Chaucer And His Times Part 8

What men wolde of hit deme I can nat seye: It nedeth me ful sleyly for to pley.[84]

The same strain of selfishness manifests itself now. Cressida is incapable of being swept away by a great pa.s.sion. She has a cat-like softness and daintiness and charm, a cat's readiness to attach herself to the person she is with at the moment, and a cat's adaptability to circ.u.mstances. She is genuinely distressed at being parted from Troilus, she cries till her eyes have dark rings round them, and even Pandarus is moved at the sight, but she is incapable of exposing herself to any danger or inconvenience for her lover's sake. Like the lady in the _Statue and the Bust_ she hesitates at the thought of difficulty:--

"And if that I me putte in jupartye[85]

To stele awey by nighte, and it befalle That I be caught, I shal be holde a spye, Or elles, lo, this drede I most of alle If in the hondes of som wrecche I falle, I am but lost, al be myn herte trewe; Now mighty G.o.d, thou on my sorwe rewe!

But natheles, bityde what bityde, I shal to-morwe at night, by est or weste, Out of the ost stele on som maner syde, And go with Troilus wher-as him leste.

This purpos wol I holde, and this is beste.

No fors of wikked tonges janglerye,[86]

For ever on love han wrecches had envye.

To such souls to-morrow never comes, and it is no surprise to find her before long yielding to Diomede's entreaties, as she had formerly yielded to those of Troilus. Boccaccio's heroine at once makes up her mind to flee from the Greek camp, and then is quickly turned from her "high and great intent" by the advent of a new lover. Chaucer with far greater sublety prepares us for the change, and makes her very weakness her excuse:--

But trewely, the story telleth us, Ther made never womman more wo Than she, whan that she falsed Troilus.

The reason for this excess of sorrow is characteristic:--

She seyde, "Allas! for now is clene a-go My name of trouthe in love for ever-mo

Allas, of me unto the worldes ende Shal neither been y-written nor y-songe No good word, for thise bokes wol me shende,[87]

O, rolled shal I ben on many a tonge,"[88]

and equally characteristic her hasty excuse,

"Al be I not the firste that dide amis,"

and the sublime self-confidence with which in the act of jilting one lover she announces her unalterable fidelity to the next:--

"And sin I see there is no bettre way, And that to late is now for me to rewe, To Diomede algate I wol be trewe."

The whole character is drawn with extraordinary delicacy and insight, and with a tenderness which marks Chaucer's large-hearted tolerance. It is comparatively easy for an author to hold up a character to execration, but only the very greatest can show us the weaknesses of human nature without for one moment becoming cynical or contemptuous.

In the _Canterbury Tales_ Chaucer's method of character delineation is more concise. In _Troilus and Criseyde_ he has five books, containing over 8000 lines, at his disposal, and the raptures and anguish of the lovers are described at considerable length. In the _Canterbury Tales_ he has a far more complex task before him; he has to present the pilgrims themselves, in the various prologues and end-links; to make each tale a dramatic revelation of the character of the teller; and to exhibit the characters of the personages who play a part in the various stories. The 560 lines of the _Prologue_ in themselves contain a far greater number and variety of characters than are to be found in the whole of _Troilus and Criseyde_, and if there is less subtlety of treatment the later prologues and end-links soon atone for this. Nothing, for instance, would have been easier than to draw a conventional picture of the self-indulgent, pleasure-loving monk, and at first sight we might think that Chaucer had done little more, though even in the _Prologue_ we are conscious of a sharp distinction between the Monk, who with all his faults is a gentleman, and such vulgar impostors as the Pardoner and the Somnour. But further acquaintance soon rectifies this conception. Self-indulgent and pleasure-loving the Monk undoubtedly is, but he is no hypocrite or evil-liver. The Host makes one of his few mistakes in tact by treating him with breezy familiarity, "Ryd forth," he cries:--

Ryd forth, myn owne lord, brek nat our game, But, by my trouthe, I knowe nat your name, Wher shal I calle you my lord dan John, Or dan Thomas, or elles dan Albon?

Of what hous be ye, by your fader kin?

I vow to G.o.d, thou hast a ful fair skin, It is a gentil pasture ther thou goost; Thou art nat lyk a penaunt[89] or a goost.

The Monk knows better than to rebuke the somewhat coa.r.s.e pleasantries that follow; but with quiet dignity he ignores the familiarity and offers to relate either the life of St. Edward or else a series of tragedies:--

Of whiche I have an hundred in my celle.

