is dealt with regularly under five principal heads, or, as the author
expresses it, has five daughters. Now this fivefold division is
not, so far as I can discover, borrowed from any former writer. It
is of course quite usual in moral treatises to deal with the deadly
sins by way of subdivision, but usually the number of subdivisions
is irregular, and I have not found any authority for the systematic
division of each into five. The only work, so far as I know, which
shares this characteristic with the _Mirour_ is the _Confessio
Amantis_. It is true that in this the rule is not fully carried out;
the nature of the work did not lend itself so easily to a quite regular
treatment, and considerable variations occur: but the principle which
stands as the basis of the arrangement is clearly visible, and it is
the same which we find in our _Mirour_.
This is a point which it is worth while to exhibit a little more at
large, and here the divisions of the first three deadly sins are set
forth in parallel columns:
_Mirour de l’omme._ | _Confessio Amantis._
i. Orguil, with five daughters, viz. |i. Pride, with five ministers, viz.
Ipocresie | Ypocrisie
Vaine gloire | Inobedience
Surquiderie | Surquiderie
Avantance | Avantance
Inobedience. | Veine gloire.
|
ii. Envie |ii. Envie
Detraccioun | Dolor alterius gaudii
Dolour d’autry Joye | Gaudium alterius doloris
Joye d’autry mal | Detraccioun
Supplantacioun | Falssemblant
Fals semblant. | Supplantacioun.
|
iii. Ire |iii. Ire
Malencolie | Malencolie
Tençoun | Cheste
Hange | Hate
Contek | Contek
Homicide. | Homicide.
In the latter part of the _Confessio Amantis_ the fivefold division is
not strictly observed, and in some books the author does not profess to
deal with all the branches; but in what is given above there is quite
enough to show that this method of division was recognized and that the
main headings are the same in the two works.
Next we may compare the classes of society given in the _Mirour_ with
those that we find in the _Vox Clamantis_. It is not necessary to
exhibit these in a tabular form; it is enough to say that with some
trifling differences of arrangement the enumeration is the same. In the
_Vox Clamantis_ the estate of kings stands last, because the author
wished to conclude with a lecture addressed personally to Richard II;
and the merchants, artificers and labourers come before the judges,
lawyers, sheriffs, &c., because it is intended to bring these last into
connexion with the king; but otherwise there is little or no difference
even in the smallest details. The contents of the ‘third part’ of the
_Mirour_, dealing with prelates and dignitaries of the Church and with
the parish clergy, correspond to those of the third book of the _Vox
Clamantis_; the fourth part, which treats of those under religious
rule, Possessioners and Mendicants, is parallel to the fourth book
of the Latin work. In the _Mirour_ as in the _Vox Clamantis_ we have
the division of the city population into Merchants, Artificers and
Victuallers, and of the ministers of the law into Judges, Advocates,
Viscounts (sheriffs), Bailiffs, and Jurymen. Moreover what is said of
the various classes is in substance usually the same, most notably so
in the case of the parish priests and the tradesmen of the town; but
parallels of this kind will be most conveniently pointed out in the
Notes.
To proceed, the _Mirour_ will be found to contain a certain number of
stories, and of those that we find there by much the greater number
reappear in the _Confessio Amantis_ with a similar application. We have
the story of the envious man who desired to lose one eye in order that
his comrade might be deprived of two (l. 3234), of Socrates and his
scolding wife (4168), of the robbery from the statue of Apollo (7093),
of Lazarus and Dives (7972), of Ulysses and the Sirens (10909), of the
emperor Valentinian (17089), of Sara the daughter of Raguel (17417),
of Phirinus, the young man who defaced his beauty in order that he
might not be a temptation to women (18301), of Codrus king of Athens
(19981), of Nebuchadnezzar’s pride and punishment (21979), of the king
and his chamberlains (22765). All these are found in the _Mirour_, and
afterwards, more fully related as a rule, in the _Confessio Amantis_.
Only one or two, the stories of St. Macaire and the devil (12565,
20905), of the very undeserving person who was relieved by St. Nicholas
(15757), of the dishonest man who built a church (15553), together with
various Bible stories rather alluded to than related, and the long
Life of the Virgin at the end of the book, remain the property of the
_Mirour_ alone.
