of the forester. He is the English yeoman, the type of those archers whose deadly "gray goose shafts " broke the shining ranks of knighthood at Crécy and Poictiers.* "There was also a Nonne, a Prioresse, That of hire smylyng was ful simple and coy; And Frensch sche spak ful faire and fetysly, Of greece, whan sche dronken hadde hire draughte. Hire nose tretys; hire eyen greye as glas; *The Passage on the Bow, in Green's "History of the English People," V. I. p. 421, may be read in class. Hire mouth ful smal, and thereto softe and reed There ambles the rich, pleasure-loving Monk, with his greyhounds; one of those new-fashioned churchmen of the day who have given up the strict monastic rule of an earlier time. He cares neither for learning nor to work with his hands, but delights in hunting. "His heed was balled, that schon as eny glas. And eek his face, as he had ben anoynt. His bootes souple, his hors in gret estate. The corruption of the Church is also to be seen in the next pilgrim, a brawny, jolly Friar, licensed to beg within a prescribed district. In the thirteenth century the friars, or brothers, had done great good in England, but by Chaucer's time they had grown rich, and had forgotten the high purposes for which the order was founded. The friar has no threadbare scholar's dress, his short cloak is of double worsted. His cowl is stuffed with knives and pins, for he is a peddler like many of his order.* *Wyclif writes of the friars: “They become peddlers, bearing knives, purses, pins, and girdles, and spices, and silk, and precious pellure, and fouris for women, and thereto small dogs. (Quoted Jusserand, “Eng. Wayfaring Life," p. 304.) "Ful sweetely herde he the confessioun, After the Merchant, sitting high on his horse, comes the Clerk of Oxford: “ As lene was his hors as is a rake, And he was not right fat, I undertake; Sownynge in moral vertu was his speche, And gladly wolde he lerne, and gladle teche." Then the Sergeant at Lawe, who seems always busier than he is; the Franklin, or farmer, with his red face and beard white as a daisy; the Haberdasher, or small shopkeeper, a Carpenter, a Weaver, a Dyer, a Tapicer or dealer in carpets or rugs-all these ride in the company. Then the Cook, who can "roste and sethe, and boille and fry," and make "blank manger" with the best; the Shipman, whose beard has been shaken by many a tempest, and the "Doctour of Phisik." "In al this world ne was ther non him lyk For he was grounded in astronomye." Among these is the dashing, red-faced Wife of Bath, gayly dressed, with scarlet stockings, new shoes, and a hat as broad as a shield, Then, in sharp contrast, the parish Priest, the “ poure Persoun of a toun," reminding us that, in spite of luxurious monks and cheating friars, the Church was not wholly corrupt. "Benigne he was, and wonder diligent, Wyd was his parische, and houses fer asonder, In sicknesse nor in meschief to visite That first he wroughte, and afterwards he taughte, He waytede after no pompe and reverence, He taughte, but first he folwede it himselve." But we must hurry to the end of this representative company the party is made up by the Plowman, the Reeve, or steward, the Miller, who carries a bagpipe, the Summoner, an officer in the law courts, the Pardoner, or seller of indulgences, his wallet full of pardons, the Manciple, or caterer for a college, and last, the Poet himself, portly and fair of face, noting with twinkling eyes every trick of costume, and looking through all to the soul beneath. INTRODUCTION TO THE NONNE PRESTES TALE. This story, told by one of the three priests attending the Nun, or Prioress, is among the shorter and slighter of the Canterbury Tales, and gives us a glimpse of only one side of Chaucer's genius. It is a charmingly told little fable; but from it we can form no notion of Chaucer's tragic force, or of his power of gorgeous description, as revealed to us, for instance, in the chival ric story of The Knight; nor does it help us to gain any notion of the deep tenderness and pathos of Chaucer, which overflow in such stories as those of The Clerk, and of The Man of Lawe. Yet the Nonne Prestes Tale has its own claims upon our attention and admiration. It is one of the most delightful products of Chaucer's quaint and abundant humor, and it shows also his dramatic vigor as a story-teller. In it Chaucer follows his usual practice of going elsewhere for the framework of his story. The Nonne Prestes Tale is a version of one of those fables, or fabliaux, in which the childlike intelligence of mediæval readers delighted. It may have been taken directly from the fifty-first fable in a collection by Marie de France, a poetess of the early part of the thirteenth century; but it is now thought more probable that Chaucer's original was the fifth chapter of an old French poem, Le Roman du Renart, where the same fable appears in a much longer form.* In either case Chaucer has made the story his own. The incidents in the Nonne Prestes Tale are of the simplest, the background is of the humblest,-the garden or barnyard of a poor widow, the principal actors are a cock, a hen, and a fox; yet out of these every day materials Chaucer has contrived to bring inimitable results. The life of the country-poor is described with sympathy and skill; the meagre diet of the widow, her two-roomed, chimneyless house, sooty from the smoke that had no escape except through the crevices of the roof, her yard fenced in with sticks, her little wealth of cows, pigs, and chickens,-all this is brought before us with characteristic vividness and truth. Then we note the sympathy with which Chaucer * These two poems are given in publications of the Chaucer Society: "Originals and Analogues," 2d series, pp. 116, 117. The first contains only 38, the second 454 lines. |