APPEARANCE AND REALITY IN CHAUCER’S EARLY
' DREAM - VISIONS

Dissertation for the Degree of Ph. D.
MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY
PATRICIA WARD JULIUS
1976

 

 

 

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ABSTRACT

APPEARANCE AND REALITY IN CHAUCER'S
EARLY DREAM-VISIONS

By

Patricia Ward Julius

My purpose in this study is to demonstrate that Chaucer's

earliest dream-visions, the Book gj_the Duchess and the House gf_

 

fame, have a thematic unity within themselves and within Chaucer's
poetic works as a whole. In them, Chaucer is not simply anglicizing
a French love-vision nor retelling an old romance nor following a
popular model. Rather, he is demonstrating a universally applicable
ethical concept concerning the relationship of man to his human
environment and to himself. The implication inherent in these poems
is that man may not live within the boundaries of an artificially
conceived or erroneously elevated ideal. That is, man may not
renounce his humanity.

There are at least three elemental conflicts, I propose,
which occur in Chaucer's poetry generally and in the §995_9f_thg_
Duchess and the flggsg_gf_fgmg_specifically: experience versus
authority; moderation versus excess, and natural, or Christian,
love versus 3993, My thesis is based on the belief that these oppo-
sitions or sets of contraries can be considered as being essentially

a matter of appearance versus reality. I use "appearance" to mean

Patricia Ward Julius

the attractive externals, the way things seem to the characters,
though not necessarily to Chaucer or to us as reader. Authority,
here the authority of books, is substitute for experience; it takes
on the appearance of reality. Hence reliance on authority becomes
reliance on appearance, an artificial view of the world and its
workings.

Excess also grows out of misunderstanding the nature of
humanity and its responsibilities as well as its limitations. To
center all one's happiness on another being as mortal and mutable as
oneself or to grieve excessively over the loss of that one is irra-
tional, philosophically and theologically. To replace reality with
the worship of an artificial and man-made ideal--worldly fame, for
instance-~is no less an example of excess and error. To love or
act excessively, therefore, is to place one's faith in the appear-
ance rather than the reality.

So it is with the two kinds of love. The convention--even
if literary--of courtly love requires a code of behavior so arti-
ficial and elevated that it is impossible to achieve. This conven-
tion, invented by man and presented by him as "ideal," provides no
allowances for the world of reality. It is wholly appearance with-
out substance. But that natural love whose source is ultimately
divine is an image of charity and, with the addition of grace, can
be converted into charity. It can survive the harsher air of
reality and its culmination is a lifetime.

This study, then, defines the unifying theme--the philo-

sophical opposition of appearance and reality--which links these

Patricia Ward Julius

dream-visions and the means--the three sets of contraries--by which
that theme is demonstrated. Its examination of how Chaucer shapes
his sources to his very individual artistic needs explicates his
use of those disparate sources more fully than the studies of any
single influence have done. Lately, we have benefited from such an

approach to the various Canterbury Tales, but less attention has

 

been focused on this aspect of the Book gf_the Duchess and the House

 

9f_Fame. I have tried to fill that blank here. I believe that this
paper, by providing grounds for new questions and suggesting new
directions for investigation, may contribute to our continuing

understanding of this, the first master of English poetry.

APPEARANCE AND REALITY IN CHAUCER'S
EARLY DREAM-VISIONS

By

Patricia Ward Julius

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Department of English

1976

6:) Copyright by

PATRICIA WARD JULIUS
1976

To John Y unck

ii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To adequately acknowledge the contributions of those who
share responsibility for any value in this paper is difficult.
First, of course, to Professor John Yunck, whose integrity, learn-
ing, and grand humanity have lightened my way, I tender respect
and gratitude beyond words or time. To Professor William Heist,
whose invaluable comments and limitless knowledge were shared gen-
erously and kindly, I can only offer my heartfelt thanks. I must
also acknowledge the concern and careful criticism of Professor
William Whallon. The patience and encouragement of Professor Bern
Engel and the Department of American Thought and Language which
consistently eased my task shall not be forgotten. And to my
husband and daughter--who have willingly accepted both my preoccu-
pation and the burden of housekeeping--I reaffirm my love and

appreciation, and the promise of a vacation from dishwashing.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

Chapter
1. BOOK 9_E_ THE DUCHESS

 

II. ggg§§_g§_§gg§, BOOK I .
III. 59g§§_g§_ggn§, BOOK II
Iv. ugg§g_9§_§5m§, BOOK III

CONCLUSION

BIBLIOGRAPHY

iv

Page

63
99
I43
223
229

INTRODUCTION

My purpose in this study is to demonstrate that Chaucer's

earliest dream-visions, the Book 9f_the Duchess and the House of

 

fame, have a thematic unity within themselves and within Chaucer's
poetic works as a whole. I shall be concerned with the phiIOSOphical
conflict which, I believe, these poems present. In them, Chaucer

is not, I think, simply anglicizing a French love-vision nor retell-
ing an old romance nor following a popular model. Rather, he is
demonstrating a universally applicable ethical concept concerning
the relationship of man to his human environment and to himself.

The implication inherent in these poems is, I believe, that man may
not live within the boundaries of an artifically conceived or
erroneously elevated ideal. That is, man may not renounce his
humanity.

There are at least three elemental conflicts, I think, which
occur in Chaucer's poetry generally and in the ngk_9f_the Duchess
and the Hog§§_9f_famg_specifically: experience versus authority;
moderation versus excess; and natural, or Christian, love versus
amgg, My thesis is based on the belief that these oppositions or
sets of contraries can be considered as being essentially a matter
of appearance versus reality. I use "appearance" to mean the
attractive externals, the way things seem to the characters, though

not necessarily to Chaucer or to us as reader. Therefore, authority,

here the authority of books, is substitute for experience; it takes
on the appearance of reality. But authority, especially if it is
embraced with the fervor of Chaucer's narrator, is at best reality
once removed. To read about an event or an emotion is not the same
thing as to live it. Hence reliance on authority becomes reliance
on appearance, an artificial view of the world and its workings.

Excess also, I believe, grows out of misunderstanding the
nature of humanity and its responsibilities as well as its limita-
tions. To center all one's happiness, one's life, one's reason on
another being as mortal and mutable as oneself is irrational. To
grieve excessively over the loss of that one is equally unrealistic,
equally unnatural philosophically and theologically. To replace
reality with the worship of an artificial and man-made ideal--worldly
fame, for instance--is no less an example of excess and error. To
love or grieve or act excessively is, I think, to place one's faith
in the appearance rather than the reality, to mistake the ephemeral
for the permanent.

So it is with the two kinds of love. The convention--even
if literary--of courtly love requires a code of behavior so rigid,
so artificial, so elevated that it is impossible to achieve. This
convention, invented by man and presented by him as "ideal," is
based on appearance. It is sterile, governed by ritual, existing
only for itself with no natural growth possible. It provides no
allowances for nor even a touchpoint with the world of reality.
Fundamentally, courtly love is a pastime, a holiday, a moment of

play-acting. It offers escape from routine, a "might-have-been"

to replace the imperfect and often difficult "is." Its very setting
reflects artificiality: a garden clipped and weeded by magic, rivers
which never flood, climate ever fair and balmy, the lover with no
outside demands to interrupt his total concentration on his lady.
Even the lady is less important for herself than as an Object to be
worshipped, preferably from afar. There is in this setting no hint
of the mundane, and it is tempting. However, the love whose environ-
ment is this garden has no reality beyond its gates. It is wholly
appearance without substance. But that natural love whose source is
ultimately divine is an image of charity and, with the addition of
grace, can be converted into charity. It is neither static nor
sterile. It grows naturally out of character and merit, not external
beauty and unavailability. It can survive the harsher air Of reality
and its culmination is a lifetime.

So I think the three sets of contraries which form the
theme of these poems can be classified as aspects of two opposing
philosophies: authority, excess, and courtly love or amgr_as
appearance; experience, moderation, and natural love as reality.

Perhaps the most important feature in the ngk_gj_the Duchess
and one which Chaucer was to use in every major poem*was the intro-
duction of the narrator-persona as a character in the poem. The

Book Qj_the Duchess marks the first of Chaucer's appearances in the

 

guise of a simpleton, a man of general incompetence but great good
will, an avid follower but unsuccessful practitioner of Love, an
asker of foolish questions and a giver of unwise answers. Even when

these questions and answers are intrinsically wise, they are so

disguised by inaccurate comparisons, misquoted examples, or over-
powering catalogues of mismatched authorities that their wisdom often
goes unrecOgnized by the casual or too-literal reader. Later, in the
flgg§g_gf_fgm§_the literary Chaucer-narrator was to be lectured to

and patronized by a bird, in the Canterbury Tales by an innkeeper.

 

This narrator-persona allows Chaucer to take full advantage of a
laugh directed inward, at himself. He can use it to simulate naiveté
and so explore the personality of a character, or to make a subtle
comment about a friar or a Venus or the conditions and responsibili-
ties of man. The persona of narrator is capable of many moods--
comic, ironic, devious, sly, or cutting. But it is always a reminder
of reality.

One result of this persona is a kind of moral vision which
cuts through the pretension and folly with which we, humanity, have
too often replaced the reality of our lives and distorted our per-
ception Of our condition. If one insists that Chaucer was not a
moral as well as a comic writer, the device of the persona may be
taken as primarily serving comedy. But both views are made not
only possible but compatible by the double vision which is the
essence of Chaucer's irony and his art. He can affirm gently and
tolerantly what is, while simultaneously defining for the perceptive
reader on a different level what ought to be. And in the Book 9:

the Duchess and the House gf_Fame, he does just that. By a close

 

reading of the poems themselves in conjunction with an examination
of Chaucer's sources to disCover how his omissions, changes, exag-
gerations, and additions contribute to the very different artistic

product that results, this moral vision can be demonstrated.

CHAPTER I

BOOK O_F THE DUCHESS

 

The Book 9f_the Duchess is a small poem in terms of scene,

 

character, and plot: unlike the bulk of Chaucer's work, it is not
panoramic. In it, Chaucer does not present a world as he does in

Troilus and Criseyde, the Canterbury Tales, especially the "General

 

 

Prologue," or even in the H9u§g_gf fame, Rather his dream-vision
is personal--two men meet in a wood-garden and talk of death and
grief and so, inevitably, of life itself. And life is an insistent
part of the landscape. The hunting party which leads the narrator
to the wood is not a part of the action but, by Chaucer's detailed
and accurate description, it serves to remind us Of the reality
which is basic to the argument of the dream. The whelp who appears
to the dreamer adds to the furniture of reality which pervades--as
it must--the dream. By such small homely details as well as by

the prologue which sets the scene for the dream vision, we are led
into awareness of the subject of what is in a very real sense a
ggggg, a battle between two different and opposing philosophies.

The first and lesser, in terms of the Book gf_the Duchess,

 

is that of experience versus authority. That this opposition becomes
a major and sustaining one, largely through the continued character

of the narrator-persona, in the bulk of Chaucer's works does not

invalidate its position as subordinate here. The major set of con-
traries, integral to the action and theme of the poem, is that Of
reason and moderation versus excess, explicitly the excess of grief,
which is sinful and against God. Medieval no less than classical
philosophy from which it takes its secular models finds the greatest
good in moderation. And the medieval Church, whose influence and
power can hardly be overstated, propounds moderation as the path to
the greatest good, quite literally the path to salvation. The seven
deadly sins reflect, Of course, behavior which is sinful because of
its excess, and which, because of that excess, replaces the worship
Of Creator with the worship of creation. Hence gluttony is the
obsession with food and the flesh to the exclusion of the spirit and
the concern with God, His will and conmandments. Pride or @113
must be denounced because it equates man with his God, creation with
Creator. And wanhope, here the despair of excessive grief, denies
first the sovereignty of God's will over man's, and rejects the
comfort which God and the Church can offer. Moreover, it implies
a greater love for a creature of God than for God Himself. It is to
this last that Chaucer addresses himself in the ngk_gf_the Duchess.
The subject through which these two contraries will be
examined is love: excessive love for one lost in the case of
Alcyone and the black knight, for one apparently indifferent in the
case of the narrator of the prologue. The case for moderation and
reason is presented in the prologue by Ceyx and rejected; by the
dreamer in the dream-vision and, by implication, accepted. The

duality of love provides the third theme of Opposition in that there

is, especially in the dream-vision, more than a hint of courtly love
(£995) versus a more natural love whose source is divine. While
Chaucer deals more explicitly with this opposition in the Parliament
of [owls and, especially, in Troilus and Criseyde, the roots are
here as well.

The narrator in the prologue prepares us for the events of
the dream but he has another function. He is Mankind, with all that
term implies. As Chaucer developed his art, his narrator became the
full-fleshed character which is presaged in the ngk_gf_the Duchess.
As early as the Hou§g_9f_famg, Chaucer's persona had become deter-
minedly bookish, a condition begun in this poem. The narrator's
realism often serves a comic function. This realism has in fact
been the source of much scholarly comment. Charles Muscatine, for
example, finds "this attitude of realism already becomes a source of
difficulty."1 He concludes that the narrator's realism is "overtly
humorous" to the detriment of "the body of the poem," that is, the
dream itself.2 But the prologue is necessary to a reading of the
dream, and the narrator's realism obtains there as surely as in the
prologue, although it manifests itself rather more subtly, in part,
I suspect, because the narrator-dreamer speaks less than the man in

3

black. John Lawlor believes, "The humor of the poem offers possible

1Chaucer and the French Tradition (Los Angeles: Univ. of
California Press,_T§64), p. lO3.

 

2Muscatine, p. lO4.

3The knight has 626 lines of dialogue to the dreamer's 85.
F. N. Robinson, ed., Ihg_Works 9f_Geoffrey Chaucer, 2nd ed. (Cambridge,
Mass.: Houghton Mifflin, l96l). All citations of Chaucer's poetry
are to this edition, hereaftercited as Works.

 

4 So

misunderstanding where it does not provoke outright censure."
. eminent a scholar as C. S. Lewis concludes that Chaucer produces
"comic effects that are disastrous and which are certainly not
intended."5 H. S. Bennett speaks for a sizable number of Chaucerians

when he finds the Book gf_the Duchess interesting primarily because

 

"it shows how dependent Chaucer still was on his French and Latin

6 Dorothy Bethurum maintains that Chaucer's narrator "meets

models."
the demand for the first person but fails to reveal his bleeding
heart."7 This curious comment is the sort of thing we find too com-

nnn in the critical reaction to the Book gf_the Duchess. Such varied

 

commentary may, I suspect, grow out of a preconceived notion of
what Chaucer should be writing, a kind of automatic response trig-
gered by the words, "dream-vision," combined with the early date of
the poem. But Chaucer's early dream-vision, like his later works,
is based on a form, here the French love-vision, which he made his
own, marked by the "unmistakeable, individual stamp which Chaucer,
even at this early date, set upon everything he touched," that
4"The Pattern of Consolation in The Book of the Duchess,"
in Chaucer Criticism: "Troilus and Criseydefi—afid_the Minor Poems,

ed. Richard J. Schoeck and Jerome Taylor (Notre Dame, Ind.: Univ.
of Notre Dame Press, l960), II, 234.

5

 

The Allegoryggf_Love (New York: Oxford Galaxy, 1958).

 

p. T70.

6Chaucer and the Fifteenth Century (New York: Oxford Univ.
Press, 19617, p. 34.

7"Chaucer's Point of View as Narrator in the Dream Visions,"
Schoeck and Taylor, II, p. 2l6.

 

John Livingston Lowes recognized four decades ago.8 Many critical
comments pretty much ignore any examination of the character of the
narrator to concentrate on the dream itself, despite Bertrand
Bronson's influential study in which he finds, "The dreamer is the

9 And the dreamer-

most complex Of all the persons depicted."
narrator justifies Bronson's judgment.

The first lines of the poem have a humorous informality of
tone that is unlike the French love poetry exemplified by Froissart,
Machaut, and Guillaume de Lorris. He has "grete wonder," the nar-
rator tells us, that he still lives since he has been for so long
sleepless from lovesickness. He concludes his plaint, "There is
phisicien but oon /That may me hele“ (39-40). Such a comparison of
one's lady to a physician is a conventional equation which follows
a conventional description of lovesickness and "defaute of sleep."10
But to have suffered such lovesickness for eight years (37) without
hope of cure surely goes beyond any requirements of the convention
of courtly love. 50, early in this, his earliest poem, Chaucer
draws what will become as the poem progresses the battle lines, as
it were, between excess and moderation or reason, between adherence

8Geoffrey Chaucer (T934; rpt. Bloomington: Univ. of Indiana
Press, I958), p. 95.

