Do you wish to see Dryden in his majesty? Look here:—
"But in the dome of mighty Mars the red,
With different figures all the sides were spread.
This temple, less in form, with equal grace,
Was imitative of the first in Thrace:
For that cold region was the loved abode,
And sovereign mansion of the warrior god.
The landscape was a forest wide and bare,
Where neither beast nor human kind repair;
The fowl that scent afar, the borders fly,
And shun the bitter blast, and wheel about the sky.
A cake of scurf lies baking on the ground,
And prickly stubs, instead of trees, are found;
Or woods with knots and knares deform'd and old,
Headless the most, and hideous to behold;
A rattling tempest through the branches went,
That stripp'd them bare, and one sole way they bent.
Heaven froze above severe, the clouds congeal,
And through the crystal vault appear'd the standing hail.
Such was the face without; a mountain stood
Threat'ning from high, and overlook'd the wood;
Beneath the lowering brow, and on a bent,
The temple stood of Mars armipotent;
The frame of burning steel, that cast a glare
From far, and seem'd to thaw the freezing air.
A straight long entry to the temple led,
Blind with high walls, and horror overhead;
Thence issued such a blast and hollow roar,
As threaten'd from the hinge to heave the door;
In through that door, a northern light there shone;
'Twas all it had, for windows there were none.
The gate was adamant, eternal frame!
Which, hew'd by Mars himself, from Indian quarries came,
The labour of a God; and all along
Tough iron plates were clench'd to make it strong.
A ton about was every pillar there;
A polish'd mirror shone not half so clear;
There saw I how the secret felon wrought,
And treason labouring in the traitor's thought,
And midwife Time the ripen'd plot to murder brought.
There the red Anger dared the pallid Fear;
Next stood Hypocrisy, with holy leer;
Soft-smiling, and demurely looking down,
But hid the dagger underneath the gown;
The assassinating wife, the household fiend;
And, far the blackest there, the traitor-friend.
On t'other side, there stood Destruction bare,
Unpunish'd Rapine, and a waste of war;
Contest, with sharpen'd knives, in cloisters drawn,
And all with blood bespread the holy lawn.
Loud menaces were heard, and foul disgrace,
And bawling infamy in language base,
Till sense was lost in sound, and silence fled the place.
The slayer of himself yet saw I there,
The gore congeal'd was clotted in his hair,
With eyes half closed, and gaping mouth he lay,
And grim, as when he breathed his sullen soul away.
In midst of all the dome Misfortune sate,
And gloomy Discontent, and fell Debate,
And Madness laughing in his ireful mood;
And arm'd complaint on theft, and cries of blood.
There was the murder'd corpse in covert laid,
And violent death in thousand shapes display'd,
The city to the soldiers' rage resign'd,
Successless wars, and poverty behind:
Ships burnt in fight, or forced on rocky shores,
And the rash hunter strangled by the boars;
The new-born babe by nurses overlaid;
And the cook caught within the raging fire he made.
All ills of Mars his nature, flame and steel;
The gasping charioteer beneath the wheel
Of his own car; the ruin'd house that falls
And intercepts her lord betwixt the walls.
The whole division that to Mars pertains,
All trades of death that deal in steel for gains,
Were there; the butcher, armourer, and smith,
Who forges sharpen'd faulchions, or the scythe.
The scarlet conquest on a tower was placed
With shouts, and soldiers' acclamations graced;
A pointed sword hung threat'ning o'er his head,
Sustain'd but by a slender twine of thread.
There saw I Mars his Ides, the Capitol,
The seer in vain foretelling Cæsar's fall;
The last Triumvirs, and the wars they move,
And Antony, who lost the world for love:
These, and a thousand more, the Fane adorn,
Their fates were painted ere the men were born;
All copied from the heavens, and ruling force
Of the red star, in his revolving course.
The form of Mars high on a chariot stood,
All sheathed in arms, and gruffly look'd the God:
Two geomantic figures were display'd
Above his head, a warrior and a maid,
One when direct, and one when retrograde."
