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H.E. Marshall
English Literature
Chapter I IN THE LISTENING TIME
Chapter II THE STORY OF THE CATTLE RAID OF COOLEY
Chapter III ONE OF THE SORROWS OF STORY-TELLING
Chapter IV THE STORY OF A LITERARY LIE
Chapter V THE STORY OF FINGAL
Chapter VI ABOUT SOME OLD WELSH STORIES AND STORY-TELLERS
Chapter VII HOW THE STORY OF ARTHUR WAS WRITTEN IN ENGLISH
Chapter VIII THE BEGINNING OF THE READING TIME
Chapter IX "THE PASSING OF ARTHUR"
Chapter X THE ADVENTURES OF AN OLD ENGLISH BOOK
Chapter XI THE STORY OF BEOWULF
Chapter XII THE FATHER OF ENGLISH SONG
Chapter XIII HOW CAEDMON SANG, AND HOW HE FELL ONCE MORE ON SILENCE
Chapter XIV THE FATHER OF ENGLISH HISTORY
Chapter XV HOW ALFRED THE GREAT FOUGHT WITH HIS PEN
Chapter XVI WHEN ENGLISH SLEPT
Chapter XVII THE STORY OF HAVELOK THE DANE
Chapter XVIII ABOUT SOME SONG STORIES
Chapter XIX "PIERS THE PLOUGHMAN"
Chapter XX "PIERS THE PLOUGHMAN" -- continued
Chapter XXI HOW THE BIBLE CAME TO THE PEOPLE
Chapter XXII CHAUCER--BREAD AND MILK FOR CHILDREN
Chapter XXIII CHAUCER--"THE CANTERBURY TALES"
Chapter XXIV CHAUCER--AT THE TABARD INN
Chapter XXV THE FIRST ENGLISH GUIDE-BOOK
Chapter XXVI BARBOUR--"THE BRUCE," THE BEGINNINGS OF A STRUGGLE
Chapter XXVII BARBOUR--"THE BRUCE," THE END OF THE STRUGGLE
Chapter XXVIII A POET KING
Chapter XXIX THE DEATH OF THE POET KING
Chapter XXX DUNBAR--THE WEDDING OF THE THISTLE AND THE ROSE
Chapter XXXI AT THE SIGN OF THE RED PALE
Chapter XXXII ABOUT THE BEGINNING OF THE THEATER
Chapter XXXIII HOW THE SHEPHERDS WATCHED THEIR FLOCKS
Chapter XXXIV THE STORY OF EVERYMAN
Chapter XXXV HOW A POET COMFORTED A GIRL
Chapter XXXVI THE RENAISSANCE
Chapter XXXVII THE LAND OF NOWHERE
Chapter XXXVIII THE DEATH OF SIR THOMAS MORE
Chapter XXXIX HOW THE SONNET CAME TO ENGLAND
Chapter XL THE BEGINNING OF BLANK VERSE
Chapter XLI SPENSER--THE "SHEPHERD'S CALENDAR"
Chapter XLII SPENSER--THE "FAERY QUEEN"
Chapter XLIII SPENSER--HIS LAST DAYS
Chapter XLIV ABOUT THE FIRST THEATERS
Chapter XLV SHAKESPEARE--THE BOY
Chapter XLVI SHAKESPEARE--THE MAN
Chapter LXVII SHAKESPEARE--"THE MERCHANT OF VENICE"
Chapter XLVIII JONSON--"EVERY MAN IN HIS HUMOUR"
Chapter XLIX JONSON--"THE SAD SHEPHERD"
Chapter L RALEIGH--"THE REVENGE"
Chapter LI RALEIGH--"THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD"
Chapter LII BACON--NEW WAYS OF WISDOM
Chapter LIII BACON--THE HAPPY ISLAND
Chapter LIV ABOUT SOME LYRIC POETS
Chapter LV HERBERT--THE PARSON POET
Chapter LVI HERRICK AND MARVELL--OF BLOSSOMS AND BOWERS
Chapter LVII MILTON--SIGHT AND GROWTH
Chapter LVIII MILTON--DARKNESS AND DEATH
Chapter LIX BUNYAN--"THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS"
Chapter LX DRYDEN--THE NEW POETRY
Chapter LXI DEFOE--THE FIRST NEWSPAPERS
Chapter LXII DEFOE--"ROBINSON CRUSOE"
Chapter LXIII SWIFT--THE "JOURNAL TO STELLA"
Chapter LXIV SWIFT--"GULLIVER'S TRAVELS"
Chapter LXV ADDISON--THE "SPECTATOR"
Chapter LXVI STEELE--THE SOLDIER AUTHOR
Chapter LXVII POPE--THE "RAPE OF THE LOCK"
Chapter LXVIII JOHNSON--DAYS OF STRUGGLE
Chapter LXIX JOHNSON--THE END OF THE JOURNEY
Chapter LXX GOLDSMITH--THE VAGABOND
Chapter LXXI GOLDSMITH--"THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD"
Chapter LXXII BURNS--THE PLOWMAN POET
Chapter LXXIII COWPER--"THE TASK"
Chapter LXXIV WORDSWORTH--THE POET OF NATURE
Chapter LXXV WORDSWORTH AND COLERIDGE--THE LAKE POETS
Chapter LXXVI COLERIDGE AND SOUTHEY--SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
Chapter LXXVII SCOTT--THE AWAKENING OF ROMANCE
Chapter LXXVIII SCOTT--"THE WIZARD OF THE NORTH"
Chapter LXXIX BYRON--"CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE"
Chapter LXXX SHELLEY--THE POET OF LOVE
Chapter LXXXI KEATS--THE POET OF BEAUTY
Chapter LXXXII CARLYLE--THE SAGE OF CHELSEA
Chapter LXXXIII THACKERAY--THE CYNIC?
Chapter LXXXIV DICKENS--SMILES AND TEARS
Chapter LXXXV TENNYSON--THE POET OF FRIENDSHIP
YEAR 7
Chapter I IN THE LISTENING TIME
HAS there ever been a time when no stories were told? Has there
ever been a people who did not care to listen? I think not.
When we were little, before we could read for ourselves, did we
not gather eagerly round father or mother, friend or nurse, at
the promise of a story? When we grew older, what happy hours did
we not spend with our books. How the printed words made us
forget the world in which we live, and carried us away to a
wonderland,
"Where waters gushed and fruit trees grew
And flowers put forth a fairer hue,
And everything was strange and new;
The sparrows were brighter than peacocks here,
And their dogs outran our fallow deer,
And honey bees had lost their stings,
And horses were born with eagles' wings."*
*Robert Browning.
And as it is with us, so it is with a nation, with a people.
In the dim, far-off times when our forefathers were wild, naked
savages, they had no books. Like ourselves, when we were tiny,
they could neither read nor write. But do you think that they
had no stories? Oh, yes! We may be sure that when the day's
work was done, when the fight or the chase was over, they
gathered round the wood fire and listened to the tales of the
story-teller.
These stories were all of war. They told of terrible combats
with men or with fierce strange beasts, they told of passion, of
revenge. In them there was no beauty, no tenderness, no love.
For the life of man in those far-off days was wild and rough; it
was one long struggle against foes, a struggle which left little
room for what was beautiful or tender.
But as time went on, as life became more easy, in one way or
another the savage learned to become less savage. Then as he
changed, the tales he listened to changed too. They were no
longer all of war, of revenge; they told of love also. And
later, when the story of Christ had come to soften men's hearts
and brighten men's lives, the stories told of faith and purity
and gentleness.
At last a time came when minstrels wandered from town to town,
from castle to castle, singing their lays. And the minstrel who
had a good tale to tell was ever sure of a welcome, and for his
pains he was rewarded with money, jewels, and even land. That
was the true listening time of the world.
It was no easy thing to be a minstrel, and a man often spent ten
or twelve years in learning to be one. There were certain tales
which all minstrels had to know, and the best among them could
tell three hundred and fifty. Of these stories the minstrels
used to learn only the outline, and each told the story in his
own way, filling it in according to his own fancy. So as time
went on these well-known tales came to be told in many different
ways, changing as the times changed.
At length, after many years had passed, men began to write down
these tales, so that they might not be forgotten. These first
books we call Manuscripts, from the Latin words manus, a hand,
and scribere, to write, for they were all written by hand. Even
after they were written down there were many changes made in the
tales, for those who wrote or copied them would sometimes miss
lines or alter others. Yet they were less changed than they had
been when told only by word of mouth.
These stories then form the beginnings of what is called our
Literature. Literature really means letters, for it comes from a
Latin word littera, meaning a letter of the alphabet. Words are
made by letters of the alphabet being set together, and our
literature again by words being set together; hence the name.
As on and on time went, every year more stories were told and
sung and written down. The first stories which our forefathers
told in the days long, long ago, and which were never written
down, are lost forever. Even many of those stories which were
written are lost too, but a few still remain, and from them we
can learn much of the life and the history of the people who
lived in our land ten and twelve hundred years ago, or more.
For a long time books were all written by hand. They were very
scarce and dear, and only the wealthy could afford to have them,
and few could read them. Even great knights and nobles could not
read, for they spent all their time in fighting and hunting, and
had little time in which to learn. So it came about that the
monks who lived a quiet and peaceful life became the learned men.
In the monasteries it was that books were written and copied.
There too they were kept, and the monasteries became not only the
schools, but the libraries of the country.
As a nation grows and changes, its literature grows and changes
with it. At first it asks only for stories, then it asks for
history for its own sake, and for poetry for its own sake;
history, I mean, for the knowledge it gives us of the past;
poetry for joy in the beautiful words, and not merely for the
stories they tell. Then, as a nation's needs and knowledge grow,
it demands ever more and more books on all kinds of subjects.
And we ourselves grow and change just as a nation does. When we
are very young, there are many books which seem to us dull and
stupid. But as we grow older and learn more, we begin to like
more and more kinds of books. We may still love the stories that
we loved as children, but we love others too. And at last,
perhaps, there comes a time when those books which seemed to us
most dull and stupid delight us the most.
At first, too, we care only for the story itself. We do not mind
very much in what words it is told so long as it is a story. But
later we begin to care very much indeed what words the story-
teller uses, and how he uses them. It is only, perhaps, when we
have learned to hear with our eyes that we know the true joy of
books. Yes, hear with our eyes, for it is joy in the sound of
the words that makes our breath come fast, which brings smiles to
our lips or tears to our eyes. Yet we do not need to read the
words aloud, the sight of the black letters on the white page is
enough.
In this book I am going to tell you about a few of our greatest
story-tellers and their books. Many of these books you will not
care to read for yourselves for a long time to come. You must be
content to be told about them. You must be content to know that
there are rooms in the fairy palace of our Literature into which
you cannot enter yet. But every year, as your knowledge grows,
you will find that new keys have been put into your hands with
which you may unlock the doors which are now closed. And with
every door that you unlock, you will become aware of others and
still others that are yet shut fast, until at last you learn with
something of pain, that the great palace of our Literature is so
vast that you can never hope to open all the doors even to peep
inside.
Chapter II THE STORY OF THE CATTLE RAID OF COOLEY
OUR earliest literature was history and poetry. Indeed, we might
say poetry only, for in those far-off times history was always
poetry, it being only through the songs of the bards and
minstrels that history was known. And when I say history I do
not mean history as we know it. It was then merely the gallant
tale of some hero's deeds listened to because it was a gallant
tale.
Now the people who lived in the British Isles long ago were not
English. It will be simplest for us to call them all Celts and
to divide them into two families, the Gaels and the Cymry. The
Gaels lived in Ireland and in Scotland, and the Cymry in England
and Wales.
It is to Ireland that we must go for the very beginnings of our
Literature, for the Roman conquest did not touch Ireland, and the
English, who later conquered and took possession of Britain,
hardly troubled the Green Isle. So for centuries the Gaels of
Ireland told their tales and handed them on from father to son
undisturbed, and in Ireland a great many old writings have been
kept which tell of far-off times. These old Irish manuscripts
are perhaps none of them older than the eleventh century, but the
stories are far, far older. They were, we may believe, passed on
by word of mouth for many generations before they were written
down, and they have kept the feeling of those far-off times.
It was from Ireland that the Scots came to Scotland, and when
they came they brought with them many tales. So it comes about
that in old Scottish and in old Irish manuscripts we find the
same stories.
Many of the manuscripts which are kept in Ireland have never been
translated out of the old Irish in which they were written, so
they are closed books to all but a few scholars, and we need not
talk about them. But of one of the great treasures of old Irish
literature we will talk. This is the Leabhar Na h-Uidhre, or
Book of the Dun Cow. It is called so because the stories in it
were first written down by St. Ciaran in a book made from the
skin of a favorite cow of a dun color. That book has long been
lost, and this copy of it was made in the eleventh century.
The name of this old book helps us to remember that long ago
there was no paper, and that books were written on vellum made
from calf-skin and upon parchment made from sheep-skin. It was
not until the twelfth century that paper began to be made in some
parts of Europe, and it was not until the fifteenth century that
paper books became common in England.
In the Book of the Dun Cow, and in another old book called the
Book of Leinster, there is written the great Irish legend called
the Tain Bo Chuailgne or the Cattle Raid of Cooley.
This is a very old tale of the time soon after the birth of
Christ. In the book we are told how this story had been written
down long, long ago in a book called the Great Book Written on
Skins. But a learned man carried away that book to the East.
Then, when many years had passed, people began to forget the
story of the Cattle Raid. So the Chief minstrel called all the
other minstrels together to ask if any of them knew the tale.
But none of them could remember more than a few verses of it.
Therefore the chief minstrel asked all his pupils to travel into
far countries to search for the rest which was lost.
What followed is told differently in different books, but all
agree in this, that a great chief called Fergus came back from
the dead in order to tell the tale, which was again written down.
The story is one of the beautiful Queen Meav of Connaught. For
many years she had lived happily with her husband and her
children. But one day the Queen and her husband began to argue
as to which of them was the richer. As they could not agree,
they ordered all their treasures to be brought before them that
they might be compared.
So first all their wooden and metal vessels were brought. But
they were both alike.
Then all their jewels, their rings and bracelets, necklets and
crowns were brought, but they, too, were equal.
Then all their robes were brought, crimson and blue, green,
yellow, checked and striped, black and white. They, too, were
equal.
Next from the fields and pastures great herds of sheep were
brought. They, too, were equal.
Then from the green plains fleet horses, champing steeds came.
Great herds of swine from forest and glen were brought. They,
too, were equal.
Lastly, droves and droves of cattle were brought. In the King's
herd there was a young bull named White-horned. When a calf, he
had belonged to Meav's herd, but being very proud, and thinking
it little honor to be under the rule of a woman, he had left
Meav's herd and joined himself to the King's. This bull was very
beautiful. His head and horns and hoofs were white, and all the
rest of him was red. He was so great and splendid that in all
the Queen's herd there was none to match him.
Then Meav's sorrow was bitter, and calling a messenger, she asked
if he knew where might be found a young bull to match with White-
horned.
The messenger replied that he knew of a much finer bull called
Donn Chuailgne, or Brown Bull of Cooley, which belonged to Dawra,
the chief of Ulster.
"Go then,' said Meav, "and ask Dawra to lend me the Bull for a
year. Tell him that he shall be well repaid, that he shall
receive fifty heifers and Brown Bull back again at the end of
that time. And if Dawra should seem unwilling to lend Brown
Bull, tell him that he may come with it himself, and that he
shall receive here land equal to his own, a chariot worth thirty-
six cows, and he shall have my friendship ever after."
So taking with him nine others, the messenger set out and soon
arrived at Cooley. And when Dawra heard why the messengers had
come, he received them kindly, and said at once that they should
have Brown Bull.
Then the messengers began to speak and boast among themselves.
"It was well," said one, "that Dawra granted us the Bull
willingly, otherwise we had taken it by force."
As he spoke, a servant of Dawra came with food and drink for the
strangers, and hearing how they spoke among themselves, he
hastily and in wrath dashed the food upon the table, and
returning to his master repeated to him the words of the
messenger.
Then was Dawra very wrathful. And when, in the morning, the
messengers came before him asking that he should fulfill his
promise, he refused them.
So, empty-handed, the messengers returned to Queen Meav. And
she, full of anger, decided to make good the boastful words of
her messenger and take Brown Bull by force.
Then began a mighty war between the men of Ulster and the men of
Connaught. And after many fights there was a great battle in
which Meav was defeated. Yet was she triumphant, for she had
gained possession of the Brown Bull.
But the Queen had little cause for triumph, for when Brown Bull
and White-horned met there was a fearful combat between them.
The whole land echoed with their bellowing. The earth shook
beneath their feet and the sky grew dark with flying sods of
earth and with flecks of foam. After long fighting Brown Bull
conquered, and goring White-horned to death, ran off with him
impaled upon his horns, shaking his shattered body to pieces as
he ran.
But Brown Bull, too, was wounded to death. Mad with pain and
wounds, he turned to his own land, and there
"He lay down
Against the hill, and his great heart broke there,
And sent a stream of blood down all the slope;
And thus, when all the war and Tain had ended,
In his own land, 'midst his own hills, he died."*
*The Tain, by Mary A. Hutton.
The Cattle Raid of Cooley is a strange wild tale, yet from it we
can learn a great deal about the life of these old, far-away
times. We can learn from it something of what the people did and
thought, and how they lived, and even of what they wore. Here is
a description of a driver and his war chariot, translated, of
course, into English prose. "It is then that the charioteer
arose, and he put on his hero's dress of charioteering. This was
the hero's dress of charioteering that he put on: his soft tunic
of deer skin, so that it did not restrain the movement of his
hands outside. He put on his black upper cloak over it outside.
. . . The charioteer took first then his helm, ridged like a
board, four-cornered. . . . This was well measured to him, and it
was not an over weight. His hand brought the circlet of red-
yellow, as though it were a plate of red gold, of refined gold
smelted over the edge of the anvil, to his brow as a sign of his
charioteering, as a distinction to his master.
"He took the goads to his horses, and his whip inlaid in his
right hand. He took the reins to hold back his horses in his
left hand. Then he put the iron inlaid breast-plate on his
horses, so that they were covered from forehead to fore-foot with
spears, and points, and lances, and hard points, so that every
motion in this chariot was war-near, so that every corner, and
every point, and every end, and every front of this chariot was a
way of tearing."*
*The Cattle Raid of Cualnge, by L. W. Faraday.
We can almost see that wild charioteer and his horses, sheathed
in bristling armor with "every front a way of tearing," as they
dash amid the foe. And all through we come on lines like these
full of color and detail, which tell us of the life of those folk
of long ago.
Chapter III ONE OF THE SORROWS OF STORY-TELLING
The Tain gives us vivid pictures of people and things, but it is
not full of beauty and of tender imagination like many of the
Gaelic stories. Among the most beautiful and best known of these
are perhaps the Three Sorrows of Story-Telling. These three
stories are called: The Tragedy of the Children of Lir; The
Tragedy of the Children of Tuireann; and Deirdre and the Sons of
Usnach. Of the three the last is perhaps the most interesting,
because the story happened partly in Scotland and partly in
Ireland, and it is found both in old Irish and in old Scottish
manuscripts.
The story is told in many old books, and in many ways both in
prose and in verse. The oldest and shortest version is in the
Book of Leinster, the same book in which is found The Tain.
The tale goes that one day King Conor and his nobles feasted at
the house of Felim, his chief story-teller. And while they
feasted a daughter was born to Felim the story-teller. Then
Cathbad the Druid, who was also at the feast, became exceeding
sad. He foretold that great sorrow and evil should come upon the
land because of this child, and so he called her Deirdre, which
means trouble or alarm.
When the nobles heard that, they wished to slay the new-born
babe. But Conor spoke.
"Let it not be so done," he said. "It were an ill thing to shed
the blood of an innocent child. I myself shall care for her.
She shall be housed in a safe place so that none may come nigh to
her, and when she is grown she shall be my one true wife."
So it was done as King Conor said. Deirdre was placed in a safe
and lonely castle, where she was seen of none save her tutor and
her nurse, Lavarcam. There, as the years passed, she grew tall
and fair as a slender lily, and more beautiful than the sunshine.
Now when fourteen years had passed, it happened one snowy day
that Deirdre's tutor killed a calf to provide food for their
little company. And as the calf's blood was spilled upon the
snow, a raven came to drink of it. When Deirdre saw that, she
sighed and said, "Would that I had a husband whose hair was as
the color of the raven, his cheeks as blood, and his skin as
snow."
"There is such a one," said Lavarcam, "he is Naisi the son of
Usnach."
After that here was no rest for Deirdre until she had seen Naisi.
And when they met they loved each other so that Naisi took her
and fled with her to Scotland far from Conor the King. For they
knew that when the King learned that fair Deirdre had been stolen
from him, he would be exceeding wrathful.
There, in Scotland, Deirdre and Naisi lived for many years
happily. With them were Ainle and Ardan, Naisi's two brothers,
who also loved their sister Deirdre well.
But Conor never forgot his anger at the escape of Deirdre. He
longed still to have her as his Queen, and at last he sent a
messenger to lure the fair lady and the three brave brothers back
to Ireland.
"Naisi and Deirdre were seated together one day, and between them
Conor's chess board, they playing upon it.
"Naisi heard a cry and said, 'I hear the call of a man of Erin.'
"'That was not the call of a man of Erin,' says Deirdre, 'but the
call of a man of Alba.'
"Deirdre knew the first cry of Fergus, but she concealed it.
Fergus uttered the second cry.
"'That is the cry of a man of Erin,' says Naisi.
"'It is not indeed,' says Deirdre, 'and let us play on.'
"Fergus sent forth the third cry, and the sons of Usnach knew it
was Fergus that sent for the cry. And Naisi ordered Ardan to go
to meet Fergus. Then Deirdre declared she knew the first call
sent forth by Fergus.
"'Why didst thou conceal it, then, my Queen?' says Naisi.
"'A vision I saw last night,' says Deirdre, 'namely that three
birds came unto us having three sups of honey in their beaks, and
that they left them with us, and that they took three sups of our
blood with them.'
"'What determination hast thou of that, O Princess?' says Naisi.
"'It is,' says Deirdre, 'that Fergus comes unto us with a message
of peace from Conor, for more sweet is not honey than the message
of peace of the false man.'
"'Let that be,' says Naisi. 'Fergus is long in the port; and go,
Ardan, to meet him and bring him with thee.'"*
*Theophilus O'Flanagan
And when Fergus came there were kindly greetings between the
friends who had been long parted. Then Fergus told the three
brothers that Conor had forgiven them, and that he longed to see
them back again in the land of Erin.
So although the heart of Deirdre was sad and heavy with
foreboding of evil, they set sail for the land of Erin. But
Deirdre looked behind her as the shore faded from sight and sang
a mournful song: -
"O eastern land I leave, I loved you well,
Home of my heart, I love and loved you well,
I ne'er had left you had not Naisi left."*
*Douglas Hyde
And so they fared on their journey and came at last to Conor's
palace. And the story tells how the boding sorrow that Deirdre
felt fulfilled itself, and how they were betrayed, and how the
brothers fought and died, and how Deirdre mourned until
"Her heart-strings snapt,
And death had overmastered her. She fell
Into the grave where Naisi lay and slept.
There at his side the child of Felim fell,
The fair-haired daughter of a hundred smiles.
Men piled their grave and reared their stone on high,
And wrote their names in Ogham.* So they lay
All four united in the dream of death."**
* Ancient Gaelic writing.
** Douglas Hyde
Such in a few words is the story of Deirdre. But you must read
the tale itself to find out how beautiful it is. That you can
easily do, for it has been translated many times out of the old
Gaelic in which it was first written and it has been told so
simply that even those of you who are quite young can read it for
yourselves.
In both The Tain and in Deirdre we find the love of fighting, the
brave joy of the strong man when he finds a gallant foe. The
Tain is such history as those far-off times afforded, but it is
history touched with fancy, wrought with poetry. In the Three
Sorrows we have Romance. They are what we might call the novels
of the time. It is in stories like these that we find the keen
sense of what is beautiful in nature, the sense of "man's
brotherhood with bird and beast, star and flower," which has
become the mark of "Celtic" literature. We cannot put it into
words, perhaps, for it is something mystic and strange, something
that takes us nearer fairyland and makes us see that land of
dreams with clearer eyes.
BOOKS TO READ
The Celtic Wonder World, by C. L. Thomson. The Enchanted Land
(for version of Deirdre), by L Chisholm. Three Sorrows (verse),
by Douglas Hyde.
Chapter IV THE STORY OF A LITERARY LIE
WHO wrote the stories which are found in the old Gaelic
manuscripts we do not know, yet the names of some of the old
Gaelic poets have come down to us. The best known of all is
perhaps that of Ossian. But as Ossian, if he ever lived, lived
in the third century, as it is not probable that his poems were
written down at the time, and as the oldest books that we have
containing any of his poetry were written in the twelfth century,
it is very difficult to be sure that he really made the poems
called by his name.
Ossian was a warrior and chief as well as a poet, and as a poet
he is claimed both by Scotland and by Ireland. But perhaps his
name has become more nearly linked to Scotland because of the
story that I am going to tell you now. It belongs really to a
time much later than that of which we have been speaking, but
because it has to do with this old Gaelic poet Ossian, I think
you will like to hear it now.
In a lonely Highland village more than a hundred and fifty years
ago there lived a little boy called James Macpherson. His father
and mother were poor farmer people, and James ran about
barefooted and wild among the hills and glens. When he was about
seven years old the quiet of his Highland home was broken by the
sounds of war, for the Highland folk had risen in rebellion
against King George II., and were fighting for Prince Charlie,
hoping to have a Stewart king once more. This was the rebellion
called the '45, for it was fought in 1745.
Now little James watched the red coats of the southern soldiers
as, with bayonets gleaming in the sun, they wound through the
glens. He heard the Highland battle-cry and the clash of steel
on steel, for fighting came near his home, and his own people
joined the standard of the Pretender. Little James never forgot
these things, and long afterwards, when he grew to be a man and
wrote poetry, it was full of the sounds of battle, full, too, of
love for mountain and glen and their rolling mists.
The Macphersons were poor, but they saw that their son was
clever, and they determined that he should be well taught. So
when he left school they sent him to college, first to Aberdeen
and then to Edinburgh.
Before he was twenty James had left college and become master of
the school in his own native village. He did not, however, like
that very much, and soon gave it up to become tutor in a family.
By this time James Macpherson had begun to write poetry. He had
also gathered together some pieces of old Gaelic poetry which he
had found among the Highland folk. These he showed to some other
poets and writers whom he met, and they thought them so beautiful
that he published them in a book.
The book was a great success. All who read it were delighted
with the poems, and said that if there was any more such poetry
in the Highlands, it should be gathered together and printed
before it was lost and forgotten for ever. For since the '45 the
English had done everything to make the Highlanders forget their
old language and customs. They were forbidden to wear the kilt
or the tartan, and everything was done to make them speak English
and forget Gaelic.
So now people begged Macpherson to travel through the Highlands
and gather together as much of the old poetry of the people as he
could. Macpherson was at first unwilling to go. For one thing,
he quite frankly owned that he was not a good Gaelic scholar.
But at length he consented and set out.
For four months Macpherson wandered about the Highlands and
Islands of Scotland, listening to the tales of the people and
writing them down. Sometimes, too, he came across old
manuscripts with ancient tales in them. When he had gathered all
he could, he returned to Edinburgh and set to work to translate
the stories into English.
When this new book of Gaelic poetry came out, it again was a
great success. It was greeted with delight by the greatest poets
of France, Germany, and Italy, and was soon translated into many
languages. Macpherson was no longer a poor Highland laddie, but
a man of world-wide fame. Yet it was not because of his own
poetry that he was famous, but because he had found (so he said)
some poems of a man who lived fifteen hundred years before, and
translated them into English. And although Macpherson's book is
called The Poems of Ossian, it is written in prose. But it is a
prose which is often far more beautiful and poetical than much
that is called poetry.
Although at first Macpherson's book was received with great
delight, soon people began to doubt about it. The Irish first of
all were jealous, for they said that Ossian was an Irish poet,
that the heroes of the poems were Irish, and that Macpherson was
stealing their national heroes from them.
Then in England people began to say that there never had been an
Ossian at all, and that Macpherson had invented both the poems
and all the people that they were about. For the English knew
little of the Highlanders and their customs. Even after the '15
and the '45 people in the south knew little about the north and
those who lived there. They thought of it as a land of wild
mountains and glens, a land of mists and cloud, a land where wild
chieftains ruled over still wilder clans, who, in their lonely
valleys and sea-girt islands, were for ever warring against each
other. How could such a people, they asked, a people of savages,
make beautiful poetry?
Dr. Samuel Johnson, a great writer of whom we shall hear more
later, was the man of his day whose opinion about books was most
thought of. He hated Scotland and the Scottish folk, and did not
believe that any good thing could come from them. He read the
poems and said that they were rubbish, such as any child could
write, and that Macpherson had made them all up.
So a quarrel, which has become famous, began between the two men.
And as Dr. Johnson was far better known than Macpherson, most
people agreed with him and believed that Macpherson had told a
"literary lie," and that he had made up all the stories.
There is no harm in making up stories. Nearly every one who
writes does that. But it is wrong to make up stories and then
pretend that they were written by some one else more famous than
yourself.
Dr. Johnson and Macpherson were very angry with and rude to each
other. Still that did not settle the question as to who had
written the stories; indeed it has never been settled. And what
most men believe now is that Macpherson did really gather from
among the people of the Highlands many scraps of ancient poetry
and tales, but that he added to them and put them together in
such a way as to make them beautiful and touching. To do even
that, however, a true poet was needed, so people have, for the
most part, given up arguing about whether Macpherson wrote Ossian
or not, and are glad that such a beautiful book has been written
by some one.
I do not think that you will want to read Ossian for yourself for
a long time to come, for the stories are not always easy to
follow. They are, too, often clumsy, wandering, and badly put
together. But in spite of that there is much beauty in them, and
some day I hope you will read them.
In the next chapter you will find one of the stories of Ossian
called Fingal. Fingal was a great warrior and the father of
Ossian, and the story takes place in Ireland. It is told partly
in Macpherson's words.
Chapter V THE STORY OF FINGAL
"CATHULLIN sat by TURA's wall, by the tree of the rustling sound.
His spear leaned against a rock. His shield lay on grass, by his
side. And as he thus sat deep in thought a scout came running in
all haste and cried, 'Arise! Cathullin, arise! I see the ships
of the north. Many, chief of men, are the foe! Many the heroes
of the sea-born Swaran!'
"Then to the scout the blue-eyed chief replied, 'Thou ever
tremblest. Thy fears have increased the foe. It is Fingal King
of deserts who comes with aid to green Erin of streams.'
"'Nay, I beheld their chief,' replied the scout, 'tall as a
glittering rock. His spear is a blasted pine. His shield the
rising moon. He bade me say to thee, "Let dark Cathullin
yield."'
"'No,' replied the blue-eyed chief, 'I never yield to mortal man.
Dark Cathullin shall be great or dead.'"
Then Cathullin bade the scout summon his warriors to council.
And when they were gathered there was much talk, for some would
give battle at once and some delay until Fingal, the King of
Morven, should come to aid them. But Cathullin himself was eager
to fight, so forward they marched to meet the foe. And the sound
of their going was "as the rushing of a stream of foam when the
thunder is traveling above, and dark-brown night sits on half the
hill." To the camp of Swaran was the sound carried, so that he
sent a messenger to view the foe.
"He went. He trembling, swift returned. His eyes rolled wildly
round. His heart beat high against his side. His words were
faltering, broken, slow. 'Arise, son of ocean! arise, chief of
the dark brown shields! I see the dark, the mountain stream of
battle. Fly, King of ocean! Fly!'
"'When did I fly?' replied the King. 'When fled Swaran from the
battle of spears? When did I shrink from danger, chief of the
little soul? Shall Swaran fly from a hero? Were Fingal himself
before me my soul should not darken in fear. Arise, to battle my
thousands! pour round me like the echoing main. Gather round the
bright steel of your King; strong as the rocks of my land, that
meet the storm with joy, and stretch their dark pines to the
wind.'
"Like autumn's dark storms, pouring from two echoing hills,
towards each other approached the heroes. Like two deep streams
from high rocks meeting, mixing, roaring on the plain; loud,
rough and dark in battle meet Lochlin and Innis-fail. chief
mixes his strokes with chief, and man with man; steel clanging
sounds on steel. Helmets are cleft on high. Blood bursts and
smokes around. Strings murmur on the polished yews. Darts rush
along the sky, spears fall like the circles of light which gild
the face of night. As the noise of the troubled ocean when roll
the waves on high, as the last peal of thunder in heaven, such is
the din of war. Though Cormac's hundred bards were there to give
the fight to song, feeble was the voice of a hundred bards to
send the deaths to future times. For many were the deaths of
heroes; wide poured the blood of the brave."
Then above the clang and clamor of dreadful battle we hear the
mournful dirge of minstrels wailing o'er the dead.
"Mourn, ye sons of song, mourn! Weep on the rocks of roaring
winds, O mad of Inistore! Bend thy fair head over the waves,
thou lovelier than the ghost of the hills, when it moves, in a
sunbeam at noon, over the silence of Morven. He is fallen! thy
youth is low! pale beneath the sword of Cathullin. No more shall
valor raise thy love to match the blood of kings. His gray dogs
are howling at home, they see his passing ghost. His bow is in
the hall unstrung. No sound is on the hill of his hinds."
Then once again, the louder for the mourning pause, we hear the
din of battle.
"As roll a thousand waves to the rocks, so Swaran's host came on.
As meets a rock a thousand waves, so Erin met Swaran of spears.
Death raises all his voices around, and mixes with the sounds of
shields. Each hero is a pillar of darkness; the sword a beam of
fire in his hand. The field echoes from wing to wing, as a
hundred hammers that rise by turn, on the red son of the
furnace."
But now the day is waning. To the noise and horror of battle the
mystery of darkness is added. Friend and foe are wrapped in the
dimness of twilight.
But the fight was not ended, for neither Cathullin nor Swaran had
gained the victory, and ere gray morning broke the battle was
renewed.
And in this second day's fight Swaran was the victor, but while
the battle still raged white-sailed ships appeared upon the sea.
It was Fingal who came, and Swaran had to fight a second foe.
"Now from the gray mists of the ocean, the white-sailed ships of
Fingal appeared. High is the grove of their masts, as they nod
by turns on the rolling wave."
Swaran saw them from the hill on which he fought, and turning
from the pursuit of the men of Erin, he marched to meet Fingal.
But Cathullin, beaten and ashamed, fled to hide himself:
"bending, weeping, sad and slow, and dragging his long spear
behind, Cathullin sank in Cromla's wood, and mourned his fallen
friends. He feared the face of Fingal, who was wont to greet him
from the fields of renown."
But although Cathullin fled, between Fingal and Swaran battle was
renewed till darkness fell. A second day dawned, and again and
again the hosts closed in deadly combat until at length Fingal
and Swaran met face to face.
"There was a clang of arms! their every blow like the hundred
hammers of the furnace. Terrible is the battle of the kings;
dreadful the look of their eyes. Their dark brown shields are
cleft in twain. Their steel flies, broken from their helms.
"They fling their weapons down. Each rushes to his hero's grasp.
Their sinewy arms bend round each other: they turn from side to
side, and strain and stretch their large and spreading limbs
below. But when the pride of their strength arose they shook the
hills with their heels. Rocks tumble from their places on high;
the green-headed bushes are overturned. At length the strength
of Swaran fell; the king of the groves is bound."
The warriors of Swaran fled then, pursued by the sons of Fingal,
till the hero bade the fighting cease, and darkness once more
fell over the dreadful field.
"The clouds of night come rolling down. Darkness rests on the
steeps of Cromla. The stars of the north arise over the rolling
of Erin's waves: they shew their heads of fire, through the
flying mist of heaven. A distant wind roars in the wood. Silent
and dark is the plain of death."
Then through the darkness is heard the sad song of minstrels
mourning for the dead. But soon the scene changes and mourning
is forgotten.
"The heroes gathered to the feast. A thousand aged oaks are
burning to the wind. The souls of warriors brighten with joy.
But the king of Lochlin (Swaran) is silent. Sorrow reddens in
his eyes of pride. He remembered that he fell.
"Fingal leaned on the shield of his fathers. His gray locks
slowly waved on the wind, and glittered to the beam of night. He
saw the grief of Swaran, and spoke to the first of the bards.
"'Raise, Ullin, raise the song of peace. O soothe my soul from
war. Let mine ear forget in the sound the dismal noise of arms.
Let a hundred harps be near to gladden the king of Lochlin. He
must depart from us with joy. None ever went sad from Fingal.
The lightening of my sword is against the strong in fight.
Peaceful it lies by my side when warriors yield in war.'"
So at the bidding of Fingal the minstrel sang, and soothed the
grief of Swaran. And when the music ceased Fingal spoke once
more:--
"'King of Lochlin, let thy face brighten with gladness, and thine
ear delight in the harp. Dreadful as the storm of thine ocean
thou hast poured thy valor forth; thy voice has been like the
voice of thousands when they engage in war.
"'Raise, to-morrow, raise thy white sails to the wind. Or dost
thou choose the fight? that thou mayest depart renowned like the
sun setting in the west.'"
Then Swaran chose to depart in peace. He had no more will to
fight against Fingal, so the two heroes swore friendship
together. Then once again Fingal called for the song of
minstrels.
"A hundred voices at once arose, a hundred harps were strung.
They sang of other times; the mighty chiefs of other years." And
so the night passed till "morning trembles with the beam of the
east; it glimmers on Cromla's side. Over Lena is heard the horn
of Swaran. The sons of the ocean gather around. Silent and sad
they rise on the wave. The blast of Erin is behind their sails.
White as the mist of Morven they float along the sea."
Thus Swaran and his warriors departed, and Fingal, calling his
men together, set forth to hunt. And as he hunted far in the
woods he met Cathullin, still hiding, sad and ashamed. But
Fingal comforted the beaten hero, reminding him of past
victories. Together they returned to Fingal's camp, and there
the heroes sang and feasted until "the soul of Cathullin rose.
The strength of his arm returned. Gladness brightened along his
face. Thus the night passed away in song. We brought back the
morning with joy.
"Fingal arose on the heath and shook his glittering spear. He
moved first towards the plain of Lena. We followed in all our
arms.
"'Spread the sail,' said the King, 'seize the winds as they pour
from Lena.'
"We rose on the wave with songs. We rushed with joy through the
foam of the deep."
Thus the hero returned to his own land.
NOTE.--There is no book of Ossian specially edited for children.
Later they may like to read the Century Edition of Macpherson's
Ossian, edited by William Sharpe. Stories about Ossian will be
found among the many books of Celtic tales now published.
Chapter VI ABOUT SOME OLD WELSH STORIES AND STORY-TELLERS
YOU remember that the Celtic family was divided into two
branches, the Gaelic and the Cymric. So far we have only spoken
about the Gaels, but the Cymry had their poets and historians
too. The Cymry, however, do not claim such great age for their
first known poets as do the Gaels. Ossian, you remember, was
supposed to live in the third century, but the oldest Cymric
poets whose names we know were supposed to live in the sixth
century. As, however, the oldest Welsh manuscripts are of the
twelfth century, it is again very difficult to prove that any of
the poems were really written by those old poets.
But this is very certain, that the Cymry, like the Gaels, had
their bards and minstrels who sang of the famous deeds of heroes
in the halls of the chieftains, or in the market-places for the
people.
From the time that the Romans left Britain to the time when the
Saxons or English were at length firmly settled in the land, many
fierce struggles, many stirring events must have taken place.
That time must have been full of brave deeds such as the
minstrels loved to sing. But that part of our history is very
dark. Much that is written of it is little more than a fairy
tale, for it was not until long afterwards that anything about
this time was written down.
The great hero of the struggle between the Britons and the Saxons
was King Arthur, but it was not until many many years after the
time in which he lived that all the splendid stories of his
knights, of his Round Table, and of his great conquests began to
take the form in which we know them. Indeed, in the earliest
Welsh tales the name of Arthur is hardly known at all. When he
is mentioned it is merely as a warrior among other warriors
equally great, and not as the mighty emperor that we know. The
Arthur that we love is the Arthur of literature, not the Arthur
of history. And I think you may like to follow the story of the
Arthur of literature, and see how, from very little, it has grown
so great that now it is known all the world over. I should like
you to remember, too, that the Arthur story is not the only one
which repeats itself again and again throughout our Literature.
There are others which have caught the fancy of great masters and
have been told by them in varying ways throughout the ages. But
of them all, the Arthur story is perhaps the best example.
Of the old Welsh poets it may, perhaps, be interesting to
remember two. These are Taliesin, or "Shining Forehead," and
Merlin.
Merlin is interesting because he is Arthur's great bard and
magician. Taliesin is interesting because in a book called The
Mabinogion, which is a translation of some of the oldest Welsh
stories, we have the tale of his wonderful birth and life.
Mabinogion really means tales for the young. Except the History
of Taliesin, all the stories in this book are translated from a
very old manuscript called the Red Book of Hergest.. This Red
Book belongs to the fourteenth century, but many of the stories
are far far older, having, it is thought, been told in some form
or other for hundreds of years before they were written down at
all. Unlike many old tales, too, they are written in prose, not
in poetry.
One of the stories in The Mabinogion, the story of King Ludd,
takes us back a long way. King Ludd was a king in Britain, and
in another book we learn that he was a brother of Cassevelaunis,
who fought against Julius Caesar, so from that we can judge of
the time in which he reigned.
"King Ludd," we are told in The Mabinogion, "ruled prosperously
and rebuilt the walls of London, and encompassed it about with
numberless towers. And after that he bade the citizens build
houses therein, such as no houses in the kingdom could equal.
And, moreover, he was a mighty warrior, and generous and liberal
in giving meat and drink to all that sought them. And though he
had many castles and cities, this one loved he more than any.
And he dwelt therein most part of the year, and therefore was it
called Caer Ludd, and at last Caer London. And after the strange
race came there, it was called London." It is interesting to
remember that there is still a street in London called Ludgate.
Caer is the Celtic word for Castle, and is still to be found in
many Welsh names, such as Carnarvon, Caerleon, and so on.
Now, although Ludd was such a wise king, three plagues fell upon
the island of Britain. "The first was a certain race that came
and was called Coranians, and so great was their knowledge that
there was no discourse upon the face of the island, however low
it might be spoken, but what, if the wind met it, it was known to
them.
"The second plague was a shriek which came on every May-eve over
every hearth in the island of Britain. And this went through
peoples' hearts and frightened them out of their senses.
"The third plague was, however much of provision and food might
be prepared in the king's courts, were there even so much as a
year's provision of meat and drink, none of it could ever be
found, except what was consumed upon the first night."
The story goes on to tell how good King Ludd freed the island of
Britain from all three plagues and lived in peace all the days of
his life.
In five of the stories of The Mabinogion, King Arthur appears.
And, although these were all written in Welsh, it has been
thought that some may have been brought to Wales from France.
This seems strange, but it comes about in this way. Part of
France is called Brittany, as you know. Now, long long ago,
before the Romans came to Britain, some of the people who lived
in that part of France sailed across the sea and settled in
Britain. These may have been the ancient Britons whom Caesar
fought when he first came to our shore.
Later, when the Romans left our island and the Picts and Scots
oppressed the Britons, many of them fled back over the sea to
Brittany or Armorica, as it used to be called. Later still, when
the Saxons came, the Britons were driven by degrees into the
mountains of Wales and the wilds of Cornwall, while others fled
again across the sea to Brittany. These took with them the
stories which their minstrels told, and told them in their new
home. So it came about that the stories which were told in Wales
and in Cornwall were told in Brittany also.
And how were these stories brought back again to England?
Another part of France is called Normandy. The Normans and the
Bretons were very different peoples, as different as the Britons
and the English. But the Normans conquered part of Brittany, and
a close relationship grew up between the two peoples. Conan,
Duke of Brittany, and William, Duke of Normandy, were related to
each other, and in a manner the Bretons owned the Duke of
Normandy as overlord.
Now you know that in 1066 the great Duke William came sailing
over the sea to conquer England, and with him came more soldiers
from Brittany than from any other land. Perhaps the songs of the
minstrels had kept alive in the hearts of the Bretons a memory of
their island home. Perhaps that made them glad to come to help
to drive out the hated Saxons. At any rate come they did, and
brought with them their minstrel tales.
And soon through all the land the Norman power spread. And
whether they first heard them in Armorica or in wild Wales, the
Norman minstrels took the old Welsh stories and made them their
own. And the best of all the tales were told of Arthur and his
knights.
Doubtless the Normans added much to these stories. For although
they were not good at inventing anything, they were very good at
taking what others had invented and making it better. And the
English, too, as Norman power grew, clung more and more to the
memory of the past. They forgot the difference between British
and English, and in their thoughts Arthur grew to be a national
hero, a hero who had loved his country, and who was not Norman.
The Normans, then, brought tales of Arthur with them when they
came to England. They heard there still other tales and improved
them, and Arthur thus began to grow into a great hero. I will
now go on to show how he became still greater.
