Chaucer and His England Part 9

Our Hoste gan to swear as he were wood; [mad 'Harrow!' quoth he, 'by nailes and by blood!

This was a false churl and a false justice! ...

By _Corpus_ bones! but I have triacle [medicinal syrup Or else a draught of moist and corny ale, Or but I hear anon a merry tale, Mine heart is lost, for pity of this maid.

Thou _bel ami_, thou Pardoner,' he said 'Tell us some mirth, or j.a.pes, right anon!'

'It shall be done,' quoth he, 'by saint Ronyon!

But first' (quoth he) 'here at this ale stake I will both drink and eaten of a cake.'

And right anon the gentles gan to cry 'Nay! let him tell us of no ribaldry....'

'I grant, ywis,' quoth he; 'but I must think Upon some honest thing, the while I drink.'

The suspicion of the "gentles" might seem premature; but they evidently suspected this pardon-monger of too copious morning-draughts already, and the tenor of his whole prologue must have confirmed their fears. With the cake in his mouth, and the froth of the pot on his lips, he takes as his text, _Radix malorum est cupiditas_, "Covetousness is the root of all evil," and exposes with cynical frankness the tricks of his trade. By a judicious use of "my longe crystal stones, y-crammed full of cloutes and of bones," I make (says he) my round 100 marks a year;[162] and, when the people have offered, then I mount the pulpit, nod east and west upon the congregation like a dove on a barn-gable, and preach such tales as this.... Hereupon follows his tale of the three thieves who all murdered each other for the same treasure. It is told with admirable spirit; and now the Pardoner, carried away by sheer force of habit, calls upon the company to kiss his relics, make their offerings, and earn his indulgences piping-hot from Rome. Might not a horse stumble here, at this very moment, and break the neck of some unlucky pilgrim, who would then bitterly regret his lost opportunities in h.e.l.l or purgatory? Strike, then, while the iron is hot--

I counsel that our Host here shall begin, For he is most enveloped in sin!

... Come forth, sir Host, and offer first anon, And thou shalt kiss my relics every one ...

Yea, for a groat! unbuckle anon thy purse.

'Nay, nay,' quoth he, 'then have I Christe's curse ...

The Host, as his opening words may suggest, answers to the purpose, easy words to understand, but not so easy to print here in the broad nakedness of their scorn for the Pardoner and all his works--

This Pardoner answered not a word; So wroth he was, no worde would he say.

'Now,' quoth our Host, 'I will no longer play With thee, nor with none other angry man.'

But right anon the worthy Knight began (When that he saw that all the people lough) [laughed 'No more of this, for it is right enough! [quite Sir Pardoner, be glad and merry of cheer; And ye, sir Host, that be to me so dear, I pray now that ye kiss the Pardoner; And, Pardoner, I pray thee draw thee near, And, as we diden, let us laugh and play.'

Anon they kist, and riden forth their way.

[Ill.u.s.tration:

Upon an ambler easily she sat, Y-wimpled well, and on her head an hat As broad as is a buckler or a targe; A foot-mantle about her hippes large, And on her feet a pair of spurres sharp.

THE WIFE OF BATH

(From the Ellesmere MS.)]

The thread of the tales here breaks off; and then suddenly we find the Wife of Bath talking, talking, talking, almost without end as she was without beginning. Her prologue is half a dozen tales in itself, longer almost, and certainly wittier, than all the other prologues put together.

The theme is marriage, and her mouth speaks from the abundance of her heart. Here, indeed, we have G.o.d's plenty: fish, flesh, and fowl are set before us in one dish, not to speak of creeping things: it is in truth a strong mess, savoury to those that have the stomach for it, but reeking of garlic, crammed with oaths like the s.h.i.+pman's talk; a sample of the Eternal Feminine undisguised and unrefined, in its most glaring contrast with the only other two women of the party, the Prioress and her fellow-nun--

Men may divine, and glosen up and down, But well I wot, express, withouten lie, G.o.d bade us for to wax and multiply; That gentle text can I well understand.

Eke, well I wot, he said that mine husband Should leave father and mother, and take me; But of no number mention made he Of bigamy or of octogamy, Why shoulde men speak of it villainy?

The good wife tells how she has outlived five husbands, and proclaims her readiness for a sixth. The five martyrs are sketched with a master-touch, and are divided into categories according to their obedience or disobedience. But, with all their variety of disposition, time and matrimony had tamed even the most stubborn of them; even that clerk of Oxford whose earlier wont had been to read aloud nightly by the fire from a Book of Bad Women--

... And when I saw he woulde never fine [finish To readen on this cursed book all night, All suddenly three leaves have I plight [plucked Out of his book, right as he read; and eke I with my fist so took him on the cheek That in our fire he fell backward adown; And up he start as doth a wood lioun [mad And with his fist he smote me on the head, That in the floor I lay as I were dead ...

