BOOK III
. Apollo, aid me to write this last book! My rime is artless; I aim
at expressing my thoughts only (1091-1109).
The House of Fame stood high upon a lofty rock, which I climbed laboriously. The rock was formed of ice. On the southern side it was covered with names, many of the letters of which were melted away. On the northern side, it was likewise covered with names, which remained unmelted and legible. On the top of the mountain I found a beautiful House, which I cannot describe though I remember it. It was all of beryl, and full of windows. In niches round about were harpers and minstrels, such as Orpheus, Arion, Chiron, and Glasgerion. Far from these, by themselves, was a vast crowd of musicians. There were Marsyas, Misenus, Joab, and others. In other seats were jugglers, sorcerers, and magicians; Medea, Circe, Hermes, and Coll Tregetour. I next beheld the golden gates. Then I heard the cries of those that were heralds to the goddess Fame. How shall I describe the great hall, that was plated with gold, and set with gems? High on a throne of ruby sat the goddess, who at first seemed but a dwarf, but presently grew so that she reached, from earth to heaven. Her hair was golden, and she was covered with innumerable ears and tongues. Her shoulders sustained the names of famous men, such as Alexander and Hercules. On either side of the hall were huge pillars of metal. On the first of these, composed of lead and iron, was the Jew Josephus; the iron was the metal of Mercury, and the lead of Saturn. Next, on an iron pillar, was Statius; and on other iron pillars were Homer, Dares, Dictys, Guido, and the English Geoffrey, who upbore the fame of Troy. On a pillar of iron, but covered over with tin, was Vergil; and beside him Ovid and Lucan. On a pillar of sulphur stood Claudian (1110-1512).
Next I saw a vast company, all worshipping Fame. These she rejected, but would say of them neither good nor bad. She then sent a messenger to fetch Æolus, the god of wind, who should bring with him two trumpets, namely of Praise and Slander. Æolus, with his man Triton, came to Fame. And when many undeserving suppliants approached her, she bade Æolus blow his black trump of Slander. He did so, and from it there issued a stinking smoke; and so this second company got renown, but it was evil. A third company sued to her, and she bade Æolus blow his golden trump of Praise. Straightway he did so, and the blast had a perfume like that of balm and roses. A fourth company, a very small one, asked for no fame at all, and their request was granted. A fifth company modestly asked for no fame, though they had done great things; but Fame bade Æolus blow his golden trumpet, till their praise resounded everywhere. A sixth company of idle men, who had done no good, asked for fame; and their request was granted. A seventh company made the same request; but Fame reviled them; Æolus blew his black trump, and all men laughed at them. An eighth company, of wicked men, prayed for good fame; but their request was refused. A ninth company, also of wicked men, prayed for a famous but evil name, and their request was granted. Among them was the wretch who set on fire the temple at Athens (1513-1867).
Then some man perceived me, and began to question me. I explained that I had come to learn strange things, and not to gain fame. He led me out of the castle and into a valley, where stood the house of Dædalus (i.e. the house of Rumour). This strange house was made of basket-work, and was full of holes, and all the doors stood wide open. All sorts of rumours entered there, and it was sixty miles long. On a rock beside it I saw my eagle perched, who again seized me, and bore me into it through a window. It swarmed with people, all of whom were engaged in telling news; and often their stories would fly out of a window. Sometimes a truth and a lie would try to fly out together, and became commingled before they could get away. Every piece of news then flew to Fame, who did as she pleased with each. The house of Dædalus was thronged with pilgrims, pardoners, couriers, and messengers, and I heard strange things. In one corner men were telling stories about love, and there was a crush of men running to hear them. At last I saw a man whom I knew not; but he seemed to be one who had great authority--(_here the poem ends, being incomplete_; ll. 1868-2158).
The general idea of the poem was plainly suggested by the description of Fame in Vergil, the house of Fame as described near the beginning of the twelfth book of Ovid's Metamorphoses, and various hints in Dante's Divina Commedia. For a close and searching comparison between the House of Fame and Dante's great poem, see the article by A. Rambeau in Engl. Studien, iii. 209.
