Lembrando Geoffrey Chaucer (Pai da Literatura Inglêsa)

Transcrevo abaixo a parte introdutória (“General Prologue”), dos “Canterbury Tales”, de Geoffrey Chaucer, conforme consta da edição on-line de Michael Murphy (“Reader-Friendly Edition”), adaptado, embora com extrema fidelidade ao original, à moderna escrita do Inglês. Chaucer, o chamado “Pai da Literatura Inglêsa”,  é o mais admirado poeta inglês da Idade Média, considerado por seus contemporâneos como um sucessor do estilo consagrado pelos clássicos Virgílio e Dante.


“When that April with his showers soote
The drought of March hath pierced to the root
And bathed every vein in such liquor
Of which virtue engendered is the flower,
When Zephyrus eke with his sweete breath
Inspired hath in every holt and heath
The tender croppes, and the younge sun
Hath in the Ram his fale course y-run,
And smalle fowles maken melody
That sleepen all the night with open eye
(So pricketh them Nature in ther courages),
Then longen folk to go on pilgrimages,
And Palmers for to seeken strange strands
To ferne hallows couth in sundry lands,
And specially from every shire’s end
Of Engeland to Canterbyry they wend
The holy blissful martyr for to seek,
That them hath holpen when that they were sick.”


Alguns estudiosos propõe outas versões, modificando e atualizando aquele texto, na tentativa de melhor transmitir as mensagens do poeta:



“When April with his showers so sweet
Has pierced the drought of March to the root,
And bathed every vein in that liquor
Whose blessed power engenders the flower;
When Zephyrus too with his sweet breath
Has quickened in every grove and heath
The tender shoots, and the young sun
His half-course in the Ram has run,
And small birds make their melody
That sleep all night with open eye, -
(So nature pricks them to lusty rage)
Then people long to go on pilgrimages -
And palmers seek out strange strands -
To distant shrines, hallowed in sundry lands;
And specially, from every shire's end
Of England, down to Canterbury they wend ...”

(Alan Still, in http.thesemoments.blogspot.com, abril de 2006).