It is not enough for him to saunter each day from a palace to a garden;
he is not content with an alley, he must have a road. He puts his whole
troop of narrators in motion; he stops them at the inns, takes them to
drink at the public-houses, obliges them to hurry their pace when
evening comes, causes them to make acquaintance with the passers-by. His
people move, bestir themselves, listen, talk, scream, sing, exchange
compliments, sometimes blows; for if his knights are real knights, his
millers are real millers, who swear and strike as in a mill.
The interest of each tale is doubled by the way in which it is told, and
even by the way it is listened to. The knight delights his audience,
which the monk puts to sleep and the miller causes to laugh; one is
heard in silence, the other is interrupted at every word. Each story is
followed by a scene of comedy, lively, quick, unexpected, and amusing;
they discuss, they approve, they lose their tempers; no strict rules,
but all the independence of the high-road, and the unforeseen of real
life; we are not sauntering in alleys! Mine host himself, with his deep
voice and his peremptory decisions, does not always succeed in making
himself obeyed. After the knight's tale, he would like another in the
same style to match it; but he will have to listen to the miller's,
which, on the contrary, will serve as a contrast. He insists; the miller
shouts, he shouts "in Pilates vois," he threatens to leave them all and
"go his wey" if they prevent him from talking. "Wel," says the host,
"Tel on, a devel wey!
Thou art a fool, thy wit is overcome,"
What would Donna Pampinea and Donna Filomena have said, hearing such
words?
At other times the knight is obliged to interfere, and then the tone is
very different. He does not have to scream; a word from him is enough,
and the storms are calmed. Moreover, the host himself becomes more
gentle at times; this innkeeper knows whom he has to deal with; with all
his roughness, he has a rude notion of differences and distances. His
language is the language of an innkeeper; Chaucer never commits the
fault of making him step out of his role; but the poet is too keen an
observer not to discern _nuances_ even in the temper of a jovial host.
One should see with what politeness and what salutations and what
embarrassed compliments he informs the abbess that her turn has come to
relate a story:
"My lady Prioresse, by your leve,
So that I wist I sholde yow nat greve,
I wolde demen that ye telle sholde
A tale next, if so were that ye wolde.
Now wol ye vouche-sauf, my lady dere?"
--"Gladly," quod she, and seyde as ye shal here.
The answer is not less suitable than the request.
Thus, in these little scenes, we see, put into action, the descriptions
of the prologue; the portraits step out of their frames and come down
into the street; their limbs have become immediately supple and active;
the blood courses through their veins; life fills them to the end of
their fingers. No sooner are they on their feet than they turn
somersaults or make courtesies; and by their words they charm, enliven,
edify, or scandalise. Their personality is so accentuated that it makes
them unmanageable at times; their temper rules them; they are not
masters of their speech. The friar wants to tell a story, but he is so
blinded by anger that he does not know where he is going; he stammers,
he chokes, and his narrative remains shapeless; the pardoner is so
closely bound to his profession that he cannot for a moment move out of
it; shirt and skin make one, to use a familiar phrase of Montaigne's;
his tale resembles a sermon, and he concludes as though he were in
church:
Now, goode men, God forgeve yow your trespas ...
I have relikes and pardon in my male
As faire as any man in Engelond ...
It is an honour to everich that is heer,
That ye mowe have a suffisant pardoneer
Tassoille yow, in contree as ye ryde,
For aventures which that may bityde.
Peraventure ther may falle oon or two
Doun of his hors, and breke his nekke atwo.
Look what a seuretee is it to yow alle
That I am in your felaweship y-falle,
That may assoille yow, bothe more and lasse,
Whan that the soule shal fro the body passe.
I rede that our hoste heer shal biginne,
For he is most envoluped in sinne.
Com forth sir hoste, and offre first anon,
And thou shalt kisse the reliks everichon,
Ye, for a grote! unbokel anon thy purs![534]
A most happy idea! Mine host makes a reply which cannot be repeated.
In other cases the personage is so wordy and impetuous that it is
impossible to stop him, or set him right, or interrupt him; he cannot
make up his mind to launch into his narrative; he must needs remain
himself on the stage and talk about his own person and belongings; he
alone is a whole comedy. One must perforce keep silence when the Wife of
Bath begins to talk, irresistible gossip, chubby-faced, over-fed,
ever-buzzing, inexhaustible in speech, never-failing in arguments, full
of glee. She talks about what she knows, about her specialty; her
specialty is matrimony; she has had five husbands, "three of hem were
gode and two were badde;" the last is still living, but she is already
thinking of the sixth, because she does not like to wait, and because
husbands are perishable things; they do not last long with her; in her
eyes the weak sex is the male sex. She is not going to break her heart
about a husband who gives up the ghost; her conscience is easy; the
spouse departs quite ready for a better world:
By God, in erthe I was his purgatorie,
For which I hope his soule be in glorie.
Some praise celibacy, or reason about husbands' rights; the merry gossip
will answer them. She discusses the matter thoroughly; sets forth the
pros and cons; allows her husband to speak, then speaks herself; she has
the best arguments in the world; her husband, too, has excellent ones,
but it is she who has the very best. She is a whole _Ecole des Maris_ in
herself.
The tales are of every sort,[535] and taken from everywhere. Chaucer
never troubled himself to invent any; he received them from all hands,
but he modelled them after his own fashion, and adapted them to his
characters. They are borrowed from France, Italy, ancient Rome; the
knight's tale is taken from Boccaccio, that of the nun's priest is
imitated from the "Roman de Renart"; that of "my lord the monk" from
Latin authors and from Dante, "the grete poete of Itaille." The miller,
the reeve, the somnour, the shipman, relate coarse stories, and their
licentiousness somewhat embarrasses the good Chaucer, who excuses
himself for it. It is not he who talks, it is his road-companions; and
it is the Southwark beer which inspires them, not he; you must blame the
Southwark beer. The manners of the people of the lower classes, their
loves, their animosities and their jealousies, are described to the life
in these narratives. We see how the jolly Absolon goes to work to charm
the carpenter's wife, who prefers Nicholas; he makes music under her
windows, and brings her little presents; he is careful of his attire,
wears "hoses rede," spreads out hair that shines like gold,
He kempte hise lokkes brode, and made him gay.
If on a feast-day they play a Mystery on the public place before the
church, he gets the part of Herod allotted to him: who could resist a
person so much in view? Alison resists, however, not out of virtue, but
because she prefers Nicholas. She does not require fine phrases to repel
Absolon's advances; village-folk are not so ceremonious:
Go forth thy wey, or I wol caste a ston.
Blows abound in stories of that kind, and the personages go off with
"their back as limp as their belly," as we read in one of the narratives
from which Chaucer drew his inspiration.
Next to these great scenes of noise there are little familiar scenes,
marvellously observed, and described to perfection; scenes of home-life
that might tempt the pencil of a Dutch painter; views of the mysterious
laboratory where the alchemist, at once duped and duping, surrounded
with retorts, "cucurbites and alembykes," his clothes burnt to holes,
seeks to discover the philosopher's stone. They heat, they pay great
attention, they stir the mixture;
The pot to-breketh, and farewel! al is go!
Then they discuss; it is the fault of the pot, of the fire, of the
metal; it is just as I thought;
Som seyde, it was long on the fyr-making,
Som seyde, nay! it was on the blowing....
"Straw," quod the thridde, "ye been lewede and nyce,
It was nat tempred as it oghte be."
A fourth discovers a fourth cause: "Our fyr was nat maad of beech." What
wonder, with so many causes for a failure, that it failed? We will begin
over again.[536]
Or else, we have representations of those interested visits that
mendicant friars paid to the dying. The friar, low, trivial,
hypocritical, approaches:
"Deus hic," quod he, "O Thomas, freend, good day."
He lays down his staff, wallet, and hat; he takes a seat, the cat was on
the bench, he makes it jump down; he settles himself; the wife bustles
about, he allows her to, and even encourages her. What could he eat? Oh!
next to nothing, a fowl's liver, a pig's head roasted, the lightest
repast; his "stomak is destroyed;"
My spirit hath his fostring in the Bible.
He thereupon delivers to the sick man a long and interested sermon,
mingled with Latin words, in which the verb "to give" comes in at every
line: whatever you do, don't give to others, give to me; give to my
convent, don't give to the convent next door:
A! yif that covent half a quarter otes!
