Till their ending day.
The stage is that of a little neat puppet-show; with figures like those of a miniature, dressed in bright armour, or in scarlet and vair and grey—the rich cloth, the precious furs, grey and ermine, which so often represent the glory of this world in the old romances—
Ysonde of highe pris,
The maiden bright of hewe,
That wered fow and gris
And scarlet that was newe;
In warld was none so wis
Of crafte that men knewe.
There is a large group of rhyming romances which might be named after Chaucer’s Sir Thopas—the companions of Sir Thopas. Chaucer’s burlesque is easily misunderstood. It is criticism, and it is ridicule; it shows up the true character of the common minstrelsy; the rambling narrative, the conventional stopgaps, the complacent childish vanity of the popular artist who has his audience in front of him and knows all the easy tricks by which he can hold their attention. Chaucer’s Rime of Sir Thopas is interrupted by the voice of common sense—rudely—
This may well be rime doggerel, quoth he.