A Literary History of the English People Part 22

They had, it is true, learnt French, but English remained their natural language. A literature was composed that resembled them, English in language, as French as possible in dress and manners. About the end of the twelfth century or beginning of the thirteenth, the translation of the French romances began. First came war stories, then love tales.

Thus was written by Layamon, about 1205, the first metrical romance, after "Beowulf," that the English literature possesses.[351] The vocabulary of the "Brut" is Anglo-Saxon; there are not, it seems, above fifty words of French origin in the whole of this lengthy poem, and yet on each page it is easy to recognise the ideas and the chivalrous tastes introduced by the French. The strong will with which they blended the traditions of the country has borne its fruits. Layamon considers that the glories of the Britons are English glories, and he celebrates their triumphs with an exulting heart, as if British victories were not Saxon defeats. Bede, the Anglo-Saxon, and Wace, the Norman, "a Frenchis clerc"

as he calls him, are, in his eyes, authorities of the same sort and same value, equally worthy of filial respect and belief. "It came to him in mind," says Layamon, speaking of himself, "and in his chief thought that he would of the English tell the n.o.ble deeds.... Layamon began to journey wide over this land and procured the n.o.ble books which he took for pattern. He took the English book that St. Bede made," and a Latin book by "St. Albin"; a third book he took "and laid in the midst, that a French clerk made, who was named Wace, who well could write.... These books he turned over the leaves, lovingly he beheld them ... pen he took with fingers and wrote on book skin."[352] He follows mainly Wace's poem, but paraphrases it; he introduces legends that were unknown to Wace, and adds speeches to the already numerous speeches of his model.

These discourses consist mostly of warlike invectives; before slaying, the warriors hurl defiance at each other; after killing his foe, the victor allows himself the pleasure of jeering at the corpse, and his mirth resembles very much the mirth in Scandinavian sagas. "Then laughed Arthur, the n.o.ble king, and gan to speak with gameful words: 'Lie now there, Colgrim.... Thou climbed on this hill wondrously high, as if thou wouldst ascend to heaven, now thou shalt to h.e.l.l. There thou mayest know much of your kindred; and greet thou there Hengest ... and Ossa, Octa and more of thy kin, and bid them there dwell winter and summer, and we shall in land live in bliss.'"[353] This is an example of a speech added to Wace, who simply concludes his account of the battle by:

Mors fu Balduf, mors fu Colgrin Et Cheldric s'en ala fuiant.[354]

In such taunts is recognised the ferocity of the primitive epics, those of the Greeks as well as those of the northern nations. Thus spoke Patroclus to Cebrion when he fell headlong from his chariot, "with the resolute air of a diver who seeks oysters under the sea."

After Layamon, translations and adaptations soon become very plentiful, metrical chronicles, like the one composed towards the end of the thirteenth century by Robert of Gloucester,[355] are compiled on the pattern of the French ones, for the use and delight of the English people; chivalrous romances are also written in English. The love of extraordinary adventures, and of the books that tell of them, had crept little by little into the hearts of these islanders, now reconciled to their masters, and led by them all over the world. The minstrels or wandering poets of English tongue are many in number; no feast is complete without their music and their songs; they are welcomed in the castle halls, they can now, with as bold a voice as their French brethren, bespeak a cup of ale, sure not to be refused:

At the beginning of ure tale, Fil me a cuppe of ful G.o.d ale, And y wile drinken her y spelle That Crist us s.h.i.+lde all fro h.e.l.le![356]

They stop also on the public places, where the common people flock to hear of Charlemagne and Roland[357]; they even get into the cloister. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, nearly all the stories of the heroes of Troy, Rome, France, and Britain are put into verse:

For hem that knowe no Frensche ne never underston.[358]

"Men like," writes shortly after 1300, the author of the "Cursor Mundi":

Men lykyn jestis for to here And romans rede in divers manere Of Alexandre the conqueroure, Of Julius Cesar the emperoure, Of Grece and Troy the strong stryf There many a man lost his lyf, Of Brute that baron bold of hond, The first conqueroure of Englond, Of Kyng Artour....