In the reign of Henry I. (the third Norman king who ruled our
land) there lived a monk called Geoffrey of Monmouth. He was
filled with the love of his land, and he made up his mind to
write a history of the kings of Britain.
Geoffrey wrote his book in Latin, because at this time it was the
language which most people could understand. For a long time
after the Normans came to England, they spoke Norman French. The
English still spoke English, and the British Welsh or Cymric.
But every one almost who could read at all could read Latin. So
Geoffrey chose to write in Latin. He said he translated all that
he wrote from an old British book which had been brought from
Brittany and given to him. But that old British book has never
been seen by any one, and it is generally thought that Geoffrey
took old Welsh tales and fables for a foundation, invented a good
deal more, and so made his history, and that the "old British
Book" never existed at all. His book may not be very good
history - indeed, other historians were very angry and said that
Geoffrey "lied saucily and shamelessly" - but it is very
delightful to read.
Geoffrey's chief hero is Arthur, and we may say that it is from
this time that Arthur became a great hero of Romance. For
Geoffrey told his stories so well that they soon became famous,
and they were read not only in England, but all over the
Continent. Soon story-tellers and poets in other lands began to
write stories about Arthur too, and from then till now there has
never been a time when they have not been read. So to the Welsh
must be given the honor of having sown a seed from which has
grown the wide-spreading tree we call the Arthurian Legend.
Geoffrey begins his story long before the time of Arthur. He
begins with the coming of Brutus, the ancient hero who conquered
Albion and changed its name to Britain, and he continues to about
two hundred years after the death of Arthur. But Arthur is his
real hero, so he tells the story in very few words after his
death.
Geoffrey tells of many battles and of how the British fought, not
only with the Saxons, but among themselves. And at last he says:
"As barbarism crept in they were no longer called Britons, but
Welsh, a word derived either from Gualo, one of their dukes, or
from Guales, their Queen, or else from their being barbarians.
But the Saxons did wiselier, kept peace and concord amongst
themselves, tilling their fields and building anew their cities
and castles. . . . But the Welsh degenerating from the nobility
of the Britons, never after recovered the sovereignty of the
island, but on the contrary quarreling at one time amongst
themselves, and at another with the Saxons, never ceased to have
bloodshed on hand either in public or private feud."
Geoffrey then says that he hands over the matter of writing about
the later Welsh and Saxon kings to others, "Whom I bid be silent
as to the kings of the Britons, seeing that they have not that
book in the British speech which Walter, Archdeacon of Oxford,
did convey hither out of Brittany, the which I have in this wise
been at the pains of translating into the Latin speech."
BOOKS TO READ
The Mabinogion, translated by Lady Charlotte Guest.
Everyman's Library. Geoffrey of Monmouth's Histories, translated
by Sebastian Evans.
Chapter VII HOW THE STORY OF ARTHUR WAS WRITTEN IN ENGLISH
GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH had written his stories so well, that
although he warned people not to write about the British kings,
they paid no heed to his warning. Soon many more people began to
write about them, and especially about Arthur.
In 1155 Geoffrey died, and that year a Frenchman, or Jerseyman
rather, named Robert Wace, finished a long poem which he called
Li Romans de Brut or the Romances of Brutus. This poem was
founded upon Geoffrey's history and tells much the same story, to
which Wace has added something of his own. Besides Wace, many
writers told the tale in French. For French, you must remember,
was still the language of the rulers of our land. It is to these
French writers, and chiefly to Walter Map, perhaps, that we owe
something new which was now added to the Arthur story.
Walter Map, like so many of the writers of this early time, was a
priest. He was chaplain to Henry II., and was still alive when
John, the bad king, sat upon the throne.
The first writers of the Arthur story had made a great deal of
manly strength: it was often little more than a tale of hard
knocks given and taken. Later it became softened by the thought
of courtesy, with the idea that knights might give and take these
hard knocks for the sake of a lady they loved, and in the cause
of all women.
Now something full of mystery was added to the tale. This was
the Quest of the Holy Grail.
The Holy Grail was said to be a dish used by Christ at the Last
Supper. It was also said to have been used to hold the sacred
blood which, when Christ hung upon the cross, flowed from his
wounds. The Holy Grail came into the possession of Joseph of
Arimathea, and by him was brought to Britain. But after a time
the vessel was lost, and the story of it even forgotten, or only
remembered in some dim way.
And this is the story which the poet-priest, Walter Map, used to
give new life and new glory to the tales of Arthur. He makes the
knights of the round table set forth to search for the Grail.
They ride far away over hill and dale, through dim forests and
dark waters. They fight with men and fiends, alone and in
tournaments. They help fair ladies in distress, they are tempted
to sin, they struggle and repent, for only the pure in heart may
find the holy vessel.
It is a wonderful and beautiful story, and these old story-
tellers meant it to be something more than a fairy tale. They
saw around them many wicked things. They saw men fighting for
the mere love of fighting. They saw men following pleasure for
the mere love of pleasure. They saw men who were strong oppress
the weak and grind down the poor, and so they told the story of
the Quest of the Holy Grail to try to make them a little better.
With every new writer the story of Arthur grew. It seemed to
draw all the beauty and wonder of the time to itself, and many
stories which at first had been told apart from it came to be
joined to it. We have seen how it has been told in Welsh, in
Latin, and in French, and, last of all, we have it in English.
The first great English writer of the stories of Arthur was named
Layamon. He, too, was a priest, and, like Wace, he wrote in
verse.
Like Wace, Layamon called his book the Brut, because it is the
story of the Britons, who took their name from Brutus, and of
Arthur the great British hero. This book is known, therefore, as
Layamon's Brut. Layamon took Wace's book for a foundation, but
he added a great deal to it, and there are many stories in
Layamon not to be found in Wace. It is probable that Layamon did
not make up these stories, but that many of them are old tales he
heard from the people among whom he lived.
Layamon finished his book towards the end of the twelfth century
or the beginning of the thirteenth. Perhaps he sat quietly
writing it in his cell when the angry barons were forcing King
John to sign the Magna Charta. At least he wrote it when all
England was stirring to new life again. The fact that he wrote
in English shows that, for Layamon's Brut is the first book
written in English after the Conquest. This book proves how
little hold the French language had upon the English people, for
although our land had been ruled by Frenchmen for a hundred and
fifty years, there are very few words in Layamon that are French
or that are even made from French.
But although Layamon wrote his book in English, it was not the
English that we speak to-day. It was what is called Early
English or even sometimes Semi-Saxon. If you opened a book of
Layamon's Brut you would, I fear, not be able to read it.
We know very little of Layamon; all that we do know he tells us
himself in the beginning of his poem. "A priest was in the
land," he says:
"Layamon was he called.
He was Leouenathe's son, the Lord to him be gracious.
He lived at Ernleye at a noble church
Upon Severn's bank. Good there to him it seemed
Fast by Radestone, where he books read.
It came to him in mind, and in his first thoughts,
That he would of England the noble deeds tell,
What they were named and whence they came,
The English land who first possessed
After the flood which from the Lord came.
Layamon began to journey, far he went over the land
And won the noble books, which he for pattern took.
He told the English book that Saint Beda made.
Another he took in Latin which Saint Albin made,
And the fair Austin who baptism brought hither.
Book the third he took laid it in the midst
That the French clerk made. Wace he was called,
He well could write.
. . . . . . . .
Layamon laid these books down and the leaves turned.
He them lovingly beheld, the Lord to him be merciful!
Pen he took in fingers and wrote upon a book skin,
And the true words set together,
And the three books pressed to one."
That, in words such as we use now, is how Layamon begins his
poem. But this is how the words looked as Layamon wrote them: -
"An preost wes on leoden: lazamon wes ihoten.
he wes Leouenaoes sone: lioe him beo drihte."
You can see that it would not be very easy to read that kind of
English. Nor does it seem very like poetry in either the old
words or the modern. But you must remember that old English
poetry was not like ours. It did not have rhyming words at the
end of the lines.
Anglo-Saxon poetry depended for its pleasantness to the ear, not
on rhyme as does ours, but on accent and alliteration.
Alliteration means the repeating of a letter. Accent means that
you rest longer on some syllables, and say them louder than
others. For instance, if you take the line "the way was long,
the wind was cold," way, long, wind, and cold are accented. So
there are four accents in that line.
Now, in Anglo-Saxon poetry the lines were divided into two half-
lines. And in each half there had to be two or more accented
syllables. But there might also be as many unaccented syllables
as the poet liked. So in this way the lines were often very
unequal, some being quite short and others long. Three of the
accented syllables, generally two in the first half and one in
the second half of the line, were alliterative. That is, they
began with the same letter. In translating, of course, the
alliteration is very often lost. But sometimes the Semi-Saxon
words and the English words are very like each other, and the
alliteration can be kept. So that even in translation we can get
a little idea of what the poetry sounded like. For instance, the
line "wat heo ihoten weoren: and wonene heo comen," the
alliteration is on w, and may be translated "what they called
were, and whence they came," still keeping the alliteration.
Upon these rules of accent and alliteration the strict form of
Anglo-Saxon verse was based. But when the Normans came they
brought a new form of poetry, and gradually rhymes began to take
the place of alliteration. Layamon wrote his Brut more than a
hundred years after the coming of the Normans, and although his
poem is in the main alliterative, sometimes he has rhyming lines
such as "mochel dal heo iwesten: mid harmen pen mesten," that
is:--
"Great part they laid waste:
With harm the most."
Sometimes even in translation the rhyme may be kept, as:--
"And faer forh nu to niht:
In to Norewaieze forh riht."
which can be translated:--
"And fare forth now to-night
Into Norway forth right."
At times, too, Layamon has neither rhyme nor alliteration in his
lines, sometimes he has both, so that his poem is a link between
the old poetry and the new.
I hope that you are not tired with this long explanation, for I
think if you take the trouble to understand it, it may make the
rest of this chapter more interesting. Now I will tell you a
little more of the poem itself.
Layamon tells many wonderful stories of Arthur, from the time he
was born to his last great battle in which he was killed,
fighting against the rebel Modred.
This is how Layamon tells the story of Arthur's death, or rather
of his "passing":
"Arthur went to Cornwall with a great army.
Modred heard that and he against him came
With unnumbered folk. There were many of them fated.
Upon the Tambre they came together,
The place was called Camelford, evermore has that name lasted.
And at Camelford were gathered sixty thousand
And more thousands thereto. Modred was their chief.
Then hitherward gan ride Arthur the mighty
With numberless folk fated though they were.
Upon the Tambre they came together,
Drew their long swords, smote on the helmets,
So that fire sprang forth. Spears were splintered,
Shields gan shatter, shafts to break.
They fought all together folk unnumbered.
Tambre was in flood with unmeasured blood.
No man in the fight might any warrior know,
Nor who did worse nor who did better so was the conflict mingled,
For each slew downright were he swain were he knight.
There was Modred slain and robbed of his life day.
In the fight
There were slain all the brave
Arthur's warriors noble.
And the Britons all of Arthur's board,
And all his lieges of many a kingdom.
And Arthur sore wounded with war spear broad.
Fifteen he had fearful wounds.
One might in the least two gloves thrust.
Then was there no more in the fight on life
Of two hundred thousand men that there lay hewed in
pieces
But Arthur the king alone, and of his knights twain.
But Arthur was sore wounded wonderously much.
Then to him came a knave who was of his kindred.
He was Cador's son the earl of Cornwall.
Constantine hight the knave. He was to the king dear.
Arthur him looked on where he lay on the field,
And these words said with sorrowful heart.
Constantine thou art welcome thou wert Cador's son,
I give thee here my kingdom.
Guard thou my Britons so long as thou livest,
And hold them all the laws that have in my days stood
And all the good laws that in Uther's days stood.
And I will fare to Avelon to the fairest of all maidens
To Argente their Queen, an elf very fair,
And she shall my wounds make all sound
All whole me make with healing draughts,
And afterwards I will come again to my kingdom
And dwell with the Britons with mickle joy.
Even with the words that came upon the sea
A short boat sailing, moving amid the waves
And two women were therein wounderously clad.
And they took Arthur anon and bare him quickly
And softly him adown laid and to glide forth gan they.
Then was it come what Merlin said whilom
That unmeasured sorrow should be at Arthur's forth faring.
Britons believe yet that he is still in life
And dwelleth in Avelon with the fairest of all elves,
And every Briton looketh still when Arthur shall return.
Was never the man born nor never the lady chosen
Who knoweth of the sooth of Arthur to say more.
But erstwhile there was a wizard Merlin called.
He boded with words the which were sooth
That an Arthur should yet come the English to help."
You see by this last line that Layamon has forgotten the
difference between Briton and English. He has forgotten that in
his lifetime Arthur fought against the English. To him Arthur
has become an English hero. And perhaps he wrote these last
words with the hope in his heart that some day some one would
arise who would deliver his dear land from the rule of the
stranger Normans. This, we know, happened. Not, indeed, by the
might of one man, but by the might of the English spirit, the
strong spirit which had never died, and which Layamon himself
showed was still alive when he wrote his book in English.
Chapter VIII THE BEGINNING OF THE READING TIME
WE are now going on two hundred years to speak of another book
about Arthur. This is Morte d'Arthur, by Sir Thomas Malory.
Up to this time all books had to be written by hand. But in the
fifteenth century printing was discovered. This was one of the
greatest things which ever happened for literature, for books
then became much more plentiful and were not nearly so dear as
they had been, and so many more people could afford to buy them.
And thus learning spread.
It is not quite known who first discovered the art of printing,
but William Caxton was the first man who set up a printing-press
in England. He was an English wool merchant who had gone to live
in Bruges, but he was very fond of books, and after a time he
gave up his wool business, came back to England, and began to
write and print books. One of the first books he printed was
Malory's Morte d'Arthur.
In the preface Caxton tells us how, after he had printed some
other books, many gentlemen came to him to ask him why he did not
print a history of King Arthur, "which ought most to be
remembered among us Englishmen afore all the Christian kings; to
whom I answered that diverse men hold opinion that there was no
such Arthur, and all such books as be made of him be but fained
matters and fables."
But the gentlemen persuaded Caxton until at last he undertook to
"imprint a book of the noble histories of the said King Arthur
and of certaine of his knights, after a copy unto me delivered,
which copy Sir Thomas Malory tooke out of certaine bookes in the
Frenche, and reduced it into English."
It is a book, Caxton says, "wherein ye shall find many joyous and
pleasant histories, and noble and renowned acts. . . . Doe after
the good and leave the ill, and it shall bring you unto good fame
and renowne. And for to pass the time this booke shall be
pleasant to read in."
In 1485, when Morte d'Arthur was first printed, people indeed
found it a book "pleasant to read in," and we find it so still.
It is written in English not unlike the English of to-day, and
although it has a quaint, old-world sound, we can readily
understand it.
Morte d'Arthur really means the death of Arthur, but the book
tells not only of his death, but of his birth and life, and of
the wonderful deeds of many of his knights. This is how Malory
tells of the manner in which Arthur came to be king.
But first let me tell you that Uther Pendragon, the King, had
died, and although Arthur was his son and should succeed to him,
men knew it not. For after Arthur was born he was given to the
wizard Merlin, who took the little baby to Sir Ector, a gallant
knight, and charged him to care for him. And Sir Ector, knowing
nothing of the child, brought him up as his own son.
Thus, after the death of the King, "the realm stood in great
jeopardy a long while, for every lord that was mighty of men made
him strong, and many weened to have been King.
"Then Merlin went to the Archbishop of Canterbury and counselled
him for to send for all the lords of the realm, and all the
gentlemen of arms, that they should come to London afore
Christmas upon pain of cursing, and for this cause, that as Jesus
was born on that night, that he would of his great mercy show
some miracle, as he was come to be king of all mankind, for to
show some miracle who should be right wise king of this realm.
So the Archbishop by the advice of Merlin, sent for all the lords
and gentlemen of arms that they should come by Christmas even
unto London. . . . So in the greatest church of London, whether
it were Paul's or not the French book maketh no mention, all the
estates were long or* day in the church for to pray. And when
matins and the first mass were done, there was seen in the
churchyard, against the high altar, a great stone foursquare,
like unto a marble stone, and in the midst thereof was like an
anvil of steel a foot on high, and therein stuck a fair sword
naked by the point, and letters there were written in gold about
the sword that said thus:-- 'Whoso pulleth out this sword of the
stone and anvil is rightwise king born of all England.'
*Before
"Then the people marvelled and told it to the Archbishop. . . .
So when all masses were done, all the lords went to behold the
stone and the sword. And when they saw the scripture, some
essayed; such as would have been king. But none might stir the
sword nor move it.
"'He is not here,' said the Archbishop, 'that shall achieve the
sword, but doubt not God will make him known. But this is my
counsel,' said the Archbishop, 'that we let purvey ten knights,
men of good fame, and they to keep the sword.'
"So it was ordained, and then there was made a cry, that every
man should essay that would, for to win the sword. . . .
"Now upon New Year's Day, when the service was done, the barons
rode unto the field, some to joust, and some to tourney, and so
it happened that Sir Ector rode unto the jousts, and with him
rode Sir Kay his son, and young Arthur that was his nourished
brother. So as they rode to the jousts-ward, Sir Kay had lost
his sword for he had left it at his father's lodging, and so he
prayed young Arthur for to ride for his sword.
"'I will well,' said Arthur, and rode fast after the sword, and
when he came home, the lady and all were out to see the jousting.
Then was Arthur wroth and said to himself, 'I will ride to the
churchyard, and take the sword with me that sticketh in the
stone, for my brother Sir Kay shall not be without a sword this
day.' So when he came to the churchyard Sir Arthur alit and tied
his horse to the stile, and so he went to the tent and found no
knights there, for they were at the jousting, and so he handled
the sword by the handles, and lightly and fiercely pulled it out
of the stone, and took his horse and rode his way until he came
to his brother Sir Kay, and delivered him the sword.
"And as soon as Sir Kay saw the sword he wist well it was the
sword of the stone, and he rode to his father Sir Ector and said:
'Sir, lo here is the sword of the stone, wherefore I must be king
of this land.'
"When Sir Ector beheld the sword he returned again and came to
the church, and there they alit all three, and went into the
church. And anon he made Sir Kay to swear upon a book how he
came to that sword.
"'Sir,' said Sir Kay, 'by my brother Arthur, for he brought it to
me.'
"'How got ye this sword?' said Sir Ector to Arthur.
"'Sir, I will tell you. When I came home for my brother's sword,
I found no body at home to deliver me his sword, and so I thought
my brother Sir Kay should not go swordless, and so I came hither
eagerly and pulled it out of the stone without any pain.'
"'Found ye any knights about the sword?' said Sir Ector.
"'Nay,' said Arthur.
"'Now,' said Sir Ector to Arthur, 'I understand ye must be king
of this land.'
"'Wherefore I,' said Arthur, 'and for what cause?'
"'Sir,' said Ector, 'for God will have it so, for there should
never man have drawn out this sword, but he that should be
rightwise king of this land. Now let me see if ye can put the
sword there as it was and pull it out again.'
"'That is no mastery,' said Arthur. And so he put it in the
stone. Therewithall Sir Ector essayed to pull out the sword and
failed.
"'Now essay,' said Sir Ector unto Sir Kay. And anon he pulled at
the sword with all his might, but it would not be.
"'Now shall ye essay," said Sir Ector unto Arthur.
"'I will well,' said Arthur, and pulled it out easily.
"And therewithall Sir Ector knelt down to the earth, and Sir
Kay."
And so Arthur was acknowledged king. "And so anon was the
coronation made," Malory goes on to tell us, "and there was
Arthur sworn unto his lords and to the commons for to be a true
king, to stand with true justice from henceforth the days of his
life."
For the rest of all the wonderful stories of King Arthur and his
knights you must go to Morte d'Arthur itself. For the language
is so simple and clear that it is a book that you can easily
read, though there are some parts that you will not understand or
like and which you need not read yet.
But of all the books of which we have spoken this is the first
which you could read in the very words in which it was written
down. I do not mean that you could read it as it was first
printed, for the oldest kind of printing was not unlike the
writing used in manuscripts and so seems hard to read now.
Besides which, although nearly all the words Malory uses are
words we still use, the spelling is a little different, and that
makes it more difficult to read.
The old lettering looked like this: -
"With that Sir Arthur turned with his knights,
and smote behind and before, and
ever Sir Arthur was in the foremost press
till his horse was slain under him."
That looks difficult. but here it is again in our own
lettering:-
"With that Sir Arthur turned with his knights, and smote
behind and before, and ever Sir Arthur was in the foremost
press till his horse was slain under him."
That is quite easy to read, and there is not a word in it that
you cannot understand. For since printing came our language has
changed very much less than it did before. And when printing
came, the listening time of the world was done and the reading
time had begun. As books increased, less and less did people
gather to hear others read aloud or tell tales, and more and more
people learned to read for themselves, until now there is hardly
a boy or girl in all the land who cannot read a little.
It is perhaps because Morte d'Arthur is easily read that it has
become a storehouse, a treasure-book, to which other writers have
gone and from which they have taken stories and woven them afresh
and given them new life. Since Caxton's time Morte d'Arthur has
been printed many times, and it is through it perhaps, more than
through the earlier books, that the stories of Arthur still live
for us. Yet it is not perfect - it has indeed been called "a
most pleasant jumble."* Malory made up none of the stories; as
he himself tells us, he took them from French books, and in some
of these French books the stories are told much better. But what
we have to remember and thank Malory for is that he kept alive
the stories of Arthur. He did this more than any other writer in
that he wrote in English such as all English-speaking people must
love to read.
*J. Furnivell
BOOKS TO READ
Stories of King Arthur's Knights, by Mary Macgregor.
Stories from Morte d'Arthur, by C. L. Thomson. Morte d'Arthur,
Globe Edition.
Chapter IX "THE PASSING OF ARTHUR"
FOUR hundred years after Malory wrote his book, another English
writer told the tales of Arthur anew. This was the poet Alfred,
Lord Tennyson. He told them in poetry.
Tennyson calls his poems the Idylls of the King. Idyll means a
short poem about some simple and beautiful subject. The king
that Tennyson sings of is the great King Arthur.
Tennyson takes his stories, some from The Mabinogion, some from
Malory, some from other books. He has told them in very
beautiful English, and it is the English such as we speak to-day.
He has smoothed away much that strikes us as rough and coarse in
the old stories, and his poems are as different from the old
stories as a polished diamond is different from the stone newly
brought out of the mine. Yet we miss something of strength and
vigor. The Arthur of the Idylls is not the Arthur of The
Mabinogion nor of Malory. Indeed, Tennyson makes him "almost too
good to be true": he is "Ideal manhood closed in real man,
rather than that gray king" of old.
And now I will give you part of the last of the Arthur poems, The
Passing of Arthur, so that you may read it along with Layamon's
account of the hero's death, and see for yourselves the
difference between the two. The Passing of Arthur is written in
blank verse, that is verse which does not rhyme, and which
depends like the old English verse on the accent. Yet they are
not alike.
"So all day long the noise of battle roll'd
Among the mountains by the winter sea;
Until King Arthur's Table, man by man,
Had fall'n in Lyonnesse about their lord,
King Arthur. Then, because his wound was deep,
The bold Sir Bedivere uplifted him,
And bore him to a chapel nigh the field,
A broken chancel by a broken cross,
That stood in a dark strait of barren land:
On one side lay the Ocean, and on one
Lay a great water, and the moon was full."
Then the King bids Sir Bedivere take his sword Excalibur,
"And fling him far into the middle mere:
Watch what thou seest, and lightly bring me word."
Sir Bedivere takes the sword, and,
"From the ruin'd shrine he stept
And in the moon athwart the place of tombs,
Where lay the mighty bones of ancient men,
Old knights, and over them the sea-wind sang
Shrill, chill, with flakes of foam. He, stepping down
By zigzag paths, and juts of pointed rock,
Came on the shining levels of the lake."
But when Sir Bedivere drew Excalibur and saw the jewels of the
hilt shine in the wintry moonlight, he could not find it in his
heart to cast anything so beautiful and precious from him. So,
hiding it among the reeds by the water's edge, he returned to his
master.
"Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere:
'Hast thou perform'd my mission which I gave?
What is it thou hast seen? or what hast heard?'
And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere:
'I heard the ripple washing in the reeds,
And the wild water lapping on the crag.'"
But King Arthur well knew that Sir Bedivere had not obeyed him.
"This is a shameful thing for men to lie," he said, and once more
sent the knight to do his bidding.
Again Sir Bedivere went, but again he could not make up his mind
to cast away the sword. "The King is sick, and knows not what he
does," he said to himself. So a second time he hid the sword and
returned.
"Then spake King Arthur, breathing heavily:
'What is it thou hast seen? or what hast heard?'
And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere:
'I heard the water lapping on the crag,
And the long ripple washing in the reeds.'
To whom replied King Arthur, much in wrath:
'Ah, miserable and unkind, untrue,
Unknightly, traitor-hearted! Woe is me!
Authority forgets a dying king.'"
Then, sorrowful and abashed before the anger of the dying King,
Sir Bedivere turned, and running quickly lest his courage should
fail him, he reached the water's edge and flung the sword far
into the lake.
"But ere he dip the surface, rose an arm
Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful,
And caught him by the hilt, and brandish'd him
Three times, and drew him under in the mere."
Then Sir Bedivere, in wonder, returned to the King, who, when he
saw him come, cried:-
"'Now see I by thine eyes that this is done.
Speak out: what is it thou hast heard, or seen?'"
So Sir Bedivere told the King how truly this time he had cast
away the sword, and how an arm "clothed in white samite, mystic,
wonderful," had caught it and drawn it under the mere. Then at
the King's bidding Sir Bedivere raised Arthur and bore him to the
water's edge.
"Then saw they how there hove a dusky barge,
Dark as a funeral scarf from stem to stern,
Beneath them; and descending they were ware
That all the decks were dense with stately forms,
Black-stoled, black-hooded, like a dream - by these
Three Queens with crowns of gold: and from them rose
A cry that shiver'd to the tingling start,
And, as it were one voice, an agony
Of lamentation, like a wind that shrills
All night in a waste land, where no one comes,
Or hath come, since the making of the world.
Then, murmur'd Arthur, 'Place me in the barge.'
So to the barge they came. There those three Queens
Put forth their hands, and took the King, and wept."
Then slowly from the shore the barge moved. And Sir Bedivere, as
he saw his master go, was filled with grief and loneliness, for
he only of all the brave King's knights was left. And so he
cried in mourning:-
"'Ah! my Lord Arthur, wither shall I go?
Where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes?
For now I see the true old times are dead.
. . . . . .
And I, the last, go forth companionless,
And the days darken round me, and the years,
Among new men, strange faces, other minds."
Mournfully from the barge Arthur answered and bade him pray, for
"More things are wrought by prayer than the world dreams of," and
so he said farewell,
"and the barge with oar and sail
Moved from the brink, like some full-breasted swan."
Long stood Sir Bedivere thinking of all that had come and gone,
watching the barge as it glided silently away, and listening to
the wailing voices,
"till the hull
Look'd one black dot against the verge of dawn,
And on the mere the wailing died away."
Sir Bedivere turned then and climbed,
"Ev'n to the highest he could climb, and saw,
Straining his eyes beneath an arch of hand,
Or thought he saw, the speck that bore the King,
Down that long water opening on the deep
Somewhere far off, pass on and on, and go
From less to less and vanish into light.
And the new sun rose bringing the new year."
The poem moves along with mournful stately measures, yet it
closes, like Layamon's farewell to Arthur, on a note of hope.
Layamon recalls Merlin's words, "the which were sooth, that an
Arthur should yet come the English to help." The hope of
Tennyson is different, not that the old will return, but that the
new will take its place, for "the old order changeth yielding
place to new, and God fulfils himself in many ways." The old
sorrows vanish "into light," and the new sun ever rises bringing
in the new year.
BOOKS TO READ
Idylls of the King, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, (Macmillan).
Chapter X THE ADVENTURES OF AN OLD ENGLISH BOOK
THE story of Arthur has led us a long way. We have almost
forgotten that it began with the old Cymric stories, the stories
of the people who lived in Britain before the coming of the
Romans. We have followed it before the coming of the Romans. We
have followed it down through many forms: Welsh, in the stories
of The Mabinogion; Latin, in the stories of Geoffrey of Monmouth;
French, in the stories of Wace and Map; Semi-Saxon, in the
stories of Layamon; Middle English, in the stories of Malory; and
at last English as we now speak it, in the stories of Tennyson.
Now we must go back and see why it is that our Literature is
English, and why it is that we speak English, and not Gaelic, or
Cymric, or Latin, or French. And then from its beginnings we
will follow our English Literature through the ages.
Since historical times the land we now call England has been
conquered three times, for we need hardly count the Danish
Invasion. It was conquered by the Romans, it was conquered by
the English, and it was conquered by the Normans. It was only
England that felt the full weight of these conquests. Scotland,
Ireland, and, in part, Wales were left almost untouched. And of
the three it was only the English conquest that had lasting
effects.
In 55 B.C. the Romans landed in Britain, and for nearly four
hundred years after that they kept coming and going. All South
Britain became a Roman province, and the people paid tribute or
taxes to the Roman Emperor. But they did not become Romans.
They still kept their own language, their own customs and
religions.
It will help you to understand the state of Britain in those old
days if you think of India to-day. India forms part of the
British Empire, but the people who live there are not British.
They are still Indians who speak their own languages, and have
their own customs and religions. The rulers only are British.
It was in much the same way that Britain was a Roman province.
And so our literature was never Latin. There was, indeed, a time
when nearly all our books were written in Latin. But that was
later, and not because Latin was the language of the people, but
because it was the language of the learned and of the monks, who
were the chief people who wrote books.
When, then, after nearly four hundred years the Romans went away,
the people of Britain were still British. But soon another
people came. These were the Anglo-Saxons, the English, who came
from over the sea. And little by little they took possession of
Britain. They drove the old dwellers out until it was only in
the north, in Wales and in Cornwall, that they were to be found.
Then Britain became Angleland or England, and the language was no
longer Celtic, but English. And although there are a few words
in our language which can be traced to the old Celtic, these are
very few. It is thus from Anglo-Saxon, and not from Gaelic or
Cymric, that the language we speak to-day comes.
Yet our Celtic forefathers have given something to our literature
which perhaps we could never have had from English alone. The
Celtic literature is full of wonder, it is full of a tender magic
and makes us feel the fairy charm of nature, although it has not
the strength, the downrightness, we might say, of the English.
It has been said that every poet has somewhere in him a Celtic
strain. That is, perhaps, too much to believe. But it is,
perhaps, the Celtic love of beauty, together with the Saxon love
of strength and right, to which we owe much of our great
literature. The Celtic languages are dying out, but they have
left us something which will last so long as our literature
lasts.
And now, having talked in the beginning of this book of the
stories which we owe to our Celtic forefathers, let us see what
the Saxons brought us from over the sea.
Almost the oldest Anglo-Saxon book that we have is called
Beowulf. Wise men tell us that, like the tales of Arthur, like
the tales of Ossian, this book was not at first the work of one
man, but that it has been gradually put together out of many
minstrel songs. That may be so, but what is sure is that these
tales are very old, and that they were sung and told for many
years in the old homes of the English across the sea before they
came to Britain and named it Angleland.
Yet, as with the old Gaelic and Cymric tales, we have no very old
copy of this tale. But unlike these old tales, we do not find
Beowulf told in different ways in different manuscripts. There
is only one copy of Beowulf, and that was probably written in the
tenth or eleventh century, long years after the English were
firmly settled in the land.
As Beowulf is one of our great book treasures, you may like to
hear something of its story.
Long ago, in the time when Queen Elizabeth, James I., and Charles
I. sat upon the throne, there lived a learned gentleman called
Sir Robert Bruce Cotton. He was an antiquary. That is, he loved
old things, and he gathered together old books, coins,
manuscripts and other articles, which are of interest because
they help to make us understand the history of bygone days.
Sir Robert Cotton loved books especially, and like many other
book lovers, he was greedy of them. It was said, indeed, that he
often found it hard to return books which had been lent to him,
and that, among others, he had books which really ought to have
belonged to the King.
Sir Robert's library soon became famous, and many scholars came
to read there, for Sir Robert was very kind in allowing other
people to use his books. But twice his library was taken from
him, because it was said that it contained things which were
dangerous for people to know, and that he allowed the enemies of
the King to use it. That was in the days of Charles I., and
those were troublous times.
The second time that his library was taken from him, Sir Robert
died, but it was given back to his son, and many years later his
great-great-grandson gave it to the nation.
In 1731 the house in which the library was took fire, and more
than a hundred books were burned, some being partly and some
quite destroyed. Among those that were partly destroyed was
Beowulf. But no one cared very much, for no one had read the
book or knew anything about it.
Where Sir Robert found Beowulf, or what he thought about it, we
shall never know. Very likely it had remained in some quiet
monastery library for hundreds of years until Henry VIII.
scattered the monks and their books. Many books were then lost,
but some were saved, and after many adventures found safe
resting-places. Among those was Beowulf.
Some years after the fire the Cotton Library, as it is now
called, was removed to the British Museum, where it now remains.
And there a Danish gentleman who was looking for books about his
own land found Beowulf, and made a copy of it. Its adventures,
however, were not over. Just when the printed copies were ready
to be published, the British bombarded Copenhagen. The house in
which the copies were was set on fire and they were all burned.
The Danish gentleman, however, was not daunted. He set to work
again, and at last Beowulf was published.
Even after it was published in Denmark, no Englishman thought of
making a translation of the book, and it was not until fifty
years more had come and gone that an English translation
appeared.
When the Danish gentleman made his copy of Beowulf, he found the
edges of the book so charred by fire that they broke away with
the slightest touch. No one thought of mending the leaves, and
as years went on they fell to pieces more and more. But at last
some one woke up to the fact that this half-burned book was a
great treasure. Then it was carefully mended, and thus kept from
wasting more.
So now, after all its adventures, having been found, we shall
never know where, by a gentleman in the days of Queen Elizabeth,
having lain on his bookshelves unknown and unread for a hundred
years and more, having been nearly destroyed by fire, having been
still further destroyed by neglect, Beowulf at last came to its
own, and is now carefully treasured in a glass case in the
British Museum, where any one who cared about it may go to look
at it.
And although it is perhaps not much to look at, it is a very
great treasure. For it is not only the oldest epic poem in the
Anglo-Saxon language, it is history too. By that I do not mean
that the story is all true, but that by reading it carefully we
can find out much about the daily lives of our forefathers in
their homes across the seas. And besides this, some of the
people mentioned in the poem are mentioned in history too, and it
is thought that Beowulf, the hero himself, really lived.
And now, having spoken about the book and its adventures, let us
in the next chapter speak about the story. As usual, I will give
part of it in the words of the original, translated, of course,
into modern English. You can always tell what is from the
original by the quotation marks, if by nothing else.
Chapter XI THE STORY OF BEOWULF
HROTHGAR, King of the Spear Danes, was a mighty man in war, and
when he had fought and conquered much, he bethought him that he
would build a great and splendid hall, wherein he might feast and
be glad with his people.
And so it was done. And when the hall was built, there night by
night the thanes gathered and rejoiced with their King; and
there, when the feast was over, they lay them down to sleep.
Within the hall all was gladness, but without on the lone
moorland there stalked a grim monster, named Grendel, whose dark
heart was filled with anger and hate. To him the sound of song
and laughter was deep pain, and he was fain to end it.
"He, the Grendel, set off then after night was come to seek the
lofty house, to see how the Ring Danes had ordered it after the
service of beer. He found them therein, a troup of nobles
sleeping after the feast. They knew not sorrow, the wretchedness
of men, they knew not aught of misfortune.
"The grim and greedy one was soon prepared, savage and fierce,
and in sleep he seized upon thirty of the thanes, and thence he
again departed exulting in his prey, to go home with the carcases
of the slain, to reach his own dwelling.
"Then was in the morning twilight, at the breaking of day,
Grendel's war-craft revealed to men. Then was lamentation
upraised after the feast, a great noise in the morning.
"The mighty prince, a noble of old goodness, sat unblithe; the
strong in armies suffered, the thanes endured sorrow, after they
beheld the track of the hated one, the accursed spirit."
But in spite of all their grief and horror, when night came the
thanes again lay down to rest in the great hall. And there again
the monster returned and slew yet more thanes, so that in horror
all forsook the hall, and for twelve long years none abode in it
after the setting of the sun.
And now far across the sea a brave man of the Goths, Beowulf by
name, heard of the doings of Grendel, and he made up his mind to
come to the aid of King Hrothgar.
"He commanded to make ready for him a good ship; quoth he, he
would seek the war-king over the swan's path; the renowned prince
since he had need of men.
"The good chieftain had chosen warriors of the Geatish people,
the bravest of those who he could find. With fifteen men he
sought the sea-wood. A warrior, a man crafty in lakes, pointed
out the boundaries of the land.
"The time passed on, the ship was on the waves, the boat beneath
a mountain, the ready warriors stept upon the prow. The men bore
into the bosom of the bark bright ornaments, their ready warlike
appointments.
"The men shoved forth the bounden wood, the men upon the journey
they desired.
"The likest to a bird the foam-necked ship, propelled by the
wind, started over the deep waves of the sea, till that about one
hour of the second day, the wreathed prowed ship had sailed over,
so that the traveller saw the land.
"Then quickly the people of the Westerns stepped upon the plain.
They tied the sea-wood, they let down their shirts of mail, their
war-weeds. They thanked God because that the waves had been easy
to them."
And now these new-come warriors were led to King Hrothgar. He
greeted them with joy, and after feasting and song the Danes and
their King departed and left the Goths to guard the hall.
Quietly they lay down to rest, knowing that ere morning stern
battle would be theirs.
"Then under veils of mist came Grendel from the moor; he bare
God's anger. The criminal meant to entrap some one of the race
of men in the high hall. He went under the welkin, until he saw
most clearly the wine hall, the treasure house of men, variegated
with vessels. That was not the first time that he had sought
Hrothgar's home. Never he, in all his life before or since found
bolder men keepers of the hall.
"Angry of mood he went, from his eyes, likest to fire, stood out
a hideous light. He saw within the house many a warrior
sleeping, a peaceful band together. Then his mood laughed. The
foul wretch meant to divide, ere day came, the life of each from
his body."
Quickly then he seized a warrior and as quickly devoured him.
But as he stretched forth his hand to seize another, Beowulf
gripped him in his awful grasp.
Then began a terrible combat. The hall echoed with cries and
sounds of clashing steel. The Goths awoke, joining in the fight,
but all their swords were of no avail against the ogre. With his
bare hands alone Beowulf fought, and thought to kill the monster.
But Grendel escaped, though wounded to death indeed, and leaving
his hand, arm, and shoulder behind in Beowulf's grip.
When morning came there was much rejoicing. Hrothgar made a
great feast, at which he gave rich gifts to Beowulf and his
friends. The evening passed in song and laughter, and when
darkness fell the Danes lay down to rest in the hall as of old.
But the evil was not over. Grendel indeed was slain, but his
mother, an ogre almost as fierce as he, was ready to avenge him.
So when night fell she hastened to the hall, and carried off
Hrothgar's best loved thane.
"Then was there a cry in Heorot. Then was the prudent king, the
hoary warrior, sad of mood, when he learned that his princely
thane, the dearest to him, no longer lived. Quickly was Beowulf
fetched to the bower, the man happy in victory, at break of day."
And when Beowulf heard the mournful tale he comforted the King
with brave and kindly words, and quickly he set forth to the
dreadful mere, the dwelling of the water-witch, Grendel's mother.
And here he plunged in ready to fight.
"Soon did she, who thirsting for gore, grim and greedy, for a
hundred years had held the circuit of the waves, discover that
some one of men, some strange being, was trying from above the
land. She grappled then towards him, she seized the warrior in
her foul claws."
Then beneath the waves was there a fierce struggle, but Beowulf
in the end conquered. The water-witch was slain, and rejoicing,
the hero returned to Hrothgar.
Now indeed had peace come to the Danes, and loaded with thanks
and rewards, Beowulf returned homeward.
Many years passed. Beowulf himself became king in his own land,
and for fifty years he ruled well, and kept his folk in peace.
Then it fell that a fearful Fire-Dragon wasted all the land, and
Beowulf, mindful of his deeds of old, set forth to slay him.
Yet ere he fought, he bade farewell to all his thanes, for he
knew well that this should be his last fight.
"Then greeted he every one of the men, the bold helm bearer
greeted his dear comrades for the last time. I would not bear
sword or weapon against the worm if I knew how else I might
proudly grapple with the wretch, as I of old with Grendel did.
But I ween this war fire is hot, fierce and poisonous; therefore
have I on me shield and byrnie. . . . Then did the famous warrior
arise beside his shield, hard under helmet he bare the sword-
shirt, under the cliffs of stone, he trusted in the strength of
one man; nor is such an expedition for a coward."
Fiercely then did the battle rage between hero and dragon. But
Beowulf's sword failed him in his need, and it was like to go ill
with him. Then, when his thanes who watched saw that, fear fell
upon them, and they fled. One only, Wiglaf was his name, would
not forsake his liege lord. Seizing his shield and drawing his
sword, he cried, "Come, let us go to him, let us help our
chieftain, although the grim terror of fire be hot."
But none would follow him, so alone he went: "through the fatal
smoke he bare his war helmet to the assistance of his lord."
Fierce was the fight and long. But at length the dragon lay
dead. Beowulf had conquered, but in conquering he had received
his death wound. And there, by the wild seashore, he died. And
there a sorrowing people buried him.
"For him, then did the people of the Geats prepare upon the earth
a funeral pile, strong, hung round with helmets, with war boards
and bright byrnies as he had requested. Weeping, the heroes laid
down in the midst their dear lord.
"Then began the warriors to awake upon the hill the mightiest of
bale-fires. The wood smoke rose aloft, dark from the foe of
wood. Noisily it went mingled with weeping. . . .
"The people of the Westerns wrought then a mound over the sea:
it was high and broad, easy to behold by the sailors over the
waves, and during ten days they built up the beacon of the war-
renowned, the mightiest of fires. . . . Then round the mound rode
a troupe of beasts of war, of nobles, twelve in all. They would
speak about their King, they would call him to mind. They
praised his valor, and his deeds of bravery they judged with
praise, even as it is fitting that a man should extol his
friendly lord, should love him in his soul, when he must depart
from the body to become of naught.
"Thus the people of the Geats, his hearth comrades, mourned their
dear lord. They said that he was of the kings of the world, the
mildest and gentlest of men, the most gracious to his people, and
the most jealous of glory."
BOOKS TO READ
Stories of Beowulf, by H. E. Marshall. Beowulf, translated by W.
Huyshe.
Chapter XII THE FATHER OF ENGLISH SONG
ALTHOUGH there are lines of Beowulf which seem to show that the
writer of the poem was a Christian, they must have been added by
some one who copied or retold the story long after the Saxons had
come to Britain, for the poet who first told the tale must have
been a heathen, as all the Saxons were.
The Britons were Christian, for they had learned the story of
Christ from the Romans. But when the Saxons conquered the land
they robbed and ruined the churches, the Christian priests were
slain or driven forth, and once more the land became heathen.
Then, after many years had passed, the story of Christ was again
brought to England. This time it came from Ireland. It was
brought from there by St. Columba, who built a church and founded
a monastery on the island of Iona. And from there his eager,
wandering priests carried the story far and wide, northward to
the fortress of the Pictish kings, and southward to the wild
Saxons who dwelt amid the hills and uplands of Northumbria.
To this story of love and gentleness the wild heathen listened in
wonder. To help the weak, to love and forgive their enemies, was
something unthought of by these fierce sea-rovers. Yet they
listened and believed. Once again churches were built, priests
came to live among the people, and the sound of Christian prayer
and praise rose night and morning from castle and from hut.
For thirty years and more St. Columba, the passionate and tender,
taught and labored. Many monasteries were founded which became,
as it were, the lighthouses of learning and religion. There the
monks and priests lived, and from them as centers they traveled
out in all directions teaching the heathen. And when at last St.
Columba closed his tired eyes and folded his weary hands, there
were many more to carry on his work.
Then, also, from Rome, as once before, the story of Christ was
brought. In 597, the year in which St. Columba died, St.
Augustine landed with his forty followers. They, too, in time
reached Northumbria; so, side by side, Roman and Celt spoke the
message of peace on earth, goodwill toward men.
The wild Saxon listened to this message, it is true. He took
Christianity for his religion, but it was rather as if he had put
on an outer dress. His new religion made little difference to
his life. He still loved fighting and war, and his songs were
still all of war. He worshiped Christ as he had worshiped Woden,
and looked upon Him as a hero, only a little more powerful than
the heroes of whom the minstrels sang. It was difficult to teach
the Saxons the Bible lessons which we know so well, for in those
far-off days there were no Bibles. There were indeed few books
of any kind, and these few belonged to the monks and priests.
They were in Latin, and in some of them parts of the Bible had
been translated into Latin. But hardly any of the men and women
of England could read or understand these books. Indeed, few
people could read at all, for it was still the listening time.
