CHAPTER IV. CHAUCER AND GOWER.-A.D. 1352 TO A.D. 1400. IN the fourteenth century, the period of highest energy for our Literature was the reign following that of Laurence Minot's hero; for to the time of Richard II. belong Langland's "Vision of Piers Plowman," Gower's "Vox Clamantis" and "Confessio Amantis," and the "Canterbury Tales" of Chaucer, who had begun to write in the reign of Edward III. These are works of wide range that with the "Bruce" of John Barbour, their northern contemporary, will have due place in the volume of this Library which is to illustrate our Longer Poems. John Barbour (Archdeacon of Aberdeen) died in 1396; Geoffrey Chaucer died in 1400; William Langland died also about that time; and although John Gower, a wellto-do gentleman of Kent, lived eight years longer, he was during that time a blind old man, lodging in the priory now known as Saint Saviour's Church, on the Surrey side of London Bridge. He spent liberally in aid of rebuilding works then going on there, and after death was rewarded with a fine tomb that remains, and a memorial window that does not remain. William Langland seems to have been a clerk, probably in minor orders, who began life in the monastery at Great Malvern, and afterwards lived, with a wife and daughter, in Cornhill. He began when his age was about thirty a poem called "The Vision of Piers Plowman," which he worked at in after years, so that it became the poem of his life, the poem too of the religious life of England in his time. the old Northern, Midland, and Southern dialects was that the Northern had that plural in es, while the Midland plural was in en, and the Southern in eth. 1 Trus, Begone! (Gaelic "truis" or "trus") was the sound by which dogs were driven away. Icelandic "trutta;" to shout "trutt!" as shepherds do. 2 Boun you to bicker, ready to attack you; boun (Icelandic "búinn," from "bua," Old Swedish "boa," to make ready), ready prepared; bicker (Cymric "bicre," a battle) is used, says Jamieson, in Scotland to represent rapid succession of strokes in a battle or broil. Constant throwing of stones, plying of sticks, or the noise of successive strokes or of any rapid motion, is called bickering. 3 Bede (from First English "beódan "), offer. Everilka, compounded of First English "æ'fer," ever, and "ælc," each; this, softened from "everilc" and "everich" to "every," where the y stands for alc, itself a compound of two words, viz., (allied to the Greek deí), indefinitely continuous, and lic, body. 5 Len, give (First English "læ'nan," to give, lend). We still often use "lend" in the sense of "give." "Lend me your hand," "Lend me your attention," &c. "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears." GEOFFREY CHAUCER. From Harleian MS.-4866, fol. 91. Geoffrey Chaucer, a wine-merchant's son, began his career as page to one of the royal princes at the court of Edward III., and throve for some years under the patronage of John of Gaunt. He rose easily in his own days to the first rank among English poets, and as easily retains it for all time to come. Living in a court beset with strife of faction, and in a country stirred with energetic contest against ills of Church and State, his song was without a trace of bitter restlessness. He dealt simply and cheerfully with the essentials of life, in the temper of one whose delight was in all the works of God and in his fellowmen as part of them, and who was tranquillised by faith in the wisdom and goodness of their Maker. Troubles came to him in some of his latter years, but seem to have brought with them no narrow care, for in that evening of his life near the close of the fourteenth century he was writing stories and setting them with others that he had already written in the framework of his "Canterbury Tales." From Chaucer let us hear the story that he put in the mouth of one of his Canterbury Pilgrims, the Poor Clerk of Oxford. It is the well-known tale of the patience of Griselda, the last piece in the "Decameron" of Boccaccio; but it is important to observe that it was taken by Chaucer not from the "Decameron," but from the Latin version made by Petrarch in 1373, a year before his death. Now Petrarch made his version of the story for the distinct purpose of treating it as a spiritual myth. He called his version a mythical piece upon Wifely Obedience and Faith, "De Obedientia et Fide Uxoria, Mythologia." In Boccaccio there is simply the tale of the patient-the too patient-Griselda. Petrarch, about PORTRAIT OF PETRARCH. a year before his death, re-told it with constant though quiet regard to his own under sense, throughout suggesting the submission of the patient wife as type of the submission we should all pay to the will of God, when He takes from us sometimes the child we love or the wealth we had, and it is for us to say, in Obedience and Faith, "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." At the close of his skilful repetition of the story from this point of view, Petrarch expressly said, "It seemed well to me to tell this tale in another style, not so much that I might stir matrons of our day to imitate the patience of this wife, which seems to me hardly fit for imitation, as that I might so far stir readers to imitate the woman's constancy, that what she yielded to her husband they may have heart to offer to our God; for though, as the Apostle James says, He is made tempter of those who do evil yet tempteth not any man, yet He does prove us, and often suffers us to be tried with many and heavy strokes, not that He may know our will-that He knew before we were created-but that we may learn our frailty by known signs within our home. Amply will I inscribe him among constant men, whoever he may be, who without murmur shall suffer for his God what this poor countrywoman suffered for her mortal husband." Chaucer completely adopts Petrarch's view of the story; and while he turns into music Petrarch's narrative, with grace, pathos, and kindly touches of humour that make its impression deeper, the reader should not fail to observe how firmly yet delicately he preserves the type of an unswerving love and faith towards God in his manner of describing each of the chief trials of Griselda's patience. At the close (in the three stanzas beginning "This story is said not for that wivés should Follow Grisild ") Chaucer simply and almost literally