Transcriber’s Notes
Obvious typographical errors in punctuation have been silently
corrected.
In particular, these typos were corrected:
Page cxxxii - corrected respcet to respect
Page 477 - corrected “feminine from” to “feminine form” in note 2677.
Page 481 - corrected “too” to “two” in note 390.
Footnote 1275 - Added “margin” to linenote for line 2052
The Corrigenda et Addenda have been corrected in place.
All other spelling and punctuation remains unchanged.
Italics are represented thus _italic_, superscripts thus y^n, bold thus
=bold=.
THE COMPLETE WORKS
OF
JOHN GOWER
_G. C. MACAULAY_
* *
THE ENGLISH WORKS
HENRY FROWDE, M.A.
PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
[Illustration]
LONDON, EDINBURGH, AND NEW YORK
[Illustration: MS. FAIRFAX 3, f. 125 v^o. (UPPER PORTION)]
THE COMPLETE WORKS
OF
JOHN GOWER
_EDITED FROM THE MANUSCRIPTS
WITH INTRODUCTIONS, NOTES, AND GLOSSARIES_
BY
G. C. MACAULAY, M.A.
FORMERLY FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE
* *
THE ENGLISH WORKS
(CONFESSIO AMANTIS, PROL.--LIB. V. 1970)
‘O gentile Engleterre, a toi j’escrits.’
Oxford
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
1901
Oxford
PRINTED AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
BY HORACE HART, M.A.
PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY
PREFATORY NOTE
The circumstances under which this edition was undertaken have already
been stated in the Preface to the volume containing the French Works,
where mention is also made of the editor’s obligations to many
librarians and private owners of manuscripts.
At present it need only be said that the editor has become more and
more convinced, as his work went on, of the value and authentic
character of the text given by the Fairfax MS. of the _Confessio
Amantis_, which as proceeding directly from the author, though not
written by his hand, may claim the highest rank as an authority for his
language.
It is hoped that the list of errata, the result chiefly of a revision
made during the formation of the Glossary, may be taken to indicate not
so much the carelessness of the editor, as his desire to be absolutely
accurate in the reproduction of this interesting text.
The analysis of the _Confessio Amantis_ which is printed in the
Introduction, was undertaken chiefly at the suggestion of Dr.
Furnivall. With reference to this it may be observed that in places
where the author is following well-known sources, the summaries are
intentionally briefer, and in the case of some of the Biblical stories
a reference to the original has been thought sufficient.
OXFORD, 1901.
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION vii
CONFESSIO AMANTIS:--
PROLOGUS 1
LIBER I 35
LIBER II 130
LIBER III 226
LIBER IV 301
LIBER V 402
NOTES 457
INTRODUCTION
The _Confessio Amantis_ has been the subject both of exaggerated
praise and of undue depreciation. It was the fashion of the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries to set Gower side by side with Chaucer, and
to represent them as the twin stars of the new English poetry, a view
which, however it may be justified by consideration of their language
and literary tendencies, seems to imply a very uncritical estimate of
their comparative importance. Some of these references are collected
below, and they serve to indicate in a general way that the author had
a great literary reputation and that his book was very popular, the
latter being a conclusion which is sufficiently vouched for also by the
large number of manuscripts which existed, and by the three printed
editions. We shall confine ourselves here to drawing attention to a few
facts of special significance.
In the first place the _Confessio Amantis_ is the earliest English
book which made its way beyond the limits of its own language. There
exists a Spanish translation, dating apparently from the very beginning
of the fifteenth century, in which reference is made also to a
Portuguese version, not known to be now in existence, on which perhaps
the Castilian was based. This double translation into contemporary
languages of the Continent must denote that the writer’s fame was not
merely insular in his life-time.
Secondly, with regard to the position of this book in the sixteenth
century, the expressions used by Berthelette seem to me to imply
something more than a mere formal tribute. This printer, who is
especially distinguished by his interest in language, in the preface
to his edition of the _Confessio Amantis_ most warmly sets forth his
author as a model of pure English, contrasting his native simplicity
with the extravagant affectations of style and language which were then
in fashion. In fact, when we compare the style of Gower in writing
of love with that which we find in some of the books which were at
that time issuing from the press, we cannot help feeling that the
recommendation was justified.
Again, nearly a century later a somewhat striking testimony to the
position of Gower as a standard author is afforded by Ben Jonson’s
_English Grammar_. The syntax contains about a hundred and thirty
illustrative quotations, and of these about thirty are from Gower.
Chaucer is cited twenty-five times, Lydgate and Sir Thomas More each
about fourteen, the other chief authorities being Norton, Jewel, Fox,
Sir John Cheke and the English Bible.
Finally, our author’s popularity and established position as a
story-teller is decisively vouched for by the partly Shakesperian
play of _Pericles_. Plots of plays were usually borrowed without
acknowledgement; but here, a plot being taken from the _Confessio
Amantis_, the opportunity is seized of bringing Gower himself on the
stage to act as Prologue to four out of the five acts, speaking in the
measure of his own octosyllabic couplet,
‘To sing a song that old was sung
From ashes ancient Gower is come,’ &c.