They learned the history of their country from the songs of the
minstrels, and it was in this way, too, that they came to learn
the Bible stories, for these stories were made into poetry. And
it was among the rugged hills of Northumbria, by the rocky shore
where the sounding waves beat and beat all day long, that the
first Christian songs in English were sung. For here it was that
Caedmon, the "Father of English Song," lived and died.
At Whitby there was a monastery ruled over by the Abbess Hilda.
This was a post of great importance, for, as you know, the
monasteries were the schools and libraries of the country, and
they were the inns too, so all the true life of the land ebbed
and flowed through the monasteries. Here priest and soldier,
student and minstrel, prince and beggar came and went. Here in
the great hall, when work was done and the evening meal over,
were gathered all the monks and their guests. Here, too, would
gather the simple folk of the countryside, the fishermen and
farmers, the lay brothers and helpers who shared the work of the
monastery. When the meal was done the minstrels sang, while
proud and humble alike listened eagerly. Or perhaps "it was
agreed for the sake of mirth that all present should sing in
their turn."
But when, at the monastery of Whitby, it was agreed that all
should sing in turn, there was one among the circle around the
fire who silently left his place and crept away, hanging his head
in shame.
This man was called Caedmon. He could not sing, and although he
loved to listen to the songs of others, "whenever he saw the harp
come near him," we are told, "he arose out of shame from the
feast and went home to his house." Away from the bright
firelight out into the lonely dark he crept with bent head and
lagging steps. Perhaps he would stand a moment outside the door
beneath the starlight and listen to the thunder of the waves and
the shriek of the winds. And as he felt in his heart all the
beauty and wonder of the world, the glory and the might of the
sea and sky, he would ask in dumb pain why, when he could feel it
touch his heart, he could not also sing of the beauty and wonder,
glory and might. [68]
One night Caedmon crept away as usual, and went "out of the house
where the entertainment was, to the stable, where he had to take
care of the horses that night. He there composed himself to
rest. A person appeared to him then in a dream and, calling him
by name, said, 'Caedmon, sing some song to me.'
"He answered, 'I cannot sing; for that was the reason why I left
the entertainment and retired to this place, because I cannot
sing.'
"The other who talked to him replied, 'However, you shall sing.'
"'What shall I sing?' rejoined he.
"'Sing the beginning of created things,' said the other.
"Whereupon he presently began to sing verses to the praise of
God, which he had never heard, the purport whereof was thus:--
'Now must we praise the guardian of heaven's kingdom,
The creator's might and his mind's thought;
Glorious father of men! as of every wonder he,
Lord eternal, formed the beginning.
He first framed for the children of earth
The heaven as a roof; holy Creator!
Then mid-earth, the Guardian of mankind,
The eternal Lord, afterwards produced;
The earth for men, Lord almighty.'
"This," says the old historian, who tells the story in Latin, "is
the sense, but not the words in order as he sang them in his
sleep. For verses, though never so well composed, cannot be
literally (that is word for word) translated out of one language
into another without losing much of their beauty and loftiness."*
*Bede, Ecclesiastical History.
Awakening from his sleep, Caedmon remembered all that he had sung
in his dream. And the dream did not fade away as most dreams do.
For he found that not only could he sing these verses, but he who
had before been dumb and ashamed when the harp was put into his
hand, could now make and sing more beautifully than could others.
And all that he sang was to God's glory.
In the morning, full of his wonderful new gift, Caedmon went to
the steward who was set over him, and told him of the vision that
he had had during the night. And the steward, greatly marveling,
led Caedmon to the Abbess.
The Abbess listened to the strange tale. Then she commanded
Caedmon, "in the presence of many learned men, to tell his dream
and repeat the verses that they might all give their judgment
what it was and whence his verse came."
So the simple farm laborer, who had no learning of any kind, sang
while the learned and grave men listened. And he who was wont to
creep away in dumb shame, fearing the laughter of his fellows,
sang now with such beauty and sweetness that they were all of one
mind, saying that the Lord Himself had, of His heavenly grace,
given to Caedmon this new power.
Then these learned men repeated to Caedmon some part of the
Bible, explained the meaning of it, and asked him to tell it
again in poetry. This Caedmon undertook to do, and when he fully
understood the words, he went away. Next morning he returned and
repeated all that he had been told, but now it was in beautiful
poetry.
Then the Abbess saw that, indeed, the grace of God had come upon
the man. She made him at once give up the life of a servant
which he had been leading, and bade him become a monk. Caedmon
gladly did her bidding, and when he had been received among them,
his brother monks taught to him all the Bible stories.
But Caedmon could neither read nor write, nor is it at all likely
that he ever learned to do either even after he became a monk,
for we are told that "he was well advanced in years" before his
great gift of song came to him. It is quite certain that he
could not read Latin, so that all that he put into verse had to
be taught to him by some more learned brother. And some one,
too, must have written down the verses which Caedmon sang.
We can imagine the pious, humble monk listening while another
read and translated to him out of some Latin missal. He would
sit with clasped hands and earnest eyes, intent on understanding.
Then, when he had filled his mind with the sacred story, he would
go away by himself and weave it into song. Perhaps he would walk
about beneath the glowing stars or by the sounding sea, and thank
God that he was no longer dumb, and that at last he could say
forth all that before had been shut within his heart in an agony
of silence. "And," we are told, "his songs and his verse were so
winsome to hear, that his teachers themselves wrote and learned
from his mouth."
"Thus Caedmon, keeping in mind all he heard, and, as it were,
chewing the cud, converted the same into most harmonious verse;
and sweetly repeating the same, made his masters in their turn
his hearers.
"He sang the creation of the world, the origin of man, and all
the history of Genesis; and made many verses on the departure of
the children of Israel out of Egypt, and their entering into the
land of promise, with many other histories from holy writ."
As has been said, there are lines in Beowulf which seem to have
been written by a Christian. But all that is Christian in it is
merely of the outside; it could easily be taken away, and the
poem would remain perfect. The whole feeling of the poem is not
Christian, but pagan. So it would seem that what is Christian in
it has been added long after the poem was first made, yet added
before the people had forgotten their pagan ways.
For very long after they became Christian the Saxons kept their
old pagan ways of thought, and Caedmon, when he came to sing of
holy things, sang as a minstrel might. To him Abraham and Moses,
and all the holy men of old, were like the warrior chieftains
whom he knew and of whom the minstrels sang. And God to him was
but the greatest of these warriors. He is "Heaven's Chief," "the
Great Prince." The clash and clang of sword and trumpet calls
are heard "amid the grim clash of helms." War filled the
greatest half of life. All history, all poetry were bound up in
it. Caedmon sang of what he saw, of what he knew. He was
Christian, he had learned the lesson of peace on earth, but he
lived amid the clash of arms and sang them.
Chapter XIII HOW CAEDMON SANG, AND HOW HE FELL ONCE MORE ON SILENCE
ONE of Caedmon's poems is call The Genesis. In this the poet
begins by telling of how Satan, in his pride, rebelled against
God, and of how he was cast forth from heaven with all those who
had joined with him in rebelling.
This story of the war in heaven and of the angels' fall is not in
the Bible. It is not to be found either in any of the Latin
books which the monks of Whitby may have had. The story did not
come from Rome, but from the East. How, then, did Caedmon hear
it?
Whitby, we must remember, was founded by Celtic, and not by Roman
monks. It was founded by monks who came from Ireland to Iona,
and from thence to Northumbria. To them the teaching of Christ
had come from Jerusalem and the East rather than from Rome. So
here again, perhaps, we can see the effect of the Celts on our
literature. It was from Celtic monks that Caedmon heard the
story of the war in heaven.
After telling of this war, Caedmon goes on to relate how the
wicked angels "into darkness urged them their darksome way."
"They might not loudly laugh,
But they in hell-torments,
Dwelt accursed.
And woe they knew
Pain and sorrow,
Torment endured
With darkness decked,
Hard retribution,
For that they had devised
Against God to war."
Then after all the fierce clash of battle come a few lines which
seem like peace after war, quiet after storm.
"Then was after as before
Peace in heaven,
Fair-loving thanes,
The Lord dear to all."
Then God grieved at the empty spaces in heaven from whence the
wicked angels had been driven forth. And that they might at last
be filled again, he made the world and placed a man and woman
there. This to the chief of the fallen angels was grief and
pain, and his heart boiled within him in anger.
"Heaven is lost to us," he cried; "but now that we may not have
it, let us so act that it shall be lost to them also. Let us
make them disobey God,
"Then with them will he be wroth of mind,
Will cast them from his favor,
Then shall they seek this hell
And these grim depths,
Then may we have them to ourselves as vassals,
The children of men in this fast durance."
Then Satan asks who will help him to tempt mankind to do wrong.
"If to any followers I princely treasure gave of old while we in
that good realm happy sate," let him my gift repay, let him now
aid me.
So one of Satan's followers made himself ready. "On his head the
chief his helmet set," and he, "wheeled up from thence, departed
through the doors of hell lionlike in air, in hostile mood,
dashed the fire aside, with a fiend's power."
Caedmon next tells how the fiend tempted first the man and then
the woman with guileful lies to eat of the fruit which had been
forbidden to them, and how Eve yielded to him. And having eaten
of the forbidden fruit, Eve urged Adam too to eat, for it seemed
to her that a fair new life was open to her. "I see God's
angels," she said,
"Encompass him
With feathery wings
Of all folk greatest,
Of bands most joyous.
I can hear from far
And so widely see,
Through the whole world,
Over the broad creation.
I can the joy of the firmament
Hear in heaven.
It became light to me in mind
From without and within
After the fruit I tasted."
And thus, urged by Eve, Adam too ate of the forbidden fruit, and
the man and woman were driven out of the Happy Garden, and the
curse fell upon them because of their disobedience.
So they went forth "into a narrower life." Yet there was left to
them "the roof adorned with holy stars, and earth to them her
ample riches gave."
In many places this poem is only a paraphrase of the Bible. A
paraphrase means the same thing said in other words. But in
other places the poet seems to forget his model and sings out of
his own heart. Then his song is best. Perhaps some of the most
beautiful lines are those which tell of the dove that Noah sent
forth from the ark.
"Then after seven nights
He from the ark let forth
A palid dove
To fly after the swart raven,
Over the deep water,
To quest whether the foaming sea
Had of the green earth
Yet any part laid bare.
Wide she flew seeking her own will,
Far she flew yet found no rest.
Because of the flood
With her feet she might not perch on land,
Nor on the tree leaves light.
For the steep mountain tops
Were whelmed in waters.
Then the wild bird went
At eventide the ark to seek.
Over the darling wave she flew
Weary, to sink hungry
To the hands of the holy man."
A second time the dove is sent forth, and this is how the poet
tells of it:--
"Far and wide she flew
Glad in flying free, till she found a place
On a gentle tree. Gay of mood she was and glad
Since she sorely tired, now could settle down,
On the branches of the tree, on its beamy mast.
Then she fluttered feathers, went a flying off again,
With her booty flew, brought it to the sailor,
From an olive tree a twig, right into his hands
Brought the blade of green.
"Then the chief of seamen knew that gladness was at hand, and he
sent forth after three weeks the wild dove who came not back
again; for she saw the land of the greening trees. The happy
creature, all rejoicing, would no longer of the ark, for she
needed it no more."*
*Stopford Brooke
Besides Genesis many other poems were thought at one time to have
been made by Caedmon. The chief of these are Exodus and Daniel.
They are all in an old book, called the Junian MS., from the name
of the man, Francis Dujon, who first published them. The MS. was
found among some other old books in Trinity College, Dublin, and
given to Francis Dujon. He published the poems in 1655, and it
is from that time that we date our knowledge of Caedmon.
Wise men tell us that Caedmon could not have made any of these
poems, not even the Genesis of which you have been reading. But
if Caedmon did not make these very poems, he made others like
them which have been lost. It was he who first showed the way,
and other poets followed.
We need not wonder, perhaps, that our poetry is a splendor of the
world when we remember that it is rooted in these grand old
tales, and that it awoke to life through the singing of a strong
son of the soil, a herdsman and a poet. We know very little of
this first of English poets, but what we do know makes us love
him. He must have been a gentle, humble, kindly man, tender of
heart and pure of mind. Of his birth we know nothing; of his
life little except the story which has been told. And when death
came to him, he met it cheerfully as he had lived.
For some days he had been ill, but able still to walk and talk.
But one night, feeling that the end of life for him was near, he
asked the brothers to give to him for the last time the
Eucharist, or sacrament of the Lord's Supper.
"They answered, 'What need of the Eucharist? for you are not
likely to die, since you talk so merrily with us, as if you were
in perfect health.'
"'However,' said he, 'bring me the Eucharist.'
"Having received the same into his hand, he asked whether they
were all in charity with him, and without any enmity or rancour.
"They answered that they were all in perfect charity and free
from anger; and in their turn asked him whether he was in the
same mind towards them.
"He answered, 'I am in charity, my children, with all the
servants of God.'
"Then, strengthening himself with the heavenly viaticum,* he
prepared for the entrance into another life, and asked how near
the time was when the brothers were to be awakened to sing the
nocturnal praises of our Lord.
*The Eucharist given to the dying.
"They answered, 'It is not far off.'
"Then he said, 'Well, let us wait that hour.' And signing
himself with the sign of the cross, he laid his head on the
pillow, and falling into a slumber ended his life so in silence."
Thus his life, which had been begun in silence, ended also in
silence, with just a few singing years between.
"Thus it came to pass, that as he had served God with a simple
and pure mind, and undisturbed devotion, so he now departed to
His presence, leaving the world by a quiet death. And that
tongue which had composed so many holy words in praise of the
Creator, uttered its last words while he was in the act of
signing himself with a cross, and recommending himself into His
hands."*
*Bede, Ecclesiastical History
At Whitby still the ruins of a monastery stand. It is not the
monastery over which the Abbess Hilda ruled or in which Caedmon
sang, for in the ninth century that was plundered and destroyed
by the fierce hordes of Danes who swept our shores. But in the
twelfth century the house was rebuilt, and parts of that building
are still to be seen.
Chapter XIV THE FATHER OF ENGLISH HISTORY
WHILE Caedmon was still singing at Whitby, in another
Northumbrian village named Jarrow a boy was born. This boy we
know as Bede, and when he was seven years old his friends gave
him into the keeping of the Abbot of Wearmouth. Under this Abbot
there were two monasteries, the one at Jarrow and the other at
Wearmouth, a few miles distant. And in these two monasteries
Bede spent all the rest of his life.
When Bede was eight years old Caedmon died. And although the
little boy had never met the great, but humble poet, he must have
heard of him, and it is from Bede's history that we learn all
that we know of Caedmon.
There is almost as little to tell of Bede's life as of Caedmon's.
He passed it peacefully, reading, writing, and teaching within
the walls of his beloved monastery. But without the walls wars
often raged, for England was at this time still divided into
several kingdoms, whose kings often fought against each other.
Bede loved to learn even when he was a boy. We know this, for
long afterward another learned man told his pupils to take Bede
for an example, and not spend their time "digging out foxes and
coursing hares."* And when he became a man he was one of the
most learned of his time, and wrote books on nearly every subject
that was then thought worth writing about.
*C. Plummer.
Once, when Bede was still a boy, a fearful plague swept the land,
"killing and destroying a great multitude of men." In the
monastery of Jarrow all who could read, or preach, or sing were
killed by it. Only the Abbot himself and a little lad were left.
The Abbot loved services and the praises of the church. His
heart was heavy with grief and mourning for the loss of his
friends; it was heavy, too, with the thought that the services of
his church could no longer be made beautiful with song.
For a few days the Abbot read the services all alone, but at the
end of a week he could no longer bear the lack of singing, so
calling the little lad he bade him to help him and to chant the
responses.
The story calls up to us a strange picture. There stands the
great monastery, all its rooms empty. Along its stone-flagged
passages the footsteps of the man and boy echo strangely. They
reach the chapel vast and dim, and there, before the great altar
with its gleaming lights, the Abbot in his robes chants the
services, but where the voices of choir and people were wont to
join, there sounds only the clear high voice of one little boy.
That little boy was Bede.
And thus night and morning the sound of prayer and praise rose
from the deserted chapel until the force of the plague had spent
itself, and it was once more possible to find men to take the
places of those singers who had died.
So the years passed on until, when Bede was thirty years of age,
he became a priest. He might have been made an abbot had he
wished. But he refused to be taken away from his beloved books.
"The office," he said, "demands household care, and household
care brings with it distraction of mind, hindering the pursuit of
learning."*
*H. Morley, English Writers.
Bede wrote many books, but it is by his Ecclesiastical History
(that is Church history) that we remember him best. As Caedmon
is called the Father of English Poetry, Bede is called the Father
of English History. But it is well to remember that Caedmon
wrote in Anglo-Saxon and Bede in Latin.
There were others who wrote history before Bede, but he was
perhaps the first who wrote history in the right spirit. He did
not write in order to make a good minstrel's tale. He tried to
tell the truth. He was careful as to where he got his facts, and
careful how he used them. So those who came after him could
trust him. Bede's History, you remember, was one of the books
which Layamon used when he wrote his Brut, and in it we find many
of the stories of early British history which have grown familiar
to us.
It is in this book that we find the story of how Gregory saw the
pretty children in the Roman slave market, and of how, for love
of their fair faces, he sent Augustine to teach the heathen
Saxons about Christ. There are, too, many stories in it of how
the Saxons became Christian. One of the most interesting,
perhaps, is about Edwin, King of Northumbria. Edwin had married
a Christian princess, Ethelberga, sister of Eadbald, King of
Kent. Eadbald was, at first, unwilling that his sister should
marry a pagan king. But Edwin promised that he would not try to
turn her from her religion, and that she and all who came with
her should be allowed to worship what god they chose.
So the Princess Ethelberga came to be Queen of Northumbria, and
with her she brought Paulinus, "a man beloved of God," as priest.
He came to help her to keep faithful among a heathen people, and
in the hope, too, that he might be able to turn the pagan king
and his folk to the true faith.
And in this hope he was not disappointed. By degrees King Edwin
began to think much about the Christian faith. He gave up
worshipping idols, and although he did not at once become
Christian, "he often sat alone with silent lips, while in his
inmost heart he argued much with himself, considering what was
best to do and what religion he should hold to." At last the
King decided to call a council of his wise men, and to ask each
one what he thought of this new teaching. And when they were all
gathered Coifi, the chief priest, spoke.
"'O King,' he said, 'consider what this is which is now preached
to us; for I verily declare to you, that the religion which we
have hitherto professed has, as far as I can learn, no virtue in
it. For none of your people has applied himself more diligently
to the worship of our gods than I. And yet there are many who
receive greater favors from you, and are more preferred than I,
and are more prosperous in their undertakings. Now if the gods
were good for anything, they would rather forward me, who have
been more careful to serve them. It remains, therefore, that if
upon examination you find those new doctrines, which are now
preached to us, better and more efficacious, we immediately
receive them without delay.'
"Another of the King's chief men, approving of his words and
exhortations, presently added: 'The present life of man, O King,
seems to me, in comparison of that time which is unknown to us,
like to the swift flight of a sparrow through the room wherein
you sit at supper in winter, with your commanders and ministers,
and a good fire in the midst, while the storms of rain and snow
prevail abroad. The sparrow, I say, flying in at one door and
immediately out at another, whilst he is within is safe from the
wintry storm; but after a short space of fair weather, he
immediately vanishes out of your sight into the dark winter from
whence he had emerged. So this life of man appears for a short
space, but of what went before, or what is to follow, we are
utterly ignorant. If, therefore, this new doctrine contains
something more certain, it seems justly to deserve to be
followed.'"
Others of the King's wise men and counselors spoke, and they all
spoke to the same end. Coifi then said that he would hear yet
more of what Paulinus had to tell. So Paulinus rose from his
place and told the people more of the story of Christ. And after
listening attentively for some time Coifi again cried out, "'I
advise, O King, that we instantly abjure and set fire to those
temples and altars which we have consecrated without reaping any
benefit from them.'
"In short, the King publicly gave his license to Paulinus to
preach the Gospel, and renouncing idolatry, declared that he
received the faith of Christ. And when he inquired of the high
priest who should first profane the altars and temples of their
idols with the enclosures that were about them, Coifi answered,
'I; for who can more properly than myself destroy those things
which I worshiped through ignorance, for an example to all others
through the wisdom which has been given me by the true God?'
"Then immediately, in contempt of his former superstitions, he
desired the King to furnish him with arms and a stallion. And
mounting the same he set out to destroy the idols. For it was
not lawful before for the high priest either to carry arms or to
ride upon any but a mare.
"Having, therefore, girt a sword about him, with a spear in his
hand, he mounted the King's stallion and proceeded to the idols.
The multitude, beholding it, concluded he was distracted. But he
lost no time, for as soon as he drew near the temple he profaned
the same, casting into it the spear which he held. And rejoicing
in the knowledge of the worship of the true God, he commanded his
companions to destroy the temple, with all its enclosures, by
fire."*
*Dr. Giles's translation of Ecclesiastical History.
One of the reasons why I have chosen this story out of Bede's
History is because it contains the picture of the sparrow
flitting through the firelit room. Out of the dark and cold it
comes into the light and warmth for a moment, and then vanishes
into the dark and cold once more.
The Saxon who more than thirteen hundred years ago made that
word-picture was a poet. He did not know it, perhaps, he was
only speaking of what he had often seen, telling in simple words
of something that happened almost every day, and yet he has given
us a picture which we cannot forget, and has made our literature
by so much the richer. He has told us of something, too, which
helps us to realize the rough life our forefathers lived. Even
in the king's palace the windows were without glass, the doors
stood open to let out the smoke from "the good fire in the
midst," for there were no chimneys, or at best but a hole in the
roof to serve as one. The doors stood open, even though "the
storms of snow and rain prevailed abroad," and in spite of the
good fire, it must have been comfortless enough. Yet many a
stray bird might well be drawn thither by the light and warmth.
Bede lived a peaceful, busy life, and when he came to die his end
was peaceful too, and his work ceased only with his death. One
of his pupils, writing to a friend, tells of these last hours.*
*Extracts are from a letter of Cuthbert, afterwards Abbot of
Wearmouth and Jarrow, to his friend Cuthwin.
For some weeks in the bright springtime of 735 Bede had been ill,
yet "cheerful and rejoicing, giving thanks to almighty God every
day and night, yea every hour." Daily, too, he continued to give
lessons to his pupils, and the rest of the time he spent in
singing psalms. "I can with truth declare that I never saw with
my eyes, or heard with my ears, any one return thanks so
unceasingly to the living God," says the letter. "During these
days he labored to compose two works well worthy to be remembered
besides the lessons we had from him, and singing of psalms: that
is, he translated the Gospel of St. John as far as the words,
'But what are these among so many,' into our own tongue for the
benefit of the church, and some collections out of the Book of
Notes of Bishop Isidor.
"When the Tuesday before the Ascension of our Lord came, he began
to suffer still more in his health. But he passed all that day
and dictated cheerfully, and now and then among other things
said, 'Go on quickly, I know not how long I shall hold out, and
whether my maker will not soon take me away.'
"But to us he seemed very well to know the time of his departure.
And so he spent the night awake in thanksgiving. And when the
morning appeared, that is Wednesday, he ordered us to write with
all speed what he had begun. . . .
"There was one of us with him who said to him, 'Most dear Master,
there is still one chapter wanting. Do you think it troublesome
to be asked any more questions?'
"He answered, 'It is no trouble. Take your pen and make ready
and write fast. . . .'
"Then the same boy said once more, 'Dear Master, there is yet one
sentence not written.'
"And he said, 'Well, then write it.'
"And after a little space the boy said, 'Now it is finished.'
"And he answered, 'Well, thou hast spoken truth, it is finished.
Receive my head into your hands, for it is a great satisfaction
to me to sit facing my holy place, where I was wont to pray, that
I may also, sitting, call upon my Father.'"
And sitting upon the pavement of his little cell, he sang, "Glory
be to the Father and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost." "When
he had named the Holy Ghost he breathed his last, and departed to
the heavenly kingdom."
So died Bede, surnamed the Venerable.
We have come to think of Venerable as meaning very old. But Bede
was only sixty-two when he died, and Venerable here means rather
"Greatly to be honored."
There are two or three stories about how Bede came to be given
his surname. One tells how a young monk was set to write some
lines of poetry to be put upon the tomb where his master was
buried. He tried hard, but the verse would not come right. He
could not get the proper number of syllables in his lines.
"In this grave lie the bones of
Bede,"
he wrote. But he could not find an adjective that would make the
line the right length, try how he might. At last, wearied out,
he fell asleep over his task.
Then, as he slept, an angel bent down, and taking the pen from
the monk's tired fingers, wrote the words, "the Venerable," so
that the line ran, "In this grave lie the bones of the Venerable
Bede." And thus, for all time, our first great historian is
known as The Venerable Bede.
BOOK TO READ
The Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation, by Bede,
translated by Dr. Giles.
Chapter XV HOW ALFRED THE GREAT FOUGHT WITH HIS PEN
WHILE Caedmon sang his English lays and Bede wrote his Latin
books, Northumbria had grown into a center, not only of English
learning, but of learning for western Europe. The abbots of
Jarrow and Wearmouth made journeys to Rome and brought back with
them precious MSS. for the monastery libraries. Scholars from
all parts of Europe came to visit the Northumbrian monasteries,
or sent thither for teachers.
But before many years had passed all that was changed. Times of
war and trouble were not yet over for England. Once again
heathen hordes fell upon our shores. The Danes, fierce and
lawless, carrying sword and firebrand wherever they passed,
leaving death and ruin in their track, surged over the land. The
monasteries were ruined, the scholars were scattered. A life of
peaceful study was no longer possible, the learning of two
hundred years was swept away, the lamp of knowledge lit by the
monks grew dim and flickered out.
But when sixty years or more had passed, a king arose who crushed
the Danish power, and who once more lit that lamp. This king was
Alfred the Great.
History tells us how he fought the Danes, how he despaired, and
how he took heart again, and how he at last conquered his enemies
and brought peace to his people.
Alfred was great in war. He was no less great in peace. As he
fought the Danes with the sword, so he fought ignorance with his
pen. He loved books, and he longed to bring back to England
something of the learning which had been lost. Nor did he want
to keep learning for a few only. He wanted all his people to get
the good of it. And so, as most good books were written in
Latin, which only a few could read, he began to translate some of
them into English.
In the beginning of one of them Alfred says, "There are only a
few on this side of the Humber who can understand the Divine
Service, or even explain a Latin epistle in English, and I
believe not many on the other side of the Humber either. But
they are so few that indeed I cannot remember one south of the
Thames when I began to reign."
By "this side of the Humber" Alfred means the south side, for now
the center of learning was no longer Northumbria, but Wessex.
Alfred translated many books. He translated books of geography,
history and religion, and it is from Alfred that our English
prose dates, just as English poetry dates from Caedmon. For you
must remember that although we call Bede the Father of English
History, he wrote in Latin for the most part, and what he wrote
in English has been lost.
Besides writing himself, Alfred encouraged his people to write.
He also caused a national Chronicle to be written.
A chronicle is the simplest form of history. The old chronicles
did not weave their history into stories, they simply put down a
date and something that happened on that date. They gave no
reasons for things, they expressed no feelings, no thoughts. So
the chronicles can hardly be called literature. They were not
meant to be looked upon as literature. The writers of them used
them rather as keys to memory. They kept all the stories in
their memories, and the sight of the name of a king or of a
battle was enough to unlock their store of words. And as they
told their tales, if they forgot a part they made something up,
just as the minstrels did.
Alfred caused the Chronicle to be written up from such books and
records as he had from the coming of the Romans until the time in
which he himself reigned. And from then onwards to the time of
the death of King Stephen the Saxon Chronicle was kept. It is
now one of the most useful books from which we can learn the
history of those times.
Sometimes, especially at the beginning, the record is very scant.
As a rule, there is not more than one short sentence for a year,
sometimes not even that, but merely a date. It is like this:--
"Year 189. In this year Severus succeeded to the empire and
reigned seventeen winters. He begirt Britain with a dike from
sea to sea.
"Year 190.
"Year 199.
"Year 200. In this year was found the Holy Rood."
And so on it goes, and every now and again, among entries which
seem to us of little or no importance, we learn something that
throws great light on our past history. And when we come to the
time of Alfred's reign the entries are much more full. From the
Chronicle we learn a great deal about his wars with the Danes,
and of how he fought them both by land and by sea.
The Saxon Chronicle, as it extended over many hundred years, was
of course written by many different people, and so parts of it
are written much better than other parts. Sometimes we find a
writer who does more than merely set down facts, who seems to
have a feeling for how he tells his story, and who tries to make
the thing he writes about living. Sometimes a writer even breaks
into song.
Besides causing the Chronicle to be written, Alfred translated
Bede's History into English. And so that all might learn the
history of their land, he rebuilt the ruined monasteries and
opened schools in them once more. There he ordered that "Every
free-born youth in the Kingdom, who has the means, shall attend
to his book, so long as he have no other business, till he can
read English perfectly."*
*Preface to Boethius' Pastoral Care, translated into English by
Alfred.
Alfred died after having reigned for nearly thirty years. Much
that he had done seemed to die with him, for once again the Danes
descended upon our coasts. Once again they conquered, and Canute
the Dane became King of England. But the English spirit was
strong, and the Danish invasion has left scarcely a trace upon
our language. Nor did the Danish power last long, for in 1042 we
had in Edward the Confessor an English king once more. But he
was English only in name. In truth he was more than half French,
and under him French forces began already to work on our
literature. A few years later that French force became
overwhelming, for in 1066 William of Normandy came to our shores,
and with his coming it seemed for a time as if the life of
English literature was to be crushed out forever. Only by the
Chronicle were both prose and poetry kept alive in the English
tongue. And it is to Alfred the Great that we owe this slender
thread which binds our English literature of to-day with the
literature of a thousand years ago.
Chapter XVI WHEN ENGLISH SLEPT
"William came o'er the sea,
With bloody sword came he.
Cold heart and bloody sword hand
Now rule the English land."
The Heimskringla
WILLIAM THE NORMAN ruled England. Norman knights and nobles
filled all the posts of honor at court, all the great places in
the land. Norman bishops and abbots ruled in church and
monastery. The Norman tongue was alone the speech in court and
hall, Latin alone was the speech of the learned. Only among the
lowly, the unlearned, and the poor was English heard.
It seemed as if the English tongue was doomed to vanish before
the conquering Norman, even as the ancient British tongue had
vanished before the conquering English. And, in truth, for two
hundred years it might have been thought that English prose was
dead, "put to sleep by the sword." But it was not so. It slept,
indeed, but to awake again. For England conquered the conqueror.
And when English Literature awoke once more, it was the richer
through the gifts which the Norman had brought.
One thing the Normans had brought was a liking for history, and
soon there sprang up a whole race of chroniclers. They, like
Bede, were monks and priests. They lived in monasteries, and
wrote in Latin. One after another they wrote, and when one laid
down his pen, another took it up. Some of these chroniclers were
mere painstaking men who noted facts and dates with care. But
others were true writers of literature, who told their tales in
vivid, stirring words, so that they make these times live again
for us. The names of some of the best of these chroniclers are
Eadmer, Orderic Vitalis, and William of Malmesbury.
By degrees these Norman and Anglo-Norman monks became filled with
the spirit of England. They wrote of England as of their home,
they were proud to call themselves English, and they began to
desire that England should stand high among the nations. It is,
you remember, from one of these chroniclers, Geoffrey of Monmout
(see chapter vi.), that we date the reawakening of story-telling
in England.
As a writer of history Geoffrey is bad. Another chronicler* says
of him, "Therefore as in all things we trust Bede, whose wisdom
and truth are not to be doubted: so that fabler with his fables
shall be forthwith spat out by us all."
*William of Newbury.
But if Geoffrey was a bad writer of history, he was good as "a
fabler," and, as we have seen in chapter vii., it was to his book
that we owe the first long poem written in English after the
Conquest.
The Norman came with sword in hand, bringing in his train the
Latin-writing chroniclers. But he did not bring these alone. He
brought minstrels also. Besides the quiet monks who sat in their
little cells, or in the pleasant cloisters, writing the history
of the times, there were the light-hearted minstrels who roamed
the land with harp and song.
The man who struck the first blow at Hastings was a minstrel who,
as he rode against the English, sang. And the song he sang was
of Roland, the great champion of Charlemagne. The Roland story
is to France what the Arthur story is to us. And it shows,
perhaps, the strength of English patriotic spirit that that story
never took hold of English minds. Some few tales there are told
of Roland in English, but they are few indeed, in comparison with
the many that are told of Arthur.
The Norman, however, who did not readily invent new tales, was
very good at taking and making his own the tales of others. So,
even as he conquered England by the sword, he conquered our
literature too. For the stories of Arthur were told in French
before they came back to us in English. It was the same with
other tales, and many of our old stories have come down to us,
not through their English originals, but through the French. For
the years after the Conquest are the poorest in English
Literature.
From the Conquest until Layamon wrote his Brut, there was no
English literature worthy of the name. Had we not already spoken
of Layamon out of true order in following the story of Arthur, it
is here that we should speak of him and of his book, The Brut.
So, perhaps, it would be well to go back and read chapter vii.,
and then we must go on to the Metrical Romances.
The three hundred years from 1200 to 1500 were the years of the
Metrical Romances. Metrical means written in verse. Romance
meant at first the languages made from the Latin tongue, such as
French or Spanish. After a time the word Romance was used to
mean a story told in any Romance language. But now we use it to
mean any story of strange and wonderful adventures, especially
when the most thrilling adventures happen to the hero and
heroine.
The Norman minstrels, then, took English tales and made them into
romances. But when the English began once more to write, they
turned these romances back again into English. We still call
them romances, although they are now written in English.
Some of these tales came to us, no doubt, from the Danes. They
were brought from over the sea by the fierce Northmen, who were,
after all, akin to the Normans. The Normans made them into
French stories, and the English turned them back into English.
Perhaps one of the most interesting of these Metrical Romances is
that of Havelok the Dane.
The poem begins with a few lines which seem meant to call the
people together to listen:--
"Hearken to me, good men,
Wives, maidens, and all men,
To a tale that I will tell to
Who so will hear and list thereto."
We can imagine the minstrel as he stands in some market-place, or
in some firelit hall, touching his harp lightly as he sings the
words. With a quick movement he throws back his long green
cloak, and shows his gay dress beneath. Upon his head he wears a
jaunty cap, and his hair is long and curled. He sings the
opening lines perhaps more than once, in order to gather the
people round him. Then, when the eager crowd sit or stand about
him, he begins his lay. It is most probably in a market-place
that the minstrel stands and sings. For Havelok the Dane was
written for the people and not for the great folk, who still
spoke only French.
"There was a king in byegone days
That in his time wrought good laws,
He did them make and full well hold,
Him loved young, him loved old,
Earl and baron, strong man and thane,
Knight, bondman and swain,
Widows, maidens, priests and clerks
And all for his good works."
If you will compare this poetry with that of Layamon, you will
see that there is something in it quite different from his. This
no longer rests, as that does, upon accent and alliteration, but
upon rhyme. The English, too, in which it is written, is much
more like the English of to-day. For Havelok was written perhaps
a hundred years after Layamon's Brut. These are the first lines
as they are in the MS.:--
"Herknet to me gode men
Wiues maydnes and alle men
Of a tale pat ich you wile telle
Wo so it wile here and yerto dwelle."
That, you see, except for curious spelling, is not very unlike
our English of to-day, although it is fair to tell you that all
the lines are not so easy to understand as these are.
Chapter XVII THE STORY OF HAVELOK THE DANE
THE good king of whom we read in the last chapter was called
Athelwold, and the poet tells us that there were happy days in
England while he reigned. But at length he became sick unto
death. Then was he sore grieved, because he had no child to sit
upon the throne after him save a maiden very fair. But so young
was she that she could neither "go on foot nor speak with mouth."
So, in this grief and trouble, the King wrote to all his nobles,
"from Roxburgh all unto Dover," bidding them come to him.
And all who had the writings came to the King, where he lay at
Winchester. Then, when they were all come, Athelwold prayed them
to be faithful to the young Princess, and to choose one of
themselves to guard her until she was of age to rule.
So Godrich, Earl of Cornwall, was chosen to guard the Princess.
For he was a true man, wise in council, wise in deed, and he
swore to protect his lady until she was of such age as no longer
to have need of him. Then he would wed her, he swore, to the
best man in all the land.
So, happy in thought that his daughter should reign after him in
peace, the King died, and there was great sorrow and mourning
throughout the land. But the people remained at peace, for the
Earl ruled well and wisely.
"From Dover to Roxburgh
All England of him stood in awe,
All England was of him adread."
Meanwhile the Princess Goldboru grew daily more and more fair.
And when Earl Godrich saw how fair and noble she became, he
sighed and asked himself:--
"Whether she should be
Queen and lady over me.
Whether she should all England,
And me, and mine, have in her hand.
Nay, he said,
'I have a son, a full fair knave,
He shall England all have,
He shall be king, he shall be sire.'"
Then, full of his evil purpose, Godrich thought no more of his
oath to the dead king, but cast Goldboru into a darksome prison,
where she was poorly clad and ill-fed.
Now it befell that at this time there was a right good king in
Denmark. He had a son named Havelok and two fair daughters. And
feeling death come upon him, he left his children in the care of
his dear friend Godard, and so died.
But no sooner was the King in his grave than the false Godard
took Havelok and his two sisters and thrust them into a dungeon.
"And in the castle did he them do
Where no man might come them to,
Of their kin. There they prison'd were,
There they wept oft sort,
Both for hunger and for cold,
Ere they were three winters old.
Scantily he gave them clothes,
And cared not a nut for his oaths,
He them nor clothed right, nor fed,
Nor them richly gave to bed.
Thane Godard was most sickerly
Under God the most traitorly
That ever in earth shapen was
Except the wicked Judas."
After a time the traitor went to the tower where the children
were, and there he slew the two little girls. But the boy
Havelok he spared.
"For the lad that little was,
He kneeled before that Judas
And said, 'Lord, mercy now!
Homage, Lord, to you I vow!
All Denmark I to you will give
If that now you let me live.'"
So the wicked Earl spared the lad for the time. But he did not
mean that he should live. Anon he called a fisherman to him and
said:--
"Grim, thou wist thou art my thral,
Wilt thou do my will all
That I will bid thee?
To-morrow I shall make thee free,
And give thee goods, and rich thee make,
If that thou wilt this child take
And lead him with thee, to-night,
When thou seest it is moonlight,
Unto the sea, and do him in!
And I will take on me the sin."
Grim, the fisherman, rejoiced at the thought of being free and
rich. So he took the boy, and wound him in an old cloth, and
stuffed an old coat into his mouth, so that he might not cry
aloud. Then he thrust him into a sack, and thus carried him home
to his cottage.
But when the moon rose, and Grim made ready to drown the child,
his wife saw a great light come from the sack. And opening it,
they found therein the prince. Then they resolved, instead of
drowning him, to save and nourish him as their own child. But
they resolved also to hide the truth from the Earl.
At break of day, therefore, Grim set forth to tell Godard that
his will was done. But instead of the thanks and reward promised
to him, he got only evil words. So, speeding homeward from that
traitor, he made ready his boat, and with his wife and three sons
and two daughters and Havelok, they set sail upon the high sea,
fleeing for their lives.
Presently a great wind arose which blew them to the coast of
England. And when they were safely come to land, Grim drew up
his boat upon the shore, and there he build him a hut, and there
he lived, and to this day men call the place Grimsby.
Years passed. Havelok lived with the fisherman, and grew great
and fair and strong. And as Grim was poor, the Prince thought it
no dishonor to work for his living, and he became in time a
cook's scullion.
Havelok had to work hard. But although he worked hard he was
always cheerful and merry. He was so strong that at running,
jumping, or throwing a stone no one could beat him. Yet he was
so gentle that all the children of the place loved him and played
with him.
"Him loved all, quiet or bold,
Knight, children, young and old,
All him loved that him saw,
Both high men and low,
Of him full wide the word sprang
How he was meek, how he was strong."
At last even the wicked Godrich in his palace heard of Havelok in
the kitchen. "Now truly this is the best man in England," he
said, with a sneer. And thinking to bring shame on Goldboru, and
wed her with a kitchen knave, he sent for Havelok.
"Master, wilt wed?" he asked, when the scullion was brought
before him.
"Nay," quoth Havelok, "by my life what should I do with a wife?
I could not feed her, nor clothe her, nor shoe her. Whither
should I bring a woman? I have no cot, I have no stick nor twig.
I have neither bread nor sauce, and no clothes but one old coat.
These clothes even that I wear are the cook's, and I am his
knave."
At that Godrich shook with wrath. Up he sprang and began to beat
Havelok without mercy.
"And said, 'Unless thou her take,
That I well ween thee to make,
I shall hangen thee full high
Or I shall thrusten out thine eye.'"
Then seeing that there was no help for it, and that he must
either be wedded or hanged, Havelok consented to marry Goldboru.
So the Princess was brought, "the fairest woman under the moon."
And she, sore afraid at the anger and threats of Godrich, durst
not do aught to oppose the wedding. So were they "espoused fair
and well" by the Archbishop of York, and Havelok took his bride
home to Grimsby.
You may be sure that Havelok, who was so strong and yet so
gentle, was kind to his beautiful young wife. But Goldboru was
unhappy, for she could not forget the disgrace that had come upon
her. She could not forget that she was a princess, and that she
had been forced to wed a low-born kitchen knave. But one night,
as she lay in bed weeping, an angel appeared to her and bade her
sorrow no more, for it was no scullion that she had wed, but a
king's son. So Goldboru was comforted.
And of all that afterward befell Havelok and Goldboru, of how
they went to Denmark and overcame the traitor there, and received
the kingdom; and of how they returned again to England, and of
how Godrich was punished, you must read for yourselves in the
book of Havelok the Dane. But this one thing more I will tell
you, that Havelok and Goldboru lived happily together until they
died. They loved each other so tenderly that they were never
angry with each other. They had fifteen children, and all the
sons became kings and all the daughters became queens.
I should like to tell you many more of these early English
metrical romances. I should like to tell you of Guy of Warwick,
of King Horn, of William and the Werewolf, and of many others.
But, indeed, if I told all the stories I should like to tell this
book would have no end. So we must leave them and pass on.
BOOKS TO READ
The Story of Havelok the Dane, rendered into later English
by Emily Hickey. The Lay of Havelok the Dane, edited by W. W.
Skeat in the original English.
Chapter XVIII ABOUT SOME SONG STORIES
BESIDES the metrical romances, we may date another kind of story
from this time. I mean the ballads.
Ballad was an old French word spelt balade. It really means a
dance-song. For ballads were at first written to be sung to
dances--slow, shuffling, balancing dances such as one may still
see in out-of-the-way places in Brittany.
These ballads often had a chorus or refrain in which every one
joined. But by degrees the refrain was dropped and the dancing
too. Now we think of a ballad as a simple story told in verse.
Sometimes it is merry, but more often it is sad.
The ballads were not made for grand folk. They were not made to
be sung in courts and halls. They were made for the common
people, and sometimes at least they were made by them. They were
meant to be sung, and sung out of doors. For in those days the
houses of all but the great were very comfortless. They were
small and dark and full of smoke. It was little wonder, then,
that people lived out of doors as much as they could, and that
all their amusements were out of doors. And so it comes about
that many of the ballads have an out-of-door feeling about them.
A ballad is much shorter than a romance, and therefore much more
easily learned and remembered. So many people learned and
repeated the ballads, and for three hundred years they were the
chief literature of the people. In those days men sang far more
and read and thought far less than nowadays. Now, if we read
poetry, some of us like to be quietly by ourselves. Then all
poetry was made to be read or sung aloud, and that in company.
I do not mean you to think that we have any ballads remaining to
us as old as the thirteenth or the beginning of the fourteenth
century, which was the time in which Havelok was written. But
what I want you to understand is that the ballad-making days went
on for hundreds of years. The people for whom the ballads were
made could not read and could not write; so it was of little use
to write them down, and for a long time they were not written
down. "They were made for singing, an' no for reading," said an
old lady to Sir Walter Scott, who in his day made a collection of
ballads. "They were made for singing an' no for reading; but ye
hae broken the charm now, an' they'll never be sung mair."
And so true is this, that ballads which have never been written
down, but which are heard only in out-of-the-way places, sung or
said by people who have never learned to read, have really more
of the old-time feeling about them than many of those which we
find in books.
We cannot say who made the ballads. Nowadays a poet makes a
poem, and it is printed with his name upon the title-page. The
poem belongs to him, and is known by his name. We say, for
instance, Gray's Elegy, or Shakespeare's Sonnets. But many
people helped to make the ballads. I do not mean that twenty or
thirty people sat down together and said, "Let us make a ballad."
That would not have been possible. But, perhaps, one man heard a
story and put it into verse. Another then heard it and added
something to it. Still another and another heard, repeated,
added to, or altered it in one way or another. Sometimes the
story was made better by the process, sometimes it was spoiled.
But who those men were who made and altered the ballads, we do
not know. They were simply "the people."
