Chaucer And His Times Part 6

She shal have nede to wa.s.she awey the rede, Thogh she a font-ful water with hir lede.

The marriage festivities are pa.s.sed over lightly, and then comes a characteristic interpolation which Chaucer borrows from quite a different source, _i. e._ from Innocent III's _De Miseria Humanae Conditionis_:--

O sodeyn wo! that ever art successour To worldly blisse, spreynd[64] with bitternesse; Th'ende of the joye of our worldly labour; Wo occupieth the fyn of our gladnesse.[65]

Herke this conseil for thy sikernesse, Upon thy gladde day have in thy minde The unwar wo or harm that comth behinde.

Then come a few brief words describing the ma.s.sacre and Constance's unhappy fate, followed by the beautiful prayer of Constance when she finds herself alone on "the salte see," of which no trace at all is to be found in Trivet. Here the poet breaks off to discuss the miraculous element in the story. Nothing is more characteristic of Chaucer than this habit of pausing to consider some abstract question raised by what he is relating--it is even more conspicuously evident in the _Nonne Preestes Tale_ than it is here, where such a discussion is in keeping with the spirit of the poem, and where he shows himself content to take the simple explanation of religion.

The episode of Elda and Hermingild is given very simply and shortly, Elda's name not being mentioned. Then comes the false accusation brought against Constance by the treacherous knight, and here we see Chaucer's power of painting a dramatic situation in a few words. He tells us how Constance is brought before the king and gives her brief prayer to the G.o.d "that savedest Susanne," and then with a sudden vivid simile drives home to us her agony of suspense:--

Have ye nat seyn som tyme a pale face Among a prees, of him that hath be lad Toward his deeth, where-as him gat no grace, And swich a colour in his face hath had, Men mighte knowe his face, that was bestad, Amonges alle faces in that route: So stant Custance, and loketh hir aboute.

Her marriage with Alle, Chaucer dismisses even more hastily than her marriage with the Soldan:--

Me list nat of the chaf nor of the stree Maken so long a tale as of the corn.

What sholde I tellen of the royaltee At mariage, or which cours gooth biforn Who bloweth in a trompe or in an horn?

The fruit of every tale is for to seye, They ete, and drinke, and daunce, and singe, and pleye.

The mishap of the messenger causes him to break out into an invective against drunkenness, and then follows one of the most wonderful pa.s.sages in the whole poem, that in which he describes Constance going down to the boat "with deedly pale face," her baby weeping in her arms. Chaucer's love of children manifests itself again and again in his poems. The tenderness of the mother's

"Pees litel sone, I wol do thee non harm"

as she binds her kerchief round the child's eyes is far more moving in its simplicity than the most harrowing description could be. And here again, as Constance lulls the baby in her arms, Chaucer puts into her mouth a beautifully simple and touching prayer to the Virgin Mother:--

"Thou sawe thy child y-slayn bifor thy yen, And yet now liveth my litel child, parfay!

Now, lady bright, to whom alle woful cryen, Thou glorie of wommanhede, thou faire may,[66]

Thou haven of refut, brighte sterre of day Rewe on[67] my child, that of thy gentilesse Rewest on every rewful[68] in distresse."

With these words on her lips she turns to Elda and holding up the child cries

"And if thou darst not saven him for blame, So kis him ones in his fadres name,"

and without further complaint

She blesseth hir; and in-to s.h.i.+p she wente.

The whole pa.s.sage has a breathing human pa.s.sion in it of which Trivet's chronicle knows nothing. We forget the absurdity of the story, the impossible repet.i.tion of an impossible situation, and see only a cruelly wronged wife and mother meeting her fate with simple dignity and faith.

Trivet gives us lurid details concerning the vengeance that falls on Alle's mother. Chaucer, who never takes pleasure in horrors, remarks briefly that he "his moder slow," and hastens on to tell of Constance's adventures off the coast of Spain. Here again, we find a break in the narrative, as the author pauses to comment on the evils of self-indulgence, and to explain how G.o.d sends weak women the "spirit of vigour" that they may save themselves in time of need. The rest of the story follows Trivet's chronicle very closely, though the description of Alle's meeting with his wife is Chaucer's own:--

I trowe an hundred tymes been they kist, And swich a blisse is ther bitwix hem two That, save the joye that lasteth evermo Ther is non lyk, that any creature Hath seyn or shal whyl that the world may dure.

And he also adds a brief comment on the instability of human happiness.

It will be seen that Chaucer tends to reduce descriptive pa.s.sages pure and simple to a minimum, and so far to condense the actual narrative that it moves quickly and straight-forwardly, while at the same time he expands any situation which affords opportunity for the display of character, adds dialogue and intensifies emotion, and also shows a disposition to comment on what he is describing.

