book ii

.:

--his kisses too intemperate grow, Not such as maids on maidens do bestow.]

[Footnote 8: Hippodameia. According to the fable, a Centaur carried her off at her marriage feast. This occasioned the battle between the Lapithæ, over whom her husband ruled, and the Centaurs.]

JANUARY AND MAY:

OR,

THE MERCHANT'S TALE.

FROM CHAUCER.

This translation was done at sixteen or seventeen years of age.--POPE.

The story of January and May now before us is of the comic kind; and the character of a fond old dotard betrayed into disgrace by an unsuitable match is supported in a lively manner. Pope has nowhere copied the free and easy versification, and the narrative style of Dryden's Fables, so happily as in this pleasant tale. He has endeavoured suitably to familiarise the stateliness of our heroic measure; but, after all his pains, this measure is not adapted to such subjects so well as the lines of four feet, or the French numbers of Fontaine. Fontaine is, in truth, the capital and unrivalled writer of comic tales. He generally took his subjects from Boccacio, Poggius, and Ariosto; but adorned them with so many natural strokes, with such quaintness in his reflections, and such a dryness and archness of humour, as cannot fail to excite laughter. Our Prior has happily caught his manner in many of his lighter tales,

## particularly in Hans Carvel. Of the tale before us, Mr. Tyrwhitt gives

the following account:--"The scene of the Merchant's Tale is laid in Italy; but none of the names, except Damian and Justin, seem to be Italian, but rather made at pleasure; so that I doubt whether the story be really of Italian growth. The adventure of the pear-tree I find in a small collection of Latin fables, written by one Adolphus, in elegiac verses of his fashion, in the year 1315. This fable has never been printed but once, and in a book not commonly to be met with. Whatever was the real original of this tale, the machinery of the fairies, which Chaucer has used so happily, was probably added by himself; and indeed I cannot help thinking that his Pluto and Proserpine were the true progenitors of Oberon and Titania, or rather that they themselves have, once at least, deigned to revisit our poetical system under the latter names. In the History of English Poetry, this is said to be an old Lombard story. But many passages in it are evidently taken from the Polycraticon of John of Salisbury: De molestiis et oneribus conjugiorum secundum Hieronymum et alios philosophos--Et de pernicie libidinis--Et de mulieris Ephesinæ et similium fide. And, by the way, about forty verses belonging to this argument are translated from the same chapter of the Polycraticon, in the Wife of Bath's prologue. In the meantime, it is not improbable that this tale might have originally been oriental. A Persian tale is just published which it extremely resembles; and it has much of the allegory of an eastern apologue."--WARTON.

In the art of telling a story in verse, Pope is peculiarly happy; we almost forget the grossness of the subject of this tale, while we are struck by the uncommon ease and readiness of the verse, the suitableness of the expressions, and the spirit and happiness of the whole. I think Dr. Warton injudiciously censures the verse, which appears to me to be very suitably employed. Pope has introduced triplets in many places, no doubt for greater effect, which they certainly have. There is generally two together, ended with an Alexandrine. This is common in Dryden's fables, on which Pope evidently formed his style in these narrative pieces. When I say that Dr. Warton injudiciously objects to the verse, it should be remembered that there is a mock-elevation in the speeches, descriptions, &c., of this story, and even poetry in the fairy revels, for which the versification Pope has chosen is more proper, than it would be for Prior's burlesque, and less poetical, ribaldry. The mixture of classical and gothic imagery, such as Chaucer uses, in making Pluto and Proserpine, instead of spirits, like Oberon and Titania, the king and queen of the "yellow-skirted fays," is very common in our early poets, who derived the combination from the old romances, and Ovid.--BOWLES.

When Dryden published his version of some of Chaucer's Tales he gave, in his preface, an excellent account of the characteristics of the original. "As Chaucer," he said, "is the father of English poetry, so I hold him in the same degree of veneration as the Grecians held Homer, or the Romans Virgil. He is a perpetual fountain of good sense,--learned in all sciences, and therefore speaks properly on all subjects. He must have been a man of a most wonderful comprehensive nature, because, as it has been truly observed of him, he has taken into the compass of his Canterbury Tales the various manners, and humours, as we now call them, of the whole English nation in his age. Not a single character has escaped him. All his pilgrims are severally distinguished from each other, and not only in their inclinations, but in their very physiognomies and persons. I see them as perfectly before me,--their humours, their features, and their very dress--as distinctly as if I had supped with them at the Tabard in Southwark. The matter and manner of their tales, and of their telling, are so suited to their different educations, humours, and callings, that each of them would be improper in any other mouth. Even the grave and serious characters are distinguished by their several sorts of gravity. Their discourses are such as belong to their age, their calling, and their breeding,--such as are becoming of them, and of them only. Some of his persons are vicious, and some virtuous; some are unlearned, or, as Chaucer calls them, lewd, and some are learned. Even the ribaldry of the low characters is different. The reeve, the miller, and the cook are several men, and distinguished from each other as much as the mincing lady prioress, and the broad-speaking, gap-toothed wife of Bath. We have our forefathers, and great grand-dames all before us, as they were in Chaucer's days. Their general characters are still remaining in mankind, and even in England, though they are called by other names than those of monks and friars, and canons, and lady abesses, and nuns: for mankind is ever the same, and nothing lost out of nature, though everything is altered." There were two classes of readers who exclaimed against the attempt to renovate the original,--those who held that it was too bad to be reproduced, and those who considered it too excellent to be remodelled without being spoiled. "I find," writes Dryden, "some people are offended that I have turned these tales into modern English, because they think them unworthy of my pains, and look on Chaucer as a dry, old-fashioned wit, not worth reviving. I have often heard the late Earl of Leicester say that Mr. Cowley himself was of that opinion, who having read him over at my lord's request, declared he had no taste of him. Being shocked perhaps with his old style, he never examined into the depth of his good sense. Chaucer, I confess, is a rough diamond, and must first be polished ere he shines. But there are other judges who think I ought not to have translated him into English out of a quite contrary notion. They suppose there is a certain veneration due to his old language, and that it is little less than profanation and sacrilege to alter it. They are further of opinion that somewhat of his good sense will suffer in the transfusion, and much of the beauty of his thoughts will infallibly be lost, which appear with more grace in their old habit. Of this opinion was the Earl of Leicester, who valued Chaucer as much as Mr. Cowley despised him." Dryden replied that his version was only intended for those to whom the original was unintelligible, and while allowing that the original was superior to the copy, he contended that the copy was to be preferred to a blank. If he had confined himself simply to modernising his author there would have been little force in his plea. The phraseology of Chaucer is readily mastered, and any departure from his words destroys a large part of the charm. There is a native simplicity in the mediæval works of genius which pleases like the artless manners of children, but which would be as ridiculous in a modern dress as the manners of the child in a grown-up person. Nor must we overlook the superior interest which attaches to the notions, usages, and characters of our ancestors when the picture is painted by themselves. A copy in which costumes and colouring have been completely changed is but an adulterate representation. The antique peculiarities and primitive freshness are gone. The real justification of Dryden's undertaking was not that his version was a substitute for the original, but that it was a glorious supplement. Little as he scrupled to assert his own merits he could not press this argument to its full extent, though he was evidently conscious of the truth. He states that as the old poet was occasionally diffuse, and more often undignified, he had curtailed the redundancies, and rejected the trivialities. He did not stop at the easy office of omission. "I dare," he says, "to add that what beauties I lose in some places I give to others which had them not originally. If I have altered Chaucer anywhere for the better I must at the same time acknowledge that I could have done nothing without him. _Facile est inventis addere_, is no great commendation, and I am not so vain to think I have deserved a greater." In dramatic power and pathos, which are Chaucer's strongest points, Dryden has not improved upon him; but upon the whole he has narrated the tales in a higher strain of poetry, in richer and more felicitous language, and with the addition of many new and happy ideas. A few short examples will show the nature of the changes he introduced into numerous passages in the process of recasting them. The Wife of Bath's Tale commences with these lines:

In olde dayes of the King Arthour Of which that Britains speken great honour, All was this land fulfillèd of fairie; The elf-queen with her jolly company, Dancèd full oft in many a greene mead; This was the old opinion, as I read; I speak of many hundred year ago; But now can no man see none elves mo. For now the greate charity and prayers Of limitours, and other holy freres, That seeken every land, and every stream, As thick as motes in the sunne-beam, Blessing halls, chambers, kitchenes, and bowers, Cities, and boroughs, castles high, and towers, Thorpes and barnes, sheepnes, and daieries, That maketh that there be no faieries.

This is one of the prettiest pieces of verse in the Canterbury Tales. Dryden has expanded and excelled it.

In days of old when Arthur filled the throne, Whose acts and fame to foreign lands were blown, The king of elfs, and little fairy queen, Gambolled on heaths, and danced on every green, And where the jolly troop had led the round The grass unbidden rose, and marked the ground: Nor darkling did they dance; the silver light } Of Phoebe served to guide their steps aright, } And, with their tripping pleased, prolonged the night. } Her beams they followed where at full she played, } Nor longer than she shed her horns they stayed, } From thence with airy flight to foreign lands conveyed. } Above the rest our Britain held they dear, } More solemnly they kept their sabbaths here, } And made more spacious rings, and revelled half the year. } I speak of ancient times, for now the swain, } Returning late, may pass the woods in vain, } And never hope to see the nightly train. }

* * * * * * * * * *

For priests with prayers and other godly gear, Have made the merry goblins disappear; And where they played their merry pranks before Have sprinkled holy water on the floor; And friars that through the wealthy regions run Thick as the motes that twinkle in the sun, Resort to farmers rich, and bless their halls, And exorcise the beds, and cross the walls: This makes the fairy choirs forsake the place When once 'tis hallowed with the rites of grace.

He sometimes carries his innovations further, and the splendour of his paraphrase entirely eclipses the primitive idea. Chaucer says, in the tale of the Nun's Priest, that

Swevens be but vanities and japes. Men dream all day of owles and of apes, And eke of many a mase therewithall; Men dream of thinges that never be shall.

Chaucer's hint, which is scarcely more than if the speaker had said in plain prose, "I have no faith in dreams, for they are wild visions which never come true," is transformed by Dryden into this exquisite passage:

Dreams are but interludes, which fancy makes; When monarch-reason sleeps this mimic wakes; Compounds a medley of disjointed things, A mob of cobblers, and a court of kings: Light fumes are merry, grosser fumes are sad; Both are the reasonable soul run mad; And many monstrous forms in sleep we see, That neither were, nor are, nor e'er can be. Sometimes forgotten things long cast behind Rush forward in the brain, and come to mind; The nurse's legends are for truths received, And the man dreams but what the boy believed. Sometimes we but rehearse a former play; } The night restores our actions done by day, } As hounds in sleep will open for their prey. }

Among the characteristics of the "poor parson" Chaucer mentions that

He was a shepherd, and no mercenary,

which is the only warrant the text afforded for these beautiful lines in the paraphrase of Dryden:

The prelate for his holy life he prized; The worldly pomp of prelacy despised. His Saviour came not with a gaudy show, Nor was his kingdom of the world below. Patience in want, and poverty of mind, } These marks of church and churchmen he designed, } And living taught, and dying left behind. } The crown he wore was of the pointed thorn; In purple he was crucified, not born. They who contend for place and high degree, Are not his sons, but those of Zebedee.

Having gained so much from the masculine and buoyant genius of Dryden, the newly fashioned tales took their rank as independent works, and were rather valued for their want of resemblance to Chaucer than because they were a true reflection of him. There are defects in the modern version. The language is sometimes too colloquial, and there are many careless lines; but in the main the verse bounds and dances along with equal strength, facility, and grace, exhibiting one of the most wonderful specimens in literature of the power, spirit, and abundance of the simplest English when moulded by a master. The Flower and the Leaf, which might have been written in the fairy land it describes, is pre-eminent above the rest for its bright unceasing flow of delicious poetry, for its chaste yet luxuriant diction, for its sustained and various melody, for its lovely pictures both earthly and ethereal, for its pure, refined, and elevating sentiment.

"By Dryden's Fables," says Johnson, "which had then been not long published, and were much in the hands of poetical readers, Pope was tempted to try his own skill in giving Chaucer a more fashionable appearance, and put January and May, and the Prologue of the Wife of Bath into modern English." January and May, which the poet says was translated when he was sixteen or seventeen, was not published till he was nearly twenty-one, having first appeared on May 2, 1709, in the sixth volume of Tonson's Miscellany. He imitated Dryden in abridging Chaucer, but his only addition of any moment to the Merchant's Tale is in the description of the fairies, which was borrowed from Dryden himself. His attempt was substantially limited to epitomising the original in refined language, and musical numbers. In this he succeeded, and more could not be expected of a youth. If he had aspired higher he could not at twenty have competed with his mighty predecessor. Dryden's tales are the productions of a great poetic genius. The January of Pope is the production of a clever versifier. The relative position which their respective translations of Chaucer occupy in their works accords with the difference in their execution. The adaptations of Dryden are commonly numbered among his choicest effusions. The versions of Pope hold a subordinate place among his writings, and are hardly taken into account in the estimate of his powers. The result vindicates the opinion of Lord Leicester, that in the conversion of Chaucer into modern English the loss exceeds the gain. Pope was not insensible to the dramatic qualities of his author. "I read him still," he said to Spence, "with as much pleasure as almost any of our poets. He is a master of manners, of description, and the first tale-teller in the true enlivened natural way." But in polishing him, something of the nature and liveliness was inevitably obliterated. He was, in many of his stories, an admirable novelist in verse, and he adopted a familiar style which permitted him to relate in rhyme, with the freedom of prose, the common talk of common men. His traits are in the highest degree colloquial, individual, and life-like, and his strong strokes are weakened, and his dramatic vivacity tamed down, when he is turned into smooth, harmonious, elegant poetry. The refinement in the form is not a compensation for the sacrifices in the substance, especially when the antique form is itself essential to teach us how our forefathers spoke, thought, and acted five hundred years ago. Every touch which renders the picture more modern, makes it less true. The translation of Pope is skilfully executed, but it is inferior in raciness and interest to an original which can be read by any educated Englishman. A few gratuitous defects have been imported into the modernised January and May. "Chaucer," says Dryden, "followed nature everywhere, but was never so bold to go beyond her." Pope has sometimes overstepped the limits. He has here and there exaggerated his original, and the truth and keeping of the characters are invariably injured by the change.

"I have confined my choice," said Dryden, "to such tales of Chaucer as savour nothing of immodesty. If I had desired more to please than to instruct, the Reeve, the Miller, the Shipman, the Merchant, the Sumner, and above all the Wife of Bath, in the prologue to her tale, would have procured me as many friends and readers, as there are beaus and ladies of pleasure in town. But I will no more offend against good manners. I am sensible as I ought to be of the scandal I have given by my loose writings, and make what reparation I am able by this public acknowledgment." Both the pieces which Pope selected were among the number which Dryden put under a ban, and the younger poet, perhaps, considered that when he had purified them from part of their coarseness, the objection would no longer apply. The apology which Chaucer urged for his plain speaking was that in telling a tale he must repeat it correctly, and not surrender truth to delicacy. "Yet if a man," replies Dryden, "should have enquired of him what need he had of introducing such characters where obscene words were proper in their mouths, but very indecent to be heard, I know not what answer he could have made." None was possible. The offence, nevertheless, was not what Dryden assumes. The same Chaucer who, in his carefulness to keep to nature, will have all his _dramatis personæ_ talk according to their rank and callings, assuredly did not violate nature when he represented the religious and refined prioress, together with the other high-bred and decorous members of the party, as willing auditors of the broad and uncompromising language of their ruder companions. The presence of ladies and ecclesiastics was not the slightest check upon the tongues of the pilgrims, and it is evident that in ordinary social life, there was hardly any limit to the freedom of expression. But in every age a latitude is allowed in conversation which would be condemned in books, and Chaucer merely excused himself for recording in poetry the common colloquial terms of his day. Usage had rendered them inoffensive, and in themselves they argued no more impurity of thought than the equivalent circumlocutions of our own generation. The greater or less plainness of speech which has prevailed at different eras is often rather a question of manners than of morality. If Pope or Dryden had retained, in this

## particular, the phraseology of Chaucer, the adherence to the letter of

the original would have completely falsified its spirit, just as words which are uttered with innocence by rustics in a cottage would be an evidence of the utmost depravity when spoken by a man of education in a drawing-room. The intention influences the effect, and the grossness of our early writers has not the taint to a reader of the present day which would attach to similar language when employed by corrupt minds in civilized times. All the expurgations of Pope were insufficient to make his version as little exceptionable in the eighteenth century as was the original of Chaucer to the world of the fourteenth century. A merchant in the reign of Queen Anne would not have ventured to recite the modernised story in a mixed company, where ladies like the prioress and the nuns were present. The tone of the work is even lowered in places. In the looser literature of Pope's youth, and especially in comedies, adultery in a wife only furnished food for laughter against the husband. This is the aspect which is imparted to the translation of January and May, and it cannot be denied that Chaucer himself in some of his other stories, is open to the charge of treating vice as a jest. But he did not fall into the error in the Merchant's Tale, where the supposed narrator, in accordance with his character, reprobates the criminal conduct of the treacherous squire and the faithless wife, at the same time that he exposes the doating folly of the amorous knight.

JANUARY AND MAY:

OR, THE

MERCHANT'S TALE.

