Alas the woe! alas the paines strong,
That I for you have suffered, and so long!
Alas the death! alas mine Emily!
Alas departing of our company!

Alas mine hearte's queen! alas my wife!
Mine hearte's lady, ender of my life!

What is this world ?-what asken men to have?
Now with his love, now in his colde grave-
Alone-withouten any company.

Farewell my sweet-farewell mine Emily!
And softe take me in your armes tway
For love of God, and hearkeneth what I say.
'I have here with my cousin Palamon
Had strife and rancour many a day agone,
For love of you, and for my jealousy;
And Jupiter so wis (1) my soule gie, (2)
To speaken of a servant properly,
With alle circumstances truely;

That is to say, truth, honour, and knighthead,
Wisdom, humbless, estate, and high kindred,
Freedom, and all that 'longeth to that art,
So Jupiter have of my soule part,

As in this world right now ne know I none
So worthy to be loved as Palamon,
That serveth you, and will do all his life;
And if that ever ye shall be a wife,
Forget not Palamon, the gentle man.'

And with that word his speeche fail began;
For from his feet up to his breast was coine
The cold of death that had him overnome; (3)
And yet, moreover, in his armes two,
The vital strength is lost and all ago; (4)
Only the intellect, withouten more,

That dwelled in his hearte sick and sore,
'Gan faillen when the hearte felte death;

Dusked his eyen two, and failed his breath
But on his lady yet cast he his eye;
Jis laste word was: Mercy, Emily!'

Departure of Custance.-From the Man of Law's Tale.

Custance is banished from her husband, Alla, king of Northumberland, in consequence of the treachery of the king's mother. Her behaviour in embark.ng at sea, in a rudderless ship, is thus described:

Weepen both young and old in all that place
When that the king this cursed letter sent:
And Custance with a deadly pale face
The fourthe day toward the ship she went;
But natheless (5) she tak'th in good intent
The will of Christ, and kneeling on the strond,
She saide: Lord, aye welcome be thy sond. (6)
He that me kepte from the false blame,
While I was in the land amonges you,
He can me keep from harm and eke from shame
In the salt sea, although I see not how:
As strong as ever he was, he is yet now:
In him trust I, and in his mother dear,
That is to me my sail and eke my steer.' (7)
Her little child lay weeping in her arm;

1 Surely. 2 Guide. 3 Overtaken.
7 Guide, helm.

4 Agone. 5 Nevertheless. 6 Message.

11

And kneeling piteously, to him she said:
'Peace, little son; I will do thee no harm:"

With that her kerchief off her head she braid, (1)
And over his little eyen she it laid,

And in her arm she lulleth it full fast,
And into th' heaven her even up she cast.
'Mother,' quod she, and maiden bright, Mary!
Soth is, that through womannes eggement, (2)
Mankind was lorn, (3 and damned aye to die,
For which thy child was on a cross yrent: (4)
Thy blissful eyen saw all his torment;
Then is there no comparison between
Thy woe and any woe man may sustain.
Thou saw'st thy child yslain before thine eyen,
And yet now liveth my little child, parfay: (5)
Now, lady bright! to whom all woful crien,
Thou glory of womanhood, thou faire May!
Thou haven of refute, (6) bright star of day!
Rue (7) on my child, that of thy gentleness
Ruest on every rueful in distress.

"O little child, alas! what is thy guilt,
That never wroughtest sin as yet, pardie?
Why will thine harde father have thee spilt? (8)
O mercy, deare Constable' quod she,

'As let my little child dwell here with thee;
And if thou dar'st not saven him from blame,
So kiss him ones in his father's name.'

Therewith she looketh backward to the land,
And saide: 'Farewell, husband rutheless!'
And up she rose, and walketh down the strand
Toward the ship; her followeth all the press:
And ever she prayeth her child to hold his peace,
And tak'th her leave, and with a holy' intent
She blesseth her, and into the ship she went.
Victailled was the ship, it is no drede, (9)
Abundantly for her a full long space;
And other necessaries that should need
She had enow, heried (10) be Goddes grace,

For wind and weather, Almighty God purchase (11)
And bring her home, I can no better say,
But in the sea she driveth forth her way.

Love.-From the Franklin's Tale

For one thing, sirs, safely dare I say,
That friends ever each other must obey
If they will longe holden company:
Love will not be constrained by mastery.
When mastery cometh, the god of Love anon
Beateth his wings and, farewell! he is
Love is a thing as any spirit free.
Women of kind desiren liberty,
And not to be constrained as a thrall;
And so do men if soothly I say shall.
Look who that is most patient in love

gone.*

Pope imitated this in his Eloisa to Abelard:

Love free as air, at sight of human ties
Spreads his light wings and in a moment flies.

The Fairies driven out by the Friars-From the Wife of Bath's Tale.

