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GEOFFREY CHAUCER

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PREFACE

AN English professor, to whom I mentioned, soon after
its appearance, M. Legouis' book on Chaucer and its
admirable verse translations, replied, with true British
bluntness, that he did not care to read Chaucer in French
verse, and that he would wait for an English translation
to be published. This original opinion, no doubt inspired
by a perusal of the many insipid modernisations of Chaucer
produced in the eighteenth century, together with a desire
to bring within the reach of the English reading public a
work, which embodies all the discoveries of recent criti-
cism in a form both palatable and attractive, led me to
undertake the translation of this work. But the charac-
teristic pronouncement of the English professor remained
in my mind, because it showed that he did not appreciate
the importance of those translations in the history of
Chaucerian criticism abroad, and I resolved to explain in
a preface why they deserve more than a curt dismissal.
They represent the latest endeavour, in a long line of
critical appreciations, to initiate the French public into the
knowledge of the art of Chaucer. I propose here to make
a brief survey of these appreciations, and to show the
varying fortunes of Chaucer in the country whence, in
youth, he gained both his inspiration and his training.

I

If some lucky student of Chaucer discovered a little bit
of manuscript five inches square, on which Guillaume de
Machaut had penned a few graceful lines addressed to the

JL/WA^*JL t_JtJ tj

vi GEOFFREY CHAUCER

English poet, commending him on his progress and his
achievements, the history of Chaucerian criticism would
not be any the richer. I am not referring here to that
relationship between the two poets, which is becoming more
and more obvious every day. I wish to suggest that such
references as that found in Eustache Deschamps, who was
also a pupil of Machaut, may interest the biographer of
Chaucer, but do not prove that Chaucer was appreciated
as a poet in France in his day. Unless we take the epithet
" grand translateur " to be more than a statement of fact
(and it would not be anything very flattering then), we
can dismiss it as a pretty piece of flattery on the part of
Deschamps, who would not have minded seeing some of his
verse woven into the garland of a poet, whose reputation in
his own country was becoming greater every day. At the
date ascribed to the ballad by the critics, let us say about
1386, Chaucer, the man, was no doubt known of a few in
France, such as Machaut and Deschamps, and the ac-
quaintance may even have been of his own seeking. But
Chaucer, the poet, was not looked upon as a master of
verse, as a creator, from whose works anything could be
learnt. Nay, leaving aside the question of language,
which might have proved an impossible obstacle to most
(although Leblanc declared later that Chaucer had made
the reading of the old French poets easier for him), it is
doubtful whether Chaucer, " the English Homer, " " the
Father of English poetry," could have had any influence
on French literature whatsoever.

He lived at the end of the fourteenth century. The
decadence of French poetry had already begun and con-
tinued during the whole of the fifteenth century. It was
exhausted, stifled out of existence by the maze of con-
vention and allegory. It was dying from that very ideal

PREFACE vii

to which Chaucer strove to add a new lustre, and which
would have proved his undoing also but for his tendency
to realism, and the great good fortune that was his, of
creating for England a literary language, and being the
first to use it for poetical purposes. Had he lived in France,
what sort of fame would have been his ? Think of the
hapless Charles d'Orleans, labouring in his English prison
to compose, after the same ideal, delicate poems of un-
reality, in which the convention to which he was a slave
forbade him to recall the things that made his heart heavy,
his father foully murdered, his mother driven by sorrow to
a premature grave, his brother unjustly detained, and the
pitiful state of his own dukedom, which had to be sold piece
by piece to pay his gaolers. That was between 1415 and
1440, not many years after Chaucer's death. But during
the duke's absence things had been moving in France,
patriotism was born in the stricken land forsaken by its
rulers and harried by the English soldiery, and with it a
new ideal which threw open the gates of the secluded
temple, and let in the rumour of life with its cries of
anguish and its shouts of joy. When Charles d'Orleans
returned with his volume of pretty verses, he found they had
aged like himself, and that the courtly wooing of imaginary
beauties seemed a little ridiculous to these new Frenchmen.
He shut himself up in his chateau of Blois, and spent his
time fondly collecting and arranging his rondeaus and his
chansons. But the men outside had no use for them, and
they lay forgotten after his death for three centuries, until
an erudite abbe discovered them, as one discovers the
mummy of an ancient Egyptian ruler. Of influence he
had none, for one cannot describe as such the curiosity
which made a few nineteenth-century poets delve in his
dust for complicated poetical moulds.

viii GEOFFREY CHAUCER

That is why Chaucer, who paid allegiance to the same
ideals, could not have been any more fortunate. Even
his masterpiece, The Canterbury Tales, with their wealth
of observation, their humour, their sympathy, their truth,
would not have been listened to very long in France, for
they only retold stories and legends which tradition had
made familiar. The novelty of Chaucer's handling of
these topics was only to become apparent much later, in
England as well as in France, at a time when the topics
themselves had become obsolete, so that the historian of
Chaucerian criticism in France must not hope to find traces
of literary influence, but to see what notice has been taken
of Chaucer there, when the bare knowledge of his name
gives place to an appreciation of his works and to estimate
the quality of this appreciation. I hope to show that such
marks of interest were not wanting in France, and that
Frenchmen, once the name of Chaucer had fairly estab-
lished itself among them as that of a great writer, lost no
time in finding things out about him, and even ran English
critics very close in the recognition of his rare merits.

II

The feuds which separated England and France during
the first three centuries following Chaucer's death, the
loss of the English provinces in France, and the growing
literary ascendancy of the latter country during that
period, are probably the causes which explain the lack of
intercourse between the two nations and the appalling
ignorance of English life and literature proudly displayed
by the French in those days. But for all that, we ought
not to overlook one solitary instance of a Frenchman who

PREFACE ix

was well acquainted with Chaucer and counted the
Canterbury Tales amongst his favourite books. This was
Jean d'Orleans, Comte d'Angouleme, brother to Charles
d'Orleans, " the courtly maker." Brought to England as a
hostage after the treaty of Bezancais, the treachery of the
Clarence family, who saw in him a never-failing source of
profit, kept him in prison from 1412 till 1445. He was
thirteen years old when he came; he only departed at the
age of 46, bent and old before his time. During this long
captivity, he learnt to speak fluently the language of his
conquerors. Books were his only solace, and Charles
d'Orleans kept him well supplied. A catalogue of his
library, made soon after his death, in 1467, mentions " Ung
romant, en Anglois, rime," which is a copy of the Canter-
bury Tales. So fond was the Count of this work that he
had indexed it in his own hand. The manuscript, with
his own annotations, can be seen to this day at the
Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris.

Whence came this copy ? Jean d'Angouleme was
entirely dependent on his brother Charles for money, for
clothes, and for books. It is therefore more than likely
that Charles sent him the Canterbury Tales. But the poet
was also imprisoned in England from 1415 till 1440, and
must have come by this copy during his own captivity.
Among the gaolers who had him in their keeping during
that period was William Pole, Earl of Suffolk. The poet
lived with him in his castle of Wingfield between 1432 and
1436, and it is said that friendly relations existed between
the earl and his prisoner. Now, this William Pole had
married, in 1431, Alice Chaucer, grand-daughter of Geoffrey
Chaucer. Is it far wrong to suppose that it was during
his stay in that house where tradition made poets welcome,
that Charles obtained that copy of the Canterbury Tales,

x GEOFFREY CHAUCER

which found its way some time after into this brother's
library ? Be this as it may, the golden goose of the Clarence
family had a pretty taste for literature, and should be
remembered as the one Frenchman in the fifteenth
century, who read and appreciated Chaucer.

Is it necessary, a propos of Chaucer, to pillory once more
the " grand siecle " for its neglect of English letters and
its contempt for that " isle abominable " and its language,
" the barbarity of which . . . prevented its being taken
into account " ? The English after all were as much
responsible as the French for this state of affairs : they too
readily forgot their own language abroad, and to speak
French was looked upon by them as a sign of refinement.
Moreover, it was far more difficult for France to form an
adequate estimate of foreign literatures, not because of the
barrier of language, nor on account of religious or political
antagonism, but because of the literary supremacy which
she enjoyed and which brought writers of all countries to
Paris, as to a shrine from which a chosen few derived that
enlightenment, which was to cure their minds of their
native roughness. In fact, the discovery that there were,
outside France and apart from the ancients or the classical
Italian poets, in England of all countries, writers of merit,
must have caused the French as much surprise as might be
aroused in our day if an astronomer idly peering at the
moon, discovered at the other end of his telescope, a score
of living men, scurrying down the slopes of an extinct
volcano. This discovery, however, was made, and Chaucer
was one of the first to benefit by it.

Readers of Louis Moreri's Grand Dictionnaire Historique,
published in 1674, must have experienced no little surprise
in finding amongst the list of " Geoffreys " the name of one
" Geoffrey Chaucer, called the English Homer on account

PREFACE xi

of his fine verse." It was but a short notice, the first to
be found in a French book since Froissart mentioned the
poet in connection with the negotiations at Montreuil-sur-
Mer, but it may have awakened curiosity and made some
readers wonder who that Chaucer was, whom they found
so unexpectedly associated with the greatest poet of all
times.

There was, however, one person, to whom the name
was not perhaps unfamiliar, or who must have become
acquainted with it very soon after it was mentioned in
Moreri's dictionary. And this the last perhaps from whom
we should expect it, for she lived in a fanciful world, far
removed from the realities of other men, a world where the
heroes of Greece and the warriors of Rome spent their time
in sweet dalliance at the feet of their ladies, a world of
gallantry to which she led her friends, who in their turn
christened her Sapho. Her real name was Madeleine de
Scudery, and we are told that towards the end of her life,
forsaking that country of Tendre and its perfumed roads,
the map of which she and her friends had drawn, for-
saking Clelie and Cyrus and Celamire, she spent her days
in studious concern, translating Chaucer into French.
Dryden says so in his preface to the Fables Ancient and
Modern, written in 1699, and he had it from a friend of his,
a lady who was in touch with some of Madeleine's admirers.

Several objections suggest themselves at once, which
are not however insuperable. Mademoiselle de Scudery
was then ninety-two, which is an age when most people
have ceased to care about their own, let alone about a
foreign literature. But we know from an English traveller
in France, Dr. Martin Lister, who saw her in 1698, that
her mind had not lost any of its vigour. Again, she had to
learn English in order to read Chaucer, and old ladies are

xii GEOFFREY CHAUCER

wont to say, long before they reach ninety-two, that their
learning days are over. But was not Mademoiselle de
Scudery known as " la Premiere Fille du Monde " and
" la Merveille du Siecle de Louis Le Grand " ? She who
could speak Italian and Spanish when she was still in her
teens, may have found the study of English exhilarating at
ninety. We are not aware that she ever came to England,
but her works, according to her own testimony, had been
translated into " Italian, English, German, and Arabic "
(letter to the Abbe Boisot, March 6, 1694), and had won for
her in England both applause and friends. It is not im-
possible that amongst those who attended her famous
" Saturdays " at her house in the Marais in Paris, there
was one English person who initiated her to the charm of
Chaucer and helped her to read him. She was looking for
new pastures; the style which she had originated lay dead,
traversed by the sarcasms of Boileau, and one would like
to imagine that, had she lived longer or known Chaucer
earlier, there was that in the English poet which might
have led this brilliant lady to transplant into French soil
that love of reality, that intuition of the motives of men,
that sympathy which is never dupe and yet never stinted,
qualities which France was not to realise definitely for
another century and a half.

Ill

So far we have only come across curious and isolated
instances of Chaucerian knowledge, which reflect credit on
those in whom they are found, but show plainly that the
reading public had not as yet caught the name nor realised
the importance of Chaucer. This was to come a little later,

PREFACE xiii

thanks to the sudden interest shown by the French in
English literature, an interest which, according to some
critics, was determined by the awful religious rent, which,
at a stroke of the pen from a confessor-ridden king, threw
out of France thousands of her most virtuous and hard-
working citizens. Many took refuge in England, and not
unnaturally began to study the literature of their adopted
country. They were in close touch with the Hague, where
they poured their newly acquired knowledge into an ever
increasing number of reviews and journals. These found
their way into France and were the means of spreading
English ideas and letters.

Such is the explanation generally given, but it over-
looks two or three causes which ought perhaps to have
been put in the front rank. The Revocation of the Edict
of Nantes did open up a channel (and a crooked one since
it must needs go via the Hague), along which information
concerning English literature might flow into France.
But, just as it is impossible to graft a cherry-tree on a
pear-tree, because of the different nature of their saps,
likewise this foreign influence could only become active
when a demand had arisen for the kind of nourishment
which it offered. This presupposed a weakening of the
classical ideal, which had so far held complete sway.
The quarrel between "Ancients" and "Moderns," Bayle's
Dictionary and Fontenelle's Entretiens and Elogts, are
sufficient evidence that at the end of the seventeenth
century a new spirit was at work in France, that the study
of " moral man " would soon cease to have an exclusive
claim on thinkers and writers, that men had opened their
eyes on the world around them and would take an in-
creasing delight in the observation not of man in the
abstract, but of man in the mass, of nature, of social

xiv GEOFFREY CHAUCER

conditions in France and abroad, and of foreign literary
creeds and productions. That is the important fact; the
migration of the French Protestants is only secondary.

One other factor in this evolution, which has not been
given the place it deserves, is the increasing number of
Englishmen, who, towards the end of the seventeenth and
at the beginning of the eighteenth century, journeyed to
France, carrying with them first-hand information, which
they were only too ready to impart. We saw that through
them a report of Mademoiselle de Scudery's doings had been
circulated in England, and we advanced the theory that
they were probably also responsible for her attempt at
translating Chaucer into French. Unless of course she
was indebted for her tardy acquaintance with English
literature to some of the Catholic refugees, who, fleeing
with James II. from the wrath of their countrymen,
founded at Saint-Germain a miniature English court,
which must have been a sort of neutral ground where the
Saxon met the Gaul in friendly converse.

But since Chaucer was the starting point of this argu-
ment, let us see how the theory, here objected to, works out
in his case. The Journal Literaire, a Protestant paper
printed at the Hague, contained, in 1715, a short notice
announcing the forthcoming edition of Chaucer by Urry.
Two years later, the same periodical published an
anonymous article entitled Dissertation sur la Poesie
Angloise, at the end of which the writer expressed his regret
at not having dealt with Chaucer, but proposed to do so
on the appearance of Urry's edition. His promise, however,
was never carried into effect. According to Joseph Texte's
oft quoted theory, the knowledge of Chaucer revealed in
these two articles ought to have found its way into France.
Yet, so far as can be ascertained, the name of Chaucer was

PREFACE xv

not mentioned in France, in any book, article, or other
printed document until 1740, twenty-three years later,
when there appeared a short notice concerning him, in the
eighteenth edition of Moreri's Dictionary and in the Abbe
Pre vest's paper, Le POUT et Contre. I know very well that
Chaucer's case cannot disprove a theory, which embraces
the whole of English literature, but at any rate that theory
does not prove Chaucer's case, and that is merely what I
wished to point out. If it be objected now that the bare
announcement of Urry's edition was not likely to be
picked out by the French public in preference to other
matters, I shall beg the reader to remember that the article
on English poetry, where Chaucer's name occurred, was
a long and thoughtful study, which must have attracted
considerable attention. But if this last argument even
be taken from me, the fact will nevertheless remain, un-
deniable and certain, that the first notice describing
Chaucer's achievements did not come from the Hague but
was written in France, and owed nothing whatever to the
Protestant element.

The best proof, however, that the " gazettes " at the
Hague were not solely responsible for the popularity of
English ideas and literary models in France during the
eighteenth century, remains to be given. Because of that
modification of ideals and that awakened curiosity referred
to above, the French, in spite of their dislike for travelling
and their proverbial hatred of the sea, of their own accord
sought in England confirmation of their newly acquired
point of view. It is important to note that those who
came to England to study the foreign creed were not only
literary men of the second rank such as Le Blanc, Suard, or
Morellet, but writers like Prevost, Voltaire, Montesquieu,
and Buffon, who were to exercise such a profound influence

xvi GEOFFREY CHAUCER

on French thought during the century. I do not mean
that the Dutch periodicals were not read in France and
that information of the kind required was not sought in
them, but merely that this need was anterior to them, and
very soon, if not immediately, satisfied itself without the
help of any mediators.

It seems, moreover, that the honour of having first
aroused the curiosity of the French with regard to England
belongs to a Swiss, Beat de Muralt,and not to the Protestant
refugees. His Lettres sur les Anglais et les Franfais, written
in 1694-95, were only published in 1725, but they were
known and talked about long before that date. They
came upon the French like a thunderbolt, and incensed
their national pride to an incredible degree by the assertion
they contained, that English literature was superior to
French literature, and English character and intellect
correspondingly finer. The passionate discussions origin-
ated by Muralt's letters provided the impetus needed to
start the French upon their inquiry. Once this had been
given, they worked strenuously to gain as rapidly as possible
an acquaintance with a nation which prejudice had caused
them to ignore. Two men, whom the fear of prison had
driven to England, quickly realised the possibilities of the
role to which circumstances had seemingly appointed them,
and became the chief purveyors of the new taste. The Abbe
Prevost, the resourceful founder of Le Pour et Contre, was
one; Voltaire, the apologist of English scepticism and
philosophy and the author of the Lettres Philosopkiques ou
Lettres Anglaises (1734), was the other. The change of
attitude was so sudden and so complete that very soon it was
enough for anything to be English to gain instant favour.
In 1736, if we are to believe Voltaire, men of letters had
already become familiar with English, and this is cor-

PREFACE xvii

roborated by the number of grammars and methods which
began to appear, all designed, of course, to facilitate the
acquisition of the language. Wait yet a while and a
tyrannical public will insist on their plays being written
" in the free manner of the English stage," and their novels
" translated from English," or at any rate wrought in the
English style. Chaucer, along with his countrymen,
benefited by this " engouement," and his name is one of
the first to appear under the pen of French critics.

The great initiator, Prevost, who made it his business
to chronicle for the benefit of his countrymen whatever
seemed to him curious or characteristic in the manners
and thought of the English nation, seems to have become
acquainted with Chaucer rather late. He referred to him
in Le Pour et Contre, in 1740, but that was only an incidental
notice. When he took up the management of the Journal
Stranger, in 1755, the public had already become familiar
with the name of Chaucer through the dissertations of
Yart, Trochereau, and Chauffepie: it behoved him to
show that this remote province of English poetry was
not unknown to him. As it happened, Gibber's Lives
of the Poets, containing an account of Chaucer, had
recently been published, and presented some facts
which had not been seized upon as yet by any French
commentator. This served as a basis for the article,
which was further indebted to the more liberal criticisms
of Dryden. No signature appeared, but the date, cir-
cumstances, and style, all point to Prevost as being the
author. This contribution marks a great advance over its
predecessors, and brought Chaucer one step nearer to the
French public, for it included a translation of twenty-four
lines taken from the Pardoner's Prologue. True, these
were part of a longer quotation given by Cibber, which

b

xviii GEOFFREY CHAUCER

of course dismisses the assumption that Prevost might have
read the Canterbury Tales in the text. But what matters
where the lines came from ? This quotation of Chaucer by
a French writer, even deprived of the merit of priority,
has an importance all its own, since it is the first to appear
in French type for the benefit of French readers.

The indefatigable Abbe Prevost then had been fore-
stalled, and his article was even perhaps suggested to him
by three contributions, which had already made known in
France the principal facts of the poet's biography. The
first was by the Abbe Yart, who, in 1749, published a sort
of miscellany containing poems by Philips, Swift, Pope,
and, among some critical appreciations, Addison's Account
of the Greatest English Poets, and Lady Mary Wortley
Montagu's Progress of Poetry. It was in two volumes and
entitled: Idee de la Poesie Angloise, ou Traduction des
meilleurs Poetes Anglois, qui n'ont point encore paru dans
notre Langue . . . Chaucer was only mentioned in an
explanatory note, suggested by one of Sewell's remarks in
his life of John Philips, to the effect that Philips had studied
Chaucer and Spenser in order to enrich his vocabulary.
Yart was obviously influenced by Addison's and Lady
Montagu's adverse criticisms, quoted in the second volume.
" The language of Chaucer," he said, " has become so archaic
that the English themselves have great difficulty in under-
standing it " (vol. i. p. xix.). Fortunately, Yart's investiga-
tion did not stop there, and the second and enlarged
edition of his Idee de la Poesie Angloise, published between
1753 and 1756, shows that he had made good use of
Dryden's preface in the interval, and attempted to read
and even to translate Chaucer. This progress reflects
great credit on the Abbe and on the soundness of his
judgment. The seventh volume contains a " Discourse

PREFACE xix

on Tales," a " Life of Chaucer," and a translation of
Dryden's " Palamon and Arcite." In the " Discourse,"
Yart refers to the indebtedness of Dante, Petrarch, and
Boccaccio to Provengal taletellers, and quotes Dryden's
opinion that Chaucer borrowed both from the originals and
from their Italian imitators. He gives further a personal
appreciation of the Canterbury Tales, which, not un-
naturally, appear to have shocked the good Abbe's sense
of propriety. It is curious and worth quoting:

" What is really original in Chaucer is the diversity of
the characters who relate the tales ... he painted from
nature their characters, their dress, their virtues, and
vices, but nevertheless his portraits are so strange, so
peculiar, his characters so unpleasant and indecent, his
satire so cruel and profane that, despite the artistic concern
which guided me in my translation, I cannot hope to have
made them bearable. His other tales are even more licentious
than anything our poets have ever written; I shall therefore
leave them to the obscurity of their antiquated language."

This first impression made by Chaucer on a French
mind is particularly interesting. Too much importance
ought not to be attached to the strictures which Yart,
as a priest, was almost bound to make upon the
immorality of the Tales, but the opening sentence, with its
keen perception of Chaucer's originality, ought to be
remembered, for this point was lost sight of until Taine, in
that brilliant piece of work, his Histoire de la Litterature
Anglaise, brought it to light again in a happy comparison
with the methods of Van Eyck.

Yart also had been at pains to find some French writer
with whom to compare Chaucer, and with unerring judg-

xx GEOFFREY CHAUCER

ment had selected La Fontaine. " Do not look," he says,
"for more originality in Chaucer's poems than in those of La
Fontaine, but if originality of invention was denied them,
they both made up for it by the genius they displayed in
the details, a greater merit perhaps than that of invention."
One may regret that the Abbe did not carry further a
comparison, which is perhaps more appropriate than the
one with Ovid, as suggested by Dryden. The Latin poet
was capable of a sensuousness and passion recalled by
Boccaccio rather than Chaucer; his refinement was the
sort of delicate plant which does not grow in the vigorous
furrows of a newborn literature, but is the product of a
complicated and already exhausted civilisation, seeking
an exceptional pleasure in the expression of fastidious
longings. But La Fontaine was, like Chaucer, an amused
spectator at the comedy of this world; like him, he could
see the medley of motives, good and bad, which make up
every human action, and his fables are as broad and as true
a picture of humanity as the Canterbury Tales. The com-
parison, however, should not stop there, for La Fontaine
possessed a sense of humour too, which was in no wise
inferior to that of Chaucer. We have only to remember
the gentle irony, tempered by sympathy, the humour, to
put it in one word, which gives such perfect little pieces as
the fable entitled Le Chat, la Belette et le Petit La-pin a
width and fullness, equalled only by life itself:

Du Palais d'un jeune Lapin
Dame Belette un beau matin
S'empara. . . .

Collections of poems by modern English writers were
very much in vogue in the early days of the " anglomanie,"
but the compilers, in their desire to give something which
had not been published before, did not always select the

PREFACE xxi

most representative. They were probably too new to
their task to be able to separate the chaff from the wheat.
Still, this method had its good points, since it had led Yart
from John Philips to Chaucer. It was the same kind of
fortuitous association which put Jean Arnold de la Berliere
Trochereau on the track of Chaucer. In his Choix de
Differens Morceaux de Poeste, traduits de VAnglois, he
gave Pope's Tern-pie of Fame, together with the foreword
where the poet acknowledges his debt to Chaucer.
Trochereau felt that he could not let this name pass with-
out some explanation, and he related everything that was
known about the English Homer. His account, chiefly
derived from Dryden, is a little dull, and its lack of
freshness may be due to the influence of Pope's dis-
couraging lines, which he quotes at the end and probably
endorses.

Chaucer had by now gained a sure foothold in France.
What proves it is that his name began to appear in
dictionaries and encyclopaedias. It is well known that these
were the treasure-houses where the eighteenth century
stored all its information and even its seditious ideas.
Pierre Bayle, for instance, had used this kind of publication
as a vehicle for his sceptical opinions, and his Dictionnaire
Historique et Critique, read and sifted by an eager public,
had supplied the enemies of tradition and dogma with their
most valuable arguments. In a revised and enlarged
edition of this dictionary, brought out by Chauffepie in 1750,
we find a long article devoted to Chaucer, which did not
adduce anything new to what was already known in France,
but which was valuable nevertheless, because it quoted the
appreciations of English critics as far back as Ascham
and Sidney, and further gave a complete list of the poet's
works, not unnaturally including some now recognised as

xxii GEOFFREY CHAUCER

apocryphal, together with Dryden's and Pope's modernisa-
tions. This useful contribution was largely indebted to
the article published in the Biograpbia Britannica in 1748.
This last compilation also inspired the anonymous
writer of the Journal Anglais, which was started in 1775.
It is significant both of the importance attributed to him
by the editors, and of the regard entertained by the public
for the English Homer, that the first number should have
been devoted to Chaucer. The article covered eight pages
and laid under contribution not only the Biograpbia
Britannica, but also Lydgate, Gibber, and Dryden, whose
comparison of Chaucer with Ovid was published in the
same paper in 1777. This is the most complete account of
Chaucer ever given in France; the author is sufficiently
familiar with the facts to be able to keep them down, and
to provide a commentary which is always sound and some-
times original. He is the first to compare Chaucer with
Marot. Moreover, the portrait of Chaucer, with which he
concludes his article, shows such a true appreciation of the
poet's personality, that neither the biographical discoveries
of the nineteenth century, nor the interest displayed by
later commentators, have produced a more accurate and
sympathetic piece of criticism. Here it is in full:

" There existed in this great man's character a mixture
of gaiety, modesty, and gravity, which rendered him
equally suitable for court or town and made him a favourite
in good society. His mind was pleasant and subtle, his
judgment healthy and sure. He was a sincere and honest
critic, more prone to kindness than to severity, and more
inclined to excuse and cover up the faults of the writers, his
contemporaries, than to expose them. He was superior
to his times and desired to elevate them to his level. His

PREFACE xxiii

fame as a poet is patent, and his country has ratified this
judgment. It is impossible to over-estimate his antique
and lasting grace, nor the clearness of his style in a lan-
guage which, since the thirteenth century, has undergone
so many changes. . . . His virtue was on a par with his
talent. He was a faithful and constant friend. In short,
he was a philosopher in the true sense of the word, that is
to say he was a moral and accomplished man."

There is a sort of flowing grace about this portrait
which covers up all the little bits of information, gathered
from many quarters. These are so judiciously arranged
that they seem to fit in naturally one with the other.
Scanty as were the particulars at his disposal, the portrait
drawn by the anonymous writer is complete. It is a
delightful piece of literature, and recalls the felicity of that
past master in the art of portrait painting, Saint-Simon.
True, the physical traits are lacking which give such
relief to the Duke's work, but I am not sure that their
absence does not endow the picture with a remoteness and
charm eminently suitable for a moral portrait.

We have now completed our survey of Chaucerian
criticism in France during the eighteenth century, and it
seems to us that French critics on the whole, and behind
them a portion of the French public, did rather well by
Chaucer, especially if we take into consideration the double
difficulty of language and archaism, which made him, to a
large extent, a sealed book for them. Freed from the pre-
judice which prevailed in England, and which represented
Chaucer's English as obsolete and uncouth, and so affected
adversely the opinion that people had of him, they brought
to the study of Chaucer a freshness of impression and a
sincerity which were too often lacking just then in his

xxiv GEOFFREY CHAUCER

English critics. They refused their adherence to Addison's
and Pope's adverse criticism, in spite of the authority which
these writers enjoyed in France, and with rare literary
instinct turned to Dryden for a more appreciative criticism
of the poet's writings. Further, the few extracts we have
given show that they could go beyond Dryden even and
form for themselves an estimate, so true and penetrating
that more recent criticism has only upheld it. Compare
with this the severity of English writers of the same period.
It would not be fair to quote Addison's lines, since they
were written in 1694 and therefore do not belong to the
eighteenth century. Moreover, according to Pope's
testimony, they were a youthful concoction, which did not
correspond to the essayist's later opinions. But pretty
generally Chaucer baffled English critics during the century,
and because they felt him fast slipping from them, they
were inclined to underrate him. Even Dryden, who
protested so eloquently against the contempt in which he
was held, cannot help saying that " he is a rough diamond
and must be polish'd e'er he shines." And his laudation
had so little influence that in a contemporary dialogue,
which represents him in converse with the shade of
Chaucer in one of the coffee-houses of hell, Chaucer is made
to say, "... you have done me a wonderful Honour to
Furbish up some of my old musty Tales, and bestow modern
garniture upon them. ... I must take the freedom to tell
you that you overstrain'd Matters a little, when you
liken'd me to Ovid, as to our Wit and Versification." This
fairly represents English opinion in the eighteenth century,
and leads one to wonder whether Chaucer, barring one or
two glorious exceptions, was any more read in England
than in France. The greatest of the day, those who
supplied the majority of their countrymen with literary

PREFACE xxv

tenets, do not escape the reproach. They either exhibited
absolute indifference or treated the old poet with superior
benevolence. Pope's lines to the effect that the rapidity
with which a writer's language becomes obsolete causes
him to be neglected and soon forgotten, are well known:

Our sons their fathers' failing language see,
And such as Chaucer is shall Dryden be.

An Essay on Criticism.

But whereas Pope, in his melancholy dictum, only
referred to the language, Dr. Samuel Johnson, the great
literary dictator, the Boileau of the century, went further
and condemned both subject and style:

" The works of Chaucer, upon which this kind of re-
juvenescence has been bestowed by Dryden, require little
criticism. The tale of the Cock seems hardly worth
revival; and the story of Palamon and Ar cite, containing an
action unsuitable to the times in which it is placed, can
hardly be suffered to pass without censure of the hyper-
bolical commendation which Dryden has given it in the
General Preface." — Lives of the Poets (Life of Dryden).

This was written in 1779, four years after the appearance
of Tyrwhitt's admirable edition of the Canterbury Tales.
Horace Walpole, the eccentric founder of Gothic romance,
was no less incapable of appreciating Chaucer at his true
worth. To a friend, who offered him a first edition of
Chaucer for the small sum of a guinea, he declared that,
although a Goth, he was a modern Goth, and preferred
Chaucer in Dryden, or in Baskerville than in the original
garb.

Thus, Chaucer was little appreciated and little read in
the Augustan age of English literature. The French read

xxvi GEOFFREY CHAUCER

him even less, no doubt, but whilst his countrymen were
anxious to modernise his verse and rejuvenate his thought,
in order to bring him down to their standard of taste,
French critics gave him a generous welcome and showed
him a reverence, which was perhaps of greater intrinsic
value, and, in any case, testified to a truly liberal conception
of the art of criticism.

IV

The eighteenth century had approached English literature
with a feeling of curiosity, which made all and sundry
welcome. The nineteenth century, more conscious of its
aims, only admitted authors likely to help in denning and
developing the new tendencies. Instead of a host of
English writers finding indiscriminate favour in France,
only a few were studied, foremost among them Walter
Scott, Ossian, Shakespeare, and that was the beginning of
a real influence. Chaucer had no grist for the romantic
mills and so passed from the public rostra to those minor
tribunes, where learned men discourse on literary merits.
At the hands of these specialists, a great many things con-
cerning him, which were still obscure, or had been over-
looked, received a proper amount of attention. This
investigation was started in England, but the French did
their fair share of it. They left aside the questions of
language and text, for which they were not competent, and
confined themselves to the study of sources and influences,
to the interpretation of Chaucer's art and personality,
a task for which their habitual penetration and worldly
wisdom made them pre-eminently suitable.

Two sure signs there are that Chaucer, at the beginning

PREFACE xxvii

of the nineteenth century, was gradually passing into the
hands of the schoolmen. To start with, the new literary
gods did not know him. There appeared in 1813 a very
good article by Suard in the Biographie Universelle. The
writer, who was evidently acquainted with the work of his
predecessors, shows by his allusions to Troilus and Criseyde
that he must have read Chaucer in the original In the
same year, a certain Dubuc published Les deux Griselidis,
Histoires traduites de VAnglois, I'une de Chaucer et Vautre
de Mile, Edgezvorth. This book marks a further step in
the evolution of French criticism, facing at last Chaucer's
text. Dubuc, after comparing one of the many modernisa-
tions current in England in the eighteenth century with
Chaucer's own poem, was so struck with the originality of
the latter, that he felt compelled to give a translation of it,
which is both complete and accurate. But Suard, by the
bulk of his work, belongs to the eighteenth century, and
Dubuc is practically unknown. Who are the leading
writers in 1813? Madame de Stael and Chateaubriand,
and their genius could find no inspiration in Chaucer.
Strangely enough, they both referred to him, Madame de
Stael in 1800 and Chateaubriand in 1836, but in such a
way as to prove that they knew next to nothing about him.
This indifference of the new literature to Chaucer, contrast-
ing with the increasing interest taken in him by the school-
men, is curiously emphasised by the rebuke administered
to Chateaubriand for his ignorance of the poet by Ville-
main, the head of the modern school of critics. The other
evidence of this specialisation is found in the mutilations
to which the articles dealing with Chaucer, in the
eighteenth-century dictionaries and encyclopaedias, were
submitted during this period. If we want to find out
anything about the " English Homer " we must now turn

xxviii GEOFFREY CHAUCER

to the specialists and consult their books and magazine
articles. They are very numerous, and make one wonder
that foreign critics should have been able to penetrate so
deeply into the heart and mind of a poet who bears such
strong marks of his times and nationality. But sympathy
is the safest of guides, and they had none other in their
patient researches.

Between 1813 and 1830 hardly anything interesting was
produced in the way of Chaucerian criticism. France
followed the fortunes of her flag on the battlefields of
Europe, and found England against her almost at every
point. To the strained and often interrupted political
relations corresponded a weakening of literary intercourse.
Moreover, French universities were being organised, and
not until that was completed could a systematic study of
English literature begin. But take the period between
1830 and 1908: what a wealth of critical output, what a
conscientious investigation of England's literary history!
I counted between those dates no less than forty books,
articles, or notices dealing with Chaucer, which works very
nearly at the rate of one per year. They are not all of equal
value, of course, but it must be admitted that this is a
remarkable achievement. There are indeed many French
authors of note who have not been so well done by.

It is not possible to review here all these appreciations.
The catalogue, moreover, has been made — and definitely
made — by Miss C. Spurgeon, to whose book we refer below.
But the most important of them may help to show that
French critics, although perhaps not curious enough at
times of the biographical and philological problems attached
to the name of Chaucer, amply made up for it by that other
kind of inquiry, which through his work explores a man's
mind and heart, finds out what is topical or local in his

PREFACE xxix

utterances, what belongs to all times and all nations, and
thus pieces together the history of human thought.

Villemain, that eloquent professor and lecturer, who
retraced to admiring audiences the history of the litera-
tures of France, England, Italy, and Spain in the Middle
Ages, could not fail to see the importance of Chaucer. He
had made his own Madame de Stael's theory that literature
is the mirror of society, and Chaucer, ". . . than whom," he
says, " no one painted better the Middle Ages," told him
much about the customs, feelings, and thoughts of that
period. He perceived the weakening of mediaeval ideals im-
plied in his mocking descriptions of monks and knights; he
saw the many evidences of his sympathy for Wycliff, and
realised the novelty of his multifarious pilgrimage. The
lectures were published in book form in 1830. Eight years
later appeared in the Revue Fran^aise, under the name of
E. T. Delecluze, a long and thoughtful article of twenty-
nine pages devoted to Chaucer. The author had a par-
ticular admiration for the Canterbury Tales, and in order to
make them better known among the French public, he
gave a detailed analysis of each, and translated the whole
of the Prologue, which had never been done in French
before. With H. Gomont rests the honour of having written
the first book on Chaucer published in French. It contains
an abundance of material, and the facts are carefully
chosen. Gomont dealt at length with the Canterbury Tales,
and translated the whole of the " Knight's Tale," but his
estimate of Chaucer too often lacked sympathy, and in that
respect was a long way behind that of Villemain or Delecluze.
Leaving aside the clumsy rendering of the Canterbury Tales
given by the Chevalier de Chatelain in 1857, we come at last
to Sandras's remarkable volume, entitled Etude sur Chaucer
consider e comme imitateur des Trouveres, and dated 1859.

xxx GEOFFREY CHAUCER

It would be difficult to overrate the importance of this
work, which probably initiated much of the later criticism
both in England and in France. Dr. Furnivall looked
upon it as the most valuable contribution since Tyrwhitt,
and he who was the founder of the " Chaucer Society "
had every qualification to pass a correct judgment.
Sandras, who placed Chaucer between Aristophanes and
Moliere, was the first to establish on proofs his indebtedness
to the literature of France and, in particular, to the two
parts of the Roman de la Rose. The following extract
explains clearly his standpoint :

" The names of two French poets characterise very well
to my mind the genius of the father of English poetry. In
his allegorical and chivalrous poems, Chaucer adopted the
style brought into favour by Guillaume de Lorris; in
the Canterbury Pilgrimage, satire was the predominant
element, and its gibes were directed against the same objects
which had exercised the erudite and merciless humour of
Jean de Meung."

Taine's account of Chaucer in his Histoire de la Littera-
ture Anglaise was not inspired by Sandras, since he had
already contributed the substance of it to the Revue de P In-
struction Publique in 1856, but it would be interesting to
see to what extent the original article was modified by
Sandras' thoughtful study. However, Taine had too
much personality and too original an outlook upon litera-
ture to be influenced by any one. Nothing could excel
the brilliance of the pages he devoted to Chaucer. He
pointed out, amongst other things, his superiority to
Boccaccio, whose taletellers are mere phantoms and
nonentities, so different from the robust flesh and blood
painted by the English poet.

PREFACE xxxi

No less illuminating was M. Jusserand's appreciation of
Chaucer in his Histoire litteraire du -peuple Anglais, which
appeared in 1893. Its eighty pages count amongst the
most discerning ever written on Chaucer, particularly
those where are summed up the qualities of the poet's
temperament, humour, sympathy and common sense.

The fact that they only deal with Chaucer incidentally,
forces me to exclude a host of minor notices from various
authors, amongst whom I should like to mention Messrs.
A. Baret, A. Filon, J. C. Demogeot, L. Morel. They belong
to that admirable body of French professors, who, through
their patient and unostentatious efforts, have brought
English studies in France to the level of true scholarship, and
also have produced from time to time contributions which,
for accuracy, soundness of judgment and breadth of treat-
ment, are second to none. Moreover, were not Villemain
and Taine nurtured in the same institution as they ?
This book is another instance, and not the least, of what
is being done for English literature, and for Chaucer in
particular, in the French universities. Who has retold
better than M. Legouis the birth and growth of Chaucer's
talent, the help and hindrance which his foreign models
proved to him, and the final efflorescence of his genius
when he had discovered, after years of groping, a subject
where he could express his many-sided nature to his own
satisfaction ? There is something intensely pathetic in
the successive efforts of the learned poet to assert himself,
and the chapters of M. Legouis' book, describing each
attempt, with its mixture of gains and failures, are like
the acts of a dramatic composition which is being un-
ravelled before us. But this book marks yet another
advance, and one that we cannot praise too highly. It was
designed for a wider public than had been the wont since

xxxii GEOFFREY CHAUCER

criticism parted from literature and became a distinct
province. Nothing was neglected to make the information
accurate, but it was clearly desired that erudition should
not be the obvious feature of this book. And in order to
remove the last obstacle to a full appreciation of the English
poet, copious verse translations were given, not in a modern
form, but in a metre resembling as nearly as possible that
of the original, and in a language just archaic enough to
preserve that quaintness which charms a modern ear in
Chaucer's verse, without, however, presenting those
linguistic difficulties which prevent the present day reader
from enjoying to the full Balzac's Conies Drolatiques, for
instance.

True, we had the admirable translation of the Canterbury
Tales published in 1908 by a group of French professors,
but although wonderfully accurate, it follows the movement
of the Chaucerian sentence too closely not to be a little
disconcerting, and, in any case, it deprives it of that ease
and grace which alone could recommend it to the general
reader. That such is not the case with M. Legouis' trans-
lations any one who cares to consult the pieces given in
the appendix can see for himself.

V

Thus, Addison's complaint that

. . . Age has rusted what the Poet writ
Worn out his Language and obscur'd his wit,

is now sufficiently disproved, for Chaucer, far from receding
into the dimness of a forgotten past, has become a real and
living presence among us, and his art, overstepping the

PREFACE xxxiii

national boundary, found in France some of his most
sympathetic admirers. It would be difficult, in fact, despite
the deep imprint made by French literature at one time or
another on the literatures of her neighbours, to find a single
French poet of similar antiquity having met in England
with the same favour, with the same abundant proof of
genuine appreciation as Chaucer has in France. If the
records of Froissart and Montaigne even were drawn, despite
their lasting influence on English letters, I doubt whether
they would be found to equal Chaucer's. Taking Miss
Spurgeon's book as a basis, I divided all the Chaucer
references which this author mentions under four heads,
namely :

a. Books, articles, or notices containing appreciative
criticism (A.C.).

b. Giving facts of his life (F.L.).

c. Showing that the author had read the whole or portion
of Chaucer (R.C.).

d. Giving part or whole translations of some of his
works (T.W.).

In order to find out exactly what belonged to each of the
three periods, which I outlined as corresponding to three
different stages of the evolution of Chaucerian criticism
in France, I distributed the references between the follow-
ing dates: (i) 1749-1800, (2) 1800-1830, (3) 1830-1908.
Here is the result of this inquiry:

A.C. F.L. R.C. T.W.

1749-1800 7622

1800-1830 2332

1830-1908 40 18 19 14

49 27 24 18

xxxiv GEOFFREY CHAUCER

These totals speak for themselves. They prove beyond a
doubt that " noble Geffroy Chaucier " has at last won
from the French that full measure of admiration which he
gave them unstintedly, and perhaps nothing would have
pleased him better than the favour he now enjoys in the
home of the troubadours and " courtly makers," which was
a little his home also.

The main facts of this preface were derived from Miss
Spurgeon's excellent Doctorat thesis Chaucer Devant la
Critique (Paris, Hachette et Cie., 1911), in which she has
summarised some of the results of the most scholarly and
exhaustive study of Chaucerian criticism embodied in her
Five Hundred Years of Chaucer Criticism and Allusion, now
in the press. I cannot, however, make her responsible
for my conclusions, which differ substantially from hers.
I wish further to express my gratitude to her for the
interest she has taken in this translation, and for the
invaluable help she has rendered me at all the stages of
my undertaking.

I have to thank Messrs. A. Rose and J. Marks, two
students in the French department at the Victoria Uni-
versity, for kindly compiling the index.

L. LAILAVOIX.

CONTENTS

PAGE

PREFACE ......... v

CHAPTER I

THE POET'S BIOGRAPHY

I. Life of Chaucer ........ i

II. His character ......... 19

III. Relation of his work to the history of his times ... 28

IV. His patron John of Gaunt ...... 33

CHAPTER II

THE MAKING OF CHAUCER AS A POET

I. State of the English Language about 1360 .... 44

II. Chaucer at the school of the French trouveres ... 48

III. His lyrical poetry ........ 61

CHAPTER III

THE ALLEGORICAL POEMS

I. The Book of the Duchesse . . . . . .71

II. The Parlement of Foules ....... 82

III. The Hous of Fame " 86

IV. The Legend of Good Women ...... 97

CHAPTER IV

CHAUCER AND ITALY

I. Influence of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio on Chaucer . 109
II. Troilus and Criseyde . . . . . . .121

XXXV

xxxvi GEOFFREY CHAUCER

CHAPTER V

THE " CANTERBURY TALES " : SOURCES AND COMPOSITION

PAGE

I. Origin and conception of the work ..... 136

II. Chaucer's realism. Chaucer as an historian . . . 143

III. Limitations of his impartiality. Art and Satire . . . 152

IV. Sources of the Tales 157

CHAPTER VI

THE " CANTERBURY TALES " : A LITERARY STUDY

I. The Portraits 162

II. The Pilgrims in action ....... 172

III. Adjustment of the Tales to the Speakers .... 180

IV. Value of the Tales 187

V. Style 191

CONCLUSION ......... 200

APPENDIX 205

INDEX 217

GEOFFREY CHAUCER

CHAPTER I

THE POET'S BIOGRAPHY

I. Life of Chaucer. II. His character. III. Relation of his
work to the history of his times. IV. His patron John of
Gaunt.

I

IN October 1386, in a law-suit between two noblemen over
a coat of arms, one of the witnesses was described in the
curious French of English law-courts as " Geffray Chaucere,
Esquier, del age de xl. ans et plus, armeez par xxvii. ans."
This is the most positive information we possess as to the
date of the poet's birth, and doubt may even be expressed
as to its reliability, because the ages of the other witnesses
were set down most inaccurately in the document. On
the face of it, however, his recent biographers, after checking
this indication by the known facts of his life, are agreed
to fix the date of his birth about the year 1340, rather
earlier than later. This places him in the generation of
Froissart and Eustache Deschamps, and makes him a
contemporary of Charles V., King of France, of the children
of Edward III., King of England, and in particular of that
John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, his patron, the dates
of whose birth and death thus correspond with his very
nearly. He was probably born in London, in Thames

A

2 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

Street, a road which is parallel to the river and where his
father owned a house and tavern. Nothing of any special
account is known about his ancestors. The name, however,
tells us much. Chaucer is the French " chaussier," which
means shoemaker or rather hosier. This nickname used
as a surname reveals in all probability a French origin on
the father's side. Moreover, the Christian name of the
poet's grandfather was Robert, and the name of Geoffrey
given to the poet had been introduced and popularised
in England by the Angevin dynasty with which it frequently
occurs.

The Chaucers, however, were hosiers no longer in the
fourteenth century. For two generations at least they
had belonged to the guild of " vintners " in the city. In
1310 Geoffrey's grandfather, Robert, had been made a
collector for the port of London of the newly established
customs on wine agreed to by the merchants of Aquitaine.
As to his father, John, he seems to have been a prosperous
vintner with friends at court. On the I2th of June 1338,
before crossing the sea in the retinue of Edward III.,
who was going on an expedition to Flanders, he obtained
some letters of protection rendering his property exempt
from all suits in his absence. In 1348 he was appointed
deputy to the king's butler in the port of Southampton.
He died in 1366. We know that his wife's name was
Agnes, and that she was related to a certain Hamo de
Compton. She displayed as much haste as the Wife of
Bath, and married again soon after her husband's death.
But it is not certain that John Chaucer was only married
once, nor that this Agnes was the poet's mother.

What a curious medley of merchants, sailors, tavern-
keepers, and customers of all kinds there must have been,
streaming in and out of the vintner's house! The child's

THE POET'S BIOGRAPHY 3

first observations were not lost to the poet, and helped him
to picture accurately the various trades of the city. Even
when he wrote the Canterbury Tales, his early mercantile
impressions came back to him over thirty years of court
life. There are details which become peculiarly interesting
if we think of his up-bringing. He shows an accurate
knowledge of the mixing of wines which was practised
then, although the offender ran the risk of being put in
the stocks for it. He speaks of the heady fumes of the
white wines of Lepe, near Cadiz, mixed with the wines of
Bordeaux or La Rochelle. What he saw and heard in his
childhood was not all lost.

