BLAKE said of Chaucer (Descriptive Catalogue): ‘As Newton numbered the stars, and as Linneus numbered the plants, so Chaucer numbered the classes of men’.
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Swinburne wrote of Ariosto that he ‘threw across the windy sea of glittering legend and fluctuant romance the broad summer lightnings of his large and jocund genius’.
This might, in one sense, have been said equally of Chaucer, were it not that his movements are neither sharp, like those of lightning, nor fluctuant, like those of a sea.
Those fresh and shining poems The Canterbury Tales have a curiously strong and resilient line, an urgent life. Their strength is of nature, and the will which is in them, and which forms their purpose and guides their direction, is instinctive. Close to the earth as are these poems, often the strength and movement of the lines, for all the warmth and humanity in them, are like the strength and movement of a slow plant life.
Sometimes the line is divided by a pause that is both long and deep, but the two halves divided by the pause have a movement and impetus of a peculiar strength, and this is not the rushing, tumultuous swelling movement of the march of waves (for it is often slow, and it has more direction than that of waves); it has, rather, the inevitability and urgency of sap rising in a plant. At moments the growth is horizontal, its urgency keeps close to the earth, as with a melon (because the vowels are equal in length, in height, or in depth), — but more often, owing to a rising system of sharp vowels, it springs into the air, like sap rising in a tree.
A beautiful example of the first kind is the following song of Troilus, —‘If no love is, O God, what fele I so?’ — where some, but not all the lines are divided — in this case after the fourth syllable — by a stretching pause. The line then continues in its resistless way, in its plant-life, — (though, like the plant, it has its variations of leaves and flowers), — the other lines being undivided. — The levels of the earth are different, however, in the lines, and are sometimes uneven. Sometimes the vowels rise, and fall again; yet the lines stretch onwards, they do not soar.
If no love is, O God, what fele I so?
And if love is, what thing and which is he?
If love be good, from whennes cometh my wo?
If it be wikke, a wonder thynketh me,
When every torment and adversite
That cometh of him, may to me savory thinke;
For ay thurst I, the more that ich it drinke.
And if that at myn owen lust I brenne,
Fro whennes cometh my wailing and my pleynte?
If harm agree me, wher-to pleyne I thenne?
I noot, ne why unwery that I feynte.
O quike deth, O swete harm so queynte,
How may of the in me swich quantite,
But if that I consente that it be?
And if that I consente, I wrongfully
Compleyne, y-wis; thus possed to and fro,
Al stereless with-inne a boot am I
Amydde the see, by-tuixen wyndes two,
That in contrarie stonden evere-mo.
Allas! what is this wonder maladye?
For hete of cold, for cold of hete, I dye.
The assonances, dissonances, and alliterations have much effect here,—‘whennes’, ‘wikke’, ‘wonder’, — ‘thynketh’ echoing ‘wikke’; — the change, in the second verse, from ‘myn’ to ‘pleyne’, and the dulling from ‘pleyne’ to ‘thenne’; the echo of ‘wailing’ and ‘pleynte’ — the first being long yet broken, the second dying away at once.
‘An example of the second kind (the line whose impetus, owing to its vowel system, rises with a strong sharp strength) is the following magnificent line:
The mighty tresses in hir sonnish heres.
— I know, and have been reminded of the fact by correspondents, that the o in ‘sonnish’ was usually pronounced as the letter u is now pronounced in German. But variations were in use in the time of Chaucer, and I think that here is a case. If, then, ‘sonnish’ was pronounced as we now pronounce the word ‘sun’ each accented vowel-sound rises, sharply, after the other, springing upward. In this line, incidentally, there is no pause. Air, however, plays around the line, owing to the long vowels; it has not, therefore, as have many pauseless lines, a huddled quality.
Much of the variation in sound of this wonderful poetry is due (as I have said already) to the fact that some lines are divided sharply in two by a deep pause, whilst at other times there is no pause at all, or else several small pauses. An example is that miracle, the first rondel of ‘Merciles Beaute’ — to me the only perfect rondel in the English language:
Your eyen two wol slee me sodenly,
I may the beaute of hem not sustene,
So woundeth hit through-out my herte kene.
And but your word wol helen hastily
My hertes wounde, why! that hit is grene,
Your eyen two wol slee me sodenly,
I may the beaute of hem not sustene.
