perhaps the poet meant, naturally enough, to tell us that he was himself resident in Kent (probably at Greenwich). The dialect of Kent was Southern. Many Southern forms occur in Gower.
43. rum, ram, ruf are of course nonsense words, chosen to represent alliteration, because they all alike begin with r. In most alliterative poetry, the number of words in a line beginning with a common letter is, as Chaucer suggests, three.
The word geste here means no more than 'tell a story,' without reference to the form of the story. It is, however, worth noting that one very long alliterative poem on the siege of Troy, edited by Panton and Donaldson (Early English Text Society), bears the title of 'Gest Hystoriale.' The number of distinctively Northern words in it is very considerable.
I think that this line has been forced by some out of its true meaning, and made to convey a sneer against alliterative poetry which was by no means intended. Neither Chaucer himself nor his amiable parson would have spoken slightingly of other men's labours. The introduction of the words rum, ram, ruf conveys no more than a perfectly good-humoured allusion. That this is the true view is clear from the very next line, where the Parson declares that 'he holds rime but little better.'
The most interesting question is—why should Chaucer allude to alliterative poetry at all? The answer is, in my view, that he distinctly wished to recognise the curious work of his contemporary William, whose Vision of Piers the Plowman had, by this time, passed, as it were, into a second edition, having been extremely popular in London, and especially amongst the lower classes. The author was not a Southerner, but his poem had come to London, together with himself, before A. D. 1377.
In his play entitled The Old Wives' Tale, Peele introduces a character named Huanebango who imitates the spluttering hexameters used by Stanyhurst in his translation of a part of Vergil's Æneid, and afterwards says:—'I'll now set my countenance, and to her in prose; it may be, this rim-ram-ruf is too rude an encounter.' He evidently borrowed the expression from Chaucer.
I may further observe that Chaucer did not invent these nonsense words himself; he probably borrowed them from some French source. For, in Sigart's Walloon Dictionary, we find these entries following.
'Rim ni ram (ça n'a ni), cela n'a ni rime ni raison.
Rim-ram, protocole, formulaire: C'est toudi l'même rim-ram, c'est toujours la même chanson.'
Again, in the Dispute between the Soul and the Body (Vernon MS.), printed in Wright's edition of Walter Mapes, p. 340, col. 2, we find:—