There lived in Lombardy, as authors write, In days of old, a wise and worthy knight; Of gentle manners, as of gen'rous race, Blest with much sense,[1] more riches, and some grace. Yet led astray by Venus' soft delights 5 He scarce could rule some idle appetites: For long ago, let priests say what they could, Weak sinful laymen were but flesh and blood. But in due time, when sixty years were o'er, He vowed to lead this vicious life no more; 10 Whether pure holiness inspired his mind, Or dotage turned his brain, is hard to find; But his high courage[2] pricked him forth to wed, And try the pleasures of a lawful bed. This was his nightly dream, his daily care, 15 And to the heav'nly pow'rs his constant prayer, Once, ere he died, to taste the blissful life Of a kind husband and a loving wife.[3] These thoughts he fortified with reasons still, For none want reasons to confirm their will. 20 Grave authors say, and witty poets sing, That honest wedlock is a glorious thing: But depth of judgment most in him appears, Who wisely weds in his maturer years.[4] Then let him chuse a damsel young and fair, 25 To bless his age, and bring a worthy heir; To sooth his cares, and free from noise and strife, Conduct him gently to the verge of life. Let sinful bachelors their woes deplore, Full well they merit all they feel, and more: 30 Unawed by precepts, human or divine, Like birds and beasts, promiscuously they join: Nor know to make the present blessing last, To hope the future, or esteem the past: But vainly boast the joys they never tried, 35 And find divulged the secrets they would hide. The married man may bear his yoke with ease, Secure at once himself and heav'n to please; And pass his inoffensive hours away, In bliss all night, and innocence all day: 40 Though fortune change, his constant spouse remains, Augments his joys, or mitigates his pains. But what so pure, which envious tongues will spare? Some wicked wits have libelled all the fair. With matchless impudence they style a wife 45 The dear-bought curse, and lawful plague of life; A bosom serpent, a domestic evil, A night invasion, and a mid-day devil. Let not the wise these sland'rous words regard, But curse the bones of ev'ry lying bard.[5] 50 All other goods by fortune's hand are giv'n, A wife is the peculiar gift of heav'n. Vain fortune's favours, never at a stay, Like empty shadows, pass, and glide away; One solid comfort, our eternal wife, 55 Abundantly supplies us all our life; This blessing lasts, if those who try, say true, As long as heart can wish--and longer too. Our grandsire Adam, ere of Eve possessed, Alone, and ev'n in Paradise unblessed, 60 With mournful looks the blissful scenes surveyed, And wandered in the solitary shade. The Maker saw, took pity, and bestowed Woman, the last, the best reserve of God. A wife! ah gentle deities,[6] can he, 65 That has a wife, e'er feel adversity? Would men but follow what the sex advise, All things would prosper, all the world grow wise. 'Twas by Rebecca's aid that Jacob won His father's blessing from an elder son:[7] 70 Abusive Nabal owed his forfeit life To the wise conduct of a prudent wife: Heroic Judith, as old Hebrews show, Preserved the Jews, and slew th' Assyrian foe:[8] At Hester's suit, the persecuting sword 75 Was sheathed, and Israel lived to bless the Lord. These weighty motives, January the sage Maturely pondered in his riper age; And charmed with virtuous joys, and sober life, Would try that christian comfort, called a wife. 80 His friends were summoned on a point so nice,[9] To pass their judgment, and to give advice; But fixed before, and well resolved was he, As men that ask advice are wont to be. My friends, he cried (and cast a mournful look 85 Around the room, and sighed before he spoke): Beneath the weight of threescore years I bend, And, worn with cares, am hast'ning to my end; How I have lived, alas! you know too well, In worldly follies, which I blush to tell; 90 But gracious heav'n has ope'd my eyes at last, With due regret I view my vices past, And, as the precept of the church decrees, Will take a wife, and live in holy ease. But since by counsel all things should be done, 95 And many heads are wiser still than one, Chuse you for me,[10] who best shall be content When my desire's approved by your consent. One caution yet is needful to be told, To guide your choice; this wife must not be old:[11] 100 There goes a saying, and 'twas shrewdly said, Old fish at table, but young flesh in bed. My soul abhors the tasteless, dry embrace Of a stale virgin with a winter face: In that cold season love but treats his guest 105 With bean-straw, and tough forage at the best No crafty widows shall approach my bed; Those are too wise for bachelors to wed. As subtle clerks by many schools are made, Twice married dames are mistresses o' th' trade: 110 But young and tender virgins ruled with ease, We form like wax, and mould them as we please. Conceive me, sirs, nor take my sense amiss; 'Tis what concerns my soul's eternal bliss; Since if I found no pleasure in my spouse, 115 As flesh is frail, and who, God help me, knows? Then should I live in lewd adultery, And sink downright to Satan when I die. Or were I cursed with an unfruitful bed, The righteous end were lost for which I wed; 120 To raise up seed to bless the pow'rs above, And not for pleasure only, or for love.[12] Think not I doat; 'tis time to take a wife, When vig'rous blood forbids a chaster life: Those that are blest with store of grace divine, 125 May live like saints, by heav'n's consent, and mine.[13] And since I speak of wedlock, let me say, (As, thank my stars, in modest truth I may,) My limbs are active, still I'm sound at heart, And a new vigour springs in ev'ry part. 130 Think not my virtue lost, though time has shed These rev'rend honours on my hoary head: Thus trees are crowned with blossoms white as snow, The vital sap then rising from below.[14] Old as I am, my lusty limbs appear 135 Like winter greens, that flourish all the year. Now, sirs, you know, to what I stand inclined, Let ev'ry friend with freedom speak his mind.[15] He said; the rest in diff'rent parts divide; The knotty point was urged on either side: 140 Marriage, the theme on which they all declaimed, Some praised with wit, and some with reason blamed, Till, what with proofs, objections, and replies, Each wond'rous positive, and wond'rous wise, There fell between his brothers a debate, 145 Placebo this was called, and Justin that. First to the knight Placebo thus begun, (Mild were his looks, and pleasing was his tone,) Such prudence, sir, in all your words appears, As plainly proves, experience dwells with years; 150 Yet you pursue sage Solomon's advice, To work by counsel when affairs are nice: But, with the wise man's leave, I must protest, } So may my soul arrive at ease and rest, } As still I hold your own advice the best. } 155 Sir, I have lived a courtier all my days, And studied men, their manners, and their ways; And have observed this useful maxim still, To let my betters always have their will. Nay, if my lord affirmed that black was white, 160 My word was this, "Your honour's in the right." Th' assuming wit, who deems himself so wise, As his mistaken patron to advise, Let Tirm not dare to vent his dang'rous thought, A noble fool was never in a fault.[16] 165 This, sir, affects not you, whose ev'ry word Is weighed with judgment, and befits a lord: Your will is mine; and is, I will maintain, Pleasing to God, and should be so to man; At least your courage all the world must praise, 170 Who dare to wed in your declining days. Indulge the vigour of your mounting blood, And let grey fools be indolently good, Who, past all pleasure, damn the joys of sense, With rev'rend dulness and grave impotence.[17] 175 Justin, who silent sat, and heard the man, Thus, with a philosophic frown, began: A heathen author,[18] of the first degree, Who, though not faith, had sense as well as we, Bids us be certain our concerns to trust 180 To those of gen'rous principles, and just. The venture's greater, I'll presume to say, To give your person, than your goods away: And therefore, sir, as you regard your rest, First learn your lady's qualities at least: 185 Whether she's chaste or rampant, proud or civil; Meek as a saint, or haughty as the devil; Whether an easy, fond, familiar fool, Or such a wit as no man e'er can rule.[19] 'Tis true, perfection none must hope to find 190 In all this world, much less in woman-kind; But if her virtues prove the larger share, Bless the kind fates, and think your fortune rare. Ah, gentle sir, take warning of a friend, Who knows too well the state you thus commend; 195 And spite of all its praises must declare, All he can find is bondage, cost, and care. Heav'n knows, I shed full many a private tear, And sigh in silence, lest the world should hear: While all my friends applaud my blissful life, 200 And swear no mortal's happier in a wife; Demure and chaste as any vestal nun, The meekest creature that beholds the sun! But, by th' immortal powers, I feel the pain, And he that smarts has reason to complain. 205 Do what you list, for me; you must be sage, And cautious sure; for wisdom is in age: But at these years to venture on the fair![20] By him, who made the ocean, earth, and air, To please a wife, when her occasions call, 210 Would busy the most vig'rous of us all. And trust me, sir, the chastest you can chuse Will ask observance, and exact her dues. If what I speak my noble lord offend, My tedious sermon here is at an end.[21] 215 'Tis well, 'tis wond'rous well, the knight replies, Most worthy kinsman, faith you're mighty wise! We, sirs, are fools; and must resign the cause To heath'nish authors, proverbs, and old saws. He spoke with scorn, and turned another way:-- 220 What does my friend, my dear Placebo, say? I say, quoth he, by heav'n the man's to blame, To slander wives, and wedlock's holy name. At this the council rose, without delay; Each, in his own opinion, went his way; 225 With full consent, that, all disputes appeased, The knight should marry, when and where he pleased. Who now but January exults with joy? The charms of wedlock all his soul employ: Each nymph by turns his wav'ring mind possessed, 230 And reigned the short-lived tyrant of his breast; Whilst fancy pictured ev'ry lively part, And each bright image wandered o'er his heart. Thus, in some public forum fixed on high, A mirror shows the figures moving by; 235 Still one by one, in swift succession, pass The gliding shadows o'er the polished glass. This lady's charms the nicest could not blame, But vile suspicions had aspersed her fame; That was with sense, but not with virtue, blest: 240 And one had grace, that wanted all the rest. Thus doubting long what nymph he should obey, He fixed at last upon the youthful May. Her faults he knew not, love is always blind, But ev'ry charm revolved within his mind: 245 Her tender age, her form divinely fair, Her easy motion, her attractive air, Her sweet behaviour, her enchanting face, Her moving softness, and majestic grace.[22] Much in his prudence did our knight rejoice, 250 And thought no mortal could dispute his choice:[23] Once more in haste he summoned ev'ry friend, And told them all, their pains were at an end.[24] Heav'n, that (said he) inspired me first to wed, Provides a consort worthy of my bed: 255 Let none oppose th' election, since on this Depends my quiet, and my future bliss.[25] A dame there is, the darling of my eyes, Young, beauteous, artless, innocent, and wise; Chaste, though not rich; and though not nobly born, 260 Of honest parents, and may serve my turn.[26] Her will I wed, if gracious heav'n so please; To pass my age in sanctity and ease; And thank the pow'rs, I may possess alone The lovely prize, and share my bliss with none! 265 If you, my friends, this virgin can procure, My joys are full, my happiness is sure. One only doubt remains: Full oft, I've heard, By casuists grave, and deep divines averred; That 'tis too much for human race to know 270 The bliss of heav'n above, and earth below. Now should the nuptial pleasures prove so great, To match the blessings of the future state, Those endless joys were ill exchanged for these; Then clear this doubt, and set my mind at ease.[27] 275 This Justin heard, nor could his spleen controul, Touched to the quick, and tickled at the soul. Sir knight, he cried, if this be all your dread, Heav'n put it past your doubt, whene'er you wed; And to my fervent prayers so far consent, 280 That ere the rites are o'er, you may repent! Good heav'n, no doubt, the nuptial state approves, Since it chastises still what best it loves. Then be not, sir, abandoned to despair; } Seek, and perhaps you'll find among the fair, } 285 One, that may do your business to a hair; } Not ev'n in wish, your happiness delay, But prove the scourge to lash you on your way: Then to the skies your mounting soul shall go, Swift as an arrow soaring from the bow! 290 Provided still, you moderate your joy, Nor in your pleasures all your might employ; Let reason's rule your strong desires abate, Nor please too lavishly your gentle mate. Old wives there are, of judgment most acute, 295 Who solve these questions beyond all dispute; Consult with those, and be of better cheer; Marry, do penance, and dismiss your fear. So said, they rose, no more the work delayed;[28] The match was offered, the proposals made 300 The parents, you may think, would soon comply; The old have int'rest ever in their eye. Nor was it hard to move the lady's mind; When fortune favours, still the fair are kind.[29] I pass each previous settlement and deed, 305 Too long for me to write, or you to read; Nor will with quaint impertinence display The pomp, the pageantry, the proud array.[30] The time approached, to church the parties went, At once with carnal and devout intent:[31] 310 Forth came the priest, and bade th' obedient wife Like Sarah or Rebecca lead her life: Then prayed the pow'rs the fruitful bed to bless, And made all sure enough with holiness. And now the palace-gates are opened wide, } 315 The guests appear in order, side by side, } And placed in state, the bridegroom and the bride.[32] } The breathing flute's soft notes are heard around, And the shrill trumpets mix their silver sound; The vaulted roofs with echoing music ring, 320 These touch the vocal stops, and those the trembling string. Not thus Amphion tuned the warbling lyre, Nor Joab the sounding clarion could inspire, Nor fierce Theodomas,[33] whose sprightly strain Could swell the soul to rage, and fire the martial train. 325 Bacchus himself, the nuptial feast to grace, (So poets sing) was present on the place: And lovely Venus, goddess of delight, } Shook high her flaming torch in open sight, } And danced around, and smiled on ev'ry knight: } 330 Pleased her best servant would his courage try, No less in wedlock, than in liberty. Full many an age old Hymen had not spied So kind a bridegroom, or so bright a bride. Ye bards! renowned among the tuneful throng 335 For gentle lays, and joyous nuptial song, Think not your softest numbers can display The matchless glories of this blissful day; The joys are such, as far transcend your rage, When tender youth has wedded stooping age. 340 The beauteous dame sate smiling at the board, And darted am'rous glances at her lord. Not Hester's self, whose charms the Hebrews sing, E'er looked so lovely on her Persian king: Bright as the rising sun, in summer's day, 345 And fresh and blooming as the month of May! The joyful knight surveyed her by his side, Nor envied Paris with his Spartan bride; Still as his mind revolved with vast delight Th' entrancing raptures of th' approaching night, 350 Restless he sate, invoking ev'ry pow'r To speed his bliss, and haste the happy hour. Mean time the vig'rous dancers beat the ground, And songs were sung, and flowing bowls went round. With od'rous spices they perfumed the place, 355 And mirth and pleasure shone in ev'ry face. Damian alone, of all the menial train, Sad in the midst of triumphs, sighed for pain; Damian alone, the knight's obsequious squire, Consumed at heart, and fed a secret fire. 360 His lovely mistress all his soul possest, He looked, he languished, and could take no rest: His task performed, he sadly went his way, Fell on his bed, and loathed the light of day. There let him lie; till his relenting dame 365 Weep in her turn, and waste in equal flame. The weary sun, as learned poets write, Forsook th' horizon, and rolled down the light; While glitt'ring stars his absent beams supply, And night's dark mantle overspread the sky. 370 Then rose the guests; and as the time required, Each paid his thanks, and decently retired. The foe once gone, our knight prepared t' undress, So keen he was, and eager to possess: But first thought fit th' assistance to receive, 375 Which grave physicians scruple not to give; Satyrion near, with hot eringos stood, Cantharides, to fire the lazy blood, Whose use old bards describe in luscious rhymes, And critics learn'd explain to modern times. 380 By this the sheets were spread, the bride undressed, The room was sprinkled, and the bed was blessed.[34] What next ensued beseems not me to say;[35] 'Tis sung, he laboured till the dawning day, Then briskly sprung from bed, with heart so light, } 385 As all were nothing he had done by night; } And sipped his cordial as he sat upright. } He kissed his balmy spouse with wanton play, And feebly sung a lusty roundelay;[36] Then on the couch his weary limbs he cast; 390 For ev'ry labour must have rest at last. But anxious cares the pensive squire oppressed, Sleep fled his eyes, and peace forsook his breast; The raging flames that in his bosom dwell, He wanted art to hide, and means to tell. 395 Yet hoping time th' occasion might betray, Composed a sonnet to the lovely May; Which writ and folded with the nicest art, He wrapped in silk, and laid upon his heart. When now the fourth revolving day was run, 400 ('Twas June, and Cancer had received the sun) Forth from her chamber came the beauteous bride, The good old knight moved slowly by her side. High mass was sung; they feasted in the hall;[37] The servants round stood ready at their call. 405 The squire alone was absent from the board, And much his sickness grieved his worthy lord, Who prayed his spouse, attended with her train, To visit Damian, and divert his pain.[38] Th' obliging dames obeyed with one consent; 410 They left the hall, and to his lodging went. The female tribe surround him as he lay, And close beside him sat the gentle May: Where, as she tried his pulse, he softly drew A heaving sigh,[39] and cast a mournful view! 415 Then gave his bill, and bribed the pow'rs divine, With secret vows, to favour his design.[40] Who studies now but discontented May? On her soft couch uneasily she lay: The lumpish husband snored away the night, 420 Till coughs awaked him near the morning light. What then he did, I'll not presume to tell, Nor if she thought herself in heav'n or hell: Honest and dull in nuptial bed they lay, Till the bell tolled, and all arose to pray. 425 Were it by forceful destiny decreed, Or did from chance, or nature's power proceed; Or that some star, with aspect kind to love, Shed its selectest influence from above; Whatever was the cause, the tender dame 430 Felt the first motions of an infant flame; Received th' impressions of the love-sick squire, And wasted in the soft infectious fire. Ye fair, draw near, let May's example move Your gentle minds to pity those who love! 435 Had some fierce tyrant in her stead been found, The poor adorer sure had hanged, or drowned: But she, your sex's mirrour, free from pride, Was much too meek to prove a homicide.[41] But to my tale: Some sages[42] have defined 440 Pleasure the sov'reign bliss of human-kind: Our knight (who studied much, we may suppose) Derived his high philosophy from those; For, like a prince, he bore the vast expense Of lavish pomp, and proud magnificence: 445 His house was stately, his retinue gay, Large was his train, and gorgeous his array. His spacious garden made to yield to none, Was compassed round with walls of solid stone; Priapus could not half describe the grace 450 (Though god of gardens) of this charming place: A place to tire the rambling wits of France In long descriptions, and exceed romance: Enough to shame the gentlest bard that sings Of painted meadows, and of purling springs.[43] 455 Full in the centre of the flow'ry ground, } A crystal fountain spread its streams around, } The fruitful banks with verdant laurels crowned: } About this spring, if ancient fame say true, The dapper elves their moonlight sports pursue: 460 Their pigmy king, and little fairy queen,[44] In circling dances gambolled on the green, While tuneful sprites a merry concert made, And airy music warbled through the shade. Hither the noble knight would oft repair, 465 (His scene of pleasure, and peculiar care) For this he held it dear, and always bore The silver key that locked the garden door. To this sweet place in summer's sultry heat, He used from noise and bus'ness to retreat; 470 And here in dalliance spend the live-long day, _Solus cum sola_, with his sprightly May. For whate'er work was undischarged a-bed, The duteous knight in this fair garden sped. [45]But ah! what mortal lives of bliss secure, 475 How short a space our worldly joys endure! O Fortune, fair, like all thy treach'rous kind, But faithless still, and way'ring as the wind! O painted monster, formed mankind to cheat, With pleasing poison, and with soft deceit! 480 This rich, this am'rous, venerable knight, Amidst his ease, his solace, and delight, Struck blind by thee, resigns his days to grief, And calls on death, the wretch's last relief.[46] The rage of jealousy then seized his mind, 485 For much he feared the faith of woman-kind.[47] His wife, not suffered from his side to stray, } Was captive kept, he watched her night and day, } Abridged her pleasures, and confined her sway. } Full oft in tears did hapless May complain, 490 And sighed full oft; but sighed and wept in vain; She looked on Damian with a lover's eye; For oh, 'twas fixed, she must possess or die! Nor less impatience vexed her am'rous squire, Wild with delay, and burning with desire. 495 Watched as she was, yet could he not refrain By secret writing to disclose his pain; The dame by signs revealed her kind intent, Till both were conscious what each other meant. Ah, gentle knight, what would thy eyes avail, 500 Though they could see as far as ships can sail? 'Tis better, sure, when blind, deceived to be, Than be deluded when a man can see![48] Argus himself, so cautious and so wise, Was over-watched, for all his hundred eyes: 505 So many an honest husband may, 'tis known, Who, wisely, never thinks the case his own. The dame at last, by diligence and care, Procured the key her knight was wont to bear; She took the wards in wax before the fire, 510 And gave th' impression to the trusty squire. By means of this, some wonder shall appear, Which, in due place and season, you may hear. Well sung sweet Ovid, in the days of yore, What sleight is that, which love will not explore? 515 And Pyramus and Thisbe plainly show The feats true lovers, when they list, can do: Though watched and captive, yet in spite of all, They found the art of kissing[49] through a wall. But now no longer from our tale to stray; } 520 It happed that once upon a summer's day, } Our rev'rend knight was urged to am'rous play: } He raised his spouse ere matin-bell was rung, And thus his morning canticle he sung. Awake, my love, disclose thy radiant eyes; 525 Arise, my wife, my beauteous lady, rise! Hear how the doves with pensive notes complain, And in soft murmurs tell the trees their pain:[50] The winter's past; the clouds and tempests fly; The sun adorns the fields, and brightens all the sky. 530 Fair without spot, whose ev'ry charming part My bosom wounds, and captivates my heart; Come, and in mutual pleasures let's engage, Joy of my life, and comfort of my age. This heard, to Damian straight a sign she made, 535 To haste before; the gentle squire obeyed: Secret and undescried he took his way, And, ambushed close, behind an arbour lay, It was not long ere January came, And, hand in hand with him his lovely dame; 540 Blind as he was, not doubting all was sure, He turned the key, and made the gate secure. Here let us walk, he said, observed by none, Conscious of pleasures to the world unknown: So may my soul have joy, as thou my wife 545 Art far the dearest solace of my life; And rather would I chuse, by heav'n above, To die this instant, than to lose thy love.[51] Reflect what truth was in my passion shown, } When, unendowed, I took thee for my own, } 550 And sought no treasure but thy heart alone. } Old as I am, and now deprived of sight, } Whilst thou art faithful to thy own true knight, } Nor age, nor blindness, rob me of delight. } Each other loss with patience I can bear, 555 The loss of thee is what I only fear. Consider then, my lady and my wife, The solid comforts of a virtuous life. As first, the love of Christ himself you gain; Next, your own honour undefiled maintain; 560 And lastly, that which sure your mind must move,[52] My whole estate shall gratify your love: Make your own terms, and ere to-morrow's sun Displays his light, by heav'n it shall be done. I seal the contract with a holy kiss, 565 And will perform, by this--my dear, and this.[53] Have comfort, spouse, nor think thy lord unkind; 'Tis love, not jealousy, that fires my mind. For when thy charms my sober thoughts engage, And joined to them my own unequal age,[54] 570 From thy dear side I have no pow'r to part, Such secret transports warm my melting heart. For who that once possessed those heav'nly charms, Could live one moment absent from thy arms? He ceased, and May with modest grace replied; 575 (Weak was her voice, as while she spoke she cried;) Heav'n knows (with that a tender sigh she drew) I have a soul to save as well as you; And, what no less you to my charge commend, My dearest honour, will to death defend. 580 To you in holy church I gave my hand, And joined my heart in wedlock's sacred band: Yet, after this, if you distrust my care, Then hear, my lord, and witness what I swear: First may the yawning earth her bosom rend, 585 And let me hence to hell alive descend;[55] Or die the death I dread no less than hell, Sewed in a sack, and plunged into a well,[56] Ere I my fame by one lewd act disgrace, Or once renounce the honour of my race. 590 For know, sir knight, of gentle blood I came, I loath a whore, and startle at the name. But jealous men on their own crimes reflect, And learn from thence their ladies to suspect: Else why these needless cautions, sir, to me? 595 These doubts and fears of female constancy! This chime still rings in ev'ry lady's ear, The only strain a wife must hope to hear. Thus while she spoke, a sidelong glance she cast Where Damian, kneeling, worshipped as she passed:[57] 600 She saw him watch the motions of her eye, And singled out a pear-tree planted nigh:[58] 'Twas charged with fruit that made a goodly show, And hung with dangling pears was ev'ry bough. Thither th' obsequious squire addressed his pace, 605 And climbing, in the summit took his place; The knight and lady walked beneath in view, Where let us leave them, and our tale pursue. 'Twas now the season when the glorious sun His heav'nly progress through the Twins had run; 610 And Jove, exalted, his mild influence yields, To glad the glebe, and paint the flow'ry fields: Clear was the day, and Phoebus rising bright, Had streaked the azure firmament with light; He pierced the glitt'ring clouds with golden streams, 615 And warmed the womb of earth with genial beams. It so befel, in that fair morning tide, } The fairies sported on the garden side, } And in the midst their monarch and his bride. } So featly tripped the light-foot ladies round, } 620 The knights so nimbly o'er the green-sward bound, } That scarce they bent the flow'rs, or touched the ground.[59] } The dances ended, all the fairy train For pinks and daisies searched the flow'ry plain; While on a bank reclined of rising green, 625 Thus, with a frown, the king bespoke his queen: 'Tis too apparent, argue what you can, The treachery you women use to man: A thousand authors have this truth made out, And sad experience leaves no room for doubt. 630 Heav'n rest thy spirit, noble Solomon, A wiser monarch never saw the sun: All wealth, all honours, the supreme degree Of earthly bliss, was well bestowed on thee! For sagely hast thou said: Of all mankind, 635 One only just, and righteous, hope to find: But should'st thou search the spacious world around, Yet one good woman is not to be found. Thus says the king who knew your wickedness; The son of Sirach[60] testifies no less. 640 So may some wildfire on your bodies fall, Or some devouring plague consume you all; As well you view the lecher in the tree, And well this honourable knight you see: But since he's blind and old (a helpless case) 645 His squire shall cuckold him before your face. Now by my own dread majesty I swear, And by this awful sceptre which I bear, No impious wretch shall 'scape unpunished long, That in my presence offers such a wrong. 650 I will this instant undeceive the knight, And, in the very act, restore his sight: And set the strumpet here in open view, } A warning to these ladies,[61] and to you, } And all the faithless sex, for ever to be true. } 655 And will you so, replied the queen, indeed? } Now, by my mother's soul it is decreed, } She shall not want an answer at her need. } For her, and for her daughters, I'll engage, And all the sex in each succeeding age; 660 Art shall be theirs to varnish an offence, And fortify their crimes with confidence. Nay, were they taken in a strict embrace, Seen with both eyes, and pinioned on the place; All they shall need is to protest and swear, 665 Breathe a soft sigh, and drop a tender tear;[62] Till their wise husbands, gulled by arts like these, Grow gentle, tractable, and tame as geese. What though this sland'rous Jew, this Solomon, Called women fools, and knew full many a one; 670 The wiser wits of later times declare, How constant, chaste, and virtuous women are: Witness the martyrs, who resigned their breath, Serene in torments, unconcerned in death;[63] And witness next what Roman authors tell, 675 How Arria, Portia, and Lucretia fell. But since the sacred leaves to all are free, And men interpret texts, why should not we? By this no more was meant, than to have shown, } That sov'reign goodness dwells in him alone } 680 Who only Is, and is but only One.[64] } But grant the worst; shall women then be weighed By ev'ry word that Solomon has said? What though this king (as ancient story boasts) Built a fair temple to the Lord of Hosts; 685 He ceased at last his Maker to adore, And did as much for idol gods, or more. Beware what lavish praises you confer On a rank lecher and idolater; Whose reign indulgent God, says Holy Writ, 690 Did but for David's righteous sake permit; David, the monarch after heav'n's own mind, Who loved our sex, and honoured all our kind. Well, I'm a woman, and as such must speak; Silence would swell me, and my heart would break. 695 Know then, I scorn your dull authorities, Your idle wits, and all their learned lies. By heav'n, those authors are our sex's foes, Whom, in our right, I must and will oppose. Nay, quoth the king, dear madam, be not wroth: 700 I yield it up; but since I gave my oath, That this much injured knight again should see, It must be done--I am a king, said he, And one whose faith has ever sacred been. And so has mine, she said, I am a queen: 705 Her answer she shall have, I undertake; And thus an end of all dispute I make. Try when you list; and you shall find, my lord, It is not in our sex to break our word.[65] We leave them here in this heroic strain, 710 And to the knight our story turns again; Who in the garden, with his lovely May, Sung merrier than the cuckoo or the jay: This was his song; "Oh kind and constant be, Constant and kind I'll ever prove to thee." 715 Thus singing as he went, at last he drew By easy steps, to where the pear-tree grew: The longing dame looked up, and spied her love, Full fairly perched among the boughs above. She stopped, and sighing: Oh, good gods, she cried, 720 What pangs, what sudden shoots distend my side? Oh for that tempting fruit, so fresh, so green; Help, for the love of heav'n's immortal queen; Help, dearest lord, and save at once the life Of thy poor infant, and thy longing wife![66] 725 Sore sighed the knight to hear his lady's cry, But could not climb, and had no servant nigh: Old as he was, and void of eye-sight too, What could, alas! a helpless husband do? And must I languish then, she said, and die, 730 Yet view the lovely fruit before my eye? At least, kind sir, for charity's sweet sake, Vouchsafe the trunk between your arms to take; Then from your back I might ascend the tree; Do you but stoop, and leave the rest to me. 735 With all my soul, he thus replied again, I'd spend my dearest blood to ease thy pain. With that, his back against the trunk he bent, She seized a twig, and up the tree she went. Now prove your patience, gentle ladies all! 740 Nor let on me your heavy anger fall: 'Tis truth I tell, though not in phrase refined, Though blunt my tale, yet honest is my mind. What feats the lady in the tree might do, I pass as gambols never known to you; 745 But sure it was a merrier fit, she swore, Than in her life she ever felt before. In that nice moment, lo! the wond'ring knight Looked out, and stood restored to sudden sight. Straight on the tree his eager eyes he bent, 750 As one whose thoughts were on his spouse intent; But when he saw his bosom-wife so dressed, His rage was such as cannot be expressed: Not frantic mothers when their infants die, With louder clamours rend the vaulted sky: 755 He cried, he roared, he stormed, he tore his hair; Death! hell! and furies! what dost thou do there! What ails my lord? the trembling dame replied; I thought your patience had been better tried; Is this your love, ungrateful, and unkind, 760 This my reward for having cured the blind? Why was I taught to make my husband see, By struggling with a man upon a tree? Did I for this the pow'r of magic prove? Unhappy wife, whose crime was too much love! 765 If this be struggling, by this holy light, 'Tis struggling with a vengeance, quoth the knight; So heav'n preserve the sight it has restored, As with these eyes I plainly saw thee whored; Whored by my slave--perfidious wretch! may hell 770 As surely seize thee, as I saw too well. Guard me, good angels! cried the gentle May, Pray heav'n this magic work the proper way! Alas, my love! 'tis certain, could you see, You ne'er had used these killing words to me: 775 So help me, fates, as 'tis no perfect sight, But some faint glimm'ring of a doubtful light. What I have said, quoth he, I must maintain, For by th' immortal pow'rs it seemed too plain. By all those pow'rs, some frenzy seized your mind, } 780 Replied the dame, are these the thanks I find? } Wretch that I am, that e'er I was so kind! } She said; a rising sigh expressed her woe, The ready tears apace began to flow, And as they fell she wiped from either eye 785 The drops; for women, when they list, can cry. The knight was touched; and in his looks appeared Signs of remorse, while thus his spouse he cheered: Madam, 'tis past, and my short anger o'er! Come down, and vex your tender heart no more; 790 Excuse me, dear, if aught amiss was said, For, on my soul, amends shall soon be made: Let my repentance your forgiveness draw, By heav'n, I swore but what I thought I saw. Ah, my loved lord! 'twas much unkind, she cried, 795 On bare suspicion thus to treat your bride. But till your sight's established, for awhile, Imperfect objects may your sense beguile. Thus when from sleep we first our eyes display, } The balls are wounded with the piercing ray, } 800 And dusky vapours rise, and intercept the day: } So just recov'ring from the shades of night, } Your swimming eyes are drunk with sudden light, } Strange phantoms dance around, and skim before your sight. } Then, sir, be cautious, nor too rashly deem; 805 Heav'n knows how seldom things are what they seem! Consult your reason, and you soon shall find 'Twas you were jealous, not your wife unkind: Jove ne'er spoke oracle more true than this, None judge so wrong as those who think amiss. 810 With that she leaped into her lord's embrace With well-dissembled virtue in her face. He hugged her close, and kissed her o'er and o'er, Disturbed with doubts and jealousies no more: Both, pleased and blessed, renewed their mutual vows, 815 A fruitful wife and a believing spouse. Thus ends our tale, whose moral next to make, Let all wise husbands hence example take; And pray, to crown the pleasure of their lives, To be so well deluded by their wives.[67] 820

