BOOK II

: METER V.

A VERSE TRANSLATION BY JOHN WALTON.

Full wonder _blisseful was_ that rather _age_, When mortal men couthe _holde hem_-selven[22] _payed_ To fede hem-selve[23] with-oute suche _outerage_, _With mete that trewe feeldes_[24] have arrayed; _With acorne[s] thaire hunger_ was alayed, And so thei couthe sese thaire talent; Thei had[den] yit no queynt[e] craft assayed, As _clarry_ for to _make_ ne _pyment_[25].

_To de[y]en purpure couthe thei noght_ be-thynke, _The white flees, with venym Tyryen_; _The rennyng_ ryver yaf hem lusty drynke, And _holsom sleep the[y]_ took _vpon the_ grene. _The pynes_, that so full of braunches been, That was thaire hous, to kepe[n] _vnder schade_. _The see[26] to kerve_ no _schippes_ were there seen; Ther was no man that _marchaundise_ made.

They liked not to sailen vp and doun, But kepe hem-selven[27] where thei weren bred; _Tho was ful huscht the cruel clarioun_, For _eger hate_ ther was _no blood I-sched_, Ne therwith was non _armour_ yet be-bled; _For_ in that tyme who durst have be so _wood_ Suche bitter _woundes_ that he nold have dred, With-outen réward, for to lese his _blood_.

_I wold oure tyme_ myght _turne_ certanly, And wise[28] _maneres_ alwey with vs dwelle; _But love of hauyng brenneth_ feruently, _More_ fersere _than the_ verray _fuyre_ of helle. _Allas!_ who _was_ that man _that_ wold him melle With[29] _gold and_ gemmes that were _kevered_ thus[30], _That first_ began to myne; I can not telle, But that he fond _a perel[31] precious_.

§ 16. MS. Auct. F. 3. 5, in the Bodleian Library, contains a _prose_ translation, different from Chaucer's. After this, the next translation seems to be one by George Colvile; the title is thus given by Lowndes: 'Boetius de Consolatione Philosophiæ, translated by George Coluile, alias Coldewel. London: by John Cawoode; 1556. 4to.' This work was dedicated to Queen Mary, and reprinted in 1561; and again, without date.

There is an unprinted translation, in hexameters and other metres, in the British Museum (MS. Addit. 11401), by Bracegirdle, temp. Elizabeth. See Warton, ed. Hazlitt, iii. 39, note 6.

Lowndes next mentions a translation by J. T., printed at London in 1609, 12mo.

A translation 'Anglo-Latine expressus per S. E. M.' was printed at London in quarto, in 1654, according to Hazlitt's Hand-book to Popular Literature.

Next, a translation into English verse by H. Conningesbye, in 1664, 12mo.

The next is thus described: 'Of the Consolation of Philosophy, made English and illustrated with Notes by the Right Hon. Richard (Graham) Lord Viscount Preston. London; 1695, 8vo. Second edition, corrected; London; 1712, 8vo.'

A translation by W. Causton was printed in London in 1730; 8vo.

A translation by the Rev. Philip Ridpath, printed in London in 1785, 8vo., is described by Lowndes as 'an excellent translation with very useful notes, and a life of Boethius, drawn up with great accuracy and fidelity.'

A translation by R. Duncan was printed at Edinburgh in 1789, 8vo.; and an anonymous translation, described by Lowndes as 'a pitiful performance,' was printed in London in 1792, 8vo.

In a list of works which the Early English Text Society proposes shortly to print, we are told that 'Miss Pemberton has sent to press her edition of the fragments of Queen Elizabeth's Englishings (in the Record Office) from Boethius, Plutarch, &c.'

§ 17. I now return to the consideration of Chaucer's translation, as printed in the present volume.

