The Canterbury Tales, and Other Poems
And down from thennes fast he gan advise* *consider, look on
This little spot of earth, that with the sea
Embraced is; and fully gan despise
This wretched world, and held all vanity,
*To respect of the plein felicity* *in comparison with
That is in heav’n above; and, at the last, the full felicity*
Where he was slain his looking down he cast.
And in himself he laugh’d right at the woe
Of them that wepte for his death so fast;
And damned* all our works, that follow so *condemned
The blinde lust, the which that may not last,
And shoulden* all our heart on heaven cast; *while we should
And forth he wente, shortly for to tell,
Where as Mercury sorted* him to dwell. *allotted <92>
Such fine* hath, lo! this Troilus for love! *end
Such fine hath all his *greate worthiness!* *exalted royal rank*
Such fine hath his estate royal above!
Such fine his lust,* such fine hath his nobless! *pleasure
Such fine hath false worlde’s brittleness!* *fickleness, instability
And thus began his loving of Cresside,
As I have told; and in this wise he died.
O young and freshe folke, *he or she,* *of either sex*
In which that love upgroweth with your age,
Repaire home from worldly vanity,
And *of your heart upcaste the visage* *“lift up the countenance
To thilke God, that after his image of your heart.”*
You made, and think that all is but a fair,
This world that passeth soon, as flowers fair!
And love Him, the which that, right for love,
Upon a cross, our soules for to bey,* *buy, redeem
First starf,* and rose, and sits in heav’n above; *died
For he will false* no wight, dare I say, *deceive, fail
That will his heart all wholly on him lay;
And since he best to love is, and most meek,
What needeth feigned loves for to seek?
Lo! here of paynims* cursed olde rites! *pagans
Lo! here what all their goddes may avail!
Lo! here this wretched worlde’s appetites! *end and reward
Lo! here the *fine and guerdon for travail,* of labour*
Of Jove, Apollo, Mars, and such rascaille* *rabble <93>
Lo! here the form of olde clerkes’ speech,
In poetry, if ye their bookes seech!* *seek, search
L’Envoy of Chaucer.
O moral Gower! <94> this book I direct.
To thee, and to the philosophical Strode, <95>
To vouchesafe, where need is, to correct,
Of your benignities and zeales good.
And to that soothfast Christ that *starf on rood* *died on the cross*
With all my heart, of mercy ever I pray,
And to the Lord right thus I speak and say:
“Thou One, and Two, and Three, *etern on live,* *eternally living*
That reignest ay in Three, and Two, and One,
Uncircumscrib’d, and all may’st circumscrive,* *comprehend
From visible and invisible fone* *foes
Defend us in thy mercy ev’ry one;
So make us, Jesus, *for thy mercy dign,* *worthy of thy mercy*
For love of Maid and Mother thine benign!”
Explicit Liber Troili et Cresseidis. <96>
Notes to Troilus and Cressida
1. The double sorrow: First his suffering before his love was
successful; and then his grief after his lady had been separated
from him, and had proved unfaithful.
2. Tisiphone: one of the Eumenides, or Furies, who avenged on
men in the next world the crimes committed on earth. Chaucer
makes this grim invocation most fitly, since the Trojans were
under the curse of the Eumenides, for their part in the offence
of Paris in carrying off Helen, the wife of his host Menelaus,
and thus impiously sinning against the laws of hospitality.
3. See Chaucer’s description of himself in “The House Of
Fame,” and note 11 to that poem.
4. The Palladium, or image of Pallas (daughter of Triton and
foster-sister of Athena), was said to have fallen from heaven at
Troy, where Ilus was just beginning to found the city; and Ilus
erected a sanctuary, in which it was preserved with great
honour and care, since on its safety was supposed to depend the
safety of the city. In later times a Palladium was any statue of
the goddess Athena kept for the safeguard of the city that
possessed it.
5. “Oh, very god!”: oh true divinity! — addressing Cressida.
6. Ascaunce: as if to say — as much as to say. The word
represents “Quasi dicesse” in Boccaccio. See note 5 to the
Sompnour’s Tale.
7. Eft: another reading is “oft.”
8. Arten: constrain — Latin, “arceo.”
9. The song is a translation of Petrarch’s 88th Sonnet, which
opens thus:
“S’amor non e, che dunque e quel ch’i’sento.”
10. If maugre me: If (I burn) in spite of myself. The usual
reading is, “If harm agree me” = if my hurt contents me: but
evidently the antithesis is lost which Petrarch intended when,
after “s’a mia voglia ardo,” he wrote “s’a mal mio grado” = if
against my will; and Urry’s Glossary points out the probability
that in transcription the words “If that maugre me” may have
gradually changed into “If harm agre me.”
11. The Third of May seems either to have possessed peculiar
favour or significance with Chaucer personally, or to have had a
special importance in connection with those May observances
of which the poet so often speaks. It is on the third night of
May that Palamon, in The Knight’s Tale, breaks out of prison,
and at early morn encounters in the forest Arcita, who has gone
forth to pluck a garland in honour of May; it is on the third
night of May that the poet hears the debate of “The Cuckoo and
the Nightingale”; and again in the present passage the favoured
date recurs.
12. Went: turning; from Anglo-Saxon, “wendan;” German,
“wenden.” The turning and tossing of uneasy lovers in bed is,
with Chaucer, a favourite symptom of their passion. See the
fifth “statute,” in The Court of Love.