A! yif that covent four and twenty grotes!
A! yif that frere a peny and let him go....
Thomas, of me thou shalt nat ben y-flatered;
Thou woldest ban our labour al for noght.[537]
Pay then, give then, give me this, or only that; Thomas gives less
still.
Familiar scenes, equally true but of a more pleasing kind, are found in
other narratives, for instance in the story of Chauntecleer the cock, so
well localised with a few words, in a green, secluded country nook:
A poure widwe, somdel stope in age
Was whylom dwelling in a narwe cotage,
Bisyde a grove, standing in a dale.
Her stable, her barn-yard are described; we hear the lowing of the cows
and the crowing of the cock; the tone rises little by little, and we get
to the mock-heroic style. Chauntecleer the cock,
In al the land of crowing nas his peer.
His vois was merier than the mery orgon
On messe-days that in the chirche gon;
Wel sikerer was his crowing in his logge
Than is a clokke, or an abbey orlogge....
His comb was redder than the fyn coral,
And batailed, as it were a castel-wal!
He had a black beak, white "nayles," and azure legs; he reigned
unrivalled over the hens in the barn-yard. One of the hens was his
favourite, the others filled subalternate parts. One day--
This storie is al-so trewe, I undertake
As is the book of Launcelot de Lake,
That wommen holde in ful gret reverence,
--he was looking for "a boterflye," and what should he see but a fox!
"Cok, cok!" he cries, with a jump, and means to flee.
"Gentil sire, allas! wher wol ye gon?
Be ye affrayed of me that am your freend?"
says the good fox; I came only to hear you sing; you have the family
talent:
My lord your fader (God his soule blesse!),
sang so well; but you sing better still. To sing better still, the cock
shuts his eye, and the fox bears him off. Most painful adventure! It was
a Friday: such things always befall on Fridays.
O Gaufred, dere mayster soverayn,
That whan the worthy King Richard was slayn
With shot, compleynedest his deth so sore,
Why ne had I now thy sentence and thy lore,
The Friday for to chide, as diden ye?[538]
Great commotion in the barn-yard; and here we find a picture charming
for its liveliness: "Out! harrow! and weyl-away! Ha, ha, the fox!" every
one shrieks, yells, runs; the dogs bark,
Ran cow and calf, and eek the verray hogges;
the ducks scream,
The gees for fere flowen over the trees,
and the bees come out of their hives. The prisoner is set free; he will
be more prudent another time; order reigns once more in the domains of
Chauntecleer.
Side by side with such tales of animals, we have elegant stories of the
Round Table, borrowed from the lays of "thise olde gentil Britons," and
which carry us back to a time when,
In tholde dayes of the King Arthour
Of which that Britons speken greet honour,
Al was this land fulfild of fayerye;
The elf-queen, with hir joly companye,
Daunced ful ofte in many a grene mede;
oriental legends, which the young squire will relate, with enchantments,
magic mirrors, a brass horse that transports its rider through the air,
here or there according as one touches a peg in its ears, an ancestor
doubtless of "Clavilegno," the steed of Don Quixote in the Duchesse's
park; biographies of Appius and Virginia, of Caesar, of Nero, of
Holophernes, of Hugolino in the tower of hunger, taken from Roman
history, the Bible and Dante; adventures of chivalry, in which figures
Theseus, duke of Athens, where blood flows profusely, with all the
digressions and all the embellishments which still continued to please
great men and great ladies, and that is why the story is told by the
knight, and Chaucer retains purposely all the faults of that particular
sort of story. In opposition to his usual custom, he contents himself
here with lending a little life to illuminations of manuscripts.[539]
Grave personages relate grave stories, like canticles or sermons,
coloured as with the light of stained glass, perfumed with incense,
accompanied by organ music: story of the pious Constance, of St.
Cecilia, of a child killed by the Jews; dissertations of dame Prudence
(a tale of wondrous dulness,[540] which Chaucer modestly ascribes to
himself); story of the patient Griselda; discourse of the poor parson. A
while ago we were at the inn; now we are in church; in the Middle Ages
striking colours and decided contrasts were best liked; the faded tints
that have since been in fashion, mauve, cream, old-green, did not touch
any one; and we know that Chaucer, when he was a page, had a superb
costume, of which one leg was red and the other black. Laughter was
inextinguishable; it rose and fell and rose again, rebounding
indefinitely; despair was immeasurable; the sense of _measure_ was
precisely what was wanting; its vulgarisation was one of the results of
the Renaissance. Panegyrics and satires were readily carried to the
extreme. The logical spirit, propagated among the learned by a
scholastic education, was producing its effect: writers drew apart one
single quality or characteristic and descanted upon it, neglecting all
the rest. Thus it is that Griselda becomes Patience, and Janicola
Poverty, and that by an easy and imperceptible transition the abstract
personages of novels and the drama are created: Cowardice, Valiance,
Vice. Those typical beings, whose names alone make us shudder, were
considered perfectly natural; and, indeed, they bore a striking
resemblance to Griselda, Janicola, and many other heroes of the most
popular stories.
The success of Griselda is the proof of it. That poor girl, married to
the marquis of Saluces, who repudiates her in order to try her patience,
and then gives her back her position of wife, enjoyed an immense
popularity. Boccaccio had related her misfortunes in the "Decameron";
Petrarch thought the story so beautiful that it appeared to him worthy
of that supreme honour, a Latin translation: Chaucer translated it in
his turn from Latin into English, and made of it his Clerk of Oxford's
tale;[541] it was turned several times into French.[542] Pinturicchio
represented the adventures of Griselda in a series of pictures, now
preserved in the National Gallery; the story furnished the subject of
plays in Italy, in France, and in England.[543] These exaggerated
descriptions were just what went to the very heart; people wept over
them in the fourteenth century as over Clarissa in the eighteenth.
Petrarch, writing to Boccaccio about Griselda, uses almost the same
terms as Lady Bradshaigh, writing to Richardson about Clarissa:
"Had you seen me, I surely should have moved your pity. When alone, in
agonies would I lay down the book, take it up again, walk about the
room, let fall a flood of tears, wipe my eyes, read again--perhaps not
three lines--throw away the book, crying out: 'Excuse me, good Mr.
Richardson, I cannot go on; it is your fault, you have done more than I
can bear.'"[544]
I made "one of our mutual friends from Padua," writes Petrarch, "a man
of elevated mind and vast learning, read this story. He had hardly got
half through, when suddenly he stopped, choking with tears; a moment
after, having composed himself, he took up the narrative once more to
continue reading, and, behold, a second time sobs stopped his utterance.
He declared it was impossible for him to continue, and he made a person
of much instruction, who accompanied him, finish the reading." About
that time, in all probability, Petrarch, who, as we see in the same
letter, liked to renew the experience, gave the English poet and
negotiator, who had come to visit him in his retreat, this tale to read,
and Chaucer, for that very reason less free than with most of his other
stories, scarcely altered anything in Petrarch's text. With him as with
his model, Griselda is Patience, nothing more; everything is sacrificed
to that virtue; Griselda is neither woman nor mother; she is only the
patient spouse, Patience made wife. They take her daughter from her, to
be killed, as they tell her, by order of the marquis. So be it, replies
Griselda:
"Goth now," quod she, "and dooth my lordes heste;
But o thing wil I preye yow of your grace.
That, but my lord forbad yow, atte leste,
Burieth this litel body in som place,
That bestes ne no briddes it to-race."
But he no word wol to that purpos seye,
But took the child and wente upon his weye.[545]
Whereupon every one goes into ecstasies, and is greatly affected. The
idea of entreating her husband, of throwing herself at his feet, of
trying to move him, never enters her mind; she would no longer be
playing her part, which is not to be a mother, but to be: Patience.
Chaucer left his collection of tales uncompleted; we have less than the
half of it; but he wrote enough to show to the best his manifold
qualities. There appear in perfect light his masterly gifts of
observation, of comprehension, and of sympathy; we well see with what
art he can make his characters stand forth, and how skilfully they are
chosen to represent all contemporaneous England. The poet shows himself
full of heart, and at the same time full of sense; he is not without
suspicion that his pious stories, indispensable to render his picture
complete, may offend by their monotony and exaggerated good sentiments.
