Upon his bare knees ought all his life
Thanken his God that him hath sent a wife;
and if he is not yet possessed of the treasure, he ought to pray without
ceasing that it may be vouchsafed him, for then he is established in
safety, and
May not be deceived as I guess.
From the praise of wives, the merchant, speaking the views of the
knight, proceeds to extol the trustworthy advice of women in general,
and his first instance is Rebecca, who instructed Jacob how to supplant
Esau. The reasoning is purposely rendered inconsistent, and the
assertion that a married man was secured against deception is
immediately followed by an example in which the husband was deluded by
the stratagem of the wife.]
[Footnote 8:
Lo Judith, as the story telle can,
By wise counsel she Goddes people kept
And slew him Holofernes while he slept.
Lo Abigail by good counsel how she
Saved her husband Nabal, when that he
Should have been slain.
The respite that Abigail obtained for Nabal was very short. He died by a
judgment from heaven in about ten days from the time that she went forth
to meet David, and with presents and persuasions diverted him from his
purpose, as he was advancing to take vengeance on her husband. The
striking narrative in the apocryphal book of Judith is undoubtedly
fabulous. The pretended Judith was a widow. The deceptions by which she
is said to have got the captain of the Assyrian army into her power are
abhorrent to our purer morality, but they would have been considered
legitimate stratagems of war in the East.]
[Footnote 9: Dryden, Juvenal, vi. 640.
The rest are summoned on a point so nice.
[Footnote 10: In Chaucer the knight does not ask his friends to choose
for him because many heads are wiser than one, but because with several
people on the look out there is more likelihood that a suitable wife
will be found quickly than if he was unassisted in the search.]
[Footnote 11: In the original,
But one thing warn I you, my friendes dear,
I will none old wife have in no manere.
Marriages seem to have taken place in those days at a very early age.
The wife of Bath married at twelve, and the knight's notion of an "old
wife" it appears, five lines further on, was a woman of twenty. He
insists that he will marry nobody that is above sixteen:
She shall not passe sixteene year certain.
Old fish, and young flesh, that would I have full fain.
Bet is, quoth he, a pike than a pikerel,
And bet than old beef is the tender veal.
"Bet" is for "better."]
[Footnote 12: Chaucer's knight assigns it as a motive to wedlock that he
may have
Children to thonour of God above,
And not only for paramour, and for love.
But a little before he had given a more worldly reason for his desire to
have a son and heir, and said that he would rather be eaten by dogs than
that his inheritance should go to a stranger.]
[Footnote 13: The flippancy of this couplet, which departs from the
original, is at variance with the tone of the knight, whose speech
commenced with the words,
Friendes I am hoar and old,
And almost, God wot, at my pittes brink
Upon my soule somewhat must I think.
I have my body folily dispended
Blessed be God that it shall be amended.
In the passage, for which Pope's lines are the substitute, the knight is
enumerating the causes why men should marry, and one reason, he says, is
that each person ought to
Helpen other
In meschief, as a sister shall the brother,
And live in chastity full holily.
But, sires, by your leave that am not I,
For, God be thanked, I dare make avaunt,
I feel my limbes stark and suffisaunt.
The meaning is, that when a husband is "in meschief," or, in other
words, in a state of helpless decrepitude, his wife ought to live in
holy chastity, and nurse him as a sister would a brother. But, adds the
knight, thank God I am not decrepit myself, and feel my limbs to be
still stout; which is a very different sentiment from sneering at the
saintly life he had just commended.]
[Footnote 14: This verse, which has no counterpart in the original, is
altered from a line in Dryden's Flower and Leaf:
Ev'n when the vital sap retreats below,
Ev'n when the hoary head is hid in snow.]
[Footnote 15: The infatuation of the knight is more strongly marked in
the original. He summons his friends to hear his fixed resolution, and
to beg their assistance. He wants no advice, and instead of inviting
them to speak their minds with freedom, he concludes his address with
the words
And synnes ye have heard all mine intent,
I pray you to my wille ye assent.
They do, indeed, offer him counsel where he solicited help, which is a
true stroke of nature on both sides.]
[Footnote 16: Pope gives the real character of Placebo, but sets
probability at defiance in making him parade with boastful effrontery
his own systematic fawning and flattery. Chaucer has not committed the
extravagance. With him Placebo justifies his assentation on the ground
that lords are better informed than their inferiors.
A full great fool is any counsellor
That serveth any lord of high honour,
That dare presume, or once thinken it,
That his counsel should pass his lordes wit.
Nay lordes be no fooles by my fay.
Ye have yourself y-spoken here to-day
So high sentence, so holy, and so well,
That I consent, and confirm every dole
Your wordes all, and your opinion.]
[Footnote 17: The last four lines are interpolated by Pope, and are
again inconsistant with the tenor of Chaucer's narrative. The knight had
notoriously been a dissolute man, and the coarse reflection would be out
of place when the avowed object of his projected marriage was that he
might live more soberly than he had hitherto done.]
[Footnote 18: Seneca.]
[Footnote 19: The qualities specified by Chaucer are whether she is
wise, sober or given to drink, proud or in any other respect unamiable,
a scold or wasteful, rich or poor. "And all this," says Justinus,
"asketh leisure to enquire," which he urges in reply to the announcement
of January that he was determined not to wait.]
[Footnote 20: In Chaucer Justinus does not pronounce decisively against
marriage, but recommends January to consider well before he enters upon
it, and especially before he marries "a young wife and a fair."]
[Footnote 21: This couplet is an addition by Pope. The manly Justinus
says nothing in the original about "offending his noble lord."]
[Footnote 22: Chaucer is more particular in his description:
He portrayed in his heart, and in his thought
Her fresche beauty, and her age tender,
Her middle small, her armes long and slender,
Her wise governance, her gentilnesse
Her womanly bearing, and her sadnesse.--BOWLES.]
[Footnote 23:
For when that he himself concluded had,
He thought each other mannes wit so bad,
That impossible it were to replie
Against his choice; this was his fantasie.]
[Footnote 24: In seeking a wife for him.]
[Footnote 25:
Placebo came, and eke his friendes soon,
And althirfirst he bad them all a boon,
That none of them no argumentes make
Against the purpose which that he had take;
Which purpose was pleasaunt to God said he,
And very ground of his prosperite.]
[Footnote 26: "And may serve my turn" is one of Dryden's familiar
colloquial terms, happily used. Dryden among other excellencies of a
varied style was happy in the use of such terms.--WARTON.
The phrase fails to convey the conception of Chaucer, that the knight
too much smitten by the charms of May to consider anything else of the
slightest importance.
All were it so she were of small degree,
Sufficeth him her youth and her beaute.]
[Footnote 27: The humour is brought out by Chaucer with increased force
from his dwelling with greater detail on the fond conviction of January
that the only risk he runs in marriage is from the excess of the
felicity. He says he stands aghast when he contemplates passing his life
in that perfect peace, and blessedness,
As alle wedded men do with their wives,
and trembles to think that he shall have his heaven upon earth.
This is my dread, and ye my brethren twey
Assoileth me this question I you pray.]
[Footnote 28:
And when they saw that it must needis be,
They wroughten so by sleight and wise treate,
That she, this maiden, which that Maybus hight,
As hastily as ever that she might,
Shall wedded be unto this January.]
[Footnote 29: Dryden's Palamon and Arcite:
For women to the brave an easy prey,
Still follow fortune where she leads the way.]
[Footnote 30: Dryden's Palamon and Arcite: