Chaucer Does "Serpents on Planes"

Well, you always knew this was a keene desyr of the bard: serpentes ona shippe. ...

Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog channels the poet (h/t Austro-Athenian Empire):

‘What haue ye seyde?’ askede the PRIORESSE then. ‘I did curse the snakes,’ seyde Sir Neville, ‘and therwith the shippe, in the name of Seynt George who ys a patron of valour and chivalrie.’ ‘Ywis,’ seyde the PRIORESSE, ‘yower cursinge hath borne good fruyt, for methinkede whan I herde ye speke thus that the arme of man, eek even of a mighti man swich as yowerself, is but a litel thinge compared to the grete power of God the which is dispensed thorow the mediacioun of the seyntez. And thes serpentes the which do make werre ayeinst us aren figuraciouns of the sinne of ower firste parentes who weren by a serpent deceyved, and thus thei signifien that we sholde seke nat strengthe in knighthede but in prayere and devocioun. For syn we face thes foule serpentes, mesemeth we must seeke succour and aide from the gret seynt who is the enemy ysworn of al maner of serpentes.’