One whole group of ballads tells of the wonderful deeds of Robin
Hood. Who Robin Hood was we do not certainly know, nor does it
matter much. Legend has made him a man of gentle birth who had
lost his lands and money, and who had fled to the woods as an
outlaw. Stories gradually gathered round his name as they had
gathered round the name of Arthur, and he came to be looked upon
as the champion of the people against the Norman tyrants.
Robin was a robber, but a robber as courtly as any knight. His
enemies were the rich and great, his friends were the poor and
oppressed.
"For I never yet hurt any man
That honest is and true;
But those that give their minds to live
Upon other men's due.
I never hurt the husbandmen
That used to till the ground;
Nor spill their blood that range the wood
To follow hawk or hound.
My chiefest spite to clergy is
Who in those days bear a great sway;
With friars and monks with their fine sprunks
I make my chiefest prey."
The last time we heard of monks and priests they were the friends
of the people, doing their best to teach them and make them
happy. Now we find that they are looked upon as enemies. And
the monasteries, which at the beginning had been like lamps of
light set in a dark country, had themselves become centers of
darkness and idleness.
But although Robin fought against the clergy, the friars and
monks who did wrong, he did not fight against religion.
"A good manner then had Robin;
In land where that he were,
Every day ere he would dine,
Three masses would he hear.
The one in worship of the Father,
And another of the Holy Ghost,
The third of Our Dear Lady,
That he loved all the most.
Robin loved Our Dear Lady,
For doubt of deadly sin,
Would he never do company harm
That any woman was in."
And Robin himself tells his followers:--
"But look ye do not husbandman harm
That tilleth with his plough.
No more ye shall no good yeoman
That walketh by green wood shaw,
Nor no knight nor no squire
That will be good fellow.
These bishops and these archbishops,
Ye shall them beat and bind,
The high sheriff of Nottingham,
Him hold ye in your mind."
The great idea of the Robin Hood ballads is the victory of the
poor and oppressed over the rich and powerful, the triumph of the
lawless over the law-givers. Because of this, and because we
like Robin much better than the Sheriff of Nottingham, his chief
enemy, we are not to think that the poor were always right and
the rulers always wrong. There were many good men among the
despised monks and friars, bishops and archbishops. But there
were, too, many evils in the land, and some of the laws pressed
sorely on the people. Yet they were never without a voice.
The Robin Hood ballads are full of humor; they are full, too, of
English outdoor life, of hunting and fighting.
Of quite another style is the ballad of Sir Patrick Spens. That
takes us away from the green, leafy woods and dells of England to
the wild, rocky coast of Scotland. It takes us from the singing
of birds to the roar of the waves. The story goes that the King
wanted a good sailor to sail across the sea. Then an old knight
says to him that the best sailor that ever sailed the sea is Sir
Patrick Spens.
So the King writes a letter bidding Sir Patrick make ready. At
first he is pleased to get a letter from the King, but when he
has read what is in it his face grows sad and angry too.
"Who has done me this evil deed?" he cries, "to send me out to
sea in such weather?"
Sir Patrick is very unwilling to go. But the King has commanded,
so he and his men set forth. A great storm comes upon them and
the ship is wrecked. All the men are drowned, and the ladies who
sit at home waiting their husbands' return wait in vain.
There are many versions of this ballad, but I give you here one
of the shortest and perhaps the most beautiful.
"The king sits in Dumferling toune
Drinking the blude reid wine:
'O whar will I get a guid sailor,
To sail this schip of mine?'
Up and spak an eldern knicht,
Sat at the king's richt kne:
'Sir Patrick Spence is the best sailor
That sails upon the se.'
The king has written a braid letter,
And signed it wi his hand,
And sent it to Sir Patrick Spence,
Was walking on the sand.
The first line that Sir Patrick red,
A loud lauch lauched he;
The next line that Sir Patrick red,
The teir blinded his ee.
'O wha is this has done this deed,
This ill deed don to me,
To send me out this time o' the yeir,
To sail upon the se?
'Mak hast, mak hast, my merry men all,
Our guid schip sails the morne.'
'Oh, say na sae, my master deir,
For I feir a deadlie storme.
'Late, late yestreen I saw the new moone,
Wi the auld moone in her arme,
And I feir, I feir, my deir master,
That we will cum to harme.'
O, our Scots nobles wer richt laith
To weet their cork-heild schoone;
Bot lang owre a' the play wer played
Thair hats they swam aboone.
O lang, lang, may their ladies sit,
Wi their fans into their hand,
Or eir they see Sir Patrick Spence
Cum sailing to the land.
O lang, lang, may the ladies stand,
Wi their gold kaims in their hair,
Waiting for their ain deir lords,
For they'll see them na mair.
Haf ower, haf ower to Aberdour,
It's fiftie fadom deip,
And thair lies guid Sir Patrick Spence.
Wi the Scots lords at his feit."
And now, just to end this chapter, let me give you one more poem.
It is the earliest English song that is known. It is a spring
song, and it is so full of the sunny green of fresh young leaves,
and of all the sights and sounds of early summer, that I think
you will like it.
"Summer is a-coming in,
Loud sing cuckoo;
Groweth seed and bloweth mead,
And springeth the wood new,
Sing cuckoo!
Ewe bleateth after lamb,
Loweth after calf the cow;
Bullock starteth, buck verteth,*
Merry sing cuckoo.
Cuckoo, cuckoo, well singeth thou cuckoo,
Thou art never silent now.
Sing cuckoo, now, sing cuckoo,
Sing cuckoo, sing cuckoo, now!"
*Turns to the green fern or "vert." Vert is French for
"green."
Is that not pretty? Can you not hear the cuckoo call, even
though the lamps may be lit and the winter wind be shrill
without?
But I think it is prettier still in its thirteenth-century
English. Perhaps you may be able to read it in that, so here it
is:--
"Sumer is ycumen in,
Lhude sing cuccu;
Groweth sed, and bloweth med,
And springth the wde nu,
Sing cuccu!
Awe bleteth after lomb,
Lhouth after calve cu;
Bulluc sterteth, bucke verteth,
Murie sing cuccu.
Cuccu, cuccu, well singes thu cuccu,
Ne swike thu naver nu.
Sing cuccu, nu, sing cuccu,
Sing cuccu, sing cuccu, nu!"*
*Ritson's Ancient Songs.
BOOKS TO READ
Stories of Robin Hood, by H. E. Marshall. Stories of the
Ballads, by Mary Macgregor. A Book of Ballads, by C. L. Thomson.
Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (Everyman's Library).
Chapter XIX "PIERS THE PLOUGHMAN"
DURING the long years after the Norman Conquest when English was
a despised language, it became broken up into many dialects. But
as time went on and English became once more the language of the
educated as well as of the uneducated, there arose a cultured
English, which became the language which we speak to-day.
In the time of Edward III England was England again, and the
rulers were English both in heart and in name. But England was
no longer a country apart, she was no longer a lonely sea-girt
island, but had taken her place among the great countries of
Europe. For the reign of Edward III was a brilliant one. The
knightly, chivalrous King set his country high among the
countries of Europe. Men made songs and sang of his victories,
of Crecy and of Calais, and France bowed the knee to England.
But the wars and triumphs of the King pressed hardly on the
people of England, and ere his reign was over misery, pestilence,
and famine filled the land.
So many men had been killed in Edward's French and Scottish wars
that there were too few left to till the land. Then came a
terrible disease called the Black Death, slaying young and old,
rich and poor, until nearly half the people in the land were
dead.
Then fewer still were left to do the work of the farms. Cattle
and sheep strayed where they would, for there were none to tend
them. Corn ripened and rotted in the fields, for there were none
to gather it. Food grew dear as workers grew scarce. Then the
field laborers who were left began to demand larger wages. Many
of these laborers were little more than slaves, and their masters
refused to pay them better. Then some left their homes and went
away to seek new masters who would be willing to pay more, while
others took to a life of wandering beggary.
The owners of the land had thought that they should be ruined did
they pay the great wages demanded of them. Now they saw that
they should be ruined quite as much if they could find no one at
all to do the work. So laws were made forcing men to work for
the same wages they had received before the plague, and
forbidding them to leave the towns and villages in which they had
been used to live. If they disobeyed they were imprisoned and
punished.
Yet these new laws were broken again and again, because bread had
now become so dear that it was impossible for men to live on as
little as they had done before. Still many masters tried to
enforce the law, and the land was soon filled not only with
hunger and misery, but with a fierce class hatred between master
and man. It was the beginning of a long and bitter struggle, and
as the cry of the poor grew louder and louder, the hatred and
spirit of revolt grew fiercer.
But the great of the land seemed little touched by the sorrows of
the people. While they starved and died, the King, surrounded by
a glittering court, gave splendid feasts and tournaments. He
built fair palaces and chapels, founded a new round table, and
thought to make the glorious days of Arthur live again.
And the great among the clergy cared as little for the poor as
did the great among the nobles. Many of them had become selfish
and worldly, some of them wicked, though of course there were
many good men left among them too.
The Church was wealthy but the powerful priests kept that wealth
in their own hands, and many of the country clergy were almost as
miserably poor as the people whom they taught. And it was
through one of these poor priests, named William Langland, that
the sorrows of the people found a voice.
We know very little about Langland. So little do we know that we
are not sure if his name was really William or not. But in his
poem called The Vision of Piers the Ploughman he says, "I have
lived in the land, quoth I, my name is long Will." It is chiefly
from his poem that we learn to know the man. When we have read
it, we seem to see him, tall and thin, with lean earnest face,
out of which shine great eyes, the eyes that see visions. His
head is shaven like a monk's; he wears a shabby long gown which
flaps in the breeze as he strides along.
Langland was born in the country, perhaps in Oxfordshire, perhaps
in Shropshire, and he went to school at Great Malvern. He loved
school, for he says:--
"For if heaven be on earth, and ease to any soul,
It is in cloister or in school. Be many reasons I find
For in the cloister cometh no man, to chide nor to fight,
But all is obedience here and books, to read and to learn."
Perhaps Langland's friends saw that he was clever, and hoped that
he might become one of the great ones in the Church. In those
days (the Middle Ages they were called) there was no sharp line
dividing the priests from the people. The one shaded off into
the other, as it were. There were many who wore long gowns and
shaved their heads, who yet were not priests. They were called
clerks, and for a sum of money, often very small, they helped to
sing masses for the souls of the dead, and performed other
offices in connection with the services of the Church. They were
bound by no vows and were allowed to marry, but of course could
never hope to be powerful. Such was Langland; he married and
always remained a poor "clerk."
But if Langland did not rise high in the Church, he made himself
famous in another way, for he wrote Piers the Ploughman. This is
a great book. There is no other written during the fourteenth
century, in which we see so clearly the life of the people of the
time.
There are several versions of Piers, and it is thought by some
that Langland himself wrote and re-wrote his poem, trying always
to make it better. But others think that some one else wrote the
later versions.
The poem is divided into parts. The first part is The Vision of
Piers the Ploughman, the second is The Vision Concerning Do Well,
Do Bet, Do Best.
In the beginning of Piers the Ploughman Langland tells us how
"In a summer season when soft was the sun,
I wrapped myself in a cloak as if I were a shepherd
In the habit of a hermit unholy of works,
Abroad I wandered in this world wonders to hear.
But on a May morning on Malvern Hills
Me befell a wonder, a strange thing. Methought,
I was weary of wandering, and went me to rest
Under a broad bank by a burn side.
And as I lay, and leaned, and looked on the waters
I slumbered in a sleeping it sounded so merry."
If you will look back you will see that this poetry is very much
more like Layamon's than like the poetry of Havelok the Dane.
Although people had, for many years, been writing rhyming verse,
Langland has, you see, gone back to the old alliterative poetry.
Perhaps it was that, living far away in the country, Langland had
written his poem before he had heard of the new kind of rhyming
verses, for news traveled slowly in those days.
Two hundred years later, when The Vision of Piers the Ploughman
was first printed, the printer in his preface explained
alliterative verse very well. "Langland wrote altogether in
metre," he says, "but not after the manner of our rimers that
write nowadays (for his verses end not alike), but the nature of
his metre is to have three words, at the least, in every verse
which begin with some one letter. As for example the first two
verses of the book run upon 's,' as thus:
'In a somer season whan sette was the sunne
I shope me into shrobbes as I a shepe were.'
The next runneth upon 'h,' as thus:
'In habite as an Hermite unholy of workes.'
This thing being noted, the metre shall be very pleasant to read.
The English is according to the time it was written in, and the
sense somewhat dark, but not so hard but that it may be
understood of such as will not stick to break the shell of the
nut for the kernel's sake."
This printer also says in his preface that the book was first
written in the time of King Edward III, "In whose time it pleased
God to open the eyes of many to see his truth, giving them
boldness of heart to open their mouths and cry out against the
works of darkness. . . . There is no manner of vice that reigneth
in any estate of man which this writer hath not godly, learnedly,
and wittily rebuked."*
*R. Crowley is his preface to Piers Ploughman, printed in 1550.
I hope that you will be among those who will not "stick to break
the shell of the nut for the kernel's sake," and that although
the "sense be somewhat dark" you will some day read the book for
yourselves. Meantime in the next chapter I will tell you a
little more about it.
Chapter XX "PIERS THE PLOUGHMAN" -- continued
WHEN Langland fell asleep upon the Malvern Hills he dreamed a
wondrous dream. He thought that he saw a "fair field full of
folk," where was gathered "all the wealth of the world and the
woe both."
"Working and wondering as the world asketh,
Some put them to the plough and played them full seldom,
In eareing and sowing laboured full hard."
But some are gluttons and others think only of fine clothes.
Some pray and others jest. There are rogues and knaves here,
friars and priests, barons and burgesses, bakers and butchers,
tailors and tanners, masons and miners, and folk of many other
crafts. Indeed, the field is the world. It lies between a tower
and a dungeon. The tower is God, the dungeon is the dwelling of
the Evil One.
Then, as Langland looked on all this, he saw
"A lady lovely in face, in linnen i-clothed,
Come adown from the cliff and spake me fair,
And said, 'Son, sleepest thou? Seest thou this people
All how busy they be about the maze?'"
Langland was "afeard of her face though she was fair." But the
lovely lady, who is Holy Church, speaks gently to the dreamer.
She tells him that the tower is the dwelling of Truth, who is the
lord of all and who gives to each as he hath need. The dungeon
is the castle of Care.
"Therein liveth a wight that Wrong is called,
The Father of Falseness."
Love alone, said the lady, leads to Heaven,
"Therefore I warn ye, the rich, have ruth on the poor.
Though ye be mighty in councils, be meek in your works,
For the same measure ye meet, amiss or otherwise,
Ye shall be weighed therewith when ye wend hence."
"Truth is best in all things," she said at length. "I have told
thee now what Truth is, and may no longer linger." And so she
made ready to go. But the dreamer kneeled on his knees and
prayed her stay yet a while to teach him to know Falsehood also,
as well as Truth.
And the lady answered:--
"'Look on thy left hand and see where he standeth,
Both False and Flattery and all his train.'
I looked on the left hand as the Lady me taught.
Then was I ware of a woman wondrously clothed,
Purfled with fur, the richest on earth.
Crowned with a crown. The King hath no better.
All her five fingers were fretted with rings
Of the most precious stones that a prince ever wore;
In red scarlet she rode, beribboned with gold,
There is no queen alive that is more adorned."
This was Lady Meed or Bribery. "To-morrow," said Holy Church,
"she shall wed with False." And so the lovely Lady departed.
Left alone the dreamer watched the preparations for the wedding.
The Earldom of Envy, the Kingdom of Covetousness, the Isle of
Usury were granted as marriage gifts to the pair. But Theology
was angry. He would not permit the wedding to take place. "Ere
this wedding be wrought, woe betide thee," he cried. "Meed is
wealthy; I know it. God grant us to give her unto whom Truth
wills. But thou hast bound her fast to Falseness. Meed is
gently born. Lead her therefore to London, and there see if the
law allows this wedding."
So, listening to the advice of Theology, all the company rode off
to London, Guile leading the way.
But Soothness pricked on his palfrey and passed them all and came
to the King's court, where he told Conscience all about the
matter, and Conscience told the King.
Then quoth the King, "If I might catch False and Flattery or any
of their masters, I would avenge me on the wretches that work so
ill, and would hang them by the neck and all that them abet."
So he told the Constable to seize False and to cut off Guile's
head, "and let not Liar escape." But Dread was at the door and
heard the doom. He warned the others, so that they all fled away
save Meed the maiden.
"Save Meed the maiden no man durst abide,
And truly to tell she trembled for fear,
And she wept and wrung her hands when she was taken."
But the King called a Clerk and told him to comfort Meed. So
Justice soon hurried to her bower to comfort her kindly, and many
others followed him. Meed thanked them all and "gave them cups
of clean gold and pieces of silver, rings with rubies and riches
enough." And pretending to be sorry for all that she had done
amiss, Meed confessed her sins and was forgiven.
The King then, believing that she was really sorry, wished to
marry her to Conscience. But Conscience would not have her, for
he knew that she was wicked. He tells of all the evil things she
does, by which Langland means to show what wicked things men will
do if tempted by bribery and the hope of gain.
"Then mourned Meed and plained her to the King." If men did
great and noble deeds, she said, they deserved praise and thanks
and rewards.
"'Nay,' quoth Conscience to the King, and kneeled to the
ground,
'There be two manner of Meeds, my Lord, by thy life,
That one the good God giveth by His grace, giveth in His
bliss
To them that will work while that they are here.'"
What a laborer received, he said, was not Meed but just Wages.
Bribery, on the other hand, was ever wicked, and he would have
none of her.
In spite of all the talk, however, no one could settle the
question. So at length Conscience set forth to bring Reason to
decide.
When Reason heard that he was wanted, he saddled his horse
Suffer-till-I-see-my-time and came to court with Wit and Wisdom
in his train.
The King received him kindly, and they talked together. But
while they talked Peace came complaining that Wrong had stolen
his goods and ill-treated him in many ways.
Wrong well knew that the complaint was just, but with the help of
Meed he won Wit and Wisdom to his side. But Reason stood out
against him.
"'Counsel me not,' quoth Reason, 'ruth to have
Till lords and ladies all love truth
And their sumptuous garments be put into chests,
Till spoiled children be chastened with rods,
Till clerks and knights be courteous with their tongues,
Till priests themselves practise their preaching
And their deeds be such as may draw us to goodness.'"
The King acknowledged that Reason was right, and begged him to
stay with him always and help him to rule. "I am ready," quoth
Reason, "to rest with thee ever so that Conscience be our
counsellor."
To that the King agreed, and he and his courtiers all went to
church. Here suddenly the dream ends. Langland cries:--
"Then waked I of my sleep. I was woe withal
That I had not slept more soundly and seen much more."
The dreamer arose and continued his wandering. But he had only
gone a few steps when once again he sank upon the grass and fell
asleep and dreamed. Again he saw the field full of folk , and to
them now Conscience was preaching, and at his words many began to
repent them of their evil deeds. Pride, Envy, Sloth and others
confessed their sins and received forgiveness.
Then all these penitent folk set forth in search of Saint Truth,
some riding, some walking. "But there were few there so wise as
to know the way thither, and they went all amiss." No man could
tell them where Saint Truth lived. And now appears at last Piers
Ploughman, who gives his name to the whole poem.
"Quoth a ploughman and put forth his head,
'I know him as well as a clerk know his books.
Clear Conscience and Wit showed me his place
And did engage me since to serve him ever.
Both in sowing and setting, which I labour,
I have been his man this fifteen winters.'"
Piers described to the pilgrims all the long way that they must
go in order to find Truth. He told them that they must go
through Meekness; that they must cross the ford Honor-your-father
and turn aside from the brook Bear-no-false-witness, and so on
and on until they come at last to Saint Truth.
"It were a hard road unless we had a guide that might go with us
afoot until we got there," said the pilgrims. So Piers offered,
if they would wait until he had plowed his field, to go with them
and show them the way.
"That would be a long time to wait," said a lady. "What could we
women do meantime?"
And Piers answered:--
"Some should sew sacks to hold wheat.
And you who have wool weave it fast,
Spin it speedily, spare not your fingers
Unless it be a holy day or holy eve.
Look out your linen and work on it quickly,
The needy and the naked take care how they live,
And cast on them clothes for the cold, for so Truth desires."
Then many of the pilgrims began to help Piers with his work.
Each man did what he could, "and some to please Piers picked up
the weeds."
"But some of them sat and sang at ale
And helped him to plough with 'Hy-trolly-lolly.'"
To these idle ones Piers went in anger. "If ye do not run
quickly to your work," he cried, "you will receive no wage; and
if ye die of hunger, who will care."
Then these idle ones began to pretend that they were blind or
lame and could not work. They made great moan, but Piers took no
heed and called for Hunger. Then Hunger seized the idle ones and
beat and buffeted them until they were glad to work.
At last Truth heard of Piers and of all the good that he was
doing among the pilgrims, and sent him a pardon for all his sins.
In those days people who had done wrong used to pay money to a
priest and think that they were forgiven by God. Against that
belief Langland preaches, and his pardon is something different.
It is only
"Do well and have well, and God shall have thy soul.
And do evil and have evil, hope none other
That after thy death day thou shalt turn to the Evil One."
And over this pardon a priest and Piers began so loudly to
dispute that the dreamer awoke,
"And saw the sun that time towards the south,
And I meatless and moneyless upon the Malvern Hills."
That is a little of the story of the first part of Piers
Ploughman. It is an allegory, and in writing it Langland wished
to hold up to scorn all the wickedness that he saw around him,
and sharply to point out many causes of misery. There is
laughter in his poem, but it is the terrible and harsh laughter
of contempt. His most bitter words, perhaps, are for the idle
rich, but the idle poor do not escape. Those who beg without
shame, who cheat and steal, who are greedy and drunken have a
share of his wrath. Yet Langland is not all harshness. His
great word is Duty, but he speaks of Love too. "Learn to love,
quoth King, and leave off all other." The poem is rambling and
disconnected. Characters come on the scene and vanish again
without cause. Stories begin and do not end. It is all wild and
improbable like a dream, yet it is full of interest.
But perhaps the chief interest and value of Piers Ploughman is
that it is history. It tells us much of what the people thought
and of how they lived in those days. It shows us the first
mutterings of the storm that was to rend the world. This was the
storm of the Reformation which was to divide the world into
Protestant and Catholic. But Langland himself was not a
Protestant. Although he speaks bitter words against the evil
deeds of priest and monk, he does not attack the Church. To him
she is still Holy Church, a radiant and lovely lady.
BOOKS TO READ
The Vision of Piers Ploughman, by W. Langland
Chapter XXI HOW THE BIBLE CAME TO THE PEOPLE
IN all the land there is perhaps no book so common as the Bible.
In homes where there are no other books we find at least a Bible,
and the Bible stories are almost the first that we learn to know.
But in the fourteenth century there were no English Bibles. The
priests and clergy and a few great people perhaps had Latin
Bibles. And although Caedmon's songs had long been forgotten, at
different times some parts of the Bible had been translated into
English, so that the common people sometimes heard a Bible story.
But an English Bible as a whole did not exist; and if to-day it
is the commonest and cheapest book in all the land, it is to John
Wyclif in the first place that we owe it.
John Wyclif was born, it is thought, about 1324 in a little
Yorkshire village. Not much is known of his early days except
that he went to school and to Oxford University. In time he
became one of the most learned men of his day, and was made Head,
or Master, of Balliol College.
This is the first time in this book that we have heard of a
university. The monasteries had, until now, been the centers of
learning. But now the two great universities of Oxford and
Cambridge were taking their place. Men no longer went to the
monasteries to learn, but to the universities; and this was one
reason, perhaps, why the land had become filled with so many idle
monks. Their profession of teaching had been taken from them,
and they had found nothing else with which to fill their time.
But at first the universities were very like monasteries. The
clerks, as the students were called, often took some kind of
vow,--they wore a gown and shaved their heads in some fashion or
other. The colleges, too, were built very much after the style
of monasteries, as may be seen in some of the old college
buildings of Oxford or Cambridge to this day. The life in every
way was like the life in a monastery. It was only by slow
degrees that the life and the teaching grew away from the old
model.
While Wyclif grew to be a man, England had fallen on troublous
times. Edward III, worn out by his French wars, had become old
and feeble, and the power was in the hands of his son, John of
Gaunt. The French wars and the Black Death had slain many of the
people, and those who remained were miserably poor. Yet poor
though they were, much money was gathered from them every year
and sent to the Pope, who at that time still ruled the Church in
England as elsewhere.
But now the people of England became very unwilling to pay so
much money to the Pope, especially as at this time he was a
Frenchman ruling, not from Rome, but from Avignon. It was folly,
Englishmen said, to pay money into the hands of a Frenchman, the
enemy of their country, who would use it against their country.
And while many people were feeling like this, the Pope claimed
still more. He now claimed a tribute which King John had
promised long before, but which had not for more than thirty
years been paid.
John of Gaunt made up his mind to resist this claim, and John
Wyclif, who had already begun to preach against the power of the
Pope, helped him. They were strange companions, and while John
of Gaunt fought only for more power, Wyclif fought for freedom
both in religion and in life. God alone was lord of all the
world, he said, and to God alone each man must answer for his
soul, and to no man beside. The money belonging to the Church of
England belonged to God and to the people of England, and ought
to be used for the good of the people, and not be sent abroad to
the Pope. In those days it needed a bold man to use such words,
and Wyclif was soon called upon to answer for his boldness before
the Archbishop of Canterbury and all his bishops.
The council was held in St. Paul's Cathedral in London. Wyclif
was fearless, and he obeyed the Archbishop's command. But as he
walked up the long aisle to the chapel where the bishops were
gathered, John of Gaunt marched by his side, and Lord Percy, Earl
Marshal of England, cleared a way for him through the throng of
people that filled the church. The press was great, and Earl
Percy drove a way through the crowd with so much haughtiness and
violence that the Bishop of London cried out at him in wrath.
"Had I known what masteries you would use in my church," he said,
"I had kept you from coming there."
"At which words the Duke, disdaining not a little, answered the
Bishop and said that he would keep such mastery there though he
said 'Nay.'"* Thus, after much struggling, Wyclif and his
companions arrived at the chapel. There Wyclif stood humbly
enough before his Bishop. But Earl Percy bade him be seated, for
as he had much to answer he had need of a soft seat.
*Foxe, Acts and Monuments.
Thereat the Bishop of London was angry again, and cried out
saying that it was not the custom for those who had come to
answer for their misdeeds to sit.
"Upon these words a fire began to heat and kindle between them;
insomuch that they began to rate and revile one the other, that
the whole multitude therewith disquieted began to be set on a
hurry."*
*Foxe, Acts and Monuments.
The Duke, too, joined in, threatening at last to drag the Bishop
out of the church by the hair of his head. But the Londoners,
when they heard that, were very wrathful, for they hated the
Duke. They cried out they would not suffer their Bishop to be
ill-used, and the uproar became so great that the council broke
up without there being any trial at all.
But soon after this no fewer than five Bulls, or letters from the
Pope, were sent against Wyclif. In one the University of Oxford
was ordered to imprison him; in others Wyclif was ordered to
appear before the Pope; in still another the English bishops were
ordered to arrest him and try him themselves. But little was
done, for the English would not imprison an English subject at
the bidding of a French Pope, lest they should seem to give him
royal power in England.
At length, however, Wyclif was once more brought before a court
of bishops in London. By this time Edward III had died, and
Richard, the young son of the Black Prince, had come to the
throne. His mother, the Princess of Wales, was Wyclif's friend,
and she now sent a message to the bishops bidding them let him
alone. This time, too, the people of London were on his side;
they had learned to understand that he was their friend. So they
burst into the council-room eager to defend the man whose only
crime was that of trying to protect England from being robbed.
And thus the second trial came to an end as the first had done.
Wyclif now began to preach more boldly than before. He preached
many things that were very different from the teaching of the
Church of Rome, and as he was one of the most learned men of his
time, people crowded to Oxford to hear him. John of Gaunt, now
no longer his friend, ordered him to be silent. But Wyclif still
spoke. The University was ordered to crush the heretic. But the
University stood by him until the King added his orders to those
of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Then Wyclif was expelled from
the University, but still not silenced, for he went into the
country and there wrote and taught.
Soon his followers grew in numbers. They were called Poor
Priests, and clad in long brown robes they wandered on foot
through the towns and villages teaching and preaching. Wyclif
trusted that they would do all the good that the old friars had
done, and that they would be kept from falling into the evil ways
of the later friars. But Churchmen were angry, and called his
followers Lollards or idle babblers.
Wyclif, however, cared no longer for the great, he trusted no
more in them. It was to the people now that he appealed. He
wrote many books, and at first he wrote in Latin. But by degrees
he saw that if he wanted to reach the hearts of the people, he
must preach and teach in English. And so he began to write
English books. But above all the things that he wrote we
remember him chiefly for his translation of the Bible. He
himself translated the New Testament, and others helped him with
the Old Testament, and so for the first time the people of
England had the whole Bible in their own tongue. They had it,
too, in fine scholarly language, and this was a great service to
our literature. For naturally the Bible was a book which every
one wished to know, and the people of England, through it, became
accustomed to use fine stately language.
To his life's end Wyclif went on teaching and writing, although
many attempts were made to silence him. At last in 1384 the Pope
summoned him to Rome. Wyclif did not obey, for he answered
another call. One day, as he heard mass in his own church, he
fell forward speechless. He never spoke again, but died three
days later.
After Wyclif's death his followers were gradually crushed out,
and the Lollards disappear from our history. But his teaching
never quite died, for by giving the English people the Bible
Wyclif left a lasting mark on England; and although the
Reformation did not come until two hundred years later, he may be
looked upon as its forerunner.
It is hard to explain all that William Langland and John Wyclif
stand for in English literature and in English history. It was
the evil that they saw around them that made them write and speak
as they did, and it was their speaking and writing, perhaps, that
gave the people courage to rise against oppression. Thus their
teaching and writing mark the beginning of new life to the great
mass of the people of England. For in June, 1381, while John
Wyclif still lived and wrote, Wat Tyler led his men to Blackheath
in a rebellion which proved to be the beginning of freedom for
the workers of England. And although at first sight there seems
to be no connection between the two, it was the same spirit
working in John Wyclif and Wat Tyler that made the one speak and
the other fight as he did.
Chapter XXII CHAUCER--BREAD AND MILK FOR CHILDREN
TO-DAY, as we walk about the streets and watch the people hurry
to and fro, we cannot tell from the dress they wear to what class
they belong. We cannot tell among the men who pass us, all clad
alike in dull, sad-colored clothes, who is a knight and who is a
merchant, who is a shoemaker and who is a baker. If we see them
in their shops we can still tell, perhaps, for we know that a
butcher always wears a blue apron, and a baker a white hat.
These are but the remains of a time long ago when every one
dressed according to his calling, whether at work or not. It was
easy then to tell by the cut and texture of his clothes to what
rank in life a man belonged, for each dressed accordingly, and
only the great might wear silk and velvet and golden ornaments.
And in the time of which we have been reading, in the England
where Edward III and Richard II ruled, where Langland sadly
dreamed and Wyclif boldly wrote and preached, there lived a man
who has left for us a clear and truthful picture of those times.
He has left a picture so vivid that as we read his words the
people of England of the fourteenth century still seem to us to
live. This man was Geoffrey Chaucer. Chaucer was a poet, and is
generally looked upon as the first great English poet. Like
Caedmon he is called the "Father of English Poetry," and each has
a right to the name. For if Caedmon was the first great poet of
the English people in their new home of England, the language he
used was Anglo-Saxon. The language which Chaucer used was
English, though still not quite the English which we use to-day.
But although Chaucer was a great poet, we know very little about
his life. What we do know has nothing to do with his poems or of
how he wrote them. For in those days, and for long after, a
writer was not expected to live by his writing; but in return for
giving to the world beautiful thoughts, beautiful songs, the King
or some great noble would reward him by giving him a post at
court. About this public life of Chaucer we have a few facts.
But it is difficult at times to fit the man of camp, and court,
and counting-house to the poet and story-teller who possessed a
wealth of words and a knowledge of how to use them greater than
any Englishman who had lived before him. And it is rather
through his works than through the scanty facts of his life that
we learn to know the real man, full of shrewd knowledge of the
world, of humor, kindliness, and cheerful courage.
Chaucer was a man of the middle class. His father, John Chaucer,
was a London wine merchant. The family very likely came at first
from France, and the name may mean shoemaker, from an old Norman
word chaucier or chaussier, a shoemaker. And although the French
word for shoemaker is different now, there is still a slang word
chausseur, meaning a cobbler.
We know nothing at all of Chaucer as a boy, nothing of where he
went to school, nor do we know if he ever went to college. The
first thing we hear of him is that he was a page in the house of
the Princess Elizabeth, the wife of Prince Lionel, who was the
third son of Edward III. So, although Chaucer belonged to the
middle class, he must have had some powerful friend able to get
him a place in a great household.
In those days a boy became a page in a great household very much
as he might now become an office-boy in a large merchant's
office. A page had many duties. He had to wait at table, hold
candles, go messages, and do many other little household
services. Such a post seems strange to us now, yet it was
perhaps quite as interesting as sitting all day long on an office
stool. In time of war it was certainly more exciting, for a page
had often to follow his master to the battlefield. And as a war
with France was begun in 1359, Geoffrey went across the Channel
with his prince.
Of what befell Chaucer in France we know nothing, except that he
was taken prisoner, and that the King, Edward III, himself gave
16 pounds towards his ransom. That sounds a small sum, but it meant
as much as 240 pounds would now. So it would seem that, boy though
he was, Geoffrey Chaucer had already become important. Perhaps he
was already known as a poet and a good story-teller whom the King
was loath to lose. But again for seven years after this we hear
nothing more about him. And when next we do hear of him, he is
valet de chambre in the household of Edward III. Then a few
years later he married one of Queen Philippa's maids-in-waiting.
Of Chaucer's life with his wife and family again we know nothing
except that he had at least one son, named Lewis. We know this
because he wrote a book, called A Treatise on the Astrolabe, for
this little son. An astrolabe was an instrument used in
astronomy to find out the distance of stars from the earth, the
position of the sun and moon, the length of days, and many other
things about the heavens and their bodies.
Chaucer calls his book A Treatise on the Astrolabe, Bread and
Milk for Children. "Little Lewis, my son," he says in the
beginning, "I have perceived well by certain evidences thine
ability to learn science touching numbers and proportions; and as
well consider I thy busy prayer in special to learn the treatise
of the astrolabe." But although there were many books written on
the subject, some were unknown in England, and some were not to
be trusted. "And some of them be too hard to thy tender age of
ten years. This treatise then will I show thee under few light
rules and naked words in English; for Latin canst thou yet but
small, my little son. . . .
"Now will I pray meekly every discreet person that readeth or
heareth this little treatise, to have my rude inditing for
excused, and my superfluity of words, for two causes. The first
cause is for that curious inditing and hard sentence is full
heavy at one and the same time for a child to learn. And the
second cause is this, that soothly me seemeth better to write
unto a child twice a good sentence than he forget it once. And
Lewis, if so be I shew you in my easy English as true conclusions
as be shewn in Latin, grant me the more thank, and pray God save
the King, who is lord of this English."
So we see from this that more than five hundred years ago a
kindly father saw the need of making simple books on difficult
subjects for children. You may never want to read this book
itself, indeed few people read it now, but I think that we should
all be sorry to lose the preface, although it has in it some long
words which perhaps a boy of ten in our day would still find
"full heavy."
It is interesting, too, to notice in this preface that here
Chaucer calls his King "Lord of this English." We now often
speak of the "King's English," so once again we see how an
everyday phrase links us with the past.
Chapter XXIII CHAUCER--"THE CANTERBURY TALES"
CHAUCER rose in the King's service. He became an esquire, and
was sent on business for the King to France and to Italy. To
Italy he went at least twice, and it is well to remember this, as
it had an effect on his most famous poems. He must have done his
business well, for we find him receiving now a pension for life
worth about 200 pounds in our money, now a grant of a daily pitcher
of wine besides a salary of "71/2d. a day and two robes yearly."
Chaucer's wife, too, had a pension, so the poet was well off. He
had powerful friends also, among them John of Gaunt. And when
the Duke's wife died Chaucer wrote a lament which is called the
Dethe of Blaunche the Duchess, or sometimes the Book of the
Duchess. This is one of the earliest known poems of Chaucer, and
although it is not so good as some which are later, there are
many beautiful lines in it.
The poet led a busy life. He was a good business man, and soon
we find him in the civil service, as we would call it now. He
was made Comptroller of Customs, and in this post he had to work
hard, for one of the conditions was that he must write out the
accounts with his own hand, and always be in the office himself.
If we may take some lines he wrote to be about himself, he was so
busy all day long that he had not time to hear what was happening
abroad, or even what was happening among his friends and
neighbors.
"Not only from far countree,
That there no tidings cometh to thee;
Not of thy very neighbours,
That dwellen almost at thy doors,
Thou hearest neither that nor this."
Yet after his hard office work was done he loved nothing better
than to go back to his books, for he goes on to say:
"For when thy labour done all is
And hast y-made thy reckonings,
Instead of rest and newe things
Thou goest home to thy house anon,
And all so dumb as any stone,
Thou sittest at another book,
Till fully dazed is thy look,
And livest thus as a hermite
Although thine abstinence is light."
But if Chaucer loved books he loved people too, and we may
believe that he readily made friends, for there was a kingly
humor about him that must have drawn people to him. And that he
knew men and their ways we learn from his poetry, for it is full
of knowledge of men and women.
For many years Chaucer was well off and comfortable. But he did
not always remain so. There came a time when his friend and
patron, John of Gaunt, fell from power, and Chaucer lost his
appointments. Soon after that his wife died, and with her life
her pension ceased. So for a year or two the poet knew something
of poverty--poverty at least compared to what he had been used
to. But if he lost his money he did not lose his sunny temper,
and in all his writings we find little that is bitter.
After a time John of Gaunt returned to power, and again Chaucer
had a post given to him, and so until he died he suffered ups and
downs. Born when Edward III was in his highest glory, Chaucer
lived to see him hated by his people. He lived through the reign
of Edward's grandson, Richard II, and knew him from the time when
as a gallant yellow-haired boy he had faced Wat Tyler and his
rioters, till as a worn and broken prisoner he yielded the crown
to Henry of Lancaster, the son of John of Gaunt. But before the
broken King died in his darksome prison Chaucer lay taking his
last rest in St. Benet's Chapel in Westminster. He was the first
great poet to be laid there, but since then there have gathered
round him so many bearing the greatest names in English
literature that we call it now the "Poet's Corner."
But although Chaucer lived in stirring times, although he was a
soldier and a courtier, he does not, in the book by which we know
him best, write of battles and of pomp, of kings and of princes.
In this book we find plain, everyday people, people of the great
middle class of merchants and tradesmen and others of like
calling, to which Chaucer himself belonged. It was a class which
year by year had been growing more and more strong in England,
and which year by year had been making its strength more and more
felt. But it was a class which no one had thought of writing
about in plain fashion. And it is in the Canterbury Tales that
we have, for the first time in the English language, pictures of
real men, and what is more wonderful, of real women. They are
not giants or dwarfs, they are not fairy princes or knights in
shining armor. They do no wondrous deeds of strength or skill.
They are not queens of marvelous beauty or enchanted princesses.
They are simply plain, middle-class English people, and yet they
are very interesting.
In Chaucer's time, books, although still copied by hand, had
become more plentiful than ever before. And as more and more
people learned to read, the singing time began to draw to a
close. Stories were now not all written in rhyme, and poetry was
not all written to be sung. Yet the listening time was not quite
over, for these were still the days of talk and story-telling.
Life went at leisure pace. There was no hurry, there was no
machinery. All sewing was done by hand, so when the ladies of a
great household gathered to their handiwork, it was no unusual
thing for one among them to lighten the long hours with tales
read or told. Houses were badly lighted, and there was little to
do indoors in the long winter evenings, so the men gathered
together and listened while one among them told of love and
battle. Indeed, through all the life of the Middle Ages there
was room for story-telling.
So now, although Chaucer meant his tales to be read, he made
believe that they were told by a company of people on a journey
from London to Canterbury. He thus made a framework for them of
the life he knew, and gave a reason for them all being told in
one book.
But a reason had to be given for the journey, for in those days
people did not travel about from place to place for the mere
pleasure of seeing another town, as we do now. Few people
thought of going for a change of air, nobody perhaps ever thought
about going to the seaside for the summer. In short, people
always had a special object in taking a journey.
One reason for this was that traveling was slow and often
dangerous. The roads were bad, and people nearly all traveled on
horseback and in company, for robbers lurked by the way ready to
attack and kill, for the sake of their money, any who rode alone
and unprotected. So when a man had to travel he tried to arrange
to go in company with others.
In olden days the most usual reason for a journey, next to
business, was a pilgrimage. Sometimes this was simply an act of
religion or devotion. Clad in a simple gown, and perhaps with
bare feet, the pilgrim set out. Carrying a staff in his hand,
and begging for food and shelter by the road, he took his way to
the shrine of some saint. There he knelt and prayed and felt
himself blessed in the deed. Sometimes it was an act of penance
for some great sin done; sometimes of thanksgiving for some great
good received, some great danger passed.
But as time went on these pilgrimages lost their old meaning.
People no longer trudged along barefoot, wearing a pilgrim's
garb. They began to look upon a pilgrimage more as a summer
outing, and dressed in their best they rode comfortably on
horseback. And it is a company of pilgrims such as this that
Chaucer paints for us. He describes himself as being of the
company, and it is quite likely that Chaucer really did at one
time go upon this pilgrimage from London to Canterbury, for it
was a very favorite one. Not only was the shrine of St. Thomas
at Canterbury very beautiful in those days, but it was also
within easy distance of London. Neither costing much nor lasting
long, it was a journey which well-to-do merchantmen and others
like them could well afford.
Chaucer tells us that it was when the first sunshiny days of
April came that people began to think of such pilgrimages:--
"When that April with his showers sweet,
The drought of March hath pierced to the root,"
when the soft wind "with his sweet breath inspired hath in every
holt and heath the tender crops"; when the little birds make new
songs, then "longen folk to go on pilgrimages, and palmers for to
seeken strange lands, and especially from every shire's end of
England, to Canterbury they wend."
So one day in April a company of pilgrims gathered at the Tabard
Inn on the south side of the Thames, not far from London Bridge.
A tabard, or coat without sleeves, was the sign of the inn; hence
its name. In those days such a coat would often be worn by
workmen for ease in working, but it has come down to us only as
the gayly colored coat worn by heralds.
At the Tabard Inn twenty-nine "of sundry folk," besides Chaucer
himself, were gathered. They were all strangers to each other,
but they were all bound on the same errand. Every one was
willing to be friendly with his neighbor, and Chaucer in his
cheery way had soon made friends with them all.
"And shortly when the sun was to rest,
So had I spoke with them every one."
And having made their acquaintance, Chaucer begins to describe
them all so that we may know them too. He describes them so well
that he makes them all living to us. Some we grow to love; some
we smile upon and have a kindly feeling for, for although they
are not fine folk, they are so very human we cannot help but like
them; and some we do not like at all, for they are rude and
rough, as the poet meant them to be.
Chapter XXIV CHAUCER--AT THE TABARD INN
CHAUCER begins his description of the people who were gathered at
the Tabard Inn with the knight, who was the highest in rank among
them.
"A knight there was, and that a worthy man,
. . . . . .
And though he was worthy he was wise,
And of his port as meek as any maid.
He never yet no villainy ne'er said
In all his life unto no manner wight;
He was a very perfect, gentle knight."
Yet he was no knight of romance or fairy tale, but a good honest
English gentleman who had fought for his King. His coat was of
fustian and was stained with rust from his armor, for he had just
come back from fighting, and was still clad in his war-worn
clothes. "His horse was good, but he ne was gay."
With the knight was his son, a young squire of twenty years. He
was gay and handsome, with curling hair and comely face. His
clothes were in the latest fashion, gayly embroidered. He sat
his horse well and guided it with ease. He was merry and
careless and clever too, for he could joust and dance, sing and
play, read and write, and indeed do everything as a young squire
should. Yet with it all "courteous he was, lowly and
serviceable."
With these two came their servant, a yeoman, clad in hood of
green, and carrying besides many other weapons a "mighty bow."
As was natural in a gathering such as this, monks and friars and
their like figured largely. There was a monk, a worldly man,
fond of dress, fond of hunting, fond of a good dinner; and a
friar even more worldly and pleasure-loving. There was a
pardoner, a man who sold pardons to those who had done wrong, and
a sumpnour or summoner, who was so ugly and vile that children
were afraid of him. A summoner was a person who went to summon
or call people to appear before the Church courts when they had
done wrong. He was a much-hated person, and both he and the
pardoner were great rogues and cheats and had no love for each
other. There was also a poor parson.
All these, except the poor parson, Chaucer holds up to scorn
because he had met many such in real life who, under the pretense
of religion, lived bad lives. But that it was not the Church
that he scorned or any who were truly good he shows by his
picture of the poor parson. He was poor in worldly goods:--
"But rich he was in holy thought and work,
He was also a learned man, a clerk
That Christ's gospel truly would preach,
His parishioners devoutly would he teach;
Benign he was and wonder diligent,
And in adversity full patient.
