6. The "Lansdowne" MS. in the British Museum. "Not a good MS.,
being certainly the worst of the six; but worth reprinting owing
to the frequent use that has been made of it by editors."
In his Introduction, Professor Skeat enumerates no fewer than
fifty-nine MSS. of the Tales: but of these the above six (and a
seventh to be mentioned presently) are the most important. The most
important of all is the "Ellesmere"--the great "find" of the Six-Text
Edition. "The best in nearly every respect," says Professor Skeat.
"It not only gives good lines and good sense, but is also (usually)
grammatically accurate and thoroughly well spelt. The publication of
it has been a great boon to all Chaucer students, for which Dr.
Furnivall will be ever gratefully remembered.... This splendid MS. has
also the great merit of being complete, requiring no supplement from
any other source, except in a few cases when a line or two has been
missed."
Professor Skeat has therefore chiefly employed the Six-Text Edition,
supplemented by a seventh famous MS., the "Harleian 7334"--printed in
full for the Chaucer Society in 1885--a MS. of great importance,
differing considerably from the "Ellesmere." But the Professor judges
it "a most dangerous MS. to trust to, unless constantly corrected by
others, and not at all fitted to be taken as the basis of a text." For
the basis of his text, then, he takes the Ellesmere MS., correcting it
freely by the other seven MSS. mentioned.
Now, as fate would have it, in the year 1888 Dr. Furnivall invited Mr.
Alfred W. Pollard to collaborate with him in an edition of Chaucer
which he had for many years promised to bring out for Messrs.
Macmillan. The basis of their text of the Tales was almost precisely
that chosen by Professor Skeat, _i.e._ a careful collation of the Six
Texts and the Harleian 7334, due preponderance being given to the
Ellesmere MS., and all variations from it stated in the notes. "A
beginning was made," says Mr. Pollard, "but the giant in the
partnership had been used for a quarter of a century to doing, for
nothing, all the hard work for other people, and could not spare from
his pioneering the time necessary to enter into the fruit of his own
Chaucer labors. Thus the partner who was not a giant was left to go on
pretty much by himself. When I had made some progress, Professor Skeat
informed us that the notes which he had been for years accumulating
encouraged him to undertake an edition on a large scale, and I gladly
abandoned, in favor of an editor of so much greater width of reading,
the Library Edition which had been arranged for in the original
agreement of Dr. Furnivall and myself with Messrs. Macmillan. I
thought, however, that the work which I had done might fairly be used
for an edition on a less extensive plan and intended for a less
stalwart class of readers, and of this the present issue of the
Canterbury Tales is an instalment."[B]
So it comes about that we have two texts before us, each based on a
collation of the Six-Text edition and the Harleian MS. 7334--the chief
difference being that Mr. Pollard adheres closely to the Ellesmere
MS., while Professor Skeat allows himself more freedom. This is how
they start--
"Whán that Apríllė with híse shourės soote
The droghte of March hath percėd to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licóur
Of which vertú engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eck with his swetė breeth 5
Inspirėd hath in every holt and heeth
The tendrė croppės, and the yongė sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfė cours y-ronne,
And smalė fowelės maken melodye
That slepen al the nvght with open eye,-- 10
So priketh hem Natúre in hir coráges,--
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages ..."
(_Pollard_.)
"Whan that Aprille with his shoures sote
The droghte of Marche hath perced to the rote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth 5
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yong sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y ronne,
And smale fowles maken melodye,
That slepen al the night with open yë, 10
(So priketh hem nature in hir corages:)
Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages..."
(_Skeat._)
On these two extracts it must be observed (1) that the accents and the
dotted e's in the first are Mr. Pollard's own contrivances for helping
the scansion; (2) in the second, l. 10, "yë" is a special contrivance
of Professor Skeat. "The scribes," he says (Introd. Vol. IV. p. xix.),
"usually write _eye_ in the middle of a line, but when they come to it
at the end of one, they are fairly puzzled. In l. 10, the scribe of Hn
('Hengwrt') writes _lye_, and that of Ln ('Lansdowne') writes _yhe_;
and the variations on this theme are curious. The spelling _ye_ (= yë)
is, however, common.... I print it 'yë' to distinguish it from _ye_,
the pl. pronoun." The other differences are accounted for by the
varying degrees in which the two editors depend on the Ellesmere MS.
