Chaucer and His Times

Nature calls upon the royal eagle to make first choice, and he,

With hed enclyned and with ful humble chere,

at once chooses the bird upon her hand. Before the formel eagle has summoned up sufficient courage to give her answer,

Another tercel egle spak anoon,
Of lower kinde, and seyde, “that shal not be;
I love hir bet than ye do, by seynt John.”

And hardly has he finished when a third eagle puts forward his claim. The various birds are called upon for their advice, and after a great deal of chattering and confusion, Nature finally decrees that the choice is to lie with the formel eagle herself. She modestly begs for a year’s respite in which to make up her mind, and the parliament is adjourned.

But first were chosen foules for to singe
As yeer by yere was always hir usaunce
To singe a roundel at hir departinge
To do Nature honour and pleasunce,

and the whole ends with the charming roundel:—

Now welcom somer with thy sonne softe.

The poem has a freshness and tenderness which its conventional setting cannot conceal, and the humour of the conversation among the worm-foul, water-foul, and seed-foul, must have been even more delightful than it is to-day if—as has been suggested—the “fool cukkow,” “the waker goos,” “the popinjay, ful of delicacy,” and the rest were easily recognisable portraits of contemporary courtiers.

The Parlement of Foules was followed by the Hous of Fame. Here again Chaucer makes use of the conventional stock-in-trade of medieval poets.

We have the dream, the strings of proper names drawn from Ovid and Virgil and the Bible, the constant moralisations, the temple to which the dreamer is guided, the use of allegory and symbol, all of which are common property. The influence of Dante is evident, and shows itself in detail as well as in the conception of the whole. The method of beginning each book with an invocation, the exact marking of the date on which the poem was begun, the steep rock, the description of the house of Rumour, and numerous other points are borrowed direct from the Divina Commedia, while there is no need to emphasise the obvious resemblance between the general plan of Dante’s great poem and the Hous of Fame. Professor Skeat even goes so far as to suggest that Lydgate is referring to the Hous of Fame when he speaks of a poem of Chaucer’s as “Dant in English.”

The poem is divided into three books. Book I opens with a discussion of dreams in general, what causes them and what weight should be attached to them:—

Why that is an avisioun
And this a revelacioun.

This is followed by an invocation to the god of sleep, and then comes the vision itself. The poet falls asleep on the tenth day of December, and dreams that he is in a temple of glass. On a tablet on the wall is engraved the history of “daun Eneas,” and its recital occupies almost the whole of the book. When the poet has “seyen al this sighte” he passes out of the temple and finds himself in a desert place:—

Withouten toun, or hous, or tree
Or bush, or gras, or cred[41] lond.
·····
Ne I no maner creature
That is y-formed by nature
Ne saw.

Terrified by the strangeness and loneliness of the place, he casts his eyes towards heaven, praying to be saved,

Fro fantom and illusion,

and as he looks upwards he becomes aware of a wonderful eagle with feathers of gold, flying towards him. Book II opens with further remarks on dreams, and a declaration that no one, not even Isaiah or Scipio or Nebuchadnezzar, ever had such a dream as this. The story then continues. The eagle swoops down upon the poet and catches him up in “his grimme pawes stronge,”—

Me caryinge in his clawes starke
As lightly as I were a larke.

Dazed and astonished, Chaucer almost loses consciousness, till he is recalled to life by the eagle, with “mannes voice,” bidding him

... Awak
And be not so a-gast for shame!

and adding in a well-meant attempt to cheer him up,—

... Seynte Marie!
Thou art noyous for to carie.[42]

He is then told that as a reward for his long and faithful service of Cupid—

Withoute guerdon ever yit,

Jove has decreed that he is to be taken to the House of Fame:—

To do thee som disport and game,
In som recompensacioun
Of labour and devocioun.

In Fame’s palace he will hear more wonders in two hours than there are grains of corn in a granary, for every sound made upon earth,—

Thogh hit were pyped of a mouse,

rises up there, multiplied and increased. Having concluded a learned disquisition on the properties of air, water, and sound—which he explains, he has kindly simplified in order to bring it within the grasp of a “lewed[43] man”—the eagle bears the poet through the stars and past all manner of “eyrish bestes” until they reach the House of Fame. Here Chaucer is set upon his feet—much to his relief—and is told to enter; he is further warned that every sound which rises from earth may be not only heard but seen, since it takes the form of whatever made it. Book III opens with an invocation to Apollo. The poet then climbs the steep rock of ice on which the palace stands, noticing as he passes the names of famous men cut in the ice and rapidly thawing away in the sun. At the summit is a wonderful castle of beryl stone, and all round it crowd

... alle maner of minstrales
And gestiours,[44] that tellen tales
Bothe of weping and of game,
Of al that longeth unto Fame.