1. For this method of commencing a poem with a dream, compare The Book of the Duchesse, Parl. of Foules, and The Romance of the Rose.
For discourses on dreams, compare the Nonne Preestes Tale, and the remarks of Pandarus in Troilus, v. 358-385. Chaucer here propounds several problems; first, what causes dreams (a question answered at some length in the Nonne Preestes Tale, B 4116); why some come true and some do not (discussed in the same, B 4161); and what are the various sorts of dreams (see note to l. 7 below).
There is another passage in Le Roman de la Rose, which bears some resemblance to the present passage. It begins at l. 18699:--
'Ne ne revoil dire des songes, S'il sunt voirs, ou s'il sunt mençonges; Se l'en les doit du tout eslire, Ou s'il sunt du tout à despire: Porquoi li uns sunt plus orribles, Plus bel li autre et plus paisible, Selonc lor apparicions En diverses complexions, Et selonc lors divers corages Des meurs divers et des aages; Ou se Diex par tex visions Envoie revelacions, Ou li malignes esperiz, Por metre les gens en periz; De tout ce ne m'entremetrai.'
2. This long sentence ends at line 52.
7. This opens up the question as to the divers sorts of dreams. Chaucer here evidently follows Macrobius, who, in his Commentary on the Somnium Scipionis, lib. i. c. 3, distinguishes _five kinds_ of dreams, viz. _somnium_, _visio_, _oraculum_, _insomnium_, and _visum_. The fourth kind, _insomnium_, was also called _fantasma_; and this provided Chaucer with the word _fantome_ in l. 11. In the same line, _oracles_ answers to the Lat. _oracula_. Cf. Ten Brink, Studien, p. 101.
18. _The gendres_, the (various) kinds. This again refers to Macrobius, who subdivides the kind of dream which he calls _somnium_ into five species, viz. _proprium_, _alienum_, _commune_, _publicum_, and _generale_, according to the things to which they relate. _Distaunce of tymes_, i.e. whether the thing dreamt of will happen soon, or a long time afterwards.
20. 'Why this is a greater (more efficient) cause than that.'
21. This alludes to the four chief complexions of men; cf. Nonne Preestes Tale, B 4114. The four complexions were the sanguine, phlegmatic, melancholy, and choleric; and each complexion was likely to have certain sorts of dreams. Thus, in the Nonne Preestes Tale, B 4120, the _choleric_ man is said to dream of arrows, fire, fierce carnivorous beasts, strife, and dogs; whilst the _melancholy_ man will dream of bulls and bears and black devils.
22. _Reflexiouns_, the reflections or thoughts to which each man is most addicted; see Parl. of Foules, 99-105.
24. 'Because of too great feebleness of their brain (caused) by abstinence,' &c.
43. _Of propre kynde_, owing to its own nature.
48. The _y_ in _By_ is run on to the _a_ into _avísióuns_.
53. 'As respects this matter, may good befall the great clerks that treat of it.' Of these great clerks, Macrobius was one, and Jean de Meun another. Vincent of Beauvais has plenty to say about dreams in his Speculum Naturale, lib. xxvi.; and he refers us to Aristotle, Gregory (Moralia, lib. viii.), Johannes de Rupella, Priscianus (ad Cosdroe regem Persarum) Augustinus (in Libro de diuinatione dæmonum), Hieronimus (super Matheum, lib. ii.), Thomas de Aquino, Albertus, &c.
58. Repeated (nearly) from l. 1.
63. I here give the text as restored by Willert, who shows how the corruptions in ll. 62 and 63 arose. First of all _dide_ was shifted into l. 62, giving _as dide I_; as in Caxton's print. Next, an additional _now_ was put in place of _dide_ in l. 63; as in P., B., F., and Th., and _dide_ was dropped alltogether. After this, F. turned the _now_ of l. 64 into _yow_, and Cx. omitted it. See also note to l. 111.
64. 'Which, as I can (best) now remember.'
