ing. But, though he was a hard student, he was not a recluse. He had the English love of nature; and his poems are full of allusions to the beauty of the fields and woods. May was his favourite month. Save, certeynly, whan that the moneth of May The freshness of spring put him into the highest animal spirits :- And seeth the fressche flourës how they springe; Ful is min hert of revel and solás. He had probably the widest and most varied experience of the world of any man of the fourteenth century. He was a lawyer, a soldier, a courtier, a diplomat, a member of parliament, a man of business, and a poet. In some of these respects, Spenser, Milton, and Scott may be compared with him. His experience and his work had brought him into the closest contact with men of all ranks, from the king down to the poorest day-labourer; from cardinals and archbishops to summoners and astrologers. All this world-wide experience in peace and war, in ecclesiastical, military, and civil affairs, at home and abroad, in wealth and in poverty, is poured into his greatest workthe Canterbury Tales. 9. Chaucer's earlier works are chiefly translations from Latin and French. Indeed, original work was the exception then in the west of Europe. French, Italian, and English writers borrowed in the freest way from each other; and there was little individual property either in the thoughts or in the words of a poem. The following are the most important of Chaucer's minor works I. THE ROMAUNT OF THE ROSE: a translation of the Roman de la Rose, a work by two French writers, Guillaume de Louis and Jean de Meung. II. THE BOKE OF THE DUCHESSE: a poem on Blanche, the first wife of John of Gaunt. III. TROŸLUS AND CRESEIDE: a translation, much enlarged and altered, from the Filostrato of Boccaccio. IV. THE FLOWER AND THE LEAF; or, on the Worship of True Beauty, typified by the leaf, which lasts when the flower dies. V. THE HOUSE OF FAME, part of which has been adapted by Pope in his Temple of Fame. 10. But his great work is the CANTERBURY TALES, which may fairly be called the national epic of the English people, if we have a national epic at all. The framework of these tales is very like that of the Decameron of Boccaccio, or the framework of Mr. Dickens's Christmas Stories. The Decameron of Boccaccio (written in 1348) is a set of ten stories, told by seven ladies and three gentlemen, who have fled from the plague at Florence to a country-house. The tales of Chaucer are told on a pilgrimage on horseback from London to Canterbury, along the green lanes which were the only roads of the fourteenth century. One evening in April, nine-and-twenty pilgrims meet at an inn in the High Street, Southwark, called the Tabard.1 Southwark was then a very small division of London, on the Surrey side of London Bridge. They agree after dinner, over their wine, to get up early next morning, and to travel together to Canterbury. One reason was that the roads were not very safe; but the host, Harry Bailly, also proposes that each pilgrim should tell stories to beguile the way-two going and two returning. There were in all, on the road, thirty-two pilgrims (they were, after leaving the inn, joined by three more), and this would have made one hundred and twenty-eight tales; but Chaucer has left us only four-and-twenty. 11. THE PROLOGUE consists of a description of the men who join in the pilgrimage; and they are all types of the different ranks of English society in the fourteenth century.-The KNIGHT is a distinguished warrior, who had been in the crusades, and had seen service in all parts of Europe and many parts of Asia and Africa. He was one of the bravest of Englishmen, and " as meek as is a maid." His dress was shabby; but his horse was good, and well-groomed. He was in too great a hurry to confess his sins and shrieve his soul at Canterbury to be able to get a new coat at his tailor's.-His son, a young SQUIRE, rides beside him. Twenty years of age, with curly locks, an embroidered coat ("as it were a mead, all full of fresh 1 A tabard is a herald's coat without sleeves. flowers, white and red"), a short "gown" with long and wide sleeves, courteous and "lowly" manners, mark him out as a young lordyng1 of the time. The servant of these two lordyngs was a YEOMAN, with a head shaped like a nut; hair cut short and close to the head, to make the drawing of the bow to the ear easier, and a sunburnt countenance.-A lady comes next: a PRIORESS, called Madame Eglentyne. She spoke French with a fine and clear articulation; not the French of Paris, but the French spoken in the Norman colony of Stratford-le-Bowe, then a fashionable country suburb of London. She was well-bred, and never wet her fingers in her sauce, nor let drops fall upon her breast. She had a straight nose, grey eyes, a small mouth, and a broad forehead.-A MONK, a "manly man,” stout and ruddy, comes next. He rode a splendid horse; and the bells on his bridle rang out loud and clear. He hated study, and cared chiefly for hunting. His sleeves were edged with the finest fur of the grey squirrel. He was a lord "full fat and in good point" (embonpoint), and his favourite dish was a roast swan.