Upon my trouthe I sey yow feithfully,
That ye ben of my lyf and deeth the quene;
For with my deeth the trouthe shal be sene.
Your eyen two wol slee me sodenly,
I may the beaute of hem not sustene,
So woundeth hit through-out my herte kene.
The English rondel is usually a giggling, trivial horror; but this poem has a most clear, noble, and grave beauty.
Turning from this, let us consider the variations, the peculiar softness and sweetness given by the pauses changing from line to line, in number, in length, in depth, — sometimes rising, sometimes stretching faintly outward, sometimes dropping), and, too, by the faint dissonances of ‘softe’ and ‘cougheth’, and the deeper dissonances of ‘semysoun’ and ‘honeycomb’ in these lines:
And softe he cougheth with a semysoun:
What do ye, hony-comb, sweete Alisoun,
My faire bryd, my sweete cynamome.
Here the actual texture is affected by the pauses. Part of the beauty is due, also, to the marvellously managed, sweet s and c sounds, and to the fact that the second syllable of ‘cynamome’, coming after the high-vowelled first syllable, has a soft dropping movement.
Was that sweetness and softness the original inspiration, though not the subject, of this wonderful passage in James Joyce’s Ulysses: ‘And in New York a slack dishonoured body that once was comely, as sweet, as fresh, as cinnamon, now her leaves falling, all, bare, frighted of the narrow grave and unforgiven’?
Chaucer has been accused, by persons incapable of hearing subtleties of difference, of a lack of variety. But how great are the differences in these two fragments from ‘Troilus and Criseyede’:
O sterre, of which I lost have al the light,
With herte soor wel oughte I to biwaille,
That evere derk in torment, nyght by nyght,
Toward my deth with wind in steere I saille;
For which the tenthe nyght, if that I faille,
The gydyng of thi bemes bright an houre
My ship and me Caribdis wol devoure.
This song whan he thus songen hadde, soone
He fel ayeyn into his sikkes olde.
In this wonderful fragment the vowels that are at once dark and shining, like water seen by clear moonlight (and this is not a matter of association only) — of ‘sterre’, ‘herte’, ‘derk’ — these assonances alternating with the faint cloudiness of the vowels in ‘deth’, ‘tenthe’, — these changing again to the long bright clear vowels of ‘light’, ‘nyght’, ‘bright’,— (and these latter are the high points of the scheme) — the handling of these assonances, and the alliterations, give a flawless beauty to the movement.
The consonants are never thick or heavy.
In the ‘ardent harmony, the heat of spiritual life guiding the movement’ of the second fragment quoted below, there is more body. This supreme magnificence is indeed a song of the morning.
PLESAUNCE OF LOVE
O blisful light, of whiche the bemes clere
Adorneth all the thridde hevene faire!
O sonnes lief, O Joves doughter dere,
Plesaunce of love, O goodly debonaire,
In gentil hertes ay redy to repaire!
O verray cause of hele and of gladnesse,
I-heried be thy myght and thy goodnesse!
In hevene and helle, in erthe and salte see
Is felt thi myght, if that I wel descerne;
As man, brid, best, fissh, herbe, and grene tree
Thee fele in tymes with vapour eterne.
God loveth, and to love wol nought werne;
And in this world no lyves creature
With-outen love is worth, or may endure.
Ye Joves first to thilke effectes glade,
Thorugh which that thynges liven alle and be,
Comeveden, and amorous him made
On mortal thing, and as yow list, ay ye
Yeve hym in love ese or adversitee;
And in a thousand formes doun hym sente
For love in erthe, and whom yow liste, he hente.
Ye fierse Mars apeysen of his ire,
And as yow list, ye maken hertes digne;
Algates, hem that ye wol sette a-fyre,
They dreden shame, and vices they resygne;
Ye do hem corteys be, fresshe and benigne,
And hye or lowe, after a wight entendeth,
The joies that he hath, youre myght him sendeth.
Ye holden regne and hous in unitee;
Ye sothfast cause of frendship ben also;
Ye knowe al thilke covered qualitee
Of thinges which that folk on wondren so,
Whan they can not construe how it may jo,
She loveth him, or whi he loveth here,
As whi this fissh, and nought that cometh to were.