68. Pronounced fully:--With spé-ci-ál de-vó-ci-óun.
69. Morpheus; see Book of Duch. 137. From Ovid, Met. xi. 592-612; esp. ll. 602, 3:--
'Saxo tamen exit ab imo Riuus aquae Lethes.'
73. 'Est prope Cimmerios,' &c.; Met. xi. 592.
75. See Ovid, Met. xi. 613-5; 633.
76. _That ... hir_ is equivalent to _whose_; cf. Kn. Tale, 1852.
81. Cf. 'Colui, che tutto move,' i.e. He who moves all; Parad. i. 1.
88. Read _povért_; cf. Clerkes Tale, E 816.
92. MSS. _misdeme_; I read _misdemen_, to avoid an hiatus.
93. Read _málicióus_.
98. 'That, whether he dream when bare-footed or when shod'; whether in bed by night or in a chair by day; i.e. in every case. The _that_ is idiomatically repeated in l. 99.
105. The dream of Croesus, king of Lydia, and his death vpon a gallows, form the subject of the last story in the Monkes Tale. Chaucer got it from the Rom. de la Rose, which accounts for the form _Lyde_. The passage occurs at l. 6513:--
'Cresus ... Qui refu roi de toute _Lyde_, ... Qu'el vous vuet faire au _gibet_ pendre.'
109, 10. The rime is correct, because _abreyd_ is a _strong_ verb. Chaucer does not rime a pp. with a _weak_ pt. tense, which should have a final _e_. According to Mr. Cromie's Rime-Index, there is just _one_ exception, viz. in the Kn. Tale, A 1383, where the pt. t. _seyde_ is rimed with the 'pp. _leyde_.' But Mr. Cromie happens to have overlooked the fact that _leyde_ is here _not_ the pp., but the _past tense_! Nevertheless, _abreyd-e_ also appears in a _weak_ form, by confusion with _leyd-e_, _seyd-e_, &c.; see C. T., B 4198, E 1061. Cf. Book of the Duchess, 192. In l. 109, he refers to l. 65.
111. Here again, as in l. 63, is a mention of Dec. 10. Ten Brink (Studien, p. 151) suggests that it may have been a _Thursday_; cf. the mention of _Jupiter_ in ll. 608, 642, 661. If so, the year was 1383.
115. 'Like one that was weary with having overwalked himself by going two miles on pilgrimage.' The difficulty was not in the walking two miles, but in doing so under difficulties, such as going barefoot for penance.
117. _Corseynt_; O.F. _cors seint_, lit. holy body; hence a saint or sainted person, or the shrine where a saint was laid. See Robert of Brunne, Handlyng Synne, 8739:--
'And hys ymage ful feyre depeynte, Ry[gh]t as he were a _cors seynt_.'
See also P. Plowman, B. v. 539; Morte Arthure, 1164; and (the spurious) Chaucer's Dream, 942.
118. 'To make that soft (or easy) which was formerly hard.' The allusion is humorous enough; viz. to the bonds of matrimony. Here again Chaucer follows Jean de Meun, Rom. de la Rose, 8871:--
'Mariages est maus liens, Ainsinc m'aïst saint Juliens Qui pelerins errans herberge, Et saint Lienart qui defferge Les prisonniers bien repentans, Quant les voit à soi démentans';
i.e. 'Marriage is an evil bond--so may St. Julian aid me, who harbours wandering pilgrims; and St. Leonard, who frees from their fetters (lit. un-irons) such prisoners as are very repentant, when he sees them giving themselves the lie (or recalling their word).' The 'prisoners' are married people, who have repented, and would recall their plighted vow.
St. Leonard was the patron-saint of captives, and it was charitably hoped that he would extend his protection to the wretched people who had unadvisedly entered into wedlock, and soon prayed to get out of it again. They would thus exchange the _hard_ bond for the _soft_ condition of freedom. 'St. Julian is the patron of pilgrims; St. Leonard and St. Barbara protect captives'; Brand, Pop. Antiquities, i. 359. And, at p. 363 of the same, Brand quotes from Barnabee Googe:--
'But Leonerd of the prisoners doth the bandes asunder pull, And breaks the prison-doores and chaines, wherewith his church is full.'
