The fairest or the freschest yong floure
That ever I sawe.
The maid was so beautiful that all at once his "hert became hir thrall":
A! suete, are ye a warldly creature,
Or hevinly thing in likenesse of nature?
To be cleared from his doubts the royal poet ventures into the kingdom of Venus, and finds her stretched on her couch, her white shoulders covered with "ane huke," a loose dress that Chaucer had not placed upon them. Then he reaches the kingdom of Minerva; and passing through dissertations, beds of flowers, and groups of stars, he returns to earth, reassured as to his fate, with the certitude of a happiness promised him both by Venus and Minerva. A eulogy on Gower and Chaucer closes the poem, which is written in stanzas of seven lines, since called, because of James, "Rhyme Royal."[849]
Blind Harry, the minstrel, sings the popular hero, William Wallace.[850] We are in the midst of legends. Wallace causes Edward I. to tremble in London; he runs extraordinary dangers and has wonderful escapes; he slays; he is slain; he recovers; his body is thrown over the castle wall, and picked up by his old nurse; the daughter of the nurse, nurse herself, revives the corpse with her milk. The language is simple, direct and plain; the interest lies in the facts, and not in the manner in which they are told; and this, to say the truth, is also the case with chap-books.
Blind Harry continues Barbour rather than Chaucer, but Chaucer resumes his rights as an ancestor with Henryson and Dunbar. The former[851] sits with his feet to the fire one winter's night, takes "ane drink" to cheer him, and "Troilus" to while away the time. The little homely scene is described in charming fashion; one seems, while reading, to feel the warmth of the cosy corner, the warmth even of the "drink," for it must have been a warm one:
I mend the fyre, and beikit (basked) me about,
Than tuik ane drink my spreitis to comfort,
And armit me weill fra the cold thairout;
To cut the winter nicht and mak it schort,
I tuik ane quair and left all uther sport,
Writtin be worthie Chaucer glorious
Of fair Cresseid and worthie Troilus.
He read, but unable to understand the master's leniency towards the frail and deceitful woman, he takes pen and adds a canto to the poem: the "Testament of Cresseid," where he makes her die a dreadful death, forsaken by all.
A greater pleasure will be taken in his rustic poems, ballads, or fables. His "Robene and Makyne" is a "disputoison" between a shepherd and shepherdess. Makyne loves Robin, and tells him so; and he accordingly cares not for her. Makyne goes off, her eyes full of tears; but Robin is no sooner left alone than he begins to love: