Geoffrey Chaucer

“ It seems invidious, in the midst of so much that is good and acceptable, to express any adverse criticism; but it is difficult to believe that the linguistic part of the work is as sound as that which is literary; and many must hope that a time may come when the author will cease to maintain that The Romaunt of the Rose, in its known form, is all the product of one author. ”

“ The Glossary has been compiled on a much larger scale than any hitherto attempted, wherein the part of speech of almost every word is duly marked, and every verbal form is sufficiently parsed. A special feature of the Glossary is the exclusion from it of non-Chaucerian words and forms; and in order to secure this result, separate Glossaries are given of the chief words occurring in Fragments B and C of the Romaunt of the Rose and in Gamelyn; and we are thus enabled to detect a marked difference in the vocabulary employed in these pieces from that which was employed by Chaucer [2] . ”

“ We have now to consider the possibility, that Chaucer sometimes dropped the initial syllable of the latter part of a line, after the caesura; a licence of which Lydgate availed himself to a painful extent. It is clear that his ear disliked it; yet there seem to be just a few cases that cannot fairly be explained away, the MSS. being sadly unanimous. It is better to learn the truth than to suppress what we should ourselves dislike. ”

“ The absurdity of such an endeavour is patent to any one who knows enough of the old astronomy and astrology to be aware that the 'moon's exaltation' is merely a name for a sign of the zodiac, and has nothing whatever to do with the position of the moon itself. ”

“ Chaucer's rimes are usually either (1) masculine, or (2) feminine. Masculine rimes are those in which the rime is confined to a single final syllable, as 'licour,' 'flour'; Prol. l. 3. Feminine rimes are those in which the rime extends through two syllables, as 'sote,' 'rote'; Prol. l. 1. It is necessary to remember that every unaccented final e at the end of a line is to be sounded, and constitutes a syllable. ”

“ It seems hardly necessary to enlarge upon this part of the subject; it is sufficient to say that mere counting of syllables will not explain the scansion of English poetry. Accent reigns supreme, and the strong syllables overpower the weak ones, even to the extent of suppressing them altogether.
A few common words may be noted, in which the final -e is usually suppressed, and often not written. Such are hire, here, her; oure, youre, myne, thyne; swiche, whiche, eche; were; here, there; have, hadde; wolde, sholde (less frequently) ; and some others. Even here accent still plays its part. ”

“ For further details, see Ten Brink's work on Chaucers Sprache und Verskunst. It may be as well to say that he has remarkably failed to understand the effect of the caesura, and is much troubled by the occurrence there of extra syllables. Yet this was the necessary result of Chaucer's copying French models.
The explanation is simple. The caesura implies a pause. But elision can only take place where there is NO pause. Hence the caesural pause ALWAYS prevents elision. Hence, also, there is often a redundant syllable here, just as there is at the end of the line. ”

“ Accentuation plays an important part in determining the forms of words.
These three rules meet a large number of cases. Exceptions should be noticed as they arise; and it will usually be found that the exception can be justified.
§ 68. The Strong Declension of Substantives. The forms of substantives frequently present much difficulty in individual cases. The primary rules are these.
1. Substantives which end in a vowel in Anglo-Saxon, in the nominative case, take a final -e in Chaucer, in the nom. and dative. The accusative may be taken to be the same as the nominative in every instance. ”

“ They can be denoted by phonetic invariable symbols, here distinguished by being enclosed within marks of parenthesis. I shall here use the same symbols as are employed in my Principles of English Etymology. Of course, these symbols must be used as defined. Thus the symbol (oo) , being defined to mean the sound of the German o in so, will not be understood by the reader who pronounces it like the oo in root.
§ 19. Vowels. (aa) , as a in father; (a) short, as in aha! (ae) , open long e, as a in Mary; (e) , open short e, as e in bed; (ee) , close long e, as e in veil [19] ”

“ My obligations to these two ladies began many years ago, as they undertook most of the glossarial work of my smaller edition of the Man of Law's Tale (with others) ; work which is now incorporated with the rest. It required some devotion to analyse the language of Boethius and the Romaunt, of Melibeus and the Parson's Tale, all of which they successfully undertook.
Mr. Sapsworth, formerly scholar of St. John's College, was the original compiler of the glossary to the Minor Poems and the Legend of Good Women. ”

