(started: 5\/91. finished: 4\/94. webbed: 12\/95.)<\/p>\r\n
After the death of Mary Kipling, granddaughter to the well-known Victorian poet and writer Rudyard Kipling, the executors of her estate found an odd and weathered manuscript among her possessions. On inspection by several authorities on English literature, the manuscript proved to be a hitherto-unknown Chaucerian opus, apparently originally intended to be a part of the Canterbury Tales. Despite some critics' allegations regarding its lack of authenticity(*)<\/a><\/font><\/sup>, the manuscript is here made publicly available for the first time. The astute reader will note that one or two major poets of the past two centuries seem somehow to have derived inspiration from this piece.<\/p>\r\n Heere folweth the Prologe of the Persees Tale.<\/i> \r\n\r\n When we had stopped at a smal vilage,<\/p>\r\n Another pilgrim joynd our pilgrimage.<\/p>\r\n A Persee he was, smal and brown of skin.<\/p>\r\n He nas not fat, bycause he was ful thynne.<\/p>\r\n More bright than Chine\u2019s splendours was his brow:<\/p>\r\n A hat he wore upon his heed, I trow,<\/p>\r\n That did the sonne reflect in glory fine.<\/p>\r\n In litel elles was he clad. A line<\/p>\r\n Tied unto his bakke a cooken-stove.<\/p>\r\n He seyde he wolden goon to Orotove,<\/p>\r\n And Anantarivo, upon the meede;<\/p>\r\n And thennes toward Amygdala he yede,<\/p>\r\n And Sonaput, where groweth marshe-grasse.<\/p>\r\n Pestonjee Bomonjee he cleped was.<\/p>\r\n Oure Hooste asked if he wolden ride<\/p>\r\n With us toward Caunterbury, and biside,<\/p>\r\n If he wolde joyn oure game and telle a tale.<\/p>\r\n He quod, \u201cYow shal have muche ale!<\/p>\r\n And if your tale be beste, yow shal eat wele.\u201d<\/p>\r\n This Persee quod, \u201cI woot wel what to telle.<\/p>\r\n And sooth to seye, a soothe tale, right sone,<\/p>\r\n Atones wol I tellen everichoon.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n Heere bigynneth the Persees Tale.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n \u201cUpon the yle wher I make my bed,<\/p>\r\n Biside the shores of the waters red,<\/p>\r\n There lived ther also a beeste wild\u2014<\/p>\r\n For trewely I trowe he nas not mild\u2014<\/p>\r\n A beest knowen as \u2018Rinoceros.\u2019<\/p>\r\n A single horn he hadde upon his nos,<\/p>\r\n O best beloved, with so sharp a poynt<\/p>\r\n That he could tear with it a roast or joynt.<\/p>\r\n He nas no mous (on cake did he feeste)<\/p>\r\n No wee and sleekit, cowerin\u2019, timorous beest.<\/p>\r\n His skin was grey as is a Londoun fogge,<\/p>\r\n That has in it a greyhounde or a dogge,<\/p>\r\n And fastned underneeth with buttons thre.<\/p>\r\n This beeste \u2018Strorkes\u2019 cleped was, pardee.<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n \u201cNow, I had taken water, from the see,<\/p>\r\n And fruyt, and floure, and mix\u00e9d them al thre,<\/p>\r\n And on my stove ther upon the sand,<\/p>\r\n I baked a cake\u2014\u201d Oure Cook cried out, \u201cLet stand!<\/p>\r\n The stove that yow bear upon your bakke<\/p>\r\n Is worn and broken, and it bears a crack!<\/p>\r\n If yow can bake in that a pastee flat,<\/p>\r\n Then I, I trowe, will gladly eat my hat!\u201d<\/p>\r\n This Persee grinn\u00e9d, showing all his smyl,<\/p>\r\n And quod, \u201cIf yow will listen for a whyl,<\/p>\r\n I shal soon prove, as it were in a book,<\/p>\r\n I am a better cook than yow, Sir Cook.<\/p>\r\n But first I shal continue with my tale:<\/p>\r\n Ere it and eek my cake grow too stale.<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n \u201cBifore that I could eat it, Strorkes came,<\/p>\r\n And I was so afraid that, to my shame,<\/p>\r\n Far up I climb\u00e9d in my tre of palm,<\/p>\r\n And ther I watch\u2019d, for Strorkes nas not calm.<\/p>\r\n He took this cake upon his horn\u00e9d nos,<\/p>\r\n And ate it up; and ther beneath my tos,<\/p>\r\n He snorted at me lik a beest from Helle,<\/p>\r\n And went away, and namore can I telle.