From ALYSOUN

Bytuene mersh and averil,

When spray beginneth to springe, The lutel foul hath hire wyl

On hyre lud to synge.
Ich libbe in love longinge
For semlokest of alle thinge.
He may me blisse bringe;
Icham in hire baundoun.

An hendy hap ichabbe yhent,

Ichot from hevene it is me sent,

From alle wymmen mi love is lent And lyht on Alysoun.

10

When woderoue springeth. This foules singeth ferly fele, And wlyteth on huere wynter wele, That al the wode ryngeth.

10

From SPRINGTIME

Lenten ys come with love to toune
With blosmen and with briddes roune;
That al this blisse bryngeth.
Dayes-eyes in this dales;
Notes suete of nyghtegales;
Uch foul song singeth.

The threstelcoc him threteth oo;
Away is huere wynter woo,

1. mersh, March. 3. lutel foul, little bird. 4. On hyre lud, in her language. 5. Ich libbe, I live. 6. semlokest, loveliest. 7. He, she. 8. Icham, I am. baundoun, power. 9. An hendy hap, etc., a delightful piece of luck I have experienced. 10. Ichot, I know. 11. lent, taken away. 12. lyht, has alighted.

Springtime. 1. Lenten, spring. 2. briddes roune, birds' song. 4. this, these. 5. suete, sweet. 6. Uch foul, each bird. song, i.e., a song. 7. threstelcoc, thrush; him threteth oo, urges them ever on. 8. huere, their. Woo, woe.

Piers the Plowman

Explanatory Notes. 1. The first selection is from the Prologue. In the first canto of the poem, the author explains the meaning of the mountain, the dale, and the fair field full of folk. A lovely lady, clothed in linen, tells him that most people care for nothing but honor; they are all busy about vanity. Truth is in the tower on the hill; the dungeon belongs to Care. The lady's name is Holy Church, guide of men to the hill of Truth. In the next three cantos is the vision of Lady Meed, who represents Reward, sometimes in a good sense, but at other times in the sense of "graft." She is taken prisoner and is to be tried before the king. Various officials visit her, pledge alle

giance, and receive gifts. The king offers her in marriage to Conscience, who refuses her. In the fifth canto Conscience preaches to the fair field full of folk. The Seven Deadly Sins acknowledge their guilt; a thousand men press forward, weeping for their sins.

2. The second selection is from the beginning of Passus (Canto) VI. This canto and the two following cantos, which complete the poem, emphasize the virtues of Love, Humility, Chastity, and the like. Many vivid portraits, drawn from life, are given. Piers will not show the way to these various searchers for Truth until he has completed his plowing. Each man must work in his own rank in society.

Questions and Topics. 1. The translation follows closely the meter and alliteration of the

original. Record in your notebook your observations on these two points. What are the differences between the verse and that of Beowulf? 2. Note evidences of the poet's observation of everyday life.

3. In the second selection many details are given concerning medieval pilgrimages. For example, the palmer's vials, crosses, and vernicle (a representation of the handkerchief of St. Veronica in Rome) give evidence ("signs") of the shrines he had visited. If you have access to Jusserand's English Wayfaring Life, prepare a report on medieval pilgrimages. If you cannot get this book, look up "pilgrimage" and "palmer" in a good encyclopedia.

4. What is the poet's opinion of pilgrimages? On what is this opinion based?

The Gospel of Matheu

1. Compare this extract with the King James version (1611) of the fifth chapter of Matthew, noting how closely they resemble each other in phraseology. Then compare the passage with that given in a modern version and note differences.

2. The Middle English plural of the verb ended in -n or -en, as in camen (line 3). Find other examples. Make any other observations you can concerning Wyclif's language as compared with modern English.

The Pearl

Explanatory Notes. For a discussion of the poem and its significance, see pages 34-35. The selection here given is from the first part of the poem. The original verse and stanza forms are retained in the translation.

Questions and Topics. 1. Describe the stanza: meter, rime, number of lines. Do all lines contain an equal number of syllables? What effects are gained by the variations?

2. Are the stanzas linked in any way?

3. Where is the poet when the dream comes to him? Where does he go, in his dream? Are the nature descriptions based on real scenes or are they imaginary? What do they represent? How do they differ from the nature descriptions in "The Seafarer"?

