Book: Dreamthorp

A >> Alexander Smith >> Dreamthorp




There is a grave and gentle Knight, who has fought in many wars, and
who has many a time hurled his adversary down in tournament before the
eyes of all the ladies there, and who has taken the place of honour at
many a mighty feast. There, riding beside him, is a blooming Squire,
his son, fresh as the month of May, singing day and night from very
gladness of heart,--an impetuous young fellow, who is looking forward
to the time when he will flesh his maiden sword, and shout his first
war-cry in a stricken field. There is an Abbot, mounted on a brown
steed. He is middle-aged, his bald crown shines like glass, and his
face looks as if it were anointed with oil. He has been a valiant
trencher-man at many a well-furnished feast. Above all things, he
loves hunting; and when he rides, men can hear his bridle ringing in
the whistling wind loud and clear as a chapel bell. There is a thin,
ill-conditioned Clerk, perched perilously on a steed as thin and
ill-conditioned as himself. He will never be rich, I fear. He is a
great student, and would rather have a few books bound in black and red
hanging above his bed than be sheriff of the county. There is a
Prioress, so gentle and tender-hearted that she weeps if she hears the
whimper of a beaten hound, or sees a mouse caught in a trap. There
rides the laughing Wife of Bath, bold-faced and fair. She is an adept
in love-matters. Five husbands already "she has fried in their own
grease" till they were glad to get into their graves to escape the
scourge of her tongue. Heaven rest their souls, and swiftly send a
sixth! She wears a hat large as a targe or buckler, brings the
artillery of her eyes to bear on the young Squire, and jokes him about
his sweetheart. Beside her is a worthy Parson, who delivers faithfully
the message of his Master. Although he is poor, he gives away the half
of his tithes in charity. His parish is waste and wide, yet if
sickness or misfortune should befall one of his flock, he rides, in
spite of wind, or rain, or thunder, to administer consolation. Among
the crowd rides a rich Franklin, who sits in the Guildhall on the dais.
He is profuse and hospitable as summer. All day his table stands in
the hall covered with meats and drinks, and every one who enters is
welcome. There is a Ship-man, whose beard has been shaken by many a
tempest, whose cheek knows the kiss of the salt sea spray; a Merchant,
with a grave look, clean and neat in his attire, and with plenty of
gold in his purse. There is a Doctor of Physic, who has killed more
men than the Knight, talking to a Clerk of Laws. There is a merry
Friar, a lover of good cheer; and when seated in a tavern among his
companions, singing songs it would be scarcely decorous to repeat, you
may see his eyes twinkling in his head for joy, like stars on a frosty
night. Beside him is a ruby-faced Sompnour, whose breath stinks of
garlic and onions, who is ever roaring for wine,--strong wine, wine red
as blood; and when drunk, he disdains English,--nothing but Latin will
serve his turn. In front of all is a Miller, who has been drinking
over-night, and is now but indifferently sober. There is not a door in
the country that he cannot break by running at it with his head. The
pilgrims are all ready, the host gives the word, and they defile
through the arch. The Miller blows his bagpipes as they issue from the
town; and away they ride to Canterbury, through the boon sunshine, and
between the white hedges of the English May.

Had Chaucer spent his whole life in seeking, he could not have selected
a better contemporary circumstance for securing variety of character
than a pilgrimage to Canterbury. It comprises, as we see, all kinds
and conditions of people. It is the fourteenth-century England in
little. In our time, the only thing that could match it in this
respect is Epsom down on the great race-day. But then Epsom down is
too unwieldy; the crowd is too great, and it does not cohere, save for
the few seconds when gay jackets are streaming towards the
winning-post. The Prologue to the "Canterbury Tales," in which we make
the acquaintance of the pilgrims, is the ripest, most genial and
humourous, altogether the most masterly thing which Chaucer has left
us. In its own way, and within its own limits, it is the most
wonderful thing in the language. The people we read about are as real
as the people we brush clothes with in the street,--nay, much _more_
real; for we not only see their faces, and the fashion and texture of
their garments, we know also what they think, how they express
themselves, and with what eyes they look out on the world. Chaucer's
art in this Prologue is simple perfection. He indulges in no
irrelevant description, he airs no fine sentiments, he takes no special
pains as to style or poetic ornament; but every careless touch tells,
every sly line reveals character; the description of each man's
horse-furniture and array reads like a memoir. The Nun's pretty oath
bewrays her. We see the bold, well-favoured countenance of the Wife of
Bath beneath her hat, as "broad as a buckler or a targe"; and the horse
of the Clerk, "as lean as is a rake," tells tales of his master's
cheer. Our modern dress is worthless as an indication of the
character, or even of the social rank, of the wearer; in the olden time
it was significant of personal tastes and appetites, of profession, and
condition of life generally. See how Chaucer brings out a character by
touching merely on a few points of attire and personal appearance:--

