The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems Part 1: Forward · miliar poems of Chaucer and Spenser. There is, ... the Father of English Poetry, to say that by such treatment the bouquet

The Canterbury Tales andOther Poems

Part 1: Forward

by Geoffrey Chaucer

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Contents

PREFACE 1

LIFE OF GEOFFREYCHAUCER 15

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES 75

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NOTES ON THE LIFE OFGEOFFREY CHAUCER 80

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The present document was de-rived from text provided by ProjectGutenberg (document 2383) whichwas made available free of charge.This document is also free ofcharge.

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PREFACE

THE object of this volume is to place be-fore the general reader our two early po-

etic masterpieces – The Canterbury Tales andThe Faerie Queen; to do so in a way that willrender their "popular perusal" easy in a timeof little leisure and unbounded temptations tointellectual languor; and, on the same condi-

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PREFACE

tions, to present a liberal and fairly represen-tative selection from the less important and fa-miliar poems of Chaucer and Spenser. Thereis, it may be said at the outset, peculiar ad-vantage and propriety in placing the two poetsside by side in the manner now attempted forthe first time. Although two centuries dividethem, yet Spenser is the direct and really theimmediate successor to the poetical inheritanceof Chaucer. Those two hundred years, eventfulas they were, produced no poet at all worthyto take up the mantle that fell from Chaucer’sshoulders; and Spenser does not need his af-fected archaisms, nor his frequent and reverentappeals to "Dan Geffrey," to vindicate for him-self a place very close to his great predecessorin the literary history of England. If Chaucer isthe "Well of English undefiled," Spenser is thebroad and stately river that yet holds the tenure

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PREFACE

of its very life from the fountain far away inother and ruder scenes.

The Canterbury Tales, so far as they are inverse, have been printed without any abridge-ment or designed change in the sense. But thetwo Tales in prose – Chaucer’s Tale of Meli-boeus, and the Parson’s long Sermon on Pen-itence – have been contracted, so as to excludethirty pages of unattractive prose, and to admitthe same amount of interesting and character-istic poetry. The gaps thus made in the proseTales, however, are supplied by careful outlinesof the omitted matter, so that the reader needbe at no loss to comprehend the whole scopeand sequence of the original. With The FaerieQueen a bolder course has been pursued. Thegreat obstacle to the popularity of Spencer’ssplendid work has lain less in its language than

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PREFACE

in its length. If we add together the three greatpoems of antiquity – the twenty-four books ofthe Iliad, the twenty-four books of the Odyssey,and the twelve books of the Aeneid – we get atthe dimensions of only one-half of The FaerieQueen. The six books, and the fragment of aseventh, which alone exist of the author’s con-templated twelve, number about 35,000 verses;the sixty books of Homer and Virgil number nomore than 37,000. The mere bulk of the poem,then, has opposed a formidable barrier to itspopularity; to say nothing of the distractingeffect produced by the numberless episodes,the tedious narrations, and the constant repe-titions, which have largely swelled that bulk.In this volume the poem is compressed intotwo-thirds of its original space, through theexpedient of representing the less interestingand more mechanical passages by a condensed

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PREFACE

prose outline, in which it has been sought asfar as possible to preserve the very words ofthe poet. While deprecating a too critical judge-ment on the bare and constrained precis stand-ing in such trying juxtaposition, it is hoped thatthe labour bestowed in saving the reader thetrouble of wading through much that is not es-sential for the enjoyment of Spencer’s marvel-lous allegory, will not be unappreciated.

As regards the manner in which the text ofthe two great works, especially of The Canter-bury Tales, is presented, the Editor is awarethat some whose judgement is weighty willdiffer from him. This volume has been pre-pared "for popular perusal;" and its very rai-son d’etre would have failed, if the ancientorthography had been retained. It has oftenbeen affirmed by editors of Chaucer in the old

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PREFACE

forms of the language, that a little trouble atfirst would render the antiquated spelling andobsolete inflections a continual source, not ofdifficulty, but of actual delight, for the readercoming to the study of Chaucer without anypreliminary acquaintance with the English ofhis day – or of his copyists’ days. Despite thiscomplacent assurance, the obvious fact is, thatChaucer in the old forms has not become pop-ular, in the true sense of the word; he is not"understanded of the vulgar." In this volume,therefore, the text of Chaucer has been pre-sented in nineteenth-century garb. But therehas been not the slightest attempt to "mod-ernise" Chaucer, in the wider meaning of thephrase; to replace his words by words whichhe did not use; or, following the example ofsome operators, to translate him into English ofthe modern spirit as well as the modern forms.

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PREFACE

So far from that, in every case where the oldspelling or form seemed essential to metre, torhyme, or meaning, no change has been at-tempted. But, wherever its preservation wasnot essential, the spelling of the monkish tran-scribers – for the most ardent purist must nowdespair of getting at the spelling of Chaucerhimself – has been discarded for that of thereader’s own day. It is a poor compliment tothe Father of English Poetry, to say that by suchtreatment the bouquet and individuality of hisworks must be lost. If his masterpiece is valu-able for one thing more than any other, it isthe vivid distinctness with which English menand women of the fourteenth century are therepainted, for the study of all the centuries to fol-low. But we wantonly balk the artist’s own pur-pose, and discredit his labour, when we keepbefore his picture the screen of dust and cob-

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PREFACE

webs which, for the English people in thesedays, the crude forms of the infant languagehave practically become. Shakespeare has notsuffered by similar changes; Spencer has notsuffered; it would be surprising if Chaucershould suffer, when the loss of popular com-prehension and favour in his case are necessar-ily all the greater for his remoteness from ourday. In a much smaller degree – since previouslabours in the same direction had left far lessto do – the same work has been performed forthe spelling of Spenser; and the whole endeav-our in this department of the Editor’s task hasbeen, to present a text plain and easily intelligi-ble to the modern reader, without any injusticeto the old poet. It would be presumptuous tobelieve that in every case both ends have beenachieved together; but the laudatores temporisacti - the students who may differ most from

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PREFACE

the plan pursued in this volume – will bestappreciate the difficulty of the enterprise, andmost leniently regard any failure in the detailsof its accomplishment.

With all the works of Chaucer, outside TheCanterbury Tales, it would have been abso-lutely impossible to deal within the scope ofthis volume. But nearly one hundred pages,have been devoted to his minor poems; and, bydint of careful selection and judicious abridge-ment – a connecting outline of the story in allsuch cases being given – the Editor venturesto hope that he has presented fair and accept-able specimens of Chaucer’s workmanship inall styles. The preparation of this part of thevolume has been a laborious task; no similarattempt on the same scale has been made; and,while here also the truth of the text in mat-

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PREFACE

ters essential has been in nowise sacrificed tomere ease of perusal, the general reader willfind opened up for him a new view of Chaucerand his works. Before a perusal of these hun-dred pages, will melt away for ever the lin-gering tradition or prejudice that Chaucer wasonly, or characteristically, a coarse buffoon,who pandered to a base and licentious appetiteby painting and exaggerating the lowest vicesof his time. In these selections – made withouta thought of taking only what is to the poet’scredit from a wide range of poems in whichhardly a word is to his discredit – we beholdChaucer as he was; a courtier, a gallant, pure-hearted gentleman, a scholar, a philosopher, apoet of gay and vivid fancy, playing aroundthemes of chivalric convention, of deep humaninterest, or broad-sighted satire. In The Canter-bury Tales, we see, not Chaucer, but Chaucer’s