The choice of subjects in itself const.i.tutes a delicate but unmistakable snub. The Host expected some tale of hunting and merriment from him--tragedy has little in common with his stout, jovial person, and frank delight in good living--instead of which the pilgrims are regaled with a series of moral discourses which would have been perfectly in place in the cloister, but seem strangely ill-suited to the present company. Indeed, the pilgrims grow restive under so much good advice; they evidently fear that the worthy Monk means to inflict the whole hundred tragedies on them, and after listening, with growing impatience, to seventeen tales of woe, the tender-hearted Knight can bear no more:--

"Ho!" quod the knight, "good sir, na-more of this.

That ye han seyd is right y-nough, y-wis, And mochel more; for litel hevinesse Is right y-nough to mochel folk, I gesse.

I seye for me it is a greet disese Wher-as men han ben in greet welthe and ese To heren of hir sodyn fal, allas!"

But it is significant that it is the Knight and not the Host who breaks in, and that it is not until the Knight has spoken that Harry Bailly informs the narrator of the obvious fact that his tale "anoyeth al this companye," and courteously begs him to "sey somwhat of hunting." The Monk refuses, and the turn pa.s.ses to the Nun's Priest, but never again does the Host venture to take a liberty with "dan Piers."

The Host's character is drawn with extraordinary skill, and without the aid of any such introductory description as the _Prologue_ gives us of the other pilgrims. The knowledge of human nature is part of his trade, and the success with which he manages the diverse company which chance has thrown in his way is proof enough that he is pa.s.sed-master of his profession. Shrewd, worldly, and unimaginative, we should imagine that the coa.r.s.er tales best please his taste, but it is his business to cater for people of all kinds, and he well understands how to ensure sufficient variety to suit all listeners. His rough good-humoured air of authority is sufficient to keep the Friar and the Somnour within bounds. He prevents the drunken Cook from becoming an intolerable nuisance to the company. He keeps an eye on every individual pilgrim, and sees that no one is overlooked. His ready jests smooth over many little roughnesses and disagreeables, and the one thing that really takes him aback is when the poor parson rebukes him for the constant oaths which slip off his tongue so readily. He can only conclude that a person so extraordinary must be a Lollard. And all the time that he is keeping the pilgrims in a good temper and preventing them from feeling the journey irksome, he has by no means lost sight of the fact that the reward of the best story is to be "a soper at our aller cost," given at the Tabard Inn. The money he expended on the pilgrimage was probably a good investment--not to mention the chance that his expenses might very possibly be reduced to nothing, since at the very beginning he had established it as a law that:--

... who-so wol my judgement withseye Shal paye al that we spenden by the weye

A very practical person, Harry Bailly!

Chaucer excels in drawing characters of this type. His young men are not unlike the heroes of Shakespearean comedy. They are real enough, but they have no very marked individuality. The Squire is by far the best of them.

In him we see the charm and freshness of youth, and it would be ungracious to ask more of so fair a promise. But Troilus, with his tearfulness and emotionalism, his readiness to procrastinate and to look to others to help him out of his difficulties, with something of Ba.s.sanio's gallantry and attractiveness, has also Ba.s.sanio's pliability. His is too slight a nature to form the centre of a tragedy. Palamon and Arcite are as indistinguishable as Demetrius and Lysander. There are critics who profess to see subtle differences of character between them, but to the majority of readers they are mere types of chivalry. Dorigen's husband, Averagus, is little more than an embodiment of loyal truth, and Griselda's, were one to regard him as anything but the means of testing wifely patience, would be a monster of cruelty. Compare with these, the Pardoner, the Friar, the Somnour, the Canon's Yeoman, the Miller, and all the other commonplace, practical men whom Chaucer describes. Most of them strike us as elderly; certainly none of them have any of the freshness or idealism of youth. The remarkable thing about them is that they are so ordinary and yet so interesting. The fussy self-importance of Chauntecleer; the garrulous vulgarity of Pandarus; the senile uxoriousness of January, are all drawn to the life, without one touch of bitterness or exaggeration. We listen to the jests and squabbles of the pilgrims on the road to Canterbury, or the story of some drama of everyday life, and we feel as if we had been made free of the ale-house and were listening to the village gossips of our own day.

But if the best drawn of Chaucer's men are confined to one comparatively narrow cla.s.s, his women show no such limitation. He draws no great tragedy-queen, no Guenever or Vittoria Corrombona, but with this great exception he depicts women of almost every type. Before going on to discuss his heroines in detail, however, it might, perhaps, be well to say a few words as to Chaucer's att.i.tude towards women in general.

