National Poetry Month: Geoffrey Chaucer

Merciless Beauté

I. CAPTIVITY

Your yën two wol slee me sodenly.
I may the beauté of hem not sustene,
So woundeth hit through-out my herte kene.

And but your word wol helen hastily
Mt hertes wounde, whyl that hit is grene,
Your yën two wol slee me sodenly.
I may the beauté of hem not sustene.

Upon my trouthe I sey yow feithfully,
That ye ben of my lyf and deeth the quene;
For with my deeth the trouthe shal be sene.

Your yën two wol slee me sodenly.
I may the beauté of hem not sustene.
So woundeth hit through-out my herte kene.

II. REJECTION

So hath your beauté fro your herte chaced
Pitee, that me ne availeth not to pleyne;
For Daunger halt your mercy in his cheyne.

Giltles my deeth thus han ye me purchaced;
I sey yow sooth, me nedeth not to feyne;
So hath your beauté fro your herte chaced
Pitee, that me ne availeth not to pleyne

Allas! that nature hath in yow compassed
So greet beauté; that no man may atteyne
To mercy, though he sterve for the peyne.
So hath your beauté fro your herte chaced
Pitee, that me ne availeth not to pleyne;
For Daunger halt your mercy in his cheyne.

III. ESCAPE

Sin I fro Love escaped am so fat,
I never thenk to ben in his prison lene;
Sin I am free, I counte him not a bene.

He may answere, and seye this or that;
I do no fors, I speke right as I mene.
Sin I fro Love escaped am so fat,
I never thenk to ben in his prison lene.

Love hath my name y-strike out of his sclat,
And he is strike out of my bokes clene
For ever-mo; ther is non other mene.
Sin I fro Love escaped am so fat,
I never thenk to ben in his prison lene.
Sin I am free, I counte him not a bene.

[There are modernized versions … some rather famous – Wordsworth did an edition, many other poets have too – with “yow” changed to “you”, etc. But you lose so much in the translation. It’s a bit rough going … but once you get into it it is perfectly obvious what he is saying. I took a Chaucer class in college – and we read it out loud – in HIS spelling – and there was much hilarity, and also much revelation]

“Chaucer must have been a man of a most wonderful comprehensive nature … because he has taken into the compass of his Canterbury Tales, the various manners and humours of the whole English nation, in his age.” — John Dryden

“In 1372 he spent a year away, part of it in Genoa arranging the selection of an English port for Genoese trade. He went to Florence and perhaps to Padua. Petrarch died in 1374. It is suggested that in Italy Chaucer was introduced to Petrarch at the wedding of Violante, daughter of the Duke of Milan, by the Duke of Clance: and it is not impossible that Boccaccio was of the party. It’s a tempting but unlikely scenario. Certainly he took their poetry, like Dante’s, to heart. Indeed it may have helped purge him of French enthusiasms.” — Michael Schmidt, “Lives of the Poets”

“Spenser more than once insinuates that the soul of Chaucer was transfused into his body; and that he was begotten of him two hundred eyars after his decease. Milton has acknowledged to me, that Spenser was his original.” — John Dryden

“… his large, free, simple, clear yet kindly view of human life.” — Matthew Arnold

“Few English poets before the First World War were entirely free of a debt to him.” — Michael Schmidt, “Lives of the Poets”

“The Book of the Duchess shows him almost fully fledged. It’s a consolatory romance for John of Gaunt on the death of his first wife, Blanche, and draws on the Romance. The octosyllabic couplets foreshadow Gower’s fifteen years later; but Chaucer’s poem keeps close to a single subject and illustrates a crucial difference between Chaucer and Gower. Gower is encyclopedic by design; Chaucer is inclusive by nature. His verse is integrated because the human and poetic contexts admit more. Allusion and illustration are means, not end. His morality is implicit in the poem, not appended to it. The Book of the Duchess hints at what’s to come: a dream frame, a garden, personification, confession, allegory, May morning, and the hunt. There is also a debt to Ovid’s Metamorphoses. What makes it Chaucerian is the actual-seeming grief and sympathy, acknowledging the impotence of consolation.” — Michael Schmidt

“The figures are all British, and bear no suspicious signatures of Classical, Italian, or French imitation.” — Ford Madox Ford on “The Canterbury Tales

“He made England what she was, and, having made her, remains forever a part of his own creation.” — Thomas Warton

“Chaucer, undoubtedly, did excellently in his Troilus and Cryseyde; of whom, truly, I know not whether to marvel more, either that he in that misty time could see so clearly, or that we in this clear age go so stumblingly after him. Yet had he great wants, fit to be forgiven in so reverent an antiquity.” — Sir Philip Sidney

“Here is God’s plenty!” — in John Dryden’s preface to “Fables Ancient and Modern”

“He is a perpetual fountain of good sense; learned in all sciences; and therefore speaks properly on all subjects. As he knew what to say, so he knows also when to leave off; a continence which is practised by few writers.” — John Dryden

“Chaucer is the father of English poetry for two reasons. The first is technical: adapting continental forms he evolves a relaxed and distinctly English style; he enriches the poetic vocabulary; and he introduces through translation and adaptation the great Latin, French and Italian poets into English poetry. The second reason relates to the first. In his powerful and original style Chaucer provides a formal and a thematic model. He brings England into the new English poetry. Langland portrays London, but his is a moralized, allegorized metropolis, in the spirit of didactic documentary. Chaucer introduces the diversity of English character and language, of English society at large. He has themes, not polemics or moral programs. His eyes are mild and unclouded. Gower writes from books. Chaucer starts writing from books, but the world takes over his verse.” — Michael Schmidt

“Chaucer followed nature everywhere; but was never so bold to go beyond her.” — John Dryden

More information on Chaucer here