9"Ihg_§ggk_gf_the Duchess Reopened," in Chaucer: Mpggrfl_
tip-21x3 HQE—Si't—‘i'flz‘ifd'niiflie "paagfi""i‘.f°“.‘..§“e" '°£'5é-38§f?.i"
Wagenknecht aOd H. S. Bennett, pp. 34 ff?9 ’ pp,

loWgrks, p. 774. John M. Hill, "The Book of the Duchess,
Melancholy, and that Eight Year Sickness," CHEUEeF_Review 9 (T974),

35-50, believes that the narrator suffered from fihead-melancholy"
rather than lovesickness.

 

 

 

 

ID

to a man-made ideal and reality. That this is to be the subject of
the poem is indicated by the narrator's earlier complaint:

And wel ye woot, a a nes kynde

Hyt were to lyven in t s wyse;

For Nature wolde nat suffyse

To noon erthly creature

Nat longe tyme to endure

Withouten slep, and be in sorwe.

(l6-20. Italics mine.)

"Agaynes kynde" is a phrase which echoes throughout Chaucer's
works. Virtually every use of the phrases "agaynes kynde" or "lawe
of kynde" occurs at a point where a character is behaving against
nature--that is, against the highest reality, against the nature he
is capable of. In almost every usage, Chaucer seems to be pre-
senting an opposition, a warning that such "unnatural" behavior
carries a penalty. For example, Troilus had been ridiculing
lovers, feeling superior to such foolish men, when Cupid's arrow
struck him. Chaucer's narrator states the moral, "That Love is
he that alle thing may binde, /For may no man fordon the lawe of
kynde" (I§_I, 238-39). This is in a sense very like the proverbial
"pride goeth before a fall," so familiar that it has become cliche.
Thus it is "agaynes kynde" for man to place himself above his fel-
lows, that is, above humanity. "Agaynes kynde" and similar phrases
are in almost every instance placed at the end of a line, the

II

strongest and most emphatic position. Considering Chaucer's

1]Exceptions are Chaucer's prose works and Fragment B Of the
Romaunt which, according to Robinson (Works) is not Chaucer's.
Also in House 9f_Fame, Book.II, in the eagIe's discussion of sound,
"kynde," used more heavily than anywhere else in Chaucer, occurs in
all positions.

 

II

prosody, this is a very powerful position and significant in terms
of assessing its importance. The philosophical importance of
"kynde" is clearly explicated in "God that auctour is of kynde"
(I§_III, T765) and demonstrated at greater length in the Parliament
of Egyls, Excess is indeed "agaynes kynde," both theologically and
philosophically. And the narrator has hinself fallen into the trap
of excessive, i.e., unnatural, grief, a trap which marks the poem.

He has chosen appearance--exaggerated surrender to the mythic code
of behavior which governs "courtly" lovers--over reality. He is
literally "a mased thyng," melancholy and without "quyknesse"--life
or intelligence. But the narrator, true to the character Chaucer
has chosen, complains of the unnatural quality of his sleeplessness
without recognizing that his extraordinary symptoms, his own exces-
sive lovesickness, are in reality "agaynes kynde." This, too, is
very human, understandable if not acceptable: we are quick to recog-
nize our own weakness in another without recognizing it in ourselves.
SO the narrator will be capable of the most sensible advice to the
knight in the dream without recognizing its applicability to himself.
But we as reader can.

Having described his symptoms, the narrator gets to the mat-
ter of the poem. He has, he tells us, asked for a book to pass the
sleepless hours, a book of old romances intended "for to be in minde /
While men loved the lawe of kinde" (55-56), and again "kinde"--the
law of nature--is emphasized. We are told of Ceyx and Alcyone, a
story of love and loss. Chaucer's source for the tale of Ceyx's

death and Alcyone's grief is of course Ovid's Metamorpheses, but

12

he uses that source to create a very different effect. In Ovid,
12

Ceyx sails away to consult the oracles of the Clarion god. His
ship is sunk and Ceyx drowned. Ovid was at least as interested in
Ceyx as in Alcyone: he described Ceyx's drowning and his thoughts
of Alcyone in ninety-eight lines of careful verse. Chaucer, how-
ever, with a very different emphasis, spends only nine lines on
Ceyx from his departure to his death. Fearful but uncertain, Ovid's
Alcyone waited and prayed to Juno to remove her uncertainty and
disclose the fate of Ceyx. Juno sent her messenger Iris to Sleep's
cave with instructions that the god answer Alcyone's prayer. Her
message delivered, Iris "effugit et remeat per quos modo venerat
arcus" (XI, 632).13 Sleep wakes Morpheus, of his thousand sons the

one particularly talented at impersonation, to go to Alcyone in the
guise of Ceyx to tell her of his death. Overwhelmed by grief,

A1cyone drowns herself.

To this point, Chaucer follows Ovid's general outline. But

where Ovid tells us that the unwavering love of Alcyone caught the

pi ty of the gods,

h 12Metamorphoses, ed. Frank Justus Miller, 2nd ed. (1921;
th. Canbridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1960), Book XI. All
i tations from Metamorphoses are to this edition.

 

WI". , 13"fled away and retraced her course along the arch over
1 ch she had lately passed."

I3

et, tandem superis miserantibus, ambo
alite mutantur; fatis Obnoxius isdem
tunc quoque mansit, amor nec coniugiale solutum

foedus in alitibus: 14
(XI, 741-44.)

Chaucer has no use for such a reward. His purpose is a very differ-

ent one. In the ngk_9f_the Duchess, Alcyone "deyede within the
thridde morwe" after Ceyx appeared to her. As for the rest of the
story, Chaucer tells us, "Hyt were to longe for to dwelle."

Within the story itself, there are alterations and emphases
and exaggerations which turn Chaucer's tale of Ceyx and Alcyone into
Iiis own artistic product, different in tone and attitude from his
Alcyone is presented as a very real character whose speech

SOUY‘CE.

reflects her grief and personality. And the narrator empathizes:

11¢! felt such pity reading about her grief that he "ferde the worse
6‘! the morwe / Aftir, to thenken on hir sorwe" (99-100). By such
passages, Chaucer makes us feel the immediacy of her pain. Moreover,
'iI'1 the narrator's version of Ovid, "Ful Ofte she swouned, and sayed
' A1as!‘ / For some ful nygh wood she was" (103-04). Ovid's Alcyone
was more restrained. She does not speak directly from the time of
Ceyx's departure until Morpheus appears to her as Ceyx's shade. We
a he told that she busied herself weaving clothes in anticipation of
(::‘55£>'x's return and prayed to all the gods, especially Juno, to keep
h ‘i In safe and bring him home. Ovid devotes only eleven lines to this
period: Chaucer not only extends that to fifty-four lines, he
14"And at last, through the pity of the gods, both changed

EC}: birds. Though thus they suffered the same fate, still even thus
eir love remained, nor were their conjugal bonds loosened because

01> their feathered shape." .

I4

omits her activities and focuses exclusively on her elaborate
grief.

In Ovid's version, Juno "non ultra pro functo morte rogari"
(X1, 583),15 and sent Iris to Sleep's cave. Chaucer's Alcyone asked
Juno directly for a dream: there is no such request in Ovid. In

Metamorphoses, Iris--a shimmering rainbow of a spirit-~darts to

 

Sleep's cavern to deliver her message. There is little delay, no
description of the terrain or the specific location. Not only has
Juno's messenger in Chaucer's tale become a man, but the journey
itself is changed as well as the climate of the cave and the path by
which it is reached. Ovid spends sixteen lines to describe Sleep's
cave, and locates it in two lines: "Est prope Cimmerios longo
Spelunca recessu, / mons cavus, ignavi domus et penetralia somni"
(XI, 592-93).16 In the corresponding passage of the Book gj_thg_
Duchess, the landscape is described more fully. The "derke valeye"
lies between "roches tweye":

That never yet grew corn ne gras,

Ne tre, ne [nothing] that ought was,

Beste, ne man, ne noght elles,

Save ther were a fewe welles

Cam rennynge fro the clyves adoun,

That made a dedly slepynge soun,

And ronnen doun ryght by a cave

That was under a rokke ygrave

Amydde the valey, wonder depe.
(155-65.)

I5"

. . 16"Near the land Of the Cimmerians there is a deep recess
Wlthln a hollow mountain, the home and chamber of sluggish Sleep."

could no longer endure these entreaties for the dead."

IS

There is in this passage a sense not only of distance from man but
of a barrenness, a sense that Morpheus's cave was away from the
track of man not so much because the god chose solitude but because
the terrain was literally unsuited to human or natural life. It
echoes more of Virgil's entrance to the underworld in its eeriness
than of Ovid's straightforward rather splendid chambered cavern.‘7
Morpheus, in Ovid one of Sleep's thousand sons, is here the god of
sleep himself.

Chaucer's altered description continues. Both caves are
dark, although Iris's rainbow had provided some light. Sleep's cave
is not touched by sun or life or time. It is striking for its
deliberate silence. But the lack of light and sound, in Ovid's poem
within the cave itself, is a logical lack for the abode of a god
dedicated to sleep. There is no implication that the sterility
extends to the land itself, as there is in the ngk_9f_the Duchess.
The interior decoration is different, too. In Metamorphoses:

saxo tamen exit ab imo
rivus aquae Lethes, per quem cum murmure labens
invitat somnes crepitantibus unda lapillis.
ante fores antri fecunda papavera florent
innumeraeque herbae, quarum de lacte soporem
nox legit, et spargit per Opacus umida terras.
ianua, ne verso stridores cardine reddati
nulla domo toto, custas in limine nuléus.

(XI, 602-09.)

17Aeneid v1, 236 ff., ed. with Eng. trs. H. Rushton Fair-
clough (New—YOFE} B. P. Putnam's [Loeb Classical Library]. 1930).
All citations of the Aeneid are to this edition unless otherwise
indicated.

18"But from the bottom of the cave there flows the stream
of Lethe, whose waves, gently murmuring over the gravelly bed,
invite to slumber. Before the cavern's entrance abundant poppies

16

And in the central part was Sleep's bed. In the room filled with
empty dreams, "quo cubat ipse deus membris languore solutis"

(XI, 612).19 There is a peace and stillness about Ovid's descrip-
tion which does not exist in Chaucer's poem. In his cave:

There these goddes lay and sleep,

Morpheus and Eclympasteyr,

That was the god of slepes heyr,

That slep and dide noon other werk.
(166-69.)

And the narrator says with a certain inelegant envy, "They had good
leysur for to route!" (171).

Not only do the inhabitants of Morpheus's cave snore, they
sleep most energetically:

Some henge her chyn upon hir brest,

And slept upryght, hir hed yhed,

And somme lay naked in hir bed

And slepe whiles the dayes laste.
(174-77.)

Chaucer's Morpheus and Eclympasteyr, the single survivor of Ovid's

20

"thousand sons," are not the serene gods of Metamorphoses. They

 

are at best lazy and very much like men: at least, the narrator
implies, like those fortunate men who are not doomed to near-endless

insomnia. But Chaucer's messenger is hardly Olympian either. In

g

bloom, and countless herbs, from whose juices dewy night distils
sleep and spreads its influence over the darkened lands. There is
no door in all the house, lest some turning hinge should creak; no
guardian on the threshold."

19"There lies the god himself, his limbs relaxed in languor-
ous repose." .

20In Froissart's Paradys d'Amours, Enclimpostair is one of
the sons of the "noble dieu dormant" (28): Works, p. 774.

 

l7

Metamorphoses when Sleep, "vix oculos tollens" (X1, 619),21 asked

 

her why she came, Iris addressed him as:
Somne, quies rerum, placidissime, Somne, deorum
pax anima, quem cura fugit, qui corpora duris
fessa ministeriis mulces reparasque Agbori.
(XI, 623-25.)
Machaut retains the same politely formal language.23 In the Book of_

the Duchess, we find an almost frenetic pace and a vastly altered

 

tone. Chaucer's messenger bursts in:

fleynge faste
And cried, "0h, ho! Awake anoon!"
Hit was for noght; there herde hym non.
"Awake!" quod he, “whoo ys lyth there?"
And blew his horn ryght in here eere,
And cried, "Awaketh!" wonder hYe.
(178-83.)

This is activa vita indeed; not gentle and certainly not respectful

 

but realistic, down to earth, and unquenchably dedicated to his
mission. Muscatine complains that Chaucer's very altered scene
"transports us instantly from the mythical cave to an army camp."24

Further, he maintains, "The narrator's prosaicism of outlook is most

at odds with the dominant tone of the poem in the Ceyx episode."25

2]"his eyelids heavy with the weight of sleep."

22"0 Sleep, thou rest of all things, Sleep, mildest of the
gods, balm of the soul, who puttest care to flight, soothest our
bodies worn with hard ministries, and preparest them for toil
again."

23Fonteinne Amoreuse in Oeuvres g§_Guillaume de Machaut,
ed. Ernest Hoepffner (Paris: Firmin-Didot ISATFI, 1908).

24

 

Chaucer and the French Tradition, p. 105.

 

251hid., p. 104.

18

It seems to me illogical to fault Chaucer for a technique in
an early poenlwhich is praised in a later one. We laugh--as we
should--at Pandarus, the arbiter of the rules of courtly love,
counseling Troilus:

For if a peyntour wolde peynte a pyk
With asses feet, and hede it as an ape,
It cordeth naught, so nere it but a jape.
(TC II, 1041-43.)
This is of course sound advice: keep the form of "thi matere," act

26 But the language in which it is framed is so anti-

naturally.
thetical to "courtly" language that the scene--and the advice--

have the effect of high comedy. And the tone is totally Chaucer's.
Scholars have generally accepted this as an example of Chaucer's
comic genius. Muscatine concludes perceptively that Chaucer "deepens
and humorizes" the shortcomings of courtly behavior in these lines.27
Further, he finds that Pandarus "has in one respect the same function

as that of the narrator of the Book othhe Duchess, who has similarly

 

suffered unrequited love 'this eight yeer,‘ but whose fate it is,
rather, to minister to the needs Of a nobler sorrow. The effect in
each case is a light, comic irony which sets off the full seriousness
of the other lover's position."28

In the Knight's Tale, Theseus, the knight's "gentil duc,"

 

says of Emelye:

26Pandarus is following sound doctrine according to Ihg_Ag§
gf_Courtly Love of Andreas Capellanus, trs. John Jay Parry (Garden
Clty. N.J.: Doubleday, 1959), p. 152 and elsewhere. See also C. S.
Lewis. Allegory gf_Love, pp. 34 ff.

27

 

Chaucer and the French Tradition, p. 137.

 

28Ibid., p. 139.

I9

She woot namoore of al this hoote fare,
By God, than woot a cokkow or an hare.
(EQI_I, 1809-10.)
And this passage, too, is generally accepted as "ungentle" though
realistic in its language and therefore comic in its effect. Yet

the Knight's Tale is no less a subject for praise, particularly in

 

modern scholarship.29 Muscatine says of this passage, "The leaven-

ing balancing element of common sense is signalized here, as jt_i§_

usually signalized ir_Chaucer, by a lapse Of the high style and the
30

 

introduction of colloquialism." Such a conclusion is of course
completely justified. Throughout Chaucer's work, realism ("common
sense“) and irony are marked by a shift to colloquial language.

The most cursory examination of the nature of the art by
which Chaucer usually makes his comments about man and God and the
society of which he is a part reveals certain consistencies. Chaucer
uses incongruity, proverbs, and inappropriate, even barnyard, lan-
guage to force reality into an otherwise highly elevated passage or
sentiment and so to force his audience's recognition of the arti-
ficiality and error which underlies the elevation. Such incongruity
and inappropriateness, however, is no less operative in the episode

of Morpheus's cave than it is in the later poems. This artistic

habit is the crimson thread that unifies Chaucer's poetic tapestry.

29See for example Paul T. Thurston, Artistic Ambivalence ig_
Chaucer's "Knight's Tale" (Gainesville: Univ. of FTOrida Press,
I968); Paull F. Baum, Chaucer: A_Critical Appreciation (Durham, N.C.:
Duke Univ. Press, 1958), p..90; H. R. PatCh, On Rereadin Chaucer

(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1948Tj'pp. 201- 2.
30

 

 

 

 

Chaucer and the French Tradition, p.185. Italics mine.

 

20

There is of course more than a hint of the military in the
messenger's tone and bearing. Considering the changed nature of
Chaucer's god of sleep, the determination of the messenger does not
seem untoward. This passage is irresistibly comic; no modern reader
could resist its charm, nor should he. Certainly nothing in the
French tradition of love-visions remotely anticipates its realism.

Morpheus is cast in the same very human mold as Juno's
dedicated messenger. After the horn and the final "Awaketh":

This god of slep with hys oon ye

Cast up, axed, “who clepeth ther?"

"Hyt am I," quod this messenger:

(184-86.)

and delivered his message and "wente hys wey." Morpheus, awake and
obedient, bears Ceyx's drowned shape to Alcyone and “stood ryght at
hyr beddes fet." There is no hint of Morpheus's talent as an actor
in Chaucer's version. Juno had simply "bid hym crepe into the body"
(144) and speak in its voice. To the narrator, the grief of Alcyone,
"this noble wif," was a laudable and elevated emotion. But when
Ceyx appears to her, he counsels:

Awake! let be your sorweful lyf!