If we take next the anecdotes and emblems of Natural History, we shall
find them nearly all again in either the Latin or the English work.
To illustrate the vice of Detraction we have the ‘escarbud,’ the
‘scharnebud,’ of the _Confessio Amantis_, which takes no delight in the
flowery fields or in the May sunshine, but only seeks out vile ordure
and filth (2894, _Conf. Am._ ii. 413). Envy is compared to the nettle
which grows about the roses and destroys them by its burning (3721,
_Conf. Am._ ii. 401). Homicide is made more odious by the story of the
bird with a man’s features, which repents so bitterly of slaying the
creature that resembles it (5029, _Conf. Am._ iii. 2599); and we may
note also that in both books this authentic anecdote is ascribed to
Solinus, who after all is not the real authority for it. Idleness is
like the cat that would eat fish without wetting her paws (5395, _Conf.
Am._ iv. 1108). The covetous man is like the pike that swallows down
the little fishes (6253, _Conf. Am._ v. 2015). Prudence is the serpent
which refuses to hear the voice of the charmer, and while he presses
one ear to the ground, stops the other with his tail (15253, _Conf.
Am._ i. 463). And so on.
Then again there are a good many quotations common to the _Mirour_
and one or both of the other books, adduced in the same connexion
and sometimes grouped together in the same order. The passage from
Gregory’s Homilies about man as a microcosm, partaking of the nature of
every creature in the universe, which we find in the Prologue of the
_Confessio_ and also in the _Vox Clamantis_, appears at l. 26869 of the
_Mirour_; that about Peter presenting Judea in the Day of Judgement,
Andrew Achaia, and so on, while our bishops come empty-handed, is also
given in all three (_Mir._ 20065, _Vox. Cl._ iii. 903, _Conf. Am._ v.
1900). To illustrate the virtue of Pity the same quotations occur both
in the _Mirour_ and the _Confessio Amantis_, from the Epistle of St.
James, from Constantine, and from Cassiodorus (_Mir._ 13929, 23055
ff., _Conf Am._ vii. 3149*, 3161*, 3137). Three quotations referred
to ‘Orace’ occur in the _Mirour_, and of these three two reappear
in the _Confessio_ with the same author’s name (_Mir._ 3801, 10948,
23370, _Conf. Am._ vi. 1513, vii. 3581). Now of these two, one, as it
happens, is from Ovid and the other from Juvenal; so that not only the
quotations but also the false references are repeated. These are not by
any means all the examples of common quotations, but they will perhaps
suffice.
Again, if we are not to accept the theory of common authorship,
we can hardly account for the resemblance, and something more than
resemblance, in passages such as the description of Envy (_Mir._ 3805
ff., _Conf. Am._ ii. 3095, 3122 ff.), of Ingratitude (_Mir._ 6685
ff., _Conf. Am._ v. 4917 ff.), of the effects of intoxication (_Mir._
8138, 8246, _Conf. Am._ vi. 19, 71), of the flock made to wander among
the briars (_Mir._ 20161 ff., _Conf. Am. Prol._ 407 ff.), of the
vainglorious knight (_Mir._ 23893 ff., _Conf. Am._ iv. 1627 ff.), and
many others, not to mention those lines which occur here and there in
the _Confessio_ exactly reproduced from the _Mirour_, such as iv. 893,
‘Thanne is he wys after the hond,’
compared with _Mir._ 5436,
‘Lors est il sage apres la mein.’
_Conf. Am. Prol._ 213,
‘Of armes and of brigantaille,’
compared with _Mir._ 18675,
‘Ou d’armes ou du brigantaille,’
the context in this last case being also the same.
The parallels with the _Vox Clamantis_ are not less numerous and
striking, and as many of them as it seems necessary to mention are set
down in the Notes to the _Mirour_, especially in the latter part from
l. 18421 onwards.
Before dismissing the comparison with the _Confessio Amantis_, we may
call attention to two further points of likeness. First, though the
_Mirour_ is written in stanzas and the _Confessio_ in couplets, yet
the versification of the one distinctly suggests that of the other.
Both are in the same octosyllabic line, with the same rather monotonous
regularity of metre, and the stanza of the _Mirour_, containing, as it
does, no less than four pairs of lines which can be read as couplets so
far as the rhyme is concerned, often produces much the same effect as
the simple couplet. Secondly, in the structure of sentences there are
certain definite characteristics which produce themselves equally in
the French and the English work.