The book was so well known and the author so well established in
reputation, that a play evidently gained credit by connecting itself
with his name.
The following are the principal references to Gower in the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The author of _The King’s
Quair_ dedicates his poem to the memory (or rather to the
poems) of his masters Gower and Chaucer. Hoccleve calls him ‘my
maister Gower,’
‘Whos vertu I am insufficient
For to descrive.’
John Walton of Osney, the metrical translator of Boethius,
writes,
‘To Chaucer, that is flour of rhethorique
In english tonge and excellent poete,
This wot I wel, no thing may I do like,
Though so that I of makinge entermete;
And Gower, that so craftely doth trete
As in his book<es> of moralite,
Though I to hem in makinge am unmete,
Yit moste I schewe it forth that is in me.’
Bokenham in his _Lives of the Saints_ repeatedly speaks of
Gower, Chaucer and Lydgate, the last of whom was then still
living, as the three great lights of English literature. Caxton
printed the _Confessio Amantis_ in 1483, and it seems to have
been one of the most popular productions of his press.
In the sixteenth century Gower appears by the side of Chaucer
in Dunbar’s _Lament for the Makaris_ and in Lindsay’s poems.
Hawes in the _Pastime of Pleasure_ classes him with Chaucer and
his beloved Lydgate, and Skelton introduces him as first in
order of time among the English poets who are mentioned in the
_Garland of Laurel_,
‘I saw Gower that first garnysshed our Englysshe rude,
And maister Chaucer,’ &c.,
a testimony which is not quite consistent with that in the
_Lament for Philip Sparow_,
‘Gower’s Englysh is old
And of no value is told,
His mater is worth gold
And worthy to be enrold.’
Barclay in the Preface of his _Mirour of Good Manners_ (printed
1516) states that he has been desired by his ‘Master,’ Sir
Giles Alington, to abridge and amend the _Confessio Amantis_,
but has declined the task, chiefly on moral grounds. The work
he says would not be suitable to his age and order (he was a
priest and monk of Ely),
‘And though many passages therin be commendable,
Some processes appeare replete with wantonnes:
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
For age it is a folly and jeopardie doubtlesse,
And able for to rayse bad name contagious,
To write, reade or commen of thing venerious.’
Leland had some glimmering perception of the difference between
Chaucer and Gower in literary merit; but Bale suggests that our
author was ‘alter Dantes ac Petrarcha’ (no less), adding the
remark, taken perhaps from Berthelette’s preface, ‘sui temporis
lucerna habebatur ad docte scribendum in lingua vulgari[A].’
In Bullein’s _Dialogue against the Fever Pestilence_ (1564)
Gower is represented as sitting next to the Classical poets,
Homer, Hesiod, Ennius and Lucan. Puttenham in the _Art of
English Poesie_ (1589), and Sidney in the _Defence of Poesie_
(1595), equally class Gower and Chaucer together. The latter,
illustrating his thesis that the first writers of each country
were the poets, says, ‘So among the Romans were Livius
Andronicus and Ennius, so in the Italian language ... the
poets Dante, Boccace and Petrarch, so in our English, Gower
and Chaucer, after whom, encouraged and delighted with their
excellent foregoing, others have followed to beautify our
mother tongue, as well in the same kind as in other arts.’
In Robert Greene’s _Vision_, printed about 1592, Chaucer and
Gower appear as the accepted representatives of the pleasant
and the sententious styles in story-telling, and compete
with one another in tales upon a given subject, the cure of
jealousy. The introduction of Gower into the play of _Pericles,
Prince of Tyre_ has already been referred to.
The uncritical exaggeration of Gower’s literary merits, which formerly
prevailed, has been of some disadvantage to him in modern times. The
comparison with Chaucer, which was so repeatedly suggested, could not
but be unfavourable to him; and modern critics, instead of endeavouring
to appreciate fairly such merits as he has, have often felt called upon
to offer him up as a sacrifice to the honour of Chaucer, who assuredly
needs no such addition to his glory. The true critical procedure is
rather the opposite of this. Gower’s early popularity and reputation
are facts to be reckoned with, in addition to the literary merit which
we in our generation may find in his work, and neither students of
Middle English, nor those who aim at tracing the influences under which
the English language and literature developed during the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries, can afford to leave Gower’s English work out of
their account.
THE ENGLISH WORKS.
i. LITERARY CHARACTERISTICS.--The reason of the success of the
_Confessio Amantis_ was naturally the fact that it supplied a popular
need. After endeavouring to ‘give an account of his stewardship’
in various ways as a moralist, the author at length found his true
vocation, and this time happily in his native tongue, as a teller of
stories. The rest is all machinery, sometimes poetical and interesting,
sometimes tiresome and clumsy, but the stories are the main thing. The
perception of the popular taste may have come to him partly through the
success of Chaucer in the _Legend of Good Women_, and the simple but
excellent narrative style which he thereupon developed must have been
a new revelation of his powers to himself as well as to others. It is
true that he does not altogether drop the character of the moralist,
but he has definitely and publicly resigned the task of setting society
generally to rights,
‘It stant noght in my sufficance
So grete thinges to compasse,
. . . . . . . . .
