Chaucer And His Times Part 16

Your doom is fals, your constance yvel preveth,[200]

A ful greet fool is he that on yow leveth.

But at the same time he realises that poverty has its rights. The earlier version of the Prologue to the _Legend of Good Women_ contains much excellent advice to King Richard:--

For he that king or lord is naturel, Him oghte nat be tiraunt or cruel, As is a fermour,[201] to doon the harm he can.

He moste thinke hit is his lige man, And that him oweth, of verray duetee Shewen his peple pleyn benignitie And wel to here hir excusatiouns, And hir compleyntes and peticiouns....

The _Lenvoy_ which ends the balade of _Lak of Stedfastnesse_ holds up a n.o.ble ideal of kingship:--

O prince, desyre to be honourable, Cherish thy folk and hate extorcioun!

Suffre no thing, that may be reprevable To thyn estat, doon in thy regioun.

Shew forth thy swerd of castigacioun, Dred G.o.d, do law, love trouthe and worthinesse, And wed thy folk agein to stedfastnesse.

And in the _Persones Tale_ the duties of the rich towards the poor are set forth in considerable detail. Superfluity of clothing and absurdly slashed and ornamented garments are to be avoided because "the more that clooth is wasted, the more it costeth to the peple for the scantnesse; and forther-over, if so be that they wolde yeven such pounsoned and dagged[202] clothing to the povre folk, it is nat convenient to were for hir estaat, ne suffisant to bete hir necessitee, to kepe hem fro the distemperance of the firmament." Lords are bidden to take no pride in their position, and do no wrong to those dependent on them: "I rede thee, certes, that thou, lord, werke in swiche wyse with thy cherles, that they rather love thee than drede. I woot wel ther is degree above degree, as reson is; and skile it is that men do hir devoir ther-as is due; but certes, extorciouns and despit of youre underlinges is dampnable."

Chaucer's inborn sense of justice will not allow him to condone oppression, and his speculative and inquiring mind is fully conscious of the artificiality of rank. From the Parson we might expect a homily on the fact that "we ben alle of o fader and of o moder; and alle we been of o nature roten and corrupt, both riche and povre," but it is more surprising to find the Wife of Bath holding forth in the same strain. Her tale describes the bitter feeling of Florent when he finds himself bound to a wife old, ugly, and of base degree. The bride answers with a disquisition on true n.o.bility:--

But for ye speken of swich gentillesse As is descended out of old richesse, And that therfore sholden ye be gentil men, Swich arrogance is nat worth a hen.

Loke who that is most vertuous alwey, Privee and apert,[203] and most entendeth To do the gentil dedes that he can, An tak him for the grettest gentil man.

Crist wol, we clayme of him our gentilesse, Nat of our eldres for hir old richesse.

For thogh they yeve us al hir heritage, For which we clayme to been of heigh parage,[204]

Yet may they nat biquethe, for no-thing, To noon of us hir vertuous living, That made hem gentil men y-called be.

Heer may ye see wel, how that genterye Is nat annexed to possessioun

Redeth Senek, and redeth eek Boece, Ther shul ye seen express that it no drede is That he is gentil that doth gentil dedis.

John Ball himself could hardly go further.

Possibly Chaucer's personal experience of the occasional difficulty of making both ends meet, quickened his sympathy with poor men. It is true that Florent's wife, in the lines which follow those just quoted, goes on to defend poverty against riches on the ground that it is

A ful greet bringer out of bisinesse,

but though she calls cheerful poverty "an honest thing," she is forced to own that at best it is "hateful good." The Man of Law, in the prologue to his tale, speaks of it with undisguised bitterness:--

Herken what is the sentence of the wyse:-- "Bet is to dyen than have indigence;"

"Thy selve neighebour wol thee despyse;"

If thou be poore, farwel thy reverence!

If thou be povre, thy brother hateth thee, And all thy freendes fleen fro thee, alas!

O riche marchaunts, ful of wele ben ye, O n.o.ble, O prudent folk as in this cas!

And Chaucer's lines to his empty purse show that he had no wish to share the pleasant security of those who are able, as Florent's wife says, to sing and play in the presence of thieves.

In yet a third respect, Chaucer shows himself able to discriminate between the use and abuse of a thing. He can expose and denounce hypocrisy without losing his reverence for true religion; he can point out evils in social life, without siding wholly with n.o.bles or people; he can laugh at the folly which allows itself to be deluded by charlatanism, without losing his respect for science. Two hundred years had yet to pa.s.s before Bacon should raise science, once and for all, above the level where it lay confused with magic and the black art. A generation to whom gunpowder was a novelty, and spectacles an almost miraculous aid to sight, found nothing strange in the sight of learned men seeking for the elixir of life, or the philosopher's stone. In a world which was but just becoming dimly conscious of the mighty forces which lie at man's command, limitations were unknown, and the boundary line between the possible and impossible was so uncertain as to be negligible. The populace which believed that every sage could summon legions of devils to his a.s.sistance, was not likely to criticise his pretensions too closely, and doubtless many a quack saw, and seized, the opportunity for imposing on the easy credulity of a greedy and wonder-loving people.