Amongst these are all the famous harpers and singers of old days, and close by stand

... hem that maken blody soun
In trumpe, beme[45] and clarioun.

A curiously carved gate gives admission to the castle, and entering, Chaucer finds a large number of knights-at-arms pouring out of a great hall. The hall itself is

plated half a fote thikke
Of gold ...

and set with precious stones. Here the Lady Fame sits on a throne, her feet resting on earth and her head touching the heavens. The nine Muses sing her praises eternally, and on either side of her are pillars on which stand the historian Josephus and the poets Statius, Homer, Virgil, Ovid, Lucan, and Claudian:—

The halle was al ful y-wis,
Of hem that writen olde gestes,
As ben on trees rokes nestes.

Suddenly a great noise is heard, and there bursts into the hall a multitude of people of every race and every condition come to prefer their requests to Fame. Some beg

“That thou graunte us now good fame,
And lete our werkes han that name;
In ful recompensacioun
Of good werk, give us good renoun;”

others said

“Mercy, lady dere!
To telle certain, as hit is,
We han don neither that ne this
But ydel al our lyf y-be.
But, natheles, yit preye we,
That we mowe han so good a fame
And greet renoun and knowen name,
As they that han don nobel gestes ...”

others—

“But certeyn they were wonder fewe,”

cried

“Certes, lady brighte,
We han don wel with al our mighte;
But we ne kepen have no fame.
Hyd our werkes and our name,
For goddes love! for certes we
Han certeyn doon hit for bountee
And for no maner other thing.”

Their requests are granted or refused with absolute capriciousness. Fame is attended by Eolus, who according to her direction blows a black trumpet called Sclaunder (Slander) or a golden clarion called Clere Laude (Clear Praise), and these trumpets are used as the whim takes her. Evil men have good fame, and good men are slandered, or on the other hand, both receive their deserts without any reason except Fame’s good pleasure. As Chaucer stands watching the endless procession, a man approaches him and asks if he too has come to receive fame. The poet hastily protests against any such desire, and explains that he has come for—

Tydinges, other this or that
Of love, or swiche thinges glade.

The stranger bids him follow him to another place, and leads him to

An hous, that domus Dedali,
That Laborintus cleped is.

It is made of sticks and twigs and continually spins round and round:—

And ther-out com so greet a noise
That, had it stonden upon Oise,
Men mighte hit han herd esely
To Rome, I trowe sikerly.
·····
And on the roof men may yit seen
A thousand holes, and wel mo,
To leten wel the soun out go.

This is the house of Rumour, to which come tidings

Of werre, of pees, of mariages,
Of reste, of labour of viages,[46]
Of abood[47] of deeth, of lyfe,
Of love, of hate, accorde, of stryfe, etc.

Here Chaucer meets the eagle again, who tells him that he is once more prepared to become his guide, and without more ado seizes him “bitweene his toon” and puts him in through the window. The house is full of people all busy whispering in each other’s ears:—

Whan oon had herd a thing, y-wis,
He com forth to another wight,
And gan him tellen, anoon-right,
The same that to him was told,
Or hit a furlong-way was old,
But gan somwhat for to eche
To this tyding in this speche
More than hit ever was.
And nat so sone departed nas
That he fro him, that he ne mette
With the thridde; and or he lette
Any stounde,[48] he tolde him als;
Were the tyding sooth or fals,
Yit wolde he telle hit natheless.

Out of the windows fly lies and truths, jostling each other, and Fame decides which shall prevail. Shipmen and pilgrims, pardoners and messengers, crowd into the house with boxes crammed with marvellous stories. In one corner of the great hall men are telling love stories, the poet goes to listen to these. Here, just when the climax appears to be in sight, the poem breaks off in the middle of a sentence. Remarkable as it is, full of humour and shrewd observation, and with signs of Chaucer’s genius for narrative, it is not in his most characteristic vein. Troilus and Criseyde had already given promise of genius of a very different order, and it is possible that Chaucer himself grew weary of the smooth monotony of his own verse, and felt within him a growing impulse to produce something more human and more vivid. The Hous of Fame is an almost perfect example of a type of poem whose popularity was to continue undiminished for another century and more. It was imitated again and again, and a comparison between it and such works as Lydgate’s Temple of Glas is sufficient to show the difference between genius and talent even when genius in working with not wholly congenial material. If Chaucer’s reputation rested upon the Book of the Duchesse, the Parlement of Foules, the Hous of Fame, and the Legend of Good Women, a few scholars would know and appreciate his work, and anthologies would probably make the majority of readers acquainted with a few carefully-chosen extracts, but he would have done little or nothing to break down the literary conventions of his day. It would need a keen eye to discern in these the dawn of a new era, without the light thrown upon them by Troilus and Criseyde and the Canterbury Tales.