In giving them place in his collection, he belongs to his time and helps
to make it known; but a few mocking notes, scattered here and there,
show that he is superior to his epoch, and that, in spite of his long
dissertations and his digressions, he has, what was rare at that period,
a certain notion, at least theoretical, of the importance of proportion.
He allows his heroes to speak, but he is not their dupe; in fact he is
so little their dupe that sometimes he can stand their talk no longer,
and interrupts them or laughs at them to their very face. He laughs in
the face of the tiresome Constance, on the night of her wedding; he
shows us his companions riding drowsily on their horses to the sound of
the monk's solemn stories, and hardly preserved from actual slumber by
the noise of the horse's bells. He allows the host abruptly to interrupt
him when, to satirise the romances of chivalry, he relates, in "rym
dogerel," the feats of arms and marvellous adventures of the matchless
Sir Thopas.[546] Before we could even murmur the word "improbable," he
warns us that the time of Griseldas has passed, and that there exist no
more such women in our day. As the pilgrims draw near Canterbury, and it
becomes seemly to finish on a graver note, he causes his poor parson to
speak, and the priest announces beforehand that his discourse will be a
sermon, a real sermon, with a text from Scripture: "Incipit sermo," says
one of the manuscripts. He will speak in prose, as in church:
Why sholde I sowen draf out of my fest,
Whan I may sowen whete if that me lest?
All agree, and it is with the assent of his companions, who become more
serious as they approach the holy city, that he commences, for the good
of their souls, his ample "meditation." The coarse story told by the
miller had been justified by excuses no less appropriate to the person
and to the circumstances; the person was a clown, and chanced to be
drunk; now the person is a saint, and, as it happens, they are just
nearing the place of pilgrimage.
The good sense which caused the poet to write his "Canterbury Tales"
according to a plan so conformable to reason and to nature, is one of
the most eminent of Chaucer's qualities. It reveals itself in the
details as in the whole scheme, and inspires him, in the midst of his
most fanciful inventions, with reassuring remarks which show that earth
and real life are not far away, and that we are not in danger of falling
from the clouds. He reminds us at an opportune moment that there is a
certain nobility, the highest of all, which cannot be bequeathed in a
will; that the corrupt specimens of a social class should not cause the
whole class to be condemned:
Of every ordre som shrewe is, parde;[547]
that, in the education of children, parents should be careful not to
treat them too soon as men; if one takes them to merry-makings before
time, they become "to sone rype and bold, ... which is ful perilous." He
expresses himself very freely about great captains, each of whom would
have been called "an outlawe or a theef" had they done less harm.[548]
This last idea is put forth in a few lines of a humour so truly English
that it is impossible not to think of Swift and Fielding; and, indeed,
Fielding can the more appropriately be named here as he has devoted all
his novel of "Jonathan Wild the Great" to the expounding of exactly the
same thesis.
Finally, we owe to this same common sense of Chaucer's a thing more
remarkable yet: namely, that with his knowledge of Latin and of French,
and living in a circle where those two languages were in great favour,
he wrote solely in English. His prose, like his verse, his "Treatise on
the Astrolabe" like his tales, are in English. He belongs to the English
nation, and that is why he writes in that language; a reason of that
sort is sufficient for him: "Suffyse to thee thise trewe conclusiouns in
English, as wel as suffyseth to thise noble clerkes Grekes thise same
conclusiouns in Greek, and to Arabians in Arabik, and to Jewes in Ebrew,
and to the Latin folk in Latin." Chaucer, then, will make use of plain
English, "naked wordes in English"; he will employ the national
language, the king's English--"the king that is lord of this
langage."[549] And he will use it, as in truth he did, to express
exactly his thoughts and not to embellish them; he hates travesty, he
worships truth; he wants words and things to be in the closest possible
relation:
The wordes mote be cosin to the dede.[550]
The same wisdom is again the cause why Chaucer does not spend himself in
vain efforts to attempt impossible reforms, and to go against the
current. It has been made a subject of reproach to him in our day; and
some, from love of the Saxon past, have been indignant at the number of
French words Chaucer uses; why did he not go back to the origins of the
language? But Chaucer was not one of those who, as Milton says, think
"to pound up the crows by shutting their park gates;" he employed the
national tongue, as it existed in his day; the proportion of French
words is not greater with him than with the mass of his contemporaries.
The words he made use of were living and fruitful, since they are still
alive, they and their families; the proportion of those that have
disappeared is wonderfully small, seeing the time that has elapsed. As
to the Anglo-Saxons, he retained, as did the nation, but without being
aware of it, something of their grave and powerful genius; it is not his
fault if he ignored these ancestors; every one in his day ignored them,
even such thinkers as Langland, in whom lived again with most force the
spirit of the ancient Germanic race. The tradition was broken; in the
literary past one went back to the Conquest, and thence without
transition to "thise olde gentil Britons." In his enumeration of
celebrated bards, Chaucer gives a place to Orpheus, to Orion, and to the
"Bret Glascurion"; but no author of any "Beowulf" is named by him.
Shakespeare, in the same manner, will derive inspiration from the
national past; he will go back to the time of the Roses, to the time of
the Plantagenets, to the time of Magna Charta, and, passing over the
Anglo-Saxon period, he will take from the Britons the stories of Lear
and of Cymbeline.
The brilliancy with which Chaucer used this new tongue, the instant fame
of his works, the clear proof afforded by his writings that English
could fit the highest and the lowest themes, assured to that idiom its
definitive place among the great literary languages. English still had,
in Chaucer's day, a tendency to resolve itself into dialects; as, in the
time of the Conquest, the kingdom had still a tendency to resolve itself
into sub-kingdoms. Chaucer knew this, and was concerned about it; he was
anxious about those differences of tongue, of orthography, and of
vocabulary; he did all in his power to regularise these discordances; he
had set ideas on the subject; and, what was rare in those days, the
whims of copyists made him shudder. Nothing shows better the faith he
had in the English tongue, as a literary language, than his reiterated
injunctions to the readers and scribes who shall read his poems aloud or
copy them. He experiences already, concerning his work, the anxieties of
the poets of the Renaissance:
And for ther is so greet diversitee
In English, and in writyng of our tonge,
So preye I God, that noon miswryte thee,
Ne thee mysmetre for defaute of tonge,
And red wher-so thou be, or elles songe,
That thou be understonde I God beseche![551]
Chaucer himself looked over the transcriptions done from his original
manuscripts by his amanuensis Adam; he corrected with minute care every
fault; he calls down all manner of woe upon the "scriveyn's" head, if,
copying once more "Boece" or "Troilus," he leaves as many errors
again.[552] We seem to hear Ronsard himself addressing his supplications
to the reader: "I implore of you one thing only, reader, to pronounce
well my verses and suit your voice to their passion ... and I implore
you again, where you will see this sign: (!) to raise your voice a
little, to give grace to what you read."[553]
Chaucer's efforts were not exercised in vain; they assisted the work of
concentration. After him, the dialects lost their importance; the one he
used, the East Midland dialect, has since become the language of the
nation.
His verse, too, is the verse of the new literature, formed by a
compromise between the old and the new prosody. Alliteration, which is
not yet dead, and which is still used in his time, he does not like; its
jingle seems to him ridiculous:
I can nat geste--run, ram, ruf--by lettre.[554]
Ridiculous, too, in his eyes is the "rym dogerel" of the popular
romances of which "Sir Thopas" is the type. His verse is the rhymed
verse, with a fixed number of accents or beats, and a variable number of
syllables. Nearly all the "Tales" are written in heroic verse, rhyming
two by two in couplets and containing five accentuated syllables.
The same cheerful, tranquil common sense which made him adopt the
language of his country and the usual versification, which prevented him
from reacting with excess against received ideas, also prevented his
harbouring out of patriotism, piety, or pride, any illusions about his
country, his religion, or his time. He belonged to them, however, as
much as any one, and loved and honoured them more than anybody. Still
the impartiality of judgment of this former prisoner of the French is
wonderful, superior even to Froissart's, who, the native of a
border-country, was by birth impartial, but who, as age crept on, showed
in the revision of his "Chronicles" decided preferences. Towards the
close of the century Froissart, like the Limousin and the Saintonge,
ranked among the conquests recovered by France. Chaucer, from the
beginning to the end of his career, continues the same, and the fact is
all the more remarkable because his turn of mind, his inspiration and
his literary ideal, become more and more English as he grows older. He
remains impartial, or, rather, outside the great dispute, in which,
however, he had actually taken part; his works do not contain a single
line directed against France, nor even any praise of his country in
which it is extolled as the successful rival of its neighbour.
