The Canterbury Tales, and Other Poems Part 90

"Soothly, daughter," quoth she, "this is the troth: For knights should ever be persevering, To seek honour, without feintise* or sloth, *dissimulation From well to better in all manner thing: In sign of which, with leaves aye lasting They be rewarded after their degree, Whose l.u.s.ty green may not appaired* be, *impaired, decayed

"But ay keeping their beauty fresh and green; For there is no storm that may them deface, Nor hail nor snow, nor wind nor frostes keen; Wherefore they have this property and grace: And for the flow'r, within a little s.p.a.ce, Wolle* be lost, so simple of nature *will They be, that they no grievance* may endure; *injury, hardship

"And ev'ry storm will blow them soon away, Nor they laste not but for a season; That is the cause, the very truth to say, That they may not, by no way of reason, Be put to no such occupation."

"Madame," quoth I, "with all my whole service I thank you now, in my most humble wise;

"For now I am ascertain'd thoroughly Of ev'ry thing that I desir'd to know."

"I am right glad that I have said, soothly, Aught to your pleasure, if ye will me trow,"* *believe Quoth she again; "but to whom do ye owe Your service? and which wolle* ye honour, *will Tell me, I pray, this year, the Leaf or the Flow'r?"

"Madame," quoth I, "though I be least worthy, Unto the Leaf I owe mine observance:"

"That is," quoth she, "right well done, certainly; And I pray G.o.d, to honour you advance, And keep you from the wicked remembrance Of Malebouche,* and all his cruelty; *Slander <24> And all that good and well-condition'd be.

"For here may I no longer now abide; I must follow the greate company, That ye may see yonder before you ride."

And forthwith, as I coulde, most humbly I took my leave of her, and she gan hie* *haste After them as fast as she ever might; And I drew homeward, for it was nigh night,

And put all that I had seen in writing, Under support of them that list it read. <25> O little book! thou art so uncunning,* *unskilful How dar'st thou put thyself in press, <26> for dread?

It is wonder that thou waxest not red!

Since that thou know'st full lite* who shall behold *little Thy rude language, full *boistously unfold.* *unfolded in homely and unpolished fashion*

Explicit.* *The End

Notes to the Flower and the Leaf

1. The Bull: the sign of Taurus, which the sun enters in May.

2. The young oak leaves are red or ashen coloured.

3. Chaucer here again refers to the superst.i.tion, noticed in "The Cuckoo and the Nightingale," that it was of good omen to hear the nightingale before the cuckoo upon the advent of both with spring.

4. The arbour was furnished with seats, which had been newly covered with turf.

5. "Yede" or "yead," is the old form of go.

6. Sote: fool -- French "sot."

7. See note 59 to The Court of Love

8. Agnus castus: the chaste-tree; a kind of willow.

9. Roundell: French, "rondeau;" a song that comes round again to the verse with which it opened, or that is taken up in turn by each of the singers.

10. In modern French form, "Sous la feuille, devers moi, son et mon joli coeur est endormi" -- "Under the foliage, towards me, his and my jolly heart is gone to sleep."

11. Prester John: The half-mythical Eastern potentate, who is now supposed to have been, not a Christian monarch of Abyssinia, but the head of the Indian empire before Zenghis Khan's conquest.

12. Oak cerrial: of the species of oak which Pliny, in his "Natural History," calls "cerrus."

13. Tartarium: Cloth of Tars, or of Tortona.

14. Bargaret: bergerette, or pastoral song.

15. "Si douce est la margarete.": "So sweet is the daisy" ("la marguerite").

16. To make their joustes: the meaning is not very obvious; but in The Knight's Tale "jousts and array"

are in some editions made part of the adornment of the Temple of Venus; and as the word "jousts" would there carry the general meaning of "preparations" to entertain or please a lover, in the present case it may have a similar force.

17. Gramercy: "grand merci," French; great thanks.

18. The Nine Worthies, who at our day survive in the Seven Champions of Christendom. The Worthies were favourite subjects for representation at popular festivals or in masquerades.

19. The famous Knights of King Arthur, who, being all esteemed equal in valour and n.o.ble qualities, sat at a round table, so that none should seem to have precedence over the rest.

20. The twelve peers of Charlemagne (les douze pairs), chief among whom were Roland and Oliver.

21. Chaucer speaks as if, at least for the purposes of his poetry, he believed that Edward III. did not establish a new, but only revived an old, chivalric inst.i.tution, when be founded the Order of the Garter.

22. Laurer: laurel-tree; French, "laurier."

23. The meaning is: "Witness the practice of Rome, that was the founder of all knighthood and marvellous deeds; and I refer for corroboration to t.i.tus Livius" -- who, in several pa.s.sages, has mentioned the laurel crown as the highest military honour. For instance, in 1. vii. c. 13, s.e.xtus Tullius, remonstrating for the army against the inaction in which it is kept, tells the Dictator Sulpicius, "Duce te vincere cupimus; tibi lauream insignem deferre; tec.u.m triumphantes urbem inire." ("Commander, we want you to conquer; to bring you the laurel insignia; to enter the city with you in triumph")

24. Malebouche: Slander, personified under the t.i.tle of Evil-mouth -- Italian, "Malbocca;" French, "Malebouche."

25. Under support of them that list it read: the phrase means -- trusting to the goodwill of my reader.

26. In press: into a crowd, into the press of compet.i.tors for favour; not, it need hardly be said, "into the press" in the modern sense -- printing was not invented for a century after this was written.

