These old gentle Britons in their days

Of diverse adventures they made lays

Rhymed in their first Briton tongue,

Which lays with their instruments they sung,

Or else read them for their pleasance,

And one of them have I in remembrance,

Which I shall say with good will as I can.

But sires, by cause I am a burel man,

At my beginning first I you beseech,

Have me excused of my rude speech.

I learned never rhetoric, certain;

Thing that I speak, it must be bare and plain.

 

The Prologue of The Franklin’s Tale, 

from The Canterbury Tales 

by Geoffrey Chaucer