So well proportioned to be strong,
Right as it were a steed of Lombardye,
Thereto so _horsely_ and so quick of eye.
Everything that is perfect of its kind is admirable, even though the
kind may not be an exalted one. It is, for instance, a joy to see the
way in which the Canon sweats:
A cloote-leaf (dock leaf) he had under his hood
For sweat, and for to keep his head from heat.
But it was joye for to see him sweat;
His forehead dropped as a stillatorie
Were full of plantain or of peritorie.
The Canon is supreme in the category of sweaters, the very type and idea
of perspiring humanity; therefore he is admirable and joyous to behold,
even as a horse that is supremely horsely or a woman less mannish than
anything one could imagine. In the same way it is a delight to behold
the Pardoner preaching to the people. In its own kind his charlatanism
is perfect and deserves admiration:
Mine handes and my tonge gon so yerne,
That it is joye to see my busynesse.
This manner of saying of things that they are joyous, or, very often,
heavenly, is typical of Chaucer. He looks out on the world with a
delight that never grows old or weary. The sights and sounds of daily
life, all the lavish beauty of the earth fill him with a pleasure which
he can only express by calling it a “joy” or a “heaven.” It “joye was to
see” Cressida and her maidens playing together; and
So aungellyke was her native beauté
That like a thing immortal seemede she,
As doth an heavenish parfit creature.
The peacock has angel’s feathers; a girl’s voice is heavenly to hear:
Antigone the shene
Gan on a Trojan song to singen clear,
That it an heaven was her voice to hear.
One could go on indefinitely multiplying quotations that testify to
Chaucer’s exquisite sensibility to sensuous beauty and his immediate,
almost exclamatory response to it. Above all, he is moved by the beauty
of “young, fresh folkes, he and she”; by the grace and swiftness of
living things, birds and animals; by flowers and placid, luminous,
park-like landscapes.
It is interesting to note how frequently Chaucer speaks of animals. Like
many other sages, he perceives that an animal is, in a certain sense,
more human in character than a man. For an animal bears the same
relation to a man as a caricature to a portrait. In a way a caricature
is truer than a portrait. It reveals all the weaknesses and absurdities
that flesh is heir to. The portrait brings out the greatness and dignity
of the spirit that inhabits the often ridiculous flesh. It is not merely
that Chaucer has written regular fables, though the _Nun’s Priest’s
Tale_ puts him among the great fabulists of the world, and there is also
much definitely fabular matter in the _Parliament of Fowls_. No, his
references to the beasts are not confined to his animal stories alone;
they are scattered broadcast throughout his works. He relies for much of
his psychology and for much of his most vivid description on the
comparison of man, in his character and appearance (which with Chaucer
are always indissolubly blended), with the beasts. Take, for example,
that enchanting simile in which Troilus, stubbornly anti-natural in
refusing to love as the law of kind enjoins him, is compared to the
corn-fed horse, who has to be taught good behaviour and sound philosophy
under the whip:
As proude Bayard ginneth for to skip
Out of the way, so pricketh him his corn,
Till he a lash have of the longe whip,
Then thinketh he, “Though I prance all biforn,
First in the trace, full fat and newe shorn,
Yet am I but an horse, and horses’ law
I must endure and with my feeres draw.”
Or, again, women with too pronounced a taste for fine apparel are
likened to the cat:
And if the cattes skin be sleek and gay,
She will not dwell in housé half a day,
But forth she will, ere any day be dawet
To show her skin and gon a caterwrawet.
In his descriptions of the personal appearance of his characters Chaucer
makes constant use of animal characteristics. Human beings, both
beautiful and hideous, are largely described in terms of animals. It is
interesting to see how often in that exquisite description of Alisoun,
the carpenter’s wife, Chaucer produces his clearest and sharpest effects
by a reference to some beast or bird:
Fair was this younge wife, and therewithal
As any weasel her body gent and small ...
But of her song it was as loud and yern
As is the swallow chittering on a barn.
Thereto she coulde skip and make a game
As any kid or calf following his dame.
Her mouth was sweet as bragot is or meath,
Or hoard of apples, laid in hay or heath.
Wincing she was, as is a jolly colt,
Long as a mast and upright as a bolt.
Again and again in Chaucer’s poems do we find such similitudes, and the
result is always a picture of extraordinary precision and liveliness.
Here, for example, are a few:
Gaylard he was as goldfinch in the shaw,
or,
Such glaring eyen had he as an hare;
or,
As piled (bald) as an ape was his skull.