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PREFACE

times and neighbours; the artist has lost him-self in his work. To show him honestly andwithout disguise, as he lived his own life andsung his own songs at the brilliant Court of Ed-ward III, is to do his memory a moral justicefar more material than any wrong that can evercome out of spelling. As to the minor poemsof Spenser, which follow The Faerie Queen, thechoice has been governed by the desire to giveat once the most interesting, and the most char-acteristic of the poet’s several styles; and, savein the case of the Sonnets, the poems so selectedare given entire. It is manifest that the endeav-ours to adapt this volume for popular use, havebeen already noticed, would imperfectly suc-ceed without the aid of notes and glossary, toexplain allusions that have become obsolete,or antiquated words which it was necessary toretain. An endeavour has been made to ren-

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PREFACE

der each page self- explanatory, by placing onit all the glossarial and illustrative notes re-quired for its elucidation, or – to avoid repe-titions that would have occupied space – thereferences to the spot where information maybe found. The great advantage of such a planto the reader, is the measure of its difficulty forthe editor. It permits much more flexibility inthe choice of glossarial explanations or equiva-lents; it saves the distracting and time- consum-ing reference to the end or the beginning of thebook; but, at the same time, it largely enhancesthe liability to error. The Editor is consciousthat in the 12,000 or 13,000 notes, as well asin the innumerable minute points of spelling,accentuation, and rhythm, he must now andagain be found tripping; he can only ask anyreader who may detect all that he could himselfpoint out as being amiss, to set off against in-

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PREFACE

evitable mistakes and misjudgements, the con-scientious labour bestowed on the book, andthe broad consideration of its fitness for the ob-ject contemplated.

From books the Editor has derived valu-able help; as from Mr Cowden Clarke’s revisedmodern text of The Canterbury Tales, pub-lished in Mr Nimmo’s Library Edition of theEnglish Poets; from Mr Wright’s scholarly edi-tion of the same work; from the indispensableTyrwhitt; from Mr Bell’s edition of Chaucer’sPoem; from Professor Craik’s "Spenser and hisPoetry," published twenty-five years ago byCharles Knight; and from many others. In theabridgement of the Faerie Queen, the plan mayat first sight seem to be modelled on the lines ofMr Craik’s painstaking condensation; but thecoincidences are either inevitable or involun-

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PREFACE

tary. Many of the notes, especially of those ex-plaining classical references and those attachedto the minor poems of Chaucer, have been pre-pared specially for this edition. The Editorleaves his task with the hope that his attemptto remove artificial obstacles to the popularityof England’s earliest poets, will not altogethermiscarry.

D. LAING PURVES.

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LIFE OF GEOFFREY

CHAUCER

NOT in point of genius only, but even inpoint of time, Chaucer may claim the

proud designation of "first" English poet. Hewrote "The Court of Love" in 1345, and "TheRomaunt of the Rose," if not also "Troilus andCressida," probably within the next decade: the

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LIFE OF GEOFFREY CHAUCER

dates usually assigned to the poems of Lau-rence Minot extend from 1335 to 1355, while"The Vision of Piers Plowman" mentions eventsthat occurred in 1360 and 1362 – before whichdate Chaucer had certainly written "The As-sembly of Fowls" and his "Dream." But, thoughthey were his contemporaries, neither Minotnor Langland (if Langland was the author ofthe Vision) at all approached Chaucer in thefinish, the force, or the universal interest oftheir works and the poems of earlier writer;as Layamon and the author of the "Ormulum,"are less English than Anglo-Saxon or Anglo-Norman. Those poems reflected the perplexedstruggle for supremacy between the two grandelements of our language, which marked thetwelfth and thirteenth centuries; a struggle in-timately associated with the political relationsbetween the conquering Normans and the sub-

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jugated Anglo-Saxons. Chaucer found twobranches of the language; that spoken by thepeople, Teutonic in its genius and its forms;that spoken by the learned and the noble, basedon the French Yet each branch had begun toborrow of the other – just as nobles and peoplehad been taught to recognise that each neededthe other in the wars and the social tasks ofthe time; and Chaucer, a scholar, a courtier, aman conversant with all orders of society, butaccustomed to speak, think, and write in thewords of the highest, by his comprehensive ge-nius cast into the simmering mould a magicalamalgamant which made the two half-hostileelements unite and interpenetrate each other.Before Chaucer wrote, there were two tonguesin England, keeping alive the feuds and resent-ments of cruel centuries; when he laid downhis pen, there was practically but one speech

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– there was, and ever since has been, but onepeople.

Geoffrey Chaucer, according to the mosttrustworthy traditions- for authentic testi-monies on the subject are wanting – was bornin 1328; and London is generally believed tohave been his birth-place. It is true that Le-land, the biographer of England’s first greatpoet who lived nearest to his time, not merelyspeaks of Chaucer as having been born manyyears later than the date now assigned, butmentions Berkshire or Oxfordshire as the sceneof his birth. So great uncertainty have somefelt on the latter score, that elaborate paral-lels have been drawn between Chaucer, andHomer – for whose birthplace several citiescontended, and whose descent was traced tothe demigods. Leland may seem to have had

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fair opportunities of getting at the truth aboutChaucer’s birth – for Henry VIII had him, atthe suppression of the monasteries throughoutEngland, to search for records of public inter-est the archives of the religious houses. Butit may be questioned whether he was likelyto find many authentic particulars regardingthe personal history of the poet in the quar-ters which he explored; and Leland’s testimonyseems to be set aside by Chaucer’s own evi-dence as to his birthplace, and by the contem-porary references which make him out an agedman for years preceding the accepted date ofhis death. In one of his prose works, "The Tes-tament of Love," the poet speaks of himself interms that strongly confirm the claim of Lon-don to the honour of giving him birth; for hethere mentions "the city of London, that is tome so dear and sweet, in which I was forth

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growen; and more kindly love," says he, "haveI to that place than to any other in earth; asevery kindly creature hath full appetite to thatplace of his kindly engendrure, and to will restand peace in that place to abide." This tolerablydirect evidence is supported – so far as it canbe at such an interval of time – by the learnedCamden; in his Annals of Queen Elizabeth, hedescribes Spencer, who was certainly born inLondon, as being a fellow-citizen of Chaucer’s– "Edmundus Spenserus, patria Londinensis,Musis adeo arridentibus natus, ut omnes An-glicos superioris aevi poetas, ne Chaucero qui-dem concive excepto, superaret." (Note 1) Therecords of the time notice more than one personof the name of Chaucer, who held honourablepositions about the Court; and though we can-not distinctly trace the poet’s relationship withany of these namesakes or antecessors, we find

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excellent ground for belief that his family orfriends stood well at Court, in the ease withwhich Chaucer made his way there, and in hissubsequent career.

Like his great successor, Spencer, it was thefortune of Chaucer to live under a splendid,chivalrous, and high-spirited reign. 1328 wasthe second year of Edward III; and, what withScotch wars, French expeditions, and the stren-uous and costly struggle to hold England ina worthy place among the States of Europe,there was sufficient bustle, bold achievement,and high ambition in the period to inspire apoet who was prepared to catch the spirit ofthe day. It was an age of elaborate courtesy,of high- paced gallantry, of courageous ven-ture, of noble disdain for mean tranquillity;and Chaucer, on the whole a man of peaceful

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avocations, was penetrated to the depth of hisconsciousness with the lofty and lovely civilside of that brilliant and restless military pe-riod. No record of his youthful years, how-ever, remains to us; if we believe that at theage of eighteen he was a student of Cambridge,it is only on the strength of a reference in his"Court of Love", where the narrator is madeto say that his name is Philogenet, "of Cam-bridge clerk;" while he had already told us thatwhen he was stirred to seek the Court of Cu-pid he was "at eighteen year of age." Accord-ing to Leland, however, he was educated atOxford, proceeding thence to France and theNetherlands, to finish his studies; but there re-mains no certain evidence of his having be-longed to either University. At the same time,it is not doubted that his family was of goodcondition; and, whether or not we accept the