For this cause Des Champs, a great enemy of the English, who had not
only ravaged the kingdom in general but burnt down his own private
country house, made an exception in his hatred, and did homage to the
wisdom and genius of the "noble Geoffrey Chaucer," the ornament of the
"kingdom of Eneas," England.
V.
The composition of the "Canterbury Tales" occupied the last years of
Chaucer's life. During the same period he also wrote his "Treatise on
the Astrolabe" in prose, for the instruction of his son Lewis,[555] and
a few detached poems, melancholy pieces in which he talks of shunning
the world and the crowd, asks the prince to help him in his poverty,
retreats into his inner self, and becomes graver and more and more
resigned:
Fle fro the prees, and dwelle with sothfastnesse,
Suffyce unto thy good, though hit be smal....
Forth, pilgrim, forth! Forth, beste out of thy stal!...
Hold the hye wey, and lat thy gost thee lede:
And trouth shal delivere, hit is no drede.[556]
In spite of this melancholy, he was at that time the uncontested king of
English letters; a life-long friendship bound him to Gower[557]; the
young poets, Hoccleve, Scogan, Lydgate, came to him and proclaimed him
their master. His face, the features of which are known to us, thanks to
the portrait we owe to Hoccleve, had gained an expression of gentle
gravity; he liked better to listen than to talk, and, in the "Canterbury
Tales," the host rallies him on his pensive air and downcast eyes:
"What man artow?" quod he;
"Thou lokest as thou woldest finde an hare,
For ever up-on the ground I see thee stare."
Age had bestowed on him a corpulency which made him a match for Harry
Bailey himself.[558]
When Henry IV. mounted the throne, within the four days that followed
his accession, he doubled the pension of the poet (Oct. 3, 1399), who
then hired, for two pounds thirteen shillings and four pence a year, a
house in the garden of St. Mary's, Westminster. The lease is still
preserved in the archives of the Abbey.[559] He passed away in the
following year, in that tranquil retreat, and was interred at
Westminster, not far from the sepulchres where slept his patrons, Edward
III. and Richard II., in that wing of the transept which has since been
called the Poets' Corner, where lately we saw Browning's coffin lowered,
and where, but yesterday, Tennyson's was laid.
No English poet enjoyed a fame more constantly equal to itself. In the
fifteenth century writers did scarcely anything but lament and copy him:
"Maister deere," said Hoccleve,
O maister deere and fadir reverent,
Mi maister Chaucer, flour of eloquence,
Mirour of fructuous entendement,
O universal fadir of science,
Allas that thou thyn excellent prudence
In thi bed mortel mightist noght byquethe![560]
At the time of the Renaissance Caxton printed his works twice,[561] and
Henry VIII. made an exception in their favour in his prohibition of
"printed bokes, printed balades, ... and other fantasies."[562] Under
Elizabeth, Thynne annotated them,[563] Spenser declared that he "of
Tityrus," that is of Chaucer, "his songs did lere,"[564] and Sidney
exalted him to the skies.[565] In the seventeenth century Dryden
rejuvenates his tales, in the eighteenth century the admiration is
universal, and extends to Pope and Walpole.[566] In our time the learned
men of all countries have applied themselves to the task of commentating
his works and of disentangling his biography, a Society has been founded
to publish the best texts of his writings,[567] and but lately his
"Legend of Good Women" inspired with an exquisite poem the Laureate who
sleeps to-day close to the great ancestor, beneath the stones of the
famous Abbey.
FOOTNOTES:
[448] The date 1328 has long but wrongly been believed to be the true
one. The principal documents concerning Chaucer are to be found in the
Appendix to his biography by Sir H. Nicolas, in "Poetical Works," ed. R.
Morris, Aldine Poets, vol. i. p. 93 ff., in the "Trial Forewords," of
Dr. Furnivall, 1871, and in the "Life Records of Chaucer," 1875 ff.,
Chaucer Society. One of the municipal ordinances meant to check the
frauds of the vintners is signed by several members of the corporation,
and among others by John Chaucer, 1342. See Riley, "Memorials, of
London," p. 211.
[449] See the view of London, painted in the fifteenth century,
obviously from nature, reproduced at the beginning of this vol., from
MS. Royal 16 F ii, in the British Museum, showing the Tower, the Bridge,
the wharfs, Old St. Paul's, etc.
[450] Such is the case with a tower in the churchyard of St. Giles's,
Cripplegate.
[451] "Et qi pork voedra norir, le norise deinz sa measoun." Four
jurymen were to act as public executors: "Quatuor homines electi et
jurati ad interficiendos porcos inventos vagantes infra muros
civitatis." Riley "Munimenta Gildhallae," Rolls, 1859, 4 vols. 8vo;
"Liber Albus," pp. 270 and 590.
[452] April, 1357, an information gathered from a fragment of the
accounts of the household of Elizabeth found in the binding of a book.
[453] In the controversy between Sir Richard Scrope and Sir Robert
Grosvenor, concerning a question of armorial bearings, Chaucer, being
called as witness, declares (1386) that he has seen Sir Richard use the
disputed emblems "en France, devant la ville de Retters ... et issint il
[le] vist armez par tout le dit viage tanque le dit Geffrey estoit
pris." "The Scrope and Grosvenor controversy, 1385-90," London, 2 vols.
fol., vol. i. p. 178. "Retters" is Rethel in Champagne (not Retiers in
Brittany, where the expedition did not go). Chaucer took part in another
campaign "in partibus Franciae," in 1369.
[454] On this see Furnivall, "Chaucer as valet and esquire," Chaucer
Society, 1876.
[455] A passage in Chaucer's "Book of the Duchesse" (1369), lines 30
ff., leaves little doubt as to the reality of the unlucky passion he
describes. The poet interrupts the train of his speech to answer a
supposed question put to him as to the causes of his depression and
"melancolye":
I holde hit be a siknesse
That I have suffred this eight yere,
And yet my bote is never the nere;
For ther is phisicien but oon,
That may me hele.
Proem of the "Book." See, in connection with this, the "Compleynte unto
Pite." Who was the loved one we do not know; could it be that the poet
was playing upon her name in such lines as these:
For kindly by your heritage right
Ye been annexed ever unto Bountee? (l. 71).
There were numerous families of Bonamy, Bonenfaut, Boncoeur. A William
de Boncuor is named in the "Excerpta e Rotulis Finium," of Roberts, vol.
ii. pp. 309, 431, 432.
[456] The date of Chaucer's marriage has not been ascertained. We know
that his wife was called Philippa, that one Philippa Chaucer belonged to
the queen's household in 1366, and that the Philippa Chaucer, wife of
the poet, was at a later date in the service of the Duchess of
Lancaster, after having been in the service of the queen. It seems most
likely that the two women were the same person: same name, same
function, same pension of ten marks, referred to in the same words in
public documents, for example: 1º 42 Ed. III., 1368, "Philippae Chaucer
cui dominus Rex decem marcas annuatim ad scaccarium percipiendas pro
bono servitio per ipsam Philippam Philippe Regine Anglie impenso per
literas suas patentes nuper concessit...." 2º 4 Ric. II., 1381,
"Philippae Chaucer nuper uni domicellarum Philippae nuper Regine
Anglie"--she had died in 1369--"cui dominus Rex Edwardus avus Regis
hujus X marcas annuatim ad scaccarium suum percipiendas pro bono
servitio per ipsam tam eidem domino Regi quam dicte Regine impenso per
literas suas patentes nuper concessit ... in denariis sibi liberatis per
manus predicti Galfridi mariti sui...." "Poetical Works," ed. Morris, i.
p. 108. Who Philippa was by birth is doubtful, but it seems likely that
she was Philippa Roet, daughter of Sir Payne Roet, who hailed, like the
queen herself, from Hainault--hence her connection with the queen--and
sister of Catherine Roet who became the mistress and then the third wife
of John of Gaunt--hence the favour in which the poet and his family
stood with the Lancastrians. It seems again very probable, though not
absolutely certain, that Thomas Chaucer, who used at different times
both the Chaucer and the Roet arms, Speaker of the House of Commons
under Henry V., a man of great influence, was one of the children of the
poet.