How Kyng Charlis and Rowlond fawght With Sarzyns nold they be cawght, Of Trystrem and Isoude the swete, How they with love first gan mete ...

Stories of diverce thynggis, Of pryncis, prelatis and of kynggis, Many songgis of divers ryme, As English Frensh and Latyne.[359]

Some very few Germanic or Saxon traditions, such as the story of Havelok, a Dane who ended by reigning in England, or that of Horn and Rymenhild,[360] his betrothed, had been adopted by the French poets.

They were taken from them again by the English minstrels, who, however, left these old heroes their French dress: had they not followed the fas.h.i.+on, no one would have cared for their work. Goldborough or Argentille, the heroine of the romance of Havelok, was originally a Valkyria; now, under her French disguise, she is scarcely recognisable, but she is liked as she is.[361]

Some English heroes of a more recent period find also a place in this poetic pantheon, thanks again to French minstrels, who make them fas.h.i.+onable by versifying about them. In this manner were written, in French, then in English, the adventures of Waltheof, of Sir Guy of Warwick, who marries the beautiful Felice, goes to Palestine, kills the giant Colbrant on his return, and dies piously in a hermitage.[362] Thus are likewise told the deeds of famous outlaws, as Fulke Fitz-Warin, a prototype of Robin Hood, who lived in the woods with the fair Mahaud,[363] as Robin Hood will do later with Maid Marian.[364] Several of these heroes, Guy of Warwick in particular, enjoyed such lasting popularity that it has scarcely died out to this day. Their histories were reprinted at the Renaissance; they were read under Elizabeth, and plays were taken from them; and when, with Defoe, Richardson, and Fielding, novels of another kind took their place in the drawing-room, their life continued still in the lower sphere to which they had been consigned. They supplied the matter for those popular _chap books_[365]

that have been reprinted even in our time, the authors of which wrote, as did the rhymers of the Middle Ages "for the love of the English people, of the people of merry England." _Englis lede of meri Ingeland._[366]

"Merry England" became acquainted with every form of French mirth; she imitated French chansons, and gave a place in her literature to French fabliaux. Nothing could be less congenial to the Anglo-Saxon race than the spirit of the fabliaux. This spirit, however, was acclimatised in England; and, like several other products of the French mind, was grafted on the original stock. The tree thus bore fruit which would never have ripened as it did, without the Conquest. Such are the works of Chaucer, of Swift perhaps, and of Sterne. The most comic and _risque_ stories, those same stories meant to raise a laugh which we have seen old women tell at parlour windows, in order to cheer recluse anch.o.r.esses, were put into English verse, from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century. Thus we find under an English form such stories as the tale of "La Chienne qui pleure,"[367] "Le lai du Cor,"[368] "La Bourse pleine de sens,"[369] the praise of the land of "Coquaigne,"[370]

&c.:

Thogh paradis be miri and bright c.o.kaygn is of fairir sight.

What is ther in paradis Bot gra.s.se and flure and grene ris (branches)?

Thogh ther be joi and grete dute (pleasure) Ther nis mete bote frute....

Bot watir manis thurste to quenche; Beth ther no man but two, Hely and Enok also

And it cannot be very pleasant to live without more company; one must feel "elinglich." But in "c.o.kaygne" there is no cause to be "elinglich"; all is meat and drink there; all is day, there is no night:

Al is dai, nis ther no nighte, Ther nis baret (quarrel) nother strif....

Ther nis man no womman wroth, Ther nis serpent, wolf no fox;

no storm, no rain, no wind, no flea, no fly; there is no Enoch nor any Elias to be sure; but there are women with nothing pedantic about them, who are as loving as they are lovable.