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assertion that his father held the rank of knight-hood – rejecting the hypotheses that make hima merchant, or a vintner "at the corner of KirtonLane" – it is plain, from Chaucer’s whole career,that he had introductions to public life, and rec-ommendations to courtly favour, wholly inde-pendent of his genius. We have the clearesttestimony that his mental training was of widerange and thorough excellence, altogether rarefor a mere courtier in those days: his poemsattest his intimate acquaintance with the divin-ity, the philosophy, and the scholarship of histime, and show him to have had the sciences,as then developed and taught, "at his fingers’ends." Another proof of Chaucer’s good birthand fortune would he found in the statementthat, after his University career was completed,he entered the Inner Temple - - the expensesof which could be borne only by men of no-

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ble and opulent families; but although there isa story that he was once fined two shillings forthrashing a Franciscan friar in Fleet Street, wehave no direct authority for believing that thepoet devoted himself to the uncongenial studyof the law. No special display of knowledgeon that subject appears in his works; yet in thesketch of the Manciple, in the Prologue to theCanterbury Tales, may be found indications ofhis familiarity with the internal economy of theInns of Court; while numerous legal phrasesand references hint that his comprehensive in-formation was not at fault on legal matters.Leland says that he quitted the University "aready logician, a smooth rhetorician, a pleasantpoet, a grave philosopher, an ingenious math-ematician, and a holy divine;" and by all ac-counts, when Geoffrey Chaucer comes beforeus authentically for the first time, at the age of

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thirty-one, he was possessed of knowledge andaccomplishments far beyond the common stan-dard of his day.

Chaucer at this period possessed also otherqualities fitted to recommend him to favour ina Court like that of Edward III. Urry describeshim, on the authority of a portrait, as beingthen "of a fair beautiful complexion, his lipsred and full, his size of a just medium, and hisport and air graceful and majestic. So," con-tinues the ardent biographer, – "so that everyornament that could claim the approbation ofthe great and fair, his abilities to record the val-our of the one, and celebrate the beauty of theother, and his wit and gentle behaviour to con-verse with both, conspired to make him a com-plete courtier." If we believe that his "Court ofLove" had received such publicity as the lit-

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erary media of the time allowed in the some-what narrow and select literary world – not tospeak of "Troilus and Cressida," which, as Ly-dgate mentions it first among Chaucer’s works,some have supposed to be a youthful produc-tion – we find a third and not less power-ful recommendation to the favour of the greatco- operating with his learning and his gal-lant bearing. Elsewhere (Note 2) reasons havebeen shown for doubt whether "Troilus andCressida" should not be assigned to a later pe-riod of Chaucer’s life; but very little is pos-itively known about the dates and sequenceof his various works. In the year 1386, beingcalled as witness with regard to a contest ona point of heraldry between Lord Scrope andSir Robert Grosvenor, Chaucer deposed thathe entered on his military career in 1359. Inthat year Edward III invaded France, for the

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third time, in pursuit of his claim to the Frenchcrown; and we may fancy that, in describingthe embarkation of the knights in "Chaucer’sDream", the poet gained some of the vivid-ness and stir of his picture from his recollec-tions of the embarkation of the splendid andwell- appointed royal host at Sandwich, onboard the eleven hundred transports providedfor the enterprise. In this expedition the lau-rels of Poitiers were flung on the ground; af-ter vainly attempting Rheims and Paris, Ed-ward was constrained, by cruel weather andlack of provisions, to retreat toward his ships;the fury of the elements made the retreat moredisastrous than an overthrow in pitched bat-tle; horses and men perished by thousands,or fell into the hands of the pursuing French.Chaucer, who had been made prisoner at thesiege of Retters, was among the captives in

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the possession of France when the treaty ofBretigny – the "great peace" – was concluded,in May, 1360. Returning to England, as we maysuppose, at the peace, the poet, ere long, fellinto another and a pleasanter captivity; for hismarriage is generally believed to have takenplace shortly after his release from foreign du-rance. He had already gained the personalfriendship and favour of John of Gaunt, Dukeof Lancaster, the King’s son; the Duke, whileEarl of Richmond, had courted, and won towife after a certain delay, Blanche, daughterand co-heiress of Henry Duke of Lancaster; andChaucer is by some believed to have written"The Assembly of Fowls" to celebrate the woo-ing, as he wrote "Chaucer’s Dream" to cele-brate the wedding, of his patron. The marriagetook place in 1359, the year of Chaucer’s ex-pedition to France; and as, in "The Assembly

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of Fowls," the formel or female eagle, who issupposed to represent the Lady Blanche, begsthat her choice of a mate may be deferred fora year, 1358 and 1359 have been assigned asthe respective dates of the two poems alreadymentioned. In the "Dream," Chaucer promi-nently introduces his own lady-love, to whom,after the happy union of his patron with theLady Blanche, he is wedded amid great rejoic-ing; and various expressions in the same poemshow that not only was the poet high in favourwith the illustrious pair, but that his future wifehad also peculiar claims on their regard. Shewas the younger daughter of Sir Payne Roet,a native of Hainault, who had, like many ofhis countrymen, been attracted to England bythe example and patronage of Queen Philippa.The favourite attendant on the Lady Blanchewas her elder sister Katherine: subsequently

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married to Sir Hugh Swynford, a gentlemanof Lincolnshire; and destined, after the deathof Blanche, to be in succession governess ofher children, mistress of John of Gaunt, andlawfully-wedded Duchess of Lancaster. It isquite sufficient proof that Chaucer’s position atCourt was of no mean consequence, to find thathis wife, the sister of the future Duchess of Lan-caster, was one of the royal maids of honour,and even, as Sir Harris Nicolas conjectures, agod-daughter of the Queen – for her name alsowas Philippa.

Between 1359, when the poet himself tes-tifies that he was made prisoner while bear-ing arms in France, and September 1366, whenQueen Philippa granted to her former maid ofhonour, by the name of Philippa Chaucer, ayearly pension of ten marks, or L6, 13s. 4d.,

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we have no authentic mention of Chaucer, ex-press or indirect. It is plain from this grantthat the poet’s marriage with Sir Payne Roet’sdaughter was not celebrated later than 1366;the probability is, that it closely followed hisreturn from the wars. In 1367, Edward III. set-tled upon Chaucer a life- pension of twentymarks, "for the good service which our belovedValet – ’dilectus Valettus noster’ – GeoffreyChaucer has rendered, and will render in timeto come." Camden explains ’Valettus hospitii’to signify a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber;Selden says that the designation was bestowed"upon young heirs designed to he knighted, oryoung gentlemen of great descent and quality."Whatever the strict meaning of the word, it isplain that the poet’s position was honourableand near to the King’s person, and also that hisworldly circumstances were easy, if not affluent

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– for it need not be said that twenty marks inthose days represented twelve or twenty timesthe sum in these. It is believed that he foundpowerful patronage, not merely from the Dukeof Lancaster and his wife, but from MargaretCountess of Pembroke, the King’s daughter.To her Chaucer is supposed to have addressedthe "Goodly Ballad", in which the lady is cele-brated under the image of the daisy; her he isby some understood to have represented un-der the title of Queen Alcestis, in the "Courtof Love" and the Prologue to "The Legend ofGood Women;" and in her praise we may readhis charming descriptions and eulogies of thedaisy – French, "Marguerite," the name of hisRoyal patroness. To this period of Chaucer’scareer we may probably attribute the elegantand courtly, if somewhat conventional, poemsof "The Flower and the Leaf," "The Cuckoo and