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Pope in this particular has not followed Chaucer. The story is told by the merchant, who announces in the prologue, that he has been two months married, and that in this brief space he has endured more misery from the fiendishness of his wife than a bachelor could undergo in an entire lifetime from the enmity of the world. He lays it down for a general maxim, that

We wedded men live in sorwe and care; Assay it whoso will, and he shall find That I say sooth, by Saint Thomas of Inde, As for the more part; I say not all; God shielde that it shoulde so befall.

The host begs that since the merchant knows so much of the trials of matrimony, he will instruct the company in some of them.

Gladly, quoth he, but of mine owne sore For sorry heart I telle may no more.

He accordingly relates the adventures of January and May in illustration of the misfortunes of the wedded state, and commences with the panegyric of January upon its unmixed blessings. The merchant then adds,

Thus said this olde knight that was so wise,

which is an ironical comment on what the narrator of the tale considers a delusive dream, and a proof of the credulous folly of the speaker. The idea of ascribing genuine sense and wisdom to the knight, notwithstanding that he was weak enough, at the age of sixty, to marry a girl, is confined to the version of Pope, and is not in itself unnatural; but the character, upon the whole, is better preserved in Chaucer, since the entire talk and conduct of January indicate a feeble mind.]

[Footnote 2: "Courage" in the original is not used in the modern sense, but signifies a hearty desire.]

[Footnote 3:

And when that he was passed sixty year, Were it for holiness or for dotage, I cannot say, but such a great courage Hadde this knight to be a wedded man, That day and night he doth all that he can Taspye where that he might wedded be; Praying our Lord to grante him that he Might ones knowen of that blissful life, That is betwixt a husband and his wife.]

[Footnote 4: In the original,

And certainly, as sooth as God is king, To take a wife it is a glorious thing; And namely when a man is old and hoar, Then is a wife the fruit of his tresor.

This is another instance that the merchant's remarks are sarcastic; for no rational person would gravely assert that to wed was especially wise in old age, when a man was married for his money alone. The whole purport of the tale was to prove that such an alliance ended in discomfiture. The vein of satire is continued through the subsequent reflections. The merchant represents January as imagining wives to be models of obedience and fidelity, who will cleave to a husband through weal and woe, and will never be weary of loving and serving him, though he is bed-ridden all his days. The example of May, to which the description is a preface, shows that the praises are meant to be interpreted in an adverse sense.]

[Footnote 5: In the original the merchant is quoting an invective against wives from the Liber Aureolus of Theophrastus, who had long been dead. Hence the narrator calls down a curse upon his _bones_ in the name of the advocates of matrimony:

This entent and an hundred sithe worse Writeth this man; there God his bones curse.

"Sithe" signifies "times." Pope has generalised the imprecation, and extended it to all bards, living or deceased, whereby the fitness of invoking a curse upon their bones is destroyed.]

[Footnote 6: Chaucer would have thought it an anomaly for a Christian knight to invoke the heathen deities. The original is,

A wife! ah! Sainte Mary, _benedicite_, How might a man have any adversite That hath a wife? certes I cannot say.

The requirements of the metre in this and other passages of Chaucer, show that _benedicite_ was sometimes contracted, in the pronunciation, to _ben'cite_.]

[Footnote 7: The merchant, in his account of the motives which actuated the knight, dilates more largely in the original, and in more enthusiastic language, upon the felicity of marriage. A wife helps her husband in his work, is the careful guardian of his property, and is perfect in her submission.

She saith nought ones nay when he saith ye; Do this, saith he; all ready, sir, saith she.

Consequently the married man

Upon his bare knees ought all his life Thanken his God that him hath sent a wife;

and if he is not yet possessed of the treasure, he ought to pray without ceasing that it may be vouchsafed him, for then he is established in safety, and

May not be deceived as I guess.

From the praise of wives, the merchant, speaking the views of the knight, proceeds to extol the trustworthy advice of women in general, and his first instance is Rebecca, who instructed Jacob how to supplant Esau. The reasoning is purposely rendered inconsistent, and the assertion that a married man was secured against deception is immediately followed by an example in which the husband was deluded by the stratagem of the wife.]

[Footnote 8:

Lo Judith, as the story telle can, By wise counsel she Goddes people kept And slew him Holofernes while he slept. Lo Abigail by good counsel how she Saved her husband Nabal, when that he Should have been slain.

The respite that Abigail obtained for Nabal was very short. He died by a judgment from heaven in about ten days from the time that she went forth to meet David, and with presents and persuasions diverted him from his purpose, as he was advancing to take vengeance on her husband. The striking narrative in the apocryphal book of Judith is undoubtedly fabulous. The pretended Judith was a widow. The deceptions by which she is said to have got the captain of the Assyrian army into her power are abhorrent to our purer morality, but they would have been considered legitimate stratagems of war in the East.]

[Footnote 9: Dryden, Juvenal, vi. 640.

The rest are summoned on a point so nice.

[Footnote 10: In Chaucer the knight does not ask his friends to choose for him because many heads are wiser than one, but because with several people on the look out there is more likelihood that a suitable wife will be found quickly than if he was unassisted in the search.]

[Footnote 11: In the original,

But one thing warn I you, my friendes dear, I will none old wife have in no manere.

Marriages seem to have taken place in those days at a very early age. The wife of Bath married at twelve, and the knight's notion of an "old wife" it appears, five lines further on, was a woman of twenty. He insists that he will marry nobody that is above sixteen:

She shall not passe sixteene year certain. Old fish, and young flesh, that would I have full fain. Bet is, quoth he, a pike than a pikerel, And bet than old beef is the tender veal.

"Bet" is for "better."]

[Footnote 12: Chaucer's knight assigns it as a motive to wedlock that he may have

Children to thonour of God above, And not only for paramour, and for love.

But a little before he had given a more worldly reason for his desire to have a son and heir, and said that he would rather be eaten by dogs than that his inheritance should go to a stranger.]

[Footnote 13: The flippancy of this couplet, which departs from the original, is at variance with the tone of the knight, whose speech commenced with the words,

Friendes I am hoar and old, And almost, God wot, at my pittes brink Upon my soule somewhat must I think. I have my body folily dispended Blessed be God that it shall be amended.

In the passage, for which Pope's lines are the substitute, the knight is enumerating the causes why men should marry, and one reason, he says, is that each person ought to

Helpen other In meschief, as a sister shall the brother, And live in chastity full holily. But, sires, by your leave that am not I, For, God be thankèd, I dare make avaunt, I feel my limbes stark and suffisaunt.

The meaning is, that when a husband is "in meschief," or, in other words, in a state of helpless decrepitude, his wife ought to live in holy chastity, and nurse him as a sister would a brother. But, adds the knight, thank God I am not decrepit myself, and feel my limbs to be still stout; which is a very different sentiment from sneering at the saintly life he had just commended.]

[Footnote 14: This verse, which has no counterpart in the original, is altered from a line in Dryden's Flower and Leaf:

Ev'n when the vital sap retreats below, Ev'n when the hoary head is hid in snow.]

[Footnote 15: The infatuation of the knight is more strongly marked in the original. He summons his friends to hear his fixed resolution, and to beg their assistance. He wants no advice, and instead of inviting them to speak their minds with freedom, he concludes his address with the words

And synnes ye have heard all mine intent, I pray you to my wille ye assent.

They do, indeed, offer him counsel where he solicited help, which is a true stroke of nature on both sides.]

[Footnote 16: Pope gives the real character of Placebo, but sets probability at defiance in making him parade with boastful effrontery his own systematic fawning and flattery. Chaucer has not committed the extravagance. With him Placebo justifies his assentation on the ground that lords are better informed than their inferiors.

A full great fool is any counsellor That serveth any lord of high honour, That dare presume, or once thinken it, That his counsel should pass his lordes wit. Nay lordes be no fooles by my fay. Ye have yourself y-spoken here to-day So high sentence, so holy, and so well, That I consent, and confirm every dole Your wordes all, and your opinion.]

[Footnote 17: The last four lines are interpolated by Pope, and are again inconsistant with the tenor of Chaucer's narrative. The knight had notoriously been a dissolute man, and the coarse reflection would be out of place when the avowed object of his projected marriage was that he might live more soberly than he had hitherto done.]

[Footnote 18: Seneca.]

[Footnote 19: The qualities specified by Chaucer are whether she is wise, sober or given to drink, proud or in any other respect unamiable, a scold or wasteful, rich or poor. "And all this," says Justinus, "asketh leisure to enquire," which he urges in reply to the announcement of January that he was determined not to wait.]

[Footnote 20: In Chaucer Justinus does not pronounce decisively against marriage, but recommends January to consider well before he enters upon it, and especially before he marries "a young wife and a fair."]

[Footnote 21: This couplet is an addition by Pope. The manly Justinus says nothing in the original about "offending his noble lord."]

[Footnote 22: Chaucer is more particular in his description:

He portrayed in his heart, and in his thought Her fresche beauty, and her age tender, Her middle small, her armes long and slender, Her wise governance, her gentilnesse Her womanly bearing, and her sadnesse.--BOWLES.]

[Footnote 23:

For when that he himself concluded had, He thought each other mannes wit so bad, That impossible it were to replie Against his choice; this was his fantasie.]

[Footnote 24: In seeking a wife for him.]

[Footnote 25:

Placebo came, and eke his friendes soon, And althirfirst he bad them all a boon, That none of them no argumentes make Against the purpose which that he had take; Which purpose was pleasaunt to God said he, And very ground of his prosperite.]

[Footnote 26: "And may serve my turn" is one of Dryden's familiar colloquial terms, happily used. Dryden among other excellencies of a varied style was happy in the use of such terms.--WARTON.

The phrase fails to convey the conception of Chaucer, that the knight too much smitten by the charms of May to consider anything else of the slightest importance.

All were it so she were of small degree, Sufficeth him her youth and her beaute.]

[Footnote 27: The humour is brought out by Chaucer with increased force from his dwelling with greater detail on the fond conviction of January that the only risk he runs in marriage is from the excess of the felicity. He says he stands aghast when he contemplates passing his life in that perfect peace, and blessedness,

As alle wedded men do with their wives,

and trembles to think that he shall have his heaven upon earth.

This is my dread, and ye my brethren twey Assoileth me this question I you pray.]

[Footnote 28:

And when they saw that it must needis be, They wroughten so by sleight and wise treate, That she, this maiden, which that Maybus hight, As hastily as ever that she might, Shall wedded be unto this January.]

[Footnote 29: Dryden's Palamon and Arcite:

For women to the brave an easy prey, Still follow fortune where she leads the way.]

[Footnote 30: Dryden's Palamon and Arcite:

I pass their warlike pomp, their proud array.]

[Footnote 31: This line has no warrant from Chaucer.]

[Footnote 32: Here followed a bad couplet, which Pope afterwards omitted:

Expensive dainties load the plenteous boards, The best luxurious Italy affords.]

[Footnote 33: Joab, the leader of the Israelites in battle, blew the trumpet, as is recorded in the Bible, to gather them together. Theodomas is thought by Tyrwhitt to be a character in some fictitious history which was popular in the days of Chaucer.]

[Footnote 34: Chaucer says that the bed was blessed by the priest, and the form used on these occasions may be seen in the old Latin service books.]

[Footnote 35: Dryden's Sigismonda and Guiscardo:

What thoughts he had beseems me not to say.]

[Footnote 36: A circumstance is added by Chaucer which brings vividly before the reader the advanced age of the knight:

The slacke skin about his necke shaketh While that he sung.]

[Footnote 37: Chaucer had previously mentioned that it was the usage for newly married wives to keep their chambers till the fourth day, and he repeats the fact here:

As custom is unto these nobles all, A bride shall not eaten in the hall, Till dayes four, or three days atte least I-passed be; then let her go to the feast. The fourthe day complete from noon to noon, When that the highe masse was i-doon, In halle sit this January and May, As fresh as is the brighte summer's day.]

[Footnote 38: In the original January passes a warm panegyric upon the excellent qualities of Damian, which is meant to display in broader contrast the treachery and infamy of the squire. The merchant in his own person denounces the villany of Damian's conduct, and prays that all persons may be protected from the machinations of those deceitful vipers, who, when fostered in a family, employ their opportunities to injure their benefactors. Pope has omitted every allusion of the kind, and has treated the baseness of the squire as if he regarded it in the light of a joke.]

[Footnote 39: It was at first "speaking sigh," which was distinctive. "Heaving" is the accompaniment of all sighs, and, as the sigh of Damian was soft, did not mark his in an especial degree.]

[Footnote 40: There is not a word, as may be supposed, in Chaucer of the squire asking for divine assistance in his wicked schemes.]

[Footnote 41: May, on her return from the visit which, at her husband's desire, she paid to Damian in his chamber, that she might cheer him in his illness, read the billet that he had given her covertly, and the result is thus told by Chaucer in a passage which has not been versified by Pope:

This gentle May fulfillèd of pite, Right of her hand a letter makèd she; In which she granteth him her very grace; There lacked nought but only day and place. And when she saw her time upon a day To visite this Damian goeth May, And subtilely this letter down she thrust Under his pillow; read it if him lust. She taketh him by the hand, and hard him twist So secretly, that no wight of it wist, And bade him be all whole; and forth she went To January, when that he for her sent. Up riseth Damian the nexte morrow; All passed was his sickness and his sorrow.]

