The Canterbury Tales, and Other Poems
Per me si va nella citta dolente,
Per me si va nell’ eterno dolore;
Per me si va tra la perduta gente.
(“Through me is the way to the city of sorrow,
Through me is the way to eternal suffering;
Through me is the way of the lost people”)
The famous line, “Lasciate ogni speranza, voi che entrate” —
“All hope abandon, ye who enter here” — is evidently
paraphrased in Chaucer’s words “Th’eschewing is the only
remedy;” that is, the sole hope consists in the avoidance of that
dismal gate.
10. A powerful though homely description of torment; the
sufferers being represented as fish enclosed in a weir from
which all the water has been withdrawn.
11. Compare with this catalogue raisonne of trees the ampler
list given by Spenser in “The Faerie Queen,” book i. canto i. In
several instances, as in “the builder oak” and “the sailing pine,”
the later poet has exactly copied the words of the earlier.
The builder oak: In the Middle Ages the oak was as
distinctively the building timber on land, as it subsequently
became for the sea.
The pillar elm: Spenser explains this in paraphrasing it into “the
vineprop elm” — because it was planted as a pillar or prop to
the vine; it is called “the coffer unto carrain,” or “carrion,”
because coffins for the dead were made from it.
The box, pipe tree: the box tree was used for making pipes or horns.
Holm: the holly, used for whip-handles.
The sailing fir: Because ships’ masts and spars were made of its
wood.
The cypress death to plain: in Spenser’s imitation, “the cypress
funeral.”
The shooter yew: yew wood was used for bows.
The aspe for shaftes plain: of the aspen, or black poplar, arrows
were made.
The laurel divine: So called, either because it was Apollo’s
tree — Horace says that Pindar is “laurea donandus Apollinari” (“to
be given Apollo’s laurel”) — or because the honour which it
signified, when placed on the head of a poet or conqueror, lifted
a man as it were into the rank of the gods.
12. If Chaucer had any special trio of courtiers in his mind when
he excluded so many names, we may suppose them to be
Charms, Sorcery, and Leasings who, in The Knight’s Tale, come
after Bawdry and Riches — to whom Messagerie (the carrying
of messages) and Meed (reward, bribe) may correspond.
13. The dove was the bird sacred to Venus; hence Ovid
enumerates the peacock of Juno, Jove’s armour bearing bird,
“Cythereiadasque columbas” (“And the Cythereian doves”) —
“Metamorphoses. xv. 386
14. Priapus: fitly endowed with a place in the Temple of Love,
as being the embodiment of the principle of fertility in flocks
and the fruits of the earth. See note 23 to the Merchant’s Tale.
15. Ovid, in the “Fasti” (i. 433), describes the confusion of
Priapus when, in the night following a feast of sylvan and
Bacchic deities, the braying of the ass of Silenus wakened the
company to detect the god in a furtive amatory expedition.
16. Hautain: haughty, lofty; French, “hautain.”
17. Well to my pay: Well to my satisfaction; from French,
“payer,” to pay, satisfy; the same word often occurs, in the
phrases “well apaid,” and “evil apaid.”
18. Valentia, in Spain, was famed for the fabrication of fine and
transparent stuffs.
19. The obvious reference is to the proverbial “Sine Cerere et
Libero friget Venus,” (“Love is frozen without freedom and
food”) quoted in Terence, “Eunuchus,” act iv. scene v.
20. Cypride: Venus; called “Cypria,” or “Cypris,” from the
island of Cyprus, in which her worship was especially
celebrated.
21. Callisto, daughter of Lycaon, was seduced by Jupiter,
turned into a bear by Diana, and placed afterwards, with her
son, as the Great Bear among the stars.
Atalanta challenged Hippomenes, a Boetian youth, to a race in
which the prize was her hand in marriage — the penalty of
failure, death by her hand. Venus gave Hippomenes three
golden apples, and he won by dropping them one at a time
because Atalanta stopped to pick them up.
Semiramis was Queen of Ninus, the mythical founder of
Babylon; Ovid mentions her, along with Lais, as a type of
voluptuousness, in his “Amores,” 1.5, 11.
Canace, daughter of Aeolus, is named in the prologue to The
Man of Law’s Tale as one of the ladies whose “cursed stories”
Chaucer refrained from writing. She loved her brother
Macareus, and was slain by her father.
Hercules was conquered by his love for Omphale, and spun
wool for her in a woman’s dress, while she wore his lion’s skin.
Biblis vainly pursued her brother Caunus with her love, till she
was changed to a fountain; Ovid, “Metamorphoses.” lib. ix.
Thisbe and Pyramus: the Babylonian lovers, whose death,
through the error of Pyramus in fancying that a lion had slain his
mistress, forms the theme of the interlude in the “Midsummer
Night’s Dream.”
Sir Tristram was one of the most famous among the knights of
King Arthur, and La Belle Isoude was his mistress. Their story
is mixed up with the Arthurian romance; but it was also the
subject of separate treatment, being among the most popular of
the Middle Age legends.
Achilles is reckoned among Love’s conquests, because,
according to some traditions, he loved Polyxena, the daughter
of Priam, who was promised to him if he consented to join the
Trojans; and, going without arms into Apollo’s temple at
Thymbra, he was there slain by Paris.
Scylla: Love-stories are told of two maidens of this name; one
the daughter of Nisus, King of Megara, who, falling in love with
Minos when he besieged the city, slew her father by pulling
out the golden hair which grew on the top of his head, and on
which which his life and kingdom depended. Minos won the
city, but rejected her love in horror. The other Scylla, from
whom the rock opposite Charybdis was named, was a beautiful
maiden, beloved by the sea-god Glaucus, but changed into a
monster through the jealousy and enchantments of Circe.
