Sources of the Canterbury Tales (part 2)

Yet it was frequently alleged that the experiments did succeed. The easiest explanation of this matter is, that the hopes of the alchemists were doubtless buoyed up by the fact that every now and then the experiments appeared to succeed; and it is easy to shew how. The close affinity of quicksilver for gold is well known. I copy the following from a book on experiments, which really suffices to explain the whole matter. 'If a sovereign be rubbed with mercury, it will lose its usual appearance, and appear as if silvered over; the attraction of the gold for the mercury being sufficient to cause a coating of it to remain. When it is wished to remove the silvery appearance, dip the sovereign in a dilute solution of nitric acid, which will entirely take it off.' Now the alchemists tell us that quicksilver must always be used in all experiments; and they constantly recommend the introduction into the substances experimented on of a small quantity of gold, which they thought would be increased. The experiments constantly failed; and whenever they failed, the pieces of molten metal were carefully saved, to be used over and over again. The frequent introduction of small quantities of gold caused that metal to accumulate; and if, by any favourable process, the quicksilver was separated from the mass, a considerable quantity of gold would now and then actually appear. This account is so much in accordance with all that we read, that we may confidently accept the conclusion of Dr. Thomson, the author of the History of Chemistry, that the vaunted philosopher's stone was certainly an amalgam of gold; which, 'if projected into melted lead or tin, and afterwards cupellated, would leave a portion of gold; all the gold, of course, that existed previously in the amalgam.' He adds that 'the alchemists who prepared the amalgam could not be ignorant that it contained gold'; a statement which I am inclined to modify by suggesting that it may very easily have contained more gold than they supposed it did. In a word, we may conclude that some deceived themselves, and others were conscious cheats.

Group H.

§ 74. The Manciple's Prologue. In the black-letter editions, this Prologue begins with the 16 lines printed at p. 289 (vol. iv) as the Epilogue to the Nonne Prestes Tale; because, in them, that Tale precedes. See remarks on § 51 above (p. ).

The Prologue is self-explanatory; we see how the responsibility passed from the Cook to the Manciple. It is curious that the Cook is addressed as if he had told no Tale hitherto; see, as to this, the remarks on § 28 above (p. ).

§ 75. The Maunciples Tale. With respect to this story, Tyrwhitt briefly remarks that 'The Fable of the Crow has been related by so many authors, from Ovid down to Gower, that it is impossible to say whom Chaucer principally followed. His skill in new dressing an old story was never, perhaps, more successfully exerted.'

Chaucer was so familiar with Ovid, and, in particular, with the Metamorphoses, that we may fairly suppose that this was the real source of his Tale; see Metam. ii. 534-632. The last line of his story (H 308), excluding the moral, closely agrees in sense with the last line in Ovid's tale—'Inter aues albas uetuit considere coruum.'

Gower's story is in his Confessio Amantis, bk. iii, ed. Pauli, i. 305-6; but it is so briefly sketched, in 35 lines, that Chaucer could have derived nothing from it, even if he had wished to do so.

Another Middle-English analogue, much more important than Gower's, is the story of the Magpie, being the 10th Tale in the collection known as The Seven Sages, printed in Weber's Metrical Romances, iii. 86. It is much the same as the story of the Popinjay in Wright's edition of the Seven Sages, p. 73. The version in the Seven Sages clearly points to an Eastern origin for the story. See Mr. Clouston's essay on The Tell-tale Bird, in Originals and Analogues (Chaucer Soc.), p. 437; to which I refer the reader for further information.

Dr. Köppel has shewn that several passages in the moral advice with which the Tale concludes (including nearly the whole of lines H 325-358), are taken from a work by Albertano of Brescia, entitled De Arte Loquendi et Tacendi, written in 1245, and newly edited by Thor Sundby in the second Appendix to his work called Brunetto Latinos levnet og skrifter (Life and Writings of Brunetto Latino), Copenhagen, 1869. See further in my Notes.

Group I.

§ 76. The Parson's Prologue. Most copies place this after the Manciples Tale, and insert the word maunciple in the first line. The black-letter edition of 1542 added the spurious Plowman's Tale after the Parson's, i.e. at the end of all. But all the later editions in black-letter inserted this spurious Tale before the Parson's, and hence the editors had to alter the word maunciple (above) into Plowman; which they did.

The Persones Tale was clearly meant to come last (I 47), and there is an allusion to the hour of 4 P. M. (I 5, and note). The Maunciples Tale well precedes it, because the Prologue to that Tale says they were approaching Canterbury (H 2, 3). But there is a great difficulty in the mention of the early morning (H 16); and this is why Group I has to be taken as a separate Fragment.

The reading Foure, in l. 5, is explained and justified in the Notes.

Some German commentators have endeavoured to discover the date of the Tales from lines 10, 11, by giving these lines a wholly gratuitous and impossible interpretation, as if they were meant to express that the moon's position was in Libra! But Chaucer says nothing of the sort; he is speaking of the moon's exaltation, and adds, parenthetically, 'I mean (to say) Libra.' Unluckily, he happens to go wrong; for Libra was the exaltation of Saturn: but this does not alter the fact, that exaltation never denotes position, but was a common astrological term. It invariably refers to a sign of the Zodiac; and although Chaucer, for the moment, forgot to which planet Libra caused an exaltation or increase of strength, he really did know the meaning of one of the commonest terms in all astrology. It is much to be regretted that theories should be founded on such gross misconceptions.

§ 77. The Persones Tale. It is now known that this Tale is little else than an adaptation (with alterations, omissions, and additions, as usual with Chaucer) of a French treatise by Frère Lorens, entitled La Somme des Vices et des Vertus, written in 1279. The English work by Dan Michel of Northgate, usually known by the title of The Ayenbite of Inwyt, or Remorse of Conscience, is a much more literal and closer translation of the same treatise, and thus affords a good guide for comparison between Chaucer and the French original. The French treatise has never been printed, but exists in two MSS. in the British Museum, viz. Cleop. A v, and Royal 19 C ii.

An excellent dissertation on this Tale, in which a close comparison with its original is duly made, was written in German by Dr. W. Eilers in 1882, and has been rendered more accessible to Chaucer students by an English translation made in 1884, and printed in Essays on Chaucer (Chaucer Soc.), p. 501. Of this Essay I have made much use in the Notes, to which I refer the reader for further information.

It is clear that this Tale was once an independent Treatise (see § 104, in vol. iv. p. 644), which people could either 'herkne or rede'; and it was probably written before 1380, at much the same time as the Tale of Melibeus, which it somewhat resembles in style. It was obvious that, if this treatise was to be inserted among the Canterbury Tales, it could only be assigned to the Parson, who is made, accordingly, to warn the company that he dislikes rime, and can only tell them 'a mery tale in prose'; see I 46. The word mery sometimes meant what we should now call 'interesting'; and it probably interested a much larger number of people in those days than it can possibly do at the present time. Our ancestors, at times, certainly inclined to serious discourses, such as the present age has no relish for.

It is quite clear that a few paragraphs near the end (iv. 644, I 1084-90)—beginning with and namely, and ending with my soule—were inserted at a much later time, probably on one of the last occasions when the poet revised his work. This passage has sometimes been called his 'Retractation'; but this term is a bad one. The phrase used is 'the whiche I revoke in my retracciouns,' i.e. among the things which I disclaim; and the word revoke, i.e. recall, means that he wishes to disclaim many of his works, as being deficient in such theological merit as would conduce to the salvation of his soul; a disclaimer which he at once follows up by thanking 'oure lord and his blisful moder and alle the seintes,' for such works as were of a moral and meritorious character. This I believe to be the real meaning, and to refer to the prevalent idea that many evil deeds and sayings could be out-balanced, even at the last moment, by an appeal to a few good actions; of which medieval literature affords us many examples. Perhaps it is fair to add that the poet had good cause to regret such Tales as those of the Miller, the Reeve, and the Merchant.

In Essays on Chaucer, p. 227, is printed an Essay on this Tale by H. Simon, of Schmalkalden. The object of the Essay is to prove that Chaucer was a Wycliffite; and, filled with this idea (the truth of which I am not particularly careful either to deny or assert), the author endeavours to shew that the Persones Tale is full of interpolations made by some designing and fraudulent person. He even goes so far as to give us what he considers to be 'the original Tale' (p. 283). The French text tends to upset at least some portions of this superfluous theory, and Dr. Köppel has written an excellent article to shew—what to a plain person needs but little proof—that the Persones Tale is to be considered as wholly genuine, inasmuch as a considerable number of conspicuous passages reappear, in a slightly modified form, in other parts of the Canterbury Tales. If we are to go through the Tales, picking out, and setting aside as spurious, every passage which does not please us, the result can only be unsatisfactory. Different readers will eliminate different phrases and opinions, and the residuum will be valueless. I see no reason why we may not be content with the Tales in the form presented by the best MSS.

Postscript.

P. .—In a small book by Professor G. Stephens, entitled Förteckning öfver de fornämsta Brittiska och Fransyska Handskrifterna i Stockholm (Stockholm, 1847), at p. 20, is a description of a MS. which contains a copy of Palamon and Arcite in French verse, and was written early in the fifteenth century. It is remarkable that the metre is the same as that of the Knightes Tale; from which, perhaps, it was borrowed.

In Anglia, XVI. 261, L. Fränkel, of Munich, reprints a Latin fable by Casparus Cropacius, which first appeared in 1581, in illustration of the Milleres Tale. This fable follows Chaucer closely in the principal details, but omits the humour of the original. I fail to see any merit in this form of the story, and therefore refrain from reproducing it.

P. . See Dr. Jessopp's article on 'William of Norwich' in The Nineteenth Century, May, 1893.

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