Chaucer shows a real interest in such rudimentary science as he was able to pick up in the midst of his other avocations. Clocks of any kind were rare in the fourteenth century, and the practice of telling the time by astronomical observations was a common one. There is nothing peculiar in noting the season or the hour by such statements as that

the yonge sonne Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne.

or,

He wiste it was the eightetehe day Of April, that is messager to May; And sey wel that the shadwe of every tree Was as the lengthe the same quant.i.tee That was the body erect that caused it.

And therefore by the shadwe he took his wit That Phebus, which that shoon so clere and brighte, Degrees was fyve and fourty clombe on highte; And for that day, as in that lat.i.tude, It was ten of the clokke, he gan conclude;

but Chaucer not only follows this method with an amount of detail and a persistency which show that he enjoyed it for its own sake, he also, as we have seen, writes a treatise on the use of the Astrolabe, for the instruction of his little son. The modesty and sincerity shown in the introduction are worthy of a true scientist. After saying that he purposes to teach little Lewis "a certain nombre of conclusions," Chaucer continues, "I seye a certein of conclusiouns, for three causes. The furste cause is this: truste wel that alle the conclusiouns that have ben founde, or elles possibly mighten be founde in so n.o.ble an instrument as an Astrolabie, ben un-knowe perfitly to any mortal man in this regioun, as I suppose. A nother cause is this; that sothly, in any tretis of the Astrolabie that I have seyn, there ben some conclusiouns that wole nat in alle thinges performen hir bihestes; and some of them ben harde to thy tendre age of ten yeer to conseyve." He then explains his reason for writing in English instead of Latin, and finally declares: "I nam but a lewd compilatour of the labour of olde Astrologiens, and have hit translated in myn English only for thy doctrine; and with this swerd shall I sleen envye." The whole _Prologue_ is well worth reading if only for the light it throws upon Chaucer's view of education and the power it displays of entering into a child's mind. Scattered references to astronomy, medicine, chemistry, and even astrology, are to be found throughout the _Canterbury Tales_. The Franklin shows himself well abreast of scientific discovery when he speaks of

This wyde world, which that men seye is round.

Chaucer himself in the _Prologue_ reels off a list of medicaments which might be expected to improve the Somnour's complexion. Pertelote shows a housewifely knowledge of the properties of herbs.

One tale, indeed, turns on the pseudo-science of the day. After the second Nun has finished her tale of St. Cecilia the pilgrims ride in silence for awhile, till, close to Boghton under Blee, they are joined by a Canon and his man. The Canon's Yeoman soon begins to boast of his master's marvellous powers, how

That al this ground on which we ben ryding, Til that we come to Caunterbury toun, He coude al clene turne it up-so-doun, And pave it al of silver and of gold.

Whereupon the Host blesses himself, and asks, not unnaturally, why if the Canon "is of so heigh prudence," he wears such poor and dirty clothes? The Yeoman answers that

--whan a man hath over-greet a wit Ful oft him happeth to misusen it; So dooth my lord ...

and is proceeding to dilate upon the hard share of the work that falls to himself, when the Canon, who is nervous as to what he may be saying, with some sharpness bids him hold his tongue. The Host, however, has no intention of allowing his authority to be over-ridden:--

"Ye," quod our host, "telle on, what so bityde; Of al his threting rekke nat a myte!"[205]

"In feith," quod he, "namore I do but lyte."

On which the Canon sets spurs to his horse and gallops off, leaving his character behind him, and the Yeoman settles down to tell the story of the foolish priest and the charlatan. The false Canon borrows a mark from the priest, promising to return it within three days:--

And at the thridde day broghte his moneye, And to the preest he took his gold agayn, Whereof this preest was wonder glad and fayn.

The Canon protests that under no circ.u.mstances would he ever dream of breaking his word:--

"ther was never man yet yvel apayd For gold ne silver that he to me lente ...

and in token of friendship he offers, if the priest will send for some quicksilver, to show him a marvel.

"Sir," quod the preest, "it shal be doon y-wis."

He bad his servant fecchen him this thing....

The Canon then orders a fire to be prepared, and with much parade makes ready a crucible. He carefully shuts the door and pretends to be most anxious lest any one should see what they are doing. Not till the servant has gone out, and he and the priest are alone, does he solemnly cast various powders on to the blazing coals, "To blynde with the preest."

Finally, while his unfortunate victim is busy blowing the fire and making himself generally useful, the false Canon so manipulates things that an ingot of silver appears in the crucible. He repeats the trick three times, and so impresses "this sotted preest" that the poor dupe

the somnee of fourty pound anon Of n.o.bles fette,[206] and took hem everichon To this chanoun, for this ilke receit....

After which, needless to say, the Canon disappears.