St. Leonard's day is Nov. 6.
119. The MSS. have _slept-e_, which is dissyllabic. Read _sleep_, as in C. T. Prol. 397.
120. Hence the title of one of Lydgate's poems, The Temple of Glass, which is an imitation of the present poem.
130. Cf. the description of Venus' temple (Cant. Tales, A 1918), which is imitated from that in Boccaccio's Teseide.
133. Cf. 'naked fleting in the large see.... And on hir heed, ful semely for to see, A rose garland, fresh and wel smellinge'; Cant. Tales, A 1956.
137. 'Hir dowves'; C. T., A 1962. 'Cupido'; id. 1963.
138. _Vulcano_, Vulcan; note the Italian forms of these names. Boccaccio's Teseide has _Cupido_ (vii. 54), and _Vulcano_ (vii. 43). His face was brown with working at the forge.
141, 2. Cf. Dante, Inf. iii. 10, 11.
143. A large portion of the rest of this First Book is taken up with a summary of the earlier part of Vergil's Aeneid. We have here a translation of the well-known opening lines:--
'Arma uirumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris Italiam, fato profugus, Lauinia uenit Littora.'
147. _In_, into, unto; see note to l. 366.
152. _Synoun_, Sinon; Aen. ii. 195.
153. I supply _That_, both for sense and metre.
155. _Made the hors broght_, caused the horse to be brought. On this idiom, see the note to Man of Lawes Tale, B 171.
158. _Ilioun_, Ilium. _Ilium_ is only a poetical name for Troy; but the medieval writers often use it in the restricted sense of the citadel of Troy, where was the temple of Apollo and the palace of Priam. Thus, in the alliterative Troy-book, 11958, _ylion_ certainly has this sense; and Caxton speaks of 'the palays of _ylyon_'; see Spec. of English, ed. Skeat, p. 94. See also the parallel passage in the Nonne Preestes Tale, B 4546. Still more clearly, in the Leg. Good Women (Dido, 13), Chaucer says, of 'the tour of Ilioun,' that it 'of the citee was the cheef dungeoun.' In l. 163 below, it is called _castel_.
160. _Polites_, Polites; Aen. ii. 526. Also spelt _Polite_ in Troil. iv. 53.
163. _Brende_, was on fire; used intransitively, as in l. 537.
164-73. See Aen. ii. 589-733.
174. Read _this_, rather than _his_. Cf. Aen. ii. 736.
177. Iulus and Ascanius were one and the same person; see Æn. i. 267. Perhaps Ch. was misled by the wording of Æn. iv. 274. (On the other hand, Brutus was _not_ the same person as Cassius; see Monkes Tale, B 3887). Hence, Koch proposes to read _That hight_ instead of _And eek_; but we have no authority for this. However, Chaucer has it right in his Legend of Good Women, 941; and in l. 192 below, we find _sone_, not _sones_; hence l. 178 may be merely parenthetical.
182. _Wente_, foot-path; Aen. ii. 737. Cf. Book Duch. 398.
184. 'So that she was dead, but I know not how.' Vergil does not say _how_ she died.
185. _Gost_, ghost; see Aen. ii. 772.
189. Repeated from l. 180.
198. Here Chaucer returns to the first book of the Æneid, which he follows down to l. 255.
204. 'To blow forth, (with winds) of all kinds'; cf. Æn. i. 85.
219. _Ioves_, Jove, Jupiter. This curious form occurs again, ll. 586, 597, 630; see note to l. 586. Boccaccio has _Giove_.
226. _Achatee_ (trisyllabic), Achates, Æn. i. 312; where the abl. form _Achate_ occurs.
239. The story of Dido is told at length in Le Rom. de la Rose, 13378; in The Legend of Good Women; and in Gower, Conf. Amantis, bk. iv., ed. Pauli, ii. 4. Chaucer now passes on to the fourth book of the Æneid, till he comes to l. 268 below.
265. 'Mès ja ne verrés d'aparence Conclurre bonne consequence'; Rom. Rose, 12343.