But no trace whatever remains of his more formal
education. We do not know the school he was sent to.
His name does not appear on the registers of any of the
Oxford or Cambridge colleges, although legend will have
it that he attended one or the other of the universities,
or even both in turn. But despite this lack of information,
one is much tempted to connect him with the universities.
To begin with, it is the easiest way of accounting for his
learning and wide reading at a time when books were
scarce and not easily accessible. Later, when he per-
sonified the love of science, the character he chose was a
book-loving clerk of Oxford, to whom he is supposed by
many to have ascribed, as we will see, one of the most
memorable incidents of his own life. Besides, what a vivid
picture of places and customs in his Miller's Tale, which
introduces to us the courteous Nicolas, so versed in astro-
logy and a consummate player of the psaltery, which
describes his little room fragrant with flowers at the
Oxford carpenter's where he lodges, and his love affair
with the lively Alison. Again what realism in the presen-
tation of those two Northumbrian clerks, with their dialect

4 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

and broad accent, who appear in the Reves Tale, sent by the
warden of their college to superintend the grinding of the
crafty miller of Trompington —

nat fer fro Cantebrigge,
Ther goth a brook, and over that a brigge,
Upon the whiche brook ther stant a melle,
And this is verray soth that I yow telle.1

There can be little doubt that Chaucer, at some period,
was in close touch with university life, both on its serious
and gay side; one is even tempted to believe that he
himself led that life for a time. The difficulty is, however,
since he was employed at the court so early, to find room
for a preliminary sojourn at Oxford or Cambridge. The
earliest documents we possess show him in the service of
the Duke of Clarence, the third son of Edward III., and
he was then not much more than seventeen. In two
fragments of a household account-book of the duke's wife
appears an entry to the effect that in April 1357 a complete
suit was supplied, for a sum of seven shillings, to one
" Galfridus Chaucer," to wit a paltock or short cloak, a pair
of red and black breeches, and a pair of shoes. That is
the costume of a page, and it is obvious that at this date
the young man had already entered upon his career as a
courtier. His father's friends at court, the charm of two
bright eyes in a still childish face, a precocious mind, and
the gallantry of some early love-poems — many reasons
can be found to explain the presence of the vintner's son
in the princely household. In all probability he became
known as a poet very early, and there is nothing to prevent
us from believing quite literally the words of his friend
Gower, who represents him as the disciple and clerk of

1 The Reves Tale, 11. 1-4.

THE POET'S BIOGRAPHY 5

Venus, having " in the floures of his youthe " x filled the
country with his ditties and merry songs in honour of the
goddess.

When therefore the page is transformed into a soldier,
and in 1359 g°es campaigning into France in the following
of the Duke of Clarence,2 one is tempted to picture him
very like that young poetical squire whom he described
in his pilgrimage —

With lokkes crulle, as they were leyd in presse . . .
Embrovvded was he, as it were a mede
Al ful of fresshe floures, whyte and rede,
Singinge he was, or flaytinge, al the day, . . .
He coude songes make and wel endyte.

Were they not both just twenty, were they not " as fresh
as is the month of May ? " Did they not both ride through
Artois and Picardy, and why should not Chaucer, just
like the squire, have displayed prowess in order to win the
favours of his lady ? Making all due allowance for what-
ever is convention or literary reminiscence in the portrait
of the squire — some of the traits are derived from Guil-
laume de Lorris,3 and through Guillaume de Lorris from
Ovid 4 — it is yet very significant that Chaucer alone
endows him with the gift of poetry. The coincidences
are so many, that in painting his squire, it is quite
inconceivable that the poet did not think of himself.

The campaign was not a glorious one. The King of
France, Jean le Bon, defeated at Poitiers and brought to

1 Confessio A mantis, lib. octavus, ii. 2943.

1 From " the new Chaucer item " discovered in the Exchequer
Accounts, it appears that Chaucer was still of the Duke's retinue
in 1360. (Modern Language Notes, March 1912.)

' Romcbi de la Rose, ed. Fr. Michel, 11. 2185-2221.

4 De Arte Amandi, bk. i. 1. 595.

6 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

London as a prisoner, had, in order to free himself, consented
to the cession of all the Plantagenet possessions to Edward
III. But his son, the dauphin Charles, having repudiated
this treaty, Edward invaded France in order to force her
to carry out the clauses. But his progress was checked
by the town of Reims, and for seven long weeks the English
besieged it in vain. Froissart's account, whilst giving
prominence to the individual prowess of a few of the
English combatants, does not conceal the failure of the
expedition. All we know of what befell the poet in that
war is that he was one of a detachment which went as far
as Retters (Rethel), and that he was taken prisoner during
an encounter. He remained a captive until March
ist, 1360, when the king paid sixteen pounds sterling
for his ransom. From the fact that about the same time
Edward III. paid similar, or even larger, sums for the sake
of recovering certain chargers, it has been inferred by
some that the young soldier-poet was of no great account.
But as a matter of fact the sum set down for the ransom
of Chaucer, supposing that it represents the whole of the
money disbursed, is not inconsiderable, and would amount
to something between ^160 and ^240 in our money, which
would tend to show on the contrary what a high value was
put on the poet's services.

Not a single angry word can be found in Chaucer's work
against the enemies that had captured him. Who knows
but that his supple and adaptable mind did not turn this
mishap into account, and that he did not make good this
opportunity of perfecting his knowledge of the French
language and literature ? By a curious coincidence, the old
poet Guillaume de Machautwas inall probabilityat the same
time shut up in Reims, besieged by the English, and was
training there in the art of verse-making a youth, destined

THE POET'S BIOGRAPHY 7

to make illustrious the name of Eustache Deschamps.1
Although we are unable to assert that Chaucer met either of
them, one would like to picture the young English prisoner
brought in'o contact at that early date with him who was
his earliest master in letters, and with that other, who later
became by turn his pattern and his praiser. In any case
why should not Chaucer's acquaintance with Machaut's
verse date from this temporary propinquity ?

Did Chaucer return to England with the king after the
peace of Bretigny, or did he remain behind in France?
Or was it then that, having decided to follow letters as a
vocation, he went into residence at one of the English
universities? There is a blank here in his biography; we
can find no trace of him between the years 1360 and 1366.
At the latter date John Chaucer died, and his widow
married again almost immediately. As to Geoffrey, it
seems as if he too had wedded just about that time, for the
documents begin to mention a certain Philippa Chaucer
" una domicellarum cameras Philippse Reginae," and the
name of this lady-in-waiting will henceforth be frequently
associated with his. After the queen's death, in 1369,
Philippa joined the household of the Duke of Lancaster.
If we admit the very plausible hypothesis which identifies
her with Philippa Roet (or Rouet), a daughter of Sir
Payn Roet of Hainault, we have at the same time an
explanation of the favour in which she stood with the
queen as her countrywoman, and later with the Lan-
castrians. For her sister Catherine, the widow of Sir Hugh
Swynford, first a governess to the children of John of
Gaunt, became the duke's mistress about 1371, perhaps
earlier, and his third wife in 1396.

1 G. de Machaut, Potsies lyriqites, edited by V. Chichmaref, 1909,
vol. i. p. xlix.

8 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

Chaucer's marriage, judging by the many remarks he
makes on the misfortunes of matrimonial life in general,
and by a few direct allusions to his own, does not seem
to have given him unalloyed happiness. He complained
of the harsh voice which pulled him out of bed every
morning by shouting " Awak ! " l It was not only by his
late rising, we must admit, but also by his loose morals
and amorous verse, that the poet may have alienated a
companion, of whose shrewish nature we seem to get
sundry glimpses. As a matter of actual fact we know
nothing of her. Even her sister, despite the glamour of
her life and the fact that she founded a royal line (King
Henry VII., first of the Tudors, was descended from her
through her son John of Beaufort), is a somewhat indistinct
figure. One chronicler labels her an adventuress, whilst
Froissart, on the other hand, courteously calls her " une
dame qui scavoit moult de toutes honneurs." In any case,
after Chaucer had become a widower in 1387, he gave
himself out as having full practical knowledge of " the
sorwe and wo that is in mariage," and shuddering at the
thought of falling again " in swich dotage " 2 — a mere
conventional joke current at the time, says Professor
Kittredge, from whom it is always unsafe to dissent;
but if Chaucer's verse were nothing but convention, it
would not deserve very deep study. Besides, it is hard
to reconcile much respect for the deceased wife with such
trifling under certain circumstances. ' A mournful widower
is not likely to tell a fiiend: " It is foolish enough to
marry once; it would be sheer madness to do so twice.
Believe me, for 7 know. Read my Wyf of Bath,

wherein thou wilt find the condensed results of my own
— i •

experience." : Chaucer's verse-letter to Bukton is nothing
1 H. of F. i. 560. * Lenvoy a Bukton.

THE POET'S BIOGRAPHY 9

if not personal. But there can be little doubt that
Chaucer's marriage proved singularly useful to him in a
worldly sense, and contributed to his fortune. He was no
sooner married than favours began to shower on him in
the shape of pensions, titles, grants, missions, remunerative
posts, and sinecures. During the twenty years of his
married life, his worldly prosperity was uninterrupted.

In the month of January 1367, the king granted him an
annuity of 20 marks for life (about £200 of the present
currency), and described him as " dilectus valettus noster."
From a valet of the king's household he rose to be, a
year or two later, an esquire of less degree, armiger or
scutifer, and the office allotted to him, as described in
an old manuscript, was one well designed to suit a poet.
The duties of the thirty-seven squires attached to the king's
household, consisted in drawing to the Lords' chambers
within court winter and summer, in afternoons and even-
ings, there to keep honest company after their cunning, in
talking of chronicles of kings, and of other policies, or in
piping or harping, singing lays or martial deeds.1

With his ready imagination and well-stored memory,
Chaucer was admirably suited for such a post. His talent
as conteur and poet had no doubt already met with
much appreciation. He was asked by the Duchess Blanche
of Lancaster to translate Guillaume de Deguileville's
Pribre a Notre-Dame, and he turned it into fine English
verse. But he was above all the clerk of Venus, the poet
of human love. To this period belong no doubt the early
" Balades, Roundels, Virilayes," ~ unfortunately lost, and
with which, according to Gower, " The lond fultild is

1 Life-Records of Chaucer, part ii. p. xi. Chaucer Society, 2nd
series.

1 Prol. of Leg. of G. W. Text B. 1. 423.

io GEOFFREY CHAUCER

overal." 1 Chaucer was here following the lyrical novelties of
Machaut, whose " dits " he also took as models in 1369, to
mourn the good Duchess Blanche, who died of the plague
in that year. To that same period belongs in all probability
his famous translation of the Roman de la Rose. He
is at this time entirely under the influence of French
masters.

His life, however, did not remain sedentary for long.
In the same year, 1369, he obtained advances of money
to equip himself for a military expedition to France. The
English were trying to regain the vast possessions, which
they had lost through the clever policy of Charles V. of
France, backed up by the valour of Duguesclin. But what
interests us more than his obscure part in this futile
campaign, is that in 1370 he started upon a series of diplo-
matic missions, of which we can trace no less than six in
the course of eight years; they took him to France, to
Flanders, and even to Italy.

His Italian missions deserve especial attention. The
first one in particular marks a memorable date in his
poetical career. On the I2th November 1372, Chaucer, the
king's esquire, was appointed a member of a commission,
together with a certain James Provan and John de Mari, a
citizen of Genoa, to negotiate with the Duke and merchants
of that city, who were anxious to select an English port
where they could found a commercial establishment.
Chaucer visited Florence and Genoa, and may have stayed
about six months abroad. Of this journey, from which
the poet learnt much, as we shall see later, no other official
particulars are known. But it has long been assumed that
when he made the Oxford clerk say, in his Tales, that he
had heard the story of Griselidis at Padua from Petrarch
1 Op. cit. 1. 2947.

THE POET'S BIOGRAPHY n

himself, Chaucer was only commemorating what had
happened to himself. As a matter of fact, in the year 1373
Petrarch, declining in years, had just left Arqua for Padua,
and was then, as testified by his correspondence, engaged
upon a Latin prose version of " Griselidis," the last tale of
the Dtcamerone, which he read to some friends. Though
much doubt has been lately thrown on the meeting between
the two poets,1 it remains possible. Anyhow, whether
historical or legendary, it symbolises the first literary
intercourse between England and Italy: it is the first ray
of the Renaissance lighting upon an English imagination.
Chaucer must have wished to visit Italy again, after his
return to England. The opportunity soon occurred, and
we find him, four years later, negotiating a sort of military
alliance with the Duke of Milan, Bernardo Visconti, and
the famous English " condottiere," the formidable " aguto,"
Sir John Hawkwood. The details of the negotiation are
not known, but the object was to seek aid for John of
Gaunt, who was engaged on an expedition against France
and vainly besieging Saint-Malo. That is how, from May
to September 1378, Chaucer, in the company of Sir Edward
Berkeley, paid a second visit to Italy, the object of the
journey being this time Lombardy.

If Chaucer's missions to France are of lesser literary
significance, the importance of the points he had to nego-
tiate may be a surer indication of the favour he enjoyed.
In February 1377, he was sent with others to Montreuil-
sur-Mer to arrange a treaty of peace with France, and it
is in connection with this that his name occurs in Frois-
sart's Chronicle : " Si furent envoyet . . . du coste des
Engles, messires Guichars d' Angle, messires Richars Sturi et

1 See especially the article by Mr. Mather, Mod. Lang. Notes, u,
p. 419.

12 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

Jejfrois Cauchies" x Less than a year later, in January
1378, after the death of Edward III., he was again on a
mission intended to arrange a marriage between the reigning
king, Richard II., and the daughter of Charles V. of France.
The negotiations however failed in both cases.

The draughts of the moneys, sometimes considerable,
granted to Chaucer on these various occasions, have been
preserved, but he had gained meanwhile some rewards
of a more durable nature " in secretis negotiis domini
regis." The year 1374 was particularly profitable to him;
the Duke of Lancaster, on the one hand, granted him, out
of his own revenues, a pension of £10, in consideration of
services rendered by him and his wife, and on the other,
the king himself, who had just made him a grant of a pitcher
of wine daily, appointed him to a fixed and remunerative
post. In June, Chaucer was made comptroller of the
customs and subsidy of wools, skins, and hides in the Port
of London. His duties, it is true, were heavy. He had
to keep in his own handwriting the account-books of his
office, and had to be always in attendance, except when
engaged on the king's service elsewhere. There were,
however, some compensations inherent to the post: he
was for instance granted, soon after his appointment,
the whole of a fine worth about £800 paid by a certain
J. Kent, who had sent some wool to Dordrecht without
paying the duty. Although " the secret business of the
king," as already shown, often called him away during the
four years which followed his appointment, he became
nevertheless, through it, closely connected with the City of
London. He had returned a grown-up man to the sur-
roundings of his childhood. In the same year, 1374, ne

1 CEnvres de Froissard, ed. Kervyn de Lettenhove, Bruxelles,
1869, torn. vin. p. 383.

THE POET'S BIOGRAPHY 13

took up a house situated above the fortified gate of Aldgate,
the lease of which was granted him by the corporation for
the term of his life. It was here, no doubt, that he wrote
his translation of the De Consolations of Boethius, and his
unfinished allegory of the House of Fame, where we get
a description of him returning straight home, after his
hard work at the office, to bury himself in his beloved
books; here also that, later on, he composed his Parlement
of Foules and his great poem of Troilus and Criseyde.1
Pampered by Edward III., who in 1375 granted him the
profitable guardianship of two orphans, Chaucer enjoyed
unchecked prosperity throughout the inglorious years in
which his royal patron gave himself up to senile excesses,
and retained his worldly advantages after the latter's
death, on June the 2ist, 1377. Neither the troubled
times of Richard II. 's minority, nor the plagues, nor the
terrible peasant rising of 1381, seem to have affected his
fortune any more than his equanimity.

The old king once dead, Chaucer was not long in winning
the favour of his grandson, helped no doubt by the Duke
of Lancaster, who was then all-powerful. Our poet was
a wary courtier. He flattered Richard II. by writing his
Parlement of Foules, which is an allegory of the young
king's betrothal to Anne of Bohemia, daughter of the
Emperor Charles IV. That was in 1381. Chaucer in-
gratiated himself thereby with the new queen. Was it as
a reward that he obtained in May 1382, over and above
his first post, the office of comptroller of the petty customs
in the port of London, a real sinecure, for he was allowed
to exercise it by deputy ? Queen Anne, who is well known

1 Troilus was formerly thought anterior to the House of Fame.
Mr. Lowes has recently shown that it was very probably written
last, in 1382. (Pull. Mod. Lang. ASSOCJI. 23, p. 285.)

14 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

for having introduced into England the fashions of the
Continent — the sharply-pointed poleine shoes, the high and
crescent-shaped hennins, the dresses with long trains —
combined with this fancy for eccentric luxury, a taste for
sentimental poetry. She admired in Chaucer's verse the
tender passages, and disapproved of the satire upon women,
which under the influence of Jean de Meung and Boccaccio,
he had introduced into his Romaunt of the Rose and Troilus
and Criseyde. It was very likely in 1385 that she invited
the poet to redeem his sins by writing the Seintes Legende
of Cupide. Chaucer at once set to work on his Legend of
Good Women, to which he wrote a pretty prologue, where,
under the guise of allegory, he indulged in eulogies of the
queen, and softly whispered to the young king some useful
advice of wisdom and clemency. We have a right to
surmise that the grateful queen had something to do with
the favour granted to the poet on February the I7th,
1385: he was henceforth allowed to fill by deputy his
principal office of comptroller of the customs of wools,
skins, and hides. This was a respite he had long yearned
for, and the day when he got it must have been one of the
happiest of his life. This favour was closely followed by
a fresh distinction, for in 1386 he was selected a knight
of the shire of Kent, and in this capacity sat in parliament
from October I to November i.

This month of October marked both the climax and the
collapse of his public career. The parliament in which he
sat proceeded vigorously against the Duke of Lancaster's
party, and demanded of the king that the duke should be
stripped of his power. A council of regency, composed
of eleven members, was appointed, at the head of which
was Gloucester, Richard's other uncle, and the political
enemy of Lancaster. Thus deprived of his power in

THE POET'S BIOGRAPHY 15

England, Gaunt left on an expedition to Portugal, during
which time his followers were persecuted. In 1 386, Chaucer
lost one after the other his two offices of comptroller. All
that was left to him of past royal favours was his pension
and that of his wife, the latter however failing him in the
following year, probably through Philippa's death. In
these reduced circumstances Chaucer was forced to borrow
on his pension, and even to have it transferred to a pressing
creditor. All that remained to him was the pension of
£10 per annum, which the Duke of Lancaster had been
paying to him ever since 1374.

We do not know whether it was before or after the loss
of his offices, that Chaucer first conceived the idea of
writing the Canterbury Tales. The critics are agreed that
he must have begun them either in 1385 or in 1386. But
there is little doubt that his compulsory estrangement
from public affairs was all to the advantage of the great
poem, which grew apace during these years of enforced
leisure. Chaucer had given up his house in Aldgate in
1386, and it is surmised that he went and lived in the
country, at Greenwich, on the pilgrims' road from London
to Canterbury, where there is proof that he was still living
seven years later. This penurious retreat, however, was
not to his taste. His private reverses caused him anxiously
to watch events at court, and opened his eyes to the evils
from which the country suffered, although he does not
seem to have heeded them much until then. Like many
others, he hoped great things of the day when Richard,
a minor no longer, would throw off Gloucester's tyrannical
tutelage, and take the reins of state into his own hands.
Suddenly, on the 3rd May 1389, Richard made up his
mind to this. Chaucer encouraged or congratulated him
(we do not know which) in an undated ballad, where the

16 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

sufferings of England are ascribed to instability. In the
envoy he made a direct appeal to Richard —

Shew forth thy swerd of castigacioun,

Dred God, do law, love 'cruthe and worthinesse,

And wed thy folk agein to stedfastnesse.

Lak of Stedfastnesse.

Richard, for the space of a few years, proved true to the
hopes centred in him. Fortune smiled again on the poet.
Gloucester was set aside; Lancaster returned to England,
and as early as July, Chaucer was appointed clerk of the
king's works, which implied the superintendence of some
of the king's palaces and manors, a post moreover which
he was allowed to fill by deputy. And, to top the medley
of offices held by the poet during his life, the Earl of March
appointed him, in 1391, sub-forester of the Forest of North
Petherton, in the county of Somerset.

But " stedfastnesse " alas! was the thing which England
was destined most to lack during the reign of Richard II.,
and Chaucer's private career was bound to be affected
by the royal caprice and extravagance. In the summer of
1391, he lost, without any apparent cause, his superin-
tendence of the king's manors, and found himself once
more in straitened circumstances. He got his friend,
the poet Scogan, to solicit the king on his behalf, and
obtained, on February 28th, 1394, a pension of £20 per
annum for life. But the finances of England were in a
lamentable state, and the annuity was not paid regularly.
We see the poet forced to borrow constantly from the
exchequer, sometimes even insignificant sums. His
financial difficulties continued to increase. Twice in 1398
writs were issued against him by a certain Isabella Buckholt,
and twice he failed to appear. The wary poet had secured
from the king letters of protection against his creditors,

THE POET'S BIOGRAPHY 17

which explains the sheriff's placid " non inventus." Just
about this time, his great patron John of Gaunt died, and
Chaucer was thus left without resources. But the usurpa-
tion of the throne by the son of John of Gaunt, Henry of
Lancaster, in October 1399, saved him. He tendered to
the new sovereign a Compleint to his Empty Purse, where
he entreated " the conquerour of Brutes Albioun "...
" verray king," " by lyne and free eleccioun "... to
"have mind upon his supplicacioun! " In answer,
Henry IV. assured him a pension of ^26, over and above
the .£20 which Edward III. had once granted him. The
old poet then rented a house situated in the garden of
the Chapel of St. Mary, near Westminster Abbey. But
he had no time to enjoy his revenues or his new dwelling.
He died on the 25th October 1400, and was buried in the
neighbouring abbey, the first to occupy " the poet's
corner " in that great national Pantheon.

This rapid summary of the last fourteen years of
Chaucer's life, exclusively based on the official documents
where his financial vicissitudes are recorded, runs the risk
of making this part of his career appear more sombre
than it really was. His greatest work, the one most
replete with joy, was written during that time, and the
satisfaction of having found his true genius at last, the
frankly comical turn of many of the stories in which his
fancy delighted, consoled him no doubt for many reverses.
Poetry is a great comforter, and Chaucer had undoubtedly
a rich supply of practical philosophy. Even in the pieces
where he complains loudly of his poverty, he slips in
a joke which allays our anxieties. Even in those where
he declares that, disappointed with this life, his spirit
henceforth will only look heavenward, he threads together

B

18 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

popular images and quaint sayings, which prove that the
source of joviality was not dried up in him.1

Moreover, he does not seem to have had a lonely old age.
His wife was dead, but his children remained, although
we do not know how many they were nor anything about
them. Perhaps the Thomas Chaucer who had such a
brilliant career under the Lancasters, and died full of wealth
and honours in 1434, was one of them. In any case, we
can name with certainty that " little Lowis his sone," aged
eleven in 1391, and for whose education Chaucer wrote
his astronomical Treatise of the Astrolabe. Further, if
Chaucer had fewer friends at court, he had more admirers
and disciples around him, who treated him both as a
master and as a father. " Moral John Gower " alone, on
account of his age and the bulk of his work, associated
with Chaucer on equal terms, and professed for him a
friendship disturbed at times, it is true, by some literary
disagreements and perhaps a little jealousy. But Henry
Scogan, John Clanvowe, Thomas Usk, the author of the
Testament of Love (c. 1387), hailed respectfully the ageing
poet. Lydgate and Occleve, the two young men who were
destined to make a bid for his poetical inheritance,
approached him with pious reverence, and doubtless
anticipated by sundry signs of admiration, the many
laudatory verses, with which they were soon to honour his
memory. John Shirley kept his ears wide open, and col-
lected all those particulars concerning the poet's work,
which enrich the copy that he made of them in the following
century. From that time on, it was understood that
Chaucer was Venus's " owne clerk " (Gower), " the noble
philosophical poete in Englissh," who " in goodnes of
gentyl manlyche speche ... in wytte and in good reason

1 Truth.

THE POET'S BIOGRAPHY 19

of sentence . . . passeth al other makers " (Thomas Usk).
His fame, no longer insular, had reached even France,
whose metres he had so clearly imitated in his early poetry.
At a date as yet unsettled, but probably in 1386, Eustache
Deschamps, although he only knew Chaucer as the " grand
translateur," addressed him a pompous ballad, where he
praised the one who had " illumined the kingdom of ^Eneas,"
i.e. England. We should remember these tributes of
praise (not the most touching, nor the most enthusiastic
he was to receive), because, being the earliest to be proffered
him, they must have cheered and comforted the old poet
during the closing years of his life, when he was often in
want and may be in bad health.

II

Before passing from such a dry biographical sketch to the
study of the poet's work, one would like to outline his
character. But the documents which have reached us are
so few and contain so little information, that unfortunately
our description of him can only be conjectural.

The known facts tend to show that he lived a busy
and varied life, being in turn a page, a squire, a diplomat,
a government official (and what widely differing offices
he held — customs, roads, buildings, forests!). He mixed
with soldiers, with the citizens and merchants of the city;
he had dealings with foreigners in Flanders, in France, and
in Italy. He must have been a clever negotiator, to judge
by the frequent missions entrusted to him. A clever
courtier as well, for the sole merit of his verse could hardly
explain the enduring favour, which he enjoyed at court.

20 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

His good fortune was envied later by his disciple Lydgate
in less favoured times : he marvelled at the " prudent "
Chaucer, who, not less favoured than Virgil in Rome, or
Petrarch in Florence, owed to the liberalities of the great,
" vertuous suffysance." l Prudence, or tact if one prefers
it, must indeed have had something to do with his pros-
perity. Chaucer succeeded in winning for himself and in
keeping all his life, the protection, one might almost say
the friendship, of John of Gaunt. The old king Edward III.
appreciated and loved him. Capricious Richard II. gave
him as constant a patronage as he was capable of, and,
notwithstanding, the usurper Henry IV. took him into
favour from the time of his accession. Women, naturally
partial to the poet of love, seem to have been particularly
kind to him. There is every likelihood that the Duchess
Blanche of Lancaster and Queen Anne of Bohemia were
instrumental in obtaining many of the privileges he enjoyed.
It seems pretty evident moreover, that the success of
his courtly career was in no wise impeded by excessive
scruples. In the dissolute courts where he spent most of
his life, he easily accommodated himself to the prevailing
atmosphere of gallantry. We cannot say if it was in earnest
or only to follow out a poetical convention like Machaut,
that, forgetting his own wife, he made love to some irre-
sponsible beauty.2 And, no doubt, we cannot infer any-
thing from that enigmatic document which represents a
certain Cecilia Champaigne as withdrawing, on the 1st
May 1380, a complaint lodged by her against Chaucer
" de raptu suo." It is quite unnecessary to imagine here
one of those offences tried in camera. The abduction of

1 Fall of Princes, quoted in Five Hundred Years of Chaucer Criticism
and Allusion (in the press), by C. Spurgeon, p. 41.

2 Compleynte unto Pile.

THE POET'S BIOGRAPHY 21

minors, in order to secure the administration of their estate,
or to force them into a desired marriage, was common in
those days. But there is no doubt of Chaucer's readiness
to praise, according to the need of the moment, love that
was virtuous or love that was not; we find him one day
writing a prayer to the Virgin, at the request of the good
Duchess Blanche of Lancaster, and the next praising some
princely sinner, whose infringement of the marriage law
had caused a scandal. That illicit love was the subject
of his Compleynt of Mars seems evident, and equally
obvious is the sympathy evinced in this poem for Mars
and Venus at the expense of Vulcan. A plausible tradition,
preserved by Shirley, who is usually well informed, reveals
the facts of the case. This poem is said by him to have
been written " at the comandement of the renomed and
excellent Prynce my lord the Due John of Lancastre," the
accomplices being the Duchess of York and the Count of
Huntingdon. Now, the duchess was the sister-in-law and
Huntingdon was to become the son-in-law of John of
Gaunt. The poem thus explained, shows absolute cynicism
on the part of John of Gaunt, and extreme complaisance
or moral indifference on the part of the poet. We have
already seen how easily Chaucer could, at the bidding of
Queen Anne, pass from the Romaunt of the Rose or the
perfidy of Criseyde to a legend in honour of good women.
In a word, the subject and tone of his verse often exhibit
a clever adaptation to the reigning taste. He was quick to
sin and quick to repent. His aim was to please and not
to edify.

Moreover, he never claimed a more exalted role, and
there was never in him the slightest trace of the pharisee.
He was an easy-going man, the recipient of many pensions
and lucrative posts, who, for a long time, lived a varied

22 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

and somewhat improvident life. He makes no pretence
about it, and is the first to confess that his " abstinence is
lyte." l And yet many of his poems reflect a warm and
apparently sincere piety. This incongruity is to be met
with often enough, and we need not wonder at it. Indeed
he need be a clever analyst who would exactly gauge
Chaucer's religious feelings, for they probably kept changing
from year to year and almost from hour to hour. There
were varying moments in the day when he made fun of the
Mendicant Friars, when he prayed with fervour, by prefer-
ence to the Virgin Mary, when his sly humour did not
spare even the gospels, or when he felt sick of the world
and looked heavenward. It is probable that he was about
as much of a free-thinker as was possible in his day, living
without restraint, but not without remorse, lingering for
many years in the primrose path, and after a contrite old
age reaching the pious end to which his disciples have
testified.

In order to get a glimpse of his features, we must collect
all the personal notations scattered through his work.
But we must be careful at the same time not to take too
seriously revelations, which sometimes smack of literary
convention, and sometimes are largely humorous. To
start with, it should be noticed that he only began speaking
about himself when he was in mature age. We have no
safe indication of what he was like in his youth. When
writing to his friend Scogan in 1393, he points humorously
to his hoar head and round shape, as likely indeed to assure
him quick success in love! 2 A few years earlier, when he
was nearing fifty, he causes himself to be unceremoniously
addressed by the pilgrims' guide, the innkeeper Master
Harry Bailly, who scoffed both at his corpulence and at

1 House of Fame, 1. 660. a Lenvoy de Chaucer a Scogan.

THE POET'S BIOGRAPHY 23

his gloomy looks. The host is looking for a new teller of
tales —

And than at erst he loked upon me.
And seyde thus: " What man artow? " quod he;
" Thou lokest as thou woldest finde an hare,
For ever upon the ground I see thee stare.

Approche neer, and loke up merily.

Now war yow, sirs, and lat this man have place;

He in the waast is shape as wel as I ;

This were a popet in an arm t'enbrace

For any womman, smal and fair of face.

He semeth elvish by his contenaunce,

For unto no wight dooth he daliaunce." l

Thus, Master Harry Bailly's first impression of the poet
is that he is unfit for love. But what strikes him and
surprises us, is that the poet had a vacant and abstracted
look, from which one could apparently expect no kind of
drollery. When at last he allows him to speak, the host
expresses his fears in a few ironical words —

" Now shul we here
Som deyntee thing, me thinketh by his chere." *

The creator of the Wife of Bath must therefore have
had in everyday life some resemblance to Moliere, who was
inclined to be silent and melancholy.

Elsewhere, Chaucer lays emphasis on his silent disposition
and taste for solitude. He has said that when he came
out of his office at the Customs, after finishing his accounts,
he hurried home without talking to any one, not even
inquiring after his nearest neighbours, and shut himself
up with his books, so that he might well have been taken
for a hermit.3 He says in another place that reading
was a passion with him; he loved and revered books, the

1 C. T. (B. 11. 1884-1894). *Ibid. 11. 1900-1901.

1 H. of F. 11. 652-660.

24 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

only witnesses we have of things gone by. It was only on
holidays, and more especially in May, when flowers renew
their bloom, that he could tear himself away from his
books. Then the love of natnre would fill his heart, and
he would remain for hours, stretched on the grass, gazing
at the daisy, which opens in the morning and shuts up
again at sunset.

And, as for me, though that my wit be lyte,

On bokes for to rede I me delyte

And in myn herte have hem in reverence;

And to hem yeve swich lust and swich credence,

That ther is wel unethe game noon

That from my bokes make me to goon,

But hit be other upon the haly-day,

Or elles in the loly tyme of May;

Whan that I here the smale foules singe,

And that the floures ginne for to springe,

Farwel my studie, as lasting that sesoun !

The Legend of Good Women, 11. 29-40.

This lover of solitude does not seem to tally with the
clever and adaptable court-poet. Can the man with
vacant eyes, meditative tastes and reserved manner, be
the same as the one who made his way so well amongst
the great? There is at any rate, in those parts of his
works where he speaks of himself, one recurring trait,
which might throw some light on his worldly success.
He was one of those who turn their own wit against them-
selves, who forestall disdain and mockery by representing
themselves as small, insignificant, and even a trifle ridicu-
lous. He is so modest in his pretensions, so given to self-
effacement that no one takes umbrage at him. It requires
some penetration to see through this modesty and to
realise the subtle mockery at work behind it, aimed some-
times at the person he is speaking to, and sometimes at

THE POET'S BIOGRAPHY 25

human conceit in general. Those who do not see beyond
his humility, praise him for it and are inclined to patronise
this naive and inoffensive being. The others, who are
wiser, enjoy his subtle humour and are disarmed by his
charm. In any case, Chaucer invariably painted himself
in this way, which was not quite novel, since many instances
of it can be found in Machaut, his master, and in most of
the trouvtres, for it had come down from a time when
the peaceful narrator, being a man of low birth, was forced
to propitiate rough and haughty patrons. It was necessary
to efface one's self in proportion to the praise one gave
them. Chaucer represents himself as slow-witted, easily
frightened, having little desire for knowledge or power.
Naturally enough, he is to be found amongst ill-treated and
unsuccessful, nay amongst bashful lovers. If he woos
Cupid, he is treated with disdain, and he gives as his
reason for not waiting on the god, that he is too old and
too heavy. He knows nothing of love except through his
books, and he sings of it without having experienced it.
Neglected by the god of Love, all that is left to him is to
plead for more fortunate gallants. He has been married
certainly, but has suffered so much that he is not likely
to be caught again. If he writes a poem, it is to order
and as a penance. Moreover, he is but a small poet and
knows it. Others have gathered the harvest and reaped
the grain; he can but glean after them. And so Chaucer
goes on in this half-mocking spirit, from the beginning to
the end of his writings, and what was at first perhaps
but a traditional literary attitude, seems to have become
in the end a part of his very nature.

Of his faults, he spoke at length himself, but we must
go to others if we want to hear of his virtues, for he had
some. His goodness and indulgence were great. If his

26 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

disciples, Occleve and Lydgate, exalted the poet, they also,
in the course of their copious and common-place verses,
lamented the man in terms of unmistakable sincerity.
Their admiration was not a kind of official and distant
worship. A real affection bound the pupils to the " maister
deere, and fadir reverent." l It is touching to see Occleve
representing himself as the thick-headed pupil of an ex-
cellent master:

My dere maistir — god his soule quyte !

And fadir, Chaucer, fayn wolde han me taght;

But I was dul, and lerned lite or naght.8

Lydgate depicts him as the tolerant corrector of the verse
submitted to him —

For he that was gronde of wel seying

In al hys lyf hyndred no making,

My maister Chaucer that founde ful many spot

Hym liste not pinche nor gruche at every blot

Nor meue hymsilf to perturbe his reste,

I haue herde telle, but saide alweie the best

Suffring goodly of his gentilnes

Ful many thing embracid with rudness.8 . . .

These conversations had a spice of humour in them. If
his disciples expressed regret that the Legend of Good
Women should be left unfinished, Chaucer would say to
them (his answer suggests itself through Lydgate's ex-
planations) that he would have liked to have found nine-
teen women perfect in goodness and beauty,

But for his labour and his lesynesse
Was inportable his wittes to encoumbre,
In al this world to fynde so great noumbre.*

1 Hoccleve, The Regement of Princes, quoted by Miss Spurgeon,
op. cit. p. 21. * Ibid.

3 Lydgate, The hy story e, Sege, anddystruccyonofTroye, v. Spurgeon,
op. cit. p. 25.

* Lydgate, Fall of Princes, v. Spurgeon, op. cit. p. 39.

THE POET'S BIOGRAPHY 27

Lydgate treasured the memory of these indications of
sly mischief and humour. Occleve remembered only his
goodness, and little by little Chaucer became transformed
in his mind into a philosopher full of wisdom, a pious poet,
almost into a saint. He still retained this impression
when, twelve years after his master's death, he had the
margin of his copy of The Regement of Princes illumi-
nated with the only authentic portrait of Chaucer which
we possess. The image of the master, he said, was still
fresh and present to his mind, and he wished to fix it for
the benefit of those who might have forgotten it. There
he stands before us, a grave and venerable old man; it is
Chaucer towards the close of his days, during the short
period of piety which seems to have marked the end of his
life, the Chaucer who wrote the Balade of Truth and com-
piled the Persones Tale. He is clad in black robes and
wears a hood; his left hand holds a rosary and his quill-
case hangs on his chest. The right arm and forefinger are
stretched out, as if he were teaching. The hair, moustache,
and two tufts of beard give a white setting to a face, the
weary sadness of which is its outstanding feature, mingled
with an air of timidity and good nature. Yet, there can
be seen (it is not imaginary and due to the remembrance
of his verse) in the half-closed eye and in the somewhat
strained line of the mouth, just a touch of half - extin-
guished mischievous humour.

It must be confessed that by thus collecting together
these scattered traits of the man's character, we are forced
to piece together some which seem not only opposed, but
almost irreconcilable. There are so few precise data to
go upon, that one despairs of discovering amongst these
different Chaucers, the courtier, the poet, the philosopher,
the pious, the profane, the astute, the clumsy, the venerable

28 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

— which was the real one. But we must first of all take
into account that some of these discrepancies are due to
the fact that he is presented to us at widely differing
periods of his life. Moreover, he who surveys his work as
a whole, will see that these contradictions were probably
the man himself, for this work, which after all is based on
his very nature, is precisely made up of the same opposi-
tions. Does not the chief originality of his tales consist
in the alternation of poetry and realism, gravity and jolli-
ness, just as doubtless they alternated in his life and in
his character ?

Ill

Before leaving his biography, there is one last question
to be asked, for the answer may serve to throw a little
more light upon his character. What traces has the
history of his time left in his work ? The events amongst
which he lived seem at a distance, to have been diverse and
tragic enough, for us to expect to find them abundantly
commemorated in his verse.

The sixty years of Chaucer's life, between 1340 and 1400,
cover two periods of English history of almost equal
length, and different from each other as black from white.
In his youth, he witnessed an uninterrupted series of
victories and conquests, together with a patriotic exaltation
such as his country had never before experienced. He was
born, so to speak, to the sound of the bells which rang
out the naval victory of Sluyce. As a child, he must have
been told the story of Cre'cy and Nevil's Cross, when France
and Scotland, the two great enemies of England, were
together trodden under foot by the mighty Edward III.

THE POET'S BIOGRAPHY 29

He was a mere youth, on the eve of taking arms himself,
when the Black Prince triumphed at Poitiers, and through
many a long year he must have seen the splendid captivity
in London of King Jean le Bon, who had been taken
prisoner in that battle. All these wars, the vicissitudes
of which fill the Chronicles of Froissart, and in which the
valour and martial discipline of the English made their
name dreaded throughout France, took place whilst he
was growing up from youth to manhood.

But from 1369 onwards, the picture changes rapidly.
The formidable Edward III. is but a senile monarch, the
doting slave of the rapacious Alice Ferrers. His heir
presumptive, that great and fierce captain, the Black
Prince, is slowly sinking into a premature grave. In the
course of eight years, from the breaking of the treaty of
Bretigny to the truce of Bruges (1369-1378), almost the
whole of France was freed from the English yoke. This
rapid loss of such brilliant conquests showed plainly the
vanity of the exploits which preceded them. Edward III.
died in 1377, and after him things became even worse.
His surviving sons quarrelled amongst themselves for the
guardianship of the child of twelve who held the crown.
Disorder and exactions reached such a point that formid-
able risings occurred, similar to the French Jacquerie,
less brutal perhaps, but all the more dangerous. This
upheaval of the down-trodden peasantry threatened the
government of the land, imperilled all property, and even,
it would seem, civilisation itself. At the same time, a
religious schism divided the country: the preaching of the
Lollards was weakening the discipline of the church, but
the new movement was not strong enough yet to set up
in its place a new organisation. England, who but a while
before was mistress of the sea and of part of the Continent,

30 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

was now paralysed; her coasts were attacked and her
territory violated by foreign raiders. When the young
Richard II. , in 1389, took in his own hands the reins of
power, the evil seemed checked for a few years, but it broke
out afresh in an aggravated form. Capricious, wasteful,
tyrannical, Richard ruined his kingdom, and by degrees
turned the whole nation against him. Finally, plunder
and outrages reached such a point that the feelings of
loyalty died out: the legitimate king was deposed and
shortly after put to death. The crown passed to his
cousin Henry of Lancaster, and under his firm rule the
wounds of the stricken kingdom were to be healed. But
Chaucer went down to his grave immediately after Henry's
accession and only saw of his reign the crime from which
it started.

Chaucer was not only a witness of these troubled times,
he also played an active if modest part in the military and
diplomatic events. He was closely attached to some of
those who were then making history. His worldly interests
and his sympathies as a man forced him to watch politics
closely. The rare documents, which persevering inquiries
have gathered concerning his life, show us plainly how
intimately his personal history was bound up with that
of his country and of those who directed its destinies.
Now what strikes one first, when passing from the poet's
biography to the study of his works, is the scantiness of
the allusions the latter contain to the events which he
witnessed or took part in. Chaucer must have had a close
view of what seems to us at a distance the essential history
of his times. But curiously enough, he hardly says any-
thing about it. There is no reference made to it not only
in his romantic verse, but also in that which is most
strikingly realistic.

THE POET'S BIOGRAPHY 31

To start with, there is not a single patriotic line in his
work, which is all the more surprising at a time when this
feeling was beginning to rise with some force in English
hearts, in turn buoyed up by victories and chastened by
misfortunes. It had expressed itself in a mixture of
bombast and insult directed against England's enemies,
Scotland and France, in the warlike songs of Laurence
Minot, written in Chaucer's early youth. This alliterating
Tyrtceus had celebrated in stirring terms practically every
success of Edward III. In his opinion, the French and
the Scotch were hateful and ridiculous beings, only
capable of treachery and cowardice. He hurled at them
his weighty sarcasms. His verse, with its robust rhythm
and rhyme, must have run from mouth to mouth. Nothing
of the kind is to be discovered in Chaucer. And yet he
might have found it useful, in order to ingratiate himself
at court, to sing in his turn the victorious king. But no;
the sole allusion he has to the battlefields of the great
national war, is contained in one line describing the young
pilgrim squire, who

had been somtyme in chivachye,
In Flaundres, in Artoys, and Picardye,
And born him wel, as of so litel space,
In hope to stonden in his lady grace.

Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, 11. 85-88.

By the side of this squire, we do see a yeoman, his servant,
described as a perfect bowman, but without a word being
said as to the part he played in the famous combats, where
the English archers distinguished themselves.

As for France, is it remarkable that Chaucer never speaks
of her as of a country at war with his own ? He has for her
but words which testify to his poetical relationship; he
loves and translates or imitates her writers, and does not

32 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

mind acknowledging his debt on occasion. Wars had
little interest for him, and if he represents a soldier of his
day, he makes him fight far away, in eastern countries,
either because the names of those regions are stranger and
more suggestive to the imagination, or because he prefers
to the national warrior a denationalised hero, less English
than Christian. This is the case of the Knight in his
Tales, who is a worthy rival of John of Bohemia or of
Pierre de Lusignan, both celebrated by Machaut. There
are few known countries he has not visited. He seems
to have been fighting for some forty years already when
Chaucer introduces him to us, but we do not see clearly
whether he was at Crecy or at Poitiers. Chaucer's silence
is all the more significant in that French poetry, at that
time, was becoming rather aggressive: Deschamps' eulo-
gistic ballad was addressed to Chaucer between two
utterances of anger against the English.

Chaucer did not show much more interest in the reverses
and internal troubles of his country, than he did in her
triumphs. Of the terrible plagues that desolated her
during his life-time, he only speaks incidentally and in
no serious way: the physician, who appears amongst his
pilgrims, made his money, he says, during one of them;
in the Pardoner's Tale it is simply stated that death killed
thousands of people at the time of the previous epidemic,
and moreover the scene is laid in Flanders. But nowhere
is there the least semblance to that powerful picture of the
pestilence, painted by Boccaccio at the beginning of the
Decameron, not even to the rhymed account of a con-
temporary plague, given by Machaut in his 'Jugement du
Roi de Navarre.

The peasant rising made no impression on him either.
Not to mention the too widely different Langland, the poet

THE POET'S BIOGRAPHY 33

Gower, Chaucer's friend and rival, devoted a whole Latin
poem to an allegory of this fierce revolt, and expressed in
it the terrors he had experienced. Chaucer only makes
a jocose allusion to Jack Straw and his hordes and to the
shrill cries they uttered when they were about to kill a
Fleming, and this by way of an illustration to help us to
understand the hue and cry raised in a farmyard after
a thieving fox.

IV

But if we collect together and scrutinise the rare con-
temporary allusions to be found in Chaucer's works, and
if we note at the same time what subjects he avoids, we
feel growing within us the conviction that both silences
and allusions might in some way have been caused by a
desire to please his patron John of Gaunt. The great
lord and the poet his client, were partners in the same
game. It is of course impossible to say in what measure
the poet's attitude was dictated by his wish to ingratiate
himself, or reflected the sincere feelings of a supporter
who had no need to be convinced. In any case, one
vaguely feels that if it were possible to realise the duke's
policy and make out his character, one would at once
better understand Chaucer, whose fortune at all times
rose and fell with that of his patron.

Unfortunately John of Gaunt remains an enigma. His
actions are well enough known, but it is the interpretation
to be put upon them which leaves room for endless argu-
ment. Despite very conscientious researches, Mr. Armitage
Smith, his most recent biographer,1 has failed to make him

1 John of Gaunt, by S. Armitage Smith. Constable, 1904.

C

34 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

out. There was too much contradiction from the first
in his character. According to the chroniclers one reads,
he appears as a gallant and wise prince, or as a scheming
traitor. On the one hand, there is evoked the figure of a
very noble lord, the eloquent mouthpiece of reason and
patriotism, as afterwards represented by Shakespeare in
Richard II. ; he it is on whose lips he puts the redundant
panegyric of England —

this sceptred isle,

This earth of Majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise ;
This fortress, built by nature for herself,
Against infection and the hand of war ;
This happy breed of men, this little world;
This precious stone set in the silver sea. . . .

King Richard II. Act ii. Sc. i.

On the other hand, and very early, he is painted as a great
criminal, rapacious and double-faced, plotting against the
life of his nephew, the young king, in order to seize the
throne, ruining England in order to aggrandise his house,
and in addition sunk in vice and debauchery. Sometimes,
the contradiction comes from the fact that the chronicler
is for or against the Lancastrian dynasty. But the chief
reason is to be found in the relations of John of Gaunt
with the religious reformer Wyclif, whom he took under
his protection. The later Reformation will be partial
to " the first protestant," and this partiality will naturally
lead to the Shakespearian glorification. The orthodox, on
the contrary, will look upon him as an emissary of Satan,
and the " odium theologicum " will pour down on him
in the Chronicle of the Monk of St. Allans. So that one
does not know exactly where apotheosis and where
calumny begin.

