Part 4 (2/2)

The Knight and Squire with the Squire's Yeoman lead the Procession, as Chaucer has also placed them first in his Prologue. The Knight is a true Hero, a good, great and wise man; his whole-length portrait on horseback, as written by Chaucer, cannot be surpa.s.sed. He has spent his life in the field, has ever been a conqueror, and is that species of character which in every age stands as the guardian of man against the oppressor. His son is like him, with the germ of perhaps greater perfection still, as he blends literature and the arts with his warlike studies. Their dress and their horses are of the first rate, without ostentation, and with all the true grandeur that unaffected simplicity when in high rank always displays. The Squire's Yeoman is also a great character, a man perfectly knowing in his profession:

And in his hand he bare a mighty bow.

Chaucer describes here a mighty man, one who in war is the worthy attendant on n.o.ble heroes.

The Prioress follows these with her female Chaplain:

Another Nonne also with her had she, That was her Chaplaine, and Priests three.

This Lady is described also as of the first rank, rich and honoured.

She has certain peculiarities and little delicate affectations, not unbecoming in her, being accompanied with what is truly grand and really polite; her person and face Chaucer has described with minuteness; it is very elegant, and was the beauty of our ancestors till after Elizabeth's time, when voluptuousness and folly began to be accounted beautiful.

Her companion and her three Priests were no doubt all perfectly delineated in those parts of Chaucer's work which are now lost; we ought to suppose them suitable attendants on rank and fas.h.i.+on.

The Monk follows these with the Friar. The Painter has also grouped with these the Pardoner and the Sompnour and the Manciple, and has here also introduced one of the rich citizens of London--characters likely to ride in company, all being above the common rank in life, or attendants on those who were so.

For the Monk is described by Chaucer, as a man of the first rank in society, n.o.ble, rich, and expensively attended; he is a leader of the age, with certain humorous accompaniments in his character, that do not degrade, but render him an object of dignified mirth, but also with other accompaniments not so respectable.

The Friar is a character of a mixed kind:

A friar there was, a wanton and a merry;

but in his office he is said to be a 'full solemn man'; eloquent, amorous, witty and satirical; young, handsome and rich; he is a complete rogue, with const.i.tutional gaiety enough to make him a master of all the pleasures of the world:

His neck was white as the flour de lis, Thereto strong he was as a champioun.

It is necessary here to speak of Chaucer's own character, that I may set certain mistaken critics right in their conception of the humour and fun that occur on the journey. Chaucer is himself the great poetical observer of men, who in every age is born to record and eternize its acts. This he does as a master, as a father and superior, who looks down on their little follies from the Emperor to the Miller, sometimes with severity, oftener with joke and sport.

Accordingly Chaucer has made his Monk a great tragedian, one who studied poetical art. So much so that the generous Knight is, in the compa.s.sionate dictates of his soul, compelled to cry out:

'Ho,' quoth the Knyght, 'good Sir, no more of this; That ye have said is right ynough, I wis, And mokell more; for little heaviness Is right enough for much folk, as I guesse.

I say, for me, it is a great disease, Whereas men have been in wealth and ease, To heare of their sudden fall, alas!

And the contrary is joy and solas.'

The Monk's definition of tragedy in the proem to his tale is worth repeating:

Tragedie is to tell a certain story, As old books us maken memory, Of hem that stood in great prosperity, And be fallen out of high degree, Into miserie, and ended wretchedly.

Though a man of luxury, pride and pleasure, he is a master of art and learning, though affecting to despise it. Those who can think that the proud huntsman and n.o.ble housekeeper, Chaucer's Monk, is intended for a buffoon or burlesque character, know little of Chaucer.

For the Host who follows this group, and holds the centre of the cavalcade, is a first-rate character, and his jokes are no trifles; they are always, though uttered with audacity, and equally free with the Lord and the Peasant--they are always substantially and weightily expressive of knowledge and experience; Henry Baillie, the keeper of the greatest Inn of the greatest City, for such was the Tabarde Inn in Southwark near London, our Host, was also a leader of the age.

By way of ill.u.s.tration I instance Shakespeare's Witches in _Macbeth_.

Those who dress them for the stage, consider them as wretched old women, and not, as Shakespeare intended, the G.o.ddesses of Destiny; this shows how Chaucer has been misunderstood in his sublime work.

Shakespeare's Fairies also are the rulers of the vegetable world, and so are Chaucer's; let them be so considered, and then the poet will be understood, and not else.

But I have omitted to speak of a very prominent character, the Pardoner, the Age's Knave, who always commands and domineers over the high and low vulgar. This man is sent in every age for a rod and scourge, and for a blight, for a trial of men, to divide the cla.s.ses of men; he is in the most holy sanctuary, and he is suffered by Providence for wise ends, and has also his great use, and his grand leading destiny.

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