Title. The Latin text is copied from l. 334 below; it appears in the
Ellesmere and Hengwrt MSS. The A. V. has--'the love of money is the root of
all evil'; 1 Tim. vi. 10. It is well worth notice that the novel by
Morlinus, quoted in vol. iii. p. 442, as a source of the Pardoner's Tale,
contains the expression--'radice malorum cupiditate affecti.'
336. _bulles_, bulls from the pope, whom he here calls his 'liege lord';
see Prol. A. 687, and Piers the Plowman, B. Prol. 69. See also Wyclif's
Works, ed. Arnold, iii. 308.
_alle and somme_, one and all. Cf. Clerkes Tale, E. 941, and the note.
337. _patente_; defined by Webster as 'an official document, conferring a
right or privilege on some person or party'; &c. It was so called because
'patent' or open to public inspection. 'When indulgences came to be sold,
the pope made them part of his ordinary revenue; and, according to the
usual way in those, and even in much later times, of farming the revenue,
he let them out usually to the Dominican friars'; Massingberd, Hist. Eng.
Reformation, p. 126.
345. 'To colour my devotion with.' For _saffron_, MS. Harl. reads _savore_.
Tyrwhitt rightly prefers the reading _saffron_, as 'more [270] expressive,
and less likely to have been a gloss.' And he adds--'Saffron was used to
give colour as well as flavour.' For example, in the Babees Book, ed.
Furnivall, p. 275, we read of 'capons that ben coloured with saffron.' And
in Winter's Tale, iv. 3. 48, the Clown says--'I must have saffron to colour
the warden-pies.' Cf. Sir Thopas, B. 1920. As to the position of _with_,
cf. Sq. Ta., F. 471, 641.
346. According to Tyrwhitt, this line is, in some MSS. (including Camb. Dd.
4. 24. and Addit. 5140), replaced by three, viz.--
'In euery village and in euery toun,
This is my terme, and shal, and euer was,
_Radix malorum est cupiditas_.'
Here _terme_ is an error for _teme_, a variant of _theme_; so that the last
two lines merely repeat ll. 333-4.
347. _cristal stones_, evidently hollow pieces of crystal in which relics
were kept; so in the Prologue, A. 700, we have--
'And in a _glas_ he hadde pigges bones.'
348. _cloutes_, rags, bits of cloth. 'The origin of the veneration for
relics may be traced to Acts, xix. 12. Hence _clouts_, or _cloths_, are
among the Pardoner's stock'; note in Bell's edition.
349. _Reliks._ In the Prologue, we read that he had the Virgin Mary's veil
and a piece of the sail of St. Peter's ship. Below, we have mention of the
shoulder-bone of a holy Jew's sheep, and of a miraculous mitten. See
Heywood's impudent plagiarism from this passage in his description of a
Pardoner, as printed in the note to l. 701 of Dr. Morris's edition of
Chaucer's Prologue. See also a curious list of relics in Chambers' Book of
Days, i. 587; and compare the humorous descriptions of the pardoner and his
wares in Sir David Lyndesay's Satyre of the Three Estates, ll. 2037-2121.
Chaucer probably here took several hints from Boccaccio's Decamerone, Day
6, Nov. 10, wherein Frate Cipolla produces many very remarkable relics to
the public gaze. See also the list of relics in Political, Religious, and
Love Poems, ed. Furnivall (E. E. T. S.), pp. xxxii, 126-9.
350. _latoun._ The word _latten_ is still in use in Devon and the North of
England for plate tin, but as Halliwell remarks, that is not the sense of
_latoun_ in our older writers. It was a kind of mixed metal, somewhat
resembling brass both in its nature and colour, but still more like
pinchbeck. It was used for helmets (Rime of Sir Thopas, B. 2067), lavers
(P. Pl. Crede, 196), spoons (Nares), sepulchral memorials (Way in Prompt.
