Not A Real English Speaker?

When I was in English class, I memorized the prologue to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. This is Middle English from the mid-14th century. It is close to a foreign language and requires extensive footnotes to understand. “Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote…”

It is absurd to claim that because modern speakers of Hebrew would need help to understand biblical Hebrew, they are therefore not “real” Jews. Am I not a real English speaker because I need help with Chaucer? Ridiculous.

“Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote                   When April with its sweet-smelling showers

2         The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,                  Has pierced the drought of March to the root,

3         And bathed every veyne in swich licour                  And bathed every vein (of the plants) in such liquid

4         Of which vertu engendred is the flour;                  By which power the flower is created;

5         Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth                  When the West Wind also with its sweet breath,

6         Inspired hath in every holt and heeth                  In every wood and field has breathed life into

7         The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne                  The tender new leaves, and the young sun

8         Hath in the Ram his half cours yronne,                  Has run half its course in Aries,

9         And smale foweles maken melodye,                  And small fowls make melody,

10         That slepen al the nyght with open ye                  Those that sleep all the night with open eyes

11         (So priketh hem Nature in hir corages),                  (So Nature incites them in their hearts),

12         Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,                  Then folk long to go on pilgrimages,

13         And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,                  And professional pilgrims to seek foreign shores,

14         To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;                  To distant shrines, known in various lands;

15         And specially from every shires ende                  And specially from every shire’s end

16         Of Engelond to Caunterbury they wende,                  Of England to Canterbury they travel,

17         The hooly blisful martir for to seke,                  To seek the holy blessed martyr,

18         That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke.   Who helped them when they were sick.”