For in your sorwe there lyth no red.
For, certes, swete, I nam but ded.

I praye God, your sorwe lysse.
To lytel while oure blysse lasteth.
(201-211.)
However, Alcyone, unheeding, "deyede within the thridde morwe."
The narrator, as unable to accept Ceyx's reasonable advice
as was Alcyone, and blind to its application in its own case, dis-

nfisses the tale and explains that he only told it so we could

2T

understand his prayer to Morpheus and its immediate answer. But the
conflict has been set up, the premise made clear. Alcyone, repre-
senting excess-~here of grief--has died. Had she accepted the

counsel of Ceyx, representing reason and moderation, she might pre-
sumably have lived. The matter of the dream itself has been presaged,
the two contraries have been identified.

The language of the narrator's prayer of convention is as
realistic and practical and, indeed, as single-minded as that of
Juno's messenger. He prays that "Morpheus, / Or hys goddesse, dame
Juno, / 0r som wight elles" would send him rest. In return, he vows,
"0 down of pure dowves white / I will yiv him a fetherbed" (250-51).
The detailed description of this proposed gift and the promise that
Morpheus will sleep comfortably on it must surely pass beyond any
convention into the world of reality. So the premise of the prayer
to Morpheus is convention but the practice--the form and language
within the context of the poem--is original and true to the character
of the persona Chaucer has created. Out of the events of the story
of Ceyx and Alcyone, the narrator focused on a possible solution to
his immediate problem. And, he tell us, he fell instantly asleep.

The use of a book as an introductory device appears to have
been invented by Chaucer.31 Certainly the effect is to shape the

matter of the poem into a graceful whole. The leitmotif of the

3'See M. w. Stearns, "Chaucer Mentions a Book," MLN 57 (1942),
28-30. For an opposing view, see W. O. Sypherd, "ChauceFTs Eight
Year Sickness," MLN_(20) (1905), 240-43. I could find no examples
of such a device in the French romances which predated Chaucer's
dream-visions.

22

dream itself is not only anticipated by the narrator's description
of his own lovesickness but is strengthened by the nature of the
book and the tale of Ceyx and Alcyone. That this tale carries such
thematic importance renders H. S. Bennett's judgment that "the poem

32 dubious at

of Ceyx and Alcyone is developed at too great length"
best. Before the dream begins, Chaucer has prepared us for the
problem which will be its subject. This device is brought to final

fruition in the Parliament gf_Fowls where Chaucer presents it on a

 

larger scale as "bokes": not only has the "boke" of the Book 9: Egg
Duchess been pluralized, it has become part of a lazzi, a common-

place. Before the Parliament is eight lines old, Chaucer tells us,

 

”For al be that I knowe nat Love in dede," and we know what is to
come. He knows no more than he finds "on bokes." And we expect him
to happen on a particular book. So the device has become more than
that: it anticipates the matter of the poem to follow and it intro-
duces Chaucer's persona whom we've come to know. Moreover, by its
familiarity, it allows Chaucer to compress his overture, as it were.

In the Book gf_the Duchess, he spends forty-seven lines before he

 

mentions his book; in the Parliament gf_Fowls only ten; in Troilus

 

and Criseyde, a much longer poem, fifty-four lines; in the Legend of_

 

Good Women seventeen; and in Anelida and Arcite ten. In the House

 

9:_Fame, Chaucer does not refer to a particular book but opens his
poem*with a welter of learned theory which substitutes for specific

authority and serves the same purpose. With the device of a book

32Chaucer and the Fifteenth Century, p. 36.

23

in the hands of the learned but inexperienced narrator, Chaucer

has evolved an ideal vehicle through which to comment ironically
about the inadequacy of authority over experience. Man's reliance
on authority instead of experience is, as I have said above, an
example of the choice of appearance over reality which I believe is,
in a very real sense, the theme which unites Chaucer's works.

The proclivity for long listings of impressive and varied
authorities which Chaucer, in the persona of narrator, demonstrates
to such great effect in his later poems has its origins here. The
use of catalogues and authorities is a common literary convention,
of course, but Chaucer adds a new dimension. His lists are invari-
ably inaccurate or incongruous, either in motivation (that is, a
long list of erudite authority to document a minor or irrelevant
point) or in content (that is, the authorities, if they are not,
like Lollius, themselves fictional, are forced into a form which
fits the statement in question).

The narrator swears that the interpretation of his dream is
beyond even the power of Joseph or Macrobius. But so enamored is he
of impressive authority that he extends this simple statement into
ten lines by elaborate identification of the two dream-analysts.
When he wakeS'hlhis dream, he finds that not only was the story of
Troy, with its heroes and kings and lovers--Paris and Helen and,
evocatively, Medea and Jason--engraved on the stained glass windows,
but "both text and glose / Of al the Romaunce of the Rose" (333-34).
These subjects, familiar to medieval audiences, announced what was

to come. The narrator was to tell a love story in the style of the

24

French poets. As the battle lines were set down for the débat
between reason and excess earlier, so its location is here estab-

lished.

While the Book 9f_the Duchess is oten called an allegory,33

 

the precise nature of this allegory remains undefined. Chaucer pre-
sents his allegory within a firmer and more realistic framework--
the grief of the man in black over the death of his love. Some of
the allegorical conventions are missing, notably the personification
of such abstractions as Reason and Nature and the God of Love.
Instead of Reason, Chaucer gives us King Ceyx and the dreamer.
Opposing them as surely as the God of Love opposed Reason and Nature
in the Roman gg_la_Rose are the narrator Of the prologue and Queen
Alcyone.
In the Romaunt gf_thg_Rose, the God of Love so entangled

the lover in the meshes of love that he thought of nothing else and
went to desperate lengths to obtain his desire, the consumnation
of his passion. Reason warns the lover of the cruelty of Love and
his helpers:

Thou delest with angry folk, ywis;

Wherfore to thee bettir is

From these folk awey to fare,

For they wole make thee lyve in care,

This is the yvell that love they call

Wherynne there is but foly al;

For love is foly everydell.
(Romaunt, 3265-71.)

33Works, p. 267. See also Bernard F. Huppe and D. W. Robert-
son, Jr., Fruyt and Chaf (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ. Press,
1963), p. 3. C. S. Lewis (Allegory gf_Love, p. 167) disagrees,
believing on the contrary that, in Book 9f_the Duchess, "allegory
has disappeared."

 

 

25

But the lover continues in his folly and his service to love. The
natural results Of such a total connfitnent.to love--or to any emo-
tion--may be seen throughout the prologue to the ngk_9f_thg_
Duchess.

The bird-song that wakened the dreamer, the marvelous win-
dows, the bright clear air, the May morning are all traditional
properties of the love-vision. And Chaucer's description is lush
and graphic. But even here an ingenuous reference to the tangible
and real appears: the music was so sweet, the dreamer says, that
"for the toun of Tewnes, / I nolde but I had herd hem synge"
(3lo-ll).34 While this is a small incident, when it is combined
with others, the cumulative effect is to subtly interject the real
world into the idealized garden of the Roman, The narrator's dream
is rampant with activity. To the pervasive song and densely popu-
lated windows, Chaucer introduces a hunting party, "Men, hors,
houndes, and other thyng." There is in this scene a kind of
reminder of the tension between authority and experience we have
noted before. The narrator wakening to the bright windows engraved
with the story of Troy and the figmar_gg_la_39§g;-his bookish world--
is called out Of it into the world of experience by the horns and
hubbub of the hunting party. And the dreamer took his horse and
joined the hunt. By this act he has allied himself not only with

34Robinson (p. 774) believes that "Tewnes" was chosen for
rhyme but this does not negate its reality. Huppe and Robertson
(p. 46) propose that the meaning of this line is "tune of tunes,
i.e., song of songs, or Town of Towns, i.e., the New Jerusalem," a
reading which I think is a bit strained.

26

experience but with reality as well, an alliance which becomes
incontrovertible during his conversation with the man in black.

The hunting party is not, as Charles Muscatine believes,
simply a device by which the narrator reaches the wood-garden.35
With its "gret route / Of huntes and eke of foresteres," its
"relayes and lymeres," it adds to the life with which this dream is
permeated. The sense of reality which is never far away is inten-
sified by the wealth of accurate details with which Chaucer surrounds
this episode and the dream. Structurally, the hunt signals the
beginning of the debat_and, later, its resolution. But its primary
function is to provide an insistent reminder of life. The first 154
lines of the dream are essentially busywork, extraneous to the plot
itself. But these lines are not merely the ornamentation of the
conventional garden of love. The outlines of the garden are here
but neither flesh nor spirit is shaped in the image of Machaut or
Guillaume.

Once in the wood, as sounds of the hunt fade in the distance,
the dreamer is approached by a whelp that fawned as if "hyt had me
yknowe" and led him to a flowery green and a grove with the huge
orderly trees of the Roman, Beneath the trees romp so many animals
that Argus, the "noble countour" of the Roman, could not have num-
bered them. The country of this dream is little traveled:

Doun by a floury grene wente
Ful thikke Of gras, ful softe and swete,
With floures fele, faire under fete,

And litel used, hyt semed thus.
(398-401.)

35Chaucer and the French Tradition, p. 103.

27

And "at the Taste / I was war of a man in blak," and the prelimi-
naries are almost over: the 9§92£.IS about to begin.

Before the dream, the narrator was suffering and full of
care; he had lost "a1 lustyhede." When after such a wretched and
long-lasting insomnia he falls asleep, he wakes in the dream appar-
ently healed of his earlier malaise and, relieved of grief, takes
full pleasure in his surroundings. The relationship between
narrator-dreamer and the knight--in particular, the dreamer's
specific role--has been much discussed in recent years.36 Cer-
tainly we are aware of an alteration in the dreamer. In the dream
his earlier sorrow and woe do not exist. While these emotions are
not part of the dream-vision, as symptoms which do exist in the
reality of the waking world, they affect our reading of the poem.
But the dreamer is not changed intrinsically from the narrator;
rather he is that narrator whole. In this mood of health, the
dreamer comes upon the knight.

When he first sees the knight leaning against a huge oak,
the dreamer notes the contrast between the verdant teeming garden
and the lonely black figure. "'Lord,‘ thoght I, 'who may that be? /
What ayleth hym to sitten her?'" and moved in for a closer look.
Clemen and Kittredge have remarked on the subtlety with which the

36See for example J. R. Kreuzer, "The Dreamer in the Book of
the Duchess," PMLA 66 (1951), 543- 47; B. H. Bronson, "The Book of the
Duchess—Reopened, " Wagenknecht, pp. 271-94; 0. C. BakeF:_“ThE—Dreamer
hazin‘in the Book of the Duchess," PMLA 70 (1955), 279 82; Dorothy
Bethurum, "Chaucer' 5 Point of View as Narrator in the Love Poems,"
Schoeck and Taylor, II, 211 -31; and John Lawlor, "The Pattern of

Consolation in the Book of the Duchess," Schoeck and Taylor, 11,
232- 60.

 

 

 

28

dreamer approached this "wel farynge knight" and, with others, have

37

noted the difference in rank between dreamer and knight. Most of

these latter comments have their source, I suspect, more in the
identification of the man in black with John Of Gaunt than with
the explicit internal evidence of the poem. Respective_ranks of the
characters have, I think, little relevance to meaning here. We know
the knight was of good size, young, lightly bearded, and completely
immersed in his own grief. Chaucer makes the knight's oblivion to
his surroundings emphatically clear: the dreamer
stalked even unto hys bak,
And there I stood as still as ought,
That soth to saye, he saw me nought.
(458-60.)
As the dreamer stood unnoticed, the knight "heng hys hed adoun, /
And with a dedly sorweful soun," lamented to himself "of ryme ten
vers or twelve," still unaware of the dreamer's presence.
This complaint was, the dreamer tells us:
The moste pitee, the most rowthe
That ever I herde; for by my trowthe,
Hit was gret wonder that Nature
Might suffre any creature
To have such sorwe and be not ded.
(465-69.)

In the beginning Of the poem, the narrator had said of himself:

37Wolfgang Clemen, Chaucer's Early Poetry, trans. C. A. M.

Sym (London: Methuen, 1963), p. 43 ff.; George Lyman Kittredge,
Chaucer and His Poetry (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press,

5 , p. 39. See aTso S. T. Manning, "That Dreamer Once More,"
PMLA 71 (1956), 540-51; and Lawlor, p. 240. Lowes (p. 100), while
admitting Chaucer's subtlety of perception, denies that quality in
the dreamer .

 

 

29

Agaynes kynde
Hit were to lyven in thys wyse,
For Nature wold nat suffyse
To noon erthly creature
Nat longe tyme to endure.
(16-20.)

In no study I could find were there any statements of Boethian

influence in the Book 9f_the Duchess. In fact, at least two exami-
38

 

nations specifically denied such influence in so early a poem.

Yet, as C. S. Lewis points out in The Discarded Image, Boethius was

 

a major figure widely known in the middle ages.39 I would not claim

that Chaucer used the Consolation 9f_Philosophy directly in this poem

 

 

but only that some of the concepts expressed in it are, implicitly
or explicitly, Boethian in nature. Chaucer's familiarity with

Alanus's Dg_Planctu Naturae and the Roman de_la_Rose is accepted

 

virtually unanimously.4O Alanus's and, especially, Jean de Meun's
debt to Boethius is almost axiomatic. Certainly, Ceyx's "To lytel
while oure blysse lasteth" is as Boethian in implication as Troilus's
final laugh (TC, V, 1821-25). And the quality of Nature in the

Book gf_the Duchess in these passages and throughout the poem is

 

very like that in the Parliament of Fowls. The position of Nature

 

as source or bringer of order is evident in the Parliament, but I

 

think it exists here as well.

388. L. Jefferson, Chaucer and the Consolation gj_PhilOSOphy
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ. Press, 1917), p.T55; Works,
p. 773 and, by implication, p. 280.

39

 

London: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1964, pp. 77 ff.

40See for example Bethurum, pp. 212-14; and Muscatine, pp.
30 ff. (Guillaume) and pp. 82 ff., esp. 95-96 (Jean).

30

As the narrator was blind to the application of the story of
Ceyx and Alcyone in the prologue, so is the dreamer unaware of the
parallel to his earlier words in this passage. But we are not. The
dramatic irony which results from these varied levels of under-
standing is striking. And it becomes stronger as the poem progresses.
There is irony in the fact that the dreamer makes his comment with
no apparent awareness of repetition. But we are able to compare both
instances and note the difference in the objects. The narrator has
been in the throes of sorrow caused by a love unreturned, a kind of
a stock "courtly" reaction to a stock "courtly" situation. The
man in black mourns a fulfilled love lost through death, a love
consummated and natural in source. That the same refrain is used
to describe both situations, both very different kinds of love and
very different sources of sorrow alerts us, I suspect, to the courtly
and romantic terms with which the knight will cloak his despair
and, in essence, its cause.

The dreamer has heard the complaint of the knight: he
knows the reason for his sorrow. Chaucer makes this unequivocally
clear (459-86). Moreover, as he quotes the knight's lay, the
dreamer says:

And was thys, for ful wel I kan
Reherse hyt; ryght thus hyt began.
(473-74.)

The dreamer continues by describing the physical state of the
mourner and points out that his grief lay "so colde upon hys herte"
that he was oblivious to the dreamer "for he had wel nygh lost hys

mynde" (511). To call the dreamer "obtuse" (archly conceding that

31

"41) is to

his intellect was "dulled perhaps by long lack of sleep
ignore the previous twenty-eight lines in which Chaucer painstakingly
emphasized the dreamer's prior knowledge of the cause of the knight's
sorrow. Moreover, the dreamer says his purpose is to "loke wher I
myght ought / Have more knowynge of hys thought" (536-37). And so
he sets about achieving this purpose. It is unlikely--in the four-
teenth century no less than today--that one would begin a conversa-
tion with a stranger by admitting to deliberate eavesdropping,
eSpecially when that eavesdropping revealed a very private and deep
personal grief. Only seven lines into the conversation, the dreamer
acknowledges the knight's grief and offers:

But certes, sire, yif that yee

Wolde ought discure me youre woo,

I wolde, as wys God help me $00,
Amende hyt, yif I kan or may.

Paraunter hyt may ese youre herte,
That semeth ful sek under your syde.
(548-57.)

In today's psychologically oriented society, it should be unnecessary
to point out that the dreamer is following a fundamental and sound
course of action here. Talking out a problem (here, an overwhelming
grief) is accepted as a method by which to "ese youre herte" by
psychologists from Freud to Joyce Brothers.42

The knight began his lament, we were told:

41

42For a particularly interesting discussion of Chaucer as
natural psychologist, especially in the dream-visions, see Constance
B. Hieatt, The Realism gf_Dream Visions (Paris: Mouton, 1967).

