This is a word we have lost sight of now in the sense of _eating_; we only use it for ‘complaining’ or ‘pining.’ But a _fretted_ sky--and the _frets_ on a guitar--are from the old Saxon verb _frete_, to eat or devour, and describe a wrinkly uneven surface, like the part of a garment fretted by the moth. So you must not be impatient with the old words, which are sometimes much better for their purpose than the words we use nowadays. CANTERBURY TALES. CHAUCER’S PILGRIMS. Some of Chaucer’s best tales are not told by himself. They are put into the mouths of other people. In those days there were no newspapers--indeed there was not much news--so that when strangers who had little in common were thrown together, as they often were in inns, or in long journeys, they had few topics of conversation: and so they used to entertain each other by singing songs, or quite as often by telling their own adventures, or long stories such as Chaucer has written down and called the ‘_Canterbury Tales_.’ The reason he called them the ‘_Canterbury Tales_’ was because they were supposed to be told by a number of travellers who met at an inn, and went together on a pilgrimage to a saint’s shrine at Canterbury. But I shall now let Chaucer tell you about his interesting company in his own way. He begins with a beautiful description of the spring--the time usually chosen for long journeys, or for any new undertaking, in those days. When you go out into the gardens or the fields, and see the fresh green of the hedges and the white May blossoms and the blue sky, think of Chaucer and his Canterbury Pilgrims! [Illustration] Chaucer’s Prologue. Whan that Aprille with his schowres swoote When, sweet The drought of Marche hath perced to the roote, root And bathud every veyne in swich licour, such liquor Of which vertue engendred is the flour; flower Whan Zephirus[27] eek with his swete breeth also, breath Enspirud hath in every holte and heeth grove The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne young Hath in the Ram his halfe cours i-ronne, run And smale fowles maken melodie, small birds make That slepen al the night with open yhe, sleep, eye So priketh hem nature in here corages:-- pricketh them, their impulses Thanne longen folk to gon on pilgrimages, long, go And palmers[28] for to seeken straunge strondes, seek, shores To ferne halwes, kouthe[29] in sondry londes; distant saints And specially from every schires ende Of Engelond, to Canturbury they wende, go The holy blisful martir[30] for to seeke, blessed, seek That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke. them, sick