THE PROEM

1      I have gret wonder, be this lighte,
2      How that I live, for day ne nighte
3      I may nat slepe wel nigh noght,
4      I have so many an ydel thoght
5      Purely for defaute of slepe
6      That, by my trouthe, I take no kepe
7      Of no-thing, how hit cometh or goth,
8      Ne me nis no-thing leef nor loth.
9      Al is y-liche good to me --
10     Ioye or sorowe, wherso hyt be --
11     For I have feling in no-thinge,
12     But, as it were, a mased thing,
13     Alway in point to falle a-doun;
14     For sorwful imaginacioun
15     Is alway hoolly in my minde.
16       And wel ye wite, agaynes kynde
17     Hit were to liven in this wyse;
18     For nature wolde nat suffyse
19     To noon erthely creature
20     Not longe tyme to endure
21     Withoute slepe, and been in sorwe;
22     And I ne may, ne night ne morwe,
23     Slepe; and thus melancolye
24     And dreed I have for to dye,
25     Defaute of slepe and hevinesse
26     Hath sleyn my spirit of quiknesse,
27     That I have lost al lustihede.
28     Suche fantasies ben in myn hede
29     So I not what is best to do.
30       But men myght axe me, why soo
31     I may not slepe, and what me is?
32     But natheles, who aske this
33     Leseth his asking trewely.
34     My-selven can not telle why
35     The sooth; but trewely, as I gesse,
36     I holde hit be a siknesse
37     That I have suffred this eight yere,
38     And yet my bote is never the nere;
39     For ther is phisicien but oon,
40     That may me hele; but that is doon.

	
	(from Chaucer's The Book of the Duchess)