English Literature for Boys and Girls

by H. E. Marshall

It is said that Chaucer borrowed the form of his famous tales from a book called The Decameron, written by an Italian poet named Boccaccio. Decameron comes from two Greek words deka, ten, and hemera, a day, the book being so called because the stories in it were supposed to be told in ten days. During a time of plague in Florence seven ladies and three gentlemen fled and took refuge in a house surrounded by a garden far from the town. There they remained for ten days, and to amuse themselves each told a tale every day, so that there are a hundred tales in all in The Decameron.

It is very likely that in one of his journeys to Italy Chaucer saw this book. Perhaps he even met Boccaccio, and it is more than likely that he met Petrarch, another great Italian poet who also retold one of the tales of The Decameron. Several of the tales which Chaucer makes his people tell are founded on these tales. Indeed, nearly all his poems are founded on old French, Italian, or Latin tales. But although Chaucer takes his material from others, he tells the stories in his own way, and so makes them his own; and he never wrote anything more truly English in spirit than the prologue to the Canterbury Tales.

Some of these stories you will like to read, but others are too coarse and rude to give you any pleasure. Even the roughness of these tales, however, helps us to picture the England of those far-off days. We see from them how hard and rough the life must have been when people found humor and fun in jokes in which we can feel only disgust.

But even in Chaucer's day there were those who found such stories coarse. "Precious fold," Chaucer calls them. He himself perhaps did not care for them, indeed he explains in the tales why he tells them. Here is a company of common, everyday people, he said, and if I am to make you see these people, if they are to be living and real to you, I must make them act and speak as such common people would act and speak. They are churls, and they must speak like churls and not like fine folk, and if you don't like the tale, turn over the leaf and choose another.

"What should I more say but this miller
He would his words for no man forbear,
But told his churls tale in his manner.
Me thinketh that I shall rehearse it here;
And therefore every gently wight I pray,
For Goddes love deem not that I say
Of evil intent, but for I might rehearse
Their tales all, be they better or worse,
Or else falsen some of my matter:
And therefore, who so listeth it not to hear,
Turn over the leaf and choose another tale;
For he shall find enow, both great and small,
In storial thing that toucheth gentlesse,
And eke morality and holiness,—
Blame not me if that ye choose amiss.
This miller is a churl ye know well,
So was the Reeve, and many more,
And wickedness they tolden both two.
Advise you, put me out of blame;
And eke men shall not make earnest of game."

If Chaucer had written all the tales that he meant to write, there would have been one hundred and twenty-four in all. But the poet died long before his work was done, and as it is there are only twenty-four. Two of these are not finished; one, indeed, is only begun. Thus, you see, many of the pilgrims tell no story at all, and we do not know who got the prize, nor do we hear anything of the grand supper at the end of the journey.

Chaucer is the first of our poets who had a perfect sense of sound. He delights us not only with his stories, but with the beauty of the words he uses. We lose a great deal of that beauty when his poetry is put into modern English, as are all the quotations which I have given you. It is only when we can read the poems in the quaint English of Chaucer's time that we can see truly how fine it is. So, although you may begin to love Chaucer now, you must look forward to a time when you will be able to read his stories as he wrote them. Then you will love them much more.

Chaucer wrote many other books beside the Canterbury Tales, although not so many as was at one time thought. But the Canterbury Tales are the most famous, and I will not trouble you with the names even of the others. But when the grown-up time comes, I hope that you will want to read some of his other books as well as the Canterbury Tales.

And now, just to end this long chapter, I will give you a little poem by Chaucer, written as he wrote it, with modern English words underneath so that you may see the difference.

This poem was written when Chaucer was very poor. It was sent to
King Henry IV, who had just taken the throne from Richard II.
Henry's answer was a pension of twenty marks, so that once more
Chaucer lived in comfort. He died, however, a year later.