Resemblances of this latter kind will be pointed out in the Notes,
but a few may be set down here. For example, every reader of Gower’s
English is familiar with his trick of setting the conjunctions ‘and,’
‘but,’ &c., in the middle instead of at the beginning of the clause, as
in _Conf. Am. Prol._ 155,
‘With all his herte and make hem chiere,’
and similarly in the _Balades_, e.g. xx. i,
‘A mon avis mais il n’est pas ensi.’
Examples of this are common in the _Mirour_, as l. 100,
‘Pour noble cause et ensement
Estoiont fait,’
cp. 415, 4523, 7739, 7860, &c.
In other cases too there is a tendency to disarrangement of words
or clauses for the sake of metre or rhyme, as _Mir._ 15941, 17996,
compared with _Conf. Am._ ii. 2642, iv. 3520, v. 6807, &c.
Again, the author of the _Confessio Amantis_ is fond of repeating the
same form of expression in successive lines, e.g. _Prol._ 96 ff.,
‘Tho was the lif of man in helthe,
Tho was plente, tho was richesse,
Tho was the fortune of prouesse,’ &c.
Cp. _Prol._ 937, v. 2469, &c.
This also is found often in the _Mirour_, e.g. 4864-9:
‘Cist tue viel, cist tue enfant,
Cist tue femmes enpreignant,’ &c.
and 8294-8304,
‘Les uns en eaue fait perir,
Les uns en flamme fait ardoir,
Les uns du contek fait morir,’ &c.
The habit of breaking off the sentence and resuming it in a different
form appears markedly in both the French and the English, as _Mir._
89, 17743, _Conf. Am._ iv. 2226, 3201; and in several passages obscure
forms of expression in the _Confessio Amantis_ are elucidated by
parallel constructions in the _Mirour_.
Finally, the trick of filling up lines with such tags as _en son
degré_, _de sa partie_, &c. (e.g. _Mir._ 373, 865), vividly recalls the
similar use of ‘in his degree,’ ‘for his partie,’ by the author of the
_Confessio Amantis_ (e.g. _Prol._ 123, 930).
The evidence of which I have given an outline, which may be filled up
by those who care to look out the references set down above and in the
Notes, amounts, I believe, to complete demonstration that this French
book called _Mirour de l’omme_ is identical with the _Speculum Hominis_
(or _Speculum Meditantis_) which has been long supposed to be lost;
and, that being so, I consider myself at liberty to use it in every way
as Gower’s admitted work, together with the other books of which he
claims the authorship, for the illustration both of his life and his
literary characteristics.
DATE.--The _Speculum Hominis_ stands first in order of the three
books enumerated by Gower, and was written therefore before the _Vox
Clamantis_. This last was evidently composed shortly after the rising
of the peasants in 1381, and to that event, which evidently produced
the strongest impression on the author’s mind, there is no reference
in this book. There are indeed warnings of the danger of popular
insurrection, as 24104 ff., 26485 ff., 27229 ff., but they are of a
general character, suggested perhaps partly by the Jacquerie in France
and partly by the local disturbances caused by discontented labourers
in England, and convey the idea that the writer was uneasy about the
future, but not that a catastrophe had already come. In one passage he
utters a rather striking prophecy of the evil to be feared, speaking of
the strange lethargy in which the lords of the land are sunk, so that
they take no note of the growing madness of the commons. On the whole
we may conclude without hesitation that the book was completed before
the summer of the year 1381.
There are some other considerations which will probably lead us to
throw the date back a little further than this. In 2142 ff. it seems
to be implied that Edward III is still alive. ‘They of France,’ he
says, ‘should know that God abhors their disobedience, in that they,
contrary to their allegiance, refuse by way of war to render homage and
obedience to him who by his birth receives the right from his mother.’
This can apply to none but Edward III, and we are led to suppose that
when these lines were written he was still alive to claim his right.
The supposition is confirmed by the manner in which the author speaks
of the reigning king in that part of his work which deals with royalty.
Nowhere does he address him as a child or youth in the manner of the
_Vox Clamantis_, but he complains of the trust placed by the king in
flatterers and of the all-prevailing influence of women, calling upon
God to remedy those evils which arise from the monstrous fact that a
woman reigns in the land and the king is subject to her (22807 ff.).
