Pilgrimage

pilgrimage (Plural pilgrimages)

2. A visit to any site revered or associated with a meaningful event.

Chaucer’s Canterbury Tails, a pilgrim’s tale, begins set in the spring, the time of rebirth. It starts out flowery and then gets all A Knight’s Tale.

I read the entire poem plus much more of Chaucer in Middle English when in college. Each spring, I like to return to the book to read the opening and be reminded that this season is the time to start out on new adventures after a winter of dreaming about them.

I’m not the only person thinking about or starting adventures this spring. Below is a list of a few expeditions I know about. If you know of others, please, add them in the comments.

But first, the opening to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tails:

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
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open eye-
(So priketh hem Nature in hir corages);
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
And specially from every shires ende
Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,
The hooly blisful martir for to seke
That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seeke.

Summer Expeditions

Tags: adventure, chaucer, discover, exploration, journies, pilgrimage

Bryan posted this on Wednesday, April 29th, 2009 at 5:19 pm and is filed under Tent Bound. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.