Today | News | Books | Recipes Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History Bookher, that, of the four days supposed to be consumed on the way, some of them are inadequately provided for. This furnishes no real objection, because the unwritten tales of the Yeoman, Haberdasher, Carpenter, Weaver, Dyer, Tapiser, and Ploughman, would have helped in some degree to fill up the gaps which have been noticed above. § 8. The whole of Group A is so admirably fitted together, and its details so well worked out, that it may fairly be looked upon as having been finally revised, as far as it goes; and I am disposed accordingly to look upon the incomplete Cook's Tale as almost the last portion of his great work which the poet ever revised in its intended final form. There is, in this Group A, only one flaw, one that has often been noted, viz. the mention of _three_ Priests in the Prologue (l. 164), whereas we know that there was but _one_ Nun's Priest, his name being Sir John. At the same place there is a notable omission of the character of the Nun, and the two things together point to the possibility that Chaucer may have drawn her character in too strong strokes, and have then suddenly determined to withdraw it, and to substitute a new character at some future time[86]. If we suppose him to have left the line 'That was hir chapeleyne' unfinished, it is easy to see how another hand would have put in the words 'and preestes three' for the mere sake of the rime, without having regard to reason. We ought to reject those three words as spurious. § 9. That Chaucer's work did receive, in some small degree, some touching-up, is rendered yet more probable by observing how Group A ends. For here, in several of the MSS., we come upon an additional fragment which, on the face of it, is not Chaucer's at all, but a work belonging to a slightly earlier period; I mean the Tale of Gamelyn. Some have supposed, with great reason, that this tale occurs amongst the rest because it is one which Chaucer intended to recast, although, as a fact, he did not live to rewrite a single line of it. This is the more likely because the tale is a capital one in itself, well worthy of being rewritten even by so great a poet; indeed, it is well known that the plot of the favourite play known to us all by the title of As You Like It, was derived from it at second-hand. But I cannot but protest against the stupidity of the botcher whose hand wrote above it 'The Cokes Tale of Gamelyn.' That was done because it happened to be found _next after_ the Cook's Tale, which, instead of being about Gamelyn, is about Perkin the reveller, an idle apprentice. The fitness of things ought to shew at once that this Tale of Gamelyn, a tale of the woods, in the true Robin-Hood style, could only have been placed in the mouth of him 'who bare a mighty bow,' and who knew all the usage of woodcraft; in one word, of the Yeoman. (_Gandelyn_ is the name of _an archer_ in Ritson's Ancient Songs, i. 82). And we get hence the additional hint, that the Yeoman's Tale was to have followed the Cook's Tale, a tale of fresh country-life succeeding one of the close back-streets of the city. No better place can be found for it. § 10. There is yet one more Tale, found only in the edition of 1542 and some later printed editions, but in none of the MSS., viz. the Ploughman's Tale. This is admittedly spurious, in the sense that it is not Chaucer's; but it is a remarkable poem in its way. The author never intended it for an imitation of Chaucer, nor pretended any disguise about it; on the contrary, he says plainly that he was the author of the well-known poem in alliterative verse commonly known as Pierce the Ploughman's Crede. It can only have been inserted by inadvertence, but we need not blame the editor for doing this, since otherwise the poem would not have been preserved at all, no MS. of it being now in existence. § 11. The next question that presents itself is this--Have we any means of telling which of the Tales are of early, and which of late workmanship? In reply to this, we may note, in the first place, the following facts and probabilities. The Knight's Tale was certainly re-written from beginning to end. In its original form, Chaucer took a good deal of it from Boccaccio's Teseide, and gave it the name of 'Palamon and Arcite'; see Prologue to Legend of Good Women, l. 420; this he would naturally do not long before writing his Troilus, in which he follows the same author. Moreover, this original 'Palamon' was written in the seven-line stanza; see notes to Anelida. It must next be noted that Dr. Furnivall, who has drawn up, tentatively, a list of Chaucer's works in their supposed order, puts down amongst the works of the 'Second Period,' i.e. prior to the Canterbury Tales, that Tale which is now known as the Second Nun's, though formerly called by Chaucer himself the Life of Saint Cecile. Of this result there has never been a doubt; Tyrwhitt says expressly, 'The Tale of the Nonne is almost literally translated from the Life of St. Cecilia in the Legenda Aurea of Jacobus Januensis. It is mentioned by Chaucer as a separate work in his Legend of Good Women, l. 426, under the title of the Life of Seint Cecile, and it still retains evident marks that it was not originally composed in the form of a Tale to be spoken by the Nonne[87].' It is, then, little more than a translation, and it is in seven-line stanzas. Dr. Furnivall assigns to the Second Nun's Tale the conjectural date of 1373, being the very year when Chaucer perhaps met Petrarch at Padua (see note to E 27), and learnt from him the tale of Griseldis, now known as the Clerk's Tale. This tale is likewise, for the most part, a translation, and in seven-line stanzas. The Prioress's Tale is a short one. Although written in seven-line stanzas, it is probably later than others in the same metre. The Man of Law's Tale will be considered hereafter; and it will be shewn that it was written independently of other Tales. The Monk's Tale is in a very peculiar metre, which appears nowhere else in Chaucer, except in the unoriginal poem called the ABC (probably written before A.D. 1369), and in some other of Chaucer's minor poems, such as the Former Age, Fortune, the Envoy to Bukton, &c.; so that, considered with reference to metre, this Tale may be of any date. The main part of it shews very little originality, and is clearly rather early than late. § 12. Having premised these considerations, it is easy to see that the metrical form suggests, to a useful extent, a possible distinction between the earlier and the later Tales. Nearly all of Chaucer's tales that are in stanzas are early, whilst all that are in decasyllabic couplets are late. We have seen that this is known to be true in the case of the Second Nun's Tale, that it is highly probable in the case of the Clerk's Tale (of which more hereafter), and there is nothing against it in the case of the Monk's Tale, written in the same metre as a poem which was probably his very first, or nearly so, if there be any tru |