Forthi the Stile of my writinges
Fro this day forth I thenke change
And speke of thing is noght so strange,’ &c. (i. 4 ff.)
He covers his retreat indeed by dwelling upon the all-pervading
influence of Love in the world and the fact that all the evils of
society may be said to spring from the want of it; but this is little
more than a pretext. Love is the theme partly because it supplies
a convenient framework for the design, and partly perhaps out of
deference to a royal command. There is no reason to doubt the statement
in the first version of the Prologue about the meeting of the author
with Richard II on the river, and that he then received suggestions for
a book, which the king promised to accept and read. It may easily be
supposed that Richard himself suggested love as the subject, being a
matter in which, as we know from Froissart, he was apt to take delight.
‘Adont me demanda le roy de quoy il traittoit. Je luy dis, “D’amours.”
De ceste response fut-il tous resjouys, et regarda dedens le livre en
plusieurs lieux et y lisy[B].’ It was certainly to the credit of the
young king that he should have discerned literary merit in the work of
the grave monitor who had so lectured him upon his duties in the _Vox
Clamantis_, and should have had some part in encouraging him to set his
hand to a more promising task; and if it be the fact that he suggested
love as the subject, we cannot but admire both the sense of humour
displayed by the prince and the address with which our author acquitted
himself of the task proposed.
The idea of the Confession was no doubt taken from the _Roman de la
Rose_, where the priest of Nature, whose name is Genius, hears her
confession; but it must be allowed that Gower has made much better use
of it. Nature occupies herself in expounding the system of the universe
generally, and in confessing at great length not her own faults but
those of Man, whom she repents of having made. Her tone is not at all
that of a penitent, though she may be on her knees, and Genius does
little or nothing for her in reply except to agree rather elaborately
with her view that, if proper precautions had been taken, Mars and
Venus might easily have outwitted Vulcan. Gower on the other hand has
made the Confession into a framework which will conveniently hold any
number of stories upon every possible subject, and at the same time
he has preserved for the most part the due propriety of character
and situation in the two actors. By giving the scheme an apparent
limitation to the subject of love he has not in fact necessarily
limited the range of narrative, for there is no impropriety in
illustrating by a tale the general nature of a vice or virtue before
making the special application to cases which concern lovers, and
this special application, made with all due solemnity, has often a
character of piquancy in which the moral tale pure and simple would be
wanting. Add to this that the form adopted tends itself to a kind of
quasi-religious treatment of the subject, which was fully in accordance
with the taste of the day, and produces much of that impression of
quaintness and charm with which we most of us associate our first
acquaintance with the _Confessio Amantis_.
The success of the work--for a success it is in spite of its
faults--is due to several merits. The first of these is the author’s
unquestionable talent for story-telling. He has little of the dramatic
power or the humour which distinguish Chaucer, but he tells his tales
in a well-ordered and interesting manner, does not break the thread by
digressions, never tires of the story before it is finished, as Chaucer
does so obviously and so often, and carries his reader through with
him successfully to the end in almost every case. His narrative is a
clear, if shallow, stream, rippling pleasantly over the stones and
unbroken either by dams or cataracts. The materials of course are not
original, but Gower is by no means a slavish follower in detail of his
authorities; the proportions and arrangement of the stories are usually
his own and often show good judgement. Moreover he not seldom gives a
fresh turn to a well-known story, as in the instances of Jephthah and
Saul, or makes a pretty addition to it, as is the case in some of the
tales from Ovid. Almost the only story in which the interest really
flags is the longest, the tale of Apollonius of Tyre, which fills up
so much of the eighth book and was taken as the basis of the plot of
_Pericles_; and this was in its original form so loose and rambling
a series of incidents, that hardly any skill could have completely
redeemed it. There is no doubt that this gift of clear and interesting
narrative was the merit which most appealed to the popular taste, the
wholesome appetite for stories being at that time not too well catered
for, and that the plainness of the style was an advantage rather than a
drawback.
Tastes will differ of course as to the merits of the particular
stories, but some may be selected as incontestably good. The tale of
Mundus and Paulina in the first book is excellently told, and so is
that of Alboin and Rosemund. The best of the second book are perhaps
the False Bachelor and the legend of Constantine and Silvester, in the
latter of which the author has greatly improved upon his materials. In
the third book the tale of Canace is most pathetically rendered, far
better than in Ovid, so that in spite of Chaucer’s denunciation his
devoted follower Lydgate could not resist the temptation of borrowing
it. The fourth book, which altogether is of special excellence, gives
us Rosiphelee, Phyllis, and the very poetically told tale of Ceix and
Alceone. The fifth has Jason and Medea, a most admirable example of
sustained narrative, simple and yet effective and poetical, perhaps
on the whole Gower’s best performance: also the oriental tale of
Adrian and Bardus, and the well told story of Tereus and Philomela.
In the seventh we shall find the Biblical story of Gideon excellently
rendered, the Rape of Lucrece, and the tale of Virginia. These may
be taken as specimens of Gower’s narrative power at its best, and by
the degree of effectiveness which he attains in them and the manner
in which he has used his materials, he may fairly be judged as a
story-teller.