I do not think the question as to the probable date of its composition need detain us long. It is so obviously connected with 'Troilus' and the 'House of Fame,' which it probably did not long precede, that we can hardly be wrong in dating it, as said above, about 1377-1380; or, in round numbers, about 1380 or a little earlier. I quite agree with Mr. Stewart (Essay, p. 226), that, 'it is surely most reasonable to connect its composition with those poems which contain the greatest number of recollections and imitations of his original;' and I see no reason for ascribing it, with Professor Morley (English Writers, v. 144), to Chaucer's youth. Even Mr. Stewart is so incautious as to suggest that Chaucer's 'acquaintance with the works of the Roman philosopher ... would seem to date from about the year 1369, when he wrote the Deth of Blaunche.' When we ask for some tangible evidence of this statement, we are simply referred to the following passages in that poem, viz. the mention of 'Tityus (588); of Fortune the debonaire (623); Fortune the monster (627); Fortune's capriciousness and her rolling wheel (634, 642); Tantalus (708); the mind compared to a clean parchment (778); and Alcibiades (1055-6);' see Essay, p. 267. In every one of these instances, I believe the inference to be fallacious, and that Chaucer got all these illustrations, _at second hand_, from Le Roman de la Rose. As a matter of fact, they are all to be found there; and I find, on reference, that I have, in most instances, already given the parallel passages in my notes. However, to make the matter clearer, I repeat them here.

## Book Duch. 588. Cf. Comment li juisier _Ticius_

S'efforcent ostoir de mangier; Rom. Rose, 19506. Si cum tu fez, las _Sisifus_, &c.; R. R. 19499.

## Book Duch. 623. The dispitouse debonaire,

That scorneth many a creature.

I cannot give the exact reference, because Jean de Meun's description of the various moods of Fortune extends to a portentous length. Chaucer reproduces the general impression which a perusal of the poem leaves on the mind. However, take ll. 4860-62 of Le Roman:--

Que miex vaut asses et profite Fortune _perverse et contraire_ Que la mole et _la debonnaire_.

Surely 'debonaire' in Chaucer is rather French than Latin. And see _debonaire_ in the E. version of the Romaunt, l. 5412.

## Book Duch. 627. She is the monstres heed y-wryen,

As _filth over y-strawed with floures_.

Si di, par ma parole ovrir, Qui vodroit _un femier covrir_ De dras de soie ou _de floretes_; R. R. 8995.

As the second of the above lines from the Book of the Duchesse is obviously taken from _Le Roman_, it is probable that the first is also; but it is a hard task to discover the particular word _monstre_ in this vast poem. However, I find it, in l. 4917, with reference to Fortune; and her _wheel_ is not far off, six lines above.

B. D. 634, 642. Fortune's capriciousness is treated of by Jean de Meun at intolerable length, ll. 4863-8492; and elsewhere. As to her wheel, it is continually rolling through his verses; see ll. 4911, 5366, 5870, 5925, 6172, 6434, 6648, 6880, &c.

B. D. 708. Cf. Et de fain avec _Tentalus_; R. R. 19482.

B. D. 778. Not from Le Roman, nor from Boethius, but from Machault's _Remède de Fortune_, as pointed out by M. Sandras long ago; see my note.

B. D. 1055-6. Cf. Car le cors Alcipiades Qui de biauté avoit adés ... _Ainsinc le raconte Boece_; R. R. 8981.

See my note on the line; and note the spelling of _Alcipiades_ with a _p_, as in the English MSS.

We thus see that all these passages (except l. 778) are really taken from Le Roman, not to mention many more, already pointed out by Dr. Köppel (_Anglia_, xiv. 238). And, this being so, we may safely conclude that they were _not_ taken from Boethius directly. Hence we may further infer that, in all probability, Chaucer, in 1369, was not very familiar with Boethius in the Latin original. And this accounts at once for the fact that he seldom quotes Boethius at first hand, perhaps not at all, in any of his earlier poems, such as the Complaint unto Pite, the Complaint of Mars, or Anelida and Arcite, or the Lyf of St. Cecilie. I see no reason for supposing that he had closely studied Boethius before (let us say) 1375; though it is extremely probable, as was said above, that Jean de Meun inspired him with the idea of reading it, to see whether it was really worth translating, as the French poet said it was.