In oldé dayés of the King Arthur

Of which that Britons speaken great honour,
All was this land fulfilled of Faery;
The elf-queen with her jolly company
Danced full oft in many a green mead:
This was the old opinion as I read;
I speak of many hundred years ago,
But now can no man see none elves mo;
For now the great charity and prayers
Of limiters and other holy friars,

That searchen every land and every stream,
As thick as motés in the sun-beam,

Blessing halls, chambers, kitchens and bowers,
Cities and boroughs, castles high, and towers,
Thorps, barns, sheepens, and dairies,
That maketh that there be no faéries:
For there as wont was to walken an elf,
There walketh now the limiter himself,
In undermeales and in morrowings. (1)
And saith his matins and his holy things
As he goeth in his limitation.

Women may now go safely up and down;'
In every bush or under every tree,

There is none other incubus but he.

Good Counsel of Chaucer.*

Flee from the press and dwell with soothfastness,
Suffice thee thy good though it be small,
For hoard hath hate, and climbing tickleness;
Fress hath envy, and weal is blent o'er all.
Savour no more than thee behoven shall;
Do dwell thyself that other folk canst read,
And truth thee shall deliver, 'tis no dread.

Pain thee not each crooked to redress
In trust of her that turneth as a ball,
Great rest standeth in little business,
Beware also to spurn an nalle.

Strive not as doth a crock with a wall,
Daunt thyself that dauntest others deed,
And truth thee shall deliver, 'tis no dread.

That thee is sent receive in buxomness,
The wrestling of this world asketh a fall;

1 After the meal of dinner and in the mornings. The allusion to the zeal of the friars is evidently ironical.

*In one of the Cottonian MSS. (among those destroyed by fire), this poem was described as made by Chaucer upon his death-bed in his great anguish.' Tyrwhitt says, the verses are found without that statement in two other manuscripts. The copies differ considerably.

蒂

Here is no home, here is but wilderness,
Forth, pilgrim, forth! best out of thy stall.
Look up on high, and thank God of all;
Waive thy lust, and let thy ghost thee

And truth shall thee deliver, 'tis no dread.'//

Two of the Canterbury Tales' are in prose-the 'Tale of Mclibeus' and the 'Persone's (Parson's) Tale.' A long allegorical and meditative work, the 'Testament of Love,' an imitation of Boethius' 'De Consolatione Philosophie,' has been ascribed to Chaucer, but its genuineness is doubted, if not disproved. The poet, however, wrote in prose a translation of Boethius, and a work 'On the Astrolabe,' addressed to his son Lewis.

On Gathering and Using Riches-From the Tale of Melibeus.'

When Prudence had heard her husband avaunt himself of his riches and of his money, dispreising the power of his adversaries, she spake and said in this wise: Certes, dear sir, I grant you that ye ben rich and mighty, and that riches ben good to 'em that han well ygetten 'em, and that wel! can usen 'em; for, right as the body of a man may not liven withouten soul, no more may it liven withouten temporal goods, and by riches may a man get him great friends; and therefore saith Pamphilus: If a neatherd's daughter be rich, she may chese of a thousand men which she wol take to her husband; for of a thousand men one wol not forsaken her ne refusen her. And this Pamphilus saith also: If thou be right happy, that is to sayn, if thou be right rich, thou shalt find a great number of fellows and friends; and if thy fortune change, that thou wax poor, farewell friendship and fellowship, for thou shalt be all alone withouten any company, but if (1) it be the company of poor folk. And yet saith this Pamphilus, moreover, that they that ben bond and thrall of linage shuln be made worthy and noble by riches. And right so as by riches there comen many goods, right so by poverty come there many harms and evils; and therefore clepeth Cassiodore, poverty the mother of ruin, that is to sayn, the mother of overthrowing or falling down; and therefore saith Piers Alphonse: One of the greatest adversities of the world is when a free man by kind, or of birth, is constrained by poverty to eaten the alms of his enemy. And the same saith Innocent in one of his books; he saith that sorrowful and mishappy is the condition of a poor beggar, for if he ax not his meat he dieth of hunger, and if he ax he dieth for shame; and algates necessity constraineth him to ax; and therefore saith Solomon: That better it is to die than for to have such poverty; and, as the same Solomon saith: Better it is to die of bitter death, than for to liven in such wise. By these reasons that I have said unto you, and by many other reasons that I could say, I grant you that riches ben good to 'em that well geten 'em, and to him that well usen tho' riches; and therefore wol I shew you how ye shulen behave you in gathering of your riches, and in what manner ye shulen usen 'em. First, ye shuln geten 'em withouten great desire, by good leisure, sokingly, and not over hastily, for a man that is too desiring to get riches abandoneth him first to theft and to all other evils; and therefore saith Solomon: He that hasteth him too busily to wax rich, he shall be non innocent: he saith also, that the riches that hastily cometh to a man soon and lightly goeth and passeth from a man, but that riches that cometh little and little waxeth alway and multiplieth. And, sir, ye shuln get riches by your wit and by your travail, unto your profit, and that withouten wrong or harm doing to any other person: for the law saith: There maketh no man himself rich, if he do harm to another wight; that is to say, that Nature defendeth and forbiddeth by right, that no man make himself rich unto the harm of another person. And Tullius saith: That no sorrow, ne no dread of death, ne nothing that may fall unto a man, is so muckle agains nature as a man to increase his own profit to harm of another man. And though the great men and the mighty men getten riches more lightly than thou, yet shalt thou not ben idle ne slow to do thy profit, for thou shalt in all wise flee idleness; for Solomon saith: That idleness teacheth a man to do many evils; and the same Solomon saith: That he that travaileth