Nothing less Saxon than such poems, with their semi-impiety, which would be absolute impiety if the author seriously meant what he said. It is the impiety of Auca.s.sin, who refuses (before it is offered him) to enter Paradise: "In Paradise what have I to win? Therein I seek not to enter, but only to have Nicolete, my sweet lady that I love so well.... But into h.e.l.l would I fain go; for into h.e.l.l fare the goodly clerks, and goodly knights that fall in harness and great wars, and stout men-at-arms, and all men n.o.ble.... With those would I gladly go, let me but have with me Nicolete, my sweetest lady."[371] We must not take Auca.s.sin at his word; there was ever froth on French wine.

Other English poems scoff at chivalrous manners, which are ridiculed in verse, in paintings, and sculptures[372]; or at the elegancies of the bad parson who puts in his bag a comb and "a shewer" (mirror).[373]

Other poems are adaptations of the "Roman de Renart."[374] The new spirit has penetrated so well into English minds that the adaptation is sometimes worthy of the original.

A vox gon out of the wode go, Afingret (hungered) so that him wes wo; He nes (ne was) nevere in none wise Afingret erour (before) half so swithe.

He ne hoeld nouther wey ne strete, For him wes loth men to mete; Him were levere meten one hen, Than half an oundred wimmen.

But not a hen does he come across; they are suspicious, and roost out of reach. At last, half dead, he desires to drink, and sees a well with two pails on the chain; he descends in one of the pails, and finds it impossible to scramble out: he weeps for rage. The wolf, as a matter of course, comes that way, and they begin to talk. Though wanting very much to go, hungrier than ever, and determined to make the wolf take his place, Renard would not have been Renard had he played off this trick on his gossip plainly and without a word. He adds many words, all sparkling with the wit of France, the wit that is to be inherited by Scapin and by Figaro. The wolf, for his part, replies word for word by a verse of Orgon's. Renard will only allow him to descend into the Paradise whither he pretends to have retired, after he has confessed, forgiven all his enemies--Renard being one--and is ready to lead a holy life. Ysengrin agrees, confesses, and forgives; he feels his mind quite at rest, and exclaims in his own way:

Et je verrais mourir frere, enfants, mere et femme, Que je m'en soucierais autant que de cela.[375]

Nou ich am in clene live, Ne recche ich of childe ne of wive.

The wolf goes down, Renard goes up; as the pails meet, the rogue wickedly observes:

Ac ich am therof glad and blithe That thou art nomen in clene live, Thi soul-cnul (knell) ich wile do ringe, And ma.s.se for thine soule singe.

But he considers it enough for his purpose to warn the monks that the devil is at the bottom of their well. With great difficulty the monks draw up the devil, which done they beat him, and set the dogs on him.

Some graceful love tales, popular in France, were translated and enjoyed no less popularity in England, where there was now a public for literature of this sort. Such was the case for Amis and Amile, Floire and Blanchefleur, and many others.[376] As for _chansons_, there were imitations of May songs, "disputoisons,"[377] and carols; love, roses, and birds were sung in sweet words to soft music[378]; so was spring, the season of lilies, when the flowers give more perfume, and the moon more light, and women are more beautiful:

Wymmen waxeth wonder proude.[379]

Their beauties and merits are celebrated one by one, as in a litany; for, said one of those poets, an Englishman who wrote in French:

Beaute de femme pa.s.se rose.[380]

In honour of them were composed stanzas spangled with admiring epithets, glittering like a golden shower; innumerable songs were dedicated to their ideal model, the Queen of Angels; others to each one of their physical charms, their "vair eyes"[381] and their eyes "gray y-noh": those being the colours preferred; their skin white as milk, "soft ase sylk"; those scarlet lips that served them to read romances, for romances were read aloud, and not only with the eyes[382]; their voice more melodious than a bird's song. In short, from the time of Edward II. that mixture of mysticism and sensuality appears which was to become one of the characteristics of the fourteenth century.