His moral personality escapes us between such excesses

THE POET'S BIOGRAPHY 35

of honour and of obloquy. We have only his actions to
judge him by, and they themselves are deceptive, often
contradictory. His whole life was equivocal: he was
divided between his egotism as a powerful feudal lord, the
master of huge landed estates, and the part he had to play
for many years as acting head of the English government.
More than once his patriotism was in conflict with his
interests. It is probable that he unconsciously directed
royal politics along the lines which his personal ambitions
favoured. Without being aware that he was betraying
his mandate, he used the English forces to further his
designs and to conquer either for himself or for his daughters
the kingdoms of Castile and Portugal. If, after conducting
personally some plundering but fruitless expeditions in
France, he became after 1374 t-'ie staunch supporter of a
reconciliation with her, it was perhaps both in order to
put an end to a hopeless war, and to have his hands free,
that he might carry on his wars in Spain and Portugal.

His government at home was likewise a mixture of good
and evil. He was no doubt the most unpopular man of
his day, up to the time when the follies and despotism
of Richard diverted public anger from John of Gaunt to
the king himself. He haughtily rejected the demands of
parliament for administrative reforms. When the men
of Kent made a rush on London and the court, it was
John of Gaunt whom they made responsible for all the evil;
he whom Wat Tyler and his followers singled out for
vengeance, and their fury was only satisfied when they had,
not looted, but utterly destroyed the duke's magnificent
palace, the Savoy. It is nevertheless to the influence of
this same enemy of the public good that we must attribute,
so it seems, the few happy years of Richard's personal
government, which ended with Gaunt's disgrace.

36 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

Was he loyal to his nephew? The royal child was but
eleven when he became his chief guardian. Time and
again he was suspected of plotting against his life for the
sake of his crown. The accusation, sometimes only whis-
pered, sometimes cried aloud, was continually renewed.
John of Gaunt always succeeded in clearing himself and
in regaining the confidence of the sovereign. When he
died, he had seemingly conquered this suspicion, but he
was hardly in his grave, when his own son justified all
the calumnies by dethroning and putting to death the
legitimate king.

His attitude in religious matters is just as puzzling. He
was Wyclif's great protector, used him as a weapon against
the bishops who aspired to political predominance, and
was looked upon as the scourge of orthodoxy, the sworn
adversary of the established clergy. Yet he never had
at any time the least sympathy with the doctrinal reform
of Wyclif. What is more, he himself never carried out
any of the disciplinary innovations urged by Wyclif. He
maintained plurality of livings in his own domains; he
was surrounded by friar-confessors; he had masses said
for souls in Purgatory; he protected monks and endowed
abbeys; he founded chantries; he had his enemies excom-
municated whenever he could; he dictated with a perfectly
clear mind the most traditionally orthodox will, giving
instructions that ten large candles should be lighted round
his body, in commemoration of the ten commandments
which he had broken; above these ten candles, were to
be placed seven more, in memory of the seven works of
charity and the seven capital sins; above these again, five
candles in honour of the five wounds of Jesus and of his
five senses; and " tout amont " three more " en 1'honneur
de la benoite Trinite." Finally, this so-called Lollard

THE POET'S BIOGRAPHY 37

founded a line of fiercely orthodox princes, who persecuted
the Lollards to the point of complete extermination.

In his private life assuredly there was no trace of the
moral purity, practised and taught by the Lollards.
Chaucer, it is true, bears an unimpeachable testimony
to the great affection of John of Gaunt for his first wife,
and to his violent grief at her death. But he was no sooner
a widower, than he made a mistress of one of the ladies of
honour of the late duchess, and to further his ambitions,
he at the same time married Constance, daughter of Peter
the Cruel. When later Constance died, he scandalised his
country by marrying his mistress and making his bastards
legitimate. Is the persistent calumny of his enemies
responsible for the report that, in a corrupt court, his morals
were such as to mark him out as a debauchee? At his
death, astounding rumours were in circulation. His body,
ruined by excesses, had rapidly decayed, and this was
caused " per exercitum copulae cardinalis cum mulieribus.
. . . Magnus enim fornicator fuit."

Apart from his dissolute life, of which there seems to be
pretty ample proof, we know nothing of his character,
except what is revealed by two very similar expressions of
Froissart and Chaucer. They refer to his mind rather
than to his heart. Froissart, who is not generally prone
to praise him, calls him " sage et imaginatif," that is to
say, " resourceful." Chaucer, a more partial but surely
a shrewd judge, shows him in the midst of a passionate
grief

so tretable,
Right wonder skilful and rcsonable.1

It seems probable, indeed, that the father of the prudent
and politic Bolingbroke had a good fund of skill and sense.
1 B. of the Duchesse, 11. 553-554.

38 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

Contemporary writers were struck by the contrast between
the reserve of John of Gaunt and the impetuous and brutal
nature of his younger brother, Gloucester. On the other
hand, if he did not possess the military genius of the Black
Prince, he never had his fits of savage cruelty. If there
was ambiguity in his nature, there was also balance.

To sum up, a policy of peace and even of alliance with
France by royal marriage, a stubborn opposition to the
popular claims, protection granted to Wyclif less from
religious conviction than a policy, and as a consequence
hostility from the advocates of war, the lower classes, and
the clergy, these are indubitable facts in his career, and
they explain well enough the reticences and disclosures
of Chaucer. We understand better now why the poet was
silent concerning the French war, why he was loth to
mention the great rising of 1381, not wishing to displease
his patron, and perhaps unable fully to approve his conduct
on this occasion. We see also why his satire was chiefly
directed against the clergy, thus endorsing certain of the
accusations of the Lollards, without however going over
to their doctrine. Even small details reveal his association
with the Duke of Lancaster. That Pierre de Lusignan,
for instance, who haunted the poet's thoughts with his
far-away exploits and his tragic death, he may well have
been seen by Chaucer, the court page, in 1361, at the
Savoy Palace, where John of Gaunt entertained the King
of Cyprus with lavish hospitality. If, on one occasion,
Chaucer inveighed against Duguesclin, it was not because
of some episode in the French wars, but because of the part
taken by the French hero in the murder of Pierre le Cruel,
the father of the Duchess Constance and father-in-law
to John of Gaunt. And finally, we shall see presently that
if Chaucer one day broke his habitual reserve and went

THE POET'S BIOGRAPHY 39

so far as to give the king some very bold advice, he did it
probably in order to serve the interests of his patron.

During the parliamentary session, held at Salisbury in
May 1384, John of Gaunt was denounced by a Carmelite
brother as a traitor to the king and as having plotted his
assassination. The scene took place in the room of one
of the king's favourites, the Earl of Oxford, who is sus-
pected of having engineered the accusation. Richard
flew into a passion; without inquiring any further, he
ordered that his uncle should be seized and taken to the
gallows. When he was asked to look more closely into
the matter, he behaved like a lunatic, took off his hat and
shoes and flung them out of the window, and they had
great difficulty in calming him. John of Gaunt succeeded
in clearing himself, but all the same the friar's denunciation
left a sting in the king's mind. A similar accusation was
brought against Gaunt in the council itself, in February
1385, and Richard's mother, the Princess Jeanne (" the
pretty maid of Kent "), needed all her influence to reconcile
uncle and nephew. In the summer of the same year, the
king, with John of Gaunt, went on an expedition into
Scotland, and when John expressed different views from
his on the plan of the campaign, Richard burst into re-
proaches and accused his uncle of treason. Throughout
the whole of this period, we see the young favourites who
surrounded the young king — he was only nineteen —
doing their best to undermine the credit of the Duke of
Lancaster.

If then, knowing these facts, we read the Prologue of
the Legend of Good Women, which Chaucer is generally
thought to have written in 1385, we can see they are trans-
lated into a transparent allegory. The poet makes the
Queen Alcestis give some wise counsel to the young god

40 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

of love, who personifies Richard. She warns him against
the bursts of passion to which he is liable, and points out
to him the unfairness of passing a sentence without giving
the culprit a hearing:

A god ne sholde nat be thus agreved,
But of his deitee he shal be stable,

He shall nat rightfully his yre wreke
Or he have herd the tother party speke.

Prologue A, 11. 321-325.

She dwells on the danger of lending an ear to insinuations.

Al ne is nat gospel that is to yow pleyned ;
The god of love herth many a tale y-feyned.
For in your court is many a losengeour,
And many a queynte totelere accusour,
That tabouren in your eres many a thing
For hate, or for lelous imagining,
And for to han with you some daliaunce.
Envye (I prey to God yeve hir mischaunce !)
Is lavender in the grete court alway.
For she ne parteth, neither night ne day,
Out of the hous of Cesar ; thus seith Dante ;
Who-so that goth, alwey she moot [nat] wante.

Prologue A, 11. 325-341.

She adjures the god,

nat be lyk tiraunts of Lumbardye,
That usen wilfulhed and tyrannye.

Prologue A, 11. 335-336.

Then she describes the duties of a good king: he must
listen to the complaints and petitions of his people, and
rule his lieges with justice. But she here adds a parenthesis
which, being quite outside the main drift, betrays Chaucer's
real purpose. Whilst the accused brought before the king
of love is a humble and puny person, the poet himself,

THE POET'S BIOGRAPHY 41

Alcestis insists on the duties of a king towards the lords
of his realm :

And for to kepe his lordes hir degree,
As hit is right and skilful that they be
Enhaunced and honoured, and most dere —
For they ben half-goddes in this world here.

Prologue A, 11. 370-373.

Finally she returns at the end to the offence committed by
a prince, who condemns a man without giving him a
chance of speaking a single word.

That Chaucer should thus dare to dictate rules of conduct
to the king, shows plainly enough that he must have been
impelled by a desire to serve his protector, whilst feeling
at the same time that he was shielded by him. Moreover,
he ranged on his side Queen Anne (represented by Alcestis),
well knowing that he was safeguarded by Richard's
impetuous affection for her. The allegory enabled him
also to keep at a certain distance from actual facts; the
serious advice and the daring reproaches which he put
in the mouth of the young queen — she was then only
seventeen — could hardly have been uttered by a girl of her
age; they were much more likely to have come from Princess
Jeanne, and to have been spoken with the authority
and experience of a mother. In short, Chaucer could not
fail to have congratulated himself upon the unique oppor-
tunity thus offered him, of prudently serving a cause to
which his interest bound him, while at the same time
voicing lessons of wisdom by which his country might
benefit.

The same compound of pure motives and interested
views reappears in all the other verse of Chaucer touching
on public affairs. No doubt, under the wretched reign of
Richard, he was moved by the country's misfortunes; he

42 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

regretted, as we saw, the instability of affairs in England;
he grieved to see that virtue, pity, disinterestedness, were
no longer to be found in the world. But, whilst adjuring
the monarch to " shew forth the swerd of castigatioun "
against the authors of these evils, it is undeniable that
he was encouraging him at the same time either to free
himself of his favourites or to overthrow Gloucester's
tutelage, all alike hostile to the Lancastrian party, and
consequently injurious to the poet's own interests. Thus,
even in these discreet audacities, Chaucer remained the
courtier poet. In the midst of the general misfortune,
he was anxious about the consequences which the mis-
management of public affairs might have on his own
pensions. Appeals to the Treasury are prominent in his
later ballads (Fortune, Lenvoy to Scogan). It was with
a request for money that he hailed the usurpation of the
throne by the son of his great patron. Elsewhere, his
lament assumed such a general character as to be without
danger for him, but at the same time without possible
effect. It became, with the help of Boethius, philosophical.
Chaucer took refuge from the moral miseries of the present
in the contemplation of the Golden Age (The Former
Age}. He realised that true nobility lies in virtue, when
he saw the vices and crimes which polluted the great
men of this world (Gentile sse}. And at the end, on his
death-bed, according to tradition, he invoked " Truth,"
which frees us from evil and consoles us in misfortune;
he turned to heaven and to the future life in order to
escape the bondage of the earth (Truth}. And this last
ballad no doubt expresses the inmost wisdom of the court
poet, who found himself forced to keep unbroken silence,
although a spectator of scenes which wounded alike his
moral sense and his good sense.

THE POET'S BIOGRAPHY 43

In short, either because his tastes led him elsewhere,
or at the dictates of prudence, Chaucer is almost wholly
silent in his poems about what we should call politics. He
avoided the subject, sometimes for artistic reasons, some-
times in order to get a more direct hold of the realities of
life, on the humble plane where most of his countrymen
spent their days and waged their battles, without troubling
themselves overmuch about either kings or governments.

CHAPTER II

THE MAKING OF CHAUCER AS A POET

I. State of the English Language about 1360. II. Chaucer at the
school of the French tronveres. III. His lyrical poetry.

I

CHAUCER'S first aim in writing verse, one may even say
his sole aim, was poetry for its own sake. He had no
wish to influence his contemporaries, nor to pass judg-
ment on political events, nor to reform morals, nor to
evolve a system of philosophy. He had set himself an
artistic ideal, and knowing how crude were the attempts
of his predecessors, he applied himself assiduously to the
study of foreign masters. Somewhat late in life, he realised
that he had a gift of observation, and straight away turned
to the description of the men around him and their doings,
not from any desire of bettering them, but simply because
he found in life that which amused and interested him.
He never had but one ambition, which was to write pretty
or humorous verse. And because of that, he spent the
greater part of his life in rendering pliable and mellow
the rough English tongue, in hammering it into all kinds
of metres, in learning the technique of his art. No one
can realise the greatness of the task accomplished, who
has not read the awkward poetry produced in England
before him, or even the poetry of his own time.

It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of his role
as the creator of English poetry, or at least of English

44

THE MAKING OF CHAUCER 45

versification. Except for the octosyllabic verse, which
was already in use, he had to fashion for himself all the
other metres he used. He imported from France and
perfected under Italian influence the decasyllabic verse,
which was to become the heroic verse, the chosen metre
of the great poetry of England. He used it by turns in
stanza form and in couplets; he threw it into moulds
hitherto unknown in England — the rondeau, the virelai,
and the ballad. Of his numerous innovations two were
destined to prevail, the seven-line stanza (a b a b b c c),
to which his name was given, and the couplet. But what
a vast amount of preparatory work, what trials, what
hesitations, must have preceded the finished verses! We
can assume that the whole of his youth and part of his
middle age were spent at this task, the stages of which
we are unable to follow, owing to the loss of almost all his
earlier works.

The difficulty of the undertaking was quite out of
proportion to what it would be in a language already
adapted for poetry. There was nothing of the kind in
England in 1360. No dialect had as yet taken the lead
for literary purposes; there was not even a common
literary language. Whilst the use of English was steadily
extending to all classes throughout the fourteenth century,
and making its way into the schools, the law-courts, and
the parliament, poets were still groping for a proper
medium. John Gower, the contemporary and friend of
Chaucer, bore witness to this uncertainty by writing the
first of his three great poems in French, the second in
Latin, and the third in English. But English was split
up into dialects differing sufficiently from each other to
hamper intercommunication; the differences in vocabulary
and syntax were such as to render a man barely intelligible

46 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

to those who did not speak his own dialect. Further,
the poetical ear did not derive its enjoyment of verse from
the same principles in all dialects; whilst people from
Northumbria and the west of England preferred allitera-
tion, whether combined or not with rhyme, those from the
centre and south-west favoured and cultivated rhyme
alone. The former used an exclusively accentual verse,
the latter a verse which was both accentual and syllabic.
The first were akin to the native poets before the Norman
Conquest; the others followed closely the pattern of French
versification. Chaucer, who was one of these latter, did
not know how to make " rim, ram, ruf " like the harsh
singers of the north, and was therefore divided by an
insuperable gulf from the English poets of his time who
possessed the most force and vigour. He may have known
the fervent and turbid effusions of the author of Piers
Ploughman, perhaps even the stanzas of the one who wrote
the beautiful mystical vision of the Pearl, or of him who
fashioned the robust descriptions of the Green Knight, but
he was utterly out of touch with their technique. He was
by birth and surroundings confined to the language spoken
in the neighbourhood of London, which was then also the
language of the court, the " King's English," and which
was soon to become, owing largely to his own work, the
sole literary language throughout the country.

Indeed, no previous poetical performance had seemed
to destine this dialect to such fortune. None was poorer
and more barren before Chaucer took it up. What little
real poetry had appeared in English since Anglo-Saxon
times, had been produced outside the limits of this dialect.
Why wonder at it? Was it not in the vicinity of court
and of the universities that English had the most humble
and precarious existence, always subordinated to Latin

THE MAKING OF CHAUCER 47

or French ? Kings, nobles, and clerks alike held it in scorn.
French, long the sole language of those who were above
the common herd, had held its own at court later than
elsewhere, as in its natural fortress. An attempt to
breathe into this dialect a higher poetical life might well
seem foredoomed. This, nevertheless, was Chaucer's aim
from the first, definite and unswerving.

His attitude, novel in every respect, was as foUows.
The courtly poets of his district still wrote in French,
or rather in Anglo-Norman, in that patois into which
the language of the conquerors had degenerated, and
which made the Parisians smile; on the other hand,
popular poets in that same district only used English for
practical purposes and without any thought for beauty;
whereas Chaucer, for his part, deliberately chose this
common tongue, because it alone was really living and
because it had spread up to the higher classes of the people,
but he resolved at the same time to endow it with all the
grace and refinement, which instinct and knowledge enabled
him to appreciate in French poetry. And, if we grant
him in this a clearer vision of his aims than he really had,
we cannot overrate the consequences of his choice. He at
once became an accessory to the social forces, which made
London the political and commercial centre, and the
universities the intellectual nuclei of the country; the
excellence of his writings and their fame helped alike
towards this result. Undoubtedly, there had been during
the previous three centuries quite a number of poets writing
in the London dialect, but they had little talent; even in
Chaucer's life-time there were poets capable of force or
grace, but they belonged to counties where the dialect was
already archaic and they clung to obsolete poetical modes.
Chaucer had come at the psychological moment, and by

48 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

throwing the weight of his genius into the balance decided
the future. He was the real " father " of English poetry,
inasmuch as he founded the modern literary language of
England.

To infuse into the native vocabulary the courtliness of
France, was his first and most essential task. He cast the
English words of a purely Teutonic origin, and the already
acclimatised words of French origin, into the poetical
moulds of France. He expressed in English all the graces
and delicate shades of meaning which he found in French
poetry. His severance from the literary past of England
is as clear and as final as his resolve to stand by the par-
ticular English of his district. That is why all the primary
sources of his poetic art must be looked for in France.
They are to be found, not in Anglo-Norman poetry, un-
imaginative and formless, but in the pure specimens of
proper French poetry, which he happened to know.

II

The time was not altogether propitious to his aim, it
would seem, for French poetry was never more wretched
and destitute than during the period extending from
Rutebeuf to Villon, or, if it be preferred, from the Roman
de la Rose to Charles d'Orleans. What a poor, thin, and
yet pretentious garden it is, where we can discover little
else to-day but artificial flowers growing between box-
hedges of eccentric shapes. It is surprising to compare
this lifeless poetry with the rich prose of the same period.
Indeed, fourteenth-century French endures from a literary
point of view solely through Froissart's Chronicles. Yet

49

it was to this artificial and sickly garden that Chaucer
came for seeds and cuttings. And it so happened that at
the date when he came, he found at first the most effete
head-gardener. The poetry of that century only escapes
absolute dullness through the somewhat childish grace of
Froissart's verse, or through the prosiness, occasionally
lively and racy, of Eustache Deschamps. But Machaut,
their master as well as Chaucer's, is too often just purely
wearisome. And it seems a strange destiny, which gave
as a pupil to the droning canon of Reims the mischievous
Chaucer, so prone to smile at long-winded affectation and
at stilted lyrical strains.

Lack of deep sentiment and absence of vigorous thought
render Machaut's " dits " insufferable to us — lengthy
debates where, around some point of amorous etiquette, are
woven descriptions in the manner of the Roman de la Rose,
and where a story is suggested by means of hackneyed
allegories. The style is generally intricate, without nerve
or relief; the rhymes already exhibit a tendency, on the
part of the author, towards that false wealth of identical
sounds which ushered in the " conceits " of the " rhetori-
queurs." Surely, in spite of the initial reverence inspired
by Machaut's past renown and the praise of great princes
and ladies, in spite of the romantic interest thrown over
his old age by the love-affair with pretty, forward, Peronne
d'Armentieres, it is difficult nowadays for the reader of his
works, not to resent the drowsy numbness that creeps over
him, while pushing on through the interminable pages of
futile verse.

These are very great blemishes indeed. But for all that,
Machaut presented an array of delicate qualities, which
would render him attractive and valuable to his foreign
disciple. He was a musician as well as a poet, and had

D

50 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

a lasting concern for art and harmony. He was a sort
of virtuoso, always in quest of new groupings of verse and
fresh combinations of rhymes. Was he not foremost in
introducing and spreading poems of definite length and
structure, such as the sonnet, the ballad, the rondeau, and
the chant royal? He sought rare poetical forms, capable
of producing as such the emotions which his nature was
too poor to arouse. He could also take up a commonplace
image, develop and adorn it, put it in a pleasing light and
make a gem of it for all time. That is why there are in
his works small poems or passages of longer poems, which
are not lacking in prettiness or brilliancy, and can still please
for a moment. Take, forinstance, the eighty-second rondeau
in the flamboyant style —

Blanche com lys, plus que rose vermeille
Resplendissant com rubis d'Oriant. . . .

But his mastery chiefly appears in soft and pretty verses
at the beginning of his rondeaus and ballads, which, with
their languishing love-themes, make one hope often to find
in them the equivalent of the contemporary sonnets of
Petrarch. They exhibit the same mannerism, but without
Petrarch's high and rare spirit, which keeps gathering force
until the end. A ballad, with its twenty-one lines, is too
large a thing for his inspiration. His rondeaus, being
shorter, are more uniformly happy. The following (cxxv.)
is a good example, and may be compared with Chaucer's
rondeau given below l —

Faites mon coeur tout a un coup mourir,
Tres douce dame, en lieu de guerredon ;

Puis que de rien nel voulez rejouir
Faites mon coeur tout a un coup mourir;

1 See p. 62.

THE MAKING OF CHAUCER 51

Car il vaut mieux assez qu'ainsi languir
Sans esperer joie ne guerison.

Faites mon coeur tout a un coup mourir,
Tres douce dame, en lieu de guerredon.

The first lines of his Dit de la Marguerite are particularly
graceful, and Chaucer remembered them for the Prologue
of his Good Women —

J'aime une fleur qui s'ouvre et qui s'incline
Vers le soleil, de jour quand il chemine:
Et quand il est couche sous sa courtine

Par nuit obscure,

Elle se clost, ainsois que le jour fine.
Ses feuilles ont dessous couleur sanguine,
Blanches dessus plus que gente hermine

Ne blancheur pure. . . .

In short, Machaut is a refined versifier, not a great artist,
but nothing if not an artist. He was better suited than
one would think to educate a foreigner, who already
possessed deep poetic qualities, but who came to France
to learn the technique of his art, just as to-day hundreds
of foreign art-students throng the studios of the Paris
painters to learn the rules of their craft. Chaucer more-,
over, soon rivalled the external dexterity of Machaut and
cast in equally intricate forms a heartiness and wealth of
human emotion, of which his master was not capable.

We cannot attempt here to make a list of the things for
which Chaucer was indebted to Machaut, any more than
of those he owed to the poets of his own generation, Frois-
sart, Deschamps, Otto de Granson. This was partly done
already by Sandras, as early as 1859, m ^s ^tu^e sur G.
Chaucer consider e comme imitateur des trouveres, and has
been carried much further by later investigations. It
can be safely said that each new contribution increases

52 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

Chaucer's debt, by bringing to light imitations of subject
and form hitherto unsuspected, stories transcribed and
lines translated, which heretofore had passed as original.1
No doubt, when we possess the complete edition of
Machaut's works (the first volume has just been published
in the Anciens lextes Franfais), some hitherto unsuspected
borrowings will be revealed. This one volume, where the
Lay de Plour is printed for the first time, shows that the
varied and difficult stanzas of this elegy probably incited
Chaucer to similar experiments in his Compleint of Anelida,
a fact as yet unsuspected. Moreover, a closer inquiry
tends to prove that where Froissart for instance was
thought to have copied Chaucer, it was the other way
about. Until quite late in life Chaucer was interested
in the poetic tourneys of France. He followed with a
somewhat ironical interest the tensons on the comparative
merits of the leaf and the flower. He associated himself
with the symbolical worship of the " Marguerite " (or
daisy), which in the latter half of the century, out of regard
for some great ladies of that name, displaced that of the rose.
It is nevertheless to the Roman de la Rose that Chaucer
was especially indebted for his poetical initiation. As a
matter of fact, we do not know at what precise period of his
life he wrote his translation of that famous work, nor if the
fragments of the poetical English version which have come
down to us are his, although most commentators incline
to think that the first of these fragments, corresponding
to the 1678 first lines of the original, is in his own hand

1 Since these lines were written, they have received strong
support from Mr. J. L. Lowes's contribution on Chaucer and the
Miroir de Maviage, from which it appears that Chaucer made
abundant use of Eustache Deschamps's poem for his most original
creation, the Wife of Bath's Prologue. See Modern Philology,
vol. viii. nos. 2 and 3.

THE MAKING OF CHAUCER 53

and not the others. This translation generally follows
the text very closely, line for line; most often it preserves
the meaning and style of the model, and manages to retain
much of the original neatness of expression and grace.
No better exercise could be devised to train the versification
and style of a young poet, writing in a language as yet
incompletely formed. If the translation is less good than
its model, it is because of its inferior rhymes. The rhymes
of Guillaume de Lorris are both correct and full, pleasant
in sound and fresh in tone. Hampered in his difficult task
of translator who wishes to be accurate, Chaucer did not
equal the charming style effects of Lorris. His rhyme is
still a little dull in sound and colour. Compare these two
sets of verses —

Avis m'iere qu'il estoit mains, That it was May me thoughts tho,

II a ja bien cincq ans, an mains; It is fyve yere or more ago;

En Mai estoie, ce songeoie, That it was May, thus dremed me

El terns amoreus plain de joie, In tyme of love and jolitee,

El terns ou tote riens s'esgaie, That al thing ginneth waxen gay,

Que Ton ne voit boisson ne haie For there is neither busk nor hay

Qui en Mai parer ne se voille In May, that it nil shrouded been,

Et covrir de novelle toille. . . . And it with ncwe leves wreen. . . .
Roman de la Rose, 11. 45-52. The Romaunt of the Rose, 11. 49-56.

The bright rosy tints of the original have faded in the
process.

Chaucer, with his usual modesty, did not hesitate to
acknowledge his inferiority in the matter of rhyme. Even
when he had in his turn become a master and performed
some rhyming feats of his own, he still complained of his
inability to vie with French masters in this respect. In
1393, when writing a line for line translation of Otto de
Granson's stanzas, he craved mercy for his verse on account
of his great age, and also because of the difficulties which
made this translation a true penance for him —

54 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

And eek to me hit is a greet penaunce,

Sith rym in English hath swich scarsitee,

To folowe word by word the curiositee

Of Graunson, flour of hem that make in Fraunce.

The Compleynt of Venus, 11. 79-82.

It was in this case excess of deference, but what is worth
remembering is the artistic concern which inspired the
complaint.

The influence which the Roman de la Rose had on Chaucer
should certainly not be reduced to a mere stylistic training.
This romance, which was the great poetical well from which
the fourteenth century drew inspiration, was really the
one poem which had the most constant hold on Chaucer.
Its double character, due to the difference, nay to the
contrast between the two poets who wrote it, far from
shocking Chaucer, because it spoilt the unity of the poem,
increased the attraction which this sort of poetic Bible
had for him. According to the mood he was in, and more
especially according to his age, he drew inspiration from
Guillaume de Lorris or from Jean de Meung. To the first
he went in his youth. Later, the abundance of ideas,
satires and classical reminiscences which pervade Jean
de Meung's work, suited better his need for more sub-
stantial and more humorous reading matter. Jean de
Meung became then, and remained till the end, his principal
instructor, as can be seen in a hundred passages borrowed
from him, even in Chaucer's final masterpiece. But
perhaps one ought not to represent as successive influences
those which were often simultaneous. It was the alter-
nation of grace and force, of pure poetry and ironical
philosophy, of airy charm and rough energy, of pretty
fancy and coarseness — it was the very inconsistency of the
whole poem, which made him select it as a favourite.
There, he found food for his twofold inclination. Did not

THE MAKING OF CHAUCER 55

this duality exist in his very nature ? When, in his tales,
he mingled delicate and farcical stories, grace and irony,
the beautiful and the coarse, the serious and the funny,
he embodied in a living work of genius the antithesis
between the two parts of the Roman de la Rose.

But if the Roman de la Rose helped him at first to train
his feeling for form, it hindered nevertheless his genius in
a way. It led him to adopt and to retain for many years
the allegorical style. Such was his regard for this poem
that it checked the appearance of his dramatic talent, and
it needed a journey to Italy to help him to discover it.
We might thfc more regret this long restraint, had Chaucer
not produced in allegorical form some works which are
full of charm; and also, if we did not feel that it was of
value for him to cultivate and enrich his art by exercises
which smack a little of the workshop, before venturing
on that difficult task — often so disastrous to formal beauty
— of painting life at first hand and without intermediary.

Did Chaucer explore French poetry beyond the Roman
de la Rose ? Very little, it seems, although for his Troilus,
beside Boccaccio, he very probably made use of the Roman
de Troie by Benoit de Sainte-More, and had elsewhere
possible reminiscences of Marie de France. But he does
not appear to have been acquainted with the best of the
French trouveres. By this time, the primitive chansons
de geste had passed out of fashion, as well as the oldest
lives of the saints, which were also the noblest. People
no longer sang the lovely chansons de toile, and hardly ever
the sprightly pastourelles, which had been replaced by poems
of definite length and structure. He did not even know
the best verse romances, for there is nothing to warrant
the supposition that he had read Chrestien de Troves. On
the other hand, he was familiar with the degenerate

56 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

romances of chivalry which were then popular, and also
with the adventures of Renart and with the licentious
fabliaux. But people read them for the subject alone,
and it is doubtful whether they had any influence at all
over his art. It is even possible that most of the latter
compositions only reached him through English versions;
it was certainly the case with certain romances which he
parodied in his Sir Thopas. In any case, most of those
poems exhibited such a lack of artistic sense that one does
not see what he could have learnt from them.

This survey of Chaucer's French reading should not lead
us into the belief that we have as yet ascertained the
extent of his debt. In making a minute inventory of the
things borrowed by Chaucer from French poets, commen-
tators only point out the outward signs of an influence
which went much deeper. It is surely significant to
read in the notes of a learned edition, such as the one by
Professor Skeat, the innumerable comparisons with
French poets, which Chaucer's text suggests. Almost at
every page, his well stored mind remembered a line read
in one of them, a remark, a description, a phrase, a
humorous saying. But all that means very little, and
much can be said in favour of those who state the facts as to
these borrowings, and at once put them aside as negligible
quantities. They rightly proclaim, in order to safeguard
Chaucer's originality, that in borrowing so largely, he
only did what the other writers of his day had done, what
a Shakespeare, a Moliere, or a La Fontaine would do later.
If Chaucer's debt were limited to these details, we could
indeed make light of it, but he owes another debt, far
greater and more diffused, indefinable and yet quite
certain. It does not consist in some special bounty
conferred on him: it is a legacy which he enjoyed. Or

THE MAKING OF CHAUCER 57

rather, it should not be looked for amongst the gifts of
fortune, but in his very nature. His mind was French,
like his name. He was a direct descendant of the French
trouveres and he had all that was theirs, save the
language. It is precisely in his efforts to render the
English language literary and poetical, that the fact is
most easily detected. Not that Chaucer gallicised grammar
and vocabulary more than did his contemporaries, but, the
first great literary artist in his country, he tried to express,
and did express, in his own language, the poetical beauty
which he felt in French verse, and which happened to be
that which instinctively he most desired. We may add
that he expressed no other, if style alone be considered.
Absolutely nothing of the Anglo-Saxon literary past sub-
sisted in his verse, although it was being revived around
him, very little modified as to form and spirit. Now, there
is something which appears very characteristic to one who
has read the forcible and sombre, fervent and often turbid,
effusions of the old English poetry before the Norman
conquest, and that is that in passing from these to Chaucer,
we experience exactly the same sense of surprise at the
absolute difference, the same impression of change in the
air and sky, of a voice tuned to another key, which
come to us when we leave these same productions to
read the early French trouveres. And we find that pre-
cisely the same terms are needed to characterise alike the
atmosphere of old French verse or of Chaucerian poetry.

How are we to define those characteristics which make
him French in essentials? For those who are familiar
with the trouveres (I allude to the best of these only,
the others do not count), no such explanation is needed.
But no reader gets so strong and clear an impression as
the one who encounters them on coming out of that long

58 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

darkness, seamed by lightning and strange glimmerings,
which corresponds to Anglo-Saxon poetry. It is above
all a sensation of daylight regained: it is an incipient
clarity, but not that one, as has been too often implied,
which is a purely abstract quality, made up of instinctive
logic; or negative and due to an absence of subtle and
rare symbolism. It is that, no doubt, and coupled with
what it carries with it, the gift of story-telling and the
instinct for clear, abundant, and well-ordained detail. But
it is infinitely more. It is a light as real as that of dawn,
flooding all things and gladdening men's eyes. The word
" clair," one of those gems of the French language, which
expresses this sensation, is, if one looks into it, the favourite
expression of the old French poets, constantly met with
in the Chanson de Roland, to which it gives its lucid atmos-
phere. It is curious to see how eagerly Chaucer picked
it up and used it to render the same effects in so many of
his finest passages. He hung it at the end of the most
lovely line of his prayer to the Virgin Mary —

Continue on us thy piteous eyen clere.

An A B C, 1. 88.

He used it most effectively at the beginning of his ballad to
the beauties of yester-year —

Hyd, Absolon, thy gilte tresses clere.

Legend of Good Women, Prologue A, 1. 203.

He applied it to sounds with no less felicitousness, when
he spoke of the bells on the monk's bridle, which could be

heard

Ginglen in a whistling wind as clere,

And eek as loude as dooth the chapel-belle.

Canterbury Tales, Prologue, 1. 170.

The light which pervades Chaucer's work, fine and white,
rarely touching the higher colouring of southern poetry,

THE MAKING OF CHAUCER 59

is precisely of the same quality as that of the Ile-de-
France. Nothing is better calculated to give us the
impression that with him we have not changed climate.
As in the case of the French trouveres, there runs through
his work a joyousness born of the pleasure of living,
and which shows itself in a partiality to sunny scenes,
a constant reminiscence of spring time, may-bushes,
flowers, birds, and music. There is a line in which he sums
up the description of the squire's youthfulness, and which
might be used to define his whole poetry (what else is the
brilliant essay by the American writer Lowell but a
commentary on this line ?) —

He was as fresh as is the month of May.

Canterbury Tales, Prologue, 1. 92.

Now, though this line may never be found in Chaucer's
predecessors, it is quite French: it is, as it were, the essence
of early French poetry: it falls back into a French deca-
syllabic as into its natural mould —

II etait frais comme le mois de mai.

The sound of Chaucer's voice is like our trouveres\ neither
too high nor too low. The tone of it, like theirs, is pure and
a little thin. It never swells, for he would rather muffle
it. It is an even voice tuned to relate without fatigue or
jar a long story, not rich nor full enough perhaps for the
highest lyrical strains, but kept up to the medium pitch,
whereby meaning is most clearly and correctly conveyed
to the mind. Again, his charm is derived from an easy
simplicity, from a perfect correspondence of words to
thought — his best lines being simply notations of facts,
external details, or traits of sentiment. He exhibits a
constant restraint in emotion and satire alike, which debars
screams and sobs, which softens irony into sly mischief,

60 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

and provokes a quiet smile rather than uproarious laughter.
There is everywhere an impression of sober sense, which
implies a watchful intelligence rather than wild passion,
and which a final analysis shows to proceed from a perfect
balance of mind and temper.

These qualities belong to the old French poets and to
Chaucer alike. We see his literary origin confirmed by
the fact that he has them all and does not go beyond them,
except on rare occasions and under Italian influence, when
he soars simultaneously, one feels, above the usual virtues
of the French mind and of his own. Whenever he goes
outside France, he also goes, in some measure, outside his
own nature.

It should be added that together with the virtues of
the French trouveres, he exhibits those defects which are
to be found even in the best of them. Like them, he is
often oblivious of the art of condensation; like them, he
chatters often with charm, but it must be allowed that it
is chattering. On occasion he lacks vigour and spirit;
he loiters where he ought to quicken his pace; he walks
where he ought to fly. His poetry, when restrained,
borders on prose; it is at times clumsy, slow and even
commonplace; it pads many a line with expletives which
are not the less superfluous for being unassuming. And
to make the resemblance complete, these obvious defects
are cleverly turned into account, thanks to an air of sim-
plicity and artlessness, and they are used sometimes to
convey his most subtle humour.

These characteristics are not confined to his youth alone,
but remain permanent throughout his career. It is wrong
to speak of the French period of Chaucer's development.
He is always French, but as a French writer might also do,
he drew treasures from other lands, he saw and marvelled

THE MAKING OF CHAUCER 61

at the beauty of antiquity or of Italy. Thus, to a ground-
work which never disappeared, he added some Italian and
Latin variations, and in the end again, it was in his French
style and manner that he painted contemporary society
in England.

Ill

He seems to have begun with lyric poetry, making known
to his countrymen the learned new forms — ballad, virelai,
rondeau — which Machaut had just brought into fashion
in France. If nothing remains of these first attempts,
nothing at least which can be identified with certainty, his
later work offers a sufficient number of specimens of his
skill in this style. It is in truth but a tiny stream of lyric
which skirts the large fields of his narrative productions,
and it is not by any means the most characteristic, nor
curiously enough the most personal part of his work. But
it is here we catch the artist in his studio. Whether it
treats of love or piety or morals, his lyric poetry is always
an imitation as regards form, and nearly always as regards
subject. He uses it less to express his feelings than to
train his style and versification. That is why it should be
studied, without any consideration of date, before passing
to other forms, in which he left a deeper personal mark.

The natural conclusion of what has been said is that he
lacked almost wholly that passion and fire, that airy fancy,
which are characteristic of truly lyric poets. We find in
him none of those " translunary things," or of that " fine
frenzy," upon which the English Renaissance poets were
later to pride themselves. We find witli him no trace of
those spontaneous songs in free rhythm, which form the

62 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

delicious undergrowth, as it were, of Elizabethan poetry.
He is more attracted to story-telling than to singing. He
has more tranquillity than enthusiasm. He is little given
to flights of fancy in his verse. Hence, he is never loth to
imprison his feelings in the most rigid frames devised by
French poets.

He soon proved as successful at this exercise as the
cleverest of them. His virelais are lost, but we still
have a triple rondel on a " Merciles Beaute," for whom
the poet sings at first his unrequited passion. It is mere
amorous convention without a quiver of the voice. But
any trouvere might have been happy to put his name
to this trifle, the first part of which we quote here, as it is
the best —

Your yen two wol slee me sodejily,

I may the beaute of hem not sustene,

So woundeth hit through-out my herte kene.

And but your word wol helen hastily
My hertes wounde, whyl that hit is grene,
Your yen two wol slee me sodenly,
I may the beaute of hem not sustene.

Upon my trouthe I sey yow feithfully,

That ye ben of my lyf and deeth the quene;

For with my deeth the trouthe shal be sene.

Your yen two wol slee me sodenly,

I may the beaute of hem not sustene,

So woundeth hit through-out my herte kene.

Merciles Beaute, I. Captivity.1

The workman's skill is here as evident as the depth of
the passion remains doubtful. Should the reader be prone

1 Mr. J. L. Lowes, who has done more than any single critic to
show Chaucer's indebtedness to his French contemporaries, has
pointed out, as the probable models of this " triple roundel," two
short poems of Eustache Deschamps. (See The Modern Language
Review, January 1910.)

THE MAKING OF CHAUCER 63

to sympathise with the dying lover, he will soon be
undeceived. The last of the three rondels will reduce the
whole thing to a mere joke. In it Chaucer seems to scoff
at the very style he has just employed —

Sin I fro Love escaped am so fat,

I never thenk to ben in his prison lene;

Sin I am free, I counte him not a bene.

Merciles Beaute, III. Escape.

But Chaucer was decidedly susceptible to the kind of
emotion which comes chiefly through the ear and which
a pleasant rhythm can arouse, albeit the heart may have
been but little stirred at first. A good proof of it is sup-
plied by his prayer to the Virgin, his " A B C." The
learned critic Ten Brink, basing his opinion on this prayer
as well as on some other effusions addressed to the Virgin
Mary, which are to be found in Chaucer's work, concluded
that he must have passed through a period of intense
devotion, more especially towards the Virgin Mary. That
is possible. But we are told on the other hand that the
"ABC" was written by command, to please the Duchess
Blanche, and we also know that this prayer, like the other
pieces dedicated to Mary, is an almost literal translation.
It is a version of a passage in the Pelerinage de la vie
humaine, written about 1330 by Guillaume de Deguileville,
a monk of the abbey of Chan's. The passage in point is
a puerile devotional composition, a sort of rosary in honour
of Our Lady, of which the first letter of each of the twenty-
three stanzas corresponds to one of the letters of the
alphabet, taken in order. Chaucer followed Deguileville
stanza after stanza, preserving the meaning, without,
however, being too much at pains to reproduce it exactly.
It seems as if the subject mattered little to him; he does
not always understand the French very well and he does

64 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

not care. What he aimed at was the artistic effect. He
rejected the original French stanza of twelve octosyllables
on two rhymes, which was flat, monotonous, and dull, very
little superior to those lines in which are taught the com-
mandments of God and the church. Instead, he used the
more ample dissyllabic verse and the eight-line stanza
of the French courtly ballad, with its delicate interlaced
rhymes. He introduced also cleverly devised pauses to
express or imitate emotion. What a contrast if we com-
pare the results! Deguileville prayed to the Virgin in this
wise to save him from sin —

Temple saint ou Dieu habite
Dont prive sont li herite
Et a tous jours desherite,
A toy vieng, de toy me herite,
Recoif moi par ta merite,
Car de toi n'ai point hesite.
El si je me suis herite
Des espincs d'iniquite
Par quoy terre fu maudite,
Las m'en clain en verite,
Car a ce fait m'a excite
L'ame qui n'en est pas quite.

And here is what Chaucer made out of this poor material —

Temple devout, ther God hath his woninge,
Fro which these misbileved pryved been,
To you my soule penitent I bringe.
Receyve me! I can no ferther fleen!
With thornes venimous, O hevene queen,
For which the erthe acursed was ful yore,
I am so wounded, as ye may wel seen,
That I am lost almost; — it smert so sore.

An A B C, 11. 145-152.

By means of an improved stanza, a more ample rhythm
and a more dramatic tone, especially at the end, Chaucer

THE MAKING OF CHAUCER 65

attains a fervour of which his model was incapable. Let
who will examine the two prayers as a whole and he will
find that Chaucer's, which is essentially artistic — I feel it
is so and crave Ten Brink's pardon — is also the most
moving, and the more spontaneous prayer of the pious
Cistercian monk seems cold beside it.

Chaucer was no less sensitive to the sound and attractive-
ness of words than he was to rhythm. He knew the charm
inherent in a list of proper names rightly chosen. French
poetry was already groping after the " ballade des neiges
d'antan," and took a melancholy pleasure in enumerating
the beautiful ladies of yester-year. There existed a ballad
on this subject before Chaucer, rather prettily turned —

Hester, Judith, Penelope, Helaine,
Sarre, Tisbe, Rebeque et Sairy,
Lucresse, Yseult, Genevre, chastelaine
La tres loial nominee de Vergy,
Rachel et la dame de Fayel
One ne furent si precieux jouel
D'honneur, bonte, senz, beaute et valour
Con est ma tres doulce dame d'onnour.

Si d' Absalon la grant beaute humaine . . .

Tristan, ed. Francisque Michel, vol. i. p. 38.

The rest of the ballad is in praise of the valorous and the
wise. Chaucer read this ballad and closely imitated it
in the one which he put in the centre of his prologue to the
Legend of Good Women. He is also graceful, and might
appear more so if one could read his song without remem-
bering Villon's, vibrating with regret for the things which
are no more. It is remarkable that he is again more con-
cerned about fine lines than about the meaning; he retains
two masculine names, Absalom and Jonathan, amongst
feminine beauties, who alone ought to be named in his

66 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

poem, and does so because he cannot bring himself to
sacrifice the first line which pleases his ear —

Hyd, Absolon, thy gilte tresses clere.

Legend of Good Women, Prologue A, 1. 203.

And it is precisely through this feeling for the sound of
words, that Chaucer attained the verbal lyrical qualities
into which he initiated his countrymen.

He displays a similar dexterity here and there in his
original verse. On two or three occasions even, it is
animated by a warmth which makes him a real singer. He
is this certainly in the first two stanzas of his Compleynt of
Mars, where a bird hails the dawn of Saint Valentine's day —

" Gladeth, ye foules, of the morow gray,
Lo ! Venus risen among yon rowes rede !
And floures fresshe, honoureth ye this day;
For when the sonne uprist, then wol ye sprede.
But ye lovers, that lye in any drede,
Flee'th, lest wikked tonges yow espye;
Lo ! yond the sonne, the candel of lelosye !

With teres blewe, and with a wounded herte
Taketh you leve; and, with seynt lohn to borow,
Apeseth somwhat of your sorowes smerte,
Tyme cometh eft, that cese shal your sorow;
The glade night is worth an hevy morow! " —
(Saynt Valentyne ! a foul thus herde I singe
Upon thy day, er sonne gan up-springe).

The Compleynt of Mars, The Proem, 11. 1-14.

This is a really charming dawn song. But the skylark
soon comes back to earth, and the jog-trot of prose follows
closely on the flight of song. Chaucer has sustained
better and more often the elegiac note. His complaint
of Anelida to Arcite, who had forsaken her, is a
beautiful thing, despite its monotonous length. Here the
tender soul of the poet, easily moved by human woes,
especially if they be feminine, successfully expresses in a

THE MAKING OF CHAUCER 67

variety of complicated and marvellously difficult rhythms,
the sincere effusions of a bruised heart, still amorous and
ready to forgive in the height of its undeserved sorrow.
As regards subject and as a tour de force in rhyme, it is a
match for Machaut's Lay de Plour. Chaucer prepared
himself for this elegy by several trial poems which have
survived, and which testify to his artistic care. But here
art does not kill pathos. He can impart the ring of
truth to Anelida's voice and make her express the most
touching thoughts, while submitting himself to the most
exacting verse-scheme —

Alas ! wher is become your gentilesse !
Your wordes ful of plesaunce and humblesse ?
Your observaunces in so low manere,
And your awayting and your besinesse
Upon me, that ye calden your maistresse,
Your sovereyn lady in this worlde here ?
Alas ! and is ther nother word ne chere
Ye vouchesauf upon myn hevinesse ?
Alas ! your love, I bye hit al to dere.

Anclida and Arcite, 11. 247-255.

The metrical artifice is still heightened in the following
stanza, without however hampering the easy flow of
emotion. Nay, the emotion is even increased by the
number of pauses and the brevity of those rhymed frag-
ments which seem punctuated with sighs —

My swete foo, why do ye so, for shame ?

And thenke ye that furthered be your name,

To love a newe, and been untrew-e ? nay !

And putte yow in sclaunder now and blame,

And do to me adversitee and grame,

That love you most, god, wel thou wost! alway?

