The Canterbury Tales, and Other Poems Part 64

Of th' Earl HUGOLIN OF PISE the languour* *agony There may no tongue telle for pity.

But little out of Pisa stands a tow'r, In whiche tow'r in prison put was he, Aud with him be his little children three; The eldest scarcely five years was of age; Alas! Fortune, it was great cruelty Such birdes for to put in such a cage.

d.a.m.ned was he to die in that prison; For Roger, which that bishop was of Pise, Had on him made a false suggestion, Through which the people gan upon him rise, And put him in prison, in such a wise As ye have heard; and meat and drink he had So small, that well unneth* it might suffice, *scarcely And therewithal it was full poor and bad.

And on a day befell, that in that hour When that his meate wont was to be brought, The jailor shut the doores of the tow'r; He heard it right well, but he spake nought.

And in his heart anon there fell a thought, That they for hunger woulde *do him dien;* *cause him to die*

"Alas!" quoth he, "alas that I was wrought!"* *made, born Therewith the teares fell from his eyen.

His youngest son, that three years was of age, Unto him said, "Father, why do ye weep?

When will the jailor bringen our pottage?

Is there no morsel bread that ye do keep?

I am so hungry, that I may not sleep.

Now woulde G.o.d that I might sleepen ever!

Then should not hunger in my wombe* creep; *stomach There is no thing, save bread, that one were lever."* *dearer

Thus day by day this child begun to cry, Till in his father's barme* adown he lay, *lap And saide, "Farewell, father, I must die;"

And kiss'd his father, and died the same day.

And when the woeful father did it sey,* *see For woe his armes two he gan to bite, And said, "Alas! Fortune, and well-away!

To thy false wheel my woe all may I wite."* *blame

His children ween'd that it for hunger was That he his armes gnaw'd, and not for woe, And saide, "Father, do not so, alas!

But rather eat the flesh upon us two.

Our flesh thou gave us, our flesh take us fro', And eat enough;" right thus they to him said.

And after that, within a day or two, They laid them in his lap adown, and died.

Himself, despaired, eke for hunger starf.* *died Thus ended is this Earl of Pise; From high estate Fortune away him carf.* *cut off Of this tragedy it ought enough suffice Whoso will hear it *in a longer wise,* *at greater length*

Reade the greate poet of ltale, That Dante hight, for he can it devise <32> From point to point, not one word will he fail.

Notes to the Monk's Tale

1. The Monk's Tale is founded in its main features on Bocccacio's work, "De Casibus Virorum Ill.u.s.trium;" ("Stories of Ill.u.s.trious Men") but Chaucer has taken the separate stories of which it is composed from different authors, and dealt with them after his own fas.h.i.+on.

2. Boccaccio opens his book with Adam, whose story is told at much greater length than here. Lydgate, in his translation from Boccaccio, speaks of Adam and Eve as made "of slime of the erth in Damascene the felde."

3. Judges xiii. 3. Boccaccio also tells the story of Samson; but Chaucer seems, by his quotation a few lines below, to have taken his version direct from the sacred book.

4. Oliveres: olive trees; French, "oliviers."

5. "Liber Judic.u.m," the Book of Judges; chap. xv.

6. Querne: mill; from Anglo-Saxon, "cyrran," to turn, "cweorn," a mill,

7.Harpies: the Stymphalian Birds, which fed on human flesh.

8. Busiris, king of Egypt, was wont to sacrifice all foreigners coming to his dominions. Hercules was seized, bound, and led to the altar by his orders, but the hero broke his bonds and slew the tyrant.

9. The feats of Hercules here recorded are not all these known as the "twelve labours;" for instance, the cleansing of the Augean stables, and the capture of Hippolyte's girdle are not in this list -- other and less famous deeds of the hero taking their place. For this, however, we must accuse not Chaucer, but Boethius, whom he has almost literally translated, though with some change of order.

10. Trophee: One of the ma.n.u.scripts has a marginal reference to "Tropheus vates Chaldaeorum" ("Tropheus the prophet of the Chaldees"); but it is not known what author Chaucer meant -- unless the reference is to a pa.s.sage in the "Filostrato" of Boccaccio, on which Chaucer founded his "Troilus and Cressida," and which Lydgate mentions, under the name of "Trophe," as having been translated by Chaucer.

