This translation was done at sixteen or seventeen years of age.--POPE.
The story of January and May now before us is of the comic kind; and the
character of a fond old dotard betrayed into disgrace by an unsuitable
match is supported in a lively manner. Pope has nowhere copied the free
and easy versification, and the narrative style of Dryden's Fables, so
happily as in this pleasant tale. He has endeavoured suitably to
familiarise the stateliness of our heroic measure; but, after all his
pains, this measure is not adapted to such subjects so well as the lines
of four feet, or the French numbers of Fontaine. Fontaine is, in truth,
the capital and unrivalled writer of comic tales. He generally took his
subjects from Boccacio, Poggius, and Ariosto; but adorned them with so
many natural strokes, with such quaintness in his reflections, and such
a dryness and archness of humour, as cannot fail to excite laughter. Our
Prior has happily caught his manner in many of his lighter tales,
particularly in Hans Carvel. Of the tale before us, Mr. Tyrwhitt gives
the following account:--"The scene of the Merchant's Tale is laid in
Italy; but none of the names, except Damian and Justin, seem to be
Italian, but rather made at pleasure; so that I doubt whether the story
be really of Italian growth. The adventure of the pear-tree I find in a
small collection of Latin fables, written by one Adolphus, in elegiac
verses of his fashion, in the year 1315. This fable has never been
printed but once, and in a book not commonly to be met with. Whatever
was the real original of this tale, the machinery of the fairies, which
Chaucer has used so happily, was probably added by himself; and indeed I
cannot help thinking that his Pluto and Proserpine were the true
progenitors of Oberon and Titania, or rather that they themselves have,
once at least, deigned to revisit our poetical system under the latter
names. In the History of English Poetry, this is said to be an old
Lombard story. But many passages in it are evidently taken from the
Polycraticon of John of Salisbury: De molestiis et oneribus conjugiorum
secundum Hieronymum et alios philosophos--Et de pernicie libidinis--Et
de mulieris Ephesinae et similium fide. And, by the way, about forty
verses belonging to this argument are translated from the same chapter
of the Polycraticon, in the Wife of Bath's prologue. In the meantime, it
is not improbable that this tale might have originally been oriental. A
Persian tale is just published which it extremely resembles; and it has
much of the allegory of an eastern apologue."--WARTON.
In the art of telling a story in verse, Pope is peculiarly happy; we
almost forget the grossness of the subject of this tale, while we are
struck by the uncommon ease and readiness of the verse, the suitableness
of the expressions, and the spirit and happiness of the whole. I think
Dr. Warton injudiciously censures the verse, which appears to me to be
very suitably employed. Pope has introduced triplets in many places, no
doubt for greater effect, which they certainly have. There is generally
two together, ended with an Alexandrine. This is common in Dryden's
fables, on which Pope evidently formed his style in these narrative
pieces. When I say that Dr. Warton injudiciously objects to the verse,
it should be remembered that there is a mock-elevation in the speeches,
descriptions, &c., of this story, and even poetry in the fairy revels,
for which the versification Pope has chosen is more proper, than it
would be for Prior's burlesque, and less poetical, ribaldry. The mixture
of classical and gothic imagery, such as Chaucer uses, in making Pluto
and Proserpine, instead of spirits, like Oberon and Titania, the king
and queen of the "yellow-skirted fays," is very common in our early
poets, who derived the combination from the old romances, and
Ovid.--BOWLES.
When Dryden published his version of some of Chaucer's Tales he gave, in
his preface, an excellent account of the characteristics of the
original. "As Chaucer," he said, "is the father of English poetry, so I
hold him in the same degree of veneration as the Grecians held Homer, or
the Romans Virgil. He is a perpetual fountain of good sense,--learned in
all sciences, and therefore speaks properly on all subjects. 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. I see them as perfectly before me,--their
humours, their features, and their very dress--as distinctly as if I had
supped with them at the Tabard in Southwark. 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. 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 abesses, and nuns: for mankind is ever the
same, and nothing lost out of nature, though everything is altered."
There were two classes of readers who exclaimed against the attempt to
renovate the original,--those who held that it was too bad to be
reproduced, and those who considered it too excellent to be remodelled
without being spoiled. "I find," writes Dryden, "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.