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the Nightingale," &c. "The Lady Margaret,"says Urry, ". . . would frequently compli-ment him upon his poems. But this is not tobe meant of his Canterbury Tales, they beingwritten in the latter part of his life, when thecourtier and the fine gentleman gave way tosolid sense and plain descriptions. In his love-pieces he was obliged to have the strictest re-gard to modesty and decency; the ladies at thattime insisting so much upon the nicest punctil-ios of honour, that it was highly criminal to de-preciate their sex, or do anything that might of-fend virtue." Chaucer, in their estimation, hadsinned against the dignity and honour of wom-ankind by his translation of the French "Romande la Rose," and by his "Troilus and Cressida" –assuming it to have been among his less matureworks; and to atone for those offences the LadyMargaret (though other and older accounts say

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that it was the first Queen of Richard II., Anneof Bohemia), prescribed to him the task of writ-ing "The Legend of Good Women" (see intro-ductory note to that poem). About this pe-riod, too, we may place the composition ofChaucer’s A. B. C., or The Prayer of Our Lady,made at the request of the Duchess Blanche,a lady of great devoutness in her private life.She died in 1369; and Chaucer, as he had al-legorised her wooing, celebrated her marriage,and aided her devotions, now lamented herdeath, in a poem entitled "The Book of theDuchess; or, the Death of Blanche. (Note 3)

In 1370, Chaucer was employed on theKing’s service abroad; and in November 1372,by the title of "Scutifer noster" – our Esquireor Shield-bearer – he was associated with "Ja-cobus Pronan," and "Johannes de Mari civis

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Januensis," in a royal commission, bestowingfull powers to treat with the Duke of Genoa, hisCouncil, and State. The object of the embassywas to negotiate upon the choice of an Englishport at which the Genoese might form a com-mercial establishment; and Chaucer, havingquitted England in December, visited Genoaand Florence, and returned to England beforethe end of November 1373 – for on that day hedrew his pension from the Exchequer in per-son. The most interesting point connected withthis Italian mission is the question, whetherChaucer visited Petrarch at Padua. That hedid, is unhesitatingly affirmed by the old biog-raphers; but the authentic notices of Chaucerduring the years 1372-1373, as shown by theresearches of Sir Harris Nicolas, are confinedto the facts already stated; and we are left toanswer the question by the probabilities of the

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case, and by the aid of what faint light the poethimself affords. We can scarcely fancy thatChaucer, visiting Italy for the first time, in acapacity which opened for him easy access tothe great and the famous, did not embrace thechance of meeting a poet whose works he evi-dently knew in their native tongue, and highlyesteemed. With Mr Wright, we are strongly dis-inclined to believe "that Chaucer did not profitby the opportunity . . . of improving his ac-quaintance with the poetry, if not the poets, ofthe country he thus visited, whose influencewas now being felt on the literature of mostcountries of Western Europe." That Chaucerwas familiar with the Italian language appearsnot merely from his repeated selection as En-voy to Italian States, but by many passagesin his poetry, from "The Assembly of Fowls"to "The Canterbury Tales." In the opening of

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the first poem there is a striking parallel toDante’s inscription on the gate of Hell. The firstSong of Troilus, in "Troilus and Cressida", is anearly literal translation of Petrarch’s 88th Son-net. In the Prologue to "The Legend of GoodWomen", there is a reference to Dante whichcan hardly have reached the poet at second-hand. And in Chaucer’s great work – as in TheWife of Bath’s Tale, and The Monk’s Tale – di-rect reference by name is made to Dante, "thewise poet of Florence," "the great poet of Italy,"as the source whence the author has quoted.When we consider the poet’s high place in lit-erature and at Court, which could not fail tomake him free of the hospitalities of the bril-liant little Lombard States; his familiarity withthe tongue and the works of Italy’s greatestbards, dead and living; the reverential regardwhich he paid to the memory of great poets,

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of which we have examples in "The House ofFame," and at the close of "Troilus and Cres-sida" (Note 4); along with his own testimony inthe Prologue to The Clerk’s Tale, we cannot failto construe that testimony as a declaration thatthe Tale was actually told to Chaucer by thelips of Petrarch, in 1373, the very year in whichPetrarch translated it into Latin, from Boccac-cio’s "Decameron." (Note 5) Mr Bell notes theobjection to this interpretation, that the wordsare put into the mouth, not of the poet, butof the Clerk; and meets it by the counter- ob-jection, that the Clerk, being a purely imag-inary personage, could not have learned thestory at Padua from Petrarch – and thereforethat Chaucer must have departed from the dra-matic assumption maintained in the rest of thedialogue. Instances could be adduced fromChaucer’s writings to show that such a sud-

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den "departure from the dramatic assumption"would not be unexampled: witness the "aside"in The Wife of Bath’s Prologue, where, afterthe jolly Dame has asserted that "half so boldlythere can no man swear and lie as a womancan", the poet hastens to interpose, in his ownperson, these two lines:

"I say not this by wives that bewise,But if it be when they them misad-vise."

And again, in the Prologue to the "Legend ofGood Women," from a description of the daisy–

"She is the clearness and the verylight,

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That in this darke world me guidesand leads,"

Note: The poet, in the very next lines, slidesinto an address to his lady:

"The heart within my sorrowfulheart you dreads

And loves so sore, that ye be, ver-ily,

The mistress of my wit, and noth-ing I," &c.

When, therefore, the Clerk of Oxford is madeto say that he will tell a tale –

"The which that I Learn’d atPadova of a worthy clerk,

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As proved by his wordes and hiswerk.

He is now dead, and nailed in hischest,

I pray to God to give his soulgood rest.

Francis Petrarc’, the laureate poete,Highte this clerk, whose rhetoric so

sweet Illumin’d all Itaile of po-etry...

But forth to tellen of this worthyman,

That taughte me this tale, as I be-gan." ...

Note: We may without violent effort believethat Chaucer speaks in his own person, thoughdramatically the words are on the Clerk’s lips.

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And the belief is not impaired by the sorrowfulway in which the Clerk lingers on Petrarch’sdeath – which would be less intelligible if thefictitious narrator had only read the story inthe Latin translation, than if we suppose thenews of Petrarch’s death at Arqua in July 1374to have closely followed Chaucer to England,and to have cruelly and irresistibly mingled it-self with our poet’s personal recollections ofhis great Italian contemporary. Nor must weregard as without significance the manner inwhich the Clerk is made to distinguish betweenthe "body" of Petrarch’s tale, and the fashion inwhich it was set forth in writing, with a proemthat seemed "a thing impertinent", save thatthe poet had chosen in that way to "convey hismatter" – told, or "taught," so much more di-rectly and simply by word of mouth. It is im-possible to pronounce positively on the subject;

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the question whether Chaucer saw Petrarch in1373 must remain a moot-point, so long as wehave only our present information; but fancyloves to dwell on the thought of the two poetsconversing under the vines at Arqua; and wefind in the history and the writings of Chaucernothing to contradict, a good deal to counte-nance, the belief that such a meeting occurred.

