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 What do you Want to Talk About?

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Carol Troestler
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PostSubject: What do you Want to Talk About?   What do you Want to Talk About? EmptyMon Mar 09, 2009 2:56 pm

You cannot go off topic here--there is no topic so be creative, think of your own, if someone answers you--good for you and them. What do you Want to Talk About? 986286 What do you Want to Talk About? 986286 What do you Want to Talk About? 986286
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PostSubject: Re: What do you Want to Talk About?   What do you Want to Talk About? EmptyMon Mar 09, 2009 3:29 pm

What do you Want to Talk About? 892798 This is a non-sequitur -- I don't know what that means let alone how to spell it; maybe someone will tell me -- because you can't go off topic on an off-topic subject. I've forgotten what I was going to say now.
You want something controversial? How about asking members whom they think is the most likely to be banned from the forum. Don't be nice, Alice wants blood.
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PostSubject: Re: What do you Want to Talk About?   What do you Want to Talk About? EmptyMon Mar 09, 2009 3:43 pm

Shelagh wrote:
What do you Want to Talk About? 892798 This is a non-sequitur -- I don't know what that means let alone how to spell it; maybe someone will tell me -- because you can't go off topic on an off-topic subject. I've forgotten what I was going to say now.
You want something controversial? How about asking members whom they think is the most likely to be banned from the forum. Don't be nice, Alice wants blood.



They are all hoping it is me--I hope they are wrong.What do you Want to Talk About? 798629 What do you Want to Talk About? 798629 What do you Want to Talk About? 798629
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PostSubject: Re: What do you Want to Talk About?   What do you Want to Talk About? EmptyMon Mar 09, 2009 3:44 pm

They'll be in trouble if it's me. What do you Want to Talk About? 127103
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PostSubject: Re: What do you Want to Talk About?   What do you Want to Talk About? EmptyMon Mar 09, 2009 4:24 pm

You can't ban yourself--I hope.
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PostSubject: Re: What do you Want to Talk About?   What do you Want to Talk About? EmptyMon Mar 09, 2009 4:28 pm

I could abandon ship. No, that's not right, Captains don't. I could go AWOL. What do you Want to Talk About? 402987
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PostSubject: Re: What do you Want to Talk About?   What do you Want to Talk About? EmptyMon Mar 09, 2009 4:43 pm

Alice wrote:



They are all hoping it is me--I hope they are wrong.What do you Want to Talk About? 798629 What do you Want to Talk About? 798629 What do you Want to Talk About? 798629

Alice, I love the way you have those spiders dancing in slow motion in your posts. Awesome! Very Happy
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PostSubject: Re: What do you Want to Talk About?   What do you Want to Talk About? EmptyMon Mar 09, 2009 5:19 pm

I don't like spiders!!
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Carol Troestler
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PostSubject: Re: What do you Want to Talk About?   What do you Want to Talk About? EmptyMon Mar 09, 2009 6:11 pm

I like Alice.

I like her spiders.

Spiders are all right depending on where they are. I've seen some great spider webs, amazing spider webs really.

Carol
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Richard Stanbery
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PostSubject: Re: What do you Want to Talk About?   What do you Want to Talk About? EmptyMon Mar 09, 2009 6:49 pm

How about conspiracy theories? I have a pet theory that the Canterbury Tales was really some sort of coded espionage letter between Chaucer and his king, Richard II.

Hey, just look at the free and easy, almost careless way that he opens the story. Then he starts putting time/date stamps on it, and even sets the time/date stamp as a possible El-Nino year? Hmm...interesting.

And then there is Chaucer himself. He was not just a lowly poet or author. No, he was very high in the government. Yet here he takes time to write about some pilgrims going to Canterbury to revere the martyr Thomas Beckett.

It would be kind of like the modern-day director of a high cabinet level ministry deciding to stop his official motorcade and write a book about people that he meets in the parking lot of a convenience store, and then never finishing it. Hmm...conspiracy theorist attack! Scoffers come and get me!

By the way, I really like how Alice comes up with these topics and I can rush right in with something off the wall. Its kind of like the old "Alley Oop"! I'm an Alice fan!
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PostSubject: Re: What do you Want to Talk About?   What do you Want to Talk About? EmptyMon Mar 09, 2009 7:32 pm

Welcome, Richard,

It is so good to see you once again.