As regards style and poetical qualities we find much that is good in
the narratives. Force and picturesqueness certainly cannot be denied to
the tale of Medea, with its description of the summer sea glistening
in the sun, which blazes down upon the returning hero, and from the
golden fleece by his side flashes a signal of success to Medea in her
watch-tower, as she prays for her chosen knight. Still less can we
refuse to recognize the poetical power of the later phases of the same
story, first the midnight rovings of Medea in search of enchantments,
‘The world was stille on every side;
With open hed and fot al bare,
Hir her tosprad sche gan to fare,
Upon hir clothes gert sche was,
Al specheles and on the gras
Sche glod forth as an Addre doth:
Non otherwise sche ne goth,
Til sche cam to the freisshe flod,
And there a while sche withstod.
Thries sche torned hire aboute,
And thries ek sche gan doun loute
And in the flod sche wette hir her,
And thries on the water ther
Sche gaspeth with a drecchinge onde,
And tho sche tok hir speche on honde.’ (v. 3962 ff.),
and again later, when the charms are set in action, 4059 ff., a
passage of extraordinary picturesqueness, but too long to be quoted
here. We do not forget the debt to Ovid, but these descriptions are far
more detailed and forcible than the original.
For a picture of a different kind, also based upon Ovid, we may take
the description of the tears of Lucrece for her husband, and the
reviving beauty in her face when he appears,
‘With that the water in hire yhe
Aros, that sche ne myhte it stoppe,
And as men sen the dew bedroppe
The leves and the floures eke,
Riht so upon hire whyte cheke
The wofull salte teres felle.
Whan Collatin hath herd hire telle
The menynge of hire trewe herte,
Anon with that to hire he sterte,
And seide, “Lo, mi goode diere,
Nou is he come to you hiere,
That ye most loven, as ye sein.”
And sche with goodly chiere ayein
Beclipte him in hire armes smale,
And the colour, which erst was pale,
To Beaute thanne was restored,
So that it myhte noght be mored’ (vii. 4830 ff.),
a passage in which Gower, with his natural taste for simplicity, has
again improved upon his classical authority, and may safely challenge
comparison with Chaucer, who has followed Ovid more literally.
It is worth mention that Gower’s descriptions of storms at sea are
especially vivid and true, so that we are led to suppose that he had
had more than a mere literary acquaintance with such things. Such for
instance is the account of the shipwreck of the Greek fleet, iii. 981
ff., and of the tempests of which Apollonius is more than once the
victim, as viii. 604 ff., and in general nautical terms and metaphors,
of some of which the meaning is not quite clear, seem to come readily
from his pen.
Next to the simple directness of narrative style which distinguishes
the stories themselves, we must acknowledge a certain attractiveness
in the setting of them. The Lover decidedly engages our interest:
we can understand his sorrows and his joys, his depression when his
mistress will not listen to the verses which he has written for her,
and his delight when he hears men speak her praises. We can excuse
his frankly confessed envy, malice and hatred in all matters which
concern his rivals in her love. His feelings are described in a very
natural manner, the hesitation and forgetfulness in her presence, and
the self-reproach afterwards, the eagerness to do her small services,
to accompany her to mass, to lift her into her saddle, to ride by her
carriage, the delight of being present in her chamber, of singing
to her or reading her the tale of Troilus, or if no better may be,
of watching her long and slender fingers at work on her weaving or
embroidery. Sometimes she will not stay with him, and then he plays
with the dog or with the birds in the cage, and converses with the
page of her chamber--anything as an excuse to stay; and when it grows
late and he must perforce depart, he goes indeed, but returns with
the pretence of having forgotten something, in order that he may bid
her good-night once more. He rises in the night and looks out of his
window over the houses towards the chamber where she sleeps, and loses
himself in imagination of the love-thefts which he would commit if by
any necromancy he had the power. Yet he is not extravagantly romantic:
he will go wherever his lady bids him, but he will not range the world
in arms merely in order to gain renown, losing his lady perhaps in the
meantime at home. We take his side when he complains of the Confessor’s
want of feeling for a pain which he does not himself experience, and
his readiness to prescribe for a wound of the heart as if it were a
sore of the heel. Even while we smile, we compassionate the lover who
is at last disqualified on account of age, and recommended to make a
‘beau retret’ while there is yet time.
