Fables from Boccaccio and Chaucer by John Dryden
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
An interesting little volume, which I wish had included his Ovid and Homer items, but alas, it did not. However, there were interesting pieces that were drawn from or modeled on tales from Chaucer and Boccaccio. I enjoyed the first book of Palamon & Arcite (from Chaucer’s The Knight’s Tale). I particularly liked this description:
Adown her shoulders fell her length of hair: A riband did the braided tresses bind; The rest was loose, and wanton'd in the wind, Aurora had but newly chased the night And purpled o'er the sky with blushing light. (p. 28 in my edition)I absolutely enjoyed Sigismonda and Guiscardo: an excellent, and very dark piece of love between a princess and a commoner and the lengths people will go to explore or condemn that love.