2 L. A. Sherman, 



Whan that Aprille with hise shoures soote 

 The droghte of March hath perced to the roote, 

 And bathed every veyne in swich licour 

 Of which vertu engendred is the flour ; 

 Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth 

 Inspired hath in every holt and heeth 

 The tendre croppes and the yonge sonne 

 Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne, 

 And smale foweles maken melodye 

 That slepen al the nyght with open eye — 

 So priketh hem Nature in hir corages — 



Then when his protasis is complete, with equal naturalness 

 the real proposition of his introduction is developed : — • 



Thanne longen folk to gon on pilgrimages ; 



And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes 



To fernwe halwes, kowthe in sondry londes ; 



And specially, from every shires ende 



Of Engelond, to Canturbury they w-ende 



The hooly blisful martir for to seke 



That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke. 



But are these eighteen lines in reality one sentence, or 

 period, as declared by the punctuation : or what shall be a 

 sentence if this is not ? Chaucer's answer would seem to be, 

 that each one of the clauses which help make up the whole 

 passage is in itself a sentence to the reader, since it occupies 

 his mind completely for the time being. But because it is 

 introduced, not for the sake of the truth it contains as an end 

 in itself, but in order to prepare the way for some more impor- 

 tant declaration, the mind of the reader must have notice to 

 continue its expectation until the final truth is reached. In 

 other words, though each single clause on going into effect 

 in the reader's mind makes with its imagery a complete occu- 

 pation, it does not convey all that Chaucer had in his mind at 

 the time to say: his meaning is "complex." He has certain 

 single, simple situations which might have made single, sim- 

 ple sentences if introduced as such ; but all the while he is 

 inditing these he is keeping them subordinate to an ulterior 

 purpose to which he will make them preliminary or circum- 



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