[457] Book iv. chap. 40.
[458] Froissart declares concerning his own poems that he "les commencha
a faire sus l'an de grace Nostre Seigneur, 1362." He wrote them "a
l'ayde de Dieu et d'Amours, et a le contemplation et plaisance de
pluisours haus et nobles signours et de pluisours nobles et vaillans
dames." MS. Fr. 831 in the National Library, Paris.--On Guillaume de
Deguileville, who wrote about 1330-5, see Ward, "Catalogue of Romances,"
1893, vol. ii. p. 558; Hill, "An Ancient Poem of G. de Guileville,"
London, 1858, 4to, illustrated, and my "Piers Plowman," chap. vii.
Chaucer imitated from him his "A.B.C.," one of his first works.--On
Machault, who died in 1377, see Tarbe, "Oeuvres Choisies," Reims and
Paris, 1849, 8vo, and Thomas, "Romania," x. pp. 325 ff. (papal bulls
concerning him, dated 1330, 1332, 1333, 1335).--On Des Champs, see
"Oeuvres Completes publiees d'apres le Manuscrit de la Bibliotheque
Nationale," by the Marquis de Queux de St. Hilaire, Societe des Anciens
Textes, 1878 ff. (which MS. contains, _e.g._, 1175 ballads, 171
roundels, and 80 virelais), and A. Sarradin, "Etude sur Eustache des
Champs," Versailles, 1878, 8vo.--On Granson, a knight and a poet slain
in a judicial duel, in 1397, see Piaget, "Granson et ses poesies,"
"Romania," vol. xix.; Chaucer imitated in his later years his "Compleynt
of Venus," from a poem of "Graunson, flour of hem that make in Fraunce."
[459] Chaucer's favourite flower; he constantly praises it; it is for
him a woman-flower (see especially the prologue of the "Legend of Good
Women"). This flower enjoyed the same favour with the French models of
Chaucer. One of the ballads of Froissart has for its burden: "Sus toutes
flours j'aime la margherite" ("Le Paradis d'Amour," in "Poesies," ed.
Scheler, Brussels, 1870, 3 vols. 8vo), vol. i. p. 49. Des Champs praised
the same flower; Machault wrote a "Dit de la Marguerite" ("Oeuvres
Choisies," ed. Tarbe, p. 123):
J'aim une fleur qui s'uevre et qui s'encline
Vers le soleil, de jour quand il chemine;
Et quand il est couchiez soubz sa courtine
Par nuit obscure,
Elle se clost ainsois que le jour fine.
[460] Guillaume de Lorris wrote the first part of the "Roman" ab. 1237;
Jean de Meun wrote the second towards 1277. On the sources of the poem
see the important work of Langlois: "Origines et Sources du Roman de la
Rose," Paris, 1891, 8vo. M. Langlois has traced the originals for 12,000
out of the 17,500 lines of Jean de Meun; he is preparing (1894) a
much-needed critical edition of the text.
[461] One of them has a sort of biographical interest as having belonged
to Sir Richard Stury, Chaucer's colleague in one of his missions (see
below, p. 284); it was afterwards purchased for Thomas, duke of
Gloucester, son of Edward III., and is now in the British Museum, MS.
Royal 19 B xiii. "Ceste livre est a Thomas fiz au Roy, duc de Glouc',
achates dez executeurs Mons' Ric' Stury." It has curious miniatures
exemplifying the way in which people pictured to themselves at that time
Olympian gods and romance heroes. The "Dieu d'amour" figures as a tall
person with a tunic, a cloak, and a crown, a bow in his hand and large
red wings on his back. See fol. 16, "coment li diex d'amours navra
l'amant de ses saietes."
[462] "A vous qui belles filles avez et bien les desirez a introduire a
vie honneste, bailliez leur, bailliez le Rommant de la Rose, pour
aprendre a discerner le bien du mal, que diz-je, mais le mal du bien. Et
a quel utilite ne a quoy proufite aux oyans oir tant de laidures?" Jean
de Meun "oncques n'ot acointance ne hantise de femme honorable ne
vertueuse, mais par plusieurs femmes dissolues et de male vie hanter,
comme font communement les luxurieux cuida ou faingny savoir que toutes
telles feussent car d'autres n'avoit congnoissance." "Debat sur le
Rommant de la Rose," in MS. Fr. 604 in the National Library, Paris, fol.
114 and 115.
[463] An incomplete translation of the "Roman" in English verse has come
down to us in a single MS. preserved in the Hunterian collection,
Glasgow. It is anonymous; a study of this text, by Lindner and by
Kaluza, has shown that it is made up of three fragments of different
origin, prosody, and language. The first fragment ends with line 1705,
leaving a sentence unfinished; between the second and third fragments
there is a gap of more than 5,000 lines. The first fragment alone might,
on account of its style and versification, be the work of Chaucer, but
this is only a surmise, and we have no direct proof of it. The "Romaunt"
is to be found in Skeat's edition of the "Complete Works" of Chaucer,
1894, vol. i. For Fragment I. the French text is given along with the
English translation.
[464]
Mais pran en gre les euvres d'escolier
Que par Clifford de moy avoir pourras.
For Des Champs, Chaucer is a Socrates, a Seneca, an Ovid, an "aigle tres
hault," "Oeuvres Completes," Paris, 1878 ff., vol. ii. p. 138.
[465] "Hous of Fame," line 622; "Legend of Good Women," line 422,
"Complete Works," 1894, vol. i. pp. 19 and 96. Such was the reputation
of Chaucer that a great many writings were attributed to him--a way to
increase their reputation, not his. The more important of them are: "The
Court of Love"; the "Book of Cupid," otherwise "Cuckoo and Nightingale";
"Flower and Leaf," the "Romaunt of the Rose," such as we have it; the
"Complaint of a Lover's Life"; the "Testament of Love" (in prose, see
below, page 522); the "Isle of Ladies," or "Chaucer's Dream"; various
ballads. Most of those works (not the "Testament") are to be found in
the "Poetical Works" of Chaucer, Aldine Poets, ed. Morris.
[466]
And every day hir beaute newed.
(ll. 906, 963.)
[467] "Book of the Duchesse," ll. 339, 406, 391, 1033. John of Gaunt
found some consolation in marrying two other wives. Blanche, the first
wife, was buried with him in old St. Paul's. See a view of their tomb
from Dugdale's "St. Paul's," in my "Piers Plowman," p. 92.
[468]
Vous Ambasseur et messagier,
Qui alez par le monde es cours
Des grans princes pour besongnier,
Vostre voyage n'est pas cours ...
Ne soiez mie si hastis!
Il fault que vostre fait soit mis
Au conseil pour respondre a plain;
Attendez encore mes amis ...
Il faut parler au chancelier
De vostre fait et a plusours ...
Temps passe et tout vint arrebours.
"Oeuvres Completes," Societe des Anciens Textes, vol. vii. p. 117.
[469]
De laissier aux champs me manace,
Trop souvent des genoulx s'assiet,
Par ma foy, mes chevaulx se lace.
(_Ibid._, p. 32.)
[470]
Mal fait mangier a l'appetit d'autruy.
(_Ibid._, p. 81.)
[471]
O doulz pais, terre tres honorable,
Ou chascuns a ce qu'il veult demander
Pour son argent, et a pris raisonnable,
Char, pain et vin, poisson d'yaue et de mer,
Chambre a par soy, feu, dormir, reposer,
Liz, orilliers blans, draps flairans la graine,
Et pour chevaulz, foing, litiere et avaine,
Estre servis, et par bonne ordonnance,
Et en seurte de ce qu'on porte et maine;
Tel pais n'est qu'en royaume de France.
(_Ibid._, p. 79.)
[472] Book i. chap. 692.
