Free The Canterbury Tales: A Retelling by Peter Ackroyd by Peter Ackroyd, Geoffrey Chaucer Page A

mastery. There are a thousand more. She captured all these lovers in her net, and all they could do was let slip the word ‘alas’.
    The image of Venus, in this temple, was glorious to see. She was naked, floating on a limitless ocean of green; from the navel down she was environed by waves as glittering as any glass. She held a lute in her right hand, ready to play upon its strings, and on her head she wore a garland of fresh roses; their perfume rose into the air above her, where fluttered turtle-doves. Beside her stood her son, young winged Cupid; he was blind, as the legend tells us, but he bore a bow with arrows bright and keen.
    Why should I not also tell you about the frescoes within the temple of red Mars? The walls were all painted from top to bottom, just as if they were the interior apartments of his desolate temple in Thrace. It is a region of frost and snow, where the great god of war has his dominion. So on the wall was painted the image of a forest, forlorn and deserted, with black and knotted boughs and bare, ruined trees. Between these stumps and dead things there came a blast of wind, like a sigh from hell, as though a hideous tempest might whirl everything away. There on a bank, beside a hill, stood the temple of Mars omnipotent; it was wrought of burnished steel, its entrance long and narrow. Through this grim portal there rushed an endless wind that shook the hinges of the gates. An icy light from the north shone through the doors of this temple, for there were no windows in the edifice itself. The doors themselves were adamantine and eternal, their frames plated with sheets of thick iron. The pillars that supported the temple were as thick as barrels, cast out of cold glittering iron.
    There on the walls I saw all the dark imaginings of the warring world. I saw the plans and schemes of Felony. I saw cruel Anger, glowing like a coal in a furnace. I saw the thief. I saw pale Fear itself. I saw the smiler with the knife under his coat. There was the farmhouse set on fire, wreathed in burning smoke. There were treason and secret murder, closely placed beside strife and conflict. I saw the wounds of war, pouring with blood, together with the dagger and the menacing blade that made them. This inferno was an echo chamber of groans. There was the suicide, the sharp nail driven through his temple, his hair clotted with his own blood. There was Death itself, lying upwards with its mouth agape. In the middle of this place lurked Misfortune, with the woeful countenance. Beside him was Madness, bellowing with wild laughter and with rage. And who else were there but Discontent, Alarm and Cruelty?
    Painted on the wall was an image of the victim in the wood, his throat cut; of thousands dead, although untouched by plague; of the tyrant exulting over his prey; of the town razed and its inhabitants destroyed. I saw the burning ships tossed upon the waves; the hunter killed by the raging bears; the sow eating the child in the cradle; the cook scalded by the devil, despite his long spoon. All men and affairs are blighted by the evil aspect of Mars, even one so lowly as the poor carter. There he lies, his body broken under the wheel.
    Here also were the trades favoured by Mars. Here were the barber and the butcher, wielding their blades; here was the smith, forging the bright steel. Above them was displayed the conquering general, sitting in triumph upon a tower, with a sword above his head hanging on a slender string. There were images of the death of Julius Caesar, of the notorious Nero, and of Anthony, who lost the world for love. Of course none of them was as yet born, yet their deaths were still foretold by thunderous Mars; he saw their fates fully shaped in the patterns of the stars. All the legends of great men come to the same conclusion. I cannot recite them now.
    And there, pre-eminent, stood Mars in his chariot. The glorious god of war, wrapped in his armour, looked grim. He was ferocious. Above his head shone