. . . . .
Wide was his parish, and houses far asunder,
But he left naught for rain nor thunder
In sickness nor in mischief to visit
The farthest of his parish, great or lite*
Upon his feet, and in his hand a staff.
The noble ensample to his sheep he gave,
That first he wrought, and afterward he taught."
*Little.
There was no better parson anywhere. He taught his people
to walk in Christ's way. But first he followed it himself.
Chaucer gives this good man a brother who is a plowman.
"A true worker and a good was he,
Living in peace and perfect charity."
He could dig, and he could thresh, and everything to which he put
his hand he did with a will.
Besides all the other religious folk there were a prioress and a
nun. In those days the convents were the only schools for fine
ladies, and the prioress perhaps spent her days teaching them.
Chaucer makes her very prim and precise.
"At meat well taught was she withal,
She let no morsel from her lips fall,
Nor wet her fingers in her sauce deep.
Well could she carry a morsel, and well keep
That no drop might fall upon her breast.*
In courtesy was set full mickle her lest.**
Her over lip wiped she so clean,
That in her cup there was no morsel seen
Of grease, when she drunken had her draught."
*It should be remembered that in those days forks were
unknown, and people used their fingers.
**Pleasure.
And she was so tender hearted! She would cry if she saw a mouse
caught in a trap, and she fed her little dog on the best of
everything. In her dress she was very dainty and particular.
And yet with all her fine ways we feel that she was no true lady,
and that ever so gently Chaucer is making fun of her.
Besides the prioress and the nun there was only one other woman
in the company. This was the vulgar, bouncing Wife of Bath. She
dressed in rich and gaudy clothes, she liked to go about to see
and be seen and have a good time. She had been married five
times, and though she was getting old and rather deaf, she was
quite ready to marry again, if the husband she had should die
before her.
Chaucer describes nearly every one in the company, and last of
all he pictures for us the host of the Tabard Inn.
"A seemly man our host was withal
For to have been a marshal in a hall.
A large man he was with eyen stepe,*
A fairer burgesse was there none in Chepe,**
Bold was his speech, and wise and well y-taught,
And of manhood him lacked right naught,
Eke thereto he was right a merry man."
*Bright.
**Cheapside, a street in London.
The host's name was Harry Baily, a big man and jolly fellow who
dearly loved a joke. After supper was over he spoke to all the
company gathered there. He told them how glad he was to see
them, and that he had not had so merry a company that year. Then
he told them that he had thought of something to amuse them on
the long way to Canterbury. It was this:--
"That each of you to shorten of your way
In this voyage shall tell tales tway*--
To Canterbury-ward I mean it so,
And homeward ye shall tellen other two;--
Of adventures which whilom have befallen.
And which of you the beareth you best of all,
That is to say, that telleth in this case
Tales of best sentence, and most solace,
Shall have a supper at all our cost,
Here in this place, sitting at this post,
When that we come again fro Canterbury.
And for to make you the more merry
I will myself gladly with you ride,
Right at mine own cost, and be your guide."
*Twain.
To this every one willingly agreed, and next morning they waked
very early and set off. And having ridden a little way they cast
lots as to who should tell the first tale. The lot fell upon the
knight, who accordingly began.
All that I have told you so far forms the first part of the book
and is called the prologue, which means really "before word" or
explanation. It is perhaps the most interesting part of the
book, for it is entirely Chaucer's own and it is truly English.
It is said that Chaucer borrowed the form of his famous tales
from a book called The Decameron, written by an Italian poet
named Boccaccio. Decameron comes from two Greek words deka, ten,
and hemera, a day, the book being so called because the stories
in it were supposed to be told in ten days. During a time of
plague in Florence seven ladies and three gentlemen fled and took
refuge in a house surrounded by a garden far from the town.
There they remained for ten days, and to amuse themselves each
told a tale every day, so that there are a hundred tales in all
in The Decameron.
It is very likely that in one of his journeys to Italy Chaucer
saw this book. Perhaps he even met Boccaccio, and it is more
than likely that he met Petrarch, another great Italian poet who
also retold one of the tales of The Decameron. Several of the
tales which Chaucer makes his people tell are founded on these
tales. Indeed, nearly all his poems are founded on old French,
Italian, or Latin tales. But although Chaucer takes his material
from others, he tells the stories in his own way, and so makes
them his own; and he never wrote anything more truly English in
spirit than the prologue to the Canterbury Tales.
Some of these stories you will like to read, but others are too
coarse and rude to give you any pleasure. Even the roughness of
these tales, however, helps us to picture the England of those
far-off days. We see from them how hard and rough the life must
have been when people found humor and fun in jokes in which we
can feel only disgust.
But even in Chaucer's day there were those who found such stories
coarse. "Precious fold," Chaucer calls them. He himself perhaps
did not care for them, indeed he explains in the tales why he
tells them. Here is a company of common, everyday people, he
said, and if I am to make you see these people, if they are to be
living and real to you, I must make them act and speak as such
common people would act and speak. They are churls, and they
must speak like churls and not like fine folk, and if you don't
like the tale, turn over the leaf and choose another.
"What should I more say but this miller
He would his words for no man forbear,
But told his churls tale in his manner.
Me thinketh that I shall rehearse it here;
And therefore every gently wight I pray,
For Goddes love deem not that I say
Of evil intent, but for I might rehearse
Their tales all, be they better or worse,
Or else falsen some of my matter:
And therefore, who so listeth it not to hear,
Turn over the leaf and choose another tale;
For he shall find enow, both great and small,
In storial thing that toucheth gentlesse,
And eke morality and holiness,--
Blame not me if that ye choose amiss.
This miller is a churl ye know well,
So was the Reeve, and many more,
And wickedness they tolden both two.
Advise you, put me out of blame;
And eke men shall not make earnest of game."
If Chaucer had written all the tales that he meant to write,
there would have been one hundred and twenty-four in all. But
the poet died long before his work was done, and as it is there
are only twenty-four. Two of these are not finished; one,
indeed, is only begun. Thus, you see, many of the pilgrims tell
no story at all, and we do not know who got the prize, nor do we
hear anything of the grand supper at the end of the journey.
Chaucer is the first of our poets who had a perfect sense of
sound. He delights us not only with his stories, but with the
beauty of the words he uses. We lose a great deal of that beauty
when his poetry is put into modern English, as are all the
quotations which I have given you. It is only when we can read
the poems in the quaint English of Chaucer's time that we can see
truly how fine it is. So, although you may begin to love Chaucer
now, you must look forward to a time when you will be able to
read his stories as he wrote them. Then you will love them much
more.
Chaucer wrote many other books beside the Canterbury Tales,
although not so many as was at one time thought. But the
Canterbury Tales are the most famous, and I will not trouble you
with the names even of the others. But when the grown-up time
comes, I hope that you will want to read some of his other books
as well as the Canterbury Tales.
And now, just to end this long chapter, I will give you a little
poem by Chaucer, written as he wrote it, with modern English
words underneath so that you may see the difference.
This poem was written when Chaucer was very poor. It was sent to
King Henry IV, who had just taken the throne from Richard II.
Henry's answer was a pension of twenty marks, so that once more
Chaucer lived in comfort. He died, however, a year later.
THE COMPLAYNT OF CHAUCER TO HYS PURSE
To yow my purse, and to noon other wight
To you my purse, and to no other wight
Complayne I, for ye by my lady dere;
Complain I, for ye be my lady dear;
I am so sorry now that ye been lyght,
I am so sorry now that ye be light,
For certes, but yf ye make me hevy chere
For certainly, but if ye make me heavy cheer
Me were as leef be layde upon my bere;
I would as soon be laid upon my bier;
For which unto your mercy thus I crye,
For which unto your mercy thus I cry,
Beeth hevy ageyne, or elles mote I dye.
Be heavy again, or else must I die.
Now voucheth-sauf this day or hyt by nyght
Now vouchsafe this day before it be night
That I of you the blisful sovne may here,
That I of you the blissful sound may hear,
Or see your colour lyke the sonne bryght,
Or see your colour like the sun bright,
That of yelownesse hadde neuer pere.
That of yellowness had never peer.
Ye be my lyfe, ye be myn hertys stere,
Ye be my life, ye be my heart's guide,
Quene of comfort, and of good companye,
Queen of comfort, and of good company,
Beth heuy ageyne, or elles moote I dye.
Be heavy again, or else must I die.
Now purse that ben to me my lyves lyght
Now purse that art to me my life's light
And saveour as down in this worlde here,
And saviour as down in this world here,
Oute of this tovne helpe me thrugh your myght,
Out of this town help me through your might,
Syn that ye wole nat bene my tresorere,
Since that ye will not be my treasurer,
For I am shave as nye as is a ffrere;
For I am shaven as close as is a friar;
But yet I pray vnto your curtesye,
But yet I pray unto your courtesy,
Bethe hevy agen or elles moote I dye.
Be heavy again or else must I die.
L'ENVOY* DE CHAUCER
O conquerour of Brutes albyon,
O conqueror of Brutus' Albion
Whiche that by lygne and free leccion
Who that by line and free election
Been verray kynge, this song to yow I sende;
Art very king, this song to you I send;
And ye that mowen alle myn harme amende,
And ye that art able all my harm amend,
Haue mynde vpon my supplicacion.
Have mind upon my supplication.
*This is from a French word, meaning "to send," and is
still often used for the last verse of a poem. It is, as it
were, a "sending off."
In reading this you must sound the final "e" in each word except
when the next word begins with an "h" or with another vowel. You
will then find it read easily and smoothly.
BOOKS TO READ
Stories from Chaucer (prose), by J. H. Kelman. Tales from
Chaucer (prose), by C. L. Thomson. Prologue to the Canterbury
Tales and Minor Poems (poetry), done into Modern English by W. W.
Skeat. Canterbury Tales (poetry), edited by A. W. Pollard (in
Chaucer's English, suitable only for grown-up readers).
NOTE.-- As there are so many books now published containing
stories from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, I feel it unnecessary to
give any here in outline.
Chapter XXV THE FIRST ENGLISH GUIDE-BOOK
AND now, lest you should say, "What, still more poetry!" I shall
give you next a chapter about a great story-teller who wrote in
prose. We use story-teller in two senses, and when we speak of
Sir John Mandeville we use it in both. He was a great story-
teller.
But before saying anything about his stories, I must first tell
you that after having been believed in as a real person for five
hundred years and more, Sir John has at last been found out. He
never lived at all, and the travels about which he tells us so
finely never took place.
"Sir John," too, used to be called the "Father of English Prose,"
but even that honor cannot be left to him, for his travels were
not written first in English, but in French, and were afterwards
translated into English.
But although we know Sir John Mandeville was not English, that he
never saw the places he describes, that indeed he never lived at
all, we will still call him by that name. For we must call him
something, and as no one really knows who wrote the book which is
known as The Voyages and Travels of Sir John Mandeville, we may
as well call the author by the name he chose as by another.
Sir John, then, tells us that he was born in St. Albans, that he
was a knight, and that in 1322 he set out on his travels. He
traveled about for more than twenty years, but at last, although
in the course of them he had drunk of the well of everlasting
youth, he became so crippled with gout that he could travel no
longer. He settled down, therefore, at Liege in Belgium. There
he wrote his book, and there he died and was buried. At any
rate, many years afterwards his tomb was shown there. It was
also shown at St. Albans, where the people were very proud of it.
Sir John's great book was a guide-book. In those days, as we
know, it was a very common thing for people to go on pilgrimages.
And among the long pilgrimages the one to the Holy Land was the
most common. So Sir John wrote his book to help people on their
way, just as Mr. Baedeker and Mr. Murray do now.
It is perhaps the earliest, and certainly one of the most
delightful, guide-books ever written, although really it was
chiefly made up of bits out of books by other people.
Sir John tells of many different ways of getting to Palestine,
and relates wonderful stories about the places to be passed
through. He wrote in French. "I know that I ought to write in
Latin," he says, "but because more people understand French I
have written in French, so that every one may understand it."
Afterwards it was translated into Latin, later into English, and
still later into almost every European language, so much did
people like the stories.
When these stories appeared it was something quite new in
Literature, for until this time stories were always written in
poetry. It was only great and learned books, or books that were
meant to teach something, that were written in prose.
Here is one of Sir John Mandeville's tales.
After telling about the tomb of St. John at Ephesus, Sir John
goes on: "And then men pass through the isles of Cophos and
Lango, of the which isles Ipocras was lord. And some say that in
the isle of Lango is Ipocras's daughter in form of a Dragon. It
is a hundred foot long, so men say. But I have not seen it. And
they say the people of the isles call her the lady of the
country, and she lieth in an old castle and sheweth herself
thrice a year. And she doeth no man harm. And she is thus
changed from a lady to a Dragon through a goddess whom men call
Diana.
"And men say that she shall dwell so until the time that a knight
come that is so hardy as to go to her and kiss her mouth. And
then shall she turn again to her own kind and be a woman. And
after that she shall not live long.
"And it is not long since a knight of the island of Rhodes that
was hardy and valiant said that he would kiss her. But when the
Dragon began to lift up her head, and he saw it was so hideous,
he fled away. Then the Dragon in her anger bare the knight to a
rock and cast him into the sea, and so he was lost.
"Also a young man that wist not of the Dragon went out of a ship
and went through the isle till he came to a castle. Then came he
into the cave and went on till he found a chamber. And there he
saw a lady combing her hair, and looking in a mirror. And she
had much treasure about her. He bowed to the lady, and the lady
saw the shadow of him in the mirror. Then she turned towards him
and asked him what he would. And he answered he would be her
lover.
"Then she asked him if he were a knight, and he said 'Nay.' She
said then he might not be her lover. But she bade him go again
to his fellows and make him knight, and come again on the morrow.
Then she would come out of the cave and he should kiss her on the
mouth. And she bade him have no dread, for she would do him no
harm. Although she seemed hideous to him she said it was done by
enchantment, for, she said, she was really such as he saw her
then. She said, too, that if he kissed her he should have all
the treasure, and be her lord, and lord of all these isles.
"Then he departed from her and went to his fellows in the ship,
and made him knight, and came again on the morrow for to kiss the
damsel. But when he saw her come out of the cave in the form of
a Dragon, he had so great dread that he fled to the ship. She
followed him, and when she saw that he turned not again she began
to cry as a thing that had much sorrow, and turned back again.
"Soon after the knight died, and since, hitherto, might no knight
see her but he died anon. But when a knight cometh that is so
hardy to kiss her, he shall not die, but he shall turn that
damsel into her right shape and shall be lord of the country
aforesaid."
When Sir John reaches Palestine he has very much to say of the
wonders to be seen there. At Bethlehem he tells a story of how
roses first came into the world. Here it is:
"Bethlehem is but a little city, long and narrow, and well walled
and enclosed with a great ditch, and it was wont to be called
Ephrata, as Holy Writ sayeth, 'Lo, we heard it at Ephrata.' And
toward the end of the city toward the East, is a right fair
church and a gracious. And it hath many towers, pinnacles and
turrets full strongly made. And within that church are forty-
four great pillars of marble, and between the church the Field
Flowered as ye shall hear.
"The cause is, for as much as a fair maiden was blamed with
wrong, for the which cause she was deemed to die, and to be burnt
in that place, to the which she was led.
"And as the wood began to burn about her, she made her prayer to
our Lord as she was not guilty of that thing, that He would help
her that her innocence might be known to all men.
"And when she had this said she entered the fire. And anon the
fire went out, and those branches that were burning became red
roses, and those branches that were not kindled became white
roses. And those were the first roses and rose-trees that any
man saw. And so was the maiden saved through the grace of God,
and therefore is that field called the Field of God Flowered, for
it was full of roses."
Although Sir John begins his book as a guide to Palestine, he
tells of many other lands also, and of the wonder there. Of
Ethiopia, he tells us: "On the other side of Chaldea toward the
South is Ethiopia, a great land. In this land in the South are
the people right black. In that side is a well that in the day
the water is so cold that no man may drink thereof, and in the
night it is so hot that no man may suffer to put his hand in it.
In this land the rivers and all the waters are troublous, and
some deal salt, for the great heat. And men of that land are
easily made drunken and have little appetite for meat. They have
commonly great illness of body and live not long. In Ethiopia
are such men as have one foot, and they walk so fast that it is a
great marvel. And that is a large foot that the shadow thereof
covereth the body from sun and rain when they lie upon their
backs."
Sir John tells us, too, of a wonderful group of islands, "and in
one of these isles are men that have one eye, and that in the
midst of their forehead. And they eat not flesh or fish all raw.
"And in another isle dwell men that have no heads, and their eyes
are in their shoulders and their mouth is in their breast. . . .
"And in another isle are men that have flat faces without nose
and without eyes, but they have two small round holes instead of
eyes and they have a flat mouth without lips. . . .
"And in another isle are men that have the lips about their mouth
so great that when they sleep in the sun they cover all their
face with the lip."
But I must not tell all the "lying wonders of our English
knight."* for you must read the book for yourselves. And when
you do you will find that it is written with such an easy air of
truth that you will half believe in Sir John's marvels. Every
now and again, too, he puts in a bit of real information which
helps to make his marvels seem true, so that sometimes we cannot
be sure what is truth and what is fable.
*Colonel Sir Henry Yule, The Book of Sir Marco Polo.
Sir John wandered far and long, but at last his journeyings
ended. "I have passed through many lands and isles and
countries," he says, "and now am come to rest against my will."
And so to find comfort in his "wretched rest" he wrote his book.
"But," he says, "there are many other divers countries, and many
other marvels beyond that I have not seen. Also in countries
where I have been there are many marvels that I speak not of, for
it were too long a tale." And also, he thought, it was as well
to leave something untold "so that other men that go thither may
find enough for to say that I have not told," which was very kind
of him.
Sir John tells us then how he took his book to the holy father
the Pope, and how he caused it to be read, and "the Pope hath
ratified and affirmed my book in all points. And I pray to all
those that read this book, that they will pray for me, and I
shall pray for them."
BOOKS TO READ
The Voyages and Travels of Sir John Mandeville, edited
Chapter XXVI BARBOUR--"THE BRUCE," THE BEGINNINGS OF A
STRUGGLE
WHILE Chaucer was making for us pictures of English life, in the
sister kingdom across the rugged Cheviots another poet was
singing to a ruder people. This poet was John Barbour,
Archdeacon of Aberdeen. An older man than Chaucer, born perhaps
twenty years before the English poet, he died only five years
earlier. So that for many years these two lived and wrote at the
same time.
But the book by which Barbour is remembered best is very
different from that by which we remember Chaucer. Barbour's
best-known book is called The Bruce, and in it, instead of the
quiet tales of middle-class people, we hear throughout the clash
and clang of battle. Here once again we have the hero of
romance. Here once again history and story are mingled, and
Robert the Bruce swings his battle-ax and wings his faultless
arrow, saving his people from the English yoke.
The music of The Bruce cannot compare with the music of the
Tales, but the spirit throughout is one of manliness, of delight
in noble deeds and noble thoughts. Barbour's way of telling his
stories is simple and straightforward. It is full of stern
battle, yet there are lines of tender beauty, but nowhere do we
find anything like the quiet laughter and humor of Chaucer. And
that is not wonderful, for those were stern times in Scotland,
and The Bruce is as much an outcome of those times as were the
Tales or Piers Ploughman an outcome of the times in England.
But if to Chaucer belongs the title of "Father of English
Poetry," to Barbour belongs that of "Father of Scottish Poetry
and Scottish History." He, indeed, calls the language he wrote
in "Inglis," but it is a different English from that of Chaucer.
They were both founded on Anglo-Saxon, but instead of growing
into modern English, Barbour's tongue grew into what was known
later as "braid Scots." All the quotations that I am going to
give you from the poem I have turned into modern English, for,
although they lose a great deal in beauty, it makes them easier
for every one to understand. For even to the Scots boys and
girls who read this book there are many words in the original
that would need translating, although they are words still used
by every one who speaks Scots to this day. In one page of
twenty-seven lines taken at random we find sixteen such words.
They are, micht, nicht, lickt, weel, gane, ane, nane, stane,
rowit, mirk, nocht, brocht, mair, sperit at, sair, hert. For
those who are Scots it is interesting to know how little the
language of the people has changed in five hundred years.
As of many another of our early poets, we know little of
Barbour's life. He was Archdeacon of Aberdeen, as already said,
and in 1357 he received a safe-conduct from Edward III to allow
him to travel to Oxford with three companions. In those days
there was not as yet any university in Scotland. The monasteries
still held their place as centers of learning. But already the
fame of Oxford had reached the northern kingdom, and Barbour was
anxious to share in the treasures of learning to be found there.
At the moment there was peace between the two countries, but hate
was not dead, it only slumbered. So a safe-conduct or passport
was necessary for any Scotsman who would travel through England
in safety. "Edward the King unto his lieges greeting," it ran.
"Know ye that we have taken under our protection (at the request
of David de Bruce) John Barbour, Archdeacon of Aberdeen, with the
scholars in his company, in coming into our kingdom of England,
in order to study in the university of Oxford, and perform his
scholastic exercises, and in remaining there and in returning to
his own country of Scotland. And we hereby grant him our safe-
conduct, which is to continue in force for one year."
Barbour was given two other safe-conducts, one to allow him again
to visit Oxford, and another to allow him to pass through England
on his way to France. Besides this, we know that Barbour
received a pension from the King of Scotland, and that he held
his archdeaconry until his death; and that is almost all that we
know certainly of his life.
The Bruce is the great national poem, Robert the Bruce the great
national hero of Scotland. But although The Bruce concerns
Scotland in the first place, it is of interest to every one, for
it is full of thrilling stories of knightly deeds, many of which
are true. "The fine poem deserves to be better known," says one
of its editors.* "It is a proud thing for a country to have
given a subject for such an Odyssey, and to have had so early in
its literature a poet worthy to celebrate it." And it is little
wonder that Barbour wrote so stirringly of his hero, for he lived
not many years after the events took place, and when he was a
schoolboy Robert the Bruce was still reigning over Scotland.
*Cosmo Innes.
In the beginning of his book Barbour says:--
"Stories to read are delightful,
Supposing even they be naught but fable;
Then should stories that true were,
And that were said in good manner,
Have double pleasantness in hearing.
The first pleasantness is the telling
And the other is the truthfulness
That shows the thing right as it was.
And such things that are likand
To man's hearing are pleasant;
Therefore I would fain set my will,
If my wit may suffice thereto,
To put in writ a truthful story,
That it last aye forth in memory,
So that no time of length it let,
Nor gar it wholly be forgot."
So he will, he says, tell the tale of "stalwart folk that lived
erst while," of "King Robert of Scotland that hardy was of heart
and hand," and of "Sir James of Douglas that in his time so
worthy was," that his fame reached into far lands. Then he ends
this preface with a prayer that God will give him grace, "so that
I say naught but soothfast thing."
The story begins with describing the state of Scotland after the
death of Alexander III, when Edward I ruled in England.
Alexander had been a good king, but at his death the heir to the
throne was a little girl, the Maid of Norway. She was not even
in Scotland, but was far across the sea. And as this child-queen
came sailing to her kingdom she died on board ship, and so never
saw the land over which she ruled.
Then came a sad time for Scotland. "The land six year and more
i-faith lay desolate," for there was no other near heir to the
throne, and thirteen nobles claimed it. At last, as they could
not agree which had the best right, they asked King Edward of
England to decide for them.
As you know, it had been the dream of every King of England to be
King of Scotland too. And now Edward I saw his chance to make
that dream come true. He chose as King the man who had, perhaps,
the greatest right to the throne, John Balliol. But he made him
promise to hold the crown as a vassal to the King of England.
This, however, the Scots would not suffer. Freedom they had ever
loved, and freedom they would have. No man, they said, whether
he were chosen King or no, had power to make them thralls of
England.
"Oh! Freedom is a noble thing!
Freedom makes a man to have liking,
Freedom all solace to man gives,
He lives at ease that freely lives.
A noble heart may have no ease,
Nor nothing else that may him please,
If freedom faileth; for free delight
Is desired before all other thing.
Nor he that aye has lived free
May not know well the quality,
The anger, nor the wretched doom
That joined is to foul thraldom."
So sang Barbour, and so the passionate hearts of the Scots cried
through all the wretched years that followed the crowning of John
Balliol. And when at last they had greatest need, a leader arose
to show them the way to freedom. Robert the Bruce, throwing off
his sloth and forgetfulness of his country, became their King and
hero. He was crowned and received the homage of his barons, but
well he knew that was but the beginning.
"To maintain what he had begun
He wist, ere all the land was won,
He should find full hard bargaining
With him that was of England King,
For there was none in life so fell,
So stubborn, nor so cruel."
Then began a long struggle between two gallant men, Robert of
Scotland and Edward of England. At first things went ill with
the Bruce. He lost many men in battle, others forsook him, and
for a time he lived a hunted outlaw among the hills.
"He durst not to the plains y-go
For all the commons went him fro,
That for their lives were full fain
To pass to the English peace again."
But in all his struggles Bruce kept a good heart and comforted
his men.
"'For discomfort,' as then said he,
'Is the worst thing that may be;
For through mickle discomforting
Men fall oft into despairing.
And if a man despairing be,
Then truly vanquished is he.'"
Yet even while Bruce comforted his men he bade them be brave, and
said:--
"And if that them were set a choice,
To die, or to live cowardly,
They should ever die chivalrously."
He told them stories, too, of the heroes of olden times who,
after much suffering, had in the end won the victory over their
enemies. Thus the days passed, and winter settled down on the
bleak mountains. Then the case of Robert and his men grew worse
and worse, and they almost lost hope. But at length, with many
adventures, the winter came to an end. Spring returned again,
and with spring hope.
Chapter XXVII BARBOUR--"THE BRUCE," THE END OF THE STRUGGLE
"'Twas in spring, when winter tide
With his blasts, terrible to bide
Was overcome; and birdies small,
As throstle and the nightingale,
Began right merrily to sing,
And to make in their singing
Sundrie notes, and varied sounds,
And melody pleasant to hear,
And the trees began to blow
With buds, and bright blossom also,
To win the covering of their heads
Which wicked winter had them riven,
And every grove began to spring."
It was in spring that Bruce and his men gathered to the island of
Arran, off the west coast of Scotland, and there Bruce made up
his mind to make another fight for the crown. A messenger was
therefore sent over to the mainland, and it was arranged that if
he found friends there, if he thought it was safe for the King to
come, he should, at a certain place, light a great fire as a
signal. Anxiously Bruce watched for the light, and at last he
saw it. Then joyfully the men launched their boat, and the King
and his few faithful followers set out.
"They rowed fast with all their might,
Till that upon them fell the night,
That it wox mirk* in great manner
So that they wist not where they were,
For they no needle had, nor stone,
But rowed always in one way,
Steering always upon the fire
That they saw burning bright and clear.
It was but adventure that them led,
And they in short time so them sped
That at the fire arrived they,
And went to land but** mair delay."
*Dark.
**Without.
On shore the messenger was eagerly and anxiously awaiting them,
and with a "sare hert" he told the King that the fire was none of
his. Far from there being friends around, the English, he said,
swarmed in all the land.
"Were in the castle there beside,
Full filled of despite and pride."
There was no hope of success.
"Then said the King in full great ire,
'Traitor, why made thou on the fire?'
'Ah sire,' he said, 'so God me see
That fire was never made on for me.
No ere this night I wist it not
But when I wist it weel* I thoecht
That you and all your company
In haste would put you to the sea.
For this I come to meet you here,
To tell the perils that may appear.'"
*Well.
The King, vexed and disappointed, turned to his followers for
advice. What was best to do, he asked. Edward Bruce, the King's
brave brother, was the first to answer.
"And said, 'I say you sickerly,
There shall no perils that may be
Drive me eftsoons into the sea;
Mine adventure here take will I
Whether it be easeful or angry.'
'Brother,' he said, 'since you will so
It is good that we together take
Disease and ease, or pain or play
After as God will us purvey.'"
And so, taking courage, they set out in the darkness, and
attacked the town, and took it with great slaughter.
"In such afray they bode that night
Till in the morn, that day was bright,
And then ceased partly
The noise, the slaughter, and the cry."
Thus once again the fierce struggle was begun. But this time the
Bruce was successful. From town after town, from castle after
castle the enemy was driven out, till only Stirling was left to
the English. It was near this town, on the field of Bannockburn,
that the last great struggle took place. Brave King Edward I was
dead by this time, but his son, Edward II, led the army. It was
the greatest army that had ever entered Scotland, but the Scots
won the day and won freedom at the same time. I cannot tell you
of this great battle, nor of all the adventures which led up to
it. These you must read in other books, one day, I hope, in
Barbour's Bruce itself.
From the day of Bannockburn, Barbour tells us, Robert the Bruce
grew great.
"His men were rich, and his country
Abounded well with corn and cattle,
And of all kind other richness;
Mirth, solace, and eke blithness
Was in the land all commonly,
For ilk man blith was and jolly."
And here Barbour ends the first part of his poem. In the second
part he goes on to tell us of how the Bruces carried war into
Ireland, of how they overran Northumberland, and of how at length
true peace was made. Then King Robert's little son David, who
was but five, was married to Joan, the seven-year-old sister of
King Edward III. Thus, after war, came rest and ease to both
countries.
But King Robert did not live long to enjoy his well-earned rest.
He died, and all the land was filled with mourning and sorrow.
"'All our defense,' they said, 'alas!
And he that all our comfort was,
Our wit and all our governing,
Is brought, alas, here to ending;
. . . . .
Alas! what shall we do or say?
For in life while he lasted, aye
By all our foes dred were we,
And in many a far country
Of our worship ran the renown,
And that was all for his person.'"
Barbour ends his book by telling of how the Douglas set out to
carry the heart of the Bruce to Palestine, and of how he fell
fighting in Spain, and of how his dead body and the King's heart
were brought back to Scotland.
Barbour was born about six years after the battle of Bannockburn.
As a boy he must have heard many stories of these stirring times
from those who had taken part in them. He must have known many a
woman who had lost husband or father in the great struggle. He
may even have met King Robert himself. And as a boy he must have
shared in the sorrow that fell upon the land when its hero died.
He must have remembered, when he grew up, how the people mourned
when the dead body of the Douglas and the heart of the gallant
Bruce were brought home from Spain. But in spite of Barbour's
prayer to be kept from saying "ought but soothfast thing," we
must not take The Bruce too seriously. If King Robert was a true
King he was also a true hero of romance. We must not take all
The Bruce as serious history, but while allowing for the truth of
much, we must also allow something for the poet's worship of his
hero, a hero, too, who lived so near the time in which he wrote.
We must allow something for the feelings of a poet who so
passionately loved the freedom for which that hero fought.
BOOKS TO READ
There is, so far as I know, no modernized version of The Bruce,
but there are many books illustrative of the text. In this
connection may be read Robert the Bruce (Children's heroes
Series), by Jeannie Lang; Chapters XXIV to XLIV. Scotland's
Story, by H. E. Marshall; The Lord of the Isles, by Sir Walter
Scott; Castle Dangerous, by Sir Walter Scott; "The Heart of the
Bruce" in Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers, by Aytoun. The most
available version of The Bruce in old "Inglis," edited by W. M.
Mackenzie.
Chapter XXVIII A POET KING
The Bruce is a book which is the outcome of the history of the
times. It is the outcome of the quarrels between England and
Scotland, and of Scotland's struggle for freedom. Now we come to
another poet, and another poem which was the outcome of the
quarrels between England and Scotland. For although Scotland's
freedom was never again in danger, the quarrels between the two
countries were, unhappily, not over.
In 1399, as we know, Henry IV wrested the crown of England from
Richard II. The new King proved no friend to Scotland, for he
desired, as those before him had desired, to rule both countries.
Henry lost no chance, therefore, by which he might gain his end.
So when in 1405 the King of Scotland sent his little son James to
be educated in France, the English attacked the ship in which he
sailed and took him prisoner. Instead, then, of going as a guest
to the court of France, the Prince was carried as a prisoner to
the court of England. When the old King heard the sad news he
died, and James, captive though he was, became King of Scotland.
Those were again troublous times in Scotland. The captive King's
uncle was chosen as Regent to rule in his absence. But he,
wishing to rule himself, had no desire that his nephew should be
set free. So through the reigns of Henry IV and of Henry V James
remained a prisoner. But although a prisoner he was not harshly
treated, and the Kings of England took care that he should
receive an education worthy of a prince. James was taught to
read and write English, French, and Latin. He was taught to
fence and wrestle, and indeed to do everything as a knight
should. Prince James was a willing pupil; he loved his books,
and looked forward to the coming of his teachers, who lightened
the loneliness of his prison.
"But," says a Frenchman who has written a beautiful little book
about this captive King, "'stone walls do not a prison make, nor
iron bars a cage': the soul of the child, who grew to be a youth,
was never a prisoner. Behind the thick walls of the Tower, built
long ago by the Conqueror, he studied. Guards watched over him,
but his spirit was far away voyaging in the realms of poetry.
And in these thought journeys, sitting at his little window, with
a big book upon his knee, he visited the famous places which the
Gesta Romanorum unrolled before him. . . . The 'noble senator'
Boece taught him resignation. William de Lorris took him by the
hand and led him to the garden of the Rose. The illustrious
Chaucer invited him to follow the gay troop of pilgrims along the
highroad to Canterbury. The grave Gower, announcing in advance a
sermon of several hours, begged him to be seated, and to the
murmur of his wise talk, his head leaning on the window frame,
the child slept peacefully.
"Thus passed the years, and the chief change that they brought
was a change of prison. After the Tower it was the Castle of
Nottingham, another citadel of the Norman time, then Evesham,
then again the Tower when Henry V came to the throne; and at
last, and this was by contrast almost liberty, the Castle of
Windsor."*
*J. J. Jusserand, Le Roman d'un Roi d'Ecosse
And thus for eighteen years the Prince lived a life half-real,
half-dream. The gray days followed each other without change,
without adventure. But the brilliant throng of kings and queens,
of knights and ladies, of pilgrims and lovers, and all the make-
believe people of storyland stood out all the brighter for the
grayness of the background. And perhaps to the Prince in his
quiet tower the storied people were more real than the living,
who only now and again came to visit him. For the storied people
were with him always, while the living came and went again and
were lost to him in the great world without, of which he knew
scarce anything. But at last across this twilight life, which
was more than half a dream, there struck one day a flash of
sunshine. Then to the patient, studious prisoner all was
changed. Life was no longer a twilight dream, but real. He knew
how deep joy might be, how sharp sorrow. Life was worth living,
he learned, freedom worth having, and at length freedom came, and
the Prince returned to his country a free King and a happy lover.
How all this happened King James has told us himself in a book
called The King's Quair, which means the King's little book,
which he wrote while he was still a prisoner in England.
King James tells us how one night he could not sleep, try as he
might. He lay tossing and tumbling, "but sleep for craft on
earth might I no more." So at last, "knowing no better wile," he
took a book hoping "to borrow a sleep" by reading. But instead
of bringing sleep, the book only made him more and more wide
awake. At length he says:--
"Mine eyen gan to smart for studying,
My book I shut, and at my head it laid,
And down I lay but* any tarrying."
*Without.
Again he lay thinking and tossing upon his bed until he was
weary.
"Then I listened suddenly,
And soon I heard the bell to matins ring,
And up I rose, no longer would I lie.
But now, how trow ye? such a fantasy
Fell me to mind, that aye methought the bell
Said to me, 'Tell on man what thee befell.'
Thought I tho' to myself, 'What may this be?
This is mine own imagining,
It is no life* that speaketh unto me;
It is a bell, or that impression
Of my thought causeth this illusion,
That maketh me think so nicely in this wise';
And so befell as I shall you devise."
*Living person.
Prince James says he had already wasted much ink and paper on
writing, yet at the bidding of the bell he decided to write some
new thing. So up he rose,
"And forth-with-all my pen in hand I took,
And made a + and thus began my book."
Prince James then tells of his past life, of how, when he was a
lad, his father sent him across the sea in a ship, and of how he
was taken prisoner and found himself in "Straight ward and strong
prison" "without comfort in sorrow." And there full often he
bemoaned his fate, asking what crime was his that he should be
shut up within four walls when other men were free.
"Bewailing in my chamber thus alone,
Despairing of all joy and remedy,
Out wearied with my thought and woe begone,
Unto the window gan I walk in haste,
To see the world and folk that went forbye,
As for the time though I of mirths food
Might have no more, to look it did me good."
Beneath the tower in which the Prince was imprisoned lay a
beautiful garden. It was set about with hawthorn hedges and
juniper bushes, and on the small, green branches sat a little
nightingale, which sang so loud and clear "that all the garden
and the walls rang right with the song." Prince James leaned
from his window listening to the song of the birds, and watching
them as they hopped from branch to branch, preening themselves in
the early sunshine and twittering to their mates. And as he
watched he envied the birds, and wondered why he should be a
thrall while they were free.
"And therewith cast I down mine eyes again,
Whereas I saw, walking under the tower
Full secretly, new coming her to play,
The fairest and the freshest young flower
That ever I saw methought, before that hour,
For which sudden abate, anon astart,
The blood of all my body to my heart."
A lovely lady was walking in the garden, a lady more lovely than
he had dreamed any one might be. Her hair was golden, and
wreathed with flowers. Her dress was rich, and jewels sparkled
on her white throat. Spellbound, he stood a while watching the
lovely lady. He could do nothing but gaze.
"No wonder was; for why my wits all
Were so overcome with pleasance and delight,
Only through letting of mine eyes down fall,
That suddenly my heart became her thrall,
For ever of free will."
Thus, from the first moment in which he saw her, James loved the
beautiful lady. After a few minutes he drew in his head lest she
might see him and be angry with him for watching her. But soon
he leaned out again, for while she was in the garden he felt he
must watch and see her walk "so womanly."
So he stood still at the window, and although the lady was far
off in the garden, and could not hear him, he whispered to her,
telling of his love. "O sweet," he said, "are you an earthly
creature, or are you a goddess? How shall I do reverence to you
enough, for I love you? And you, if you will not love me too,
why, then have you come? Have you but come to add to the misery
of a poor prisoner?"
Prince James looked, and longed, and sighed, and envied the
little dog with which the lovely lady played. Then he scolded
the little birds because they sang no more. "Where are the songs
you chanted this morning?" he asked. "Why do you not sing now?
Do you not see that the most beautiful lady in all the world is
come into your garden?" Then to the nightingale he cried, "Lift
up thine heart and sing with good intent. If thou would sing
well ever in thy life, here is i-faith the time--here is the time
or else never."
Then it seemed to the Prince as if, in answer to his words, all
the birds sang more sweetly than ever before. And what they sang
was a love-song to his lady. And she, walking under the tender
green of the May trees, looked upward, and listened to their
sweet songs, while James watched her and loved her more and more.
"And when she walked had a little while
Under the sweet green boughs bent,
Her fair fresh face as white as any snow,
She turned has, and forth her ways went;
But then began my sickness and torment
To see her go, and follow I not might,
Methought the day was turned into night."
Then, indeed, the day was dark for the Prince. The beautiful
lady in going had left him more lonely than before. Now he truly
knew what it was to be a prisoner. All day long he knelt at the
window, watching, and longing, and not knowing by what means he
might see his lady again. At last night came, and worn out in
heart and mind he leaned his head #against the cold rough stone
and slept.
Chapter XXIX THE DEATH OF THE POET KING
AS Prince James slept he dreamed that a sudden great light shone
into his prison, making bright all the room. A voice cried, "I
bring thee comfort and healing, be not afraid." Then the light
passed as suddenly as it had come and the Prince went forth from
his prison, no man saying him nay.
"And hastily by both the arms twain
I was araised up into the air,
Caught in a cloud of crystal clear and fair."
And so through "air and water and hot fire" he was carried,
seeing and hearing many wonders, till he awoke to find himself
still kneeling by his window.
Was it all a dream, Prince James asked himself, even the vision
of the lovely lady in the garden? At that thought his heart grew
heavy. Then, as if to comfort him, a dove flew in at his window
carrying in her mouth a sprig of gilliflowers. Upon the stalk in
golden letters were written the words, "Awake! Awake! lover, I
bring thee glad news."
And so the story had a happy ending, for Prince James knew that
the lovely lady of the garden loved him. "And if you think," he
says, "that I have written a great deal about a very little
thing, I say this to you:--
"Who that from hell hath creeped once to heaven
Would after one thank for joy not make six or seven,
And every wight his own sweet or sore
Has most in mind: I can say you no more."
Then, in an outburst of joy, he thanks and blesses everything
that has led up to this happy day, which has brought him under
"Love's yoke which easy is and sure." Even his exile and his
prison he thanks.
"And thanked be the fair castle wall
Whereas I whilcome looked forth and leant."
The King's Quair reminds us very much of Chaucer's work. All
through it there are lines which might have been written by
Chaucer, and in the last verse James speaks of Gower and Chaucer
as his "masters dear." Of Gower I have said nothing in this
book, because there is not room to tell of every one, and he is
not so important as some or so interesting as others. So I leave
you to learn about him later. It is to Chaucer, too, much more
than to Gower that James owes his music. And if he is grave like
Gower rather than merry like Chaucer, we must remember that for
nineteen years he had lived a captive, so that it was natural his
verse should be somber as his life had been. And though there is
no laughter in this poem, it shows a power of feeling joy as well
as sorrow, which makes us sad when we remember how long the poet
was shut away from common human life.
The King's Quair is written in verses of seven lines. Chaucer
used this kind of verse, but because King James used it too, and
used it so well, it came to be called the Rhyme Royal.
King James's story had a happy ending. A story with a happy
ending must end of course with a wedding, and so did this one.
The King of England, now Henry VI, was only a child. But those
who ruled for him were quite pleased when they heard that Prince
James had fallen in love with the beautiful lady of the garden,
for she was the King's cousin, Lady Jane Beaufort. They set
James free and willingly consented that he should marry his lady,
for in this way they hoped to bind England and Scotland together,
and put an end to wars between the two countries. So there was a
very grand wedding in London when the lovely lady of the garden
became Queen of Scotland. And then these two, a King and Queen,
yet happy as any simple lovers journeyed northward to their
kingdom.
They were received with great rejoicing and crowned at Scone.
But the new King soon found, that during the long years he had
been kept a prisoner in England his kingdom had fallen into wild
disorder. Sternly he set himself to bring order out of disorder,
and the wilfull, lawless nobles soon found to their surprise that
the gentle poet had a will of iron and a hand of steel, and that
he could wield a sword and scepter as skillfully as his pen.
James I righted much that was wrong. In doing it he made for
himself many enemies. But of all that he did or tried to do in
the twelve years that he ruled you will read in history books.
Here I will only tell you of his sad death.
In 1436 James decided to spend Christmas at Perth, a town he
loved. As he neared the river Forth, which he had to cross on
his way, an aged woman came to him crying in a loud voice, "My
Lord King, if ye cross this water ye shall never return again in
life."
Now the King had read a prophecy in which it was said that a King
of Scotland should be slain that same year. So wondering what
this woman might mean, he sent a knight to speak with the woman.
But the knight could make nothing of her, and returning to the
King he said, "Sir, take no heed of yon woman's words, for she is
old and foolish, and wots not what she sayeth." So the King rode
on.
Christmas went by quietly and peacefully, and the New Year came,
and still the King lingered in Perth. The winter days passed
pleasantly in reading, walking, and tennis-playing; the evenings
in chess-playing, music, and story-telling.
But one night, as James was chatting and laughing with the Queen
and her ladies before going to bed, a great noise was heard. The
sound of many feet, the clatter of armor mingled with wild cries
was borne to the quiet room, and through the high windows flashed
the light of many torches.
At once the King guessed that he was betrayed. The Queen and her
ladies ran hastily to the door to shut it. But the locks had
been broken and the bolts carried away, so that it could not be
fastened.
In vain James looked round. Way of escape there was none.
Alone, unarmed, he could neither guard the ladies nor save
himself. Crying to them to keep fast the door as best they
might, he sprang to the window, hoping by his great strength to
wrench the iron bars from their places and escape that way. But,
alas, they were so strongly set in the stone that he could not
move them, "for which cause the King was ugly astonied."*
*The Dethe of the Kynge of Scottis.
Then turning to the fire James seized the tongs, "and under his
feet he mightily brast up a blank of the chamber,"* and leaping
down into the vault beneath he let the plank fall again into its
place. By this vault the King might have escaped, for until
three days before there had been a hole leading from it to the
open air. But as he played tennis his balls often rolled into
this hole and were lost. So he had ordered it to be built up.
*The same.
There was nothing, then, for the King to do but wait. Meanwhile
the noise grew louder and louder, the traitors came nearer and
nearer. One brave lady named Catherine Douglas, hoping to keep
them out, and so save the King, thrust her arm through the iron
loops on the door where the great bolt should have been. But
against the savage force without, her frail, white arm was
useless. The door was burst open. Wounded and bleeding,
Catherine Douglas was thrown aside and the wild horde stormed
into the room.
It was not long ere the King's hiding-place was found, and one of
the traitors leaped down beside him with a great knife in his
hand. "And the King, doubting him for his life, caught him
mightily by the shoulders, and with full great violence cast him
under his feet. For the King was of his person and stature a man
right manly strong."*
*The same.