[473] The order for the payment of the expenses of "nostre cher et feal
chivaler Edward de Berkle," and "nostre feal esquier Geffray Chaucer,"
is directed to William Walworth, then not so famous as he was to be, and
to the no less notorious John Philpot, mercer and naval leader. Both
envoys are ordered "d'aler en nostre message si bien au duc de Melan
Barnabo come a nostre cher et foial Johan Haukwode es parties de
Lumbardie, pur ascunes busoignes touchantes l'exploit de nostre guerre,"
May 12, 1378. Berkeley receives 200 marcs and Chaucer 100; the sums are
to be paid out of the war subsidy voted by Parliament the year before.
The French text of the warrant has been published by M. Spont in the
_Athenaeum_ of Sept. 9, 1893. During this absence Chaucer appointed to be
his representatives or attorneys two of his friends, one of whom was the
poet Gower. See document dated May 22, 1378, in "Poetical Works," ed.
Morris, i. p. 99.
[474] ll. 1982, 1990, 1997.
[475] Figure of "Peace," by Ambrogio Lorenzetti, 1339. See a drawing of
it in Muentz, "Les Precurseurs de la Renaissance," Paris, 1882, 4to, p.
29.
[476] Muentz, _ibid._, p. 30.
[477] "F. Petrarcae Epistolae," ed. Fracassetti, Florence, 1859, vol. iii.
p. 541.
[478] Letter of Boccaccio "celeberrimi nominis militi Jacopo Pizzinghe."
Corazzini, "Le Lettere edite ed inedite di Giovanni Boccaccio,"
Florence, 1877, 8vo, p. 195.
[479] Chaucer could not be present at the lectures of Boccaccio, who
began them on Sunday, October 23, 1373; he had returned to London in the
summer. Disease (probably diabetes) soon obliged Boccaccio to interrupt
his lectures; he died in his house at Certaldo on December 21, 1375. See
Cochin, in _Revue des Deux Mondes_, July 15, 1888.
[480] This meeting, concerning which numerous discussions have taken
place, seems to have most probably happened. "I wol," says the clerk of
Oxford in the "Canterbury Tales,"
I wol yow telle a tale which that I
Lerned at Padowe of a worthy clerk ...
He is now deed and nayled in his cheste ...
Fraunceys Petrark, the laureat poet.
Such a circumstantial reference is of a most unusual sort; in most
cases, following the example of his contemporaries, Chaucer simply says
that he imitates "a book," or sometimes he refers to his models by a
wrong or fancy name, such being the case with Boccaccio, whom he calls
"Lollius," a name which, however, does duty also with him, at another
place, for Petrarch. But on this occasion it seems as if the poet meant
to preserve the memory of personal intercourse. We know besides that at
that date Chaucer was not without notoriety as a poet on the Continent
(Des Champs' praise is a proof of it), and that at the time when he came
to Italy Petrarch was at Arqua, near Padua, where he was precisely busy
with his Latin translation of Boccaccio's story of Griselda.
[481] "The Othe of the Comptroler of the Customes," in Thynne's
"Animadversions," Chaucer Society, 1875, p. 131.
[482] None in the handwriting of Chaucer have been discovered as yet;
but some are to be seen drawn, as he was allowed to have them later, by
another's hand, under his own responsibility: "per visum et testimonium
Galfridi Chaucer."
[483] The lease is dated May 10, 1374; Furnivall, "Trial Forewords," p.
1. Such grants of lodgings in the gates were forbidden in 1386 in
consequence of a panic (described, _e.g._, in the "Chronicon Angliae,"
Rolls, p. 370) caused by a rumour of the coming of the French. See
Riley, "Memorials of London," pp. 388, 489. A study on the too neglected
Ralph Strode is being prepared (1894) by M. Gollancz.
[484] "Dimissio Portae de Aldgate facta Galfrido Chaucer.--Concessio de
Aldrichgate Radulpho Strode.--Sursum-redditio domorum supra
Aldrichesgate per Radulphum Strode." Among the "Fundationes et
praesentationes cantariarum ... shoparum ... civitati pertinentium."
"Liber Albus," Rolls, pp. 553, 556, 557.
[485] Chaucer represents Jupiter's eagle, addressing him thus:
And noght only fro fer contree
That ther no tyding comth to thee
But of thy verray neyghebores,
That dwellen almost at thy dores,
Thou herest neither that ne this;
For whan thy labour doon al is,
Thou gost hoom to thy hous anoon,
Thou sittest at another boke,
Til fully daswed is thy loke,
And livest thus as an hermyte.
"Hous of Fame," book ii. l. 647; "Complete Works," iii. p. 20.
[486] All these dates are merely approximative. Concerning the
chronology of Chaucer's works, see Ten Brink, "Chaucer Studien,"
Muenster, 1870, 8vo; Furnivall, "Trial Forewords," 1871, Chaucer Society;
Koch, "Chronology," Chaucer Society, 1890; Pollard, "Chaucer,"
"Literature Primers," 1893; Skeat, "Complete Works of Chaucer," vol. i.,
"Life" and the introductions to each poem. "Boece" is in vol. ii. of the
"Complete Works" (_cf._ Morris's ed., 1868, E.E.T.S.). The "Lyf of
Seinte Cecile" was transferred by Chaucer to his "Canterbury Tales,"
where it became the tale of the second nun. The good women of the
"Legend" are all of them love's martyrs: Dido, Ariadne, Thisbe, &c.; it
was Chaucer's first attempt to write a collection of stories with a
Prologue. In the Prologue Venus and Cupid reproach him with having
composed poems where women and love do not appear in a favourable light,
such as "Troilus" and the translation of the "Roman de la Rose," which
"is an heresye ageyns my lawe." He wrote his "Legend" to make amends.
[487] "Parlement of Foules," ll. 272, 225, "Complete Works," vol. i.
[488] "Hous of Fame," l. 133 _ibid._, vol. iii.
[489] "Hous of Fame," l. 518.
[490] "Complete Works, "vol. i. p. 365. This beginning is imitated from
Boccaccio's "Teseide."
[491] "Parlement of Foules," in "Complete Works," vol. i. p. 336.
Chaucer alludes here to a book which "was write with lettres olde," and
which contained "Tullius of the dreme of Scipioun."
[492] "Legend of Dido," in "Complete Works," vol. iii. p. 117.
[493] Book v. st. 256.
[494] "Hous of Fame," ll. 469, 473, 492.
[495]
Thorgh me men goon in-to that blisful place ...
Thorgh me men goon unto the welle of Grace, &c.
These lines were "over the gate with lettres large y-wroghte," ll. 124,
127.
[496]
S'amor non e, che dunque e quel ch'i sento?
which becomes in Chaucer the "Cantus Troili":
If no love is, O God, what fele I so?
(Book i. stanza 58.)
[497] l. 449.
[498]
In sogno mi parea veder sospesa
Un' aquila nel ciel con penne d'oro
Con l'ali aperte, ed a calare intesa....
Poi mi parea, che piu rotata un poco,
Terribil come folgor discendesse,
E me rapisse suso infino al foco.
("Purgatorio," canto ix.)
In Chaucer:
Me thoughte I saw an egle sore ...
Hit was of golde and shoon so bright
That never saw men such a sighte ...
Me, fleinge, at a swappe he hente,
And with his sours agayn up wente,
Me caryinge in his clawes starke.
(ll. 449, 503, 542.)
[499]
I wol now singe, if that I can
The armes, and al-so the man, &c.
(l. 142.)
Hereupon follows a complete but abbreviated account of the events in the
AEneid, Dido's story being the only part treated at some length.
[500] "Complete Works," vol. iii. The poem was left unfinished; it is
written in octosyllabic couplets, with four accents or beats.
[501] Compare, for example, the beginning of "Hous of Fame," and No. 487
of _The Spectator_ (Sept. 18, 1712):
God turne us every dreem to gode!
For hit is wonder, by the rode,
To my wit what causeth swevenes
Either on morwes or on evenes;
And why the effect folweth of somme,
And of somme hit shal never come;
Why this is an avisioun,
And this a revelacioun ...
Why this a fantom, these oracles.
Addison writes: "Tho' there are many authors who have written on Dreams,
they have generally considered them only as revelations of what has
already happened in distant parts of the world, or as presages of what
is to happen in future periods of time," &c.
[502] l. 1191.
[503] l. 1242.
[504] l. 1830.
[505] l. 2047.
[506] l. 2078. _Cf._ La Fontaine's "Les Femmes et le Secret."
[507] "Parlement of Foules," l. 186.
