The Works of Alexander Pope Part 23

[Footnote 3: Pope, in his youth, was not averse to affected phrases; but it is surprising that he could bring himself to call a garden "the vegetable care."]

[Footnote 4: "Sliding" is a very happy expression.--BOWLES.

Pope borrowed it from the corresponding pa.s.sage of Sandys--"Soft-sliding springs."]

[Footnote 5: Priapus.]

[Footnote 6: A broad band of cloth worn by women round the head.]

[Footnote 7: Sandys' Ovid, book ii.:

--his kisses too intemperate grow, Not such as maids on maidens do bestow.]

[Footnote 8: Hippodameia. According to the fable, a Centaur carried her off at her marriage feast. This occasioned the battle between the Lapithae, over whom her husband ruled, and the Centaurs.]

JANUARY AND MAY:

OR,

THE MERCHANT'S TALE.

FROM CHAUCER.

This translation was done at sixteen or seventeen years of age.--POPE.

The story of January and May now before us is of the comic kind; and the character of a fond old dotard betrayed into disgrace by an unsuitable match is supported in a lively manner. Pope has nowhere copied the free and easy versification, and the narrative style of Dryden's Fables, so happily as in this pleasant tale. He has endeavoured suitably to familiarise the stateliness of our heroic measure; but, after all his pains, this measure is not adapted to such subjects so well as the lines of four feet, or the French numbers of Fontaine. Fontaine is, in truth, the capital and unrivalled writer of comic tales. He generally took his subjects from Boccacio, Poggius, and Ariosto; but adorned them with so many natural strokes, with such quaintness in his reflections, and such a dryness and archness of humour, as cannot fail to excite laughter. Our Prior has happily caught his manner in many of his lighter tales, particularly in Hans Carvel. Of the tale before us, Mr. Tyrwhitt gives the following account:--"The scene of the Merchant's Tale is laid in Italy; but none of the names, except Damian and Justin, seem to be Italian, but rather made at pleasure; so that I doubt whether the story be really of Italian growth. The adventure of the pear-tree I find in a small collection of Latin fables, written by one Adolphus, in elegiac verses of his fashion, in the year 1315. This fable has never been printed but once, and in a book not commonly to be met with. Whatever was the real original of this tale, the machinery of the fairies, which Chaucer has used so happily, was probably added by himself; and indeed I cannot help thinking that his Pluto and Proserpine were the true progenitors of Oberon and t.i.tania, or rather that they themselves have, once at least, deigned to revisit our poetical system under the latter names. In the History of English Poetry, this is said to be an old Lombard story. But many pa.s.sages in it are evidently taken from the Polycraticon of John of Salisbury: De molestiis et oneribus conjugiorum secundum Hieronymum et alios philosophos--Et de pernicie libidinis--Et de mulieris Ephesinae et similium fide. And, by the way, about forty verses belonging to this argument are translated from the same chapter of the Polycraticon, in the Wife of Bath's prologue. In the meantime, it is not improbable that this tale might have originally been oriental. A Persian tale is just published which it extremely resembles; and it has much of the allegory of an eastern apologue."--WARTON.

In the art of telling a story in verse, Pope is peculiarly happy; we almost forget the grossness of the subject of this tale, while we are struck by the uncommon ease and readiness of the verse, the suitableness of the expressions, and the spirit and happiness of the whole. I think Dr. Warton injudiciously censures the verse, which appears to me to be very suitably employed. Pope has introduced triplets in many places, no doubt for greater effect, which they certainly have. There is generally two together, ended with an Alexandrine. This is common in Dryden's fables, on which Pope evidently formed his style in these narrative pieces. When I say that Dr. Warton injudiciously objects to the verse, it should be remembered that there is a mock-elevation in the speeches, descriptions, &c., of this story, and even poetry in the fairy revels, for which the versification Pope has chosen is more proper, than it would be for Prior's burlesque, and less poetical, ribaldry. The mixture of cla.s.sical and gothic imagery, such as Chaucer uses, in making Pluto and Proserpine, instead of spirits, like Oberon and t.i.tania, the king and queen of the "yellow-skirted fays," is very common in our early poets, who derived the combination from the old romances, and Ovid.--BOWLES.