H. S. Bennett, p. 36.

 

 

32

I see my lady bryght,
Which I have loved with al my myght,
Is fro me ded and ys agoon.
Allas, deth, what ayleth the,
That thou noldest have taken me
Whan thou toke my lady swete.
(477-83.)
This passage is particularly significant in that "deth" and "ded"
are mentioned within two lines. Wolfgang Clemen has commented on
the surprisingly few times "death" and other similar words common to

43 With such explicit statement

elegiac verse occur in this poem.
Of the nature of the knight's grief, there is, I think no grounds
for the scholarly stance that the dreamer did not realize the lady
was dead until the last lines of the dream.

The artistic ambiguity which marks the ngk_ f the Duchess
can be seen in the dreamer's comparison of the knight's grief to
Pan's, "that men clepe god of kynde." F. N. Robinson cites an
unpublished note in which Kittredge suggests that Chaucer's usage
came ultimately from Servius, who calls Pan "totius Naturae deus."44
Certainly Pan as "God of all Nature“ would be consistent with and
almost literally "god of kynde." And there is the continuing sug-
gestion that excessive sorrow is unnatural.

But the knight's grief is so great that no one can ease it:

43Chaucer's Early Poetry, p. 45 ff.

 

44Comm. gn_Vergil, Ecl. ii, 31. The statements of Servius,
Kittredge shows, are repeated with variations by Isidore, Etym.,
viii, 11, 81-83 (Migne, Pat. Lat. LXXXII, 323); Vincent of Beauvais,
Spec. Doctrinale, XVII, 10 (Doual, 1624); and by several of the
mythographers. Robinson (Works, p. 775) also cites Bode, Scriptores
Rerum Mythicarum, Cellis, 1824, I, 40-41, 91, 200; and Van Staveren,
Auctores Mythographi Latini, Leyden, 19742, pp. 914 f.

 

 

 

33

Nought al the remedie of Ovyde,

Ne Orpheus, god of melodye,

Ne Dedalus with his pleyes slye;

Ne hele me may no phisicien,

Noght Ypocras ne Galyen.

(569-72.)

In his long lament, the knight shares some of the characteristics
of Juno's messenger in the prologue: he is intensely serious,
totally single-minded in his grief, and unaware Of the irony with
which his speech presents us. He means one thing by these lines
but they are true on a level he does not recognize. Considering the
source of his grief, the example which introduces this catalogue is
inappropriate indeed. His lady is dead: the cures for love which
Ovid lightly suggests and which he cannot himself accept are for a
love gone stale, or unrequited; that is, for "courtly" love. So

literally, the knight is quite correct. The cure for his grief

does not lie in Remedia Amoris. The knight's sorrow is not subject

 

to the suggestions there or in the traditional Romans.

0f the characters treated by Ovid in Metamorphoses, it would

 

be hard to find two less suitable to the knight's situation than
Orpheus and Daedalus. Orpheus's bride, Eurydice, died at her wed-
ding celebration, and this would seem apprOpriate to the knight who
had suffered a similar loss. But his love had died "many a yer"
after her yielding, not before. Ovid tells us:
quam satis ad superas postquam Rhodopeius auras
deflevit vates, ne non temptaret et umbras,

ad Styga Taenaria est ausus descenggre porta.
(X, 11-13.)

45"When the bard of Rhodope had mourned her to the full in
the upper world, that he might try the shades as well he dared to go
down to the Stygian world through the gates of Taenarus."

34

Orpheus says, describing her death and the reason for his presence
in Hell, "posse pati volui nec me temptasse negabo: / vicit Amor"
(x, 25-26).46 Ovid's implication is that Orpheus's love for
Eurydice was externally imposed, not earned by her character or
merit, of which we know nothing. This is in strong contrast to the
picture the knight paints Of his lady. In Ovid, the wonder was less
Orpheus's love for Eurydice than his skill with his lyre. Moreover,
little is said beyond the line cited above about this love. "Tunc
primum lacrimis victarum carmine fama est / Eumenidum maduisse
genas" (X, 45-46),47 and they called for Eurydice to appear. For
his skill at singing about his grief, then, Eurydice was returned,
on condition that Orpheus not look back until he had reached the
upper world. However, he did look back and she was lost. Stunned,
he sat for seven days on the banks of the Styx, ragged and without
food. His lament equaled the knight's. Up to this point the refer-
ence to Orpheus is fairly straightforward. Orpheus and the knight
lost their loves, Orpheus and the knight lamented long, almost mad
with grief. But Orpheus, we are told, betook himself to Haemus at

the end of seven days. There:

46"I have desired strength to endure, and I will not deny
that I have tried to bear it. But Love has overcome me."

47"Then first, tradition says, conquered by the song, the
cheeks of the Eumenides were wet with tears."

35

ille etiam Thracum populis fuit auctor amorem

in teneros transferre mares citraque iuventam

aetatis breve ver et primos carpere flores.
(x, 83-85.)48

Later, in Book XI, Orpheus was killed by the Ciconian women crying,
"hic est nostri contemptor" (XI, 7).49

Daedalus, in Metamorphoses an architect hired by Minos to

 

make the Labryinth, "implet / innumeras errore vias vixque ipse
reverti / ad limen potuit: tanta est fallacia tecti" (VIII,

166-68).50 To escape Crete, "ignotas animum dimittit in artes /
naturamque novat" (VIII, l88-89).5] But Daedalus did not escape

unscathed. Icarus his son died in the wings his father had made

52

and Daedalus "devovitque suas artes" (VIII, 234). So neither

Orpheus nor Daedalus found or gave comfort through their songs or

"pleyes slye." According to Clemen, "What most medieval writers

53

seek in Ovid is a tale of wonder." And the wonder is there. But

Chaucer, I think, utilizes Ovid for the sake of the human interest
in his material and stresses the realism in his presentation. We

have seen the changed effect Chaucer has created in the earlier story

48"He set the example for the peoples of Thrace of giving
his love to tender boys, and enjoying the springtime and first
flower of theiryouth.‘I

49 .
"Here 1S the man who scorns us."

50"made those innumerable winding passages, and was himself
scarce able to find his way back to the place of entry, so deceptive
was the enclosure he had built."

5]"he sets his mind at work upon unknown arts, and changes
the laws of nature." -

52"cursed his skill."

53Chaucer's Early Poetry, p. 35.

 

36

of Ceyx and Alcyone. There, as in this passage, that effect results
from judicious selection. Chaucer in the first instance focused on
Alcyone, developed her personality and hence the depth and exclusivity
of her grief. Orpheus and Daedalus both paid for their attempts to
deny nature and her laws. It is in light of the outcome of the adven-
tures of Orpheus and Daedalus that the knight's reference to them is
ironic.

With White dead, there is indeed, in the "courtly" sense of
the term, "no phisicien" who can heal him, just as in the prologue
there was "phisicien but oon"--his lady--who could heal the narrator.
But there is also the literal sense of the word. Hypocras and Galen,
the physicians from the BEEQD.9§.12.BQ§§3 skilled as they were,
could not reverse the nature Of mortal men: Jean's Nature says,

54 There is here and throughout

they "Li ront laissiee 1a coenne."
the lament a kind of opposition. Grieving beyond reason, railing at
the death which spared him, longing to rejoin his lost White, the
knight's excess of sorrow is essentially a rejection of humanity, of
his human state, as well as an attempt to force his will on Nature.
And such an imposition is as impossible as Orpheus's or Daedalus's
attempt to change Nature's laws. The knight's longing for death
which echoes Alcyone's act is according to medieval and modern
Catholic doctrine a sin against God. The knight in these lines is
seeking external causes to blame for his loss when he should be seek-
ing internal strengths by which to bear it.

54"all had to leave their skins": Roman de la Rose, ed.
Ernest Langlois (Paris: Firmin-Didot [SATF]:—T922)I——UnTess other-

wise indicated, translations are from Romance of thg_Rose, trans.
Harry W. Robbins (New York: E. E. Dutton, 1962):

37

In the early part of the dream, the characterization of the
dreamer reminds us of the Lover in the Romaunt of the_Rose. There
he addresses the portress with the highest courtesy and formality.
The Lover says:

I thanked hir as I best myghte
And axed hir how that she highte,
And what she was, I axide eke.
(Romaunt, 487-89.)
The same regard for the social graces masking a very real curiosity

is apparent in the Book 9f_the Duchess. The dreamer tells us:

 

He was war Of me, how y stood

Before hym, and did of myn hood,

And had ygret hym as I best koude,

Debonayrly, and nothing lowde.

(515-18.)

But Chaucer's further development of this motif takes a quasi-
dramatic form. The narrative of the bereaved lover is periodically
interrupted by short colloquial interchanges designed to motivate
its continuance (lines 742-58 and 1135-44, for example). Set in a
dream, beside the generally conventional utterances of the man in
black, their realism is startling and effective.

In many ways, Pearl and the Book 9f_the Duchess are much

 

alike: both are elegies cast in the dream form, following many of
the conventions of the Roman_g§_la_39§§, both dreams are psycho-
logically motivated. Chaucer makes use Of many of the same dream
qualities used by the Pearl_poet, including the bemused dreamer and
the dream transformation of a character into a sonewhat different
form. But the effect is very different. The two poems show the

imprint of two quite individual poets.

38

The Book gf_the Duchess is much more Closely related than

 

Pgarl_to the courtly tradition and the poetry of courtly love. As
many have commented, it incorporates lines, phrases, and situations
from at least half a dozen earlier dream visions.55 It shows, how-
ever, a significant difference from the treatment of similar
material by Chaucer's predecessors: like Pearl, it is not nearly so
allegorical. Abstractions are almost completely absent as charac-
ters. The central action of the poem concerns human beings and a
realistic predicament of human beings. Because of this minimizing
of the allegorical element, C. S. Lewis feels the dream loses any
specifically dreamlike quality.56 But dreams very often do contain
material that is just what we might encounter in waking life, or so
it seems at the time. Other writers have maintained that the use of
individuals instead of allegorical figures makes the dream more, not
less like a real dream.57 ‘Then too, the people in the dream are
not just as they would be in waking life. Indisputably, the dream
is more realistic than those in earlier poems of this tradition but
the realism is dream-realism, not everyday waking realism, and the
whole structure of the poem is attuned to Chaucer's observation of
how a dream works. Chaucer's changed purpose, his movement out of
55Among scholars who have collated sources are Robinson, pp.
226 and 773; George Lyman Kittredge, pp. 55-56; Lowes, p. 101;
Neville Coghill, The Poet Chaucer (London: Oxford Univ. Press,

1949), p. 22; and Haldeen Braddy, Chaucer and the French Poet
Graunson (Baton Rouge: Univ. of Louisiana Press, 1947), pp. 57-60.

 

56511§99§x_9f_L0vea pp. 167-68.

57James R. Kreuzer, "The Dreamer in the Book gf_the Duchess,"
PMLA 66 (1951), 454, for example.

 

39

conventional allegory as well as conventional love-visions, seems at
least suggested by what he rejects in his sources. His garden is
virtually devoid of traditional personifications, despite their

prevalence in his source material, particularly the Roman gg_la_Rose

 

and the other French romans although Metamorphoses is rife with

 

possibilities for personification.

The knight promises to explain the cause of his grief after
thirty-seven lines of lament: "Allas! and I wol tel the why“ (598).
After a rather lovely series of inversions ("My song is turned to
pleynynge . . . My pees in pledynge and in werre" [599-615]) almost
scriptural in tone, we and the dreamer are prepared for the knight
to come to the point. Instead, he continues with an ambiguous
attack against Fortune:

For fals Fortune hath pleyd a game

Atte ches with me, allas the while!

The trayteresse fals and ful Of gyle.

(618-20.)

This whole passage is a tightly packed series of generally conven-
tional metaphors for Fortune. She is "an ydole of fals portray-
ture," the "monstres hed ywrien," the "scorpioun / That is a fals,
flaterynge beste," the "envyouse charite," "pley of enchauntment,"
and "the false thef": Fortune "turneth she hyr false whel / Aboute,
for hyt is nothing stable" (644-45). And again, we are aware that
the knight is speaking literal truth, again without recognizing it.
His lament, we have said, is traditional. Lovers, particularly
courtly lovers, are expected to complain of Fortune when their love

is unfulfilled or betrayed: this is a property common to the genre

Of love poetry.

40

In the Roman, the God of Love introduces the Dreamer to the
pains of love:

A une part iras toz seus:

Lors te vendrant, sospir e plaintes,

Fricons e autres dolors maintes;

En plusors sens seras destroiz,

Les dolors d'amors essaiees.

Or t'avenda maintes feiees

Qu'en pensant t'entroblieras

E une grant piece seras

Ausi come une image mue,

Qui ne se crole ne remue

Senz piez, senz mains, senz doiz croler,

Senz iauz movoir e senz parler.

A chief de prece (?) revendras

En ta memoire e tressaudras

Au revenir en esfreor,

Ausi come on qui a peor,

E sosperras de cuer parfont,

Car bien saches qu'ensi la font

Cil qui ont les maus essaiez

Don tu es or si esmaiez. 58
(33, 2274-98.)

There is in this passage a remarkable similarity to the pains
described by the bereaved knight. But in the Roman, the lover had
first seen the Rose some 650 lines before and been struck by the

God of Love's arrow 66 lines after that. The Lover of the Roman

58Then in your loneliness will come to YOU

Sighs and complaints, tremors and other ills,
Tormented will you be in many ways.

The Pains of Love you will experience

Ere you recover thence; for times will come
When you will half forget yourself, bemused,
And long time stand like graven image mute
Which never budges, stirs or even moves

Its feet, its hand, its finger, or its lips.

At last you will remember with a start,

Your memory, reviving in a fright,

Like craven coward, from your heart you'll sigh;
For you should know all lovers act that way
When they have felt the way that you will feel.

41

had not yet approached the Rose. The God of Love is here educating
him in what he must expect: he is explaining therules of the game,
as it were. The knight, on the other hand, is in a very different
situation. He had fallen in love some time before and served his
lady "many a yer." A year after he first spoke to White, she

granted him the "noble yifte of hir mercy" (1270) and the pair had
"lyved ful many a yere" happily together after that. Moreover, we
and the dreamer know that White is dead. The knight is at a very
different stage than the Lover of the Roman, During the year between
White's first "nay" and the granting of "hir mercy," the knight under-
went the suffering described by the God of Love in these lines, but
not now. The knight Of course does not recognize his error but we
do.

The knight's dialogue here presents a problenlwhich is
elusive and difficult to pin down. I suspect the source of this
problem is that he speaks in an idiom suitable and conventional to
one kind of grief when he is in fact suffering a very different one.
Once the knight has acknowledged the dreamer's presence, he has
said nothing which specifies the real cause of his grief, White's
death. The ambivalence between speech and subject which Obtains
here goes beyond the two kinds of suffering into an examination of
the Object of and reason for that suffering. We have seen earlier
that "courtly" lovers were expected to grieve and lament over a
love which is unfulfilled or betrayed. This kind of behavior is
traditional. There has been so much said on this courtly conven-

tion that it should not be necessary to review its conditions here.

42

But despite his use of courtly language, the knight is not a courtly
lover. His own words, which will be examined in more detail later
in this study, prove that, if proof be needed. Almost every study
I have found comments, in one way or another, on the "conventionally

59 And, during the first

rhetorical" speeches of the man in black.
part of his explanation,they are. The knight has been defeated by
Fortune because he had relied on her in too great love for one Of
her gifts: his orientation echoes the instability he denigrates in
Fortune. Not Fortune but he is at fault because he relied on her
completely. The black knight does not understand that he should
not lament so excessively over the loss of an earthly object, that
no man may throw away his life because he has made his earthly good
another human being.

This passage places the knight's grief in a perspective
that will be made more explicit later in the poem. The Lover of the
Rgmag_and the knight when he had first seen his lady suffer the
same pains of love for a situation that is remediable. The Lover
and the young knight can each become worthy of his lady's grace or
restore himself to her favor. But the knight's lady is dead. The
knight apparently does not recognize that the love he and White
shared was not courtly but rather natural love whose source is
divine. That this is so becomes increasingly evident as he remi-
nisces about Blanche. As he remembers her, his language grows
simpler and the nature of their love becomes unmistakeable. But in

59Muscatine, p. 107, and C. S. Lewis, Allegory 9f_Love,
p. 168, for example.

43

his lament, the knight couches his grief in the language Of courtly
love whose origin is more artificial than natural. Such ambivalence
of language serves, Of course, not only to provide the environment
for Chaucer's elegy, but also to indicate the distance the knight is
from understanding and hence from reconciliation and acceptance,
both of loss and life. As his language changes, we are aware

almost subconsciously that he is moving--no matter how slowly or
haltingly--along the path Of reason and acknowledgment of reality.
By masking his words in the appearance of courtly convention, the
knight avoids facing the reality Of White's death. Only when he

can discard the appearance can he begin to accept the fact of this
loss and return to life.

