Wel kan the wise poete of Florence,
That highte Dant, speken in this sentence.
Lo, in swich maner rym is Dantes tale:
"Ful selde up riseth by his branches smale
Prowesse of man, for God, of his goodnesse,
Wole that of hym we clayme oure gentillesse;"
For of oure eldres may we no thyng clayme
But temporel thyng, that man may hurte and mayme.
– Geoffrey Chaucer
The Canterbury Tales, The Wife of Bath’s Tale. The Knight’s wife enlists the help of the great Italian poet Dante in her argument about the nature of nobility. She says that Dante spoke rightly when he said a person’s worth is rarely inherited from his family tree, because God wants us to claim our nobility from him – Dante’s Convivio (The Banquet) Book IV, Canzone: Le dolci rime d’amor ch’ io solìa. From our ancestors we can claim only worldly things that man may hurt and maim, the hag adds.