“These olde gentle Bretons, in their days, Of divers aventures made lays,<2> Rhymeden in their firste Breton tongue; Which layes with their instruments they sung, Or elles reade them for their pleasance; And one of them have I in remembrance, Which I shall say with good will as I can. But, Sirs, because I am a borel* man, *rude, unlearned At my beginning first I you beseech Have me excused of my rude speech. I learned never rhetoric, certain; Thing that I speak, it must be bare and plain. I slept never on the mount of Parnasso, Nor learned Marcus Tullius Cicero. Coloures know I none, withoute dread,* *doubt But such colours as growen in the mead, Or elles such as men dye with or paint; Colours of rhetoric be to me quaint;* *strange My spirit feeleth not of such mattere. But, if you list, my tale shall ye hear.” Notes to the Prologue to the Franklin’s Tale 1. In the older editions, the verses here given as the prologue were prefixed to the Merchant’s Tale, and put into his mouth. Tyrwhitt was abundantly justified, by the internal evidence afforded by the lines themselves, in transferring them to their present place. 2. The “Breton Lays” were an important and curious element in the literature of the Middle Ages; they were originally composed in the Armorican language, and the chief collection of them extant was translated into French verse by a poetess calling herself “Marie,” about the middle of the thirteenth century. But though this collection was the most famous, and had doubtless been read by Chaucer, there were other British or Breton lays, and from one of those the Franklin’s Tale is taken. Boccaccio has dealt with the same story in the “Decameron” and the “Philocopo,” altering the circumstances to suit the removal of its scene to a southern clime. THE TALE.