272. 'It is not all gold that glistens.' A proverb which Chaucer took from Alanus de Insulis; see note to Can. Yem. Tale, G 962.
273. 'For, as sure as I hope to have good use of my head.' _Brouke_ is, practically, in the optative mood. Cf. 'So mote I brouke wel myn eyen tweye'; Cant. Ta., B 4490; so also E 2308. The phrase occurs several times in the Tale of Gamelyn; see note to l. 334 of that poem.
280-3. These four lines occur in Thynne's edition only, but are probably quite genuine. It is easy to see why they dropped out; viz. owing to the repetition of the word _finde_ at the end of ll. 279 and 283. This is a very common cause of such omissions. See note to l. 504.
286. _By_, with reference to.
288. _Gest_, guest; Lat. _aduena_, Æn. iv. 591.
290. 'He that fully knows the herb may safely lay it to his eye.' So in Cotgrave's Dict., s.v. _Herbe_, we find; '_L'herbe qu'on cognoist, on la doit lier à son doigt_; Prov. Those, or that, which a man knowes best, he must use most.'
305. In the margin of MSS. F. and B. is here written:--'Cauete uos, innocentes mulieres.'
315. _Swete herte_; hence E. _sweetheart_; cf. l. 326.
321. Understand _ne_ (i.e. neither) before _your love_. Cf. Æn. iv. 307, 8.
329. I have no hesitation in inserting _I_ after _Agilte_, as it is absolutely required to complete the sense. Read--_Agílt' I yów_, &c.
343. Pronounce _détermínen_ (_i_ as _ee_ in _beet_).
346. Cf. Æn. iv. 321-3.
350. 'Fama, malum quo non aliud _uelocius_ ullum,' Æn. iv. 174; quoted in the margin of MSS. F. and B.
351. 'Nichil occultum quod non reueletur'; Matt. x. 26: quoted in the margin of MSS. F. and B.
355. _Seyd y-shamed be_, said to be put to shame.
359. _Eft-sones_, hereafter again. In the margin of MSS. F. and B. we here find:--'Cras poterunt turpia fieri sicut heri.' By reading _fieri turpia_, this becomes a pentameter; but it is not in Ovid, nor (I suppose) in classical Latin.
361. _Doon_, already done. _To done_, yet to be done. Cf. Book Duch. 708.
366. I read _in_ for _into_ (as in the MSS.). For similar instances, where the scribes write _into_ for _in_, see Einenkel, Streifzüge durch die Mittelengl. Syntax, p. 145. Cf. l. 147.
367. In the margin of MSS. F. and B. is an incorrect quotation of Æn. iv. 548-9:--'tu prima furentem His, germana, malis oneras.'
378. _Eneidos_; because the books are headed _Æneidos liber primus_, &c.
379. See Ovid, Heroides, Epist. vii--Dido Æneæ.
380. _Or that_, ere that, before.
381. Only Th. has the right reading, viz. _And nere it to longe to endyte_ (where _longe_ is an error for _long_). The expressions _And nor hyt were_ and _And nere it were_ are both ungrammatical. _Nere_ = _ne were_, were it not.
388. In the margin of F. and B. we find:--'Nota: of many vntrewe louers. Hospita, Demaphoon, tua te R[h]odopeia Phyllis Vltra promissum tempus abesse queror.' These are the first two lines of Epistola ii. in Ovid's _Heroides_, addressed by Phyllis to Demophoon. All the examples here given are taken from the same work. Epist. iii. is headed _Briseis Achilli_; Epist. v., _Oenone Paridi_; Epist. vi., _Hypsipyle Iasoni_; Epist. xii., _Medea Iasoni_; Epist. ix., _Deianira Herculi_; Epist. x., _Ariadne Theseo_. These names were evidently suggested by the reference above to the same work, l. 379. See the long note to Group B, l. 61, in vol. v.
Demophoon, son of Theseus, was the lover of Phyllis, daughter of king Sithon in Thrace; she was changed into an almond-tree.