Though we have no express record, wehave indirect testimony, that Chaucer’s Ge-noese mission was discharged satisfactorily;for on the 23d of April 1374, Edward III grantsat Windsor to the poet, by the title of "ourbeloved squire" – dilecto Armigero nostro –unum pycher. vini, "one pitcher of wine" daily,to be "perceived" in the port of London; a grantwhich, on the analogy of more modern usage,might he held equivalent to Chaucer’s appoint-

43


ment as Poet Laureate. When we find thatsoon afterwards the grant was commuted fora money payment of twenty marks per annum,we need not conclude that Chaucer’s circum-stances were poor; for it may be easily sup-posed that the daily "perception" of such anarticle of income was attended with consider-able prosaic inconvenience. A permanent pro-vision for Chaucer was made on the 8th of June1374, when he was appointed Controller of theCustoms in the Port of London, for the lucra-tive imports of wools, skins or "wool-fells," andtanned hides – on condition that he should ful-fil the duties of that office in person and not bydeputy, and should write out the accounts withhis own hand. We have what seems evidenceof Chaucer’s compliance with these terms in"The House of Fame", where, in the mouth ofthe eagle, the poet describes himself, when he

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has finished his labour and made his reckon-ings, as not seeking rest and news in social in-tercourse, but going home to his own house,and there, "all so dumb as any stone," sitting"at another book," until his look is dazed; andagain, in the record that in 1376 he received agrant of L731, 4s. 6d., the amount of a finelevied on one John Kent, whom Chaucer’s vig-ilance had frustrated in the attempt to ship aquantity of wool for Dordrecht without pay-ing the duty. The seemingly derogatory con-dition, that the Controller should write outthe accounts or rolls ("rotulos") of his officewith his own hand, appears to have been de-signed, or treated, as merely formal; no recordsin Chaucer’s handwriting are known to exist– which could hardly be the case if, for thetwelve years of his Controllership (1374-1386),he had duly complied with the condition; and

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during that period he was more than once em-ployed abroad, so that the condition was evi-dently regarded as a formality even by thosewho had imposed it. Also in 1374, the Dukeof Lancaster, whose ambitious views may wellhave made him anxious to retain the adhe-sion of a man so capable and accomplished asChaucer, changed into a joint life-annuity re-maining to the survivor, and charged on therevenues of the Savoy, a pension of L10 whichtwo years before he settled on the poet’s wife– whose sister was then the governess of theDuke’s two daughters, Philippa and Elizabeth,and the Duke’s own mistress. Another proof ofChaucer’s personal reputation and high Courtfavour at this time, is his selection (1375) asward to the son of Sir Edmond Staplegate ofBilsynton, in Kent; a charge on the surrender ofwhich the guardian received no less a sum than

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L104.

We find Chaucer in 1376 again employed ona foreign mission. In 1377, the last year ofEdward III., he was sent to Flanders with SirThomas Percy, afterwards Earl of Worcester, forthe purpose of obtaining a prolongation of thetruce; and in January 13738, he was associatedwith Sir Guichard d’Angle and other Com-missioners, to pursue certain negotiations fora marriage between Princess Mary of Franceand the young King Richard II., which hadbeen set on foot before the death of EdwardIII. The negotiation, however, proved fruitless;and in May 1378, Chaucer was selected to ac-company Sir John Berkeley on a mission tothe Court of Bernardo Visconti, Duke of Mi-lan, with the view, it is supposed, of concertingmilitary plans against the outbreak of war with

47


France. The new King, meantime, had shownthat he was not insensible to Chaucer’s merit– or to the influence of his tutor and the poet’spatron, the Duke of Lancaster; for Richard II.confirmed to Chaucer his pension of twentymarks, along with an equal annual sum, forwhich the daily pitcher of wine granted in 1374had been commuted. Before his departure forLombardy, Chaucer – still holding his post inthe Customs – selected two representatives ortrustees, to protect his estate against legal pro-ceedings in his absence, or to sue in his namedefaulters and offenders against the impostswhich he was charged to enforce. One of thesetrustees was called Richard Forrester; the otherwas John Gower, the poet, the most famousEnglish contemporary of Chaucer, with whomhe had for many years been on terms of ad-miring friendship – although, from the stric-

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tures passed on certain productions of Gower’sin the Prologue to The Man of Law’s Tale,(Note 6) it has been supposed that in the lateryears of Chaucer’s life the friendship sufferedsome diminution. To the "moral Gower" and"the philosophical Strode," Chaucer "directed"or dedicated his "Troilus and Cressida;" (Note7) while, in the "Confessio Amantis," Gower in-troduces a handsome compliment to his greatercontemporary, as the "disciple and the poet"of Venus, with whose glad songs and ditties,made in her praise during the flowers of hisyouth, the land was filled everywhere. Gower,however – a monk and a Conservative – heldto the party of the Duke of Gloucester, the rivalof the Wycliffite and innovating Duke of Lan-caster, who was Chaucer’s patron, and whosecause was not a little aided by Chaucer’s stric-tures on the clergy; and thus it is not impos-

49


sible that political differences may have weak-ened the old bonds of personal friendship andpoetic esteem. Returning from Lombardy earlyin 1379, Chaucer seems to have been againsent abroad; for the records exhibit no trace ofhim between May and December of that year.Whether by proxy or in person, however, he re-ceived his pensions regularly until 1382, whenhis income was increased by his appointmentto the post of Controller of Petty Customs inthe port of London. In November 1384, he ob-tained a month’s leave of absence on account ofhis private affairs, and a deputy was appointedto fill his place; and in February of the nextyear he was permitted to appoint a permanentdeputy – thus at length gaining relief from thatclose attention to business which probably cur-tailed the poetic fruits of the poet’s most pow-erful years. (Note 8)

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Chaucer is next found occupying a postwhich has not often been held by men giftedwith his peculiar genius – that of a countymember. The contest between the Dukes ofGloucester and Lancaster, and their adherents,for the control of the Government, was comingto a crisis; and when the recluse and studiousChaucer was induced to offer himself to theelectors of Kent as one of the knights of theirshire – where presumably he held property –we may suppose that it was with the view ofsupporting his patron’s cause in the impendingconflict. The Parliament in which the poet satassembled at Westminster on the 1st of Octo-ber, and was dissolved on the 1st of November,1386. Lancaster was fighting and intriguingabroad, absorbed in the affairs of his Castiliansuccession; Gloucester and his friends at homehad everything their own way; the Earl of Suf-

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folk was dismissed from the woolsack, andimpeached by the Commons; and althoughRichard at first stood out courageously for thefriends of his uncle Lancaster, he was con-strained, by the refusal of supplies, to consentto the proceedings of Gloucester. A commis-sion was wrung from him, under protest, ap-pointing Gloucester, Arundel, and twelve otherPeers and prelates, a permanent council to in-quire into the condition of all the public depart-ments, the courts of law, and the royal house-hold, with absolute powers of redress and dis-missal. We need not ascribe to Chaucer’s Par-liamentary exertions in his patron’s behalf, norto any malpractices in his official conduct, thefact that he was among the earliest victims ofthe commission. (Note 9) In December 1386,he was dismissed from both his offices in theport of London; but he retained his pensions,

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and drew them regularly twice a year at theExchequer until 1388. In 1387, Chaucer’s polit-ical reverses were aggravated by a severe do-mestic calamity: his wife died, and with herdied the pension which had been settled on herby Queen Philippa in 1366, and confirmed toher at Richard’s accession in 1377. The changemade in Chaucer’s pecuniary position, by theloss of his offices and his wife’s pension, musthave been very great. It would appear thatduring his prosperous times he had lived in astyle quite equal to his income, and had no am-ple resources against a season of reverse; for,on the 1st of May 1388, less than a year and ahalf after being dismissed from the Customs,he was constrained to assign his pensions, bysurrender in Chancery, to one John Scalby. InMay 1389, Richard II., now of age, abruptlyresumed the reins of government, which, for

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more than two years, had been ably but cru-elly managed by Gloucester. The friends ofLancaster were once more supreme in the royalcouncils, and Chaucer speedily profited by thechange. On the 12th of July he was appointedClerk of the King’s Works at the Palace of West-minster, the Tower, the royal manors of Ken-nington, Eltham, Clarendon, Sheen, Byfleet,Childern Langley, and Feckenham, the castle ofBerkhamstead, the royal lodge of Hathenburghin the New Forest, the lodges in the parks ofClarendon, Childern Langley, and Feckenham,and the mews for the King’s falcons at CharingCross; he received a salary of two shillings perday, and was allowed to perform the duties bydeputy. For some reason unknown, Chaucerheld this lucrative office (Note 10) little morethan two years, quitting it before the 16th ofSeptember 1391, at which date it had passed