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n Explicit prima pars<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n Sequitur pars secunda<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n \u201cSomedeel later\u2014five weeks, more or lesse,\u201d<\/p>\r\n Quod this litel Persee, \u201cAs I gesse,<\/p>\r\n Oure iland grew as hot as molten ore.<\/p>\r\n Then did this Strorkes comen to the shore,<\/p>\r\n And taked off his skinne for to swimme.<\/p>\r\n I had a plan to make revenge on him,<\/p>\r\n So while that he was bathing far from shore,<\/p>\r\n Eftsoones did I wait and watch namoor,<\/p>\r\n But taken all the cake-crummes I could find<\/p>\r\n From ther inside my stove, and eke bihind,<\/p>\r\n And put them in this hat upon my heed,<\/p>\r\n And went to Strorkes skinne wher it lay shed.<\/p>\r\n Into the skin I put thes crummes of cake;<\/p>\r\n And thenne did I rub and scrub and shake<\/p>\r\n And tub that skin until it was, pardee,<\/p>\r\n As ful of crummes as ever ful could be.<\/p>\r\n Bifore that Strorkes came out of the se,<\/p>\r\n I hadde climbed back into my tree,<\/p>\r\n And ther I stayed for to watch awhil,<\/p>\r\n And on my face was a happy smil.<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n \u201cThen did this Strorkes come back up on land<\/p>\r\n And put his skin on, standing in the sand.<\/p>\r\n He button\u2019d up the buttons with a grin,<\/p>\r\n Then seemed for to feel an itch within.<\/p>\r\n He roll\u00e9d in the sand ther by the see,<\/p>\r\n He scratch\u00e9d up his skin against my tree,<\/p>\r\n But scratching only made it itch the mor.<\/p>\r\n He scratch\u00e9d all he could ther on the shor;<\/p>\r\n He rubbed a fold of skin across his back,<\/p>\r\n Another on his shoulders, like a sack.<\/p>\r\n He rubb\u00e9d folds across his legs, pardee,<\/p>\r\n And then he rubb\u00e9d off the buttons thre.<\/p>\r\n And ever since that time, I tell yow trowe,<\/p>\r\n Biside the waters, whether red or blue,<\/p>\r\n Rinoceros and all his many kin<\/p>\r\n Have evil tempers and a folded skin<\/p>\r\n Bicaus of all the cakke-crumbs inside<\/p>\r\n The grey and folded-up and wrinkled hide.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n The Persee looked at we pilgrims alle,<\/p>\r\n And then he smiled, and stynteth of his tale:<\/p>\r\n \u201cAnd I pick\u2019d up my stove and my hat,<\/p>\r\n And heere I am. And that,\u201d quod he, \u201cis that.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n Heere is ended the Persees Tale.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n The Knight had held his counsel al this whil,<\/p>\r\n But now he letten forth with muchel bile:<\/p>\r\n \u201cHow darest thou call me your best biloved?<\/p>\r\n I would those words were up your rear beshoved!<\/p>\r\n And this your tale is not fit for a child\u2014<\/p>\r\n To pleyen such a trick upon that mild<\/p>\r\n And povre beeste, maketh me enwroth!<\/p>\r\n Yow weareth naught of clothing but that cloth\u2014\u201d<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n Oure Hooste, laughing, seyde, \u201cHolde stil!<\/p>\r\n Oure Persee frende must answer, if he wil.\u201d<\/p>\r\n But when we turn\u2019d to see what he wolde seye,<\/p>\r\n This Persee had ful vanish\u00e9d aweye.<\/p>\r\n The Knight then gave a bellow and a shout,<\/p>\r\n And scratched and pawed around him and about,<\/p>\r\n And then the Cooke likwis did the same,<\/p>\r\n As if they two were joyning in a game.<\/p>\r\n Within his armour and his apron twain,<\/p>\r\n The Persee\u2019s crummes were scratching them like grain.<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\nFragment XI (Group J)(**)<\/a><\/font><\/sup><\/h2>\r\n
\r\nThe Parsee's Prologue<\/h3>\r\n
The Parsee\u2019s Tale<\/h3>\r\n
\r\n\r\nEpilogue to the Parsee\u2019s Tale<\/h3>\r\n\r\n
Footnotes<\/h2>\r\n\r\n(*)<\/a><\/font><\/sup>(which are lent some credence by the large number of errors in Middle English spelling, grammar, and usage in the text)