POETICAL WORKS OF GEOFFREY CHAUCER. VOL. 11. CONTAINING HIS CANTERBURY TALES, viz. PROL. TO CANT. TALES, THE REVESTALE, THE MAN OF LAWES TALE, &c. &c. Sc. But natheles certain I can right now no thrifty Tale fain, But CHAUCER, (though he can hut lewedly Hath fayd bem in fwiche English as he can Who fo that wol his large Volume feke. TALES, ver. 4465. On Fame's eternal bead-roli worthy to be fil'd-... Old Dan Geffrey, in whofe gentle fpright Old CHAUCER, like the morning flar, This light thofe mifts and clouds diffolv'd Darkness again the age invades. SPENSER. DENHAM. CHAUCER, him who fra with harmony inform'd The language of our fathers.Lis legends blithe Jie fang of love or knighthood, or the wiles AT THE Apollo Prefs, BY THE MARIING. THE PROLOGUE. WHANNE that April with his shoures fote The droughte of March hath perced to the rote, corages, And palmeres for to feken ftrange ftrondes, For a grammatical and metrical analysis of the first eighteen lines fee the Ejay, c. p. 167-170. . 8. Hath in the Ram] Rather the Bolle. See the reafons in the Difcourfe, &c. p. 177. .13. And palmeres] The different forts of pilgrims are thus diftinguished by Dante, Vita nuova, p. 80, "Chiamanti Palmi"eri, inquanto vanno oltra mare, laonde molte volte recano “la palmag-Peregrini, inquanto vanno alla casa di Galizia; "Romei, inquanto vanuo a Roina." But he speaks as an italian. Chaucer feems to contider all pilgrims to foreign parts as paliner. Of Englelond to Canterbury they wende, That hem hath holpen whan that they were feke. In Southwerk at The Tabard as I lay, 20 25 In felawship, and pilgrimes were they alle That toward Canterbury wolden ride. And wel we weren efed atte beste. And fhortly when the fonne was gon to refte, 30 So hadde I fpoken with hem everich on, That I was of hir felawfhip anon, And made forward erly for to rise, To take oure way ther as I you devise. But natheles while I have time and space, Or that I forther in this Tale pace, 35 .20. The Tabard] See Mr. Speght's note, as cited in the Difcourfe, c. n. 6. . 29. wel―efed] Bien aifés. The later French usage of aife fing. and aifes plur. unaccented, feems to be a corruption. V. 33. And made forward] More properly forword. See be low, ver. 831, 50, 54, from the Sax. fore-word, promise. Made (contracted from maked) is a diffyllable. See ver. 4361. Me thinketh it accordant to refon And whiche they weren, and of what degre, A Knight ther was, and that a worthy man, Trouthe and honour, fredom and curtefie. 40 45 .43. A Knight] The course of adventures of our Knight may be illuftrated by those of a real knight of Chaucer's age, who (for any thing that appears to the contrary) might have been upon this very pilgrimage; his epitaph is in Leland's Itin v. iii. p. 111; "Icy gift le noble et vaillant Chivaler Matheu "de Gourney, &c.—qui en fa vie fu a la bataille de Bena"maryn, et ala apres a la fiege d'Algezire fur les Sarazines et "auffi a les batailles de l'Efclufe, de Creffy, de Deyngeneffe, "de Peyteres, de Nazare, d'Ozrey et a plufours autres batail"les et affeges en les quex il gaigna noblement graunt los et "honour." He died in 1406 at the age of ninty-fix. Why Chaucer thould have chosen to bring his knight from Alexandria and Lettowe rather than from Crefly and Poitiers is a problem difficult to refolve, except by supposing that the flightet services against infidels were in those days more honourable than the moft fplendid victories over Chriftians. *. 48. ferre] i. e. ferer, the comparative of fer, far. So Chaucer ufes derre for derer, the comparat. of dere, dear, ver. 1450; "Ther n'as no man that Thefeus hath derre." Ferrer is used at length by Peter of Langtoft, and ferreß, the fuper!. below, ver. 496. |