[508] Boccaccio's story is told in stanzas of eight lines, and has for
its title "Il Filostrato" (love's victim: such was at least the sense
Boccaccio attributed to the word). Text in "Le Opere volgari di Giov.
Boccaccio," Florence, 1831, 8vo, vol. xiii.
[509] Text in "Complete Works," vol. iii. It is divided into five books
and written in stanzas of seven lines, rhyming _a b a b b c c_. See the
different texts of this poem published by the Chaucer Society; also
Kitredge, "Chaucer's Language in his Troilus," Chaucer Society, 1891.
For a comparison between the English and the Italian texts see Rossetti
"Troylus and Cressida, compared with Boccaccio's Filostrato," Chaucer
Society, 1875. About one-third of Chaucer's poem is derived from
Boccaccio. It is dedicated to Gower and to "philosophical Strode" (see
above, p. 290), both friends of the poet.
[510] Book i. st. 28.
[511] And, as the nurse, gets out of breath, so that he cannot speak:
... O veray God, so have I ronne!
Lo, nece myn, see ye nought how I swete?
Book ii. st. 210. Says the Nurse:
Jesu, what haste! can you not stay awhile?
Do you not see that I am out of breath?
[512] Turned later into English verse by Lydgate, to be read as a
supplementary Tale of Canterbury: "Here begynneth the sege of Thebes,
ful lamentably told by Johnn Lidgate monke of Bury, annexynge it to ye
tallys of Canterbury," MS. Royal 18 D ii. in the British Museum. The
exquisite miniatures of this MS. represent Thebes besieged with great
guns, fol. 158; Creon's coronation by two bishops wearing mitres and
gold copes, fol. 160, see below, p. 499.
[513] Book ii. st. 46.
[514] Book ii. st. 100 ff.
[515] Book ii. st. 182.
[516] Book iii. st. 163 and 170.
[517] Book iii. st 173. Boccaccio's Griselda has nothing to be compared
to those degrees in feeling and tenderness. She laughs at the newly
wedded ones, and ignores blushes as well as doubts ("Filostrato," iii.
st. 29 ff.).
[518] Book iii. st. 188.
[519]
What me is wo
That day of us mot make desseveraunce!
(Book iii. st. 203, 204.)
[520] Book iv. st. 98 ff.
[521]
Yet preye I yow on yvel ye ne take,
That it is short which that I to yow wryte;
I dar not, ther I am, wel lettres make,
Ne never yet ne coude I wel endyte.
Eek greet effect men wryte in place lyte.
Thentente is al, and nought the lettres space
And fareth now wel, God have you in his grace.
La vostre C.
Book v. st. 233. Troilus had written at great length, of course, "the
papyr al y-pleynted." St. 229.
[522] Book v. st. 263.
[523] Pierre de Beauveau's translation of the passage (in Moland and
d'Hericault, "Nouvelles francoises en prose, du XIVe Siecle," 1858, p.
303) does not differ much from the original. Here is the Italian text:
Giovane donna e mobile, e vogliosa
E negli amanti molti, e sua bellezza
Estima piu ch'allo specchio, e pomposa
Ha vanagloria di sua giovinezza;
La qual quanto piaccevole e vezzosa
E piu, cotanto piu seco l'apprezza;
Virtu non sente ni conoscimento,
Volubil sempre come foglia al vento.
("Opere Volgari," Florence, 1831, vol. xiii. p. 253.)
[524] "Return of the names of every member [of Parliament]," 1878, fol.
a Blue Book, p. 229.
[525] "Hous of Fame," l. 1189.
[526] "Complete Works," ed. Skeat, Oxford, 1894, 6 vols. 8vo, vol. iv.
[527] The "Tabard," a sleeveless overcoat, then in general use, was,
like the "Bell," a frequent sign for inns. The Tabard Inn, famous in
Chaucer's day, was situated in the Southwark High Street; often repaired
and restored, rebaptised the "Talbot," it lasted till our century.
[528] Beginning of the "Shipmannes Tale."
[529] "Vie de Marianne," Paris, 1731-41.
[530] Book i. chap. 81, Luce's edition.
[531] The canonisation took place shortly after the death of the
archbishop, 1170-73. There is nothing left to-day but an old marble
mosaic, greatly restored, to indicate the place in the choir where the
shrine used to be.
[532] A map of the road from London to Canterbury, drawn in the
seventeenth century, but showing the line of the old highway, has been
reproduced by Dr. Furnivall in his "Supplementary Canterbury Tales--I.
The Tale of Beryn," Chaucer Society, 1876, 8vo.
[533] "E forse a queste cose scrivere, quantunque sieno umilissime, si
sono elle venute parecchi volte a starsi meco." Prologue of "Giornata
Quarta."
[534] "Pardoner's Tale," ll. 904, 920, 931.
[535] The setting of the tales into their proper order is due to
Bradshaw and Furnivall; see Furnivall's "Temporary Preface" for the
"Six-text edition of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales," Chaucer Society, 1868.
The order, subject, and originals of the tales are follows:--
_1st Day._ London to Dartford, 15 miles.--Tale of the Knight, history of
Palamon and Arcyte, derived from Boccaccio's "Teseide."--Tale of the
Miller: story of Absolon, Nicholas and Alisoun the carpenter's wife,
source unknown.--Reeve's tale, imitated from the French fabliau of
Gombert and the two clerks (above, p. 155); same tale in Boccaccio, ix.
6, from whom La Fontaine took it: "le Berceau."--Cook's tale,
unfinished; the tale of Gamelyn attributed by some MSS. to the Cook
seems to be simply an old story which Chaucer intended to remodel; it
would suit the Yeoman better than the Cook (in "Complete Works," as an
appendix to vol. iv.).
_2nd Day._ Stopping at Rochester, 30 miles.--Tale of the Man of Law:
history of the pious Constance, from the French of Trivet, an Englishman
who wrote also Latin chronicles, &c., same story in Gower, who wrote it
ab. 1393.--Shipman's tale: story of a merchant of St. Denys, his wife,
and a wicked monk, from some French fabliau, or from "Decameron," viii.
1.--Tale of the Prioress: a child killed by Jews, from the French of
Gautier de Coinci.--Tales by Chaucer: Sir Thopas, a caricature of the
romances of chivalry; story of Melibeus, from a French version of the
"Liber consolationis et consilii" of Albertano of Brescia, thirteenth
century.--Monk's tale: "tragedies" of Lucifer, Adam, Sampson, Hercules,
Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, Zenobia, Pedro the Cruel, Pierre de Lusignan
king of Cyprus, Barnabo Visconti (d. 1385), Hugolino, Nero, Holofernes,
Antiochus, Alexander, Caesar, Croesus; from Boccaccio, Machault, Dante,
the ancients, &c.--Tale of the Nun's Priest: Story of Chauntecleer, same
story in "Roman de Renart" and in Marie de France.
_3rd Day._ Rest at Ospringe, 46 miles.--Tale of the Physician: Appius
and Virginia, from Titus Livius and the "Roman de la Rose;" same story
in Gower.--Pardoner's tale: three young men find a treasure, quarrel
over it and kill each other, an old legend, of which, however, we have
no earlier version than the one in the "Cento Novelle antiche," nov.
82.--Tale of the Wife of Bath: story of the young knight saved by an old
sorceress, whom he marries and who recovers her youth and beauty; the
first original of this old legend is not known; same story in Gower
(Story of Florent), and in Voltaire: "Ce qui plait aux Dames."--Friar's
tale: a summoner taken away by the devil, from one of the old
collections of _exempla_.--Tale of the Summoner (somnour, sompnour): a
friar ill-received by a moribund; a coarse, popular story, a version of
which is in "Til Ulespiegel."--Clerk of Oxford's tale: story of
Griselda from Petrarch's Latin version of the last tale in the
"Decameron."--Merchant's tale: old January beguiled by his wife May and
by Damian; there are several versions of this story, one in the
"Decameron," vii. 9, which was made use of by La Fontaine, ii. 7.