11. Pres: near; French, "pres;" the meaning seems to be, this nearer, lower world.

12 Chaucer has taken the story of Zen.o.bia from Boccaccio's work "De Claris Mulieribus." ("Of Ill.u.s.trious Women")

13. Odenatus, who, for his services to the Romans, received from Gallienus the t.i.tle of "Augustus;" he was a.s.sa.s.sinated in A.D. 266 -- not, it was believed, without the connivance of Zen.o.bia, who succeeded him on the throne.

14. Sapor was king of Persia, who made the Emperor Valerian prisoner, conquered Syria, and was pressing triumphantly westward when he was met and defeated by Odenatus and Zen.o.bia.

15. Aurelain became Emperor in A.D. 270.

16. Vitremite: The signification of this word, which is spelled in several ways, is not known. Skinner's explanation, "another attire," founded on the spelling "autremite," is obviously insufficient.

17. Great part of this "tragedy" of Nero is really borrowed, however, from the "Romance of the Rose."

18. Trice: thrust; from Anglo-Saxon, "thriccan."

19. So, in the Man of Law's Tale, the Sultaness promises her son that she will "reny her lay."

20. As the "tragedy" of Holofernes is founded on the book of Judith, so is that of Antiochus on the Second Book of the Maccabees, chap. ix.

21. By the insurgents under the leaders.h.i.+p of Judas Maccabeus; 2 Macc. chap. viii.

22. Six: the highest cast on a dicing-cube; here representing the highest favour of fortune.

23. Pompey had married his daughter Julia to Caesar; but she died six years before Pompey's final overthrow.

24. At the battle of Pharsalia, B.C. 48.

25. Word and end: apparently a corruption of the Anglo-Saxon phrase, "ord and end," meaning the whole, the beginning and the end.

26. At the opening of the story of Croesus, Chaucer has copied from his own translation of Boethius; but the story is mainly taken from the "Romance of the Rose"

27. "This reflection," says Tyrwhttt, "seems to have been suggested by one which follows soon after the mention of Croesus in the pa.s.sage just cited from Boethius. 'What other thing bewail the cryings of tragedies but only the deeds of fortune, that with an awkward stroke, overturneth the realms of great n.o.bley?'" -- in some ma.n.u.scripts the four "tragedies" that follow are placed between those of Zen.o.bia and Nero; but although the general reflection with which the "tragedy" of Croesus closes might most appropriately wind up the whole series, the general chronological arrangement which is observed in the other cases recommends the order followed in the text.

Besides, since, like several other Tales, the Monk's tragedies were cut short by the impatience of the auditors, it is more natural that the Tale should close abruptly, than by such a rhetorical finish as these lines afford.

28. Pedro the Cruel, King of Aragon, against whom his brother Henry rebelled. He was by false pretences inveigled into his brother's tent, and treacherously slain. Mr Wright has remarked that "the cause of Pedro, though he was no better than a cruel and reckless tyrant, was popular in England from the very circ.u.mstance that Prince Edward (the Black Prince) had embarked in it."

29. Not the Oliver of Charlemagne -- but a traitorous Oliver of Armorica, corrupted by a bribe. Ganilion was the betrayer of the Christian army at Roncevalles (see note 9 to the s.h.i.+pman's Tale); and his name appears to have been for a long time used in France to denote a traitor. Duguesclin, who betrayed Pedro into his brother's tent, seems to be intended by the term "Ganilion Oliver," but if so, Chaucer has mistaken his name, which was Bertrand -- perhaps confounding him, as Tyrwhttt suggests, with Oliver du Clisson, another ill.u.s.trious Breton of those times, who was also Constable of France, after Duguesclin. The arms of the latter are supposed to be described a little above

30. Pierre de Lusignan, King of Cyprus, who captured Alexandria in 1363 (see note 6 to the Prologue to the Tales).

He was a.s.sa.s.sinated in 1369.

31. Bernabo Visconti, Duke of Milan, was deposed and imprisoned by his nephew, and died a captive in 1385. His death is the latest historical fact mentioned in the Tales; and thus it throws the date of their composition to about the sixtieth year of Chaucer's age.

32. The story of Ugolino is told in the 33rd Canto of the "Inferno."