“ Symbols. The following is a list of the sounds which the symbols denote.
The forms in thick type are the forms actually written and printed; the forms within parenthesis denote the spoken sounds.
a short; (a) . Ex. al (al) ; as (az) . We have no clear evidence to shew that the modern a (æ) in cat (kæt) occurs anywhere in Chaucer; though it is possible that the sound occurred in Southern English, without any special symbol to represent it [21] .
a long, or aa; (aa) : (1) at the end of an open syllable, as age (aa·jə) ; (2) before s or ce, as caas or cas (kaas) ; face (faa·sə) . ”

“ For a like reason, the medial pause likewise gives him freedom, and enables an additional syllable to be inserted with comparative ease. We may believe that, in old times, when poetry was recited by minstrels to large assemblies, the enunciation of it was slow and deliberate, and the pauses were longer than when we now read it to a friend or to ourselves. The importance attached to suffixes denoting inflexions tends to prove this. The minstrel's first business was to be understood. Many speakers speak too fast, and make too short pauses, till experience teaches them better. ”

“ In words like nature, fortune, science, the final -e is sounded if the accent is on the second syllable, but is usually dropped if it falls on the first. The same usage prevails with regard to the plural suffix -es. Hence we find the plurals flóur-es, áventúr-es on the one hand, and pílour-s, lázar-s on the other; and pílgrimes is pronounced as pilgrims. So also aúditours, because the accent on ou is only secondary. Epístellès (B 55) is a 'learned' form. Words in -nt usually have the plural in -nts, often written -ntz ”

“ The non-riming of -y with -y-ë (see vol. i. p. 5) is a test which cannot be ignored; and it is better to accept its guidance than to attempt to circumvent it, if we would be free from bias.
Even on this point, Prof. Lounsbury is incorrect. In his anxiety to make out a case, he tells us (Studies, i. 389) that the adjective dry, 'whether used attributively or predicatively,' rimes always with words of the -yë group, whereas sly is sometimes (correctly) monosyllabic. The two words are essentially different. ”

“ He naturalised the famous seven-line stanza, employed by Machault in several poems, one of which evidently furnished the refrain of Against Women Unconstant; and this is good evidence in favour of the genuineness of this Balade. On account of the great interest attaching to this metre, I here transcribe Machault's Balade in full. And I take occasion to remark, at the same time, that it illustrates the absurdity of an unlucky suggestion that has been lately made, viz. that 'all Balades must needs have an envoy, and that envoys to some of Chaucer's Balades must have been lost [53] .' ”

“ Of course, it is not enough; for we cannot divorce Chaucer's language from the general usage of Middle-English, in which very few forms of this character had survived. Even if it were enough, the assertion that there is no other such case happens not to be true; for we often find to done; as in A 3543, 3778, B 770, D 2194, F 334, G 932, I 62.
And again, we find to sene, riming with grene, A 1035. And yet again, to bene, Rom. Rose, 1265. It is impossible to respect arguments which derive all their apparent force from the principle of heaping one mistake upon another. ”

“ More striking examples occur in crēpe, to creep, pt. creep, crepte, pp. cropen; slēpe, to sleep, pt. t. sleep and slepte; wepe, to weep, pt. t. weep and wepte. Drede, rede, once strong verbs, are weak in Chaucer; pt. t. dredde, dradde, redde, radde. Cleve, to cleave, has the weak pt. t. clefte, and the strong pp. cloven. Broided is a curious substitution for broiden, the true pp. of breyde (A.S. bregdan) . Werien, to wear, is a weak verb of the 1st class; hence the true pt. t. is werede, wered, as in Chaucer. The mod. E. wore is a new formation. ”

“ The chief source of variable long e is the unstable A.S. ǣ answering to Gothic ē (Germanic ā) ; this ǣ occurs in sprǣc-on, third stem of the strong verb sprecan, and in its derivative sprǣce, whence M.E. speche, speech. It also appears to arise from sounds corresponding to A.S. īe, ȳ, mutation of ēa, ēo.
Chaucer's use. Words in (A) rime with each other, but never rime with words in (B) . Words in (B) rime with each other, but never with words in (A) . Words in (C) rime with words both in (A) and (B) .
-eche. (A) tèche, bitèche. (B) séche, biséche. (C) eche, to eke, leche, speche. -ede. ”