When Dryden published his version of some of Chaucer's Tales he gave, in his preface, an excellent account of the characteristics of the original. "As Chaucer," he said, "is the father of English poetry, so I hold him in the same degree of veneration as the Grecians held Homer, or the Romans Virgil. He is a perpetual fountain of good sense,--learned in all sciences, and therefore speaks properly on all subjects. He must have been a man of a most wonderful comprehensive nature, because, as it has been truly observed of him, he has taken into the compa.s.s of his Canterbury Tales the various manners, and humours, as we now call them, of the whole English nation in his age. Not a single character has escaped him. All his pilgrims are severally distinguished from each other, and not only in their inclinations, but in their very physiognomies and persons. I see them as perfectly before me,--their humours, their features, and their very dress--as distinctly as if I had supped with them at the Tabard in Southwark. The matter and manner of their tales, and of their telling, are so suited to their different educations, humours, and callings, that each of them would be improper in any other mouth. Even the grave and serious characters are distinguished by their several sorts of gravity. Their discourses are such as belong to their age, their calling, and their breeding,--such as are becoming of them, and of them only. Some of his persons are vicious, and some virtuous; some are unlearned, or, as Chaucer calls them, lewd, and some are learned. Even the ribaldry of the low characters is different. The reeve, the miller, and the cook are several men, and distinguished from each other as much as the mincing lady prioress, and the broad-speaking, gap-toothed wife of Bath. We have our forefathers, and great grand-dames all before us, as they were in Chaucer's days.

Their general characters are still remaining in mankind, and even in England, though they are called by other names than those of monks and friars, and canons, and lady abesses, and nuns: for mankind is ever the same, and nothing lost out of nature, though everything is altered."

There were two cla.s.ses of readers who exclaimed against the attempt to renovate the original,--those who held that it was too bad to be reproduced, and those who considered it too excellent to be remodelled without being spoiled. "I find," writes Dryden, "some people are offended that I have turned these tales into modern English, because they think them unworthy of my pains, and look on Chaucer as a dry, old-fashioned wit, not worth reviving. I have often heard the late Earl of Leicester say that Mr. Cowley himself was of that opinion, who having read him over at my lord's request, declared he had no taste of him.

Being shocked perhaps with his old style, he never examined into the depth of his good sense. Chaucer, I confess, is a rough diamond, and must first be polished ere he shines. But there are other judges who think I ought not to have translated him into English out of a quite contrary notion. They suppose there is a certain veneration due to his old language, and that it is little less than profanation and sacrilege to alter it. They are further of opinion that somewhat of his good sense will suffer in the transfusion, and much of the beauty of his thoughts will infallibly be lost, which appear with more grace in their old habit. Of this opinion was the Earl of Leicester, who valued Chaucer as much as Mr. Cowley despised him." Dryden replied that his version was only intended for those to whom the original was unintelligible, and while allowing that the original was superior to the copy, he contended that the copy was to be preferred to a blank. If he had confined himself simply to modernising his author there would have been little force in his plea. The phraseology of Chaucer is readily mastered, and any departure from his words destroys a large part of the charm. There is a native simplicity in the mediaeval works of genius which pleases like the artless manners of children, but which would be as ridiculous in a modern dress as the manners of the child in a grown-up person. Nor must we overlook the superior interest which attaches to the notions, usages, and characters of our ancestors when the picture is painted by themselves. A copy in which costumes and colouring have been completely changed is but an adulterate representation. The antique peculiarities and primitive freshness are gone. The real justification of Dryden's undertaking was not that his version was a subst.i.tute for the original, but that it was a glorious supplement. Little as he scrupled to a.s.sert his own merits he could not press this argument to its full extent, though he was evidently conscious of the truth. He states that as the old poet was occasionally diffuse, and more often undignified, he had curtailed the redundancies, and rejected the trivialities. He did not stop at the easy office of omission. "I dare," he says, "to add that what beauties I lose in some places I give to others which had them not originally. If I have altered Chaucer anywhere for the better I must at the same time acknowledge that I could have done nothing without him.