The Legend of Good Women is said by Lydgate to have been written at the Queen’s request. The general plan is taken from Boccaccio’s De Claris Mulieribus, and Chaucer also translates freely from the Heroides and the Metamorphoses of Ovid. The interest of the poem lies in the Prologue, which consists of nearly six hundred lines, and of which there are two distinct versions. The poet describes how in the spring he goes out into the fields to worship the daisy, and he gives a long and poetical description of this “emperice and flour of floures alle.” That night he sleeps in a little arbour in his garden, and in a dream he sees the god of love leading by the hand a queen clothed in green and gold and of surpassing beauty. Here follows a ballad in her praise. A rout of ladies now appears, and they all kneel down and sing the praise of their queen. The poet kneels among them, but presently the god of love catches sight of him and declares that he is a traitor and heretic for he has translated the Romance of the Rose—

That is an heresye ageyns my lawe,

and has also written of the fickleness of Cressida—

Why noldest thou as wel han seyd goodnesse
Of women, as thou hast seyd wikkednesse?

The queen, who is none other than Alcestis, intercedes for him, reminding the irate god that the poet is also the author of the Book of the Duchesse, the Parlement of Foules, the story of Palamon and Arcite, to say nothing of

“... many an ympne for your haly-dayes.”[49]

and the Lyf of St. Cecyle. She therefore begs that he may be forgiven, and in token of true contrition he shall spend the most part of his time

In making of a glorious Legende
Of Gode Women, maidenes and wyves,
That weren trewe in lovinge al hir lyves.

The legends which follow are the result of this command, and the definition of virtue given above accounts for the inclusion of such “good women” as Cleopatra and Medea. The plan of the poem necessarily involved sameness of treatment. Chaucer grew tired of his heroines, and of the twenty legends which he seems to have planned, only nine were written. The stories of Cleopatra, Thisbe, Dido, Hypsipyle and Medea, Lucretia, Ariadne, Philomela, Phyllis, and Hypermnestra, are strung together somewhat perfunctorily. As the names show, they are all drawn from Latin authors, but with the usual freedom of a medieval translator Chaucer does not hesitate to alter the originals to suit his purpose. He wishes to show the torments and constancy of love’s martyrs, and without scruple he blackens the characters of Jason and Æneas and Theseus, in order to bring out the virtues of Medea, Dido, and Ariadne. The legends show little of the humour and freshness of Chaucer’s other poems. Occasionally a description of the lover’s passion recalls some similar passage in Troilus and Criseyde, and the mere fact that the interest centres in emotion rather than action is in itself of importance, but Hercules, in the legend of Hypsipyle, is a poor substitute for Pandarus, and the perpetual recurrence of the love motif tends to weaken its effect. The two versions of the Prologue show many interesting points of difference. Mention has already been made of the supposed intervention of the Queen, through which Chaucer obtained permission to appoint a deputy to assist him in his office work. It is supposed that this incident must have occurred after the writing of the first prologue and before the writing of the second, for while the whole poem is written in Queen Anne’s honour, the second prologue contains numerous passages expressing the poet’s gratitude and affection, which are not found in the first. She is

... of alle floures flour,
Fulfilled of al vertu and honour.
······
She is the clernesse and the verray light
That in this derke worlde me wynt and ledeth,
······
For as the sonne wol the fyr disteyne[50]
So passeth al my lady sovereyne,
That is so good, so fair, so debonaire;
I prey to god that ever falle hir faire!

Another striking change in the second version is the omission of certain too explicit lines in which the poet had dared to set forth the duties of kings towards their subjects. Part of this wise advice still remains, but evidently Chaucer found it dangerous to call Richard’s attention to the necessity for hearing his people’s petitions and complaints, and the later version contents itself with a more general statement that kings should

... nat be lyk tiraunts of Lumbardye
That han no reward but at tirannye.

It is also noteworthy that several words which appear in their older form in the first version are modernised in the second (e. g. in the first line sythes becomes tymes), so that it is possible to see the language in actual process of development.

Chaucer’s last and greatest work, the Canterbury Tales, was begun in 1386—though as has been shown, certain isolated tales, or rough sketches for tales, were already in existence—and the composition continued till 1389, when it—like so many of his other poems—was left unfinished. A number of fugitive pieces and lyrics also date from about this time, as does the prose Treatise on the Astrolabe written for his little son, Lewis.

The popularity of Chaucer’s poetry is shown not only by repeated references to him as master and teacher, made by his immediate successors, but by the entire Chaucer apocrypha which soon sprang into being. Some genuine works of his—such as the Book of the Lion (this very probably was no more than a translation of Machault’s Le Dit du Lion), have been lost, but to make up for this a number of poems have been attributed to him, some of which were not written until years after his death. Subjoined is a list of the more important of these, with the names of the real authors in cases where scholars have succeeded in tracing them.

CHAPTER III

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, Crœsus, 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.