[Footnote 42: The Epicurean philosophers.]

[Footnote 43: Addison's Letter from Italy:

My humbler verse demands a softer theme, A painted meadow, or a purling stream.]

[Footnote 44: Pope has here shown his judgment in adopting the lighter fairy race of Shakespeare and Milton. Chaucer has king Pluto and his queen Proserpina.--BOWLES.

There was not much judgment required. They are fairies in Chaucer, but, as was not unusual in his day, he called them by names taken from the heathen mythology. Pope merely dropped the classical appellations, which would have been an incongruity when he wrote. In the details of his description he did not copy Shakespeare or Milton, but Dryden's version of Chaucer's Wife of Bath:

The king of elfs, and little fairy queen Gambolled on heaths, and danced on ev'ry green.]

[Footnote 45: Another couplet preceded this in the first edition:

Thus many a day with ease and plenty blessed Our gen'rous knight his gentle dame possessed.]

[Footnote 46: Dryden's Palamon and Arcite:

Nor art, nor nature's band can ease my grief, Nothing but death, the wretch's last relief.]

[Footnote 47: There is a natural trait in the original which is not preserved by Pope. The knight weeps piteously at his sudden calamity:

But atte last, after a month or tweye, His sorrow gan assuage sooth to say; For when he wist it may not other be He patiently took his adversitie.

This is one of the deeper and more solemn touches which Pope systematically rejected. Although the old man gets reconciled to the loss of his sight, his jealousy remains unabated.]

[Footnote 48:

Oh! January, what might it thee avail If thou might see as far as shippes sail? For as good is blind deceivèd be, As to be deceivèd when a man may see.]

[Footnote 49: Chaucer only says that they whispered through the crevice they discovered in the wall which divided the houses of their parents. All their kisses were bestowed upon the wall itself, or as Sandys puts it in his translation of Ovid,

Their kisses greet The senseless stones, with lips that could not meet.]

[Footnote 50: This couplet, which is not in the original, is in the style of the pastorals which were common in Pope's youth.]

[Footnote 51:

Thou art the creature that I best love; For by the Lord that sit in heaven above, Lever I had to dyen on a knife. Than thee offende, deare, trewe wife.]

[Footnote 52: By the injudicious interpolation of this parenthesis Pope makes the knight express his belief to May that she is more likely to be kept faithful by her love of money than by her sense of honour and religion. It is undeniable that covetousness would be the predominant motive with a depraved woman, such as was poor old January's wife, but this is not his settled conviction, and he would have shrunk from openly admitting the idea.]

[Footnote 53: The knight's promise was to be performed the next morning. His doubt was whether May, on her side, would fulfil the pledge of perpetual fidelity. The ceremony is, therefore, reversed in the original, and January asks _her_ to kiss _him_ in token of her adhesion to the covenant.]

[Footnote 54: In the original the knight avows the jealousy, which in Pope's version he denies, and excuses his misgivings on the ground of May's beauty, and his own age. Having disclaimed all jealousy, there is no longer any meaning in representing him as pleading the inequality of his years to justify his conduct.]

[Footnote 55: May in the original is the same wicked, shameless woman that she is described by Pope, but Chaucer is content to put into her mouth the wish that she may die a foul death if she breaks her marriage vows. There is not a hint of the more frightful imprecation she invokes on herself in expressing the hope that she may descend alive into hell when she commits the crime she is meditating at the moment.]

[Footnote 56: "Infidelity in women is a subject of the severest crimination among the Turks. When any of these miserable girls are apprehended, for the first time they are put to hard labor, &c.; but for the second, they are recommitted, and many at a time tied up in sacks, and taken in a boat to the Seraglio-Point, where they are thrown into the tide." Dallaway's Constantinople.--BOWLES.]

[Footnote 57: The squire kneeling to worship May as she passed by is an exaggerated trait supplied by Pope.]

[Footnote 58: At the conclusion of the hypocritical rejoinder of May, in which she speaks the language of indignant innocence, the narrative goes on thus in the original:

And with that word she saw where Damyan Sat in the bush, and coughing, she began; And with her fingers signes made she, That Damyan should climb upon a tree, That chargèd was with fruit, and up he went, For verily he knew all her intent; For in a letter she had told him all Of this mattier, how he worke shall.]

[Footnote 59: These lines, which have no counterpart in Chaucer, owe their beauty to Dryden's Wife of Bath's Tale:

He saw a choir of ladies in a round, That featly footing seemed to skim the ground: Thus dancing hand in hand, so light they were, He knew not where they trod, on earth or air.]

[Footnote 60: The author of the apocryphal book of Ecclesiasticus. Chaucer says that he seldom speaks of women with reverence, which is correct. The statement of Pope that the son of Sirach asserted, like Solomon, that there was no such thing as a good woman, is in direct contradiction to various passages among his precepts.]

[Footnote 61: There is no specification of "these ladies" in Chaucer.]

[Footnote 62:

Now by my mother Ceres' soul, I swear That I shall give her suffisaunt answere, And alle women after for her sake; That though they be in any guilt i-take, With face bold they shall themselves excuse, And bear them down that woulde them accuse. For lack of answer none of them shall dyen. All had ye seen a thing with both your eyen, Yet shall we women visage it hardily, And weep, and swear, and chide subtilely.]

[Footnote 63:

I wot well that this Jew, this Solomon, Found of us women fooles many one; But though he be founde no good woman, Yet hath there founde many another man Women full true, full good, and vertuous; Witness on them that dwell in Christes house; With martyrdom they proved their constaunce.]

[Footnote 64: Pluto and Proserpine each select that portion of the meaning which is convenient. Both senses are included in the words of Solomon, who at once asserts the general wickedness of mankind, and the comparative worthlessness of women.]

[Footnote 65: The queen has just been boasting that she will endow the sex with the art of ingenious lying to cover the violation of their most solemn vows, and now she tauntingly tells her husband that it is not in woman to break her word. This contradiction is imported into the story by Pope. The original is as follows:--

Dame, quoth this Pluto, be no longer wroth, I give it up; but since I swore mine oath, That I will grante him his sight again, My word shall stand, I warne you certain; I am a king it sit me not to lie. And I, quoth she, am queen of faierie. Her answer shall she have I undertake, Let us no more wordes hereof make.]

[Footnote 66: The allusion is to the common longing of pregnant women for particular articles of diet. May cries out that she shall expire unless she has some of the "small green pears" to eat, and then exclaims anew,

I tell you well, a woman in my plight May have to fruit so great an appetite, That she may dyen, but she it have.]

[Footnote 67: The moral is Pope's own, and is in the dissolute spirit which had descended from the reign of Charles II. The comment on the story, in Chaucer, is put into the mouth of the host, who begs that he may be preserved from such a wife, and inveighs against the craft and misdoings of women.]

THE WIFE OF BATH.

HER PROLOGUE.

FROM CHAUCER.

The Wife of Bath is the other piece of Chaucer which Pope selected to imitate. One cannot but wonder at his choice, which perhaps nothing but his youth could excuse. Dryden, who is known not to be nicely scrupulous, informs us, that he would not versify it on account of its indecency. Pope, however, has omitted or softened the grosser and more offensive passages. Chaucer afforded him many subjects of a more sublime and serious species; and it were to be wished Pope had exercised his pencil on the pathetic story of the patience of Griselda, or Troilus and Cressida, or the complaint of the Black Knight; or, above all, on Cambuscan and Canace. From the accidental circumstance of Dryden and Pope having copied the gay and ludicrous parts of Chaucer, the common notion seems to have arisen, that Chaucer's vein of poetry was chiefly turned to the light and the ridiculous. But they who look into Chaucer will soon be convinced of this prevailing prejudice, and will find his comic vein, like that of Shakespeare, to be only like one of mercury, imperceptibly mingled with a mine of gold. Mr. Hughes withdrew his contributions to a volume of Miscellaneous Poems, published by Steele, because this Prologue was to be inserted in it, which he thought too obscene for the gravity of his character. "The extraordinary length," says Mr. Tyrwhitt, "of the Wife of Bath's Prologue, as well as the vein of pleasantry that runs through it, is very suitable to the character of the speaker. The greatest part must have been of Chaucer's own invention, though one may plainly see that he had been reading the popular invectives against marriage, and women in general, such as the Roman de la Rose, Valerius ad Rufinum de non ducendâ uxore, and

## particularly Hieronymus contra Jovinianum. The holy Father, by way of

recommending celibacy, has exerted all his learning and eloquence, and he certainly was not deficient in either, to collect together and aggravate whatever he could find to the prejudice of the female sex. Among other things he has inserted his own translation (probably) of a long extract from what he calls, Liber Aureolus Theophrasti de Nuptiis. Next to him in order of time was the treatise entitled, Epistola Valerii ad Rufinum de non ducendâ uxore. It has been printed, for the similarity of its sentiments I suppose, among the works of St. Jerome, though it is evidently of a much later date. Tanner, from Wood's MSS. Collection, attributes it to Walter Mapes. I should not believe it to be older; as John of Salisbury, who has treated of the same subject in his Polycrat. l. viii. c. xl. does not appear to have seen it. To these two books Jean de Meun has been obliged for some of the severest strokes in his Roman de la Rose; and Chaucer has transfused the quintessence of all the three works upon the subject of matrimony, into his Wife of Bath's Prologue and Merchant's Tale."

The lines of Pope in the piece before us are spirited and easy and have, properly enough, a free colloquial air. The tale, to which this is the prologue, has been versified by Dryden, and is supposed to have been of Chaucer's own invention; as is the exquisite vision of the Flower and the Leaf, which has received a thousand new graces from the spirited and harmonious Dryden. It is to his Fables, (next to his Music Ode,) written when he was above seventy years old, that Dryden will chiefly owe his immortality; and among these, particularly to the well-conducted tale of Palamon and Arcite, the pathetic picture of Sigismunda, the wild and terrible graces of Theodore and Honoria, and the sportive pleasantry of Cymon and Iphigenia. The warmth and melody of these pieces has never been excelled in our language; I mean in rhyme. It is mortifying and surprising to see the cold and contemptuous manner in which Dr. Johnson speaks of these capital pieces, which he says "require little criticism, and seem hardly worth the rejuvenescence, as he affectedly calls it, which Dryden has bestowed upon them." It is remarkable, that in his criticisms he has not even mentioned the Flower and Leaf.

These pieces of Chaucer were not the only ones that were versified by Pope. Mr. Harte assured me, that he was convinced by some circumstances which Fenton, his friend, communicated to him, that Pope wrote the characters, that make the introduction to the Canterbury Tales, published under the name of Betterton.--WARTON.

Dr. Warton thinks, "one cannot but wonder at Pope's choice from Chaucer of these stories, when so many more are to be found in him more poetical." His observation on Chaucer's poems is very just, but the fact is, Pope by this very selection showed the bent of his mind,--that it was rather turned to satire and ridicule, than to the more elevated strains of poetry.--BOWLES.

The imitations of Chaucer's January and May, and Wife of Bath's Prologue, are executed with a degree of freedom, ease, and spirit, and at the same time with a judgment and delicacy which not only far exceeds what might have been expected from so young a writer, but which leave nothing to be wished for in the mind of the reader. The humour of Chaucer is translated into the lines of Pope, almost without suffering any evaporation.--ROSCOE.

Pope's version of the Prologue of the Wife of Bath first appeared in a volume of Poetical Miscellanies, published by Steele, in 1714. The portrait of this repulsive woman is drawn by Chaucer with a vigorous hand. She is a wealthy cloth manufacturer, with a bold countenance, and more than masculine freedom of speech. She dresses ostentatiously, rides with spurs, and, glorying in her shame, openly boasts of the vices which less impudent women would carefully conceal. Her two predominant characteristics are an inordinate self-will which makes her resolve to rule her husbands with an absolute despotism, and an inordinate sensuality which has completely absorbed every finer sentiment. She not only avows her propensities, but exults in the deceit, the tricks, and the violence which she has employed to gratify them as so many testimonies to her cleverness and power. She has no compunctious visitings for the frauds she has practised, and the misery she has inflicted upon her deceased husbands. She speaks of the dead as of the living with brutal insensibility, and would think it a weakness to be swayed by a human feeling. The impersonation of domineering, heartless selfishness, her pride is to prevail by tyranny instead of by the gentle graces of feminine tenderness, and her pleasure is to indulge in worldly gaiety, and the gross gratifications of sense. Even her jovial good humour is hardly a redeeming feature in her character, for it mainly proceeds from her keen relish for physical enjoyments, and turns to temper the instant she is thwarted. It is difficult to conceive that anybody could be injured by reading her confessions, which have nothing alluring, but with Warton, we must condemn the taste which could select the story as a ground-work for the embellishments of modern verse. The character may exist in every generation. The unblushing candour with which it displays itself belonged to more outspoken times than our own. Chaucer painted from the life, and this portrait of a coarse, voluptuous, defiant woman of the citizen class, finds a place in his gallery, because she had a prominent place in the society of the middle ages. There was no rational motive for tricking her out in the newest fashion of a period to which she did not belong, and she might with advantage have been allowed to remain in her primitive place and garb. The indelicacy of the pieces he translated from Chaucer was, however, one of their recommendations to Pope, and they may have had a further attraction for him from the fact, that they held wives up to odium. His deformed and insignificant person was an antidote to love, and the court he paid to women met with a cold return. He retaliated with his pen for the mortification to which they exposed him, and he almost always represented them in a frivolous or degrading light. He may not improbably have had a pleasure in reproducing from Chaucer the caustic sentiments which were congenial to his own, and may have found some satisfaction for his wounded spirit in revenging indifference by satire.

Warton says that Pope has softened the more offensive passages in the Wife of Bath's Prologue, but his version, on the other hand, is often less decorous than the original. He has not justified his choice of the subject by his skill in the treatment of it. The adaptation is much inferior to the companion piece of January and May, and appears to have been thrown off in haste. There are a few, a very few, happy lines and expressions, but the bulk of the versification is not much above mediocrity, and is frequently below it. He has failed in the substance still more than in the form. Roscoe was of opinion that the humour of Chaucer had hardly suffered any evaporation. The admirers of the original have arrived at a different conclusion, and have contended, with almost one voice, that hardly any of the humour has been preserved. The genuine Prologue is alive with manners, passions, idiomatic conversations, and natural incidents. The copy is by comparison a dead, insipid dissertation. The mode in which Pope has abridged the narrative is one of many proofs that he only cared for characters in their broad outline, and had either no perception of the subtler workings of the mind, or no appreciation of them. If ever a reader masters the full sense of an author it must be when he translates him, and yet Pope has overlooked or rejected many of the happiest traits in Chaucer, and has falsified others, to the invariable injury of the story, and sometimes with a total disregard to consistency. Particular deficiencies are of little moment in the midst of general excellence, but in the present instance there is nothing to redeem the blots, and the narrative from first to last is a pale and feeble reflection of the original.

Warton asserts, on the authority of Harte, that Fenton believed that the version of the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, which appeared in Lintot's Miscellany under the name of Betterton, was the work of Pope, and Johnson adds that "Fenton made Pope a gay offer of five pounds if he would show the characters in Betterton's hand." The celebrated actor certainly left some literary papers behind him, if we may assume that a letter from Caryll to Pope, and which was published by the poet himself, is a genuine production. "I am very glad," Caryll writes, May 23, 1712, "for the sake of the widow, and for the credit of the deceased, that Betterton's remains are fallen into such hands, as may render them reputable to the one, and beneficial to the other." In a note Pope states that the remains were the modernised portions of Chaucer contained in the Miscellany of Lintot. There was no apparent motive for deception on the subject, and the internal evidence supports the conclusion that Betterton composed the translation, and that Pope merely revised it. It is a bald, worthless production, with a few lines or couplets which seem to have proceeded from a more practised versifier than the novice who put together the bulk of the work. The choicest parts are very little better than bad; for Pope was a provident poet, and he did not decorate Betterton with feathers which would have shone with lustre in his own plumage. The great actor, on his side, has signally failed in the point where his art might have been expected to teach him better. He who had such a deep insight into the characters he personated, and who gave voice, action, and gesture to all the passions with such fidelity and power, has pared away the dramatic vivacity of Chaucer and left only a vapid, hybrid compound which is neither modern nor mediæval. The sketch of the good parson is omitted altogether, doubtless because Dryden had already tried his hand upon it, and it was thought imprudent to provoke a comparison with his masterly paraphrase.

THE WIFE OF BATH.

HER PROLOGUE.

Behold the woes of matrimonial life, And hear with rev'rence an experienced wife; To dear-bought wisdom[1] give the credit due, And think for once, a woman tells you true. In all these trials I have borne a part, 5 I was myself the scourge that caused the smart; For, since fifteen,[2] in triumph have I led Five captive husbands from the church to bed.

Christ saw a wedding once, the Scripture says, And saw but one, 'tis thought, in all his days; 10 Whence some infer, whose conscience is too nice, No pious Christian ought to marry twice.

But let them read, and solve me, if they can, The words addressed to the Samaritan:[3] Five times in lawful wedlock she was joined; 15 And sure the certain stint was ne'er defined.

"Encrease and multiply," was heav'n's command, And that's a text I clearly understand. This too, "Let men their sires and mothers leave, And to their dearer wives for ever cleave." 20 More wives than one by Solomon were tried, Or else the wisest of mankind's belied. I've had myself full many a merry fit; And trust in heav'n I may have many yet. For when my transitory spouse, unkind, } 25 Shall die, and leave his woeful wife behind, } I'll take the next good Christian I can find. }

Paul, knowing one could never serve our turn, Declared 'twas better far to wed than burn. There's danger in assembling fire and tow; 30 I grant 'em that, and what it means you know. The same apostle too has elsewhere owned, No precept for virginity he found: 'Tis but a counsel, and we women still Take which we like, the counsel, or our will. 35

