Canterbury Tales and Other Poems by Geoffrey Chaucer (best summer reads .TXT) 📕

of the Greeks (Mercurius of the Romans) had the surname “Cyllenius,” from the mountain where he was born — Mount Cyllene, in Arcadia; and the alteration into “Ballenus” would be quite within the range of a copyist’s capabilities, while we find in the mythological character of Hermes enough to warrant his being classed with jugglers and magicians.

 

46. Limote and Colle Tregetour seem to have been famous sorcerers or jugglers, but nothing is now known of either.

 

47. Simon Magus: of whom we read in Acts viii. 9, et seqq.

 

48. “And made well more than it was

To seemen ev’rything, y-wis,

As kindly thing of Fame it is;”

i.e. It is in the nature of fame to exaggerate everything.

 

49. Corbets: the corbels, or capitals of pillars in a Gothic building; they were often carved with fantastic figures and devices.

 

50. A largess!: the cry with which heralds and pursuivants at a tournament acknowledged the gifts or largesses of the knights whose achievements they celebrated.

 

51. Nobles: gold coins of exceptional fineness. Sterlings: sterling coins; not “luxemburgs”, but stamped and authorised money. See note 9 to the Miller’s Tale and note 6 to the Prologue to the Monk’s tale.

 

52. Coat-armure: the sleeveless coat or “tabard,” on which the arms of the wearer or his lord were emblazoned.

 

53. “But for to prove in alle wise

As fine as ducat of Venise”

i.e. In whatever way it might be proved or tested, it would be found as fine as a Venetian ducat.

 

54. Lapidaire: a treatise on precious stones.

 

55. See imperial: a seat placed on the dais, or elevated portion of the hall at the upper end, where the lord and the honoured guests sat.

 

56. The starres seven: Septentrion; the Great Bear or Northern Wain, which in this country appears to be at the top of heaven.

 

57. The Apocalypse: The last book of the New Testament, also called Revelations. The four beasts are in chapter iv. 6.

 

58. “Oundy” is the French “ondoye,” from “ondoyer,” to undulate or wave.

 

59. Partridges’ wings: denoting swiftness.

 

60. Hercules lost his life with the poisoned shirt of Nessus, sent to him by the jealous Dejanira.

 

61. Of the secte Saturnine: Of the Saturnine school; so called because his history of the Jewish wars narrated many horrors, cruelties, and sufferings, over which Saturn was the presiding deity. See note 71 to the Knight’s tale.

 

62. Compare the account of the “bodies seven” given by the Canon’s Yeoman:

“Sol gold is, and Luna silver we threpe; Mars iron, Mercury quicksilver we clepe; Saturnus lead, and Jupiter is tin,

And Venus copper, by my father’s kin.”

 

63. Statius is called a “Tholosan,” because by some, among them Dante, he was believed to have been a native of Tolosa, now Toulouse. He wrote the “Thebais,” in twelve books, and the “Achilleis,” of which only two were finished.

 

64. Dares Phrygius and Dictys Cretensis were the names attached to histories of the Trojan War pretended to have been written immediately after the fall of Troy.

 

65. Lollius: The unrecognisable author whom Chaucer professes to follow in his “Troilus and Cressida,” and who has been thought to mean Boccaccio.

 

66. Guido de Colonna, or de Colempnis, was a native of Messina, who lived about the end of the thirteenth century, and wrote in Latin prose a history including the war of Troy.

 

67. English Gaufrid: Geoffrey of Monmouth, who drew from Troy the original of the British race. See Spenser’s “Faerie Queen,” book ii. canto x.

 

68. Lucan, in his “Pharsalia,” a poem in ten books, recounted the incidents of the war between Caesar and Pompey.

 

69. Claudian of Alexandria, “the most modern of the ancient poets,” lived some three centuries after Christ, and among other works wrote three books on “The Rape of Proserpine.”

 

70. Triton was a son of Poseidon or Neptune, and represented usually as blowing a trumpet made of a conch or shell; he is therefore introduced by Chaucer as the squire of Aeolus.

 

71. Sky: cloud; Anglo-Saxon, “scua;” Greek, “skia.”

 

72. Los: reputation. See note 5 to Chaucer’s Tale of Meliboeus.

 

73. Swart: black; German, “schwarz.”

 

74. Tewell: the pipe, chimney, of the furnace; French “tuyau.”

In the Prologue to The Canterbury Tales, the Monk’s head is described as steaming like a lead furnace.

 

75. Tetches: blemishes, spots; French, “tache.”

 

76. For the story of Belle Isaude see note 21 to the Assembly of Fowls.

 

77. Quern: mill. See note 6 to the Monk’s Tale.

 

78. To put an ape into one’s hood, upon his head, is to befool him; see the prologue to the Prioresses’s Tale, l.6.

 

79. Obviously Chaucer should have said the temple of Diana, or Artemis (to whom, as Goddess of the Moon, the Egyptian Isis corresponded), at Ephesus. The building, famous for its splendour, was set on fire, in B.C. 356, by Erostatus, merely that he might perpetuate his name.

 

80. “Now do our los be blowen swithe,

As wisly be thou ever blithe.” i.e.

Cause our renown to be blown abroad quickly, as surely as you wish to be glad.

 

81. The Labyrinth at Cnossus in Crete, constructed by Dedalus for the safe keeping of the Minotaur, the fruit of Pasiphae’s unnatural love.

