APPENDIX B. THE CANTERBURY TALES.' In the account given on p. 36, s. 17, the Canterbury Tales were roughly dated 1390. It has been conjectured, however, that the scheme of the Pilgrimage had been adopted, and the Prologue composed, about 1385-6; that some already written tales were fitted to the new scheme; that others were then written, but not enough to complete the projected plan. The order in which the tales were produced cannot, of course, be finally settled; but it may fairly be assumed that the best work-especially in regard to characterisation -is the latest. Four tales, those of the Second Nun, the Clerk, the Man of Laws, and the Monk, are among those supposed to have been written, wholly or in part, before the scheme of the poem had been formed; and the Knight's tale is probably a remodelling of a lost Palamon and Arcite. For the sources of the tales see Skeat's Chaucer, iii. 371-504, and the Originals and Analogues published by the Chaucer Society. The order of the tales in the following list is that proposed nearly thirty years ago by Dr. Furnivall, the thoroughness of whose work may be estimated by the fact that scholars have found but little room even for the suggestion of modification. † * I. KNIGHTE'S TALE is a condensed version of the Teseide of Boccaccio (1313-1375), and recounts the loves of Palamon and Arcite for Emily, sister of Theseus' wife, Hippolita. She is made the prize of battle. Arcite wins, but, dying by an accident, bequeaths the lady to Palamon, in a speech, which for its dramatic eloquence Mr. Cowden Clarke (Riches of Chaucer, Advertisement to For a brief statement of the arguments, more or less satisfactory, see Mr. Pollard's Primer, §§ 45-8. †The metre of the Canterbury Tales is generally the rhymed heroic couplet. A writer in the Westminster Review gives the following 'golden rule' for reading Chaucer. Pronounce the final e whenever the metre demands it, and the final syllable in all words of French origin, as e.g. in coráge, visage, honour, clamour, maniér. Bear in mind, also, that the strangeness of three-fourths of the words results from the antiquated way in which they are spelled, and that when deprived of an e or an n, or otherwise slightly altered, they become familiar. They are old friends disguised in foreign garb; when we hear them speak their strangeness vanishes.' Second Edition, 1870) places beside the elegy over Sir Lancelot, quoted at p. 281 (Extract XVII.) "Naught may the woful spirit in myn herte To you, my lady, that I love most; Syn that my lyf ne may no lenger dure. What is this world? what asken men to have? Allone, withouten eny companye. Farwel! my swete foo! myn Emelye To speken of a servaunt proprely, With alle circumstaunces trewely, That is to seyn, truthe, honour, and knighthede As in this world right now ne knowe I non Dryden has paraphrased this tale under the title of Palamon and Arcite. II. MELLERE'S TALE.-The Miller, who is drunk, tells a broad tale, for which no original has been traced, of the mischances of a carpenter. III. REEVE'S TALE.-The Reeve, a carpenter by trade, and withal 'a sklendre colerik man,' retorts with an equally injurious tale of a miller, based upon a French fabliau. IV. COOK'S TALE begins as a story of a disorderly London prentice; and breaks off after some fifty lines. Then generally follows the Tale of Gamelyn, of which the plot resembles Shake speare's As You Like It (see Appendix C., No. X.). This is an older tale (c. 1340 ?), not by Chaucer, which he, it is thought, intended to rewrite for the Yeoman. V. SERGEANT OF LAWE'S TALE is the story of Constance in Gower's Confessio Amantis, Book ii.; both, however, drew from the Life of Constance in Nicholas Trivet's Anglo-Norman Chronicle (c. 1334). VL. SCHIPMAN'S TALE is in the Decameron (D. viii., N. i.), and shows how a good-for-nothing Monk used the money he had borrowed from a merchant to ruin his wife. VII. PRIORESSE'S TALE tells how the Jews murdered a Christian child, who, dead and cast in a pit, by miracle: Ther he with throte i-corve lay upright, He Alma redemptoris gan to synge So lowde, that al the place bigan to rynge.'❤ VIII. CHAUCER'S TALES.-When called upon for his tale, Chaucer commences a parody of the Metrical Romances, entitled the Rime of Sir Thopas, 'full of phrases taken from Isumbras, Li beaus desconus, and other Romances in the same style' (Tyrwhitt). Being cut short by the frank disapprobation of the Host, who bids him tell · som what atte lest In which ther be som merthe or doctrine,' he relates, in prose, a highly edifying Tale of Melibeus and his wife, Prudence, from a French original. The prologue to Sir Thopas contains that description of the Poet's appearance which has been already referred to (see p. 34, s. 17). Oure host to jape began, And than at erst he loked upon me And sayde thus, "What man art thou?” quod he; "Thou lokest as thou woldest fynde an hare For ever upon the ground I se the stare; Approche ner, and loke merily. Now ware you, sires, and let this man have space. He in the wast is schape as wel as I; This were a popet in an arm to embrace IX. MONK'S TALE.