"I saw his sleeves were purfiled at the hand
With fur, and that the finest of the land;
And for to fasten his hood under his chin
He had of gold ywrought a curious pin.
A love-knot in the greater end there was;
His head was bald, and shone as any glass,
And eke his face as if it was anoint."

What more would you have? You could not have known the monk better if
you had lived all your life in the monastery with him. The sleeves
daintly purfiled with fur give one side of him, the curious pin with
the love-knot another, and the shining crown and face complete the
character and the picture. The sun itself could not photograph more
truly.

On their way the pilgrims tell tales, and these are as various as their
relaters; in fact, the Prologue is the soil out of which they all grow.
Dramatic propriety is everywhere instinctively preserved. "The
Knight's Tale" is noble, splendid, and chivalric as his own nature; the
tale told by the Wife of Bath is exactly what one would expect. With
what good-humour the rosy sinner confesses her sins! how hilarious she
is in her repentance! "The Miller's Tale" is coarse and
full-flavoured,--just the kind of thing to be told by a rough,
humourous fellow who is hardly yet sober. And here it may be said that
although there is a good deal of coarseness in the "Canterbury Tales,"
there is not the slightest tinge of pruriency. There is such a
single-heartedness and innocence in Chaucer's vulgarest and broadest
stories, such a keen eye for humour, and such a hearty enjoyment of it,
and at the same time such an absence of any delight in impurity for
impurity's sake, that but little danger can arise from their perusal.
He is so fond of fun that he will drink it out of a cup that is only
indifferently clean. He writes often like Fielding, he never writes as
Smollett sometimes does. These stories, ranging from the noble romance
of Palamon and Arcite to the rude intrigues of Clerk Nicholas,--the one
fitted to draw tears down the cheeks of noble ladies and gentlemen; the
other to convulse with laughter the midriffs of illiterate
clowns,--give one an idea of the astonishing range of Chaucer's powers.
He can suit himself to every company, make himself at home in every
circumstance of life; can mingle in tournaments where beauty is leaning
from balconies, and the knights, with spear in rest, wait for the blast
of the trumpet; and he can with equal ease sit with a couple of drunken
friars in a tavern laughing over the confessions they hear, and singing
questionable catches between whiles. Chaucer's range is wide as that
of Shakspeare,--if we omit that side of Shakspeare's mind which
confronts the other world, and out of which Hamlet sprang,--and his men
and women are even more real, and more easily matched in the living and
breathing world. For in Shakspeare's characters, as in his language,
there is surplusage, superabundance; the measure is heaped and running
over. From his sheer wealth, he is often the most _un_dramatic of
writers. He is so frequently greater than his occasion, he has no
small change to suit emergencies, and we have guineas in place of
groats. Romeo is more than a mortal lover, and Mercutio more than a
mortal wit; the kings in the Shakspearian world are more kingly than
earthly sovereigns; Rosalind's laughter was never heard save in the
Forest of Arden. His madmen seem to have eaten of some "strange root."
No such boon companion as Falstaff ever heard chimes at midnight. His
very clowns are transcendental, with scraps of wisdom springing out of
their foolishest speech. Chaucer, lacking Shakspeare's excess and
prodigality of genius, could not so gloriously err, and his creations
have a harder, drier, more realistic look, are more like the people we
hear uttering ordinary English speech, and see on ordinary country
roads against an ordinary English sky. If need were, any one of them
could drive pigs to market. Chaucer's characters are individual
enough, their idiosyncrasies are sharply enough defined, but they are
to some extent literal and prosaic; they are of the "earth, earthy;"
out of his imagination no Ariel ever sprang, no half-human,
half-brutish Caliban ever crept. He does not effloresce in
illustrations and images, the flowers do not hide the grass; his
pictures are masterpieces, but they are portraits, and the man is
brought out by a multiplicity of short touches,--caustic, satirical,
and matter of fact. His poetry may be said to resemble an English
country road, on which passengers of different degrees of rank are
continually passing,--now knight, now boor, now abbot: Spenser's, for
instance, and all the more fanciful styles, to a tapestry on which a
whole Olympus has been wrought. The figures on the tapestry are much
the more noble-looking, it is true; but then they are dreams and
phantoms, whereas the people on the country road actually exist.

