The Parliament of Fowls

Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.

From The Parlament of Foules by Geoffrey Chaucer, edited by T.R. Lounsbury, 1883.

This 14th-century poem contains perhaps the first written reference to Saint Valentine’s Day as a time of romance, when birds pair off and mate. In the poem, the narrator has passed into a strange place, where birds of every kind are converging in a parliament overseen by Nature herself.

XLIII

Whan I was come agen unto the place

That I of spak, that was so sote and grene,

Forth welk I tho my seluyn to solace:

Tho was i war wher that ther sat a quene,

That, as of lyght the someris sunne shene

Passith the sterre, right so ouermesure

She fayrere was than any creature.

XLIV

And in a launde, upon a hil of flouris,

Was set this noble goddesse Nature;

Of braunchis were hire hallis and hire bouris

Iwrought after hire cast and hire mesure;

Ne there was foul that comyth of engendrure,

That they ne were al prest in hire presence

To take hire dom and geve hire audyence.

XLV

For this was on Seynt Valentines day,

Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make,

Of euery kynde that men thynke may;

And that so huge a noyse gan they make,

That erthe, and eyr, and tre, and euery lake

So ful was, that onethe was there space

For me to stonde, so ful was al the place.

XLVL

And right as Aleyn in the Pleynt of Kynde

Deuyseth Natur in aray and face;

In swich aray men myghte hire there fynde.

This nobil emperesse, ful of grace,

Bad euery foul to take his owene place,

As they were wont alway, from yer to yere,

Seynt Valentines day to stondyn there.

Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Parlament of Foules. T.R. Lounsbury, ed. Ginn, Heath, & Co. 1883.

Geoffrey Chaucer

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