“ Hence Chaucer had, ready to his use, two forms of this word. One was the Southern dèèd, with open ē, from A.S. dǣd; the other was the Midland dééd, with close ē; and, as the Midland dialect was then rapidly gaining the ascendency, he could hardly go wrong if he sometimes used the more popular form. Chaucer knew nothing of etymology, but he knew how words were pronounced by his cotemporaries; a fact which sufficiently explains his habits.
In order to complete this part of the case, it is necessary to add that the M.E. ē which results from A.S. ēa is ALWAYS open [31] . ”

“ Dr. Morris was justly celebrated for his acuteness in unravelling the intricacies of the various Middle-English dialects, and for his swiftness of perception of the right use of grammatical inflections; and he communicated the results of his labours with unsparing generosity.
The Prioresses Tale, Sire Thopas, the Monkes Tale, the Clerkes Tale, and the Squieres Tale were first edited by me, with Notes and a Glossary, as far back as 1874; and the book has passed through several editions since that date [8] . ”

“ In such a case, some scribes write werkis for werkes, to make the rime more complete, but it is quite needless, as there is no necessity for an absolute coincidence of vowel-sound in a mere unaccented syllable. In Lenvoy a Scogan, 15, it would be quite absurd to alter goddes to goddis (!) , merely because it rimes with forbod'is; the really weak part of the rime is in the linking of the short o in goddes, with the longer o in forbode. For the same reason, the rime of lyte is with dytees (HF. 621) is good enough ”

“ Whos occurs as expressing a genitive; and whom for a dative; but we never find who as a nominative. We also meet with that-he for 'who'; that-his for 'whose'; that-him for 'whom'; cf. A 2710. Also the which; or, when used adjectivally, the whiche (A 3923) ; which that; the which that; who that, what that; who so, what so.
§ 87. Other pronominal forms. Men sometimes occurs as a weakened form of man, with the sense of mod. E. 'one'; and it therefore takes a singular verb. Ex. men smoot, one smote, A 149; men moot, one must, one ought to, A 232. ”

“ The student will necessarily consult such works as Prof. Child's Observations on the Language of Chaucer and Gower, which refer to the Canterbury Tales only; the Observations on the Language of Chaucer's Troilus, by Prof. Kittredge (published for the Chaucer Society) ; the Observations on the Language of Chaucer's Legend of Good Women, by J. M. Manly (in Studies and Notes on Philology and Literature, vol. ii; Ginn and Co., Boston, 1893) ; and Ten Brink's compact and excellent volume entitled Chaucers Sprache und Verskunst ”

“ Manly, 'are the phrases which have given rise to the supposition that the regular ending of the dative in Chaucer is -e. An examination of the facts, however, will shew that this is not true. The dative ending was preserved in certain phrases which were transmitted and used as phrases, the force of the dative as such being no longer felt. This will appear from a comparison of such phrases as a bedde, to bedde, over borde, to dethe, for fere, a-fere (afire) , to-hepe, a-lyve, a-slepe, to wyve, to the brimme.' So also to rede, T. iv. ”

“ As regards the Canterbury Tales, my debts are almost too numerous to recount. First and foremost, must be mentioned the honoured name of Thomas Tyrwhitt, whose diligence, sagacity, and discrimination have never been surpassed by any critic, and to whom are due nearly all the more important discoveries as to Chaucer's sources. See the admirably just remarks on this 'great scholar' in Lounsbury's Studies in Chaucer, vol. i. pp. ”

“ The Anglo-French scribes could have known but little difference; since ai had already become F. open e in the later text of the Chanson de Roland. Again, Norse only exhibits ei, not ai, so that our raise was M.E. reise, also written raise (Icel. reisa) . Very significant is Chaucer's rime of eyse with reyse, D 2101. Nearly everywhere else, the mod. E. 'ease' is spelt ese, eese; and the pronunciation was unquestionably (èè·zə) = (ae·zə) , as it rimes with please and appease, words in which even the mod. E. spelling with ea shews that the long e was once open. ”

“ The proper M.E. form of 'beast' is bèèst, which rimes, exactly, with èèst, east, and with almèèst, almost; but, inexactly, with forèst, in which the e is short. Yet, in Sir Thopas, B 1944-8, we find the words forest, best, est, almest, all reduced by the scribe to the same apparent form. In G 1324, we find bréést (A.S. brēost) , breast, riming with préést, priest, exactly; but elsewhere bréést is treated as if the e were short, so that it rimes with lest (Kentish form of lust) , A 2983; E 617. The mod. E. form suggests that the vowel was beginning to be shortened. ”