translates into his verse Petrarch's lesson, including the reference to the Epistle of St. James. That Epistle was aptly quoted, for it begins with exhortation to the brethren that they should count it all joy when they fall into divers temptations, knowing this that the trying of their faith involveth patience, and it includes the reminder, "Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy." Chaucer is mindful also in telling his story of the patient wife that, taken literally as incidents of household life, its events have their weak side. One charm of his storytelling is in the tact with which he rounds every awkward corner, forestalls and disarms objection with a touch of humour or light indication of his fellowfeeling with the reader, and keeps the innocence and beauty of Griselda so well guarded within the magic circle of his genius that they are as fresh now as they were nearly five hundred years ago. Petrarch spiritualised Boccaccio's Griselda; Chaucer preserved the spiritual life thus given to the story, while, with a power since surpassed only by Shakespeare, he brought his Griselda home to us warm with a woman's simple love and faith, that are of all things upon earth the most abiding. PATIENT GRISILDIS. (THE CLERK'S TALE.) PART I. There is right at the west side of Itaile,1 Down at the root of Vesulus the cold, A lusty plain, abundant of vitaile, 1 This follows Petrarch's way of beginning, "Est ad Italie latus occiduum Vesulus, ex Apennini jugis mons unus altissimus," &c. Vesulus (Monviso) is the mountain from which the river Po has its chief source. It is "right at the west end" of North Italy, among the mountains between Italy and France; the lusty plain of Saluzzo (Saluces), which lies by it, being one of the border provinces of Italy. 2 Lusty plain (First English "lust," will, power, pleasure), a desir 2 Gye, guide. * Nold, would not; negative of "wold," as "nill" of "will," line 63. Flockmel. First English "mæl," a part, yielded various Old English compounds, as "parcel-mele," by small quantities at a time; poundmele," by the pound; and this "flock-mele," by flocks. 5 Hardiness, boldness. French "hardi," bold, "hardiesse.' Accepteth (plural), of courtesy. In Southern English verbs had eth for a plural ending in present and imperative. So afterwards, "Boweth your neck," &c. 7 All, although.-To doon, to do. That through your death your linage should aslake,13 Their mecké prayer and their piteous cheer "Ye will," quoth he, "mine owen people dear, That selde time is found in marriage; There I was free, I mot ben 15 in serváge. And trust upon your wit, and have done aye; Wherefore of my free will I will assent To weddé me, as soon as ever I may. But there as ye han proffered me to-day To choosé me a wife, I you release That choice, and pray you of that proffer cease. 8 Clepeth, call. First English "clypian;" Southern plural in eth. Refuseden. As eth (originally ath) was plural sign of the present tense, so en (originally on) was plural sign of the past. 10 Hest, command. "For God it wot, that children ofté ben Unlike their worthy elders them before; Bounté com'th all of God, nought of the streen1 Of which they ben engendred and i-bore. I trust in Goddés bounté, and therefore My marriage, and mine estate and rest, I Him betake; He may doon as Him lest. "Let me alone in choosing of my wife, That charge upon my back I will endure. But I you pray, and charge upon your life, That what wife that I take, ye me assure To worship her while that her life may dure, In word and work, both here and everywhere, As she an emperourés daughter were. "And furthermore this shall ye swear, that ye Against my choice shall never grudge nor strive, For since I shall forego my liberté At your request, as ever mot? I thrive, With heartly will they sworen, and assenten To all this thing, there saidé no wight nay; Beseeching him of grace, ere that they wenten, That he would granté them a certain day He granted them a day, such as him lest, On which he would be wedded sickerly; 4 And said he did all this at their request. And they with humble heart full buxomly, And hereupon he to his officeres Commandeth for the feasté to purvey, Such chargé gave as him list on them lay: PART II. Not far from thilké palace honourable, Where as this marquis shope7 his marriage, There stood a thorpe, of sité delitáble, In which that pooré folk of that village 120 A few sheep, spinning on the field,12 she kept, She woldé not ben idle till she slept. 130 140 And when she homeward came she woldé bring The which she shred and seethed for her living, With every obeisance and diligénce, That child may doon to father's reverénce. 150 160 170 10 Janicola. Giannucola is the name in the original story, and Boccaccio's heroine is called Griselda; Petrarch Latinised this into Brisildis, and Chaucer's spelling of the name is influenced by Petrarch's Latin form. 11 Ripe and sad courage. The word sad meant originally firm, settled, fixed; and throughout this tale, in which it often occurs, Chaucer uses it only in this sense. It means firmly fixed, when in the last part we read of Grisild that "in her swough so sadly holdeth she her children two" that it is difficult to disentangle and pull them from her. In the" Promptorium Parvulorum" sad is defined as "solidus." In that sense bread that is solid and close because the dough has not risen, is still said in Provincial English to be sad. In Cymric "sad"* meant wise, prudent, sober, serious; and the modern sense has arisen from association of a quiet seriousness with want of joy. The word still had its old sense at the close of Elizabeth's reign, when Ben Jonson, in "Every Man in His Humour" (act i. sc. 2), made Master Stephen, on a matter that by no means saddened him, use the phrase "in sadness" where we should say "seriously " -- "Stephen. I think my leg would show in a silk hose. Brainworm. Believe me, Master Stephen, rarely well. Stephen. In sadness, I think it would: I have a reasonable good leg." Milton, in the days of Charles I., is still using the word in its original sense when his lady in "Comus" speaks of "Gray-hooded Even, Like a sad votaress in palmer's weed." 12 That is, she was industriously spinning while she watched them. 13 Ofte sith, many times. First English "sith," a path or journey. also a time or occasion. 14 Par aventure, perchance. |