Yes, Chaucer was a diversion wasn't he? A bit hard to dceipher but then, what is easy about a conspiracy theory.

Ahad,

Thanks for liking my spiders. What do you Want to Talk About? 798629 What do you Want to Talk About? 798629 What do you Want to Talk About? 798629


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PostSubject: Re: What do you Want to Talk About?   What do you Want to Talk About? EmptyMon Mar 09, 2009 8:04 pm

Richard, I'm not sure I understand your conspiracy theory. At that point in history, who could read it? Guttenberg's press did not come into being until 40 years after Chaucer's death, so even if anyone could read, they couldn't afford to buy the book. Was he really that high up in Richard's court? I always thought he was closer to an upper-level servant, a trusted commoner, well-liked, but not that privy to secrets. But I know more about his Tales than I do his history. What are some of your specifics that contribute to your suspicions? Suspect

Ann
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PostSubject: Re: What do you Want to Talk About?   What do you Want to Talk About? EmptyMon Mar 09, 2009 8:20 pm

OK, here is a down and dirty wiki article, which is ok for an informal discussion to bring everybody up to a baseline understanding of who Chaucer was.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Chaucer

I dont think that the Canterbury Tales was ever intended for mass publications. You are right, the printing industry was not ready for it, and few could read anyway? And, it was never finished nor did Chaucer really try to do much with it.

Notice in the article that Chaucer got the big-time jobs of Comptroller of the port of London, and the Clerk of the kings works. That one gave him unlimited access to any shrine, castle, grave, monastery, or any other place that he cared to go. And, it is interesting to note that he had access in Petherton (I think that I spelled it right) where the ancient monastery of Athelny was founded by King Alfred the Great centuries before. It is also by coincidence where the Alfred jewel was later found in the 1600s, after Chaucer's time.

Another tie is that like the earlier King Alfred, Chaucer busied himself translating the works of the Byzantine writer Boethius, who had been executed by the Byzantine Emperor of his (King Arthur's) time. Hmm. lets see, Boethius, King Alfred, Athelny, The Alfred Jewel, The Peasant's revolt and the Lollard movement, Secret Agent Stuff, head scrap -metal Tsar and clerk of the King's works. Where does it all tie together? What is the common link with all of this...Chaucer, that's who!
http://www.mirror.org/ken.roberts/alfred.jewel.html

He went on secret missions to places that are still unknown (ca1377), and to far-away mercenary leaders on behalf of the king that were waging wars in other lands. It is easy to see that Chaucer was a type of secret messenger, a sort of "back-channel" opperative, or spy.

Take note of the secret mission that the king sent him on around 1378. Thus, Chaucer was regarded by the king as a most trusted secret agent. He could be counted on to be the soul of discretion where such sensitive matters were involved. This shows how high a regard that the King held Chaucer in.

Also note that Chaucer was made a big-time collector of scrap metals, Comptroller of the city of London, Clerk of the Kings works, scrap-metal Tsar, travelling courtier, diplomat...fancy grants and stipends from the King for him and his wife for unknown reasons...He had been secretly rewarded and was later given high post that would allow him to see all and know all, and go to all places in the name of the King without attracting suspicion. Hmm, he was looking for something?

The Canterbury Tales was never "finished" in the conventional sense. But if one reads it as a coded message instead of a tale, then it makes a lot more sense. The collection of tales can be interpreted as secret messages if we assighn them fictional stories and identities from history, ie the wife of Bath, etc. The Clerk who devoured books could be interpreted as King Alfred, the wife of Bath as Gormlaith, for example, Chanticleer as Richard II, Jack Straw as the fox, etc. and so on. It could be interpreted as a sort of white-paper told as narrative fiction as a way to reveal the results of Chaucers secret investigations in a way that would not attract the attention of the spys in king Richard IIs court.

Note that the pilgrims at the end of the story all seem to meet at the Tabard inn and come up with a mutual cover story. They agree to spread dissinformation, and then the story ends unfinished. We are never told what the travellers go and do, or why they need a cover story. It was assumed that the reader (King Richard II) would already know what this cabal was about.