"The Knight's Tale, the longest and most laboured of Chaucer's stories, possesses a degree of regularity which might satisfy the most severe critic. It is true that the honour arising from thence must be assigned to the more ancient bard, who had himself drawn his subject from an Italian model; but the high and decided preference which Dryden has given to this story, although somewhat censured by Trapp, enables us to judge how much the poet held an accurate combination of parts, and coherence of narrative, essentials of epic poetry." This is in Sir Walter's happiest natural vein; not so the astounding passage that follows it. "That a classic scholar like Trapp should think the plan of the Knight's Tale equal to that of the Iliad, is a degree of candour not to be hoped for; but surely to an unprejudiced reader, a story which exhausts in its conclusion all the interest which it has excited in its progress; which, when terminated, leaves no question to be asked, no personage undisposed of, and no curiosity unsatisfied, is abstractedly considered more gratifying than the history of a few weeks of a ten years' war, commenced long after the siege had begun, and ending long before the city was taken!" Why, is not this the true and magnificent praise of the Iliad, that from the heart of the immense war it has taken out a story of individual interest, which begins where your curiosity asks, and where your sympathy finds repose? Achilles—his quarrel with Agamemnon—his loss of Patrocles—his vengeance on Hector—accomplished when he willingly relinquishes the body to burial? That is the integrity of an epic fable, which employs the Ten Years' War, not for its subject, but for the illimitable field in which its gigantic subject moves. He was the greatest of the poets, who knew how to make the storms, rising and falling, in the single breast of the goddess-born more to you, his hearer, than the war which has encamped a hundred thousand Greeks in siege before the imperial city of Priam. From a great poet, the most Homeric of modern poets—what a judgment on the Iliad! Trapp's words are—"Novimus judicium Drydeni de poemate quodam Chauceri pulchro sane illo, et admodum laudando, nimirum quod non modo vere epicum sit, sed Iliada etiam atque Æneada æquet, imo superet. Sed novimus eodem tempore viri illius maximi non semper accuratissimas esse censuras, nec ad severississimam critices normam exactas: illo judice, id plerumque optimum est, quod nunc præ manibus habet, et in quo nunc occupatur." Perfectly true. What says Dryden? "It is of the epic kind, and perhaps not much inferior to the 'Ilias' or the 'Æneid.' The story is more pleasing than either of them, the manners as perfect, the diction as poetical, the learning as deep and various, and the disposition full as artful, only it includes a greater length of time, as taking up seven years at least." Godwin says truly, "This eulogium must be acknowledged to be written in a spirit of ridiculous and impertinent exaggeration." And he then says as truly, that it is "full of novelty and surprise, is every where alive, comprises the most powerful portrait of chivalry that was perhaps ever believed, and possesses every thing in splendour and in action that can most conspicuously point out the scenes of the narrative to the eye of the reader." Dryden's version is indeed what Warton has pronounced it to be—"the most animated and harmonious piece of versification in the English language."
If you ask what reconciles you to the prevalent confusion of manners in this noble poem, it is the earnest simple spirit with which the Knight goes on relating as if he believed every word. It is, as we said, with Chaucer as with Shakspeare. Shakspeare mixes times of the world, and we bear it. Iachimo, a complete modern Italian—a more courtly Iago—serves under Lucius, general to some emperor—we forget which, if we ever knew—of old Rome; and beguiles, to the death almost, that Posthumus Leonatus—a Celt, by the by, with two Latin names—to whom Jupiter—not exactly the supreme deity of the Celto-British Pantheon—descends in actual presence. We, the auditors, or the readers, meanwhile, breathe no whisper of doubt or dissatisfaction. Why should we? We believe with eye, and ear, and imagination, and heart; and are as fain of our wildly-compounded—real-unreal—dream, as the birds are of the dawning. Hamlet, born and bred in the court of our own Elizabeth, and abruptly called up to Town, on the point of graduating with honours at Oxford, is shown to our credulous apprehension rooted upon a soil and in a century when and where there were no human shapes to be met with but bloodthirsty Vikings and invulnerable Berserkers. And we take all in excellent part. Why shall we not? We gain past all computation by the slight intellectual concession. Besides, we cannot well help ourselves; for we are not the Masters. The enchanter is the Master:—who sets us down, not after the saying of Horace, now in Greece and now in Britain—but in Britain and in Greece at one and the same moment.
Shakspeare commingles widely divided times; and why, two hundred years before him, shall not Chaucer? It requires practice to read Chaucer. Not only do you need familiarizing to a form of the language, which is not your own, but much more to a simplicity of style, which at first appears to you like barenness and poverty. It seems meagre. You miss too much the rich and lavish colours of the later time. Your eye is used to gorgeousness and gaudiness. The severe plainness of the old manner wants zest for you. But, when you are used to Chaucer, can accept his expression, and think and feel with him, this hinderance wears off. You find a strong imagination—a gentle pathos—no lack of accumulation, where needed—but the crowding is always of effective circumstances or images—a playfulness, upon occasion, even in serious writing—but the special characteristic of the style is, that the word is always to the purpose. He amply possesses his language, and his sparing expression is chosen, and never inadequate—never indigent. His rule is, that for every phrase there be matter; and narrative or argument is thus constantly progressive. He does not appear to be hurried out of himself by the heat of composition. His good understanding completely goes along with him, and weighs every word.
