The Canterbury Tales: A Retelling by Peter Ackroyd by Peter Ackroyd, Geoffrey Chaucer Read Free Book Online

never been born!’ But then just by chance he happened to look through the thick iron bars covering his window. He cast a glance upon Emily sauntering below. Then immediately he turned pale and cried out, ‘Ah!’, as if some barb had caught at his heart. At the sound of his cry Arcite started up from sleep and asked what had upset him. ‘Cousin,’ he said, ‘you have gone as pale as the dead. What troubles you now? You look so ill suddenly. Why did you cry out? Who has offended you? For God’s sake do not rail so much against our imprisonment. We must have patience. This is our fate. We have no choice in the matter. We are subject to the bad aspects of Saturn, in the turning of the spheres, and cannot escape our destiny. What is the saying? “He must need swim that is borne up to the chin.” So stood the heavens on the day that we were born. We must endure.’
    Palamon answered him, shaking his head. ‘Cousin, you have received the wrong impression of my woe. It was not our confinement that made me cry out. My new torment entered my heart through my eye, where very likely it will kill me. I am woeful because of her. With the flowers. Below us.’ He went over to the window again, and looked down at Emily. ‘The fairness of this lady that I see, walking to and fro through the castle garden, is the cause of all my pain and lamentation. I cannot tell whether she is a woman or a goddess. My guess is that she is Venus, come to earth.’ Thereupon he fell to his knees and prayed aloud. ‘Venus, great goddess, if it be your will to reveal yourself in this garden before me, a wretched and sorrowful creature, I beseech you to deliver us from this dark prison. Yet if it be my destiny to remain in durance vile, imprisoned by divine decree, then turn your piteous eye upon my family that has been brought so low by tyranny.’ And as he prayed Arcite walked over to the window and beheld Emily wandering in the garden. The sight of her beauty affected him so greatly that, if Palamon had been wounded, Arcite almost expired. He sighed deeply, and could not refrain from speaking out. ‘This perfect beauty, this vision of her that walks within the garden, has slain me suddenly. Unless I obtain her mercy and her grace, unless at the very least I am permitted to see her, I am as good as dead. There is nothing else to say.’
    When Palamon heard his complaint, he became angry. ‘Are you serious? Or is this a joke?’
    ‘I am in deadly earnest. God help me, I have no reason to play.’
    ‘It does not reflect well on your honour, you know, to be false and treacherous to your cousin.’ He was frowning at Arcite as he spoke. ‘We have both sworn deep oaths that we would never cross each other in love, and would each seek our common good. We have both sworn that we would rather die under torture than oppose or hinder one another. We would remain true till death do us part. That was my oath. I presume that it was yours. I don’t think you will deny it. But now what has happened? You are aware of my love for the lady in the garden, but you have decided that you also wish to be her lover. No chance. I will love and serve this lady until the day of my death. That will not be your fate, Arcite, I swear it! I loved her first. I took you into my confidence, and told you all my woe. As my sworn brother, you are bound by oath to help me. Otherwise you will be judged a false and perjured knight.’
    Arcite, in pride of spirit, answered him with disdain. ‘You will be judged the faithless knight, Palamon. I was the one who loved her first.’
    ‘What are you saying?’
    ‘Look at you. You still do not know whether she is a goddess or a woman! You are touched by love for a deity, while I am consumed by love for a mortal woman. That is why I confessed my feelings to you, as my cousin and brother. Put the case that you loved her first. What do all the learned clerks tell us? When love is strong, love knows no law. Love itself has greater