Geoffrey Chaucer

“ If anything about the House of Fame is clear at all, it is that (as Ten Brink so clearly points out, in his Studien, p. 89) the influence of Dante is more obvious in this poem than in any other. I would even go further and say that it is the only poem which owes its chief inspiration to Dante in the whole of English literature during, at least, the Middle-English period. ”

“ Want of leisure renders it impossible for me to give to others their due meed of recognition in many instances; for I have often found it less troublesome to consult original authorities for myself than to hunt up what others have said relative to the passage under consideration.
I have relegated Poems no. XXI., XXII., and XXIII. to an Appendix, because they are not expressly attributed to Chaucer in the MSS. Such evidence has its value, but it is possible to make too much of it; and I agree with Dr. Koch, that, despite the MSS., the genuineness of no XX. is doubtful ”

“ Furnivall, Professor Ten Brink, Dr. Koch, Dr. Willert, Max Lange, Rambeau, and various contributors to the publications of the Chaucer Society; and though I have consulted for myself such books as Le Roman de la Rose, the Teseide, the Thebaid of Statius, the poems of Machault, and a great many more, and have inserted in the Notes a large number of references which I discovered, or re-discovered, for myself, I beg leave distinctly to disclaim any merit, not doubting that most of what I have said may very likely have been said by others, and said better. ”

“ It has been usual, in editions of Chaucer's Works, to mingle with those which he is known to have written, a heterogeneous jumble of poems by Gower, Lydgate, Hoccleve, Henrysoun, and various anonymous writers (some of quite late date) , and then to accept a quotation from any one of them as being a quotation 'from Chaucer.' Some principle of selection is obviously desirable; and the first question that arises is, naturally, this: which of the Minor Poems are genuine? ”

“ I cannot believe that the poem entitled The Lamentation of Marie Magdaleine, which is in all the [older] editions of Chaucer, is really that work of his. It can hardly be considered as a translation, or even as an imitation, of the Homily; and the composition, in every respect, is infinitely meaner than the worst of his genuine pieces.' To those who are interested in Chaucer's rimes I will merely point out the following: die, why (Ch. dy-e, why) ”

“ Now, in the first note on Anelida and Arcite, it is explained how this story of Palamon and Arcite was necessarily translated, more or less closely, from Boccaccio's Teseide, and was doubtless written in the 7-line stanza; also that fragments of it are preserved to us (1) in sixteen stanzas of the Parliament of Foules, (2) in the first ten stanzas of Anelida, and (3) in three stanzas of Troilus. At a later period, the whole poem was re-written in a different metre, and now forms the Knightes Tale. ”

“ The Balade 'To Rosamounde' is assigned to Chaucer in the unique copy of it in the Rawlinson MS. 'A Compleint to his Lady' is assigned to Chaucer in the only complete copy of it.
We ought also to assign some value to the manner in which the poems appear in the MS. copies. This can only be appreciated by inspection of the MSS. themselves. Any one who will look for himself at the copies of Gentilesse, Lak of Stedfastnesse, Truth, and Against Women Inconstaunt in MS. Cotton, Cleop. D. 7, will see that the scribe clearly regarded the last of these as genuine, as well as the rest. ”

“ The Furies urge on the combatants to war; and at this crisis, the only power who can overrule them is Pietas, personified by Statius for this express purpose (ll. 458, 465, 466) . The struggle between Pity and Cruelty in Chaucer's poem is parallel to the struggle between Pietas and the fury Tisiphone as told in Statius. Pity is called Herines quene, or queen of the Furies, because she alone is supposed to be able to control them. See my notes to ll. 57, 64, and 92.
The poem is extant in nine MSS. It is attributed to Chaucer by Shirley in MS. 'Sh.,' and the internal evidence confirms this. ”

“ Chaucer's Dream. A long poem of 2206 short lines, in metre similar to that of The House of Fame; accepted by Tyrwhitt, and in all the editions. But there is no early trace of it; and we are not bound to accept as Chaucer's a poem first ascribed to him in 1598, and of which the MS. (at Longleat) was written about 1550. The language is of late date, and the sonant final -e is decidedly scarce. The poem is badly named, and may have been so named by Speght; the proper title is 'The Isle of Ladies.' We find such rimes as be, companie (Ch. be, company-e) ; know, low, i. e. law (Ch. know-e, law-e) ”