Cuckoo; Alysoun; Springtime; Roundel

Explanatory Notes. 1. For a discussion of lyric poetry in the Middle English period, see pages 37-38.

2. Pronounce ou as in soup; e as in they; a as in father; i as in machine. Read the verses so as to bring out the meter. To do this, pro

nounce all syllables, including final e, except that a vowel is to be elided before a following vowel. Thus, in "Springtime," line 4 is scanned: X X' X

Dayes-eyes in this dales.

Again, in Chaucer's "Roundel," "sonne" is dissyllabic, as also "foules," and "longe." Exceptions are met occasionally. For example, a long word or a phrase may be slurred or pronounced hastily, as "beginneth" ("Alysoun," line 2), which is scanned "beginth," and "driven away" ("Roundel," line 3).

3. The roundel is a French lyric form constructed according to a definite pattern. The first three lines give the theme, or motif. Two of them are repeated at the end of the second stanza, and all three at the end of the third stanza.

Chaucer's Active Life.

SUMMARY: His Vitality-His View of Life.

Chaucer's Active Life. Chaucer was both literary man and courtier. On the one hand he was a poet; on the other a diplomat, controller of the king's customs, and clerk of the king's works. Born about 1340 in London, he received what education his parents were able to give him in that city. There are few records

of his early life. In 1359 he was in France, armed as an esquire, and was taken prisoner by the French. The following year he was ransomed by the king for £16. Since by 1366 he seems to have been receiving a small annuity from the king, he probably spent the intervening years in the royal service. By 1366, also, he was apparently married to the sister of Katherine Swinford, at one time governess to the children of John of Gaunt and later his wife. Some time after this he was promoted to the rank of Esquire in the King's Household.

fells in the Port of London, and received a life pension from his patron, John of Gaunt. During the next few years he was abroad on missions to Flanders, France, and Italy. The new king, Richard II, confirmed him in his office of Controller of the Petty Customs. A short time after this, he

was allowed a deputy for the performance of his duties, so that he gained the leisure that he needed for his literary work. In 1386 he was knight of the shire for Kent.

From this brief account it will be seen that Chaucer was what we should today call a successful man of affairs. In his last years he was often in financial difficulties, despite his office of Clerk of the King's Works, to which he was appointed in 1389. His salaries and pensions were not always paid, and when the new king, Henry IV, came to the throne in 1399 Chaucer addressed to him the famous "Compleynt to his Purs," which resulted in a new and larger pension. In the same year he rented a dwelling in the garden of St. Mary's Chapel, but he was not destined to live there very long, for on the 25th of October, 1400, he died.

During the next few years Chaucer lived a busy life, with considerable travel, and with many marks of favor from the king. In 1372 he was one of three commissioners sent to Genoa to arrange for the establishment somewhere on the English coast of a market to which Italian merchants might bring goods for trade. Two years later he took a lease of a property above the gate of Aldgate, became Controller of the Custom and Subsidy of Wools, Hides, and Wool

Such is the outline of Chaucer's busy life, so far as its external relations are concerned. For the most part, our knowledge is based on old account books and government records, meager enough material for

reconstructing the biography of one of the greatest of Englishmen. He held honorable positions, and enjoyed the favor of three monarchs and the patronage of one of the most powerful of English nobles. But useful as this life was, it would not merit our study today were it simply the life of Geoffrey Chaucer, sometime Controller of the Customs and Clerk of the King's Works. That which makes every scrap of evidence concerning him interesting to us is a side of his life which no doubt seemed to his friends, perhaps to himself, the least important; for the life and work of Chaucer, like the life and works of every great poet, teach the truth of the saying of Spenser:

For deeds doe die, however noblie donne,

And thoughts of men do as themselves decay; But wise wordes, taught in numbers for to

runne,

Recorded by the Muses, live for aye.

CHAUCER THE POET

His Learning. It is probable that Chaucer had very little formal schooling. He entered upon his career as a courtier when he was very young. But this does not mean that he was a man of little learning; nothing could be further from the truth. In one of his later poems he speaks half-humorously of his habit, when his day's work in the office was done, of going home and sitting over his books as though

From a MS. of The Romance of the Rose MINSTRELS

he were a hermit. He was well versed in the science of his time, as references in his poems bear witness. His acquaintance with theological matters ranged from the "Sermon Books," or collections of exempla, to the most abstruse works. He translated a book entitled The Consolations of Philosophy, by the Roman senator Boethius, one of the most influential books of the Middle Ages. His works everywhere show acquaintance with the historians accounted authoritative in his day. He knew well the chief Latin authors, and the romances and other forms of literature popular in his time. In his first writings he was influenced by French models, and he knew personally some talented writers of that country. With the works of the great Italian writers, Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, he was acquainted, though his knowledge of them was by no means complete.