But there is also another character in whom we are interested, and
that is the lady herself. Gower certainly appreciated something of the
delicacy and poetical refinement which ideal love requires, and this
appreciation he shows also in his _Balades_; but here we have something
more than this. The figure of the lady, which we see constantly in the
background of the dialogue, is both attractive and human. We recognize
in her a creature of flesh and blood, no goddess indeed, as her lover
himself observes, but a charming embodiment of womanly grace and
refinement. She is surrounded by lovers, but she is wise and wary. She
is courteous and gentle, but at the same time firm: she will not gladly
swear, and therefore says nay without an oath, but it is a decisive
nay to any who are disposed to presume. She does not neglect her
household duties merely because a lover insists upon hanging about her,
but leaves him to amuse himself how he may, while she busies herself
elsewhere. If she has leisure and can sit down to her embroidery, he
may read to her if he will, but it must be some sound romance, and not
his own rondels, balades, and virelays in praise of her. Custom allows
him to kiss her when he takes his leave, but if he comes back on any
pretext and takes his leave again, there is not often a second kiss
permitted. She lets him lead her up to the offering in church, and
ride by her side when she drives out, but she will take no presents
from him, though with some of her younger admirers, whose passion she
knows is a less serious matter, she is not so strict, but takes and
gives freely. Even the description of her person is not offensive, as
such descriptions almost always are. Her lover suspects that her soul
may be in a perilous state, seeing that she has the power of saving a
man’s life and yet suffers him to die, but he admits there is no more
violence in her than in a child of three years old, and her words are
as pleasant to him as the winds of the South. Usurious dealing is a
vice of which he ventures to accuse her, seeing that he has given her
his whole heart in return for a single glance of her eye, and she holds
to the bargain and will not give heart for heart; but then, as the
Confessor very justly replies, ‘she may be such that her one glance is
worth thy whole heart many times over,’ and so he has sold his heart
profitably, having in return much more than it is worth.
However, the literary characteristic which is perhaps most remarkable
in the _Confessio Amantis_ is connected rather with the form of
expression than with the subject-matter. No justice is done to Gower
unless it is acknowledged that the technical skill which he displays
in his verse and the command which he has over the language for his
own purposes is very remarkable. In the ease and naturalness of
his movement within the fetters of the octosyllabic couplet he far
surpasses his contemporaries, including Chaucer himself. Certain
inversions of order and irregularities of construction he allows
himself, and there are many stop-gaps of the conventional kind in the
ordinary flow of his narrative; but in places where the matter requires
it, his admirable management of the verse paragraph, the metrical
smoothness of his lines, attained without unnatural accent or forced
order of words, and the neatness with which he expresses exactly what
he has to say within the precise limits which he lays down for himself,
show a finished mastery of expression which is surprising in that age
of half-developed English style, and in a man who had trained himself
rather in French and Latin than in English composition. Such a sentence
as the following, for example, seems to flow from him with perfect
ease, there is no halting in the metre, no hesitation or inversion for
the sake of the rhyme, it expresses just what it has to express, no
more and no less:
’Til that the hihe king of kinges,
Which seth and knoweth alle thinges,
Whos yhe mai nothing asterte,--
The privetes of mannes herte
Thei speke and sounen in his Ere
As thogh thei lowde wyndes were,--
He tok vengance upon this pride.’ (i. 2803 ff.)
Or again, as an example of a more colloquial kind,
‘And if thei techen to restreigne
Mi love, it were an ydel peine
To lerne a thing which mai noght be.
For lich unto the greene tree,
If that men toke his rote aweie,
Riht so myn herte scholde deie,
If that mi love be withdrawe.’ (iv. 2677 ff.)
There is nothing remarkable about the sentiment or expression in
these passages, but they are perfectly simple and natural, and run
into rhyming verse without disturbance of sense or accent; but such
technical skill as we have here is extremely rare among the writers of
the time. Chaucer had wider aims, and being an artist of an altogether
superior kind, he attains, when at his best, to a higher level of
achievement in versification as in other things; but he is continually
attempting more than he can perform, he often aims at the million
and misses the unit. His command over his materials is evidently
incomplete, and he has not troubled himself to acquire perfection of
craftsmanship, knowing that other things are more important,
‘And that I do no diligence
To shewe craft but o sentence.’
The result is that the most experienced reader often hesitates in his
metre and is obliged to read lines over twice or even thrice, before
he can satisfy himself how the poet meant his words to be accented and
what exactly was the rhythm he intended. In fact, instead of smoothing
the way for his reader, he often deliberately chooses to spare himself
labour by taking every advantage, fair or unfair, of those licences of
accent and syllable suppression for which the unstable condition of
the literary language afforded scope. The reader of Gower’s verse is
never interrupted in this manner except by the fault of a copyist or an
editor; and when we come to examine the means by which the smoothness
is attained, we feel that we have to do with a literary craftsman who
by laborious training has acquired an almost perfect mastery over his
tools. The qualities of which we are speaking are especially visible
in the more formal style of utterance which belongs to the speeches,
letters and epitaphs in our author’s tales. The reply of Constance to
her questioner (ii. 1148 ff.) is a good example of the first:
‘Quod sche, “I am
A womman wofully bestad.
I hadde a lord, and thus he bad,
That I forth with my litel Sone
Upon the wawes scholden wone,
Bot what the cause was, I not:
Bot he which alle thinges wot
Yit hath, I thonke him, of his miht
Mi child and me so kept upriht,
That we be save bothe tuo.”’
And as longer instances we may point to the reflexions of the Emperor
Constantine near the end of the same book (ii. 3243 ff.), and the
prayer of Cephalus (iv. 3197-3252). The letters of Canace and of
Penelope are excellent, each in its own way, and the epitaphs of Iphis
(iv. 3674 ff.) and of Thaise (viii. 1533 ff.) are both good examples of
the simple yet finished style, e.g.