The mother of Romulus: Silvia, daughter and only living child
of Numitor, whom her uncle Amulius made a vestal virgin, to
preclude the possibility that his brother’s descendants could
wrest from him the kingdom of Alba Longa. But the maiden
was violated by Mars as she went to bring water from a
fountain; she bore Romulus and Remus; and she was drowned
in the Anio, while the cradle with the children was carried down
the stream in safety to the Palatine Hill, where the she-wolf
adopted them.
22. Prest: ready; French, “pret.”
23. Alanus de Insulis, a Sicilian poet and orator of the twelfth
century, who wrote a book “De Planctu Naturae” — “The
Complaint of Nature.”
24. The falcon was borne on the hand by the highest
personages, not merely in actual sport, but to be caressed and
petted, even on occasions of ceremony, Hence also it is called
the “gentle” falcon — as if its high birth and breeding gave it a
right to august society.
25. The merlion: elsewhere in the same poem called “emerlon;”
French, “emerillon;” the merlin, a small hawk carried by ladies.
26. The scorning jay: scorning humbler birds, out of pride of his
fine plumage.
27. The false lapwing: full of stratagems and pretences to divert
approaching danger from the nest where her young ones are.
28. The sparrow, Venus’ son: Because sacred to Venus.
29. Coming with the spring, the nightingale is charmingly said
to call forth the new leaves.
30. Many-coloured wings, like those of peacocks, were often
given to angels in paintings of the Middle Ages; and in
accordance with this fashion Spenser represents the Angel that
guarded Sir Guyon (“Faerie Queen,” book ii. canto vii.) as
having wings “decked with diverse plumes, like painted jay’s.”
31. The pheasant, scorner of the cock by night: The meaning of
this passage is not very plain; it has been supposed, however, to
refer to the frequent breeding of pheasants at night with
domestic poultry in the farmyard — thus scorning the sway of
the cock, its rightful monarch.
32. The waker goose: Chaucer evidently alludes to the passage
in Ovid describing the crow of Apollo, which rivalled the
spotless doves, “Nec servataris vigili Capitolia voce cederet
anseribus” — “nor would it yield (in whiteness) to the geese
destined with wakeful or vigilant voice to save the Capitol”
(“Metam.,” ii. 538) when about to be surprised by the Gauls in
a night attack.
33. The cuckoo ever unkind: the significance of this epithet is
amply explained by the poem of “The Cuckoo and the
Nightingale.”
34. The drake, destroyer: of the ducklings — which, if not
prevented, he will kill wholesale.
35. The stork is conspicuous for faithfulness to all family
obligations, devotion to its young, and care of its parent birds in
their old age. Mr Bell quotes from Bishop Stanley’s “History of
Birds” a little story which peculiarly justifies the special
character Chaucer has given: — “A French surgeon, at Smyrna,
wishing to procure a stork, and finding great difficulty, on
account of the extreme veneration in which they are held by the
Turks, stole all the eggs out of a nest, and replaced them with
those of a hen: in process of time the young chickens came
forth, much to the astonishment of Mr and Mrs Stork. In a
short time Mr S. went off, and was not seen for two or three
days, when he returned with an immense crowd of his
companions, who all assembled in the place, and formed a
circle, taking no notice of the numerous spectators whom so
unusual an occurrence had collected. Mrs Stork was brought
forward into the midst of the circle, and, after some
consultation, the whole flock fell upon her and tore her to
pieces; after which they immediately dispersed, and the nest was
entirely abandoned.”
36. The cormorant feeds upon fish, so voraciously, that when
the stomach is crammed it will often have the gullet and bill
likewise full, awaiting the digestion of the rest.
37. So called from the evil omens supposed to be afforded by
their harsh cries.
38. The fieldfare visits this country only in hard wintry weather.
39. “Formel,” strictly or originally applied to the female of the
eagle and hawk, is here used generally of the female of all birds;
“tercel” is the corresponding word applied to the male.
40. Entriketh: entangles, ensnares; french, “intriguer,” to
perplex; hence “intricate.”
41. Entremette him of: meddle with; French, “entremettre,” to
interfere.
42. The duck exhorts the contending lovers to be of light heart
and sing, for abundance of other ladies were at their command.
43. Solain: single, alone; the same word originally as “sullen.”
44. The cuckoo is distinguished by its habit of laying its eggs in
the nests of other and smaller birds, such as the hedge-sparrow
(“heggsugg”); and its young, when hatched, throw the eggs or
nestlings of the true parent bird out of the nest, thus engrossing
the mother’s entire care. The crime on which the emerlon
comments so sharply, is explained by the migratory habits of the
cuckoo, which prevent its bringing up its own young; and
nature has provided facilities for the crime, by furnishing the
young bird with a peculiarly strong and broad back, indented by
a hollow in which the sparrow’s egg is lifted till it is thrown out
of the nest.
45. “Who well loves, late forgets;” the refrain of the roundel
inculcates the duty of constancy, which has been imposed on
the three tercels by the decision of the Court.
THE FLOWER AND THE LEAF
[“The Flower and the Leaf” is pre-eminently one of those
poems by which Chaucer may be triumphantly defended against
the charge of licentious coarseness, that, founded upon his
faithful representation of the manners, customs, and daily life
and speech of his own time, in “The Canterbury Tales,” are
sweepingly advanced against his works at large. In an allegory —
rendered perhaps somewhat cumbrous by the detail of chivalric