of these prodigies better than I, let him divine; for I certainly wot naught thereof, and never think to trouble my wit too arduously to learn their kinds of significance, or the length of time to their fulfilment, or why this is cause of dreams rather than that; as whether folks' temperaments make them dream of what they have been thinking on; or else, as others say, over-enfeeblement of brain, from sickness or abstinence, imprisonment, frequenting of stews, or great distress; or else disorder of Nature's customs, as when a man is too zealous in study, or melancholy, or so full of inward fear that no man may offer him relief; or else whether the devoutness and meditation of some often cause such dreams; or be it that the cruel, hard life which these lovers lead, who hope or fear overmuch, so that their mere fancies cause visions; or whether spirits have the power to make folk dream o' nights; or if the soul from its proper nature be so perfect, as men judge, that it foreknows what is to be, and warns one and all of each of their haps to come, by means of visions or figurings, but our flesh cannot understand these aright, because the warnings are too dark;- I know not what the cause is. Good luck in this to great clerks, who treat of this matter and others! For I will now make note of no opinion, but only pray that the holy cross turn every dream to good for us. For never have I since I was born, nor any man else before me, I firmly believe, dreamed so wonderful a dream as I did the tenth day of December; which, as I can now recall it, I will tell you in full.

But trust well, at my beginning I will anon make invocation, with special devoutness, to the god of sleep, who dwells in a cave of rock by a stream which comes from Lethe, which is a bitter river of hell; hard by a folk called the Cimmerians ever sleeps this mirthless god with his thousand sleepy sons, whose wont is ever to sleep; and this god I tell of I pray to grant me success to tell my dream aright, if every dream be within his power. And may He who is Mover of all that is and was and ever shall be give them that hearken to it joy of all they dream this year; and to stand all in the favor of their loves or in whatever plight they were fainest to stand in, and shield them from poverty and shame and mishap and every ill, and send all their desire to them that receive it well and scorn it not or misjudge it in their minds through malicious intent. And whosoever through presumption or hate or scorn or envy, through spite or mockery or wickedness, may misjudge it,- dream he stockings-on or stockings-off, I pray Jesus God that every ill that any man has had since the beginning of the world may befall him therefor ere he die, and that he may fully deserve it all, lo! with such a fulfilment as had Croesus King of Lydia of his vision, who died upon a high gibbet! This prayer shall he have of me; no more charity have I than this! Now, as I have told you, hearken to what I dreamed ere I awoke.

The tenth day of December, when it was night, I lay down to sleep even where I was wont, and fell asleep wondrous soon, as one who was weary from walking a pilgrimage of two miles to the shrine of Saint Leonard, to make soft what had been troublous.

But as I slept I dreamed I was within a temple of glass, in which were more golden images standing in sundry niches, and more rich tabernacles, and more pinnacles of gemmed work, and more cunning picturings and rare manners of figures in old work than ever I had seen. For verily I knew never where I was, but well I knew, truly, that it was of Venus, this temple; for straightway I saw her figure pictured, floating naked in a sea; and also her rose-garland white and red, perdy, about her brows; and her comb to comb her hair; her doves, and Dan Cupid, her blind son, and Vulcan, full brown of his face.

But as I roamed about, I found a tablet of brass on a wall, where was written: 'I will now sing, if I am able, the arms and eke the man, who, fugitive from Troy-country, first came through his fate into Italy to the Lavinian strand with full great suffering.' And then anon began the story, as I shall tell you all. First I saw the destruction of Troy, through the Greek Sinon, who with his false oaths and his feigned cheer and his leasings made the horse to be brought into the city, through which the Trojans lost all their happiness. And after this, alas! was graven how Ilium was assailed and won, and King Priam pitilessly slain and also Polites his son, by Sir Pyrrhus.

And next to that I beheld how Venus, when she saw the castle burning, descended from heaven and bade her son Aeneas to flee; and how he fled and escaped from all the press, and took Anchises his father and bare him away on his back, crying, 'Alack and alackaday!' Which Anchises carried in his hands those gods of the country which were unburned. And next in all this company I saw how Creusa, the wife of Sir Aeneas, whom he loved as his soul, and her young son Iulus, and eke Ascanius also, fled with so heavy looks that it was piteous to see; and how at a turning of a path as they went in the forest Creusa was lost and died, alas!, but I know not in what wise; how he sought her, and how her spirit bade him to flee the host of the Greeks, and said he must to Italy without fail, as was his destiny; so that it was piteous to listen to her words when her spirit appeared to him, and how she prayed him to guard her son. There I saw eke graven how he and his father and his household sailed forth with his ships towards the land of Italy, as straight as they could go.