Emily, the heroine of the Knight's Tale of Palamon and
Arcite :-
Thus passeth year by year, and day by day,
Till it fell ones in a morrow of May
That Emily, that fairer was to seen
Than is the lilly upon his stalke green,
And fresher than the May with floures new
(For with the rose colour strofa her hue;
I n'ot which was the finer of them two)
Ere it was day, as she was wont to do,
She was arisen and all ready dight,
For May wol have no slogardy a night;
The season pricketh every gentle heart,
And maketh him out of his sleep to start,
And saith, Arise, and do thine own observance.
This maketh Emily hand remembrance
To don honour to May, and for to rise;
Y-clothed was she fresh for to devise.e
Her yellow hair was broided in a tress
Behind her back, a yerde long I guess;
And in the garden at the sun uprist
She walketh up and down where as her list :h
She gathereth floures partie white and red
To make a sotel gerlond1 for her head:
And as an angel heavenlich she sung.
Of the many other noble passages in this Tale we can only present a portion of the description of the Temple of Mars:
Why should I not as well eke tell you al
The portraiture that was upon the wall
Within the Temple of mighty Mars the Red?
All painted was the wall in length and bred
Like to the estres of the grisly place
That hight the great Temple of Mars in Trace,d
e With exactness?
Uprising.
h Where it pleaseth her.
Subtle, artfully contrived.
bThe interior.
In thilke cold and frosty region
There as Mars hath his sovereign mansion.
First on the wall was painted a forest,
In which there wonneth neither man ne beast
With knotty knarry barren trees old,
Of stubbes sharp and hidous to behold,
In which there ran a rumble and a swough s
As though a storm should bresten h every bough;
And downward from an hill under a bent i
There stood the Temple of Mars Armipotent,
Wrought all of burned steel, of which the entree
Was long, and strait, and ghastly for to see;
And thereout came a rage and swich a vise
That it made all the gates for to rise.
The northern light in at the dore shone,
For window on the wall ne was there none.
Through which men mighten any light discern
The door was all of athamant1 etern,
Y-clenched overthwart and endelong m
With iron tough, and, for to make it strong,
Every pillar the temple to sustene
Was tonne-great," of iron bright and shene
There saw I first the dark imagining
Of Felony, and all the compassing;
The cruel Ire, red as any gled,"
The Picke-purse, and eke the pale Dread;
The Smiler with the knife under the cloak;
The shepen P brenning with the blake smoke;
The treason of the murdering in the bed;
The open wer," with woundes all bebled;
Contek with bloody knife and sharp menace:
All full of chirking was that sorry place.
The sleer" of himself yet saw I there;
His hearte-blood hath bathed all his hair;
8 A long sighing noise, which in Scotland is called a sugh. Was going to break.
1 A declivity.
1 Adamant.
A violent blast?
m Across and lengthways.
n Of the circumference of a tun.
• Burning coal. • Contention.
P Stable. ¶ Burning. * Disagreeable sound.
The nail y-driven in the shod▾ on hight;
The colde death, with mouth gaping upright.
Amiddes of the Temple sat Mischance,
With discomfort and sorry countenance:
Yet saw I Woodness laughing in his rage,
Armed Complaint, Outhees, and fierce Outrage;
The carrain in the bush, with throat y-corven ;2
A thousand slain, and not of qualm y-storven ;a
The tyrant, with the prey by force y-raft;b
The town destroyed;-there was nothing laft.c
The statue of Mars upon a carted stood
Armed, and looked grim as he were wood;
And over his head there shinen two figures
Of sterres, that been cleped in scriptures f
That one Puella, that other Rubeus.
This God of Armes was arrayed thus:
A wolf there stood beforn him at his feet
With eyen red, and of a man he eat.
Chaucer's merriment, at once hearty and sly, has of course the freedom and unscrupulousness of his time; and much of the best of it cannot be produced in our day without offence to our greater sensitiveness, at least in the matter of expression. Besides, humour in poetry, or any other kind of writing, can least of all qualities be effectively exemplified in extract: its subtle life, dependent upon the thousand minutiæ of place and connexion, perishes under the process of excision; it is to attempt to exhibit, not the building by the brick, but the living man by a pound of his fair flesh." We will venture, however, to give one or two short passages. Nothing is
more admirable in the Canterbury Tales than the manner in which the character of the Host is sustained throughout. He is the moving spirit of the poem from first to last. Here is his first introduction to us presiding over the company at supper in his own
That highte the Tabard faste by the Bell,
in Southwark, on the evening before they set out on their pilgrimage:
Great cheere made our Host us everich one,
And to the supper set he us anon,
And served us with vitail of the best;
Strong was the wine, and well to drink us lest."
A seemly man our Hoste was with all
For to han been a marshal in an hall;
A large man he was, with eyen steep;
A fairer burgess is there none in Cheap;
Bold of his speech, and wise, and well y-taught,
And of manhood y-laked right him naught,
Eke thereto was he right a merry man;
And after supper playen he began,
And spake of mirth amonges other things
When that we hadden made our reckonings,
And saide thus: Now, Lordings, truely
Ye been to me welcome right heartily;
For, by my troth, if that I shall not lie,
I saw nat this year swich & a company
At ones in this herberwee as is now;
Fain would I do you mirth an I wist how;
And of a mirth I am right now bethought
To don you ease, and it shall cost you nought.
Ye gon to Canterbury; God you speed,
The blissful martyr quite you your meed:
And well I wot as ye gon by the way
Ye shapen f you to talken and to play;
It pleased us.
In addition, besides, also.
Prepare yourselves, intend.
For truely comfort ne mirth is none
To riden by the way dumb as the stone;
And therefore would I maken you disport,
As I said erst, and don you some comfort.
And if you liketh all by one assent
Now for to stonden at my judgement,
And for to werchen h as I shall you say
To morrow, when ye riden on the way,
Now, by my fader's soule that is dead,
But ye be merry i smiteth off my head:
Hold up your hondes withouten more speech.
They all gladly assent; upon which mine Host proposes further that each of them (they were twenty-nine in all, besides himself) should tell two stories in going, and two more in returning, and that, when they got back to the Tabard, the one who had told the "tales of best sentence and most solace," should have a supper at the charge of the rest. And, adds the eloquent, sagacious, and large-hearted projector of the scheme,
for to make you the more merry
I woll my selven gladly with you ride
Right at mine owen cost, and be your guide.
And who that woll my judgement with say
Shall pay for all we spenden by the way.
Great as the extent of the poem is, therefore, what has been executed, or been preserved, is only a small part of the design; for this liberal plan would have afforded us no fewer than a hundred and twenty tales. Nothing can be better than the triumphant way in which mine Host of the Tabard is made to go through the duties of his self-assumed post; his promptitude, his decision upon all emergencies, and
8 Stand. i If ye shall not be merry. J Smite. The imperative has generally this termination. Resist, oppose.
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