I envy not their bliss, if he or she Think fit to live in perfect chastity; Pure let them be, and free from taint or vice; I, for a few slight spots, am not so nice. Heav'n calls us diff'rent ways, on these bestows 40 One proper gift, another grants to those: Not ev'ry man's obliged to sell his store, And give up all his substance to the poor; Such as are perfect, may, I can't deny; But, by your leaves, divines, so am not I. 45 Full many a saint, since first the world began, Lived an unspotted maid, in spite of man: Let such (a God's name) with fine wheat be fed, And let us honest wives eat barley bread. For me, I'll keep the post assigned by heav'n, 50 And use the copious talent it has giv'n: Let my good spouse pay tribute, do me right, And keep an equal reck'ning ev'ry night: His proper body is not his, but mine; For so said Paul, and Paul's a sound divine.[4] 55 Know then, of those five husbands I have had, Three were just tolerable, two were bad.[5] The three were old, but rich and fond beside, And toiled most piteously to please their bride: But since their wealth, the best they had, was mine, 60 The rest, without much loss, I could resign. Sure to be loved, I took no pains to please,[6] Yet had more pleasure far than they had ease. Presents flowed in apace: with show'rs of gold, They made their court, like Jupiter of old. 65 If I but smiled, a sudden youth they found, And a new palsy seized them when I frowned. Ye sov'reign wives! give ear, and understand, Thus shall ye speak, and exercise command.[7] For never was it giv'n to mortal man, 70 To lie so boldly as we women can: Forswear the fact, though seen with both his eyes, And call your maids to witness how he lies. Hark, old Sir Paul, 'twas thus I us'd to say, Whence is our neighbour's wife so rich and gay? 75 Treated, caressed, where'er she's pleased to roam-- I sit in tatters, and immured at home. Why to her house dost thou so oft repair? Art thou so am'rous? and is she so fair? If I but see a cousin or a friend, 80 Lord! how you swell, and rage like any fiend! But you reel home, a drunken beastly bear, Then preach till midnight in your easy chair; Cry, wives are false, and ev'ry woman evil, And give up all that's female to the devil. 85 If poor, you say she drains her husband's purse; If rich, she keeps her priest, or something worse; If highly born, intolerably vain, Vapours and pride by turns possess her brain, Now gayly mad, now sourly splenetic, 90 Freakish when well, and fretful when she's sick. If fair, then chaste she cannot long abide, By pressing youth attacked on ev'ry side: If foul, her wealth the lusty lover lures, Or else her wit some fool-gallant procures, 95 Or else she dances with becoming grace, Or shape excuses the defects of face. There swims no goose so grey, but soon or late, She finds some honest gander for her mate. Horses, thou say'st, and asses men may try, 100 And ring suspected vessels ere they buy: But wives, a random choice, untried they take, They dream in courtship, but in wedlock wake; Then, nor till then, the veil's removed away, And all the woman glares in open day. 105 You tell me, to preserve your wife's good grace, Your eyes must always languish on my face, Your tongue with constant flatt'ries feed my ear, And tag each sentence with, My life! my dear! If, by strange chance, a modest blush be raised, 110 Be sure my fine complexion must be praised. My garments always must be new and gay, And feasts still kept upon my wedding-day. Then must my nurse be pleased, and fav'rite maid: And endless treats, and endless visits paid, 115 To a long train of kindred, friends, allies; All this thou say'st, and all thou say'st, are lies. On Jenkin too you cast a squinting eye: What! can your 'prentice raise your jealousy? Fresh are his ruddy cheeks, his forehead fair; 120 And like the burnished gold his curling hair. But clear thy wrinkled brow, and quit thy sorrow, I'd scorn your 'prentice, should you die to-morrow. Why are thy chests all locked? on what design? Are not thy worldly goods and treasures mine? 125 Sir, I'm no fool; nor shall you, by St. John, Have goods and body to yourself alone. One you shall quit, in spite of both your eyes; I heed not, I, the bolts, the locks, the spies. If you had wit, you'd say, "Go where you will, 130 Dear spouse, I credit not the tales they tell; Take all the freedoms of a married life; I know thee for a virtuous, faithful wife." Lord! when you have enough, what need you care How merrily soever others fare? 135 Though all the day I give and take delight, Doubt not, sufficient will be left at night. 'Tis but a just and rational desire, To light a taper at a neighbour's fire. There's danger too, you think, in rich array, 140 And none can long be modest that are gay: The cat, if you but singe her tabby skin, The chimney keeps, and sits content within; But once grown sleek, will from her corner run, Sport with her tail, and wanton in the sun; 145 She licks her fair round face, and frisks abroad, To show her fur, and to be catterwawed.[8] Lo thus, my friends, I wrought to my desires These three right ancient venerable sires. I told 'em, Thus you say, and thus you do, 150 And told 'em false, but Jenkin swore 'twas true. I, like a dog, could bite as well as whine, And first complained, whene'er the guilt was mine.[9] I taxed them oft with wenching and amours, When their weak legs scarce dragged 'em out of doors; 155 And swore the rambles that I took by night, Were all to spy what damsels they bedight. That colour brought me many hours of mirth;[10] For all this wit is given us from our birth; Heav'n gave to woman the peculiar grace, 160 To spin, to weep, and cully human race. By this nice conduct, and this prudent course, By murm'ring, wheedling, stratagem, and force, I still prevailed, and would be in the right, Or curtain lectures made a restless night. 165 If once my husband's arm was o'er my side, What! so familiar with your spouse? I cried: I levied first a tax upon his need: Then let him--'twas a nicety indeed! Let all mankind this certain maxim hold, 170 Marry who will, our sex is to be sold. With empty hands no tassels you can lure,[11] But fulsome love for gain we can endure; For gold we love the impotent and old, And heave, and pant, and kiss, and cling, for gold. 175 Yet with embraces, curses oft I've mixed, Then kissed again, and chid, and railed betwixt. Well, I may make my will in peace, and die, For not one word in man's arrears am I. To drop a dear dispute I was unable, 180 Ev'n though the Pope himself had sat at table.[12] But when my point was gained, then thus I spoke, "Billy, my dear, how sheepishly you look? Approach, my spouse, and let me kiss thy cheek; Thou should'st be always thus resigned and meek! 185 Of Job's great patience since so oft you preach, Well should you practise, who so well can teach. 'Tis difficult to do, I must allow, But I, my dearest, will instruct you how. Great is the blessing of a prudent wife, 190 Who puts a period to domestic strife. One of us two must rule, and one obey; } And since in man right reason bears the sway, } Let that frail thing, weak woman, have her way. } The wives of all my family have ruled 195 Their tender husbands, and their passions cooled. Fye, 'tis unmanly thus to sigh and groan; What! would you have me to yourself alone? Why take me, love! take all and ev'ry part! Here's your revenge! you love it at your heart. 200 Would I vouchsafe to sell what nature gave, You little think what custom I could have. But see! I'm all your own--nay hold--for shame! What means my dear--indeed--you are to blame." Thus with my first three lords I passed my life; 205 A very woman, and a very wife. What sums from these old spouses I could raise, Procured young husbands in my riper days. Though past my bloom,[13] not yet decayed was I, Wanton and wild, and chattered like a pye. 210 In country dances still I bore the bell. And sung as sweet as ev'ning Philomel. To clear my quail-pipe, and refresh my soul, Full oft I drained the spicy nut-brown bowl; Rich luscious wines, that youthful blood improve, 215 And warm the swelling veins to feats of love: For 'tis as sure as cold ingenders hail, A liqu'rish mouth must have a lech'rous tail; Wine lets no lover unrewarded go, As all true gamesters by experience know. 220 But oh, good gods! whene'er a thought I cast On all the joys of youth and beauty past, To find in pleasures I have had my part, Still warms me to the bottom of my heart. This wicked world was once my dear delight; 225 Now all my conquests, all my charms, good night! The flour consumed, the best that now I can, Is e'en to make my market of the bran.[14] My fourth dear spouse was not exceeding true! He kept, 'twas thought, a private miss or two: 230 But all that score I paid--as how? you'll say, Not with my body, in a filthy way: But I so dressed, and danced, and drank, and dined; And viewed a friend, with eyes so very kind, As stung his heart, and made his marrow fry,[15] 235 With burning rage, and frantic jealousy. His soul, I hope, enjoys eternal glory, For here on earth I was his purgatory. Oft, when his shoe the most severely wrung, He put on careless airs, and sat and sung. 240 How sore I galled him, only heav'n could know, And he that felt, and I that caused the woe. He died, when last from pilgrimage I came, With other gossips, from Jerusalem;[16] And now lies buried underneath a rood,[17] 245 Fair to be seen, and reared of honest wood. A tomb indeed, with fewer sculptures graced, Than that Mausolus' pious widow placed,[18] Or where inshrined the great Darius lay; But cost on graves is merely thrown away. 250 The pit filled up, with turf we covered o'er; So bless the good man's soul, I say no more. Now for my fifth loved lord, the last and best; (Kind heav'n afford him everlasting rest) Full hearty was his love, and I can shew 255 The tokens on my ribs in black and blue; Yet, with a knack, my heart he could have won, While yet the smart was shooting in the bone. How quaint an appetite in woman reigns! Free gifts we scorn, and love what costs us pains: 260 Let men avoid us, and on them we leap; A glutted market makes provision cheap.[19] In pure good will I took this jovial spark, Of Oxford he, a most egregious clerk. He boarded with a widow in the town,[20] 265 A trusty gossip, one dame Alison. Full well the secrets of my soul she knew, Better than e'er our parish priest could do. To her I told whatever could befall: Had but my husband pissed against a wall, 270 Or done a thing that might have cost his life, She, and my niece, and one more worthy wife, Had known it all: what most he would conceal, To these I made no scruple to reveal. Oft has he blushed from ear to ear for shame, 275 That e'er he told a secret to his dame.

It so befel, in holy time of Lent, That oft a day I to this gossip went; (My husband, thank my stars, was out of town) From house to house we rambled up and down, 280 This clerk, myself, and my good neighbour Alse, To see, be seen, to tell, and gather tales.[21] Visits to ev'ry church we daily paid, And marched in every holy masquerade, The stations duly,[22] and the vigils kept; 285 Not much we fasted, but scarce ever slept. At sermons too I shone in scarlet gay, } The wasting moth ne'er spoiled my best array; } The cause was this, I wore it ev'ry day. }

'Twas when fresh May her early blossoms yields, 290 This clerk and I were walking in the fields. We grew so intimate, I can't tell how,[23] I pawned my honour, and engaged my vow, If e'er I laid my husband in his urn,[24] That he, and only he, should serve my turn. 295 We straight struck hands, the bargain was agreed; I still have shifts against a time of need: The mouse that always trusts to one poor hole, Can never be a mouse of any soul.

I vowed, I scarce could sleep since first I knew him, 300 And durst be sworn he had bewitched me to him; If e'er I slept, I dreamed of him alone, } And dreams foretell, as learned men have shown: } All this I said; but dreams, sirs, I had none: } I followed but my crafty crony's lore, 305 Who bid me tell this lie, and twenty more.[25]

Thus day by day, and month by month we passed; It pleased the Lord to take my spouse at last. I tore my gown, I soiled my locks with dust, And beat my breasts, as wretched widows must.[26] 310 Before my face my handkerchief I spread, To hide the flood of tears I did not shed. The good man's coffin to the church was borne; Around, the neighbours, and my clerk too, mourn. But as he marched, good gods! he showed a pair 315 Of legs and feet, so clean, so strong, so fair! Of twenty winters' age he seemed to be; I, to say truth, was twenty more than he; But vig'rous still, a lively buxom dame; And had a wond'rous gift to quench a flame. 320 A conj'ror once, that deeply could divine, Assured me, Mars in Taurus was my sign. As the stars ordered, such my life has been: Alas, alas, that ever love was sin! Fair Venus gave me fire, and sprightly grace, 325 And Mars assurance, and a dauntless face. By virtue of this pow'rful constellation, I followed, always, my own inclination.

But to my tale: A month scarce passed away, With dance and song, we kept the nuptial day. 330 All I possessed I gave to his command, My goods and chattels, money, house, and land: But oft repented, and repent it still;[27] He proved a rebel to my sov'reign will: Nay, once, by heav'n! he struck me on the face; 335 Hear but the fact, and judge, yourselves, the case.

Stubborn as any lioness was I, And knew full well to raise my voice on high; As true a rambler as I was before, And would be so, in spite of all he swore. 340 He, against this, right sagely would advise, And old examples set before my eyes; Tell, how the Roman matrons led their life, Of Gracchus' mother, and Duilius' wife; And close the sermon, as beseemed his wit, 345 With some grave sentence out of Holy Writ.[28] Oft would he say, who builds his house on sands, Pricks his blind horse across the fallow lands, Or lets his wife abroad with pilgrims roam, Deserves a fool's-cap, and long ears at home. 350 All this availed not; for, whoe'er he be That tells my faults, I hate him mortally: And so do numbers more, I'll boldly say, Men, women, clergy, regular and lay. My spouse, who was, you know, to learning bred, 355 A certain treatise, oft, at evening,[29] read, Where divers authors, whom the devil confound For all their lies, were in one volume bound. Valerius, whole; and of St. Jerome, part;[30] Chrysippus and Tertullian; Ovid's Art, 360 Solomon's Proverbs, Eloïsa's loves,[31] And many more than sure the church approves.[32] More legends were there, here, of wicked wives, Than good,[33] in all the Bible and saints' lives. Who drew the lion vanquished? 'Twas a man.[34] 365 But could we women write as scholars can, Men should stand marked with far more wickedness Than all the sons of Adam could redress. Love seldom haunts the breast where learning lies, And Venus sets, ere Mercury can rise.[35] 370 Those play the scholars who can't play the men, And use that weapon which they have, their pen; When old and past the relish of delight, Then down they sit, and in their dotage write, That not one woman keeps her marriage vow. 375 This by the way, but to my purpose now. It chanced my husband, on a winter's night, Read in this book, aloud, with strange delight, How the first female, as the Scriptures show, Brought her own spouse and all his race to woe:[36] 380 How Sampson fell; and he, whom Dejanire Wrapp'd in th' envenomed shirt, and set on fire: How cursed Eryphile her lord betrayed, And the dire ambush Clytemnestra laid:[37] But what most pleased him was the Cretan dame, 385 And husband-bull--oh monstrous! fie for shame! He had by heart, the whole detail of woe, Xantippe made her good man undergo; How oft she scolded in a day, he knew, How many piss-pots on the sage she threw; 390 Who took it patiently, and wiped his head; "Rain follows thunder," that was all he said. He read how Arius to his friend complained, A fatal tree was growing in his land, On which three wives successively had twined 395 A sliding noose, and wavered in the wind. Where grows this plant, replied the friend, oh! where? For better fruit did never orchard bear; Give me some slip of this most blissful tree, And, in my garden, planted shall it be. 400 Then, how two wives their lords' destruction prove, Through hatred one, and one through too much love; That for her husband mixed a pois'nous draught, And this, for lust, an am'rous philtre bought: The nimble juice soon seized his giddy head, 405 Frantic at night, and in the morning dead.[38] How some, with swords, their sleeping lords have slain, And some have hammered nails into their brain, And some have drenched them with a deadly potion; All this he read, and read with great devotion. 410 Long time I heard, and swelled, and blushed,[39] and frowned; But when no end of these vile tales I found, When still he read, and laughed, and read again, And half the night was thus consumed in vain; Provoked to vengeance, three large leaves I tore, 415 And, with one buffet, felled him on the floor. With that, my husband in a fury rose, And down he settled me, with hearty blows. I groaned, and lay extended on my side; Oh! thou hast slain me for my wealth, I cried,[40] 420 Yet I forgive thee--take my last embrace-- He wept, kind soul! and stooped to kiss my face; I took him such a box as turned him blue, Then sighed and cried, Adieu, my dear, adieu![41] But, after many a hearty struggle past, 425 I condescended to be pleased at last. Soon as he said, My mistress and my wife, Do what you list, the term of all your life, I took to heart the merits of the cause, And stood content to rule by wholesome laws; 430 Received the reins of absolute command, } With all the government of house and land, } And empire o'er his tongue, and o'er his hand. } As for the volume that reviled the dames, 'Twas torn to fragments, and condemned to flames. 435 Now heav'n, on all my husbands gone, bestow Pleasures above, for tortures felt below: That rest they wished for, grant them in the grave, And bless those souls my conduct helped to save!

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Pope has departed at the outset from the conception of Chaucer. The purpose of the tale which the wife of Bath tells is to show that women love, above all things, to govern; and her personal history, which she relates in the prologue, is an account of the means by which she reduced her husbands to submission. It was not her own matrimonial woes, which had been slight enough, that she was about to set forth, but the miseries of those whom it is her boast to have worried into obedience to her will. As Pope correctly renders the original, she states that the pains referred to the smart she had inflicted on her husbands; and, far from alleging that "dear-bought wisdom" had taught her that matrimony to a woman was a life of suffering, she thanks God that she has been married five times already, and declares that directly her fifth mate is dead, she will marry a sixth.

When my husband is from the world i-gone, Some Christian man shall wedde me anon.]

[Footnote 2: "Twelve" in the original.]

[Footnote 3:

Beside a welle Jesus, God and man, Spake in reproof of the Samaritan: "Thou hast i-had five husbandes," quoth he, "And that ilk-man, which that now hath thee Is not thine husband." Thus he said certain; What that he meant thereby I cannot sayn, But that I axe why the fithe man Was not husband to the Samaritan?

The question is addressed to those who deny the validity of second marriages, and she asks them to explain upon their theory why the fifth man was not properly the husband of the Samaritan woman, when there is the authoritative declaration of Scripture that he was.]

[Footnote 4: Pope alone is responsible for the second half of this line, which in its present application has an unbecoming levity. There was a pardoner in the company, a person who got his living by selling indulgences, and by displaying the pretended relics of saints, who says that he was about to marry, but that he shall abandon his intention now that he learns what despotic authority wives exercise over husbands. The wife of Bath, unabashed, informs him that what she has told is nothing in comparison with that which is to follow:

Abide, quoth she, my tale is not begun. Nay, thou shalt drinke of another tun Ere that I go, shall savour worse than ale. And when that I have told thee forth my tale Of tribulation in marriage, Of which I am expert in all my age, That is to say, myself hath been the whip, Then might thou choose whether thou wilt sip Of thilke tunne that I shall abroach: Beware of it ere thou too nigh approach.

These dramatic touches omitted by Pope give life to the piece, and individuality to the characters.]

[Footnote 5: In the original,

I shall say sooth of husbands that I had, As three of them were good, and two were bad.

She meant that the two were rebellious in comparison with the three who were her slaves; for in speaking of the entire five, at the commencement of the prologue, she added,

And all were worthy men in their degree.

Pope has fallen into an inconsistency. He states that the three old husbands were those who "were just tolerable." Yet when he comes to describe the youngest of the two, whom he here calls "bad," he makes the wife of Bath exclaim,

Now for my fifth loved lord, the last and _best_,

In Chaucer she distinctly denies that he was the best, but says she _loved_ him best, and proceeds to explain the reason, which is that women always value those most who treat them with harshness or indifference.]

[Footnote 6: This trait in the wife of Bath's character is brought out more distinctly by Chaucer:

Me needeth not no longer doon diligence To win their love, or do them reverence. They loved me so well, high God above! That I tolde no deynte of their love. A wise woman will busy her ever in one To gete her love, there she hath none. But synnes I had them wholly in my hand And synnes they had me given all their land, What should I take keep them for to please But it were for my profit or mine ease?

"I tolde no deynte of their love," means I set no store by it; "ever in one" is always; and "take keep" is take care.]

[Footnote 7: The wife of Bath's first lesson in the art of domestic government is a panegyric upon the advantages of sturdy lying, in which Pope has not gone beyond the original:

Ye wise wives that can understand Thus should ye speak, and bear them wrong in hand; For half so boldely can there no man Swere and lie as a woman can.

"To bear them wrong in hand" is to affirm wrongfully or falsely. The phrase "to bear in hand" for "to asseverate," was still frequently used in the reign of Charles II.]

[Footnote 8: The wife of Bath accuses her old husbands to their faces of having delivered this kind of railing lecture to her when they had come home at night "as drunk as mice." The drunkenness and the railing are alike inventions of her own, but she appeals to her niece, and Jenkin, the apprentice, to bear witness to the truth of her assertions. The version of Pope is not so vivid, so lively, or so close to nature as the original, and he has nearly passed over one of the most prominent characteristics of the speech. When the wife of Bath taunts her husband with the reproaches she pretended he had heaped upon her, she intersperses her repetition of his objurgations with abusive and disdainful names by way of comment upon his monstrous sentiments. Old caynard or villain, Sir old lecher, thou very knave, lorel or worthless fellow, old dotard schrewe or sinner, old barrel full of lies, Sir old fool, are some of the appellations by which she marks her opinion of the doctrines she fathers upon him. After reciting his alleged complaint, that women concealed their vices till they were married, she adds that the maxim is worthy of "a schrewe," or scoundrel. When she imputes to him the declaration that no man would wed who was wise, or who desired to go to heaven, she follows it up with the wish that thunder and lightning would break his wicked neck. When he is charged with having said that there were three things that troubled earth, and that a wife was one of them, she hopes that the life of such a villain will be cut short. When she taxes him with quoting the proverb that a house not water-tight, a smoky chimney, and a scolding wife drove men from home, she retorts upon him that he is himself a scold, and intimates that his years are an aggravation of the vice. This is not only natural as the sort of scurrilous language which the wife of Bath would have used if the drunken invectives had been real, but was part of her plan for bringing her husbands into subjection. Her indignant recriminations were intended to browbeat them into meekness.]

[Footnote 9: She enlarges in the original upon this device, which was one of her capital resources. She quotes the proverb, that he first grinds who comes first to the mill, and upon this principle, when she had done wrong, she began by attacking her husband;

Or elles I had often time been spilt.

The poor man thus suddenly assailed stood upon the defensive, endeavoured to vindicate his innocence, and was heartily glad to hold his tongue on condition of receiving forgiveness for faults he had never committed.]

[Footnote 10: By pretending that she went out to watch her husbands she got the opportunity for indulging in freaks and jollity with her youthful friends.

Under that colour had I many a mirth. For all such wit is given us of birth; Deceipt, weeping, spinning, God hath give To women kindely while they may live. And thus of one thing I avaunte me, At th' end I had the bet in each degree, By sleight or force, or of some maner thing, As by continual murmur or chiding.

"Kindely" is by nature.]

[Footnote 11: In the original,

With empty hand men may no hawkes lure.

When the falconer had let fly his hawks, and wanted them to return, he was commonly obliged to entice them by some bait. The tassel, or tercel, was the male of the peregrine falcon, and was noted for its docility and gentleness. It would seem as if this species would obey the summons of the trainer without any other inducement, for when Juliet calls after Romeo, and he does not instantly reappear, she says,

O for a falconer's voice To lure this tassel-gentle back again.

[Footnote 12: In Chaucer she states that her husbands would grant all her demands to soothe her into good humour:

That made me that ever I would them chide. For though the pope had seten them beside, I nold not spare them at their owne board, For, by my troth, I quit them word for word. As help me very God omnipotent, Though I right now should make my testament, I owe them nought a word, that it nis quit; I brought it so aboute by my wit, That they must give it up, as for the best, Or elles had we never been in rest. For though he looked as a grim lion, Yet should he fail of his conclusion.

Pope has omitted the latter half of the lines and thus obliterated one of those nicer traits of nature with which the original abounds. Men put on the grimness of the lion, and think to prevail by strength, but women conquer by pertinacity. The majority of men grow weary of perpetual conflict, and purchase peace by concession; but women of the stamp of the wife of Bath wilt wrangle for ever, and prefer endless discord to the subjugation of self-will. Dryden, adding to Virgil's thought, has expressed the idea, Æn. v. 1024:

Ev'n Jove is thwarted by his haughty wife, Still vanquished yet she still renews the strife.]

[Footnote 13: Chaucer represents her as still youthful:

And I was young, and full of ragerie, Stubborn and strong and jolly as a pye.]

[Footnote 14:

The flour is gone, there nis no more to tell, The bran as I best can, now must I sell.]

[Footnote 15: In the original she does not say that she set his marrow frying, but that she fried him in his own grease, by stirring up in him the tormenting jealousy which his faithlessness had first engendered in herself.

