Probably one of the few lines non-scholars know from Middle English is the opening to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, “Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote, the droughte of Marche hath perced to the roote . . .” https://www.bartleby.com/40/0101.html. These few lines provide a number of Middle English words to discuss, but today I intend to focus on ‘shoures.’ To Modern English eyes ‘shoures’ looks more like ‘shores’ than ‘showers.’ The later is the meaning the Middle English readers recognized when presented with ‘shoures’ and all its variant spellings.

‘Shoures’ makes an interesting topic for Medieval Mumbles because it has been used both literally—rain showers—and metaphorically—showers of gold etc—for thousands of years. (Don’t believe me, just read the Illiad or the Odessy.) Chaucer’s use in the opening to The Canterbury Tales is literal and translates roughly as “When sweet April showers have killed off the drought of March . . .” But figurative uses of showers as noun, verb, and adjective abound.

Image by LRuss from Pixabay

Of all the examples given by the Middle English Dictionary (MED) the one that fascinates me the most are these “To his ost he farith god schour.” And “Forth he prekyed a good schoure.” The MED tells us that to the Middle English reader the meaning of this use of ‘shoures’ is “to go (ride) quickly” as if the pace of travel equaled the pace of what you and I would call a downpour.

To extend the meaning of ‘shoures’ as a descriptor of pace I shall end this post in ‘good shoure.’

What do you say? Do you proceed in good shower for any of your activities? How do you think your friends and family might react if you began to use ‘shower’ and its many forms as a descriptor for doing something rapidly? Leave a comment about ‘shoure/shower’ or any other odd piece of language that gives you pause (definitely not rapid). 😊