_4th Day._ Reach Canterbury, 56 miles.--Squire's tale: unfinished story
of Cambinscan, king of Tartary; origin unknown, in part from the French
romance of "Cleomades."--Franklin's tale: Aurelius tries to obtain
Dorigen's love by magic; same story in Boccaccio's "Filocopo," and in
the "Decameron," x. 5.--Tale of the second nun: story of St. Cecilia,
from the Golden Legend.--Tale of the Canon's Yeoman: frauds of an
alchemist (from Chaucer's personal experience?).--Manciple's tale: a
crow tells Phoebus of the faithlessness of the woman he loves; from
Ovid, to be found also in Gower.--Parson's tale, from the French "Somme
des Vices et des Vertus" of Friar Lorens, 1279.
[536] "Complete Works," vol. iv. p. 538. The canon and his man join the
pilgrims during the fourth day's journey. Contrary to Chaucer's use,
such a keen animosity appears in this satire of alchemists that it seems
as if the poet, then rather hard up, had had himself a grudge against
such quacks.
[537] l. 1963. Compare the mendicant friar in Diderot, who drew him from
nature, centuries later; it is the same sort of nature. Friar John
"venait dans notre village demander des oeufs, de la laine, du
chanvre, des fruits a chaque saison." Friar John "ne passait pas dans
les rues que les peres, les meres et les enfants n'allassent a lui et ne
lui criassent: Bonjour, frere Jean, comment vous portez vous, frere
Jean? Il est sur que quand il entrait dans une maison, la benediction du
ciel y entrait avec lui." "Jacques le Fataliste et son Maitre," ed.
Asseline, p. 46.
[538] "Complete Works," vol. iv. p. 285; on Geoffrey de Vinesauf and
Richard, see above, p. 180.
[539] See for example his description of a young lady gathering flowers
at dawn in a garden, at the foot of a "dongeoun," Knight's Tale, l. 190,
"Complete Works," iv. p. 31.
[540] But very popular, derived from the "Liber Consolationis" of
Albertano of Brescia, written ab. 1246, ed. Thor Sundby, Chaucer
Society, 1873. It was translated into French (several times), Italian,
German, Dutch. French text in MS. Reg. 19, C vii. in the British Museum:
"Uns jouvenceauls appele Melibee, puissant et riches ot une femme nomme
Prudence, et de celle femme ot une fille. Advint un jour...." "A young
man," says Chaucer, whose tale is also in prose, "called Melibeus,
mighty and riche, bigat up-on his wyf that called was Prudence, a
doghter which that called was Sophie. Upon a day befel...." (iv. 119).
[541] Unlike most of the tales, this one is written in stanzas,
Chaucer's favourite seven-line stanza, rhyming _a b a b b c c_.
[542] It is to be found in the "Menagier de Paris," ab. 1393, the author
of which declares that he will "traire un exemple qui fut ja pieca
translate par maistre Francois Petrarc qui a Romme fut couronne poete"
("Menagier," 1846, vol. i. p. 99). The same story finds place in
"Melibeus," MS. Reg. 19 C vii. in the British Museum, fol. 140. Another
French translation was printed ab. 1470: "La Patience Griselidis
Marquise de Saluces." Under Louis XIV., Perrault wrote a metrical
version of the same story: "La Marquise de Saluces ou la patience de
Griselidis," Paris, 1691, 12mo. A number of ballads in all countries
were dedicated to Griselda; the popularity of an English one is shown by
the fact of other ballads being "to the tune of Patient Grissel." One of
Miss Edgeworth's novels has for its title and subject: "The Modern
Griselda."
[543] One in French was performed at Paris in 1395 ("Estoire de
Griselidis ... par personnages," MS. Fr. 2203 in the National Library,
Paris), and was printed at the Renaissance, by Bonfons, ab. 1550: "Le
Mystere de Griselidis"; one in German was written by Hans Sachs in 1550.
In Italy it was the subject of an opera by Apostolo Zeno, 1620. In
England, Henslowe, on the 15th of December, 1599, lends three pounds to
Dekker, Chettle and Haughton for their "Pleasant comodie of Patient
Grissil," printed in 1603, reprinted by the Shakespeare Society, 1841.
The English authors drew several hints from the French play, but theirs
is the best written on the subject (parts of Julia, the witty sister of
the Marquis, of Laureo, the poor student, brother of Griselda, as proud
as she is humble, &c.).
[544] Lady Bradshaigh to Richardson, January 11, 1749. "Correspondence
of Samuel Richardson," ed. Barbauld, London, 1804, 6 vols. 12mo, vol.
iv. p. 240.
[545] "Complete Works," vol. iv. p. 568.
[546]
Listeth, lordes, in good entent,
And I wol telle verrayment
Of mirthe and of solas, &c.
The caricature of the popular heroic stories of the day is extremely
close (see below, p. 347).
[547] Tale of the Canon's Yeoman, l. 995.
[548]
... For the tyrant is of gretter might,
By force of meynee for to sleen doun-right,
And brennen hous and hoom, and make al plain,
Lo! therfor is he cleped a capitain;
And, for the outlawe hath but smal meynee,
And may nat doon so greet an harm as he,
Ne bringe a contree to so greet mescheef,
Men clepen him an outlawe or a theef.
(Maunciple's tale, in "Complete Works," iv. p. 562.)
[549] "A Treatise on the Astrolabe" in "Complete Works," vol. iii. p.
175.
[550] "General Prologue," l. 742.
[551] "Troilus," Book v. st. 257.
[552] "Chaucer's wordes unto Adam, his owne Scriveyn," in "Complete
Works," vol. i. p. 379.
[553] "Je te suppliray seulement d'une chose, lecteur, de vouloir bien
prononcer mes vers et accomoder ta voix a leur passion ... et je te
supplie encore de rechef, ou tu verras cette marque: (!) vouloir un peu
eslever ta voix pour donner grace a ce que tu liras." Preface of the
"Franciade."
[554] So says the Parson, who adds:
Ne, God wot, rym holde I but litel bettre.
Parson's Prologue, l. 43. It will be observed that while _naming_ simply
rhyme, he _caricatures_ alliteration.
[555] 1391, in "Complete Works," vol. iii. On that other, _possible_ son
of Chaucer, Thomas, see _ibid._, vol. i. p. xlviii., and above, p. 273.
[556] "Truth," or "Balade de bon Conseyl," in "Complete Works," vol. i.
p. 390. Belonging to the same period: "Lak of Stedfastnesse" (advice to
the king himself); "L'Envoy de Chaucer a Scogan"; "L'Envoy de Chaucer a
Bukton," on marriage, with an allusion to the Wife of Bath; "The
Compleynt of Venus"; "The Compleint of Chaucer to his empty purse," &c.,
all in vol. i. of "Complete Works."
[557] It has been said, but without sufficient cause, that this
friendship came to an end some time before the death of Chaucer.
[558]
He in the waast is shape as wel as I.
(Prologue to Sir Thopas.)
[559] To be seen (1894) under glass in the Chapter House.
[560] "Hoccleve's Works," ed. Furnivall, E.E.T.S., 1892, vol. i. p. xxi.
[561] One ab. 1478, the other ab. 1484; this last is illustrated. See in
"English Novel in the time of Shakespeare," p. 45, a facsimile of the
woodcut representing the pilgrims seated at the table of the Tabard inn.
[562] "Animadversions uppon the Annotacions and corrections of some
imperfections of impressiones of Chaucers workes...." by Francis Thynne,
ed. Furnivall and Kingsley, Chaucer Society, 1876, p. xiv.
[563] _Ibid._
[564] "Shepheard's Calender," December.
[565] "Of whom, truly I know not, whether to mervaile more, either that
he in that mistie time could see so clearly, or that wee in this cleare
age walke so stumblingly after him." "Apologie for Poetrie," ed. Arber,
p. 62.
[566] The subject of Chaucer's fame is treated at great length in
Lounsbury's "Studies in Chaucer, his life and writings," London, 1892, 3
vols. 8vo, vol. iii. ch. vii., "Chaucer in Literary History."
[567] The Chaucer Society, founded by Dr. Furnivall, which has published
among other things, the "Six-text edition of the Canterbury Tales"; some
"Life Records of Chaucer"; various "Essays" on questions concerning the
poet's works; a collection of "Originals and Analogues" illustrative of
the "Canterbury Tales," &c. Among modern tributes paid to Chaucer may be
added Wordsworth's modernisation of part of "Troilus" (John Morley's
ed., p. 165), and Lowell's admirable essay in his "Study Windows."