I read a lot of Chaucer thirty years ago but I’m pretty sure I never landed on his dream poem The Book of the Duchess (ca. 1370). I found myself reading it recently however, and, being someone who has trouble sleeping, the description of insomnia really impressed me at how writing can remain fresh over six hundred years later if it’s describing a common human condition. It seemed like Geoffrey was reading my mail!
I have gret wonder, be this lyght,
How that I live, for day ne nyght
I may nat slepe wel nigh noght,
I have so many an ydel thoght
Purely for defaute of slepe
That, by my trouthe, I take no kepe
Of nothing, how hit cometh or gooth,
Ne me nis nothing leef nor looth.
Al is ylyche good to me —
Joye or sorwe, wherso hyt be —
For I have felyng in nothyng,
But, as it were, a mased thyng,
Alway in point to falle a-doun;
For sorwful imaginacioun
Is alway hoolly in my minde.
And wel ye woot, agaynes kynde
Hit were to liven in this wyse;
For nature wolde nat suffyse
To noon erthely creature
Not longe tyme to endure
Withoute slepe, and been in sorwe;
And I ne may, ne night ne morwe,
Slepe; and thus melancolye
And dreed I have for to dye,
Defaute of slepe and hevynesse
Hath sleyn my spirit of quiknesse,
That I have lost al lustihede.
Suche fantasies ben in myn hede
So I not what is best to do.
Alex Good 
Yep, I can relate!
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Posted at 1:30 am! We’re on the same team.
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I’d get insomnia too on medieval bedding. Though I imagine Chaucer had it a bit better than just a haystack.
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Later in the same poem he offers a feather bed to Morpheus if he’ll bring him some sleep. I think Chaucer was pretty well off, even in the medieval 1%, but I don’t know if he slept on something as nice as that. We all have it better today than royalty did in the 1300s.
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The look on his face when we still have insomnia today despite our big mattresses.
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He’d probably be more impressed with our pills. Morpheus in a bottle.
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Does it count as insomnia if you go to bed at 3am and wake up at 9am?
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Hmmmm. I would say no. That’s just keeping late hours. Plus 6 hours of sleep, while probably not ideal, isn’t too bad.
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After awhile I just think “Screw it” and let everything go. It’s been a lifesaver for me. : -)
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You need more sleep!
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