Parlement of Foules opens with comments on the hardships of love, which, the poet and narrator assures his reader, he knows only through his books; and books, he says, are the source of all people’s new discoveries. The narrator, Chaucer, has read Cicero’s Somnium Scipionis, one of the most popular stories during the Middle Ages. Chaucer tells the reader how, in this story, Scipio Africanus appears to the younger Scipio in a dream and shows him all the universe, pointing out how small the earth is in comparison with the rest. He advises the younger man to live virtuously and with knowledge that he is immortal, so that he might come swiftly to heaven after death.

Darkness forces the narrator to put his book aside; and, falling asleep, he dreams that the same Scipio Africanus comes to him and leads him to the gate of a beautiful garden. Over one-half of the gate is a message promising happiness to those who enter; above the other half is a warning of pain and sorrow. As the dreamer deliberates, his guide pushes him through the gates, explaining that neither motto applies to him because he is not a lover but adding that he might discover there something about which to write.

The two men arrive in a garden filled with every kind of tree and bird. Deer, squirrels, and other small animals are playing there. Music and fragrant breezes permeate the atmosphere. Around the garden are familiar personifications: Cupid, tempering his arrows, as well as Pleasure, Beauty, Youth, Jollity, Flattery, and many others. Nearby stands a temple of brass upon pillars of jasper. Women are dancing around it, and doves sit on the roof. Before the doors sits Dame Peace and Dame Patience “on a hill of sand.” When he enters the temple, the dreamer sees the goddess Jealousy, the cause of the great sighing he hears around him; Venus and the youth Richess; Bacchus, god of wine; and Ceres, who relieves hunger. Along the walls are painted the stories of many unhappy lovers.

Returning to the garden, the dreamer notices Dame Nature, so fair that she surpasses all others as much as the sunlight does the stars. Around her are all the birds, ready to choose their mates, for it is St. Valentine’s Day. Dame Nature decrees that the tercel eagle, the bird of highest rank, should have the first choice.

The tercel eagle asks for the lovely formel eagle who sits on Dame Nature’s own hand, but immediately two other high-ranking fowls interrupt; they, too, love the formel eagle. A lengthy debate follows. One has loved her longest; another says that he has loved as deeply, if not as long. (This kind of discussion was popular in court circles in Chaucer’s day.) The other birds, thought by scholars to represent different levels of English society, along with the clergy, peasants, and the bourgeoisie, soon weary of the debate, since they want to pick their own mates. They decide that each group should elect a spokesperson to give its opinion of the “cursed pleading.”

The birds of prey choose the tercelet falcon, who suggests that the formel wed the worthiest knight, the bird of gentlest blood. The goose, speaking for the waterfowls, says simply, “If she won’t love him, let him love another.” The gentle turtledove dissents, and the seed fowls hold that a lover should serve his lady until he dies, whether or not she loves him in return.

The duck offers a saucy retort: “There are more stars, God wot, than a pair.” The tercel chides him for...