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Each awakening of the year, when the rains of April had laid the dust of March and aroused the buds of tree and herb from their winter slumber, the longing to go on a pilgrimage seized all classes alike. "And specially, from every shires ende Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende, The holy blisful martir for to seke, That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seke."
Wite ye nat wher ther stant a litel town Which that y-cleped is Bop-up-and-down Under the Blee in Caunterbury weye? This "littel town" it might seem, has disappeared, unless indeed it be Harbledown itself, which certainly bears geographically much resemblance to that descriptive name, as Erasmus describes it in his strange book.
The old hostelry, which besides its own beauty had this claim also upon our reverence, that it represented in no unworthy fashion the birthplace as it were of English poetry, owes of course all its fame to Chaucer, who lay there on the night before he set out for Canterbury as he tells us: When that Aprille with his shoures sote The droghte of Marche hath perced to the rote.... Bifel that, in that season on a day In Southwerk at the Tabard as I lay Redy to wenden on my pilgrimage To Caunterbury with ful devout corage, At night was come into that hostelrye Wel nyne and twenty in a companye Of sondry folk, by aventure yfalle In felawshipe, and pilgrims were they alle, That toward Caunterbury wolden ryde; The chambres and the shelter weren wyde, And wel we weren esed atte beste And shortly, whan the sonne was to reste, So hadde I spoken with hem everichon, That I was of hir felawshipe anon And made forward erly for to ryse, To take our wey, there as I yow devyse.
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