The "Knight's Tale"--which is the first told on the way to
Canterbury--is a chivalrous legend, full of hunting, battle, and
tournament. Into it, although the scene is laid in Greece, Chaucer
has, with a fine scorn of anachronism, poured all the splendour,
colour, pomp, and circumstance of the fourteenth century. It is
brilliant as a banner displayed to the sunlight. It is real cloth of
gold. Compared with it, "Ivanhoe" is a spectacle at Astley's. The
style is everywhere more adorned than is usual, although even here, and
in the richest parts, the short, homely, caustic Chaucerian line is
largely employed. The "Man of Law's Tale," again, is distinguished by
quite a different merit. It relates the sorrows and patience of
Constance, and is filled with the beauty of holiness. Constance might
have been sister to Cordelia; she is one of the white lilies of
womanhood. Her story is almost the tenderest in our literature. And
Chaucer's art comes out in this, that although she would spread her
hair, nay, put her very heart beneath the feet of those who wrong her,
we do not cease for one moment to respect her. This is a feat which
has but seldom been achieved. It has long been a matter of reproach to
Mr. Thackeray, for instance, that the only faculty with which he gifts
his good women is a supreme faculty of tears. To draw any very high
degree of female patience is one of the most difficult of tasks. If
you represent a woman bearing wrong with a continuous unmurmuring
meekness, presenting to blows, come from what quarter they may, nothing
but a bent neck, and eyelids humbly drooped, you are in nine cases out
of ten painting elaborately the portrait of a fool; and if you miss
making her a fool, you are certain to make her a bore. Your patient
woman, in books and in life, does not draw on our gratitude. When her
goodness is not stupidity,--which it frequently is,--it is insulting.
She walks about an incarnate rebuke. Her silence is an incessant
complaint. A teacup thrown at your head is not half so alarming as her
meek, much-wronged, unretorting face. You begin to suspect that she
consoles herself with the thought that there is another world, where
brutal brothers and husbands are settled with for their behaviour to
their angelic wives and sisters in this. Chaucer's Constance is
neither fool nor bore, although in the hands of anybody else she would
have been one or the other, or both. Like the holy religion which she
symbolises, her sweet face draws blessing and love wherever it goes; it
heals old wounds with its beauty, it carries peace into the heart of
discord, it touches murder itself into soft and penitential tears. In
reading the old tender-hearted poet, we feel that there is something in
a woman's sweetness and forgiveness that the masculine mind cannot
fathom; and we adore the hushed step and still countenance of Constance
almost as if an angel passed.

Chaucer's orthography is unquestionably uncouth at first sight; but it
is not difficult to read if you keep a good glossary beside you for
occasional reference, and are willing to undergo a little trouble. The
language is antique, but it is full of antique flavour. Wine of
excellent vintage originally, it has improved through all the years it
has been kept. A very little trouble on the reader's part, in the
reign of Anne, would have made him as intelligible as Addison; a very
little more, in the reign of Queen Victoria, will make him more
intelligible than Mr. Browning. Yet somehow it has been a favourite
idea with many poets that he required modernisation, and that they were
the men to do it. Dryden, Pope, and Wordsworth have tried their hands
on him. Wordsworth performed his work in a reverential enough spirit;
but it may be doubted whether his efforts have brought the old poet a
single new reader. Dryden and Pope did not translate or modernise
Chaucer, they committed assault and battery upon him. They turned his
exquisitely _naive_ humour into their own coarseness, they put _doubles
entendre_ into his mouth, they blurred his female faces,--as a picture
is blurred when the hand of a Vandal is drawn over its yet wet
colours,--and they turned his natural descriptions into the natural
descriptions of "Windsor Forest" and the "Fables." The grand old
writer does not need translation or modernisation; but perhaps, if it
be done at all, it had better be reached in that way. For the benefit
of younger readers, I subjoin short prose versions of two of the
"Canterbury Tales,"--a story-book than which the world does not possess
a better. Listen, then, to the tale the Knight told as the pilgrims
rode to Canterbury:--

