Scorpio (23 October - 21 November)

original art by Bex Kingsley

Geoffrey Chaucer - In Your FACE, Shakespeare!

First, a brief disclaimer: the exact date of Geoffrey Chaucer’s birth is unknown. The date of his death, however, is traditionally thought to be 25 October 1400, so we’re claiming him as a Scorpio. Fight us.

You know what people like even more than great literature? Mysterious literary figures. How else can you explain the fact that, despite the fact that Chaucer’s output of longer works is greater than Shakespeare’s, even AI ranks Shakespeare above Chaucer: “Though they wrote in the same language and influenced each other… Chaucer was primarily a poet who introduced narrative complexity to English literature, while Shakespeare was a master dramatist who revolutionized theater and expanded the English lexicon”? This is how we know AI stands for “apathetic idiocy.”

Chaucer’s name is synonymous with The Canterbury Tales, his best-known work. How many of you actually read The Canterbury Tales? ::looks around:: Yeah. That’s what we thought. What most of us learned about this seminal work of Middle English is that it’s got more dirty jokes than all of Shakespeare’s plays combined. Fitting, considering that our tarot card for this month, the 5 of cups, shows emotional immaturity when upright, and letting go of shame when reversed.

While Chaucer’s family had humble origins, by the time of his birth, they were solidly middle-class. He himself began his career as a page in the household of the Countess of Ulster, an appointment similar to being a Congressional page today – a stepping stone to a prestigious career. Chaucer spent most of his life as a public servant, and was able to use his experiences of travel in France, Spain, and Flanders to accurately portray the experience of being a pilgrim to foreign lands. Like most Scorpios, he was dedicated and resourceful, which explains why, when he was captured during the siege of Reims in 1360, the king ransomed him for the modern equivalent of almost $15,000, and in 1374, King Edward III awarded him a gallon of wine a day for the rest of his life.

The motto for Scorpio is “I desire,” and much of Chaucer’s writing concerns itself with two aspects of this motto: both explorations of bodily appetites, and explorations of faith in God. In the Middle Ages, the Catholic church (at the time, the only game in town) was the center of both social and political life. Most people had a deep and sincere faith in God, and Chaucer was no different. Scorpios are comfortable delving into a wide variety of subjects, from the sacred to the taboo. That kind of willingness to face hard subjects without blinking makes Scorpios particularly valuable as writers, and explains why the 5 of cups is such an apt card for this month.

Chaucer defined the direction much of modern literature would take, but even though he was the first to use iambic pentameter in his verse (although AI seems not to know that) and introduced more new words into the English language than Shakespeare, his works have slipped out of the public consciousness. Maybe if someone could dramatize The Canterbury Tales (all of them) and then go back in time and get Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud, Ian McKellen, and Patrick Stewart to star in those plays, Chaucer would get the respect he deserves.

By the way, is it just us, or do paintings of Chaucer and Confucius look weirdly alike? Were they twins separated at birth, or were old portrait painters just lazy?