CHAUCER'S TREATMENT OF HIS SOURCES
The sin of plagiary is a development of modern civilisation. To medieval
authors, as to Elizabethan, the interest of a story lay in the telling,
and while plot was of first-rate importance the same plot could quite well
be used indifferently by any number of writers. Indeed, they did not
hesitate to go even further and to form a patchwork of scraps taken from
different authors, so that the plot may be drawn from one poet, fragments
of the dialogue from another, and descriptive or reflective passages from
a third, and yet the whole may be justly reckoned the work of the
compiler. In the _Parlement of Foules_, for instance, Chaucer takes the
idea of the whole from a current fabliau, the first eighty-four lines from
Cicero's _Somnium Scipionis_, three distinct passages from Dante, the
description of the garden from Boccaccio, and lines 95-105 from Claudian,
and yet the originality of the whole is incontestable. It is a noteworthy
fact that he tries his hand at almost every form of poetry popular in his
day, he writes romances, lives of the saints, homilies, allegorical poems,
topical satire, love songs, and fabliaux, and in every case he borrows
wherever he sees anything likely to suit his purpose, he alters and adds
and omits as he sees fit; yet it is only necessary to compare a story
(that of Constance, for instance) as told by him, with the same as told by
any other poet of the day, to see why it is impossible for a genius to be
a plagiarist.
Chaucer's treatment of romance is particularly characteristic. As has been
said, the medieval romance is the most intrinsically interesting literary
development of the period from the Conquest to Chaucer. Very roughly
speaking, romances may be said--apart from allegorical works such as the
_Romance of the Rose_--to fall into two classes, those, such as _Guy of
Warwick_, or _Sir Ferumbras_, in which adventure and action form the chief
interest, and those, such as _Aucassin and Nicolette_, or _Florice and
Blanchefleur_, in which the stress is laid on emotion. In both cases the
action is usually set in motion by the hero's desire to ingratiate himself
with his lady, but in the one he rides off in quest of renown that may
make him worthy to aspire to her hand, and probably does not see her
again for years; in the other, though he may perform doughty deeds for her
sake, he may even go so far as to refuse battle unless he may have his
sweet love, and much space is devoted to the description of his sighs and
tears. In both, the emotion is perfectly simple and straightforward. The
knight wishes for the lady's hand and fights or sulks, as the case may be,
until he gets it, but in the former type there is scope for indefinite
digressions and interminable adventures, while the latter, at all events
in England, is apt to be shorter. Occasionally some opening is given for a
more complex treatment of character, but as a rule the opportunity is
ignored. Guy, when he returns to Felice after many years of adventure,
lives with her only forty days. Then he becomes pensive and downcast, for
it occurs to him
How he had done many a man wo,
And slain many a man with his hand,
Burnt and destroyed many a land,
And all was for woman's love,
And not for God's sake above,
and he leaves her for ever, that he may give himself to penance and fight
for the glory of God. Here is a fine opportunity for tragic emotion, but
although we are told that Felice thinks of killing herself, the whole
episode is so perfunctorily related and the purpose of it is so evidently
to provide occasion for fresh adventures that it is impossible to feel the
slightest sympathy with either husband or wife. In _Sir Gawayne and the
Green Knight_ the remorse of Gawayne after he has failed to keep his word
is finely suggested, but the whole poem is far in advance of most romances
of the period, and even here the magic setting rather detracts from the
human interest. It is impossible to feel that it is a fair fight when one
of the combatants can be beheaded without inconvenience to himself. The
magic castles and enchanted swords, the dragons and sorcerers of medieval
romance have a fascination of their own, but it is the fascination of
sheer story-telling, not of character study. The love romances might
naturally be expected to show evidence of a more analytical mind, but the
feelings they describe are too obviously conventional to be very
convincing, and though there is an undeniable charm in works of this sort,
there is an equally undeniable sameness. Their strength lies, not in
dramatic force of emotion, but in daintiness of description. Nicolette
escaping from her turret chamber, with her skirts kilted behind and
before for fear of the dew, Florice borne to Blanchefleur's chamber in a
basket of flowers, are pictures which can never lose their freshness, but
we grow weary of the perpetual swoons and tears of every lover, and the
small variety of characters introduced, the fact that practically all
belong to the same class and are distinguishable only as villains or
heroes, base enchantresses or noble ladies, intensifies the monotony. To
this must be added the dreary jingle of the verse, which almost invariably
consists of short, rhyming couplets, the lines constantly having to be
eked out by expletives and meaningless monosyllables.