I made him of the same wood a cross. Not of my body in no foul manere; But certainly I made folk such cheer, That in his owne grease I made him fry For anger and for very jealousy. By God, in earth I was his purgatory, For which I hope his soule be in glory. For God it wot, he sat full still and sung, When that his shoe full bitterly him wrung. There was no wight save God and he that wist In many wyse how sore I him twist.

This is a life-like portrait of a man tortured by inward pangs, and affecting an air of indifference while he did not dare to complain, from the consciousness that his greater offence would expose him to a crushing retort.]

[Footnote 16: In the character which Chaucer gives of the wife of Bath he says,

And thrice had she been at Jerusalem; She hadde passed many a strange stream; At Rome she hadde been, and at Boulogne, In Galice at Saint Jame, and at Cologne.

The reputed tomb of Saint James was at Compostella, in Galicia, and was a favourite resort of pilgrims. The wife of Bath may be supposed to have joined these expeditions quite as much from a love of roving and novelty as from superstitious motives.]

[Footnote 17: Chaucer says he was buried under the rood-beam, or as it is usually called the rood-loft, which was placed on the top of the screen that separated the chancel from the nave. The name was derived from the rood or cross that stood in the centre with the effigy of our crucified Lord, and having on one side an image of the Virgin, and on the other of the apostle John. Pope buries the deceased husband in the churchyard, and the root is a wooden cross which has been erected upon his grave.]

[Footnote 18: Artemisia, wife of Mausolus, king of Caria. On the death of her husband, 352 B.C., she erected a monument to him at Halicarnassus, which, from the beauty of its architecture and sculpture, was considered one of the seven wonders of the world. The Romans, says Pausanias, called all their most magnificent tombs _mausolea_ after this monument to Mausolua, and hence our modern term mausoleum. There is no mention of the tomb of Mausolus in Chaucer.]

[Footnote 19:

I trow I loved him beste for that he Was of his love daungerous to me. We women have, if that I shall not lie, In this matter a queynte fantasy. Wayte, what thing we may not lightly have, Thereafter will we soonest cry and crave. Forbid us thing, and that desire we; Press on us fast, and thenne will we flee. With danger outen alle we our ware; Great press at market maketh dear chaffare.

"Daungerous" in the second line means sparing, and in the last line but one, "with danger" signifies with a scarcity. Then, says the wife of Bath, we must produce all our own wares to give in exchange. At the date of her fifth marriage she was forty and the bridegroom was only twenty. Everything is now reversed. Her first husbands had endowed her with all their property that they might buy a young wife in their old age. She, in turn, that she may procure a young husband, gives him

all the land and fee That ever was me give therebefore; But afterward repented me full sore.

Her aged mates had worshipped her, and she repaid them with disdain. In her mature years she is infatuated by a youth, and he, who has no relish for the homage of a matron of forty, slights her just as she had done her early husbands under similar circumstances.]

[Footnote 20: It would seem from Chaucer that the youth was a native of Bath, and had returned there when he had completed his education at Oxford:

He some time was a clerk of Oxenford, And had left school, and went at home to board, With my gossib, duelling in our town: God have her soul, her name was Alisoun.

"My gossib" is my godmother, and the wife of Bath, whose christian name was also Alisoun, had been named after her. Pope, by turning "_my_ gossip" into "_a_ gossip," has done away with the special relationship, and employed the word in its modern sense of a lover of tittle-tattle.]

[Footnote 21: In Chaucer she adds a more powerful motive:

what wist I where my grace Was shapen for to be, or in what place?

In other words, as she explains shortly afterwards, she was in search of a lover who might succeed the fourth husband whenever he died.]

[Footnote 22: "To perform a station," says Richelet, in his French Dictionary, "consists in visiting with devotion one or several churches a certain number of days and times, and praying there in order to propitiate the wrath of God, and obtain some favour from his mercy." The wife of Bath in the original says, that she attended vigils, processions, preachings, miracle-plays, and marriages, besides making pilgrimages, but "stations" are not included in her list. The Roman Catholicism of Pope had rendered the word familiar to him.]

[Footnote 23: The expression "I can't tell how" implies that the intimacy on the part of the wife of Bath was accidental, whereas it appears from Pope's context, and still more from the original, that it was a deliberate design:

Now will I telle forth what happed me. I say that in the fieldes walked we Till truely we had such dalliance This clerk and I, that of my purveyance I spake to him, and saide how that he If I were widdow, shoulde wedde me. For certainly I say for no bobaunce, Yet was I never withouten purveyance Of mariage, ne or no thinges eke; I hold a mouse's heart not worth a leek, That hath but oon hole to sterte to, And if that faile then is all i-do.

The acknowledgment that while married to one man she is always engaged to a second, seems to the wife of Bath to have nothing discreditable in it, and she only fears lest she should expose herself to the charge of vanity in asserting that she can command a succession of admirers.]

[Footnote 24: No Englishwoman would talk of laying her husband in his urn, not to mention that the phrase is a mixture of incongruous ideas, the "laid" being applicable to burial, and the "urn" to burning. When the wife of Bath speaks of her departed husband she says,

He is now in his grave and in his chest.]

[Footnote 25: This couplet is an exaggeration of the original:

I followed ay my dames lore, As well of that as of other thinges more.]

[Footnote 26: Tearing garments, and throwing dust upon the head was a custom with some ancient nations, but was not an English habit, and there is no allusion to it in the text of Chaucer:

When that my fourthe husband was on bier, I wept algate, and made a sorry cheer, As wives musten for it is usage; And with my kerchief covered my visage; But, for that I was purveyed of a mate, I wept but small, and that I undertake.

The hard-hearted selfishness which does not bestow a thought upon the dead, being solely intent upon enjoying existence with the living, comes out in a yet more odious light when she narrates her feelings at the funeral. Her mind is entirely taken up with the young clerk, and mainly with admiration of his figure:

When that I saw him go After the bier, methought he had a pair Of legges and of feet so clean and fair That all my heart I gave unto his hold.]

[Footnote 27: She does not in the original profess "to repent it still," and for the excellent reason that, after a period of rebellion on the part of the clerk, he had become a puppet in her hands, and had rendered up both himself and his chattels to her undisputed management.]

[Footnote 28: The wife of Bath says she insisted upon going from house to house, according to her former custom, and the clerk set his face against the practice. His instances from Roman story were directed against this special failing, and were not general declamations on the virtue of Roman matrons and Gracchus' mother. The clerk told the gossiping, intriguing dame that Simplicius Gallus left his wife for ever, merely because he caught her looking out of the door with her head uncovered. He told her of another Roman that in the same manner deserted his wife because she one day went to see a game without his knowledge. His quotation from Holy Writ is not "some grave sentence," but the

## particular sentence of Ecclesiasticus which says, "Give the water no

passage; neither a wicked woman liberty to gad abroad." When the context has been generalised the lines which follow have not the accumulative sting of the original, where they are an additional example of the evil consequences of suffering women to rove about. Pope has further weakened their force by supposing them to have no higher authority than the opinion of the clerk. In Chaucer they are given as a proverb, and the husband urges them with triumph because they convey the general experience of mankind. The language is stronger than in Pope. Instead of mildly pronouncing that the man who suffers his wife to visit "halwes" or the shrines of saints "deserves a fool's cap," the proverb declares that he "is worthy to be hanged on the galwes."]

[Footnote 29: The clerk in the original reads with greater assiduity than "oft at evening."

He had a book that gladly night and day, For his desport he woulde read alway.

After describing the contents of the book the wife of Bath adds,

And alle these were bound in one volume; And every night and day was his custume, When he had leisure and vacatioun From other worldes occupation, To reden in this book of wicked wives.

This portion of the narrative in Chaucer is exceedingly pleasant and natural. The wife says that she paid no regard to the clerk's Roman precedents, his quotations from Scripture, his old saws and proverbs.

Ne I would not of him corrected be; I hate him that my vices telleth me.

The contempt with which she treated his exhortations drove him utterly mad, and it was then that he betook himself to reading all the literature he could find that bore upon the vices and frailties of women. The evidence of their general perversity with which his studies supplied him consoled him for the ungovernable disposition of his own wife, and he used "to laugh away full fast" over the record of their obstinacy and evil doings. He had the sweeter satisfaction of revenge. His mirth galled his imperious, froward wife, and when he read aloud the endless detail of female iniquities, backed up by the authority of great names, she could restrain her rage no longer, and the storm burst forth under which the wretched clerk succumbed.]

[Footnote 30: Pope has omitted a stroke of humour; for in the original, she naturally mistakes the rank and age of St. Jerome.

And eke there was a clerk sometime in Rome A _cardinal,_ that highten St. Jerome.--WARTON.]

[Footnote 31: This passage acquaints us with the writers who were popular in the days of Chaucer.--WARTON.

Warton takes no account of the fact that Chaucer was only enumerating the authors which furnished arguments against women. Valerius is a tract by Walter Mapes, which bears the title "Epistola Valerii ad Rufinum." St. Jerome's denunciations of matrimony are in his treatise "Contra Jovinianum." Tertullian wrote strongly against second marriages; and severe animadversions upon female vices or weaknesses have a large place in his works. "Who is meant by Chrysippus," says Tyrwhitt, "I cannot guess." Ovid's Art of Love, and the Letters of Eloisa and Abelard are known by name to all the world.]

[Footnote 32: This line is not in Chaucer.]

[Footnote 33: If Pope intended to follow the original, "good" means "good legends."]

[Footnote 34: The wife of Bath, having laid down the maxim that it is impossible for any clerk to speak well of women, except it be of the saints, indignantly inquires,

Who painted the lion, tell me, who?

and with an oath she adds,

If women hadde written stories, As clerkes have within their oratories, They would have writ of men more wickedness, Than all the mark of Adam may redress.

"Than all the mark" is than all that bear the mark or image of Adam. Pope's version, in which the wife asks the question and tamely answers it, is flat in comparison with the scornful repetition of the emphatic "who?" Yet he has employed this reduplication of a predominant word at ver. 397, where it has much less effect. Judiciously used, there is force and beauty in the turn, as in the couplet from Addison's translation of Ovid:

Her sisters often, as 'tis said, would cry Fie, Salmacis, what always idle, fie:]

[Footnote 35: Pope, misapplying the original, has adopted an image which is astronomically false. Chaucer spoke the language of astrology, and said that each of these planets fell in the exaltation of the other; for a planet was in its exaltation when it was in the sign of the zodiac, where it was supposed to exercise its greatest influence, and fell, or was in its dejection, in the sign where it exercised the least. Mercury, the god of science, was in his exaltation in Virgo, where Venus, the goddess of love, had no sway. Venus was in her exaltation in Pisces, and there Mercury was in his dejection. A man could not be under the government of incompatible planetary powers, and since scholars served Mercury,

Therefore no woman is of clerkes praised.]

[Footnote 36: This line was followed by a poor couplet, which Pope afterwards omitted:

How Sampson's heart false Delilah did move, His strength, his sight, his life were lost for love. Then how Aleides died whom Dejanire, &c.]

[Footnote 37: Eryphile, bribed by a necklace, prevailed upon her husband Amphiaraus to join the expedition against Thebes, although he assured her it would be fatal to him. Clytemnestra lived in adultery during the absence of her husband, Agamemnon, at the siege of Troy, and, on his return, she and her paramour entrapped and murdered him.]

[Footnote 38: Some writers have pretended that Lucilia, the wife of Lucretius, the poet, gave him a love potion which drove him mad.]

[Footnote 39: Chaucer says nothing of the blushes of the wife of Bath, which were not at all in her character.]

[Footnote 40: Who, exclaims the wife of Bath, could imagine

The woe that in mine hearte was and pine? And when I saw he nolde never fine To reden on this cursed book all night, All suddenly three leaves have I plight Out of this booke that he had, and eke I with my fist so took him on the cheek, That in our fire he fell backward adown. And he upstert as doth a wood leoun, And with his fist he smote me on the head That in the floor I lay as I were dead. And when he saw so stille that I lay He was aghast, and would have fled away. Till atte last out of my swoon I braide; O hastow slain me, false thief I said, And for my land thus hastow murdered me? Ere I be dead, yet will I kisse thee.

"Pine" is pain; "fine" is cease; "plight" is plucked; "wood" is mad; and "braide" is awoke. Pope has dropped the natural circumstance of the clerk's terror when he fancies he has killed his wife. This alarm brings out more strongly the hypocrisy of his virulent dame in pretending that the blow he gave her on the head, after she had torn the leaves out of his book and knocked him backwards into the fire, was with the deliberate design of murdering her to get possession of her property.]

[Footnote 41: Pope's translation is mawkish, and his "adieu, my dear, adieu!" destroys the point of the story. The wife of Bath seconds the blow with reproaches instead of with terms of endearment, nor does she consent to be pacified until the clerk surrenders at discretion. Had she relaxed before her conquest was complete, she would have lost the opportunity of establishing her dominion. After the line, "Ere I be dead, yet will I kisse thee," Chaucer thus continues:

And near he came, and kneeleth fairadown, And saide, Deare sister Alisoun, As help me God, I shall thee never smite; That I have done it is thyself to wite; Forgive it me, and that I thee beseke; And yet oftsoon I hit him on the cheek, And saide, Thief thus muchel I me wreke Now will I die, I may no longer speak. But atte last, with muchel care and woe We fell accorded by ourselven two; He gave me all the bridle in mine hand To have the governance of house and land, And of his tongue, and of his hand also, And made him burn his book anon right tho.

"To wite" is to blame; "I me wreke" is "I revenge myself;" and "tho" is then. As soon as the poor clerk consented to have no will of his own, and to be governed like a school-boy by his master, the dame declares,

God help me so, I was to him as kind As any wife from Denmark unto Inde.

It must have been holiday time with him, notwithstanding, when the wife of Bath set out on one of her pilgrimages, and left him in peace at home.]

THE TEMPLE OF FAME

WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1711.

THE TEMPLE OF FAME: A VISION.

By Mr. POPE.

8vo.

London: Printed for BERNARD LINTOTT, betwixt the two Temple Gates in Fleet Street. 1715.

This is the first edition. A second edition, which I have not seen, is advertised by Lintot in some of the lists of his publications. Dennis, in the Observations he put forth on the poem in 1717, asks Pope if there are no women who are worthy to appear in the Temple of Fame, and immediately adds, "Divers, he says, but he thought he should affront the modesty of the sex in showing them there." The remark does not occur in the first edition, nor in the reprints of the poem in Pope's collected works, and it may, perhaps, have been taken from the second edition. As the production disappointed the expectations raised by the name of the author the sale was probably not large. The piece was included in the quarto of 1717, and in the editions of Lintot's Miscellanies which came out in 1727 and 1732, but was not in the editions of 1720 and 1722. Lintot paid 32_l._ 5_s._ for the copyright on Feb. 1, 1715.

ADVERTISEMENT

The hint of the following piece was taken from Chaucer's House of Fame. The design is in a manner entirely altered, the descriptions and most of the particular thoughts my own: yet I could not suffer it to be printed without this acknowledgment,[1] or think a concealment of this nature the less unfair for being common. The reader who would compare this with Chaucer, may begin with his third Book of Fame, there being nothing in the two first books that answers to their title.[2] Whenever any hint is taken from him, the passage itself is set down in the marginal notes.[3]

Some modern critics, from a pretended refinement of taste, have declared themselves unable to relish allegorical poems.[4] It is not easy to penetrate into the meaning of this criticism; for if fable be allowed one of the chief beauties, or, as Aristotle calls it, the very soul of poetry, it is hard to comprehend how that fable should be the less valuable for having a moral. The ancients constantly made use of allegories. My Lord Bacon has composed an express treatise in proof of this, entitled, The Wisdom of the Ancients; where the reader may see several particular fictions exemplified and explained with great clearness, judgment, and learning. The incidents, indeed, by which the allegory is conveyed, must be varied according to the different genius or manners of different times; and they should never be spun too long, or too much clogged with trivial circumstances, or little

## particularities. We find an uncommon charm in truth, when it is conveyed

by this sideway to our understanding: and it is observable, that even in the most ignorant ages this way of writing has found reception. Almost all the poems in the old Provençal had this turn; and from these it was that Petrarch took the idea of his poetry. We have his Trionfi in this kind; and Boccace pursued in the same track. Soon after, Chaucer introduced it here, whose Romaunt of the Rose, Court of Love, Flower and the Leaf, House of Fame, and some others of his writings, are masterpieces of this sort. In epic poetry, it is true, too nice and exact a pursuit of the allegory is justly esteemed a fault; and Chaucer had the discernment to avoid it in his Knight's Tale, which was an attempt towards an epic poem. Ariosto, with less judgment, gave entirely into it in his Orlando; which, though carried to an excess, had yet so much reputation in Italy, that Tasso (who reduced heroic poetry to the juster standard of the ancients) was forced to prefix to his work a scrupulous explanation of the allegory of it, to which the fable itself could scarce have directed his readers. Our countryman, Spenser, followed, whose poem is almost entirely allegorical, and imitates the manner of Ariosto rather than that of Tasso. Upon the whole, one may observe this sort of writing, however discontinued of late, was in all times, so far from being rejected by the best poets, that some of them have rather erred by insisting on it too closely, and carrying it too far; and that to infer from thence that the allegory itself is vicious, is a presumptuous contradiction to the judgment and practice of the greatest geniuses, both ancient and modern.--POPE.

Pope, as he tells Steele in their correspondence (Nov. 16, 1712), had written the Temple of Fame two years before, that is, when he was only twenty-two years old, an early time of life for so much learning and so much observation as that work exhibits. It has, as Steele warmly declared, a "thousand beauties." Every part is splendid; there is great luxuriance of ornaments; the original vision of Chaucer was never denied to be much improved; the allegory is very skilfully continued, the imagery is properly selected and learnedly displayed; yet with all this comprehension of excellence, as its scene is laid in remote ages, and its sentiments, if the concluding paragraph be excepted, have little relation to general manners or common life, it never obtained much notice, but is turned silently over and seldom quoted or mentioned with either praise or blame.--JOHNSON.

It was, to the Italians we owed anything that could be called poetry, from whom Chaucer, imitated by Pope in this vision, copied largely, as _they_ are said to have done from the bards of Provence. But whatever Chaucer might copy from the Italians, yet the artful and entertaining plan of his Canterbury Tales was purely original and his own. This admirable piece, even exclusive of its poetry, is highly valuable, as it preserves to us the liveliest and exactest picture of the manners, customs, characters, and habits, of our forefathers, whom he has brought before our eyes acting as on a stage, suitably to their different orders and employments. With these portraits the driest antiquary must be delighted. By this plan, he has more judiciously connected these stories which the guests relate, than Boccace has done his novels, whom he has imitated, if not excelled, in the variety of the subjects of his tales. It is a common mistake, that Chaucer's excellence lay in his manner of treating light and ridiculous subjects; for whoever will attentively consider the noble poem of Palamon and Arcite, will be convinced that he equally excels in the pathetic and the sublime. The House of Fame, as being merely descriptive, is of an inferior rank to those in Chaucer of the narrative kind, and which paint life and manners. The design is improved and heightened by the masterly hand of Pope. It is not improbable that this subject was suggested to our author, not only by Dryden's translations of Chaucer, of which Pope was so fond, but likewise by that celebrated paper of Addison, in the Tatler, called the Table of Fame, to which the great worthies of antiquity are introduced, and seated according to their respective merits and characters, and which was published some years before this poem was written. The six persons Pope thought proper to select as worthy to be placed on the highest seats of honour are Homer, Virgil, Pindar, Horace, Aristotle, Tully. It is observable that our author has omitted the great dramatic poets of Greece. Sophocles and Euripides deserved certainly an honourable niche in the Temple of Fame, as much as Pindar and Horace. But the truth is it was not fashionable in Pope's time, nor among his acquaintance, attentively to study these poets. I own I have some

## particular reasons for thinking that he was not very conversant in this

sort of composition, having no inclination to the drama. In a note on the third book of his Homer, where Helen points out to Priam the names and characters of the Grecian leaders from the walls of Troy, he observes, that several great poets have been engaged by the beauty of this passage to an imitation of it. But who are the poets he enumerates on this occasion? Only Statius and Tasso; the former of whom, in his seventh book, and the latter in his third, shows the forces and the commanders that invested the cities of Thebes and Jerusalem. Not a syllable is mentioned of that capital scene in the Phoenissæ of Euripides, from the hundred and twentieth to the two hundredth line, where the old man, standing with Antigone on the walls of Thebes, marks out to her the various figures, habits, armour, and qualifications of each different warrior, in the most lively and picturesque manner, as they appear in the camp beneath them. In conclusion, we may observe that Pope's alterations of Chaucer are introduced with judgment and art, and that these alterations are more in number, and more important in conduct, than any Dryden has made of the same author.

The Temple of Fame was communicated to Steele, who entertained a high opinion of its beauties, and who conveyed it to Addison. Pope had ornamented the poem with the machinery of guardian angels, which he afterwards omitted. He speaks of his work with a diffidence uncommon in a young poet, and which does him credit. "No errors," he says to Steele, "are so trivial but they deserve to be mended. I could point you to several; but it is my business to be informed of those faults I do not know, and as for those I do, not to talk of them but to correct them. You speak of that poem in a style I neither merit nor expect, but, I assure you, if you freely mark or dash out, I shall look upon your blots to be its greatest beauties,--I mean, if Mr. Addison and yourself should like it in the whole. I am afraid of nothing so much as to impose anything on the world which is unworthy its acceptance."--WARTON.

