Here’s a song I did yesterday. The lyrics consist of the first sixteen lines of Chaucer’s General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales in the original Middle English. I didn’t attempt an accent, but the pronunciation should be eighty or ninety percent correct. I know a few words are slightly mispronounced, but I think it’s pretty close. You can find the entire works of Chaucer including all the Canterbury Tales in Middle English here.

The Canterbury Tales

Whan that Aprill with his 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 sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his half cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open ye
(So priketh hem Nature in hir corages),
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
And specially from every shires ende
Of Engelond to Caunterbury they wende

     copyright 2010 GriffMusic