Yet turn ayeyn, and be al pleyn som day,

And than shal this that now is mis be game,

And al for-yive, whyl that I liv-e may.

Anflida and Arcite, 11. 272-280.

68 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

The sustained pathos of the complaint of Anelida was
never repeated in Chaucer's lyrical work. The measured
tone of the story-teller, which was customary with him,
spread gradually to all his productions. Nevertheless, up
to the end, he practised on occasions those exercises in
lyrical form which had been his first concern. Several
later ballads have been preserved, but they are either
moral or humoristic.

The distinguishing features of the moral ballads are their
dominant gravity and unusual compactness. There is
nothing new in the thoughts expressed by the poet.
Chaucer generally borrowed them from the philosophical
treatises of his beloved Boethius, and discreetly adapted
them to his own times. These ballads were of course
inspired by the misfortunes and the vices which met his
eye, but he preserved in them all a certain vagueness of
allusion. The one called Truth, which is perhaps the last he
wrote, and also the most beautiful and noble, is an appeal
to men to flee from the world and turn their minds to God.
Composed of a number of maxims, it is full and vigorous.
But one is surprised to find that even in such a short
composition Chaucer cannot keep up the exalted tone.
Interspersed between purely religious stanzas, to one's
astonishment one reads a stanza full of practical and
worldly advice, of utilitarian and even egoistic wisdom,
written in a popular, homely style —

Tempest thee noght al croked to redresse,
In trust of hir that turneth as a, bal:
Gret reste stant in litel besinesse;
And eek be war to sporne ageyn an al;
Stryve noght, as doth the crokke with the wal.
Daunte thy-self, that dauntest otheres dede;
And trouthe shal delivere, hit is no drede.

Truth, 11. 8-14.

69

This irresistible tendency to familiarity is a characteristic
common to all the more personal ballads of the poet. They
are really familiar epistles, similar to many of those written
at that time by Deschamps, but marked by Chaucer's
peculiar playfulness: the Compleint to his purse, which
Marot might have signed; Lenvoy to JBukton, where
Chaucer dissuades his friend from marrying, and, in order to
convince him, sends him his Wyf of Bathe ; Lenvoy a
Scogan, where he declares himself too old a bird to write
love-verses again. In proportion as he breaks away from
imitation and expresses his true nature, he relinquishes
the lyrical heights for the comic plane, and the only thing
he retains of that particular style, is the difficult and
complex arrangement of verse and rhyme. It is no
accident therefore that he should have composed in a
mocking tone the most vivid and artistic of his ballads —
the one with which the clerk of the pilgrimage concludes
his story of Griselida, ironically entreating women not to
imitate the excessive patience of which Griselida was once
guilty.

On the whole, apart from a few lively or moving passages,
Chaucer is but rarely and weakly lyrical. It cannot be
said that in this style he rises much above his French
contemporaries, and it is impossible to place him on the
same rank with Petrarch. But it was important that he
did aim at lyrical poetry and at times hit the mark. These
moments were so many flights towards verbal beauty and
sonorous verse. If Chaucer had not fashioned his style
by cultivating the ballad, rondeau, and other delicate
stanzas, he could not very well have become the poet he
was in the narrative style towards which his natural
genius led him, and which easily becomes prosy. We
should not have had the burning stanzas of Troilus and

70 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

Criseyde, where he vies with Boccaccio in passion, nor the
Prioress's Tale, where he brings into play all the resources
of a highly-trained style in order to suggest a suave art-
lessness. Who knows even if he would have been capable
of the energy and vividness which characterise the couplet
of his Knightes Tale ? One can go further and ask whether,
verging so closely on vulgarity, he could have asserted
himself as a poet even in the licentious tales of the Miller,
the Reeve, and the Somnour. His comic verse, lusty and
racy, with its strong regular rhythm and yet suppleness
enough to render the inflexions of the speaking voice, is
partly the outcome of the fine lyrical exercises by which
he trained himself.

Finally, this lyrical preamble should not be isolated
from the rest of his productions. It is but part of a whole,
it is the summit and the crown of his work. It is the most
elevated of the diverse styles practised by Chaucer. The
poet's varied powers would appear to us impoverished and
lessened, if his voice had not been capable here and there
of some vocal triumphs. One aspect would be missing
in a work whose chief excellence lies perhaps in the variety
and contrasts of its aspects.

CHAPTER III

THE ALLEGORICAL POEMS

I. The Book of the Duchesse. II. The Parlement of Foules.
III. The Hous of Fame. IV. The Legend of Good Women.

APART from this narrow fringe of lyrical verse, Chaucer's
work appears as purely narrative, and falls into two clearly
defined groups. In the first part of his literary career, he
submitted to the restrictions of a style which had been
popularised by the Roman de la Rose-, in the second part he
freed himself from them. If the chronology of his works,
as established by patient inquirers, tends to show that
during a few years of his life he cultivated both styles at
once, we must remember that this chronology often rests
on slender presumptions, and refrain from too strict an
acceptance of it.1 In any case, it seems preferable to be
guided in the study of the work by this clear idea of progress
towards freedom. The other divisions which have been
suggested are all faulty in some way or other. The one
for instance which classes the poems according to three
successive periods, French, Italian, and English, risks the
implication of an error. As we said, there is not a single
moment at which Chaucer was not under French influence;
it is no less evident in the Canterbury Tales than it is in the
Book of the Duchesse. If, on the other hand, it is certain
that in his allegorical poems, ever after the Parlement

1 Since this was written, the arguments of Mr. Lowes, tending to
prove that Troilus was written after the Hous of Fame, have further
increased the conformity of the chronology to the artistic develop-
ment.

72 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

of Foules, Chaucer borrowed from the Italians, these
imitations are like ornaments arranged on a permanent
background. They may be temporarily disregarded, in
order not to obscure the dominant fact that Chaucer, in the
first period of his maturity, obeys the artistic formula set
down in the Roman de la Rose. This characteristic is
common to all the poems which will be studied in this
chapter.

I

The first of Chaucer's poems, and almost the only one
which can be dated with any certainty, is that which he
wrote towards his thirtieth year on the occasion of the death
of the Duchess Blanche of Lancaster, which occurred in
1369. The "good duchess" was mourned by more than
one. Froissart wrote a few graceful lines about her in his
Jolt buisson de Jeunesse —

Elle morut jone et jolie
Environ de vingt et deus ans,
Gaie, lie, friche, esbatans,
Douce, simple, d'umble samblance;
La bonne dame ot a nom Blanche.

The duke's sorrow was no doubt as violent as it was quickly
assuaged. Chaucer, who may have experienced some
personal regret over this premature end, desired to please
John of Gaunt by praising the virtues of the spouse and the
grief of the survivor. He called into play all his erudition
and all his art, without scrupling to embody in his long
elegy verses previously written, such as the story of Ceyx
and Alcyone, in which he had imitated Ovid and to an
extent the Dit de la Fontaine Amoureuse by Machaut. The
result of this great effort was a voluminous and composite
funeral monument, which surprises us to-day by its arti-

THE ALLEGORICAL POEMS 73

ficially rather than ingeniously complicated plan, but
where Chaucer's nature nevertheless peeps out in places,
in the shape of fresh and dainty flowers, which grow in
abundance between the stones of this elaborate piece of
flamboyant architecture.

The framework of the poem is purely conventional.
First there is a proem, where Chaucer complains of not
being able to sleep. This insomnia, of which he does not
know the cause, deprives him of all joy. He has been
suffering from this complaint for eight years; one doctor
alone could cure him (understand some " merciless beauty"),
but he will not say any more on this subject. Now, a few
nights ago, as sleep persistently fled from him, he had a
romance brought to him, the Metamorphoses of Ovid. The
story he read was that of Ceyx and Alcyone.

King Ceyx was shipwrecked and drowned. His wife
Alcyone awaited him in sorrow, and then had a search made
for him in vain. Her grief breaks the poet's heart, as he
reads about her misfortune. Alcyone prayed to Juno and
begged her to give her back her husband, or at least to let
her know in a dream what had become of him. Juno
thereupon dispatched a messenger to Morpheus, the god
of dreams, ordering him to cause the shade of Ceyx to
appear before Alcyone. Ceyx informed Alcyone of his
death, and asked that burial be given him. But Alcyone
woke up broken-hearted and died on the third day.

Here Chaucer stops reading, without going as far as the
metamorphoses of the pair into halcyons. He has now
learnt what he wanted to know, to wit, the existence of a
God who governs sleep. Heretofore, he only knew one
God. He takes a vow to give Morpheus rich offerings,
a feather bed and pure white doves, and sleep is granted
him. In his sleep there comes to him such a marvellous

74 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

dream that neither Joseph nor Macrobius could explain it.
This dream is the poem itself.

Like most of the poems of the time, Chaucer's dream
begins with the vision of a beautiful May morning. What
his scheme lacks in originality, Chaucer makes up for by the
wealth and charm of detail. Far back beyond Machaut and
Guillaume de Lorris, he joins hands here with Chrestien de
Troyes, whom he did not know, and recalls the latter's
prettiest decorative pictures.

He fancies that he has been awakened by the singing of
a multitude of birds. He looks out of the window and finds
them sitting on the tiles of his chamber-roof, singing

The most solempne servyse

By note, that ever man . . .

Had herd ; for some of hem song lowe,

Some hye, and al of oon acorde.

The Book of the Duchesse, 11. 302-305.

The place where he stands is not unworthy of this heavenly
melody —

And, soth to seyn, my chambre was

Ful wel depeynted, and with glas

Were al the windowes wel y-glased,

Ful clere, and nat an hole y-crased,

That to beholde hit was grete loye.

For hoolly al the storie of Troye

Was in the glasing y-wroght thus,

Of Ector and King Priamus,

Of Achilles and Lamedon,

Of Medea and of lason,

Of Paris, Eleyne, and Lavyne.

And alle the walles with colours fyne

Were peynted, bothe text and glose,

[Of] al the Romaunce of the Rose.

My windowes weren shet echon,

And through the glas the sunne shon

Upon my bed with brighte bemes,

With many glade gilden stremes,

THE ALLEGORICAL POEMS 75

And eek the welken was so fair,
Blew, bright, clere was the air,
And f ul atempre, for sothe, hit was ;
For nother cold nor hoot hit nas,
Ne in al the welken was a cloude.

The Book of the Duchesse, 11. 321-343.

Suddenly, he hears the sound of a hunting horn under his
window, and sees a troup of huntsmen go past. He mounts
his horse and joins them. He learns from one of the riders
that they form the hunting party of the Emperor Octavian.
After a long chase, the stag they had started puts the dogs
off the scent. The poet is walking away from the tree
where he has been stationed, when a whelp comes to him
and fawns on him. He tries to catch it, but it escapes
and leads him down a path of flowery grass, a delight-
ful avenue planted with tall trees ten feet apart, and full
of deer, roe and fawns, which run away on seeing him.
There he espies a man in black, leaning with his back
against an oak. He is a tall fine-looking knight of about
four and twenty. (As a matter of fact John of Gaunt
was then twenty-nine.) Approaching unnoticed, Chaucer
hears him lamenting, the while he hangs his head down.
He listens and finds that the knight is reciting in the
most sorrowful voice a complaint of some ten or twelve
verses, the subject of which is the death of a peerless
lady. The knight has hardly uttered it when the blood
rushes back to his heart and he turns as pale as death.
He seems about to faint. The poet goes up to him and
with difficulty makes his presence known. After exchang-
ing a few courteous words, he remarks that the hunt seems
at an end, to which the knight replies that he has no thought
of the hunt. Begged by the poet to communicate to him
the cause of his sorrow and thereby make it lighter to bear,
he answers that there is no possible alleviation for his woe,

76 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

and bursts out into a sort of antithetic complaint. His
delight has been turned into despair. In a bold figure of
speech, which anticipates the rhetoric of Shakespeare's
Constance, he exclaims —

I am sorwe and sorwe is I.

The Book of the Duchesse, 1. 597.

He accuses perfidious Fortune, who has taken his queen
away at chess and checkmated him. The poet does not
understand the simile, and upbraids the stranger for enter-
taining a sorrow which is out of proportion with the cause.
Thereupon the knight decides to speak without metaphor.
From his early youth, he said, he had been Love's tributary,
but his passion had no definite object. He was like an
unsullied tablet, ready to receive all that the hand might
wish to portray or paint. Now, one day, he came upon
a company of ladies playing and dancing, and noticed one
among them who surpassed all in beauty

as the somere's sonne bright
Is fairer, clerer, and hath more light
Than any planete [is] in heven,
The mone, or the sterres seven. . . .

The Book of the Duchesse, 11. 821-824.

He said to himself that it would be better to love this one
in vain than to win all the others. Her look was frank;
it drew and held yours. She was all harmony and balance,
neither too serious nor too glad. She knew nothing of
love as yet, and entertained for all good people the feelings
of a sister. The beauty of her face was such that to
attempt to describe it seems to him useless, but

be hit never so derke
Me thinketh I see her ever-mo.

The Book of the Duchesse, 11. 912-913.

THE ALLEGORICAL POEMS 77

Her speech was soft, eloquent, free from scorn, incapable
of harming any one, and frank

her simple recorde
Was founde as trewe as any bonde,
Or trouthe of any mannes honde.

The Book of the Duchesse, 11. 933-936.

Her neck was

whyt, smothe, streght, and flat,
Withouten hole . . .

The Book of the Duchesse, 11. 942-943.

Her throat

Semed a round tour of yvoire.

The Book of the Duchesse, 1. 946.

Her name was Whyte (Blanche). He could never tire of
describing the beauty of her body. Among ten thousand,
she would have proved the outstanding ornament of a
company —

Me thoght the felawship as naked

Withouten her, that saw I ones,

As a coroune withoute stones.

The Book of the Duchesse, 11. 978-980.

Her virtue equalled her charm. Her goodness, moderation,
and reason could not be told. And a last trait, she did not
like setting those who loved her, distant and dangerous
enterprises.

Her accomplishments were so great and so varied that
the poet can hardly believe them: he insinuates that this
is an ideal portrait, drawn by a lover. But the knight
swears that it is not so. After an ostentatious display
of his knowledge of ancient history, he declares that had
he been the foremost amongst the heroes of those glorious
times, he would none the less have held her for a woman
of surpassing merit. Then he gives an account of their
first meetings, at which everything took place according

78 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

to th£ rules of courteous love. For a long time the young
man had no other desire than to see his lady, for in her
pfesence all his sufferings vanished. But after a while he
felt that the time had come to declare his love or to die —

With sorweful herte, and woundes dede,
Softe and quaking for pure drede
And shame, and stinting in my tale
For ferde, and myn hewe al pale,
Ful ofte I wex bothe pale and reed ;
Bowing to her, I heng the heed ;
I durste nat ones loke her on,
For wit, manere, and al was gon.
I seyde " mercy! " and no more;

The Book of the Duchesse, 11. 1211-1219.

He plucked up heart, however, spoke and swore to her love
and devotion eternal. But she answered " No," and he,
more unhappy than Cassandra, went away without daring
to say another word. He lived for a whole year in great
despondency, and then boldness came back to him and he
once more declared his love. This time the lady under-
stood that his devotion was real, and that he could not live
without her.

So whan my lady knew al this,
My lady yaf me al hoolly
The noble yift of her mercy.

The Book of the Duchesse, 11. 1768-1770.

This seemed to the lover like coming back to life. They
married, and he says how sweet their union had been,
undisturbed till the end —

Therwith she was alway so trewe,
Our loye was ever y-liche newe;
Our hertes wern so even a payre,
That never nas that oon contrayre
To that other for no wo.
For sothe, y-liche they suffred tho

THE ALLEGORICAL POEMS 79

Oo blisse and eek oo sorwe bothe;

Y-liche they were bothe gladde and wrothe;

Al was us oon, withoute were.

And thus we lived ful many a yere

So wel, I can nat telle how.1

The Book of the Duchesse, 11. 1287-1297.

" Where is she now ? " asks Chaucer, who requires a detailed
explanation in order to understand. " It is she that I have
lost," replies the knight, " she is dead."—" Nay! "— " Yis,
by my trouthe! " — " Is that your loss? By God! hit is
routhe! "

The poet had no time to say more, for the hunt was
over and the huntsmen returned suddenly. King Octavian
rode back to his palace, and as he got there a bell struck
twelve. The sound awoke the poet, who found himself
lying in his bed, still holding in his hand the book where
he had read the story of Ceyx and Alcyone. Whereupon
he resolved to turn this dream into verse.

As a matter of fact, he composed 1334 octosyllabics
about it, which seems a good deal. The work contains
some accessories which obviously burden it, and which
might be suppressed to advantage. The proem has
charm, but forms a story almost complete in itself. Half
the effusions of the doleful knight are marred by trivial
antithesis, and exhibit a pedantry which spoils his pathetic
complaint. Everywhere we find a sort of loose verbosity,
the matter is too often diluted, and there are many
repetitions.

French poets are often put under contribution, even in
places where the elegy seems most personal and the des-
criptions most life-like. The description of the flowery
path into which the little dog leads the poet, is made up

1 This is a close translation of some pretty lines in Machaut's
poem, Jugemcnt du bon roi de Bchaignc.

8o GEOFFREY CHAUCER

of lines and fragments of lines taken from the Roman de la
Rose. The Duchess surely owes to Nature some of her
charms of body and soul; but some are also derived
from the Dit du Vergier, the Fontaine Amoureuse, the
Remede de Fortune, and the Jugement du ban roi de Behaigne
by Machaut. Yet, in spite of these reservations, the Book
of the Duchesse is a remarkable work, delightful in parts,
and exhibiting an original talent which shows through
imitation itself. Moreover, we must not forget the time
and place at which it was written. It is the first poem in
English where art attains at times the level of excellence.
This must be said without any restrictions. The six
following lines may be quoted for instance as being equal
for simple pathos, for the harmonious adaptation of metre
to meaning and sentiment, for the music of the rhyme,
to the most delicate productions of Tennyson himself.
This first instance of perfect beauty in English poetry is
worth remembering. It is the passage relating the death
of Alcyone, and the first three lines contain the farewell
addressed to her by the shade of Ceyx —

" And far-wel, swete, my worldes blisse!

I praye god your sorwe lisse;

To litel whyl our blisse lasteth! "

With that her eyen up she casteth,

And saw noght; " [A] ! " quod she for sorwe,

And deyed within the thridde morwe.

The Book of the Duchesse, 11. 209-214.

There are to be found throughout the whole poem other
exquisite touches, which seem all the more remarkable
that the poetic language was only just out of its infancy.
We notice here and there lines to which the felicitous
association of the most ordinary words imparts a distinct
character —

She used gladly to do well. 1013

THE ALLEGORICAL POEMS 81

And these well-shaped lines, strangely enough, are found
next to slack expletives and shameless stop-gaps —

Hir throte, as I have now memoire,

Semed a round tour of yvoire. — 11. 945-946.

Thus, we are able to see, almost at one glance, the starting
and the culminating point of Chaucerian art.

At the same time, he introduced into the most factitious
of all poetic styles a sense of reality and a dramatic
force, which brought life and colour to the conventions
he dealt with. Instinctively, and thanks to the natural
and easy swing of the dialogue, Chaucer rediscovered and
brought to the allegory qualities which were to be found
in the old verse romances. Under what proves here to be
the beneficial influence of Machaut's dits, he substituted
human beings for the personified abstractions of the
Roman de la Rose. But he went much further than
Machaut in the way of realism. It is a conversation, on
the whole brisk and natural, which takes place between
him and the unknown knight. Moreover, the dramatic
tone of the narrative, it should be noticed, counteracts
defects which are even turned to account and which add
to likelihood. The verbosity of the bereaved knight, his
repetitions, the desultory way in which he enumerates the
virtues of his mistress, are certainly in keeping in a spon-
taneous effusion like his. Thanks to these, the narrative
loses its stilted and didactic character. The very fact
that his confidence is so prolific and disconnected, imparts
to it a certain pathos. Moreover, in the attitude of the
confidant, who is none other than the poet himself, we can
already detect the Chaucerian humour. For the first time
he describes himself as the man " of little wit," slow of
understanding, who marvels at a great passion, the lyrical
elevation of which is beyond him. So that nearly all the

82 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

characteristics of Chaucerian poetry can be found indicated
here in this still somewhat clumsy poem, which closes the
period of his youth.

II

Thirteen years later Chaucer turned once more to alle-
gory, when in 1382 he wished to celebrate the betrothal of
Richard II. to Anne of Bohemia. Anne, the daughter of
the Emperor Charles IV., had been affianced in turn to a
Bavarian prince and to a margrave of Missenia; but after
some negotiations which, according to Froissart, lasted a
whole year, her hand was finally given to the young King
of England. It is not at all certain, but it is probable,
that this betrothal was the event commemorated by
Chaucer in his Parlement of Foules. He had been one of the
negotiators who discussed and rejected a proposal of
marriage between Richard and one of the daughters of
the King of France. It was therefore only natural that,
after acting the diplomatist in the matter, he should have
seized the opportunity of playing the poet's part. His
reading had widened considerably since writing the Book
of the Duchesse. He had gained closer intimacy with the
ancients, and he had become acquainted with Italian poets,
without however losing touch with his French models. In
consequence, his poem is a curious mixture of imitations of
all sorts. The title and part of the subject were suggested
to him by a lai of Marie de France, Li Parlemens des
oiseaux pour faire Roi. Alain de 1'Isle, in his Planctus
Nature, supplied the picture of nature on whose garment
the various species of birds are represented. The Dream
of Scipio by Cicero, with the commentary by Macrobius,
served him for prologue. In order to describe the ideal

THE ALLEGORICAL POEMS 83

garden where the scene takes place, he turned to the
Roman de la Rose, to Claudianus' Raptus Proserpina, and
to Boccaccio's Theseide. Here and there are to be found
a few borrowings from the Divina Commedia. This in-
creased wealth burdens the work, but it does not prevent
its remaining true to the type of fashionable contemporary
allegories, in the French style. Where Chaucer, under
Italian influence — and more especially that of Boccaccio —
really separates himself from his first masters, is in the use
of a decasyllabic stanza instead of the monotonous octo-
syllabic couplet. This renders his touch at once broader
and more vigorous, but still an impression of conven-
tionality and artificiality remains, if indeed it is not
increased.

After reading an old book by " Tullius," relating how the
African appeared to Scipio in his sleep, and revealed to
him the happy place where virtuous men dwell after their
death, the poet falls asleep. The African then appears to
him also and leads him to the gate of a palace, on each
half of which is written a different inscription, one inviting,
the other threatening; the latter reminds one faintly
(without the awe-inspiring effect, it is true) of the famous
line, read by Dante at the entrance of the Inferno. Like
a piece of iron between two loadstones, the poet hesitates.
His guide reassures him promptly, by telling him that the
inscriptions were meant for Love's servants, of which he is
no longer one. He could go in without fear and be an
interested spectator in a contest, in which he was not
called upon to take part. Thereupon, Chaucer enters the
marvellous garden. He describes the trees, the flowers,
the singing of the innumerable birds, the ravishing sounds
of musical instruments, the soft whispering of the winds,
the clear and temperate air. Soon, he discovers Cupid

84 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

sharpening his arrows, and around him are Plesaunce,
Aray, Lust, Curteseye, Craft, and a host of others. He
reaches a building with great jasper-pillars, the Temple
of Venus, around which danc^ dishevelled women, and on
the roof of which sit hundreds of doves; before the door
are Dame Pees and Dame Pacience. Within, stands the
god Priapus, being crowned with garlands of flowers, and
far beyond, in a dim recess, is Venus herself.

Coming out of the temple, the poet next sees in the
Park Nature, " the noble emperesse, ful of grace, the
vicaires of thalmyghty lorde." It is Seynt Valentyne's
day — February the I4th — when every bird comes to choose
his mate. Nature bids the birds take their place according
to their kind, and here they are formed into groups, birds
of prey, small birds that feed on worms, water-fowls, and
those that live on seeds. Nature, who holds in her hand
a female eagle of great beauty, tells them all to declare
their choice: each is to speak according to his rank, and
female birds remain free to give or to withhold their
consent.

Three eagles speak first; they choose the female eagle
which Nature holds in her hand, and they express them-
selves like true knights in a court of love, whilst the
damsel blushes suitably. They declare that they would
die without her, and plead their love with both passion and
respect; their speech lasts from dawn until sundown.
The rank and file of the fowls noisily protest. The order
of the ceremony is disturbed, and it becomes impossible to
hear any one; whereupon Nature asks each species of
birds to elect a representative. This is done, and in turn
are heard the male falcon, chosen by the " foules of
ravyne"; the goose speaking for the water-fowls; the
turtle-dove selected by the seed-fowls, and the cuckoo

THE ALLEGORICAL POEMS 85

representing the worm-eaters. The subject of the debate
is the manner in which a lover should pay his court, and
each bird, according to his kind, reveals himself either
chivalrous or coarse or tender or selfish. After all these
declarations, constantly interrupted by protestations from
various parts of the assembly, Nature delivers judgment:
the lady is to have her free choice, but Nature advises
her to choose the royal eagle. In a trembling voice, the
female bird begs Nature to grant her a year's respite. This
is agreed to and the eagles will wait until then. The other
birds, however, choose their mates and take them away
at once, and, as they go, all sing a rondel to a French tune:
" Qui bien aime a tard oublie." The noise of their singing
awakens the poet and brings his dream to a close.

We have here a strange mixture: allegory and mytho-
logy, Nature and Venus, Scipio the Elder conjured up
into a fabliau. But it is precisely in this incongruity that
Chaucer's budding originality is best shown. The Parle-
ment of Foules is undoubtedly remarkable in the first place
as a poetic exercise where he rivals the best masters known
to him, but its chief interest lies in this, that it enables us
to appreciate, through the thick veil of convention, the
true nature of the poet. If in the first part Chaucer is only
learning the practice of his art, by turning Cicero into verse
and by reproducing the rich descriptive stanzas of Boc-
caccio, he shows his hand in the second in a certain vivacity
of narrative, which is all his own, and in the clever blending
of sentimental poetry and comedy. We have already
here some of that variety of tone, that dramatic briskness,
that air of gaiety mingled with romance, which will be the
chief glory of the Canterbury Tales. And in this aristocracy
of birds made fun of by the lower classes and repaying it
with scorn; in these beings with prosaic instincts who

86 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

scoff at exalted sentiments, have we not the same kind of
antithesis which will be met with constantly in the Tales ?
Replace the royal eagle by the Knight, the goose by the
Miller, the cuckoo by the Monk, and the turtle-dove by
Griselidis; tear up the fable and draw away the thin veil
of allegory, and you have all the principal elements of the
great poem.1 This is a scene of the great human comedy,
exhibiting almost full fledged the impartiality of the
cqnteur, who no doubt prefers noble sentiments, but
who deems it his duty to give a place to the others. Whilst
snubbing material minds, he reveals their innate common-
sense, and uses them to expose the affectation inherent
in the refinements of courtly love.

Ill

We know that the House/Fame was written while Chaucer
held the comptrollership of the customs, but we have no
means of fixing more exactly the date of its composition.
Upon the whole, however, recent research tends to prove
that it was earlier than was formerly conjectured, perhaps
earlier than that of the Parlement of Foules and of Troilus
and Criseyde. The use of the short couplet and the lighter
style of the whole piece favour an early date. On the other
hand, the overloading which was so noticeable in the two
previous poems, is even greater here, as if the poet had
extended his reading to yet further and more diverse fields.
He took the main idea from Ovid, that of the House of
Fame; his portrait of the goddess from Virgil — the JEneid
was quite fresh to his mind, especially the episode of Dido's
1 Read in this connection the debate between the birds (11. 561-
617).

THE ALLEGORICAL POEMS 87

love for ^Eneas; he was saturated with Boethius, whom
he was busy translating, and who supplied him with his
natural philosophy. At the same time, it seems as if a
recent perusal of the Divina Commedia had flooded and
somewhat disturbed his mind. All this reading was like
newly acquired wealth to him; it dazzled him, and he had
not yet assimilated it properly. He thought he would be
able to use all this, without interfering with the ordinary
allegorical setting. At heart, he remained the faithful
disciple of the Roman de la Rose, whose machinery he
retained, and whose short line he once more borrowed.
And so he went on at his own easy pace, half bewildered
and half mischievous, through the beautiful palaces he had
just discovered.

The origin and object of this poem cannot easily be
explained. It is the most disinterested Chaucer ever wrote,
one might say it is the most fanciful, for he does not
appear to have written it for any special occasion. It
was not a task imposed upon him, nor was it the natural
and irresistible outlet of stored up impressions.

Considering the light and playful tone of the work, it
does not seem possible to admit with Ten Brink that the
misunderstood poet, the official, debarred by his daily
work from attaining the fame he coveted, here gave
expression to his melancholy. It is much simpler to
imagine that the poet, conscious of his growing powers,
wished to emulate the Roman de la Rose, and its well-nigh
innumerable progeny of so-called visions,1 and to raise an
allegorical structure of equal amplitude. In order to com-
pete better with the famous poem, he made use of all his
learning, either by going straight to the Latin writers

1 See Sypherd, Studies in The House of Fame, 1907 (Chaucer
Society).

88 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

already known to Lorris and Jean de Meung, or by imitating
the great Italian poems which they could not have known.
But in tone and inspiration, he is still very near to the
French. The episodes of Virgil or Dante, when retold in
Chaucer's somewhat thin trouvere's voice, seem to shrink
and dwindle. It is also curious to see how he endeavours
to drape all his borrowings, as well as his own inventions,
in the robes of the then fashionable allegory.

But allegory is not the best thing about the poem. The
structure as a whole is rather queer than beautiful, and
very different indeed from the first plan of the Roman
de la Rose, which is neat, clear cut, and almost grand in
the simplicity of its lines. Chaucer has no definite aim
at first, and lingers over details which delay his progress
unduly. Sometimes one is even tempted to ask whether
he has any aim in view. He is incapable of the sustained
purpose, the careful artifice, which are the chief conditions
of a good allegory. Reality has too many attractions
for him, and he cannot be the slave of fancy very long.
He mischievously pricks the bubble which he himself has
blown. He left the work unfinished, and the structure of
it is so strange that it is difficult to conjecture how it would
have ended. Through lack of plan, the subject of the poem
surprises more than it interests, and the work as a whole
is not pleasing. It is not in the general conception that
we find Chaucer at his best, but in the occasional ingenious
working out of the different parts, and in the detail, which
is often intimate and charming. Above all, one is pleased
to discover in this book, the most self-revealing he ever
wrote, passages where he gives us an idea of his daily life,
of the books he read, of his character and turn of mind.

We may dispense with a minute analysis of this long
poem. The slow working up of the allegory, which was

THE ALLEGORICAL POEMS 89

a feature of the previous poems, is here again noticeable,
and this time even more complicated. We have a dis-
cussion on the origin and veracity of dreams, an invocation
to the God of Sleep, and then the dream itself. The poet
is in the temple of Venus, where he beholds, painted on
the walls, the whole story of ^Eneas, more particularly of
his love affairs. Still marvelling at this sight, he comes
out of the temple and finds himself alone in a sandy desert.
At that moment a golden eagle swoops down on him and
carries him off, in a dizzy flight, to the Palace of Fame,
situate in the heavens, in such a way as to overhear every
sound on the earth. He visits this palace where he beholds
the goddess with the thousand eyes surrounded by the
Muses; on the pillars of the big hall stand the famous
poets and historians. This gives Chaucer an opportunity
of enumerating the writers he most admires. It is a curious
company, among whom figure pell-mell losephus the
Ebrayk, who told the gestes of the Jews; the " toulousain "
Stace, who related the Theban war; the great Homer, and
close to him Titus (Dictys ?) and Lollius, by whom perhaps
is meant Boccaccio; Guido de Colonna, who also related
the siege of Troy; Gaufride, that is to say Geoffrey of
Monmouth, who wrote the history of the Bretons descended
from the Trojans; Virgil, who sang Pius Eneas; Ovid,
the clerk of Venus; Dan Lucan, the great poet who con-
ferred enduring fame on Caesar and Pompey ; Dan Claudian,
who told the rape of Proserpine.

Whilst Chaucer was admiring the place, he saw various
groups of men entering the hall, who had come to make
requests of fame. The goddess appeared to him erratic
in the way she bestowed her favour, granting glory right
and left, sometimes against all reason, sometimes with
great fairness. /Bolus published her answer by blowing

go GEOFFREY CHAUCER

his trumpet. But Chaucer had come purposely to learn
how new tidings were made. Accordingly, he leaves the
Palace of Fame for the House of Rumour, which is ever
whirling around its axis and is full of deafening noises.
The place is filled with a countless multitude of people,
who whisper in each other's ears contradictory rumours,
real or false. Messengers, courtiers, pilgrims, seamen,
pardoners, throng the house and bring tidings. Thence
all these tidings escape to the House of Fame, where
the goddess gives each a name and grants it duration
or bids it die. . . . And the poem ends here abruptly.

The fiction is often cleverly handled where the game of
allegory requires only mental ingenuity. Take for instance
this little scene, which symbolises the mixture of truth and
falsehood of which most tidings are made —

And somtyme saugh I tho, at ones, 2088

A lesing and a sad soth-sawe,

That gonne of aventure drawe

Out at a windowe for to pace;

And, when they metten in that place,

They were a-chekked bothe two,

And neither of hern moste out go;

For other so they gonne croude,

Til eche of hem gan cryen loude,

" Lat me go first! " " Nay, but lat me!

And here I wol ensuren thee

With the nones that thou wolt do so,

That I shal never fro thee go,

But be thyn owne sworen brother !

We wil medle us ech with other,

That no man, be he never so wrothe,

Shal han that oon [of] two, but bothe

At ones, al beside his leve,

Come we a-morwe or on eve,

Bewel cryed or stille y-rouned."

Thus saugh I fals and sooth compouned

Togeder flee for oo tydinge.

THE ALLEGORICAL POEMS 91

This is epigrammatic and witty, but it lacks the personal
stamp. In this poem, the accessories are more interesting
than the parts belonging to the logical development of the
story. For good or ill they give us an insight into Chaucer's
personality. Nowhere is the distance which separates him
from the ancients so well marked as in the first book,
where he relates the JEneid, in his own way. His trans-
cription of Virgil's sonorous hexameters into short lines
looks to us like parody. It is the breath of a child blowing
through the heroic trumpet —

" I wol now singe, if that I can, 143

The armes, and al-so the man,

That first cam, through his destinee,

Fugitif of Troye contree,

In Itaile, with ful moche pyne,

Unto the strondes of Lavyne! "

The liberties he took with proper nouns and titles, constantly
remind us that Chaucer saw the ancients with the eyes of
a trouvere and not of a humanist. Priam and his son
" Polites " are killed by " Dan Pirrus." " Dan Eneas " is
in the company of " the knight Achates," when he meets
Venus. Here and there the poet introduces popular
sayings into the ancient tale; he advises ladies to be
warned by the example of Dido and to distrust strange
flatterers —

Al this seye I by Eneas 286

And Dido, and her nyce lest,

That lovede al to sone a gest;

Therfor I wol seye a proverbe,

That " he that fully knoweth therbe

May saufly leye hit to his ye; "

Withoute dreed, this is no lye.

Such childish irreverence cannot but astonish us in a poet
who knew Petrarch.

92 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

But the original part of this unequal poem is the second
book, which describes Chaucer's impressions whilst he was
being carried away to the farthest heaven by the golden
eagle. It has been supposed that the Hous of Fame was
the work of Chaucer referred to later by his disciple Lydgate,
under the name of " Dante in ynglyssh." And there are
indeed in the general plan, in the invocations, in the
details even (not to mention one direct allusion to Dante),
enough obvious reminiscences of the Divina Corn-media to
render this supposition plausible. The eagle is next of
kin to the one who bore Dante up to the sphere of fire
(Purgatorio, canto ix. 1. 19). But it is Dante retold by a
humorist. It is not exactly parody, but verse and tone
are set in a lower key. We need not shrink from admitting
that Chaucer does not belong to the same race as Dante,
since he admitted it himself. We may even enjoy the
roguish way, in which the citizen of London sets out in
his own way to emulate the great Florentine's journey
through space. What is delightful is the accuracy with
which Chaucer describes himself, declaring that he is
unsuited for such exalted flights, consoling himself with
that easy scepticism which is natural to him, and confessing
that he prefers walking on solid earth.

This is not so much irony as a sort of cheerful, bantering
good-humour, and it should be noticed that although the
poet admits he is too small a man for lofty ambitions, he
is still capable of admiring them.

The beautiful eagle with golden feathers swooped down
on him with the swiftness of lightning, and seized him in its
powerful claws as it would have done a lark. Then it
carried him so high that the poor man lost all consciousness
for some time. He awoke when the eagle addressed him
with a human voice. The bird tried to comfort him,

THE ALLEGORICAL POEMS 93

promising that no harm would come to him, and bidding
him look at the magnificent spectacle before him. The
poet, however, could not help feeling anxious —

" O god," thoughte I, " that madest kinde, 584

Shal I non other weyes dye ?

Wher loves wol me stellifye ?

I neither am Enok, ne Elye,

Ne Romulus, ne Ganymede

That was y-bore up, as men rede,

To hevene with dan lupiter,

And maad the goddes boteler."

The eagle reassures him —

Thou demest of thy-self amis; 596

For loves is not ther-aboute —

I dar wel putte thee out of doute —

To make of thee as yet a sterre.

The God of Thunder only wishes to reward the poet, who
had served so long and so faithfully his nephew Cupid
and the goddess Venus without guerdon for himself, and
who, despite his feeble wit, had written books, songs and
ditties in reverence of Love and his servants, without
sharing in his bounties. Jupiter is grateful to the poet
for having so often made his head ache by his disinterested
labour, in the service of lovers, he himself not being one.
He considered also that his task as a poet had been rendered
more difficult by the daily duties appertaining to his office.

lupiter considereth this, 641

. . . that thou hast no tydinges
Of Loves folk, if they be glade,
Ne of noght elles that god made;
And not only fro fer contree
That ther no tyding comth to thee,
But of thy verray neyhebores,
That dwcllen almost at thy dores,

94 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

Thou herest neither that ne this;
For whan thy labour doon al is,
And hast y-maad thy rekeninges,
In stede of reste and newe thinges,
Thou gost hoom to thy hous anoon;
And, also domb as any stoon,
Thout sittest at another boke,
Til fully daswed is thy loke,
And livest thus as an hermyte,
Although thyn abstinence is lyte.

That is why Jupiter wishes Chaucer to visit the House of
Fame. He wants to give him pleasure and distraction, as
a recompense for his labours and devotion to the ungrateful
Cupid. He will learn more things in this house about love
and lovers, their faith, their perfidy, their joys, their
discords, their deceptions, than there are grains of sand
on the seashore and grains of corn in the barns.

Chaucer at first refuses to believe that Fame could
hear all this, even if she had all the magpies and spies of
the realm in her service. But the eagle, who has read
Boethius, explains the process in detail. The House of
Fame stands just midway between heaven, earth and sea,
so that ah1 sounds must pass through it. He explains how
all things behave according to their nature, the stone
falling and smoke rising. Now, sound is nothing but
broken air. Each word or sound behaves like a stone
thrown in the water; it makes a ring, which produces
another and so forth, until becoming wider and wider they
at last reach the opposite bank. In this way, asserts the
bird, all sounds reach the House of Fame. The eagle is
delighted with his own explanation, and proud to be able
to speak in unlearned fashion to an unlearned man in
terms so palpable

that he may shake hem by the biles. 868

THE ALLEGORICAL POEMS 95

He insists on the poet giving his approval to his theory.
Chaucer is as wary in his answer as a Norman peasant.
He merely says that the system seems to him a plausible
and likely one. The eagle promises to give him soon an
absolute proof, but meanwhile, after his arduous lesson,
he wishes him to have a little recreation — " By Seynt
lame, now wil we speken al of game! " (885-886). He
asks Chaucer to look down at the earth and see if he
can still recognise anything, town or house. The poet
looks and beholds

feldes and plaines, 897

And now hilles, and now mountaines
Now valeys, and now forestes,
And now unethes, grete bestes;
Now riveres, now citees,
Now tounes, and now grete trees,
Now shippes sailinge in the see.

But the eagle does not stop there; he soars higher, so high
that the whole world, to the poet's eye,

No more semed than a prikke ; 907

For they are beyond the point of space reached by
Alexander the Macedonian, or King Dan Scipio, or Dedalus,
or Icarus. The eagle then bids the poet look upward and
see " the eyrish bestes " (932), that is to say, the signs of
the zodiac; he shows him the Milky Way, the Galaxy
" which some call Watlinge strete " (939). Then he rises
higher still. Chaucer sees now under him stars, clouds,
rains, snows, tempests. His first feeling is one of admira-
tion, but a doubt soon seizes him; is he there in body or in
spirit ? God knows, but not he, for God had not sent him
a clear enough understanding. He reflects, however, that
Martianus and the Anticlaudianus had described with
truth these heavenly regions, and that they could be

g6 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

trusted. But he is not one to enjoy these giddy heights
for long.

With that this egle gan to crye: 991

" Lat be," quod he, " thy fantasye;

Wilt thou lere of sterres aught? "

" Nay, certeinly," quod I, " right naught;

And why? for I am now to old."

" Elles I wolde thee have told,"

Quod he, " the sterres names, lo,

And al the hevenes signes to,

And which they been." " No fors," quod I.

But the eagle again asks him if he would not like to see in
their proper places in heaven all those beings, birds, beasts,
women or men whom the gods have stellified: the Raven,
the Bear, the fine harp of Arion, Castor and Pollux, the
Dolphin, or the seven daughters of Atlas ? Thus he would
be able to test the truth of the accounts of the poets. But
Chaucer is afraid lest their brightness should destroy his
sight, and the eagle gives up trying to convince such a
pedestrian mind. When he had carried him some distance
further, he asks him if he did not hear a great sound: it
was the rumbling noise coming from the House of Fame.
The poet compares it to the booming of the sea against
hollow rocks

Whan tempest doth the shippes swalowe. 1036

They have reached their goal, and the flight is ended.
But before allowing his guide to depart, Chaucer asks him
if the noise which he heard came from the people who
dwelt on the earth. The eagle says yes, but adds that each
sound on entering the palace assumes the likeness of the
person who had uttered it on earth:

" And is not this a wonder thing? "

" Yis," quod I tho, " by hevene king! "

THE ALLEGORICAL POEMS 97

It is significant that Chaucer's realism should have
asserted itself for the first time so strongly in this excur-
sion through an allegorical sky. Flying is not to his taste,
and he frankly prefers walking ; let him have feet, not
wings. Just as Wordsworth, later, refused to accompany
Coleridge on his aerial craft,1 so Chaucer will not follow
Dante into the regions where the earth is lost sight of.
Solid ground suits him best. When travelling through the
lofty Milky Way, he soon begins to regret the comfortable
mud ruts, which scar the road from London to Canterbury.

His Hous of Fame, so characteristic despite its imper-
fections, is the journey of a sensible and playful mind
through " the highest heaven of invention." It voices
Chaucer's decided refusal to surrender himself completely
to the sublime, or to believe deeply in the pure conceptions
of the spirit.

IV

In the Legend of Good Women, the prologue alone is
allegorical. But as this prologue is the only completed
part, and is also the most original, the poem may rightly
be classed with works of this kind.

At the time when Chaucer wrote it, probably about
1385, he had already composed, besides the poems we have
just examined, his famous romance of Troilus and Criseyde.
It seems as if this love-poem, together with his translation
of the Roman de la Rose, had been the book which had
served most to bring him fame. These two works had
this in common, that they broke away from chivalrous
poetry, and that instead of idealising woman, they repre-

1 See Prologue to Peter Dell.

G

98 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

sented her in many cynical pages as sensuous, fickle, and
dangerous. Against this disparagement of a sex accus-
tomed to the incense of the poets, a protest was raised
amongst the ladies of the court, denouncing the translator
of Jean de Meung, the adapter of Boccaccio. His crime
consisted in introducing into the domain of elevated and
artistic poetry the malicious spirit of the fabliaux. The
young Queen, Anne of Bohemia, anticipating the denuncia-
tions made later in France by the poetess Christine de
Pisan, seems to have voiced these feminine remonstrances.
The ostentatious chastity of her life, the almost idolatrous
devotion of the young king her husband, made her resent
all the more deeply the sarcasms uttered by the favourite
poet of the court. She made known her grievance, and
asked Chaucer, by way of penance, to sing, instead of
faithless women, those illustrious lovers who had been true
unto death, the pitiful victims of man's perfidy.

The prologue does not leave much doubt as to the
conditions under which the subject of the Legend was
suggested to, or rather forced upon, Chaucer. There he
relates in a humorous and fanciful tone, under the trans-
parent guise of an allegory, how he came to celebrate
" the seyntes of Cupid." Nowhere else has he succeeded
in bringing into a conventional allegory so much freshness
and ease.

The beginning is delightful. He starts by telling us of
his passion for books and for a certain flower, the daisy,
which for him first symbolised the whole of nature. Then
by and by the flower was transfigured and became his
" lady sovereyne," which does not mean his mistress, but
the Queen herself. No one would suspect that these
flowing and apparently spontaneous lines are made up of
reminiscences of Machaut, Froissart, Deschamps, from

THE ALLEGORICAL POEMS 99

whom he borrowed the symbol of the daisy, even to the
merest details. He most generously acknowledges his debt,
and displays due modesty. Then the tone swells into a lyric,
Boccaccio being now his inspiration. The whole of this
beginning, as has been proved by Professor John Lowes,1
is a veritable patchwork of imitations, and yet nothing
could seem more natural or more personal. It has the
charm of a rambling discourse, slightly derisive at first,
but changing in tone by degrees, gaining in warmth, and
finally reaching a sort of enthusiasm.

On the first morning in May,2 the poet went out to kneel
before his favourite flower:

Upon the smale softe swote gras 118

That was with floures swote enbrouded al.

The birds, having escaped the nets of the fowler, are
glad with the tidings of spring; they warble on the branches
and sing " blessed be seynt Valentyn! " Their beaks meet,
and all render honour and obeisance to love. The poet is
so moved by the charm of this day, that he thinks he might
well have stayed there the whole month, without sleep,
meat, or drink. He stretches himself on the grass, and,
leaning on his elbow, remains there the livelong day,
gazing at the " dayesye," or the eye of day, " the emperice
and flour of floures alle." Nevertheless, it is far from his
mind to praise the flower above the leaf, and he cares not for
the quarrels of French poets about their respective merits;
both are dear to him, and he cannot prefer one to the other.

