{"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_mect70_htm/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/sacred_texts_v1_neu_eng_mect_mect70_htm","id":"sacred_texts_v1_neu_eng_mect_mect70_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/mect70.htm","summary":"\"The Complaint of Venus\" is a short Middle English lyric poem by Geoffrey Chaucer, part of his collection of shorter works, belonging to the medieval *complainte* tradition \u2014 a genre in which a speaker laments the sufferings of love. The poem unfolds in three ballade stanzas with refrains: the first celebrates the speaker's beloved's knighthood, nobility, and virtue; the second catalogs love's painful costs \u2014 sleeplessness, weeping, jealousy, and constant uncertainty; and the third resolves that despite these torments, the speaker refuses to leave love's service and will never repent loving him. A distinctive feature is the personification of Jealousy as a destructive, ever-suspicious force that poisons love's rare pleasures. The closing envoi is particularly notable: Chaucer steps forward to address a patron, attributing any weaknesses to his advancing age and candidly acknowledging that the poem adapts the French poet Oton de Granson, whom he calls \"flour of hem that make in Fraunce\" \u2014 a rare direct acknowledgment of a source and a self-deprecating comment on the difficulty of rhyming in English. The poem is of interest both as a specimen of courtly love convention and as a window into Chaucer's late-career self-presentation as a translator working across linguistic traditions.","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":627}