392. _His terme pace_, pass beyond or stay behind his appointed time. He said he would return in a month, but did not do so. See the story in The Legend of Good Women. Gower (ed. Pauli, iii. 361) alludes to her story, in a passage much like the present one; and in Le Rom. de la Rose, 13417, we have the very phrase--'Por _le terme qu'il trespassa_.'
397. In the margin of F. and B.:--'Ouidius. Quam legis a rapta Briseide litera venit'; Heroid. Ep. iii. 1.
401. In the same:--'Ut [_miswritten_ Vbi] tibi Colc[h]orum memini regina uacaui'; Heroid. Ep. xii. 1. For the accentuation of _Medea_, cf. Leg. of Good Women, 1629, 1663.
402. In the margin of F. and B.:--'Gratulor Oechaliam'; Heroid. Ep. ix. 1; but _Oechaliam_ is miswritten _yotholia_.
405. Gower also tells this story; ed. Pauli, ii. 306.
407. In F. and B. is quoted the first line of Ovid, Heroid. x. 1. _Adriane_, Ariadne; just as in Leg. Good Wom. 2171, &c., and in C. T., Group B, l. 67. Gower has _Adriagne_.
409. 'For, whether he had laughed, or whether he had frowned'; i.e. in any case. Cf. l. 98.
411. 'If it had not been for Ariadne.' We have altered the form of this idiom.
416. _Yle_, isle of Naxos; see notes to Leg. Good Wom. 2163, and C. T., Group B, l. 68 (in vol. v.).
426. _Telles_ is a Northern and West-Midland form, as in Book Duch. 73. Cf. _falles_, id. 257. A similar admixture of forms occurs in Havelok, Will. of Palerne, and other M.E. poems.
429. _The book_, i.e. Vergil; Æn. iv. 252.
434. _Go_, gone, set out; correctly used. Chaucer passes on to Æneid, bk. v. The _tempest_ is that mentioned in Æn. v. 10; the _steersman_ is Palinurus, who fell overboard; Æn. v. 860.
439. See Æn. bk. vi. The _isle_ intended is Crete, Æn. vi. 14, 23; which was not at all near (or 'besyde') Cumæ, but a long way from it. Æneas then descends to hell, where he sees Anchises (vi. 679); Palinurus (337); Dido (450); Deiphobus, son of Priam (495); and the tormented souls (580).
447. _Which_ refers to the various sights in hell.
449. _Claudian_, Claudius Claudianus, who wrote De raptu Proserpinae about A.D. 400. _Daunte_ is Dante, with reference to his Inferno, ii. 13-27, and Paradiso, xv. 25-27.
451. Chaucer goes on to Æn. vii-xii, of which he says but little.
458. _Lavyna_ is Lavinia; the form _Lavina_ occurs in Dante, Purg. xvii. 37.
468. I put _seyën_ for _seyn_, to improve the metre; cf. P. Pl. C. iv. 104.
474. 'But I do not know who caused them to be made.'
475. Read _ne in_ as _nin_; as in Squi. Tale, F 35.
482. This waste space corresponds to Dante's 'gran diserto,' Inf. i. 64; or, still better, to his 'landa' (Inf. xiv. 8), which was too sterile to support plants. So again, l. 486 corresponds to Dante's 'arena arida e spessa,' which has reference to the desert of Libya; Inf. xiv. 13.
487. 'As fine [said of the sand] as one may see still lying.' Jephson says _yet_ must be a mistake, and would read _yt_. But it makes perfect sense. Cx. Th. read _at eye_ (put for _at yë_) instead of _yet lye_, which is perhaps better. _At yë_ means 'as presented to the sight'; see Kn. Ta., A 3016.
498. _Kenne_, discern. The offing at sea has been called the _kenning_; and see _Kenning_ in Halliwell.
500. _More_, greater. Imitated from Dante, Purgat. ix. 19, which Cary translates thus:--
'Then, in a vision, did I seem to view A golden-feather'd eagle in the sky, With open wings, and hovering for descent.'
Cf. also the descent of the angel in Purg. ii. 17-24.
504-7. The omission of these lines in F. and B. is simply due to the scribe slipping from _bright_ in l. 503 to _brighte_ in l. 507. Cf. note to l. 280.
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