2 Except,

and busieth himself to tillen his lond, shall eat bread, but he that is Idle, and casteth him to no business ne occupation, shall fall into poverty, and die for hunger. And he that is idle and slow can never find convenable time for to do his profit; for there is a versifier saith, that the idle man excuseth him in winter because of the great cold, and in summer then by encheson of the heat. For these causes, saith Caton, waketh and inclineth you not over muckle to sleep, for over muckle rest nourisheth and causeth many vices; and therefore saith St. Jerome: Docth some good deeds, that the devil, which is our enemy, ne find you not unoccupied, for the devil he taketh not lightly unto his werking such as he findeth occupied in good werks.

Then thus in getting riches ye musten flee idleness; and afterward ye shuln usen the riches which ye han geten by your wit and by your travail, in such manner, then men hold you not too scarce, ne too sparing, ne fool-large, that is to say, over large a spender; for right as men blamen an avaricious man because of his scarcity and chinchery, in the same wise he is to blame that spendeth over largely; and therefore saith Caton: Use (saith he) the riches that thou hast ygeten in such manner, that men have no matter ne cause to call thee nother wretch ne chinch, for it is a great shame to a man to have a poor heart and a rich purse; he saith also: The goods that thou hast ygeten, use 'em by measure, that is to sayu, spend measurably, for they that folily wasten and despenden the goods that they han, when they han no more proper of 'eir own, that they shapen 'em to take the goods of another man. Isay, then, that ye shuln flee avarice, using your riches in such manner, that men sayen not that your riches ben yburied, but that ye have 'em in your might and in your wielding; for a wise man reproveth the avaricious man, and saith thus in two verses: Whereto and why burieth a man his goods by his great avarice, and knoweth well that needs must he die, for death is the end of every man as in this present life? And for what cause or encheson joineth he him, or knitteth he him so fast unto his goods, that all his wits mowen not disseveren him or departen him fro his goods, and knoweth well, or ought to know, that when he is dead he shall nothing bear with him out of this world? And therefore saith St. Augustine, that the avaricious man is likened unto hell, that the more it swalloweth the more desire it hath to swallow and devour. And as well as ye wold eschew to be called an avaricious man or an chinch, as well should ye keep you and govern you in such wise, that man call you not rool-large; 'therefore, saith Tullius: The goods of thine house ne should not ben hid ne kept so close, but that they might ben opened by pity and debonnairety, that is to sayen, to give 'em part that han great need; ne they goods shoulden not ben so open to be every man's goods.

Afterward, in getting of your riches, and in using of 'em, ye shuln always have three things in your heart, that is to say, our Lord God, conscience, and good name. First ye shuln have God in your heart, and for no riches ye shuln do nothing which may in any manner displease God that is your creater and maker; for, after the word of Solomon, it is better to have a little good, with love of God, than to have muckle good and lese the love of his Lord God; and the prophet saith, that better it is to ben a good man and have little good and treasure, than to be holden a shrew and have great riches. And yet I say furthermore, that ye shulden always do your business to get your riches, so that ye get 'em with a good conscience. And the apostle saith, that there n'is thing in this world, of which we shulden have so great joy, as when our conscience beareth us good witness; and the wise man saith: The substance of a man is full good when sin is not in a man's conscience. Afterward, in getting of your riches and in using of 'em, ye must have great business and great diligence that your good name be always kept and conserved; for Solomon saith, that better it is and more it availeth a man to have a good name than for to have great riches; and therefore he saith in another place: Do great diligence (saith he) in keeping of thy friends and of thy good name, for it shall longer abide with thee than any treasure, be it never so precious; and certainly he should not be called a gentleman that, after God and good conscience all things left, ne doth his diligence and business to keepen his good name; and Cassiodore saith, that it is a sign of a gentle heart, when a man loveth and desireth to have a good naine.

JOHN GOWER.

JOHN GOWER is supposed to have been born about the year 1325.