Chaucer showed himself fully alive at once to the possibilities and the
absurdities of the romance. In the _Knightes Tale_ we have an excellent
example of the romance of adventure. It is based upon Boccaccio's
_Teseide_, but while the _Teseide_ is an epic in twelve books, the
_Knightes Tale_ consists of only 2,250 lines. The poet who set out to
write a romance seems as a rule to have had no sense either of time or of
unity. The hero sets out on his travels and in the first forest glade he
comes to, meets a stranger knight. The two at once joust. After
unheard-of prowess the hero unhorses the stranger and unlaces his vizor.
The strange knight no sooner recovers his senses than he sets to work to
relate his totally irrelevant adventures, and the reader is lucky if in
the course of those adventures the still more irrelevant life-story of
some other knight is not introduced. Not till some hundreds of lines have
been thus occupied do we come back to the original hero who has all this
while been left in the glade. The _Teseide_, as has been said, is an epic
rather than a romance, and its twelve books afford scope for such episodes
as the war of Theseus with the Amazons, his marriage with Hippolyta, the
obsequies of those who fall in the combat between Palamon and Arcite,
etc., etc. Chaucer in turning epic into romance has shown an extraordinary
power of condensation. The conventional romance writer seems to have had
no idea of proportion, no conception that one incident could be of more
importance than another, or that it could be necessary to slur over one
episode and concentrate on another. In the _Knightes Tale_ Chaucer shows
the instinct of the true story-teller. The account of the war with the
Amazons and Theseus' marriage--which occupies two books of the
_Teseide_--is reduced to twelve lines, which briefly tell us the bare
facts. Theseus and Hippolyta are kept in the background throughout that
the figures of Palamon, Arcite, and Emily may stand out the more clearly.
The story moves steadily and rapidly, without a single digression.
Occasionally, indeed, a little more explanation would be welcome. Who, for
instance, was the friend by whose aid Palamon broke prison after seven
weary years? Was it the gaoler's daughter, as the _Two Noble Kinsmen_
would have us believe, or did his servant bribe a physician to help him,
as the _Teseide_ relates? Chaucer merely whets our curiosity by stating
that he drugged the gaoler, and hurries on to describe his meeting with
Arcite. It is this very speed, this close-knitting of the story, which
marks it out from other poems of the kind. The characterisation is slight.
Palamon and Arcite might well be, not cousins but twins, so closely do
they resemble each other. Emily, sweet and gracious as she is, scarcely
seems more than a fair vision of girlhood. Only now and then, as in the
thumb-nail sketch of the crowd watching the knights assemble for the
tourney, or in some sudden aside, such as his comment on Arcite's death--
His spirit chaunged hous, and wente ther,
As I cam never, I can nat tellen wher--
do we catch a glimpse of Chaucer's shrewd observation and dry humour. He
is learning how to tell a tale, and for the moment his interest lies in
the telling.
In _Troilus and Criseyde_, his method is very different. Here he is
dealing with a love romance, and he does not hesitate to dwell at length
upon the sufferings and emotions of his hero and heroine. About a third of
the whole work is actual paraphrase or translation of Boccaccio's
_Filostrato_: Book IV contains a lengthy extract from Boëthius, and
certain passages are drawn from Guido delle Colonne, but the _Filostrato_
forms the basis of the whole. This being so, the first thing we notice is
that whereas in the _Knightes Tale_ Chaucer has very considerably cut down
his original, here he has enlarged it, for the 5,704 lines of Boccaccio's
poem have become 8,329 in the English version. Further, he has taken
considerable liberties with the characters themselves. Troilus is in many
respects a conventional enough hero. He falls in love with Cressida at
first sight and at once despairs of winning her. Handsome, brave, and
resolute, he is well fitted to gain the love of any woman, but such is
his modesty that he is incapable of helping himself and can do nothing
more to the purpose than sit on his bed and groan. The unnecessary mystery
made by the lovers, the endless difficulties which they put in their own
way, are quite in keeping with the spirit of the age, though even here
Chaucer shows a skill in characterisation which almost makes us forget to
be impatient with his hero's helplessness. Cressida, while she too has
much in common with the conventional heroine of romance, has much that is
peculiarly her own. She is beautiful and tender and clinging, as a heroine
should be, but her shallow little character has an individuality of its
own. It will be treated more fully in a later chapter, here it is
sufficient to say that Chaucer transforms the mature woman of Boccaccio's
poem into a timid girl, whose youth and inexperience appeal to our pity
and make it impossible to judge her harshly. But the most important and
characteristic change which Chaucer makes in the story is in the character
of Pandarus. Instead of the gay young cousin of Troilus, he gives us the
vulgar, gossiping, good-natured old uncle of Cressida, an utterly
unimaginative and prosaic person who plays with the fires of passion as
ignorantly and light-heartedly as the Nurse in _Romeo and Juliet_. Not
only is the character of Pandarus of interest in itself but its creation
and its introduction into a poem of this type marks a new development in
literature--the study of the common-place. Hitherto, though some rare
flash of humour might for an instant lighten the pages of the love romance
and give us such an episode as that of the herd-boy in _Aucassin and
Nicolette_, it was but a flash. The interest was concentrated in the hero
and heroine, and though some faithful servant or lady-in-waiting might
assist their lovers, it would have been regarded as undignified in the
extreme to give prominence to such a character. Chaucer flings dignity to
the winds. What he cares for is truth to life, and already he has made the
great discovery that certain persons are not told off by nature to be
unhappy and certain others to be amusing, but that a perfectly
common-place and ordinary individual may play a part in tragedy without
even realising what tragedy is. He studies a man, not because he is
unusual, but just because he is the kind of person to be met with any day,
and by using Pandarus as a foil he prevents the high-flown emotion of the
lovers from becoming absurd or monotonous.