"There was once, as old stories tell, a certain Duke Theseus, lord and
governor of Athens. The same was a great warrior and conqueror of
realms. He defeated the Amazons, and wedded the queen of that country,
Hypolita. After his marriage, the duke, his wife, and his sister
Emily, with all their host, were riding towards Athens, when they were
aware that a company of ladies, clad in black, were kneeling two by two
on the highway, wringing their hands and filling the air with
lamentations. The duke, beholding this piteous sight, reined in his
steed and inquired the reason of their grief. Whereat one of the
ladies, queen to the slain King Capeneus, told him that at the siege of
Thebes (of which town they were), Creon, the conqueror, had thrown the
bodies of their husbands in a heap, and would on no account allow them
to be buried, so that their limbs were mangled by vultures and wild
beasts. At the hearing of this great wrong, the duke started down from
his horse, took the ladies one by one in his arms and comforted them,
sent Hypolita and Emily home, displayed his great white banner, and
immediately rode towards Thebes with his host. Arriving at the city,
he attacked boldly, slew the tyrant Creon with his own hand, tore down
the houses,--wall, roof, and rafter,--and then gave the bodies to the
weeping ladies that they might be honourably interred. While searching
amongst the slain Thebans, two young knights were found grievously
wounded, and by the richness of their armour they were known to be of
the blood royal. These young knights, Palamon and Arcite by name, the
duke carried to Athens and flung into perpetual prison. Here they
lived year by year in mourning and woe. It happened one May morning
that Palamon, who by the clemency of his keeper was roaming about in an
upper chamber, looked out and beheld Emily singing in the garden and
gathering flowers. At the sight of the beautiful apparition he started
and cried, 'Ha!' Arcite rose up, crying, 'Dear cousin, what is the
matter?' when he too was stricken to the heart by the shaft of her
beauty. Then the prisoners began to dispute as to which had the better
right to love her. Palamon said he had seen her first; Arcite said
that in love each man fought for himself; and so they disputed day by
day. Now, it so happened that at this time the Duke Perotheus came to
visit his old playfellow and friend Theseus, and at his intercession
Arcite was liberated, on the condition that on pain of death he should
never again be found in the Athenian dominions. Then the two knights
grieved in their hearts. 'What matters liberty?' said Arcite,--'I am a
banished man! Palamon in his dungeon is happier than I. He can see
Emily and be gladdened by her beauty!' 'Woe is me!' said Palamon;
'here must I remain in durance. Arcite is abroad; he may make sharp
war on the Athenian border, and win Emily by the sword.' When Arcite
returned to his native city he became so thin and pale with sorrow that
his friends scarcely knew him. One night the god Mercury appeared to
him in a dream and told him to return to Athens, for in that city
destiny had shaped an end of his woes. He arose next morning and went.
He entered as a menial into the service of the Duke Theseus, and in a
short time was promoted to be page of the chamber to Emily the bright.
Meanwhile, by the help of a friend, Palamon, who had drugged his jailer
with spiced wine, made his escape, and, as morning began to dawn, he
hid himself in a grove. That very morning Arcite had ridden from
Athens to gather some green branches to do honour to the month of May,
and entered the grove in which Palamon was concealed. When he had
gathered his green branches he sat down, and, after the manner of
lovers (who have no constancy of spirits), he began to pour forth his
sorrows to the empty air. Palamon, knowing his voice, started up with
a white face: 'False traitor Arcite! now I have found thee. Thou hast
deceived the Duke Theseus! I am the lover of Emily, and thy mortal
foe! Had I a weapon, one of us should never leave this grove alive!'
'By God, who sitteth above!' cried the fierce Arcite, 'were it not that
thou art sick and mad for love, I would slay thee here with my own
hand! Meats, and drinks, and bedding I shall bring thee to-night,
tomorrow swords and two suits of armour: take thou the better, leave me
the worse, and then let us see who can win the lady.' 'Agreed,' said
Palamon; and Arcite rode away in great fierce joy of heart. Next
morning, at the crowing of the cock, Arcite placed two suits of armour
before him on his horse, and rode towards the grove. When they met,
the colour of their faces changed. Each thought, 'Here comes my mortal
enemy; one of us must be dead.' Then, friend-like, as if they had been
brothers, they assisted each the other to rivet on the armour; that
done, the great bright swords went to and fro, and they were soon
standing ankle-deep in blood. That same morning the Duke Theseus, his
wife, and Emily went forth to hunt the hart with hound and horn, and,
as destiny ordered it, the chase led them to the very grove in which
the knights were fighting. Theseus, shading his eyes from the sunlight
with his hand, saw them, and, spurring his horse between them, cried,
'What manner of men are ye, fighting here without judge or officer?'
Whereupon Palamon said, 'I am that Palamon who has broken your prison;
this is Arcite the banished man, who, by returning to Athens, has
forfeited his head. Do with us as you list. I have no more to say.'
'You have condemned yourselves!' cried the duke; 'by mighty Mars the
red, both of you shall die!' Then Emily and the queen fell at his
feet, and, with prayers and tears and white hands lifted up, besought
the lives of the young knights, which was soon granted. Theseus began
to laugh when he thought of his own young days. 'What a mighty god is
Love!' quoth he. 'Here are Palamon and Arcite fighting for my sister,
while they know she can only marry one, Fight they ever so much, she
cannot marry both. I therefore ordain that both of you go away, and
return this day year, each bringing with him a hundred knights; and let
the victor in solemn tournament have Emily for wife.' Who was glad now
but Palamon! who sprang up for joy but Arcite!

