Boccaccio’s opening prayer, and Chaucer’s

But ye loveres, that bathen in gladnesse,

If any drope of pyte in yow be,

Remembreth yow on passed hevynesse

That ye han felt, and on the adversite

Of othere folk, and thenketh how that ye And, you who are lovers, I pray you hearken to what my lamenting verse will say;

Han felt that Love dorste yow displese; and, if it chance that in your hearts any spirit of pity should awaken, I pray you

Or ye han wonne hym with to greet an ese. entreat Love for my sake, though whom I live far from the sweetest pleasure

that any creature ever held dear.

And preyeth for hem that ben in the cas Boccaccio, Il Filostrato, canto 1

Of Troilus, as ye may after here,

That Love hem bringe in hevene to solas,

And eek for me preieth to God so dere,

That I have myght to shewe in som manere

Swich peyne and wo as Loves folk endure,

In Troilus unsely aventure.

Chaucer, TC 1. 22-35