Ye folk a lawe han set in universe;
And this knowe I by hem that lovers be,
That who-so stryveth with yow hath the werse:
Now, lady bright, for thi benignite,
At reverence of hem that serven the,
Whos clerk I am, so techeth me devyse
Som joye of that is felt in this servyse.
Ye in my naked herte sentement
Inhielde, and do me shewe of thy swetnesse. —
Caliope, thi vois be now present,
For now is nede; sestow not my destresse,
How I mot telle anon-right the gladnesse
Of Troilus, to Venus heryinge?
To which gladnes, who nede hath, God him bringe!
GLOSSARY.— Hele: health. Werne: refuse. Thilke: that same. Comeveden: didst instigate. Yeve: give. Hente: seized. Algates: in every way. Jo: how it may come about. Were: weir. Inhielde: pair in.
In another song of Troilus, ‘O Cruel Day’, the first two lines are deliberately harsh and cacophonous, with the hard, wooden, clacking sound of ‘cock’. ‘commune’, and the ‘crowe’ of the second line. The whole passage is, deliberately, singularly harsh and dissonantal.
But whan the cok, comune astrologer,
Gan on his brest to bete and after crowe,
And Lucifer, the dayes messager,
Gan for to ryse, and out hire bemes throwe,
And estward roos, to hym that koude it knowe,
Fortuna Major, that anoon Criseyde,
With herte soor, to Troilus thus seyde:
‘Myn hertes lif, my trist, and my plesaunce,
That I was born, allas, what me is wo,
That day of us mot make desseveraunce!
For tyme it is to ryse and hennes go,
Or ellis I am lost for evere-mo!
O nyght, alias! why nyltow over us hove,
As longe as whan Almena lay by Jove?
‘O blake nyght, as folk in bokes rede,
That shapen art by God this world to hyde
At certeyn tymes wyth thi derke wede,
That under that men myghte in reste abide,
Wel oughten bestes pleyne, and folk the chide,
That there as day wyth labour wolde us breste,
That thow thus fleest, and deynest us nought reste.
‘Thow dost, allas! to shortly thyn offyce,
Thow rakel nyght, ther God, maker of kynde,
The, for thyn haste and thyn unkynde vyce,
So faste ay to oure hemi-sperie bynde,
That nevere more under the ground thou wynde
For now, for thou so hyest out of Troye,
Have I forgon thus hastily my joye!’
This Troilus, that with tho wordes felte,
As thoughte him tho, for piëtous distresse,
The blody teris from his herte melte,
As he that nevere yet swich hevynesse
Assayed hadde, out of so gret gladnesse,
Gan therwithal Criseyde, his lady dere,
In armes streyne, and seyde in this manere:
‘O cruel day, accusour of the joye
That nyght and love han stole and faste y-wryen,
A-cursed be thi comyng into Troye,
For every bore hath oon of thi bryghte yën!
Envyous day, what list thee so to spien?
What hastow lost, why sekestow this place,
Ther God thi light so quenche, for his grace?
‘Allas! what have thise loveris thee agilt,
Dispitous day? Thyn be the peyne of helle!
For many a lovere hastow slayn, and wilt;
Thy pourynge in wol nowher lat hem dwelle.
What profrestow thi lyght here for to selle?
Go selle it hem that smale selys grave;
We wol the nought, us nedeth no day have.’
And eek the sonne Tytan, gan he chyde,
And seyde, ‘O fool, wel may men thee dispyse,
That hast the dawying al nyght by thi syde,
And suffrest hir so soone up fro thee rise,
For to disese loveris in this wyse.
What! holde youre bed ther, thow, and ek thi Morwe!
I bidde God, so yeve yow bothe sorwe.’
Therwith ful sore he syghte, and thus he seyde:
‘My lady right, and of my wele or wo
The welle and roote, O goodly myn, Criseyde,
And shal I ryse, alias, and shal I so?
Now fele I that myn herte moot a-two.
For how sholde I my lyf an houre save,
Syn that with yow is al the lyf ich have?
‘What shal I doon? For, certes, I not how,
Ne whan, allas! I shal the tyme see
That in this plyt I may ben eft with yow.
And of my lyf, God woot how that shal be,
Syn that desyr right now so byteth me,
That I am deed anoon, but I retourne.
How sholde I longe, allas, fro yow sojourne?