Being shocked perhaps with his old style, he never examined into the
depth of his good sense. Chaucer, I confess, is a rough diamond, and
must first be polished ere he shines. But there are other judges who
think I ought not to have translated him into English out of a quite
contrary notion. They suppose there is a certain veneration due to his
old language, and that it is little less than profanation and sacrilege
to alter it. They are further of opinion that somewhat of his good sense
will suffer in the 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 the Earl of Leicester, who valued Chaucer as
much as Mr. Cowley despised him." Dryden replied that his version was
only intended for those to whom the original was unintelligible, and
while allowing that the original was superior to the copy, he contended
that the copy was to be preferred to a blank. If he had confined himself
simply to modernising his author there would have been little force in
his plea. The phraseology of Chaucer is readily mastered, and any
departure from his words destroys a large part of the charm. There is a
native simplicity in the mediaeval works of genius which pleases like the
artless manners of children, but which would be as ridiculous in a
modern dress as the manners of the child in a grown-up person. Nor must
we overlook the superior interest which attaches to the notions, usages,
and characters of our ancestors when the picture is painted by
themselves. A copy in which costumes and colouring have been completely
changed is but an adulterate representation. The antique peculiarities
and primitive freshness are gone. The real justification of Dryden's
undertaking was not that his version was a substitute for the original,
but that it was a glorious supplement. Little as he scrupled to assert
his own merits he could not press this argument to its full extent,
though he was evidently conscious of the truth. He states that as the
old poet was occasionally diffuse, and more often undignified, he had
curtailed the redundancies, and rejected the trivialities. He did not
stop at the easy office of omission. "I dare," he says, "to add that
what beauties I lose in some places I give to others which had them not
originally. If I have altered Chaucer 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." In dramatic power and pathos,
which are Chaucer's strongest points, Dryden has not improved upon him;
but upon the whole he has narrated the tales in a higher strain of
poetry, in richer and more felicitous language, and with the addition of
many new and happy ideas. A few short examples will show the nature of
the changes he introduced into numerous passages in the process of
recasting them. The Wife of Bath's Tale commences with these lines:
In olde dayes of the King Arthour
Of which that Britains speken great honour,
All was this land fulfilled of fairie;
The elf-queen with her jolly company,
Danced full oft in many a greene mead;
This was the old opinion, as I read;
I speak of many hundred year ago;
But now can no man see none elves mo.
For now the greate charity and prayers
Of limitours, and other holy freres,
That seeken every land, and every stream,
As thick as motes in the sunne-beam,
Blessing halls, chambers, kitchenes, and bowers,
Cities, and boroughs, castles high, and towers,
Thorpes and barnes, sheepnes, and daieries,
That maketh that there be no faieries.
This is one of the prettiest pieces of verse in the Canterbury Tales.
Dryden has expanded and excelled it.
In days of old when Arthur filled the throne,
Whose acts and fame to foreign lands were blown,
The king of elfs, and little fairy queen,
Gambolled on heaths, and danced on every green,
And where the jolly troop had led the round
The grass unbidden rose, and marked the ground:
Nor darkling did they dance; the silver light }
Of Phoebe served to guide their steps aright, }
And, with their tripping pleased, prolonged the night. }
Her beams they followed where at full she played, }
Nor longer than she shed her horns they stayed, }
From thence with airy flight to foreign lands conveyed. }
Above the rest our Britain held they dear, }
More solemnly they kept their sabbaths here, }
And made more spacious rings, and revelled half the year. }
I speak of ancient times, for now the swain, }
Returning late, may pass the woods in vain, }
And never hope to see the nightly train. }
* * * * * * * * * *
For priests with prayers and other godly gear,
Have made the merry goblins disappear;
And where they played their merry pranks before
Have sprinkled holy water on the floor;
And friars that through the wealthy regions run
Thick as the motes that twinkle in the sun,
Resort to farmers rich, and bless their halls,
And exorcise the beds, and cross the walls:
This makes the fairy choirs forsake the place
When once 'tis hallowed with the rites of grace.
He sometimes carries his innovations further, and the splendour of his
paraphrase entirely eclipses the primitive idea. Chaucer says, in the
tale of the Nun's Priest, that
Swevens be but vanities and japes.
Men dream all day of owles and of apes,
And eke of many a mase therewithall;
Men dream of thinges that never be shall.
Chaucer's hint, which is scarcely more than if the speaker had said in
plain prose, "I have no faith in dreams, for they are wild visions which
never come true," is transformed by Dryden into this exquisite passage:
Dreams are but interludes, which fancy makes;
When monarch-reason sleeps this mimic wakes;
Compounds a medley of disjointed things,
A mob of cobblers, and a court of kings:
Light fumes are merry, grosser fumes are sad;
Both are the reasonable soul run mad;
And many monstrous forms in sleep we see,
That neither were, nor are, nor e'er can be.
Sometimes forgotten things long cast behind
Rush forward in the brain, and come to mind;
The nurse's legends are for truths received,
And the man dreams but what the boy believed.
Sometimes we but rehearse a former play; }
The night restores our actions done by day, }
As hounds in sleep will open for their prey. }