_Facile est inventis addere_, is no great commendation, and I am not so vain to think I have deserved a greater." In dramatic power and pathos, which are Chaucer's strongest points, Dryden has not improved upon him; but upon the whole he has narrated the tales in a higher strain of poetry, in richer and more felicitous language, and with the addition of many new and happy ideas. A few short examples will show the nature of the changes he introduced into numerous pa.s.sages in the process of recasting them. The Wife of Bath's Tale commences with these lines:

In olde dayes of the King Arthour Of which that Britains speken great honour, All was this land fulfilled of fairie; The elf-queen with her jolly company, Danced full oft in many a greene mead; This was the old opinion, as I read; I speak of many hundred year ago; But now can no man see none elves mo.

For now the greate charity and prayers Of limitours, and other holy freres, That seeken every land, and every stream, As thick as motes in the sunne-beam, Blessing halls, chambers, kitchenes, and bowers, Cities, and boroughs, castles high, and towers, Thorpes and barnes, sheepnes, and daieries, That maketh that there be no faieries.

This is one of the prettiest pieces of verse in the Canterbury Tales.

Dryden has expanded and excelled it.

In days of old when Arthur filled the throne, Whose acts and fame to foreign lands were blown, The king of elfs, and little fairy queen, Gambolled on heaths, and danced on every green, And where the jolly troop had led the round The gra.s.s unbidden rose, and marked the ground: Nor darkling did they dance; the silver light } Of Phoebe served to guide their steps aright, } And, with their tripping pleased, prolonged the night. } Her beams they followed where at full she played, } Nor longer than she shed her horns they stayed, } From thence with airy flight to foreign lands conveyed. } Above the rest our Britain held they dear, } More solemnly they kept their sabbaths here, } And made more s.p.a.cious rings, and revelled half the year. } I speak of ancient times, for now the swain, } Returning late, may pa.s.s the woods in vain, } And never hope to see the nightly train. }

For priests with prayers and other G.o.dly gear, Have made the merry goblins disappear; And where they played their merry pranks before Have sprinkled holy water on the floor; And friars that through the wealthy regions run Thick as the motes that twinkle in the sun, Resort to farmers rich, and bless their halls, And exorcise the beds, and cross the walls: This makes the fairy choirs forsake the place When once 'tis hallowed with the rites of grace.

He sometimes carries his innovations further, and the splendour of his paraphrase entirely eclipses the primitive idea. Chaucer says, in the tale of the Nun's Priest, that

Swevens be but vanities and j.a.pes.

Men dream all day of owles and of apes, And eke of many a mase therewithall; Men dream of thinges that never be shall.

Chaucer's hint, which is scarcely more than if the speaker had said in plain prose, "I have no faith in dreams, for they are wild visions which never come true," is transformed by Dryden into this exquisite pa.s.sage:

Dreams are but interludes, which fancy makes; When monarch-reason sleeps this mimic wakes; Compounds a medley of disjointed things, A mob of cobblers, and a court of kings: Light fumes are merry, grosser fumes are sad; Both are the reasonable soul run mad; And many monstrous forms in sleep we see, That neither were, nor are, nor e'er can be.

Sometimes forgotten things long cast behind Rush forward in the brain, and come to mind; The nurse's legends are for truths received, And the man dreams but what the boy believed.

Sometimes we but rehea.r.s.e a former play; } The night restores our actions done by day, } As hounds in sleep will open for their prey. }

Among the characteristics of the "poor parson" Chaucer mentions that

He was a shepherd, and no mercenary,

which is the only warrant the text afforded for these beautiful lines in the paraphrase of Dryden:

The prelate for his holy life he prized; The worldly pomp of prelacy despised.

