Nought may the woful spirit in myn herte
Declare o point of all my sorwes smerte
To you, my lady, that I love most;
But I bequethe the service of my gost
To you aboven every creature,
Sin that my lif ne may no longer dure.
Alas the wo! alas the peines stronge
That I for you have suffered, and so longe!
Alas the deth! Alas min Emilie!
Alas departing of our compagnie!
Alas min hertes quene! alas my wif!
My hertes ladie, ender of my lif!
What is this world? what axen men to have?
Now with his love, now in his colde grave
Alone withouten any compagnie.
Farewel my swete, farewel min Emilie,
And softe take me in your armes twey,
For love of God, and herkeneth what I sey.
I have here with my cosin Palamon
Had strif and rancour many a day agon
For love of you, and for my jealousie.
And Jupiter so wis my soule gie,
To speken of a servant proprely,
With alle circumstance trewely,
That is to sayn, trouth, honour, and knighthede,
Wisdom, humblesse, estat, and high kinrede,
Fredom, and all that longeth to that art,
So Jupiter have of my soule part,
As in this world right now ne know I non
So worthy to be loved as Palamon,
That serveth you, and wol don all his lif.
And if that ever ye shal ben a wif,
Foryete not Palamon, the gentil man.
And with that word his speech faille began.
For from his feet up to his brest was come
The cold of death, which had him overnome.
And yet moreover in his armes two,
The vital strength is lost, and all ago.
Only the intellect, withouten more,
That dwelled in his herte sike and sore,
Gan faillen, whan the herte felte deth;
Dusked his eyen two, and failled his breth.
But on his ladie yet cast he his eye;
His laste word was: Mercy, Emilie!
His spirit changed hous, and wente ther,
As I came never I cannot tellen wher.
Therefore I stent, I am no divinistre;
Of soules find I not in this registre.
Ne me lust not th' opinions to telle
Of hem, though that they writen wher they dwelle.
Arcite is cold, ther Mars his soule gie.
Now wol I speken forth of Emilie.
Shright Emilie, and houleth Palamon,
And Theseus his sister toke anon
Swouning, and bare hire from the corps away.
What helpeth it to tarien forth the day,
To tellen how she wep both even and morwe?
For in swiche cas wimmen haven swiche sorwe,
Whan that hir housbondes ben fro hem ago,
That for the more part they sorwen so,
Or elles fallen in swiche maladie,
That atte laste certainly they die.
Infinite ben the sorwes and the teres
Of olde folk, and folk of tendre years
In all the toun for deth of this Theban:
For him, ther wepeth bothe child and man:
So gret a weping was there non certain,
When Hector was ybrought, all fresh yslain
To Troy: alas! the pitee that was there,
Cratching of chekes, rending eke of here.
Why woldest thou be ded? the women crie,
And haddest gold enough, and Emilie.
The death of Arcite is one of the scenes for which the admirers of
Chaucer feel themselves entitled to claim, that it shall be judged in
comparison with analogous passages of the poets that stand highest in
the renown of natural and pathetic delineation. The dying words of the
hero are as _proper_ as if either great classical master of epic
propriety--the Chian or the Mantuan--had left them to us. They are
thoroughly sad, thoroughly loving, and supremely magnanimous. They have
a perfect simplicity of purpose. They take the last leave of his Emelie;
and they find for her, if ever she shall choose to put off her
approaching estate of unwedded widowhood, a fit husband. They have
answerable simplicity of sentiment and of language. He is unable to
utter any particle of the pain which he feels in quitting her; but since
the service which living he pays her, draws to an end, he pledges to her
in the world whither he is going, the constant love-fealty of his
disembodied spirit. He recalls to her, with a word only, the long
love-torments he has endured for her, exchanged, in the hour when they
should have been crowned with possession, for the pains of death. He
heaps endearing names upon her. He glances at the vanity of human wishes
imaged in himself, and he bids her farewell. That is his first
heart-offering towards herself. Can a death-severed heart's elocution be
imitated more aptly, more touchingly? He then turns to praising his
rival. The jealousy, which had so long been the madness of both, filling
the two kindred, brotherly, once-affectionate bosoms with hate, has, in
his, melted away with life, thence melting away; and Arcite, with his
last intelligible breath, describes Palamon briefly, point by point, as
he knew him when he best loved him. He does not implore Emelie to remain
for his sake single. He does not pretend, if she shall marry, to govern
her choice; but he simply requests her, if the season shall ever arrive
of such a choice, that she will not "forget Palamon." But the
death-frost creeps on--his eyes darken--and the suspiration which
finally wafts the soul from the body, beseeches the favour of her, only
to earn whose favour he lived, and with earning whose favour he dies.
Her name leaves his lips last. Could Shakspeare have helped Chaucer? The
whole speech is admirably direct and short. We shall presently have to
deal with one from the same poem, which wants that virtue.
The clamorous outbreak that follows, first of the private, and,
supervening upon that, of the public grief, if not altogether couched in
Homeric phraseology or numbers, has an air, however, of the Homeric
painting. But, indeed, neither is the language deficient in fanciful
significancy, nor the measure in good old melody.