At last, when evening has come and the daisy closes,
the poet returns home to his house. He has his couch
made in his " litel herber," and it is all strewn with

1 Pub. of the Mod. Lang. Assoc. of America, vol. xix. no. 4.
* This analysis corresponds to Prologue B, the more harmonious
version of the two that have come down to us.

ioo GEOFFREY CHAUCER

flowers. Then, he falls asleep and dreams of what he had
seen and felt on that spring day. And in a meadow he sees,
coming from afar, the God of Love, clad in silk garments
embroidered with green leaves and petals of red roses.
His head is crowned with a sun which shines so brightly
that the poet can scarce look at it; in his hands he holds
two fiery darts as red as burning coals, and he has wings
like an angel. And he leads by the hand a noble queen
clothed ah1 in green, with an ornament of gold in her hair
and above that a white crown with small fteurons, which
makes her look exactly like a daisy. She comes towards
him so benignly and so meekly that the poet at once breaks
into song, and composes a ballad in her praise, in which
he bids all the beautiful and virtuous ladies of history bow
before her: Esther, Penelope, Marcia Cato, Isoude, Helen,
Lavinia, Lucretia of Rome, Polyxena, Cleopatra, Thisbe,
Hero, Dido, Laodamia, Phyllis, Canace, Hypsipyle,
Hypermnestra and Ariadne:

My lady cometh, that al this may disteyne. 255

Behind the God of Love follow nineteen ladies in royal
habits, and after these an endless crowd of women — the
poet could not have believed that since Adam there had been
born a third nor even a fourth part of the number he saw.
And trewe of love thise women were echoon. 290

When they see the daisy, they kneel down before her and
sing her praises. Then they all sit round in a circle, first
the God of Love and his Queen, and the rest according
to their station:

I kneling by this flour, in good entente 308

Abood, to knowen what this peple mente,

As stille as any stoon; til at the laste

The god of love on me his eyen caste,

And seyde, " Who kneleth ther? " and I answerde

Unto his asking, whan that I hit herde,

THE ALLEGORICAL POEMS 101

And seyde, " Sir, hit am I; " and com him neer,

And salued him. Quod he, " What dostow heer

So nigh myn owne flour, so boldely?

For it were better worthy, trewely,

A worm to neghen neer my flour than thou."

" And why, sir," quod I, " and hit lyke yow? "

" Hit is my relik, digne and delytable,

And thou my fo, and al my folk werreyest

And of myn old servaunts thou misseyest,

And hindrest hem, with thy translacioun,

And lettest folk from hir devocioun

To serve me, and holdest hit folye

To serve Love. Thou mayst hit nat denye;

For in pleyn text, with-outen nede of glose,

Thou hast translated the Romaunce of the Rose,

That is an heresye ageyns my lawe,

And makest wyse folk fro me withdrawe.

And of Criseyde thou hast seyd as thee liste,

That maketh men to wommen lasse triste,

That ben as trewe as ever was any steel." 334

And in conclusion the god threatens him " by seynt
Venus," his mother, with the most cruel punishment.
Fortunately, the gentle queen intercedes for the poet.
She reminds Love that a god should never give way to
anger, but that it behoves him to be gracious and merciful.
Who knows if the man was not falsely accused ? The
court is full of flatterers. Perhaps also he did wrong
without evil intent, and he may have been commanded to
write the two censured books. In any case, to have
translated those libels was less grievous than if he had
invented them. It would be just also to take into con-
sideration all the books he had written in honour of love,
and the pious works he had helped to make known. In
conclusion, she begs the god to hand the accused over to
her, promising to make him swear that he will offend no
more, but rather that he will sing the praise of women
who were true and faithful all their lives. The god grants

102 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

the request of the merciful lady. Thereupon the poet
rises, thanks him, and begs to be told the name of his
rescuer. Then he tries to justify himself, and argues that
true lovers had nothing to fear from his exposure of the
faithless and the deceitful. As for him, he had only
wished to tell the truth and to put people on their guard
against falsehood. But the queen interrupts this special
pleading with " Lat be thyn arguinge! " and she tells him
that the only way to win her pardon is

In making of a glorious Legende 483

Of gode wommen, maidenes and wyves,
That weren trewe in lovinge al hir lyves;
And telle of false men that hem bitrayen.

When the book is finished, he is to bring it to the queen,
to her palace at Eltham or at Shene.

Then it is that Love tells the poet the name of the lady
to whom he owes the remittance of his sentence; she is the
good Queen Alcestis of Thrace. On hearing this, the poet
cannot repress his astonishment, for he well knows the
story of the wife who had died to save her husband, and
he pays an impassioned tribute to her virtues. The god
rebukes him for his great negligence in omitting her name
from his ballad " Hyd, Absolon, thy gilte tresses clere,"
knowing that Alcestis was the paragon of all loving wives,
and he enjoins him to insert her praise in the coming poem.
He further informs him that the nineteen ladies present
were those of his ballad, and instructs him to include them
in the same work: he will find their story in books. To
this he adds a few directions: the poet is free to select his
own metre, but he must begin with Cleopatra. Indeed, he
should not attempt to describe themany merits of these ladies,
but rather aim at being brief. Whereupon, Chaucer fetches
his books and sets to work at once on the first legend.

THE ALLEGORICAL POEMS 103

It seemed best to give this lengthy analysis of the
Prologue, not only because of the particulars it contains
about the poet's tastes, his attitude, and his relations with
the court, but also because of the charm of his manner,
the playful easy-going way in which he blends personal
sentiments with the details of the allegory, and the lightness
of touch which combines grace with humour. In the
artificial style Chaucer never produced anything so happily
wrought, nor apparently so personal.

Nevertheless, the mixture of common sense and play-
fulness, which runs through the prologue, might appear out
of place at the beginning of a poem of which the very
subject seems to exact from the author a sort of chivalrous
enthusiasm. Has he not undertaken to be devoutly partial
to the heroines of love throughout, and to expose their
deceitful lovers ? Bias was here a necessity. The rules
of the game demand that reality should be left on one side,
or if one prefers to put it so, that the poet should lift
himself above reality. What had to be done was to create
a new humanity, composed of perfect women on the one
hand, and of entirely faithless and heartless men on the
other. No doubt such a poem is possible, one may even
imagine it exquisite. But only a fearless idealist could
undertake it: what is needed is that kind of imagination
which boldly transforms the world to suit its own dreams.
The great Spenser, so unreal and monotonous, could have
done it. But few poets ever had a temperament less
suited for lengthy litanies than Chaucer. He could
describe the feelings of a woman's heart as well as any
romantic poet, its meekness, its purity, its self-abnegation,
its devotion, its anguish. But his nature was such that to
see nothing but that, and to express nothing else, was quite
impossible to him. Inevitably, while looking at one side,

104 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

the reverse is ever present with him. His common sense
renders him incapable of sustained enthusiasm. The irony
which suffuses the prologue, sometimes spreads over the
legends themselves, but it is always at the expense of the
necessary idealisation. And, in all probability, it is to this
antagonism between his nature and his subject that we
must ascribe the non-completion of a book, undertaken
with such manifest verve and care.

So long as the poet deals with a legend, in which he is
really interested, ah1 is well. The rape of Lucretia, the
misfortunes of Philomela, fill him with genuine wrath
against Tarquinius and Tereus, those cruel ravishers. He
appeals to God against the latter, and his eloquent words,
inspired by Boethius, ring with unmistakable gravity:

Thou yiver of the formes, that hast wroght 2228

The faire world, and bare hit in thy thoght

Eternally, or thou thy werk began,

Why madest thou, unto the slaundre of man,

Or — al be that hit was not thy doing,

As for that fyn to make swiche a thing —

Why suffrest thou that Tereus was bore,

That is in love so fals and so forswore,

That, fro this world up to the firste hevene,

Corrumpeth, whan that folk his name nevene ?

And, as to me, so grisly was his dede,

That, whan that I his foule story rede,

My eyen wexen foule and sore also. 2240

But in the case of Theseus or lasoun, who were the
Don Juans of ancient Greece, libertines rather than
criminals, Chaucer finds it difficult to work himself up to
his task of censor. His tone at times is a pitch higher
than his feelings, so that one sees the humorist smile
through the satirist, who is trying in vain to frown.
Finally, a familiar touch tells us that his anger is quite
spent. Hark at him apostrophising lasoun:

THE ALLEGORICAL POEMS 105

Thou rote of false lovers, duk lasoun! 1368

Thou sly devourer and confusioun

Of gentil-wommen, tender creatures,

Thou madest thy reclaiming and thy lures

To ladies of thy statly apparaunce,

And of thy wordes, farced with plesaunce,

And of thy feyned trouthe and thy manere.

With thyn obeisaunce and thy humble chere,

And with thy counterfeted peyne and wo,

Ther other falsen oon, thou falsest two!

O ! ofte swore thou that thou woldest dye

For love, whan thou ne feltest maladye

Save foul delyt, which that thout callest love!

If that I live, thy name shal be shove

In English, that thy sleighte shal be knowe !

Have at thee, lasoun ! now thyn horn is blowe !

But certes, hit is bothe routhe and wo

That love with false loveres werketh so;

For they shul have well better love and chere

Than he that hath aboght his love ful dere,

Or had in armes many a blody box.

For ever as tendre a capoun et the fox,

Thogh he be fals and hath the foul betrayed,

As shal the good-man that ther-for hath payed.

Al have he to the capoun skille and right,

The false fox wol have his part at night.

In a still more familiar way, Chaucer takes to task the son
of Theseus, Demophon, who was as great a seducer as his
father:

And lyk his fader of face and of stature, 2446

And fals of love; hit com him of nature;

As doth the fox Renard, the foxes sone,

Of kinde he conde his olde faders wone

Withoute lore, as can a drake swimme,

Whan hit is caught and caried to the brimme.

It should be said on behalf of the poet, if there be any
need to plead his cause, that when he came to look more
closely at the lives of the nineteen good women, whose
virtues he had, at a little distance, so lightly praised, misled

io6 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

by the titles of his Ovid or of the De Claris Mulieribus
of Boccaccio, he discovered, in the case of some of them,
certain traits which lessened somewhat his admiration for
them or mitigated his anger against their ravishers. He
must have wondered, in the light of later reading, what
had made him put on his list Cleopatra, the royal courtesan,
and Medea, the nefarious magician. His natural inclination
to sly humour could only increase under this disillusion-
ment. In almost every legend touches of comedy are
lurking. He has a flippant way of telling us that on
escaping from Troy ^Eneas lost his wife:

And by the weye his wyf Creusa he lees. 945

When the tempest forces Dido and ^Eneas to take refuge
in a cave, he slyly adds :

I noot, with hem if ther wente any mo; 1227

The autour maketh of hit no mencioun.

In the Legend of Hipsypile he complacently expatiates on
all the nice things said about Jason by Hercules, who is in
the plot with the seducer. In the Legend of Ariadne, he
endows Theseus with a flowing eloquence, shows him to
be a glib talker, prodigal of oaths, and discloses at the
same time the weakness of Ariadne, who swallows his
flattery with avidity. If he comes across any miracles in
his text, he declares that you must believe in them if you
can,

As of that scripture, 1 144

Be as be may, I make of hit no cure.1

Lastly, he ends the Legend of Phillis in the most frolicsome

mood:

Be war, ye women, of your sotil fo, 2559

Sin yit this day men may ensample see ;
And trusteth, as in love, no man but me.

1 See also \. 1020.

THE ALLEGORICAL POEMS 107

Notwithstanding all this, the legends are full of noble
and impressive passages. The most pathetic and the best
told, it is true, are those where Chaucer borrows from Ovid,
and where he attempts nothing more than to translate the
Latin poet. This is the case with his Thisbe of Babylon,
his Lucretia, his Philomela, and his Hypermnestra, and
no doubt much of our admiration should go by rights to
the original. Yet, however faithful Chaucer may wish to
be, he cannot translate without adding to the story a tone
and colour which are peculiarly his own. He does not
possess the fine rhetoric of the model, and he is not making
use, as Ovid was, of a language already both rich and
supple. The artlessness of his style and the awkwardness
of his as yet unmatured language, would suffice to dif-
ferentiate him. These drawbacks sometimes turn to his
advantage, for the familiar tone comes home to the reader,
the emotion is more direct and less encumbered with the
ornaments and refinements of style. He often lacks the
relief and vigour of Ovid, but then he does not so often
distract the reader's attention, from the simple pathos of
the tale to the admiration of the writer's wit.

Chaucer is less fortunate when he selects other ancient
models. Despite what he borrowed from Plutarch and
Florus for his Cleopatra, his treatment of the legend is not
convincing; in fact, it is one of the poorest in the whole
set. Virgil does not suit him nearly so well as Ovid, as
can readily be seen from his Legend of Dido, This little
poem amuses us to-day, for reasons which Chaucer very
likely did not foresee. He lias added more mediaeval
colour to this antique subject than to any other. The
hunt in which vEneas and Dido take part, the equipage of
both, above all, the courteous manner in which the hero
woos the queen, all this might have come out of the pages

io8 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

of Benoit de Sainte-More or of Chrestien de Troyes. Dido's
passion does not seem to have made a very strong appeal
to Chaucer. The sentimentality of the Heroides was cer-
tainly more to his taste than the epic restraint of the fourth
book of the Mneid,.

After admitting the shortcomings of the poet, and
acknowledging that he owed the best of his book to Ovid,
it is only fair to add that his legends mark a very con-
siderable progress in the direction of his masterpiece. It
is after all of trifling importance that they should have
been drawn from a remote mythology; they relate the
eternal adventures of the heart, and, with the names
changed, they become applicable to sorrows which are for
ever renewed. Each one of them is a little drama of
passion. The allegory has been done away with, and the
poet can give free play to his simple and kindly humanity.
He does this especially when he translates, but then, was
he not the first to tell in melodious English verse many an
imperishable story of love and despair? A translation
which possesses as much feeling as he displays in the best
passages, for instance in the lamentations of forsaken
Ariadne, when, standing on the shore of the lonely
island, she calls to her lover's fleeing barge to turn back,
amounts to a creation. The poem enabled him also to
discover in which direction his genius lay, for he had at
last found, not only the form of narrative which suited him
best, but even the metre which was to win for him such
signal triumphs. The transition from the Legends to the
Canterbury Tales merely meant giving up old times for
new, replacing Greece by England, and finding a subject
of his own choice, instead of the somewhat monotonous
task prescribed for him by the good Queen Anne of
Bohemia.

CHAPTER IV

CHAUCER AND ITALY

I. Influence of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio on Chaucer.
II. Troilus and Criseyde.

I

THE poems examined in the previous chapter, enable us now
to form a fairly accurate idea of the kind of art Chaucer
practised, and the degree of excellence he could attain in
serious poetry, in the school of his French masters. But,
in composing the last three poems, he had already other
models in view. With the exception of the Book of the
Duchesse, they are very largely inspired by his Italian
readings, and for the last of all, the Legend of Good Women,
he drew direct from antiquity. This had the happy result,
in the case of some of them at least, of adding breadth
to his style and treatment. Whereas the Book of the
Duchesse and the Hous of Fame were written in the short
line, used almost exclusively by contemporary French
writers outside lyrical poetry, in the Parlement of Foules
and in the Legend he used the ten syllable line, as being
nearer the hendecasyllabic verse or the hexameter. In
the lengthening of the line lay the germ of an entire
revolution. If we look closely, we see that these two
extra syllables make room for an epithet, for the word
which gives precision or colour. It alters at once the tone
and movement of the line, and the poet, without sacrificing
simplicity of style, can be lofty, grave, or forcible at will.

109

no GEOFFREY CHAUCER

In these poems, moreover, Chaucer borrowed little details
or even whole passages from ancient or modern Italian
verse, and tried to reproduce in some measure the splendour
which he had there discovered. But, however noticeable
these influences may be in the poems mentioned, they were
not sufficient to detach Chaucer's allegiance from his first
masters. He remained a devotee of allegory with all its
conventions; the new elements introduced were only given
second place. As a matter of fact, Italy only really left
her mark later on, in poems where she enabled him to free
himself from personifications and symbols, where he was
bold enough to tell a story in a direct way, and paint men
and the passions of men without the help of abstractions
or dreams. Her influence, in short, was really deep only
when he drew from her both the substance and style of
his poems. That is why we preferred to postpone the
study of this influence until we came to Palamon and
Arcite, and more especially to Troilus and Criseyde.

Chaucer doubtless came under the spell of Italy on the
occasion of his first visit there in 1372, and he must
have experienced it directly he set foot in the country.
M. Jusserand has described admirably the wondrous spect-
acle, which must have been presented to an English traveller
by fourteenth-century Italy, touched with the light of the
early Renaissance. Before he had even opened a book,
the freshly built churches and monuments revealed to him
a new conceptionof art. Whilst in England the exaggerated
Gothic arch was becoming flamboyant, Chaucer found in
Italy a new kind of architecture, evolved through the
abandonment of the pointed arch and the return to the
plain semicircle. He could see antique columns, statues,
and coins, being dug out of the ground, and the gods of
Olympus coming to light, whose beautiful naked forms had

CHAUCER AND ITALY in

already begun to inspire artists and to renovate art, whilst
the walls of the churches were resplendent with the fresh
beauty of the frescoes of Giotto and Orcagna.

Is there no echo in Chaucer's verse of the emotions which
seized him on his arrival in Italy? One is tempted to
ascribe to his naive admiration for the masterpieces of
ancient and modern Italy, the cry of enthusiasm which
burst from his lips, when he beheld the stained windows of
the glass temple, depicting the stories of the heroes of old :

" Ah, Lord! " thoughte I, " that madest us,
Yet saw I never swich noblesse
Of images, ne swich richesse,
As I saw graven in this chirche;
But not woot I who dide hem wirche,
Ne wher I am, ne in what contree.". . .

The Hons of Fame, I. 11. 470-475.

But his sense of plastic beauty was too rudimentary and
undeveloped for monuments, statues, and paintings to
have left much trace in his work. It is possible, of course,
to point out a few lines where he extols the beauty of the
nude, describing Venus, for instance, " naked fletinge in
a see" (H. of Fame, I. 133). But he owed this initiation
to the poets, not to the painters and sculptors. The new
splendour, which will now colour his style in places, has
come to him through books. Moreover, it does not seem
as if he owed this added richness as much to the Romans
as to the Italians. The deferential admiration for the
ancients which he displayed hereafter, was imitated rather
than spontaneous. He went on translating Virgil, as we
have seen, with the reed-like voice of a trouvere. He was
more happy with Ovid, but only at the expense of making
him more familiar. On the other hand, he reached at times
the loftiness of some of the most beautiful fourteenth-
century Italian poetry. Is it because he felt bolder when

H2 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

competing with contemporaries, and so was freed from the
shackles of traditional respect, the nearness in time sug-
gesting the idea of legitimate rivalry and of possible
competition ? I do not think so. It is rather because he
never ceased to look at the ancients through the eyes of the
Middle Ages, whereas he had a personal and direct impres-
sion of Italy. The same often occurred during the
Renaissance, in the case of French and English poets.
Spenser, for instance, owed much more to Ariosto and
Tasso than to the ancients. And it is only when they
draw from Italian sources that Chaucer and Spenser, other-
wise so widely different, approach each other and even
meet. Chaucer anticipates the poet of Una in a poem
where, inspired by Boccaccio, he represents Ipolita on her
chariot, so beautiful to see

That al the ground about hir char she spradde
With brightnesse of the beautee in hir face,
Fulfild of largesse and of alle grace.

Anelida and Arcite, 11. 40-42.

It is in the same poem and under the same influence that
he finds the majestic line — an inspiration, not a translation —
in which he hails Polymnia, the pensive Muse: O thou who

Singest with vois memorial in the shade.

Anelida and Arcite, 1. 18.

Any one reading this quotation for the first time would
surely believe it to be by Spenser, unless indeed he were to
ascribe it to Milton.

These are heights to which Chaucer could but seldom
attain, and only when impelled by the brilliance or the
warmth of Italy. One thing is certain, there is about such
lines a fullness and breadth which the French trouveres
he knew, were scarcely capable of suggesting to him.

CHAUCER AND ITALY 113

How then and by means of what reading was Chaucer
thus initiated? He went straight to the great Italian
poets. After the French writers, Dante, Petrarch, and
Boccaccio became his masters, and they must have
proved a strange and tremendous revelation to him, who
had followed hitherto the decadent French allegorists of the
fourteenth century. The influence brought to bear upon
him by these three Italian poets, was of varying degrees.

Dante had been dead for half a century when Chaucer
visited Italy, and he was already considered as belonging
to a former age. His mysterious Commedia was reaping
its full measure of admiration, but Boccaccio was just
about to write for it a commentary, such as is written on a
masterpiece of the past. There is no doubt that Chaucer
was fully aware of the greatness of Dante, and that he
himself felt it. He calls him " the grete poete of Itaille." 1
Now and then, he goes out of his way to borrow an image
from him, either in translating Boccaccio or in transcribing
the Golden Legend. He took from him his invocation to
the Virgin, and set it in front of a life of Saint Cecilia. He
remembered the awful inscription affixed by Dante on the
gates of hell, and put a similar one at the entrance of a
park, which he designed according to a plan of Boccaccio,
changing, however, its fearful admonition into a pleasant
sentence.

He had wept over the death of Ugolino in the tower of
hunger, and he related it in his own way in his " tragedies,"
doing ample justice to the pathetic side of the story,
although failing to reproduce its austere sublimity. He
did not feel the full force of the lines where Ugolino, hearing
the door of the tower being shut at the time when the
gaoler was wont to bring their food, realises the designs of

1 The Monkes Tale, 1. 470.

H

H4 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

his enemies. Silently he watches the faces of his sons ; he
does not weep, but feels as if his heart were being turned
into stone. His sons cry, and little Anselm says

" Thou lookest so! Father, what ails thee? "

Gary's Dante.

In Chaucer's version we miss the father's awful silence and
his tearless woe. He says indeed that Ugolino does not
speak, but instantly contradicting himself, he makes him
exclaim: "Alias! that I was wroght! " And he adds:

Therwith the teres fillen from his yen.

The Canterbury Tales, B. 1. 3619.

But, on the other hand, he puts some very touching words
in the mouth of the youngest child:

" 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.
Now wolde god that I mighte slepen ever !
Than sholde nat hunger in my wombe crepe ;
Ther is no thing, save breed, that me were lever."

The Canterbury Tales, B. 11. 3622-3628.

And so the terrible story loses its grimness and becomes
something more pitiful, but at the same time less powerful.
Chaucer did not, however, only find in Dante stories
which contained too much concentrated energy to suit his
taste, or which were too sublime for his powers. He was
fully conscious of the beauty of his style and verse, and
he has left a few curious attempts at terza rima inspired
by the Divina Commedia. Above all, he loved in Dante
those exquisitely tender passages where the tragic poet
seems to unbend. He has himself written a few passages,
which, for simple pathos, invite comparison with the great
Florentine. I am not alluding only to lines like those

CHAUCER AND ITALY 115

where his Troilus (bk. ii. 1. 1261) borrows the fine hymn to
the Virgin, and turns it into an invocation to Love:

Che qual vuol grazie, e a te non recorre.

Par. xxxiii. 14.

But there are some lines quite his own, which, for sober
perfection, stand out from the other models he had before
his eyes, and which are superior, one might say, to his
usual manner. This applies to the five lines, so full of
pious fervour, which he added to his literal translation of
the death of Lucretia, as related by Ovid:

I telle hit, for she was of love so trewe,
Ne in her wille she chaunged for no newe.
And for the stable herte, sad and kinde,
That in these women men may alday finde;
Ther as they caste her herte, there hit dwelleth.

But it was only on rare occasions, and then not for long,
that Chaucer was able to touch the same key as Dante.
The difference was too great between the impassioned
and merciless Florentine, the fierce politician, the mystic
visionary, and the English story-teller, enamoured of life
and all things living, whose slight lyrical vein was ever held
in check by his sense of humour. And Chaucer felt this
himself, for we have seen him describing in an allegory his
vain efforts to follow the great poet on his upward career,
when the golden eagle bears him away to the highest
heaven, and he, bewildered, wants to return to solid earth,
thus asserting in this curious way his material nature. His
is not the spirit to descend into hell, nor to rise up into
Paradise.

In Petrarch, there was even less than in Dante that
Chaucer could assimilate into his own poetry. If Dante
represented the epic energy of an age already past,
Petrarch was too far ahead of his contemporaries in the

n6 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

realisation of the Renaissance. His humanism was too
refined, too close to the ancients, too much illuminated
with philology, for Chaucer to understand it fully, or to
follow in its wake, except from afar. He may, like
Petrarch, experience a sort of devout enthusiasm when
speaking of the Greeks or the Romans, but for all that he
is not any nearer their real spirit. As to Petrarch the
sonneteer, his excessive subtlety and fastidious idealism
could not appeal to a nature so normal, so evenly balanced,
as that of Chaucer, in whom joviality was ever the hand-
maid of tenderness. Few minds were less capable of
sustained Platonism than his.

And yet Chaucer understood the greatness of

Fraunceys Petrark, the laureat poete,

whos rethoryke sweete

Enlumined al Itaille of poetrye.

The Clerk's Prologue, 11. 31-34.

We have seen that he may have known him personally
when Petrarch was sixty-nine, that is to say, a year before
the Italian's death. Chaucer later diluted into three seven-
lined stanzas one of Petrarch's sonnets:

S'amor non e, che dunque & quel ch'i sento?

and made it the first cry of passion of his Troilus. It
was to Petrarch alone, a mere translator on the occasion,
that Chaucer ascribed the touching tale of Grisildis.

Here, however, Petrarch was only the intermediary
between Chaucer and Boccaccio, whom the English poet
does not seem to have known under his real name. When
one would expect Boccaccio's name in Chaucer's verse, one
discovers instead the enigmatic name of Lollius. And
yet it was Boccaccio who, towards the middle of Chaucer's
career, influenced him most strongly. He it was who
supplied him with some of his most remarkable stories,

CHAUCER AND ITALY 117

and almost without exception, with the pattern for those
verses which, in the English poet, are most decorative or
most passionate. Chaucer, it is true, seems to have been
acquainted only with part of Boccaccio's enormous work;
it is not likely that he had ever read the Decamerone, he
who was to be looked upon by posterity as the rival story-
teller to Boccaccio. We have just seen that the tale of
Grisildis, the only story from the Decamerone which he
translated, had come to him through a Latin version by
Petrarch. Chaucer's contribution consisted only in a few
delightful details, and in the happy innovation of the
stanza instead of prose, a form which suits perfectly the
picturesque and unreal legend. Other stories, already told
in the Decamerone, before finding a place in the Canterbury
Tales, present such differences in the working out of the
plot, that one is justified in believing that the two
authors borrowed their subject from separate versions,
derived from a remote common original. The influence
of Boccaccio is so apparent, whenever Chaucer had some
definite work of his before him, that the English writer,
had he known the stories of the Decamerone, never could
have used any of them without betraying their origin.
Undoubtedly, Chaucer did not derive the Merchant's Tale
from the Enchanted Pear-tree (7th day, novel 9), nor the
Shopman's Tale from the first two stories of the 8th day,
nor the Manciple's Tale from the Cradle (9th day, novel 6),
nor the Franklin's Tale from the Enchanted Garden (4th
day, novel 5),1 nor the Pardoner's predication from the

1 The question of the indebtedness of Chaucer's Talcs to the
Decamerone has been so often discussed, and is still so unsettled,
that I cannot resist the temptation of throwing in a word en passant.
I find in the Franklin's Tale proof (which to me at least appears
conclusive) that Chaucer, when he wrote it, did not know Boccaccio's
Enchanted Garden, He introduces (vv. 515-3-7) a graphic descrip-

n8 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

Cibolo's, which closes the 6th day. It is not a case of
borrowing, but simply of analogy. In all probability,
Boccaccio and Chaucer made use of fabliaux, mostly
French, for their different versions of these tales. The
great fame attained later by Boccaccio's Decamerone, and
the comparative oblivion into which his verse fell, make it
difficult to admit that Chaucer knew the second and not
the first. But the Decamerone did not achieve immediate

tion of a frosty December, vivid and excellent in itself, but without
any relation to his subject. It is thrust in at the very moment when
the magician is at work to remove the rocks from the coast of
Brittany.

Now, such a description would have been perfectly apposite, had
Chaucer related the same prodigy as Boccaccio, i.e. a garden in full
beauty of flowers and blossoms caused to appear in the depth of
winter. In fact there were two different legends; Boccaccio used
one and Chaucer the other. But Chaucer, somewhat careless of his
plot as usual, must have followed a narrative in which some blunder-
ing clerk had somehow mixed up the two forms of enchantment.
It is possible that even if he had known Boccaccio's novel, Chaucer
might have preferred the other piece of magic. But it is scarcely
credible that, the Enchanted Garden being present to his mind, he
should not have detected at once the preposterousness of the
winter-scene in the plot he had purposely selected in preference to
the other. For he could not possibly read Boccaccio and remain
indifferent. He could not choose to differ from him without having
his own reasons, and thus becoming a conscious artist. In all prob-
ability he was unacquainted with Boccaccio's tale, and, the other
legend being unknown to him, he paid no heed to the extraneous
character of the passage. Cf., however, Rajna's article in Romania,
32, 244 fL, who believes that the Franklin's Tale was inspired by
the Decamerone. Professor Morsbach (Englische Studien, xxxxii.
pp. 43-82) ascribes the plan of the Canterbury Tales to Boccaccio's
influence. Mr. Robert R. Root (Englische Studien, xxxxiv. pp. 1-17)
admits Morsbach's point of view as regards the general plan, but does
not believe in an imitation of the Tales, in particular of the Enchanted
Garden. Consult also Professor Schofield's learned article on
Chaucer's Franklin's Tale (Publ. of the Mod. Lang. Assoc. of
America, vol. xvi. no. 3).

CHAUCER AND ITALY 119

glory; the book was too openly licentious, and Boccaccio
himself had to make excuses for it rather than be proud of it.

Now Boccaccio's fame about the year 1372 rested chiefly
on his claims as a humanist and as a poet. Chaucer's
indebtedness to him, as an interpreter of ancient history
and mythology, is not inconsiderable, for he owed him the
idea, and even several passages of, those " tragedies " which
compose his Monk's 1 ale. It was the De Casibus Virum
Illustrium he used; from it he borrowed several of the
" tragedies " related by Boccaccio in Latin prose — Adam,
Samson, Balthazar, Zenobia, Nero, Crcesus — and turned
them into short poems of eight line stanzas. But he
retained and exercised the privilege of adding other unfor-
tunate lives to those related by the Italian author.

Again, it was Boccaccio who suggested to him his Legend
of Good Women. It was probably inspired by the De
Claris Mulieribus, where Boccaccio had related briefly
in Latin prose the adventures of 105 famous women.
True, in this instance, Chaucer owed him but little as
regards the matter, which was chiefly borrowed from Ovid.
But for the plan of the book, the prologue, and the succes-
sive lives, he followed his favourite model, although he
never refers to him explicitly.

But the youthful poems of the Italian writer especially
attracted Chaucer, so that Boccaccio had the honour of
evoking the first passionate verse in a literature as yet
unknown, but which was to become one of the most
illustrious in Europe. It was by translating and reshaping
the leseide and the Filostrato, that Chaucer first introduced
into English poetry a richness and passion both charac-
teristic of the great southern literature.

Out of the Teseide, condensed and abridged, he made,
probably after several successive attempts, his Knight's

120 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

Tale, dealing with the amorous rivalry of Palamon and
Arcite, the two young men who loved each other as
brothers, their affection being further intensified by a
common captivity, until the day when the love of the
same girl led them to take up arms against each other.
The Teseide was a sentimental novel, submerged in a
sort of epic poem numbering about 10,000 lines. Chaucer
preserved the essence of it for his Knights Tale, took the
description of the temple of Venus for his Parlement of
Foules, further retaining a few external details for his
unfinished poem of Quene Anelida and fals Arcite.

English commentators, naturally enough, prefer to lay
stress on the skill showed by Chaucer in remodelling the
Teseide. They justly praise the sober art displayed by
their poet, in reducing the exuberant Teseide to about
one-fifth of its original size. They rightly point out also
that Chaucer showed great independence of spirit in
rejecting Boccaccio's stanza for the couplet, less lyrical in
form, but better suited to a narrative. Let us add that
the never failing realism and familiarity of Chaucer appear
in many additions to the speeches or scenes. Less con-
ventional in tone, his Theseus indulges in outbursts of
humour and many bantering remarks, which were not in
Boccaccio. Chaucer enlarges upon and treats in a spirited
manner the popular aspect of that great festive gathering
of the Middle Ages, a tournament; he forsakes champions
and knights to describe the bustling armourers and the
hubbub of small people. But what are these changes,
however fortunate, compared to the enormous indebted-
ness of the poet to his model ?

The value of this poem, rather devoid of psychology
after all is said, lies in the breadth and richness of a certain
number of scenes, and here Chaucer wisely remained the

CHAUCER AND ITALY 121

faithful follower of the Italian poet. It was thanks to this
fidelity even, that he not only wrote the finest lines of his
tale, but also gave English poetry some graceful or rich
paintings, the equivalent of which are not to be found
again until Spenser. Such for instance is the charming
scene where Palamon and Arcite, prisoners in the tower,
see Emilia picking flowers in the garden. Such are also the
series of pictures representing the great tournament between
the knights who had come to join the rivals; the gorgeous
description of the lists and of the amphitheatre erected
for the spectators; the description of the three temples of
Mars, Venus, and Diana, where Arcite, Palamon, and
Emilia retire to pray respectively; such are also the
incidents of the combat between the two rivals. There is
no doubt, for one who reads the Knights Tale without an
eye to comparison, that these pages by far excel the rest
of the poem: as a matter of fact, they are the rather close
transcription of the corresponding passages in Boccaccio.
Chaucer's principal merit, therefore, is to have taken
poetry where he found it, and to have adapted it for the
benefit of his countrymen. He was thus accomplishing
the first and by no means the easiest part of his task. He
enabled the as yet untrained English heroic verse, to vie
with the brilliant and supple " endecasyllabo " of the
European language, which had outstripped all others in
poetic accomplishments.

II

We must now consider the most famous of the poems
in which Chaucer revealed himself as a disciple of Boc-
caccio. And it behoves us here to go into more detail,
because this poem is Chaucer's masterpiece, with the

122 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

exception of the Canterbury Tales. Moreover, it stands so
clearly apart from them that the renown they have attained
in no wise diminishes its special merits. The poem in
question is Troilus and Criseyde, partly translated and
partly adapted from the Filostrato of Boccaccio.

The Filostrato is undoubtedly a masterpiece. It is the
most beautiful of those poems, in which Boccaccio expressed
the voluptuousness of his sojourn in Naples and his youthful
passion for Maria d'Aquino, the natural daughter of King
Robert, whom he sang under the name of La Fiammetta.
She was the earthly Beatrice, the sensuous Laura, best
suited to the future author of the Decamerone. She comes
to us as a true woman, not idealised, whose charm, beauty,
and fickleness were brought out by Boccaccio in various
stories. At once a realist and a romantic, he was able,
in the framework of an impersonal tale and in pseudo-
homeric garb, to portray the vivid picture of a heart
stricken by love. All he retained of the legend were a
few names and incidents. His Filostrato is one of the most
enthralling accounts of compelling passion, which mark
out the road between the adventures of Tristram and those
of the Chevalier des Grieux.

Benoit de Sainte-More, an Anglo-Norman trouvere
attached to the court of Henry II., had related the noble
deeds and sufferings of Troilus, son of Priamus, who loved
Brisei'da, and was betrayed by her. In his tale, enlarged
from a few hints in the Greek novels of Dictys and Dares,
Brisei'da is the daughter of the Trojan soothsayer Calcas.
The latter, foreseeing the fall of Troy, went over to the
Greeks, and succeeded in getting Agamemnon to arrange
that Briseiida, who had remained in Troy, should be claimed
from the enemy and restored to him. But Troilus and
Brisei'da were in love; the separation broke their hearts,

CHAUCER AND ITALY 123

and before parting they swore eternal fidelity. Alas for
eternal vows! Diomede, who had been sent to fetch the
maiden, did not lose a moment, and instantly pressed his
suit. He was wounded in a fight some time later, and
Briseida, who nursed him, gave him her love. Troilus was
treacherously killed by Achilles, after expressing his bitter
contempt for the faithless Briseida.

Benoit's characters are vigorously drawn: Troilus is a
proud knight with a stout heart and strong muscle, who
avenges himself by rough sarcasm and hard blows; Diomede,
lover and contemner of women, vain, bold, accustomed to
easy victories, is a sort of primitive Don Juan; Briseida,
carefully portrayed already, is a type of sensual and in-
constant woman, confessing her frailty and her remorse with
equal artlessness.

This story was put into Latin at the end of the thirteenth
century by the Sicilian doctor, Guido de Colonna, in his
Historia Trojana, where he gave a colourless summary of
Benoit's tale, and burdened it with lengthy denunciations
of women. Boccaccio used both Benoit's narrative and
this Latin version. He took the tale out of its Trojan
setting and made of it a separate romance, in which he
expressed his own feelings as a lover " felled by love "
(Filostrato). In his hands the novel, divested of its
marvellous element, became simply psychological, a poem
full of burning sentimentality or listless languor. This
was the first realistic picture of that Italian immorality,
of that abandonment to voluptuous love, which is in direct
antagonism to Dante's chastity and Petrarch's Platonism,
a literary tone which, with the decay of religious ideals,
was destined to become characteristic of the Italian genius,
and which, five centuries later, the French novelist Stendhal
rediscovered and loved.

124 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

Boccaccio centres the interest around three characters.
Diomede is merely sketched. The heroine Gressida, how-
ever, is fully drawn in a few sharp, masterly, although rapid
strokes. Boccaccio made her a young widow, less coarse
in her ideas and feelings than Benoit's heroine, but more
experienced and corrupt, capable of feigned resistance, but
not of sincere remorse. Troilo, in whom he painted him-
self, is the principal and also the most engrossing character.
He is a youth who spurned love and mocked other young
men until he met Gressida. All at once he is conquered
and transformed. He ceases to care for martial glory
and the duty he owes to his country. All his virtue has
given way to passion; he neither acts nor thinks: he is
in the hands of an irresistible force. And this love makes
him a noble and touching figure, for in spite of his effemin-
acy, he is so sincere and absolute in his devotion that he
compels our sympathy.

The character of young Pandaro, cousin to Gressida, is
Boccaccio's own creation. This Pandaro is the devoted
go-between of Troilo and his cousin; he plays his part
with nobility and has the author's full acquiescence. The
purest friendship is the motive of all his actions. He is
full of worldly wisdom, common sense, and disinterested-
ness. He expresses the morality of the poem, to wit, that
all is beauty and virtue that waits upon love.

The tone of the poem is therefore immoral throughout,
but this is what gives it artistic unity. Everything in it
arises from a dominant disposition of the mind and heart.
It breathes sentiment and voluptuousness. Two scenes
stand out in greatest relief, the one in the temple where
the eyes of Troilo and Gressida meet for the first time;
and especially the wonderful one where Troilo, after
the departure of his mistress, gives vent to his despair

CHAUCER AND ITALY 125

whilst riding alone by the places which had witnessed
their love.

Such were the data upon which Chaucer built the first
great love-poem written in the English language, one
which had no equal until Shakespeare borrowed from
another Italian the story of Romeo and Juliet. What
Chaucer retained, what he altered, and what he added to
Boccaccio's version, are equally characteristic.

He preserved, almost without alterations, all the pas-
sionate descriptions, which means that he introduced
hardly any alterations in the character of Troilus, the
brave warrior enslaved by love. The novelty of his
handling consists in this that he emphasised the shyness
of the young man, from an irrepressible inclination towards
the humorous. For Boccaccio, Troilus was a lover mindful
of the laws of gallantry and observing absolute secrecy
when he was bid to do so. For Chaucer, he remains for
a long time a disappointed lover, timid and fearful when
action is needed, and likely therefore to provoke a smile.
But the two great scenes which best describe his personality,
the one of the first meeting in the temple and the one where
he expresses his despair after the departure of his mistress,
are, the former an imitation, the latter a literal translation
from Boccaccio. It is undeniable that both in the English
and Italian versions they are the passages of highest poetry.
A reading of stanzas 29 to 99 in Chaucer's fifth book, will
convince any one of their superiority over the rest of the
work in style, passion, and pathos: they are at once the
essential part of the story and its richest ornament.
Chaucer's stanza flows there with an abundance and force,
which shows plainly the influence of the more passionate
Italian on the English writer, whose narrative is usually
thinner in texture and slower in movement.

126 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

But Chaucer does not always imitate. He also alters and
adds: // Filostrato numbers 5700 lines, Troilus and Criseyde
8240. It has been reckoned that Chaucer adopted 2600
lines of the original and modified or added 5640.

The changes are accounted for by the different moral
outlook of the two poems. Chaucer is not by any means
prudish; he is not much more so than Rabelais. There is
nothing to shock him in the fabliaux. He does not
mind plain speaking, nor shun indecent details, but his
gallantry is Anglo-French, not Italian. He feels ill at ease
in the intoxicating atmosphere of Boccaccio. The manners
of the people around him are coarser perhaps, but not
marked with the same enervating voluptuousness as those
observed by Boccaccio. Chaucer cannot understand the
southerner's conception of life, in which love is exalted
and woman despised. He does not view actions and
characters in the same light. This naturally led him to
modify the parts of the mistress of Troilus and of his friend.
He raised the one at the expense of the other: she becomes
almost a victim whilst he is turned into a doubtful character,
half-odious and half-comic.

The heroine in Chaucer is also a widow, whom he calls
Criseyde, but he endows her with a freshness and innocence
which are not to be found in Boccaccio. Although she
falls in love with Troilus rather suddenly, she is genuinely
virtuous and can resist her feelings. This provides Chaucer
with some exquisite scenes, which he inserted at the
beginning of the poem: they may not all be of his own
invention, and be taken from other parts of Boccaccio,1
but they assume a peculiar value from the way he uses
them. Such is, for instance, the scene where Criseyde,

1 See Karl Young, The Origin and Development of the Story of
Troilus and Cressida (Chaucer Society, 1908).

CHAUCER AND ITALY 127

after listening with becoming modesty to the entreaties of
Pandarus, goes and plays with her nieces in the garden,
where a passionate ballad sung by Antigone sets her
dreaming of love. Later, at night, when she is alone in
her chamber, love again comes to her in the trills of a
nightingale, warbling in the moonlight on a cedar-tree,
below her window. She falls asleep and dreams that an
eagle with white feathers digs its claws into her breast,
and, without causing her any pain, wrenches her heart
out and puts his in its place. The poor woman is really
torn between duty and love, between her desire for a
virtuous life and the call of passion. The wiles of Pandarus
contrive to bring about her fall, because her growing tender-
ness blinds her to his deceit. Her pity for Troilus, who is
represented as dying for her, breaks down her resistance.
Even in the last part of the poem, where Criseyde betrays
Troilus for Diomede, the poet tries to minimise her guilt;
he suffers with her, he will only half believe in it, and he
puts on her inconstant lips the most touching words of
remorse.

Unfortunately, the more modest Criseyde appears at the
beginning of the poem, the more inexplicable is her
treachery. The sensuous and fickle heroine of Boccaccio
could, without any inconsistency, change her lover as
often as she pleased. Chaucer's Criseyde can only do so
by belying what is not affected modesty on her part, but
her very nature, that fresh innocence with which the poet
has endowed her. Not only has he failed to give her
betrayal an appearance of truth, but he has bestowed on
the young widow a maiden's candour, thus rendering the
character at once charming and inconsistent.

And further, Criseyde being such a pure heroine, the
character of Pandarus becomes necessarily more repulsive.

128 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

He is no longer content to be the accomplice of a wary
coquette, but he is the corrupter of virtue. The character
would indeed have been intolerable if Chaucer had not
veiled its nastiness by ridicule.

Boccaccio's Pandaro was straightforward and deter-
mined; he went straight to his goal. He made no super-
fluous reflections, and his words were mocking and incisive.
He always had plenty to say to Troiilo and Gressida, but
there was not one word too much. He tried to rouse
Troiilo from his indifference and to inspire him with the
necessary boldness, or he besieged the weak defences of
Gressida with sarcasm and pleasant cynicism. Chaucer's
Pandarus is no longer the cousin, he is the uncle of the
young widow. He entertains the same devoted friendship
for Troilus, as in Boccaccio, but this friendship, considering
his relationship to Criseyde, has a distinctly more un-
pleasant flavour. He is no longer a cynical young dandy,
shrewd and sceptical; he has become a man, who indeed
lacks neither experience nor discernment, but who is
familiar in his speech, a scoffer, garrulous, a quoter of
proverbs and maxims, in which he reminds us sometimes
of Polonius and sometimes of Sancho Panza, whilst playing
the part of Regnier's Macette. Chaucer never wearies of
recording at length his discourses, his anecdotes, his
equivocal remarks, his oratorical wiles, in short, all the
devious ways of his hypocrisy. Here we find all the
commonplaces of practical wisdom with which the poet's
memory was so well stored. Maxims and sentences,
examples and authorities, taken either from the Roman
de la Rose, or from the Consolations of Boethius, are
poured forth unceasingly. This garrulousness, although
a curious and interesting trait of character, tends to render
the action much slower. To it is largely due the addition

CHAUCER AND ITALY 129

by Chaucer of some 2000 or 3000 lines to Boccaccio's
poem. However amused one may be at times, one
cannot help remembering that Shakespeare was able to
tell the loves of Troilus and Cressida, including Pandarus
(and what unforgettable characters they are!), in 500
lines.

The verbosity of Pandarus is not his chief defect, from
a literary point of view. In his remodelling, Chaucer
included such diverse and incompatible traits that the
character does not stand out clearly. His Pandarus is a
compromise between the young knight of friendship as
drawn by Boccaccio, full of zeal and discrimination in a
peculiar part, and the Shakespearian Pandar, a corrupt
uncle, the type of the benevolent go-between who brings
young couples together out of senile depravity, a dotard
and an obscene old man who makes no pretence to virtue,
who sings a coarse song for the amusement of Paris and
Helen, and who acts far less out of affection for Troilus
than for love of his trade.

Half-way between the two, Chaucer's Pandarus is diffi-
cult to realise; he might seem unreal and impossible, if the
poet had not succeeded in spite of everything in imparting
life to him. He retains too much of Boccaccio's hero in his
texture to be consistent with Chaucer's additional traits.
He is not unsympathetic, being still the faithful one who
sets morality aside to oblige a dear friend. He repeats word
for word many sayings of the Italian model, but this
ingenious wisdom does not tally with his unbridled gar-
rulousness. Sometimes he appears clear-headed and
thoughtful, sometimes diffuse and inclined to drollery.
What age is he ? We really do not know. The fact of his
being Criseyde's uncle and his garrulity tend to make him
appear old, but on the other hand, he is represented as

130 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

young. He is himself capable of love; in vain he plays
the wiseacre, thoughts of love disturb him as he lies abed
one fine May morning, and he tosses on his couch with
desire in his heart. In the company of Criseyde he is at
times a much respected uncle, who gives debatable advice,
and at other times a wag, a gay companion, who says such
comic things that Criseyde holds her sides with laughter.
He is so complex that we cannot give him our unqualified
sympathy, nor think him altogether ridiculous. It is
impossible to judge him, to realise the character as a whole,
for we see two figures, one a young man with a gift of
humour as in Boccaccio, and the other a grinning old man
as in Shakespeare. Chaucer's Pandar in fact makes us
see double.

Despite the indefinite outline and even incoherency of
this Pandar, if we try to piece together the various traits
of his physiognomy, we find that he has all the gestures
and varied inflections of voice of a living creation. More-
over his function in the poem is obvious: it is he who
invariably produces comical effects and impressions. See
him at work: he changes the ardent sensuality of Boccaccio
into jollity, and adds a comical note to the most passionate
scenes. He is the chief agent in preparing the trap into
which the chaste Criseyde falls, and Chaucer seems to
commend him for having devised it so cleverly. Here
Chaucer ceases to follow the Filostrato, not in order to
invent, but to draw from another source, that of the tedious
Filocolo, where Boccaccio curiously blended into the story
of Flore and Blanchefleur many recollections drawn from
his own life.1 Chaucer found in this poem several of the
expedients necessary to bring into each other's arms two
lovers, one of whom was bashful and the other innocent.

1 See Karl Young again, op. cit.

CHAUCER AND ITALY 131

But Pandarus is there, who changes the sentimental scene
of Flore and Blanchefleur into a realfabliau. The bewilder-
ment of Pandarus gives a comic setting to a scene which
otherwise would be one of unalloyed voluptuousness.
However much he may have borrowed, Chaucer is this
time entirely original in the use he makes of his material,
and this is the part of his Troilus where his genius is
strongest.