Seeing this, another traitor leaped down to help his fellow.
"And the King caught him manly by the neck, both under him that
all a long month after men might see how strongly the King had
holden them by the throats."*
*The same.
Fiercely the King struggled with his enemies, trying to wrench
their knives from them so that he might defend himself. But it
was in vain. Seeing him grow weary a third traitor, the King's
greatest enemy, Robert Grahame, leaped down too into the vault,
"with a horrible and mortal weapon in his hand, and therewithal
he smote him through the body, and therewithal the good King fell
down."*
*The same.
And thus the poet King died with sixteen wounds in his brave
heart and many more in his body. So at the long last our story
has a sad ending. But we have to remember that for twelve years
King James had a happy life, and that as he had loved his lady at
the first so he loved her to the end, and was true to her.
Besides The King's Quair, there are a few other short poems which
some people think King James wrote. They are very different from
the Quair, being more like the ballads of the people, and most
people think now that James did not write them. But because they
are different is no real reason for thinking that they are not
his. For James was quite clever enough, we may believe, to write
in more than one way.
Besides these doubtful poems, there is one other poem of three
verses about which no one has any doubt. I will give you one
verse here, for it seems in tune with the King's own life and
sudden death.
"Be not our proud in thy prosperite,
Be not o'er proud in thy prosperity,
For as it cumis, sa will it pass away;
For as it comes, so will it pass away;
Thy tym to compt is short, thou may weille se
Thy time to count is short, thou mayst well see
For of green gres soyn cumis walowit hay,
For of green grass soon cometh withered hay,
Labour is trewth, quhill licht is of the day.
Labour in truth, while light is of the day.
Trust maist in God, for he best gyd thee can,
Trust most in God, for he best guide thee can,
And for ilk inch he wil thee quyt a span."
And for each inch he will thee requite a span.
BOOKS TO READ
An illustration of this chapter may be read in The Fair Maid of
Perth, by Sir Walter Scott; The King's Tragedy (poetry), by D. G.
Rossetti in his Poetical Works. The best version of The King's
Quair in the ancient text is by W. W. Skeat.
Chapter XXX DUNBAR--THE WEDDING OF THE THISTLE AND THE ROSE
THE fifteenth century, the century in which King James I reigned
and died, has been called the "Golden Age of Scottish Poetry,"
because of the number of poets who lived and wrote then. And so,
although I am only going to speak of one other Scottish poet at
present, you must remember that there were at this time many
more. But of them all William Dunbar is counted the greatest.
And although I do not think you will care to read his poems for a
very long time to come, I write about him here both because he
was a great poet and because with one of his poems, The Thistle
and the Rose, he takes us back, as it were, over the Border into
England once more.
William Dunbar was perhaps born in 1460 and began his life when
James III began his reign. He was of noble family, but there is
little to know about his life, and as with Chaucer, what we learn
about the man himself we learn chiefly from his writing. We
know, however, that he went to the University of St. Andrews, and
that it was intended that he should go into the Church. In those
days in Scotland there were only two things a gentleman might be
- either he must be a soldier or a priest. Dunbar's friends,
perhaps seeing that he was fond of books, thought it best to make
him a priest. But indeed he had made a better soldier. For a
time, however, although he was quite unsuited for such a life, he
became a friar. As a preaching friar he wandered far.
"For in every town and place
Of all England from Berwick to Calais,
I have in my habit made good cheer.
In friar's weed full fairly have I fleichet,*
In it have I in pulpit gone and preached,
In Dernton kirk and eke in Canterbury,
In it I passed at Dover o'er the ferry
Through Picardy, and there the people teached."
*Flattered.
Dunbar himself knew that he had no calling to be a friar or
preacher. He confesses that
"As long as I did bear the friar's style
In me, God wot, was many wrink and wile,
In me was falseness every wight to flatter,
Which might be banished by no holy water;
I was aye ready all men to beguile."
So after a time we find him no longer a friar, but a courtier.
Soon we find him, like Chaucer, being sent on business to the
Continent for his King, James IV. Like Chaucer he receives
pensions; like Chaucer, too, he knows sometimes what it is to be
poor, and he has left more than one poem in which he prays the
King to remember his old and faithful servant and not leave him
in want. We find him also begging the King for a Church living,
for although he had no mind to be a friar, he wanted a living,
perhaps merely that he might be sure of a home in his old age.
But for some reason the King never gave him what he asked.
We have nearly ninety poems of Dunbar, none of them very long.
But although he is a far better poet than Barbour, or even
perhaps than James I, he is not for you so interesting in the
meantime. First, his language is very hard to understand. One
reason for this is that he knows so many words and uses them all.
"He language had at large," says one of his fellow poets and
countrymen.* And so, although his thought is always clear, it is
not always easy to follow it through his strange words. Second,
his charm as a poet lies not so much in what he tells, not so
much in his story, as in the way that he tells it. And so, even
if you are already beginning to care for words and the way in
which they are used, you may not yet care so much that you can
enjoy poetry written in a tongue which, to us is almost a foreign
tongue. But if some day you care enough about it to master this
old-world poet, you will find that there is a wonderful variety
in his poems. He can be glad and sad, tender and fierce.
Sometimes he seems to smile gently upon the sins and sorrows of
his day, at other times he pours forth upon them words of savage
scorn, grim and terrible. But when we take all his work
together, we find that we have such a picture of the times in
which he lived as perhaps only Chaucer besides has given us.
*Sir David Lyndsay.
For us the most interesting poem is The Thistle and the Rose.
This was written when Margaret, the daughter of King Henry VII of
England, came to be the wife of King James IV of Scotland.
Dunbar was the "Rhymer of Scotland," that is the poet-laureate of
his day, and so, as was natural, he made a poem upon this great
event. For a poet-laureate is the King's poet, and it is his
duty to make poems on all the great things that may happen to the
King. For this he receives a certain amount of money and a cask
of wine every year. But it is the honor and not the reward which
is now prized.
Dunbar begins by telling us that he lay dreaming one May morning.
You will find when you come to read much of the poetry of those
days, that poets were very fond of making use of a dream by which
to tell a story. It was then a May morning when Dunbar lay
asleep.
"When March was with varying winds past,
And April had, with her silver showers,
Tane leave of nature with an orient blast;
And pleasant May, that mother is of flowers,
Had made the birds to begin their hours*
Among the tender arbours red white,
Whose harmony to hear it was delight."
*Orisons - morning prayers.
Then it seemed that May, in the form of a beautiful lady, stood
beside his bed. She called to him, "Sluggard, awake anon for
shame, and in mine honor go write something."
"'What,' quoth I, ' shall I wuprise at morrow?'
For in this May few birdies heard I sing.
'They have more cause to weep and plain their sorrow,
Thy air it is not wholesome or benign!'"
"Nevertheless rise," said May. And so the lazy poet rose and
followed the lady into a lovely garden. Here he saw many
wonderful and beautiful sights. He saw all the birds, and
beasts, and flowers in the world pass before Dame Nature.
"Then called she all flowers that grew in field,
Discerning all their fashions and properties;
Upon the awful Thistle she beheld,
And saw him keeped* by a bush of spears;
Considering him so able for the wars,
A radiant crown of rubies she him gave,
And said, 'In field go forth, and fend the lave.**
And, since thou art a king, be thou discreet,
Herb without virtue hold thou not of such price
As herb of virtue and of odour sweet;
And let no nettle vile, and full of vice,
Mate him to the goodly fleur-de-lis,
Nor let no wild weed full of churlishness
Compare her to the lily's nobleness.
Nor hold thou no other flower in such dainty
As the fresh Rose, of colour red and white;
For if thou dost, hurt is thine honesty
Considering that no flower is so perfect,
So full of virtue, pleasance and delight,
So full of blissful angelic beauty,
Imperial birth, honour and dignity.'"
*Guarded.
**Rest = others.
By the Thistle, of course, Dunbar means James IV, and by the Rose
the Princess Margaret.
Then to the Rose Dame Nature spoke, and crowned her with "a
costly crown with shining rubies bright." When that was done all
the flowers rejoiced, crying out, "Hail be thou, richest Rose."
Then all the birds - the thrush, the lark, the nightingale--cried
"Hail," and "the common voice uprose of birdies small" till all
the garden rang with joy.
"Then all the birdies sang with such a shout,
That I anon awoke where that I lay,
And with a start I turned me about
To see this court: but all were went away:
Then up I leaned, half yet in fear,
And thus I wrote, as ye have heard to forrow,*
Of lusty May upon the nineth morrow."
*Before = already.
Thus did Dunbar sing of the wedding of the Thistle and the Rose.
It was a marriage by which the two peoples hoped once more to
bring a lasting peace between the two countries. And although
the hope was not at once fulfilled, it was a hundred years later.
For upon the death of Elizabeth, James VI of Scotland, the great-
grandson of Margaret Tudor and James Stuart, received the crown
of England also, thus joining the two rival countries. Then came
the true marriage of the Thistle and the Rose.
Meanwhile, as long as Henry VII remained upon the throne, there
was peace between the two peoples. But when Henry VIII began to
rule, his brother-in-law of Scotland soon found cause to quarrel
with him. Then once again the Thistle and the Rose met, not in
peace, but in war. On the red field of Flodden once again the
blood of a Scottish King stained the grass. Once again Scotland
was plunged in tears.
After "that most dolent day"* we hear no more of Dunbar. It is
thought by some that he, as many another knight, courtier and
priest, laid down his life fighting for his King, and that he
fell on Flodden field. By others it is thought that he lived to
return to Scotland, and that the Queen gave to him one of the now
many vacant Church livings, and that there he spent his last days
in quietness and peace.
*Sir David Lyndsay.
This may have been so. For although Dunbar makes no mention of
Flodden in his poems, it is possible that he may have done so in
some that are lost. But where this great poet lies taking his
last rest we do not know. It may be he was laid in some quiet
country churchyard. It may be he met death suddenly amid the din
and horror of battle.
BOOKS TO READ
In illustration of this chapter may be read "Edinburgh after
Flodden" in Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers, by W. E. Aytoun. The
best edition of the Poems of Dunbar in the original is edited by
J. Small.
Chapter XXXI AT THE SIGN OF THE RED PALE
IF the fifteenth century has been called the Golden Age of
Scottish poetry, it was also the dullest age in English
literature. During the fifteenth century few books were written
in England. One reason for this was that in England it was a
time of foreign and of civil war. The century opened in war with
Wales, it continued in war with France. Then for thirty years
the wars of the Roses laid desolate the land. They ended at
length in 1485 with Bosworth field, by which Henry VII became
King.
But in spite of all the wars and strife, the making of books did
not quite cease. And if only a few books were written, it was
because it was a time of rebirth and new life as well as a time
of war and death. For it was in the fifteenth century that
printing was discovered. Then it was that the listening time was
really done. Men began to use their eyes rather than their ears.
They saw as they had never before seen.
Books began to grow many and cheap. More and more people learned
to read, and this helped to settle our language into a form that
was to last. French still, although it was no longer the
language of the court or of the people, had an influence on our
speech. People traveled little, and in different parts of the
country different dialects, which were almost like different
languages, were spoken. We have seen that the "Inglis" of
Scotland differed from Chaucer's English, and the language of the
north of England differed from it just as much. But when printed
books increased in number quickly, when every man could see for
himself what the printed words looked like, these differences
began to die out. Then our English, as a literary language, was
born.
It was Caxton, you remember, who was the first English printer.
We have already heard of him when following the Arthur story as
the printer of Malory's Morte d'Arthur. But Caxton was not only
a printer, he was author, editor, printer, publisher and
bookseller all in one.
William Caxton, as he himself tells us, was born in Kent in the
Weald. But exactly where or when we do not know, although it may
have been about the year 1420. Neither do we know who or what
his father was. Some people think that he may have been a mercer
or cloth merchant, because later Caxton was apprenticed to one of
the richest cloth merchants of London. In those days no man was
allowed to begin business for himself until he had served for a
number of years as an apprentice. When he had served his time,
and then only, was he admitted into the company and allowed to
trade for himself. As the Mercers' Company was one of the
wealthiest and most powerful of the merchant companies, they were
very careful of whom they admitted as apprentices. Therefore it
would seem that really Caxton's family was "of great repute of
old, and genteel-like," as an old manuscript says.*
*Harleian MS., 5910.
Caxton's master died before he had finished his apprenticeship,
so he had to find a new master, and very soon he left England and
went to Bruges. There he remained for thirty-five years.
In those days there was much trade between England and Flanders
(Belgium we now call the country) in wool and cloth, and there
was a little colony of English merchants in Bruges. There Caxton
steadily rose in importance until he became "Governor of the
English Nation beyond the seas." As Governor he had great power,
and ruled over his merchant adventurers as if he had been a king.
But even with all his other work, with his trading and ruling to
attend to, Caxton found time to read and write, and he began to
translate from the French a book of stories called the Recuyell*
of the Histories of Troy. This is a book full of the stories of
Greek heroes and of the ancient town of Troy.
*Collection, from the French word recueillir, to gather.
Caxton was not very well pleased with his work, however--he "fell
into despair of it," he says--and for two years he put it aside
and wrote no more.
In 1468 Princess Margaret, the sister of King Edward IV, married
the Duke of Burgundy and came to live in Flanders, for in those
days Flanders was under the rule of the Dukes of Burgundy.
Princess Margaret soon heard of the Englishman William Caxton who
had made his home in Bruges. She liked him and encouraged him to
go on with his writing, and after a time he gave up his post of
Governor of the English and entered the service of the Princess.
We do not know what post Caxton held in the household of the
Princess, but it was one of honor we may feel sure.
It was at the bidding of the Princess, whose "dreadful command I
durst in no wise disobey," that Caxton finished the translation
of his book of stories. And as at this time there were no
stories written in English prose (poetry only being still used
for stories), the book was a great success. The Duchess was
delighted and rewarded Caxton well, and besides that so many
other people wished to read it that he soon grew tired of making
copies. It was then that he decided to learn the new and
wonderful art of printing, which was already known in Flanders.
So it came about that the first book ever printed in English was
not printed in England, but somewhere on the continent. It was
printed some time before 1477, perhaps in 1474.
If in manuscript the book had been a success, it was now much
more of one. And we may believe that it was this success that
made Caxton leave Bruges and go home to England in order to begin
life anew as a printer there.
Many a time, as Governor of the English Nation over the seas, he
had sent forth richly laden vessels. But had he known it, none
was so richly laden as that which now sailed homeward bearing a
printing-press.
At Westminster, within the precincts of the Abbey, Caxton found a
house and set up his printing-press. And there, not far from the
great west door of the Abbey he, already an elderly man, began
his new busy life. His house came to be known as the house of
the Red Pale from the sign that he set up. It was probably a
shield with a red line down the middle of it, called in heraldry
a pale. And from here Caxton sent out the first printed
advertisement known in England. "If it please any man spiritual
or temporal," he says, to buy a certain book, "let him come to
Westminster in to the Almonry at the Red Pale and he shall have
them good cheap." The advertisement ended with some Latin words
which we might translate, "Please do not pull down the
advertisement."
The first book that Caxton is known to have printed in England
was called The Dictes* and Sayings of the Philosophers. This was
also a translation from French, not, however, of Caxton's own
writing. It was translated by Earl Rivers, who asked Caxton to
revise it, which he did, adding a chapter and writing a prologue.
*Another word for sayings, from the French dire, to say.
To the people of Caxton's day printing seemed a marvelous thing.
So marvelous did it seem that some of them thought it could only
be done by the help of evil spirits. It is strange to think that
in those days, when anything new and wonderful was discovered,
people at once thought that it must be the work of evil spirits.
That it might be the work of good spirits never seemed to occur
to them.
Printing, indeed, was a wonderful thing. For now, instead of
taking weeks and months to make one copy of a book, a man could
make dozens or even hundreds at once. And this made books so
cheap that many more people could buy them, and so people were
encouraged both to read and write. Instead of gathering together
to hear one man read out of a book, each man could buy a copy for
himself. At the end of one of his books Caxton begs folk to
notice "that it is not written with pen and ink as other books
be, to the end that every man may have them at once. For all the
books of this story, called the Recuyell of the Histories of Troy
thus imprinted as ye see here were begun on one day and also
finished in one day." We who live in a world of books can hardly
grasp what that meant to the people of Caxton's time.
For fourteen years Caxton lived a busy life, translating,
editing, and printing. Besides that he must have led a busy
social life, for he was a favorite with Edward IV, and with his
successors Richard III and Henry VII too. Great nobles visited
his workshop, sent him gifts, and eagerly bought and read his
books. The wealthy merchants, his old companions in trade, were
glad still to claim him as a friend. Great ladies courted,
flattered, and encouraged him. He married, too, and had
children, though we known nothing of his home life. Altogether
his days were full and busy, and we may believe that he was
happy.
But at length Caxton's useful, busy life came to an end. On the
last day of it he was still translating a book from French. He
finished it only a few hours before he died. We know this,
although we do not know the exact date of his death. For his
pupil and follower, who carried on his work afterwards, says on
the title-page of this book that it was "finished at the last day
of his life."
Caxton was buried in the church near which he had worked--St.
Margaret's, Westminster. He was laid to rest with some ceremony
as a man of importance, for in the account-books of the parish we
find these entries:--
"At burying of William Caxton for four torches 6s. 8d.
For the bell at same burying 6d."
This was much more than was usually spent at the burial of
ordinary people in those days.
Among the many books which Caxton printed we must not forget Sir
Thomas Malory's Morte d'Arthur, which we spoke of out of its
place in following the story of Arthur in Chapter VIII. Perhaps
you would like to turn back and read it over again now.
As we have said, Caxton was not merely a printer. He was an
author too. But although he translated books both from French
and Dutch, it is perhaps to his delightful prefaces more than to
anything else that he owes his title of author. Yet it must be
owned that sometimes they are not all quite his own, but parts
are taken wholesale from other men's works or are translated from
the French. We are apt to look upon a preface as something dull
which may be left unread. But when you come to read Caxton's
books, you may perhaps like his prefaces as much as anything else
about them. In one he tells of his difficulties about the
language, because different people spoke it so differently. He
tells how once he began to translate a book, but "when I saw the
fair and strange terms therein, I doubted that it should not
please some gentlemen which late blamed me, saying that in my
translation I had over curious terms, which could not be
understood by common people, and desired me to use old and homely
terms in my translations. And fain would I satisfy every man.
And so to do I took an old book and read therein, and certainly
the English was so rude and broad that I could not well
understand it. . . . And certainly our language now used varieth
far from that which was used and spoken when I was born. . . .
And that common English that is spoken in one shire varyeth from
another. In-so-much that in my days it happened that certain
merchants were in a ship in Thames, for to have sailed over the
sea into Zealand. For lack of wind they tarried at Foreland, and
went to land for to refresh them.
"And one of them, named Sheffield, a mercer, came into a house
and asked for meat. And especially he asked for eggs. And the
good wife answered that she could speak no French. And the
merchant was angry, for he also could speak no French, but would
have had eggs, and she understood him not.
"And then at last another said that he would have eyren. Then
the good wife said that she understood him well. So what should
a man in these days now write, eggs or eyren? Certainly it is
hard to please every man by cause of diversity and change of
language. . . .
"And some honest and great clerks have been with me, and desired
me to write the most curious terms that I could find. And thus
between plain, rude, and curious I stand abashed. But in my
judgement the common terms that be daily used, be lighter to be
understood than the old and ancient English."
In another book Caxton tells us that he knows his own "simpleness
and unperfectness" in both French and English. "For in France
was I never, and was born and learned my English in Kent, in the
Weald, where I doubt not is spoken as broad and rude English as
in any place in England."
So you see our English was by no means yet settled. But
printing, perhaps, did more than anything else to settle it.
We know that Caxton printed at least one hundred and two editions
of books. And you will be surprised to hear that of all these
only two or three were books of poetry. Here we have a sure sign
that the singing time was nearly over. I do not mean that we are
to have no more singers, for most of our greatest are still to
come. But from this time prose had shaken off its fetters. It
was no longer to be used only for sermons, for prayers, for
teaching. It was to take its place beside poetry as a means of
enjoyment - as literature. Literature, then, was no longer the
affair of the market-place and the banqueting-hall, but of a
man's own fireside and quiet study. It was no longer the affair
of the crowd, but of each man to himself alone.
The chief poems which Caxton printed were Chaucer's. In one
place he calls Chaucer "The worshipful father and first founder
and embellisher of ornate eloquence in our English." Here, I
think, he shows that he was trying to follow the advice of "those
honest and great clerks" who told him he should write "the most
curious terms" that he could find. But certainly he admired
Chaucer very greatly. In the preface to his second edition of
the Canterbury Tales he says, "Great thank, laud and honour ought
to be given unto the clerks, poets" and others who have written
"noble books." "Among whom especially before all others, we
ought to give a singular laud unto that noble and great
philosopher, Geoffrey Chaucer." Then Caxton goes on to tell us
how hard he had found it to get a correct copy of Chaucer's
poems, "For I find many of the said books which writers have
abridged it, and many things left out: and in some places have
set verses that he never made nor set in his book."
This shows us how quickly stories became changed in the days when
everything was copied by hand. When Caxton wrote these words
Chaucer had not been dead more than about eighty years, yet
already it was not easy to find a good copy of his works.
And if stories changed, the language changed just as quickly.
Caxton tells us that the language was changing so fast that he
found it hard to read books written at the time he was born. His
own language is very Frenchy, perhaps because he translated so
many of his books from French. He not only uses words which are
almost French, but arranges his sentences in a French manner. He
often, too drops the e in the, just as in French the e or a in le
and la is dropped before a vowel. This you will often find in
old English books. "The abbey" becomes thabbay, "The English"
thenglish. Caxton writes, too, thensygnementys for "the
teaching." Here we have the dropped e and also the French word
enseignement used instead of "teaching." But these were only
last struggles of a foreign tongue. The triumphant English we
now possess was already taking form.
But it was not by printing alone that in the fifteenth century
men's eyes were opened to new wonder. They were also opened to
the wonder of a new world far over the sea. For the fifteenth
century was the age of discovery, and of all the world's first
great sailors. It was the time when America and the western
isles were discovered, when the Cape of Good Hope was first
rounded, and the new way to India found. So with the whole world
urged to action by the knowledge of these new lands, with
imagination wakened by the tales of marvels to be seen there,
with a new desire to see and do stirring in men's minds, it was
not wonderful that there should be little new writing. The
fifteenth century was the age of new action and new worlds. The
new thought was to follow.
YEAR 8
Chapter XXXII ABOUT THE BEGINNING OF THE THEATER
MANY of you have, no doubt, been to the theater. You have seen
pantomimes and Peter Pan, perhaps; perhaps, too, a play of
Shakespeare, - a comedy, it may be, which made you laugh, or even
a tragedy which made you want to cry, or at least left you sad.
Some of you, too, have been to "Pageants," and some may even have
been to an oratorio, which last may have been sung in a church.
But did you ever wonder how plays and theaters came to be? Did
you ever think that there was a time when in all the length and
breadth of the land there was no theater, when there were no
plays either merry or sad? Yet it was so. But at a very early
time the people of England began to act. And, strange as it may
seem to us now, the earliest plays were acted by monks and took
place in church. And it is from these very early monkish plays
that the theater with its different kinds of plays, that pageants
and even oratorios have sprung.
In this chapter I am going to talk about these beginnings of the
English theater and of its literature. All plays taken together
are called the drama, and the writers of them are called
dramatists, from a Greek word dran, to act or do. For dramas are
written not to be read merely, but also to be acted.
To trace the English drama from its beginnings we must go a long
way back from the reigns of Henry VII and of Henry VIII, down to
which the life of Dunbar has brought us. We must go back to the
days when the priests were the only learned people in the land,
when the monasteries were the only schools.
If we would picture to ourselves what these first English plays
were like, we must not think of a brilliantly lighted theater
pranked out and fine with red and gold and white such as we know.
We must think rather of some dim old church. Stately pillars
rise around us, and the outline of the arches is lost in the high
twilight of the roof. Behind the quaintly dressed players gleams
the great crucifix with its strange, sad figure and outstretched
arms which, under the flickering light of the high altar candles,
seems to stir to life. And beyond the circle of light, in the
soft darkness of the nave, the silent people kneel or stand to
watch.
It was in such solemn surroundings that our first plays were
played. And the stories that were acted were Bible stories.
There was no thought of irreverence in such acting. On the
contrary, these plays were performed "to exort the mindes of
common people to good devotion and holesome doctrine."
You remember when Caedmon sang, he made his songs of the stories
of Genesis and Exodus. And in this way, in those bookless days,
the people were taught the Bible stories. But you know that what
we learn by our ears is much harder to remember than what we
learn by our eyes. If we are only told a thing we may easily
forget it. But if we have seen it, or seen a picture of it, we
remember it much more easily. In those far-off days, however,
there were as few pictures as there were books in England. And
so the priests and monks fell upon the plan of acting the Bible
stories and the stories of the saints, so that the people might
see and better understand.
These plays which the monks made were called Mystery or Miracle
plays. I cannot tell you the exact date of our first Miracle
plays, but the earliest that we know of certainly was acted at
the end of the eleventh or beginning of the twelfth century. It
is not unreasonable to suppose, however, that there had been
still earlier plays of which we know nothing. For the Miracle
plays did not spring all at once to life, they began gradually,
and the beginnings can be traced as far back as the ninth
century. In an old book of rules for Winchester Cathedral,
written about 959, there are directions given for showing the
death and resurrection of Christ in dumb show chiefly, with just
a few Latin sentences to explain it. By degrees these plays grew
longer and fuller, until in them the whole story of man from the
Creation to the Day of Judgment was acted in what was called a
cycle or circle of short acts or plays.
But although these plays were looked upon as an act of religion,
they were not all solemn. At times, above the grave tones of the
monks or the solemn chanting of the choir, laughter rang out.
For some of the characters were meant to be funny, and the
watching crowd knew and greeted them as such even before they
spoke, just as we know and greet the jester or the clown.
The demons were generally funny, and Noah's wife, who argued
about going into the ark. The shepherds, also, watching their
flocks by night, were almost sure to make the people laugh.
But there were solemn moments, too, when the people reverently
listened to the grave words of God the Father, or to those,
tender and loving, of Mary, the Virgin Mother. And when the
shepherds neared the manger where lay the wondrous Babe, all
jesting ceased. Here there was nothing but tender, if simple and
unlearned, adoration.
In those early days Latin was the tongue of the Church, and the
Miracle plays were at first said in Latin. But as the common
folk could not understand what was said, the plays were chiefly
shown in dumb show. Soon, however, Latin was given up, and the
plays were acted in English. Then by degrees the churches grew
too small to hold the great crowds of people who wished to see
the plays, and so they were acted outside the church door in the
churchyard, on a stage built level with the steps. The church,
then, could be made to represent heaven, where God and the angels
dwelt. The stage itself was the world, and below it was hell,
from out of which came smoke and sometimes flames, and whence
might be heard groans and cries and the clanking of chains.
But the playing of Mysteries and Miracles at the church doors had
soon to be given up. For the people, in their excitement, forgot
the respect due to the dead. They trampled upon the graves and
destroyed the tombs in their eagerness to see. And when the play
was over the graveyard was a sorry sight with trodden grass and
broken headstones. So by degrees it came about that these plays
lost their connection with the churches, and were no more played
in or near them. They were, instead, played in some open space
about the town, such as the market-place. Then, too, the players
ceased to be monks and priests, and the acting was taken up by
the people themselves. It was then that the playing came into
the hands of the trade guilds.
Nowadays we hear a great deal about "trades unions." But in
those far-off days such things were unknown. Each trade,
however, had its own guild by which the members of it were bound
together. Each guild had its patron saint, and after a time the
members of a guild began to act a play on their saint's day in
his honor. Later still the guilds all worked together, and all
acted their plays on one day. This was Corpus Christi Day, a
feast founded by Pope Urban IV in 1264. As this feast was in
summer, it was a very good time to act the plays, for the weather
was warm and the days were long. The plays often began very
early in the morning as soon as it was light, and lasted all day.
The Miracles were now acted on a movable stage. This stage was
called a pageant, and the play which was acted on it was also in
time called a pageant. The stage was made in two stories. The
upper part was open all round, and upon this the acting took
place. The under part was curtained all round, and here the
actors dressed. From here, too, they came out, and when they had
finished their parts they went back again within the curtains.
The movable stages were, of course, not very large, so sometimes
more than one was needed for a play. At other times the players
overflowed, as it were, into the audience. "Here Herod rages on
the pageant and in the street also" is one stage direction. The
devils, too, often ran among the people, partly to amuse them and
partly to frighten and show them what might happen if they
remained wicked. At the Creation, animals of all kinds which had
been kept chained up were let loose suddenly, and ran among the
people, while pigeons set free from cages flew over their heads.
Indeed, everything seems to have been done to make the people
feel the plays as real as possible.
The pageants were on wheels, and as soon as a play was over at
the first appointed place, the stage was dragged by men to the
next place and the play again began. In an old MS. we are told,
"The places where they played them was in every streete. They
begane first at the abay gates, and when the first pagiante was
played, it was wheeled to the highe crosse befor the mayor, and
soe to every streete. And soe every streete had a pagiant
playinge before them at one time, till all the pagiantes for the
daye appoynted weare played. And when one pagiante was neare
ended worde was broughte from streete to streete, that soe they
mighte come in place thereof, exceedinge orderly. And all the
streetes have theire pagiantes afore them all at one time
playinge togeather."*
*Harleian MS., 1948.
Thus, if a man kept his place all a long summer's day, he might
see pass before him pageant after pageant until he had seen the
whole story of the world, from the Creation to the Day of
Judgment.
In time nearly every town of any size in England had its own
cycle of plays, but only four of these have come down to us.
These are the York, the Chester, the Wakefield, and the Coventry
cycles. Perhaps the most interesting of them all are the
Wakefield plays. They are also called the Townley plays, from
the name of the family who possessed the manuscript for a long
time.
Year after year the same guild acted the same play. And it
really seemed as if the pageant was in many cases chosen to suit
the trade of the players. The water-drawers of Chester, for
instance, acted the Flood. In York the shipwrights acted the
building of the ark, the fishmongers the Flood, and the gold-
beaters and money-workers the three Kings out of the East.
The members of each guild tried to make their pageant as fine as
they could. Indeed, they were expected to do so, for in 1394 we
find the Mayor of York ordering the craftsmen "to bring forth
their pageants in order and course by good players, well arrayed
and openly speaking, upon pain of losing of 100 shillings, to be
paid to the chamber without any pardon."*
*Thomas Sharp, Dissertation on the Pageants.
So, in order to supply everything that was needful, each member
of a guild paid what was called "pageant silver." Accounts of
how this money was spent were carefully kept. A few of these
have come down to us, and some of the items and prices paid sound
very funny now.
"Paid for setting the world of fire 5d.
For making and mending of the black souls hose 6d.
For a pair of new hose and mending of the old for the white souls 18d.
Paid for mending Pilate's hat 4d."
The actors, too, were paid. Here are some of the prices:--
"To Fawson for hanging Judas 4d.
Paid to Fawson for cock crowing 4d.
Some got much more than others. Pilate, for instance, who was an
important character, got 4s., while two angels only got 8d.
between them. But while the rehearsing and acting were going on
the players received their food, and when it was all over they
wound up with a great supper.
Chapter XXXIII HOW THE SHEPHERDS WATCHED THEIR FLOCKS
IN this chapter I am going to give you a part of one of the
Townley plays to show you what the beginnings of our drama were
like,
Although our forefathers tried to make the pageants as real as
possible, they had, of course, no scenery, but acted on a little
bare platform. They never thought either that the stories they
acted had taken place long ago and in lands far away, where dress
and manners and even climate were all very different from what
they were in England.
For instance, in the Shepherd's play, of which I am going to
tell, the first shepherd comes in shivering with cold. For
though he is acting in summer he must make believe that it is
Christmas-time, for on Christmas Day Christ was born. And
Christmas-time in England, he knows, is cold. What it may be in
far-off Palestine he neither knows nor cares.
"Lord, what these weathers are cold! and I am ill happed;
I am near hand dulled so long have I napped;
My legs they fold, my fingers are chapped,
It is not as I would, for I am all lapped
In sorrow.
In storm and tempest,
Now in the east, now in the west,
Woe is him has never rest
Mid-day or morrow."
In this strain the shepherd grumbles until the second comes. He,
too, complains of the cold.
"The frost so hideous, they water mine een,
No lie!
Now is dry, now is wet,
Now is snow, now is sleet,
When my shoon freeze to my feet,
It is not all easy."
So they talk until the third shepherd comes. He, too, grumbles.
"Was never syne Noah's floods such floods seen;
Winds and rains so rude, and storms so keen."
The first two ask the third shepherd where the sheep are. "Sir,"
he replies,
"This same day at morn
I left them i the corn
When they rang lauds.
They had pasture good they cannot go wrong."
That is all right, say the others, and so they settle to sing a
song, when a neighbor named Mak comes along. They greet the
newcomer with jests. But the second shepherd is suspicious of
him.
"Thus late as thou goes,
What will men suppose?
And thou hast no ill nose
For stealing of sheep."
"I am true as steel," says Mak. "All men wot it. But a sickness
I feel that holds me full hot," and so, he says, he is obliged to
walk about at night for coolness.
The shepherds are all very weary and want to sleep. But just to
make things quite safe, they bid Mak lie down between them so
that he cannot move without awaking them. Mak lies down as he is
bid, but he does not sleep, and as soon as the others are all
snoring he softly rises and "borrows" a sheep.
Quickly he goes home with it and knocks at his cottage door.
"How, Gill, art thou in? Get us a light."
"Who makes such din this time of night?" answers his wife from
within.
When she hears that it is Mak she unbars the door, but when she
sees what her husband brings she is afraid.
"By the naked neck thou art like to hang," she says.
"I have often escaped before," replies Mak.
"But so long goes the pot to the water, men say, at last comes it
home broken," cries Gill.
But the question is, now that they have the sheep, how is it to
be his from the shepherds. For Mak feels sure that they will
suspect him when they find out that a sheep is missing.
Gill has a plan. She will swaddle the sheep like a new-born baby
and lay it in the cradle. This being done, Mak returns to the
shepherds, whom he finds still sleeping, and lies down again
beside them. Presently they all awake and rouse Mak, who still
pretends to sleep. He, after some talk, goes home, and the
shepherds go off to seek and count their sheep, agreeing to meet
again at the "crooked thorn."
Soon the shepherds find that one sheep is missing, and suspecting
Mak of having stolen it they follow him home. They find him
sitting by the cradle singing a lullaby to the new-born baby,
while Gill lies in bed groaning and pretending to be very ill.
Mak greets the shepherds in a friendly way, but bids them speak
softly and not walk about, as his wife is ill and the baby
asleep.
But the shepherds will not be put off with words. They search
the house, but can find nothing.
"All work we in vain as well may we go.
Bother it!
I can find no flesh
Hard or nesh,*
Salt or fresh,
But two toom** platters."
*Soft.
**Empty.
Meanwhile, Gill from her bed cries out at them, calling them
thieves. "Ye come to rob us. I swear if ever I you beguiled,
that I eat this child that lies in this cradle."
The shepherds at length begin to be sorry that they have been so
unjust as to suspect Mak. They wish to make friends again. But
Mak will not be friends. "Farewell, all three, and glad I am to
see you go," he cries.
So the shepherds go a little sadly. "Fair winds may there be,
but love there is none this year," says one.
"Gave ye the child anything?" says another.
"I trow not a farthing."
"Then back will I go," says the third shepherd, "abide ye there."
And back he goes full of his kindly thought. "Mak," he says,
"with your leave let me give your bairn but sixpence."
But Mak still pretends to be sulky, and will not let him come
near the child. By this time all the shepherds have come back.
One wants to kiss the baby, and bends over the cradle. Suddenly
he starts back. What a nose! The deceit is found out and the
shepherds are very angry. Yet even in their anger they can
hardly help laughing. Mak and Gill, however, are ready of wit.
They will not own to the theft. It is a changeling child, they
say.
"He was taken with an elf,
I saw it myself,
When the clock struck twelve was he foreshapen,"
says Gill.
But the shepherds will not be deceived a second time. They
resolve to punish Mak, but let him off after having tossed him in
a blanket until they are tired and he is sore and sorry for
himself.
This sheepstealing scene shows how those who wrote the play tried
to catch the interest of the people. For every one who saw this
scene could understand it. Sheepstealing was a very common crime
in England in those days, and was often punished by death.
Probably every one who saw the play knew of such cases, and the
writers used this scene as a link between the everyday life,
which was near at hand and easy to understand, and the story of
the birth of Christ, which was so far off and hard to understand.
And it is now, when the shepherds are resting from their hard
work of beating Mak, that they hear the angels sing "Glory to God
in the highest." From this point on all the jesting ceases, and
in its rough way the play is reverent and loving.
The angel speaks.
"Rise, herdmen, quickly, for now is he born
That shall take from the fiend what Adam was lorn;
That demon to spoil this night is he born,
God is made your friend now at this morn.
He behests
At Bethlehem go see,
There lies that fre*
In a crib full poorly
Betwixt two beasties."
*Noble.
The shepherds hear the words of the angel, and looking upward see
the guiding star. Wondering at the music, talking of the
prophecies of David and Isaiah, they hasten to Bethlehem and find
the lowly stable. Here, with a mixture of awe and tenderness,
the shepherds greet the Holy Child. It is half as if they spoke
to the God they feared, half as if they played with some little
helpless baby who was their very own. They mingle simple things
of everyday life with their awe. They give him gifts, but their
simple minds can imagine no other than those they might give to
their own children.
The first shepherd greets the child with words:--
"Hail, comely and clean! Hail, young child!
Hail, maker as methinks of a maiden so mild.
Thou hast warred, I ween, the demon so wild."
Then he gives as his gift a bob of cherries.
The second shepherd speaks:--
"Hail! sovereign saviour! for thee have we sought.
Hail, noble child and flower that all thing hast wrought.
Hail, full of favour, that made all of nought.
Hail! I kneel and I cower! A bird have I brought
To my bairn.
Hail, little tiny mop,
Of our creed thou art crop,*
I would drink to thy health,
Little Day Star!"
*Head.
The third shepherd speaks:--
Hail! darling dear full of Godhead!
I pray thee be near when that I have need!
Hail! sweet is thy cheer! My heart would bleed
To see thee sit here in so poor weed
With no pennies.
Hail! put forth thy dall.*
I bring thee but a ball:
Have and play thee with all
And go to the tennis."
*Hand.
And so the pageant of the shepherds comes to an end, and they
return home rejoicing.
This play gives us a good idea of how the Miracles wound
themselves about the lives of the people. It gives us a good
idea of the rudeness of the times when such jesting with what we
hold as sacred seemed not amiss. It gives, too, the first gleam
of what we might call true comedy in English.
Chapter XXXIV THE STORY OF EVERYMAN
A LITTLE later than the Miracle and Mystery plays came another
sort of play called the Moralities. In these, instead or
representing real people, the actors represented thoughts,
feelings and deeds, good and bad. Truth, for instance, would be
shown as a beautiful lady; Lying as an ugly old man, and so on.
These plays were meant to teach just as the Miracles were meant
to teach. But instead of teaching the Bible stories, they were
made to show men the ugliness of sin and the beauty of goodness.
When we go to the theater now we only think of being amused, and
it is strange to remember that all acting was at first meant to
teach.
The very first of our Moralities seems to have been a play of the
Lord's Prayer. It was acted in the reign of Edward III or some
time after 1327. But that has long been lost, and we know
nothing of it but its name. There are several other Moralities,
however, which have come down to us of a later date, the earliest
being of the fifteenth century, and of them perhaps the most
interesting is Everyman.
But we cannot claim Everyman altogether as English literature,
for it is translated from, or at least founded upon, a Dutch
play. Yet it is the best of all the Moralities which have come
down to us, and may have been translated into English about 1480.
In its own time it must have been thought well of, or no one
would have troubled to translate it. But, however popular it was
long ago, for hundreds of years it had lain almost forgotten,
unread except by a very few, and never acted at all, until some
one drew it from its dark hiding-place and once more put it upon
the stage. Since then, during the last few years, it has been
acted often. And as, happily, the actors have tried to perform
it in the simple fashion in which it must have been done long
ago, we can get from it a very good idea of the plays which
pleased our forefathers. On the title-page of Everyman we read:
"Here beginneth a treatise how the high Father of heaven sendeth
Death to summon every creature to come to give a count of their
lives in this world, and is in the manner of a moral play." So
in the play we learn how Death comes to Everyman and bids him
follow him.
But Everyman is gay and young. He loves life, he has many
friends, the world to him is beautiful, he cannot leave it. So
he prays Death to let him stay, offers him gold and riches if he
will but put off the matter until another day.
But Death is stern. "Thee availeth not to cry, weep and pray,"
he says, "but haste thee lightly that thou wert gone the
journey."
Then seeing that go he must, Everyman thinks that at least he
will have company on the journey. So he turns to his friends.
But, alas, none will go with him. One by one they leave him.
Then Everyman cries in despair:--
"O to whom shall I make my moan
For to go with me in that heavy journey?
First Fellowship said he would with me gone;
His words were very pleasant and gay,
But afterward he left me alone.
Then spake I to my kinsmen all in despair,
And also they gave me words fair;
They lacked no fair speaking,
But all forsake me in the ending."
So at last Everyman turns him to his Good Deeds--his Good Deeds,
whom he had almost forgotten and who lies bound and in prison by
reason of his sins. And Good Deeds consents to go with him on
the dread journey. With him come others, too, among them
Knowledge and Strength. But at the last these, too, turn back.
Only Good Deeds is true, only Good Deeds stands by him to the end
with comforting words. And so the play ends; the body of
Everyman is laid in the grave, but we know that his soul goes
home to God.
This play is meant to picture the life of every man or woman, and
to show how unhappy we may be in the end if we have not tried to
be good in this world.
"This moral men may have in mind,
The hearers take it of worth old and young,
And forsake Pride, for he deceiveth you in the end,
And remember Beauty, Five Wits, Strength, and Discretion,
They all at the last do Everyman forsake,
Save his Good Deeds; these doth he take.
And beware, - an they be small,
Before God he hath no help at all.
None excuse may be there for Everyman."
BOOKS TO READ
Everyman: A Morality (Everyman's Library).
Chapter XXXV HOW A POET COMFORTED A GIRL
PERHAPS the best Morality of which we know the author's name is
Magnificence, by John Skelton. But, especially after Everyman,
it is dull reading for little people, and it is not in order to
speak of this play that I write about Skelton.
John Skelton lived in the stormy times of Henry VIII, and he is
called sometimes our first poet-laureate. But he was not poet-
laureate as we now understand it, he was not the King's poet.
The title only meant that he had taken a degree in grammar and
Latin verse, and had been given a laurel wreath by the university
which gave the degree. It was in this way that Skelton was made
laureate, first by Oxford, then by Louvain in Belgium, and
thirdly by Cambridge, so that in his day he was considered a
learned man and a great poet. He was a friend of Caxton and
helped him with one of his books. "I pray, maister Skelton, late
created poet-laureate in the university of Oxenford," says
Caxton, "to oversee and correct this said book."
John Skelton, like so many other literary men of those days, was
a priest. He studied, perhaps, both at Oxford and at Cambridge,
and became tutor to Prince, afterwards King, Henry VIII. We do
not know if he had an easy time with his royal pupil or not, but
in one of his poems he tells us that "The honour of England I
learned to spell" and "acquainted him with the Muses nine."
The days of Henry VIII were troublous times for thinking people.
The King was a tyrant, and the people of England were finding it
harder than ever to bow to a tyrant while the world was awakening
to new thought, and new desires for freedom, both in religion and
in life.
The Reformation had begun. The teaching of Piers Ploughman, the
preaching of Wyclif, had long since almost been forgotten, but it
had never altogether died out. The evils in the Church and in
high places were as bad as ever, and Skelton, himself a priest,
preached against them. He attacked other, even though he himself
sinned against the laws of priesthood. For he was married, and
in those days marriage was forbidden to clergymen, and his life
was not so fair as it might have been.
At first Wolsey, the great Cardinal and friend of Henry VIII, was
Skelton's friend too. But Skelton's tongue was mocking and
bitter. "He was a sharp satirist, but with more railing and
scoffery than became a poet-laureate,"* said one. The Cardinal
became an enemy, and the railing tongue was turned against him.
In a poem called Colin Cloute Skelton pointed out the evils of
his day and at the same time pointed the finger of scorn at
Wolsey. Colin Cloute, like Piers Ploughman, was meant to mean
the simple good Englishman.
*George Puttenham.
"Thus I Colin Cloute,
As I go about,
And wandering as I walk,
There the people talk.
Men say, for silver and gold
Mitres are bought and sold."
And again:--
"Laymen say indeed,
How they (the priests) take no heed
Their silly sheep to feed,
But pluck away and pull
The fleeces of their wool."
But he adds:--
"Of no good bishop speak I,
Nor good priest I decry,
Good friar, nor good chanon,*
Good nun, nor good canon,
Good monk, nor good clerk,
Nor yet no good work:
But my recounting is
Of them that do amiss."