‘Hier lith, which slowh himself, Iphis,
For love of Araxarathen:
And in ensample of tho wommen,
That soffren men to deie so,
Hire forme a man mai sen also,
Hou it is torned fleissh and bon
Into the figure of a Ston:
He was to neysshe and sche to hard.
Be war forthi hierafterward;
Ye men and wommen bothe tuo,
Ensampleth you of that was tho.’ (iv. 3674 ff.)
In a word, the author’s literary sphere may be a limited one, and his
conception of excellence within that sphere may fall very far short
of the highest standard, but such as his ideals are, he is able very
completely to realize them. The French and English elements of the
language, instead of still maintaining a wilful strife, as is so often
the case in Chaucer’s metre, are here combined in harmonious alliance.
More especially we must recognize the fact that in Gower’s English
verse we have a consistent and for the moment a successful attempt
to combine the French syllabic with the English accentual system of
metre, and this without sacrificing the purity of the language as
regards forms of words and grammatical inflexion. We shall see in our
subsequent investigations how careful and ingenious he is in providing
by means of elision and otherwise for the legitimate suppression of
those weak terminations which could not find a place as syllables in
the verse without disturbing its accentual flow, while at the same time
the sense of their existence was not to be allowed to disappear. The
system was too difficult and complicated to be possible except for a
specially trained hand, and Gower found no successor in his enterprise;
but the fact that the attempt was made is at least worthy of note.
With considerable merits both of plan and execution the _Confessio
Amantis_ has also no doubt most serious faults. The scheme itself,
with its conception of a Confessor who as priest has to expound a
system of morality, while as a devotee of Venus he is concerned only
with the affairs of love (i. 237-280), can hardly be called altogether
a consistent or happy one. The application of morality to matters
of love and of love to questions of morality is often very forced,
though it may sometimes be amusing in its gravity. The Confessor is
continually forgetting one or the other of his two characters, and the
moralist is found justifying unlawful love or the servant of Venus
singing the praises of virginity. Moreover the author did not resist
the temptation to express his views on society in a Prologue which
is by no means sufficiently connected with the general scheme of the
poem, though it is in part a protest against division and discord,
that is to say, lack of love. Still worse is the deliberate departure
from the general plan which we find in the seventh book, where on
pretence of affording relief and recreation to the wearied penitent,
the Confessor, who says that he has little or no understanding except
of love, is allowed to make a digression which embraces the whole
field of human knowledge, but more especially deals with the duties of
a king, a second political pamphlet in fact, in which the stories of
kings ruined by lust or insolence, of Sardanapalus, Rehoboam, Tarquin,
and the rest, are certainly intended to some extent as an admonition of
the author’s royal patron. The petition addressed to Rehoboam by his
people against excessive taxation reads exactly like one of the English
parliamentary protests of the period against the extravagant demands
of the crown. Again, the fifth book, which even without this would be
disproportionately long, contains an absolutely unnecessary account of
the various religions of the world, standing there apparently for no
reason except to show the author’s learning, and reaching the highest
pitch of grotesque absurdity when the Confessor occupies himself in
demolishing the claim of Venus to be accounted a goddess, and that too
without even the excuse of having forgotten for the moment that he is
supposed to be her priest. Minor excrescences of the same kind are to
be found in the third book, where the lawfulness of war is discussed,
and in the fourth, where there is a dissertation on the rise of the
Arts, and especially of Alchemy. All that can be said is that these
digressions were very common in the books of the age--the _Roman de
la Rose_, at least in the part written by Jean de Meun, is one of the
worst offenders.
Faults of detail it would be easy enough to point out. The style is
at times prosaic and the matter uninteresting, the verse is often eked
out with such commonplace expressions and helps to rhyme as were used
by the writers of the time, both French or English. Sometimes the
sentences are unduly spun out or the words and clauses are awkwardly
transposed for the sake of the uninterrupted smoothness of the verse.
The attainment of this object moreover is not always an advantage, and
sometimes the regularity of the metre and the inevitable recurrence of
the rhyme produces a tiresome result. On the whole however the effect
is not unpleasing, ‘the ease and regularity with which the verse flows
breathes a peaceful contentment, which communicates itself to the
reader, and produces the same effect upon the ear as the monotonous
but not wearisome splashing of a fountain[C].’ Moreover, as has
already been pointed out, when the writer is at his best, the rhyme is
kept duly in the background, and the paragraph is constructed quite
independently of the couplet, so that this form of metre proves often
to be a far better vehicle for the narrative than might have been at
first supposed.
ii. DATE AND CIRCUMSTANCES.--The _Confessio Amantis_ in its earliest
form bears upon the face of it the date 1390 (Prol. 331 _margin_)[D],
and we have no reason to doubt that this was the year in which it was
first completed. The author tells us that it was written at the command
of King Richard II, whom he met while rowing on the Thames at London,
and who invited him to come into his barge to speak with him. It is
noticeable, however, that even this first edition has a dedication to
Henry earl of Derby, contained in the Latin lines at the end of the
poem[E], so that it is not quite accurate to say that the dedication
was afterwards changed, but rather that this dedication was made more
prominent and introduced into the text of the poem, while at the same
time the personal reference to the king in the Prologue was suppressed.
