The Prioresses Tale

The Prologue

DOMINE, DOMINUS NOSTER

O Lord our Lord, thy name how merveillous

Is in this large worlde y-sprad—quod she:—

For noght only thy laude precious

Parfourned is by men of dignitee,

But by the mouth of children thy bountee

Parfourned is, for on the brest soukinge

Some tyme shewen they thyn heryinge.

 

Wherfor in laude, as I best can or may,

Of thee, and of the whyte lily flour

Which that thee bar, and is a mayde alway,

To telle a storie I wol do my labour;

Not that I may encresen hir honour;

For she hir-self is honour, and the rote

Of bountee, next hir sone, and soules bote.—

 

O moder mayde! o mayde moder free!

O bush unbrent, brenninge in Moyses sighte,

That ravisedest doun fro the deitee,

Thurgh thyn humblesse, the goost that in

th‘alighte,

Of whos vertu, whan he thyn herte lighte,

Conceived was the fadres sapience,

Help me to telle it in thy reverence!

 

Lady! thy bountee, thy magnificence,

Thy vertu, and thy grete humilitee

Ther may no tonge expresse in no science;

For som-tyme, lady, er men praye to thee,

Thou goost biforn of thy benignitee,

And getest us the light, thurgh thy preyere,

To gyden us un-to thy sone so dere.