Chaucer's poem contains great strokes of Gothic imagination, yet bordering often on the most ideal and capricious extravagance. Pope has imitated this piece with his usual elegance of diction and harmony of versification; but, in the mean time, he has not only misrepresented the story, but marred the character of the poem. He has endeavoured to correct its extravagancies by new refinements and additions of another cast; but he did not consider that extravagancies are essential to a poem of such a structure, and even constitute its beauties. An attempt to unite order and exactness of imagery with a subject formed on principles so professedly romantic and anomalous, is like giving Corinthian pillars to a Gothic palace. When I read Pope's elegant imitation of this piece, I think I am walking among the modern monuments unsuitably placed in Westminster Abbey.--T. WARTON.

Little can be added to T. Warton's masterly appreciation of the characteristic merit of this poem. May I be just allowed to mention, that there is less harmony of versification in this poem, than in most of the preceding, particularly the Rape of the Lock, Elegy to an Unfortunate Lady, and, above all, the Epistle of Eloisa. The pause is too generally at the end of the line, and on the fourth and fifth syllable. Pope bids

The Muses raise The golden trumpet of eternal praise.

Chaucer with a bolder personification sends for Eolus, "that king of Thrace," from "his cave of stone," to sound his "trump of gold." These circumstances may designate in some measure the character of either poem. I must confess I think there can be no comparison between the bold trump of Eolus which he set

To his mouth And blew it east, and west, and south, And north, as loud as any thunder,

and the delicate but less animated tone of the Muses in Pope.--BOWLES.

If Chaucer was indebted to any of the Italian poets for the idea of his House of Fame, it was to Petrarca, who in his Trionfo della Fama has introduced many of the most eminent characters of ancient times. It must however be observed, that the poem of Petrarca is extremely simple and inartificial, and consists only in supposing that the most celebrated men of ancient Greece and Rome pass in review before him; whilst that of Chaucer is the work of a powerful imagination, abounding with beautiful and lively descriptions, and forming a connected and consistent whole. Pope's Temple of Fame is one of the noblest, though earliest, productions of the author, displaying a fertile invention and an uncommon grandeur and facility of style. It is confessedly founded on Chaucer's House of Fame; but the design is greatly altered and improved, and many of the thoughts and descriptions are entirely his own; yet such is the coincidence and happy union of the work with its prototype, that it is almost impossible to distinguish those portions for which he is indebted to Chaucer from those of his own invention. The conclusion, as descriptive of his own feelings at an early period of his own life, is

## particularly interesting.--ROSCOE.

Chaucer's House of Fame is adorned with statues

Of all manner of minstrales, And gestours that tellen tales Both of weeping and of game.

Just such a gestour, or narrative poet, was Chaucer himself; for, as Warton has remarked, he excelled alike in the pathetic and the gay, and, if he was more admirable in one than in the other, his "tales of weeping" were superior to his "tales of game." None of our poets, except Shakespeare, can compete with him in versatility of genius. His numerous characters are conceived with equal truth and distinctness; his dialogue is lively and natural; his humour is sometimes broad, sometimes subtle, and always racy; his tenderness is unrivalled in its mingled depth, simplicity and refinement; his descriptions, whether serious or comic, have never been surpassed in ease and vividness. His pre-eminence appears the more conspicuous when we contrast his living strains with the feeble diffuse monotony of his successors and predecessors. He may be compared, says Thomas Warton, to a premature summer's day in an English spring. The autobiographical passages in his works afford a glimpse of the varied tastes and pursuits which rendered him one of the most comprehensive writers in the world. His keen observation of mankind was blended with the plodding of a student. He tells us that he lived the life of a hermit, and was entirely ignorant of what was passing among the neighbours who "dwelt almost at his door." His custom when the duties of the day were over was to withdraw to his house, and sit down "as dumb as any stone" to his books, till he was "dazed" with reading. His love of nature could alone compete in intensity with his love of literature. The single thing which had power to entice him from the studies he held "in reverence" was the singing of birds and the blooming of flowers. The month of May had a peculiar fascination for him. "Then," he exclaims, "farewell my book," and transported by the opening beauties of the year he gave himself up to the exhilarating effects of renovated nature. The "flower of flowers," in his eyes, was the daisy, and there was never a morning that he was not out at dawn in the meadows, kneeling on the "soft, sweet grass," and watching his little favourite unclose its petals to the sun. In the evening he returned to see the daisies "go to rest," and no sooner were they shut up than he hastened home to bed, that he might be awake in time to witness the renewal of the scene. The sight was to him so "blissful" that it "softened all his sorrow," nor did the commonness of the occurrence abate the charm. He protests that he still feels within him the fire which impelled him to rise with glad devotion before break of day that he might behold the resurrection of his cherished flower, and do it reverence; for the friendly daisy was--

Ever alike fair and fresh of hue, And I love it, and ever alike new, And ever shall till that mine hearte die.

These traits present a charming picture of the man, and they are enhanced by the modesty which accompanied his greatness. He always speaks of his writings with unaffected humility, as those of a person who from taste was a diligent cultivator of poetry without possessing the faculty to become a worthy poet.

The House of Fame cannot be ranked with Chaucer's best productions. The incidents are supposed to pass in a dream, which was his ordinary plan for avoiding the infringement of probability when he exchanged terrestrial realities for the visions of fancy. He repeatedly in his works does homage to the happy influence of love. He maintained that it was the parent of the choicest qualities among mankind, though he sometimes adulterates his loftier sentiments by intermingling voluptuous passion with the pure affections of the heart,--a defect which was usual with the mediæval "gestours." He reverts in the House of Fame to his favourite theme, and the first book is taken up with a description of the temple of Venus. The entire edifice was of glass that was radiant with paintings representing subjects from Ovid and Virgil. Chaucer flourished in the finest period of Gothic architecture, when the "storied windows richly dight" were the delight of the age, and his detailed enumeration of the pictured incidents were not, to his contemporaries, the dry catalogue they may appear to us. After examining the marvellous gallery, he walks out of the building to seek for some one to inform him in what country he may be. He finds that the surrounding district is a desert as far as the eye can reach, without house, tree, herbage, or living creature, till gazing upwards he beholds an eagle aloft in the sky.

It was of gold, and shone so bright That never saw men such a sight, But if the heaven had ywon All new of God another sun.

The book concludes with the announcement that the gorgeous eagle began somewhat to descend, and this is followed in the second book by the bird catching sight of Chaucer, and stooping upon him with the rapidity of lightning. In an instant it catches him up in its claws, and "as lightly as if he was a lark" soars with him into the clouds. He swoons with fright, and is restored to consciousness by the eagle calling him by name, and rebuking him for his fears. Having calmed him, the bird informs him why he has been sent to fetch him, and bear him aloft into the skies. Chaucer more than once confesses that he was not framed to win affection. He says he did "not dare to love for his unlikeliness," and that he might "go in the dance" with those whom it had not been Cupid's pleasure to prosper. Yet his quick and glowing sympathies had led him to employ his genius in celebrating a blessing of which he had tasted so sparingly, and he is now told that his disinterested service to Venus and Cupid, in devoting the hours of night to composing poems on the histories of lovers till his head aches, has attracted the notice of Jupiter, who intends to reward him by admitting him to a view of the palace of Fame. The eagle continues rising upwards with his burthen, and expounds to Chaucer as they go the situation of the building, and the means by which everything said and done on earth is known in the distant sanctuary of the goddess. Arrived there, the winged messenger of Jupiter sets the poet down, and bidding him farewell, expresses a hope that the God of heaven will send him grace to learn some good from the scenes which are about to be unveiled to him. The third book contains the account of the House of Fame, and the House of Rumour, and despite the previous announcement of the extraordinary disclosures which await him, Chaucer has copied several of his leading ideas from Ovid and Virgil. In the House of Fame he witnesses the caprice with which the goddess dispenses reputation and disgrace; and in the House of Rumour he learns that nothing can exceed the lying and deception which are practised by mercenary ecclesiastics for the sake of lucre. His honest nature and penetrating understanding repudiated the impostures of the Romish church, and it was the main lesson which he seemed to wish to inculcate in his poem.

It is stated by Pope in his prefatory advertisement that the House of Fame had only supplied him with the "hint" for the Temple of Fame, that "the design was entirely altered," and that "the descriptions, and most of the particular thoughts, were his own." Bowles says that "Pope seems unwilling to confess all he owes to Chaucer," and that his language would "lead us to conclude that the chief merit of the arrangement and imagination belonged to himself," whereas he is indebted to his predecessor for "what is most poetical in the whole composition." Pope cannot be accused of concealing his obligations to the House of Fame, for he has fairly specified them in his notes, but he extremely underrated the extent to which he borrowed from it when he fancied that his general outline was different, and "most of the particular thoughts entirely new." The fertility of invention ascribed to him by Roscoe, and which he, in some degree, challenges for himself, is the last praise he can claim. Every portion of the conception which has a touch of creative power is found in Chaucer, together with the largest part of what is good in the filling up. High authorities differ as to the effect of Pope's additions and variations. Thomas Warton pronounced that "the character of the poem was marred," and Bowles endorsed the criticism. Johnson, on the other hand, asserts that "the original vision was never denied to be much improved," and he had Joseph Warton, Roscoe, and Campbell on his side. "Much of Chaucer's fantastic matter," says Campbell, "has been judiciously omitted by Pope, who at the same time has clothed the best ideas of the old poem in spirited numbers and expression. Chaucer supposes himself to be snatched up to heaven by a large eagle, who addresses him in the name of St. James and the Virgin Mary. In Pope, the philosophy of fame comes with much more propriety from the poet himself than from the beak of a talkative eagle."[5] The introduction of the majestic eagle, its tremendous swoop when it pounces on the lonely wanderer, the terror produced by the first stage of the flight, and the animated dialogue in the second stage, is the most striking portion of Chaucer's vision. The philosophic discourse of the bird is not inconsistent with the wild imaginings of a dream. "Fantastic matter" is here the most natural, and keeps up an illusion which disappears in the formal composition of Pope. The advantage of modern language and versification would have rendered it easy for a man less gifted than him to improve on isolated passages, but the free fancy and picturesqueness of Chaucer are wanting. The romance which constitutes the truth and charm of the original dream is replaced by a scene of frigid tameness; and Johnson, while declaring that every part of the remodelled piece was splendid, is compelled to admit that it is turned silently over and takes no hold on the mind. Dullness is a fatal innovation which is poorly compensated by the greater polish of the style, and harmony of the verse.

The Temple of Fame suffered from a cause which deteriorated much of Pope's early poetry,--the notion that the noblest exercise of mind was to magnify the ancients, and reproduce their ideas. The epic poem he commenced at thirteen was naturally a school-boy's "slavish imitation" of Greek and Latin authors.[6] A magnificent modern literature, marked by the strongest lines of native vigour and masculine independence, might have been expected, as he grew acquainted with it, to expand his taste. This effect did not ensue. Led astray by the false conventional canons of hacknied criticism, he clung to his early prejudices, and, regardless of the splendid names which gave the lie to his theory, he could say, at the age of thirty, in the preface to his works, "All that is left us is to recommend our productions by the imitation of the ancients." He told Spence that he should certainly have tried his hand upon a second epic if he had not translated the Iliad, and this epic, in its main characteristics, would not have differed much from his translation. "I should have sat down to it," he said, "with this advantage, that I had been nursed up in Homer and Virgil."[7] He once intended to take the Corinthian Timoleon for his hero; and scene, manners, personages, machinery, and sentiments would all have been as Greek as they could be made by an imitator who had not entered deeply into the spirit of classic writers and times. The everlasting interest attached to the Iliad,--to a poem original and national, reflecting the institutions, customs, feelings, and beliefs of its era,--would, he thought, be extended to a modern duplicate, in which every one of these qualities would have been reversed. "The less we copy the ancients," said Dr. Young, "we shall resemble them the more." The undue exaltation of antiquity is complete in the Temple of Fame. No English king, warrior, statesman, or patriot; no Christian martyr or evangeliser; no poet or philosopher was deemed worthy to be ranked with the men of old. The fictitious phantoms of heathen mythology, the heroes of decayed empires, and the authors whose works are in dead languages, are the sole immortals of Pope. Within the limits of his narrow world several of his names appear to have been selected at random, and others are applauded upon mistaken principles. He extols the virtue of Brutus, whose chief glory was to have plotted the death of his preserver, patron, and friend. Nations do not need, and virtue disowns the patriotism which manifests itself in ingratitude, treachery, and murder. Pope's admiration of tyrannicides even led him to celebrate Timoleon for killing his brother, notwithstanding that Timoleon had forfeited his claim to the panegyric by bitterly repenting his crime. To consecrate political assassinations is to put the lives of rulers at the mercy of any individual who conceives their policy to be mischievous. In short, the portion of the Temple of Fame which was not directly borrowed from Chaucer is merely a school-boy's theme in verse. The manner in which Pope sets forth his worthies is not, for him, felicitous. His portraits are nearly all faint and feeble sketches, without distinctness of outline, individuality of feature, or brilliancy of colouring.

The contemporary literature of the middle ages could not compete with the classical masterpieces, and Chaucer might have been justified in peopling his House of Fame with ancients alone. But he does not believe that genius and grandeur expired with the Romans. He has faith in authors whose light has long since been dimmed or extinguished, and confidently ranks such writers as Guido de Columpnis and Geoffrey of Monmouth with the loftiest Greek and Latin names. The statues of minstrel bards, musicians, and professors of magic adorn the exterior of the palace; the wall within is crowded with heralds, and on their coats are embroidered the armorial ensigns of all the persons who had been famous in Europe, Asia, and Africa since chivalry began. Everywhere we have the true reflection of the world in which Chaucer lived. His narrative represents the fourteenth century, its actual pursuits and genuine tastes, while the modernised version of Pope is stripped of circumstantial realities, and exhibits only an impassive, artificial pedantry.

The architecture of Pope's Temple and Chaucer's House presents the same difference which distinguishes the respective poems throughout. The House is in the magnificent Gothic of the time, with its multiplied buttresses, niches, images, pinnacles, and traceried windows. The Temple is a building which resembles nothing that ever existed. One face is Grecian architecture, a second Eastern, a third Egyptian, and a fourth Northern. Warton, in a note to the poem, says that Pope's "knowledge and taste in the fine arts were unquestionable." Had he possessed the crudest ideas of architecture he could not have affirmed that so hideous, and indeed so impossible a combination, surpassed in beauty whatever had been "beheld in proud Rome, or artful Greece, or elder Babylon." The details are worthy of the general conception. The northern side is said to be "of Gothic structure,"--not the glorious style which commonly bears the name, a style for which Pope had no eyes, since with Chaucer's description before him he ignores the mediæval Gothic altogether, but a structure lustrous as glass, and "overwrought with ornaments of barbarous pride." "Huge colosses rise" upon its face, and around the statues are "engraved Runic characters." This part of the design appears to be an importation from the south. In the Egyptian temples colossal figures are often attached to the piers, and at the top, bottom, and sides of the piers there is a border of hieroglyphics. With his statues Pope has conjoined "rude iron columns smeared with blood" upon which stand the "horrid forms of Scythian heroes," and in a note he gravely asserts that this medley "is agreeable to the architecture of the northern part of the world." In the text he has ventured upon the no less extraordinary statement that all the façades were of "equal grace" or in other words that his barbarous and chimerical northern side was of equal grace with the architecture of Greece.

Johnson remarks that the learning and observation exhibited in the Temple of Fame were uncommon for a youth of twenty-two. The authority for Pope's age was an expression in his letter to Steele, Nov. 16, 1712, where he says of his work, "I was so diffident of it as to let it lie by me these two years just as you now see it;" and he adds in a note, "hence it appears this poem was writ before the author was twenty-two years old." With the discrepancy usual with him when the dates of his compositions were in question, he stated on the title-page of the various reprints of the Temple of Fame, that it was "written in the year 1711," the first day of which found him nearer twenty-three than twenty-two. He did not publish it till 1715, and between his twenty-fifth year when he showed it to Steele, and his twenty-seventh year when it appeared, he subjected the poem to an extensive revision. "I have read over your Temple of Fame twice," wrote Steele, Nov. 12, 1712, "and cannot find anything amiss of weight enough to call a fault, but see in it a thousand, thousand beauties." "Since you say," Pope replied, "you see nothing that may be called a fault, can you not think it so that I have confined the attendance of guardian spirits to heaven's favourites only?" He remedied the defect by getting rid of the guardian spirits; and with his own testimony to the changes which the plan underwent, the learning can only be considered as displaying the compass of his knowledge when he was upwards of twenty-six. It is surprising that Johnson should have thought that a very small amount of classical mythology, and an acquaintance with the broad characteristics of a few celebrities of antiquity, was an unusual acquisition even for a man of twenty-two. Warton has pointed out that the narrow range of Pope's reading was more remarkable than its extent. He has not alluded to the Greek tragedians, and had probably never looked into a single play of Æschylus, Sophocles, or Euripides. The observation of life, which Johnson thought as precocious as the learning, is not of the recondite kind, and belongs exclusively to Chaucer. In whatever light we view the Temple of Fame it must be ranked at best with the secondary class of Pope's productions, and the indifference with which it was regarded up to Johnson's time has continued unabated up to ours. The eight lines on the rocks of Zembla are fine, and there is an occasional good line in other portions of the piece, but the poem seldom rises above a cold, and somewhat languid elegance, and like the "pale suns" which the author describes, it "rolls away unfelt."

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: The remainder of this sentence was omitted by Pope in the later editions of his poem.]

[Footnote 2: Pope forgot that he had transferred portions of the second book to his own imitation.]

[Footnote 3: The parallel passages from Chaucer were not given by Pope till 1736, and he then added the last sentence to the original advertisement.]

[Footnote 4: These remarks of Pope appeared in the form of a note to the first edition.]

[Footnote 5: Specimens of the British Poets, ed. Cunningham, p. 5.]

[Footnote 6: Singer's Spence, p. 211.]

[Footnote 7: Spence, p. 214.]

THE TEMPLE OF FAME.