13. Procne, daughter of Pandion, king of Attica, was given to
wife to Tereus in reward for his aid against an enemy; but
Tereus dishonoured Philomela, Procne’s sister; and his wife, in
revenge, served up to him the body of his own child by her.
Tereus, infuriated, pursued the two sisters, who prayed the
gods to change them into birds. The prayer was granted;
Philomela became a nightingale, Procne a swallow, and Tereus
a hawk.
14. Fished fair: a proverbial phrase which probably may be best
represented by the phrase “done great execution.”
15. The fair gem virtueless: possessing none of the virtues
which in the Middle Ages were universally believed to be
inherent in precious stones.
16. The crop and root: the most perfect example. See note 29
to the Knight’s Tale.
17. Eme: uncle; the mother’s brother; still used in Lancashire.
Anglo-Saxon, “eame;” German, “Oheim.”
18. Dardanus: the mythical ancestor of the Trojans, after whom
the gate is supposed to be called.
19. All the other gates were secured with chains, for better
defence against the besiegers.
20. Happy day: good fortune; French, “bonheur;” both “happy
day” and “happy hour” are borrowed from the astrological
fiction about the influence of the time of birth.
21. Horn, and nerve, and rind: The various layers or materials
of the shield — called boagrion in the Iliad — which was made
from the hide of the wild bull.
22. His brother: Hector.
23. Who gives me drink?: Who has given me a love-potion, to
charm my heart thus away?
24. That plaited she full oft in many a fold: She deliberated
carefully, with many arguments this way and that.
25. Through which I mighte stand in worse plight: in a worse
position in the city; since she might through his anger lose the
protection of his brother Hector.
26. I am not religious: I am not in holy vows. See the complaint
of the nuns in “The Court of Love.”
27. The line recalls Milton’s “dark with excessive bright.”
28. No weal is worth, that may no sorrow drien: the meaning is,
that whosoever cannot endure sorrow deserves not happiness.
29. French, “verre;” glass.
30. From cast of stones ware him in the werre: let him beware
of casting stones in battle. The proverb in its modern form
warns those who live in glass houses of the folly of throwing
stones.
31. Westren: to west or wester — to decline towards the west;
so Milton speaks of the morning star as sloping towards
heaven’s descent “his westering wheel.”
32. A pike with ass’s feet etc.: this is merely another version of
the well-known example of incongruity that opens the “Ars
Poetica” of Horace.
33. Tristre: tryst; a preconcerted spot to which the beaters
drove the game, and at which the sportsmen waited with their
bows.
34. A kankerdort: a condition or fit of perplexed anxiety;
probably connected with the word “kink” meaning in sea phrase
a twist in an rope — and, as a verb, to twist or entangle.
35. They feel in times, with vapour etern: they feel in their
seasons, by the emission of an eternal breath or inspiration (that
God loves, &c.)
36. The idea of this stanza is the same with that developed in
the speech of Theseus at the close of The Knight’s Tale; and it is
probably derived from the lines of Boethius, quoted in note 91
to that Tale.
37. In this and the following lines reappears the noble doctrine
of the exalting and purifying influence of true love, advanced in
“The Court of Love,” “The Cuckoo and the Nightingale,” &c.
38. Weir: a trap or enclosed place in a stream, for catching fish.
See note 10 to The Assembly of Fowls.
39. Nor might one word for shame to it say: nor could he
answer one word for shame (at the stratagem that brought
Cressida to implore his protection)
40. “All n’ere he malapert, nor made avow
Nor was so bold to sing a foole’s mass;”
i.e. although he was not over-forward and made no confession
(of his love), or was so bold as to be rash and ill-advised in his
declarations of love and worship.
41. Pandarus wept as if he would turn to water; so, in The
Squire’s Tale, did Canace weep for the woes of the falcon.
42. If I breake your defence: if I transgress in whatever you may
forbid; French, “defendre,” to prohibit.
43. These lines and the succeeding stanza are addressed to
Pandarus, who had interposed some words of incitement to
Cressida.
44. In “The Court of Love,” the poet says of Avaunter, that
“his ancestry of kin was to Lier; and the stanza in which that
line occurs expresses precisely the same idea as in the text.
Vain boasters of ladies’ favours are also satirised in “The House
of Fame”.
45. Nice: silly, stupid; French, “niais.”
46.”Reheating” is read by preference for “richesse,” which
stands in the older printed editions; though “richesse” certainly
better represents the word used in the original of Boccaccio —
“dovizia,” meaning abundance or wealth.
47. “Depart it so, for widewhere is wist
How that there is diversity requer’d
Betwixte thinges like, as I have lear’d:”
i.e. make this distinction, for it is universally known that there is
a great difference between things that seem the same, as I have
learned.
48. Frepe: the set, or company; French, “frappe,” a stamp (on
coins), a set (of moulds).
49. To be “in the wind” of noisy magpies, or other birds that
might spoil sport by alarming the game, was not less desirable
than to be on the “lee-side” of the game itself, that the hunter’s
presence might not be betrayed by the scent. “In the wind of,”
thus signifies not to windward of, but to leeward of — that is, in
the wind that comes from the object of pursuit.
50. Bothe fremd and tame: both foes and friends — literally,
both wild and tame, the sporting metaphor being sustained.
51. The lovers are supposed to say, that nothing is wanting but