Chaucer and His Times

by Grace E. Hadow

God woot if he sat on his hors a-right,
Or goodly was beseyn,[148] that ilke day!
God woot wher he was lyk a manly knight!
What sholde I dreeche[149] or telle of his array?
Criseyde, which that alle these thinges say,
To telle in short, hir lyked al y-fere
His personne, his array, his look, his chere ...

Troilus’s looks are, in fact, of importance only because they win the heart of Cressida.

But if Chaucer devotes little space to dilating upon mere beauty of person, he has a keen eye for anything in dress, manner, or appearance that is in the truest sense characteristic. The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales shows clearly enough how trifles may reflect personality. The grey fur that edges the Monk’s sleeves, and the love-knot of gold that fastens his hood, tell their tale, and a single glance at him gives us considerable insight into his character:—

His heed was balled, that shoon as any glas,
And eek his face, as he had been anoint.
He was a lord ful fat and in good point;[150]
His eyen stepe,[151] and rollinge in his heed,
That stemed as a forncye of a leed;[152]
His botes souple, his hors in greet estat.[153]
Now certainly he was a fair prelat....

The Christopher of silver that gleams on the Yeoman’s green coat; the thread-bare raiment and lean horse of the Clerk of Oxenford; the ruddy face and white beard of the Franklin, all serve to illustrate the same point. The very spurs of the Wife of Bath seem to have a subtle significance of their own.

Once only does Chaucer go out of his way to give a detailed description of one of his heroines, and the passage is worth quoting in full because not only does it illustrate his careful observation of detail, but it shows also a dramatic fitness which is eminently characteristic. The Miller is describing Alisoun, and there is not a simile, among the many used, which would not spring naturally to the lips of a peasant:—

Fair was this yonge wyf, and ther-with-al
As any wesele hir body gent[154] and smal.
A ceynt[155] she werede barred al of silk,
A barmclooth[156] eek as whyt as morne milk
Up-on hir lendes, ful of many a gore.
Whyt was hir smok and brouded al bifore
And eek bihinde, on hir coler aboute,
Of col-blak silk, with-inne and eek with-oute.
The tapes of hir whyte voluper[157]
Were of the same suyte of hir coler;[158]
Hir filet brood of silk, and set ful hye:
And sikerly she hadde a likerous ye.[159]
Ful smale y-pulled were hir browes two,[160]
And tho were bent, and blake as any sloo.[161]
She was ful more blisful on to see
Than is the newe pere-jonette[162] tree;
And softer than the wolle is of a wether.
And by hir girdel heeng a purs of lether
Tasseld with silk, and perled with latoun.[163]
In al this world, to seken up and doun,
Ther nis no man so wys, that coude thenche
So gay a popelote,[164] or swich a wenche.
Ful brighter was the shyning of hir hewe
Than in the tour the noble y-forged newe.
But of hir song, it was as loude and yerne[165]
As any swalwe sittinge on a berne.
Ther-to she coude skippe and make game,
As any kide or calf folwinge his dame.
Her mouth was swete as bragot[166] or the meeth,[167]
Or hord of apples leyd in hey or heeth.
Winsinge she was, as is a joly colt,
Long as a mast, and upright as a bolt.
A brooch she baar up-on hir lowe coler,
As brood as is the bos of a bocler.

The poet who wrote this had used his eyes to some purpose. In certain of his descriptions—notably that of Chauntecleer with his scarlet comb, black bill, azure legs, white nails, and golden tail—we notice Chaucer’s love of brilliant colour, but this makes the comparative dullness and tameness of his marvellous palaces and enchanted castles all the more remarkable. He gives us a list of golden images, “riche tabernacles” and “curious portreytures” which stand in the Temple of Glass, but it is a mere auctioneer’s catalogue of valuables which conveys no real impression of beauty or strangeness. We read of Venus “fletinge in a sec,” her head crowned with roses,

And hir comb to kembe hir heed,

and feel as if we were looking up her attributes in a classical dictionary. The thrill of the Renaissance has not yet swept across Europe. The gods still sleep, before awakening to their strange sweet Indian summer of life. Classical mythology serves Chaucer as an additional storehouse of story and illustration, but it no more intoxicates him with rapture than does the Gesta Romanorum. Spenser’s Temple of Venus, in which:—