§ 18. When we come to consider the style and manner in which Chaucer has executed his self-imposed task, we must first of all make some allowance for the difference between the scholarship of his age and of our own. One great difference is obvious, though constantly lost sight of, viz. that the teaching in those days was almost entirely oral, and that the student had to depend upon his memory to an extent which would now be regarded by many as extremely inconvenient. Suppose that, in reading Boethius, Chaucer comes across the phrase 'ueluti quidam clauus atque gubernaculum' (Bk. iii. pr. 12, note to l. 55), and does not remember the sense of _clauus_; what is to be done? It is quite certain, though this again is frequently lost sight of, that he had no access to a convenient and well-arranged Latin Dictionary, but only to such imperfect glossaries as were then in use. Almost the only resource, unless he had at hand a friend more learned than himself, was to guess. He guesses accordingly; and, taking _clauus_ to mean much the same thing as _clauis_, puts down in his translation: 'and he is as a _keye_ and a stere.' Some mistakes of this character were almost inevitable; and it must not greatly surprise us to be told, that the 'inaccuracy and infelicity' of Chaucer's translation 'is not that of an inexperienced Latin scholar, but rather of one who was no Latin scholar at all,' as Mr. Stewart says in his Essay, p. 226. It is useful to bear this in mind, because a similar lack of accuracy is characteristic of Chaucer's other works also; and we must not always infer that emendation is necessary, when we find in his text some curious error.

§ 19. The next passage in Mr. Stewart's Essay so well expresses the state of the case, that I do not hesitate to quote it at length. 'Given (he says) a man who is sufficiently conversant with a language to read it fluently without paying too much heed to the precise value of participle and preposition, who has the wit and the sagacity to grasp the meaning of his author, but not the intimate knowledge of his style and manner necessary to a right appreciation of either, and--especially if he set himself to write in an uncongenial and unfamiliar form--he will assuredly produce just such a result as Chaucer has done.

'We must now glance (he adds) at the literary style of the translation. As Ten Brink has observed, we can here see as clearly as in any work of the middle ages what a high cultivation is requisite for the production of a good prose. Verse, and not prose, is the natural vehicle for the expression of every language in its infancy, and it is certainly not in prose that Chaucer's genius shews to best advantage. The restrictions of metre were indeed to him as silken fetters, while the freedom of prose only served to embarrass him; just as a bird that has been born and bred in captivity, whose traditions are all domestic, finds itself at a sad loss when it escapes from its cage and has to fall back on its own resources for sustenance. In reading "Boece," we have often as it were to pause and look on while Chaucer has a desperate wrestle with a tough sentence; but though now he may appear to be down, with a victorious knee upon him, next moment he is on his feet again, disclaiming defeat in a gloss which makes us doubt whether his adversary had so much the best of it after all. But such strenuous endeavour, even when it is crowned with success, is strange in a writer one of whose chief charms is the delightful ease, the complete absence of effort, with which he says his best things. It is only necessary to compare the passages in Boethius in the prose version with the same when they reappear in the poems, to realise how much better they look in their verse dress. Let the reader take Troilus' soliloquy on Freewill and Predestination (Bk. iv. ll. 958-1078), and read it side by side with the corresponding passage in "Boece" (Bk. v. proses 2 and 3), and he cannot fail to feel the superiority of the former to the latter. With what clearness and precision does the argument unfold itself, how close is the reasoning, how vigorous and yet graceful is the language! It is to be regretted that Chaucer did not do for all the Metra of the "Consolation" what he did for the fifth of the second book. A solitary gem like "The Former Age" makes us long for a whole set[32]. Sometimes, whether unconsciously or of set purpose, it is difficult to decide, his prose slips into verse:--

It lyketh me to shewe, by subtil song, With slakke and délitáble soun of strenges (Bk. iii. met. 2. 1).

Whan Fortune, with a proud right hand (Bk. ii. met. 1. 1)[33].'

The reader should also consult Ten Brink's History of English Literature,

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