 

82. The river Oise, an affluent of the Seine, in France.

 

83. The engine: The machines for casting stones, which in Chaucer time served the purpose of great artillery; they were called “mangonells,” “springolds,” &c.; and resembled in construction the “ballistae” and “catapultae” of the ancients.

 

84. Or it a furlong way was old: before it was older than the space of time during which one might walk a furlong; a measure of time often employed by Chaucer.

 

85. Shipmen and pilgrimes: sailors and pilgrims, who seem to have in Chaucer’s time amply warranted the proverbial imputation against “travellers’ tales.”

 

86. Pardoners: of whom Chaucer, in the Prologue to The Canterbury Tales, has given us no flattering typical portrait 87. Lath: barn; still used in Lincolnshire and some parts of the north. The meaning is, that the poet need not tell what tidings he wanted to hear, since everything of the kind must some day come out — as sooner or later every sheaf in the barn must be brought forth (to be threshed).

 

88. A somewhat similar heaping-up of people is de scribed in Spenser’s account of the procession of Lucifera (“The Faerie Queen,” book i. canto iv.), where, as the royal dame passes to her coach,

“The heaps of people, thronging in the hall, Do ride each other, upon her to gaze.”

 

TROILUS AND CRESSIDA.

 

[In several respects, the story of “Troilus and Cressida” may be regarded as Chaucer’s noblest poem. Larger in scale than any other of his individual works — numbering nearly half as many lines as The Canterbury Tales contain, without reckoning the two in prose — the conception of the poem is yet so closely and harmoniously worked out, that all the parts are perfectly balanced, and from first to last scarcely a single line is superfluous or misplaced. The finish and beauty of the poem as a work of art, are not more conspicuous than the knowledge of human nature displayed in the portraits of the principal characters. The result is, that the poem is more modern, in form and in spirit, than almost any other work of its author; the chaste style and sedulous polish of the stanzas admit of easy change into the forms of speech now current in England; while the analytical and subjective character of the work gives it, for the nineteenth century reader, an interest of the same kind as that inspired, say, by George Eliot’s wonderful study of character in “Romola.” Then, above all, “Troilus and Cressida”

is distinguished by a purity and elevation of moral tone, that may surprise those who judge of Chaucer only by the coarse traits of his time preserved in The Canterbury Tales, or who may expect to find here the Troilus, the Cressida, and the Pandarus of Shakspeare’s play. It is to no trivial gallant, no woman of coarse mind and easy virtue, no malignantly subservient and utterly debased procurer, that Chaucer introduces us. His Troilus is a noble, sensitive, generous, pure-souled, manly, magnanimous hero, who is only confirmed and stimulated in all virtue by his love, who lives for his lady, and dies for her falsehood, in a lofty and chivalrous fashion. His Cressida is a stately, self-contained, virtuous, tender-hearted woman, who loves with all the pure strength and trustful abandonment of a generous and exalted nature, and who is driven to infidelity perhaps even less by pressure of circumstances, than by the sheer force of her love, which will go on loving — loving what it can have, when that which it would rather have is for the time unattainable. His Pandarus is a gentleman, though a gentleman with a flaw in him; a man who, in his courtier-like good-nature, places the claims of comradeship above those of honour, and plots away the virtue of his niece, that he may appease the love-sorrow of his friend; all the time conscious that he is not acting as a gentleman should, and desirous that others should give him that justification which he can get but feebly and diffidently in himself. In fact, the “Troilus and Cressida” of Chaucer is the “Troilus and Cressida” of Shakespeare transfigured; the atmosphere, the colour, the spirit, are wholly different; the older poet presents us in the chief characters to noble natures, the younger to ignoble natures in all the characters; and the poem with which we have now to do stands at this day among the noblest expositions of love’s workings in the human heart and life. It is divided into five books, containing altogether 8246

lines. The First Book (1092 lines) tells how Calchas, priest of Apollo, quitting beleaguered Troy, left there his only daughter Cressida; how Troilus, the youngest brother of Hector and son of King Priam, fell in love with her at first sight, at a festival in the temple of Pallas, and sorrowed bitterly for her love; and how his friend, Cressida’s uncle, Pandarus, comforted him by the promise of aid in his suit. The Second Book (1757 lines) relates the subtle manoeuvres of Pandarus to induce Cressida to return the love of Troilus; which he accomplishes mainly by touching at once the lady’s admiration for his heroism, and her pity for his love-sorrow on her account. The Third Book (1827

lines) opens with an account of the first interview between the lovers; ere it closes, the skilful stratagems of Pandarus have placed the pair in each other’s arms under his roof, and the lovers are happy in perfect enjoyment of each other’s love and trust. In the Fourth Book (1701 lines) the course of true love ceases to run smooth; Cressida is compelled to quit the city, in ransom for Antenor, captured in a skirmish; and she sadly departs to the camp of the Greeks, vowing that she will make her escape, and return to Troy and Troilus within ten days. The Fifth Book (1869 lines) sets out by describing the court which Diomedes, appointed to escort her, pays to Cressida on the way to the camp; it traces her gradual progress from indifference to her new suitor, to incontinence with him, and it leaves the deserted Troilus dead on the field of battle, where he has sought an eternal refuge from the new grief provoked by clear proof of his mistress’s infidelity. The polish, elegance, and power of the style, and the acuteness of insight into character, which mark the poem, seem to