If the date referred to above had been observed by former editors,
the speculations first of Pauli and then of Professor Hales, tending
to throw back the completion of the first recension of the _Confessio
Amantis_ to the year 1386, or even 1383, would have been spared. Their
conclusions rest, moreover, on the purest guess-work. The former argues
that the preface and the epilogue[F] in their first form date from
the year 1386, because from that year the king (who was then nineteen
years old) ‘developed those dangerous qualities which estranged from
him, amongst others, the poet’; and Professor Hales (_Athenæum_, Dec.
1881) contends that the references to the young king’s qualities as a
ruler, ‘Justice medled with pite,’ &c. certainly point to the years
immediately succeeding the Peasants’ revolt (a time when Gower did not
regard him as a responsible ruler at all, but excuses him for the evil
proceedings of the government on account of his tender age)[G], that
the reference to Richard’s desire to establish peace (viii. 3014* ff.)
_must_ belong to the period of the negotiations with the French and
the subsequent truce, 1383-84, though Professor Hales is himself quite
aware that negotiations for peace were proceeding also in 1389, and
finally that the mention of ‘the newe guise of Beawme’ must indicate
the very year succeeding the king’s marriage to Anne of Bohemia in
1382, whereas in fact the Bohemian fashions would no doubt continue to
prevail at court, and still be accounted new, throughout the queen’s
lifetime. It is on such grounds as these that we are told that the
_Confessio Amantis_ in its first form _cannot_ have been written later
than the year 1385 and was probably as early as 1383.
All such conjectures are destroyed by the fact that the manuscripts of
the first recension bear the date 1390 at the place cited, and though
this does not absolutely exclude a later date for the completion of the
book, it is decisive against an earlier one. Moreover, the fact that in
the final recension this date is omitted (and deliberately omitted, as
we know from the erasure in the Fairfax MS.) points to the conclusion
that it is to be regarded definitely as a date of publication, and
therefore was inappropriate for a later edition.
This conclusion agrees entirely with the other indications, and they
are sufficiently precise, though the fact that one of these also
has unluckily escaped the notice of the editors has caused it to be
generally overlooked[H].
The form of epilogue which was substituted for that of the first
recension, and in which the over-sanguine praise of Richard as a ruler
is cancelled, bears in the margin the date of the fourteenth year of
his reign (viii. 2973 _margin_), ‘Hic in anno quarto decimo Regis
Ricardi orat pro statu regni,’ &c. Now the fourteenth year of King
Richard II was from June 21, 1390, to the same day of 1391. We must
therefore suppose that the change in this part of the book took place,
in some copies at least, within a few months of its first completion.
Thirdly, we have an equally precise date for the alteration in the
Prologue, by which all except a formal mention of Richard II is
excluded, while the dedication to Henry of Lancaster is introduced into
the text of the poem; and here the time indicated is the sixteenth year
of King Richard (Prol. 25), a date which appears also in the margin of
some copies here and at l. 97, so that we may assume that this final
change of form took place in the year 1392-93, that is, not later than
June 1393.
Having thus every step dated for us by the author, we may, if we think
it worth while, proceed to conjecture what were the political events
which suggested his action; but in such a case as this it is evidently
preposterous to argue first from the political conditions, of which as
they personally affected our author and his friends we can only be very
imperfectly informed, and then to endeavour to force the given dates
into accordance with our own conclusions[I].
It will be observed from the above dates that we are led to infer two
stages of alteration, and the expectation is raised of finding the poem
in some copies with the epilogue rewritten but the preface left in its
original state. This expectation is fulfilled. The Bodley MS. 294 gives
a text of this kind, and it is certain that there were others of the
same form, for Berthelette used for his edition a manuscript of this
kind, which was not identical with that which we have.
In discussing the import of the various changes introduced by the
author it is of some importance to bear in mind the fact already
mentioned that even the first issue of the _Confessio Amantis_ had a
kind of dedication to Henry of Lancaster in the Latin lines with which
it concluded,
‘Derbeie comiti, recolunt quem laude periti,
Vade liber purus sub eo requiesce futurus.’
This seems rather to dispose of the idea that a dedication to Henry
would be inconsistent with loyalty to Richard, a suggestion which would
hardly have been made in the year 1390, or even 1393. No doubt those
copies which contained in the preface the statement that the book
was written at the command of the king and for his sake, and in the
epilogue the presentation of the completed book to him (3050* ff.),
if they had also appended to them the Latin lines which commend the
work to the earl of Derby, may be said to have contained in a certain
sense a double dedication, the compliment being divided between the
king and his brilliant cousin, and very probably a copy which was
intended for the court would be without the concluding lines, as we
find to be the case with some manuscripts; but the suggestion that the
expressions of loyalty and the praises of Richard as a ruler which
we find in the first epilogue are properly to be called inconsistent
with a dedication of the poem to Henry of Lancaster, his cousin and
counsellor, is plausible only in the light of later events, which
could not be foreseen by the poet, in the course of which Henry became
definitely the opponent of Richard and finally took the lead in
deposing him. It is true that the earl of Derby had been one of the
lords appellant in 1387, but after the king’s favourites had been set
aside, he was for the time reconciled to Richard, and he could not in
any sense be regarded as the leader of an opposition party. That Gower,
when he became disgusted with Richard II, should have set Henry’s
name in the Prologue in place of that of the king, as representing
his ideal of knighthood and statesmanship, may be regarded either as
a coincidence with the future events, or as indicating that Gower had
some discrimination in selecting a possible saviour of society; but it
is certain that at this time the poet can have had no definite idea
that his hero would become a candidate for the throne.