The Early Works. Chaucer's earliest poems show that he was studying the style and verse forms of contemporary French poets. He also translated the famous allegorical romance Le Roman de la Rose. This poem, as we have seen, exerted great influence because of its allegory of love, its use of a dream as the basis for a fanciful and highly elaborated vision, and its debates on love and courtship. In original poems, Chaucer showed the influence of this work on his own poetry. The Boke of the Duchess, cast in the form of a dream, is one of the few works by him that can be definitely dated, for it was written to commemorate the death of the wife of his patron, John of Gaunt, which took place in 1369.

Italian Influences. We may pass over several minor writings in order to consider a group of poems which did much to establish Chaucer's fame. Most of these are influenced by contemporary Italian writings. The first is Troilus and Criseyde, written somewhere between 1375 and 1385, a long and very dramatic poem based on an Italian work by Boccaccio, but two-thirds of it Chaucer's own. In 1382 he wrote The Parlement of Foules, in honor of the betrothal of Anne of Bohemia to Richard II. The poem shows the influence of Dante and Boccaccio, and is cast in the

WOMEN'S COSTUMES OF THE PERIOD

form of a dream, but it is also distinguished because of the appearance in it of Chaucer's genial humor. As the title indicates, the poem deals with an assembly of birds, on St. Valentine's Day, to choose their mates.

The Legend of Good Women. Legend, in the Middle Ages, referred to a story about a saint. Some time after 1382 Chaucer wrote a poem called The Legend of Good Women. The saints in this poem are those who are faithful to the god of love, and the poem consists of a series of stories about women who were "good" in this special sense. The poet begins by telling us that he loves books above everything else, except in the month of May, when "farewell my book, and my devocioun." He spends a day in the meadows, chiefly in observation of the daisies, and at night returns in a dream to the scenes of the day. The god of love appears, leading by the hand a beautiful woman who wears a crown of daisies. Following her are nineteen ladies scarcely less beautiful than their queen. The god of love reproves Chaucer for having written some things against women, as in his Troilus, and commands him to do penance by writing a "glorious legende" in honor of women faithful in love. It will be seen that here Chaucer has used a story-prologue as a frame for a series of distinct narratives, just as he did later in The Canterbury Tales.

The House of Fame. Before we pass to a consideration of his greatest work we

must mention one other poem. This is The House of Fame, written at some time between 1379 and 1384. Once more he uses the dream form; in a vision he is borne to a magical temple on whose walls he sees depicted the story of Troy. Then an eagle bears him to the House of Fame, where the fickle goddess bestows favors without regard to deserts or consistency. To some she grants fame; to others who have performed the same works she refuses the boon. The story is told with a rather cynical humor, a kindly satire that marks the maturity of his style.

THE CANTERBURY TALES

Plan of the Canterbury Tales. Perhaps it was when he was growing tired of his stories of "good" women that Chaucer hit upon the plan of writing a series of tales, with a pilgrimage to Canterbury as the background which was to give them a certain unity. Throughout the medieval period, and long after, collections of tales were immensely popular. The ancient but ever modern Arabian Nights is an example of such a collection, united by means of a story frame that tells how the stories came to be related. In Chaucer's time, the Decamerone of Boccaccio was widely known, a collection of stories told by a company of Florentine ladies and gentlemen who had fled from the city to escape the plague. In this manner Boccaccio secured the framework for his collection, and bound the tales together by comments and conversation on the part of the listeners.

Thus, in a sense, Chaucer's plan of forming a collection of his favorite stories was merely a literary convention of the time. The novel, as we understand the term, had not yet been invented; it is the greater triumph, therefore, that Chaucer, through his genius, was able to bind together his stories in such a way as to suggest the unity of plot and characterization that we expect in a sustained fiction. We may read with interest almost any of the separate tales, but we shall miss much if we leave out of account the general framework, or plot, which serves to connect the stories. It was a stroke of genius that suggested to