her; and there is a great difference of being _poeta_ and _nimis poeta_
if we believe Catullus, as much as betwixt a modest behaviour and
affectation. The verse of Chaucer, I confess, is not harmonious to us,
but it is like the eloquence of one whom Tacitus commends, it was
_auribus istius temporis accommodata_: they who lived with him, and
some time after him, thought it musical; and it continues so even in
our judgment, if compared with the numbers of Lydgate and Gower, his
contemporaries; there is the rude sweetness of a Scotch tune in it,
which is natural and pleasing, though not perfect. It is true I cannot
go so far as he who published the last edition of him; [Footnote: That
of 1687, which was little more than a reprint of Speght's editions
(1598, 1602).] for he would make us believe the fault is in our ears,
and that there were really ten syllables in a verse where we find but
nine, but this opinion is not worth confuting, it is so gross and
obvious an error that common sense (which is a rule in everything but
matters of faith and revelation) must convince the reader that equality
of numbers in every verse, which we call Heroic, was either not known,
or not always practised in Chaucer's age. It were an easy matter to
produce some thousands of his verses, which are lame for want of half
a foot, and sometimes a whole one, and which no pronunciation can make
otherwise. We can only say that he lived in the infancy of our poetry,
and that nothing is brought to perfection at the first. We must be
children before we grow men. There was an Ennius, and in process of
time a Lucilius and a Lucretius, before Virgil and Horace; even after
Chaucer there was a Spenser, a Harrington, a Fairfax, before Waller
and Denham were in being; and our numbers were in their nonage till
these last appeared. I need say little of his parentage, life, and
fortunes: they are to be found at large in all the editions of his
works. He was employed abroad, and favoured by Edward the Third, Richard
the Second, and Henry the Fourth, and was poet, as I suppose, to all
three of them. In Richard's time, I doubt, he was a little dipt in the
rebellion of the commons, [Footnote: There is no evidence for this
'doubt', though in his Balade, _Lak of Stedfastnesse_, Chaucer speaks
plainly both to Richard and his subjects.] and being brother-in-law
to John of Gaunt, it was no wonder if he followed the fortunes of that
family, and was well with Henry the Fourth when he had deposed his
predecessor. Neither is it to be admired that Henry, who was a wise
as well as a valiant prince, who claimed by succession, and was sensible
that his title was not sound, but was rightfully in Mortimer, who had
married the heir of York; it was not to be admired, I say, if that
great politician should be pleased to have the greatest wit of those
times in his interests, and to be the trumpet of his praises. Augustus
had given him the example, by the advice of Maecenas, who recommended
Virgil and Horace to him, whose praises helped to make him popular
while he was alive, and after his death have made him precious to
posterity. As for the religion of our poet, he seems to have some
little bias towards the opinions of Wickliff, after John of Gaunt his
patron; somewhat of which appears in the tale of Piers Plowman:
[Footnote: The Plowman's Tale, which was printed as one of the
Canterbury Tales in Speght's editions. It is now rejected by all
authorities.] yet I cannot blame him for inveighing so sharply against
the vices of the clergy in his age; their pride, their ambition, their
pomp, their avarice, their worldly interest deserved the lashes which
he gave them, both in that and in most of his Canterbury tales: neither
has his contemporary Boccace spared them. Yet both these poets lived
in much esteem with good and holy men in orders; for the scandal which
is given by particular priests, reflects not on the sacred function.
Chaucer's Monk, his Canon, and his Friar took not from the character
of his Good Parson. A satirical poet is the check of the laymen on bad
priests. We are only to take care that we involve not the innocent
with the guilty in the same condemnation. The good cannot be too much
honoured, nor the bad too coarsely used; for the corruption of the
best becomes the worst. When a clergyman is whipped his gown is first
taken off, by which the dignity of his order is secured; if he be
wrongfully accused, he has his action of slander; and it is at the
poet's peril if he transgress the law. But they will tell us that all
kinds of satire, though never so well-deserved by particular priests,
yet brings the whole order into contempt. Is, then, the peerage of
England anything dishonoured when a peer suffers for his treason? If
he be libelled, or any way defamed, he has his _Scandalum Magnatum_
to punish the offender. They who use this kind of argument seem to be
conscious to themselves of somewhat which has deserved the poet's lash,
and are less concerned for their public capacity than for their private;
at least there is pride at the bottom of their reasoning. If the faults
of men in orders are only to be judged among themselves, they are all
in some sort parties; for, since they say the honour of their order
is concerned in every member of it, how can we be sure that they will
be impartial judges? How far I may be allowed [Footnote: As a Catholic.]
