The Canterbury Tales, and Other Poems Part 110

Now will I say what penance thou shalt do For thy trespa.s.s;* and understand it here: *offence Thou shalt, while that thou livest, year by year, The moste partie of thy time spend In making of a glorious Legend Of Goode Women, maidenes and wives, That were true in loving all their lives; And tell of false men that them betray, That all their life do naught but a.s.say How many women they may do a shame; For in your world that is now *held a game.* *considered a sport*

And though thou like not a lover be, <31> Speak well of love; this penance give I thee.

And to the G.o.d of Love I shall so pray, That he shall charge his servants, by any way, To further thee, and well thy labour quite:* *requite Go now thy way, thy penance is but lite.

And, when this book ye make, give it the queen On my behalf, at Eltham, or at Sheen."

The G.o.d of Love gan smile, and then he said: "Know'st thou," quoth he, "whether this be wife or maid, Or queen, or countess, or of what degree, That hath so little penance given thee, That hath deserved sorely for to smart?

But pity runneth soon in gentle* heart; <32> *n.o.bly born That may'st thou see, she kitheth* what she is. *showeth And I answer'd: "Nay, Sir, so have I bliss, No more but that I see well she is good."

"That is a true tale, by my hood,"

Quoth Love; "and that thou knowest well, pardie!

If it be so that thou advise* thee. *bethink Hast thou not in a book, li'th* in thy chest, *(that) lies The greate goodness of the queen Alceste, That turned was into a daisy She that for her husbande chose to die, And eke to go to h.e.l.l rather than he; And Hercules rescued her, pardie!

And brought her out of h.e.l.l again to bliss?"

And I answer'd again, and saide; "Yes, Now know I her; and is this good Alceste, The daisy, and mine own hearte's rest?

Now feel I well the goodness of this wife, That both after her death, and in her life, Her greate bounty* doubleth her renown. *virtue Well hath she quit* me mine affectioun *recompensed That I have to her flow'r the daisy; No wonder is though Jove her stellify, <33> As telleth Agathon, <34> for her goodness; Her white crowne bears of it witness; For all so many virtues hadde she As smalle flowrons in her crowne be.

In remembrance of her, and in honour, Cybele made the daisy, and the flow'r, Y-crowned all with white, as men may see, And Mars gave her a crowne red, pardie!

Instead of rubies set among the white."

Therewith this queen wax'd red for shame a lite When she was praised so in her presence.

Then saide Love: "A full great negligence Was it to thee, that ilke* time thou made *that same 'Hide Absolon thy tresses,' in ballade, That thou forgot her in thy song to set, Since that thou art so greatly in her debt, And knowest well that calendar* is she *guide, example To any woman that will lover be: For she taught all the craft of true loving, And namely* of wifehood the living, *especially And all the boundes that she ought to keep: Thy little wit was thilke* time asleep. *that But now I charge thee, upon thy life, That in thy Legend thou make* of this wife, *poetise, compose When thou hast other small y-made before; And fare now well, I charge thee no more.

But ere I go, thus much I will thee tell, -- Never shall no true lover come in h.e.l.l.

These other ladies, sitting here a-row, Be in my ballad, if thou canst them know, And in thy bookes all thou shalt them find; Have them in thy Legend now all in mind; I mean of them that be in thy knowing.

For here be twenty thousand more sitting Than that thou knowest, goode women all, And true of love, for aught that may befall; Make the metres of them as thee lest; I must go home, -- the sunne draweth west, -- To Paradise, with all this company: And serve alway the freshe daisy.

At Cleopatra I will that thou begin, And so forth, and my love so shalt thou win; For let see now what man, that lover be, Will do so strong a pain for love as she.

I wot well that thou may'st not all it rhyme, That suche lovers didden in their time; It were too long to readen and to hear; Suffice me thou make in this mannere, That thou rehea.r.s.e of all their life the great,* *substance After* these old authors list for to treat; *according as For whoso shall so many a story tell, Say shortly, or he shall too longe dwell."

And with that word my bookes gan I take, And right thus on my Legend gan I make.

Thus endeth the Prologue.

Notes to The prologue to The Legend of Good Women

1. Bernard, the Monke, saw not all, pardie!: a proverbial saying, signifying that even the wisest, or those who claim to be the wisest, cannot know everything. Saint Bernard, who was the last, or among the last, of the Fathers, lived in the first half of the twelfth century.

