This slightly humorous and earthy beginning "earthy because it includes references to snoring, nakedness, and human infirmity "is a convention of this type of poetry, and it does not necessarily include any biographical details from Chaucer's life.
The Book of the Duchess, The Dream (Lines 291-1334).
The narrator now begins recounting his dream. He thinks that it is the month of May. He hears a great number of birds singing loudly outside his window. The windows of the chamber in which he lies are stained glass, and they depict the story of the Trojan War. The walls are painted with the text and pictures of the Romaunce of the Rose. Through the window the dreamer hears the sounds of a great many horsemen assembling for a hunt. The dreamer, in his dream, goes to his horse and joins the hunt. He asks one of the huntsmen whose hunt this is and learns that it is the Emperor Octavian's. A young dog, obviously at a loss when the deer give the hunting company the slip, approaches the narrator. The narrator follows it down a green and flowery pathway. The dreamer then describes a primeval forest of great trees, overrun with flowers "more flowers, he thinks, than can be in heaven. It is filled with deer and other animals, more than can be counted. There the dreamer meets a knight dressed in black. The knight is sorrowful, and while he sits he is composing a verse (called a complaint) about his sorrow in love.
The complaint details how his lady-love, whom he "loved with al my might" (line 478), has been lost. When the knight has finished his song, he suffers a kind of emotional heart attack and becomes deathly pale. The knight is insensible, though the narrator greets him. Finally the knight is roused and apologizes. The sorrowing knight is courteous, and the narrator endeavors to learn more about him. The narrator tries to comfort the knight, but he is inconsolable. In fact, the knight is sorrowful unto death.