The poets who made these songs, charming as they were, rarely succeeded however in perfectly imitating the light pace of the careless French muse. In reading a great number of the songs of both countries, one is struck by the difference. The English spring is mixed with winter, and the French with summer; England sings the verses of May, remembering April, France sings them looking forward to June.

Blow northerne wynd, Sent thou me my suetyng, Blow, northerne wynd, blou, blou, blou![383]

says the English poet. Contact with the new-comers had modified the gravity of the Anglo-Saxons, but without sweeping it away wholly and for ever: the possibility of recurring sadness is felt even in the midst of the joy of "Merry England."

But the hour draws near when for the first time, and in spite of all doleful notes, the joy of "Merry England" will bloom forth freely.

Edward III. is on the throne, Chaucer is just born, and soon the future Black Prince will win his spurs at Crecy.

FOOTNOTES:

[324] "Castel of Love," "made in the latter half of the XIIIth century,"

in Horstmann and Furnivall, "Minor Poems of the Vernon MS.," E.E.T.S., 1892, Part I. p. 356, see below, p. 213. Grosseteste had said:

... Trestuz ne poent mie Saver le langage en fin D'Ebreu de griu ne de latin.

(_Ibid._ p. 355.)

[325] Among the collections of English sermons from the twelfth to the fourteenth century, see "An Old English Miscellany," ed. Morris, Early English Text Society, 1872, 8vo; pp. 26 ff., a translation in English prose of the thirteenth century of some of the sermons of Maurice de Sully; p. 187, "a lutel soth sermon" in verse, with good advice to lovers overfond of "Malekyn" or "Janekyn."--"Old English homilies and homiletic treatises ... of the XIIth and XIIIth centuries," ed. Morris, E.E.T.S., 1867-73, 2 vols. 8vo; prose and verse (specimens of music in the second series); several of those pieces are mere transcripts of Anglo Saxon works anterior to the Conquest; p. 159, the famous "Moral Ode," twelfth century, on the transitoriness of this life: "Ich em nu alder thene ich wes," &c., in rhymed verse (_cf._ "Old English Miscellany," p. 58, and "Anglia," i. p. 6).--"The Ormulum, with the notes and glossary of Dr. R. M. White," ed. R. Holt, Oxford, 1878, 2 vols. 8vo, an immense compilation in verse, of which a part only has been preserved, the work of Ormin, an Augustinian canon, thirteenth century; contains a paraphrase of the gospel of the day followed by an explanatory sermon; _cf._ Napier, "Notes on Ormulum" in "History of the Holy Rood Tree," E.E.T.S., 1894--"Hali Meidenhad ... an alliterative Homily of the XIIIth century," ed. c.o.c.kayne, E.E.T.S., 1866, in prose.--"English metrical Homilies," ed. J. Small, Edinburgh, 1862, 8vo, homilies interspersed with _exempla_, compiled ab. 1330.--"Religious pieces in prose and verse," ed. G. G. Perry, E.E.T.S., 1867; statement in a sermon by John Gaytrige, fourteenth century, that "oure ffadire the byschope" has prescribed to each member of his clergy "opynly, one ynglysche apone sonnondayes, preche and teche thaym that thay hase cure off" (p. 2).

[326] Sermon IV. on Sunday (imitated from the French) in Morris's "Old English Homilies," 1867. St. Paul, led by St. Michael, at the sight of so many sufferings, weeps, and G.o.d consents that on Sundays the condemned souls shall cease to suffer. This legend was one of the most popular in the Middle Ages; it was told in verse or prose in Greek, Latin, French, English, &c. See Ward, "Catalogue of MS. Romances," vol.

ii. 1893, pp. 397 ff.: "Two versions of this vision existed in Greek in the fourth century." An English metrical version has been ed. by Horstmann and Furnivall, "Minor Poems of the Vernon MS.," E.E.T.S., 1892, p. 251.

[327] "Old English homilies and homiletic treatises ... of the XIIth and XIIIth Centuries," ed. with translation, by R. Morris, London, E.E.T.S., 1867, 8vo, vol. i. p. 39.