There is sufficient precedent for the knight's complaint
against Fortune in the earlier Romans. Robinson finds it remi-
niscent of at least four of Machaut's poems in addition to the
Roman g§_la_Rose.60 But Jean de Meun's Reason remonstrates against
the folly of trusting to Fortune:

E, quant 1i plaist, tout en reporte;
S'est mout fos qui s'en desconforte

E qui di riens s'en eSjoist,

Puis que defendre s'en pOist,

Car il 1e peut certainement,

Mais qu'il 1e vueille seulement.
D'autre part, ce rest chose espresse,
Vous faites Fortune deesse,

E jusques es ceaus la levez,

Ce que pas faire ne devez,
Qu'il n'est mie dreiz ne raison

Goflgmggg_gg_Fortune, Jugement du_ng_ge_Behain ne, the
eighth Motet, and the Lay_ge_Confort (Works, p. 776)T_9__'

 

44

Qu'ele ait en paradis maison;

E1 n'est pas si bien efireuse,

Ainz a maison trop perilleuse. 61
(53, 5907-20.)

Boethius also warns about man's folly in trusting Fortune which is
by nature unstable. In Boece, Philosophy explains:

Thow wenest that Fortune be chaunged ayens the;
but thow wenest wrong, yif thow that wene; alway
tho ben hir maneres . . . Thow hast now knowen and
ateynt the doutous or double visage of thilke
blynde goddesse Fortune . . . She hath forsaken
the, forsothe, the whiche that nevere man mai ben
siker that sche ne schal forsaken hem.

(89, II, 49-70.)

Fortune, as Boethius shows, has control under God only over that
which happens externally to man. To love one of Fortune's gifts too
much is to abandon reason and deny her nature. To complain of For-
tune is thus irrational.

The knight, still blind to his error in understanding, says
of his chess game with Fortune:

But God wolde I had oones or twyes

Ykoud and know the jeupardyes

That kowde the Greek Pithagoras!

I shulde have pleyd the bet at ches,

And kept the fers the bet thereby.
(665-69.)

He cannot accept the fact of White's loss, the fact of his inability

to change the nature of Fortune or himself. In this passage, the

6] But when she will

She takes back all her gifts. Great fool is he
Who finds in anything delight or grief,
For certainly he can defend himself

‘ By power of will alone. Another thing
Most certain is: Men say she is divine
And raise her to the skies, which is not right.
Nor rhyme nor reason gives her heavenly home;
Her house is perilous instead Of being blest.

45

knight exhibits a very human—-though unrealistic--reaction to loss.
Like him, we retrace our paths, clinging to the notion that if we had
done this or that, that or this would not have happened. Essen-
tially, this attitude is very close to sinful pride. The knight--
with men of all ages--finds it near-impossible to accept his
helplessness, his inability to control events; that is, he cannot
accept his humanity, with its limitations as well as its scOpe. And
until he can recognize this in himself, he will be able to accept
neither loss nor life. Here he is bound by excess. His concept of
man's position in Nature is idealized, hence artificial. His speech,
couched as it is in the elevated language of courtly love, serves to
maintain a distance from reality, the reality that we and the dreamer
recognize: White is dead. So the knight denies the fact of his
pain by speaking of it in terms of convention whose function is to
describe another kind of love. That those terms are exaggerated
and excessive in quality does not negate their use by the knight
to make White's death less immediate and hence less real. He cannot
yet say the words that will begin the healing. While he clings to
appearance--by blaming Fortune, by denying the powerlessness that
is inherent in the human condition, by avoiding the direct statement
Of his loss to another--he cannot return to reality or to life.

The knight ends his speech with "I have more sorwe than
Tantale" (709). And here, as in the catalogue examined above, we as
reader are aware of the ironic appropriateness of this reference.

In the Roman, Nature describes Tantalus:

46

Qui toujourz en l'eve sa baigne

Mais, combien que seif 1e destreigne,

Ja n'aprouchera de sa bouche

L'eve qui au menton li touche. 62
(RR, 19283-86.)

As long as the knight continues in his mistaken course, he will
indeed be like Tantalus. As long as he rejects reality by inordinate
surrender to grief, he will reach for the dead White, like the water
forever just beyond his reach. The poet of Pearl_had to learn to
accept a similar painful reality. There he tells us:

Delyt me drof in yye and ere,

My mane3 mynde to maddyng malte.

Quen I sey me frely, I wolde be ber,

Beyonde be water bagh ho wer walte.

I boght bat nobyng myght me dere

To fech me bur and tak me halte,

And to start in be strem schulde non me stere,

To swymme be remnaunt, bagh I ber swalte. 63
(Pearl, XX, 1153-60.)

It is important to note that the poet's action was, like the knight's
attitude, a conscious one: that is, he placed his will in direct
Opposition to that of God, as defined by Pearl. And he admits:

Hit payed hym not bat I so flonc

Over meruelous mere3, so mad arayde,

Of raa3 bas I were rasch & ronk.

(Pearl, XX, 1165-67.)

The knight has not yet reached this point of acceptance: he is still
trying to cross the River Of Life of Pearl which can be crossed only
in death. Moreover, he shares the Pearl poet's earlier "wrecched

62Who stood in water reaching to his chin,

But, howsoever much he suffered thirst,
Could ne'er succeed to reach it with his lips.

63Pearl, ed. Sir Israel Gollancz (London: Chatto and Windus
[EETS], 1921). All citations from Pearl are to this edition.

47

wylle" (I, 56) and his excessive grief. And like the Pgarl_poet,
he is long unable to resign himself to God's will.

Chaucer's dreamer reacts as we would expect. Undone by the
sadness of the knight's tale, he responds in character. When the
knight rejects his first brief reminder to "Have some pitee on
your nature / That formed you to creature" (715-16), the dreamer
rephrases this most reasonable advice in more emphatic terms:

Thogh ye had lost the ferses twelve

And ye for sorwe mordred yourselve,

Ye sholde be dampned in this cas

By as good ryght as Medea was,

That slough hir children for Jasoun;

And Phyllis also for Demophoun

Heng hirself, so weylaway!

For he had broke his terme-day

To come to hir. Another rage

Had Dydo, the quene eke of Cartage,

That slough hirself for Eneas

Was fals; which a fool she was!

And Ecquo died, for Narcisus

Nolde nat love hir; and ryght thus

Hath many another foly doon;

And for Dalida died Sampson,

That slough himself with a piler.

But there is no man alyve her

Wolde for a fers make this woo!
(722-41.)

There is of course intense dramatic irony in the situation of the
two men here. That the lovesick narrator of the prologue who had
not slept for eight years because Of the pain of unrequited love
should as dreamer advise the man in black against excessive grieving
presents an incongruity which cannot be overlooked. In addition,
this passage reminds us that Chaucer's narrator-dreamer reads widely
but invariably interprets wrongly. This dependable misunderstanding

produces frequent passages of broad comedy. In his attempt to rouse

48

the knight from his disproportionate and impious grief, the dreamer
catalogues lovers who have killed themselves over unhappy love
affairs. He ends his list: "And for Dalida died Sampson / That
slough himself with a piler." This is a comic picture indeed and
a prime example of Chaucer's characterization of himself as muddle-
headed and naive. But the humor in these lines should not blind
us to the sound philosophy which they express or the structural func-
tion they serve. The dreamer is explicating the medieval belief
that virtue lies in moderation and that excess is or leads to sin.
In this case, the specific sin to which the catalogue is directed is
suicide which Chaucer bluntly and quite rightly describes as murder.
His final word of counsel dismisses the artificiality and impracti-
cality--as well as sinfulness--Of such a surrender to grief: "But
ther is no nan alyve her / Wolde for a fers make this woo!" Thus
the statements and conclusions of the dreamer in this speech serve
a more profound purpose than that of mere humor. Through them,
Chaucer juxtaposes the mythic and acceptable and expected behavior
of the courtly love code with a course of action governed by
reason and the acceptance of God's will Over man's desires. So we
see again the underlying motif, the artistic environment of the poem,
as the choice between the two opposing philosophies.

It is interesting to note the omission of one who would
seem logically to belong in this catalogue; that is, Alcyone whose
story is told at such length in the prologue. But closer examination
of the characters of the catalogues reveals the reason for such an

omission: none of the lovers in the list died of sorrow for a lover

49

who was dead. Each was betrayed or rebuffed to a greater or lesser
degree by a beloved. That the most outrageous example--and the
final one--is Samson, the only male in the list, provides more than
a hint to the structural importance of this passage. We have noted
that the knight has not spoken of his lady in any but courtly terms.
And Chaucer has made it very clear that the dreamer knows the lady
is dead. By this catalogue--comic, realistic, vibrant with common
sense and sound doctrine--the dreamer provides a perfect oppor-
tunity for the knight to correct his apparent misunderstanding, to
tell him the catalogue does not apply to the knight's case since his
lady was lost through death, not betrayal. That he does not, I
think, suggests the knight's spiritual state: he is not yet ready
for consolation.

In Remedia Amoris, Ovid points out:

 

Cum dederit lacrimas, animumque expleverit aegrum,
Ille dolor verbis emoderandus erit.
Temporis ars medicinae fere est: data tempore
prosunt,

Et data, non apto tempore, vina nocent.
Quin etiam accendas vitia, irritesque vetando,
Temporibus si no adgrediare suis.

(129-34.)64

We remember the knight's earlier statement that "Nought al the

remedyes of Ovyde" could cure his sorrow. As he was literally

64"When she [bereaved mother] has shed tears and fulfilled
her mind's distress, then may words set a limit to that grief. The
art of being timely is almost a medicine: wine timely given helps
untimely, harms. Nay, you would inflame the malady, and by for-
bidding irritate it should you attack it at an unfitting time":
Remedia Amoris, ed. with Eng. trans. J. H. Mozley (New York: G. P.
Putnast[Loeb Classical Library], 1929). All citations from the
Remedia are to this edition.

 

50

correct then, so is he still. The time is not yet propitious. And
the knight rejects the opportunity to acknowledge the finality of his
loss. He answers with the sane anbiguity which has marked his speech
throughout the dream:

Thou wost ful lytel what thow menest;

I have lost more than thow wenest.

(743-44.)

And again we are aware of the dual levels Of meaning in his words.
Every one of the dreamer's later questions and remarks, seeming at
a superficial level to show his misunderstanding, reveals a deeper

65 In fact, these questions and remarks,

psychological wisdom.
springing from his "failure to understand," all draw more of the
knight's story from him than any sympathetic query could have done.
Furthermore, through this apparent failure to understand, this talk
at cross-purposes, a dramatic impetus is imparted to a conversation
already dramatically conceived. And the dreamer will not let the
matter stand: he asks the knight to tell him "in what wyse, how,
why, and wherefore / That ye have thus youre blysse lore" (747-48).
And he does, but not until the dreamer's oath that he will hearken
to the story with "al thy wyt."
Throughout the knight's long (282 lines) description of
seeing and serving his White, we are struck again with the parallels
65There is a wide divergence of view on whether what we have
here is a genuine misunderstanding or indeed merely a certain degree
of awkwardness in Chaucer's presentation. See for example Kittredge,
pp. 48 ff.; J. S. P. Tatlock, The Mind and Art Qf_Chaucer (1950;
rpt. New York: Gordian Press, 1966), p. 30; Lowes, p. 100; and
B. H. Bronson, "Ihg_Book 9f_the Duchess Reopened," p. 273 ff. On
“the discrepancy between the known sophistication of the poet and

the obtuseness of the part he has made for himself," see Muscatine,
p. 104.

 

 

 

51

between the love of the knight for his lady and that of the Lover of
the Bgmar_for the Rose. The first part of the knight's explanation
follows pretty closely the outline of the Roman, He has, the knight
says, "with good entente, / And throgh pleasaunce" been Love's
thrall since he was old enough to understand what love was. He
served him as he did his lord, and devoutly prayed to him that he

66 But for a long time,

would "besette myn herte" to worship a lady.
"many a yer" in fact, he did not fall in love. We are told in
detail to what degree he served Love and how total was his devotion'
before he saw White, one who was so superior "of beaute, / Of maner,
and Of comlynesse" that he was stricken instantly. At this point in
his story, however, the knight is still unreconciled. He calls
Fortune "the fals trayteresse pervers" which caused him to come to
the place where he first saw White. Even as he describes her beauty
and virtue, he curses the Fortune that caused his grief, forgetting
that if Fortune was responsible for sorrow, she was also responsible
for the happiness which preceded it.

The knight still has not accepted the nature Of Fortune as
unstable and continues his irrational complaint. Such complaint is,
however, still conventional. The knight, once stricken by Love,
acts very much like the Lover of the Rgmafl, There is, of course, a

661 do not think there is need to speculate on "lord" here,
as Mr. Robertson did in Fruyt and Chaf, p. 73 ff. I think the line
is a straightforward reference to his king, his fealty to his secu-
lar lord, a common enough statement even in the 14th century:
although feudalism was for all practical purposes dead, the language

lingered on for some years, especially in literature. See, for
example, Malory and Spenser.

 

52

system of rules in the formal and ritualized medieval love poetry

67 And Chaucer followed them. Yet compared

for describing a lady.
with its models and parallels, the general effect of this portrait
of White is fresh, alive, vigorous, and personal. She is almost as
human as Criseyde. She is beautiful, of course: but what counts
for most in Chaucer's portrait is the character, the person. Physi-
cal beauty appears simply as a confirmation of its owner's noble
qualities. So to his catalogue of good qualities, based as it is
on the scheme of courtly virtues, Chaucer adds a few traits not
typically of the court but belonging to the character itself--human
sympathy, friendliness, and goodness of heart. There is no equiva-
lent in Machaut for White's consideration for others which Chaucer
stresses.68 We are told:
But goode folk, over a1 other,
She loved as man may do hys brother
(891-92.)
Ther was never yet throgh hir tonge
Man ne woman gretly harmed.
(930-31.)
Therwith she loved so wel ryght
She wrong do wolde to no wyght.
(1015-16.)
By making White human and real, Chaucer emphasizes the unnatural

excess of the knight's grief for her death. So even the knight's

67See eSpecially W. C. Curry, The Middle English Ideal
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1916).

 

68The virtues are from Machaut's catalogue in the Remede,
the outline of the description from the Behaingne (Clemen, p. 54).
Some details are found in the Lay_dg_Confort, according to Kittredge,
:Gglllaume de Machaut and the Book gf_the Duchess," PMLA 30 (1915),

 

53

description Of the object Of his grief works to add a sense Of
reality to the scene.
After the most hyperbolic description of White's virtue
and her unparalleled goodness, the dreamer interjects thoughtfully:
"By oure Lord," quod I, "I trow yow wel!
Hardely, your love was wel beset;
I not how ye myghte have do bet."
(1042-44.)
At the knight's astonished, "Bet? ne no wyght so wel," the dreamer
adds figurative insult to injury:
I leve yow wel, that trewly
Yow thoghte that she was the beste,
And to behold the alderfayreste,
Whoso had loked hir with your eyen.
(1048-51.)
Faced with this highly unromantic but practical judgment, the knight
continues his description to prove that "alle that hir seyen / Seyde
and sworen hyt was $00." In a catalogue whose sources cover a wide
range of French romances, the very length and scope forces the most
reluctant reader to recognize the knight's over-elaborated and
excessive comparisons. In a riot of superlatives, the knight tells
us that if he had been the most beautiful of men, the strongest, the
richest, the worthiest, the wisest, and the hardiest, he would have
been proud to love her, the fairest and best and truest of women.
But we have met White earlier and been charmed by her reality. She
is a woman, not a figure Of mythology or marble.
There is, in this catalogue, a passage which might be dis-

missed simply as an example of digression. Listing twelve heroes of

legend and their outstanding qualities, the knight includes Hector:

54

.That Achilles slough at Troye--
And therfore was he sleyn alsoo
In a temple, for bothe twoo
Were sleyne, he and Antylegyus,
And so seyth Dares Frygius,
For love of Polixena--
(1066-71.)
This parenthesis might of course reflect the medieval love of
authority. But I think it might also reflect the knight's attitude
toward the dreamer. Earlier, we discussed the dreamer's catalogue
of unfortunate lovers and the knight's dismissal of it and the
dreamer with "Thow wost ful lytel what thow menest." I think it not
improbable that the knight saw the dreamer as Chaucer presented him
--as a bookish bag of proverbs ineptly applied--and could not
resist the opportunity to educate him, as the eagle could not resist
in House of Fame.

Irritation at the dreamer's failure to recognize White's
uniqueness assuaged by his catalogue, the knight returns to his
point:

But wherfore that I telle thee
When I first my lady say?
I was ryght yong, soth to say . . . .
(1088-90.)
And we are again plunged from the elevated to the mundane, from
courtly convention to language that is human and natural, from
hyperbolic fancy to fact. The knight behaved in the most courtly
way, he says. The sight Of White eased all his sorrow and:
Me thoghte, nothing myghte me greve,
Were my sorwes never so smerte.
(1105-06.)

