Which work of literature begins with the lines.: When that April with its showers sweet the drought of. March has pierced to the root'?
Middle English explains the background to the Nativity: An epitaph from a monumental brass in an Oxfordshire parish church: From the Wycliffe's Bible, (1384): The following is the very beginning of the General Prologue from "The Canterbury Tales" by Geoffrey Chaucer. The text was written in a dialect associated with London and spellings associated with the then-emergent Chancery Standard. Translation into Modern English prose: When April with its sweet showers has pierced March's drought to the root, bathing every vein in such liquid by whose virtue the flower is engendered, and when Zephyrus with his sweet breath has also enlivened the tender
General Prologue with London and spellings associated with the then-emergent Chancery Standard. In modern prose: When April with its sweet showers has pierced March's drought to the root, bathing every vein in such liquid by whose virtue the flower is engendered, and when Zephyrus with his sweet breath has also enlivened the tender plants in every wood and field, and the young sun is halfway through Aries, and small birds that sleep all night with an open eye make melodies (their hearts so goaded by Nature), then people long to go on pilgrimages, and palmers seek faraway shores and distant saints known