Pilgrimage and Spring

“Spring fever” is too anemic a description altogether—especially compared with Chaucer who says that it is now, when Aprille with hise shoures soote is engendering such flowers...and the yonge sonne has run half his course through Aries,

…exactly now that longen folk to goon on pilgrimages and palmeres seek out straunge strondes and distant shrines in sondry londes.
 
But read—or better yet, hear—Chaucer’s lines yourself below.

And then if you need to parse a phrase or two, you can go here.  In the left hand column, under “Edition,” select “Enface ME-MO.” Under “Pagination,” check the circle for “30.” Hit “Go.” A side-by-side translation of Chaucer’s middle English into modern English will appear—and you can look at whichever lines or phrases that you'd like.