In that soft season,[1] when descending show'rs[2] Call forth the greens, and wake the rising flow'rs;[3] When opening buds salute the welcome day,[4] And earth relenting[5] feels the genial ray; As balmy sleep had charmed my cares to rest, 5 And love itself was banished from my breast,[6] (What time the morn mysterious visions brings,[7] While purer slumbers spread their golden wings) A train of phantoms in wild order rose, And joined, this intellectual scene[8] compose. 10 I stood, methought, betwixt earth, seas, and skies;[9] The whole creation open to my eyes: In air self-balanced hung the globe below,[10] Where mountains rise, and circling oceans flow; Here naked rocks, and empty wastes were seen, 15 There tow'ry cities, and the forests green; Here sailing ships delight the wand'ring eyes; There trees, and intermingled temples rise:[11] Now a clear sun the shining scene displays;[12] The transient landscape now in clouds decays. 20 O'er the wide prospect as I gazed around, Sudden I heard a wild promiscuous sound, Like broken thunders that at distance roar, Or billows murm'ring on the hollow shore:[13] Then, gazing up, a glorious pile beheld, 25 Whose tow'ring summit ambient clouds concealed. High on a rock of ice the structure lay,[14] Steep its ascent, and slipp'ry was the way;[15] The wondrous rock like Parian marble shone, And seemed, to distant sight, of solid stone. 30 Inscriptions here of various names I viewed,[16] The greater part by hostile time subdued; Yet wide was spread their fame in ages past, And poets once had promised they should last. Some fresh engraved appeared of wits renowned; 35 I looked again, nor could their trace be found. Critics I saw, that other names deface, And fix their own, with labour, in their place: Their own, like others, soon their place resigned, Or disappeared, and left the first behind. 40 Nor was the work impaired by storms alone,[17] But felt th' approaches of too warm a sun; For Fame, impatient of extremes, decays Not more by envy than excess of praise.[18] Yet part no injuries of heav'n could feel,[19] 45 Like crystal faithful to the graving steel: The rock's high summit, in the temple's shade, Nor heat could melt, nor beating storm invade. Their names inscribed unnumbered ages past From time's first birth, with time itself shall last; 50 These ever new, nor subject to decays, Spread, and grow brighter with the length of days. So Zembla's rocks (the beauteous work of frost)[20] Rise white in air, and glitter o'er the coast; Pale suns, unfelt, at distance roll away, 55 And on th' impassive ice the lightnings play; Eternal snows the growing mass supply, Till the bright mountains prop th' incumbent sky[21]: As Atlas fixed, each hoary pile appears,[22] The gathered winter of a thousand years.[23] 60 On this foundation Fame's high temple stands; Stupendous pile! not reared by mortal hands.[24] Whate'er proud Rome or artful Greece beheld, Or elder Babylon, its frame excelled. Four faces had the dome,[25] and ev'ry face 65 Of various structure, but of equal grace: Four brazen gates, on columns lifted high,[26] Salute the diff'rent quarters of the sky.[27] Here fabled chiefs in darker ages born, Or worthies old, whom arms or arts adorn,[28] 70 Who cities raised, or tamed a monstrous race, The walls in venerable order grace.[29] Heroes in animated marble frown,[30] And legislators seem to think in stone. Westward, a sumptuous frontispiece appeared, 75 On Doric pillars of white marble reared,[31] Crowned with an architrave of antique mold, And sculpture rising on the roughened gold,[32] In shaggy spoils here Theseus was beheld,[33] And Perseus dreadful with Minerva's shield:[34] 80 There great Alcides stooping with his toil, Rests on his club, and holds th' Hesperian spoil.[35] Here Orpheus sings; trees moving to the sound Start from their roots, and form a shade around: Amphion there the loud-creating lyre 85 Strikes,[36] and beholds a sudden Thebes aspire! Cithæron's echoes answer to his call, And half the mountain rolls into a wall: There might you see the length'ning spires ascend, The domes swell up, the widening arches bend, 90 The growing tow'rs like exhalations rise,[37] And the huge columns heave into the skies.[38] The Eastern front was glorious to behold, With di'mond flaming and barbaric gold.[39] There Ninus shone, who spread th' Assyrian fame, 95 And the great founder of the Persian name:[40] There in long robes the royal Magi stand, Grave Zoroaster waves the circling wand, The sage Chaldæans, robed in white, appeared,[41] And Brachmans, deep in desert woods revered.[42] 100 These stopped the moon, and called th' unbodied shades To midnight banquets in the glimm'ring glades; Made visionary fabrics round them rise, And airy spectres skim before their eyes;[43] Of talismans and sigils knew the pow'r, 105 And careful watched the planetary hour.[44] Superior, and alone, Confucius stood,[45] Who taught that useful science, to be good. But on the South, a long majestic race Of Egypt's priests the gilded niches grace, 110 Who measured earth, described the starry spheres, And traced the long records of lunar years.[46] High on his car, Sesostris struck my view, Whom sceptered slaves in golden harness drew: His hands a bow and pointed jav'lin hold;[47] 115 His giant limbs are armed in scales of gold.[48] Between the statues obelisks were placed, And the learn'd walls with hieroglyphics graced.[49] Of Gothic structure was the Northern side,[50] O'erwrought with ornaments of barb'rous pride: 120 There huge Colosses rose, with trophies crowned, And Runic characters were graved around. There sat Zamolxis with erected eyes,[51] And Odin here in mimic trances dies.[52] There on rude iron columns, smeared with blood,[53] 125 The horrid forms of Scythian heroes stood, Druids and bards[54] (their once loud harps unstrung), And youths that died to be by poets sung. These, and a thousand more, of doubtful fame, To whom old fables gave a lasting name, 130 In ranks adorned the temple's outward face; The wall in lustre and effect like glass, Which o'er each object casting various dyes, Enlarges some, and others multiplies:[55] Nor void of emblem was the mystic wall, 135 For thus romantic Fame increases all. The temple shakes, the sounding gates unfold,[56] Wide vaults appear, and roofs of fretted gold:[57] Raised on a thousand pillars, wreathed around With laurel-foliage, and with eagles crowned: 140 Of bright transparent beryl were the walls,[58] The friezes gold, and gold the capitals: As heav'n with stars, the roof with jewels glows, And ever-living lamps depend in rows.[59] Full in the passage of each spacious gate, 145 The sage historians in white garments wait;[60] Graved o'er their seats the form of Time was found, His scythe reversed, and both his pinions bound. Within stood heroes, who through loud alarms In bloody fields pursued renown in arms. 150 High on a throne with trophies charged, I viewed The youth that all things but himself subdued;[61] His feet on sceptres and tiaras trod, And his horned head belied the Libyan god.[62] There Cæsar, graced with both Minervas,[63] shone; 155 Cæsar, the world's great master, and his own;[64] Unmoved, superior still in ev'ry state, And scarce detested in his country's fate.[65] But chief were those, who not for empire fought, But with their toils their people's safety bought: 160 High o'er the rest Epaminondas stood;[66] Timoleon, glorious in his brother's blood;[67] Bold Scipio, saviour of the Roman state; Great in his triumphs, in retirement great; And wise Aurelius, in whose well-taught mind, } 165 With boundless pow'r, unbounded virtue joined, } His own strict judge, and patron of mankind,[68] } Much-suff'ring heroes next their honours claim, Those of less noisy, and less guilty fame,[69] Fair Virtue's silent train:[70] supreme of these 170 Here ever shines the godlike Socrates: He whom ungrateful Athens could expel, At all times just, but when he signed the shell:[71] Here his abode the martyred Phocion claims,[72] With Agis, not the last of Spartan names:[73] 175 Unconquered Cato shows the wound he tore,[74] And Brutus his ill Genius meets no more.[75] But in the centre of the hallowed choir,[76] Six pompous columns o'er the rest aspire;[77] Around the shrine itself of Fame they stand, 180 Hold the chief honours, and the fane command. High on the first, the mighty Homer shone;[78] Eternal adamant composed his throne; Father of verse! in holy fillets drest, His silver beard waved gently o'er his breast; 185 Though blind, a boldness in his looks appears; In years he seemed, but not impaired by years. The wars of Troy were round the pillar seen: Here fierce Tydides wounds the Cyprian queen; Here Hector, glorious from Patroclus' fall, 190 Here dragged in triumph round the Trojan wall:[79] Motion and life did ev'ry part inspire, Bold was the work, and proved the master's fire; A strong expression most he seemed t' affect, And here and there disclosed a brave neglect. 195 A golden column next in rank appear'd, On which a shrine of purest gold was rear'd; Finished the whole, and laboured ev'ry part, With patient touches of unwearied art: The Mantuan there in sober triumph sate, 200 Composed his posture, and his looks sedate;[80] On Homer still he fixed a rev'rent eye, Great without pride, in modest majesty.[81] In living sculpture[82] on the sides were spread The Latian wars, and haughty Turnus dead; 205 Eliza stretched upon the fun'ral pyre, Æneas bending with his aged sire: Troy flamed in burning gold, and o'er the throne "Arms and the man" in golden ciphers shone. Four swans sustain a car of silver bright,[83] 210 With heads advanced, and pinions stretched for flight:[84] Here, like some furious prophet, Pindar rode, And seem'd to labour with th' inspiring god. Across the harp a careless hand he flings, And boldly sinks into the sounding strings.[85] 215 The figured games of Greece the column grace, Neptune and Jove survey the rapid race. The youths hang o'er the chariots as they run; The fiery steeds seem starting from the stone; The champions in distorted postures threat,[86] 220 And all appeared irregularly great. Here happy Horace tuned th' Ausonian lyre To sweeter sounds, and tempered Pindar's fire: Pleased with Aleæus' manly rage t'infuse The softer spirit of the Sapphic muse.[87] 225 The polished pillar diff'rent sculptures grace; A work outlasting monumental brass. Here smiling loves and bacchanals appear, The Julian star,[88] and great Augustus here. The doves that round the infant poet spread 230 Myrtles and bays, hung hov'ring o'er his head. Here in a shrine that cast a dazzling light, Sat fixed in thought the mighty Stagirite; His sacred head a radiant zodiac crowned,[89] And various animals his sides surround;[90] 235 His piercing eyes, erect, appear to view Superior worlds,[91] and look all nature through. With equal rays immortal Tully shone, The Roman rostra decked the consul's throne: Gath'ring his flowing robe, he seemed to stand 240 In act to speak, and graceful stretched his hand.[92] Behind, Rome's genius waits with civic crowns, And the great father of his country owns. These massy columns in a circle rise, O'er which a pompous dome invades the skies:[93] 245 Scarce to the top I stretched my aching sight, So large it spread, and swelled to such a height. Full in the midst proud Fame's imperial seat[94] With jewels blazed, magnificently great; The vivid em'ralds there revive the eye, 250 The flaming rubies show their sanguine dye, Bright azure rays from lively sapphires stream, And lucid amber casts a golden gleam. With various-coloured light the pavement shone, And all on fire appeared the glowing throne; 255 The dome's high arch reflects the mingled blaze, And forms a rainbow of alternate rays. When on the goddess first I cast my sight, Scarce seemed her stature of a cubit's height;[95] But swelled to larger size, the more I gazed, 260 Till to the roof her tow'ring front she raised. With her, the temple ev'ry moment grew, And ampler vistas opened to my view: Upward the columns shoot, the roofs ascend, And arches widen, and long aisles extend.[96] 265 Such was her form, as ancient bards have told, Wings raise her arms, and wings her feet infold; A thousand busy tongues the goddess bears, And thousand open eyes, and thousand list'ning ears.[97] Beneath, in order ranged, the tuneful Nine 270 (Her virgin handmaids) still attend the shrine.[98] With eyes on Fame for ever fixed, they sing; For Fame they raise the voice, and tune the string; With time's first birth began the heav'nly lays, And last, eternal, through the length of days. 275 Around these wonders as I cast a look, The trumpet sounded, and the temple shook, And all the nations, summoned at the call, From diff'rent quarters fill the crowded hall: Of various tongues the mingled sounds were heard; 280 In various garbs promiscuous throngs appeared;[99] Thick as the bees that with the spring renew Their flow'ry toils, and sip the fragrant dew, When the winged colonies first tempt the sky, O'er dusky fields and shaded waters fly, 285 Or settling, seize the sweets the blossoms yield, And a low murmur runs along the field.[100] Millions of suppliant crowds the shrine attend, And all degrees before the goddess bend;[101] The poor, the rich, the valiant, and the sage, 290 And boasting youth, and narrative old age.[102] Their pleas were diff'rent, their request the same: For good and bad alike are fond of fame. Some she disgraced, and some with honours crowned;[103] Unlike successes equal merits found.[104] 295 Thus her blind sister, fickle Fortune, reigns, And, undiscerning, scatters crowns and chains. First at the shrine the learned world appear, And to the goddess thus prefer their prayer. Long have we sought t' instruct and please mankind, 300 With studies pale, with midnight vigils blind; But thanked by few, rewarded yet by none, We here appeal to thy superior throne: On wit and learning the just prize bestow, For fame is all we must expect below. 305 The goddess heard, and bade the muses raise The golden trumpet of eternal praise:[105] From pole to pole the winds diffuse the sound, That fills the circuit of the world around; Not all at once, as thunder breaks the cloud; 310 The notes at first were rather sweet than loud: By just degrees they ev'ry moment rise, Fill the wide earth, and gain upon the skies, At ev'ry breath were balmy odours shed, Which still grew sweeter as they wider spread;[106] 315 Less fragrant scents th' unfolding rose exhales, Or spices breathing in Arabian gales. Next these the good and just, an awful train, Thus on their knees address the sacred fane. Since living virtue is with envy cursed, 320 And the best men are treated like the worst, Do thou, just goddess, call our merits forth, And give each deed th' exact intrinsic worth.[107] Not with bare justice shall your act be crowned, (Said Fame,) but high above desert renowned:[108] 325 Let fuller notes th' applauding world amaze, And the loud clarion labour in your praise. This band dismissed, behold another crowd Preferred the same request, and lowly bowed; The constant tenour of whose well spent days 330 No less deserved a just return of praise. But straight the direful trump of slander sounds; Through the big dome the doubling thunder bounds; Loud as the burst of cannon rends the skies, The dire report through ev'ry region flies, 335 In ev'ry ear incessant rumours rung, And gath'ring scandals grew on ev'ry tongue. From the black trumpet's rusty concave broke Sulphureous flames, and clouds of rolling smoke:[109] The pois'nous vapour blots the purple skies, 340 And withers all before it as it flies. A troop came next, who crowns and armour wore, And proud defiance in their looks they bore: For thee, (they cried,) amidst alarms and strife, We sailed in tempests down the stream of life; 345 For thee whole nations filled with flames and blood, And swam to empire through the purple flood. Those ills we dared, thy inspiration own, What virtue seemed, was done for thee alone. Ambitious fools! (the queen replied, and frowned) 350 Be all your acts in dark oblivion drowned; There sleep forgot, with mighty tyrants gone, Your statues mouldered, and your names unknown![110] A sudden cloud straight snatched them from my sight, And each majestic phantom sunk in night. 355 Then came the smallest tribe I yet had seen; Plain was their dress, and modest was their mien. Great idol of mankind! we neither claim The praise of merit, nor aspire to fame! But safe in deserts from th' applause of men, 360 Would die unheard of, as we lived unseen; 'Tis all we beg thee, to conceal from sight Those acts of goodness, which themselves requite. O let us still the secret joy partake, To follow virtue ev'n for virtue's sake.[111] 365 And live there men, who slight immortal fame? Who then with incense shall adore our name? But, mortals! know, 'tis still our greatest pride To blaze those virtues, which the good would hide. Rise! muses, rise! add all your tuneful breath, 370 These must not sleep in darkness and in death. She said: in air the trembling music floats, And on the winds triumphant swell the notes:[112] So soft, though high, so loud, and yet so clear,[113] Ev'n list'ning angels leaned from heav'n to hear: 375 To farthest shores th' ambrosial spirit flies, Sweet to the world, and grateful to the skies. Next these, a youthful train their vows expressed,[114] With feathers crowned, with gay embroid'ry dress'd, Hither, they cried, direct your eyes, and see 380 The men of pleasure, dress, and gallantry; Ours is the place at banquets, balls, and plays, Sprightly our nights, polite are all our days; Courts we frequent, where 'tis our pleasing care To pay due visits, and address the fair: 385 In fact, 'tis true, no nymph we could persuade, But still in fancy vanquished ev'ry maid; Of unknown duchesses lewd tales we tell, Yet, would the world believe us, all were well. The joy let others have, and we the name, 390 And what we want in pleasure, grant in fame.[115] The queen assents, the trumpet rends the skies, And at each blast a lady's honour dies.[116] Pleased with the strange success, vast numbers pressed Around the shrine, and made the same request: 395 What! you (she cried) unlearn'd in arts to please, Slaves to yourselves, and ev'n fatigued with ease,[117] Who lose a length of undeserving days, Would you usurp the lover's dear-bought praise? To just contempt, ye vain pretenders, fall, 400 The people's fable, and the scorn of all. Straight the black clarion sends a horrid sound, Loud laughs burst out, and bitter scoffs fly round, Whispers are heard, with taunts reviling loud, And scornful hisses run through all the crowd. 405 Last, those who boast of mighty mischiefs done, Enslave their country, or usurp a throne;[118] Or who their glory's dire foundation laid On sov'reigns ruined, or on friends betrayed;[119] Calm, thinking villains, whom no faith could fix, 410 Of crooked counsels and dark politics; Of these a gloomy tribe surround the throne, And beg to make th' immortal treasons known. The trumpet roars, long flaky flames expire, With sparks, that seemed to set the world on fire. 415 At the dread sound, pale mortals stood aghast, And startled nature trembled with the blast. This having heard and seen, some pow'r unknown Straight changed the scene, and snatched me from the throne.[120] Before my view appeared a structure fair, 420 Its site uncertain, if in earth or air; With rapid motion turned the mansion round; With ceaseless noise the ringing walls resound; Not less in number were the spacious doors, Than leaves on trees, or sands upon the shores; 425 Which still unfolded stand, by night, by day, Pervious to winds, and open ev'ry way. As flames by nature to the skies ascend,[121] As weighty bodies to the centre tend, As to the sea returning rivers roll, 430 And the touched needle trembles to the pole; Hither, as to their proper place, arise All various sounds from earth, and seas, and skies, Or spoke aloud, or whispered in the ear; Nor ever silence, rest, or peace is here. 435 As on the smooth expanse of crystal lakes The sinking stone at first a circle makes; The trembling surface, by the motion stirred, Spreads in a second circle, then a third; Wide, and more wide, the floating rings advance, 440 Fill all the wat'ry plain, and to the margin dance: Thus ev'ry voice and sound, when first they break, On neighb'ring air a soft impression make; Another ambient circle then they move; That, in its turn, impels the next above;[122] 445 Through undulating[123] air the sounds are sent, And spread o'er all the fluid element. There, various news I heard of love and strife, Of peace and war, health, sickness, death, and life, Of loss and gain, of famine, and of store, 450 Of storms at sea, and travels on the shore, Of prodigies, and portents seen in air, Of fires and plagues, and stars with blazing hair, Of turns of fortune, changes in the state, The falls of fav'rites, projects of the great, 455 Of old mismanagements, taxations new:[124] All neither wholly false, nor wholly true. Above, below, without, within, around, Confused, unnumbered, multitudes are found, Who pass, repass, advance, and glide away; 460 Hosts raised by fear, and phantoms of a day: Astrologers, that future fates foreshew, Projectors, quacks, and lawyers not a few; And priests, and party-zealots, num'rous bands With home-born lies, or tales from foreign lands; 465 Each talked aloud, or in some secret place, And wild impatience stared in ev'ry face.[125] The flying rumours gathered as they rolled, Scarce any tale was sooner heard than told; And all who told it added something new, } 470 And all who heard it, made enlargements too; } In ev'ry ear it spread, on ev'ry tongue it grew. } Thus flying east and west, and north and south, News travelled with increase from mouth to mouth. So from a spark, that kindled first by chance, 475 With gath'ring force the quick'ning flames advance;[126] Till to the clouds their curling heads aspire, And tow'rs and temples sink in floods of fire. When thus ripe lies are to perfection sprung, Full grown, and fit to grace a mortal tongue, 480 Through thousand vents, impatient, forth they flow, And rush in millions on the world below. Fame sits aloft,[127] and points them out their course, Their date determines, and prescribes their force; Some to remain, and some to perish soon; 485 Or wane and wax, alternate, like the moon. Around, a thousand winged wonders fly, Borne by the trumpet's blast, and scattered through the sky. There, at one passage, oft you might survey, A lie and truth contending for the way; 490 And long 'twas doubtful, both so closely pent, Which first should issue through the narrow vent: At last agreed, together out they fly, Inseparable now, the truth and lie;[128] The strict companions are for ever joined, 495 And this or that unmixed, no mortal e'er shall find. While thus I stood, intent to see and hear, One came, methought, and whisper'd in my ear:[129] What could thus high thy rash ambition raise? Art thou, fond youth, a candidate for praise? 500 'Tis true, said I, not void of hopes I came, For who so fond as youthful bards of fame? But few, alas! the casual blessing boast, So hard to gain, so easy to be lost.[130] How vain that second life in others' breath, 505 Th' estate which wits inherit after death![131] Ease, health, and life, for this they must resign; Unsure the tenure, but how vast the fine! The great man's curse, without the gains, endure, Be envied, wretched, and be flattered, poor; 510 All luckless wits their enemies professed, And all successful, jealous friends at best. Nor fame I slight, nor for her favours call; She comes unlooked for, if she comes at all. But if the purchase cost so dear a price, 515 As soothing folly, or exalting vice; Oh! if the muse must flatter lawless sway, And follow still where fortune leads the way;[132] Or if no basis bear my rising name, But the fall'n ruins of another's fame; 520 Then teach me, heav'n! to scorn the guilty bays; Drive from my breast that wretched lust of praise; Unblemished let me live, or die unknown; Oh! grant an honest fame, or grant me none!

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: This poem is introduced in the manner of the Provençal poets, whose works were for the most part visions, or pieces of imagination, and constantly descriptive. From these, Petrarch and Chaucer frequently borrow the idea of their poems. See the Trionfi of the former, and the Dream, Flower and the Leaf, &c. of the latter. The author of this therefore chose the same sort of exordium.--POPE.]

[Footnote 2: Dryden, Virg. Geor. ii. 456:

And boldly trust their buds in open air. In this soft season.--WAKEFIELD.

Dryden's Flower and Leaf:

Where Venus from her orb descends in show'rs To glad the ground, and paint the fields with flow'rs.]

[Footnote 3: Dryden, Geor. iii. 500:

But when the western winds with vital pow'r Call forth the tender grass, and budding flow'r.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 4: Dryden's Flower and Leaf:

Salute the welcome sun and entertain the day.]

[Footnote 5: That admirable term "relenting" might probably be furnished by Ogilby at the beginning of the first Georgic:

And harder glebe relents with vernal winds.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 6: Dryden's Flower and Leaf:

Cares I had none to keep me from my rest, For love had never entered in my breast.]

[Footnote 7: Morning dreams were thought the most significant. Thus Dryden, in his version of the Tale of the Nun's Priest:

Believe me, madam, morning dreams foreshow Th' events of things, and future weal or woe.]

[Footnote 8: Cowley, in his Complaint:

In a deep vision's intellectual scene;

and Mrs. Singer's Vision:

No wild uncouth chimeras intervene To break the perfect intellectual scene.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 9: Dryden, Ovid, Met. xii.:

Full in the midst of this created space, Betwixt heav'n, earth, and skies, there stands a place Confining on all three.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 10: This verse was formed from a very fine one in Paradise Lost, vii. 242:

And earth self-balanced on her center hung.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 11: Addison's translation of a passage from Ausonius:

And intermingled temples rise between.]

[Footnote 12: These verses are hinted from the following of Chaucer,

##