The two opposed pictures are perhaps as highly finished as any part of the version. The words fall into their own places, painting their objects. The verse marches with freedom, fervour, and power. Translation has then reached its highest perfection when the suspicion of an original vanishes. The translator makes the matter his own, and writes as if from his own unassisted conception. The allusion to Bacchus is Dryden's own happy addition.
Now read with us—perhaps for the first time—the famous recital of the death of Arcite.
Chaucer.
Nought may the woful spirit in myn herte
Declare o point of all my sorwès smerte
To you, my lady, that I lovè most;
But I bequethe the service of my gost
To you aboven every creature,
Sin that my lif ne may no longer dure.
Alas the wo! alas the peinès stronge
That I for you have suffered, and so longe!
Alas the deth! Alas min Emilie!
Alas departing of our compagnie!
Alas min hertès quene! alas my wif!
My hertès ladie, ender of my lif!
What is this world? what axen men to have?
Now with his love, now in his coldè grave
Alone withouten any compagnie.
Farewel my swete, farewel min Emilie,
And softè take me in your armès twey,
For love of God, and herkeneth what I sey.
I have here with my cosin Palamon
Had strif and rancour many a day agon
For love of you, and for my jealousie.
And Jupiter so wis my soulè gie,
To speken of a servant proprely,
With allè circumstancè trewèly,
That is to sayn, trouth, honour, and knighthede,
Wisdom, humblesse, estat, and high kinrede,
Fredom, and all that longeth to that art,
So Jupiter have of my soulè part,
As in this world right now ne know I non
So worthy to be loved as Palamon,
That serveth you, and wol don all his lif.
And if that ever ye shal ben a wif,
Foryete not Palamon, the gentil man.
And with that word his speech faillè began.
For from his feet up to his brest was come
The cold of death, which had him overnome.
And yet moreover in his armès two,
The vital strength is lost, and all ago.
Only the intellect, withouten more,
That dwelled in his hertè sike and sore,
Gan faillen, whan the hertè feltè deth;
Dusked his eyen two, and failled his breth.
But on his ladie yet cast he his eye;
His lastè word was: Mercy, Emilie!
His spirit changed hous, and wentè ther,
As I came never I cannot tellen wher.
Therefore I stent, I am no divinistre;
Of soulès find I not in this registre.
Ne me lust not th' opinions to telle
Of hem, though that they writen wher they dwelle.
Arcite is cold, ther Mars his soulè gie.
Now wol I speken forth of Emilie.
Shright Emilie, and houleth Palamon,
And Theseus his sister toke anon
Swouning, and bare hire from the corps away.
What helpeth it to tarien forth the day,
To tellen how she wep both even and morwe?
For in swiche cas wimmen haven swiche sorwe,
Whan that hir housbondes ben fro hem ago,
That for the morè part they sorwen so,
Or ellès fallen in swiche maladie,
That attè lastè certainly they die.
Infinite ben the sorwes and the teres
Of oldè folk, and folk of tendre years
In all the toun for deth of this Theban:
For him, ther wepeth bothè child and man:
So gret a weping was there non certain,
When Hector was ybrought, all fresh yslain
To Troy: alas! the pitee that was there,
Cratching of chekès, rending eke of here.
Why woldest thou be ded? the women crie,
And haddest gold enough, and Emilie.
The death of Arcite is one of the scenes for which the admirers of Chaucer feel themselves entitled to claim, that it shall be judged in comparison with analogous passages of the poets that stand highest in the renown of natural and pathetic delineation. The dying words of the hero are as proper as if either great classical master of epic propriety—the Chian or the Mantuan—had left them to us. They are thoroughly sad, thoroughly loving, and supremely magnanimous. They have a perfect simplicity of purpose. They take the last leave of his Emelie; and they find for her, if ever she shall choose to put off her approaching estate of unwedded widowhood, a fit husband. They have answerable simplicity of sentiment and of language. He is unable to utter any particle of the pain which he feels in quitting her; but since the service which living he pays her, draws to an end, he pledges to her in the world whither he is going, the constant love-fealty of his disembodied spirit. He recalls to her, with a word only, the long love-torments he has endured for her, exchanged, in the hour when they should have been crowned with possession, for the pains of death. He heaps endearing names upon her. He glances at the vanity of human wishes imaged in himself, and he bids her farewell. That is his first heart-offering towards herself. Can a death-severed heart's elocution be imitated more aptly, more touchingly? He then turns to praising his rival. The jealousy, which had so long been the madness of both, filling the two kindred, brotherly, once-affectionate bosoms with hate, has, in his, melted away with life, thence melting away; and Arcite, with his last intelligible breath, describes Palamon briefly, point by point, as he knew him when he best loved him. He does not implore Emelie to remain for his sake single. He does not pretend, if she shall marry, to govern her choice; but he simply requests her, if the season shall ever arrive of such a choice, that she will not "forget Palamon." But the death-frost creeps on—his eyes darken—and the suspiration which finally wafts the soul from the body, beseeches the favour of her, only to earn whose favour he lived, and with earning whose favour he dies. Her name leaves his lips last. Could Shakspeare have helped Chaucer? The whole speech is admirably direct and short. We shall presently have to deal with one from the same poem, which wants that virtue.
The clamorous outbreak that follows, first of the private, and, supervening upon that, of the public grief, if not altogether couched in Homeric phraseology or numbers, has an air, however, of the Homeric painting. But, indeed, neither is the language deficient in fanciful significancy, nor the measure in good old melody.