Mr. Pollard sticks to the Ellesmere. Professor Skeat corrects it by
the others. Obviously the editor who allows himself the wider range
lays himself open to more criticism, point by point. He has to justify
himself in each particular case, while the other's excuse is set down
once for all in his preface. But after comparing the two texts in over
a dozen passages, I have had to vote in almost every case for
Professor Skeat.
The Alleged Difficulty of Reading Chaucer.
The differences, however, are always trifling. The reader will allow
that in each case we have a clear, intelligible text: a text that
allows Chaucer to be read and enjoyed without toil or vexation. For my
part, I hope there is no presumption in saying that I could very well
do without Mr. Pollard's accents and dotted e's. Remove them, and I
contend that any Englishman with an ear for poetry can read either of
the two texts without difficulty. A great deal too much fuss is made
over the pronunciation and scansion of Chaucer. After all, we are
Englishmen, with an instinct for understanding the language we
inherit; in the evolution of our language we move on the same lines as
our fathers; and Chaucer's English is at least no further removed from
us than the Lowland dialect of Scott's novels. Moreover, we have in
reading Chaucer what we lack in reading Scott--the assistance of
rhythm; and the rhythm of Chaucer is as clearly marked as that of
Tennyson. Professor Skeat might very well have allowed his admirable
text to stand alone. For his rules of pronunciation, with their
elaborate system of signs and symbols, seem to me (to put it coarsely)
phonetics gone mad. This, for instance, is how he would have us read
the Tales:--
"Whán-dhat Ápríllə/wídh iz-shúurez sóotə
dhə-drúuht' ov-Márchə/hath pérsed tóo dhə róotə,
ənd-báadhed év'ri véinə/in-swích likúur,
ov-whích vertýy/enjéndred iz dhə flúur...."
--and so on? I think it may safely be said that if a man need this
sort of assistance in reading or pronouncing Chaucer, he had better
let Chaucer alone altogether, or read him in a German prose
translation.
* * * * *
April 6, 1895.
Why is Chaucer so easy to read? At a first glance a page of the
"Canterbury Tales" appears more formidable than a page of the "Faërie
Queene." As a matter of fact, it is less formidable; or, if this be
denied, everyone will admit that twenty pages of the "Canterbury
Tales" are less formidable than twenty pages of the "Faërie Queene." I
might bring several recent editors and critics to testify that, after
the first shock of the archaic spelling and the final "e," an
intelligent public will soon come to terms with Chaucer; but the
unconscious testimony of the intelligent public itself is more
convincing. Chaucer is read year after year by a large number of men
and women. Spenser, in many respects a greater poet, is also read; but
by far fewer. Nobody, I imagine, will deny this. But what is the
reason of it?
The first and chief reason is this--Forms of language change, but the
great art of narrative appeals eternally to men, and its rules rest on
principles older than Homer. And whatever else may be said of Chaucer,
he is a superb narrator. To borrow a phrase from another venerable
art, he is always "on the ball." He pursues the story--the story, and
again the story. Mr. Ward once put this admirably--
"The vivacity of joyousness of Chaucer's poetic temperament ...
make him amusingly impatient of epical lengths, abrupt in his
transitions, and anxious, with an anxiety usually manifested by
readers rather than by writers, to come to the point, 'to the
great effect,' as he is wont to call it. 'Men,' he says, 'may
overlade a ship or barge, and therefore I will skip at once to
the effect, and let all the rest slip.' And he unconsciously
suggests a striking difference between himself and the great
Elizabethan epic poet who owes so much to him, when he declines
to make as long a tale of the chaff or of the straw as of the
corn, and to describe all the details of a marriage-feast
_seriatim_:
'The fruit of every tale is for to say:
They eat and drink, and dance and sing and play.'
This may be the fruit; but epic poets, from Homer downward, have
been generally in the habit of not neglecting the foliage.
Spenser in particular has that impartial copiousness which we
think it our duty to admire in the Ionic epos, but which, if
truth were told, has prevented generations of Englishmen from
acquiring an intimate personal acquaintance with the 'Fairy
Queen.' With Chaucer the danger certainly rather lay in the
opposite direction."
Now, if we are once interested in a story, small difficulties of
speech or spelling will not readily daunt us in the time-honored
pursuit of "what happens next"--certainly not if we know enough of our
author to feel sure he will come to the point and tell us what happens
next with the least possible palaver. We have a definite want and a
certainty of being satisfied promptly. But with Spenser this
satisfaction may, and almost certainly will, be delayed over many
pages: and though in the meanwhile a thousand casual beauties may
appeal to us, the main thread of our attention is sensibly relaxed.