Chaucer evidently realised to the full the attractiveness and the dramatic
possibilities of this form of literature, but at the same time his eyes
were open to its shortcomings. In the _Squieres Tale_ we have a typical
romance in which love, magic, and adventure are all blended together. It
has the true medieval air of having all eternity in which to tell its
story. It begins with an account of King Cambinskan, his two sons Algarsif
and Cambalo, and his daughter Canace, and the coming of the magic
gifts--the steed of brass which will carry its rider whithersoever he
desires, the mirror which shows if any adversity is about to befall its
owner, the ring which enables its wearer to understand the speech of the
birds and also gives knowledge of the healing properties of all herbs, and
the sword whose edge will cut through any armour and the flat of whose
blade will cure the wound so made. Any one of these would in itself be
sufficient to furnish forth a tale, and when we find them heaped together
with so lavish a hand at the very beginning, we know what to expect. Three
hundred and four of the squire's 361 lines are occupied with the
apparently irrelevant story of the love-lorn falcon and the faithless
tercelet. Even this is not ended. Canace uses her knowledge of simples for
the poor hawk's benefit, and cures its wounds and swears to redress its
wrongs; but having got thus far the narrator draws breath and then plunges
into a list of further episodes with which he intends to deal:--
Thus lete I Canace hir hauk keping;
I wol na-more as now speke of hir ring,
Til it come eft to purpos for to seyn
How that this faucon gat hir love ageyn
Repentant, as the storie telleth us.
* * * * *
But hennes-forth I wol my proces holde
To speke of aventures and of batailles,
That never yet was herd so grete mervailles.
First wol I telle yow of Cambinskan,
That in his tyme many a citee wan;
And after wol I speke of Algarsyf,
How that he wan Theodora to his wyf,
For whom ful ofte in greet peril he was,
Ne hadde he ben holpen by the steed of bras;
And after wol I speke of Cambalo
That faught in listes with the brethren two
For Canacee, er that he mighte hir winne,
And ther I lefte I wol ageyn beginne.
It is here that the Franklin breaks in, and in the most courteous and
charming manner succeeds in checking the story, of which the pilgrims
have evidently had as much as they want, and in skilfully leading up to
his own tale. Nothing could give a more vivid impression of youth and
exuberance than the Squire's naïve enjoyment of the marvellous adventures
which he describes: the story is exactly suited to the teller, and his
sublime unconsciousness of the fact that any one else can possibly find it
long or quail before the prospect of a tale which bids fair to last all
the way to Canterbury and back, is just what we should expect of this
... lusty bacheler
With lokkes crulle,[51] as they were leyd in presse.
Of twenty yeer of age he was, I gesse
* * * * *
Embrouded[52] was he, as it were a mede
Al ful of fresshe floures, whyte and rede.
Singinge he was, or floytinge[53] al the day;
He was as fresh as is the month of May.
No wonder he tells of enchanted steeds and magic rings, of joust and
tourney. And in showing the charm and youthfulness of the Squire, Chaucer
also contrives to show us the charm, and we might almost add the
youthfulness, of the popular romance. It is difficult to believe that the
_Squieres Tale_ was left unfinished by chance. The manner in which it is
cut short not only lights up the characters of the Squire and the Franklin
in a manner eminently characteristic of Chaucer, but also gently satirises
the long-windedness and absurdity of the romance-writers; and that Chaucer
was keenly alive to their faults is shown by the rollicking burlesque of
_Sir Thopas_. The _Squieres Tale_ forms, as it were, a half-way house
between the serious treatment of romance in _Troilus and Criseyde_ and the
_Knightes Tale_, and the pure parody of Chaucer's own "tale of mirthe."
