What Chaucer Wrote and the Court Forgot (Quim)

Lyrics

[Intro]

[Verse 1]
In the Ellesmere Manuscript, EL 26 C 9,
Huntington Library, San Marino, around 1400 to 1410,
Geoffrey Chaucer, born circa 1343, died 1400,
wrote in a small room near Aldgate, London.
The parchment rough under his fingers,
quill sharpened with a scribe's knife,
ink from iron gall, acrid and black.
He caughte hire by the queynte,
that's line 3276 in The Miller's Tale.
Queynte, the old form of quim,
female part, no flinch in the telling.

[Chorus]
What Chaucer wrote, the court forgot,
quim in the candlelight, 50 degrees Fahrenheit,
late evening, 1390, smoke from tallow wick.
Queynte, the word that scribes sometimes blanked,
but Ellesmere keeps it, intact, unashamed.
I read it straight, kid at the workbench,
engraving it into stone, no blink.

[Verse 2]
Riverside Chaucer, edited by Larry D. Benson, 1987,
page 68, the quote: And prively he caughte hire by the queynte,
And seyde, Ywis, but if ich have my wille,
For deerne love of thee, lemman, I spille.
Chaucer, Controller of Customs, 1374 to 1386,
Public Record Office documents,
he knew the common tongue, bawdy and bold.
The room damp, bread and ale on the desk,
musty parchment smell, his age about 47.

[Bridge]

Small strange fact: some manuscripts say 'thing' instead,
scribes uncomfortable, even then.
But I don't alter, I carve it clear,
quim on the lapidary stone, 2017, our workshop.
No gaps in my record, I fill them with facts.

[Verse 3]
The sensory anchor: late evening, London,
sharp tang of drying ink, rough feel of page.
Chaucer at his desk, no vehicle but a cart outside,
tool in hand, knife for quills.
Queynte, the word that lingered,
forgotten by courts, remembered in tales.

[Chorus]
What Chaucer wrote, the court forgot,
quim in the candlelight, 50 degrees Fahrenheit,
late evening, 1390, smoke from tallow wick.
Queynte, the word that scribes sometimes blanked,
but Ellesmere keeps it, intact, unashamed.
I read it straight, kid at the workbench,
engraving it into stone, no blink.

[Outro]

The kid does not flinch.