The Tale

And when that home was come Phoebus the lord, This crowë sung, “Cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo!” “What? bird,” quoth Phoebus, “what song sing’st thou now? Wert thou not wont so merrily to sing, That to my heart it was a réjoicíng To hear thy voice? alas! what song is this?” “By God,” quoth he, “I singë not amiss. Phoebus,” quoth he, “for all thy worthiness, For all thy beauty, and all thy gentleness, For all thy song, and all thy minstrelsý, For all thy waiting, bleared is thine eye With one of little reputatión, Not worth to thee, as in comparison, The mountance of a gnat, so may I thrive; For on thy bed thy wife I saw him swive.” What will ye more? the crow anon him told, By sadë tokens, and by wordës bold, How that his wife had done her lechery, To his great shame and his great villainy; And told him oft, he saw it with his eyen. This Phoebus gan awayward for to wrien; Him thought his woeful heartë burst in two. His bow he bent, and set therein a flo, And in his ire he hath his wifë slain; This is th’ effect, there is no more to sayn. For sorrow of which he brake his minstrelsy, Both harp and lute, gitérn and psaltery; And eke he brake his arrows and his bow; And after that thus spake he to the crow.