This is one of the most touching passages in the poem: a simple

statement of past emotion which, in light of the present situation,

55

takes on immense pathos and irony. Chaucer's dreamer does not let
the moment pass:

"Now, by my trouthe, sir!" quod 1,

Me thynketh ye have such a chaunce

As shryfte withoute repentaunce."

(1112-14.)
8. H. Bronson, I think interprets the sense of this passage cor-
rectly: he maintains that the "Dreamer leads him [the knight] toward
self-realization by suggesting, figuratively, how much he had to
rejoice over, since he could still think of her.“69
And the knight rises to the bait:

"Repentaunce! nay, fy!" quod he,
Shulde y now repente me

To love?"
(1115-17.)
With this denial, the knight has taken the first step toward accept-
ance and reconciliation. Early in the dream, he had longed for
death (lines 481, 584, 690); he had cursed the day he was born
(lines 573, 577); and he had denied cure for his grief (lines 563
ff.). He had even cursed Fortune for placing him where he would see
White and fall in love with her:
Shal I clepe hyt hap other grace
That broght me there? Nay but Fortune,
That ys to lyen ful comune,
The false trayteresse pervers!
(810-13.)
There has been throughout his reminiscenses of White, especially
from line 817 to 1111, a growing movement toward, if not yet accept-

ance, certainly release. It is as though with the final outburst

against Fortune, a crisis was reached and survived. But the change

69"Ihg_Book 9f_the Duchess Reopened," p. 288.

 

56

in attitude was subtle and implied until the knight's vigorous and
impulsive defense Of his love.
With his passionate "I nyl foryete hir nevermore" ringing

in our ears, the dreamer reminds him that he has not yet fulfilled
his promise to relate their first words, "how she knewe first your
thoght,“ whether he loved her or not, and “what ye have lore"
(1135). The knight is not yet cured: he recoils from the pain of
the bare words and says, as he had earlier, "I have lost more than
thow wenest." But this time the dreamer presses him:

"What los ys that?" quod I thoo;

"Nyl she not love yow? ys hyt $00?

Or have ye oght doon amys,

That she hath left yow? ys hyt this?

For Goddes love, telle me a1."

(1139-43.)

And the knight continues: when he first dared approach White--long
after he had fallen in love with her--she said "nay" and he was cast
into the depths of sorrow. The fusion of courtly love tradition and
lament which has colored the dream is particularly remarkable in
this passage. Earlier, when the knight first loved White, he was
"warished" of all his "sorwe" at the sight of her. Here he tells us,
he suffered the conventional lovesickness of the Roman at her
rejection:

With sorweful herte, and woundes dede,

Soft and quakynge for pure drede

And shame, and styntynge in my tale

For ferde, and myn hewe a1 pale,

Ful Ofte I wex bothe pale and red.

(1211-15.)

There, we recall, the God of Love had described similar symptoms to

the Lover. As these symptoms were suffered by the knight early in

57

the dream, when he was lamenting White's death, so had they been
suffered by him as he nerved himself to speak to the lady. And they
are suffered equally when she rejects his first offer of love.

There is also in this passage, I think, explanation Of the
critical judgment of the dreamer as stupid or obtuse in his failure
to acknowledge that he knows the reason for the knight's grief.70
Earlier we have seen that the knight speaks in courtly terms of his
loss and the cause of his despair. Clemen has pointed out how sel-
dom the word "death" occurs in the knight's lament addressed to the
dreamer. When the dreamer first offers comfort, the knight rejects
such a possibility. And his most specific reference to death occurs
in this passage of rejection:

Y wreche, that deth had made al naked

The pure deth ys so ful my foo
That I wolde deye, hyt wolde nat so.
(577-83.)

Yet here, in a passage in which the knight states categorically
that he has not yet approached his lady, he uses "ded" twice to
describe the extent of his suffering: "And but I telle hir, I nam
but ded" (1188) and "I most have told hir or be ded" (1202). To
die of love, or at least to be in danger of dying, was not unusual

according to the literary convention of courtly love. Troilus in

Troilus and Criseyde, according to C. S. Lewis speaking for a sizable

 

group of critics, the most perfect courtly lover,7] had a conspicuous

7OSee for example Tatlock, Patch, Robert Kilburn Root, The
Poetr 9f_Chaucer (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1922):—'
Lers, and others.

7lflll§ggry_gf_Love, pp. 180, 195.

58

penchant for this activity. Criseyde was warned at least three
times of the imminence of his death if she did not yield herself to

him immediately. Palamon and Arcite in the Knight's Tale were in

 

similar danger (Enl, I, 1220 ff.). It does not seem to me unreason-
able that the dreamer could assume that the same idiom governed both
usages. He knew the truth, of course, because Chaucer tells us he
did. But the knight has not told him explicitly and the dreamer
could hardly admit such knowledge otherwise. Were it not for the
sheer bulk of academic dismay the dreamer's apparent failure to
unravel the knight's euphemism has engendered, I should not feel any
comment to be necessary.

Rejected by the lady, the knight continues his conventional
courtly practice: he waited in "seche sorwe" for a year--again, a
conventional time period--before approaching her again. This time,
however, the results were happier: the lady gave him “hir mercy"
and a ring. He was, the knight says, as full of joy as he had pre-
viously been sad. The explication of their ensuing bliss is tender
and loving and requires only sixteen lines. These lines, however,
are virtually a celebration of "we." From the knight's description
of his joy and the technical arrangements ("She toke me in hir
governaunce"), the passage contains no singular pronoun. This is
as tight and lovely a portrait of the love of two people as I have
found: and Chaucer's sensitive choice of unaccented words con-
tributes much to the aura of contentment. This is the first instance
in the poem of such plural pronouns and it is effective. The knight

says:

59

Our hertes wern so evene a payre,
That never nas that oon contrayre
To that other, for no woo.
For sothe, ylyche they suffred thoo
Oo blysse, and eke oo sorwe bothe;
Ylyche they were bothe glad and wrothe;
Al was us oon, withoute were.
And thus we lyved ful many a yere
So wel, I kan nat telle how.
(1289-97.)

I think it is important to recognize that the love depicted
here does not have its source in the French romances. The knight
has relinquished the courtly metaphor which has heretofore marked
his speech. The last instance of it was "governaunce." The love
described in these lines is not amor but that natural love whose
source is divine. And another step toward acceptance has been taken.
But still the knight has a little way to go. He may not remain in
the past, no matter how happy. To do so would be as much rejection
of reality, as sinful, as his earlier longing for death. The past
remembered, as we and the dreamer know, can heal but cannot be
relived. It is in this knowledge, I believe, that the dreamer asks,
"Where is she now?" The knight pales and reminds him for the third
time:

Bethenke how I seyde here beforn,

"Thow wost ful lytel what thow menest;

I have lost more than thow wenest"--

God wot, allas! ryght that was she.

(1304-07.)

But the dreamer persists: the knight must say the words if he is to
bear the fact. And finally it is out:

"She is ded!" “Nay!" "Yis, be my trouthe!"

"Is that youre 105? Be God, hyt is routhe!"
(1309-10.)

60

The brevity of these lines is remarkable in contrast to the knight's
former manner of speech. Their directness, however, acknowledges the
reality of pain, intense almost beyond words but not now beyond
endurance. The pain is a fact as it had not been before.

With that acceptance, the hart-hunt which had led the
dreamer to the wood-garden and the knight ends. The king, pre-
sumably Octavian whose hunt it was, rides homeward. And that is all.
The knight is, in effect, the ideological prize. He may choose to
accept either of the two opposing philOSOphies of the poem, reason
or excess. He may, as he did at the beginning of the ggbat, sur-
render himself completely to his grief, allow despair to overrule
reason and, like Alcyone, be destroyed by it. Or he may accept his
sorrow as reality, place it in its proper perspective, accept divine
will over his own, and live, with the memory of happiness as conso-
lation. The knight may be said to symbolize the grieving lover, a
kind of Everyman of the genre. Whether he has his origin in history
or whether he is representative of the narrator's love-sorrow,72 or
whether the two are inseparable, he acts as catalyst in this poem.
It is to him that the argument has been directed, he who must choose
how he will express his grief and spend his life. The sentiment
expressed by the narrator about himself and the dreamer about the
knight is true: it is "agayns kynde" to grieve so completely.

Chaucer presents the conflicting sides of the debat_but
forces no conclusion save by implication. He tells us only that:

72See for example Bronson, p. 281; Lawlor, p. 241; and Huppe
and Robertson, p. 50.

61

With that mg_thoght that this king

Gan homwardes for to ryde

Unto a place there was besyde,

Which was from us but a lyte.

A long castel with walles white,

By seint Johan! on a riche hi1

A§_mg_mette; but thus hyt fil.

(1314-20. Italics mine.)

The white-walled castle by implication represents life, a return to
the real world, a rejection of the lovely but artificial garden.
Much of the comment dealing with this passage is centered on the
punning reference to Lancaster ("long castel") and Richmond ("riche
hi1"), that is, John of Gaunt, with the corrollary reference to his
duchess, Blanche ("faire White" and "walles white”). These comments
are so widespread as to have become scholarly commonplaces and so
require no further discussion here. More serious are those examina-
tions which assume, at least by implication, that the "king" is the
knight and read this passage as explicit proof of the knight's

73 But the first lines of the

acceptance and return to reality.
vision place a king in the wood, "the emperour Octovyen," who is
leader of the hunt. When the hunt ends, "this king" rode homeward
to a place a small distance from "us"--that is, the dreamer and the
knight. At least the dreamer thought he did. But he is not sure.
That the knight has accepted White's death, that he recognizes the
truth of Ceyx's "to lytel while oure blysse lasteth," with its
73Hieatt, p. 70; Clemen, by implication, p. 66. Huppe and
Robertson have the Hunter-king as Christ, and the message as the
knight's necessary return to Blanche not just in memory but as fol-
lowers Of Christ, with Blanche very like Pearl or Beatrice (pp. 91-

92). Bronson ends his study with the last words of knight and
dreamer (p. 293); see also Lawlor, pp. 256 ff.

62

painful reminder Of the ephemeral nature of human happiness is vir-
tually assured. The knight has learned the lesson of Pearl:
For, marre ober madde, morne and mybe,
Al lyeb in hym to dyght and deme.
(Pearl, VI, 359-60.)

The bells of the castle end the dream and the narrator
wakens in his own bed, still holding the book "Of Alcione and Seys
the kyng." Then:

Thoghte I, "Thys is so queynt a sweven

That I wol, be processe of tyme,

Fonde to put this sweven in ryme

As I kan best, and that anoon."

This was my sweven; now hit ys doon.

(1330-34.)

So at the end of the poem, the knight has, we are sure, chosen reason
and reality over excess by accepting the death of White. Natural and
permanent love between man and woman has, by the knight's words,
been shown as superior to the artificiality and ritual of courtly
love. And the narrator, awake, has taken refuge again in his safe
world of authority, still not understanding that reality lies in
experience. But we understand and that is the important thing--for

Chaucer's audience and for us who read and appreciate the Book of

the Duchess today. And there will be another poem and another

 

chance for Chaucer's bookish narrator.

CHAPTER II

HOUSE gr FAME, BOOK I

The House of Fame is at once more elusive and more direct

than the Book of the Duchess or, for that matter, the Parliament 9f

 

Eggls: In it, Chaucer continues, through the character of the nar-
rator, to examine the conflict between experience and authority; the
addition of the pedantic eagle simply strengthens this conflict and,
in effect, stacks the deck in favor of experience. But where the
fundamental conflict between reality and appearance, of which experi-
ence versus authority is a part, was presented by means of the
opposition of reason or moderation and excess in the ngk_gf_th§_
Duchess, in the Hou§g_9f_fame_that conflict is seen unobscured. The
houses of Venus, Fame, and Rumor--ephemeral, unstable, and founded
on human vanity and false values--are unmistakably figures of
appearance. That they are the mirror image of reality, reversed

and distorted, is clear and unarguable. So clear, in fact, is

their artificial character that there is no necessity to place them
in contrast to specific and equal figures Of reality in the poem:
their own nature identifies them. The duality of amor_and natural
love is only one example of the means through which man may be
hostage to Fame and Rumor and exhibit his flawed vision and

Mistaken ideals.

63

64

In the Hou§g_gf_famg, the burden of the telling falls again
on Chaucer's bookish narrator. The Proem begins, after an expressed
wish that I'God turne us every dreme to goode," with a catalogue of
types of dreams. The narrator insists that he has no understanding
of the reasons for the various categories: in fact, he is as "mazed"

as he was earlier in the Book 9f_the Duchess. There he opens the

 

poem with "I have grete wonder be this lyght, / How that I lyve.‘I
In Hou§g_9f_famg, his wonder remains but it has a different object.
Here he says:

For hyt is wonder, be the roode,

To my wyt, what causeth swevenes

Eyther on morwes or on evenes.

(I, 2-4.)
In the Proem to Book I, the narrator denies understanding the causes
of dreams six times in sixty-five lines. It has become almost axi-
omatic to read such denials with, if not a grain of salt, at least
some suspicion. And so we should here. The narrator's frequent
protestations of ignorance precede and intertwine an enumeration of
the kinds and causes Of dreams which would do justice to the "gretes
clerkys" to whom he refers us for authority. The relevance of the
narrator's ironic disclaimer to the poem as a whole is suggested at
the end of the Proem, where the opening appeal to God to turn "every
dreme to goode" is directed at his own dream.
The catalogue of dreams and their causes is interesting

beyond examination of sources, although much scholarship exists in

which this passage is examined either in terms of source or adherance

65

to medieval dream-theories.1 And these studies are necessary and
valuable. But I think a reading of the catalogue in light of the
poem as a whole is equally legitimate and fruitful. Dreams, the
narrator tells us, are caused by humours, feebleness of brain,
abstinence, sickness, prison, worry or distress, the disordering of
usual habits, over—curiosity in study, melancholy, fear, devotion,
contemplation, love, spirits, and the ability Of some souls of
"propre kynde" to prophesy. The dream opens in the temple of Venus,
which is the setting for vitually all of the Story in Book 1.2
Jove's eagle who bears the narrator to the houses of Fame and Rumor,
the subjects of Book III, does so, he tells us, as reward for Gef-
frey's service to the God of Love. Yet in the catalogue, love is
only one of sixteen causes the narrator lists for dreams. And even
there, love is described in somewhat curious terms, especially in a
poem which is generally placed in the genre of love-vision. In the

catalogue, the narrator says one cause of dreams is

1See for example Neville Coghill, p. 49; N. C. Curry,
Chaucer and the Mediaeval Sciences, pp. 32-33; C. B. Hieatt,
Realism infDream Visions, pp. 34-49; Bernard H. Huppe and D. W.
Robertson, Jr., Fruyt and Chaf (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ.
Press, 1963), pp. 40-41, 92-93, and elsewhere; Aldous Huxley,
"Chaucer," in Essays 01d and New (New York: George H. Doran, 1927),
p. 265; B. G. Koonce, Chaucer and the Tradition 9j_Fame (Princeton,
N.J.: Princeton Univ. Press, 1966), pp. 46-56; Frank Seafield,
Literature and Curiosities 9f_Dreams (London: n.p., 1865), p. 45;
W. O. Sypherd, Studies in_Chaucer's "Hous of Fame" (New York:
Haskell House, 1965). PP. 74-76 and elsewheFE; and Works, p. 779.

2Of the 397 lines of the dream, 359 lines are set in this
temple.

 

 

 

 

 

66

the cruel lyf unsofte

Which these ilke lovers leden

That hopen over-muche or dreden,

That purely her impressions

Causen hem to have visions.

(I, 36-40.)
Love, as it appears in this passage, is neither elevating nor desir-
able. 1 think we should be warned by such lines as these which are
easy to overlook both because Of their position in the catalogue
and the speed which marks this passage and, indeed, the H9g§g_gj_
Eamg_as a whole. In this poem, more perhaps than in any other of
Chaucer's works, it is dangerous to accept such apparently straight-
fOrward statements,to read them too literally. To assume that the
matter of the H9g§e_gf_§ame_is to be Love or love-tidings is to
limit the poem and, worse, to misread it by ignoring the subject
which is signaled, however subtly, throughout. The first such
signal lies, I think, in this catalogue. We are not to be concerned
exclusively or even primarily, then, with love but rather with life,
the examination of man. That love is a part Of life, an emotion
that colors man's human concerns, is of course not to be denied.
But it is not all. In this catalogue, we have an overall view of
the attitudes, emotions, and practices which concern man to such a
degree that they affect his inner being, his sleeping or unconscious
state. And the Invocation, with its elusive and provocative duality,
should serve to force our recognition of this danger.
In using a discussion of dreams to establish the allegorical

content of his own dream, Chaucer follows the example of the Roman

gg_1a_Rose, and ultimately of Macrobius who, at the beginning of the

67

Commentary 9g_the_0ream 9f_Scipio, includes a classification of
dreams in order to define the prophetic nature of Scipio's dream.3
But Chaucer's classification also echoes other "grete clerkys" who
follow scriptual authority in affirming that some dreams are inspired
by God and contain a spiritual meaning to be discovered beneath a
veil of symbol. These echoes were perhaps more important to the~
medieval audience who would be familiar with the meanings and types
of dreams. In Chaucer's House gf_Fame, they remain echoes rather
than explication.

