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Excerpt from Tales of the Seven Deadly Sins: Being the Confessio Amantis of John Gower
John Gower's book of old stories is here at last made current among Englishmen of every degree. The first way of its wider diffusion was by recitation of the story-tellers. It was their business to give pleasures of imagination to the people through their ears, when even the few who could read would also listen with enjoyment to a tale recited with dramatic energy. When the play of "Pericles" brought one of Gower's tales upon our stage in Shakespeare's time, John Gower himself was supposed to speak its Prologue in his chosen measure of eight-syllabled verse. His words then recalled to mind the old way of reciting as well as reading. The actor who, dressed as Gower, came before the people, said to them: -
"To sing a song that old was sung,
From ashes ancient Gower is come;
Assuming man's infirmities
To glad your ear and please your eyes.
It hath been sung at festivals,
On ember eves and holy ales;
And lords and ladies in their lives
Have read it for restoratives."
To all of us Gower may now go on to repeat other lines of the same Prologue: -
"If you, born in these latter times,
When wit's more ripe, accept my rhymes;
And that to hear an old man sing
May to your wishes pleasure bring,
I life would wish, and that I might
Waste it for you, like taper light."
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