This is precisely the complaint which might have been expected in
the latter years of Edward III. On the other hand there is a clear
allusion in one place (18817-18840) to the schism of the Church, and
this passage therefore must have been written as late as 1378, but,
occurring as it does at the conclusion of the author’s attack upon
the Court of Rome, it may well have been added after the rest. The
expression in l. 22191,
‘Ove deux chiefs es sanz chevetein,’
refers to the Pope and the Emperor, not to the division of the papacy.
Finally, it should be observed that the introduction of the name
Innocent, l. 18783, is not to be taken to mean that Innocent VI, who
died in 1362, was the reigning pope. The name is no doubt only a
representative one.
On the whole we shall not be far wrong if we assign the composition of
the book to the years 1376-1379.
FORM AND VERSIFICATION.--The poem (if it may be called so) is written
in twelve-line stanzas of the common octosyllabic verse, rhyming _aab
aab bba bba_, so that there are two sets of rhymes only in each stanza.
In its present state it has 28,603 lines, there being lost four leaves
at the beginning, which probably contained forty-seven stanzas, that is
564 lines, seven leaves, containing in all 1342 lines, in other places
throughout the volume, and an uncertain number at the end, probably
containing not more than a few hundred lines. The whole work therefore
consisted of about 31,000 lines, a somewhat formidable total.
The twelve-line stanza employed by Gower is one which was in pretty
common use among French writers of the ‘moral’ class. It is that in
which the celebrated _Vers de la Mort_ were composed by Hélinand de
Froidmont in the twelfth century, a poem from which our author quotes.
Possibly it was the use of it by this writer that brought it into
vogue, for his poem had a great popularity, striking as it did a note
which was thoroughly congenial to the spirit of the age[I]. In any
case we find the stanza used also by the ‘Reclus de Moiliens,’ by
Rutebeuf in several pieces, e. g. _La Complainte de Constantinoble_ and
_Les Ordres de Paris_, and often by other poets of the moral school.
Especially it seems to have been affected in those ‘Congiés’ in which
poets took leave of the world and of their friends, as the _Congiés
Adan d’Arras_ (Barb. et Méon, _Fabl._ i. 106), the _Congié Jehan Bodel_
(i. 135), &c. As to the structure of the stanza, at least in the hands
of our author, there is not much to be said. The pauses in sense very
generally follow the rhyme divisions of the stanza, which has a natural
tendency to fall into two equal parts, and the last three lines, or in
some cases the last two, frequently contain a moral tag or a summing
up of the general drift of the stanza.
The verse is strictly syllabic. We have nothing here of that
accent-metre which the later Anglo-Norman writers sometimes adopted
after English models, constructing their octosyllable in two halves
with a distinct break between them, each half-verse having two accents
but an uncertain number of syllables. This appears to have been the
idea of the metre in the mind of such writers as Fantosme and William
of Waddington. Here however all is as regular in that respect as can
be desired. Indeed the fact that in all these thousands of lines there
are not more than about a score which even suggest the idea of metrical
incorrectness, after due allowance for the admitted licences of which
we have taken note, is a striking testimony not only of the accuracy
in this respect of the author, but also to the correctness of the copy
which we possess of his work. The following are the lines in question:
276. ‘De sa part grantement s’esjoït.’
397. ‘Ly deable grantement s’esjoït’
2742. ‘Prestre, Clerc, Reclus, Hermite,’
2955. ‘Soy mesmes car delivrer’
3116. ‘Q’avoit leur predicacioun oïe,’
3160. ‘Si l’une est male, l’autre est perverse,’
4745. ‘Molt plussoudeinent le blesce’
4832. ‘Ainz est pour soy delivrer,’
6733. ‘Dame Covoitise en sa meson’
(And similarly 13514 and 16579)
9617. ‘Mais oultre trestous autrez estatz’
9786. ‘Me mettroit celle alme en gage,’
10623. ‘L’un ad franchise, l’autre ad servage,’
10628. ‘L’un ad mesure, l’autre ad oultrage,’
13503. ‘Dieus la terre en fin donna,’
14568. ‘Et l’autre contemplacioun enseine.’
