The Story of Queen Anelida by Geoffrey Chaucer. Short summary

5 seconds

The poet has a dream where a knight tells him of his unhappy love. He lived happily with his beloved for a year, and then she died.

1 minute

The poet is plagued by insomnia. He tells the story of the Greek queen Alcyone and her husband, King Keikeh.

One day he went out to sea and disappeared. Alcyone suffered, not knowing what had happened to her husband. She turned to the goddess Hera, who showed Alcyone in a dream that her husband had died. The queen died of grief.

The poet falls asleep. In the dream he sees himself in a beautiful house. The poet goes into the forest and finds a secluded clearing, with a sad knight in it. He tells the poet that he dreams of dying, but death does not come to him.

He tells her that he has fallen passionately in love with a beautiful woman, and for a long time he has been unable to tell her how he feels. When he dares to tell her of his love, she rejects him.

The knight confessed his love to her a year later, and the girl reciprocated. They lived happily, but the girl, his Queen, died. Now he doesn’t want to live either.

The poet wakes up and thinks about his strange dream.