to speak my opinion in this case I know not, but I am sure a dispute
of this nature caused mischief in abundance betwixt a King of England
and an Archbishop of Canterbury, one standing up for the laws of his
land, and the other for the honour (as he called it) of God's Church,
which ended in the murder of the prelate, and in the whipping of his
majesty from post to pillar for his penance. The learned and ingenious
Dr. Drake has saved me the labour of inquiring into the esteem and
reverence which the priests have had of old; and I would rather extend
than diminish any part of it: yet I must needs say, that when a priest
provokes me without any occasion given him, I have no reason, unless
it be the charity of a Christian, to forgive him. _Prior laesit_ is
justification sufficient in the Civil Law. If I answer him in his own
language, self-defence, I am sure, must be allowed me; and if I carry
it farther, even to a sharp recrimination, somewhat may be indulged
to human frailty. Yet my resentment has not wrought so far, but that
I have followed Chaucer in his character of a holy man, and have
enlarged on that subject with some pleasure, reserving to myself the
right, if I shall think fit hereafter, to describe another sort of
priests, such as are more easily to be found than the good parson;
such as have given the last blow to Christianity in this age, by a
practice so contrary to their doctrine. But this will keep cold till
another time. In the meanwhile, I take up Chaucer where I left him.
He must have been a man of a most wonderful comprehensive nature,
because, as it has been truly observed of him, he has taken into the
compass of his Canterbury tales the various manners and humours (as
we now call them) of the whole English nation, in his age. Not a single
character has escaped him. All his pilgrims are severally distinguished
from each other; and not only in their inclinations, but in their very
physiognomies and persons. Baptista Porta could not have described
their natures better than by the marks which the poet gives them. The
matter and manner of their tales, and of their telling, are so suited
to their different educations, humours, and callings that each of them
would be improper in any other mouth. Even the grave and serious
characters are distinguished by their several sorts of gravity: their
discourses are such as belong to their age, their calling, and their
breeding; such as are becoming of them, and of them only. Some of his
persons are vicious, and some virtuous; some are unlearned, or (as
Chaucer calls them) lewd, and some are learned. Even the ribaldry of
the low characters is different: the Reeve, the Miller, and the Cook
are several men, and distinguished from each other, as much as the
mincing lady prioress, and the broad-speaking gap-toothed wife of Bath.
But enough of this: there is such a variety of game springing up before
me, that I am distracted in my choice, and know not which to follow.
'Tis sufficient to say, according to the proverb, that here is God's
plenty. We have our forefathers and great-grand-dames all before us,
as they were in Chaucer's days; their general characters are still
remaining in mankind, and even in England, though they are called by
other names than those of Monks and Friars and Canons, and Lady Abbesses
and Nuns; for mankind is ever the same, and nothing lost out of nature,
though everything is altered.
May I have leave to do myself the justice (since my enemies will do
me none, and are so far from granting me to be a good poet that they
will not allow me so much as to be a Christian, or a moral man), may
I have leave, I say, to inform my reader that I have confined my choice
to such tales of Chaucer as savour nothing of immodesty? If I had
desired more to please than to instruct, the Reeve, the Miller, the
Shipman, the Merchant, the Summoner, and, above all, the Wife of Bath,
in the prologue to her tale, would have procured me as many friends
and readers as there are beaux and ladies of pleasure in the town. But
I will no more offend against good manners; I am sensible, as I ought
to be, of the scandal I have given by my loose writings, and make what
reparation I am able by this public acknowledgment. If anything of
this nature, or of profaneness, be crept into these poems, I am so far
from defending it that I disown it. _Totum hoc indictum volo_. Chaucer
makes another manner of apology for his broad speaking, and Boccace
makes the like; but I will follow neither of them. Our countryman, in
the end of his characters, before the Canterbury tales, thus excuses
the ribaldry, which is very gross in many of his novels.
But first, I pray you of your courtesie,
That ye ne arrette it nought my villanie,
Though that I plainly speak in this matere
To tellen yon her words, and eke her chere:
Ne though I speak her wordes properly,
For this ye knowen al so well as I,
Who-so shall tell a tale after a man,
He mote rehearse as nye as ever he can
Everich a word, if it be in his charge,
All speke he never so rudely and large.
Or elles he mot telle his tale untrue.
Or feine things, or finde wordes new:
He may not spare, although he were his brother,
He mot as well say o word as another,
Christ spake himself full broad in holy writ,
And well ye wot no villany is it.
Eke Plato saith, who so that can him rede,
The wordes mote be cousin to the dede.
Yet if a man should have inquired of Boccace or of Chaucer, what need
they had of introducing such characters where obscene words were proper
in their mouths, but very indecent to be heard; I know not what answer
they could have made; for that reason, such tale shall be left untold
by me. You have here a specimen of Chaucer's language, which is so
obsolete, that his sense is scarce to be understood; and you have
likewise more than one example of his unequal numbers, [Footnote: The
lines have been corrected in the text, and may easily be seen to be
perfectly metrical.] which were mentioned before. Yet many of his
verses consist of ten syllables, and the words not much behind our
present English: as, for example, these two lines, in the description
of the carpenter's young wife:--
Wincing she was, as is a jolly colt,
Long as a mast, and upright as a bolt.
