In addition to reading English, Pig Latin, and musical notation, I am a relatively fluent reader of Middle English. This is not much to crow about, I realize. Still, every once in a while I find it bracing to copy out a random passage from Chaucer or Malory; and when, as if by magic, that random passage concerns one of my own betes noires, insomnia, I feel once again as if the literary gods are slipping me a set of (as yet) unreadable instructions.

from The Book of the Duchess

Geoffrey Chaucer

I have gret wonder, be this lyghte,

How that I lyve, for day ne nyghte

I may nat slepe well nygh noght.

I have so many an ydel thoght

Purely for defaute of slepe

That, by my trouthe, I take no kepe

Of nothing, how hyt cometh or gooth,

Ne me nys nothyng leve nor looth.

Al is ylyche good to me,

Joy or sorowe, whereso hyt be,

For I have felynge in nothynge,

But as yt were a mased thynge,

Alway in poynt to falle adoune;

For sorwful ymagyacioun

Ys alway hooly in my mynde

And wel ye woot, agaynes kynde

Hyt were to lyven in thys wyse,

For nature wolde nat suffyse

To none erthly creature

Nat longe tyme to endure

Withoute slepe and be in sorwe.

And I ne may, ne nyghte ne morwe,

Slepe; and thus melacolye

And drede I have for to dye.

[Following is my own quick, inartistic translation of the passage.]

I wonder greatly, by this light,

How I live, for day and night

I barely sleep.

I have so many idle thoughts,

Purely from lack of sleep,

That I swear I care about

Nothing that comes or goes;

Nothing is pleasant or loathsome.

All is alike to me,

Joy or sadness, whatever it be,

For I have feelings about nothing

But am a dazed thing

Always about to fall down;

Sorrowful imaginings

Fill my mind,

And well you know, it is against nature

To live this way;

Nature does not intend

Any earthly creature to endure

Sleeplessness so long and be in sorrow;

And I, neither night nor morning,

Can sleep; and thus I am melancholy

And dread that I will die.