_Sir Thopas_ parodies not only the matter but the manner of the romance
writers. It out-Herods Herod in the intolerable jingle of its verse and
the absurdity of its extra syllables, while the adventures of Sir Thopas
and the fairy queen prove too much even for the pilgrims, ready as they
are to be interested in a story of any kind.
Sir Thopas wex a doghty swayn,
Whyt was his face as payndemayn[54]
His lippes red as rose;
His rode[55] is lyk scarlet in grayn,
And I you telle in good certayn
He hadde a semely nose,
drones the poet, and no wonder after bearing a couple of hundred lines,
the host breaks in with,
"No more of this, for goddes dignitee
* * * * *
Myn eres aken of thy drasty[56] speche;
Now swiche a rym the devel I biteche!
This may wel be rym dogerel," quod he.
Considerations of space make it impossible to take in detail Chaucer's
treatment of all his various sources. Like Shakespeare, he rarely troubles
to invent a plot for himself, and Professor Skeat's table shows but one of
all the _Canterbury Tales_ for which no original has yet been found. In
the brief consideration of his treatment of romance as a whole two points
stand out conspicuously: in the first place his skill in simple narration,
and in the second his interest in action as revealing character rather
than for its own sake. In the _Canterbury Tales_ he shows greater
certainty in the delineation of character, greater readiness to trust to
his readers' discrimination. Instead of describing characters at length,
he gives us an occasional comment, or leaves us to see for ourselves the
meaning of some significant action, and the consequence is that every
addition or omission that he makes is worthy of careful attention. Three
typical instances may be taken as illustrating his method: the _Man of
Lawes Tale_, the _Nonne Preestes Tale_, and the story of Count Hugo of
Pisa in the _Monkes Tale_.
The story of Constance is taken from the Anglo-Norman chronicle of
Nicholas Trivet. Trivet's version, which is in prose, is considerably
longer than Chaucer's. It begins, undramatically, by speaking of the
virtue and prosperity of Maurice, "a very gracious youth, and wondrously
strong for his age, and wise and sharp of wit. According to the history of
the Saxons aforesaid, he was the son of Constance, the daughter of
Tiberius, by a king of the Saxons, Alle,"[57]--thus doing away with all
suspense as to Constance's fate, and showing at the outset that the story
is to have a happy ending. The chronicle then goes on to lay stress on the
learning of the princess, who was instructed not only in the Christian
faith but also in the seven sciences, logic, physics, morals, astronomy,
geometry, music, and perspective,[58] and in various tongues. When she was
thirteen, there came to her father's court certain Saracen merchants, and
Constance, hearing of the rich merchandise they had brought, went down to
inspect it and to question them concerning their land and creed. Finding
that they were heathen, she at once proceeded to convert them, and such
was her eloquence that before returning to their own land, they were all
baptised. Nor were they content with this, for on their arrival in
Saracenland, they began to preach the new doctrine. The Sultan sent for
them, that his wise men might rebuke them, but they refuted the arguments
of the heathen, and then "began to praise the maid Constance, who had
converted and fully instructed them, for very high and noble wit and
wisdom, and great marvellous beauty, and gentleness, and nobleness of
blood." So deep an impression did they make on their lord that he was
"greatly overcome with love for the maiden" and promptly dispatched these
same merchants, and with them a heathen Admiral, to demand her in
marriage. Tiberius sent back the messengers with great honour, giving his
consent if his prospective son-in-law on his part would agree to become a
Christian. "And the Admiral, before the Sultan and all his council, vowed
himself to the Christian faith, if the Sultan should consent." The
impatient lover soon agreed, and Constance accordingly set sail for
Saracenland under escort of "a cardinal bishop, and a cardinal priest,
with a great number of clergy, and a senator of Rome, with noble chivalry
and great and rich array, and with a great number of Christians who went
thither, some on pilgrimage, others to take possession of Jerusalem." The
Sultan's mother, seeing her religion in danger, determined to rid the land
of these invaders. Having made a covenant with seven hundred Saracens, who
swore to aid her, she invited all the Christians to a great feast,
professing that she herself desired to embrace their religion. At a given
signal the seven hundred Saracens fell upon the unarmed guests, and of the
whole number there escaped but three young men and Constance herself. The
Sultan, the Admiral, and the other converts were involved in the general
massacre. The three young men fled to Rome, where they told the Emperor
that his daughter had perished with the rest. Constance, having refused
to renounce her faith, "for no fair promise of wealth or honour, nor for
any threat of punishment or death," is set adrift in an open boat, with
provision enough to last her for three years, and also with all the
treasure which she had brought with her as a bride. For three whole years
she drifts about on the great ocean. "Then, in the eighth month of the
fourth year, God who steered the ship of the holy man Noah in the great
flood, sent a favourable wind, and drove the ship to England, under a
castle in the kingdom of Northumberland, near Humber." Elda, the warden of
the castle, goes down to ask her of her condition. "And she answered him
in Saxon ... as one who was learned in divers languages, as is aforesaid."