His Saviour came not with a gaudy show, Nor was his kingdom of the world below.

Patience in want, and poverty of mind, } These marks of church and churchmen he designed, } And living taught, and dying left behind. } The crown he wore was of the pointed thorn; In purple he was crucified, not born.

They who contend for place and high degree, Are not his sons, but those of Zebedee.

Having gained so much from the masculine and buoyant genius of Dryden, the newly fashioned tales took their rank as independent works, and were rather valued for their want of resemblance to Chaucer than because they were a true reflection of him. There are defects in the modern version.

The language is sometimes too colloquial, and there are many careless lines; but in the main the verse bounds and dances along with equal strength, facility, and grace, exhibiting one of the most wonderful specimens in literature of the power, spirit, and abundance of the simplest English when moulded by a master. The Flower and the Leaf, which might have been written in the fairy land it describes, is pre-eminent above the rest for its bright unceasing flow of delicious poetry, for its chaste yet luxuriant diction, for its sustained and various melody, for its lovely pictures both earthly and ethereal, for its pure, refined, and elevating sentiment.

"By Dryden's Fables," says Johnson, "which had then been not long published, and were much in the hands of poetical readers, Pope was tempted to try his own skill in giving Chaucer a more fashionable appearance, and put January and May, and the Prologue of the Wife of Bath into modern English." January and May, which the poet says was translated when he was sixteen or seventeen, was not published till he was nearly twenty-one, having first appeared on May 2, 1709, in the sixth volume of Tonson's Miscellany. He imitated Dryden in abridging Chaucer, but his only addition of any moment to the Merchant's Tale is in the description of the fairies, which was borrowed from Dryden himself. His attempt was substantially limited to epitomising the original in refined language, and musical numbers. In this he succeeded, and more could not be expected of a youth. If he had aspired higher he could not at twenty have competed with his mighty predecessor. Dryden's tales are the productions of a great poetic genius. The January of Pope is the production of a clever versifier. The relative position which their respective translations of Chaucer occupy in their works accords with the difference in their execution. The adaptations of Dryden are commonly numbered among his choicest effusions. The versions of Pope hold a subordinate place among his writings, and are hardly taken into account in the estimate of his powers. The result vindicates the opinion of Lord Leicester, that in the conversion of Chaucer into modern English the loss exceeds the gain. Pope was not insensible to the dramatic qualities of his author. "I read him still," he said to Spence, "with as much pleasure as almost any of our poets. He is a master of manners, of description, and the first tale-teller in the true enlivened natural way." But in polishing him, something of the nature and liveliness was inevitably obliterated. He was, in many of his stories, an admirable novelist in verse, and he adopted a familiar style which permitted him to relate in rhyme, with the freedom of prose, the common talk of common men. His traits are in the highest degree colloquial, individual, and life-like, and his strong strokes are weakened, and his dramatic vivacity tamed down, when he is turned into smooth, harmonious, elegant poetry. The refinement in the form is not a compensation for the sacrifices in the substance, especially when the antique form is itself essential to teach us how our forefathers spoke, thought, and acted five hundred years ago. Every touch which renders the picture more modern, makes it less true. The translation of Pope is skilfully executed, but it is inferior in raciness and interest to an original which can be read by any educated Englishman. A few gratuitous defects have been imported into the modernised January and May. "Chaucer," says Dryden, "followed nature everywhere, but was never so bold to go beyond her." Pope has sometimes overstepped the limits. He has here and there exaggerated his original, and the truth and keeping of the characters are invariably injured by the change.