Even the name of the Inn (Tabard) has a meaning, since a tabard was a cloak with the royal arms sewn on that was worn by a "kings man", denoting loyalty. Kind of an odd name for an Inn on the route of Pilgrimage, wouldnt you say. Why stir up all of the sentiment over the issue by naming the inn something as inflamatory as that right beside what was then one of the most popular things going at the time?

Remember that it was the Norman king Henry II that had Thomas Beckett killed in the first place. The Archbishop of Canterbury was THE most important religious post in England. The Canterbury pilgrimage was very popular for people of Chaucers time, and that fact was a little bit of Church power rubbing the monarchys nose in it just a little. And so here comes the kings secret agent and important functionary to write a mysterious book, never finish it, and the whole thing is nearly forgotten and lost to history. So, as for me, I see a conspiracy in here somewhere.

But I dont want to get off topic? Hee Hee What do you Want to Talk About? 83899
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PostSubject: Re: What do you Want to Talk About?   What do you Want to Talk About? EmptyTue Mar 10, 2009 2:31 pm

I remember memorizing a good chunk of the Canterbury Tales in high school English:

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 .....

Anywhooo, I really enjoyed the funny (though probably not incredibly accurate) Geoff Chaucer (Paul Bettany) in "A Knight's Tale" starring Heath Ledger.
































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Richard Stanbery
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PostSubject: Re: What do you Want to Talk About?   What do you Want to Talk About? EmptyTue Mar 10, 2009 7:27 pm

Yeah, I liked that one myself. Good soundtrack too.

You know, I think that I might just point out one tiny little thing here that I want to get off topic and touch on. The time date stamp thing. Astrolabe is the key word to remember here.

Chaucer gets down to the busines of the cipher right off the bat in the Prologue. He give us two lines that pertain to the time, date stamp issue, and then we get two lines that pertain to the audience. Then two more lines of time date stamps...and so it goes. It is a hidden reppetitive pattern in the Prologue.

In the general Prologue, Chaucer sets the time as in April, there is a rainy period following a drought. We leave those 2 lines and go to the audience issue with the next two lines. The "swich licqour" and "virtue engendered" is a reference to (swich licquor) knowledge, and vines/ virtue engendered (nobility.) And then the cycle repeats itself, growing in meanings and specicfics with each cycle.

To make a long story short, he gets into more specifics by mentioning the tender crops and the young sun 'have in the Ram thier half courses run'. This applies to the astrological house of the Ram. Tender crops, self- explanatory. This is where the astrolabe cipher comes in. Would Chaucer really go to all of that trouble to write the time/ date stamp to an Astrolabe? Am I being silly?

Guess what...Chaucer had a sick-o type of thing for Astrolabes! Yeah, he wrote treatsies and papers on them, and was considered quite the expert in Astrolabes. Click on the link to see more about this.

http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/pe_mla/t/the_chaucer_astrolabe.aspx

Chaucer, in my estimation, was a 14th century spy, as well as a progenator of Sir Francis Drake. I have let out a little bit of info here, just a tiny bit,to see if there is any interest in this. I find that it stimulates the little grey cells, as Hercule Poirot used to say. But, I digress. I might be boring everybody. So, I won't push it unless somebody asks me something about it. I get like the absent minded professor sometimes with my ruminations. I am told that I often am amazed by the most inane things.
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PostSubject: Re: What do you Want to Talk About?   What do you Want to Talk About? EmptyWed Mar 11, 2009 5:27 am

I don't know how much time I have to get into this with you right now, Richard. Your proposition requires much thought, and my thoughts are currently focused on my book, but I'll try to give you some feedback when I can.

As to your your translation of "vertu engendred," the word "vertu" sounds a lot like our modern word "virtue," but I believe it is closer to our word, "truly." Think "verily" in the KJ Bible. The "swich licour," or sweet liquor is the rain water that engenders or gives birth to the "flour" or flower.

Telling his audience that the meeting at the Tabard Inn took place halfway through the sign of the Ram (Aries) would be a common way of expressing time during the 14th century. So were astrolabes a common means of telling time. They didn't have wrist or pocket watches.