Pandarus had asked Criseyde and her attendants to
dinner, declaring that Troilus was away. The elements
become parties to his designs, for rain and thunder rage
without, and it is impossible for Criseyde to think of
returning home. Pandarus will therefore give her a little
room for the night, and her servants will sleep in the
common room. But Troilus is hidden all the while in a sort
of loft, and a trap-door will enable Pandarus, and later the
lover, to enter the room where Criseyde sleeps. With what
eloquence Pandarus, first alone with her, describes to
Criseyde the unexpected arrival of her knight, his pitiful
condition and despair! Troilus is torn with jealousy and
thinks himself sacrificed to a rival; he will die if she does
not comfort him. Pandarus is so moving that Criseyde
consents to receive the young man. But Troilus, by his
feigned jealousy, brings tears into his lady's eyes, and is so
overcome at the sight of her grief that he falls into a swoon.
Pandarus has to restore him, to urge him on, and to rate
him for his weakness. He only leaves the young people
when he is sure of the success of his plot. But even after
his departure something of his ribaldry remains behind,
a sort of mocking echo which accompanies the passionate
transports of the two lovers. It provides a delicate under-
current of humour to a scene otherwise as ardent as
Boccaccio himself could have painted it ('Troilus and

132 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

Criseyde, Book iii. stanzas 172-178). Drollery is almost
excluded from this passionate duologue, so full of sensuous
ardour and poetry, save for two or three lines, which the
poet could not repress. But Pandarus had not gone very
far after all, and his reappearance the next morning, after
Troilus has been compelled to leave Criseyde, brings back
the comic spirit which had been hushed for a while (Troilus,
Book iii. stanzas 223-226).

Clearly, Pandarus represents humour grinning and
capering by the side of sentiment. But for him the
passion would be more engrossing; the mocking way in
which he skips around the smouldering fire, which lights
up his naughty face now and then, the satisfied air with
which he warms his hands at it — all this distracts us from
the long-drawn-out pathos. Side by side with those who
give themselves up body and soul to love, we see those who
only view it as a passing pleasure or as a relief for their
feelings. Chaucer is not any more moral than Boccaccio,
but he is less passionate. This Pandarus is Chaucer's real
creation. He substituted a comic character for Boccaccio's
ironical hero, and thus introduced comedy into tragedy.
It is curious to note that Chaucer, in presence of an Italian
book, behaved thus early in the same way as an English
dramatist of 200 years later. He did precisely what
Shakespeare did time after time. He adopted and retained
almost intact the tragic theme and the sentimental beauty
of the two lovers, but remodelled, transformed, or created
the humorous characters. Thus Shakespeare related quite
faithfully the love of Romeo and Juliet, but threw his
chief originality into the treatment of the old nurse and of
Capulet and into the creation of Mercutio. In the same
way he reproduced the love-story of Viola and Olivia, and
drew from his own imagination the frolics of Malvolio, of

CHAUCER AND ITALY 133

the clown, of Sir Toby Belch, and of Sir Andrew Aguecheek.
For, no matter how powerful the tragic or sentimental
scenes presented by English dramatists, they seldom
constitute their most personal contribution. The comic is
their own special domain. And this humorous element,
thus introduced, imparts an air of vigorous realism, not
only to the particular scenes where it occurs, but to the
whole work. Chaucer acted instinctively in the same way
as Shakespeare more than 200 years before him.

It is therefore clear that Chaucer was not content merely
to translate Boccaccio. In one sense we may regret it,
for his innovations were not all pure gain. As is inevitable,
in every partial rehandling of a beautiful work, the harmony
of the Italian poem as a whole has suffered. Chaucer
retained too much compared to what he added, and kept
too close to his model. He hesitated too much between
imitation and independence. With all its merits, his poem
shows as little cohesion as would a picture, in which the
artist had painted the uncertain sky of a Kentish landscape
behind the luxurious vegetation of a Neapolitan foreground.
Out of this love-tale with its clear lines and exact propor-
tions, without gaps or prolixity, he has made a slow-moving
and heavily weighted poem, where repetitions abound, and
which one cannot read without fatigue. The characters
he found in the model were all of a piece, and the true
relation between them and their actions was well preserved.
He thought he could widen a work perfect in itself
and still retain all its merits. Compared to Boccaccio's
deftness and sureness of touch, revealing both mastery
and national temperament, his inexperience seems a
little clumsy, one might almost say if one dared, a little
barbaric.

But it is far better that he should have proved unequal

134 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

to his task than that he should have been a servile imitator.
It was far better that he should have produced a work with
grave defects, but at the same time revealing a strong
originality and the working of a creative mind. Chaucer's
additions were detrimental to the harmonious whole, but in
themselves, they were most characteristic. They implied
a wider and more varied conception, in which, it is true,
the part played by imitation was too great to permit of a
happy fulfilment. Chaucer's aim was not like Boccaccio's,
to paint sentimentality alone, but to reflect life. In the
scent-laden atmosphere of the lady's bower where Boccaccio
would have kept us, Chaucer tried to let in a little fresh
air, as if a window had been suddenly opened. Moreover,
he did not care if together with the vivifying breath from
without, came the strains of ribald songs from the street
below. A healthful cleansing would not the less be secured
by that bold process. The important comic element
centring around Pandarus was introduced for this very
purpose. But as the method adopted by Chaucer was
chiefly to make Pandarus talk till he was out of breath,
the result was a long-drawn-out drollery, which moreover
lacked connection with any clearly drawn character in the
flesh suggestive of reality.

One hardly dares mention the word failure in connection
with a poem admirable in so many respects, one so carefully
worked out, and to which nothing that English literature
had as yet produced could be compared for style and
metrical ease. A glorious failure indeed, but nevertheless
the awkward and imperfectly realised conception of a man
of genius. Chaucer knew better than many of his future
critics, since he passed from Troilus and Criseyde to the
Canterbury Tales, and from Pandarus to the Wife of Bath.
Instead of an imitative exercise, where he enjoyed only

CHAUCER AND ITALY 135

a semi-freedom, he looked for a subject which would be
really his, for a frame-work wherein his genius could spread
itself at ease, without endangering the serious and tragic
side of the story. He had been half-Italian and half-
English in his Troilus ; he would be solely English in his
final work. The time was approaching, when he would
get hold of a theme, which would enable him freely to use
his own observations and to express his true nature.

CHAPTER V

THE "CANTERBURY TALES": SOURCES AND COMPOSITION

I. Origin and conception of the work. II. Chaucer's realism.
Chaucer as an historian. III. Limitations of his impartiality.
Art and Satire. IV. Sources of the Tales.

I

UP to this point Chaucer, although he sought his inspiration
in France or in Italy, nay, indeed, because of this very
submission to foreign influences, is of interest chiefly to
English readers. He deserves their admiration for having
perfected his native poetic instrument, but his strength
had so far been used almost wholly in translating and in
adapting. He had not as yet produced a really new work,
capable of supplying fresh material for the thought and
imagination of any one already well acquainted with the
French trouveres or the Italian poets. He had not as yet
contributed anything notably novel to European literature
either in matter or manner. It was only when he chose an
English subject that he became a European poet. He
became such by forcing his true nature from thraldom.
When he had gained sufficient confidence in his own
powers, he used his observations for the basis of his work;
he told what he himself had seen, and expressed directly his
personal vision of life and of men and women.

The date when he first conceived the idea of his Canter-
bury Tales is an important one in the general history of
poetry. One would like to know the date with certainty,
but above all to know how the conception arose in his mind,
whether suddenly or little by little. Despite the many

136

THE CANTERBURY TALES 137

powers he had already displayed, the appearance of this
masterpiece has in it something half-miraculous. There
is something unexpected in this late production. Nearly
all the elements which went to compose it were already in
his possession, but scattered and hidden under such a
thick crust of conventions that it seemed almost impossible
to rescue them. It is therefore surprising that the poem
should have shot forth. It might so well have never been
thought of! Chaucer had not as yet given any signs of a
really original conception, and there was no reason to believe
that any such power lay in him, was even suspected by him.
It was still more improbable that the allegorist and romancer
he had shown himself to be, would suddenly turn into a
determined realist. He was in short " the grand trans-
lateur " praised by Deschamps, taking the word of course
in its widest sense. He played the part of an interpreter
between his own country and the Continent. What ground
was there for expecting that at the age of nearly fifty, he
should in his turn suddenly reveal himself as a master, a
painter of English society on the one hand, and on the other,
the creator of a work which, in the closing years of the
fourteenth century, would far surpass the contemporary
poetry of France, and even in some respects that of Italy ?
And yet, for those who examine closely the development
of the poet's talent up to the year 1385, and note its ten-
dencies and its progress, as well as its failures, the Canter-
bury Tales no longer appear such an impossible achieve-
ment. We may even see in them the natural and almost
inevitable fruition of all his past, if we admit the thought
that Chaucer had already in him, before he composed them,
the genius which was to be revealed in all its brilliance in
the Tales. Then it is that his previous works appear like
the successive forms through which his poetry passed,

138 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

ever a little constrained and awkward, before it found its full
realisation. He did not become an observer at forty-five;
he had already seen and learnt much of life, but, being too
modest a disciple, he had failed to find in his models an
adequate mould wherein to cast his observations. Indeed,
he already possessed that rich and diversified nature
which could take in both the beautiful and the ugly, which
was capable of both poetry and prose, which was made
up of piety and scepticism, of grace and humour, but the
literary styles which he had encountered could only accom-
modate the one or the other of these varied elements. He
had been kept back by allegory or lyrical romance, when
his genius unmistakably urged him towards a dramatic
and realistic narrative, shot through with comedy and
sentiment.

It is fairly certain that at this period of his life, he must
have become conscious of the discrepancy between his
nature and the work he had already accomplished, between
himself and his models. Few poets have been endowed with
so much soundness of judgment, so much self-knowledge,
or so critical a spirit. He was quite capable of estimating
what he had done, and of seeing clearly its faults and
limitations. So far, he had only produced two complete
works of any length, one a mere translation of the Roman
de la Rose, and the other an adaptation of the Filostrato,
the original harmony of which had been disturbed through
his attempts at self-expression. He had begun two other
important poems, but felt unable or unwilling to carry
them to a close. Twice over, in the Hous of Fame and in
the Legend of Good Women, he had realised so quickly how
incompatible were the subjects with his natural genius,
that he had given up the attempt ere the work was com-
pleted. In the first of these poems, he had tried to express,

THE CANTERBURY TALES 139

in the fashionable formula, the vanity of human judgments
and the caprices of glory. The plan was ambitious and
the beginning full of spirit, but he had stopped halfway,
discouraged no doubt by the artificiality of the means
put in his hand, so different from the free and vivid presen-
tation towards which he felt impelled. He had humorously
confessed his inability to confine himself to abstractions
and dreams, and his lack of taste for flights in mid-air.
The Legend, where he related the sufferings of neglected
lovers, had brought him down to a less exalted plane.
But another kind of lassitude had overtaken him, born of
the monotony of a one-sided view; he had quickly wearied
of pictures in which women were all faithful and martyrs,
men all fickle and ruffians, where his humour, if indulged
for a moment, sounded as profane and hollow as laughter
in a temple. He must needs therefore write a poem which
would be neither a translation, nor an adaptation, which
would be free from allegory and indeed from excessive
idealisation. He must discover a theme which would
provide something better than a series of uniform pictures,
one which would enable him to present real life with all its
changes and contradictions.

Was he however on that account to throw aside every-
thing that he had up to then translated or imagined and
which had lain unpublished ? Amongst the shorter works
stowed away in his chests, there were several which, con-
sidered singly, may have seemed to him somewhat narrow
in scope, being the outcome of some special moment in his
life; some pious in tone, others again sentimental, others
frankly licentious. But if it were possible to combine
them all, what a curious work they would form, of which
monotony would certainly be the least defect. There was
the story of patient Grisildis, a thorough panegyric of

140 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

feminine devotion and sustained sentimentality, but along
with it there was perhaps a monologue of a certain Wife
of Bath, which certainly provided a most striking contrast; 1
all the good as well as all the bad that can be said of woman
was contained in these two antithetic poems. Among the
same unused material was a pious homily in verse dealing
with the life of St. Cecilia, a moral tale in prose recounting
the virtues of the allegorical Dame Prudence, the wife of
Melibee, and together with these edifying productions, in
all probability, drafts of some coarse fabliaux. There was
also a fine romance of chivalry, telling of the rivalry of
Palamon and Arcite, taken from Boccaccio's Testicle, and
a rhymed adaptation of an allegory by Nicolas Trivet,
reciting the tribulations of Dame Constance representing
Christianity. And what else? It is easier to conjecture
than to give a precise and complete list of the works which
stood finished or half completed in 1385. In any case, he
felt himself able to add almost indefinitely to this series
1 It is almost certain that this monologue was originally a separate
poem. This is proved, not so much by the isolated reference made
to it by Chaucer in the Envoy to Bukton, as by the length of the
monologue and its abrupt beginning unconnected with the series.
Now it is difficult to admit that Chaucer wrote this confession after
the inception of the Tales, and did not think of including it from the
first. It must therefore be anterior. The only fact that seemed to
fight against this, was the supposed allusion to the expedition in
Frise in 1396, inferred from line 23 of the Envoy. But Mr. Lowes
has recently shown that the mercilessness of the " Fresons " had
been proverbial for many years before (see Modern Language Notes,
Feb. 1912). It is true that Mr. Lowes as well as Mr. Tatlock ascribe
a late date to the Wife of Bath's confession, but they do not explain
the fact that her prologue, such as it is, is an independent work
thrust into the Canterbury Tales, not made for them. Various
reasons, some of them peremptory, and which I cannot give in
detail here, favour the belief that several stories inserted in the
Tales were really written before Chaucer had thought of the work
as a whole.

THE CANTERBURY TALES 141

of compositions in varying tones. If he could only find
the means of welding together these contrasting elements,
he would have attained for the first time that equilibrium
which his intellect demanded, and he would in this way
be able to give a true vision of human life with its contrasts
and continual change. What a new idea it would be to
have a great miscellany which would draw all these
extremes together in a natural way; a miscellany into
whose flexible texture the fabliau could easily find itself
close to the sentimental tale, the pious narrative next to
the romance of chivalry, the sermon by the side of the
satirical confession! How much better suited it would
be to the poet's nature, with its changing and unstable
humour, thus to elaborate this composite work, where he
could reveal himself by turns as a lyrical or epic poet, a
tender or licentious story-teller, full of imagination or
sentiment or humour or joviality.

And indeed the Middle Ages had produced, Chaucer knew
them well, long series of tales of eastern origin, such as the
Gesta Romanorum or the Romance of the Seven Sages. If
it is unlikely that he ever read that wonderful Decamerone*
in which Boccaccio had recently revived this form, by giving
in his one hundred tales a vivid picture of Florentine society,
he must at least have known that close at hand his friend
Gower was writing his Confessio Amantis, wherein many
earlier compilations were put under contribution. But
in these collections, despite the number and range of
subjects, the stories themselves lacked variety of tone.
The learned Gower had imagined a lover confessing to
Genius, the priest of nature. Genius, in order to probe his
conscience, questions him about every conceivable sin, and,
the better to make himself understood, adds to the descrip-

1 Sec note to Chap. iv. pp. 117, nS.

142 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

tion of each sin one or more stories illustrating it. The
few readers of the Confessio Amantis know well enough
how artificial is the link between the stories and the
examples, and they have experienced the soporific power
of the confessor's monotonous voice.

Infinitely more realistic and lively was Boccaccio's plan
of presenting a gathering of society ladies and gallants,
who, fleeing from Florence devastated by the plague, had
taken refuge in a beautiful country house, where they
charmed their solitude by telling stories in turn. If there
is something painful in the levity of these people who can
enjoy amusing anecdotes whilst the plague is raging, yet
the theme is plausible and is carried out with marvellous
dexterity and ease. But all the speakers belong to the
same class, which makes them scarcely distinguishable, and
they possess an even elegance of speech. It is impossible
to form a clear image of any one of them. The tone re-
mains inperturbably the same, although the tales range
from the tragic to the comic, from the risky to the noble,
from the tale of the Enchanted Pear-tree to the Romance of
Grisildis. There is extreme variety in the subjects, there
is none in the manner of handling them.

Indeed, nobody had thought as yet of breaking the
inevitable monotony of a whole series of tales, however
well told, which are either from the first to the last spoken
by the poet himself, or which at the best reach us by way
of unreal or identical characters, devoid of life. Chaucer
decided to interpose between the reader and himself a
variety of speakers, each one possessed of a marked in-
dividuality. Then it was that the simple but entirely
novel idea occurred to him of devising a pilgrimage which
would bring together all sorts and conditions of people.
Ever since the spring of 1385 he had been living at his

THE CANTERBURY TALES 143

house in Greenwich, on the pilgrims' road to Canterbury,
where they flocked from all the counties of England to the
shrine of Thomas Becket. He had had many opportunities
of watching those motley cavalcades go by, in which men
and women, knights and burgesses, artisans and clerks,
commingled in temporary companionship. Perhaps he
had himself once joined one of these parties, either from
devotion or from sheer curiosity. The idea once found,
the rest was easy and went of itself: he had only to de-
scribe these pilgrims, each with the appurtenances of his
rank and his individual traits, and then to put in each of
their mouths appropriate tales.

II

The first condition necessary was to present clearly a
whole band of speakers. Nothing is more difficult, if we
think of it, in any period; it is difficult to-day and it was
even more so at a time when nothing of the kind had as
yet been attempted. It is surprising to see the simplicity
of Chaucer's method, the complete absence of artifice in
the Tales, the sureness of his touch in tracing the portraits
which make up the Prologue. We shall deal later with
their artistic merit. What is of interest at the moment is,
that his group of pilgrims constitutes a picture of the
society of his time, which has no parallel in any country.
Except for royalty and great nobles on the one hand, and
the lowest ragamuffins on the other, two extremes un-
likely to meet in the same company, he has painted in
brief practically the whole English nation.

He sets before us a muster of about thirty people, belong-

144 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

ing to the most diverse professions. The Knight, with his
son, the Squire and the Yeoman or valet at arms personate
the warlike element. A Doctor, a Man of Law, an Oxford
Clerk, and the poet himself, give us a glimpse of the liberal
professions. Agriculture is represented by a Ploughman,
a Miller, the Reve or steward of a great lord, and a Franklin
or free holder; commerce by a Merchant and a Sailor;
industry and trade by a woman cloth merchant of Bath,
a Weaver, a Dyer, and a Tapicer; the provision trade by the
Manciple of a college of law, a Cook or tavern-keeper, and
by the host of the Tabard, the jovial and loud-voiced guide
of the band of pilgrims. From the ranks of the secular
clergy are drawn the good village Parson and the odious
Somnour or usher of an ecclesiastical court, who will be
joined on the road by a Canon devoted to alchemy.
The monastic orders are strikingly typified by a rich
Benedictine Monk and a Prioress with her Priest; and
not far from these is to be found a Pardoner of doubtful
honesty.

We see that Chaucer, in his endeavour to differentiate
the various speakers, availed himself first of the easiest and
most obvious of distinctions, the contrast in their pro-
fessions. This gives the impression — and did then much
more so than to-day — of a pageant of costumes and colours
which strike the eye at once, of a number of habits and
tendencies easily grasped by the mind. By simply noting
the generic traits, the average characteristics of each trade,
he was sure to give some strongly drawn portraits,
between which confusion was impossible. Then all that
remained for him to do was to make each one talk according
to his condition and his nature.

How simple all this seems and apparently how idle to
make so much of it! Yet, it was an unprecedented inno-

THE CANTERBURY TALES 145

vation (with the exception of some passages in the drama,
as yet very primitive), and one which marks a turning
point in European thought. In fact, it was more than a
literary innovation, it was nothing less than a change of
intellectual attitude. It was the tolerant and inquisitive
spirit of science applied to the study of characters and
customs. It was the first time that a writer proved himself
clearly conscious of the relation between individuals and
ideas. The latter cease to be an end unto themselves;
they become a means of self-revelation for the one who
expresses them, believes or takes pleasure in them.

They thus at once assume an unexpected value. The
ideas hitherto given out by Chaucer had had in them but
a small amount of originality. Tney were not so new,
perhaps indeed not so strong, as those of Jean de Meung
for instance. Indeed, it is from Jean de Meung rather than
from Chaucer that one might have extracted some kind of
a philosophy. But all of a sudden, and simply because
these ideas become, as it were, the expression of a tempera-
ment, or the prejudice of a class, or the routine of a trade,
they appear, although really little changed, rejuvenated,
at times comic, at times penetrating, and even at times
profound. The reason of this lies in the dramatic value
set on them by the author. It does not matter what they
are worth, separately and in the abstract. They are rich
with meaning, from the fact of their being uttered by a
definite character, who through them reveals or betrays
himself.

To attain this object, the author naturally had to conceal
his own personality, and there is no doubt that Chaucer
was fully alive to the conditions of the realism to which he
had bound himself. He claimed to be a mere interpreter
or chronicler, who related, without change of wording or

146 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

tone, the stories he had heard. With his habitual smile,
he gave this very scrupulousness as an excuse for the
coarse or licentious passages to be found in his work:

But first I pray you, of your curteisye,

That ye n'arette it nat my vileinye,

Thogh that I pleynly speke in this matere,

To telle yow hir wordes and hir chere;

Ne thogh I speke hir wordes properly.

For this ye knowen al-so wel as I,

Who-so shal telle a tale after a man,

He moot reherce, as ny as ever he can,

Everich a word, if it be in his charge,

Al speke he never so rudeliche and large ;

Or elles he moot telle his tale untrewe,

Or feyne thing, or finde wordes newe.

He may nat spare, al-thogh he were his brother ;

He moot as wel seye o word as another.

Crist spak him-self ful brode in holy writ,

And wel ye woot, no vileinye is it.

Eek Plato seith, who-so that can him rede,

The wordes mote be cosin to the dede.

The Canterbury Tales, Prologue, 11. 725-742.

Thus the characters are real, their thoughts such as they
were likely to have had, and their words precisely those
they used. But this gathering of characters, taken from
various callings on the one hand, and that impartiality
which allows each individual to express himself without
check on thought or word on the other, what is this but
the society of the time, painted body and soul with a
minute exactness ? And it is thus that Chaucer, who, as we
have said, kept himself aloof from history, becomes in his
turn an historian. He is just as truly the social chronicler
of England at the end of the fourteenth century as Froissart
is the military and political chronicler of the same period;
and all the more so in that he did not pretend to be writing
history or passing judgments or drawing moral conclusions.

any u

get from t..-^ ... , ^ach as it

actually was for the thousands wno niu c amongst so-called
historical events, without suspecting in the very least that
it is they who make history, or that history is being made
all round them. Chaucer's pilgrims live their own lives,
full of action or sentiment, loyalty or intrigue, as the case
may be, and trouble themselves very little about the
reigning sovereign or his favourite, about conquests or
defeats abroad or troubles at home; theirs, in short, is the
sort of existence which is the lot of the majority of men in
all ages. What they care about is their purse, their love-
affairs or their private feuds. They are more interested
in their next-door neighbour than in the king, in their
neighbour's wife than in the queen, in the district tax-
collector than in the chancellor of the exchequer. For
most of them the universe is bounded by their parish. And
that is why we feel that they are in the poem such as they
were in reality, why they are true to life and form the very
back-bone of that history which they care so little about.
We have here the doings, thoughts, and sayings which

qu*. a without

much difticu. r ~} ^.^vent. The

Knight, brave, pious, and modest, would not have been
out of place, nay, he would have found himself in more
congenial company had he followed Saint Louis on his
crusades. The Oxford Clerk wanders homeless through
his own generation, an idealist whose eyes are set on some
sentimental dream, or who ponders in his mind the sayings
of Aristotle; it is but now and then and with a sort of
shock that he comes back to the present and is conscious
of treading solid earth. Several among them have no
precise date, unless one takes as an indication the cut or
the colour of their garb, for they are simply men practising
trades sometimes as old as the world, or whose persons
are made up of the elementary appetites of humanity.
Their characteristics are solely those of their sex, their age,
or their calling, the young Squire, the Wife of Bath, the
Merchant, the Shipman, the Doctor, and the Man of Law.

But there is nothing abstract in the surroundings amongst
which they live. Their meeting, the degrees of acquain-
tanceship into which they drift, the presence of certain

THE CANTERBURY TALES 149

people who belong to a definite period, together with the
minute description of their equipment, prevent their being
lost in an atmosphere of vagueness. Fully typical of his
country and times is the Yeoman with his " sheef of pecok-
arwes brighte and kene " (Prologue, 1. 104), carrying in his
hand a " mighty bowe," the sight of which recalls the
battles of Crecy and Poitiers, in which he and his fellows
played such a prominent part. The Epicurean Franklin
bears testimony to the growing prosperity of commoners,
who were beginning to come to the fore, being some-
times sheriffs and sometimes knights of their shires,
that is representing their county in parliament. The
wealth attained by certain corporations is exemplified in
the apparel of those five members of a city guild riding
together, each of whom would make a respectable alder-
man. The importance which middle-class townsmen were
gaining in their own estimation is shown in the bold
manner of the host of the Tabard, who frankly tells each
pilgrim, great or small, what he thinks of him. The
Reve or steward, who made enough money out of his
master to be able to make him a loan, shows how wealth
was then changing hands.

But it is the clergy above all who help to date the poem.
Not that Chaucer was by any means the first to point out the
discrepancy between the duties and the actions of ecclesi-
astics, or the corruption into which had fallen so many
good works, started in a passionate impulse of faith and
charity. For a long time back, writers of all shades,
clerical or secular, pious or profane, had lashed with abuse
the laxity of discipline and the shortcomings of individuals.
We have only to remember Rutebeuf, Jean de Meung, the
authors of the fabliaux, or the hermit and mystic Richard
Rolle of Hampole, and it becomes at once obvious that

150 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

Chaucer came at the end, not at the beginning, of a long
list of assailants. But the religious troubles which agitated
England during his life-time have their echo in his poem,
and make his sketches of clerics those of a definite date
and place. He did not live in vain in the neighbourhood
of William Langland, within earshot of Wyclif's predica-
tions against Rome, or in the midst of the rapidly increasing
Lollards. His realistic genius, moreover, freed from the
allegories which obscured the pictures of Jean de Meung
or Langland, compelled him to draw from nature, whilst
at the same time his natural moderation enabled him to
be impartial where these others could not. Good or bad,
his clerics are people whom he has seen with his own eyes.
The picture is not a flattering one, but we know on reliable
authority, through the complaints or invectives of the
orthodox members of the community, or even from the
popes themselves, that the great schism corresponded with
extreme laxity of discipline and morals. The monastic
orders had forgotten their primitive rule of poverty and
labour; Chaucer's Benedictine Monk is a fat highly-fed
individual, whose sole idea is hunting. The Franciscan
Friar is but a clever and prosperous beggar, who uses his
gift of fine language to ensure himself a merry life. The
Prioress is a pleasant, tender-hearted, but rather affected
person, who cares more about fine manners than about
austerity; her chaplain is a lusty fellow who tells broad
stories with zest. The Pardoner represents that cynical
class of exploiters with doubtful qualifications, who specu-
lates and lives richly on popular superstition. Ecclesi-
astical administration appears also in full force, from the
bishop down to the archdeacon, and from him to that
repulsive Somnour, who sells the powers conferred on
him by the ecclesiastical courts, sacrificing poor wretches

THE CANTERBURY TALES 151

and unwary lovers. The Canon, whom the pilgrims meet
on the way, has lost all sense of his spiritual duties: he is
a sort of learned person, an alchemist, whose thoughts are
bound up in the philosopher's stone, at once a dupe and a
duper, who extorts money from the credulous in order to
pursue his own foolish researches.

In strong contrast to these degenerates and parasites,
stands the figure of a true priest, who wins both respect
and love. He may not of himself redeem a faithless and
dishonest clergy, but he shows at least the attainable
beauty of true religion. The good village Parson is, with
his brother the Ploughman, the only Christ-like person
in the whole company. He is perfectly orthodox, but
nevertheless he owes much of his moral beauty to the
Lollards. It was their ardour for reform, their endeavour
to find in the Gospel a protection against an odious dis-
cipline and accumulated superstitions, which brought him
back to the primitive faith and to essential charity. He
would not have anything to do with Wyclif's attacks on
dogma, but he repudiated sternly the vices of ambition,
greed, laziness, hardness towards the poor, and servility
to the great, which, by bringing dishonour on the servants
of Christ, drove the Master out of the land. His virtue
rests chiefly in the contrast between himself and those
non-resident clerics who go to London to beg for chantries
and benefices.

All this belongs to the poet's own age; and so does the
peculiar mixture of devotion and cynicism, the mocking
attitude of the laymen towards the clergy, the easy manner
in which they introduce them, in their own hearing, into
doubtful stories. This lack of reverence has begun to be
tinged with incredulity: discreet and non-committal in
the Doctor, but finding a profane expression on the lips

152 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

of the Inn-keeper, and bearing a suspicious air of reverence
in the words of the poet himself, when he tries to justify
the discrepancy between his tale of Melibee and its original
by pointing out the discordance between the Gospels.
One feels that harmony has ceased to be perfect between
dogma and intelligence. The chasm is not grave enough
to call for an immediate revolution, but it is sufficient to
let scepticism into the temple. People are beginning to
have opinions of their own, to censure, to scoff; they often
laugh at scholasticism. The uncertain dawn of a renais-
sance or of a reformation, one does not know which, is
slowly breaking through the horizon.

Nothing brings out these discrepancies better than the
Canterbury Tales. Being neither a satire nor a work
written to edify, this poem gives us a convincing picture
of contemporary society, such as it must have appeared
to an acute and impartial observer.

Ill

Did Chaucer then evade the common law and succeed in
producing an artistic work free from the arbitrariness
which is the condition of art? Are the Canterbury Tales
like a slice of the life of the day cut out without any pre-
conceived plan ? No, Chaucer could not any more than
other poets quite keep his personality out of his book: he
had to choose with a view to effect, to group so as to bring
order into disorder and light into confusion. His poem only
appears to us so luminous because of the wholesale elimi-
nation of that which remained obscure even to his observant
eye and because he focuses our attention on a restricted
number of questions.

THE CANTERBURY TALES 153

A close examination of the Tales will reveal the fact that
this work, apparently so diverse and easy-going, is really
centred around two principal themes, love and religion,
or in other words the woman and the priest, or again the
joys and sorrows of married life running parallel to the
actions and morals of the clergy. If we consider separately
the fragments of the incomplete work, the groups of
consecutive tales which stand between the gaps, we shall
find one or other of these motives the dominant factor,
or else they alternate sometimes with perfect symmetry.
The picture of courtly love followed by that of a crudely
sensual love makes up the first fragment. The fourth
group sets forth the matrimonial principles of the Wife of
Bath and the dispute between the Limitour Friar and
the Somnour. The fifth group, after extolling feminine
virtues in Grisildis, contains the indictment of feminine
wiles spoken by the Merchant. Similar pleas again hold
a prominent part in the other groups, although not quite
so markedly, as for instance in the second group with the
Shipman's Tale, relating the story of the wife who deceives
her husband and is in her turn cheated by her accomplice;
with the exceeding perfection of Dame Prudence, wife of
Melibee, and the matrimonial quarrels of Chanteclere and
Dame Pertelote in the Nonne Prestes Tale. The chief
figure in the third group is the Pardoner; the fifth centres
around the sweet picture of the perfect wife, Dorigine;
the last is all taken up with the saintly words of the good
village Parson.

There are very few characters or stories which do not fit
into these two generalisations. Moreover, they are so far
apart as to appear like the recreation of the mind or its
stations along a road pointing always in the same direction.
Fortunately, the themes are so simple and comprehensive

154 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

that they do not betray the hand of the author. He
adopted and retained them, it seems, because they were
the ordinary topics of conversation between people of all
classes. The Middle Ages, in truth, were summed up in
this double train of thought; it is not Chaucer who intro-
duced it to his readers, nor thrust it upon them. In other
words, this preoccupation was common to both the poet and
his time, so that, by giving it a prominent place in his work,
he could be at once a docile chronicler and a spirited poet.
What we have to consider now is whether Chaucer
treated these two leading questions and those depending
on them with that absolute impartiality which would be
tantamount after all to complete indifference. Did he
never listen to the promptings of his sense of humour, nor
incline towards satire? It is so tempting to laugh at
ridiculous people, so gratifying to chastise dupers and
hypocrites. The description of evil and of hell offers, it is
well known, more variety of scope than the painting of
Paradise and of virtue. Although Chaucer did not neglect
the latter, he was certainly partial to the former. In his
little world, the proportion of vices and good qualities is
at the rate of two or even three to one. Vice proper looms
large in the Canterbury Tales. But it would be doing them
an injustice to describe them as a satirical work. The
narrowness of satire which slashes the general defects of
humanity or of the time; the moral purpose, real or affected,
which generally accompanies satire and directs its blows,
all this is quite foreign to Chaucer. He is entirely patient
with, nay he accepts with a smile the imperfections of
humanity as well as some of its vices. He does not give
one the impression that he would feel happier in a more
virtuous world. Moreover, he has not pledged himself to
look only at the mud on the road; he likes also to glance

THE CANTERBURY TALES 155

at the flowers that grow by the wayside and even from
time to time to lift his eyes to the heavens above.

Undiluted satire is very rare with him. In fact, when
met with, it strikes one as a discordant note which mars
the harmonious whole. One would like for instance to
leave out of the Pardoner's confession the few lines where
the chronicler cedes the pen to the moralist. The trans-
actions of this dealer in indulgences aroused in him an
indignation, which at times takes the merriment out of his
laughter and ruins the truth of his picture. Chaucer
makes him cry out on his own rascality —

Thus spitte I out my venim under hewe
Of holynesse, to seme holy and trewe.

The Pardoner's Prologue, 11. 421-422.

Such mistakes in dramatic conception are not usual with
Chaucer. It is no longer the lively and artful companion
who speaks thus, but one of those abstractions of vice
whose cynical confessions he imitates. It is Wicked-
Tongue or False-Semblant (Romaunt of the Rose).

Usually, Chaucer's satire resembles that of the great
comic writers. It is simply an insight into the hidden
feelings and unconscious motives of the human machine.
Like Moliere, he sees the selfish causes of a man's actions,
and views them with an equanimity, a serenity of which
Moliere was not always capable.

But if we wish to discover a Chaucer anxious to teach
his contemporaries a lesson, we must not go to his humorous
pictures, in which there is little to betray the slightest
deviation between the original and the portrait. It is
when he is trying to paint the beautiful side of things, when
he is idealising, that we must watch him. The virtues of
his Knight, of his Clerk, of his Parson are in fact so many
hidden sermons. The Knight with his purity of morals,

156 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

his piety, his modesty, his courtesy to all, might very well
be a pattern of primitive chivalry, set as a model for imita-
tion by a degenerate age, where the order had drifted
towards ambition, luxury, and sensuality. The good Clerk,
wrapped up in his books, who had not got enough practical
sense to procure a living, must have been a very rare thing.
Above all, the village Parson, whose noble personality is
made up of negations or abstentions: he did not excom-
municate those who refused to pay him their tithe; nothing
could prevent him from visiting his poorest parishioners;
he did not do himself what he forbade others to do; he did
not forsake his flock in order to go to London, and so forth.
In these praises given to one man are contained reproaches
for hundreds of others.

These touches show us the moralist in Chaucer side by
side with the painter. His abstention was not complete.
He saw the worst and regretted the best, at times. The
movement of disciplinary reform started by Wyclif had
not left him unaffected, and his knowledge of ancient books
of chivalry made him sigh when he looked at the present.
But even when he idealises in this rather general way, he
is so careful to avoid rhetoric, he builds up his picture
with so many concrete and precise details that he still
retains his customary air of a chronicler.

Besides, so diverse are his touches and colours that they
preserve him from any suspicion of one-sidedness; for
there is nothing that betrays the satirical spirit so much as
uniformity. But there are so many delicate shades between
the brutal revelations made by the Pardoner, and the im-
perceptible irony which accompanies the enumeration of
the Parson's virtues, that reality itself could not boast of
greater variety. Thus it is that we lose sight of that
delicate process of elimination, which is the necessary

THE CANTERBURY TALES 157

consequence of any satirical conception. The poet appears
as a mere onlooker, and if at times we think we have almost
caught sight of an expression of bitterness on his face,
we find ourselves looking only at an amused and indulgent
smile.

IV

Chaucer's realism is therefore an established fact. He
held up the mirror to his age, and presented to it the least
distorted image of itself. His temperament and clear-
sightedness made for accuracy, and no historical document
gives us, as does his poem, the people of Richard II. 's time
" in their habit as they lived."

Now, whilst real life gave him the characters and frame-
work of his poem, the literature in which his contemporaries
found pleasure supplied him with his tales. He was as
little inclined to invent his stories as to create his pilgrims.
The conception of the whole was so new in its strict ad-
herence to reality, that there was no need of inventiveness
in the detail. Better still, the individual stories, however
commonplace in substance, were bound to partake of the
originality of the whole. Except in the Canon's Yeoman's
tale, where he seems to have related an actual occurrence,
Chaucer drew from well-known, and sometimes very well-
known, collections of tales. And this, as it happens, is
yet another life-like touch, for the pilgrims are not supposed
to invent but to repeat these stories. Further, this method
has another and more striking advantage, inasmuch as it
endows the tales with a variety of subjects and style, far
greater than if they had all been the original productions
of the same mind, thus sharing a sort of family likeness,
common to children of the same father.

158 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

It is interesting to watch them go in one by one into this
kind of literary Noah's Ark, all the various forms and styles
cultivated by the Middle Ages, and which appear there in
their native garb; prose, stanza, or regular rhyme, just as
distinct as the pilgrims themselves, not all wrapped up
in the cloak of a common elegance, like the tales of the
Decamerone. Let us review them and briefly describe the
origin of each, for they come from the four corners of
literature, and the reason for their being in this collection
seems to be merely that they were already in existence.
Let us give first place to the weightiest and most virtuous.

Here are two tales in prose, one of which, the Parson's,
is simply a sermon translated, for the most part, from the
Somme des Vices et des Vertus by Frere Laurens ; the other,
Chaucer's tale of Melibee, is a moral allegory, literally
transcribed from the Liber Consolationis by Albertino de
Brescia, through the medium of Jean de Meung's prose
version.

Here are, also in the pious vein, five tales in stanzas:
the life of St. Cecilia, taken from the Legends Doree ; next
the Prioress's tale, a devout story on the well-known theme
of a Christian child murdered by Jews. Then comes a
vast allegory recounting the troubles of the early Christian
faith, symbolised by Dame Constance — related by the
Man of Law and translated from the Anglo-Saxon chronicle
of the Dominican Nicholas Trivet. Next in order, the
" tragedies " told by the Monk, a series of illustrious mis-
fortunes from sacred or profane sources, on the plan of
Boccaccio's De Casibus Firorum Illustrium. Now we have
a moral and sentimental tale, the story of Grisildis by the
Clerk, taken from Petrarch's Latin prose version of the last
tale in the Decamerone. And last of the series, with its
short, lively stanzas in tailed rhyme, a parody of ballads

THE CANTERBURY TALES 159

of chivalry, Sir Thopas, in which Chaucer incorporated
numberless details borrowed from the fashionable romances
of the time.

Behind these come the other tales, all written in the
heroic metre and regular couplet, whose uniform garb hides
great diversity of character, some noble, others tender,
many bold and cynical. First of all, the Knight's tale, a
romance of chivalry which is an abridgment of Boccaccio's
Testicle; — the Franklin's tale, a sentimental Breton lay
with a supernatural element, the source of which is un-
known, but which is similar to the Enchanted Garden, the
fifth tale of the tenth day in the Decamerone; — the Squire's
tale, clearly of oriental origin, full of the magical attributes
familiar to readers of the Arabian Nights ; — the Pardoner's
tale, a moral allegory also derived from the East, the
counterpart of which is to be found in the Cento Novelle
Antiche ; — the Wife of Bath's tale, a fairy story connected
with the Arthurian cycle; it has many counterparts, the
hero being sometimes called Gauvain and sometimes, as in
Gower, Florent; the subject had won popular favour and
was destined to keep it (Voltaire made use of it in Ce qui
plait aux dames); — the Physician's tale about Appius and
Virginia, borrowed from Livy, through the Roman de la
Rose ; — the Manciple's tale, which is really the fable of the
Raven, taken from Ovid's Metamorphoses ; — the Nonne
Preestes tale, which is only an extension of an episode in the
Roman de Renart.

At the end come five fabliaux, pure and simple, the one
told by the Miller, of which many analogues have been
found, but not the original; the one told by the Reve, which
is the same as the famous Cradle tale of Boccaccio and
La Fontaine, but based on an old narrative by Jean de
Boves, De Gombert et des deux Clercs ; the one related by

160 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

the Shipman, in all likelihood an imitation of a lost French
version, and which is similar to the first tale of the eighth
day in the Decamerone ; the one spoken by the Friar,
which makes use of an anecdote, partly farcical and partly
supernatural, the source of which is lost, but of which we
have similar versions in various Latin miscellanies; the
one told by the Somnour, derived from the Dit de la
Vescie a Prestre, by Jacques de Baisieux; the one related
by the Merchant which develops the fabliau called The Pear-
tree, well known to readers of Boccaccio and La Fontaine.

To these tales, strongly spiced with gauloiserie, must be
added the confessions, such as the Pardoner's or the Wife
of Bath's prologue, and one might even add the Canon's
Yeoman's tale. Although made up of compilations and
reminiscent of former productions — for instance Brother
Cibolo in the Decamerone or the discourses of Elde in
the Roman de la Rose — these confessions are amongst the
most original passages in the Canterbury Tales. What
we must note is that this style existed long before (cf.
Rutebeuf's Dit de PHerberie), and was generally employed
for the satiric exposure of the malpractices of a profession.

We have only recorded here the more notable borrowings
made by Chaucer, in the matter of subject and style. But
within this frame he incessantly poured forth, as was ever
his wont, maxims and images, developments and learning
acquired in the course of his reading, particularly in the
two volumes which were his constant companions, the
Roman de la Rose and the De Consolatione. So that his
great poem seems to be a kind of reservoir filled by the
whole literature of the Middle Ages, and enriched from the
most diverse sources. Because of this, it runs the risk,
may be, of losing some of its interest for modern readers —
especially readers in France where most of his stories,

THE CANTERBURY TALES 161

both as regards intrigue and denouement, have long since
been familiar. But this loss in popular curiosity is not
of much account. Far greater is the peril it runs at the
hands of scholars who concentrate all their attention on
the differences of detail between the Chaucerian version
and those which preceded or followed it. In this case, the
true nature and original spirit of the whole collection will
not be appreciated. Let us try for a while to realise in
ourselves the artlessness, ignorance, and childishness of the
Canterbury pilgrims. Let us accept as original the stories
which we are going to hear, without troubling ourselves
about their origin. Let us be capable of feeling simple
emotion, when we are told how Virginia was killed by her
father to save her from the lust of Appius, or of laughing
outright, as if this was the first time we had heard of the
tricks of Renard, or the farcical stories of The Pear-tree
or The Cradle. Let us forget, during our perusal of this
poem, the questions of sources or influences, and even
suspend all considerations about the literary merits of the
book, and pay attention only to the huge comedy unravel-
ling itself before us, to the varied entertainment provided
for us by the many stories, each rendered peculiarly
interesting by the voice, mien, and turn of mind of the
speaker. Such is the way in which we should read, once at
least, the Canterbury Tales, if we want to realise their true
spirit, to enjoy the freshness and vividness, which made
the delight and won the applause of their contemporaries.
It goes against the grain to turn that book of merriment,
meant to be read in the open air on a sunny, bracing day
of April, into a text for the class-room or the scholar's study.1

1 Here followed in the French edition a long chapter wholly filled
by an analysis of The Canterbury Tales. It has been thought that
such a description was not needed by the English reader.

L

CHAPTER VI

THE " CANTERBURY TALES " : A LITERARY STUDY

I. The Portraits. II. The Pilgrims in action. III. Adjustment of
the Tales to the Speakers. IV. Value of the Tales. V. Style.

I

WE must now draw nearer to the picture and examine
it in detail. Although unfinished, the Canterbury Tales
court and justify a close scrutiny, for delicacy of touch
equals in them magnitude of conception. They not
only deserve this literary inquiry, but what is more they
prove very instructive to whoever tries to discover the
relation between the means employed by the poet and the
ends achieved. This will become apparent if we study
the way in which Chaucer draws his portraits, how he sets
his characters in motion, and tells his tales; finally we
ought to consider his style or rather the various kinds of
style in which he cast his conceptions.

The portraits of the pilgrims were gathered together by
Chaucer in the Prologue, which is a veritable picture-
gallery. These twenty-nine companions of the road are
like so many pictures hung on a wall. It is impossible to
imagine a more direct, nay, one may well say a more naive
mode of presentation. The most primitive artist of to-day
would not be satisfied with such a monotonous method,
and the most expert would shun a repetition of such
audaciously simple means. Out of their frames, set at
equal distance from each other, hung on the same plane
and at the same height, the pilgrims look at us in turn.

162

THE CANTERBURY TALES 163

The only diversity is caused by two frames left unfilled
(perhaps provisionally), with only the names written at the
bottom, that of the Nun, chaplain to the Prioress, and that
of the priest accompanying her; or again by the five city
artisans, members of one guild, who appear together on
the same canvas, for the poet did not think it necessary
to make a portrait of each.

Chaucer proceeds in precisely the same way as the
primitives, giving all his attention to the exact drawing
of the features and the choice of emblems. He has further
in common with them a certain well-meaning clumsiness, a
sort of stiffness in the contours, a fondness for trifling
details which causes one to smile at first, finally a preference
for bright colours, applied in uniform tints with no half-
tones. Details in the portraits seem to follow each other
at haphazard: touches of dress or equipment alternate
with notes referring to character; these lapse for a while
and again reappear. If he is describing the morals of a
pilgrim, Jig jsome_tim£S,,in.texrupts- himself io add a little
more colour to his face or to his cloak — delightful negligences
which make us forget the writer's art and increase the
impression of truthfulness.

On entering the gallery, the eye is at first drawn to the
brilliant patches of colour conspicuous in some portraits.
Such is for instance the gown worn by the young Squire,
all embroidered

as it were a mede
Al ful of fresshe floures, whyte and rede

(Canterbury Tales, Prologue, 1. 89),

and next to him the Forester, who serves him " clad in cote
and hood of grene." The row of beads, worn by the
Prioress around her arm, stands out in strong relief against
her robes. It was of coral and every tenth bead was green,

164 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

and appended to the beads was a brooch of gold. What
a contrast between the ruddy complexion of the Franklin
and his beard, white " as is the dayesye " ! We cannot
take our eyes off the hose " of fyn scarlet reed," so tight
and smooth, worn by the Wife of Bath, any more than we
can help noticing the Pardoner's hair " as yellow as wex,"
hanging on his shoulders like a soft " strike of flex."

There are a few faces which, for vividness of colour, are

just as remarkable as the garments: the pimply face of the

Somnour, fiery-red like a cherub's, flaming under his dark

eye-brows; the Miller's, with his reddish beard, and on his

*"> nose the famous wart surmounted by a tuft of hair, the

i two black holes of his nostrils and his mouth as big as a

'^.furnace.