It must be evident even to the most superficial observer, that Chaucer had an innate reverence for womanhood. The cult of the Virgin Mary, which had done so much to exalt woman among all Christian nations, appealed to him strongly, and, as we have seen, he more than once goes out of his way to introduce some invocation to the "flour of virgines alle." His love of children no doubt inclined him to look with tenderness on the relation of mother and child, and among his most beautiful pictures are those of Constance, with her baby in her arms, and Griselda bidding farewell to her "litel yonge mayde":--

And in her barm[90] this litel child she leyde With ful sad face, and gan the child to kisse And lulled it, and after gan it blisse.[91]

But he was far too shrewd and honest an observer of life to persuade himself that all women were angels, or to allow reverence to degenerate into sentimentality. His att.i.tude towards marriage is characteristic.

Reference has already been made to his acceptance of the comic convention of the shrewish wife, and certainly both the Host and the Merchant have but few illusions left concerning wives. The virago whom the Host has married cannot as much as go to say her prayers without finding some cause of quarrel:--

And if that any neighebour of myne Wol nat in chirche to my wyf enclyne,[92]

Or be so hardy to hir to tres.p.a.ce, Whan she comth hoom, she rampeth in my face And cryeth, "false coward, wreek[93] thy wyf!"

The Merchant's wife would "overmatch the devil himself" were he foolish enough to wed her. In the Lenvoy to the _Clerkes Tale_ Chaucer warns modern husbands to look for no patient Griseldas among their wives, and gives much satiric advice to "archewyves" to stand no nonsense from their husbands. In the _Lenvoy a Bukton_ he warns his friend of "the sorwe and wo that is in mariage":--

I wol nat seyn how that it is the cheyne[94]

Of Sathanas, on which he gnaweth ever, But I dar seyn, were he out of his peyne, As by his wille, he wolde be bounne never.

A fair proportion of the _Canterbury Tales_ deal with the tricks by which a faithless wife imposes on her too credulous husband, and the bitterest of all the words which Chaucer utters on the subject are those which preface the _Marchantes Tale_ of January and May, when with biting sarcasm he rebukes Theophrastus for daring to say that a good servant is of more value than a wife, and goes on to discuss at length the happiness of wedded life:--

How mighte a man han any adversitee That hath a wyf? certes I can nat seye.

The blisse which that is bitwixe hem tweye Ther may no tonge telle, or herte thinke.

If he be poore, she helpeth him to swinke;[95]

She kepeth his good, and wasteth never a deel; Al that her housbonde l.u.s.t,[96] hir lyketh weel;[97]

before relating the shame which a young wife brings upon her doting old husband. The s.h.i.+pmann protests with brutal frankness that wives cost more than they are worth, and tells a tale to prove it. From all this we might imagine Chaucer a cross-grained misogynist, but a glance for one moment at the other side of the picture corrects this impression. He is as ready to say what will amuse his contemporaries as Shakespeare is to tickle the ears of the groundlings in his generation, but, like Shakespeare, he is too just to see anything from only one point of view. There certainly are women who abuse their husbands, and Chaucer's inferiority to Shakespeare is marked by the fact that he finds the situation amusing; and there are also shrews and termagants who make their husbands' lives a burden in other ways. But pecking is not confined to hens. Chaucer realises that for woman marriage is even more of a lottery than for man, since she is necessarily so much at her husband's mercy:--

Lo, how a woman doth amis, To love him that unknowen is!

For, by Crist, lo! thus it fareth; "Hit is not al gold that glareth."[98]

For, al-so brouke I wel myn heed,[99]

Ther may be under goodliheed Kevered many a shrewd vyce; Therefore be no wight so nyce To take a love only for chere, For speche, or for frendly manere; For this shal every woman finde That som man, of his pure kinde,[100]

Wol shewen outward the faireste, Til he have caught that what him leste; And thanne wol he causes finde, And swere how that she is unkinde, Or fals, or prevy, or double was.

(_Hous of Fame_, Bk. I, ll. 269-85.)

Husband-hunting is a sport which has roused the laughter of men from time immemorial; Chaucer is one of the few who has ever portrayed that fierce shrinking from the thought of matrimony which is no less common among women. Emily longing to be free to roam in the forest and "noght to been a wyf," and Constance trembling at the thought of the strange man into whose hands she is being committed, are as true to life as the Wife of Bath with her husbands five at the Church door. And this poet, who sees so clearly the dangers and evils of matrimony, has left us one of the most perfect pictures of married life at its best. Dorigen and Averagus understand how to remain lovers all their lives:--