Mention has been made of Chaucer’s good-humoured laughter at the Wife of Bath: but, if one trait stands out above all others in his work it is his worship of good women. No one can read the Canterbury Tales without being struck with the idealism which has created Griselda, Constance, Emelye. We may find rarely in Homer, Virgil, Dante, Shakespeare, pictures which crowd to the memory when Chaucer is describing the ladies of his dreams. All of them pale, of course, before Griselda, of whom he writes the immortal verses:—
I say that to this newe marquisesse
God hath such favour sent her of his grace
That it seemed not by any likeliness
That she was born and fed in rudenesse
As in a cottage or an oxestalle
But nourished in an emperoures halle.
And worshipful that folk where she was born
And from her birthe knew her year by year
Scarce trowed they but durst have boldly sworn
That to Janicle of which I spak biforn
No daughter was she for as by cónjecture
They thought she was another créature.
She was encreasèd in such excellence
Of maners goode i-set in high bountee,
And so discret and fair of eloquence,
So benigne and so digne of reverence,
And coude so the peples hert embrace
That ech her loveth that loketh in her face.
Publisshèd was the bountee of her name,
But eek byside in many a regioun
If one sayd wel, another sayd the same.
So spredde wide her bountee and her fame,
That men and wommen, as wel younge as olde,
Go to Saluces upon her to byholde.
Knew al the ways of wifly homlynesse,
But eek when that the tyme required it
The comun profit coude she wel redresse.
There was no discord, rancour, or hevynesse
In al that lond that she coude not appese,
And wisly bring them alle in rest and ese.
If gentilmen or other of her countree
Were wroth, she wolde brynge them at one,
So wyse and rype wordes hadde she
And judgement of so gret equitee.
That she from heven sent was, as men wende,
Peple to save and every wrong to amende.
The reason, I think, can easily be found. All good women are to Chaucer reflections of the Virgin Mary, who is “the lady bright,” the “haven of refuge,” the “bright star of day,” the “glory of motherhood.” She is eternal womanhood in heaven. The Clerkes Tale alone lifts the woman of the Middle Ages above the eleganices of Herrick, above the passion of Byron, above the calm honours of Tennyson, and the critical or whole-hearted admiration of Browning. Not even in Shakespeare do we find such an abandonment of worship as we do here. Women have not yet learnt to study the women of Chaucer, their own poet, their defender, and their glory. If apology be needed for the poet’s coarseness, let the white figures of Constance, Emelye, and Griselda atone.
From whom are we to get the truer Chaucer? From the biographers or from the Tales themselves? I think from the latter. If so, what do we find? A man liking a broad tale (as men generally do) and able to say it in language which does not suit our more decent century; a man revelling in the sunlight; a hero worshipper, but far more a heroine worshipper; laughing with, at, and against himself and his characters; full of good advice intended for any who will take it—including himself; a moralist, but no preacher; a lover of life and joy, of sorrow and of death; an aristocrat sympathising with the poor and the downtrodden; the burden of whose cheery teaching may be given in his own lines:—
The wrestling with the world axeth a fal
Hold the high way and let thy spirit thee lead
And Truth shall thee deliver, it is no drede.
A. Burrell.
Scholars are not agreed on all points as regards the chronology of Chaucer’s works. The following arrangement is that given conjecturally by Prof. Skeat in his edition of the poet’s works:—
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