I have almost done with Chaucer, when I have answered some objections
relating to my present work. I find some people are offended that I
have turned these tales into modern English; because they think them
unworthy of my pains, and look on Chaucer as a dry, old-fashioned wit,
not worth reviving. I have often heard the late Earl of Leicester say,
that Mr. Cowley himself was of that opinion; who, having read him over
at my lord's request, declared he had no taste of him. I dare not
advance my opinion against the judgment of so great an author: but I
think it fair, however, to leave the decision to the public. Mr. Cowley
was too modest to set up for a dictator; and being shocked perhaps
with his old style, never examined into the depth of his good sense.
Chaucer, I confess, is a rough diamond, and must first be polished ere
he shines. I deny not, likewise, that, living in our early times he
writes not always of a piece, but sometimes mingles trivial things
with those of greater moment. Sometimes also, though not often, he
runs riot, like Ovid, and knows not when he has said enough. But there
are more great wits besides Chaucer, whose fault is their excess of
conceits, and those ill sorted. An author is not to write all he can,
but only all he ought. Having observed this redundancy in Chaucer (as
it is an easy matter for a man of ordinary parts to find a fault in
one of greater), I have not tied myself to a literal translation; but
have often omitted what I judged unnecessary, or not of dignity enough
to appear in the company of better thoughts. I have presumed farther,
in some places, and added somewhat of my own where I thought my author
was deficient, and had not given his thoughts their true lustre, for
want of words in the beginning of our language. And to this I was the
more emboldened, because (if I may be permitted to say it of myself)
I found I had a soul congenial to his, and that I had been conversant
in the same studies. Another poet, in another age, may take the same
liberty with my writings; if at least they live long enough to deserve
correction. It was also necessary sometimes to restore the sense of
Chaucer, which was lost or mangled in the errors of the press: let
this example suffice at present; in the story of Palamon and Arcite,
where the temple of Diana is described, you find these verses, in all
the editions of our author:
There saw I Dane turned into a tree,
I mean not the goddess Diane,
But Venus daughter, which that hight Dane:
Which, after a little consideration, I knew was to be reformed into
this sense, that Daphne, the daughter of Peneus, was turned into a
tree. I durst not make thus bold with Ovid, lest some future Milbourn
should arise, and say, I varied from my author, because I understood
him not.
But there are other judges who think I ought not to have translated
Chaucer into English, out of a quite contrary notion: they suppose
there is a certain veneration due to his old language; and that it is
a little less than profanation and sacrilege to alter it. They are
farther of opinion, that somewhat of his good sense will suffer in
this transfusion, and much of the beauty of his thoughts will infallibly
be lost, which appear with more grace in their old habit. Of this
opinion was that excellent person, whom I mentioned, the late Earl of
Leicester, who valued Chaucer as much as Mr. Cowley despised him. My
lord dissuaded me from this attempt (for I was thinking of it some
years before his death), and his authority prevailed so far with me,
as to defer my undertaking while he lived, in deference to him: yet
my reason was not convinced with what he urged against it. If the first
end of a writer be to be understood, then as his language grows
obsolete, his thoughts must grow obscure: _multa renascentur quae nunc
cecidere; cadentque, quae nunc sunt in honore vocabula, si volet usus,
quem penes arbitrium est et jus et norma loquendi_. When an ancient
word for its sound and significancy deserves to be revived, I have
that reasonable veneration for antiquity, to restore it. All beyond
this is superstition. Words are not like landmarks, so sacred as never
to be removed; customs are changed, and even statutes are silently
repealed, when the reason ceases for which they were enacted. As for
the other part of the argument, that his thoughts will lose of their
original beauty, by the innovation of words; in the first place, not
only their beauty but their being is lost where they are no longer
understood, which is the present case. I grant that something must be
lost in all transfusion, that is, in all translations; but the sense
will remain, which would otherwise be lost, or at least be maimed,
when it is scarce intelligible; and that but to a few. How few are
there who can read Chaucer, so as to understand him perfectly! And if
imperfectly, then with less profit and no pleasure. 'Tis not for the
use of some old Saxon friends that I have taken these pains with him:
let them neglect my version because they have no need of it. I made
it for their sakes who understand sense and poetry as well as they,
when that poetry and sense is put into words which they understand.
