Art thou come hither to have fame?"
"Nay, forsoothe, friend!" quoth I;
"I came not hither (grand merci!)
For no such cause, by my head!
Sufficeth me, as I were dead,
That no wight have my name in hand.
I wot myself best how I stand;
For what I suffer, or what I think,
I will myselfe all it drink,
Or at least the greater part
As far forth as I know my art."

With this modest but manly self-possession we shall not go far wrong in
connecting what seems another very distinctly marked feature of Chaucer's
inner nature. He seems to have arrived at a clear recognition of the
truth with which Goethe humorously comforted Eckermann in the shape of the
proverbial saying, "Care has been taken that the trees shall not grow into
the sky." Chaucer's, there is every reason to believe, was a contented
faith, as far removed from self-torturing unrest as from childish
credulity. Hence his refusal to trouble himself, now that he has arrived
at a good age, with original research as to the constellations. (The
passage is all the more significant since Chaucer, as has been seen,
actually possessed a very respectable knowledge of astronomy.) That
winged encyclopaedia, the Eagle, has just been regretting the poet's
unwillingness to learn the position of the Great and the Little Bear,
Castor and Pollux, and the rest, concerning which at present he does not
know where they stand. But he replies, "No matter!

--It is no need;
I trust as well (so God me speed!)