THE HOUSE OF FAME

[Thanks partly to Pope's brief and elegant paraphrase, in his "Temple of Fame," and partly to the familiar force of the style and the satirical significance of the allegory, "The House of Fame" is among the best known and relished of Chaucer's minor poems. The octosyllabic measure in which it is written -- the same which the author of "Hudibras" used with such admirable effect -- is excellently adapted for the vivid descriptions, the lively sallies of humour and sarcasm, with which the poem abounds; and when the poet actually does get to his subject, he treats it with a zest, and a corresponding interest on the part of the reader, which are scarcely surpa.s.sed by the best of The Canterbury Tales. The poet, however, tarries long on the way to the House of Fame; as Pope says in his advertis.e.m.e.nt, the reader who would compare his with Chaucer's poem, "may begin with [Chaucer's] third Book of Fame, there being nothing in the two first books that answers to their t.i.tle." The first book opens with a kind of prologue (actually so marked and called in earlier editions) in which the author speculates on the causes of dreams; avers that never any man had such a dream as he had on the tenth of December; and prays the G.o.d of Sleep to help him to interpret the dream, and the Mover of all things to reward or afflict those readers who take the dream well or ill.

Then he relates that, having fallen asleep, he fancied himself within a temple of gla.s.s -- the abode of Venus -- the walls of which were painted with the story of Aeneas. The paintings are described at length; and then the poet tells us that, coming out of the temple, he found himself on a vast sandy plain, and saw high in heaven an eagle, that began to descend towards him.

With the prologue, the first book numbers 508 lines; of which 192 only -- more than are actually concerned with or directly lead towards the real subject of the poem -- are given here. The second book, containing 582 lines, of which 176 will be found in this edition, is wholly devoted to the voyage from the Temple of Venus to the House of Fame, which the dreamer accomplishes in the eagle's claws. The bird has been sent by Jove to do the poet some "solace" in reward of his labours for the cause of Love; and during the transit through the air the messenger discourses obligingly and learnedly with his human burden on the theory of sound, by which all that is spoken must needs reach the House of Fame; and on other matters suggested by their errand and their observations by the way. The third book (of 1080 lines, only a score of which, just at the outset, have been omitted) brings us to the real pith of the poem. It finds the poet close to the House of Fame, built on a rock of ice engraved with names, many of which are half-melted away.

Entering the gorgeous palace, he finds all manner of minstrels and historians; harpers, pipers, and trumpeters of fame; magicians, jugglers, sorcerers, and many others. On a throne of ruby sits the G.o.ddess, seeming at one moment of but a cubit's stature, at the next touching heaven; and at either hand, on pillars, stand the great authors who "bear up the name" of ancient nations. Crowds of people enter the hall from all regions of earth, praying the G.o.ddess to give them good or evil fame, with and without their own deserts; and they receive answers favourable, negative, or contrary, according to the caprice of Fame. Pursuing his researches further, out of the region of reputation or fame proper into that of tidings or rumours, the poet is led, by a man who has entered into conversation with him, to a vast whirling house of twigs, ever open to the arrival of tidings, ever full of murmurings, whisperings, and clatterings, coming from the vast crowds that fill it -- for every rumour, every piece of news, every false report, appears there in the shape of the person who utters it, or pa.s.ses it on, down in earth.

Out at the windows innumerable, the tidings pa.s.s to Fame, who gives to each report its name and duration; and in the house travellers, pilgrims, pardoners, couriers, lovers, &c., make a huge clamour. But here the poet meets with a man "of great authority," and, half afraid, awakes; skilfully -- whether by intention, fatigue, or accident -- leaving the reader disappointed by the nonfulfilment of what seemed to be promises of further disclosures. The poem, not least in the pa.s.sages the omission of which has been dictated by the exigencies of the present volume, is full of testimony to the vast acquaintance of Chaucer with learning ancient and modern; Ovid, Virgil, Statius, are equally at his command to ill.u.s.trate his narrative or to furnish the ground-work of his descriptions; while architecture, the Arabic numeration, the theory of sound, and the effects of gunpowder, are only a few among the topics of his own time of which the poet treats with the ease of proficient knowledge.

Not least interesting are the vivid touches in which Chaucer sketches the routine of his laborious and almost recluse daily life; while the strength, individuality, and humour that mark the didactic portion of the poem prove that "The House of Fame"

was one of the poet's riper productions.]

G.o.d turn us ev'ry dream to good!

For it is wonder thing, by the Rood,* *Cross <1> To my witte, what causeth swevens,* *dreams Either on morrows or on evens; And why th'effect followeth of some, And of some it shall never come; Why this is an avision And this a revelation; Why this a dream, why that a sweven, And not to ev'ry man *like even;* *alike*

Why this a phantom, why these oracles, I n'ot; but whoso of these miracles The causes knoweth bet than I, Divine* he; for I certainly *define *Ne can them not,* nor ever think *do not know them*

To busy my wit for to swink* *labour To know of their significance The genders, neither the distance Of times of them, nor the causes For why that this more than that cause is; Or if folke's complexions Make them dream of reflections; Or elles thus, as others sayn, For too great feebleness of the brain By abstinence, or by sickness, By prison, strife, or great distress, Or elles by disordinance* *derangement Of natural accustomance;* *mode of life That some men be too curious In study, or melancholious, Or thus, so inly full of dread, That no man may them *boote bede;* *afford them relief*

Or elles that devotion Of some, and contemplation, Causeth to them such dreames oft; Or that the cruel life unsoft Of them that unkind loves lead, That often hope much or dread, That purely their impressions Cause them to have visions; Or if that spirits have the might To make folk to dream a-night; Or if the soul, of *proper kind,* *its own nature*

Be so perfect as men find, That it forewot* what is to come, *foreknows And that it warneth all and some Of ev'reach of their adventures, By visions, or by figures, But that our fleshe hath no might To understanden it aright, For it is warned too darkly; But why the cause is, not wot I.