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into the hands of one John Gedney. The nexttwo years and a half are a blank, so far as au-thentic records are concerned; Chaucer is sup-posed to have passed them in retirement, prob-ably devoting them principally to the compo-sition of The Canterbury Tales. In February1394, the King conferred upon him a grant ofL20 a year for life; but he seems to have hadno other source of income, and to have be-come embarrassed by debt, for frequent mem-oranda of small advances on his pension showthat his circumstances were, in comparison,greatly reduced. Things appear to have grownworse and worse with the poet; for in May1398 he was compelled to obtain from the Kingletters of protection against arrest, extendingover a term of two years. Not for the firsttime, it is true – for similar documents hadbeen issued at the beginning of Richard’s reign;

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but at that time Chaucer’s missions abroad,and his responsible duties in the port of Lon-don, may have furnished reasons for securinghim against annoyance or frivolous prosecu-tion, which were wholly wanting at the laterdate. In 1398, fortune began again to smileupon him; he received a royal grant of a tunof wine annually, the value being about L4.Next year, Richard II having been deposed bythe son of John of Gaunt (Note 11) – Henryof Bolingbroke, Duke of Lancaster – the newKing, four days after hits accession, bestowedon Chaucer a grant of forty marks (L26, 13s.4d.) per annum, in addition to the pension ofL20 conferred by Richard II. in 1394. But thepoet, now seventy-one years of age, and prob-ably broken down by the reverses of the pastfew years, was not destined long to enjoy hisrenewed prosperity. On Christmas Eve of 1399,

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he entered on the possession of a house in thegarden of the Chapel of the Blessed Mary ofWestminster – near to the present site of HenryVII.’s Chapel – having obtained a lease fromRobert Hermodesworth, a monk of the adja-cent convent, for fifty-three years, at the an-nual rent of four marks (L2, 13s. 4d.) Untilthe 1st of March 1400, Chaucer drew his pen-sions in person; then they were received forhim by another hand; and on the 25th of Oc-tober, in the same year, he died, at the age ofseventy-two. The only lights thrown by his po-ems on his closing days are furnished in thelittle ballad called "Good Counsel of Chaucer,"– which, though said to have been writtenwhen "upon his death-bed lying in his greatanguish, "breathes the very spirit of courage,resignation, and philosophic calm; and by the"Retractation" at the end of The Canterbury

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Tales, which, if it was not foisted in by monk-ish transcribers, may be supposed the effect ofChaucer’s regrets and self-reproaches on thatsolemn review of his life-work which the closeapproach of death compelled. The poet wasburied in Westminster Abbey; (Note 12) and notmany years after his death a slab was placed ona pillar near his grave, bearing the lines, takenfrom an epitaph or eulogy made by StephanusSurigonus of Milan, at the request of Caxton:

"Galfridus Chaucer, vates, et fama poesisMaternae, hoc sacra sum tumulatus humo."(Note 13)

About 1555, Mr Nicholas Brigham, a gentle-man of Oxford who greatly admired the ge-nius of Chaucer, erected the present tomb, asnear to the spot where the poet lay, "before thechapel of St Benet," as was then possible by rea-

58


son of the "cancelli," (Note 14) which the Dukeof Buckingham subsequently obtained leave toremove, that room might be made for the tombof Dryden. On the structure of Mr Brigham,besides a full-length representation of Chaucer,taken from a portrait drawn by his "scholar"Thomas Occleve, was – or is, though now al-most illegible – the following inscription:–

M. S.QUI FUIT ANGLORUM VATES TER

MAXIMUS OLIM,GALFRIDUS CHAUCER CONDITUR HOC

TUMULO;ANNUM SI QUAERAS DOMINI, SI

TEMPORA VITAE,ECCE NOTAE SUBSUNT, QUE TIBI CUNCTA

NOTANT.25 OCTOBRIS 1400.

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AERUMNARUM REQUIES MORS.1556. (Note 15)

Concerning his personal appearance andhabits, Chaucer has not been reticent in hispoetry. Urry sums up the traits of his aspectand character fairly thus: "He was of a middlestature, the latter part of his life inclinable tobe fat and corpulent, as appears by the Host’sbantering him in the journey to Canterbury,and comparing shapes with him. (Note 16) Hisface was fleshy, his features just and regular,his complexion fair, and somewhat pale, hishair of a dusky yellow, short and thin; the hairof his beard in two forked tufts, of a wheatcolour; his forehead broad and smooth; hiseyes inclining usually to the ground, whichis intimated by the Host’s words; his wholeface full of liveliness, a calm, easy sweetness,

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and a studious Venerable aspect. . . . As tohis temper, he had a mixture of the gay, themodest, and the grave. The sprightliness ofhis humour was more distinguished by hiswritings than by his appearance; which gaveoccasion to Margaret Countess of Pembrokeoften to rally him upon his silent modesty incompany, telling him, that his absence wasmore agreeable to her than his conversation,since the first was productive of agreeablepieces of wit in his writings, (Note 17) but thelatter was filled with a modest deference, anda too distant respect. We see nothing merryor jocose in his behaviour with his pilgrims,but a silent attention to their mirth, rather thanany mixture of his own. . . When disengagedfrom public affairs, his time was entirely spentin study and reading; so agreeable to him wasthis exercise, that he says he preferred it to all

61


other sports and diversions. (Note 18) He livedwithin himself, neither desirous to hear norbusy to concern himself with the affairs of hisneighbours. His course of living was temper-ate and regular; he went to rest with the sun,and rose before it; and by that means enjoyedthe pleasures of the better part of the day,his morning walk and fresh contemplations.This gave him the advantage of describingthe morning in so lively a manner as he doeseverywhere in his works. The springing sunglows warm in his lines, and the fragrantair blows cool in his descriptions; we smellthe sweets of the bloomy haws, and hear themusic of the feathered choir, whenever wetake a forest walk with him. The hour of theday is not easier to be discovered from thereflection of the sun in Titian’s paintings, thanin Chaucer’s morning landscapes. . . . His

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reading was deep and extensive, his judge-ment sound and discerning. . . In one word,he was a great scholar, a pleasant wit, a candidcritic, a sociable companion, a steadfast friend,a grave philosopher, a temperate economist,and a pious Christian."

Chaucer’s most important poems are"Troilus and Cressida," "The Romaunt of theRose," and "The Canterbury Tales." Of the first,containing 8246 lines, an abridgement, with aprose connecting outline of the story, is givenin this volume. With the second, consisting of7699 octosyllabic verses, like those in which"The House of Fame" is written, it was foundimpossible to deal in the present edition.The poem is a curtailed translation from theFrench "Roman de la Rose" – commenced byGuillaume de Lorris, who died in 1260, after

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contributing 4070 verses, and completed, inthe last quarter of the thirteenth century, byJean de Meun, who added some 18,000 verses.It is a satirical allegory, in which the vicesof courts, the corruptions of the clergy, thedisorders and inequalities of society in general,are unsparingly attacked, and the most revo-lutionary doctrines are advanced; and though,in making his translation, Chaucer softened oreliminated much of the satire of the poem, stillit remained, in his verse, a caustic exposure ofthe abuses of the time, especially those whichdiscredited the Church.

