(Vol. iii., pp. 131. 133.)
I am glad to perceive that some of the correspondents of "NOTES AND
QUERIES" are turning their attention to the elucidation of Chaucer. The
text of our father-poet, having remained as it were in fallow since the
time of Tyrwhitt, now presents a rich field for industry; and, in offering
free port and entry to all comments and suggestions, to be there sifted and
garnered up, the pages of "NOTES AND QUERIES" may soon become a depository
from which ample materials may be obtained for a new edition of Chaucer,
now become an acknowledged desideratum.
One excellent illustration has lately been added, at page 133., in a note
without signature upon "Nettle in, dock out." If _confirmed_[1], it will
furnish not only a most satisfactory explanation of that hitherto
incomprehensible phrase, but also a curious example of the faithful
preservation of an exact form of words through centuries of oral tradition.
And if the note which precedes it, at page 131., upon a passage in Palamon
and Arcite, is less valuable, it is because it is deficient in one of the
most essential conditions which such communications ought to possess--that
of originality. No suggestion ought to be offered which had been previously
published in connexion with the same subject: at least in any _very
obvious_ place of reference, such as notes or glossaries already appended
to well-known editions of the text.
Now the precise explanation of the planetary distribution of the
twenty-four hours of the day, given by [Greek: e]. in the first portion of
his communication, was anticipated seventy or eighty years ago by Tyrwhitt
in his note upon the same passage of Palamon and Arcite. And with respect
to [Greek: e].'s second explanation of the meaning of "houre inequal," that
expression also has been commented upon by Tyrwhitt, who attributes it to
the well-known expansive duration of ancient hours, the length of which was
regulated by that of the natural day at the several seasons of the year:
hence an _inequality_ always existed; except at the equinoxes, between
hours before, and hours after, sunrise. This is undoubtedly the true
explanation, since Chaucer was, at the time, referring to hours before and
after sunrise upon the same day. On the contrary, [Greek: e].'s ecliptic
hours, if they ever existed at all (he has cited no authority), would be
obviously incompatible with the planetary disposition of the hours first
referred to.
I shall now, in my turn, suggest explanations of the two new difficulties
in Chaucer's text, to {202} which, at the conclusion of his note, [Greek:
e]. has drawn attention.
The first is, that, "with respect to the time of year at which the
tournament takes place, there seems to be an inconsistency." Theseus fixes
"this day fifty wekes" from the fourth of May, as the day on which the
final contention must come off, and yet the day previous to the final
contention is afterwards alluded to as "the lusty seson of that May,"
which, it is needless to say, would be inconsistent with an interval of
fifty _ordinary_ weeks.
But fifty weeks, if taken in their literal sense of 350 days, would be a
most unmeaning interval for Theseus to fix upon,--it would almost require
explanation as much as the difficulty itself: it is therefore much easier
to suppose that Chaucer meant to imply the interval of a solar year. Why he
should choose to express that interval by fifty, rather than by fifty-two,
weeks, may be surmised in two ways: first, because the latter phrase would
be unpoetical and unmanageable; and, secondly, because he might fancy that
the week of the Pagan Theseus would be more appropriately represented by a
lunar quarter than by a Jewish hebdomad.
Chaucer sometimes makes the strangest jumble--mixing up together Pagan
matters and Christian, Roman and Grecian, ancient and modern; so that
although he names Sunday and Monday as two of the days of the week in
Athens, he does so evidently for the purpose of introducing the allocation
of the hours, alluded to before, to which the planetary names of the days
of the week were absolutely necessary. But in the fifty weeks appointed by
Theseus, the very same love of a little display of erudition would lead
Chaucer to choose the _hebdomas lunæ_, or lunar quarter, which the Athenian
youth were wont to mark out by the celebration of a feast to Apollo on
every seventh day of the moon. But after the first twenty-eight days of
every lunar month, the weekly reckoning must have been discontinued for
about a day and a half (when the new moon was what was called "in coitu,"
or invisible), after which a new reckoning of sevens would recommence.
Hence there could be but four hebdomades in each lunar month; and as there
are about twelve and a half lunar months in a solar year, so must there
have been fifty lunar weeks in one solar year.
It will explain many anomalies, even in Shakspeare, if we suppose that our
early writers were content to show their knowledge of a subject in a few
particulars, and were by no means solicitous to preserve, what moderns
would call _keeping_, in the whole performance.
The next difficulty, adverted to by [Greek: e]., is the mention of the
THIRD as the morning upon which Palamon "brake his prison," and Arcite went
into the woods "to don his observaunce to May."
There is not perhaps in the whole of Chaucer's writings a more exquisite
passage than that by which the latter circumstance is introduced; it is
well worth transcribing:--
"The besy larke, the messager of day,
Sal[=e]weth in hire song the morw[=e] gray;
And firy Phebus riseth up so bright,
That all the orient laugheth at the sight;
And with his strem[=e]s drieth in the greves
The silver drop[=e]s hanging on the leves."
Such is the description of the morning of the "thridde of May;" and
perhaps, if no other mention of that date were to be found throughout
Chaucer's works, we might be justified in setting it down as a random
expression, to which no particular meaning was attached. But when we find
it repeated in an entirely different poem, and the same "observaunce to
May" again associated with it, the conviction is forced upon us that it
cannot be without some definite meaning.
This repetition occurs in the opening of the second book of _Troilus and
Creseide_, where "the thridde" has not only "observaunce to May" again
attributed to it, but also apparently some peculiar virtue in dreams. No
sooner does Creseide behold Pandarus on the morning of the third of May,
than "_by the hond on hie, she tooke him fast_," and tells him that she had
thrice dreamed of him that night. Pandarus replies in what appears to have
been a set form of words suitable to the occasion--
"Yea, nece, ye shall faren well the bet,
If God wull, all this yeare."
Now unless the third of May were supposed to possess some unusual virtue,
the dreaming on that morning could scarcely confer a whole year's welfare.
But, be that as it may, there can at least be no doubt that Chaucer
designedly associated _some_ celebration of the advent of May with the
morning of the third of that month.
Without absolutely asserting that my explanation is the true one, I may
nevertheless suggest it until some better may be offered. It is, that the
association may have originated in the invocation of the goddess Flora, by
Ovid, on that day (_Fasti_, v.), in order that she might inspire him with
an explanation of the Floralia, or Floral games, which were celebrated in
Rome from the 28th of April to the _third_ of May.
These games, if transferred by Chaucer to Athens, would at once explain the
"gret feste" and the "lusty seson of that May."
Supposing, then, that Chaucer, in the _Knight's Tale_, meant, as I think he
meant, to place the great combat on the anniversary of the fourth of
May--that being the day on which Theseus had intercepted the duel,--then
the entry into Athens of the rival companies would take place on {203}
(Sunday) the second, and the sacrifices and feasting on the _third of May_,
the last of the Floralia.