The good warden receives her hospitably, and his wife Hermingild becomes
so enamoured of the maiden "that nothing could happen to her that she
would not do according to her will." Then follows the conversion of
Hermingild and Elda owing to a miracle wrought by Constance upon a blind
man. Elda tells Alle, King of Northumberland, of the wonderful maiden at
his castle, and Alle is about to visit her when dire distress falls upon
the three friends. A felon knight, to whose suit Constance has turned a
deaf ear, murders Hermingild and contrives that suspicion shall fall upon
Constance. Elda cannot believe her capable of such treachery, whereupon
the accuser swears upon the gospels and upon his baptism, "which he had
already lately received," that Constance is the criminal. Scarcely had he
ended the word, when a closed hand, like a man's fist, appeared before
Elda and all who were present, and smote such a blow on the nape of the
felon's neck, that both his eyes flew out of his head, and his teeth out
of his mouth; and the felon fell smitten down to the earth. And thereupon
a voice said in the hearing of all, "Against Mother Church thou wert
laying a scandal: this hast thou done, and I have held my peace." On
Alle's arrival the felon is condemned to death, and so struck is the king
by what has passed that he is himself baptised, and then marries
Constance. Six months later he is called away by a border raid. During his
absence the queen is delivered of a fair boy, and letters are sent to the
king to tell him the good news. Once again, however, Constance is
unfortunate enough to possess a mother-in-law who hates her: "For she had
great disdain that King Alle had, for the love of a strange woman whose
lineage was unknown to him, forsaken his former religion." The messenger
rests at her house at Knaresborough, and the queen-mother gives him an
evil drink, and then alters his letters, telling King Alle that his wife
is an evil spirit in the form of a woman, "Whereto witnesseth the child
born of her, which resembles not a human form, but a cursed form hideous
and doleful." With rare justice and self-restraint Alle writes back to his
lords, bidding them take no steps against the queen or her child until he
himself can return and inquire into the matter. Again the foolish
messenger stays the night at Knaresborough, and again the queen-mother
tampers with the letters. Under the king's seal she writes to the lords
and bids them set Constance and her child adrift in an open boat, that she
may leave the land in like manner that she came to it. The king's word is
obeyed, and amidst the lamentations and tears of all the people Constance
is put on board a ship "without sail or oar or any device." The ship is
driven to the coast of Spain, where a certain heathen Admiral befriends
her. His seneschal, a renegade knight named Thelous, persuades Constance
that he wishes to repent of his sins and return to the Christian faith,
and prays her to take him with her, that he may come to a land of
Christians. Once alone with her, he reveals his true purpose. Constance
begs him to look out and see if there is no land in sight, and then comes
privily behind his back and thrusts him into the sea. Meanwhile Alle,
having discovered his mother's treachery, puts her to death, and vows
never to marry again. Constance is eventually rescued by mariners and
brought to Rome. She learns that her father has avenged her supposed death
upon the Saracens, but instead of revealing her identity she lives for
twelve years with a noble couple called Arsemius and Helen. At the end of
that time Alle visits Rome, and Constance's son, Maurice, is invited to be
present at the feast in his honour. Constance bids the youth make a point
of serving the King of England. Alle, struck by Maurice's likeness to
Constance, inquires what his origin may be, and by this means recovers his
wife and child. Tiberius proclaims Maurice his heir and "companion in the
Empire." Constance returns to England with her husband, but six months
later, hearing that her father is dying, she comes back to Rome, where
she herself dies a year later.
