Notes from Maine - 2025/04/20

Roughly a thousand years ago, I was cursed. My favorite teacher, Mrs. Martin, taught English and she cursed the entire class. Before she did, she revealed that she had been cursing her students for years.

“You’re going to memorize the prologue to The Canterbury Tales, in Middle English, and you’re never, ever going to forget it.”

You might imagine the groans from the class at this mandate. She went on to explain that previous classes who learned the lines came back years and years later and were still able to recite them verbatim. Mrs. Martin implied that there was something so perfect and true about that work that it would stick in your head forever. I think Chaucer’s work was originally told orally and then eventually written down? It has the feel of something that was passed from person to person—maybe that’s why it’s so memorable. 

I haven’t checked in with my classmates recently to see if the decades have eroded their memory. I’ve met a few people who were storytellers. Over the years they would refine their memories by telling and retelling. They build tension, hit a beat, and move on to the next section. When done well, I find it captivating. I think that’s the same reason I enjoy stand up comedy. Those lines have been crafted and revised a thousand times. What I’m hearing has been distilled into its essence. 

Mark Twain wrote, “I apologize for such a long letter - I didn't have time to write a short one.”

A good story is often as tight as it can possibly be to still get the point across.

We didn’t memorize the whole prologue to the Canterbury Tales. I can’t imagine how long that would have taken. In Middle English, it only made sense to me when it was explained carefully and I’ve lost a bunch of that context. We learned the first twelve lines. I still say them to myself regularly, especially this time of year.

Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote,

The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,

And bathed every veyne in swich licóur

Of which vertú engendred is the flour;

The prologue talks about spring and the way the plants and animals are waking up to the new year. That’s what’s going on outside right now in Maine. Yesterday it was warmer outside than in, and the scent of explosive growth was alive in the air. 

If Mrs. Martin hadn’t told us that we would always remember those twelve lines, I probably would have forgotten them before graduation. She didn’t order us to remember them, she cursed us. I’m sure of it. She had been teaching for a while and she had somehow refined the precise combination of words to use to implant her command deep in our brains. 

“You will always remember.”

Couldn’t she have cursed us to remember something more useful? The Canterbury Tales are great, but in the course of my life they’ve only come up a few times. A co-worker was wearing a neat shirt one time with runes on it. When I asked if it meant anything, she said, “Oh, it’s the prologue to the Canterbury Tales.” Nodding, I pretended to read the symbols and recited the first couple of lines. It was a mildly-amusing trick. 

What would have been more useful though? Shakespeare? Angelou? Frost? 

I like Robert Frost poems. To me, they imply solitude, peace, and have just a hint of lonliness. But it’s not Robert Frost that came to mind when I stepped outside this morning, it was Zephirus.

Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth

Inspired hath in every holt and heeth 

I remember enough to know that Zephirus is the god of the west wind—the spring wind. His sweet breath was blowing through the trees this morning. It’s easy to believe that the wind itself was bringing spring renewal to us, and that’s what the lines imply.