"When the twelve months had nearly passed away, there was in Athens a
great noise of workmen and hammers. The duke was busy with
preparations. He built a large amphitheatre, seated, round and round,
to hold thousands of people. He erected also three temples,--one for
Diana, one for Mars, one for Venus; how rich these were, how full of
paintings and images, the tongue cannot tell! Never was such
preparation made in the world. At last the day arrived in which the
knights were to make their entrance into the city. A noise of trumpets
was heard, and through the city rode Palamon and his train. With him
came Lycurgus, the king of Thrace. He stood in a great car of gold,
drawn by four white bulls, and his face was like a griffin when he
looked about. Twenty or more hounds used for hunting the lion and the
bear ran about the wheels of his car; at his back rode a hundred lords,
stern and stout. Another burst of trumpets, and Arcite entered with
his troop. By his side rode Emetrius, the king of India, on a bay
steed covered with cloth of gold. His hair was yellow, and glittered
like the sun; when he looked upon the people, they thought his face was
like the face of a lion; his voice was like the thunder of a trumpet.
He bore a white eagle on his wrist, and tame lions and leopards ran
among the horses of his train. They came to the city on a Sunday
morning, and the jousts were to begin on Monday. What pricking of
squires backwards and forwards, what clanking of hammers, what baying
of hounds, that day! At last it was noon of Monday. Theseus declared
from his throne that no blood was to be shed, that they should take
prisoners only, and that he who was once taken prisoner should on no
account again mingle in the fray. Then the duke, the queen, Emily, and
the rest, rode to the lists with trumpets and melody. They had no
sooner taken their places than through the gate of Mars rode Arcite and
his hundred, displaying a red banner. At the self-same moment Palamon
and his company entered by the gate of Venus, with a banner white as
milk. They were then arranged in two ranks, their names were called
over, the gates were shut, the herald gave his cry, loud and clear rang
the trumpet, and crash went the spears, as if made of glass, when the
knights met in battle shock. There might you see a knight unhorsed, a
second crushing his way through the press, armed with a mighty mace, a
third hurt and taken prisoner. Many a time that day in the swaying
battle did the two Thebans meet, and thrice were they unhorsed. At
last, near the setting of the sun, when Palamon was fighting with
Arcite, he was wounded by Emetrius, and the battle thickened at the
place. Emetrius, is thrown out of his saddle a spear's length.
Lycurgus is overthrown, and rolls on the ground, horse and man; and
Palamon is dragged by main force to the stake. Then Theseus rose up
where he sat, and cried, 'Ho! no more; Arcite of Thebes hath won
Emily!' at which the people shouted so loudly that it almost seemed the
mighty lists would fall. Arcite now put up his helmet, and, curveting
his horse through the open space, smiled to Emily, when a fire from
Pluto started out of the earth; the horse shied, and his rider was
thrown on his head on the ground. When he was lifted, his breast was
broken, and his face was as black as coal. Then there was grief in
Athens; every one wept. Soon after, Arcite, feeling the cold death
creeping up from his feet and darkening his face and eyes, called
Palamon and Emily to his bedside, when he joined their hands, and died.
The dead body was laid on a pile, dressed in splendid war gear; his
naked sword was placed by his side; the pile was heaped with gums,
frankincense, and odours; a torch was applied; and when the flames rose
up, and the smoky fragrance rolled to heaven, the Greeks galloped round
three times, with a great shouting and clashing of shields."

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