Meaning of 'Amor vincit omnia' in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales

The phrase 'Amor vincit omnia' appears in Geoffrey Chaucer's most famous work The Canterbury Tales and concerns the Prioress whose tale you can read here.

She is named as Madame Eglantine and wears a golden brooch inscribed with the letter 'A' and the phrase itself as appears in line 162 of The General Prologue of The Canterbury Tales:

Of smal coral aboute hir arm she bar

A peire of bedes, gauded al with grene,

An theron heng a brooch of gold ful sheene,

On which ther was first write a crowned A,

And after Amor vincit omnia.

The Prioress's Tale from a painting
by Edward Coley Burne-Jones

It is of course from the Latin and best translates as 'Love conquers all'.

Love = amor (noun)
Vincit = conquers (verb)
Omnia = all (adverb)

The full phrase comes from Virgil's Eclogues: 'Omnia vincit amor: et nos cedamus amori' and translates as 'Love conquers all: let us too surrender to love'.

It's significance is an insight into the character of the Prioress who is portrayed as a social climber with outward signs that are at odds with the simple piety of her tale and position, such as her (incorrect) French accent, jewellery and the ambiguity of meaning of this phrase which more commonly relates to courtly than God's love.

Meaning of 'If gold rusts, what then can iron do?'

Geoffrey Chaucer's famous quote appears in The General Prologue to his best known work, The Canterbury Tales.

The modern and most commonly quoted version is: 'If gold rusts, what then can iron do?'

However, in the original Middle English the text is: 'That if gold ruste, what shal iren do?'

In terms of its context, Chaucer tells of a poor Parson, a local priest, who lived a humble life doing good deeds in the community. The motto he lived by was this quote and Chaucer goes onto explain its meaning in the next line:

'For if a preest be foul, on whom we truste,
No wonder is a lewed man to ruste'

So, if a priest is corrupt what hope is there for the rest of us, or to use the metaphor if the most precious of metals rusts, then what hope is there for a baser metal in iron?

As such a priest should set an example of how to live to his parish as if he does not then how can he expect others to be good.

The biography of Geoffrey Chaucer

Geoffrey Chaucer was one of the great figures of English literature and is held up as the father of modern English. He is best known as the author of The Canterbury Tales, but was a polymath distinguished in philosophy, astronomy and politics.

While good records exist for time as a public servant, we have only estimates for the year of his birth in 1343, death in 1400 after which he disappeared from the public records. He married around 1366 to Philippa Roet and they are believed to have had four children.

He was buried in Westminster Abbey and his remains were later moved in 1556 to the area that became the famous Poet's Corner.

He came from a wealthy family of wine merchants and moved in Royal circles even from a young age, as a page to Elizabeth, Countess of Ulster. This was to prove very useful to Chaucer when he was taken prisoner in France in 1359 and King Edward III, paid his ransom and later sent him to Europe as a diplomat.

His public service continued and included prestigious roles as the Controller of Customs in 1374 and as a Member of Parliament and Justice of the Peace in 1386. He was later the Clear of the King's Works in charge of the King's building projects. This role ended after Chaucer was robbed and most likely injured in 1391. He was granted a pension of £20 a year in 1394 by Richard II.