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Old July 3rd, 2012 #15
littlefieldjohn
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Join Date: May 2009
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Default Chaucer on Jews

Geoffrey Chaucer on Jews

Little is known about Chaucer personally; it is safe to say at any rate he was one of a number of 'court poets' c.1300-1400 in Western Europe. His grandfather and father were London wine merchants and a woman who is almost surely his granddaughter died a duchess. Much of Chaucer's work has been lost.

Excerpt from The Prioress's Tale from The Canterbury Tales:

In a great city in Asia there was,
among the Christian folk, a community of Jews,
maintained by the lord of that country
for purposes of foul usury and filthy lucre,
hateful to Christ and his followers;
and through their street peopl might ride or walk,
for it was free and open at either end.

..................

As I have said, this little child, as he
went to and fro through the ghetto,
would sing most merrily, and cry
O Alma redemptoris constantly.
The sweetness of Christ's mother had so
pierced his heart that, in order to pray to her,
he could not stop singing on his way.

Our first foe, the serpent Satan,
who has his wasp's nest in the hearts of Jews,
swelled up, and said,' O Hebrew people, alas!
Is this a thing that is seemly to you,

That such a boy should walk as it pleases him
in contempt of you, and sing such a doctrine,
which is contrary to the reverence dur your laws?"

Thenceforth the Jews conspired
to hunt this innocent out of this world;
for this purpose they hired a murderer
who had a hiding place in an alley;
and when the child was passing by,
this cursed Jew seized him and held him fast,
and cut his throat, and cast him in a pit.

I tell you they threw him in a privy
where these Jews purge their entrails.
O folk of Herod cursed yet again,
what can your evil intent avail you?
The blood cries out on your cursed deed." ....

..

Last edited by littlefieldjohn; July 3rd, 2012 at 10:43 AM.