However, dreams and their causes are patently a matter of
interest to Chaucer. In the Parliament 9f_Fowls, the narrator
expresses the notion that dreams reflect waking preoccupations:

The wery huntere, slepynge in his bed

To wode ayeyn his mynde goth anon;

The juge dremeth how his plees been sped;

The cartere dremeth how his cartes gone;

The riche, of gold; the knyght fyght with his fon;

The syke met he drynketh of the tonne;

The lovere met he hath his lady wonne.

Can I not seyn if that the cause were

For I hadde red of Affrican byforn

That made me to mete that he stod there. . . .
(Pf, 99-108.)

In Troilus and Criseyde, Troilus, the believer in predestination,

 

insists that his dreams are prophetic. In the first case, Troilus
has suffered from a series of frightening dreams: that he was
alone in a horrible place, that he was captured by the Greeks,
that he was falling from a high place ([9, V, 246-59). Pandarus
immediately diagnoses the cause of these dreams as melancholy and

3Comm. I, 3, Macrobius, Commentary, v. 2, ed. J. Willis
(Berlin: 8. G. Teubner, 1963).

 

68

goes on to say that he wouldn't give a straw for the significance
of any dream; no man knows what they mean (IQ, V, 358-64). His
reason, interestingly enough, is that the explanation of dreams are
too many and too inconclusive (19, V, 370-83). This idea is remi-
niscent of the narrator's confusion in the House 9f_Fame: after
listing all the things said to cause dreams, he concludes it is
futile to try to make sense of it all. But the second time Troilus
reports a dream, the situation is somewhat different. He has been
just as melancholy, even more troubled; however this dream is not
nightmarish but figurative.4 He sees Criseyde kissing a boar and
accepts the dream at once as allegorical, signalling Criseyde's
infidelity, although he does not know the identity of the boar.
Pandarus reacts to this dream differently but still matter-of-factly:
Have I nat seyd er this,

That dremes many a maner man bigile?

And whi? For folk expounden hem amys.

How darstow seyn that fals thy lady ys,

For any drem, right for thyn owene drede?

Lat be this thought; thow kanst no dremes rede.

(IQ, V, 1276-81.)

And the subject is closed once and for all.

In Anelida and Arcite, Anelida, suspecting her lover is false,

 

dreams that he is emphatically true and finds the dream terrifying

(328 ff.). Absolom, in the Miller's Tale, interprets a dream of

 

feasting to betoken kisses, an explanation much to his liking
(MI, 3683-84). An orthodox story of dream-interpretation is provided
by the Monk in his tale of Croesus. Also orthodox in very different

4Earlier Criseyde had dreamt of an eagle which bore away her
heart, very close in nature to Troilus's second dream (19, II, 925-31).

69

ways are the two dream passages in the Squire's Tale: Canace's
dream caused by her interest in the wonderful mirror (S91, 370 ff.);
and the dream of the gentlemen who had feasted all night, which the
Squire dismisses contemptuously (S31, 356-59). Another conventional
dream interpretation is that of the Man of Law, whose heroine suf-
fers bad dreams while her mother-in-law plots to have her and her
child cast out to sea. The Wife of Bath relates a dream in her Pro-
logue and interprets the blood in the dream as signifying gold and
therefore good fortune: this association is standard and correct
according to the dream-books.5 Certainly the telling of the dream
accomplished its purpose, to catch Hankyn's attention.

Sir Thopas dreams of an elf-queen and immediately goes off
in search of her. Since this poem is a brilliant parody of the
metrical romance, it is tempting to assume that Chaucer was also
parodying a serious belief in dream interpretation. But there is

the Parson's Tale to consider: there, Chaucer's saintly parson

 

advances still another view of dream interpretation, that it is
impious. This approach classifies such activity as a branch of
sorcery, and as such, it was certainly frowned on by the Church.6
But even the Church did not take an inflexible stand: after all,
the prophets of the Bible practiced dream-interpretation, and many
of the Christian saints saw visions. The Church, therefore, found
5
and 265.

6Cf. John of Salisbury, Policraticus, ed. o. c. Webb
(London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1909), pp. 84-86.

W. C. Curry, Chaucer and the Mediaeval ScienCes, pp. 212

70

itself in the position of saying that it was impious to interpret

dreams without divine guidance--and in so saying, it tacitly

7

expressed a belief in the divine origin of dreams. Interpretation

seems to have been forbidden, then, because it involved meddling
with divine things, not because dreams had no meaning. Chaucer's
most elaborate exposition of dreams occurs in the Nun's Priest's
Tale, which contains both an example of a dream and a general discus-
sion of the subject. The dialogue about dreams between Chaunticleer
and Pertelote is a kind of summary of medieval thinking on the sub-
ject (NET, 2922-3171). But although it presents the arguments for
the various theories of dream-causes, it seems to more a reopening
of the subject than a statement of generally accepted solutions.
SUch a conclusion, I think, applies as well to the catalogue in the
Proem of Hou§§_9j_famg,

In these various instances, Chaucer explores many possible
ways of explaining dreams, but at no point does he commit himself
to any one view or combination of views. The Parson's Tale reminds
us, if reminder is needed, that Chaucer was a medieval Christian.
As such, he must have accepted to some extent the possibility of
divine inspiration and guidance in dreams. However, this acceptance
need not have prevented him from believing that such inspired dreams
are the exception that proves the rule. It seems that the most we
can be sure of is that Chaucer did not unquestioningly accept the
(Ifficially approved views, that he saw the question was not yet

7G. G. Coulton, Medieval Panorama (London: Noonday Press,
1938), pp. 103-18.

71

settled, and that he may have felt the solution was likely to lie
in the direction of psychological and physiological explanations.
In the Hou§g_gj_5amg_and other dream poems, it is not impossible
that Chaucer was being as enigmatic as possible about a subject he‘
found fascinating, amusing, and quite unresolved.

After a few more lines, the narrator concludes that he can-
not bother his poor brain with any more of the complications of
dream interpretation. This is either heresy against the accepted
authorities on dreams or a comic assumption of innocent obtuseness,
and probably it is a compound of the two. Kemp Malone remarks that
"All this was meant to be funny. Chaucer's audience knew perfectly
well he was a man of learning and anything but a lazybones."8 While
this is undoubtedly true, the passage does convey a suggestion that
Chaucer's real attitude is one of scepticism, since it questions
"universally accepted conclusions."9 And in this detailed exposition,
Chaucer has evoked an ambivalence of tone which will mark the events
and activities of the dream which is the Hau§g_9f_famg,

After promising he will tell us "everydel" of his dream,
the narrator launches into the forty-five-line Invocation. With the
subject of the Invocation identified as the "god of slep," that
Morpheus whom we met earlier in the ngk_ j the Duchess, we are sud-
denly plunged into that particular kind of ambiguity which is
nOtable throughout Chaucer's work. In the Proem, the narrator

4 8§hapter§_gg_0haucer (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1951),
P. 8.

9W. C. Curry, Chaucer and the Mediaeval Sciences, p. 218.

72

bracketed his learned treatise on dreams with appeals to God and
references to the cross. And in the Proem, this Christian prayer
seems straightforward and unequivocal. But with the Invocation to
Morpheus, the unequivocal shifts beneath our feet and we recall the
most human god of sleep of the earlier poem. Moreover, in this

passage, Chaucer uses parts of the Metamorphoses which he omitted in

 

the Book 9f_the Duchess: "the strem that cometh from Lete," the

 

"slepy thousand sones," here of Morpheus rather than of Ovid's

10

Sleep, and the "folk men clepeth Cymerie." In this Invocation,

the narrator prays Morpheus:
That he wol me spede
My sweven for to telle aryght,
Yf every drem stonde in his myght.
(I, 78-80.)

But earlier he had prayed to Morpheus for sleep. The ambiguity which

 

was suggested in the Book 9f_the Duchess by the narrator's aside,
"For I ne knew never god but oon," is here intensified. Immediately
following the narrator's prayer to Morpheus, we find:

And he that mover ys of a1

That is, and was, and ever Shal,

Do yive hem joye that hyt here

Of alle that they dreme to-yere,

And for to stonden alle in grace

Of her loves, or in what place

That hem were levest for to stonde,
And shelde hem fro poverte and shonde
And from unhap and ech disese,

10Three of Ovid's similes that Chaucer had no occasion to
use in his accounts of Morpheus he inserts at different points in
House 9: Fame: "Somnia varia iacent totidem, quot messis aristas, /
Sl va gerit frondes, eiectas litus harenas" (Meta., XI, 614-15).
Cf- Fame, 692, "mo . . . then greynes be of sondes"; 1946, "as fele
?5 Ieves been on trees"; and 698, "mo . . . then ever comes were
1" graunges."

 

 

':vwf ...I. Latin.

in a”

73

And sende hem al that may hem plese,
That take it wel and skorne hyt noght,
Ne hyt mysdemen in her thoght

Thorgh malicious entencion.

(I, 81-93.)
This passage refers to no resident of Olympus. If the para-
phrase of Dante's Primo Mobile were not enough to make this certain,

the echo of the Gloria Patri would. In these lines, especially in

 

conjunction with the bracketing appeals to the Christian God in the
Proem, there is an elusive admixture of deities. Pagan and Christian
are so intermingled that Morpheus, the comic, snoring god of sleep

in the Book of the Duchess, has here become a type of God the Father.

 

I believe a reconciliation if not an explanation of this duality may
be found in the now-established character of the narrator. Chaucer's
narrator, literal minded as usual, has simply confused the two. He
says, later in the Invocation, still serious, still stating tradi-
tional doctrine:

Mysdeme hyt, pray I Jesus God

That (dreme he barefoot, dreme he shod)

That every harm that any man

Hath had syth the world began,

Befalle hym thereof, or he sterve,

And graunte he mot hit ful deserve.

(I, 97-102.)

'The narrator has not changed: the incongruity of his parenthetical
"dreme he barefoot, dreme he shod" in the midst of a passage of
sound Christian doctrine is comic in its effect. Moreover, it jars
us back to earth and the realization of just who is speaking these
lines. The naive, bookish narrator, wholehearted servant to
aUtllority has, he told us earlier, only read of Morpheus. Since,

as he had explained in the Book 91 the Duchess, he had never known

74

"god but oon," his mistake is a natural one. He addresses Morpheus
--whom his books have called "god of slep"--in the language and
tone proper to God the Father, the only God, as he has been taught.
Again, the narrator has read widely and interpreted wrongly. But
the narrator is not Chaucer. The shadow-presence Of God and Chris-
tian doctrine has been introduced, and it continues throughout the
poem, never overt but never far below the surface.

The narrator's love for and reliance on authority is empha-
sized by his reference to the dream of "Cresus, that was kyng of
Lyde, / That high upon a gebet dyde!" But even in so brief a refer-
ence, there is a suggestion of the subject of the dream to follow.
In the Romar, source for this episode,11 Reason recounts the tale as
a warning against reliance on Fortune and against human vanity.
Croesus's daughter Phania cautions him that elevated position or
earthly fame is no protection against Fortune, and correctly inter-
prets the dream Croesus in his pride had read wrongly. Chaucer's
H9u§g_gf_famg, then, will be concerned with the matter of human
vanity and the fickleness of Fame and "hire suster, Dame Fortune."

Chaucer stresses the date Of the dream of Fame, December
tenth, by mentioning it not only in the Proem (I, 63), but in the
first line of the Story. The setting of the dream-vision in mid-
winter is an example of the minor contradictions of the conventions
of love-visions which abound in this poem. The choice of December
instead of May or even February, as in the Parliament 9f_fgwl§_and

1153, 6489 ff. The story is told in greater detail in
[$1, 2740 ff.

75

other Valentine poems, for example, sets the stage for other inver-
sions of the traditional dream-vision and, again, for the very
different artistic product which results.

So the narrator went to bed "Ryght ther as I was wont to
done": the matter-of-fact tone we have noticed before is maintained.
The night was an ordinary night, unusual only because he fell asleep
"wonder sone," like one who was weary after two miles of pilgrimage
to the shrine of Saint Leonard, patron saint of captives. There is,
I suspect, in these lines some fun being poked in passing at those
pilgrims whose sedentary lives leave them exhausted after two miles,
as well as, perhaps, at the attitude that makes it "chic" to go on
pilgrimages, a suspicion which is not weakened by the opening lines

Of the General Prologue nor by the assortment of Canterbury pilgrims.

 

That is, pilgrimages have become, to some, more a matter of fashion
than faith. As usual, Chaucer takes the sting out of the joke by
having his narrator include himself, by implication, among those
easily-wearied pilgrims. I find the choice of Saint Leonard as
"patron saint," as it were, of the poem interesting and suggestive.
Certainly, the dreamer in the vision has no options or alternatives:
he is literally picked up and deposited at the location of his dream.
And certainly he is on pilgrimage, although to the shrine of no
Christian saint. Such an analogy is borne out by Chaucer's descrip-
tion of Venus's temple. And in a broader philosophical sense, the
dreamers of the Proem as well as Fame's supplicants are captives, at
least of their own false values and irrational reliance on her power.

That is, I think, another example of an episode or reference,

76

insignificant in itself which, combined with others equally minor,
works to strengthen the effect of the poem and emphasize the nature
of its environment.

The narrator dreamt he was "within a temple ymad of glas"
furnished with gold statues, rich tabernacles and pinnacles, por-
traits, and figures of "olde werke." This temple is the first
evidence Of the architectural quality which pervades the Hou§g_gf_
[amg_and functionally unites the three books. Not only is the poem
architectural, the movement of the architecture is vertical, full of
rises and descents. Moreover, the action takes place in settings
which can only be described as urban: rooms and buildings crowded
with sound and activity and comings and goings and, most of all, with
people. These arenas of action are separated from each other by vast
barren spaces: the desert beyond the glass temple, the uninhabited
and alien space through which the narrator is borne upward, the rock
of ice tapped by the palace of Fame, and finally, the unoccupied
valley echoing with the din of Rumor's house, inaccessible to man
without supranatural aid. The separations between urban and empty
areas are so carefully drawn and balanced that they seem more mathe-
matical than poetic. But the architecture never outweighs the
poetry. Of Chaucer's works, the structure of the H9u§g_gf_fam§_is
surely the most remarkable example of his genius at concealing the
machinery of his art.

Equally remarkable is the fragility and impermanence of
these splendid buildings. There is in them no hint of the natural:

all is artifice thinly disguising mutability. The glass temple, for

77

all its extravagant decoration, is wracked with the danger of
destruction, as are all the constructions of this dream-country.

In the context of the poem, we must acknowledge the aptness of the
building materials used, and their incongruity in terms of tradi-
tional love conventions, or even worldly ones. So the folly of
men's pursuit of worldly fame is prepared for and subtly streng-
thened by having Fame's palace grounded on ice, that most mutable
of substances. The details--the melting, for example-~add to the
sense Of impermanence, of course. Glass is only slightly less per-
ishable, very expensive and rare, especially as a building material.
Moreover, it carries with it a sense not only of vanity but of dis-
tortion; the reflection in a glass is reversed. And so the much-
praised quality of love, the amgr_which Venus represents, is seen
to be distorted. While such love has the appearance Of beauty,
happiness, and fulfillment, closer examination reveals it as the
Opposite Of reality, essentially unnatural and inhuman, hence
foolish to pursue as an end.

The narrator, here as in the Book 9f_the Duchess, comes to

 

awareness within a building decorated with the story of Troy. But
where in the earlier poem, the painted windows and birdsong were
essentially conventional romantic furniture, the appointments of
Venus's temple are central to the meaning of Book I. The tradi-
tional garden setting of courtly love poetry is of course artificial
in its impossible and idealized neatness; its symmetrical groves,
flowers, and constant climate; its ornamental walks and benches and

Carefully placed conduits. It is perfection frozen. But no matter

78

how artificial the execution, the rivers g9_flow, the flowers g9_
bloom, and the grass g9e§_give beneath a lover's feet. Nature, no
matter how shaped, sculptured, and stylized, is model for the love
garden. But the Hou§g_gf_famg_is light years beyond even such a
forced and exaggerated imitation of Nature. There is literally
nothing in the geography of the dream that is not almost blatantly
man-made. Even the materials are crafted or smelted or mined. But
Chaucer blends these elements and textures with such artistry and
control that we are scarcely aware of the artificiality of the back-
ground on which the action is played out.