“ The poem itself has all the smoothness of the Tudor period [34] ; it excels the style of Hawes, and would do credit to Sackville. One reference is too interesting to be passed over. In the second stanza, the poet regrets that he has neither the eloquence of Tully, the power of Virgil, nor the 'craft of Galfride.' Tyrwhitt explains Galfride as 'Geoffrey of Monmouth,' though it is difficult to understand on what ground he could have been here thought of. Bell's 'Chaucer' explains Galfride as 'Geoffrey of Vinsauf,' which is still more curious ”

“ In general, the ascription of a piece to Chaucer in a MS. is valuable. But the scribe of this particular MS. was reckless. It is he who made the mistake of marking Hoccleve's 'Mother of God' with the misleading remark—'Explicit oracio Galfridi Chaucere.' At fol. 119, back, he gives us a poem beginning 'Deuise prowes and eke humylitee' in seven 7-line stanzas, and here again at the end is the absurd remark—'Quod Chaucer quhen he was rycht auisit.' But he was himself quite 'wrongly advised'; for it is plainly not Chaucer's at all. ”

“ It is extremely difficult to determine to what extent the sentiments are artificial. If a French poem of a similar character should one day be found, it would not be very surprising. Meanwhile, it is worth observing that the notion of personifying Pity is taken from Chaucer's favourite author Statius ”

“ Furnivall, whose excellent, careful, and exact reproduction in print of the various MSS. leaves nothing to be desired, and is a great boon to all Chaucer scholars. They are nearly all [40] printed among the Chaucer Society's publications. At the same time, I desire to say that I have myself consulted most of the MSS., and have thus gleaned a few hints which could hardly have been otherwise acquired; it was by this process that I became acquainted with the poems numbered XXII. and XXIII., which are probably genuine, and with the poem numbered XII., which is certainly so. ”

“ John of Gaunt, who is represented by Shakespeare as a very old man, only lived to the age of 59; and the Black Prince died quite worn out, at the age of 46. Compare the notes to ll. 73, 76, 79, and 82.
Much new light has lately been thrown upon this poem by Dr. A. Piaget, who contributed an article to Romania, tome xix., on 'Oton de Granson et ses Poésies,' in 1890. The author succeeded in discovering a large number of Granson's poems, including, to our great gain, the three Balades of which Chaucer's 'Compleynt of Venus' is a translation. ”

“ In an Appendix to the Preface to Tyrwhitt's edition of the Canterbury Tales, there is a similar account of the early editions of Chaucer, to which the reader may refer. He quotes the whole of Caxton's preface to his second edition of the Canterbury Tales, shewing how Caxton reprinted the book because he had meanwhile come upon a more correct MS. than that which he had first followed. ”

“ Next came Speght's edition of 1598—on which William Thynne comments in his Animadversions—which added the spurious 'Dreme,' and 'Flower and Leaf.' This was followed by Speght's second edition, in 1602, in which Francis Thynne helped him, and to which were added Chaucer's 'A. B. C.', and the spurious 'Jack Upland [14] .' Jack Upland had been before printed, with Chaucer's name on the title-page, about 1536-40 (London, J. Gough, no date, 8vo.) . ”

“ No one can suppose that no. 41 is by Chaucer, seeing that the first line is—'Maister Geffray Chauser, that now lithe in graue.' Mr. Bradshaw once assured me that no. 17 is ascribed, on MS. authority, to Lydgate; and no one who reads it with care can doubt that this is correct [27] . It is, in a measure, an imitation of the Book of the Duchesse; and it contains some interesting references to Chaucer, as in the lines—'Of Arcite, or of him Palemoun,' and 'Of Thebes eke the false Arcite.' No. 20, i. e. the Testament of Love, is in prose, and does not here concern us ”