*Same as canon.
Yet, although Skelton said he would not decry any good man or any
good work, his spirit was a mocking one. He was fond of harsh
jests and rude laughter, and no person or thing was too high or
too holy to escape his sharp wit. "He was doubtless a pleasant
conceited fellow, and of a very sharp wit," says a writer about
sixty years later, "exceeding bold, and would nip to the very
quick when he once set hold."*
*William Webbe.
And being bold as bitter, and having set hold with hatred upon
Wolsey, he in another poem called Why come ye not to Court? and
in still another called Speake, Parrot, wrote directly against
the Cardinal. Yet although Skelton railed against the Cardinal
and against the evils in the Church, he was no Protestant. He
believed in the Church of Rome, and would have been sorry to
think that he had helped the "heretics."
Wolsey was still powerful, and he made up his mind to silence his
enemy, so Skelton found himself more than once in prison, and at
last to escape the Cardinal's anger he was forced to take
sanctuary in Westminster. There he remained until he died a few
months before his great enemy fell from power.
As many of Skelton's poems were thus about quarrels over religion
and politics, much of the interest in them has died. Yet, as he
himself says,
"For although my rhyme is ragged,
Tattered and jagged,
Rudely rain-beaten,
Rust and moth eaten,
If ye take well therewith,
It hath in it some pith."
And it is well to remember the name of Colin Cloute at least,
because a later and much greater poet borrowed that name for one
of his own poems, as you shall hear.
But the poem which keeps most interest for us is one which
perhaps at the time it was written was thought least important.
It is called The Book of Philip Sparrow. And this poem shows us
that Skelton was not always bitter and biting. For it is neither
bitter nor coarse, but is a dainty and tender lament written for
a schoolgirl whose sparrow had been killed by a cat. It is
written in the same short lines as Colin Cloute and others of
Skelton's poems--"Breathless rhymes"* they have been called.
These short lines remind us somewhat of the old Anglo-Saxon short
half-lines, except that they rime. They are called after their
author "Skeltonical."
*Bishop Hall.
What chiefly makes The Book of Philip Sparrow interesting is that
it is the original of our nursery rime Who Killed Cock Robin? It
is written in the form of a dirge, and many people were shocked
at that, for they said that it was but another form of mockery
that this jesting priest had chosen with which to divert himself.
But I think that little Jane Scoupe at school in the nunnery at
Carowe would dry her eyes and smile when she read it. She must
have been pleased that the famous poet, who had been the King's
tutor and friend and who had been both the friend and enemy of
the great Cardinal, should trouble to write such a long poem all
about her sparrow.
Here are a few quotations from it:--
"Pla ce bo,*
Who is there who?
Di le sci,
Dame Margery;
Fa re my my,
Wherefore and why why?
For the soul of Philip Sparrow
That was late slain at Carowe
Among the nuns black,
For that sweet soul's sake,
And for all sparrows' souls,
Set in our bead rolls,
Pater Noster qui,
With an Ave Mari,
And with the corner of a creed,
The more shall be your need.
*Placebo is the first word of the first chant in the
service for the dead. Skelton has here made it into three
words. The chant is called the Placebo from the first
word.
. . . .
I wept and I wailed,
The tears down hailed,
But nothing it availed
To call Philip again,
That Gib our cat hath slain.
Gib, I say, our cat
Worried her on that
Which I loved best.
It cannot be expressed
My sorrowful heaviness
And all without redress.
. . . .
It had a velvet cap,
And would sit upon my lap,
And seek after small worms,
And sometimes white bread-crumbs.
. . . .
Sometimes he would gasp
When he saw a wasp,
A fly or a gnat
He would fly at that;
And prettily he would pant
When he saw an ant;
Lord, how he would fly
After the butterfly.
And when I said Phip, Phip
Then he would leap and skip,
And take me by the lip.
Alas it will me slo,*
That Philip is gone me fro.
*Slay.
. . . .
For it would come and go,
And fly so to and fro;
And on me it would leap
When I was asleep,
And his feathers shake,
Wherewith he would make
Me often for to wake.
. . . .
That vengeance I ask and cry,
By way of exclamation,
On all the whole nation
Of cats wild and tame.
God send them sorrow and shame!
That cat especially
That slew so cruelly
My little pretty sparrow
That I brought up at Carowe.
O cat of churlish kind,
The fiend was in thy mind,
When thou my bird untwined.*
I would thou hadst been blind.
The leopards savage,
The lions in their rage,
Might catch thee in their paws
And gnaw thee in their jaws.
*Tore to pieces.
. . . .
These villainous false cats,
Were made for mice and rats,
And not for birdies small.
. . . .
Alas, mine heart is slayeth
My Philip's doleful death,
When I remember it,
How prettily it would sit,
Many times and oft,
Upon my finger aloft.
. . . .
To weep with me, look that ye come,
All manner of birds of your kind;
So none be left behind,
To mourning look that ye fall
With dolorous songs funeral,
Some to sing, and some to say,
Some to weep, and some to pray,
Every bird in his lay.
The goldfinch and the wagtail;
The gangling jay to rail,
The flecked pie to chatter
Of the dolorous matter;
The robin redbreast,
He shall be the priest,
The requiem mass to sing,
Softly warbling,
With help of the red sparrow,
And the chattering swallow,
This hearse for to hallow;
The lark with his lung too,
The chaffinch and the martinet also;
. . . .
The lusty chanting nightingale,
The popinjay to tell her tale,
That peepeth oft in the glass,
Shall read the Gospel at mass;
The mavis with her whistle
Shall read there the Epistle,
But with a large and a long
To keep just plain song.
. . . .
The peacock so proud,
Because his voice is loud,
And hath a glorious tail
He shall sing the grayle;*
The owl that is so foul
Must help us to howl.
*Gradual = the part of the mass between Epistle and Gospel.
. . . .
At the Placebo
We may not forgo
The chanting of the daw
The stork also,
That maketh her nest
In chimnies to rest.
. . . .
The ostrich that will eat
A horseshoe so great,
In the stead of meat,
Such fervent heat
His stomach doth gnaw.
He cannot well fly
Nor sing tunably.
. . . .
The best that we can
To make him our bellman,
And let him ring the bells,
He can do nothing else.
Chanticlere our cock
Must tell what is of the clock
By the astrology
That he hath naturally
Conceived and caught,
And was never taught.
. . . .
To Jupiter I call
Of heaven imperial
That Philip may fly
Above the starry sky
To greet the pretty wren
That is our Lady's hen,
Amen, amen, amen.
Chapter XXXVI THE RENAISSANCE
RENAISSANCE means rebirth, and to make you understand something
of what the word means in our literature I must take you a long
way. You have been told that the fifteenth century was a dull
time in English literature, but that it was also a time of new
action and new life, for the discovery of new worlds and the
discovery of printing had opened men's eyes and minds to new
wonders. There was a third event which added to this new life by
bringing new thought and new learning to England. That was the
taking of Constantinople by the Turks.
It seems difficult to understand how the taking of Constantinople
could have any effect on our literature. I will try to explain,
but in order to do so clearly I must go back to the time of the
Romans.
All of you have read English history, and there you read of the
Romans. You know what a clever and conquering people they were,
and how they subdued all the wild tribes who lived in the
countries around them. Besides conquering all the barbarians
around them, the Romans conquered another people who were not
barbarians, but who were in some ways more civilized than
themselves. These were the Greeks. They had a great literature,
they were more learned and quite as skilled in the arts of peace
as the Romans. Yet in 146 B.C., long before the Romans came to
our little island, Greece became a Roman province.
Nearly five hundred years later there sat upon the throne an
Emperor named Constantine. And he, although Rome was still
pagan, became a Christian. He was, besides, a great and powerful
ruler. His court was brilliant, glittering with all the golden
splendor of those far-off times. But although Rome was still
pagan, Greece, a Roman province, had become Christian. And in
this Christian province Constantine made up his mind to build a
New Rome.
In those days the boundaries of Greece stretched far further than
they do now, and it was upon the shores of the Bosphorus that
Constantine built his new capital. There was already an ancient
town there named Byzantium, but he transformed it into a new and
splendid city. The Emperor willed it to be called New Rome, but
instead the people called it the city of Constantine, and we know
it now as Constantinople.
When Constantinople was founded it was a Roman city. All the
rulers were Roman, all the high posts were filled by Romans, and
Latin was the speech of the people. But in Constantinople it
happened as it had happened in England after the Conquest. In
England, for a time after the Conquest, the rulers were French
and the language was French, but gradually all that passed away,
and the language and the rulers became English once more. So it
was in Constantinople. By degrees it became a Greek city, the
rulers became Greek, and Greek was the language spoken.
In building a second capital Constantine had weakened his Empire.
Soon it was split in two, and there arose a western and an
eastern Empire. As time went on the Western Empire with Rome at
its head declined and fell, while the Eastern Empire with
Constantinople as its capital grew great. But it grew into a
Greek Empire. Even very clever people cannot tell the exact date
at which the Roman Empire came to an end and the Greek or
Byzantine Empire, as it is called, began. So we need not trouble
about that. All that is needful for us to understand now it that
Constantinople was a Christian city, a Greek city, and a
treasure-house of Greek learning and literature.
Thus Constantinople was the Christian outpost of Europe. For
hundred of year the Byzantine Empire stood as a barrier against
the Saracen hosts of Asia. It might have stood still longer, but
sad to say, this barrier was first broken down by the Christians
themselves. For in 1204 the armies of the fourth Crusade, which
had gathered to fight the heathen, turned their swords, to their
shame be it said, against the Christian people of the Greek
Empire. Constantinople was taken, plundered, and destroyed by
these "pious brigands,"* and the last of the Byzantine Emperors
was first blinded and then flung from a high tower, so that his
body fell shattered to pieces on the paving-stones of his own
capital.
*George Finlay, History of Greece.
Baldwin, Count of Flanders, one of the great leaders of the
Crusade, was then crowned by his followers and acknowledged
Emperor of the East. But the once great Empire was now broken
up, and out of it three lesser Empires, as well as many smaller
states, were formed.
Baldwin did not long rule as Emperor of the East, and the Greeks
after a time succeeded in regaining Constantinople from the
western Christians. But although for nearly two hundred years
longer they kept it, the Empire was dying and lifeless. And by
degrees, as the power of Greece grew less, the power of Turkey
grew greater. At length in 1453 the Sultan Mohammed II attacked
Constantinople. Then the Cross, which for a thousand years and
more had stood upon the ramparts of Christendom, went down before
the Crescent.
Constantine XI, the last of the Greek Emperors, knelt in the
great church of St. Sophia to receive for the last time the Holy
Sacrament. Then mounting his horse he rode forth to battle.
Fighting for his kingdom and his faith he fell, and over his dead
body the young Sultan and his soldiers rode into the ruined city.
Then in the church, where but a few hours before the fallen
Emperor had knelt and prayed to Christ, the Sultan bowed himself
in thanks and praise to Allah and Mohammed.
And now we come to the point where the taking of Constantinople
and the fall of the Greek Empire touches our literature.
In Constantinople the ancient learning and literature of the
Greeks had lived on year after year. The city was full of
scholars who knew, and loved, and studied the Greek authors. But
now, before the terror of the Turk, driven forth by the fear of
slavery and disgrace, these Greek scholars fled. They fled to
Italy. And although in their flight they had to leave goods and
wealth behind, the came laden with precious manuscripts from the
libraries of Constantinople.
These fugitive Greeks brought to the Italians a learning which
was to them new and strange. Soon all over Europe the news of
the New Learning spread. Then across the Alps scholars thronged
from every country in Europe to listen and to learn.
I do not think I can quite make you understand what this New
Learning was. It was indeed but the old learning of Greece. Yet
there was in it something that can never grow old, for it was
human. It made men turn away from idle dreaming and begin to
learn that the world we live in is real. They began to realize
that there was something more than a past and a future. There
was the present. So, instead of giving all their time to vague
wonderings of what might be, of what never had been, and what
never could be, they began to take an interest in life as it was
and in man as he was. They began to see that human life with all
its joys and sorrows was, after all, the most interesting thing
to man.
It was a New Birth, and men called it so. For that is the
meaning of Renaissance. Many things besides the fall of
Constantinople helped towards this New Birth. The discovery of
new worlds by daring sailors like Columbus and Cabot, and the
discovery of printing were among them. But the touchstone of the
New Learning was the knowledge of Greek, which had been to the
greater part of Europe a lost tongue. On this side of the Alps
there was not a school or college in which it could be learned.
So to Italy, where the Greek scholars had found a refuge, those
who wished to learn flocked.
Among them were some Oxford scholars. Chief of these were three,
whose names you will learn to know well when you come to read
more about this time. They were William Grocyn, "the most
upright and best of all Britons,"* Thomas Linacre, and John
Colet. These men, returning from Italy full of the New Learning,
began to teach Greek at Oxford. And it is strange now to think
that there were many then who were bitterly against such
teaching. The students even formed themselves into two parties,
for and against. They were called Greeks and Trojans, and
between these two parties man a fierce fight took place, for the
quarrel did not end in words, but often in blows.
*Erasmus.
The New Learning, however, conquered. And so keenly did men feel
the human interests of such things as were now taught, that we
have come to call grammar, rhetoric, poetry, Greek and Latin the
Humanities, and the professor who teaches these thing the
professor of Humanity.
Chapter XXXVII THE LAND OF NOWHERE
WHILE the New Learning was stirring England, and Greek was being
for the first time taught in Oxford, a young student of fourteen
came to the University there. This student was named Thomas
More. He was the son of a lawyer who became a judge, and as a
little boy he had been a page in the household of Morton, the
Archbishop of Canterbury.
The Archbishop was quick to see that the boy was clever. "This
child here waiting at the table, whoever will live to see it,
will prove a marvellous man,"* he would say. And so he persuaded
More's father to send the boy to Oxford to study law.
*William Roper, The Mirrour of Virtue.
Thomas remained only two years at Oxford, for old Sir John,
fearing he was learning too much Greek and literature and not
enough law, called his son home and sent him to study law in
London. It must have been a disappointment to the boy to be
taken from the clever friends he had made in Oxford, and from the
books and studies that he loved, to be set instead to read dry
law-books. But Thomas More was most sunny-tempered. Nothing
made him sulky or cross. So now he settled down quietly to his
new life, and in a very short time became a famous and learned
lawyer.
In was after More left Oxford that he met the man who became his
dearest friend. This was Desiderius Erasmus, a learned Dutchman.
He was eleven years older than More and he could speak no
English, but that did not prevent them becoming friends, as they
both could speak Latin easily and well. They had much in common.
Erasmus was of the same lively, merry wit as More, they both
loved literature and the Greek learning, and so the two became
fast friends. And it helps us to understand the power which
Latin still held over our literature, and indeed over all the
literature of Europe, when we remember that these two friends
spoke to each other and wrote and jested in Latin as easily as
they might have done in English. Erasmus was one of the most
famous men of his time. He was one who did much in his day to
free men's minds, one who helped men to think for themselves. So
although he had directly perhaps little to do with English
literature, it is well to remember him as the friend of More.
"My affection for the man is so great," wrote Erasmus once, "that
if he bade me dance a hornpipe, I should do at once what he bid
me."
Although More was so merry and witty, religion got a strong hold
upon him, and at one time he thought of becoming a monk. But his
friends persuaded him to give up that idea, and after a time he
decided to marry. He chose his wife in a somewhat quaint manner.
Among his friends there was a gentleman who had three daughters.
More liked the second one best, "for that he thought her the
fairest and best favoured."* But he married the eldest because
it seemed to him "that it would be both great grief and some
shame also to the oldest to see her younger sister preferred
before her in marriage. He then, of a certain pity, framed his
fancy toward her, and soon after married her."*
*W. Roper.
Although he chose his wife so quaintly More's home was a very
happy one. He loved nothing better than to live a simple family
life with his wife and children round him. After six years his
wife died, but he quickly married again. And although his second
wife was "a simple ignorant woman and somewhat worldly too," with
a sharp tongue and short temper, she was kind to her step-
children and the home was still a happy one.
More was a great public man, but he was first a father and head
of his own house. He says: "While I spend almost all the day
abroad amongst others, and the residue at home among mine own, I
leave to myself, I mean to my book, no time. For when I come
home, I must commen with my wife, chatter with my children, and
talk with my servants. All the which things I reckon and account
among business, forasmuch as they must of necessity be done, and
done must they needs be unless a man will be stranger in his own
home. And in any wise a man must so fashion and order his
conditions and so appoint and dispose himself, that he be merry,
jocund and pleasant among them, whom either Nature hath provided
or chance hath made, or he himself hath chosen to be the fellows
and companions of his life, so that with too much gentle
behaviour and familiarity he do not mar them, and by too much
sufferance of his servants make them his masters."
At a time, too, when education was thought little necessary for
girls, More taught his daughters as carefully as his sons. His
eldest daughter Margaret (Mog, as he loved to call her) was so
clever that learned men praised and rewarded her. When his
children married they did not leave home, but came with their
husbands and wives to live at Chelsea in the beautiful home More
had built there. So the family was never divided, and More
gathered a "school" of children and grandchildren round him.
More soon became a great man. Henry VII, indeed, did not love
him, so More did not rise to power while he lived. But Henry VII
died and his son Henry VIII ruled. The great Chancellor,
Cardinal Wolsey, became More's friend, and presently he was sent
on business for the King to Bruges.
It was while More was about the King's business in Belgium that
he wrote the greater part of the book by which he is best
remembered. This book is called Utopia. The name means
"nowhere," from two Greek words, "ou," no, and "topos," a place.
The Utopia, like so many other books of which we have read, was
the outcome of the times in which the writer lived. When More
looked round upon the England that he knew he saw many things
that were wrong. He was a man loyal to his King, yet he could
not pretend to think that the King ruled only for the good of his
people and not for his own pleasure. There was evil, misery, and
suffering in all the land. More longed to make people see that
things were wrong; he longed to set the wrong right. So to teach
men how to do this he invented a land of Nowhere in which there
was no evil or injustice, in which every one was happy and good.
He wrote so well about that make-believe land that from then till
now every one who read Utopia sees the beauty of More's idea.
But every one, too, thinks that this land where everything is
right is an impossible land. Thus More gave a new word to our
language, and when we think some idea beautiful but impossible we
call it "Utopian."
As it was the times that made More write his book, so it was the
times that gave him the form of it.
In those days, as you know, men's minds were stirred by the
discovery of new lands and chiefly by the discovery of America.
And although it was Columbus who first discovered America, he did
not give his name to the new country. It was, instead, named
after the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci. Amerigo wrote a
book about his voyages, and it was from this book that More got
some of his ideas for the Utopia.
More makes believe that one day in Antwerp he saw a man "well
stricken in age, with a black sun-burned face, a long beard, and
a cloak cast homely about his shoulders, whom by his favour and
apparel forthwith I judged to be a mariner."
This man was called Raphael Hythlodaye and had been with Amerigo
Vespucci in the three last of his voyages, "saving that in the
last voyage he came not home again with him." For on that voyage
Hythlodaye asked to be left behind. And after Amerigo had gone
home he, with five friends, set forth upon a further voyage of
discovery. In their travels they saw many marvelous and fearful
things, and at length came to the wonderful land of Nowhere.
"But what he told us that he saw, in every country where he came,
it were very long to declare."
More asked many questions of this great traveler. "But as for
monsters, because they be no news, of them we were nothing
inquisitive. . . .. But to find citizens ruled by good and
wholesome laws, that is an exceeding rare and hard thing!"
The whole story of the Utopia is told in the form of talks
between Hythlodaye, More, and his friend Peter Giles. And More
mixes what is real and what is imaginary so quaintly that it is
not wonderful that many of the people of his own day thought that
Utopia was a real place. Peter Giles, for instance, was a real
man and a friend of More, while Hythlodaye was imaginary, his
name being made of Greek words meaning Cunning Babbler. nearly
all the names of the towns, river, and people of whom Hythlodaye
tells were also made from Greek words and have some meaning. For
instance, Achoriens means people-who-have-no-place-on-earth,
Amaurote a-phantom-city, and so on.
More takes a great deal of trouble to keep up the mystery of this
strange land. It was not wonderful that he should, for under the
pretense of a story he said hard things about the laws and ill-
government of England, things which it was treason to whisper.
In those days treason was a terrible word covering a great deal,
and death and torture were like to be the fate of any one who
spoke his mind too freely.
But More knew that it would be a hard matter to make things
better in England. As he makes Hythlodaye say, it is no use
trying to improve things in a blundering fashion. It is of no
use trying by fear to drive into people's heads things they have
no mind to learn. Neither must you "forsake the ship in a
tempest, because you cannot rule and keep down the winds." But
"you must with a crafty wile and subtile train, study and
endeavour yourself, as much as in you lieth, to handle the matter
wittily and handsomely for the purpose. And that which you
cannot turn to good, so to order it that it be not very bad. For
it is not possible for all things to be well, unless all men were
good: which I think will not be yet in these good many years."
The Utopia is divided into two books. The first and shorter
gives us what we might call the machinery of the tale. It tells
of the meeting with Hythlodaye and More's first talk with him.
It is not until the beginning of the second book that we really
hear about Utopia. And I think if you read the book soon, I
would advise you to begin with the second part, which More wrote
first. In the second book we have most of the story, but the
first book helps us to understand More's own times and explains
what he was trying to do in writing his tale.
At the beginning of this book I told you that we should have to
talk of many books which for the present, at least, you could not
hope to like, but which you must be content to be told are good
and worth reading. I may be wrong, but I think Utopia is one of
these. Yet as Cresacre More, More's great-grandson, speaking of
his great-grandfather's writing, says, he "seasoned always the
troublesomeness of the matter with some merry jests or pleasant
tales, as it were sugar, whereby we drink up the more willingly
these wholesome drugs . . . which kind of writing he hath used in
all his works, so that none can ever by weary to read them,
though they be never so long."
And even if you like the book now, you will both like and
understand it much better when you know a little about politics.
You will then see, too, how difficult it is to know when More is
in earnest and when he is merely poking fun, for More loved to
jest. Yet as his grandson, who wrote a life of him, tells us,
"Whatsoever jest he brought forth, he never laughed at any
himself, but spoke always so sadly, that few could see by his
look whether he spoke in earnest or in jest."
It would take too long to tell all about the wonderful island of
Utopia and its people, but I must tell you a little of it and how
they regarded money. All men in this land were equal. No man
was idle, neither was any man over-burdened with labor, for every
one had to work six hours a day. No man was rich, no man was
poor, for "though no man have anything, yet every man is rich,"
for the State gave him everything that he needed. So money was
hardly of any use, and gold and silver and precious jewels were
despised.
"In the meantime gold and silver, whereof money is made, they do
so use, as none of them doth more esteem it, than the very nature
of the thing deserveth. And then who doth not plainly see how
far it is under iron? As without the which men can no better
live than without fire and water; whereas to gold and silver
nature hath given no use that we may not well lack, if that the
folly of men had not set it in higher estimation for the rareness
sake. But, of the contrary part, Nature, as a most tender and
loving mother, hath placed the best and most necessary things
open abroad; as the air, the water, and the earth itself; and
hath removed and hid farthest from us vain and unprofitable
things."
Yet as other countries still prized money, gold and silver was
sometimes needed by the Utopians. But, thought the wise King and
his counselors, if we lock it up in towers and take great care of
it, the people may begin to think that gold is of value for
itself, they will begin to think that we are keeping something
precious from them. So to set this right they fell upon a plan.
It was this. "For whereas they eat and drink in earthen and
glass vessels, which indeed be curiously and properly made, and
yet be of very small value; of gold and silver they make other
vessels that serve for most vile uses, not only in their common
halls, but in every man's private house. Furthermore of the same
metals they make great chains and fetters and gyves, wherein they
tie their bondmen. Finally, whosoever for any offense be
infamed, by their ears hang rings of gold, upon their fingers
they wear rings of gold, and about their necks chains of gold;
and in conclusion their heads be tied about with gold.
"Thus, by all means that may be, they procure to have gold and
silver among them in reproach and infamy. And therefore these
metals, which other nations do as grievously and sorrowfully
forego, as in a manner from their own lives, if they should
altogether at once be taken from the Utopians, no man there would
think that he had lost the worth of a farthing.
"They gather also pearls by the seaside, and diamonds and
carbuncles upon certain rocks. Yet they seek not for them, but
by chance finding them they cut and polish them. And therewith
they deck their young infants. Which, like as in the first years
of their childhood they make much and be fond and proud of such
ornaments, so when they be a little more grown in years and
discretion, perceiving that none but children do wear such toys
and trifles, they lay them away even of their own shamefastness,
without any bidding of their parents, even as our children when
they wax big, do caste away nuts, brooches and dolls. Therefore
these laws and customs, which be so far different from all other
nations, how divers fancies also and minds they do cause, did I
never so plainly perceive, as in the Ambassadors of the
Anemolians.
"These Ambassadors came to Amaurote whiles I was there. And
because they came to entreat of great and weighty matters, three
citizens a piece out of every city (of Utopia) were come thither
before them. But all the Ambassadors of the next countries,
which had been there before, and knew the fashions and manners of
the Utopians, among whom they perceived no honour given to
sumptuous and costly apparel, silks to be contemned, gold also to
be infamed and reproachful, were wont to come thither in very
homely and simple apparel. But the Anemolians, because they
dwell far thence, and had very little acquaintance with them,
hearing that they were all apparelled alike, and that very rudely
and homely, thinking them not to have the things which they did
not wear, being therefore more proud than wise, determined in the
gorgeousness of their apparel to represent very gods, and with
the bright shining and glistening of their gay clothing to dazzle
the eyes of the silly poor Utopians.
"So there came in three Ambassadors with a hundred servants all
apparelled in changeable colours; the most of them in silks; the
Ambassadors themselves (for at home in their own country they
were noble men) in cloth of gold, with great chains of gold, with
gold hanging at their ears, with gold rings upon their fingers,
with brooches and aglettes* of gold upon their caps, which
glistered full of pearls and precious stones; to be short,
trimmed and adorned with all those things, which among the
Utopians were either the punishment of bondmen, or the reproach
of infamed persons, or else trifles for young children to play
withall.
*Hanging ornaments.
"Therefore it would have done a man good at his heart to have
seen how proudly they displayed their peacocks' feathers; how
much they made of their painted sheathes; and how loftily they
set forth and advanced themselves, when they compared their
gallant apparel with the poor raiment of the Utopians. For all
the people were swarmed forth into the streets.
"And on the other side it was no less pleasure to consider how
much they were deceived, and how far they missed their purpose;
being contrary ways taken than they thought they should have
been. For to the eyes of all the Utopians, except very few,
which had been in other countries for some reasonable cause, all
that gorgeousness of apparel seemed shameful and reproachful; in
so much that they most reverently saluted the vilest and most
abject of them for lords; passing over the Ambassadors themselves
without any honour; judging them by their wearing of golden
chains to be bondmen.
"Yea, you should have seen children also that had cast away their
pearls and precious stones, when they saw the like sticking upon
the Ambassadors' caps, dig and push their mothers under the
sides, saying thus to them: 'Look, mother, how great a lubber
doth yet wear pearls and precious stones, as though he were a
little child still.'
"But the mother, yea, and that also in good earnest: 'Peace,
son,' saith she, 'I think he be some of the Ambassadors' fools.'
"Some found fault with their golden chains, as to no use nor
purpose; being so small and weak, that a bondman might easily
break them; and again so wide and large that, when it pleased
him, he might cast them off, and run away at liberty whither he
would.
"But when the Ambassadors had been there a day or two, and saw so
great abundance of gold so lightly esteemed, yea, in no less
reproach than it was with them in honour; and, besides that, more
gold in the chains and gyves of one fugitive bondman, than all
the costly ornaments of their three was worth; then began a-bate
their courage, and for very shame laid away all that gorgeous
array whereof they were so proud; and especially when they had
talked familiarly with the Utopians, and had learned all their
fashions and opinions. For they marvel that any man be so
foolish as to have delight and pleasure in the glistering of a
little trifling stone, which may behold any of the stars, or else
the sun itself; or that any man is so mad as to count himself the
nobler for the smaller or finer thread of wool, which self-same
wool (be it now in never so fine a spun thread) did once a sheep
wear, and yet was she all that time no other thing than a sheep."
Chapter XXXVIII THE DEATH OF SIR THOMAS MORE
THERE is much that is quaint, much that is deeply wise, in More's
Utopia, still no one is likely to agree with all he says, or to
think that we could all be happy in a world such as he describes.
For one thing, to those of us who love color it would seem a dull
world indeed were we all forced to dress in coarse-spun, undyed
sheep's wool, and if jewels and gold with all their lovely lights
and gleamings were but the signs of degradation. Each one who
reads it may find something in the Utopia that he would rather
have otherwise. But each one, too, will find something to make
him think.
More was not the first to write about a happy land where every
one lived in peace and where only justice reigned. And if he got
some of his ideas of the island from the discoveries of the New
World, he got many more from the New Learning. For long before,
Plato, a Greek writer, had told of a land very like Utopia in his
book called the Republic. And the New Learning had made that
book known to the people of England.
We think of the Utopia as English Literature, yet we must
remember that More wrote it in Latin, and it was not translated
into English until several years after his death. The first
English translation was made by Ralph Robinson, and although
since then there have been other translation which in some ways
are more correct, there has never been one with more charm. For
Robinson's quaint English keeps for us something of the spirit of
More's time and of More's self in a way no modern and more
perfect translation can.
The Utopia was not written for one time or for one people. Even
before it was translated into English it had been translated into
Dutch, Italian, German, and French and was largely read all over
the Continent. It is still read to-day by all who are interested
in the life of the people, by all who think that in "this best of
all possible worlds" things might still be made better.
More wrote many other books both in English and in Latin and
besides being a busy author he led a busy life. For blustering,
burly, selfish King Henry loved the gentle witty lawyer, and
again and again made use of his wits. "And so from time to time
was he by the King advanced, continuing in his singular favour
and trusty service twenty years and above."*
*W. Roper.
It was not only for his business cleverness that King Henry loved
Sir Thomas. It was for his merry, witty talk. When business was
done and supper-time came, the King and Queen would call for him
"to be merry with them." Thus it came about that Sir Thomas
could hardly ever get home to his wife and children, where he
most longed to be. Then he began to pretend to be less clever
than he was, so that the King might not want so much of his
company. But Henry would sometimes follow More to his home at
Chelsea, where he had built a beautiful house. Sometimes he came
quite unexpectedly to dinner. Once he came, "and after dinner,
in a fair garden of his, walked with him by the space of an hour,
holding his arm about his neck." As soon as the King was gone,
More's son-in-law said to him that he should be happy seeing the
King was so friendly with him, for with no other man was he so
familiar, not even with Wolsey.
"I thank our Lord," answered More, "I find in his Grace a very
good lord indeed, and I believe he doth as singularly favour me
as any subject within the realm. Howbeit, son Roper, I may tell
thee, I have no cause to be proud thereof, for if my head would
win him a castle in France it should not fail to go."
And Sir Thomas was not wrong. Meanwhile, however, the King
heaped favor upon him. He became Treasurer of the Exchequer,
Speaker of the House of Commons, Chancellor of the Duchy of
Lancaster, and last of all Lord Chancellor of England. This was
a very great honor. And as More was a layman the honor was for
him greater than usual. For he was the first layman to be made
Chancellor. Until then the Chancellor had always been some
powerful Churchman.
More was not eager for these honors. He would much rather have
lived a simple family life, but bluff King Hal was no easy master
to serve. If he chose to honor a man and set him high, that man
could but submit. So, as Erasmus says, More was dragged into
public life and honor, and being thus dragged in troubles were
not slow to follow.
Henry grew tired of his wife, Queen Catherine, but the Pope would
not allow him to divorce her so that he might marry another.
Then Henry quarreled with the Pope. The Pope, he said, should no
longer have power in England. He should no longer be head of the
Church, but the people must henceforth look to the King as such.
This More could not do. He tried to keep out of the quarrel. He
was true to his King as king, but he felt that he must be true to
his religion too. To him the Pope was the representative of
Christ on earth, and he could look to no other as head of the
Church. When first More had come into the King's service, Henry
bade him "first look unto God, and after God unto him." Of this
his Chancellor now reminded him, and laying down his seal of
office he went home, hoping to live the rest of his days in
peace.
But that was not to be. "It is perilous striving with princes,"
said a friend. " I would wish you somewhat to incline to the
King's pleasure. The anger of princes is death."
"Is that all?" replied More calmly; "then in good faith the
difference between you and me is but this, that I shall die to-
day and you to-morrow."
So it fell out. There came a day when messengers came to More's
happy home, and the beloved father was led away to imprisonment
and death.
For fifteen months he was kept in the Tower. During all that
time his cheerful steadfastness did not waver. He wrote long
letters to his children, and chiefly to Meg, his best-loved
daughter. When pen and ink were taken away from him, he still
wrote with coal. In these months he became an old man, bent and
crippled with disease. But though his body was feeble his mind
was clear, his spirit bright as ever. No threats or promises
could shake his purpose. He could not and would not own Henry as
head of the Church.
At last the end came. In Westminster Hall More was tried for
treason and found guilty. From Westminster through the thronging
streets he was led back again to the Tower. In front of the
prisoner an ax was carried, the edge being turned towards him.
That was the sign to all who saw that he was to die.
As the sad procession reached the Tower Wharf there was a pause.
A young and beautiful woman darted from the crowd, and caring not
for the soldiers who surrounded him, unafraid of their swords and
halberds, she reached the old man's side, and threw herself
sobbing on his breast. In was Margaret, More's beloved daughter,
who, fearing that never again she might see her father, thus came
in the open street to say farewell. She clung to him and kissed
him in sight of all again and again, but no word could she say
save, "Oh, my father! oh, my father!"
Then Sir Thomas, holding her tenderly, comforted and blessed her,
and at last she took her arms from about his neck and he passed
on. But Margaret could not yet leave him. Scarcely had she gone
ten steps than suddenly she turned back. Once more breaking
through the guard she threw her arms about him. Not a word did
Sir Thomas say, but as he held her there the tears fell fast from
his eyes, while from the crowd around broke the sound of weeping.
Even the guards wept for pity. But at last, with full and heavy
hearts, father and daughter parted.
"Dear Meg," Sir Thomas wrote for the last time, "I never liked
your manner better towards me than when you kissed me last. For
I like when daughterly love and dear charity hath no leisure to
look to worldly courtesy."
Next day he died cheerfully as he had lived. To the last he
jested in his quaint fashion. The scaffold was so badly built
that it was ready to fall, so Sir Thomas, jesting, turned to the
lieutenant. "I pray you, Master Lieutenant," he said, "see me
safe up, and for my coming down let me shift for myself." He
desired the people to pray for him, and having kissed the
executioner in token of forgiveness, he laid his head upon the
block. "So passed Sir Thomas More out of the world to God." His
death was mourned by many far and near. "Had we been master of
such a servant," said the Emperor Charles when he heard of it,
"we would rather have lost the best city of our dominions than
have lost such a worthy counselor."
More died for his faith, that of the Catholic Church. He, as
others, saw with grief that there was much within the Church that
needed to be made better, but he trusted it would be made better.
To break away from the Church, to doubt the headship of the Pope,
seemed to him such wickedness that he hated the Reformers and
wrote against them. And although in Utopia he allowed his happy
people to have full freedom in matters of religion, in real life
he treated sternly and even cruelly those Protestants with whom
he had to deal.
Yet the Reformation was stirring all the world, and while Sir
Thomas More cheerfully and steadfastly died for the Catholic
faith, there were others in England who as cheerfully lived,
worked, and died for the Protestant faith. We have little to do
with these Reformers in this book, except in so far as they touch
our literature, and it is to them that we owe our present Bible.
First William Tyndale, amid difficulties and trials, translated
afresh the New and part of the Old Testament, and died the death
of a martyr in 1536.
Miles Coverdale followed him with a complete translation in
happier times. For Henry VIII, for his own purposes, wished to
spread a knowledge of the Bible, and commanded that a copy of
Coverdale's Bible should be placed in every parish church. And
although Coverdale was not so great a scholar as Tyndale, his
language was fine and stately, with a musical ring about the
words, and to this day we still keep his version of the Psalms in
the Prayer Book.
Other versions of the Bible followed these, until in 1611, in the
reign of James I and VI, the translation which we use to-day was
at length published. That has stood and still stands the test of
time. And, had we no other reason to treasure it, we would still
for its simple musical language look upon it as one of the fine
things in our literature.
BOOKS TO READ
Life of Sir Thomas More (King's Classics, modern English), by W.
Roper (his son-in-law). Utopia (King's Classics, modern
English), translated by R. Robinson. Utopia (old English),
edited by Churton Collins.
Chapter XXXIX HOW THE SONNET CAME TO ENGLAND
UPON a January day in 1527 two gaily decked barges met upon the
Thames. In the one sat a man of forty. His fair hair and beard
were already touched with gray. His face was grave and
thoughtful, and his eyes gave to it a curious expression, for the
right was dull and sightless, while with the left he looked about
him sharply. This was Sir John Russell, gentleman of the Privy
Chamber, soldier, ambassador, and favorite of King Henry VIII.
Fighting in the King's French wars he had lost the sight of his
right eye. Since then he had led a busy life in court and camp,
passing through many perilous adventures in the service of his
master, and now once again by the King's commands he was about to
set forth for Italy.
As the other barge drew near Russell saw that in it there sat
Thomas Wyatt, a young poet and courtier of twenty-three. He was
tall and handsome, and his thick dark hair framed a pale, clever
face which now looked listless. But as his dreamy poet's eyes
met those of Sir John they lighted up. The two men greeted each
other familiarly. "Whither away," cried Wyatt, for he saw that
Russell was prepared for a journey.
"To Italy, sent by the King."
To Italy, the land of Poetry! The idea fired the poet's soul.
"And I," at once he answered, "will, if you please, ask leave,
get money, and go with you."
"No man more welcome," answered the ambassador, and so it was
settled between them. The money and the leave were both
forthcoming, and Thomas Wyatt passed to Italy. This chance
meeting and this visit to Italy are of importance to our
literature, because they led to a new kind of poem being written
in English. This was the Sonnet.
The Sonnet is a poem of fourteen lines, and is perhaps the most
difficult kind of poem to write. It is divided into two parts.
The first part has eight lines and ought only to have two rimes.
That is, supposing we take words riming with love and king for
our rimes, four lines must rime with love and four with king.
The rimes, too, must come in a certain order. The first, fourth,
fifth and eighth lines must rime, and the second, third, sixth,
and seventh. This first part is called the octave, from the
Latin word octo, eight. The second part contains six lines, and
is therefore called the sextet, from the Latin word sex, meaning
six. The sextet may have either two or three rimes, and these
may be arranged in almost any order. But a correct sonnet ought
not to end with a couplet, that is two riming lines. However,
very many good writers in English do so end their sonnets.
As the sonnet is so bound about with rules, it often makes the
thought which it expresses sound a little unreal. And for that
very reason it suited the times in which Wyatt lived. In those
far-off days every knight had a lady whom he vowed to serve and
love. He took her side in every quarrel, and if he were a poet,
or even if he were not, he wrote verses in her honor, and sighed
and died for her. The lady was not supposed to do anything in
return; she might at most smile upon her knight or drop her
glove, that he might be made happy by picking it up. In fact,
the more disdainful the lady might be the better it was, for then
the poet could write the more passionate verses. For all this
love and service was make-believe. It was merely a fashion and
not meant to be taken seriously. A man might have a wife whom he
loved dearly, and yet write poems in honor of another lady
without thought of wrong. The sonnet, having something very
artificial in it, just suited this make-believe love.
Petrarch, the great Italian poet, from whom you remember Chaucer
had learned much, and whom perhaps he had once met, made use of
this kind of poem. In his sonnets he told his love of a fair
lady, Laura, and made her famous for all time.
Of course, when Wyatt came to Italy Petrarch had long been dead.
But his poems were as living as in the days of Chaucer, and it
was from Petrarch's works that Wyatt learned this new kind of
poem, and it was he who first made use of it in English. He,
too, like Petrarch, addressed his sonnets to a lady, and the lady
he took for his love was Queen Anne Boleyn. As he is the first,
he is perhaps one of the roughest of our sonnet writers, but into
his sonnets he wrought something of manly strength. He does not
sigh so much as other poets of the age. He says, in fact, "If I
serve my lady faithfully I deserve reward." Here is one of his
sonnets, which he calls "The lover compareth his state to a ship
in perilous storm tossed by the sea."
"My galley charged with forgetfulness,
Through sharpe seas in winter's night doth pass,
'Tween rock and rock; and eke my foe (alas)
That is my lord, steereth with cruelness:
And every oar a thought in readiness,
As though that death were light in such a case.
An endless wind doth tear the sail apace,
Of forced sighs and trusty fearfulness;
A rain of tears, a cloud of dark disdain,
Have done the wearied cords great hinderance:
Wreathed with error and with ignorance;
The stars be his, that lead me to this pain;
Drowned is reason that should me comfort,
And I remain, despairing of the port."
It is not perfect, it is not even Wyatt's best sonnet, but it is
one of the most simple. To make it run smoothly we must sound
the ed in those words ending in ed as a separate syllable, and we
must put a final e to sharp in the second line and sound that.
Then you see the rimes are not very good. To begin with, the
first eight all have sounds of s. Then "alas" and "pass" do not
rime with "case" and "apace," nor do "comfort" and "port." I
point these things out, so that later on you may see for
yourselves how much more polished and elegant a thing the sonnet
becomes.
Although Wyatt was our first sonnet writer, some of his poems
which are not sonnets are much more musical, especially some he
wrote for music. Perhaps best of all you will like his satire Of
the mean and sure estate. A satire is a poem which holds up to
scorn and ridicule wickedness, folly, or stupidity. It is the
sword of literature, and often its edge was keen, its point
sharp.
"My mother's maids when they do sew and spin,
They sing a song made of the fieldish mouse;
That for because her livelod* was but thin
Would needs go see her townish sister's house.
*Livelihood.
. . . . . . .
'My sister,' quoth she, 'hath a living good,
And hence from me she dwelleth not a mile,
In cold and storm she lieth warm and dry
In bed of down. The dirt doth not defile
Her tender foot; she labours not as I.
Richly she feeds, and at the rich man's cost;
And for her meat she need not crave nor cry.
By sea, by land, of delicates* the most,
Her caterer seeks, and spareth for no peril.
She feeds on boil meat, bake meat and roast,
And hath, therefore, no whit of charge or travail.'
*Delicacies.
. . . . . . .
So forth she goes, trusting of all this wealth
With her sister her part so for to shape,
That if she might there keep herself in health,
To live a Lady, while her life do last.
And to the door now is she come by stealth,
And with her foot anon she scrapes full fast.
Th' other for fear durst not well scarce appear,
Of every noise so was the wretch aghast.
At last she asked softly who was there;
And in her language as well as she could,
'Peep,' quoth the other, 'sister, I am here.'
'Peace,' quoth the town mouse, 'why speaketh thou so loud?'
But by the hand she took her fair and well.
'Welcome,' quoth she, 'my sister by the Rood.'
She feasted her that joy it was to tell
The fare they had, they drank the wine so clear;
And as to purpose now and then it fell,
So cheered her with, 'How, sister, what cheer.'
Amid this joy befell a sorry chance,
That welladay, the stranger bought full dear
The fare she had. For as she looked ascance,
Under a stool she spied two flaming eyes,
In a round head, with sharp ears. In France
Was never mouse so feared, for the unwise
Had not ere seen such beast before.
Yet had nature taught her after her guise
To know her foe, and dread him evermore.
The town mouse fled, she knew whither to go;
The other had no shift, but wonders sore,
Fear'd of her life! At home she wished her tho';
And to the door, alas! as she did skip
(The heaven it would, lo, and eke her chance was so)
At the threshold her sill foot did trip;
And ere she might recover it again,
The traitor Cat had caught her by the hip
And made her there against her will remain,
That had forgot her poor surety and rest,
For seeming wealth, wherein she thought to reign."
That is not the end of the poem. Wyatt points the moral.
"Alas," he says, "how men do seek the best and find the worst."
"Although thy head were hooped with gold," thou canst not rid
thyself of care. Content thyself, then, with what is allotted
thee and use it well.
This satire Wyatt wrote while living quietly in the country,
having barely escaped with his life from the King's wrath. But
although he escaped the scaffold, he died soon after in his
King's service. Riding on the King's business in the autumn of
1542 he became overheated, fell into a fever, and died. He was
buried at Sherborne. No stone marks his resting-place, but his
friend and fellow-poet, Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, wrote a
noble elegy:--
"A hea, where Wisdom mysteries did frame;
Whose hammers beat still, in that lively brain,
As on a stithy* where that some work of fame
Was daily wrought, to turn to Britain's gain.
*Anvil.
. . . . . . .
A hand, that taught what might be said in rhyme,
That Chaucer reft the glory of his wit.
A mark, the which (unperfected for time)
Some may approach; but never none shall hit!"
