For prestes of the temple tellen this,
That dremes been the revelaciouns
Of goddes, and as wel they telle, y-wis,
That they ben infernals illusiouns;
And leches[178] seyn, that of complexiouns[179]
Proceden they, or fast, or glotonye,[180]
Who woot in sooth thus what they signifye?...
Again in the opening lines of the Hous of Fame he asks the same question:—
God turn us every dreem to gode!
For hit is wonder, by the rode,
To my wit, what causeth swevenes[181]
Either on morwes, or on evenes;
And why th’ effect folweth of somme,
And of somme hit shal never come....
and again, characteristically, refuses to give any opinion on the matter—
For I of noon opinioun
Nil as now make mencioun.
But if Chaucer is chary of committing himself on speculative matters such as these, with regard to practical morality he has no such hesitation. It was the fashion of the day to draw a moral from the most unlikely stories, and Chaucer, while he never forces an application after the manner of Gower or the compiler of the Gesta Romanorum, is sufficiently in sympathy with the spirit of his age to conform to the practice when opportunity occurs. The Somnour, who, by the way, has just had a violent quarrel with the Friar, preaches an admirable homily against Ire, illustrating it, after the most approved method, with an apt anecdote. The Pardoner, as we have seen, inveighs against drunkenness, as does Chaucer himself in the Man of Lawes Tale. The simple statement of Averagus—
Southe is the hyeste thing that man may kepe—
is a sermon in itself, and the Maunciple ends his distinctly unmoral tale with some excellent advice of his dame’s:—
My sone, keep wel thy tonge, and keep thy freend,
A wikked tonge is worse than a fend[182]
My sone, god of his endelees goodnesse
Walled a tonge with teeth and lippes eek,
For man sholde him avyse what he speke....
It would be possible to multiply instances almost indefinitely. Perhaps the most striking of all is the sudden, unexpected moral application which ends Troilus and Criseyde. We have followed the passion and sins of the lovers, we have wept with Troilus and forgiven Cressida in spite of ourselves, and all at once, while our minds are still tuned to the rapture and sweetness of a love-story, Chaucer turns to bid us note the end of life and love:—