The story is worth telling in some detail because it shows how closely
Chaucer keeps to his original when it suits his purpose. The Man of Lawe
does not alter a single point of any importance. He makes no attempt to
soften down the improbabilities of the story or reduce the miraculous
element. After all, he is himself going on a pilgrimage to the
wonder-working shrine of St. Thomas à Becket, and shrewd man of the world
as he is, there is nothing in the history of Constance to strain his
credulity. But whereas in Trivet the characters are mere lay figures set
up to illustrate the power of Christianity and the evil fate which befalls
the opponents of Mother Church, in Chaucer they have an individuality of
their own. Instead of alienating our sympathy at the outset by insisting
on the learning and missionary enterprise of a child of thirteen, Chaucer
omits all this and follows the more natural path of making the foreign
chapmen so struck by the good report which they hear of the emperor's
daughter, that having once seen her, and proved her beauty for themselves,
when after their custom they go to tell the Soldan what wonders they have
met with on their travels, they in turn inflame his imagination by their
description. The brief dialogue between Constance and her father, when the
marriage has been arranged, is Chaucer's own interpolation, and its note
of despair prepares us for what is to follow:--
Allas! unto the Barbre nacioun[59]
I moste anon, sin that it is your wille;
But Crist, that starf[60] for our redempcioun
So yeve me grace his hestes[61] to fulfille;
I, wrecche womman, no fors though I spille[62]
Wommen are born to thraldom and penance,
And to ben under mannes governance.
Here we have no priggish and self-righteous virgin setting forth with smug
self-satisfaction to convert Saracenland, but a lonely, timid girl, whose
heart misgives her at the thought of leaving her parents and going to meet
an unknown husband. Equally vivid and effective is Chaucer's picture of
the Soldan's wicked mother, who not only professes readiness to accept
baptism herself but advises her fellow-conspirators to do the same on the
ground--
Cold water shal not greve us but a lyte,[63]
and adds with savage humour that by the time she has done with her son's
wife,
She shal have nede to wasshe awey the rede,
Thogh she a font-ful water with hir lede.
The marriage festivities are passed over lightly, and then comes a
characteristic interpolation which Chaucer borrows from quite a different
source, _i. e._ from Innocent III's _De Miseria Humanæ Conditionis_:--
O sodeyn wo! that ever art successour
To worldly blisse, spreynd[64] with bitternesse;
Th'ende of the joye of our worldly labour;
Wo occupieth the fyn of our gladnesse.[65]
Herke this conseil for thy sikernesse,
Upon thy gladde day have in thy minde
The unwar wo or harm that comth behinde.
Then come a few brief words describing the massacre and Constance's
unhappy fate, followed by the beautiful prayer of Constance when she finds
herself alone on "the salte see," of which no trace at all is to be found
in Trivet. Here the poet breaks off to discuss the miraculous element in
the story. Nothing is more characteristic of Chaucer than this habit of
pausing to consider some abstract question raised by what he is
relating--it is even more conspicuously evident in the _Nonne Preestes
Tale_ than it is here, where such a discussion is in keeping with the
spirit of the poem, and where he shows himself content to take the simple
explanation of religion.
The episode of Elda and Hermingild is given very simply and shortly,
Elda's name not being mentioned. Then comes the false accusation brought
against Constance by the treacherous knight, and here we see Chaucer's
power of painting a dramatic situation in a few words. He tells us how
Constance is brought before the king and gives her brief prayer to the God
"that savedest Susanne," and then with a sudden vivid simile drives home
to us her agony of suspense:--
Have ye nat seyn som tyme a pale face
Among a prees, of him that hath be lad
Toward his deeth, where-as him gat no grace,
And swich a colour in his face hath had,
Men mighte knowe his face, that was bestad,
Amonges alle faces in that route:
So stant Custance, and loketh hir aboute.
Her marriage with Alle, Chaucer dismisses even more hastily than her
marriage with the Soldan:--
Me list nat of the chaf nor of the stree
Maken so long a tale as of the corn.
What sholde I tellen of the royaltee
At mariage, or which cours gooth biforn
Who bloweth in a trompe or in an horn?
The fruit of every tale is for to seye,
They ete, and drinke, and daunce, and singe, and pleye.
The mishap of the messenger causes him to break out into an invective
against drunkenness, and then follows one of the most wonderful passages
in the whole poem, that in which he describes Constance going down to the
boat "with deedly pale face," her baby weeping in her arms. Chaucer's love
of children manifests itself again and again in his poems. The tenderness
of the mother's
"Pees litel sone, I wol do thee non harm"
as she binds her kerchief round the child's eyes is far more moving in its
simplicity than the most harrowing description could be. And here again,
as Constance lulls the baby in her arms, Chaucer puts into her mouth a
beautifully simple and touching prayer to the Virgin Mother:--
"Thou sawe thy child y-slayn bifor thy yën,
And yet now liveth my litel child, parfay!
Now, lady bright, to whom alle woful cryen,
Thou glorie of wommanhede, thou faire may,[66]
Thou haven of refut, brighte sterre of day
Rewe on[67] my child, that of thy gentilesse
Rewest on every rewful[68] in distresse."
With these words on her lips she turns to Elda and holding up the child
cries
"And if thou darst not saven him for blame,
So kis him ones in his fadres name,"
and without further complaint
She blesseth hir; and in-to ship she wente.