2. Compare Chaucer's account of his habits, in "The House of Fame."

3. See introductory note to "The Flower and the Leaf."

4. "ye have herebefore Of making ropen, and led away the corn"

The meaning is, that the "lovers" have long ago said all that can be said, by way of poetry, or "making" on the subject. See note 89 to "Troilus and Cressida" for the etymology of "making"

meaning "writing poetry."

5. The poet glides here into an address to his lady.

6. Europa was the daughter of Agenores, king of Phrygia. She was carried away to Crete by Jupiter, disguised as a lovely and tame bull, on whose back Europa mounted as she was sporting with her maidens by the sea-sh.o.r.e. The story is beautifully told in Horace, Odes, iii. 27.

7. See "The a.s.sembly of Fowls," which was supposed to happen on St. Valentine's day.

8. The tidife: The t.i.tmouse, or any other small bird, which sometimes brings up the cuckoo's young when its own have been destroyed. See note 44 to "The a.s.sembly of Fowls."

9. Ethic: the "Ethics" of Aristotle.

10. "For as to me is lever none nor lother, I n'am withholden yet with neither n'other."

i.e For as neither is more liked or disliked by me, I am not bound by, holden to, either the one or the other.

11. All of another tun i.e. wine of another tun -- a quite different matter.

12. Compare the description of the arbour in "The Flower and the Leaf."

13. Flowrons: florets; little flowers on the disk of the main flower; French "fleuron."

14. Mr Bell thinks that Chaucer here praises the complaisance of Marcia, the wife of Cato, in complying with his will when he made her over to his friend Hortensius. It would be in better keeping with the spirit of the poet's praise, to believe that we should read "Porcia Catoun" -- Porcia the daughter of Cato, who was married to Brutus, and whose perfect wifehood has been celebrated in The Franklin's Tale. See note 25 to the Franklin's Tale.

15. Isoude: See note 21 to "The a.s.sembly of Fowls".

16. Lavine: Lavinia, the heroine of the Aeneid, who became the wife of Aeneas.

17. Polyxena, daughter of Priam, king of Troy, fell in love with Achilles, and, when he was killed, she fled to the Greek camp, and slew herself on the tomb of her hero-lover.

18. Mountance: extent, duration. See note 84 to "The House of Fame".

19. Relic: emblem; or cherished treasure; like the relics at the shrines of saints.

20. Losengeour: deceiver. See note 31 to the Nun's Priest's Tale.

21. "Toteler" is an old form of the word "tatler," from the Anglo-Saxon, "totaelan," to talk much, to tattle.

22. Envy is lavender of the court alway: a "lavender" is a washerwoman or laundress; the word represents "meretrice"in Dante's original -- meaning a courtezan; but we can well understand that Chaucer thought it prudent, and at the same time more true to the moral state of the English Court, to change the character a.s.signed to Envy. He means that Envy is perpetually at Court, like some garrulous, bitter old woman employed there in the most servile offices, who remains at her post through all the changes among the courtiers. The pa.s.sage cited from Dante will be found in the "Inferno," canto xiii. 64 -- 69.

23. Chaucer says that the usurping lords who seized on the government of the free Lombard cities, had no regard for any rule of government save sheer tyranny -- but a natural lord, and no usurper, ought not to be a tyrant.

24. Farmer: one who merely farms power or revenue for his own purposes and his own gain.

25. This was the first version of the Knight's tale. See the introductory note, above

26. Boece: Boethius' "De Consolatione Philosophiae;" to which frequent reference is made in The Canterbury Tales. See, for instances, note 91 to the Knight's Tale; and note 34 to the Squire's Tale.

27. A poem ent.i.tled "The Lamentation of Mary Magdalene,"

said to have been "taken out of St Origen," is included in the editions of Chaucer; but its authenticity, and consequently its ident.i.ty with the poem here mentioned, are doubted.

28. For the story of Alcestis, see note 11 to "The Court of Love."

29. "For he who gives a gift, or doth a grace, Do it betimes, his thank is well the more"

A paraphrase of the well-known proverb, "Bis dat qui cito dat."

("He gives twice who gives promptly")

30. The same prohibition occurs in the Fifteenth Statute of "The Court of Love."

31. Chaucer is always careful to allege his abstinence from the pursuits of gallantry; he does so prominently in "The Court of Love," "The a.s.sembly of Fowls," and "The House of Fame."