The _Nonne Preestes Tale_ is based on Marie de France's fable of the _c.o.c.k and the Fox_, though it is possible that Chaucer's more immediate source was an enlargement of this, called the _Roman de Renart_. The _c.o.c.k and the Fox_ consists of but thirty-eight lines, and the _Roman de Renart_ of 453, whereas the _Nonne Preestes Tale_ consists of 626 lines, so that here we have a case in which Chaucer enlarges his original very considerably.

In fact he can hardly be said to have borrowed more than the bare outline of the story.

In the first place, the whole description of the "poore widwe" and her poultry-yard is entirely Chaucer's. There is nothing in the French to correspond to the delightful picture of Chauntecleer strutting among the submissive hens--

Of which the faireste hewed on hir throte Was cleped faire damoysele Pertelote,

or singing "my lief is faren in londe"[69] in sweet accord with his love.

Then the incident of the dream is entirely altered. The French author makes dame Pinte, the hen, expound the dream to her husband and warn him of the danger which lies before him. Chaucer draws inimitable portraits of the fussy, self-important c.o.c.k, thoroughly frightened and yet too conceited to accept his wife's simple and prosaic suggestion that his terrors spring from indigestion, and of the sensible, practical hen with her scathing contempt for the husband who though he has a beard has yet "no mannes heart." And here follows a lengthy disquisition on dreams, the c.o.c.k overwhelming his sceptical wife with examples of warnings which have been fulfilled, and ill.u.s.trations drawn from the most varied sources.

Having restored his self-esteem by reference to the histories of Joseph, St. Kenelm, Crsus, Andromache and others,

Royal he was, he was namore aferd.

The advent of the fox gives Chaucer another opportunity to discuss fore-knowledge, and suddenly, in the midst of this lightest and most amusing of skits, we find him gravely considering the question of predestination and free-will. He comes to no conclusion, but after stating various learned opinions, shrugs his shoulders and turns aside with a dry:--

I wol not han to do of swich matere; My tale is of a c.o.k, as ye may here ...

The dialogue between the c.o.c.k and the fox is much the same in both versions, though as Dr. Furnivall points out (_Chaucer's Originals and a.n.a.logues_, p. 112), Chaucer improves the story by omitting the spring made by the fox before he begins to flatter Chauntecleer; but Pinte shows none of the extremely proper feeling displayed by Pertelote when she sees her husband carried off before her eyes:--

But soverynly dame Pertelote shrighte Ful louder than dide Hasdrubables wyf, Whan that hir housbond hadde lost his lyf, And that the Romans hadde brende Cartage.

The peculiar characteristic of the English version is its all-pervading sense of humour, the gravity with which we are led on step by step until we find ourselves accepting the most ridiculous situations, and the extraordinary skill with which the characters of Chauntecleer and Pertelote are drawn.

In the _Monkes Tale_ Chaucer draws his stories of the falls of ill.u.s.trious men from all kinds of sources. The heroes range from Lucifer to Pedro the Cruel, and the worthy monk chooses his ill.u.s.trations apparently at random, now from sacred history, now from the cla.s.sics, now from contemporary life. No great dramatic skill is to be expected of the narrator, and for the most part the tragedies succeed one another with placid regularity, the occasional comments made by the monk himself showing no particular insight or intelligence. Having described the fall of Sampson, for instance, no more inspiring reflection occurs to him than

That no men telle hir conseil til hir wyves Of swich thing as they wolde han secree fayn, If that it touche hir limmes or hir lyves.

One tale, however, stands out conspicuously above the rest. In the _Inferno_ (Canto x.x.xIII) Dante had told the story of Count Hugo of Pisa, who was locked up in a tower with his sons and starved to death. In a few grim words he describes the father's despair and the slow death of the wretched sons:--

When we came To the fourth day, then Gaddo at my feet Outstretch'd did fling him, crying, "Hast no help For me, my father?" There he died; and e'en Plainly as thou seest me, saw I the three Fall one by one 'twixt the fifth day and sixth: Whence I betook me, now grown blind, to grope Over them all, and for three days aloud Call'd on them who were dead. Then, fasting got The mastery of grief.

(Carey's translation.)

Chaucer takes this and uses it as the basis of one of his tragedies. In Dante the actual story occupies fifty-nine lines, in Chaucer it occupies fifty-six, so in this case there is little in the way either of condensation or expansion. The changes which Chaucer makes are, however, very significant. Dante simply says that the three sons of Count Hugo suffer with their father. Chaucer enhances the pathos by telling us that

The eldeste scarsly fyf yeer was of age.

Allas, fortune! it was greet crueltee Swiche briddes for to putte in swiche a cage!

When Dante's Count Hugo hears

... at its outlet underneath lock'd up The horrible tower ...

he is so turned to stone that he can find no relief in tears. Chaucer's cries,

"Allas! ... that I was wrought."

Therewith the teres fillen from his yen.[70]

Chaucer gives us a moving picture of the little three-year-old looking up and asking

"Fader, why do ye wepe!

Whan wol the gayler bringen our potage, Is ther no morsel breed that ye do kepe?

I am so hungry that I may nat slepe ..."