The whole passage has a breathing human passion in it of which Trivet's
chronicle knows nothing. We forget the absurdity of the story, the
impossible repetition of an impossible situation, and see only a cruelly
wronged wife and mother meeting her fate with simple dignity and faith.
Trivet gives us lurid details concerning the vengeance that falls on
Alle's mother. Chaucer, who never takes pleasure in horrors, remarks
briefly that he "his moder slow," and hastens on to tell of Constance's
adventures off the coast of Spain. Here again, we find a break in the
narrative, as the author pauses to comment on the evils of
self-indulgence, and to explain how God sends weak women the "spirit of
vigour" that they may save themselves in time of need. The rest of the
story follows Trivet's chronicle very closely, though the description of
Alle's meeting with his wife is Chaucer's own:--
I trowe an hundred tymes been they kist,
And swich a blisse is ther bitwix hem two
That, save the joye that lasteth evermo
Ther is non lyk, that any creature
Hath seyn or shal whyl that the world may dure.
And he also adds a brief comment on the instability of human happiness.
It will be seen that Chaucer tends to reduce descriptive passages pure and
simple to a minimum, and so far to condense the actual narrative that it
moves quickly and straight-forwardly, while at the same time he expands
any situation which affords opportunity for the display of character, adds
dialogue and intensifies emotion, and also shows a disposition to comment
on what he is describing.
The _Nonne Preestes Tale_ is based on Marie de France's fable of the _Cock
and the Fox_, though it is possible that Chaucer's more immediate source
was an enlargement of this, called the _Roman de Renart_. The _Cock and
the Fox_ consists of but thirty-eight lines, and the _Roman de Renart_ of
453, whereas the _Nonne Preestes Tale_ consists of 626 lines, so that here
we have a case in which Chaucer enlarges his original very considerably.
In fact he can hardly be said to have borrowed more than the bare outline
of the story.
In the first place, the whole description of the "poore widwe" and her
poultry-yard is entirely Chaucer's. There is nothing in the French to
correspond to the delightful picture of Chauntecleer strutting among the
submissive hens--
Of which the faireste hewed on hir throte
Was cleped faire damoysele Pertelote,
or singing "my lief is faren in londe"[69] in sweet accord with his love.
Then the incident of the dream is entirely altered. The French author
makes dame Pinte, the hen, expound the dream to her husband and warn him
of the danger which lies before him. Chaucer draws inimitable portraits of
the fussy, self-important cock, thoroughly frightened and yet too
conceited to accept his wife's simple and prosaic suggestion that his
terrors spring from indigestion, and of the sensible, practical hen with
her scathing contempt for the husband who though he has a beard has yet
"no mannes heart." And here follows a lengthy disquisition on dreams, the
cock overwhelming his sceptical wife with examples of warnings which have
been fulfilled, and illustrations drawn from the most varied sources.
Having restored his self-esteem by reference to the histories of Joseph,
St. Kenelm, Croesus, Andromache and others,
Royal he was, he was namore aferd.
The advent of the fox gives Chaucer another opportunity to discuss
fore-knowledge, and suddenly, in the midst of this lightest and most
amusing of skits, we find him gravely considering the question of
predestination and free-will. He comes to no conclusion, but after stating
various learned opinions, shrugs his shoulders and turns aside with a
dry:--
I wol not han to do of swich matere;
My tale is of a cok, as ye may here ...
The dialogue between the cock and the fox is much the same in both
versions, though as Dr. Furnivall points out (_Chaucer's Originals and
Analogues_, p. 112), Chaucer improves the story by omitting the spring
made by the fox before he begins to flatter Chauntecleer; but Pinte shows
none of the extremely proper feeling displayed by Pertelote when she sees
her husband carried off before her eyes:--
But soverynly dame Pertelote shrighte
Ful louder than dide Hasdrubables wyf,
Whan that hir housbond hadde lost his lyf,
And that the Romans hadde brende Cartage.
The peculiar characteristic of the English version is its all-pervading
sense of humour, the gravity with which we are led on step by step until
we find ourselves accepting the most ridiculous situations, and the
extraordinary skill with which the characters of Chauntecleer and
Pertelote are drawn.
In the _Monkes Tale_ Chaucer draws his stories of the falls of illustrious
men from all kinds of sources. The heroes range from Lucifer to Pedro the
Cruel, and the worthy monk chooses his illustrations apparently at random,
now from sacred history, now from the classics, now from contemporary
life. No great dramatic skill is to be expected of the narrator, and for
the most part the tragedies succeed one another with placid regularity,
the occasional comments made by the monk himself showing no particular
insight or intelligence. Having described the fall of Sampson, for
instance, no more inspiring reflection occurs to him than
That no men telle hir conseil til hir wyves
Of swich thing as they wolde han secree fayn,
If that it touche hir limmes or hir lyves.