-Then came a merry FRIAR. He was a limitour; that is, he had purchased from his convent the right of begging within certain limits. He was the best beggar in all his house, and could screw out of the poorest widow at least a farthing before he left her. He lisped, "to make his English sweet upon his tongue"; and he could sing and play upon the harp. When he was playing, his eyes shone like "stars on a frosty night.” —The MERCHANT is dressed in motley, with a Flanders beaver hat, and silver buckles on his boots. He wears a forked beard, and he speaks in a slow and weighty manner. A CLERK (scholar) of Oxford, entirely given up to logic, comes next. His overcoat is threadbare; and all the money that he can make, or that his friends send him, is spent on books "clothed in black and red." He is slow and sparing in his conversation-"Not oo word spake he more than was neede." -A SERGEANT OF LAW rides beside him. He is dressed in a "medled" coat (a coat of a mixed colour), with a silk belt round his waist, and bars of silver on the belt. He had often served as Judge of Assize, and was thoroughly acquainted with all the law-cases and decisions that had been given since William the Conqueror.-Among the company, too, was a FRANKLIN 2 with a beard as "white as a 1 Gentleman. Ing means son of. Lording was the general term of address to mixed companies in Chaucer's time. A farmer whose land is his own freehold. daisy." He kept open house; and his larder was always full of the best of "flesh and fish."-There were also a HABERDASHER, & CARPENTER, a WEAVER, a DYER, and a TAPICER (upholsterer). They were all "warm" men-well to do; and they carried knives mounted "not with brass," but with silver.-The company had taken a Cook with them-a cook of special powers. He could "roast and seeth (boil) and broil and fry,” and was equal to the best London artist in cookery.-A SCHIPMAN (sailor) from Dartmouth was another member of the company. He had hired a horse for the occasion, and rode it, as a sailor does, as well "as he could." His face was scarred and seamed and weatherbeaten; and "with many a tempest had his beard been shake."--A DOCTOR OF PHYSIC Comes next-incomparable in his art, "for he was grounded in astronomy." He kept his patients wondrous well, by observing the stars, and giving his medicines at the right time. He was in the habit of giving gold as a medicine and of taking gold as his fee-"therefore he loved gold in speciál." Next appears the WIFE OF BATH—a travelling dealer in cloth. The kerchiefs on her head were of the finest quality; and on Sundays these weighed as much as ten pounds. Her stockings were red; and her shoes fitted well, and were soft, supple, and new. She had been married five times; she had travelled much; been three times at Jerusalem, had been also at Rome, Bologna, St. Jago in Galicia (Spain), and at Cologne.-Behind her rode the poor country PARSON,1 a hard-working parish priest, and a genuine follower of Christ. He gave this noble example to his flock, "that first he wrought and after that he taught." He was never dry or condescending to any of his parishioners. But if there were any stiff-necked person, whether "of high or low estate," him would he "snub sharply.”— With him came a PLOUGHMAN, his brother-an honest worker, who loved God and “then his neighbour right as himself."—The MILLER, a stout, big-boned, brawny carl, next makes his appearance. There was not a door in the whole city that he could not heave off its hinges, or break it "at a running with his head." His beard was as red as a fox and as broad as a spade. On the top of his nose grew a wart; and out of the wart grew a tuft of hairs. His nostrils were black and wide. He could play well on the bagpipes; and "therewithal Like his friend Wiclif, Chaucer hated the monastic orders, but respected the hard-working parish priest. he played us out of town."-A MAUNCIPLE (or butler of an Inn of Court) came next, well skilled in "buying of victuals.”—The REEVE (or steward of an estate) was a slender choleric man, and close shaved. His legs were long, lean, and like two sticks. He rode moodily by himself, behind the company, on a dapple-grey horse, called Scot.-A SOMPNOUR (or summoner before the Ecclesiastical Courts) was also with them. His face was as red as fire, with a stubbly beard and black eyebrows, and the children ran from him when they saw him.-His friend, a PARDONER, newly arrived from Rome, rode by his side. He wore long yellow hair, as straight as a bundle of flax, and, like bundles of flax, all in separate locks. His voice was as thin and "small as any goat." He had in his carpetbag a piece of the veil of the Virgin Mary, a corner of one of St. Peter's sails, some pig's bones in a glass, and other relics.-And then there was "myself-there was no moo." Chaucer thus quietly mentions his own presence among the pilgrims.-By the advice of the host they draw lots (or "cuts "1) who shall begin; and the first lot falls to the Knight, who opens the series of stories with the tale of Palamon and Arcite. 12. The finest of the Canterbury Tales are: (a) The Story of Palamon and Arcite, which forms the Knight's Tale. (b) The Story of Custance-one of the most pathetic poems in the language-told by the Man of Law. (c) The Squire's Tale: the story of Canacé, which Chaucer "left half-told." (d) The Story of Patient Griseld-perhaps the best in Chaucer, and one of the finest tales of "love and duty" in the whole field of literature-told by the Clerk of Oxford. This story is one of the ten in Boccaccio's Decameron; but Chaucer probably borrowed it from Petrarch's Latin translation. 13. CHAUCER'S ENGLISH. Chaucer's English is the English of the fourteenth century-the English of five centuries ago. It differs A Celtic word, still in use in Scotland. |