"When that sweet April showers with downward shoot
The drought of March have pierc'd unto the root,
And bathed every vein with liquid power,
Whose virtue rare engendereth the flower;
When Zephyrus also with his fragrant breath
Inspirèd hath in every grove and heath
The tender shoots of green, and the young sun
Hath in the Ram one half his journey run,
And small birds in the trees make melody,
That sleep and dream all night with open eye;
So nature stirs all energies and ages
That folk are bent to go on pilgrimages," &c.
Look back to Chaucer's own lines, and you will see that Mr Horne's
variations are all for the worse. How flat and tame "sweet April
showers," in comparison with "April with his shourès sote." In Chaucer
the month comes boldly on, in his own person--in Mr Horne he is diluted
into his own showers. 'Tis ominous thus to stumble on the threshold.
"Downward shoot" is very bad indeed in itself, and all unlike the
natural strength of Chaucer. "Liquid power" is even worse and more
unlike; and most tautological the "virtue of power." In Chaucer the
virtue is in the "licour." "Rare" is poorly dropped in to fill up.
Chaucer purposely uses "sotè" twice--and the repetition tells. Mr Horne
must needs change it into "fragrant." "In the trees" is not in
Chaucer--for he knew that "smalè foulès" shelter in the "hethe" as well
as in the "holt"--among broom and bracken, and heath and rushes. Chaucer
does not _say_, as Mr Horne does, that the birds _dream_--he leaves you
to think for yourself whether they do so or not, while sleeping with
open eye all night. Such conjectural emendations are injurious to
Chaucer. We presume Mr Horne believes he has authority for applying "so
pricketh hem nature in hire corages" to the folks that "longen to go on
pilgrimages"--and not to the "smalè foulès." Or is it intended for a
happy innovation? To us it seems an unhappy blunder--taking away a fine
touch of nature from Chaucer, and hardening it into horn; while "all
energies and ages" is indeed a free and affected version of "corages."
"For to wander thro'," is a mistranslation of "to seken;" and to "sing
the holy mass," is not the meaning of to "servè halwes couthe," _i.e._
to worship saints known, &c.
Turning over a couple of leaves, we behold a modernization of the
antique with a vengeance--
"His son, a young squire, with him there I _saw_,
A lover and a lusty bache_lor_! (aw) (ah!)
With locks crisp curl'd, as they'd been laid in press,
Of twenty year of age he was, I guess."
Chaucer never once in all his writings thus rhymes off two consecutive
couplets in one sentence so slovenly, as with "I saw," and "I guess."
But Mr Horne is so enamoured "with the old familiar faces" of pet
cockneyisms, that he must have his will of them. Of the same squire,
Chaucer says--
"Of his stature he was of _even length_;"
and Mr Horne translates the words into--
"He was in stature of the common length,"