Geoffrey Chaucer (1342-1400)
“Speech failed in him, the cold of death began
Its upward creeping from his feet to numb
The breast, ad he was slowly overcome,
And further still as from his arms there went
The vital power; all was lost and spent.
Only the intellect, and nothing more,
That dwelt within his heart, so sick and sore,
Began to falter when the heart felt death.”
- From The Canterbury Tales (The Knight’s Tale) by Geoffrey Chaucer, translated into modern English by Nevill Coghill (Penguin Classics edition, 1977).
