Troilus and Criseyde Chaucer

This part of the epic Troilus and Criseyde it is famous and is referred to as the Canticus Troili, I really like it, and so must you all! Or suffer through :) (I'm glossing above the few words i think you may not know. I'm assuming you can figure most of them out but ich is just I. Iwis is indeed. If i havent translated enough, Google Middle English Dictionary its free, go to town. Brenne is just burn fyi, possed=tossed)

"If no love is, O God, what fele I so?

And if love is, what thing and which is he?

If love be good, from whennes cometh my woo?

If it be wikke, a wonder thynketh me,

When every torment and adversite

That cometh of hym may to me savory thinke,

For ay thurst I, the more that ich it drink.

And if that at my owen lust I brenne,

From whennes cometh my waillynge and my pleynte?

If harm agree me, wherto pleyne I thenne?

I noot, ne whi unwery that I feynte.

O quike deth, O swete harm so queynte,

How may of the in me swich quantite,

But if that I consente that it be?

And if that I consente, I wrongfully

compleyne, iwis. Thus possed to and fro

Al sterelees withinne a boot am I

Amydde the see, bitween wyndes two,

That in contrarie stonden evere mo.

Allas, what is this wondre maladie?

For hote of cold, for cold of hote, I dye."

So there, its quite a nice song. He borrowed it from Petrarch, but changed a few things. Like Petrarch asked at the beginning "If this is not love" but Chaucer as you see asks "If there is no love what is this?" etc. (I apologize for the awful cartoon but i couldn't resist.)