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). But, alas, I was not going to give up millions. I can't prove it with scientific data, but I seriously doubt Tillman was insane.
This is English too. Can you read it? I can. But it is 14th Century English and has changed a bit to the present day.
Whan that Aprill, with his shoures sooteNot just the structure of the words themselves, but also the meaning of words. Note the word like "corages" (11 lines down, bolded). The unschooled would read that as "courage" making the sentence out to be: "So pierces them Nature in her courage"
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open eye-
(So priketh hem Nature in hir corages);
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
And specially from every shires ende
Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,
The hooly blisful martir for to seke
That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seeke.
Stephen Knight (as well know Chaucer scholar) writes (Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales; Literature in Context; Rylance, R. and Simons, J. eds.; Palgrave-Macmillan, 2001)The small birds are the first animals to wake in spring -- as in any morning -- but they too have cultural reference. They are 'smale', which means 'slender' not just small: the word is English, but has French connotations: ladies in romance are 'smale' in body, arms and fingers. Nature excites the birds' romantic love when it 'priketh' their hearts in blunt English, and this implies physicality -- the sexual pun on 'prick' operates in Middle as well as Modern English. But elaboration still exists because it is their 'corages' that are excited, not their 'hearts'. The French word points towards the domain of courtly love, an aristocratic elaboration that Chaucer himself has disseminated in English with his translation of part of The Romance of the Rose and his earlier dream poems about love like The Book of the Duchess. (p. 12).Start to get the idea? Unfortunately you can not "simply read it." It was only slightly longer from Chaucer to Jefferson than it was from Jefferson to us. You need an intimate knowledge of the language, forms, customs, and traditions of the time to actually understand, with real clarity, what was being said.
Do you want a shorter time frame example? The word "gay" has radically changed in ten to twenty years. A "gay old time" just ain't what it used to be.
Wow, I think you are well read!!! 
That's a very obscure quote.
