What, quoth she, and be ye wood?
And wene ye for to do good,
And for to have of it no fame?
Have ye despite to have my name?
Nay, ye shall lien everichone:
Blowe they trump, and that anone
(Quoth she) thou Eolus yhote,
And ring these folkes works be note,
That all the world may of it hear;
And he gan blow their loos so cleare,
In his golden clarioune,
Through the world went the soune,
All so kenely, and eke so soft,
That their fame was blowen aloft.—Pope.
Pope makes everybody obtain fame who seeks to avoid it, which is absurd. Chaucer keeps to truth. The first company came,
And saiden, Certes, lady bright,
We have done well with all out might,
But we ne kepen have for fame,
Hide our workes and our name.
"I grant you all your asking," she replies; "let your works be dead." The second company arrive immediately afterwards, and prefer the same request in the lines versified by Pope, when Fame, with her usual capriciousness, refuses their prayer, and orders Eolus to sound their praises.
[113] An obvious imitation of a well-known verse in Denham:
Though deep yet clear, though gentle yet not dull.—Wakefield.
[114] The reader might compare these twenty-eight lines following, which contain the same matter, with eighty-four of Chaucer, beginning thus:
Tho came the sixthe companye,
And gan faste to Fame cry, &c.,
being too prolix to be here inserted.—Pope.
[115] "A pretty fame," says Dennis, "when the very smartest of these coxcombs is sure to have his name rotten before his carcase. When the author introduced these fellows into the temple of Fame, he ought to have made the chocolate-house, and the side-box, part of it." The criticism was just. The contemptible creatures who buzzed their profligate falsehoods for the hour, and were heard of no more, should have been introduced, if at all, into the Temple of Rumour, and not into the Temple of Fame. Pope followed Chaucer.