99-121. It is important to observe that more than three stanzas of this
Prologue are little else than a translation from the treatise by Pope
Innocent III. entitled De Contemptu Mundi, sive de Miseria Conditionis
Humanae. This was first pointed out by Prof. Lounsbury, of Yale, Newhaven,
U.S.A., in the _Nation_, July 4, 1889. He shewed that the lost work by
Chaucer (viz. his translation of 'the Wreched Engendring of Mankinde As man
may in Pope Innocent y-finde,' mentioned in the Legend of Good Women,
Prologue A, l. 414) is not lost altogether, [142] since we find traces of
it in the first four stanzas of the present Prologue; in the stanzas of the
Man of Lawes Tale which begin, respectively, with lines 421, 771, 925, and
1135; and in some passages in the Pardoner's Prologue; as will be pointed
out.
It will be observed that if Chaucer, as is probable, has preserved extracts
from this juvenile work of his without much alteration, it must have been
originally composed in seven-line stanzas, like his Second Nonnes Tale and
Man of Lawes Tale.
I here transcribe the original of the present passage from Innocent's
above-named treatise, lib. i. c. 16, marking the places where the stanzas
begin.
_De miseria divitis et pauperis._ (99) Pauperes enim premuntur inedia,
cruciantur aerumna, fame, siti, frigore, nuditate; vilescunt, tabescunt,
spernuntur, et confunduntur. O miserabilis mendicantis conditio; et si
petit, pudore confunditur, et si non petit, egestate consumitur, sed ut
mendicet, necessitate compellitur. (106) Deum causatur iniquum, quod non
recte dividat; proximum criminatur malignum, quod non plene subveniat.
Indignatur, murmurat, imprecatur. (113) Adverte super hoc sententiam
Sapientis, 'Melius est,' inquit, 'mori quam indigere': 'Etiam proximo suo
pauper odiosus erit.' 'Omnes dies pauperis mali'; (120) 'fratres hominis
pauperis oderunt eum; insuper et amici procul recesserunt ab eo.'
For further references to the quotations occurring in the above passage,
see the notes below, to ll. 114, 118, 120.
99. _poverte_ = _povértë_, with the accent on the second syllable, as it
rimes with _herte_; in the Wyf of Bathes Tale, it rimes with _sherte_.
Poverty is here personified, and addressed by the Man of Lawe. The whole
passage is illustrated by a similar long passage near the end of the Wyf of
Bathes Tale, in which the opposite side of the question is considered, and
the poet shews what can be said in Poverty's praise. See D. 1177-1206.
101. _Thee_ is a dative, like _me_ in l. 91.--M. See Gen. ii. 15 (A. S.
version), where _him þæs ne sceamode_ = they were not ashamed of it; lit.
it shamed them not of it.
102. _artow_, art thou; the words being run together: so also _seistow_ =
sayest thou, in l. 110.
104. _Maugree thyn heed_, in spite of all you can do; lit. despite thy
head; see Knightes Tale, A. 1169, 2618, D. 887.
105. _Or ... or_ = either ... or; an early example of this
construction.--M.
108. _neighebour_ is a trisyllable; observe that _e_ in the middle of a
word is frequently sounded; cf. l. 115. _wytest_, blamest.
110. 'By my faith, sayest thou, he will have to account for it hereafter,
when his tail shall burn in the fire (lit. glowing coal), because he helps
not the needy in their necessity.'
114. 'It is better (for thee) to die than be in need.' Tyrwhitt says--'This
saying of Solomon is quoted in the Romaunt of the Rose, [143] l.
8573--Mieux vault mourir que pauvres estre'; [l. 8216, ed. Méon.] The
quotation is not from Solomon, but from Jesus, son of Sirach; see Ecclus.
xl. 28, where the Vulgate has--'Melius est enim mori quam indigere.' Cf. B.
2761.
115. _Thy selve neighebor_, thy very neighbour, even thy next neighbour.
See note to l. 108.
118. In Prov. xv. 15, the Vulgate version has--'Omnes dies _pauperis_
mali'; where the A. V. has 'the afflicted.'
119. The reading _to_ makes the line harsh, as the final _e_ in _come_
should be sounded, and therefore needs elision. _in that prikke_, into that
point, into that condition; cf. l. 1028.
120. Cf. Prov. xiv. 20--'the poor is hated even of his neighbour'; or, in
the Vulgate, 'Etiam proximo suo pauper odiosus erit.' Also Prov. xix.
