This friar boasts that he knows hell,
And God knows that it is little wonder;
Friars and fiends are seldom far apart.
For, by God, you have often times heard tell
How a friar was taken to hell
In spirit, once by a vision;
And as an angel led him up and down,
To show him the pains that were there,
In the whole place he saw not one friar;
He saw enough of other folk in woe.
To the angel spoke the friar thus:
“Now sir,” said he, “Are friars in such good grace
That none of them come to this place?”
“Yes,” answered the angel, “many a million!”
And the angel led him down to Satan.
He said, “And Satan has a tail,
Broader than a large ship’s sail.
Hold up your tail, Satan!” he ordered.
“Show your arse, and let the friar see
Where the nest of friars is in this place!”
And before half a furlong of space,
Just as bees swarm from a hive,
Out of the devil’s arse there drove
Twenty thousand friars on a route,
And they swarmed all over hell,
And came again as fast as they had gone,
And every one crept back into his arse.
He clapped his tail again and lay very still.
This is my first contact with G. Chaucer but I love him already.