Parv.), and other articles. Todd, in his Illustrations of Chaucer, p. 350,
remarks that the escutcheons on the tomb of the Black Prince are of _laton_
over-gilt, in accordance with the Prince's instructions; see Nichols's
Royal Wills, p. 67. He adds--'In our old Church Inventories a _cross of
laton_ frequently occurs.' See Prol. A. 699, and the note. I here copy the
description of this metal given in Batman upon Bartholomè; lib. xvi. c. 5.
'_Of Laton._ [271] Laton is called _Auricalcum_, and hath that name, for,
though it be brasse or copper, yet it shineth as gold without, as _Isidore_
saith; for brasse is _calco_ in Greeke. Also _laton_ is hard as brasse or
copper; for by medling of copper, of tinne, and of auripigment [orpiment]
and with other mettal, it is brought in the fire to the colour of gold, as
_Isidore_ saith. Also it hath colour and likenesse of gold, but not the
value.'
351. The expression 'holy Jew' is remarkable, as the usual feeling in the
middle ages was to regard all Jews with abhorrence. It is suggested, in a
note to Bell's edition, that it 'must be understood of some Jew before the
Incarnation.' Perhaps the Pardoner wished it to be understood that the
sheep was once the property of Jacob; this would help to give force to l.
365. Cp. Gen. xxx.
The best comment on the virtues of a sheep's shoulder-bone is afforded by a
passage in the Persones Tale (De Ira), I. 602, where we find--'Sweringe
sodeynly withoute avysement is eek a sinne. But lat us go now to thilke
horrible swering of adiuracioun and coniuracioun, as doon thise false
enchauntours or nigromanciens in bacins ful of water, or in a bright swerd,
in a cercle, or in a fyr, or in a _shulder-boon of a sheep_'; &c. Cf. also
a curious passage in Trevisa's tr. of Higden's Polychronicon, lib. i. cap.
60, which shews that it was known among the Flemings who had settled in the
west of Wales. He tells us that, by help of a bone of a wether's right
shoulder, from which the flesh had been boiled (not roasted) away, they
could tell what was being done in far countries, 'tokens of pees and of
werre, the staat of the reeme, sleynge of men, and spousebreche.' Selden,
in his notes to song 5 of Drayton's Polyolbion, gives a curious instance of
such divination, taken from Giraldus, Itin. i. cap. 11; and a writer in the
Retrospective Review, Feb. 1854, p. 109, says it is 'similar to one
described by Wm. de Rubruquis as practised among the Tartars.' And see
_spade-bone_ in Nares. Cf. Notes and Queries, 1 S. ii. 20.
In Part I. of the Records of the Folk-lore Society is an article by Mr.
Thoms on the subject of divination by means of the shoulder-bone of a
sheep. He shews that it was still practised in the Scottish Highlands down
to the beginning of the present century, and that it is known in Greece. He
further cites some passages concerning it from some scarce books; and ends
by saying--'let me refer any reader desirous of knowing more of this
wide-spread form of divination to Sir H. Ellis's edition of Brand's Popular
Antiquities, iii. 179, ed. 1842, and to much curious information respecting
_Spatulamancia_, as it is called by Hartlieb, and an analogous species of
divination _ex anserino sterno_, to Grimm's Deutsche Mythologie, 2nd ed. p.
1067.'
355. The sense is--'which any snake has bitten or stung.' The reference is
to the poisonous effects of the bite of an adder or venomous snake. The
word _worm_ is used by Shakespeare to describe the asp whose bite was fatal
to Cleopatra; and it is sometimes used to describe a dragon of the largest
size. In Icelandic, the term 'miðgarðsormr,' [272] lit. worm of the
middle-earth, signifies a great sea-serpent encompassing the entire world.
363. _Fastinge._ This word is spelt with a final _e_ in all seven MSS.; and
as it is emphatic and followed by a slight pause, perhaps the final _e_
should be pronounced. Cp. A. S. _fæstende_, the older form of the present
participle. Otherwise, the first foot consists of but one syllable.