"I have confined my choice," said Dryden, "to such tales of Chaucer as savour nothing of immodesty. If I had desired more to please than to instruct, the Reeve, the Miller, the Shipman, the Merchant, the Sumner, and above all the Wife of Bath, in the prologue to her tale, would have procured me as many friends and readers, as there are beaus and ladies of pleasure in town. But I will no more offend against good manners. I am sensible as I ought to be of the scandal I have given by my loose writings, and make what reparation I am able by this public acknowledgment." Both the pieces which Pope selected were among the number which Dryden put under a ban, and the younger poet, perhaps, considered that when he had purified them from part of their coa.r.s.eness, the objection would no longer apply. The apology which Chaucer urged for his plain speaking was that in telling a tale he must repeat it correctly, and not surrender truth to delicacy. "Yet if a man," replies Dryden, "should have enquired of him what need he had of introducing such characters where obscene words were proper in their mouths, but very indecent to be heard, I know not what answer he could have made."

None was possible. The offence, nevertheless, was not what Dryden a.s.sumes. The same Chaucer who, in his carefulness to keep to nature, will have all his _dramatis personae_ talk according to their rank and callings, a.s.suredly did not violate nature when he represented the religious and refined prioress, together with the other high-bred and decorous members of the party, as willing auditors of the broad and uncompromising language of their ruder companions. The presence of ladies and ecclesiastics was not the slightest check upon the tongues of the pilgrims, and it is evident that in ordinary social life, there was hardly any limit to the freedom of expression. But in every age a lat.i.tude is allowed in conversation which would be condemned in books, and Chaucer merely excused himself for recording in poetry the common colloquial terms of his day. Usage had rendered them inoffensive, and in themselves they argued no more impurity of thought than the equivalent circ.u.mlocutions of our own generation. The greater or less plainness of speech which has prevailed at different eras is often rather a question of manners than of morality. If Pope or Dryden had retained, in this particular, the phraseology of Chaucer, the adherence to the letter of the original would have completely falsified its spirit, just as words which are uttered with innocence by rustics in a cottage would be an evidence of the utmost depravity when spoken by a man of education in a drawing-room. The intention influences the effect, and the grossness of our early writers has not the taint to a reader of the present day which would attach to similar language when employed by corrupt minds in civilized times. All the expurgations of Pope were insufficient to make his version as little exceptionable in the eighteenth century as was the original of Chaucer to the world of the fourteenth century. A merchant in the reign of Queen Anne would not have ventured to recite the modernised story in a mixed company, where ladies like the prioress and the nuns were present. The tone of the work is even lowered in places.

In the looser literature of Pope's youth, and especially in comedies, adultery in a wife only furnished food for laughter against the husband.

This is the aspect which is imparted to the translation of January and May, and it cannot be denied that Chaucer himself in some of his other stories, is open to the charge of treating vice as a jest. But he did not fall into the error in the Merchant's Tale, where the supposed narrator, in accordance with his character, reprobates the criminal conduct of the treacherous squire and the faithless wife, at the same time that he exposes the doating folly of the amorous knight.

JANUARY AND MAY:

OR, THE

MERCHANT'S TALE.

There lived in Lombardy, as authors write, In days of old, a wise and worthy knight; Of gentle manners, as of gen'rous race, Blest with much sense,[1] more riches, and some grace.

Yet led astray by Venus' soft delights 5 He scarce could rule some idle appet.i.tes: For long ago, let priests say what they could, Weak sinful laymen were but flesh and blood.

But in due time, when sixty years were o'er, He vowed to lead this vicious life no more; 10 Whether pure holiness inspired his mind, Or dotage turned his brain, is hard to find; But his high courage[2] p.r.i.c.ked him forth to wed, And try the pleasures of a lawful bed.

This was his nightly dream, his daily care, 15 And to the heav'nly pow'rs his constant prayer, Once, ere he died, to taste the blissful life Of a kind husband and a loving wife.[3]

These thoughts he fortified with reasons still, For none want reasons to confirm their will. 20 Grave authors say, and witty poets sing, That honest wedlock is a glorious thing: But depth of judgment most in him appears, Who wisely weds in his maturer years.[4]

Then let him chuse a damsel young and fair, 25 To bless his age, and bring a worthy heir; To sooth his cares, and free from noise and strife, Conduct him gently to the verge of life.