-The Monk follows with a number of doleful tragedies of illustrious men, of which he has an hundred in his cell,' until his audience stop him, the Host saying plainly that 'therein is no disport, ne game.' X. NONNE PRESTE'S TALE is that of The Cock and the For, paraphrased by Dryden, and is derived from the Roman de Renart, ch. v. • C£. Extract V., Appendix A, as to the doings of the Jews of Norwich. U XI. DOCTOUR OF PHISIK'S TALE is the story of Appius and Virginia, 'as telleth Titus Livius.' Chaucer really follows the Roman de la Rose, 5613-82. See Lounsbury's Studies in Chaucer, ii. 283. XII. PARDONER'S TALE, from the Cento Novelle Antiche, is the story of three comrades who find a treasure. To keep it, two of them kill the third, but afterwards die from drinking wine that he, on his part, had poisoned. The tale appears in many languages. XIII. WIF of BATHE'S TALE.-After a lengthy prelude, which has been modernised by Pope, the Wife of Bath tells the story (paraphrased by Dryden in 1700) of a Knight who married an old woman out of gratitude. Such a tale is told by Gower, Confessio Amantis, Book i., and the ancient ballad of the Marriage of Sir Gawaine has a similar subject. XIV. FRERE'S TALE is a malicious story of an arbitrary Summoner, who was carried away by the Fiend. XV. SOMPNOUR'S TALE is, of course, a retaliation. It recounts the story of a covetous Friar, who was baffled and humiliated by a sick husbandman, whose goods he desired. XVI. CLERK'S TALE.-The clerk then tells the beautiful story of patient Griselda, perhaps the most admired of all the Tales, which he (the Clerk) says he 'Lerned at Padowe of a worthy clerk, whos rethorique swete Enlumynd al Ytail of poetrie.' This story is told in the Decameron, D. x., N. x. Chaucer, however, has evidently taken it from a Latin translation made by Petrarch from Boccaccio, in 1373. That he received it orally from Petrarch (1304-74), during one of his missions to Italy, as has been conjectured, rests upon no satisfactory evidence. XVII. MARCHAUNT'S TALE is supposed to have been derived from a Latin fable. It is the old story of an old husband and a young wife. Pope has paraphrased it in January and May. XVIII. SQUYER'S TALE is the 'half-told' story of Cambuscán, King of Tartary :— 'Of Camball, and of Algarsife, And who had Canace to wife, That own'd the virtuous ring and glass; And of the wondrous horse of brass On which the Tartar king did ride.'* XIX, FRANKELEYN'S TALE.-Taken, he says, from a 'Breton lai, *П Penseroso. Milton writes Cambúscan. but told also by Boccaccio (D. x., N. v.), is the story of Dorigen, a virtuous wife. XX. SECOND NONNE'S TALE is from two Latin lives of St. Cecilia : that in the Legenda Aurea of Jacobus a Voragine is followed up to about 1. 348, then that of Simeon Metaphrastes. XXI. CANON YEMAN'S TALE relates how a priest was hoaxed by a pretended Alchemist. XXII. MAUNCIPLE'S TALE is the fable of the White Crow turned black, from Ovid's Metamorphoses (see also p. 32, s. 16). XXIII. PERSOUN'S TALE, in prose, is a long professional discourse de Irâ, de Superbiâ, de Avaritiâ, &c., said to have been suggested by some portions of the French original of the Ayenbite of Inwit (see p. 27, s. 14). These twenty-three tales-twenty-four if the fifty-eight lines of Sir Thopas be reckoned as a 'tale'—are, as has been mentioned (p. 37), not disconnected narratives, but are united by 'links' in which the pilgrims often chat about a tale already told, or refer to the neighbourhood in which they happen to be. If, therefore, the entire scheme had been carried out, we should have had a closely knit whole, in which we should have been able to follow the pilgrims both in regard to time and place with somewhat of the exactitude with which we trace the weird wanderings of Dante in his great poem. As, however, we have not all the tales, nor even 'links' to all that we do possess, there are conspicuous gaps, although nine 'groups' are clearly recognisable. These it is usual to name after the letters of the alphabet, as is done in the following table, in which the Roman figures refer to the numbering of the list printed above: The distance from London to Canterbury is only fifty-six miles, but parts of four days are supposed to be occupied in the journey. Incomplete as the indications are, the following details may be gathered : Day I. April 17.-From The Tabard Inn to Dartford; four tales being told-those of group A. Day II. April 18.-From Dartford to Rochester. The six tales of group B. Day III. April 19.-From Rochester to Ospringe. The seven tales of groups C, D, and E. Day IV. April 20.-From Ospringe to Canterbury. maining tales of groups F, G, II, and I. The re |