‘But natheles, myn owen lady bright,
Yit were it so that I wiste outrely
That I, youre humble servaunt and youre knyght,
Were in your herte set so fermely
As ye in myn, the which thyng, trewely,
Me levere were than thise worldes tweyne,
Yet sholde I bet enduren al my peyne.’
To that Criseyde answerde right anoon,
And with a syk she seyde, ‘O herte deere,
The game, y-wys, so ferforth now is goon,
That first shal Phebus fallen fro his spere,
And everich egle been the dowves fere,
And every roche out of his place sterte,
Er Troilus out of Criseydes herte.
GLOSSARY.— Hove: abide. Breste: afflict. Bore; hole. Outrely: utterly. Me levere: I would rather.
Chaucer, when he wrote of love, had that ‘sublimity in tenderness’ that Swinburne, with truth, said was the reason of Wordworth’s genius at its highest. Chaucer had also the sublimity in sweetness which Wordsworth had not, and which is one of the rarest of qualities. Yet, although Chaucer had all the lightness and brightness of a fiery spirit, as Swinburne said of Nashe, he has not, like Wordsworth, seen the Burning Bush.
Indeed, Chaucer’s was a different sublimity and a different tenderness from that of Wordsworth. The sublimity and tenderness of Wordsworth were those of a man who had learned godship, who had worked that he might attain it, — teaching and healing with wise and soothing words his little child the dust. The sublimity and tenderness of Chaucer, whose love-poems are among the most noble, most gentle, most moving, and most honey-sweet of our language, neither teach nor heal. They are not those of a god who had once been a man, they are those of a gentle giant who has retained all his humanity and whose preferred companions are men. If he writes of the poor, he has the sweet compassion of the warm human giant for the little, the cold, the hungry. But when Villon writes of hunger, of cold, he is in the centre of the tragedy; — it is not a case of compassion: he too has been destitute, naked,’ dénué’ as the worm, cold as the skeleton, with that chill which is brought about by starvation and want:
Derechef je laisse en pitié
Á trois petits enfants tous nus
Nommés en ce présent traitié,
Pauvres orphelins impervus,
Tous déchauffés, tous dépourvus,
Et dénués comme le ver,
J’ordonne qu’ils soient pourvus
Au moins pour passer cet hiver.
Premièrement Colin Laurent,
Gérard Gossouin, et Jean Marceau,
Dépourvus de bien, de parents,
Qui n’ont vaillant l’anse d’un seau,
Chacun de mes biens, un faisceau,
Ou quatre blancs, s’ils aiment mieux:
Ils mangeront maint bon morceau,
Les enfants, quand ils seront vieux.
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Item, je laisse aux hospitaux
Mes chassis tissus d’araignée;
Et aux gisants sous les ètaux,
Chacun sur œil une grognée:
Trembler à chére refrognée,
Maigres, velus et morfondus,
Chausses courtes, robe rognée,
Gelés, meurtris et enfondus.
GLOSSARY.— Derechef: again. Traitié: agreement. Dépourvus: destitute. Qui n’ont vaillant l’anse d’un seau: (proverb) possessing nothing. Chassis: folding bedstead. Tissus d’araignée: with bedclothes made out of a spider’s web. Grognée: blow. Trembler à chére refrognée: I bequeath them the shiver brought about by starvation and want. Velus: shaggy. Morfondus: chilled and wasted. Chausses: stockings. Rognée: cut short, pared, eaten away. Enfondus (a Poictevan word): drenched through by the rain.
Villon was a companion of Tom Rynosseros. He is a poet of the thick Cimmerian darkness, the smoke and fume of which, however, is spread by flame, arises from real heat and fire.
But Chaucer — and this is true, also, of the lesser English and Scottish poets of his time (see the Note on John Gower, page 79) — is a poet of light. It is interesting to compare the peculiar shining quality of Chaucer with the lucency of Marlowe. The former glitters, like dew upon a forest under the sun. The latter has a still, bright lucency like that upon still water, or a ‘faint eternal eventide of gems’.
Chaucer knew nothing of the black powers that rule the world, or the dark places of the heart. It was to the sweet things of the earth, and ‘the blisful light,’ to an earthy god of growing things, that this gentle giant knelt ‘with dredful hart and glad devocioun’.