I took my last class in Chaucer's work during my early college days, about 1962, and I retired from teaching English in 2000, so I'm a bit rusty. Like I said, this puts me to the task of some serious thinking.

Everybody who reads a work puts a little bit of a different spin on what they read, based on their own past experiences. A work with the complexity ot The Canterbury Tales is going to be read in many different ways. Who's to say the different interpretations don't have validity?

At the moment, I'm inclined to think you are stretching a bit, but who am I to know?

Ann
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PostSubject: Re: What do you Want to Talk About?   What do you Want to Talk About? EmptyWed Mar 11, 2009 7:02 am

The virtue mentioned is as pertains to the knightly virtues, which applies to the nobility . The reason that I spelled it "virtu" is because my eyes are bad. Sometimes they bother me to the point that simply writing anything on my computer is like staring into a flashlight. Sorry for the typo.
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PostSubject: Re: What do you Want to Talk About?   What do you Want to Talk About? EmptyWed Mar 11, 2009 7:05 am

I get that part, Richard, but virtue is not the word Chaucer used. He used the word vertu, which, in Middle English, means truly, not virtue.


April would be the best time, in the England of that day, for starting on a long journey. It would be early spring, the cold winter weather over, and plenty of time before the summer heat started.

As Chaucer said, the spring showers and warmer weather would stir peoples hearts and make them want to get out and travel. And, as he also said, the pilgrimage to Canterbury to honor Thomas Becket was a common one.

Ann


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PostSubject: Re: What do you Want to Talk About?   What do you Want to Talk About? EmptyWed Mar 11, 2009 7:09 am

Richard,

Your eyes sound like my eyes--I can only see a mistake after everyone else has seen it first.
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PostSubject: Re: What do you Want to Talk About?   What do you Want to Talk About? EmptyWed Mar 11, 2009 7:58 am

When in April the sweet showers fall
That pierce March's drought to the root and all
And bathed every vein in liquor that has power
To generate therein and sire the flower;
5
Here is a rough modern English translation that I dug up for us. This is what I extrapolated the lines about the licqour that has power (knowledge) being that power. This was being written about the time (years) that Chaucer was sent to France on a secret mission to arrange a marriage to one of the French nobility to his king, I think it was. When we compare lines to other lines, rather than consuming them sepperately, then we get a picture that starts to mesh with each repetitive cycle.

As to April being the best time for a Pilgrimage...depends on who you are. It is planting time then, and the merchants and farmers would be doing great business in the planting time. The roads were mostly dirt, and would be muddy during the April rains. Catching a cold in the April rains could be a death sentance in those days?

The fields had not grown a full crop of grass yet, so fodder for the horses would have to be purchased from stablers. Really, April was when kings went to war, as they needed the early start to the campaighn season to fight wars in. The period after the planting and before the midsummer work would be a better time to go on a pilgrimage for most folks.
I was just so impressed by how much detail that Chaucer put into this time/date stamp thing.

If we use an Astrolabe, which was very new in 1380s, and only a handful of people would have even known what they were, let alone how to use them, then we see that this story was never meant for public consumption. The Astrolabes were the dealings of mariners, alchemist, military advisors and kings. It also touches on a subject that was frowned upon by the church... astrology.

So, not only does Chaucer give us a reference to the house of the Ram, he also tells us about the winds blowing sweetly and from the west. That is important because the winds of spring blow in certain more or less predicatble patterns in some parts of the British Isles, but differently in other parts at that time of year.

Given that a drought in March had happened makes us think that there was a significance to this. Throw in the wind patterns and we get it was an El-Nino year. There are certain places in the home islands where sea caves and islands are only visible every seventh year or so, due to El-Nino. That is when the currents and tides have to be just right to expose them, and that usually happens in April, and after a period of drought. The rest of the time, the caves are under a few feet of water.

So if we put these things into perspective, then we can see that Chaucer was setting a time/date stamp that was almost right to the second...and geographic place. I understand that it had to do with the Irish coast around Easter Sunday, and on Rathlin Island, using these clues. The other side of the island of Erin might also apply, around Armagh or Devinish.