BOOKS TO READ
Early Sixteenth-Century Lyrics (Belle Lettres Series), edited by
F. M. Padelford (original spelling).
Chapter XL THE BEGINNING OF BLANK VERSE
THE poet with whose verses the last chapter ended was named Henry
Howard, Earl of Surrey. The son of a noble and ancient house,
Surrey lived a gay life in court and camp. Proud, hot-headed,
quick-tempered, he was often in trouble, more than once in
prison. In youth he was called "the most foolish proud boy in
England," and at the age of thirty, still young and gay and full
of life, he died upon the scaffold. Accused of treason, yet
innocent, he fell a victim to "the wrath of princes," the wrath
of that hot-headed King Henry VIII. Surrey lived at the same
time as Wyatt and, although he was fourteen years younger, was
his friend. Together they are the forerunners of our modern
poetry. They are nearly always spoken of together--Wyatt and
Surrey--Surrey and Wyatt. Like Wyatt, Surrey followed the
Italian poets. Like Wyatt he wrote sonnets; but whereas Wyatt's
are rough, Surrey's are smooth and musical, although he does not
keep the rules about rime endings. One who wrote not long after
the time of Wyatt and Surrey says of them, "Sir Thomas Wyatt, the
elder, and Henry, Earl of Surrey, were the two chieftains, who,
having travelled in Italy, and there tasted the sweet and stately
measures and style of the Italian poesie . . . greatly polished
our rude and homely manner of vulgar poesie from that it had been
before, and for that cause may justly be said the first reformers
of our English metre and syle. . . . I repute them for the two
chief lanterns of light to all others that have since employed
their pens on English poesie."*
*G. Puttenham, Art of English Poesie.
A later writer* has called Surrey the "first refiner" of our
language. And just as there comes a time in our own lives when we
begin to care not only for the story, but for the words in which
a story is told and for the way in which those words are used,
so, too, there comes such a time in the life of a nation, and
this time for England we may perhaps date from Wyatt and Surrey.
Before then there were men who tried to use the best words in the
best way, but they did it unknowingly, as birds might sing. The
language, too, in which they wrote was still a growing thing.
When Surrey wrote it had nearly reached its finished state, and
he helped to finish and polish it.
*W. J. Courthope.
As the fashion was, Surrey chose a lady to whom to address his
verses. She was the little Lady Elizabeth Fitz-Gerald, whose
father had died a broken-hearted prisoner in the Tower. She was
only ten when Surrey made her famous in song, under the name of
Geraldine. Here is a sonnet in which he, seeing the joy of all
nature at the coming of Spring, mourns that his lady is still
unkind:
"The sweet season, that bud and bloom forth brings,
With green hath clad the hill, and eke the vale,
The nightingale with feathers new she sings:
The turtle to her mate hath told her tale.
Summer is come, for every spray now springs,
The hart hath hung his old head on the pale,
The buck in haste his winter coat he flings;
The fishes float with new repaired scale,
The adder all her slough away she lings;
The swift swallow pursueth the flies small;
The busy-bee her honey now she mings;*
Winter is worn that was the flowers' bale.
And thus I see among these pleasant things
Each care decays, and yet my sorrow springs."
*Mingles.
Besides following Wyatt in making the sonnet known to English
readers, Surrey was the first to write in blank verse, that is in
long ten-syllabled lines which do not rime. This is a kind of
poetry in which some of the grandest poems in our language are
written, and we should remember Surrey as the first maker of it.
For with very little change the rules which Surrey laid down have
been followed by our best poets ever since, so from the sixteenth
century till now there has been far less change in our poetry
than in the five centuries before. You can see this for yourself
if you compare Surrey's poetry with Layamon's or Langland's, and
then with some of the blank verse near the end of this book.
It was in translating part of Virgil's Aeneid that Surrey used
blank verse. Virgil was an ancient Roman poet, born 70 B. C.,
who in his book called the Aeneid told of the wanderings and
adventures of Aeneas, and part of this poem Surrey translated into
English.
This is how he tells of the way in which Aeneas saved his old
father by carrying him on his shoulders out of the burning town
of Troy when "The crackling flame was heard throughout the walls,
and more and more the burning heat drew near."
"My shoulders broad,
And layed neck with garments 'gan I spread,
And thereon cast a yellow lion's skin;
And thereupon my burden I receive.
Young Iulus clasped in my right hand,
Followeth me fast, with unequal pace,
And at my back my wife. Thus did we pass
By places shadowed most with the night,
And me, whom late the dart which enemies threw,
Nor press of Argive routs could make amaz'd,
Each whisp'ring wind hath power now to fray,
And every sound to move my doubtful mind.
So much I dread my burden and my fere.*
And now we 'gan draw near unto the gate,
Right well escap'd the danger, as me thought,
When that at hand a sound of feet we heard.
My father then, gazing throughout the dark,
Cried on me, 'Flee, son! they are at hand.'
With that, bright shields, and shene** armours I saw
But then, I know not what unfriendly god
My troubled with from me bereft for fear.
For while I ran by the most secret streets,
Eschewing still the common haunted track,
From me, catif, alas! bereaved was
Creusa then, my spouse; I wot not how,
Whether by fate, or missing of the way,
Or that she was by weariness retain'd;
But never sith these eyes might her behold.
Nor did I yet perceive that she was lost,
Nor never backward turned I my mind;
Till we came to the hill whereon there stood
The old temple dedicated to Ceres.
And when that we were there assembled all,
She was only away deceiving us,
Her spouse, her son, and all her company.
What god or man did I not then accuse,
Near wode *** for ire? or what more cruel chance
Did hap to me in all Troy's overthrow?"
*Companion.
**Bright.
***Mad.
Chapter XLI SPENSER--THE "SHEPHERD'S CALENDAR"
WHEN Henry signed Surrey's death-warrant he himself was near
death, and not many weeks later the proud and violent king met
his end. Then followed for England changeful times. After
Protestant Edward came for a tragic few days Lady Jane. Then
followed the short, sad reign of Catholic Mary, who, dying, left
the throne free for her brilliant sister Elizabeth. Those years,
from the death of King Henry VIII to the end of the first twenty
years of Elizabeth's reign, were years of action rather than of
production. They were years of struggle, during which England
was swayed to and fro in the fight of religions. They were years
during which the fury of the storm of the Reformation worked
itself out. But although they were such unquiet years they were
also years of growth, and at the end of that time there blossomed
forth one of the fairest seasons of our literature.
We call the whole group of authors who sprang up at this time the
Elizabethans, after the name of the Queen in whose reign they
lived and wrote. And to those of us who know even a very little
of the time, the word calls up a brilliant vision. Great names
come crowding to our minds, names of poets, dramatists,
historians, philosophers, divines. It would be impossible to
tell of all in this book, so we must choose the greatest from the
noble array. And foremost among them comes Edmund Spenser, for
"the glory of the new literature broke in England with Edmund
Spenser."*
*J. R. Green, History of English People.
If we could stand aside, as it were, and take a wide view of all
our early literature, it would seem as if the names of Chaucer
and Spenser stood out above all others like great mountains. The
others are valleys between. They are pleasant fields in which to
wander, in which to gather flowers, not landmarks for all the
world like Chaucer and Spenser. And although it is easier and
safer for children to wander in the meadows and gather meadow
flowers, they still may look up to the mountains and hope to
climb them some day.
Edmund Spenser was born in London in 1552, and was the son of a
poor clothworker or tailor. He went to school at the Merchant
Taylors' School, which had then been newly founded. That his
father was very poor we know, for Edmund Spenser's name appears
among "certain poor scholars of the schools about London" who
received money and clothes from a fund left by a rich man to help
poor children at school.
When he was about seventeen Edmund went to Cambridge, receiving
for his journey a sum of ten shillings from the fund from which
he had already received help at school. He entered college as a
sizar, that is, in return for doing the work of a servant he
received free board and lodging in his college. A sizar's life
was not always a happy one, for many of the other scholars or
gentlemen commoners looked down upon them because of their
poverty. And this poverty they could not hide, for the sizars
were obliged to wear a different cap and gown from that of the
gentlemen commoners.
But of how Spenser fared at college we know nothing, except that
he was often ill and that he made two lifelong friends. That he
loved his university, however, we learn from his poems, when he
tenderly speaks of "my mother Cambridge."* When he left college
Spenser was twenty-three. He was poor and, it would seem, ill,
so he did not return to London, but went to live with relatives
in the country in Lancashire. And there about "the wasteful
woods and forest wide"** he wandered, gathering new life and
strength, taking all a poet's joy in the beauty and the freedom
of a country life, "for ylike to me was liberty and life,"** he
says. And here among the pleasant woods he met a fair lady named
Rosalind, "the widow's daughter of the glen."***
*Faery Queen, book IV canto xi.
**Shepherd's Calendar, December
***The same, April.
Who Rosalind really was no one knows. She would never have been
heard of had not Spenser taken her for his lady and made songs to
her. Spenser's love for Rosalind was, however, more real than
the fashionable poet's passion. He truly loved Rosalind, but she
did not love him, and she soon married some one else. Then all
his joy in the summer and the sunshine was made dark.
"Thus is my summer worn away and wasted,
Thus is my harvest hastened all too rathe;*
The ear that budded fair is burnt and blasted,
And all my hoped gain it turned to scathe:
Of all the seed, that in my youth was sown,
Was naught but brakes and brambles to be mown."**
*Early.
**Shepherd's Calendar, December.
At twenty-four life seemed ended, for "Love is a cureless
sorrow."*
*Shepherd's Calendar, August.
"Winter is come, that blows the baleful breath,
And after Winter cometh timely death."*
*Shepherd's Calendar, December.
And now, when he was feeling miserable, lonely, desolate an old
college friend wrote to him begging him to come to London.
Spenser went, and through his friend he came to know Sir Philip
Sidney, a true gentleman and a poet like himself, who in turn
made him known to the great Earl of Leicester, Elizabeth's
favorite.
Spenser thought his heart had been broken and that his life was
done. But hearts do not break easily. Life is not done at
twenty-four. After a time Spenser found that there was still
much to live for. The great Earl became the poet's friend and
patron, and gave him a post as secretary in his house. For in
those days no man could live by writing alone. Poetry was still
a graceful toy for the rich. If a poor man wished to toy with
it, he must either starve or find a rich friend to be his patron,
to give him work to do that would leave him time to write also.
Such a friend Spenser found in Leicester. In the Earl's house
the poor tailor's son met many of the greatest men of the court
of Queen Elizabeth. On the Earl's business he went to Ireland
and to the Continent, seeing new sights, meeting the men and
women of the great world, so that a new and brilliant life seemed
opening for him.
Yet when, a few years later, Spenser published his first great
poem, it did not tell of courts or courtiers, but of simple
country sights and sounds. This book is called the Shepherd's
Calendar, as it contains twelve poems, one for every month of the
year.
In it Spenser sings of his fair lost lady Rosalind, and he
himself appears under the name of Colin Clout. The name is
taken, as you will remember, from John Skelton's poem.
Spenser called his poems Aeclogues, from a Greek word meaning
Goatherds' Tales, "Though indeed few goatherds have to do
herein." He dedicated them to Sir Philip Sidney as "the
president of noblesse and of chivalrie."
"Go, little book: Thy self present,
As child whose parent is unkent,
To him that is the president
Of Noblesse and of Chivalrie;
And if that Envy bark at thee,
As sure it will, for succour flee
Under the shadow of his wing;
And, asked who thee forth did bring;
A shepherd's swain, say, did thee sing,
All as his straying flock he fed;
And when his honour hath thee read
Crave pardon for my hardyhood.
But, if that any ask thy name,
Say, 'thou wert basebegot with blame.'
For thy thereof thou takest shame,
And, when thou art past jeopardy,
Come tell me what was said of mee,
And I will send more after thee."
The Shepherd's Calendar made the new poet famous. Spenser was
advanced at court, and soon after went to Ireland in the train of
the Lord-Deputy as Secretary of State. At that time Ireland was
filled with storm and anger, with revolt against English rule,
with strife among the Irish nobles themselves. Spain also was
eagerly looking to Ireland as a point from which to strike at
England. War, misery, poverty were abroad in all the land. Yet
amid the horrid sights and sounds of battle Spenser found time to
write.
After eight years spent in the north of Ireland, Spenser was
given a post which took him south. His new home was the old
castle of Kilcolman in Cork. It was surrounded by fair wooded
country, but to Spenser it seemed a desert. He had gone to
Ireland as to exile, hoping that it was merely a stepping-stone
to some great appointment in England, whither he longed to
return. Now after eight years he found himself still in exile.
He had no love for Ireland, and felt himself lonely and forsaken
there. But soon there came another great Elizabethan to share
his loneliness. This was Sir Walter Raleigh, who, being out of
favor with his Queen, took refuge in his Irish estates until her
anger should pass.
The two great men, thus alone among the wild Irish, made friends,
and they had many a talk together. There within the gray stone
walls of the old ivy-covered castle Spenser read the first part
of his book, the Faery Queen, to Raleigh. Spenser had long been
at work upon this great poem. It was divided into parts, and
each part was called a book. Three books were now finished, and
Raleigh, loud in his praises of them, persuaded the poet to bring
them over to England to have them published.
In a poem called Colin Clout's come home again, which Spenser
wrote a few years later, he tells in his own poetic way of these
meetings and talks, and of how Raleigh persuaded him to go to
England, there to publish his poem. In Colin Clout Spenser calls
both himself and Raleigh shepherds. For just as at one time it
was the fashion to write poems in the form of a dream, so in
Spenser's day it was the fashion to write poems called pastorals,
in which the authors made believe that all their characters were
shepherds and shepherdesses.
"One day, quoth he, I sat (as was my trade)
Under the foot of Mole, that mountain hoare,
Keeping my sheep amongst the cooly shade,
Of the green alders by the Mulla's* shore:
There a strange shepherd chanst to find me out,
Whether allured by my pipe's delight,
Whose pleasing sound y-shrilled far about,
Or thither led by chance, I know not right:
Whom when I asked from what place he came,
And how he hight, himself he did y-clep,
The Shepherd of the Ocean by name,
And said he came far from the main sea deep.
He sitting me beside in that same shade,
Provoked me to play some pleasant fit;**
And, when he heard the music that I made,
He found himself full greatly pleased at it."
*River Awbeg.
**Strain.
Spenser tells then how the "other shepherd" sang:--
"His song was all a lamentable lay,
Of great unkindness, and of usage hard,
Of Cynthia, the Lady of the Sea,
That from her presence faultless him debarred.
. . . . . . .
When thus our pipes we both had wearied well,
And each an end of singing made,
He gan to cast great liking to my lore,
And great disliking to my luckless lot,
That banished had myself, like wight forlore,
Into that waste, where I was quite forgot:
The which to leave henceforth he counselled me,
Unmeet for man in whom was ought regardful,
And wend with him his Cynthia to see,
Whose grace was great, and bounty most rewardful.
. . . . . . .
So what with hope of good, and hate of ill
He me persuaded forth with him to fare."
Queen Elizabeth received Spenser kindly, and was so delighted
with the Faery Queen that she ordered Lord Burleigh to pay the
poet 100 pounds a year.
"What!" grumbled the Lord Treasurer, "it is not in reason. So
much for a mere song!"
"Then give him," said the Queen, "what is reason," to which he
consented.
But, says an old writer, "he was so busied, belike about matters
of higher concernment, that Spenser received no reward."* In the
long-run, however, he did receive 50 pounds a year, as much as
400 pounds would be now. But it did not seem to Spenser to be
enough to allow him to give up his post in Ireland and live in
England. So back to Ireland he went once more, with a grudge
in his heart against Lord Burleigh.
*Thomas Fuller.
Chapter XLII SPENSER--THE "FAERY QUEEN"
SPENSER'S plan for the Faery Queen was a very great one. He
meant to write a poem in twelve books, each book containing the
adventures of a knight who was to show forth one virtue. And if
these were well received he purposed to write twelve more. Only
the first three books were as yet published, but they made him
far more famous than the Shepherd's Calendar had done. For never
since Chaucer had such poetry been written. In the Faery Queen
Spenser has, as he says, changed his "oaten reed" for "trumpets
stern," and sings no longer now of shepherds and their loves, but
of "knights and ladies gentle deeds" of "fierce wars and faithful
loves."
The first three books tell the adventures of the Red Cross Knight
St. George, or Holiness; of Sir Guyon, or Temperance; and of the
Lady Britomartis, or Chastity. The whole poem is an allegory.
Everywhere we are meant to see a hidden meaning. But sometimes
the allegory is very confused and hard to follow. So at first,
in any case, it is best to enjoy the story and the beautiful
poetry, and not trouble about the second meaning. Spenser
plunges us at once into the very middle of the story. He begins:
"A gentle Knight was pricking on the plain,
Yelad in mighty arms and silver shield,
Wherein old dints of deep wounds did remain,
The cruel marks of many a bloody field;
Yet arms till that time did he never wield.
His angry steed did chide his foaming bit,
As much disdaining to the curb to yield:
Full jolly knight he seem'd, and fair did sit,
As one for knightly jousts and fierce encounters fit.
But on his breast a bloody cross he bore,
The dear remembrance of his dying Lord,
For whose sweet sake that glorious badge he wore,
And dead as living ever him ador'd;
Upon his shield the like was also scor'd."
And by the side of this Knight rode a lovely Lady upon a snow-
white ass. Her dress, too, was snow-white, but over it she wore
a black cloak, "as one that inly mourned," and it "seemed in her
heart some hidden care she had."
So the story begins; but why these two, the grave and gallant
Knight and the sad and lovely Lady, are riding forth together we
should not know until the middle of the seventh canto, were it
not for a letter which Spenser wrote to Raleigh and printed in
the beginning of his book. In it he tells us not only who these
two are, but also his whole great design. He writes this letter,
he says, "knowing how doubtfully all allegories may be
construed," and this book of his "being a continued allegory, or
dark conceit," he thought it good to explain. Having told how he
means to write of twenty-four knights who shall represent twenty-
four virtues, he goes on to tell us that the Faery Queen kept her
yearly feast twelve days, upon which twelve days the occasions of
the first twelve adventures happened, which, being undertaken by
twelve knights, are told of in these twelve books.
The first was this. At the beginning of the feast a tall,
clownish young man knelt before the Queen of the Fairies asking
as a boon that to him might be given the first adventure that
might befall. "That being granted he rested him on the floor,
unfit through his rusticity for a better place.
"Soon after entered a fair Lady in mourning weeds, riding on a
white ass with a Dwarf behind her leading a warlike steed, that
bore the arms of a knight, and his spear in the Dwarf's hand.
"She, falling before the Queen of Fairies, complained that her
Father and Mother, an ancient King and Queen had been by a huge
Dragon many years shut up in a brasen Castle, who thence suffered
them not to issue." And therefore she prayed the Fairy Queen to
give her a knight who would slay the Dragon.
Then the "clownish person" started up and demanded the adventure.
The Queen was astonished, the maid unwilling, yet he begged so
hard that the Queen consented. The Lady, however, told him that
unless the armor she had brought would serve him he could not
succeed. But when he put the armor on "he seemed the goodliest
man in all that company, and was well liked of that Lady. And
eftsoons taking on him knighthood, and mounting on that strange
courser, he went forth with her on that adventure, where
beginneth the first book, viz.:
"'A gentle Knight was pricking on the plain,' etc."
The story goes on to tell how the Knight, who is the Red Cross
Knight St. George, and the Lady, who is called Una, rode on
followed by the Dwarf. At length in the wide forest they lost
their way and came upon the lair of a terrible She-Dragon. "Fly,
fly," quoth then the fearful Dwarf, "this is no place for living
men."
"But full of fire and greedy hardiment,
The youthful Knight could not for ought be stayed;
But forth unto the darksome hole he went,
And looked in: his glistering armour made
A little glooming light, much like a shade,
By which he saw the ugly monster plain,
Half like a serpent horribly displayed,
But th'other half did woman's shape retain,
Most loathsome, filthy, foul, and full of vile disdain."
There was a fearful fight between the Knight and the Dragon,
whose name is Error, but at length the Knight conquered. The
terrible beast lay dead "reft of her baleful head," and the
Knight, mounting upon his charger, once more rode onwards with
his Lady.
"At length they chanced to meet upon the way
An aged sire, in long black weeds yelad,
His feet all bare, his beard all hoary grey,
And by his belt his book he hanging had,
Sober he seemed, and very sagely sad,
And to the ground his eyes were lowly bent,
Simple in show, and void of malice bad,
And all the way he prayed, as he went,
And often knocked his breast, as one that did repent."
The Knight and this aged man greeted each other fair and
courteously, and as evening was now fallen the godly father bade
the travelers come to his Hermitage for the night. This the
Knight and Lady gladly did, and soon were peacefully sleeping
beneath the humble roof.
But the seeming godly father was a wicked magician. While his
guests slept he wove evil spells about them, and calling a wicked
dream he bade it sit at the Knight's head and whisper lies to
him. This the wicked dream did till that it made the Knight
believe his Lady to be bad and false. Then early in the morning
the Red Cross Knight rose and, believing his Lady to be unworthy,
he rode sadly away, leaving her alone.
Soon, as he rode along, he met a Saracen whose name was Sansfoy,
or without faith, "full large of limb and every joint he was, and
cared not for God or man a point."
"He had a fair companion of his way,
A goodly Lady clad in scarlet red,
Purfled with gold and pearl of rich assay,
And like a Persian mitre on her head
She wore, with crowns and riches garnished,
The which her lavish lovers to her gave;
Her wanton palfrey all was overspread
With tinsell trappings, woven like a wave,
Whose bridle rang with golden bells and bosses brave."
The Red Cross Knight fought and conquered Sansfoy. Then he rode
onward with the dead giant's companion, the lady Duessa, whom he
believed to be good because he was "too simple and too true" to
know her wicked.
Meanwhile Una, forsaken and woeful, wandered far and wide seeking
her lost Knight. But nowhere could she hear tidings of him. At
length one day, weary of her quest, she got off her ass and lay
down to rest in the thick wood, where "her angel's face made a
sunshine in the shady place."
Then out of the thickest of the wood a ramping lion rushed
suddenly.
"It fortuned out of the thickest wood
A ramping Lion rushed suddenly,
Hunting full greedy after savage blood.
Soon as the royal virgin he did spy,
With gaping mouth at her ran greedily
To have at once devoured her tender corse."
But as he came near the sleeping Lady the Lion's rage suddenly
melted. Instead of killing Una, he licked her weary feet and
white hands with fawning tongue. From being her enemy he became
her guardian. And so for many a day the Lion stayed with Una,
guarding her from all harm. But in her wanderings she at length
met with Sansloy, the brother of Sansfoy, who killed the Lion and
carried Una off into the darksome wood.
But here in her direst need Una found new friends in a troupe of
fauns and satyrs who were playing in the forest.
"Whom when the raging Saracen espied,
A rude, misshapen, monstrous rabblement,
Whose like he never saw, he durst not bide,
But got his ready steed, and fast away gan ride."
Then the fauns and satyrs gathered round the Lady, wondering at
her beauty, pitying her "fair blubbered face."
But Una shook with fear. These terrible shapes, half goat, half
human, struck her dumb with horror: "Ne word to peak, ne joint
to move she had."
"The savage nation feel her secret smart
And read her sorrow in her count'nance sad;
Their frowning foreheads with rough horns yelad,
And rustic horror all aside do lay,
And gently grinning shew a semblance glad
To comfort her, and feat to put away."
They kneel upon the ground, they kiss her feet, and at last, sure
that they mean her no harm, Una rises and goes with them.
Rejoicing, singing songs, honoring her as their Queen, waving
branches, scattering flowers beneath her feet, they lead her to
their chief Sylvanus. He, too, receives her kindly, and in the
wood she lives with these wild creatures until there she finds a
new knight named Satyrane, with whom she once more sets forth to
seek the Red Cross Knight.
Meanwhile Duessa had led the Red Cross Knight to the house of
Pride.
"A stately Palace built of squared brick,
Which cunningly was without mortar laid,
Whose walls were high, but nothing strong, nor thick,
And golden foil all over them displayed,
That purest sky with brightness they dismayed.
High lifted up were many lofty towers
And goodly galleries far overlaid,
Full of fair windows, and delightful bowers,
And on the top a dial told the timely hours.
It was a goodly heap for to behold,
And spake the praises of the workman's wit,
But full great pity, that so fair a mould
Did on so weak foundation ever sit;
For on a sandy hill, that still did flit,
And fall away, it mounted was full high,
And every breath of heaven shaked it;
And all the hinder parts, that few could spy,
Were ruinous and old, but painted cunningly."
Here the Knight met Sansjoy, the third of the Saracen brothers,
and another fearful fight took place.
"The Saracen was stout, and wondrous strong,
And heaped blows like iron hammers great:
For after blood and vengeance he did long.
The Knight was fierce, and full of youthly heat,
And doubled strokes like dreaded thunder's threat,
For all for praise and honour he did fight.
Both striken strike, and beaten both do beat
That from their shields forth flyeth fiery light,
And helmets hewen deep, show marks of either's might."
At last a charmed cloud hid the Saracen from the Knight's sight.
So the fight ended, and the Knight, sorely wounded, was "laid in
sumptuous bed, where many skilful leeches him abide."
But as he lay there weak and ill the Dwarf came to warn him, for
he had spied
"Where, in a dungeon deep, huge numbers lay
Of caitiff wretched thralls, that wailed night and day,
. . . . . . .
Whose case when as the careful Dwarf had told,
And made ensample of their mournful sight
Unto his master, he no longer would
There dwell in peril of like painful plight,
But early rose, and ere that dawning light
Discovered had the world to heaven wide,
He by a privy postern took his flight,
That of no envious eyes he might be spied,
For doubtless death ensued, if any him descried."
When the false Duessa discovered that the Red Cross Knight had
fled, she followed him and found him resting beside a fountain.
Not knowing that the water was enchanted, he drank of it, and at
once all his manly strength ebbed away, and he became faint and
feeble. Then, when he was too weak to hold a sword or spear, he
saw a fearful sight:--
"With sturdy steps came stalking in his sight,
An hideous Giant horrible and high,
That with his tallness seemed to threat the sky,
The ground eke groaned under him for dread;
His living like saw never living eye,
Nor durst behold; his stature did exceed
The height of three the tallest sons of mortal seed."
Towards the Knight, so weak that he could scarcely hold his
sword, this Giant came stalking. Weak as he was, the Knight made
ready to fight. But
"The Giant strake so mainly merciless,
That could have overthrown a stony tower;
And were not heavenly grace that did him bless,
He had been powdered all as thin as flour."
As the Giant struck at him, the Knight leapt aside and the blow
fell harmless. But so mighty was it that the wind of it threw
him to the ground, where he lay senseless. And ere he woke out
of his swoon the Giant took him up, and
"Him to his castle brought with hasty force
And in a dungeon deep him threw without remorse."
Duessa then became the Giant's lady. "He gave her gold and
purple pall to wear," and set a triple crown upon her head. For
steed he gave her a fearsome dragon with fiery eyes and seven
heads, so that all who saw her went in dread and awe.
The Dwarf, seeing his master thus overthrown and made prisoner,
gathered his armor and set forth to tell his evil tidings and
find help. He had not gone far before he met the Lady Una. To
her he told his sad news, and she with grief in her heart turned
with him to find the dark dungeon in which her Knight lay. On
her way she met another knight. This was Prince Arthur. And he,
learning of her sorrow, went with her promising aid. Guided by
the Dwarf they reached the castle of the Giant, and here a
fearful fight took place in which Prince Arthur conquered
Duessa's Dragon and killed the Giant. Then he entered the
castle.
"Where living creature none he did espy.
Then gan he loudly through the house to call;
But no man cared to answer to his cry;
There reigned a solemn silence over all,
Nor voice was heard, nor wight was seen in bower or hall.
At last, with creeping crooked pace forth came
An old, old man with beard as white as snow;
That on a staff his feeble steps did frame,
And guide his weary gate both to and fro,
For his eyesight him failed long ago;
And on his arm a bunch of keys he bore,
The which unused rust did overgrow;
Those were the keys of every inner door,
But he could not them use, but kept them still in store."
And what was strange and terrible about this old man was that his
head was twisted upon his shoulders, so that although he walked
towards the knight his face looked backward.
Seeing his gray hairs and venerable look Prince Arthur asked him
gently where all the folk of the castle were.
"I cannot tell," answered the old man. And to every question he
replied, "I cannot tell," until the knight, impatient of delay,
seized the keys from his arm. Door after door the Prince Arthur
opened, seeing many strange, sad sights. But nowhere could he
find the captive Knight.
"At last he came unto an iron door,
That fast was locked, but key found not at all,
Amongst that bunch to open it withal."
But there was a little grating in the door through which Prince
Arthur called. A hollow, dreary, murmuring voice replied. It
was the voice of the Red Cross Knight, which, when the champion
heard, "with furious force and indignation fell" he rent that
iron door and entered in.
Once more the Red Cross Knight was free and reunited to his Lady,
while the false Duessa was unmasked and shown to be a bad old
witch, who fled away "to the wasteful wilderness apace."
But the Red Cross Knight was still so weak and feeble that
Despair almost persuaded him to kill himself. Seeing this, Una
led him to the house of Holiness, where he stayed until once more
he was strong and well. Here he learned that he was St. George.
"Thou," he is told,
"Shalt be a saint, and thine own nation's friend
And patron. Thou St. George shalt called be,
St. George of merry England, the sign of victory."
Once more strong of arm, full of new courage, the Knight set
forth with Una, and soon they reached her home, where the
dreadful Dragon raged.
Here the most fierce fight of all takes place. Three days it is
renewed, and on the third day the Dragon is conquered.
"So down he fell, and forth his life did breathe
That vanished into smoke and clouds swift;
So down he fell, that th' earth him underneath
Did groan, as feeble so great load to lift;
So down he fell, as an huge rocky clift
Whose false foundation waves have washed away,
With dreadful poise is from the mainland rift
And rolling down, great Neptune doth dismay,
So down he fell, and like an heaped mountain lay."
Thus all ends happily. The aged King and Queen are rescued from
the brazen tower in which the Dragon had imprisoned them, and Una
and the Knight are married.
That is the story of the first book of the Faery Queen. In it
Spenser has made great use of the legend of St. George and the
Dragon. The Red Cross of his Knight, "the dear remembrance of
his dying Lord," was in those days the flag of England, and is
still the Red Cross of our Union Jack. And besides the allegory
the poem has something of history in it. The great people of
Spenser's day play their parts there. Thus Duessa, sad to say,
is meant to be the fair, unhappy Queen of Scots, the wicked
magician is the Pope, and so on. But we need scarcely trouble
about all that. I repeat that meantime it is enough for you to
enjoy the story and the poetry.
Chapter XLIII SPENSER--HIS LAST DAYS
THERE are so many books now published which tell the stories of
the Faery Queen, and tell them well, that you may think I hardly
need have told one here. But few of these books give the poet's
own words, and I have told the story here giving quotations from
the poem in the hope that you will read them and learn from them
to love Spenser's own words. I hope that long after you have
forgotten my words you will remember Spenser's, that they will
remain in your mind as glowing word-pictures, and make you
anxious to read more of the poem from which they are taken.
Spenser has been called the poet's poet,* he might also be called
the painter's poet, for on every page almost we find a word-
picture, rich in color, rich in detail. Each person as he comes
upon the scene is described for us so that we may see him with
our mind's eye. The whole poem blazes with color, it glows and
gleams with the glamor of fairyland. Spenser more than any other
poet has the old Celtic love of beauty, yet so far as we know
there was in him no drop of Celtic blood. He loved neither the
Irishman nor Ireland. To him his life there was an exile, yet
perhaps even in spite of himself he breathed in the land of
fairies and of "little people" something of their magic: his
fingers, unwittingly perhaps, touched the golden and ivory gate
so that he entered in and saw.
*Charles Lamb.
That it is a fairyland and no real world which Spenser opens to
us is the great difference between Chaucer and him. Chaucer
gives us real men and women who love and hate, who sin and
sorrow. He is humorous, he is coarse, and he is real. Spenser
has humor too, but we seldom see him smile. There are, we may be
glad, few coarse lines in Spenser, but he is artificial. He took
the tone of his time--the tone of pretense. It was the fashion
to make-believe, yet, underneath all the make-believe, men were
still men, not wholly good nor wholly bad. But underneath the
brilliant trappings of Spenser's knights and ladies, shepherds
and shepherdesses, there seldom beats a human heart. He takes us
to dreamland, and when we lay down the book we wake up to real
life. Beauty first and last is what holds us in Spenser's poems-
-beauty of description, beauty of thought, beauty of sound. As
it has been said, "'A thing of beauty is a joy forever,' and that
is the secret of the enduring life of the Faery Queen."*
*Courthorpe, History of English Poetry.
Spenser invented for himself a new stanza of nine lines and made
it famous, so that we call it after him, the Spenserian Stanza.
It was like Chaucer's stanza of seven lines, called the Rhyme
Royal, with two lines more added.
Spenser admired Chaucer above all poets. He called him "The Well
of English undefiled,"* and after many hundred years we still
feel the truth of the description. He uses many of Chaucer's
words, which even then had grown old-fashioned and were little
used. So much is this so that a glossary written by a friend of
Spenser, in which old words were explained, was published with
the Shepherd's Calendar. But whether old or new, Spenser's power
of using words and of weaving them together was wonderful.
*Faery Queen, book VI, canto ii.
He weaves his wonderful words in such wonderful fashion that they
sound like what he describes. Is there anything more drowsy than
his description of the abode of sleep:
"And more, to lull him in his slumber soft,
A trickling stream from high rock tumbling down,
And ever drizzling rain upon the loft
Mix'd with a murmuring wind, much like the sound
Of swarming bees, did cast him in a swound,*
No other noise nor peoples' troublous cries,
As still are wont t' annoy the walled town,
Might there be heard; but careless quiet lies
Wrapt in eternal silence, far from enemies."
*Swoon.
So all through the poem we are enchanted or lulled by the glamor
of words.
The Faery Queen made Spenser as a poet famous, but, as we know,
it did not bring him enough to live on in England. It did not
bring him the fame he sought nor make him great among the
statesmen of the land. Among the courtiers of Queen Elizabeth he
counted for little. So he returned to Ireland a disappointed
man. It was now he wrote Colin Clout's come home again, from
which I have already given you some quotations. He published
also another book of poems and then he fell in love. He forgot
his beautiful Rosalind, who had been so hard-hearted, and gave
his love to another lady who in her turn loved him, and to whom
he was happily married. This lady, too, he made famous in his
verse. As the fashion was, he wrote to her a series of sonnets,
in one of which we learn that her name was Elizabeth. He writes
to the three Elizabeths, his mother, his Queen, and
"The third, my love, my life's last ornament,
By whom my spirit out of dust was raised."
But more famous still than the sonnets is the Epithalamion or
wedding hymn which he wrote in his lady's honor, and which ever
since has been looked on as the most glorious love-song in the
English language, so full is it of exultant, worshipful
happiness.
It was now, too, that Spenser wrote Astrophel, a sadly beautiful
dirge for the death of his friend and fellow-poet, Sir Philip
Sidney. He gave his verses as "fittest flowers to deck his
mournful hearse."
Just before his marriage Spenser finished three more books of the
Faery Queen, and the following year he took them to London to
publish them. The three books were on Friendship, on Justice,
and on Courtesy. They were received as joyfully as the first
three. The poet remained for nearly a year in London still
writing busily. Then he returned to Ireland. There he passed a
few more years, and then came the end.
Ireland, which had always been unquiet, always restless, under
the oppressive hand of England, now broke out into wild
rebellion. The maddened Irish had no love or respect for the
English poet. Kilcolman Castle was sacked and burned, and
Spenser fled with his wife and children to Cork, homeless and
wellnigh ruined. A little later Spenser himself went on to
London, hoping perhaps to better his fortunes, and there in a
Westminster inn, disappointed, ill, shattered in hopes and
health, he lay down to die.
As men count years, he was still young, for he was only forty-
seven. He had dreamed that he had still time before him to make
life a success. For as men counted success in those days,
Spenser was a failure. He had failed to make a name among the
statesmen of the age. He failed to make a fortune, he lived poor
and he died poor. As a poet he was a sublime success. He
dedicated the Faery Queen to Elizabeth "to live with the eternity
of her fame," and it is not too much to believe that even should
the deeds of Elizabeth be forgotten the fame of Spenser will
endure. And the poets of Spenser's own day knew that in him they
had lost a master, and they mourned for him as such. They buried
him in Westminster not far from Chaucer. His bier was carried by
poets, who, as they stood beside his grave, threw into it poems
in which they told of his glory and their own grief. And so they
left "The Prince of Poets in his tyme, whose divine spirit needs
no other witnesse than the workes which he left behind him."*
*The first epitaph engraved on Spenser's tomb.
BOOKS TO READ
Tales from Spenser (Told to Children Series). Una and the Red
Cross Knight, by N. G. Royde Smith (has many quotations). Tales
from the Faerie Queene, by C. L. Thomson (prose). The Faerie
Queene (verse, sixteenth century spelling). Faerie Queene, book
I, by Professor W. H. Hudson. Complete Works (Globe Edition),
edited by R. Morris. Britomart, edited by May E. Litchfield, is
the story of Britomart taken from scattered portions in books
III, IV, and V in original poetry, spelling modernized.
Chapter XLIV ABOUT THE FIRST THEATERS
IN the beginnings of our literature there were two men who, we
might say, were the fountain-heads. These were the gay minstrel
abroad in the world singing in hall and market-place, and the
patient monk at work in cell or cloister. And as year by year
our literature grew, strengthened and broadened, we might say it
flowed on in two streams. It flowed in two streams which were
ever joining, mingling, separating again, for the monk and the
minstrel spoke to man each in his own way. The monk made his
appeal to the eye as with patient care he copied, painted and
made his manuscript beautiful with gold and colors. The minstrel
made his appeal to the ear with music and with song. Then after
a time the streams seemed to join, and the monk when he played
the miracle-plays seemed to be taking the minstrel's part. Here
was an appeal to both the eye and ear. Instead of illuminating
the silent parchment he made living pictures illustrate spoken
words. Then followed a time when the streams once more divided
and church and stage parted. The strolling players and the trade
guilds took the place both of the minstrel and of the monkish
actors, the monk went back once more to his quiet cell, and the
minstrel gradually disappeared.
So year after year went on. By slow degrees times changed, and
our literature changed with the times. But looking backward we
can see that the poet is the development of the minstrel, the
prose writer the development of the monkish chronicler and
copyist. Prose at first was only used for grave matters, for
history, for religious works, for dry treatises which were hardly
literature, which were not meant for enjoyment but only for use
and for teaching. But by degrees people began to use prose for
story-telling, for enjoyment. More and more prose began to be
written for amusement until at last it has quite taken the place
of poetry. Nowadays many people are not at all fond of poetry.
They are rather apt to think that a poetry book is but dull
reading, and they much prefer plain prose. It may amuse those
who feel like that to remember that hundreds of years ago it was
just the other way round. Then it was prose that was considered
dull--hence we have the word prosy.
All poetry was at first written to be sung, sung too perhaps with
some gesture, so that the hearers might the better understand the
story. Then by degrees poets got further and further away from
that, until poets like Spenser wrote with no such idea. But
while poets like Spenser wrote their stories to be read, another
class of poets was growing up who intended their poems to be
spoken and acted. These were the dramatists.
So you see that the minstrel stream divided into two. There was
now the poet who wrote his poems to be read in quiet and the poet
who wrote his, if not to be sung, at least to be spoken aloud.
But there had been, as we have seen, a time when the minstrel and
the monkish stream had touched, a time when the monk, using the
minstrel's art, had taught the people through ear and eye
together. For the idea of the Miracle and Morality plays was,
you remember, to teach. So, long after the monks had ceased to
act, those who wrote poems to be acted felt that they must teach
something. Thus after the Miracle plays came the Moralities,
which sometimes were very long and dull. They were followed by
Interludes which were much the same as Moralities but were
shorter, and as their name shows were meant to come in the middle
of something else, for the word comes from two Latin words,
"inter" between and "ludus" a play. An Interlude may have been
first used, perhaps, as a kind of break in a long feast.
The Miracle plays had only been acted once a year, first by the
monks and later by the trade guilds. But the taste for plays
grew, and soon bands of players strolled about the country acting
in towns and villages. These strolling players often made a good
deal of money. But though the people crowded willingly to see
and hear, the magistrates did not love these players, and they
were looked upon as little better than rogues and vagabonds.
Then it became the fashion for great lords to have their own
company of players, and they, when their masters did not need
them, also traveled about to the surrounding villages acting
wherever they went. This taste for acting grew strong in the
people of England. And if in the life of the Middle Ages there
was always room for story-telling, in the life of Tudor England
there was always room for acting and shows.
These shows were called by various names, Pageants, Masques,
Interludes, Mummings or Disguisings, and on every great or little
occasion there was sure to be something of the sort. If the King
or Queen went on a journey he or she was entertained by pageants
on the way. If a royal visitor came to the court of England
there were pageants in his honor. A birthday, a christening, a
wedding or a victory would all be celebrated by pageants, and in
these plays people of all classes took part. School-children
acted, University students acted, the learned lawyers or Inns of
Court acted, great lords and ladies acted, and even at times the
King and Queen themselves took part. And although many of these
shows, especially the pageants, were merely shows, without any
words, many, on the other hand, had words. Thus with so much
acting and love of acting it was not wonderful that a crowd of
dramatists sprang up.
Then, too, plays began to be divided into tragedies and comedies.
A tragedy is a play which shows the sad side of life and which
has a mournful ending. The word really means a goat-song, and
comes from two Greek words, "tragos" a goat and "ode" a song. It
was so called either because the oldest tragedies were acted
while a goat was sacrificed, or because the actors themselves
wore clothes made of goat-skins. A comedy is a play which shows
the merry side of life and has a happy ending. This word too
comes from two Greek words, "komos," a revel, and "ode," a song.
The Greek word for village is also "komo," so a comedy may at
first have meant a village revel or a merry-making. "Tragedy,"
it has been said, "is poetry in its deepest earnest; comedy is
poetry in unlimited jest."* But the old Moralities were neither
the one nor the other, neither tragedy nor comedy. They did not
touch life keenly enough to awaken horror or pain. They were
often sad, but not with that sadness which we have come to call
tragic, they were often indeed merely dull, and although there
was always a funny character to make laughter, it was by no means
unlimited jest. The Interludes came next, after the Moralities,
with a little more human interest and a little more fun, and from
them it was easy to pass to real comedies.
*Coleridge.
A play named Ralph Roister Doister is generally looked upon as
the first real English comedy. It was written by Nicholas Udall,
headmaster first of Eton and then of Westminster, for the boys of
one or other school. It was probably for those of Westminster
that it was written, and may have been acted about 1552.
The hero, if one may call him so, who gives his name to the play,
is a vain, silly swaggerer. He thinks every woman who sees him
is in love with him. So he makes up his mind to marry a rich and
beautiful widow named Christian Custance.
Not being a very good scholar, Ralph gets some one else to write
a love-letter for him, but when he copies it he puts all the
stops in the wrong places, which makes the sense quite different
from what he had intended, and instead of being full of pretty
things the letter is full of insults.
Dame Custance will have nothing to say to such a stupid lover, "I
will not be served with a fool in no wise. When I choose a
husband I hope to take a man," she says. In revenge for her
scorn Ralph Roister Doister threatens to burn the dame's house
down, and sets off to attack it with his servants. The widow,
however, meets him with her handmaidens. There is a free fight
(which, no doubt, the schoolboy actors enjoyed), but the widow
gets the best of it, and Ralph is driven off.
Our first real tragedy was not written until ten years after our
first comedy. This first tragedy was written by Thomas Norton
and Thomas Sackville, Earl of Dorset. It was acted by the
gentlemen of the Inner Temple "before the Queen's most excellent
Majestie in her highness' Court of Whitehall the 18th day of
January, 1561."
Chaucer tells us that a tragedy is a story
"Of him that stood in great prosperitie,
And is yfallen out of high degree
Into miserie, and endeth wretchedly."*
*Prologue to the "Monk's Tale," Canterbury Tales.
So our early tragedies were all taken from sad stories in the old
Chronicle histories. And this first tragedy, written by Norton
and Sackville, is called Gorboduc, and is founded upon the legend
of Gorboduc, King of Britain. The story is told, though not
quite in the same way, by Geoffrey of Monmouth, our old friend,
by Matthew of Westminster, and by others of the old chroniclers.
For in writing a poem or play it is not necessary to keep
strictly to history. As Sir Philip Sidney, Spenser's friend,
says: "Do they not know that a tragedy is tied to the laws of
Poesie and not of History, not bound to follow the story, but,
having liberty, either to fain a quite new matter, or to frame
the history to the most tragical convenience?"*
*Sidney, Apologie for Poetrie.
The story goes that Gorboduc, King of Britain, divided his realm
during his lifetime between his sons Ferrex and Porrex. But the
brothers quarreled, and the younger killed the elder. The
mother, who loved her eldest son most, then killed the younger in
revenge. Next the people, angry at such cruelty, rose in
rebellion and killed both father and mother. The nobles then
gathered and defeated the rebels. And lastly, for want of an
heir to the throne, "they fell to civil war," and the lan |
