From Gootlond to the cape of Finistere,
And every cryke in Britayne and in Spayne;
His barge y-cleped was the Maudelayne.

5

When that Knight had thus his tale ytold,
In all the route ne was ther yong ne oold
That he ne seyde it was a noble storie,
And worthy for to drawen to memorie,1
And namely 2 the gentles everichoon.
Our Hoste lough and swoor, "So moot I gone,
This gooth aright; unbokeled is the male;
Lat see now who shall telle another tale,
For trewely this game is wel bigonne :
Now telleth on, sir Monk, if that ye conne,6
Somewhat to quiten with the Knightes tale.”
The Miller, that for-dronken 8 was al pale,
So that unnethe upon his hors he sat,
He nolde avalen 10 neither hood ne hat,
Ne abyde 11 no man for his curtesye,
But in Pilates vois 12 he gan to crye,

And swoor, "By armes, and by blood and bones,
I can 13 a noble tale for the nones,14

With which I wol now quite the Knightes tale."
Out Hoste saugh that he was dronke of ale,
And seyde," Abyd, Robin, my leve 15 brother;
Som bettre man shal telle us first another;
Abyd and lat us werken 16 thriftily."

12 "In such a voice as Pilate was used to speak with in the Mysteries. Pilate, being an odious character, was probably represented as speaking with a harsh, disagreeable voice." — TYRWHITt.

13 Know.

14 For the nonce, for the occasion.

15 Dear.

16 Go to work with judgment.

"By Goddes soul," quod he, “that wol nat I,
For I wol speke, or elles go my wey."

Oure Hoste answerde, "Tel on a devel wey;
Thou art a fool; thy wit is overcome."

"Now herkneth," quod the millere, "alle and some, But first I make a protestacioun

That I am dronke, I know it by my soun,

And therfore, if that I misspeke or seye,
Wyte it the ale of Southwerk, I you preye."

"Sire Clerk of Oxenford, our Hoste said,
Ye ryde as stille and coy as dooth a mayde
Were newe spoused, sitting at the bord;
This day ne herd I of youre tonge a word.
I trowe ye studie about som sophyme,2
But Salomon seith 'every thing hath tyme.'
For Goddes sake! as beth 3 of bettre cheere!
It is no tyme for to studien heere;

Tell us some mery tale, by your fey!

4

For what man that is entred in a pley
He nedes moot unto the pley assente.
But precheth nat, as freres doon in Lente,
To make us for oure olde sinnes wepe,
Ne that thy tale make us nat to slepe.
Tell us som mery thyng of aventures;
Youre termes, your colours, and your figures,
Keepe hem in stoor til so be ye endyte

Heigh style, as whan that men to kinges write;
Speketh so pleyn at this tyme, I yow preye,
That we may understonde what ye seye."
This worthy clerk benignely answerde.
"Hoste," quod he, "I am under youre yerde; 5
Ye han of us, as now, the governaunce,

2 Sophism, perhaps generally for a logical argument.

3 Be.

4 Faith.

5 Rod or rule.

6

Surely.

Gower,

1325(?)1408.

Lerned at Padowe of a worthy clerk,

As preved1 by his wordes and his werk:
He is now deed and nayled in his cheste,

I

pray to God so yeve his soule reste!

Fraunceys Petrak, the laureat poete

Highte 2 this clerk, whos rethoryke sweete
Enlumined all Itaille of poetrye

As Linian did of philosophye,

Or lawe, or other art particuler

But deeth, that wol nat suffre us dwellen heer

But as it were a twinklyng of an eye,

Hem bothe hath slayn, and alle shall we dyë.”

OTHER WRITERS OF THIS PERIOD

Contemporary with Chaucer lived another poet of the upper classes, John Gower, so vastly inferior to him in literary interest that he is valuable chiefly as showing that respectable dullness is as successful in one age as in another. His poems " Vox Clamantis," "Speculum Meditantis," and "Confessio Amantis," written respectively in French, Latin, and English, show that the three languages were contemporaneous. French as a written language was soon disused, but Latin remained the principal medium for serious writing for many years; indeed, was the scholar's language down to Milton's day in the seventeenth century.

Another poet who has claims to earnestness and power wrote in the vernacular in Chaucer's day. This was

Langland, 1332(?)

William Langland, whose poem, the "Vision of
Piers Plowman" or the "Vision of William

1400(?). concerning Piers the Plowman," has been preserved in a number of manuscripts-some thirty; a fact

1 Proved.

2 Was called.

3 A great lawyer of the fourteenth century. 4 Them.

which attests its ancient popularity. Its subject is an allegorical presentation of the world of men, "all the wealth of the world and the woe both," as a vast plain "full of all manner of folks "-laborers, gluttons, idlers, minstrels, beggars, friars, palmers, and the rest. Among these move embodiments of the moral forces-Conscience, Kindwit, Knighthood; and the evil forces-Falseness, Flattery, Envy, Greediness, Pride, and many others. In fact, life is viewed as a conflict and largely as a tragedy, for Langland regards the world from the moral rather than from the artistic standpoint, and his picture is not wanting in elements of powerful satire. It testifies to the presence in the English people from the earliest times of the serious thought of the best type of the Puritans of a later day. It is marked by the gravity and the sobriety which come from a deep sense of the supremacy of the moral law. Righteousness no less than beauty lies at the bottom of English literature, though strength of conviction sometimes is divorced, as in Carlyle, from appreciation of form.

The

From the tone of the thought we should expect that the form would also be, as it is, Anglo-Saxon. "Vision" is written in a modification of the Anglo-Saxon alliterative verse of four accents, dividing by a marked cæsura into two short lines-a rugged and powerful form in which grace and harmony are sacrificed to force. It is about the last appearance of this ancestral music in a sustained composition, but the love for vigor as opposed to melody still persists in the spirit of our race, as is illustrated by the popularity of Tennyson's "Charge of the Light Brigade."

As will be seen from the subjoined extract, Langland's diction presents more difficulties than Chaucer's, and con

tains but few words of French origin. It must be borne in mind that Langland wrote in a period of great social discontent and distress, and his poem is the first expression in our language of the sufferings of the poor, and of indignation at the injustice and inequalities of society. The poet says that "on a May morning when the sun was pleasant" he lay down by the side of a brook and falling into slumber saw a marvelous vision. I began to dream, he says,

1 Saw.

"That I was in a wilderness,

Wist I never where:

And, as I beheld into the east
On high to the sun,

I seigh1 a tower on a toft 2
Frieliche ymaked 3;

A deep dale beneath,

A donjon therein,

With deep ditches and dark,
And dreadful of sight.

A fair field full of folk

Found I there between,

Of all manner of men,

The mean and the rich,

Working and wandering

As the world asketh.
Some putten hem to the plough,
Playden full seld,5

In setting and sowing

Swonken full hard,

And wonnen that wasters

With gluttony destroyeth.7
And some putten hem to pride,
Apparalled hem thereafter,

2 An elevated ground.

3 Handsomely built.

4 Put them.

5 Played full seldom.

6 Laboured.

7 Won that which spendthrifts with gluttony destroy.