But the quarrels of lovers are the renewal of love; and when the husband had been brought, half by violence and half by cajolery, to give his wife her own way in everything, then--

After that day we never had debate.

G.o.d help me so, I was to him as kind As any wife from Denmark unto Ind.

For all social purposes, as we have said, this was the only woman of the company; and where there is one woman there are always two men as ready to quarrel over her as if she were Helen of Troy. Moreover, in this case, professional jealousies were also at work. Already in the middle of her prologue the Summoner had fallen into familiar dialogue with this merry wife; and now, at the end--

The Friar laughed when he had heard all this; 'Now, dame,' quoth he, 'so have I joy or bliss, This is a long preamble of a tale!'

And when the Summoner heard the Friar gale [cry out 'Lo,' quoth the Summoner, 'G.o.ddes armes two!

A friar will intermit him ever-mo. [interfere Lo, goode men, a fly, and eke a frere Will fall in every dishe and matere.

What speak'st thou of a "preambulation"?

What? amble, or trot, or peace, or go sit down!

Thou lettest our disport in this manere.'

'Yea, wilt thou so, sir Summoner?' quoth the Frere; 'Now, by my faith, I shall, ere that I go, Tell of a Summoner such a tale or two That all the folk shall laughen in this place.'

'Now elles, Friar, I beshrew thy face,' [curse Quoth this Summoner, 'and I beshrewe me, But if I telle tales, two or three, Of friars, ere I come to Sittingbourne, That I shall make thine hearte for to mourn, For well I wot thy patience is gone.'

Our Hoste cried 'Peace! and that anon;'

And saide: 'Let the woman tell her tale; Ye fare as folk that drunken be of ale.

Do, dame, tell forth your tale, and that is best.'

'All ready, sir,' quoth she, 'right as you list, If I have licence of this worthy Frere.'

'Yes, dame,' quoth he, 'tell forth, and I will hear.'

The lady, having thus definitely notified her choice between the rivals (on quite other grounds, as the next few lines show, than those of religion or morality), proceeds to tell her tale on the theme that nothing is so dear to the female heart as "sovereignty" or "mastery." Then the quarrel blazes up afresh, and the Friar (after an insulting prologue for which the Host calls him to order) tells a story which is, from first to last, a bitter satire on the whole tribe of Summoners. Then the Summoner, "quaking like an aspen leaf for ire," stands up in his stirrups and claims to be heard in turn. His prologue, which by itself might suffice to turn the tables on his enemy, is a broad parody of those revelations to devout Religious which announced how the blessed souls of their particular Order (for the Friars were not alone in this egotism) enjoyed for their exclusive use some choice and peculiar mansion in heaven--under the skirts of the Virgin's mantle, for instance, or even within the wound of their Saviour's side. Then begins the tale itself of a Franciscan Stiggins on his daily rounds, and of the "olde churl, with lockes h.o.a.r," who at one stroke blasphemed the whole convent, and took ample change out of Friar John for many a good penny or fat meal given in the past, and for much friction in his conjugal relations. The whole is told with inimitable humour, and it is to be regretted that we hear nothing of the comments with which it was received. At this point comes another gap in Chaucer's plan.

[Ill.u.s.tration:

His eyen twinkled in his head aright As do the starres in a frosty night.

THE FRIAR

(From the Ellesmere MS.)]

Then suddenly our Host calls upon the Clerk of Oxford--

Ye ride as still and coy as doth a maid, Were newly spoused, sitting at the board; This day ne heard I of your tongue a word ...

For G.o.ddes sake, as be of better cheer!

It is no time for to study here.

The Clerk, thus rudely shaken from his meditations, tells the story of Patient Griselda, which he had "learned at Padua, of a worthy clerk ...

Francis Petrarch, the laureate poet." The good Clerk softens down much of that which most shocks the modern mind in this truly medieval conception of wifely obedience; and, as a confirmed bachelor, he adds an ironical postscript which is as clever as anything Chaucer ever wrote.[163] We must revere the heroine, but despair of finding her peer--

Griseld' is dead, and eke her patience, And both at once buried in Itayle.

So begins this satirical ballad, and goes on to bid the wife of the present day to enjoy herself at her husband's expense--

Be aye of cheer as light as leaf on lind, [lime-tree And let him care and weep, and wring and wail!

The last line rouses a sad echo in one heart at least, for the Merchant had been wedded but two months--

'Weeping and wailing, care and other sorrow, I know enough, on even and a-morrow'

Quoth the Merchant, 'and so do other more That wedded be ...'

His tale turns accordingly on the misadventures of an old knight who had been foolish enough to marry a girl in her teens. Upon this the Host congratulates himself that _his_ wife, with all her shrewishness and other vices more, is "as true as any steel." Here ends the third day; the travellers probably slept at the Pilgrim's House at Ospringe, parts of which stand still as Chaucer saw it.

Next morning the Squire is first called upon to