7--'all the brethren of the poor do hate him; how much more do his friends
go far from him'; or, in the Vulgate, 'Fratres hominis pauperis oderunt
eum; insuper et amici procul recesserunt ab eo.' So too Ovid, Trist. i. 9.
5:--
'Donec eris felix, multos numerabis amicos,
Tempora si fuerint nubila, solus eris.'
Chaucer has the same thought again in his Tale of Melibeus (p. 227, B.
2749)--'and if thy fortune change, that thou wexe povre, farewel
freendshipe and felaweshipe!' See also note to B. 3436.
123. _as in this cas_, as relates to this condition or lot in life. In
Chaucer, _cas_ often means _chance_, _hap_.
124. _ambes as_, double aces, two aces, in throwing dice. _Ambes_ is Old
French for _both_, from Lat. _ambo_. The line in the Monkes Tale--'Thy
_sys_ fortune hath turned into _as_' (B. 3851)--helps us out here in some
measure, as it proves that a six was reckoned as a good throw, but an ace
as a bad one. So in Shakespeare, Mids. Nt. Dream, v. 1. 314, we find _less
than an ace_ explained as equivalent to _nothing_. In the next line, _sis
cink_ means _a six and a five_, which was often a winning throw. The
allusion is probably, however, not to the mere attempt as to which of two
players could throw the highest, but to the particular game called
_hazard_, in which the word _chance_ (here used) has a special sense. There
is a good description of it in the Supplemental volume to the English
Cyclopaedia, div. Arts and Sciences. The whole description has to be read,
but it may suffice to say here that, when the caster is going to throw, he
_calls a main_, or names one of the numbers five, six, seven, eight, or
nine; most often, he calls seven. If he then throws either seven or eleven
(Chaucer's _sis cink_), he wins; if he throws aces (Chaucer's _ambes as_)
or deuce-ace (two and one), or double sixes, he loses. If he throws some
other number, that number is called the caster's _chance_, and he goes on
playing till either the main or the chance turns up. In the first case he
loses, in the second, he wins. If he calls some other number, the winning
and losing throws are somewhat varied; but in all cases, the double ace is
a losing throw. [144]
Similarly, in The Pardoneres Tale, where _hazard_ is mentioned by name (C.
591), we find, at l. 653--'Seven is my chaunce, and thyn is cinq and
treye,' i. e. eight.
In Lydgate's Order of Fools, printed in Queen Elizabeth's Academy, ed.
Furnivall, p. 81, one fool is described--
'Whos chaunce gothe nether yn _synke or syse_;
With _ambes ase_ encressithe hys dispence.'
And in a ballad printed in Chaucer's Works, ed. 1561, folio 340, back, we
have--
'So wel fortuned is their chaunce
The dice to turne[n] vppe-so-doune,
With _sise and sincke_ they can auaunce.'
The phrase was already used proverbially before Chaucer's time. In the
metrical Life of St. Brandan, ed. T. Wright, p. 23, we find, 'hi caste an
_ambes as_,' they cast double aces, i. e. they wholly failed. See
_Ambs-ace_ in the New E. Dict. Dr. Morris notes that the phrase 'aums ace'
occurs in Hazlitt's O. E. Plays, ii. 35, with the editorial remark--'not
mentioned elsewhere' (!).
126. _At Cristemasse_, even at Christmas, when the severest weather comes.
In olden times, severe cold must have tried the poor even more than it does
now.
'Muche myrthe is in may · amonge wilde bestes,
And so forth whil somer lasteþ · heore solace dureþ;
And muche myrthe amonge riche men is · þat han meoble [_property_]
ynow and heele [_health_].
Ac beggers aboute myd-somere · bredlees þei soupe,
And [gh]ut is wynter for hem wors · for wet-shood þei gangen,
A-furst and a-fyngred [_Athirst and ahungered_] · and foule rebuked
Of þese worlde-riche men · þat reuthe hit is to huyre [_hear of it_].'
Piers Plowman, C. xvii. 10; B. xiv. 158.
127. _seken_, search through; much like the word _compass_ in the phrase
'ye compass sea and land' in Matth. xxiii. 15.
128. _thestaat_, for _the estaat_, i. e. the estate. This coalescence of
the article and substantive is common in Chaucer, when the substantive
begins with a vowel; cf. _thoccident_, B. 3864; _thorient_, B. 3871.