Chaucer And His Times Part 13

And yet more-over, thogh alle tho That ever lived were now a-lyve, [They] ne sholde have founde to discryve In al hir face a wikked signe; For hit was sad, simple, and benigne.

This is no stereotyped model of feminine beauty, but a picture of the good fair White as she was when she lived.

In describing Cressida, Chaucer keeps fairly close to his original. We realise her beauty rather from the effect it produces on others than from any particular details. She is tall, but so well made that there is nothing clumsy or "manish" about her, and she dresses in black, as beseems a widow; this is practically all that we are told about her. The strong impression of sensuous beauty which she undoubtedly produces, is due to Chaucer's power of creating an atmosphere rather than to actual description. We hear the nightingale singing her to sleep, or watch her colour come and go as Troilus draws near, and our mind is so filled with an image of youth and beauty that we never stop to think if she is fair or dark. It is the same with Troilus. We get a gallant impression of him as he rides past Cressida's window, his eyes down-cast, and a boyish shyness tingeing his cheeks with red, but Chaucer thinks of his feelings rather than his looks. Later in the poem, as he rides towards the palace at the head of his men, the poet's impatience of mere description shows itself still more clearly:--

G.o.d woot if he sat on his hors a-right, Or goodly was beseyn,[148] that ilke day!

G.o.d woot wher he was lyk a manly knight!

What sholde I dreeche[149] or telle of his array?

Criseyde, which that alle these thinges say, To telle in short, hir lyked al y-fere His personne, his array, his look, his chere ...

Troilus's looks are, in fact, of importance only because they win the heart of Cressida.

But if Chaucer devotes little s.p.a.ce to dilating upon mere beauty of person, he has a keen eye for anything in dress, manner, or appearance that is in the truest sense characteristic. The _Prologue_ to the _Canterbury Tales_ shows clearly enough how trifles may reflect personality. The grey fur that edges the Monk's sleeves, and the love-knot of gold that fastens his hood, tell their tale, and a single glance at him gives us considerable insight into his character:--

His heed was balled, that shoon as any glas, And eek his face, as he had been anoint.

He was a lord ful fat and in good point;[150]

His eyen stepe,[151] and rollinge in his heed, That stemed as a forncye of a leed;[152]

His botes souple, his hors in greet estat.[153]

Now certainly he was a fair prelat....

The Christopher of silver that gleams on the Yeoman's green coat; the thread-bare raiment and lean horse of the Clerk of Oxenford; the ruddy face and white beard of the Franklin, all serve to ill.u.s.trate the same point. The very spurs of the Wife of Bath seem to have a subtle significance of their own.

Once only does Chaucer go out of his way to give a detailed description of one of his heroines, and the pa.s.sage is worth quoting in full because not only does it ill.u.s.trate his careful observation of detail, but it shows also a dramatic fitness which is eminently characteristic. The Miller is describing Alisoun, and there is not a simile, among the many used, which would not spring naturally to the lips of a peasant:--

Fair was this yonge wyf, and ther-with-al As any wesele hir body gent[154] and smal.

A ceynt[155] she werede barred al of silk, A barmclooth[156] eek as whyt as morne milk Up-on hir lendes, ful of many a gore.

Whyt was hir smok and brouded al bifore And eek bihinde, on hir coler aboute, Of col-blak silk, with-inne and eek with-oute.

The tapes of hir whyte voluper[157]

Were of the same suyte of hir coler;[158]

Hir filet brood of silk, and set ful hye: And sikerly she hadde a likerous ye.[159]

Ful smale y-pulled were hir browes two,[160]

And tho were bent, and blake as any sloo.[161]

She was ful more blisful on to see Than is the newe pere-jonette[162] tree; And softer than the wolle is of a wether.

And by hir girdel heeng a purs of lether Ta.s.seld with silk, and perled with latoun.[163]

In al this world, to seken up and doun, Ther nis no man so wys, that coude thenche So gay a popelote,[164] or swich a wenche.

Ful brighter was the shyning of hir hewe Than in the tour the n.o.ble y-forged newe.

But of hir song, it was as loude and yerne[165]

As any swalwe sittinge on a berne.

Ther-to she coude skippe and make game, As any kide or calf folwinge his dame.

Her mouth was swete as bragot[166] or the meeth,[167]

Or hord of apples leyd in hey or heeth.