The political circumstances of the period during which the _Confessio
Amantis_ was written and revised are not very easy to disentangle. We
may take it as probable that the plan of its composition, under the
combined influence of Chaucer’s _Legend of Good Women_[J] and of the
royal command, may have been laid about the year 1386. Before this time
Richard would scarcely have been regarded by Gower as responsible for
the government, and he would naturally look hopefully upon the young
sovereign, then just entering upon his duties, as one who with proper
admonition and due choice of advisers might turn out to be a good
ruler. During the succeeding years the evil counsellors of the king
were removed by the action of the lords appellant and the Parliament,
and in the year 1389 a moderate and national policy seemed to have been
finally adopted by the king, with William of Wykeham as Chancellor
and the young earl of Derby, who had been one of the appellants but
had quarrelled with his uncle Gloucester, among the king’s trusted
advisers. By the light of subsequent events Gower condemned the whole
behaviour of the king during this period as malicious and treacherous,
but this could hardly have been his judgement of it at the time, for
Richard’s dissimulation, if dissimulation it were, was deep enough
to deceive all parties. Consequently, up to the year 1390 at least,
he may have continued, though with some misgivings, to trust in
the king’s good intentions and to regard him as a ruler who might
effectually heal the divisions of the land, as he had already taken
steps to restore peace to it outwardly. It is quite possible also that
something may have come to his knowledge in the course of the year
1390-91 which shook his faith. It was at this time, in July 1390, just
at the beginning of the fourteenth year of King Richard, that his
hero the earl of Derby left the court and the kingdom to exercise his
chivalry in Prussia, and for this there may have been a good reason.
We know too little in detail of the events of the year to be able to
say exactly what causes of jealousy may have arisen between the king
and his cousin, who was nearly exactly of an age with him and seems to
have attracted much more attention than Richard himself at the jousts
of St. Inglevert in May of this year. Whatever feeling there may have
been on the side of the earl of Derby would doubtless reflect itself
in the minds of his friends and supporters, and something of this kind
may have deepened into certitude the suspicions which Gower no doubt
already had in his heart of the ultimate intentions of Richard II. The
result was that in some copies at least of the _Confessio Amantis_ the
concluding praises of the king as a ruler were removed and lines of a
more general character on the state of the kingdom and the duties of
a king were substituted, but still there was no mention of the earl
of Derby except as before in the final Latin lines. Two years later,
1392-93, when the earl of Derby had fairly won his spurs and at the age
of twenty-five might be regarded as a model of chivalry, the mention of
Richard as the suggester of the work was removed, and the name of Henry
set in the text as the sole object of the dedication.
The date sixteenth year must certainly be that of this last change,
but the occasion doubtless was the sending of a presentation copy to
Henry, and this would hardly amount to publication. The author probably
did not feel called upon publicly to affront the king by removing
his name and praises, either at the beginning or the end, from the
copies generally issued during his reign. Whether or not this conduct
justifies the charge of time-serving timidity, which has been made
against Gower, I cannot undertake to decide. He was, however, in fact
rather of an opposite character, even pedantically stiff in passing
judgement severely on those in high places, and not bating a syllable
of what he thought proper for himself to say or for a king to hear,
though while the king was young and might yet shake himself free from
evil influences he was willing to take as favourable a view of his
character as possible. Probably he was for some time rather in two
minds about the matter, but in any case ‘timid and obsequious’ are
hardly the right epithets for the author of the _Vox Clamantis_.
Before leaving this subject something should perhaps be said upon a
matter which has attracted no little attention, namely the supposed
quarrel between the author of the _Confessio Amantis_ and Chaucer.
It is well known that the first recension of our poem has a passage
referring to Chaucer in terms of eulogy (viii. 2941*-57*), and that
this was omitted when the epilogue was rewritten. This fact has been
brought into connexion with the apparent reference to Gower in the
_Canterbury Tales_, where the Man of Law in the preamble to his tale
disclaims on Chaucer’s behalf such ‘cursed stories’ as those of Canace
and Apollonius, because they treat of incest. It has been thought that
this was meant for a serious attack on Gower, and that he took offence
at it and erased the praise of Chaucer from the _Confessio Amantis_.
It is known of course that the two poets were on personally friendly
terms, not only from the dedication of _Troilus_, but from the fact
that when Chaucer was sent on a mission to the Continent in 1378, he
appointed Gower one of his attorneys in his absence. It is possible
that their friendship was interrupted by a misunderstanding, but it may
be doubted whether there is sufficient proof of this in the facts which
have been brought forward.