Geoffrey Chaucer: Gold

“Purity in body and heart
May please some--as for me, I make no boast.
For, as you know, no master of a household
Has all of his utensils made of gold;
Some are wood, and yet they are of use.”

“… if gold rust, what then will iron do?/ For if a priest be foul in whom we trust/ No wonder that a common man should rust….”

“all that glitters is not gold”

“And yet he had a thomb of gold parde.”

“For him was lever han at his beddes hed
A twenty bokes, clothed in black or red,
Of Aristotle, and his philosophie,
Than robes riche, or fidel, or sautrie.
But all be that he was a philosophre,
Yet hadde he but litel gold in cofre.”

“For gold in phisike is a cordial;
Therefore he loved gold in special.”

“But all thing which that shineth as the gold
Ne is no gold, as I have herd it told.”