19108. ‘D’avoltire et fornicacioun’
24625. ‘Doun, priere, amour, doubtance,’
26830. ‘Homme; et puis de l’omme prist’
27598. ‘Qant l’angle ot ses ditz contez,’
This, it will be allowed, is a sufficiently moderate total to be placed
to the joint account of author and scribe in a matter of more than
28,000 lines--on an average one in about 1,500 lines. Of these more
than half can be corrected in very obvious ways: in 276, 397, we may
read ‘grantment’ as in 8931; in 2955, 4832, we should read ‘deliverer,’
and in 9786 ‘metteroit,’ this _e_ being frequently sounded in the
metre, e.g. 3371, 16448, 18532; we may correct 3160, 9617, by altering
to ‘mal,’ ‘autre’; in 4745 ‘plussoudeinement’ is certainly meant; 13503
is to be corrected by reading ‘en la fin,’ as in 15299, for ‘en fin,’
19108 by substituting ‘avoltre’ for ‘avoltire,’ and 27598 by reading
‘angel,’ as in 27731 and elsewhere, for ‘angle.’ Of the irregularities
that remain, one, exemplified in 3116 and 14568, consists in the
introduction of an additional foot into the measure, and I have little
doubt that it proceeds from the scribe, who wrote ‘predicacioun’ and
‘contemplacioun’ for some shorter word with the same meaning, such as
‘prechement’ and ‘contempler.’ In the latter of these cases I have
corrected by introducing ‘contempler’ into the text; in the former, as
I cannot be so sure of the word intended, the MS. reading is allowed
to stand. There is a similar instance of a hypermetrical line in
_Bal._ xxvii. 1, and this also might easily be corrected. The other
irregularities I attribute to the author. These consist, first, in the
use of ‘dame’ in several lines as a monosyllable, and I am disposed
to think that this word was sometimes so pronounced, see Phonol. §
ix (_c_); secondly, in the introduction of a superfluous unaccented
syllable at a pause after the second foot, which occurs in 10623, 10628
(and perhaps 3160); thirdly, in the omission of the unaccented syllable
at the beginning of the verse, as:
‘Prestre, Clerc, Reclus, Hermite,’--2742;
‘Doun, priere, amour, doubtance,’--24625;
‘Homme; et puis de l’omme prist’--26830.
Considering how often lines of this kind occur in other Anglo-Norman
verse, and how frequent the variation is generally in the English
octosyllables of the period, we may believe that even Gower,
notwithstanding his metrical strictness, occasionally introduced it
into his verse. It may be noted that the three lines just quoted
resemble one another in having each a pause after the first word.
With all this ‘correctness,’ however, the verses of the _Mirour_ have
an unmistakably English rhythm and may easily be distinguished from
French verse of the Continent and from that of the earlier Anglo-Norman
writers. One of the reasons for this is that the verse is in a certain
sense accentual as well as syllabic, the writer imposing upon himself
generally the rule of the alternate beat of accents and seldom
allowing absolutely weak syllables[J] to stand in the even places of
his verse. Lines such as these of Chrétien de Troyes,
‘Si ne semble pas qui la voit
Qu’ele puisse grant fès porter,’
and these of Frère Angier,
‘Ses merites et ses vertuz,
Ses jeünes, ses oreisons,
. . . . . . .
Et sa volontaire poverte
Od trestote s’autre desserte,’
are quite in accordance with the rules of French verse, but very few
such lines will be found in the _Mirour_. Some there are, no doubt, as
3327:
‘D’envie entre la laie gent,’
or 3645:
‘Que nuls en poet estre garny.’
So also 2925, 3069, 4310 &c., but they are exceptional and attract our
notice when they occur. An illustration of the difference between the
usage of our author and that of the Continent is afforded by the manner
in which he quotes from Hélinand’s _Vers de la Mort_. The text as given
in the _Hist. Litt. de la France_, xviii. p. 88, is as follows (with
correction of the false reading ‘cuevre’):
‘Tex me couve dessous ses dras,
Qui cuide estre tous fors et sains.’
Gower has it
‘Car tiel me couve soubz ses dras,
Q’assetz quide estre fortz et seins.’
He may have found this reading in the original, of which there are
several variants, but the comparison will none the less illustrate the
difference of the rhythms.