I like the Rathin Island link best, as there are these mysterious caves there. This is where "Bruces Cave" is located. You remember the story about Robert the Bruce and the little spider? But as I say, Devinish would be a good match for this as well. The "birds that sleep all night with an open eye" could be symbolic of story of the founding of the church there, and by that a reference to the monks of the old Celtic Church of the (Iona Church) and the story of the founding of the monastery on Devinish Island(Or was it Armagh) by St Molaise. Remember the story of the birds talking to him?

Ah well, it is fun to think on these things. ALJ might be right, maybe Im reading too much into it? Or, maybe the shadowy-mystery man known as Geofrey Chaucer was indeed a spy? Alice, you are right, poor eyesight is a disadvantage to be mourned. It is quite embarrasing for an author, isnt it? We shall go on though...yes we shall! I see that ALJ wears glasses too. ALJ, do your eyes trouble you as mine do me?
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PostSubject: Re: What do you Want to Talk About?   What do you Want to Talk About? EmptyWed Mar 11, 2009 8:39 am

Ok, be all "chaucer than thou". :-)
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PostSubject: Re: What do you Want to Talk About?   What do you Want to Talk About? EmptyWed Mar 11, 2009 10:38 am

Whan that Aprille, with hise shoures soote,
When that April, with his showers sweet (literal translation)
(When the sweet showers of April)(liberal translation)
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote
The drought of March hath pierced to the root.
(Have deeply pierced March's dry ground)
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
And bathed every vine in such liquor
(Bathing every vine in rain water)
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Of which truly is born the flower
(Which is truly what gives birth to the flowers.)
Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breethe
When Zephyrus also with his sweet breath
(Along with the wind, whose sweet breath)
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
Has inspired in every wood and meadow
(Has inspired (breathed in) [the tender [plants])
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
The tender grains, and the young sun
([In every wood and meadow,] and the young sun)
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne,
Has in the Ram his half-course run
(Has run its course halfway through the sign of Aries)
And smale foweles maken melodye,
And small birds make melody
(And the little birds that sleep all night)
That slepen al the nyght with open eye-
That sleep all night with open eye
(Open their eyes and sing)
So priketh hem Nature in hir corages-
So Nature pricks them in their hearts--
(As the changing weather stirs their hearts.)
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages
Then long people to go on pilgrimage
(At such times people desire to get out and take journeys)
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes
And pilgrims to seek strange strands
(And pilgrims (eg palm carriers-bringing them from the Holy Land) to seek foreign places)
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
To faraway halls, known in various lands
(To go to faraway historic shrines in various countries)
And specially, from every shires ende
And especially, from every shires end
(And especially, from every shires end)
Of Engelond, to Caunturbury they wende,
Of England, to Canterbury they went
(Of England, they travelled to Canterbury)
The hooly blisful martir for to seke
The holy blissful martyr for to seek
(To seek the holy, blissful martyr)
That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seeke
He that helped them when they were sick.
(That helps them when they are sick.)

The problem with translating poetry from one language to another is that the translator has to choose between translating literally, keeping the message intact; and figuratively, trying to retain as much of the poetic form as possible. The translation always loses something.

I believe that the historical documents referred to Chaucer as a yeoman or varlet. That would make him a member of the middle class. A varlet, if I remember correctly, is what we today call a valet. A trusted servant, he was sometimes sent on errands that required loyalty and discretion.

It seems to me that the months are being personified. I don't see anything that would point to a specific March or April, just to a generalized picture of what always happens that time of year.


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PostSubject: Re: What do you Want to Talk About?   What do you Want to Talk About? EmptyWed Mar 11, 2009 6:43 pm

I got a big old laugh at Lin's coment..
ALJ, you might be right? You have valid points, and show a good education in these things, which I highly respect. Yet I am still convinced that Chaucer was a secret agent and highly placed in the king's court, in the sensitive and most delicate things that the king entrusted him with.

The matter of the secret mission that he was sent on to arrange the marriage between the king and a French noble lady is a good case in point, and might be the kind of thing that The Canterbury Tales was about.