Dryden's rendering of Chaucer is a totally distinct operation from his Englishing of Virgil—Homer—Lucretius—Juvenal—Ovid. And you are satisfied that it should be so. He could not transfer these poets, accomplished in art, and using their language in an age of its perfection, with too close a likeness of themselves. He translates because the language is unknown to his presumed reader. This is but half his motive with Chaucer. The language would be more easily got over; but the mind is of another age, and that is less accessible—more distant from us than the obsolete dialect. We are contented to have the style of that day translated into the style of our own. Is this a dereliction of poetical principle? Hardly. The spirited and splendid verse and language of Dryden have given us a new poem. Why should our literature have forborne from so enriching herself? Hear Dryden himself.
"But there are other judges, who think I ought not to have translated Chaucer into English, out of a quite contrary notion. They suppose there is a certain veneration due to his old language, and that it is little less than profanation and sacrilege to alter it. They are farther of opinion, that somewhat of his good sense will suffer in this transfusion, and much of the beauty of his thoughts will infallibly be lost, which appear with more grace in their old habit. Of this opinion as that excellent person whom I mentioned, the late Earl of Leicester, who valued Chaucer as much as Mr Cowley despised him. My lord dissuaded me from this attempt, (for I was thinking of it some years before his death,) and his authority prevailed so far with me as to defer my undertaking while he lived, in deference to him; yet my reason was not convinced with what he urged against it. If the first end of writer be to be understood, then as his language grows obsolete his thoughts must grow obscure.
'Multa renascentur, quæ jam cecidere; cadentque
Quæ nunc sunt in honore vocabula, si volet usus,
Quem penes arbitrium est et jus et norma loquendi!
"When an ancient word, for its sound and significancy, deserves to be revived, I have that reasonable veneration for antiquity to restore it. All beyond this is superstition. Words are not like landmarks, so sacred as never to be removed. Customs are changed, and even statutes are silently repealed, when the reason ceases for which they were enacted. As for the other part of the argument—that his thoughts will lose of their original beauty by the innovation of words—in the first place, not only their beauty but their being is lost, where they are no longer understood, which is the present case. I grant that something must be lost in all transfusion—that is, in all translations; but the sense will remain, which would otherwise be lost, or at least be maimed, when it is scarce intelligible, and that but to a few. How few are there who can read Chaucer, so as to understand him perfectly! And if imperfectly, then with less profit and no pleasure. It is not for the use of some old Saxon friends that I have taken these pains with him—let them neglect my version, because they have no need of it. I made it for their sakes who understand sense and poetry as well as they, when that poetry and sense is put into words which they understand. I will go further, and dare to add, that what beauties I lose in some places, I give to others which had them not originally. But in this I may be partial to myself; let the reader judge, and I submit to his decision. Yet I think I have just occasion to complain of them, who, because they understand Chaucer, would deprive the greater part of their countrymen of the same advantage, and hoard him up as misers do their granddam gold, only to look on it themselves, and hinder others from making use of it. In sum, I seriously protest, that no man ever had, or can have, a greater veneration for Chaucer than myself. I have translated some part of his works, only that I might perpetuate his memory, or at least refresh it, amongst my countrymen. If I have altered him any where for the better, I must at the same time acknowledge, that I could have done nothing without him. Facile est inventis addere is no great commendation; and I am not so vain to think I have deserved a greater."
You are an Englishman, and a scholar in your mother-tongue. Good! You have dabbled, it may be, in Anglo-Saxon, Alfred's English. It is all very well. You read Chaucer easily. We congratulate you. You will, we hope, love the speech, and the soul, and the green, grassy mould of old England all the better. We praise you for searching England near and far, high and low. Do this heartily; do this understandingly; and you are excellently engaged. But do not grudge your next neighbour, who is merely a modern Englishman—a thorough good-fellow of one, however—his Chaucer, in a tongue and manner that he can read without stepping out of himself—his Chaucer, for his possession of whom he thanks Dryden, and from his grateful heart ejaculates "glorious John!"