This article argues that the enigmatic "thing" for which Chaucer's dream-vision narrator searches is both a structuring device for the Parliament of Fowls and a reflection on the process of translation, specifically the translation of Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy. "Thing" appears with the same enigmatic sense three times in the poem: near the opening, as the narrator falls asleep, and in the conclusion. The second of these instances occurs in a line from the Consolation of Philosophy expressing the frustration that desire continuously brings to individuals. As a poet and a translator of Boethius, Chaucer repeats this frustration at a crucial point in his poem to suggest that he sees translation as an activity inherently unstable and yet also productive. ********** "THING" appears frequently in Middle English texts, with a wider range of meanings than even the modern English "thing." The Middle English Dictionary provides a sense of this range, including substance, animate or inanimate objects, spirits like angels or devils, actions, events, speech acts, texts, and a judicial council as possible meanings for "thing." (1) Many of these instances are unremarkable, because a reader can easily identify what "thing" signifies, or because the instances occur as asides, substitutions, or minor amplifications. "Thing," however, also has the capacity to be provocatively ambiguous--capable as it is of at once signifying the specific and the general--and Middle English writers with quite diverse purposes employ it at critical moments in their texts. Julian of Norwich meditates on "all things," (2) and the writer who introduces Sir Orfeo, a complex intertextual romance, refers to the work as a "ferli thing." (3) An anonymous Harley lyricist has March "sette [its] thinge to springe," (4) and William Langland writes of the "levest thing," (5) a spice that truth gives us, which is to love our Lord more than ourselves. This range of varied literature consistently and poignantly employs "thing" at crucial moments. Geoffrey Chaucer's work shares this critical use of "thing" with his milieu, employing the word to signify variously, from clear referents--including genitalia, tales, and philosophy--to the ambiguous yet structurally crucial "thing" of The Parliament of Fowls. Although most instances of "thing" in Chaucer's corpus can be precisely defined or easily dismissed, a triad of instances occurs in PF that resists definition. By examining the placement of these instances (each occurs at a threshold in the poem) and their connotation, I will argue that these three instances have the same denotation, one that eludes any of the definitions that the Middle English Dictionary provides. Although my definition must remain speculative, because in each instance Chaucer explicitly maintains ambiguity, I hope to show that the meaning of this triad--both the definition of "thing" in this context and its three repetitions forming the triad--reflects Chaucer's strategy for marking the interstices where new poems form. These interstices are appropriately marked by "thing": Chaucer, via a critical appropriation of Boethian intertext, uses the word's imprecise semantic content to signify two competing, yet mutually reinforcing, desires. (6) "Thing" is both the thing he wants and the thing he does not want. (7) The three instances are the following: (1) In the third stanza: But wherfore that I speke al this? Nat yoore Agon it happede me for to beholde Upon a bok, was write with lettres olde, And therupon, a certeyn thing to lerne, The longe day ful faste I redde and yerne. (8) (2) Just before the narrator falls asleep and experiences the dream vision: The day gan faylen, and the derke nyght, That reveth bestes from here besynesse, Beraft me my bok for lak of lyght, And to my bed I gan me for to dresse, Fulfyld of thought and busy hevynesse; For both I hadde thyng which that I nolde, And ek I ne hadde that thyng that I wolde. …