Chaucer is the minister and Spenser the master: and the difference
between pursuing what we want and pursuing we-know-not-what must
affect the ardor of the chase. Even if we take the future on trust,
and follow Spenser to the end, we cannot look back on a book of the
"Faërie Queene" as on part of a good story: for it is admittedly an
unsatisfying and ill-constructed story. But my point is that an
ordinary reader resents being asked to take the future on trust while
the author luxuriates in casual beauties of speech upon every mortal
subject but the one in hand. The first principle of good narrative is
to stick to the subject; the second, to carry the audience along in a
series of small surprises--satisfying expectation and going just a
little beyond. If it were necessary to read fifty pages before
enjoying Chaucer, though the sum of eventual enjoyment were as great
as it now is, Chaucer would never be read. We master small
difficulties line by line because our recompense comes line by line.
Moreover, it is as certain as can be that we read Chaucer to-day more
easily than our fathers read him one hundred, two hundred, three
hundred years ago. And I make haste to add that the credit of this
does not belong to the philologists.
The Elizabethans, from Spenser onward, found Chaucer distressingly
archaic. When Sir Francis Kynaston, _temp_. Charles I., translated
"Troilus and Criseyde," Cartwright congratulated him that he had at
length made it possible to read Chaucer without a dictionary. And from
Dryden's time to Wordsworth's he was an "uncouthe unkiste" barbarian,
full of wit, but only tolerable in polite paraphrase. Chaucer himself
seems to have foreboded this, towards the close of his "Troilus and
Criseyde," when he addresses his "litel book"--
"And for there is so great diversitee
In English, and in wryting of our tonge,
So preye I God that noon miswryte thee,
Ne thee mismetre for defaute of tonge.
And red wher-so thou be, or elles songe,
That thou be understoude I God beseche!..."
And therewith, as though on purpose to defeat his fears, he proceeded
to turn three stanzas of Boccaccio into English that tastes almost as
freshly after five hundred years as on the day it was written. He is
speaking of Hector's death:--
"And whan that he was slayn in this manere,
His lighte goost ful blisfully it went
Up to the holownesse of the seventh spere
In convers leting every element;
And ther he saugh, with ful avysement,
The erratik starres, herkening armonye
With sownes ful of hevenish melodye.
"And down from thennes faste he gan avyse
This litel spot of erthe, that with the see
Embraced is, and fully gan despyse
This wrecched world, and held al vanitee
To respect of the pleyn felicitee
That is in hevene above; and at the laste,
Ther he was slayn, his loking down he caste;
"And in himself he lough right at the wo
Of hem that wepten for his death so faste;
And dampned al our werk that folweth so
The blinde lust, the which that may not laste,
And sholden al our harte on hevene caste.
And forth he wente, shortly for to telle,
Ther as Mercurie sorted him to dwelle...."
Who have prepared our ears to admit this passage, and many as fine?
Not the editors, who point out very properly that it is a close
translation from Boccaccio's "Teseide," xi. 1-3. The information is
valuable, as far as it goes; but what it fails to explain is just the
marvel of the passage--viz., the abiding "Englishness" of it, the
native ring of it in our ears after five centuries of linguistic and
metrical development. To whom, besides Chaucer himself, do we owe
this? For while Chaucer has remained substantially the same,
apparently we have an aptitude that our grandfathers and
great-grandfathers had not. The answer surely is: We owe it to our
nineteenth century poets, and particularly to Tennyson, Swinburne, and
William Morris. Years ago Mr. R.H. Horne said most acutely that the
principle of Chaucer's rhythm is "inseparable from a full and fair
exercise of the genius of our language in versification." This "full
and fair exercise" became a despised, almost a lost, tradition after
Chaucer's death. The rhythms of Skelton, of Surrey, and Wyatt, were
produced on alien and narrower lines. Revived by Shakespeare and the
later Elizabethans, it fell into contempt again until Cowper once more
began to claim freedom for English rhythm, and after him Coleridge,
and the despised Leigh Hunt. But never has its full liberty been so
triumphantly asserted as by the three poets I have named above. If we
are at home as we read Chaucer, it is because they have instructed us
in the liberty which Chaucer divined as the only true way.