#  Benedict Burgh (1413-1483), Letter to Lydgate 

 



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T*he text is lightly glossed; see the glossary in* The Riverside Chaucer *for words not explained here.*

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 **50**



  
 Ne drank I never at Pegases well;   
 The pale Pirus saw I never also   
 Ne wist I never where the Muses dwelle,   
 Ne of golden Tagus can I no thinge telle;   
 And to wete my lippes I coud not attain,   
 In Cithero or Elicon, sustres twain.  
   
 The craft of speche that some time founde was   
 Of the famous philosophers most perfite --   
 Aristotle, Gorgias, Hermagorus --   
 Not have I. So I have lered but a lite;  
 As for my party, though I repent I may go quit   
 Of Tullius, Fraunces, and Quintilian.  
 Fain wolde I lere, but I not conceive can.  
   
 The noble poet Virgil the Mantuan,   
 Homer the Greek and Torquat soverein  
 Naso aso, that sith this world firste began  
 The marvelest transforminge all best can devine   
 Terence the mery and plesant theatrine  
 Porcius, Lucan, Martian, and Horace,   
 Stace, Juvenall, and the laureate Bocase.  
   
 All these hath seyne your innate sapience,  
 Ye have gadred flowres in this motly mede  
 To you is given the verray price of excellence  
 Though they be go, yet the wordes be not dede;   
 Th' enlumined boke wherein a man shall rede.   
 This and mo be in this londe legible;   
 Ye be the same, ye be the golden bible.   
   
 O, yet I trust to be holde and see   
 This blisfull book with the golden claspes seven   
 Ther I will begin and lerne mine a.b.c.   
 That were my paradise, that were my heaven;   
 Greter felicitee can no man neven,  
 So God my soule save -- a, benedicite! --   
 Maister Lydgate, what man be ye!   
   
 Now God, my maister, preserve you long on live   
 That yet I may be your prentice or I die  
 Then sholde mine herte at the port of bliss arrive.   
 Ye be the flowre and tresure of poesye,   
 The garland of ivy, and laure of victorye  
 By my thought; and I might ben a emperour  
 For your konninge I shulde your heres honour  
   
   
   
 *L'Envoy*  
   
 Writen at th' abbey of Bylegh Chebri Place   
 With frosty fingers, and nothinge pliaunt   
 When from the high hill -- I mene the Mount Canace --   
 Was sent into Briton the stormy persaunt,   
 That made me loke as lede and chaunge semblant.  
 And eke the sturdy wind of Hyperborye  
 Made me of chere unlusty, sad, and sorry.   
   
 The last moneth that men clepe Decembre,   
 When Phebus' chare was driven aboute the heven  
 If we reken right and well remembre,   
 Four times ones and aferward seven --   
 That is to say, passed ther were days eleven   
 Of the moneth when this unadvised letter   
 Writ was, but with your helpe here-after better.   
   
   
 *Explicit*   
   
 *Per magistrum burgh ad Ioannem lidgate*.   
 \[By Master Burgh to John Lydgate.\]



  
   
   
   
   
   
 **two sisters**  
   
   
   
   
 **learned but little**  
   
 **Frances Petrarch**  
 **learn**  
   
   
 **Torquat = Boethius**  
 **Naso = Ovid**  
   
 **theatrical writer**  
   
 **Boccaccio**  
   
 **seen**  
 **variegated meadow**  
 **prize**  
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
 **name**  
   
   
   
   
 **ere, before**  
   
   
 **laurel**  
 **and = if**  
 **heres = hair CHECK**  
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
 **lead**  
 **North Wind**  
   
   
   
 **chariot**







 Lightly glossed and regularized from the edition, *Three Prose Versions of the* Secreta Secretorum, ed. R. Steele, EETS, e. s. 74. London. 1894, pp. xxxi-xxxii. There is a better edition with helpful notes in Eleanor P. Hammond, *English Verse Between Chaucer and Surrey.* Durham, NC. 1927. pp. 188-89 \[Widener 10494.225.5\].