I just read half of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, and loved the eloquent and epic Knight's Tale. I was less than impressed, however, by the Miller's and Reeve's Tales... sigh. Fart jokes, gratuitous sex, etc... anyway, I wrote this as a satire. :)
Canterbury Fails
I read Tales Canterbur last night,
What skill of telling met my sight!
Why, for to name a story of its worth,
One would be pressed to search but little earth.
These tales, I found, were nothing like the heed
Of priests and scholars, greater still indeed-
T'were from the mouths of farther better folks,
As drunken reeves and millers cloaked in jokes.
Instead of bards of treachery and arts,
These men were bawds of lechery and farts
Who showed their skill with proud and bold abandon,
And cleansed their mouths with grease from out a cannon.
The one, inebriate, told story rich
In humor and amusement and wit which
Would put some lesser tellers so to shame,
If they be two and five-year-olds to name.
The other, spiteful arrogance at best,
Decided to combat the other's jest,
And told a tale so stinging in retort
That higher tracks of thought would then abort.
For in this telling, two houseguests in the red
Paid by raping their host's women in bed.
And so truly amusing was this deed,
That all the pilgrims applauded the Reeve.
Thus continued these fortunate knaves
In dirty tales and gaining hearty raves.
So let us leave these jesters to their play,
Condemn me not if I be wont to say
That something so sophisticate in name
Should be a little more than toddlers' game.
And if one thinks me prejudiced in taste,
And wrong to put such genius thus to waste,
Then go your way, heed not my jealous tongue,
And count this story on a higher rung.
But take heed, as you gaze with awe and care-
You may look down to find its hind-side bare.