The Canterbury Tales are presented in thisedition with as near an approach to complete-ness as regard for the popular character ofthe volume permitted. The 17,385 verses, ofwhich the poetical Tales consist, have been

64


given without abridgement or purgation – savein a single couplet; but, the main purpose ofthe volume being to make the general readeracquainted with the "poems" of Chaucer andSpenser, the Editor has ventured to contract thetwo prose Tales – Chaucer’s Tale of Meliboeus,and the Parson’s Sermon or Treatise on Peni-tence – so as to save about thirty pages for theintroduction of Chaucer’s minor pieces. At thesame time, by giving prose outlines of the omit-ted parts, it has been sought to guard the readeragainst the fear that he was losing anythingessential, or even valuable. It is almost need-less to describe the plot, or point out the liter-ary place, of the Canterbury Tales. Perhaps inthe entire range of ancient and modern litera-ture there is no work that so clearly and freshlypaints for future times the picture of the past;certainly no Englishman has ever approached

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Chaucer in the power of fixing for ever thefleeting traits of his own time. The plan of thepoem had been adopted before Chaucer choseit; notably in the "Decameron" of Boccaccio – al-though, there, the circumstances under whichthe tales were told, with the terror of the plaguehanging over the merry company, lend a grimgrotesqueness to the narrative, unless we canlook at it abstracted from its setting. Chaucer,on the other hand, strikes a perpetual key-noteof gaiety whenever he mentions the word "pil-grimage;" and at every stage of the connectingstory we bless the happy thought which givesus incessant incident, movement, variety, andunclouded but never monotonous joyousness.

The poet, the evening before he starts ona pilgrimage to the shrine of St Thomas atCanterbury, lies at the Tabard Inn, in South-

66


wark, curious to know in what companionshiphe is destined to fare forward on the morrow.Chance sends him "nine and twenty in a com-pany," representing all orders of English soci-ety, lay and clerical, from the Knight and theAbbot down to the Ploughman and the Somp-nour. The jolly Host of the Tabard, after sup-per, when tongues are loosened and hearts areopened, declares that "not this year" has heseen such a company at once under his roof-tree, and proposes that, when they set out nextmorning, he should ride with them and makethem sport. All agree, and Harry Bailly un-folds his scheme: each pilgrim, including thepoet, shall tell two tales on the road to Canter-bury, and two on the way back to London; andhe whom the general voice pronounces to havetold the best tale, shall be treated to a supperat the common cost – and, of course, to mine

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Host’s profit – when the cavalcade returns fromthe saint’s shrine to the Southwark hostelry. Alljoyously assent; and early on the morrow, inthe gay spring sunshine, they ride forth, listen-ing to the heroic tale of the brave and gentleKnight, who has been gracefully chosen by theHost to lead the spirited competition of story-telling.

To describe thus the nature of the plan, andto say that when Chaucer conceived, or at leastbegan to execute it, he was between sixty andseventy years of age, is to proclaim that TheCanterbury Tales could never be more than afragment. Thirty pilgrims, each telling twotales on the way out, and two more on theway back – that makes 120 tales; to say noth-ing of the prologue, the description of the jour-ney, the occurrences at Canterbury, "and all the

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remnant of their pilgrimage," which Chauceralso undertook. No more than twenty-three ofthe 120 stories are told in the work as it comesdown to us; that is, only twenty-three of thethirty pilgrims tell the first of the two storieson the road to Canterbury; while of the sto-ries on the return journey we have not one,and nothing is said about the doings of the pil-grims at Canterbury – which would, if treatedlike the scene at the Tabard, have given usa still livelier "picture of the period." But theplan was too large; and although the poet hadsome reserves, in stories which he had alreadycomposed in an independent form, death cutshort his labour ere he could even completethe arrangement and connection of more thana very few of the Tales. Incomplete as it is,however, the magnum opus of Chaucer was inhis own time received with immense favour;

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manuscript copies are numerous even now –no slight proof of its popularity; and whenthe invention of printing was introduced intoEngland by William Caxton, The CanterburyTales issued from his press in the year after thefirst English- printed book, "The Game of theChesse," had been struck off. Innumerable edi-tions have since been published; and it mayfairly be affirmed, that few books have been somuch in favour with the reading public of ev-ery generation as this book, which the lapse ofevery generation has been rendering more un-readable.

Apart from "The Romaunt of the Rose," noreally important poetical work of Chaucer’s isomitted from or unrepresented in the presentedition. Of "The Legend of Good Women,"the Prologue only is given – but it is the most

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genuinely Chaucerian part of the poem. Of"The Court of Love," three-fourths are herepresented; of "The Assembly of Fowls," "TheCuckoo and the Nightingale," "The Flowerand the Leaf," all; of "Chaucer’s Dream," one-fourth; of "The House of Fame," two-thirds;and of the minor poems such a selection as maygive an idea of Chaucer’s power in the "occa-sional" department of verse. Necessarily, nospace whatever could be given to Chaucer’sprose works – his translation of Boethius’ Trea-tise on the Consolation of Philosophy; his Trea-tise on the Astrolabe, written for the use of hisson Lewis; and his "Testament of Love," com-posed in his later years, and reflecting the trou-bles that then beset the poet. If, after studyingin a simplified form the salient works of Eng-land’s first great bard, the reader is tempted toregret that he was not introduced to a wider ac-

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quaintance with the author, the purpose of theEditor will have been more than attained.

The plan of the volume does not demandan elaborate examination into the state of ourlanguage when Chaucer wrote, or the nicequestions of grammatical and metrical struc-ture which conspire with the obsolete orthog-raphy to make his poems a sealed book forthe masses. The most important elementin the proper reading of Chaucer’s verses –whether written in the decasyllabic or heroicmetre, which he introduced into our litera-ture, or in the octosyllabic measure used withsuch animated effect in "The House of Fame,""Chaucer’s Dream," &c. – is the sounding ofthe terminal "e" where it is now silent. That let-ter is still valid in French poetry; and Chaucer’slines can be scanned only by reading them as

72


we would read Racine’s or Moliere’s. The ter-minal "e" played an important part in gram-mar; in many cases it was the sign of the infini-tive – the "n" being dropped from the end; atother times it pointed the distinction betweensingular and plural, between adjective and ad-verb. The pages that follow, however, beingprepared from the modern English point ofview, necessarily no account is taken of thosedistinctions; and the now silent "e" has beenretained in the text of Chaucer only when re-quired by the modern spelling, or by the exi-gencies of metre.

Before a word beginning with a vowel, orwith the letter "h," the final "e" was almostwithout exception mute; and in such cases, inthe plural forms and infinitives of verbs, theterminal "n" is generally retained for the sake

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of euphony. No reader who is acquainted withthe French language will find it hard to fall intoChaucer’s accentuation; while, for such as arenot, a simple perusal of the text according tothe rules of modern verse, should remove ev-ery difficulty.

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TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES

1. Modern scholars believe that Chaucer wasnot the author of these poems.

Credits: This e-text was scanned, re-formatted and edited with extra notes by DonalO’ Danachair ([email protected]). Iwould like to acknowledge the help of EdwinDuncan, Juris Lidaka and Aniina Jokinnen in

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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

identifying some of the poems no Longer at-tributed to Chaucer. This e-text, with its notes,is hereby placed in the public domain.

Preface: The preface is for a combinedvolume of poems by Chaucer and EdmundSpenser. The Spenser poems will shortly beavailable as a separate E-text.

Spelling and punctuation: These are thesame as in the book as far as possible. Ac-cents have been removed. Diereses (umlauts)have been removed from English words and re-placed by "e" in German ones. The AE and OEdigraphs have been transcribed as two letters.The British pound (currency) sign has been re-placed by a capital L. Greek words have beentransliterated.

Footnotes (this comment refers only to thetext file from which this document was ex-

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tracted): The original book has an average of 30footnotes per page. These were of three types:(A) Glosses or explanations of obsolete wordsand phrases. These have been treated as fol-lows: 1. In the poems, they have been movedup into the right-hand margin. Some of themhave been shortened or paraphrased in orderto fit. Explanations of single words have a sin-gle asterisk at the end of the word and at thebeginning of the explanation.

like this If two words in thesame line have explanations thefirst has one and the second, two.

like this and this Explanationsof phrases have an asterisk at thestart and end of the phrase and ofthe explanation

like this Sometimes these

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glosses wrap onto the next line,still in the right margin.