One tale, however, stands out conspicuously above the rest. In the
_Inferno_ (Canto XXXIII) Dante had told the story of Count Hugo of Pisa,
who was locked up in a tower with his sons and starved to death. In a few
grim words he describes the father's despair and the slow death of the
wretched sons:--
When we came
To the fourth day, then Gaddo at my feet
Outstretch'd did fling him, crying, "Hast no help
For me, my father?" There he died; and e'en
Plainly as thou seest me, saw I the three
Fall one by one 'twixt the fifth day and sixth:
Whence I betook me, now grown blind, to grope
Over them all, and for three days aloud
Call'd on them who were dead. Then, fasting got
The mastery of grief.
(Carey's translation.)
Chaucer takes this and uses it as the basis of one of his tragedies. In
Dante the actual story occupies fifty-nine lines, in Chaucer it occupies
fifty-six, so in this case there is little in the way either of
condensation or expansion. The changes which Chaucer makes are, however,
very significant. Dante simply says that the three sons of Count Hugo
suffer with their father. Chaucer enhances the pathos by telling us that
The eldeste scarsly fyf yeer was of age.
Allas, fortune! it was greet crueltee
Swiche briddes for to putte in swiche a cage!
When Dante's Count Hugo hears
... at its outlet underneath lock'd up
The horrible tower ...
he is so turned to stone that he can find no relief in tears. Chaucer's
cries,
"Allas! ... that I was wrought."
Therewith the teres fillen from his yën.[70]
Chaucer gives us a moving picture of the little three-year-old looking up
and asking
"Fader, why do ye wepe!
Whan wol the gayler bringen our potage,
Is ther no morsel breed that ye do kepe?
I am so hungry that I may nat slepe ..."
and finally lying down in his father's lap, and kissing him, and dying.
The stern horror of Dante's story is too terrible to admit of pathos such
as this. Chaucer's version is infinitely touching, but it has nothing in
it that chills our blood as does the picture of the father, grown blind
with hunger, groping over the dead bodies of his children till fasting
gets the mastery of grief. He can depict innocent suffering, he can arouse
our sympathy and stir our pity, but he never strikes the note of real
tragedy. It is not only that no one of his many heroes and heroines
experiences any tragic conflict of soul, but in the simple presentation of
suffering Chaucer shows little of that power of grim suggestion, of appeal
to the imagination, which are among the most essential characteristics of
the tragic poet. Cressida's hesitation has nothing grand or tragic about
it. She is simply uncertain which course will bring her most happiness.
And her repentance--if such it can be called--is no more than a momentary
discomfort at the thought that she has caused Troilus pain and that unkind
things are likely to be said of her. Troilus suffers, but, in Professor
Bradley's phrase, it is suffering that merely befalls him, the whole
tragedy is external, and his abandonment of passion has none of the
dignity and restraint of a great emotion. Othello's cry of "Desdemona,
Desdemona dead!" contains more poignancy of suffering than all the
outbursts of Troilus put together. Constance, and Griselda, and Dorigen
all know the meaning of sorrow, but their simple acceptance of their fate
is pathetic rather than tragic, and in the cases of Constance and
Griselda, as in the case of Count Hugo, the tragedy is further softened by
the part played by the children. The monk's definition of tragedy--though
it need not necessarily be Chaucer's own--sufficiently explains the
medieval conception:--
Tragedie is to seyn a certeyn storie,
As olde bokes maken us memorie,
Of him that stood in greet prosperitee
And is y-fallen out of heigh degree
Into miserie, and endeth wrecchedly.
To Chaucer the interest lies in the study of normal men and women, and in
comparing his narratives with their originals nothing is more striking
than the air of homeliness and naturalness with which he contrives to
invest the most amazing incidents. Dorigen and her husband strike one as
simple, natural folk whose nice sense of honour leads them to keep their
word though it were to their own hindrance. We hardly notice the absurdity
of the situation itself, and are little troubled by the magic arts which
enable her persecutor to remove all rocks from the coast of Brittany.
Constance is no tragedy-queen, but a true-hearted, simple woman; and the
fact that she lives in a world of miracles never obtrudes itself. We
accept her adventures without a qualm since our interest lies in her
personality, and the odd thing is that her personality, attractive as it
is, strikes one as so little out of the common. Writers of the day, as a
rule, desired either to point a moral or to thrill their readers by sheer
force of adventure. Chaucer took the accepted conventions of his day, and
pierced through them to the human nature underneath.