I will go farther, and dare to add, that what beauties I lose in some
places, I give to others which had them not originally; but in this
I may be partial to myself; let the reader judge, and I submit to his
decision. Yet I think I have just occasion to complain of them, who,
because they understand Chaucer, would deprive the greater part of
their countrymen of the same advantage, and hoard him up, as misers
do their grandam gold, only to look on it themselves, and hinder others
from making use of it. In some I seriously protest, that no man ever
had, or can have, a greater veneration for Chaucer, than myself. I
have translated some part of his works, only that I might perpetuate
his memory, or at least refresh it, amongst my countrymen. If I have
altered him anywhere for the better, I must at the same time acknowledge
that I could have done nothing without him: _Facile est inventis
addere_, is no great commendation; and I am not so vain to think I
have deserved a greater. I will conclude what I have to say of him
singly, with this one remark: a lady of my acquaintance, who keeps a
kind of correspondence with some authors of the fair sex in France,
has been informed by them that Mademoiselle de Scudery, who is as old
as Sibyl, and inspired like her by the same god of poetry, is at this
time translating Chaucer into modern French. From which I gather that
he has been formerly translated into the old Provencal (for how she
should come to understand old English I know not). But the matter of
fact being true, it makes me think that there is something in it like
fatality; that, after certain periods of time, the fame and memory of
great wits should be renewed, as Chaucer is both in France and England.
If this be wholly chance, 'tis extraordinary, and I dare not call it
more for fear of being taxed with superstition.
Boccace comes last to be considered, who, living in the same age with
Chaucer, had the same genius, and followed the same studies; both writ
novels, and each of them cultivated his mother tongue. But the greatest
resemblance of our two modern authors being in their familiar style,
and pleasing way of relating comical adventures, I may pass it over,
because I have translated nothing from Boccace of that nature. In the
serious part of poetry, the advantage is wholly on Chaucer's side; for
though the Englishman has borrowed many tales from the Italian, yet
it appears that those of Boccace were not generally of his own making,
but taken from authors of former ages, and by him only modelled; so
that what there was of invention in either of them may be judged equal.
But Chaucer has refined on Boccace, and has mended the stories which
he has borrowed in his way of telling, though prose allows more liberty
of thought, and the expression is more easy when unconfined by numbers.
Our countryman carries weight, and yet wins the race at disadvantage.
I desire not the reader should take my word, and therefore I will set
two of their discourses on the same subject, in the same light, for
every man to judge betwixt them. I translated Chaucer first, and amongst
the rest pitched on the Wife of Bath's tale--not daring, as I have
said, to adventure on her prologue, because it is too licentious. There
Chaucer introduces an old woman of mean parentage, whom a youthful
knight of noble blood was forced to marry, and consequently loathed
her. The crone being in bed with him on the wedding-night, and finding
his aversion, endeavours to win his affection by reason, and speaks
a good word for herself (as who could blame her?) in hope to mollify
the sullen bridegroom. She takes her topics from the benefits of
poverty, the advantages of old age and ugliness, the vanity of youth,
and the silly pride of ancestry and titles without inherent virtue,
which is the true nobility. When I had closed Chaucer I returned to
Ovid, and translated some more of his fables; and by this time had so
far forgotten the Wife of Bath's tale that, when I took up Boccace
unawares, I fell on the same argument of preferring virtue to nobility
of blood, and titles, in the story of Sigismunda, which I had certainly
avoided for the resemblance of the two discourses, if my memory had
not failed me. Let the reader weigh them both, and if he thinks me
partial to Chaucer, it is in him to right Boccace.
I prefer in our countryman, far above all his other stories, the noble
poem of _Palamon and Arcite_, which is of the Epic kind, and perhaps
not much inferior to the _Ilias_ or the _Aeneis_. The story is more
pleasing than either of them--the manners as perfect, the diction as
poetical, the learning as deep and various, and the disposition full
as artful--only it includes a greater length of time, as taking up
seven years at least; but Aristotle has left undecided the duration
of the action, which yet is easily reduced into the compass of a year
by a narration of what preceded the return of Palamon to Athens. I had
thought for the honour of our nation, and more particularly for his
whose laurel, though unworthy, I have worn after him, that this story
was of English growth and Chaucer's own; but I was undeceived by
Boccace, for casually looking on the end of his seventh Giornata, I
found Dioneo (under which name he shadows himself) and Fiametta (who
represents his mistress the natural daughter of Robert, King of Naples),
of whom these words are spoken, _Dioneo e la Fiametta granpezza
contarono insieme d'Arcita, e di Palamone_, by which it appears that
this story was written before the time of Boccace; [Footnote: It was
really written by Boccaccio himself, but, as Dryden himself says,
Chaucer has greatly improved upon his original (_La Teseide_).] but
the name of its author being wholly lost, Chaucer is now become an
original, and I question not but the poem has received many beauties
by passing through his noble hands. Besides this tale, there is another
of his own invention, after the manner of the Provencals, called the
Flower and the Leaf, with which I was so particularly pleased, both
for the invention and the moral, that I cannot hinder myself from
recommending it to the reader.