Today | News | Books | Recipes Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History Booktheir request was refused. A ninth company, also of wicked men, prayed for a famous but evil name, and their request was granted. Among them was the wretch who set on fire the temple at Athens (1513-1867). Then some man perceived me, and began to question me. I explained that I had come to learn strange things, and not to gain fame. He led me out of the castle and into a valley, where stood the house of Dædalus (i.e. the house of Rumour). This strange house was made of basket-work, and was full of holes, and all the doors stood wide open. All sorts of rumours entered there, and it was sixty miles long. On a rock beside it I saw my eagle perched, who again seized me, and bore me into it through a window. It swarmed with people, all of whom were engaged in telling news; and often their stories would fly out of a window. Sometimes a truth and a lie would try to fly out together, and became commingled before they could get away. Every piece of news then flew to Fame, who did as she pleased with each. The house of Dædalus was thronged with pilgrims, pardoners, couriers, and messengers, and I heard strange things. In one corner men were telling stories about love, and there was a crush of men running to hear them. At last I saw a man whom I knew not; but he seemed to be one who had great authority--(_here the poem ends, being incomplete_; ll. 1868-2158). The general idea of the poem was plainly suggested by the description of Fame in Vergil, the house of Fame as described near the beginning of the twelfth book of Ovid's Metamorphoses, and various hints in Dante's Divina Commedia. For a close and searching comparison between the House of Fame and Dante's great poem, see the article by A. Rambeau in Engl. Studien, iii. 209. 1. For this method of commencing a poem with a dream, compare The Book of the Duchesse, Parl. of Foules, and The Romance of the Rose. For discourses on dreams, compare the Nonne Preestes Tale, and the remarks of Pandarus in Troilus, v. 358-385. Chaucer here propounds several problems; first, what causes dreams (a question answered at some length in the Nonne Preestes Tale, B 4116); why some come true and some do not (discussed in the same, B 4161); and what are the various sorts of dreams (see note to l. 7 below). There is another passage in Le Roman de la Rose, which bears some resemblance to the present passage. It begins at l. 18699:-- 'Ne ne revoil dire des songes, S'il sunt voirs, ou s'il sunt mençonges; Se l'en les doit du tout eslire, Ou s'il sunt du tout à despire: Porquoi li uns sunt plus orribles, Plus bel li autre et plus paisible, Selonc lor apparicions En diverses complexions, Et selonc lors divers corages Des meurs divers et des aages; Ou se Diex par tex visions Envoie revelacions, Ou li malignes esperiz, Por metre les gens en periz; De tout ce ne m'entremetrai.' 2. This long sentence ends at line 52. 7. This opens up the question as to the divers sorts of dreams. Chaucer here evidently follows Macrobius, who, in his Commentary on the Somnium Scipionis, lib. i. c. 3, distinguishes _five kinds_ of dreams, viz. _somnium_, _visio_, _oraculum_, _insomnium_, and _visum_. The fourth kind, _insomnium_, was also called _fantasma_; and this provided Chaucer with the word _fantome_ in l. 11. In the same line, _oracles_ answers to the Lat. _oracula_. Cf. Ten Brink, Studien, p. 101. 18. _The gendres_, the (various) kinds. This again refers to Macrobius, who subdivides the kind of dream which he calls _somnium_ into five species, viz. _proprium_, _alienum_, _commune_, _publicum_, and _generale_, according to the things to which they relate. _Distaunce of tymes_, i.e. whether the thing dreamt of will happen soon, or a long time afterwards. 20. 'Why this is a greater (more efficient) cause than that.' 21. This alludes to the four chief complexions of men; cf. Nonne Preestes Tale, B 4114. The four complexions were the sanguine, phlegmatic, melancholy, and choleric; and each complexion was likely to have certain sorts of dreams. Thus, in the Nonne Preestes Tale, B 4120, the _choleric_ man is said to dream of arrows, fire, fierce carnivorous beasts, strife, and dogs; whilst the _melancholy_ man will dream of bulls and bears and black devils. 22. _Reflexiouns_, the reflections or thoughts to which each man is most addicted; see Parl. of Foules, 99-105. 24. 'Because of too great feebleness of their brain (caused) by abstinence,' &c. 43. _Of propre kynde_, owing to its own nature. 48. The _y_ in _By_ is run on to the _a_ into _avísióuns_. 53. 'As respects this matter, may good befall the great clerks that treat of it.' Of these great clerks, Macrobius was one, and Jean de Meun another. Vincent of Beauvais has plenty to say about dreams in his Speculum Naturale, lib. xxvi.; and he refers us to Aristotle, Gregory (Moralia, lib. viii.), Johannes de Rupella, Priscianus (ad Cosdroe regem Persarum) Augustinus (in Libro de diuinatione dæmonum), Hieronimus (super Matheum, lib. ii.), Thomas de Aquino, Albertus, &c. 58. Repeated (nearly) from l. 1. 63. I here give the text as restored by Willert, who shows how the corruptions in ll. 62 and 63 arose. First of all _dide_ was shifted into l. 62, giving _as dide I_; as in Caxton's print. Next, an additional _now_ was put in place of _dide_ in l. 63; as in P., B., F., and Th., and _dide_ was dropped alltogether. After this, F. turned the _now_ of l. 64 into _yow_, and Cx. omitted it. See also note to l. 111. 64. 'Which, as I can (best) now remember.' 68. Pronounced fully:--With spé-ci-ál de-vó-ci-óun. 69. Morpheus; see Book of Duch. 137. From Ovid, Met. xi. 592-612; esp. ll. 602, 3:-- 'Saxo tamen exit ab imo Riuus aquae Lethes.' 73. 'Est prope Cimmerios,' &c.; Met. xi. 592. 75. See Ovid, Met. xi. 613-5; 633. 76. _That ... hir_ is equivalent to _whose_; cf. Kn. Tale, 1852. 81. Cf. 'Colui, che tutto move,' i.e. He who moves all; Parad. i. 1. 88. Read _povért_; cf. Clerkes Tale, E 816. 92. MSS. _misdeme_; I read _misdemen_, to avoid an hiatus. 93. Read _málicióus_. 98. 'That, whether he dream when bare-footed or when shod'; whether in bed by night or in a chair by day; i.e. in every case. The _that_ is idiomatically repeated in l. 99. 105. The dream of Croesus, king of Lydia, and his death vpon a gallows, form the subject of the last story in the Monkes Tale. Chaucer got it from the Rom. de la Rose, which accounts for the form _Lyde_. The passage occurs at l. 6513:-- 'Cresus ... Qui refu roi de toute _Lyde_, ... Qu'el vous vuet faire au _gibet_ pendre.' 109, 10. The rime is correct, because _abreyd_ is a _strong_ verb. Chaucer does not rime a pp. with a _weak_ pt. tense, which should have a final _e_. According to Mr. Cromie's Rime-Index, there is just _one_ exception, viz. in the Kn. Tale, A 1383, where the pt. t. _seyde_ is rimed with the 'pp. _leyde_.' But Mr. Cromie happens to have overlooked the fact that _leyde_ is here _not_ the pp., but the _past tense_! N |