“ To weigh the evidence of a MS., it must be personally inspected by such as have had some experience.↑ Middle-English roundels are very scarce. I know of one by Hoccleve, printed by Mason in 1796, and reprinted in Todd's Illustrations, p. 372; and there is a poor one by Lydgate, in Halliwell's edition of his Minor Poems, p. 10. Two more (one being by Lydgate) are given in Ritson, Anc. Songs, i. 128, 129.↑ I do not think, as some have guessed, that 'Tregentil Chaucer' means 'Tres gentil Chaucer.' Those who think so had better look at the MS. I see no sense in it ”

“ The reference is to Boethius, bk. v. met. 5, where it is explained that quadrupeds look down upon the earth, whilst man alone looks up towards heaven; cf. lok up in l. 19 of the poem. The sense is therefore, that we should cease to look down, and learn to look up like true men; 'only the linage of man,' says Chaucer, in his translation of Boethius, 'heveth heyeste his heye heved [82] ... ”

“ Shirley's MS. contains a large number of pieces, chiefly by Lydgate. Also Chaucer's Prioresses Tale, Fortune (fol. 46) , Gentilesse (fol. 48, back) , A. B. C. (fol. 49) , and Purse (fol. 271) . The Craft of Lovers also occurs, and is dated 1459 in this copy. Poem no. 56 (p. 34) also occurs here, and is marked as Lydgate's. We also see from this MS. that the first four stanzas of no. 52 (p. 33) form part of a poem on the Fall of Man, in which Truth, Mercy, Righteousness, and Peace are introduced as allegorical personages. ”

“ Tyrwhitt shews, in note n to his 'Appendix to the Preface,' that she must have died not later than 1370, whereas this Balade must be much later than that date; and I agree with him in supposing that le Dit de la fleur de lis et de la Marguerite, by Guillaume de Machault (printed in Tarbé's edition, 1849, p. 123) , and the Dittié de la flour de la Margherite, by Froissart, may furnish us with the true key to those mystical compliments which Chaucer and others were accustomed to pay to the daisy. ”

“ K 2, col. 1, and fol. R 2, back, col. 2. Hence we are not surprised to find that the author makes frequent reference to Chaucer's Works, viz. to Anelida (l. 235) , the Death of Pity (701) , Troilus (872) , the Legend of Good Women (104, 873) , and the Parl. of Foules (near the end) . The two allusions to the Legend of Good Women at once make the poem later than 1385; and in fact, it must be quite a century later than that date. There are more than 70 rimes that differ from those employed by Chaucer. The Poet introduces to our notice personages named Philogenet, Philobone, and Rosial. ”

“ These are (1) Gentilesse; (2) Lak of Stedfastnesse; (3) Truth; and (4) Against Women Unconstaunt. As three of these are admittedly genuine, there is evidence that the fourth is the same. We may also notice that, in this MS., the poems on Lak of Stedfastnesse and Against Women Unconstaunt are not far apart. On searching MS. Ha. (Harl. 7578) , I again found three of these poems in company, viz. (1) Gentilesse; (2) Lak of Stedfastnesse; and (3) Against Women Unconstaunt; the last being, in my view, precisely in its right place. (This copy of the poem was unknown to me in 1887.) ”

“ Morley, in his new edition of his English Writers, still clings to the notion of 'the Court of Love' being Chaucer's. It is sufficient to say that, after 1385, Chaucer's poems are of a far higher order, especially as regards correctness of idiom and rhythm. Our knowledge of the history of the English language has made some advance of late years, and it is no longer possible to ignore all the results of linguistic criticism.↑ A great peculiarity of this poem is the astonishing length, of the sentences. Many of them run to fifty lines or more. As to the MS., see Thynne's Animadversions, ed. ”

“ Ladies [1] , the book of the Duchesse, the book of seint Valentynes day of the parlement of briddes ... the book of the Leoun ... and many a song,' &c.
Besides this, in the House of Fame, l. 729, he mentions his own name, viz. 'Geffrey.' We thus may be quite certain as to the genuineness of this poem, the longest and most important of all the Minor Poems [2] , and we may at once add to the list the Book of the Duchesse, the next in order of length, and the Parliament of Foules, which is the third in the same order. ”

“ The order of the Garter was established in 1349; and we should expect that more than half a century would elapse before it would be natural to refer to the Knights as old knights, who did worthily in their time. ”