If you read this e-text using a monospaced font(like Courier in a word processor such as MSWord, or the default font in most text editors)then the marginal notes are right-justified.

2. In the prose tales, they have been imbed-ded into the text in square brackets after theword or phrase they refer to [like this]. (B) Et-ymological explanations of these words. Theseare indicted by a number in angle brackets inthe marginal gloss. The note will be found atthe like this <1> end of the poem or section. (C)Longer notes commenting on or explaining thetext. These are indicated in the text by num-bers in angle brackets thus: <1>. The note willbe found at the end of the poem or section.

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Latin: Despite his declared aim of editingthe tales "for popular perusal", Purves has leftnearly all Latin quotations untranslated. I havetranslated them as well as I could – any errorsare my fault, not his.

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NOTES ON THE LIFE OF

GEOFFREY CHAUCER

1. "Edmund Spenser, a native of London, wasborn with a Muse of such power, that he wassuperior to all English poets of preceding ages,not excepting his fellow-citizen Chaucer."

2. See introduction to "The Legend of GoodWomen".

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NOTES ON THE LIFE OF GEOFFREYCHAUCER

3. Called in the editions before 1597 "TheDream of Chaucer". The poem, which is notincluded in the present edition, does indeed,like many of Chaucer’s smaller works, tell thestory of a dream, in which a knight, represent-ing John of Gaunt, is found by the poet mourn-ing the loss of his lady; but the true "Dreamof Chaucer," in which he celebrates the mar-riage of his patron, was published for the firsttime by Speght in 1597. John of Gaunt, in theend of 1371, married his second wife, Con-stance, daughter to Pedro the Cruel of Spain;so that "The Book of the Duchess" must havebeen written between 1369 and 1371.

4. Where he bids his "little book" "Subjectbe unto all poesy, And kiss the steps, where asthou seest space, Of Virgil, Ovid, Homer, Lu-can, Stace."

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5. See note 1 to The Tale in The Clerk’s Tale.6. See note 1 to The Man of Law’s Tale.7. "Written," says Mr Wright, "in the six-

teenth year of the reign of Richard II. (1392-1393);" a powerful confirmation of the opin-ion that this poem was really produced inChaucer’s mature age. See the introductorynotes to it and to the Legend of Good Women.

8. The old biographers of Chaucer, found-ing on what they took to be autobiographic al-lusions in "The Testament of Love," assign tohim between 1354 and 1389 a very differenthistory from that here given on the strengthof authentic records explored and quoted bySir H. Nicolas. Chaucer is made to espousethe cause of John of Northampton, the Wyclif-fite Lord Mayor of London, whose re-electionin 1384 was so vehemently opposed by the

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clergy, and who was imprisoned in the sequelof the grave disorders that arose. The poet,it is said, fled to the Continent, taking withhim a large sum of money, which he spent insupporting companions in exile; then, return-ing by stealth to England in quest of funds,he was detected and sent to the Tower, wherehe languished for three years, being releasedonly on the humiliating condition of inform-ing against his associates in the plot. The pub-lic records show, however, that, all the time ofhis alleged exile and captivity, he was quietlyliving in London, regularly drawing his pen-sions in person, sitting in Parliament, and dis-charging his duties in the Customs until his dis-missal in 1386. It need not be said, further, thatalthough Chaucer freely handled the errors, theignorance, and vices of the clergy, he did sorather as a man of sense and of conscience, than

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as a Wycliffite – and there is no evidence thathe espoused the opinions of the zealous Re-former, far less played the part of an extremeand self- regardless partisan of his old friendand college-companion.

9. "The Commissioners appear to have com-menced their labours with examining the ac-counts of the officers employed in the collec-tion of the revenue; and the sequel affords astrong presumption that the royal administra-tion [under Lancaster and his friends] had beenfoully calumniated. We hear not of any fraudsdiscovered, or of defaulters punished, or ofgrievances redressed." Such is the testimony ofLingard (chap. iv., 1386), all the more valuablefor his aversion from the Wycliffite leanings ofJohn of Gaunt. Chaucer’s department in theLondon Customs was in those days one of the

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most important and lucrative in the kingdom;and if mercenary abuse of his post could havebeen proved, we may be sure that his and hispatron’s enemies would not have been contentwith simple dismissal, but would have heavilyamerced or imprisoned him.

10. The salary was L36, 10s. per annum;the salary of the Chief Judges was L40, of thePuisne Judges about L27. Probably the Judges– certainly the Clerk of the Works – had fees orperquisites besides the stated payment.

11. Chaucer’s patron had died earlier in1399, during the exile of his son (then Duke ofHereford) in France. The Duchess Constancehad died in 1394; and the Duke had made repa-ration to Katherine Swynford – who had al-ready borne him four children – by marryingher in 1396, with the approval of Richard II.,

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who legitimated the children, and made the el-dest son of the poet’s sister-in-law Earl of Som-erset. From this long- illicit union sprang thehouse of Beaufort – that being the surnameof the Duke’s children by Katherine, after thename of the castle in Anjou (Belfort, or Beau-fort) where they were born.

12. Of Chaucer’s two sons by Philippa Roet,his only wife, the younger, Lewis, for whomhe wrote the Treatise on the Astrolabe, diedyoung. The elder, Thomas, married Maud,the second daughter and co-heiress of Sir JohnBurghersh, brother of the Bishop of Lincoln,the Chancellor and Treasurer of England. Bythis marriage Thomas Chaucer acquired greatestates in Oxfordshire and elsewhere; and hefigured prominently in the second rank ofcourtiers for many years. He was Chief Butler

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to Richard II.; under Henry IV. he was Consta-ble of Wallingford Castle, Steward of the Hon-ours of Wallingford and St Valery, and of theChiltern Hundreds; and the queen of Henry IV.granted him the farm of several of her manors,a grant subsequently confirmed to him for lifeby the King, after the Queen’s death. He satin Parliament repeatedly for Oxfordshire, wasSpeaker in 1414, and in the same year went toFrance as commissioner to negotiate the mar-riage of Henry V. with the Princess Katherine.He held, before he died in 1434, various otherposts of trust and distinction; but he left noheirs-male. His only child, Alice Chaucer, mar-ried twice; first Sir John Philip; and afterwardsthe Duke of Suffolk – attainted and beheadedin 1450. She had three children by the Duke;and her eldest son married the Princess Eliza-beth, sister of Edward IV. The eldest son of this

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marriage, created Earl of Lincoln, was declaredby Richard III heir-apparent to the throne, incase the Prince of Wales should die without is-sue; but the death of Lincoln himself, at thebattle of Stoke in 1487, destroyed all prospectthat the poet’s descendants might succeed tothe crown of England; and his family is nowbelieved to be extinct.

13. "Geoffrey Chaucer, bard, and famousmother of poetry, is buried in this sacredground."

14. Railings.Translation of the epitaph: This tomb was

built for Geoffrey Chaucer, who in his time wasthe greatest poet of the English. If you ask theyear of his death, behold the words beneath,which tell you all. Death gave him rest from histoil, 25th of October 1400. N Brigham bore the

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cost of these words in the name of the Muses.1556. 1

16. See the Prologue to Chaucer’s Tale of SirThopas.

17. See the "Goodly Ballad of Chaucer," sev-enth stanza.

18. See the opening of the Prologue to "TheLegend of Good Women," and the poet’s ac-count of his habits in "The House of Fame".

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Documents

The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems Part 1: Forward · miliar poems of Chaucer and Spenser. There is, ... the Father of English Poetry, to say that by such treatment the bouquet