{"collection":"Sacred Texts: Legends and Sagas","full_text_available":false,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/sacred_texts_v1_neu_eng_mect_mect69_htm/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/sacred_texts_v1_neu_eng_mect_mect69_htm","id":"sacred_texts_v1_neu_eng_mect_mect69_htm","license":"unknown_pending_legal_review","rights_basis":"sacred_texts_v1_preview_gate_primary_text_only; acquisition-method/ToS and compilation-copyright questions still open, not resolved by this gate","source":"sacred_texts_v1","source_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/neu/eng/mect/mect69.htm","summary":"\"The Complaint of Mars\" is a Middle English lyric poem by Geoffrey Chaucer, working in the medieval complaint tradition \u2014 a genre built around a speaker's formal lament of suffering. Framed by a bird narrator on St. Valentine's Day, the poem tells an astronomical allegory: the planet-god Mars has taken Venus as his lover, but their tryst is interrupted when Phoebus (the Sun) approaches, forcing Venus to flee into hiding while the slow, armor-burdened Mars is left behind, unable to follow. The bulk of the poem is Mars's formal complaint, in which he mourns their separation and meditates on the cruelty inherent in love itself \u2014 why an all-powerful God would compel creatures to desire something so unstable and painful. Most distinctive is Mars's extended use of the \"Brooch of Thebes\" as an exemplum: a jewel so beautiful it maddened whoever saw it, brought misfortune to whoever possessed it, and caused grief when lost \u2014 an analogy for Venus herself, whose beauty is not her own fault but the fault of whoever created her so irresistibly. Mars ultimately redirects blame from Venus to God, and closes by appealing to knights and ladies to mourn alongside him. The poem fuses courtly love convention with actual planetary astronomy, making it an unusually intellectual love complaint notable for its theological questioning of desire.","tags":[],"text":null,"title":"The Canterbury Tales and Other Works of Chaucer (Middle E...","tradition":"Sacred Texts: Legends and Sagas","translated_text":null,"word_count":2386}