She is miroúr of alle curteisyë; Hir herte is verray1 chambre of holynesse, THE PRIORESS. (a) Ther was alsó a nonne, a prioresse, That of hire smylyng was ful symple and coy; And Frensch sche spak ful faire and fetysly," Of grees, whan sche dronken had hire draught. 1 Verray, in the sense of the French vrai (from Latin verus, true). 2 Oothe-the possessive plural-her greatest of oaths. 3 Nas but=ne was but; a French idiom (like n'était que), which has not survived in the language. 4 Clept cleped; i.e., called. Milton uses yclept for the past participle. 5 Entuned intoned. 6 Fetysly; i.e., neatly. 7 Morsel-old form of modern French morceau. 8 Leste pleasure. 9 Over lippe-upper lip. Ov is an old form of up. Up also appears as op in open, and as off in offing. Many names of villages still have over in the sense of upper, as Over Haddon in Derby. In Germany and Holland (High Dutch and Low Dutch) it takes the form of Ober, as in Oberyssel. 10 Ferthing farthing. An e before an r generally gets to be sounded a; as in clerk, Derby. But farthing means here small piece. The word is a dialectic form (of the East Midland dialect) of fourthing-fourth part. Compare riding (of Yorkshire). This comes from three. Three, threeth, thrid; and then thrid ing; and lastly riding. Hence there are only three Ridings in Yorkshire, and can be no more. 11 Semely seemly. 12 Sikerly certainly. Sicker is an old English and Scotch form of secure or sure. 13 Disport-deportment. 14 Port, i.e., carriage. The root is found also in porter. And peynëd hire1 to counterfetë 2 cheere Prologue: Canterbury Tales. 17. It does not lie within the scope of this little book to write criticisms on the authors whom we are to become acquainted with, but it may be well to quote what great and genial critics have said of him. Dryden calls him "a perpetual fountain of good sense." Mr. Hazlitt says, "Chaucer was the most practical of all the great poets, the most a man of business and of the world. His poetry reads like history. Everybody has a downright reality, at least in the relator's mind. A simile or a sentiment is as if it were given in upon evidence." 1 Peyned hire, i.e., pained herself, i.e., took pains. 2 Counterfete, i.e., imitate. 3 Ben holden: the en in both is a sign of the infinitive. 4 Hounds, i.e., dogs. 5 Wastel, an English form of the Old French gastel. (The English w represents the French gu; as in ward and garde, wise and guise, etc.) Gastel then became gasteau, then gâteau. Small cakes were called petits gastels-a term corrupted into petticoat tails. 6 Yerde-any stick. The word yards (of a ship) is still used in this sense. The definite meaning given to such words as acre, furlong, gallon, and so on, is quite modern. Acre meant a field; furlong, a furrow long; and gallon, a pitcher. 7 Smertë is the adverb, and modifies smot. 8 Tretys, straight. But the best critic of Chaucer's writings is the American poet, Mr. Lowell; and the following are extracts from his essay on the subject: "Chaucer was the first great poet who really loved outward nature as the source of conscious pleasurable emotion." "In insisting on a definite purpose, on veracity, cheerfulness, and simplicity, Chaucer shows himself the true founder of what is characteristically English literature." 66 66 Chaucer, to whom French must have been almost as truly a mother-tongue as English, was familiar with all that had been done by troubadour or trouvère. In him we see the first result of the Norman yeast upon the home-baked Saxon loaf. The flour had been honest, the paste well kneaded, but the inspiring leaven was wanting till the Norman brought it over. Chaucer works still in the solid material of his race, but with what airy lightness has he not infused it? Without ceasing to be English, he has escaped being insular." 'There is in Chaucer the exuberant freshness and greenness of spring. Everything he touches leaps into full blossom. His gladness and humour and pathos are irrepressible as a fountain. Reading him is like brushing through the dewy grass at sunrise. Everything is new and sparkling and fragrant. His first merit, the chief one in all art, is sincerity. He does not strive to body forth something which shall have a meaning; but, having a clear meaning in his heart, he gives it as clear a shape. He is the most unconventional of poets, and the frankest." "One of the world's three or four great story-tellers, he was also one of the best versifiers that ever made English trip and sing with a gaiety that seems careless, but where every foot beats time to the tune of the thought." "His best tales run on like one of our inland rivers, sometimes hastening a little and turning upon themselves in eddies, that dimple without retarding the current; sometimes loitering smoothly, while here and there a quiet thought, a tender feeling, a pleasant image, a golden-hearted verse, opens quietly as a water-lily, to float on the surface without breaking it into ripple." 18. It is an excellent twofold lesson, in the language and in poetry, to compare the version of Chaucer made by later poets, and to examine the merits or defects of each. Dryden, Pope, and Wordsworth have "modernised" parts of Chaucer; and of them we will CHAUCER. A good man was ther of religioún, But riche he was of holy thought and werk.3 That Cristës gospel trewely woldë preche; Of his offrynge and eek of his substaúnce. That ferst he wroughte, and afterward he taughte.13 16 And though he holy were, and vertuous, What so he were, of high or lowe estat,17 take Dryden and Wordsworth. The genius of the age of Dryden (the latter half of the seventeenth century) and of Pope (the first half of the eighteenth) was ill able to interpret the sweet, manly, and sincere mind of Chaucer. They were too much under French influence. Hence Dryden's version is too rhetorical, too "stylish," full of splendid phraseology (some of which does not mean much), but true neither in conception nor in execution. Let us take Dryden first, and place his version opposite the original. DRYDEN. A parish priest was of the pilgrim train ; Rich was his soul, though his attire was poor He drew his audience upward to the sky : For David left him, when he went to rest, He bore his great commission in his look, But sweetly tempered awe, and softened all he spoke. But, on eternal mercy loved to dwell. He taught the gospel rather than the law; And forced himself to drive, but loved to draw. |