Winsinge she was, as is a joly colt, Long as a mast, and upright as a bolt.

A brooch she baar up-on hir lowe coler, As brood as is the bos of a bocler.

The poet who wrote this had used his eyes to some purpose. In certain of his descriptions--notably that of Chauntecleer with his scarlet comb, black bill, azure legs, white nails, and golden tail--we notice Chaucer's love of brilliant colour, but this makes the comparative dullness and tameness of his marvellous palaces and enchanted castles all the more remarkable. He gives us a list of golden images, "riche tabernacles" and "curious portreytures" which stand in the Temple of Gla.s.s, but it is a mere auctioneer's catalogue of valuables which conveys no real impression of beauty or strangeness. We read of Venus "fletinge in a sec," her head crowned with roses,

And hir comb to kembe hir heed,

and feel as if we were looking up her attributes in a cla.s.sical dictionary. The thrill of the Renaissance has not yet swept across Europe.

The G.o.ds still sleep, before awakening to their strange sweet Indian summer of life. Cla.s.sical mythology serves Chaucer as an additional storehouse of story and ill.u.s.tration, but it no more intoxicates him with rapture than does the _Gesta Romanorum_. Spenser's Temple of Venus, in which:--

An hundred altars round about were set, All flaming with their sacrifices fire, That with the steme thereof the Temple swet, Which rould in clouds to heaven did aspire, And in them bore true lovers vowes entire: And eke an hundred brazen cauldrons bright To bath in joy and amorous desire, Every of which was to a damzell bright; For all the Priests were damzells in soft linnen dight ...

glows with colour and warmth. Chaucer's perfunctory statement that the windows of his chamber were well glazed and unbroken,

That to beholde it were gret joye,

and that in the glazing was wrought

... al the storie of Troye,

Of Ector and king Pirriamus, Of Achilles and Lamedon, Of Medea and of Jason, Of Paris, Eleyne, and Lavyne ...

leaves us untouched.

But if Chaucer is ill at ease within four walls, and takes but scant pleasure in looking at tapestries and pictures, the moment he slips out of doors he becomes a different being. He is no Wordsworth noting each twig and leaf, or watching with mystic gaze the shadows fall on the silent hills. He is content to fill his garden with flowers of the regulation

... whyte, blewe, yelowe, and rede; And colde welle-stremes no-thing dede, That swommen ful of smale fisshes lighte With finnes rede and scales silver-brighte,

and it is probably just as well not to inquire too closely into the natural order of either blossoms or fish. Cressida's garden is distinguished by the neatness of its fences, and the fact that its paths have recently been gravelled and provided with nice new benches. But even in these trim and formal gardens the spirit of spring is abroad, and once in the wood, Chaucer abandons himself to the sheer joy of nature. He pa.s.ses down a green glade

Ful thikke of gras, ful softe and swete, With floures fele, faire under fete....

For it was, on to beholde As thogh the erthe envye wolde To be gayer than the heven To have mo floures, swiche seven As in the welken sterres be.[168]

Hit had forgete the povertee That winter, through his colde morwes, Had mad hit suffre[n], and his sorwes; Al was forgeten, and that was sene.

For al the wode was waxen grene.

Swetnesse of dewe had mad it waxe ...

and his heart keeps tune to the song of the birds. He has something of Milton's power of giving a general sense of freshness and sweetness, and, again like Milton, his scenery always strikes one as peculiarly English.

He tells us that Cambinskan reigns in Syria, but his picture of the birds singing for joy of the l.u.s.ty weather and the "yonge grene," is that of a Northern rather than an Eastern spring. His best-loved flower, the daisy, springs in every English hedgerow.

The description of May in the Prologue to the _Legend of Good Women_ is particularly charming. The poet declares that one thing, and one alone, has power to take him from his books. When May comes,

Whan that I here the smale foules singe And that the floures ginne for to springe, Farwel my studie, as lasting that sesoun.

Instead of poring over some ponderous tome, he wanders out into the meadows to watch the daisy open to the sun:--

And whan the sonne ginneth for to weste, Than closeth hit, and draweth hit to reste, So sore hit is afered of the night, Til on the morwe, that hit is dayes light.

All day long he roams till

--closed was the flour and goon to reste,

and then he speeds swiftly home:--