The thing is this; at the time, England was embroiled in the hundred years war with France. A royal marriage could have led to peace, but it would have to be approved by the Pope, as the fate of nations was at stake. The trouble is that there was a divide in the Roman Catholic Church at the time, and there were two sepperate Popes and the Church was splitting along parralell lines. Thus, whomever the king sent to work things out behind the scenes had to be a highly competent man. No common fop would do here. Check out the link on the Papal Schism...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Schism

Now, we see that Chaucer was the man who got the nod for this mission. As this could result in a terrible backlash if handled wrong, even leading to the king being dethroned if it were to go askew, then we see that Chaucer may have just then been the most valuable man the king had in his service right then. And Richard sat upon a very shaky throne indeed.

He had rivals for his crown. When he was coronated, the affair was a hurry up deal, as it was his uncle, I think, who was about to take the crown, and thus young Richard's supporters had to have him crowned in a hurry. There was also the "Peasants" revolt that happened in that era. And so, Richard was wanting to end the ruinous hundred years war that was draining his treasury and giving opportunities for mischief to his foes at home. One slip up in handling the French marriage affair could result in one of the Popes calling for an end to Richards rule (or both of them could)

So, there was an intense ammount of skull duggery going on at the time. As I said, the fate of nations hung in the balance, as well as the head of Richard II. The fact that he gave Chaucer the task of performing this secret mission tells us a lot of how much trust Chaucer enjoyed with the king. No ordinary valet or common servant would have been named for a deed like this.

It might be remembered that a cabal of go-betweens would be needed to pass secret information back and forth between the factions. The French king also had factional issues going on in his camp as well, so Chaucer had to be very careful indeed. king queen

Here is another look at Chaucer. It goes a little further in depth to explain his ties to the English royalty. I find it interesting to see the King of Navarre giving him a safe passage through the warring lines on one of his secret missions.
http://www.globusz.com/ebooks/Chaucer/00000014.htm


How is the weather in Texas? Here in Tennessee we are swinging back and forth, but leaning towards spring.
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alj
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PostSubject: Re: What do you Want to Talk About?   What do you Want to Talk About? EmptyThu Mar 12, 2009 5:22 am

Richard, we're finally getting rain here in SA, and the weather has been shifting around a lot. Yeaterday morning about 8 o'clock it was 70. By eleven, when I left to do some shopping, it was in the 40's and drizzling. We finally got some hard rain last night. We really needed it. We've been in a long drought.

Rain and drought, see how easily they slip into a conversation? Very Happy

I am enjoying this exchange, and you, too seem to have done a lot of research yourself. I should tell you where I'm coming from. My degrees are in English Lit and history, particularly British history of the Medieval and Renaissance periods. So when you started a conversation about Chaucer, a personal favorite, I just had to chip in.

I like following Ahad's threads. I'm fascinated by new physics, but I don't know enough about it to even ask intelligent questions. This is something I know a little about, so I want to take part. I must tell you I'm a skeptic, but it's a fascinating theory, and I don't want it to seem like I'm putting you down - your theory, maybe What do you Want to Talk About? 467431 , but not you.

I hope we aren't taking up time and space that nobody else wants to get into. I know Alice said anything, but I don't know if she meant so much of any one thing. I hope that anyone else who wants to say something or ask questions will. And, as I said, I'm rusty and old, and responses take a lot of thinking, and my writing is on a roll, so I can't continue for very long, but it's a fun idea.

Talk to you later, when I'm awake. What do you Want to Talk About? 634186

Ann
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Richard Stanbery
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PostSubject: Re: What do you Want to Talk About?   What do you Want to Talk About? EmptyThu Mar 12, 2009 7:28 am

Yeah, I know what you mean. We need the rain too. Well. good luck to your writing. I too feel the need to get back to my post and take up my quill. I'm thinking of writing an alternate history about some Britons who decide to flee from the Saxon invasion (400 ad) by loading up on the last of the Roman grain ships and sailing to Avalon (America) before the Sea Wolves bring fire and sword to them. I might have them found a colony.

Or I might make them Saxons who flee from the Norman conquest ca 1067 AD. I might let that be the foundation of the historical link with Prince Madoc, who supposedly came to America and took up with the Mandan tribe.

Overall, I intend to get back to work. I have lolled around listlessly long enough. Nice discussing this with you!
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