Such is modern refinement!
In Chaucer, the blind encounter between the Miller and one of the Cantabs, who, mistaking him for his comrade, had whispered into his ear what had happened during the night to his daughter, is thus comically described—
"Ye falsè harlot, quod the miller, hast? A falsè traitour, falsè clerk, (quod he) Thou shalt be deaf by Goddès dignitee, Who dorstè be so bold to disparage My daughter, that is come of swiche lineage. And by the throtè-bolle he caught Alein, And he him hente despiteously again, And on the nose he smote him with his fist; Down ran the bloody streme upon his brest; And on the flore with nose and mouth to-broke, They walwe, as don two piggès in a poke. And up they gon, and down again anon, Till that the miller spurned at a stone, And down he fell backward upon his wif, That wistè nothing of this nicè strif, For she was falle aslepe, a litel wight with John the clerk," and ...
Here comes Mr Horne in his strength.
"Thou slanderous ribald! quoth the miller, hast! A traitor false, false lying clerk, quoth he, Thou shalt be slain by heaven's dignity Who rudely dar'st disparage with foul lie My daughter, that is come of lineage high! And by the throat he Allan grasp'd amain, And caught him, yet more furiously again, And on his nose he smote him with his fist! Down ran the bloody stream upon his breast, And on the floor they tumble heel and crown, And shake the house, it seem'd all coming down. And up they rise, and down again they roll: Till that the Miller, stumbling o'er a coal, Went plunging headlong like a bull at bait, And met his wife, and both fell flat as slate."
Mr Horne cannot read Chaucer. The Miller does not, as he makes him do, accuse the Cantab of falsely slandering his daughter's virtue. He does not doubt the truth of the unluckily blabbed secret; false harlot, false traitor, false clerk, are all words that tell his belief; but Mr Horne, not understanding "disparage," as it is here used by Chaucer, wholly mistakes the cause of the father's fury. He does not even know, that it is the Miller who gets the bloody nose, not the Cantab. "As don two piggès in a poke," he leaves out, preferring, as more picturesque, "And on the floor they tumble heel and crown!" "And shake the house—it seemed all coming down," is not in Chaucer, nor could be; but the crowning stupidity is that of making the Miller meet his wife, and upset her—she being all the while in bed, and now startled out of sleep by the weight of her fallen superincumbent husband. And this is modernizing Chaucer!
What, then—after all we have written about him—we ask, can, at this day, be done with Chaucer? The true answer is—read him. The late Laureate dared to think that every one might; and in his collection, or selection, of English poets, down to Habington inclusive, he has given the prologue, and half a dozen of the finest and most finished tales; believing that every earnest lover of English poetry would by degrees acquire courage and strength to devour and digest a moderately-spread banquet. Without doubt, Southey did well. It was a challenge to poetical Young England to gird up his loins and fall to his work. If you will have the fruit, said the Laureate, you must climb the tree. He bowed some heavily-laden branches down to your eye, to tempt you; but climb you must, if you will eat. He displayed a generous trust in the growing desire and capacity of the country for her own time-shrouded poetical treasures. In the same full volume, he gave the "Faerie Queene" from the first word to the last.
Let us hope boldly, as Southey hoped. But there are, in the present world, a host of excellent, sensitive readers, whose natural taste is perfectly susceptible of Chaucer, if he spoke their language; yet who have not the courage, or the leisure, or the aptitude, to master his. They must not be too hastily blamed if they do not readily reconcile themselves to a garb of thought which disturbs and distracts all their habitual associations. Consider, the 'ingenious feeling,' the vital sensibility, with which they apprehend their own English, may place the insurmountable barrier which opposes their access to the father of our poetry. What can be done for them?
In the first place, what is it that so much removes the language from us? It is removed by the words and grammatical forms that we have lost—by its real antiquity; perhaps more by an accidental semblance of antiquity—the orthography. That last may seem a small matter; but it is not.
There are three ways in which literary craftsmen have attempted to fill up, or bridge over, the gulf of time, and bring the poet of Edward III. and Richard II. near to modern readers.