But there are duller tints for the eye to rest on, which,
by contrast, help further to throw into relief the bright
colours by their side: the fustian doublet of the doughty
and modest Knight, all soiled by his hauberk; the thread-
bare cloak of the poor Clerk, the greyish coat of the grave
Man of Law, the bluish grey " surcote " of the slender Reve,
and what is most remarkable, the absence of all indication
of costume and colour in the portrait of the good Parson,
which we are free to imagine illumined only by the radiant
evangelical light of his eyes.

Chaucer then was able to rival the art of the painter.
His portraits are as good as illuminated miniatures, and
on reading the Prologue we have no need to regret that the
pilgrims were not reproduced on canvas by some con-
temporary master. The poet, moreover, has resources
unknown to the painter, for sounds are at his disposal as
well as colours. Chaucer is equally fortunate in turning
these to advantage. He listens with equal pleasure to the
jingling of the bells on the Monk's palfrey, to the pretty

THE CANTERBURY TALES 165

snuffling speech of the Prioress, to the affected lisp of the
Friar, to the Pardoner's voice " as smal as hath a goot,"
to the deep bass voice of the Somnour, garlic-laden and
more deafening than any " trompe."

We would have to quote nearly the whole of the Pro-
logue as an instance of these concrete details, which give so
clear an impression of a person. The essential moral traits
are set forth with the same apparent simplicity, the same
command over the means of expression which Chaucer
displayed in depicting typical colours or garments. Simple
biographical notes, suggestive anecdotes, traits peculiar to
the individual or to his trade, lines which sum up a char-
acter, all these unite on the canvas into a forcible whole,
with clean and vigorous outlines, albeit a little stiff at
times, bathed in a clear atmosphere, a picture never to be
forgotten. And our thoughts wander back to those primi-
tive painters, whom we are inclined to consider at first with
the patronising air of grown-ups for children, but whose
art in the end reveals itself to us as so conscientious, so
exact and soul-searching, that we wonder whether the
progress since accomplished in painting does not merely
consist in exterior cleverness and idle subtlety, designed to
evade or to obscure that which is essential.

The greatest difficulty of all was to represent these thirty
pilgrims distinct one from the other, and we saw that
Chaucer attained his object by embodying in each of them
the type of one profession. But he used other means
besides to avoid confusion. He painted them all with
equal conscientiousness, but not with the same depth.
Whilst some of the pilgrims — the Merchant, the Man of
Law, the Doctor, for instance, are only presented with the
characteristics of their profession, most of the others
combine these with other traits which strengthen them or

166 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

mitigate their stiffness. Although he never omits the
peculiarities appertaining to the trade (and this is what
renders the pilgrims truly representative), Chaucer some-
times restricts or directs them with a view either to idealisa-
tion or to satire. If the Knight is a pattern of bravery, or
the village Parson the model of good shepherds, or the
Oxford Clerk the type of a disinterested love of learning —
inversely the Monk, the Friar, the Somnour, the Pardoner,
without being at any time caricatures, do combine in their
character the least estimable traits of their tribe. Some-
times also a different kind of generalisation is used to
strengthen the first one: the Squire is at the same time
youth, the Ploughman perfect charity in the poor; tjb.e
Wife of Bath the very essence of satire against women.

But this is not all: he strengthens perfunctory or earlier
generalisations by adding details supplied by direct obser-
vation. He combines personal with generic traits, and even
when he is painting a type he gives one the Jm.pression_of
painting a uruque^gp^^'ia.^n_ _Jigrnvprpr* by chance. This
applies to the Miller, the Reve, most of the clerics, and
above all to the Prioress and to the Wife of Bath. The
proportion of these different elements is variously graded
with an infinite cleverness not always apparent. More
general traits would have turned the picture into a frozen
symbol, an uninteresting abstraction; more individual
traits would have confused it by depriving the mind of
obvious means of identification.

Thus English society, which appeared to a visionary like
Langland a seething and confused mass, where man pressed
against man in a sort of semi-darkness, becomes with
Chaucer a well-defined and well-lit group, both limited and
representative, of men who stop before us just long enough
to enable us to form an idea of their personality. Each

THE CANTERBURY TALES 167

lives his life independently of the others, and will always
be easily recognised, but their reunion sums up almost the
whole of contemporary society.

It seems about time that we should quote here, to
prove our point, a few of these portraits. The only
difficulty consists in making a choice.

Here are, to begin with, two ecclesiastics standing in
strong contrast, one touched with irony, the other turned
to edification.

A Frere ther was, a wantown and a merye,
A limitour, a ful solempne man.
In alle the ordres foure is noon that can
So muche of daliaunce and fan- langage.
He hadde maad ful many a mariage
Of yonge wommen, at his owene cost.
Un-to his ordre he was a noble post.
Ful wel biloved and famulier was he
With frankeleyns over-al in his contree.
And eek with worthy wommen of the toun :
For he had power of confessioun,
As seyde him-self, more than a curat,
For of his ordre he was licentiat.
Ful swetely herde he confessioun,
And plesaunt was his absolucioun;
He was an esy man to yeve penaunce
Ther as he wiste to han a good pitaunce;
For unto a povre ordre for to yive
Is signe that a man is wel y-shrive.
For if he yaf, he dorste make avaunt,
He wiste that a man was repentaunt.
For many a man so hard is of his herte,
He may nat wepe al-thogh him sore smerte.
Therefore, in stede of weping and prey6res,
Men moot yeve silver to the povre freres.
His tipet was ay farsed ful of knyves
And pinnes, for to yeven faire wyves.
And certeinly he hadde a mery note;
Wel coude he singe and pleyen on a rote.
Of yeddinges he bar utterly the prys.

168 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

His nekke whyt was as the flour-de-lys;
Ther-to he strong was as a champioun.
He knew the tavernes wel in every toun,
And everich hostiler and tappestere
Bet than a lazar or a beggestere ;
For un-to swich a worthy man as he
Acorded nat, as by his facultee,
To have with seke lazars aqueyntaunce.
It is nat honest, it may nat avaunce
For to delen with no swich poraille,
But al with riche and sellers of vitaille.
And over-al, ther as profit sholde aryse,
Curteys he was, and lowly of servyse;
Ther nas no man no-wher so vertuous.
He was the beste beggere in his hous;
And yaf a certeyn ferme for the graunt;
Noon of his bretheren cam ther in his haunt;
For thogh a widwe hadde noght a sho,
So plesaunt was his " In principio,"
Yet wolde he have a ferthing, er he wente.
His purchas was wel bettre than his rente.
And rage he coude, as it were right a whelpe.
In love-dayes ther coude he muchel helpe;
For there he was nat lyk a cloisterer,
With a thredbar cope, as is a povre scoler,
But he was lyk a maister or a pope.
Of double worsted was his semi-cope,
That rounded as a belle out of the presse.
Somwhat he lipsed, for his wantownesse,
To make his English swete up-on his tonge;
And in his harping, whan that he had songe,
His eyen twinkled in his heed aright,
As doon the sterres in the frosty night.

Prologue, 11. 208-269.

Beside the delicate and yet slashing irony which presided
over this picture, what earnest piety in the portrait of the
good village Parson, the prototype of Goldsmith's vicar
of Auburn and even of the sublime vicar of Valneige.1 His
kindly face rests us from the many rogues who travel with
1 See Lamar tine's Jocelyn.

THE CANTERBURY TALES 169

him. We should note, moreover, the absence of sentimen-
tality in this firmly drawn and touching likeness :

A good man was ther of religioun.
And was a povre Persoun of a toun;
But riche he was of holy thoght and werk.
He was also a lerned man, a clerk,
That Cristes gospel trewely wolde preche ;
His parisshens devoutly wolde he teche.
Benigne he was, and wonder diligent,
And in adversitee ful pacient;
And swich he was y-preved ofte sythes.
Ful looth were him to cursen for his tythes,
But rather wolde he yeven, out of doute,
Un-to his povre parisshens aboute
Of his ofrring, and eek of his substaunce.
He coude in litel thing han suffisaunce.
Wyd was his parisshe, and houses fer a-sonder,
But he ne lafte nat, for reyn ne thonder,
In siknes nor in meschief, to visyte
The ferreste in his parisshe, muche and lyte,
Up-on his feet, and in his hand a staf.
This noble ensample to his sheep he yaf,
That first he wroghte, and afterward he taughte;
Out of the gospel he tho wordes caughte ;
And this figure he added eek ther-to,
That if gold ruste, what shal iren do?
For if a preest be foul, on whom we truste,
No wonder is a lewed man to ruste;
And shame it is, if a preest take keep,
A [dirty] shepherde and a clene sheep.
Wei oghte a preest ensample for to yive,
By his clennesse, how that his sheep shold live.
He sette nat his benefice to hyre,
And leet his sheep encombred in the myre,
And ran to London, un-to seynt Poules,
To seken him a chaunterye for soules,
Or with a bretherheed to been withholde ;
But dwelte at hoom, and kepte wel his folde,
So that the wolf ne made it nat miscarie;
He was a shepherde and no merccnarie.

170 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

And though he holy were, and vertuous,
He was to sinful man nat despitous,
Ne of his speche daungerous ne digne,
But in his teching discreet and benigne.
To drawen folk to heven by fairnesse
By good ensample, was his bisinesse:
But it were any person obstinat,
What-so he were, of heigh or lowe estat,
Him wolde he snibben sharply for the nones.
A bettre preest, I trowe that nowher noon is.
He wayted after no pompe and reverence,
Ne maked him a spyced conscience,
But Cristes lore, and his apostles twelve,
He taughte, and first he folwed it him-selve.

Prologue, 11. 477-528.

The two other portraits are distinct from the preceding ones
in this, that the poet's sole object was to paint from nature.
There is no trace here of hostility or of a desire to idealise.
Miller is simply one of the most vigorous sketches of
unmitigated brute ever drawn by poet or painter:

The Miller was a stout carl, for the nones,
Ful big he was of braun, and eek of bones;
That proved wel, for over-al ther he cam,
At wrastling he wolde have alwey the ram.
He was short-sholdred, brood, a thikke knarre,
Ther was no dore that he nolde heve of harre,
Or breke it, at a renning, with his heed.
His berd as any sowe or fox was reed,
And ther-to brood, as thogh it were a spade.
Up-on the cop right of his nose he hade
A werte, and ther-on stood a tuft of heres,
Reed as the bristles of a sowes eres;
His nose-thirles blake were and wyde.
A swerd and bokeler bar he by his syde ;
His mouth as greet was as a greet forneys.
He was a Tangier and a goliardeys,
And that was most of sinne and harlotryes.
Wel coude he stelen corn, and tollen thrye's;
\^ And yet he hadde a thombe of gold, pardee.

Prologue, 11. 545-563.

THE CANTERBURY TALES 171

Very different from these, and in that subtle vein in which
Chaucer is so eminently successful, is the portrait of
Madame Eglentyne, a model of good breeding and sensitive-
ness, tender with just a touch of affectation, very pious, of
course, but never quite forgetful of her looks, even in the
midst of her devotions:

Ther was also a Nonne, a Prioresse,
That of hir smyling was ful simple and coy;
Hir gretteste ooth was but by seynt Loy;
And she was cleped madame Eglentyne.
Ful wel she song the service divyne,
Entuned in hir nose ful semely;
And Frensh she spak ful faire and fetisly,
After the scole of Stratford atte Bowe,
For Frensh of Paris was to hir unknowe.
At mete wel y-taught was she with-alle ;
She leet no morsel from hir lippes falle,
Ne wette hir fingres in hir sauce depe.
Wel coude she carie a morsel, and wel kepe.
That no drope ne fille up-on hir brest.
In curteisye was set ful muche hir lest.
Hir over lippe wyped she so clene,
That in hir coppe was no ferthing sene
Of grece, whan she dronken hadde hir draughte.
Ful semely after hir mete she raughte,
And sikerly she was of greet desport,
And ful plesaunt, and amiable of port,
And peyned hir to countrefete chere
Of court, and been estatlich of mane-re,
And to ben hoklen digne of reverence.
But, for to speken of hir conscience,
She was so charitable and so pitous,
She wolde wepe, if that she sawe a mous
Caught in a trappe, if it were deed or bledde.
Of smale houndes had she, that she fedde
With rosted flesh, or milk and wastel-breed.
But sore weep she if oon of hem were deed,
Or if men smoot it with a yerde smerte:
And al was conscience and tendre herte.

172 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

Ful semely hir wimpel pinched was ;

Hir nose tretys; hir eyen greye as glas;

Hir mouth ful smal, and ther-to softe and reed ;

But sikerly she hadde a fair forheed ;

It was almost a spanne brood, I trowe;

For, hardily, she was nat undergrowe.

Ful fetis was hir cloke, as I was war.

Of smal coral aboute hir arm she bar

A peire of bedes, gauded al with grene;

And ther-on heng a broche of gold ful shene,

On which ther was first write a crowned A,

And after, Amor vincit omnia.

Prologue, 11. 118-162.

II

Chaucer's handling of his characters was not limited
to the drawing of these truthful and delicate portraits,
which by fixing the features, impart to them a certain
immobility. He takes each pilgrim down from his frame
and does not abruptly pass from the portrait to the tale.
He does not let us forget that the speaker is a living being,
who"se : gTsture?Janbri:one ot voice are ^peculiar to him. In
the course of their ride, he makes the pilgrims converse
among themselves, he shows them calling out to each other,
approving what one has just said and more often still
rating each other. They give their opinions on the stories
that have been told, and these comments reveal their
dominant thoughts, their feelings, and the objects of their
interest. A sort of comedy is being enacted throughout
the poem, which binds together the various parts; it is
only just outlined, it is true, but it suffices to show the
intentions and comic powers of the author. The gentle
knight soothes the angry ones with grave and courteous
words. Some pilgrims, whose natures or occupations

THE CANTERBURY TALES 173

place them at enmity, exchange high words and nearly
come to blows. The sturdy Miller and the slender Reve
rail at each other; the Friar quarrels with the Somnour.
First the Miller and then the Cook get drunk. The
Pardoner and the Wife of Bath each deliver interminable
discourses before coming to their stories. The prologues
and epilogues constantly bring back the attention from the
tales to the pilgrims who narrate them or listen to them.
In this way, the characters who were at first described by
the poet reveal themselves yet again by their words and
actions.

As is often the case, when passing from the analytical
portrait to the direct and dramatic presentment, some of
the pilgrims become more complex and less easily com-
prehensible; the character is enriched by a number of
small traits, but loses its well defined contours. This is
the case, for instance, with the famous Wife of Bath, who
is certainly the finest creation of Chaucer's humour. And
this, not through the initial portrait, however vigorously
drawn, nor through the tale she relates — and it is a very
good tale, and perfectly adapted to the masterly woman
she is — but through the incomparable monologue of more
than 800 lines, in which she airs her grievances on the way.
As she speaks, she seems to loom larger before us, to break
through the precise contours set by the portraitist, and to
assume the proportions of a character in Rabelais.

She is a creation of the imagination, but not one easily
reconciled with logic, and although richly endowed with life,
she probably was never seen in actual life. She has more
attributes than logic could compass and put together in a
single human being. In fact, she embodies a whole litera-
ture— ah1 the sarcasms against women and marriage
accumulated through the ages. Could there be so much

174 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

cynicism in the world? Is such a pest, such a combina-
tion of conjugal despotism, sensuality, garrulity, and
peevishness possible ? But she pours forth such a flow of
spirited language that our objections are swept aside.
Moreover, there are certain accents in her voice, certain
expressions on her countenance, which force us to regard
her as a living person. In order to understand her, we
must piece together the little bits of information which
escape her in the abundance of her effusions, and also the
minute details supplied by the poet in a casual way. She
would not talk in that unbridled fashion, she would not be
so loud of speech, if she were not " som-del deef." The
way in which she speaks of her prowess as a domestic
tyrant, warns us at once that it should be put down to
boasting. She is anxious to startle and shock the other
pilgrims. All her confidences are a sort of game, for she
wishes to amuse her hearers. Moreover, if she is so wonder-
fully learned in all questions relating to virginity and
marriage, on the many pious and profane invectives ad-
dressed by man to woman, we get to know in the end that
she had it all from the clerk who was her fifth husband,
and who used to take a bitter pleasure in collecting verses
from Solomon, diatribes from Saint Jerome, and sarcasms
from Jean de Meung — all aimed at woman. She recites all
these with indignation, in order to justify them by the
proofs which she adduces against them. On the whole, it
is a complex character, and we do not know whether what
she says of herself is true or exaggerated, or partly inven-
tion. In fact, she is so many-sided that every interpreta-
tion is possible. Nevertheless, an inexhaustible fund of
comic effects is supplied by the contrast between the
immorality of her sayings and the dogmatic tone in which
they are uttered, by her contention that women should be

THE CANTERBURY TALES 175

supreme, whilst her whole life is a proof to the contrary.
She must be put on the same rank with Panurge and
Falstaff, but she comes first in the order of time.

This revelation of character, through a person's words
and actions, is to be found elsewhere, but not on such a
large scale, in the monologue of the Pardoner, for instance,
or in that of the Canon's Yeoman. A better example,
however, is to be found in Master Harry Bailly, the pro-
prietor of the Tabard, referred to as " our hoste," for he is
always present on the stage, and is the real centre of the
comedy which is being enacted on the road. His portrait
is not given at the beginning with those of the other
pilgrims, and Chaucer merely introduces him in the
Prologue by means of a rapid sketch:

A semely man our hoste was with-alle

For to han been a marshal in an halle;

A large man he was with eyen stepe,

A fairer burgeys is there noon in Chepe :

Bold of his speche, and wys, and wel y-taught,

And of manhod him lakkede right naught.

Eek therto he was right a mery man. . . .

Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, 11. 751-757.

This merry companion gives unity to the whole poem,
where he plays the part of the ever-present protagonist.
He is never off the stage, and his character, which was at
first just barely outlined, is gradually revealed to us in the
course of the pilgrimage in a series of traits, which are
different of course, but which combine to build up the
portrait. It is by seeing and hearing him that we gain his
acquaintance, and this from the very first evening:

And after soper pleyen he bigan,

And spak of mirthe amonges othere thinges,

Whan that we hadde niaad our rckcningcs.

Prologue to the Canterbury Talcs, 11. 758-760.

176 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

His practical sense is at once established, and we get
further on another instance of it in the proposal he makes
that a dinner should be offered at his inn to the best story-
teller.

He not only looks after his own interests, but he excels
in handling men. He is dictatorial by nature, and his pro-
fession only strengthened this disposition. He is the king
of innkeepers, and knows how to start the fun, and how
to moderate it. He has the airy manner required to fill
the part of a leader, which he assumes or gets the others to
thrust upon him with perfect impudence. Amongst all the
pilgrims, who are strangers to start with, and consequently
look askance at each other, he is the only one who feels
perfectly at ease from the beginning, the only one to think
of a plan for the journey. He has no sooner received his
money than he forgets his dependence and assumes the
manner of a rich burgher treating his friends. What
cordiality in his voice, and what a clear-headed man he
shows himself to be in the very first words he utters:

Ye been to me right welcome hertely:
For by my trouthe, if that I shal nat lye,
I ne saugh this yeer so mery a companye
At ones in this herberwe as is now.
Fayn wolde I doon yow mirthe, wiste I how.
And of a mirth I am right now bithoght,
To doon yow ese, and it shal coste noght.
Ye goon to Caunterbury; God yow spede,
The blisful martir quyte yow your mede.
And wel I woot, as ye goon by the weye,
Ye shapen yow to talen and to pleye;
For trewely, confort ne mirthe is noon
To ryde by the weye doumb as a stoon;
And therfore wol I maken yow disport,
As I seyde erst, and doon yow som confort.
And if yow liketh alle, by oon assent,
Now for to stonden at my lugement,

THE CANTERBURY TALES 177

And for to werken as I shal yow seye,
To-morwe, whan ye ryden by the weye,
Now, by my fader soule, that is deed,
But ye be merye, I wol yeve yow myn heed.
Hold up your hond, withouten more speche.

Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, 11. 762-783.

From the moment he has been elected " governour " (Pro-
logue, 1. 813) he takes his part seriously, and knows how to
enforce obedience. But he asserts his authority with great
skill, with a rare understanding of the people he is dealing
with, and his uniform good temper helps him through.
Having mixed with people belonging to the various walks
of life, he can speak the language of each, from the most
courteous to the most trivial. The tone of his voice
changes according as he addresses the gentle Knight, or
the suave Prioress, or the drunken Miller, or the Pardoner,
who wants him to kiss his relics. When he speaks to the
Man of Law, he imitates the language of the law courts,
and one does not quite know whether he does it out
of politeness or simply to mock him, for he can be very
familiar occasionally. What respect he shows goes to real
merit, not to rank. His manner, disrespectful or kindly
in turn, by disregarding the condition of the pilgrims,
puts them on a temporary footing of equality: it invites
and enforces cordiality. Those he scolds most willingly
are people who, like the Monk, assume an air of gravity,
or the silent ones, like the poet himself. His love for a
jolly life and his business make him kindly towards
drunkards, and he honours Bacchus, who changes hate
into love. His profession left a very strong mark on him;
thence comes his curiosity, his cleverness in obtaining
information about people he does not know, and more
especially about the state of their purse.

But what is most characteristic of him is his tendency

M

178 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

to make fun of churchmen. He is, if the reader will forgive
the word, an " anti-clericalist " of the year 1386. He does
not mind that wily and jolly fellow, the Nun's Priest, who
tells risky stories. But a plague take those Lollards — the
Puritans of that period — who are so hard on people who
swear! On the mere suspicion that there is one standing
before him, swear-words roll off his lips by the dozen:
"for goddes bones" (The Shipman's Prologue, 1. 1166),
"by goddes dignitee" (ibid. 1. 1169). Moreover, these
Lollards are always ready to preach, and there is nothing
" Master Herry " hates so much as a sermon. When
a priest sermonises, he grumbles under his breath, but he
cannot bear it from a layman. He, of course, takes unto
himself the privilege now and then, but he will not grant
it to others.

This attitude of suspicion towards the secular clergy is
turned into open hostility in the case of regulars. He enjoys
hearing the Somnour divulge the doings of the Mendicant
Friar. He himself cannot resist the pleasure of jeering at
monks. He congratulates the Shipman for having exposed
one of them in his tale. He does not spare even the
pompous Benedictine of the pilgrimage, in spite of his
lordly airs; he chaffs him boldly to his face, and gives him
a summary of his ideas about monasteries and their inmates.
He mixes the " thou " and the " you " in the most comical
fashion when addressing him, according as he remembers
the man's importance or is only laughing at his massive
bulk.

His hostility to monks seems to be due to a personal
knowledge of their misdeeds :

Draweth no monkes more un-to your in.

The Prioress's Prologue, 1. 1632.

Did dame Bailly's virtue ever suffer at the hands of one of

THE CANTERBURY TALES 179

them ? It is impossible to tell, for when " our host "
speaks of her, his complaints are full of reticence. He may
be a long way from the Tabard, where he left her, never-
theless he does not feel comfortable enough to say all he
thinks. In fact, he gives one the impression that she must
resemble somewhat Ben Jonson's wife, " a shrew, yet
honest." What a dangerous tongue, and what a quarrel-
some disposition! She must be an awe-inspiring creature
with powerful arms, who fears no one, and before whom
her lord and master, according to his own confession, is as
meek as a lamb.

" Our host " has not only a large experience of matri-
monial affairs and definite opinions about the clergy; he
exhibits, in his position as judge of the pilgrims' tales, an
aesthetic taste at once quick and sure. He is a literary
critic, and whatever other faculties he may lack, decision
is not one of them. He has wide sympathies, and most of
the tales he hears gain his approval. The story alone
attracts him, and he has an entire contempt for form. He
has retained his freshness of impressions and laughs frankly
when the story is amusing, while he waxes indignant when
it relates the misdeeds of a scoundrel. The death of
Virginia fills him with anger against the Judge Appius.
He inveighs against this Appius like the spectator up
amongst the gods pointing his fist at the traitor in a melo-
drama. He is heartbroken over the fate of the poor
Roman girl, and has " almost y-caught a cardiacle."

But he possesses also a literary sense, which reveals itself
in what he condemns. First of all the tale must have a
meaning, that is, he abhors mere fantasy. The tale of
Sir Topaz shocks his common sense and his practical mind.
He thinks it is silly and a waste of time. It means nothing.
There is too much rhyming and not enough reason in it.

i8o GEOFFREY CHAUCER

He hates affectation of form, and at once taboos a pre-
tentious style. He rebukes the Monk for his " figures " of
speech, and fears lest the learned Clerk should treat them to
a high-flown and pompous eloquence. Metaphors and long
words bore him. Facts are the things that matter to him,
or again, the useful moral that can be derived from a tale.
Thus, the character of " our host " is not lacking in
breadth, and gradually we get to know quite a lot about
him, about his moods, his tastes, his antipathies, and
finally about his private life. The fact that the poet did
not describe him analytically makes him the more living
and real for us. Many other innkeepers have since been
portrayed on the English stage or in the English novel,
but no one of them can make us forget " Master Kerry
Bailly," the jovial guide of the Canterbury pilgrims.

Ill

We now can appreciate the lively comedy which forms
the setting of the tales. But it does more than this really,
for it penetrates them as well. As they constitute the
principal part and the bulk of the poem, they might have
split up this comic vein so as to render it insignificant.
But on the contrary, they blended their substance with it,
and the tales were for Chaucer a means of completing the
portraits of his pilgrims. The tales he had at his disposal
were ill-assorted. All the better! A clever distribution
enabled him to make them contribute to the characterisa-
tion of the speakers. He chose for each one the tale which
best suited his class and his temperament.

He did this admirably wherever he had time to do it,

THE CANTERBURY TALES 181

and his success in this respect was such for the completed
parts of his poem, that we can, nay, that we must, assume
that he would have succeeded everywhere, had he brought
the work to completion. His original plan was an
ambitious one. Each of the thirty pilgrims was to have
told two tales on the way to Canterbury and two on the
return journey, which would have made a total of 120 tales.
But Chaucer could not even give one tale to each of the
travellers, and what is more regrettable, he was not always
able, even for the twenty-four tales which compose the
pilgrimage, to adjust the tale to the speaker. Several of
these still show visible proofs that they must have existed
before the collection was put together, or at any rate testify
to the hesitations of the poet in trying to allot them to the
proper person. The Shipman, for instance, seems to speak
all of a sudden as if he were a woman, and the second Nun
describes herself as an " unworthy sone of Eve." Further,
the Man of Law promises to tell a story in prose and relates
a legend in stanzas. We cannot therefore speak of the
adaptation as being successful or complete in every case.
But nevertheless, enough was done in this direction for us
to appreciate the poet's intentions and to applaud his talent
of execution.

In a certain number of cases the subordination of the
tales to the all-enveloping comedy in which it finds itself
included, is such that its original form is a little disturbed.
More often still it is the meaning of the tale which is altered.
For a tale may be considered from two different points of
view. It may be considered for itself, and the writer's
aim then is to derive the maximum effect from the way in
which he distributes the parts, suspends or unravels the
intrigue, co-ordinates the details with a view to the final
surprise. The tale will be perfect if it has been cleverly

182 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

handled, and if it is written in an elegant or spirited style.
But the same narrative can be considered from the point
of view of the speaker. In this case the author must
conceal or sacrifice his own literary talent and his sense of
proportion, in order to make room for somebody else who
may be ignorant, clumsy, stupid, coarse, or moved by
passions or prejudices which the poet does not share. At
the same time the reader's interest is shifted from the story
itself and its subject, from the niceties of plot and language,
to the way in which the tale fits the fictitious character
who relates it, and who, alone visible, holds the stage and
seems to bear the responsibility of what he narrates.
Chaucer applied this principle to the parts of his work to
which he was able to put the final touch. He was very
careful to let the speaker reveal himself in digressions
which disturb the harmony of the tale, but which are an
outlet for his knowledge, his gossip, or his particular mania.
Indeed, the tale is no longer as good in the abstract, nor as
swiftly and dexterously handled as it might be, and often
lacks the witty sayings in which the author likes to reveal
himself. It possesses no longer an absolute and individual
existence; it is part of a whole, and can only be judged in
relation to that whole. Thus, if we isolate the Wife of
Bath's tale, it seems inferior for ease, cleverness, and
brilliance to Ce qui plait aux Dames by Voltaire. But the
tale, as found in Chaucer, is not spoken by the poet himself,
but by a gossip of a woman who pours into it her philosophy
of life, and uses it as an argument to prove what she thinks
ought to be the relations between husband and wife. Seen
in this light, it assumes a richness and comic force which
make the nimble verse of the French writer look thin and
purposeless. Moreover, this tale is only a very small part
— the least important and enjoyable — of the long con-

THE CANTERBURY TALES 183

fession of the Wife of Bath. Instead of being the
principal item, it has become subservient to the whole
character.

Likewise, the Pardoner's tale would be made considerably
lighter by the suppression of that long parenthesis of 200
lines, which is a denunciation of drunkenness and games
of chance. But this would mean losing the amusing
recital of the practices of this dealer in indulgences, and the
evidence of the skill with which he mixes the most orthodox
sermon with the most impressive story, in order to further
his own ends. How could country folk doubt a man who
quotes scripture and attacks vices just like their own
parson? But there is so much more spirit and colour in
his indictment! For he boldly aims at burlesque effects
with his description of the doings of a drunken man; and
he has his own experience to draw upon, for, remember, he
delivers his eulogy of sobriety on coming out of the drink-
ing-booth. And here again we are tempted to prefer the
digression to the tale itself, in spite of the latter's verve
and vigour.

The tale of the Canon's Yeoman is likewise interspersed
with indignant exclamations and reticences, which hinder
its course and are destined to produce similar effects: for
the speaker is a man of the people who is dying to let his
tongue wag, but who realises the danger he runs if he says
too much. Moreover, he is not quite sure whether he
admires or hates most his master's scientific knowledge.
Duped as he is, and reduced to poverty and bad health, he
still clings to the illusions that kept him for years in the
service of a wizard, capable of paving with gold the road
" from here to Caunterbury." He feels that this mere
claim to superhuman power sheds a sort of prestige over
himself. He is dazzled and tries to dazzle his hearers with

184 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

the names of all the instruments he has handled, of all the
metals and salts which he has helped vainly to transmute
into gold, of all the magical words used by his master. As
he jogs along telling his story, he is tossed from one last
delusion to anger, and from anger to common sense. The
story can take care of itself; he is not only relating an
anecdote, but also giving vent to all sorts of contradictory
feelings.

But it is not always necessary for Chaucer to modify the
story so deeply by introducing into it realistic traits
destined to reveal the speaker's nature. In many instances
the mere attribution of the tale suffices, with a few words
thrown in, or even none at all. What a happy choice of his
in the case of the poor Clerk, wrapped in his books and
living in a sort of dream, and who is made to relate the
misfortunes of Grisildis, a model of gentleness and a symbol
of wifely obedience and resignation! The touching and
unreal story, inhuman in the extreme, and half-allegorical,
seems like the natural bloom of his solitary idealism. Yet
the good Clerk with downcast eyes is neither blind nor
foolish. In order to enjoy such a story of unfaltering
abnegation, he does not pretend that it is necessary to
believe it throughout, or to expect to find in this world
many women like Grisildis. In the same even voice,
neither depressed nor exultant, with only a glimmer in his
dreamy eyes, as a scholar whose humour is all concentrated
within, he warns the pilgrims that " Grisilde is deed,"
and that the time is past when men could try the
patience of their wives, and women wrap themselves in
humility.

Thus there hovers something like a smile over more than
one of the five romantic stories of the book. We need
only compare the portrait of the Prioress, so full of gentle

THE CANTERBURY TALES 185

irony, with the story that she is made to relate; or listen
to the sing-song and pretty snuffling of the simpering
dame, or remember her mincing grace and tearful manner,
to see in the legend of the young Clerk killed by the Jews, of
his devotion to Mary, and of the miracle wrought by the
Virgin to unmask his murderers, less a truthful story taken
from the Gospel than the exquisite effusion of a devout
person with a gentle and sensitive heart.

This applies also to the miracle of St. Cecilia. The poet,
who had related it first in his own name, puts it on the lips
of a Nun, whom, unfortunately, he did not have time to
describe; but are we not thereby authorised to imagine
her as representing the average nun of all times ? Then,
the impassioned eulogy to virginity preserved even after
marriage, the ironical and half hysterical outburst of the
saint before a kindly judge, the intemperate virtue and
holiness depicted to us — all this becomes, as it were, the
expression of the fanatic Nun, and ceases to have an
imperative significance outside her. It is less the truthful
account of the life of a saint than the truthful revelation,
by means of this account, of the feelings of a nun and of
the atmosphere which reigns in a monastery.

Even the sermon spoken at the end by the good Parson,
so full of a doctrine approved of and revered by the poet,
who puts it on the lips of the most exemplary of his
pilgrims, impresses us as a sermon, that is to say, a suc-
cession of pious words, a long affair, which often makes
people drowsy, when we hear the voice of " our host "
anxiously warning him before he allows him to speak

" Beth fructuous, and that in litel space."

The Parson's Prologue, \. 73.

We realise at once the distance that exists between the
most beautiful moral teaching and the limited capacity of

186 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

the average humanity to listen to, and obey it. And we
are at liberty to remember the host's impatience while we
listen devoutly to the village Parson.

But Chaucer goes even further, and gives us stories at
which he allows us to laugh, nay, which perhaps he intends
that we shall judge fastidious or ridiculous. The Monk
tries to make up for his rubicund and jolly appearance, for
his fat and sleek figure, by reciting in a chanting tone the
most lugubrious complaint on the tragic ends of the mighty
and illustrious people of this world. He of course is pro-
tected from these distant evils by his thickly padded in-
difference. But the kind-hearted Knight grieves over
them and protests; the "host" yawns and declares that
the tale " anoyeth al [the] companye " (the Prologue of
the Nun's Tale, 1. 3979). The gloomy recital is not
allowed to proceed, and the Monk is silenced, but not until
his drowsy speech has convinced the pilgrims of his gravity.
Nor is Chaucer himself allowed to finish his tale. The
matter-of-fact host rebukes him for chanting a ballad of
knighthood, in which there is plenty of rhyming but very
little meaning. Asked to tell a story containing fewer
assonances and more facts, he slily avenges himself by
obeying him to the letter. He gives up verse and relates
in prose the formidable and endless allegory in which Dame
Prudence proves to her husband, with the help of all the
Fathers of the Church, and all the teachers of stoicism, that
he must endure patiently the extraordinary trials to which
he is subjected. In the last three cases the reader would
be very ill-advised if he sought his enjoyment in the tales
themselves, instead of deriving it from their very absurdity
or wearisomeness.

THE CANTERBURY TALES 187

IV

Thus, their mere attribution to the proper persons
modifies the tales, however visible may be the traces of
their origin. But this is not the only improvement made,
for inside the tales, quite apart from the digressions
already alluded to, and which are not really part of
the tales, a similar progress has been realised. The
same influx of life which vivified the pilgrims, body and
soul, penetrated the stones which they relate. Here, of
course, Chaucer's contribution is not always of equal
value. However legitimate the admiration entertained by
English people for the poet who first gave them tender and
graceful verse, it must be admitted nevertheless that in the
serious part, that is, in the really poetical part of the Canter-
bury Tales, Chaucer shows very little originality. Take,
for instance, the one story in which he introduced most
alterations, Boccaccio's Teseide : he transformed what
was almost an epic of chivalry in stanzas, into a sort
of drama dealing with amorous rivalry, and it does happen
that Boccaccio's story, crowded as it is, gains by the
suppressions. But elsewhere Chaucer is merely a literal
translator, as in the tale of Melibee, or an adapter who
keeps close to his model, as in the Parson's sermon, the
life of St. Cecilia, the " De Casibus " told by the Monk,
the legend of Constance, and the legend of Grisildis. It is
remarkable, of course, that he should have been able to
relate in such faultless stanzas and in a language up to then
so uncertain these last two stories. His gift for tender
poetry is all the more obvious if we realise that the most
pathetic passages in the work, those filled with the truest

i88 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

human kindness and exhibiting the most delicate and
exquisite sensibility, are all — or very nearly all — precisely
those additions which he made to the story. But of course
these original lines form a very small proportion of the
whole, and are only like some very pure drops of water
imported into large rivers.

Some of his humoristic digressions are in less good taste,
for they sometimes derange (without the justification of
dramatic requirements) the purport, the unity of a story,
which demands faith or enthusiasm. However much we
may like his playfulness, we must confess that Chaucer
does not sufficiently control his sense of the humorous in
places where he ought to retain his gravity. Upon the
whole, it is chiefly for his countrymen that he is great and
novel as the poet of piety, chivalry, or sentiment. In this
respect, if we except the Prioress's Tale and the delightful
first 200 lines of the Franklin's Tale, the immediate source
of which is still unknown, he did not contribute much to
European poetry. His additions, as far as matter is con-
cerned, are insignificant, and for the details rather restricted.
His great merit lies in the treatment, which is often admir-
able, but translation then con3iderably reduces for foreigners
the best part of his originality.

The comic and realistic stories, similar to the French
fabliaux, are of a vastly different order. Here so much
wealth has been added that one could almost use the word
" creation." And this remains partly true even if we
compare Chaucer to Boccaccio, who gave life and warmth
to a style, which, before him, was dry and colourless.
But whilst Boccaccio retains the original conciseness,
and does not do much more than present vivid or lively
scenes, Chaucer, less compact and passionate, initiates
the study of characters, and in many of his tales pursues

THE CANTERBURY TALES 189

the attempt made in his epoch-making Prologue to
portray individuals accurately. Boccaccio leads to the
picaresque novel, Chaucer to Moliere and Fielding. So
much so indeed, that with him the intrigue, the original
anecdote, which was everything in the fabliau, and was
paramount in Boccaccio, loses much of its interest and is
nothing more than a pretext. This is already noticeable in
the Miller's Tale, as proved by the importance given to
portraits, those of the student, of the clerk Nicolas, and
of Alison. But the most characteristic in this respect is
the Somnour's Tale. What matters here, that on which
Chaucer bestows all his care, is the presentation of the
mendicant Friar, his wheedling ways, his familiar manner,
his oratorical efforts to extort money from his patient.
When we reach the coarse joke of the early version, the
tale is very nearly finished. What was the raison d"#tre of
Jacques de Basieux's fabliau is here but the conclusion of
a study of character, wonderful for its thoroughness and
abundance of comic effects.

But this is not all. It is not possible to study a character
beyond a certain depth, without falling foul of the conven-
tion on which this style is based. In the original state,
M\\Q fabliau is intended to make us laugh at the ridiculous
position of a deceived husband. What little sympathy it
contains goes to the lovers. But, if in this traditional
frame be introduced the least amount of truthful observa-
tion of life, it is exposed to burst out and break. Now,
just as Moliere baffles laughter when he puts before us the
sincere attachment and profound grief of Arnolphe, like-
wise Chaucer is not far from eliciting our compassion and
even our preference for old January in the Merchant's Tale.
He is ridiculous, when in his old age he marries young
May. He is grotesque when, a wrinkled and white-haired

igo GEOFFREY CHAUCER

old man, he fondles his pretty wife, and the page Damian
is much better fitted for the part. But that does not
matter. His deep affection, saddened by the knowledge
that age unsuits him for his young bride, draws from him
such passionate protests, his appeals to May are so nearly
lyrical; his distress when he finds himself betrayed is so
heart-rending,

And up he yaf a roring and a cry

As doth the moder whan the child shal dye

(The Merchant's Tale, 11. 2364-2365),

that the reader cannot refuse him his sympathy, and,
forgetting the blind egoism of the old man, inclines to
condemn the cruelty of the young wife, indifferent to his
grief, and solely bent on the satisfaction of her amorous
desires. At this stage, it is no longer a mere comedy which
is being acted before us, but a complex drama, without
exclusive prejudices, alternating between pity and laughter.
And yet the story is only the fabliau of the Pear-tree, a
perfect example of the cynical style. All we need do, to
realise the progress accomplished, is to read first the story
of the Enchanted Pear-tree in Boccaccio or in La Fontaine,
and to turn afterwards to the Merchant's Tale in Chaucer.
Constantly, whilst reading the Canterbury Tales, especially
the amusing ones, we feel that something new is shooting
forth. The leaven of observation and truth is at work,
transforming these fixed styles, which had a perfection
of their own, but have now become too narrow and
obsolete. And these tendencies represent the first visible
manifestations of a conception, out of which were evolved
the drama and the novel of modern literature.

THE CANTERBURY TALES 191

In writing such varied stories, Chaucer used the most
varied styles, or rather he found for each an appropriate
mode of expression, because he has no style, so to speak,
if we understand by this an elaborate mould in which the
author casts his material, or again a sort of added orna-
ment by means of which he tries to enhance it. The pre-
occupation of style, with its advantages, but also with its
dangerous seductions to which the greatest have fallen a
prey — Shakespeare himself being no exception — only begins
really with the Renaissance. The splendour and artifice
of style, whether the latter be personal or conventional,
were unknown to Chaucer. His language is that of prose,
from which it only differs in the use of inversions necessi-
tated by rhyme. He does not violate syntax: metaphors
in his verse do not enrich nor disturb the meaning of words,
except to the extent in which they do so in common par-
lance. Epithets are sparingly used, and the wiles of
rhetoric are absent. It is only when he follows an Italian
model that his language is sometimes ornate: generally, it
is simple, even, and flowing. The pleasure he gives to the
reader comes straight from the feelings he expresses or the
facts he relates, or again, from the humour which he blends
with his tales. The merit of style in his case is simply
due to the appropriateness of the expression. He follows
closely and simply his material, which, as we have seen, is
varied in the extreme.

He may be said therefore to possess all the tones in the
writers' gamut. With one exception, however. He does
not possess naturally that pent-up vigour and condensed
force which will distinguish other writers. If passages of

IQ2 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

strength are found in his work, and there are some, they
are generally copied from a foreign model. The descriptions
so often praised in this respect, such as the one of the temple
of Mars in the Knight's Tale, come straight from Boccaccio,
although it is still to be wondered at that he should
have found the metallic tones capable of rendering his
sonorous original. Likewise, when his ideas are expressed
in closer and denser lines than is his wont, we may be sure
that he is momentarily the mouthpiece of Boethius or of
some ancient writer. It would be useless to cite examples,
because they could only be translations, and as such would
not help us to characterise him. His own genius was not
bent that way, and moreover, it must be acknowledged
that the language was an obstacle. The English language
had not as yet attained its energetic conciseness: the
strong, short syllables were not yet possible to it; it had
first to rid itself of inflections, and then to gain that
strong, nervous, spondaic movement which comes from the
massive grouping of the heavily accented syllables.

But with the exception of this particular note, the whole
scale will be found in the Canterbury Tales, and a few
quotations alone can give an idea of their variety.

Chaucer's pathos is delightful. There is no poet, not
even amongst the greatest, who surpasses him in the
expression of tender feelings. Like Racine and Virgil, he
merits that an adjective should be formed out of his name
to describe a certain shade of refined and penetrating
emotion. He excels in painting the sorrows of a woman's
heart, and in finding touching words to render that peculiar
yet real logic which underlies a woman's lamentations. I
shall give as an example, the scene in which Dorigene, on
the coast of Armorica, laments the absence of her husband.
No doubt Chaucer owes to some lost Celtic lay, to which

THE CANTERBURY TALES 193

he refers, the exact setting of this scene, the black rocks
strewing the seashore. He may be indebted to it also for
the inception of the feeling which pervades the woman's
complaint. But if we compare this passage to other
passages in his work, it is obvious that he drew largely
upon his own nature for the words he put on her lips, for
the expression and accent which are in them :

Now stood hir castel faste by the see,

And often with hir freendes walketh she

Hir to disporte up-on the bank an heigh,

Wher-as she many a ship and barge seigh

Seilinge hir cours, wher-as hem liste go;

But than was that a parcel of hir wo.

For to hir-self ful ofte " alias! " seith she,

" Is ther no ship, of so manye as I see,

Wol bringen horn my lord ? than were myn herte

Al warisshed of his bittre peynes smerte."

Another tyme ther wolde she sitte and thinke,

And caste hir eyen dounward fro the brinke.

But whan she saugh the grisly rokkes blake,

For verray fere so wolde hir herte quake.

That on hir feet she mighte hir noght sustene.

Then wolde she sitte adoun upon the grene,

And pitously in-to the see biholde,

And seyn right thus, with sorweful sykes colde:

" Eterne god, that thrug thy purveyaunce

Ledest the world by certein governaunce,

In ydel, as men seyn, ye no-thing make;

But, lord, thise grisly feendly rokkes blake,

That semen rather a foul confusioun

Of werk than any fair creacioun

Of swich a par fit wys god and a stable,

Why han ye wroght this werk unresonable ?

For by this werk, south, north, ne west, ne eest,

Ther nis y-fostred man, ne brid, ne beest;

It dooth no good, to my wit, but anoyeth.

See ye nat, lord, how mankinde it destroyeth?

And hundred thousand bodies of mankinde

Han rokkes slayn, al be they nat in minde,

194 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

Which mankinde is so fair part of thy werk
That thou it madest lyk to thyn owene merk.
Than semed it ye hadde a greet chiertee
Toward mankinde; but how than may it be
That ye sweche menes make it to destroyen,
Whiche menes do no good, but ever anoyen ?
I woot wel clerkes wol seyn, as hem leste,
By arguments, that al is for the beste,
Though I ne can the causes not y-knowe.
But thilke god, that made wind to blowe,
As kepe my lord ! this my conclusioun ;
To clerkes lete I al disputisoun.
But wolde god that all thise rokkes blake
Were sonken in-to helle for his sake !
Thise rokkes sleen myn herte for the fere."
Thus wolde she seyn, with many a pitous tere.

The Franklin's Tale, 11. 847-894.

Here is another instance of his % tenderness, similar and yet
very different. Here emotion is less direct; it owes part
of its source and effect to the intermediary placed by
Chaucer between himself and his tale. The Prioress is the
speaker with her half-naive, half-affected sensibility. Only
a woman could find such words, and one feels that they
must be uttered by pretty lips and spring from a heart
with unsatisfied motherly instincts. She reminds one of a
gracious lady without children who cannot help kissing
the little ones she meets on the road. It is about the
young clerk devoted to the Virgin who is killed later on
by abominable Jews:

This litel child, his litel book lerninge,

As he sat in the scole at his prymer,

He Alma redemptoris herde singe,

As children lerned hir antiphoner;

And, as he dorste, he drough him ner and ner,

And herkned ay the wordes and the note,

Til he the firste vers coude al by rote.

THE CANTERBURY TALES 195

Noght wiste he what this Latin was to seye.
For he so yong and tendre was of age;
But on a day his felaw gan he preye
Texpounden him this song in his langage,
Or telle him why this song was in usage;
This preyde he him to construe and declare
Ful ofte tyme upon his knowes bare.

His felaw, which that elder was than he.

Answerde him thus: " This song, I have herd seye,

Was maked of our blisful lady free,

Hir to salue, and eek hir for to preye

To been our help and socour whan we deye.

I can no more expounde in this matere;

I lerne song, I can but smal grammere."

" And is this song maked in reverence
Of Cristes moder? " seyde this innocent;
" Now certes, I wol do my diligence
To conne it al, er Cristemasse is went;
Though that I for my prymer shal be» shent,
And shal be beten thrye's in an houre,
I wol it conne, our lady for to honoure."

His felaw taughte him homward prively.
Fro day to day, til he coude it by rote.
And than he song it wel and boldely
Fro word to word, acording with the note;
Twyes a day it passed thurgh his throte,
To scoleward and homward whan he wente;
On Cristes moder set was his entente.

The Prioress's Tale, 11. 1706-1740.

One would not like to mention the word humour in rela-
tion to this piece. Yet the connection between a passage
of this kind and many other passages remarkable for their
delicate playfulness, lies in the artistic subtlety displayed
by their author in both. Chaucer's range is even greater
in the comic than in the tender vein, and two specimens
are hardly sufficient to give an idea of it. But we shall

196 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

be careful to choose them, as far as can be done, at the
extreme limits of his manner.

Here is first the preamble of the Wife of Bath's Tale,
in which she makes the mendicant friars responsible for
the disappearance of fairies, goblins, and incubi. There
is nothing more maliciously roguish in La Fontaine
himself:

In tholde dayes of the King Arthour,

Of which that Britons speken greet honour,

All was this land fulfild of fayerye.

The elf-queen, with hir loly companye,

Daunced ful ofte in many a grene mede;

This was the olde opinion, as I rede.

I speke of manye hundred yeres ago;

But now can no man see none elves mo.

For now the grete charitee and prayeres

Of limitours and othere holy freres,

That serchen every lond and every streem,

As thikke as motes in the sonne beem,

Blessinge halles, chambres, kichenes, boures,

Citees, burghes, castels, hye toures,

Thropes, bernes, shipnes, dayeryes,

This maketh that ther been no fayeryes.

For ther as wont to walken was an elf,

Ther walketh now the limitour him-self

In undermeles and in morweninges,

And seyth his matins and his holy thinges

As he goth in his limitacioun.

Wommen may go saufly up and doun,

In every bush, or under every tree;

There is noon other incubus but he,

And he ne wol doon hem but dishonour.

The Wife of Bath's Tale, 11. 857-881.

It is much more difficult to give an idea of his power in
narrative. The chief characteristic of this power is its
fullness. It spreads and flows, like a mighty river, through
tales of thousands of lines. It carries sometimes in its
course a strange erudition borrowed from the schoolmen,

THE CANTERBURY TALES 197

from the pious books, or the classical authors familiar to
his times. But, just as it is impossible to judge of the
colour and rapidity of a stream from a cupful of its waters,
we cannot hope to give, by means of a quotation, an
adequate impression of Chaucer's richness in this respect.
Here is, however, a portion of the scene from the Merchant's
Tale, in which he describes the wedding of January and
May:

Maius, that sit with so benigne a chere, 1 742

Hir to beholde it semed fayerye;

Quene Ester loked never with swich an ye

On Assuer, so meke a look hath she.

I may yow nat devyse al hir beautee;

But thus muche of hir beautee telle I may,

That she was lyk the brighte morwe of May,

Fulfild of alle beautee and plesaunce.

This lanuarie is ravisshed in a traunce

At every time he loked on hir face;

But in his herte he gan hir to manace,

That he that night in armes wolde hir streyne

Harder than ever Paris did Eleyne.

But natheless, yet hadde he greet pitee,

That thilke night offenden hir moste he;

And thoughte, " alias! o tendre creature!

Now wolde god ye mighte wel endure

Al my corage, it is so sharp and kene;

I am agast ye shul it nat sustene.

But god f orbede that I dide al my might !

Now wolde god that it were woxen night,

And that the night wolde lasten evermo.

I wolde that al this peple were ago."

He drinketh ipocras, clarree, and vernage 1807

Of spyces hote, tencresen his corage;

And to his privee freendes thus seyde he: 1813

" For goddes love, as sone as it may be,
Lat voyden al this hous in curteys wyse."
And they han doon right as he wol devyse,

ig8 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

Men drinken, and the tr avers drawe anon;
The bryde was broght a-bedde as stille as stoon;
And whan the bed was with the preest y-blessed,
Out of the chambre hath every wight him dressed
And lanuarie hath faste in armes take
His fresshe May, his paradys, his make.
He lulleth hir, he kisseth hir ful ofte
With thikke bristles of his berd unsofte,
Lyk to the skin of the houndfish, sharp as brere,
For he was shave al newe in his manere.
He rubbeth hir about hir tendre face,
And seyde thus, " alias! I moot trespace
To yow, my spouse, and yow gretly offende,
Er tyme come that I wil doun descende.
But natheless, considereth this," quod he,
" Ther nis no werkman, what-so-ever he be,
That may bothe werke wel and hastily;
This wol be doon at leyser parfitly.
It is no fors how longe that we pleye;
In trewe wedlok wedded be we tweye;
And blessed be the yok that we been inne,
For in our actes we mowe do no sinne.
A man may do no sinne with his wyf,
Ne hurte him-selven with his owene knyf;
For we han leve to pleye us by the lawe."
Thus laboreth he til that the day gan dawe;
And than he taketh a sop in fyn clarree,
And upright in his bed than sitteth he,
And after that he sang ful loude and clere.
And kiste his wyf, and made wantoun chere.
He was al coltish, ful of ragerye,
And ful of I argon as a flekked pye.
The slakke skin aboute his nekke shaketh,
Whyl that he sang; so chaunteth he and craketh.
But god wot what that May thoughte in hir herte,
Whan she him saugh up sittinge in his sherte,
In his night-cappe, and with his nekke lene;
She preyseth nat his pleying worth a bene.
Than seide he thus, " my reste wol I take,
Now day is come, I may no lenger wake."
And doun he leyde his heed, and sleep til pryme. 1857

The Merchant's Tale.

THE CANTERBURY TALES 199

These are some aspects of his style, not all. We can-
not, of course, quote any of the passages, where, dealing
in risky subjects, his muse fills the echoes with her
Silenian mirth, and sometimes becomes, as in the Miller's
Tale, a jade delighting in the coarsest tales. Here the story-
teller who a little while ago reminded us of Racine, now
leaves far behind him the elegant and mincing licentious-
ness of La Fontaine, and becomes a worthy rival of Rabelais.
This comic vein broadened as time went on. Discreet
at first, a mere streamlet of fine raillery, it became gradually
the main river in which tender and serious veins were
finally absorbed. The gentle court poet evolved gradually
into a juicy humorist. Yet, it is characteristic of him
that he did not lose anything on the way. He did not
starve one faculty to benefit another. He did not follow
Toinette's advice and put out his right eye in order to see
better with the left. If we remember how insipid an
exclusively sentimental style can be, or how inevitably
dry is a style which is purely comical, we shall at once
appreciate the broader and more truthful character of the
Canterbury Tales. One of the attractions of the poem is the
easy way in which it oscillates from the pleasant to the
serious. In spite of his growing disposition to raillery,
Chaucer retained intact all his life long his power to love
and admire. This cheerful cynic always preserved a
tender corner in his heart. Mockery, either discreet or
uproarious, never withered in him the gift of poetry. The
two travelled side by side, and in perfect harmony, like
his Wife of Bath and his Prioress. Even when we hear
only one of them, we know that the other is close at
hand, and we cannot forget that the hum of life is, like
the poem, made up of their intermingled voices.

290 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

CONCLUSION

IF we now survey at a glance the entire work of the poet,
we shall see clearly the direction followed by him, from the
beginning to the end of his career. Truth was his magnet.
He had found poetry unnatural; people had got to think
that fiction was its essence, and its task to present an
ingenious transposition of reality, according to artificial
rules. He began by obeying the accepted canons; like his
contemporaries, he had dreams and saw allegorical figures,
he invented imaginary incidents; or he borrowed from
books the subjects and characters of his poems. All along,
it is true, he had a desire to be independent, and to put
into these conventions more life and observation than they
seemed to warrant. Little by little he began to realise
that nothing could equal nature herself in interest and
diversity. Then it was that leaving his learning in the
background, and freeing himself from dreams and allegories,
he looked straight at the spectacle of life and men, and
began to reproduce it unaided. The docility he had
shown towards his favourite authors, he now brought to
the service of nature alone. Instead of the Roman de la
Rose, Boccaccio, or Ovid, Nature was henceforth the
source of his inspiration and his law. He became according
to his subject her scribe or her painter.

But this faithful presentation of reality may be, as is
well known, harsh, morose, or bitter; and men, on behold-
ing it, often turn away from life in disgust. Chaucer,
without flattering his model, puts it in a pleasant light, in
an atmosphere which is sweet to breathe. One cannot
read him without feeling that it is good to be alive.

Our first impression, when we take up his work, is one of

THE CANTERBURY TALES 201

freshness and health, which seems to come to us from every
side. It is due first of all to the use of a newly-formed
dialect, the words of which had hardly been used as yet
for literary purposes. Like the soil freshly ploughed in
April, it has then a perfume which it does not possess at
any other time. Generally, this newness of the language
goes along with a certain crudeness of thought, with an
art childish as yet. But Chaucer, who stands at the
beginning of English poetry, stands also at the close of the
Middle Ages. He inherited the whole literature of France,
enriched by the generous efforts of three centuries, elegant
in style, abundant in stories, exhibiting already signs of
fatigue and over-production. He realised that combination,
of which there is perhaps no otl>er example, of a spring-
like language with an autumnal literature. Chaucer, very
young, and yet very mature, combines the charm of new-
born things with the experience of old age. His naive
expression gave back the grace of novelty to more than
one description, more than one idea, which had paled and
faded in the language in which they were first written.
English words, hitherto locked in a long winter of expecta-
tion, gave out, in his already learned verse, their first
perfume.

To this advantage, due to exceptional circumstances, he
joins gifts all his own, the first of which is a wide sympathy.
To this especially his poetry owes its friendliness and
smiling affability. The joy of being alive or of beholding
life, the pleasure of being amongst men, these are every-
where in his verse. He entertains, of course, towards some
of his fellow-men an affection or respect, but all the others
seem nevertheless to arouse in him a curiosity akin to
interest. No one is excluded, and aversion is a very rare
thing with him. He does not treat with disdain those

202 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

whose foolishness he has fathomed, nor does he turn away
in disgust from the rascal whose tricks he has detected.
These still have some curious or funny traits which can
amuse a good man. Vice is interesting to study if only
because it differs from virtue. Whilst quietly unmasking
the rogues, he is grateful to them in his heart for the
pleasure they give him, and which compensates for much
that is evil. Moreover, he repudiates the somewhat
childish conception which divides men up into good and
bad. He knows that human character is a much more
complex blend than it is usually painted. He has no
delusions about himself, and realises without bitterness
that he is not violently impelled towards good. He
classes himself with the average humanity, and so finds
himself in touch with the mass.

The reader does not find in him a mentor, but an equal,
who would fain be looked upon as an inferior, a good-
natured companion always ready to make place for some-
body else, or to let him have his say first. Far from
pretending to teach others, he listens with attention, some
might say with respect. Humour does flash now and then
from his eyes, which he purposely keeps half shut. But
there is no need to be anxious, for it is obviously at himself
that he is laughing. It is very difficult to catch him in
the act of mocking laughter under cover of his air of
modesty, for after all this modesty is not wholly feigned;
it is based on a knowledge of the curious workings of
human nature, and consequently of his own nature also.
The consciousness of their common failings is what draws
men together. Amongst writers of genius the one who
strikes us soonest as a friend is Chaucer.

A sympathy of this kind, based on self-knowledge, is a
form of intelligence. And perhaps if I had to express in

THE CANTERBURY TALES 203

one word the advance made by Chaucer, I would say that
he represents a progress of the intelligence. It is marked
on the one hand by a weakening of passion, based on self-
confidence, on strong desires and aspirations, on love or
hate, and which leads to lyricism or satire; a weakening
also of the imagination as a faculty for transforming or
exaggerating reality and projecting it on a distinct and
partly arbitrary plane, thus making for epic, romantic, or
allegorical poetry. On the other hand, pride of place is
given to the pleasure of observing and understanding,
which is only possible when the personality of the author
has been subdued. This peaceful and loyal observation of
life did not exist before Chaucer, at least not in the same
degree. There were, of course, works more noble and
more essentially poetical, such as the Chanson de Roland
and the Divina Commedia, to take two widely differing
instances. There were more exquisite ones, filled with
quivering passion, amongst the works of the French song-
writers, which, beginning with the romances of the twelfth
century, lead to Rutebeuf, and thence, a hundred years
after Chaucer, to Villon, in whom they reach the apex of
their development. There was, moreover, in Petrarch's
sonnets a refinement of feeling and language scarcely attained
by Chaucer. But where shall we find, except in Chaucer,
a work where the principal aim has been to portray men
truthfully, without exalting or disparaging them, and to
present an exact picture of average humanity ? Chaucer
sees things as they are, and paints them as he sees them.
He restrains himself in order the better to observe.

Thus this Englishman, who breaks through the darkness
which shrouded the literature of his country, and who for
two centuries remained without a true successor; this writer,
who is still hampered at times by an imperfect syntax,

204 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

who is saturated with scholasticism, whose memory is loaded
with biblical or profane allusions, whose astrological sky is
peopled with stars stranger to European eyes to-day than
those of the South Seas; this docile translator of multi-
farious or often antiquated works — really opened up a new
literary field. A graceful and tender poet, exiled for his
sin of humour from the highest regions of poetry, curiosity
was certainly stronger in him than faith, and the joys of
the senses and of the mind more keen than the rapture of
enthusiasm. The things he saw interested him much more
than those he dreamt of. The speeches he heard always
seemed to him somehow entertaining, and even truthful,
were it only as adequate signs of the speaker's nature
and breeding. He leads the group of amused and good-
natured observers who will accept as a fact the motley
fabric of society, without wishing to dye to a uniform
colour the many strands that compose it. Doubtless
certain colours seemed to him more beautiful than others,
but it was on the contrast presented by them all that
he founded at once his philosophy of life and the laws
of his art.

APPENDIX

FOR the benefit of those who would like to form an opinion
of M. Legouis' skill as a translator, we here give ten pieces,
where he has been most successful, we think, in rendering,
without any dilution, the thought and imagery of the
Chaucerian line. The language is just archaic enough to
give in French the same impression of quaintness which
charms modern English readers of Chaucer.

I. — BALLAD OF GRISELIDA

Grisilde est morte avec sa patience,
Meme tombeau les a vu reunir.
Aussi crie-je en publique audience:
Que nul mari ne fasse plus souffrir
Sa femme chere, en 1'esperance vaine
Qu'autre Grisilde il pourrait decouvrir.

O noble epouse a la haute prudence,
Humble et front bas, garde-toi d'obeir,
De peur qu'un clerc n'ait cause et diligence
De te chanter pour les temps a venir
Comme Grisilde, et de peur que te vienne
La Chichevache en son ventre engloutir.

Imite Echo qui ne fait pas silence

Et qui repond mot pour mot sans faillir;

Ne soit ton bee cloue par innocence,

Mais le timon hate-toi de saisir.

Cette lecon que chacune retienne.

Cause commune a peine de trahir.

Sus! archifemme, et te mets en defense;
Plus que chamelle es forte et peux ferir;
Ne souffre pas qu'homme jamais t'offense.
Et toi, fluette et faible a 1'assaillir,
Plus aigre sois que tigresse indienne;
Fais-lui marcher ton cliquet sans tarir.
205

206 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

N'aie peur de lui ni pour lui reverence;
Fut-il arme tout de fer et de cuir,
Les dards aigus de ta prompte eloquence
Le perceront au vif, s'il ne peut fuir.
De jalousie enforce encor sa chame,
Cornme la caille il ira se blottir.

Es-tu jolie? ou gens sont en presence
Fais ta parure et tes yeux resplendir;
Vilaine es-tu ? sois large en ta depense
Pour attirer amis et retenir.
Gai comme feuille au vent, nargue la peine,
Le laissant, lui, pleurer, tordre et gemir.

The Clerkes Tale, Lenvoy.

II. — PORTRAIT OF THE OXFORD CLERK

Un Clerc d'Oxford etait de notre bande,
Dont la science en logique etait grande;
Tout epile luisait son vieux manteau ;
Plus maigre etait son bidet qu'un rateau
Et lui n'etait guere plus gras, j'avoue:
Sous un front grave il avait creuse joue,
Trop peu mondain pour gagner un office
Ou dans 1'Eglise atteindre un benefice.
A son chevet aimait-il mieux avoir
Vingt livres grands vetus en rouge ou noir,
Un Aristote et ceux de son ecole,
Que riche habit, belle harpe ou viole.
Mais bien qu'expert en la philosophic
N'avait pour ce la bourse mieux remplie.
Ce qu'il tirait de ses amis pour vivre
II 1'employait a s'acheter maint livre,
Puis ardemment soulait pour ceux prier
Qui lui donnaient moyens d'etudier.
L' etude etait son amour et son soin.
Ne disait mot de plus qu'il n'est besoin,
Et c'etait dit en forme et reverence,
Court et fecond et plein de sapience.
II inclinait aux discours vertueux,
Joyeux d'apprendre et d'enseigner joyeux.

Prol. 11. 285-308.

III. — PORTRAIT OF THE LIMITOUR

Et nous avions un Frere en noble arroi,
Un Limiteur, a la mine riante.
Nul ne savait, dans la gent mendiante,
Autant que lui d'aimable et doux langage.

APPENDIX . 207

II avait fait maint et maint manage

De jouvencelle, avec sa propre bourse.

C'etait 1'orgueil de 1'Ordre et sa ressource.

Chez la bourgeoise ou le riche fermier

II etait plus que le chat familier;

Paraissait-il ? chacun de s'empresser.

C'est qu'il avait pouvoir de confesser, —

Mieux qu'un cure, leur disait le saint homme,

Ayant pour ce la licence de Rome.

Suavement oyait confession;

Charmante etait son absolution.

II imposait facile penitence

Ou 1'attendait quelque bonne pitance,

Car faire don a pauvre confrerie

Est signe sur qu'on a 1'ame guerie.

II affirmait pouvoir bien, sans mentir,

D'apres le don juger du repentir.

Que de pecheurs, chaque jour nous 1'enseigne,

Restent 1'ceil sec malgre que leur cceur saigne!

Or done, au lieu de pleurs et de prieres,

II faut donner 1'obole aux pauvres Freres.

Toujours ce Frere avait dans sa cornette

Broche ou couteau pour femme joliette.

Puis il sonnait mainte joyeuse note,

Chanteur exquis et bon joueur de rote;

Pour la romance il emportait le prix.

Plus blanc etait son cou que fleur de lys;

Avec cela, fort comme un champion.

Dans toute auberge il savait par son nom

Chaque valet et la moindre servante,

Mieux que lepreux et mieux que mendiante.

Car pour un Frere entre tous distingue,

II n'etait bon, ni bienseant, ni gai,

D1 avoir commerce avec ladre et pouilleux.

Qu'y gagne-t-on ? Quel profit precieux

A trafiquer avec telle pauvraille ?

Mieux aimait-il marchands de victuaille.

En lieux amis, sous tous les riches toits,

II etait doux, serviable et courtois.

Oncques ne fut homme plus vertueux.

Pe son couvent c'etait le meilleur gueux.

Pour sa " limite " il payait un loyer

Et nul que lui n'y pouvait mendier.

Tel charme avait son " In principio "

Que n'eut-elle eu savate ni sabot,

La pauvre veuve, avant qu'il fit depart,

En s'excusant lui remettait un Hard.

Parfois folatre autant qu'un jeune chien,
Les " jours d'amour " il avait beau maintien;

208 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

II n'y mon trait froc pele, de la sorte
Qu'un studieux et pauvre cloitre porte,
Mais ressemblait un docteur ou un pape ;
De laine double etait sa demi chape,
Et ronde comme une cloche d'eglise.

Puis il blaisait d'une maniere exquise
Pour mieux sucrer son anglais dans sa bouche.
Apres chanter, lorsque du luth il touche,
Ses yeux leves scintillent, comme au ciel
Les astres font par claires nuits de gel.

Prol. 11. 208-269.

IV. — PORTRAIT OF THE PARSON

Un digne pretre etait de ce voyage;

C' etait un pauvre cure de village,

Mais pourtant riche en ceuvres de bonte.

Vrai clerc d'ailleurs, il avait medite

Sur 1'Evangile, et sa bouche fervente

Rendait du Christ la parole vivante.

L'ame benigne et 1' esprit diligent,

De son seul bien etait-il negligent.

II haissait punir comme d' un crime

L'homme oublieux de lui payer sa dime;

Mieux aimait-il, certes, donner du sien

A quelque misereux paroissien,

Et 1'assister sur sa maigre pitance.

En peu de chose il trouvait sumsance.

Sa paroisse etait vaste, aux toits distants,

Mais par tonnerre ou pluie, en tous les temps,

II se rendait, a 1' appel de la peine,

Vers la maison la plus humble et lointaine,

Allant a pied, dans sa main un baton.

II repandait cette noble Ie9on

De vivre bien pour instruire a bien vivre.

II avait pris ce texte en le saint Livre;

II ajoutait en langage plus clair:

Si 1'or se rouille, est-il espoir du fer?

Car si le pretre est pecheur qui nous mene,

Comment penser qu'un la'ique s'abstienne?

Et pour 1'Eglise est-il plus grand" pitie

Que brebis nette et pasteur conchie ?

Le pretre doit inspirer le respect

Par pures moeurs a la brebis qu'il pait.

Louant sa cure ainsi qu'un pre qu'on loue,
II ne laissait son troupeau dans la boue
Pour s'encourir a Londres, a Saint-Paul,
Gagner argent, bon vivre et coucher mol,

APPENDIX 209

A dire messe en quelque chanterie.

Restait chez lui gardant sa bergerie

Pour que le loup n'y vint soudain mal faire.

Pasteur etait et non point mercenaire.

Et bien qu'il fut saint homme et vertueux,

Pour les pecheurs il n'etait sourcilleux,

Ni sermonneur hautain et rechignant,

Mais tres discret et doux en enseignant.

Mener les gens au ciel par belle vie

Et bon exemple 6tait sa seule envie.

Mais s'il avait affaire a 1'obstine,

Lors, quel qu'il fut, miserable ou bien-ne,

II le tan$ait vertement, par ma foil

De meilleur pretre il n'est en nul endroit.

II n'exigeait pompe ni reverence,

Ni n'aflfectait farouche conscience;

La loi du Christ et de ses douze apotres

Suivait d'abord, puis la prechait aux autres.

Prol. 11. 477-528.

V. — PORTRAIT OF THE MILLER

Mattre Meunier etait, je vous le jure,

Un fort gaillard et de riche encolure.

Osseux, noueux, ferme comme un pilier,

Dans toute lutte il gagnait le belier.

Trapu d'epaules, sur ses reins tasse,

II n'etait porte ou se ruant, lance

Tete premiere, il ne put faire breche.

Sa barbe large avait forme de beche

Et couleur fauve, entre truie et goupil.

Une verrue a son nez avait-il,

Tout au fin bout, avec touffe pareille

A ces poils roux qu'un pore a dans 1'oreille.

Chaque narine etait un grand trou noir;

Sa bouche ouverte, un four enorme a voir.

C'etait un franc goliard et braillard

Qui degoisait maint et maint dit gaillard.

Sur le froment que sa meule triture

II s'allouait d'abord quelque mouture,

Puis prelevait sa part, et deux encor;

Ce, nonobstant qu'il cut j4 pouce d'or.

Portant la dague et 1'ecu sur la hanche,
Capuchon bleu clessus la cote blanche,
Cornemusant & force par la ville,
II nous mena jusqu'au deuxieme millc.

Prol. 11. 545-563.

210 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

VI. — PORTRAIT OF THE PRIORESS

Et mous avions une dame Prieure
Dont le sourire etait tout simple et coi.
Son grand serment etait " par Saint Eloi! "
Elle chantait tres decemment du nez
Les chants divins a. la messe entonnes.
Dame Eglantine (on la nommait ainsi)
Parlait fran9ais le plus pur et choisi,
Comme on le parle au couvent de Stratford,
Car le fran9ais de France ignorait fort.
Qu'elle etait done a table bien apprise !
Jamais morceau n'echappait a sa prise
Tant savait bien le tenir en sa route
Sans qu'il en chut sur sa gorge une goutte,
Et n'enfongait dans la sauce ses doigts.
De courtoisie elle observait les lois.
Elle essuyait si net sa levre haute
Que dans sa coupe on ne 1'eut prise en faute
De laisser oncque une tache de graisse.
Elle rotait tout bas par politesse.
Certe elle avait mine majestueuse,
Autant qu'aimable et toute gracieuse,
Car se peinait a suivre les Ie9ons
Et de la Cour copier les fa9ons
Pour meriter qu'on la tint en honneur.

Que vous dirai-je aussi de son bon coeur?
Si charitable etait-elle et si tendre
Qu'elle pleurait, voyant au piege prendre,
Saignante ou morte, une pauvre souris.
Ses petits chiens par elle etaient nourris
De fin roti, de pain blanc et de lait.
Qu'un d'eux mourut, elle se desolait,
Ou qu'il glapit, batonne durement,
Car elle etait toute ame et sentiment.

Sa guimpe etait plissee a maint beau pli;
Avait les yeux gris clair, le nez joli,
Bouche mignonne et doucette et vermeille,
Mais grand le front, bel et large a merveille;
II avait presque un empan, je vous jure;
La dame aussi n'etait d'humble stature.
Exquise etait sa mante ; un chapelet
De fin corail a son bras s'enroulait,
Chaque dizain marque d'un gros grain vert,
Auquel pendait, portant un A couvert
D'une couronne, un brillant bijou d'or
Avec ces mots: Quid non vincit Amor ?

Prol. 11. 118-162.

APPENDIX 211

VII. — LAMENT OF DORIGINE

De son castel la mer etait tout pres
Et ses amis pour calmer ses regrets
La promenaient sur la falaise haute
D'oti pouvait voir voguer pres de la cote,
Allants, venants, nacelles et vaisseaux;
Mais cette vue eveillait tous ses maux,
Car soupirait a part souventef ois :
" Las! n'est-il nef, parmi tant que je vois,
Qui me rendra mon mari ? Lors mon coeur
Serait gueri de sa dure douleur."

Un autre jour elle venait pensive
Jeter les yeux du rebord sur la rive,
Mais en voyant d'affreux rocs noirs sous elle,
Son pauvre coeur frissonnait de peur telle
Qu'elle sentait ses pieds se derober;
II lui fallait s'asseoir pour ne tomber,
Puis contemplait piteusement la mer,
Disant avec maint gros soupir amer:

" Eternel Dieu, qui par ta providence
Menes le monde en sure gouvernance,
II n'est, dit-on, chose qu'en vain tu crees;
Pourtant, Seigneur, ces roches abhorrees,
Que Ton dirait noire confusion
D'Enfer, plutot que la creation
D'un Dieu si bon, si parfait et si stable,
Pourquoi fis oeuvre ainsi deraisonnable ?
A Test, a 1'ouest, au sud, au nord, en somme
Rien ne nourrit, oiseau, bete ni homme.
Nul bien n'en sort, je crois, rien que malheur.
Ne vois-tu pas comme elle occit, Seigneur?
Cent mille corps humains se sont rompus
Sur ces rochers, quoiqu'on n'en parle plus.
Et pourtant, Sire, on dit le genre humain
Le plus cheri des travaux de ta main,
Tant que d'amour le fis a ton image.
Or peux-tu done, toi si tendre et si sage,
Pareils engins creer pour le detruire,
Qui rien de bon ne savent, rien que nuire ?
J'ai bien oui prouvcr aux clercs pieux
Par arguments, que tout est pour le mieux
Quoique pour moi la cause en reste obscure .
Mais que Celui qui fait les vents ait cure
De mon seigneur, c'est ma conclusion!
Je laisse aux clercs toute disputoison. . . .
Mais ces affreux rochers noirs, & Dieu plut

212 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

Qu'ils fussent tous au fond pour son salut!
Ces rochers la navrent mon coeur d'alarmes."
Ainsi disait en versant maintes larmes.

The Franklin's Tale, 11. 847-894.

VIII. — STORY OF THE YOUNG CLERK DEVOTED
TO THE VIRGIN

Ce petit clerc dans son ecole assis,

Courbe sur son petit abecedaire,

Ou'it chanter Alma Redemptoris

Aux grands debout devant 1'antiphonaire;

A petits coups, tant qu'il osa le faire,

II vint pres d'eux, oyant de telle ardeur

Qu'il sut bientot le premier vers par coeur.

Point ne savait ce que latin veut dire

Car il etait tout jeune et tendre d'age,

Si pria-t-il un plus grand de traduire

Ce chant pour lui dans le commun langage

En lui disant quel etait son usage;

II 1'adjura d'y mettre mots connus

Par mainte fois, et sur ses genoux nus.

Lui repondit cet autre un peu plus vieux:

" Ce nous dit-on, 1'air qui te plait si fort

Fut compose pour la Dame des cieux,

Pour la benir, et pour prier confort

Et secours d'elle a 1'heure de la mort.

Je n'en connais pas plus sur la matiere,

J'apprends le chant mais sais peu de grammaire."

" Ce chant est-il done fait en reverence,

(Dit 1'innocent) de la mere a Jesu?

Or, par ma foi, ferai-je diligence

De tout 1'apprendre avant Noel venu;

Et me dut-on pour 1'A B C mal su

Frapper trois fois par heure avec la verge,

Je le saurai pour 1'amour de la Vierge."

Chemin faisant, tant qu'il le sut sans faute,
L' autre 1'apprit a ce gentil clergeon,
Qui depuis lors le chantait a voix haute
Sans se tromper d'un seul mot ni d'un ton;
Deux fois par jour il langait sa chanson
Allant en classe et rentrant chez sa mere,
Tant Notre-Dame avoit son ame entire.

The Prioress's Tale, 11. 1706-1740.

APPENDIX 213

IX. — THE PASSING OF FAIRIES AND GOBLINS

Au temps jadis oil r6gnait cet Artus

De qui Bretons vont pronant les vertus,

Tout ce pays etait plein de feerie.

Souvent dansaient sur la verte prairie

Les gais lutins en ronde avec les fees.

II s'est passe des centaines d'annees,

Ce m'a-t-on dit, depuis ces temps loin tains

Et nul ne voit a present de lutins,

Car le saint zele et les grandes prieres

Des Limiteurs et autres pieux Freres

Qui vont plus dru par les champs d'alentour

Que grains de poudre en les rayons du jour,

Benissant tout: la chambre et la cuisine,

Et le grenier et la salle ou Ton dine,

Ferme et manoir, etable et laiterie, —

De cela vient qu'il n'est plus de feerie.

Car ou soulait roder quelque lutin,

Un Limiteur recite son latin

Tandis qu'il va durant la matinee

Faire de porte en porte sa tournee.

Femme peut bien, sans peril et sans peur,

De 9a de la, sous les buissons en fleur

Et dans les bois s'ejouir aujourd'hui,

II n'y demeure autre incube que lui,

Et ne voudrait lui faire deshonneur.

The Wife of Bath's Tale, 11. 857-881.

X. — WEDDING OF JANUARY AND MAY

Et Mai siegeait si gracieuse a table
Que de la voir etait chose feerique.
Esther n'eut oncque un regard si pudique
Pour Assuer, ni si doux et modeste.
De sa beaute je vous tairai le reste
Hors que chacun ce jour en fut charme
Et que semblait un beau matin de mai
Ou regnent joie et douceur a 1'envi.

Le vieux Janvier en extase est ravi
A chaque fois qu'il contemple sa face
Et dans son coeur tout bas il la menace
De la serrer en ses bras, la nuit vienne,
Mieux que Paris ne fit jamais Helene.
Mais grand'pitie le trouble et grand ennui
Pensant qu'il doit 1'oiTcnser cette nuit:
" Las! (se dit-il) 6 douce creature 1

214 GEOFFREY CHAUCER

Veuille le Ciel que ta'tendresse endure
Tout mon courage, il est si vif et chaud !
Pourras-tu bien en soutenir 1'assaut?
Je n'y mettrai toute ma force, va!
Ah ! plut a Dieu que la nuit arrivat
Et que jamais cette nuit ne prit fin!
Quand tous ces gens partiront-ils enfin ? "

II boit clairet, hypocras et vernage
Chaud epice, pour croitre son courage . . .
Puis prend a part ses amis eprouves:
" Au nom du Ciel, si tot que le pouvez,
Faites sortir poliment tous ces gens! "
A lui complaire amis sont diligents:
On a tire la courtine fermee,
Au lit porte 1'epouse mi-pamee,
Puis quand le pretre eut la couche benie
Chacun s'eloigne et la noce est finie.

Notre Janvier tient dans ses bras enclose
Sa fraiche Mai, son paradis, sa chose,
Cent fois la baise et rebaise et cajole
Et de sa joue epineuse la frole,
Rude au toucher comme peau de requin,
Car il s'est fait la barbe le matin.
Or, se frottant a sa doucette face:
" Helas! (dit-il) il faut que je vous fasse,
Ma chere epouse, offense et grand souci,
J'ai peur, avant que je sorte d'ici.
Mais cependant considerez (dit-il)
Qu'il n'est au monde ouvrier si subtil
Sachant ouvrer a la fois vite et bien;
Cette oeuvre-ci sans loisir ne vaut rien.
D'ailleurs qu'importe a nous le temps et 1'heure?
Sommes-nous point maries a demeure ?
Beni le joug qui nous unit tous deux!
L'homme ne peut non plus pecher aux jeux
Qu'il prend avec sa femme, tard ou tot,
Que se blesser de son propre couteau.
De par la loi avons conge d'amour."

Ainsi Janvier besogne jusqu'au jour,
Puis prend a 1'aube une soupe au clairet
Et sur son lit s'assied tout guilleret,
Et le voila qui chante d'allegresse,
Baise sa femme, a nouveau la caresse.
II est joueur comme un poulain lache
Et sans tarir bavarde comme un geai.
Autour du cou sa peau flasque tremblote

APPENDIX 215

Tandis qu'il chante a tue-t£te et chevrote.
Dieu salt si Mai le trouvait a sa guise
Ainsi siegeant sur la couche en chemise,
Le cou rid6 sous son bonnet de nuit!
Moins qu'une feve estime son deduit.
II dit alors: " C'est assez travailler;
Voici le jour, je ne puis plus veiller."
Sa tete tombe, il s'endort jusqu'a prime . . .
The Merchant's Tale,
11. 1742-1764, 11. 1807-1808, 11. 1813-1857.

INDEX

ALAIN DE L'!SLE, Planctus Nature,

82

Anglo-Norman, 47, 48
Arabian Nights, 159
Ariosto, 112
Arthurian cycle, 159
Artois, 5

Benoit de Sainte-More, Roman de
Troie, 55, 108, 122-124

Berkeley, Sir Edward, n

Black Prince, 29, 38

Boccaccio, 14, 55, 70, 85, 89, 98, 99,
112, 113, 116, 117, 118, 119, 126,
130, 131, 133, 134, 159, 188, 189,
190, 192, 200; Decamerone, n, 32,
indebtedness of Chaucer's Tales
to, 117, and n. i ; 118, 122, 141,
158-160; De Casibus viriumillus-
trium, 119, 158; De Claris
Mulieribus, 106, 119; Filocolo,
130; Filoslrato, 119, 122-125, 130;
Teseide, 83, 119, 120, 140, 159,
187

Boethius, De Consolalione, trans-
lated by Chaucer, 13; 42, 68, 87,
94, 104, 128, 160, 192

Bohemia, Anne of, wife of Richard
II., 13, 14, 20, 21, 41, 82, 98, 108

Bohemia, John of, 32

Bolingbroke, see Henry IV.

Brescia, Albertino de, Liber Conso-
lationis, 158

Bretigny, Peace of, 7, 29

Bruges, Truce of, 29

Cento Xovelle Antiche, 159

Champaigne, Cecilia, 20

Chanson de Roland, 58, 203

Chansons de geste, 55

Chansons de toile, 55

Charles, Dauphin, son of Jean le

Bon, 6

Charles V., King of France, i, 10, 12
Chaucer, Agnes, wife of John

Chaucer, 2, 7

Chaucer, Geoffrey —

(A) Biography:

Date of birth and birthplace, i ;
derivation of name, 2 ; early
impressions, 3 ; education, 3-
4 ; page, in service of Duke of
Clarence, 4 ; whom he follows
to France, 5 ; taken prisoner
and ransomed, 6; probable
meeting with Machaut, 7;
blank in his biography, 7;
marriage, 7-9; widower, 8;
granted an annuity and pro-
moted to esquire, 9; diplo-
matic missions to France,
Flanders, and Italy, 10;
probable meeting with Pet-
rarch, ii ; second visit
to Italy (Lombardy), n;
missions to France, 11-12;
holds various posts, 12-13;
knighted and sits in Parlia-
ment, 14; loses his offices,
15; retires to Greenwich,
15; holds new offices, 16;
receives an annuity, 16;
granted a pension by Henry
IV., 17; death, and burial in
Westminster Abbey, 17;
children, 18.

(B) Works:

An ABC, 63; Astrolabe, as-
tronomical treatise, 18;
Balade of Fortune, 42 ; Balade
of Gfnlilesse, 42 ; Balade of
the Former Age, 42; Balade
of Truth, 27, 42, 68; Book of
the Duchesse, 71, 72-82, 109;
Canterbury Talcs, 3, 15, 71,
85, 108, 117, 134, 136-199;
Compleint of Andida, 52;
Compleynt of Mars, 21, 66;
Compleint to his Empty
Purse, 17, 69; Compleynte
unto Pile, 20 n. 2; De
Regimine Principum, 27;

217

2l8

GEOFFREY CHAUCER

Chaucer, Geoffrey —
(B) Works: — continued

Franklin's Tale, 117,159,188;
Friar's Tale, 160; House of
Fame, 13, 86-97, 109, 138,
139; Knight's Tale, 70, 119,
120, 121, 159, 192; Legend
of Good Women, 14, 26, 39,
51, 65, 97-108, 109, 119, 138;
Lenvoy d Bukton, 8, 69; Len-
voy de Chaucer d Scogan, 22,
42, 69; Manciple's Tale, 117,
159; Merchant's Tale, 117,
160, 189, 190, 197; Miller'sl
Tale, 3, 159, 189 199; Monk's
' ~TaZe,~«iiy,' "Jvow/iti Prestes
Tale, 153, 159; Pardoner's
Tale, 32, 159, 160; Parlement
of Foules, 13, 72, 82-86, 109,
120; Persones Tale, 27;
Physician's Tale, 159; Pn'o-
ress's TWe, 70, 1 88; Quene
Anelida andfals Arcite, 120; j
Reves Tale, 4, 159; ^?owrtJ«t/|
o/ /fee #ose, 14, 21, 155 (see
also under Roman de la Rose) • j
Seintes Legende of Cupide, ;
14; Shipman's Tale, 117, 153,
160; St> Thopas, 56, 159;
Somnour's Tale, 160, 189;
Squire's Tale, 159; transla-
tions from French, 9, 10;
translations from Latin, 13;
Troilus and Criseyde, 13 and
n. i, 14, 21, 55, 70, 86, 97,
no, 115, 116, 122-135; Wyf
of Bath, 8, 52 n. i, 69, 140 n. i,
159, 160, 196

Chaucer, John, father of Geoffrey,

2,7

Chaucer, Lowis, son of Geoffrey, 18
Chaucer, Philippa, wife of Geoffrey,

7, 15

Chaucer, Robert, grandfather of
Geoffrey, 2

Chaucer, Thomas, son (?) of Geof-
frey, 1 8

Chivalry, Romances of, 56

Chrestien de Troyes, 55, 74, 108

Christine de Pisan, 98

Chronicle of the Monk of St. Albans,

34

Chronicles of Froissart, see Froissart
Cicero, Dream of Scipio, 82, 85
Clanvowe, John, friend of Chaucer,

18

Clarence, Duke of, 4, 5
Claudianus, Raptus Proserpina, 83,

89

Coleridge, 97

Colonna, Guido de, 89, 123
Constance, daughter of Peter the

Cruel and wife of John of Gaunt,

37,38

Crecy, battle of, 28, 32, 149
Cyprus, King of, 38

Dante, 83, 88, 92, 97, 113, 114, 115,
123; Divina Commedia, 83, 87,
92, 113, 114, 203

Dares, 122

Decamerone, see under Boccaccio

Deguileville, Guillaume de, Pn'eVe
d Notre-Dame, 9; Chaucer and
Pelerinage de la vie humaine, 63-64

Deschamps, Eustache, i, 7 and n.,

19, 32, 49, 51, 52 n. i, 62 n. i, 69,
98, 136

Dictys, 122

Divina Commedia, see under Dante.

Duguesclin, 10, 38

Edward III., King of England, i, 2,
6, 13, 17, 20, 28, 29, 31

Fabliaux, 56, 98, 118, 126, 131, 140,
141, 149, 159, 160, 188, 189, 190

Ferrers, Alice, 29

Fielding, 189

Floras, 107

Froissart, i, 6, 8, n, 12 n. i, 29, 37,
48, 49, 51, 52, 72, 82, 98, 146

Gaunt, John of, Duke of Lancaster,
patron of Chaucer, i, 7, 11-17, 20,
21, 33-39, 72, 75, 148; see also
under Smith

Gesta Romanorum, 141

Giotto, in

Gloucester, Duke of, 14-16,38,41,148

Goldsmith, 168

Gower, Confessio Amantis, 4, 5 n. i,
141, 142; 9, 18, 33, 45, 147, 159

Granson, Otto de, 51, 53

Green Knight, 46

Grisildis (or Griselida), story of, 10
n, 69, 86, 116, 117, 139, 142, 158,
187

Hawkwood, Sir John, n

Henry IV. (Duke of Lancaster), 17,

20, 30, 37

INDEX

219

Homer, 89

Huntingdon, Count of, 21

Jacques de Baisieux, Le Dit de la

Vescie d Prestre, 160, 189
Jean de Boves, De Gombert et des

deux Clcrcs, 159

Jean le Bon, King of France, 5-6, 29
Jeanne, Princess, 39, 41
Josephus, 89

Kittredge, Professor, 8

La Fontaine, 56, 159, 160, 190, 196,

199

Lamartine, Jocelyn, 168 n. i
Lancaster, Duchess Blanche of, 9,

10, 20, 21, 63, 72
Lancaster, John Duke of, see under

Gaunt
Lancaster, Henry Duke of, see under

Henry IV. of England
Langland, 32, 147, 150, 166
Laurens, Frere, Somme des Vices et |

des Vertus, 158
Legende Doree, 158
Livy, 159

Lollards, 29, 37, 38, 150, 151, i7§
Lollius (= Boccaccio) , 89, 116
Lorris, Guillaume de, see also under

Roman de la Rose, 5 and n. 3, 53,

54, 74, 88
Lowes, Professor J. L., on Chaucer

and Deschamps, 52 n. i, 62; on

Chronology of Troilus and Hous

of Fame, ^\ n. i; on Legend of

Good Women, 99, n. i; on Wife

of Bath, 140 n. i
Lowell (essay on Chaucer), 59
Lusignan, Pierre de, 32, 38
Lucan, 89
Lydgate, friend of Chaucer, 18, 20,

26 and n. 3 and 4, 27, 92

Machaut, Guillaume de, at Reims

* during the siege, 6; imitated by
\. Chaucer, 10, 20, 25, 50, 61, 72, 74,
' 79 n. i, 80, 98; J ugemcnt du Roi

• de Navarre, 32; Dils, 49, 51, 81;
Lay df Plour, 52, 67

Macrobius, 74. 82

March, Earl of, 16

Maria d' Aquino (Boccaccio's La

Fiaimnetta), 122
Marie de France, 55, 82

Marot, 69

Metre, Chaucer's, imitation of

French metres in his early poetry,

19; innovations, 45, 64, 83, 109,

121 ; alliteration, 46; rhyme, 53;

metrical artifices, 67, attempts at

Terza rima, 114
Meung, Jean de, influence on

Chaucer, 14, 54, 88, 98, 145, 149,

150, 158, 174
Milan, Duke of, n
Milton, 112
Minot Laurence, 31
Modern Language Association, Publi-
cations of, date of Troilus, 13 n.

i ; imitations in Legend of Good

Women, 99 n. i
Modern Language Notes, Chaucer

and Duke of Clarence, 5 n. 2;

meeting of Chaucer and Petrarch,

it n. i ; Wife of Bath, 140 n. i
Modern Language Review, Chaucer's

debt to Eustache Deschamps,

62 n. i
Modern Philology, Chaucer and the

Miroir de Manage, 52 n. i
Moliere, 23, 56, 155, 189
Monmouth, Geoffrey of, 89

Nevil's Cross, battle of, 28

Occleve, friend of Chaucer, 18, 26

and n. i and 2, 27
Orcagna, in
Orleans (Charles d'), 48
OvKL£haucer's indirect debt to his
**fff;Arte Amandi, 5 and n. 4;

Metamorphoses, 73, 159; Heroides,

108; 72,86,89,106,107,111,115,

irg, 200
Oxford, Earl of, 39

Padua, lo-n

Pastourdles, 55

Pearl, 46

Peronne d'Armentieres, 49

Peter the Cruel, 37, 38

Petrarch, 10-11, 20, 50, 69, 91, 113,

115, 116, 117, 123, 158, 203
Picardy, 5

Picaresque novel, 189
Piers Ploughman, 46, see also under

Langland
Platonisrn, 116
Plutarch, 107
Poitiers, battle of, 5, 29, 32, 149

220

GEOFFREY CHAUCER

Rabelais, 126, 173, 199

Racine, 192, 199

Regnier, his Macette, 128

Reims, siege of, 6

Renart, Roman de, 56, 159, 161

Rhetoriqueurs , 49

Richard II., King of England, 12, 13,
14, 15, 16, 20, 30, 35, 39, 40, 41,
82, 157

Roet, Philippa, wife ( ?) of Chaucer, 7

Rolle of Hampole, Richard, 149

Roman de la Rose, 5^.3; translated
by Chaucer 10, 48, 49, 52, 54, 55,
71, 72, 80, 81, 83, 87, 88, 97, 128,
I38, 159, 160, 200. See also
Romaunt of the Rose under Chaucer

Roman de Troie, see Benoit de
Sainte-More

Romance of the Seven Sages, 141

Rutebeuf, 48, 149 ; Dit de VHerberie,
160, 203

Sancho Panza, 128

St. Cecilia, 140, 148, 158, 185, 187

St. Jerome, 174

Sandras, Etude sur G. Chaucer con-
sider e comme imitateur des Trou-
veres, 51

Scipio, see under Cicero

Scogan, poet, friend of Chaucer, 16,

1 8, 22

Shakespeare, character of John of

Gaunt, 34; 56, 76, 125, 128, 129,

130, 132, 133, 191
Shirley, John, editor of Chaucer's

works, 1 8, 21
Skeat, Professor, edition of Chaucer,

56
Sluyce, battle of, 28

Smith, Armitage, John of Gaunt, 33

and n. i

Spenser, 103, 112, 121
Spurgeon, C., Five Hundred Years

of Chaucer Criticism and Allusion,

20 n. i
Stace, 89
Stendhal, 123
Straw, Jack, 33
Swynford, Catherine, 7, 8
Sypherd, Studies in the House of

Fame, 87 n. i

Tasso, 112

Ten Brink, 63, 65, 87

Tennyson, 80

Tensons, 52

Testament of Love, by Usk, 18

Trivet, Nicolas, 140, 158

Trouveres, 25, 55, 57, 59, 60, 62, 112,

136

" Tullius," 83
Tyler, Wat, 35
Tyrtceus, 31

Usk, Thomas, friend of Chaucer, and
author of Testament of Love, 18, 19

Villon, 48, 65, 203

Virgil, 20, 86,88, 89, 91, 107, 108, in

Voltaire, 159, 182, 192

Wordsworth, 97

Wyclif, 34, 36, 38, 150, 151, 156

York, Duchess of, 21

Young, Karl, The Origin and develop-
ment of the Story of Troilus and
Cressida, 126 n. i, 130 n. i

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