In the temple of Venus, surrounded by the richness of gold
and glass and portraiture, the narrator finds a tablet of brass on
which is engraved the story of Troy. So rapid is the pace of these
lines that the implication of the material of the tablet may pass
almost unnoticed. As far as we know, and Chaucer's narrator is no
careless reporter, the tablet is the only brass in this ornate tem-
ple. Since it is engraved with so long a tale, one which in fact
makes up three-quarters of the Story, we know it is of central
importance to the temple and to the goddess who inspired it. Yet
this significant piece is fashioned of brass, a base metal, useful
and strong but neither pure nor precious. Since copper is tradi-
tionally the metal associated with Venus, the presence of brass

12

cannot be so explained away. It must be recognized as incongru-

ous in its setting. And such incongruities are, we have seen,
12Robinson believes that Chaucer mistook the two alloys

(Works, p. 781). This is an easy and comfortable theory but, I
thlnk, untrustworthy.

79

almost always signals that all is not as it seems. In the Clerk's
Tale, Chaucer's only comment on the nature of brass, the clerk says
that if most women were put to the tests Grisilde survived:

The gold of hem hath now so badde alayes,
With bras, that thogh the coyne be fair at ye,
It wolde breske a- two than plye.13

(CkT, 1167- 69. )

And it is of this baser metal that the major shrine in Venus's tem-
ple is shaped.
The engraving on the dubious tablet begins conventionally

enough. The narrator, literal as always, recites the first lines,

14

a translation of Virgil's opening passage: having given credit

to the unnamed poet, his authority for the tale, the narrator con-
tinues in his own words. The first hundred lines of summary are
remarkable for two reasons. First, in them Chaucer alters minor
details of the Agneid_to emphasize the activity and power of Venus.

For example, the narrator says:

13Other uses of "bras" in Chaucer's works occur in GenProl,
366-67, "Hir knyves were chaped nought with bras / But a1 wl tfi
silver"; RvT, 3944, "With hire he yaf ful many a panne of bras";
S T, 81, 'There cam a knyght upon a steede of bras," and 181, "The
ors of bras"; NPT, "0f bras they broghten bemes"; Bo. 4, m. 5, "The
comune errour moeveth folk, and maketh weery hir basyns of bras by
thikke strokes"; LGW, 1432, "And with two holes, maked al of bras. "
None of these lines use "bras" pejoratively as the passage from CkT
does, except possibly the first: there, brass is a useful, strong,
somewhat common, even lower-class metal, with which knives might
logically be mounted. That the knives were mounted with silver
places them in a different and higher class.

14"Arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris / Italiam
fato profugus Laviniaque venit / litora" ("Arms I sing and the man
who first from the coasts of Troy, exiled by fate, came to Italy
and Lavinian shores”), Aer, 1, 1-3.

80

Ther saugh I graven eke withal,

Venus, how ye, my lady dere,

Nepynge with ful woful chere,

Prayen Jupiter on hye

To save and kepe that navye

0f the Trojan Eneas,

Syth that he hir sone was.

Ther saugh I Joves Venus kysse,

And graunted of the tempest lysse.

(213-220.)

In Book I of the Aeneid, the storm is quieted by Neptune and it is
not until Aeneas has landed that Venus asks Jupiter to protect him.
But more important than such tangible alterations, Chaucer has
changed the whole tone of the poem. The narrator's sympathy is
clearly caught by the plight of the Trojans and his personal inter-
jections ("and aftir this was grave, allas," "Cryinge 'Allas!‘ and
welaway," “That hyt were pitee for to here," which occurs twice,
"Cruel Juno," and the like) not only reflect his sympathy but invest
the inhabitants of the tale with life and immediacy.

Venus's activities comprise one-quarter of the introductory
material, the effect of which is to elevate her considerably above
her position in both Virgil and Ovid. This elevation is not accom-
plished only by enlarging her role: as important are the narrator's
comments which emphasize traits for which Venus is not traditionally
noted. In the Aeneid, she does very frequently intervene in behalf
of Aeneas, but one feels such intervention is motivated more by
pride in her position among the 01ympians--a kind of "How dare they
do this to my_son"--than motherly love. Yet Chaucer's narrator
paints a more sympathetic maternal concern. Aeneas told his troubles

at his mother's knee, as it were, when he landed in Africa. And

Venus reacted in kind:

81

She gan him comforte thoo,

And bade hym to Cartage goo,

And ther he shulde his folk fynde,

That in the see were lefte behynde.
(235-38.)

And, as added help, "She made Eneas so in grace / 0f Dido" that the
queen fell desperately in love with him.

Virgil spends far more space on this episode and his Venus
is openly calculating. She instructs Cupid clearly:

quocirca capere ante dolis et cingere flamma

reginam meditor, ne quo se numine mutet.

sed magno Aeneae mecum teneatur amore.

ut, cum te gremio accipiet laetissima Dido

regalis inter mensas laticemque Lyaeum,

cum dabit amplexus atque oscula dulcia figet,

occultum inspires ignem fallasque veneno.
(Agg , 1, 673-88.)]5

That the Venus of the Aeneid is a political creature, as much at war
with Juno as the Trojans had been with Greece, is also clear:

frater ut Aeneas pilago tuus omnia circum

litora iactetur odiis Iunonis acerbae,

nota tibi, et nostro doluisti saepe dolore.
(Agfl:, I, 667-69)]5

But Chaucer's changed focus precludes such motivation: this aspect
of Venus would be unsuitable in a temple dedicated to her worship.

Throughout, Chaucer's irony is intricate and subtle, but it is no

15"Wherefore I purpose to outwit the queen with guile and
encircle her with love's flame, so that no power may change her, but
along with me she may be held fast in love with Aeneas . . . when in
the fulness of her joy, amid the royal feast and flowing wine, Dido
shall take thee to her bosom, shall embrace thee and imprint sweet
kisses, thou may inbreathe a hidden fire and beguile her with thy
po son."

16“How thy brother Aeneas is tossed on the sea about all
coasts by bitter Juno's hate is known to thee, and often hast thou
grieved in our grief."

82

less devastating for its obliquity. And this unobtrusive irony is
seldom more skillfully controlled than in the noncommital tone of
Chaucer's account of Venus's very equivocal position. There is still
the base metal of Venus's altar to contend with.

After the passing references to Venus's machinations, the
emphasis is almost totally on Dido. As the narrator's sympathies

were with Alcyone in the Book 9f_the Duchess, so they are with Dido

 

here. Virgil's primary concern was, of course, always his hero.
The narrator, naive and protective, says of the affair's beginning
only that shortly she "Becam hys love, and let him doo / Al that
weddynge longeth too." There is in this passage a continuation of
the narrator's denial of skill and knowledge begun in the Proem.
He explains his lack of further details:

What shulde I speke more queynte,

0r peyne me my wordes peynte

To speak of love? Hyt wol not be;

I han not of that faculte.

(245-48.)

Moreover, to do so would be "a long proces to telle, / And overlong
for yow to duelle." Such disclaimer is in the character of the nar-
rator: he is, we know, without experience in love despite his wide
reading. In this poem and those which follow, Chaucer has begun a
pattern, a kind of game between narrator and audience, in which
denial of expertise precedes proof of such expertise. Thus, in the
Proem, the narrator's claim of ignorance is followed by an exceed-

ingly learned discussion of types and causes of dreams. This pattern

reaches its apogee in the Tale gf_§ir_Thogas in the Canterbury Tales.

83

'7 this

But throughout the poems Lowes calls "the mastered art,"
device has become a commonplace, almost a topos. And the pattern
obtains here.
On the heels of his disclaimer of knowledge or craft, the
narrator tells us that Dido
Made of hym shortly at 00 word
Hyr lyf, hir love, hir lust, hir lord,
And dide hym al the reverence,
And leyde on hym al the dispence,
That any woman myghte do,
Nenynge hyt had al be so
As he hir swor; and herby demed
That he was good, for he such semed.
(256-64.)
This passage is not only a clear, concise, and expert description
of Dido's emotions and committment to Aeneas, it reveals her charac-
ter and hints, more pejoratively, that the character of Aeneas is
the root of the tragedy to come. No strumpet-queen nor sophisticated
politician, Dido is presented in these lines as a sincere and gen-
erous woman whose only fault is trusting too readily. Aeneas, on
the other hand, is seen as devious, manipulative, and potentially
false. Chaucer drives home this judgment with a sententia. The
narrator says:
Loo, how a woman doth amys
To love him that unknowen ys!
For, be Cryste, 10, thus yt fareth:
"Hyt is not al gold that glareth."
(269-72.)
This parenthetical warning to women of men's perfidy continues for

twenty lines, ending with a final proverb:

17Geoffrey Chaucer, pp. 133 ff.

 

84

"He that fully knoweth th'erbe

May saufly leye hit to his yé:"

Withouten drede, this ys no lye.
(290-92.)

In this passage, we find if not a new at least a more highly

 

developed aspect of Chaucer's persona. In the 8995_9f_the Duchess,
and earlier in this poem, the narrator has made brief editorial
comments on the events of a book or a character. In the figgk_gf_th§_
Duchess, for example, he says of Dido, "which a fool she was" (89,
734); and in figu§g_gf_famg, we recall the involvement with the
destruction of Troy which is reflected in the narrator's "pitee for
to here," and "allas" and "Cruel Juno." But nowhere have we found
the narrator stepping back from his authority and making such an
extended moral judgment on its matter. The only comments I could
find on these reflections on men as deceivers were concerned with

18 But it seems to me that

identifying the sources for the passage.
this sententia is significant to the development of Chaucer's
narrator persona. Here, I believe, we have the foreshadowing of

the narrator who will tell the Canterbury Tales and Troilus and

 

 

Criseyde. In these lines, Chaucer, for the first time, steps out of
character of "narrator" to Speak at least partly in his own voice.
He does not discard the persona, of course, either here or in the
later poems. But the disguise has become, if not thinner, cer-
tainly more a fusion of Chaucer the poet and Geffrey the bondservant
of academia. Perhaps as Chaucer became more confident of his poetic

powers, more comfortable in the cloak of narrator, he could more

18See for example, Works, p. 781.

85

19 The artistry with

easily mold and shape it to his own figure.
which Chaucer achieves this very delicate balance between poet and
persona can hardly be overstated. He maintains the personality we
have come to expect in the narrator, proverbial, earnest, and given
to piled-up examples to prove his point. But this passage remains
the first instance in which Chaucer the narrator moves outside the
poem to address his audience directly.

The moral Spoken, the narrator deals with Aeneas's betrayal
and departure in six tight lines. Even here, the focus remains on
Dido. Chaucer uses "hir" four times, "she" once, but after the
initial "Eneas," uses "he" only twice. In contrast to the terse-
ness of Chaucer's treatment of Aeneas, Dido's lament extends for
fifty-six lines, interrupted only once for the narrator to pledge
that he only recites what he has read; ”Non other auctour alegge I“
(314). And we recall the earlier similar disclaimers of expertise.
This ingenuous reassurance of the narrator's inexperience and his
fidelity to authority provides further foreshadowing of the philo-
sophical opposition which is the theme of the poem. Here, as in the

Book 9f_the Duchess, the character is to provide the stage for the

 

conflict between experience and authority, a conflict which is to
become more explicit with the appearance of the eagle.
Dido's lament is deserving of close examination, I think,
especially since it--and Book I of which it is so central a part--
19This is, of course, purely speculative and not intended as
The Answer. But it does seem reasonable in light of the later poems.

Whatever the reason, the fact of the change--or enrichment--in the
character of the narrator does, I believe, obtain.

86

has led to the frequent critical judgment that the House gj_Fame

20

lacks unity. Dido says bitterly:

Of oon he wolde have fame

In magnifyinge of hys name;

Another for friendshippe, seyth he;

And yet ther shal the thridde be

That shal be take for delyt,

Loo, or for syngular profit.
(305-10.)

This passage, the first direct allusion to Fame in the Story, is
opposite in tone and meaning to what we would expect to find
engraved in a shrine dedicated to Venus and, by extension, the love
over which she has dominion. Moreover her involvement with this
particular love affair is not impersonal: she is directly respon-
sible for Dido's passionate love for Aeneas. That Aeneas betrayed
that love, apparently consciously,2] is a further denial of the

conventions of courtly love-visions. It is literally blasphemy

22

against the "religion of love." With Dido's appraisal of the

nature of men and of their far-from-courtly reasons for love, we are
virtually afloat in incongruity. And the scope of this incongruity

fOrces an examination of the nature of the love Venus represents.

20That Paul Ruggier's interesting essay is called "Unity in
Chaucer's House gf_Fame" indicates how widespread is this critical
belief. Even when scholars accept the existence of such a unity,
they are far from unanimous as to what it is and how it is achieved.
See for example Coghill, p. 49; Emile Legouis, Geoffrey_Chaucer
(London: J. M. Dent, 1913), pp. 87-88; W. C. Curry, MediaevaT’Sci-
ences, p. 233; Percy Shelley, The Living Chaucer (Philadelphia: Univ.
of Pennsylvania Press, 1940), p. 84; Marchette Chute, Geoffre
Chaucer of England (New York: Dutton, 1946), p. 110; and J. g. P.
Tat ock, p. 59.

211D the Aeneid, he regretted hurting Dido, and left reluc-
tantly because of a higher duty.

22

 

 

C. S. Lewis, Allegory gf_Love, pp. 18 ff.

87

By any standard, it is pictured as far from sincere or desirable,
much less ideal. Courtly love, amor, has its source, then, in
worldly vanity and lust. Aeneas, hero-son of Venus, is exposed as
a perfidious seducer who, having had his way with the active assist-
ance of his mother, moves on to greener fields.

Dido, as Chaucer paints her, is human and sympathetic but
her sorrow bears little relationship to the disillusionment and
passionate grief of the proud and royal woman Virgil describes.
Clemen comments, "With a kind of shrewd everyday common sense he
[Chaucer] examines this famous love story under a magnifying glass,
subjects it to a colder, disillusioned scrutiny, and divests it of
the last shreds of romanticism which the episode may still have

23 While I suspect this conclusion is

possessed at that period."
somewhat overstated, there is some truth in it. But the whole notion
of courtly love has been placed perforce under that same magnifying
glass. If the lovers have been stripped of their illusion and
romanticism, it is, I think, because the love they pursued, especially
as it is described in the French romances, was flawed and unnatural.
Of the tale engraved on the brass tablet, over half deals with the

24 Yet this, the major episode on a

episode of Dido and Aeneas.
tablet which is of central importance in the temple and which should
logically contain the most elevated praise of Venus and her works,
in fact details a love betrayed, a love marked by back-alley seduc-

tion culminating in suicide. The reasons Dido lists for love bear

23
24

Chaucer's Early Poetry, p. 83.

 

Of 322 lines, 192 were concerned with Dido and Aeneas.

88

out this sordid judgment of courtly love. Desire for fame, that is,
a kind of parasitic self-aggrandizement, is unrelated to love as
we think of it and as it is described in the romances.25 Thus a
man seeks out a woman for her wealth and position in order to raise
his own status. We know what love "for frendshippe" is from Troilus

and Criseyde, and there is something of Pandarus's cynicism in

 

Dido's "seith he” which insinuates that such love (which between men
Chaucer elsewhere celebrates without reservation) is not as pure and
abstract as it claims to be. When he urges that no scandal could
result from Troilus's liaison with Criseyde, Pandarus says:

Every wight but he be fool of kynde,

Wol deme it love of frendshipe in his mind.

Swych love of frendes regneth in al this toun,

And wrye yow in that mantel ever mo.
(19, II, 370-79. No equivalent
in Il_Filostrato.)

Or what man defines as "love" is, in fact, lust, purely physical
with no object but "delyt" and profit.

While these lines are clearly pejorative, Dido's longest and
most bitter complaint is to come. She says:

0 wikke Fame! for ther nys

Nothing so swift, 10, as she is!

0 soth ys, every thing ys wyst,
Though hit be kevered with the myst.
Eke, though I myghte duren ever,
That I have don, rekever I never,
That I ne Shal be seyd, allas,
Yshamed be thourgh Eneas,

And that I Shal thus juged be,--

25Andreas Specifically condemns this motive (Ihe_Art_9f_
Courtly Love, pp. 144-45, 151 ff.).

 

89

'L00, ryght as she hath don, now she

Wol doo eft-sones, hardely;'

Thus seyth the peple prively.

(349-59.)

What emerges certainly contrasts with tradition and comic effects
frequently result from it. But the more the hearers or readers were
familiar with the original Dido legend, the better they could have
appreciated the irony that flashes out both here and in the other
books of the Hou§g_9f_famg,

Worldly Fame is reduced in these lines to a kind of neighbor-
hood busy-body. The Fame of Dido's complaint is no splendid figure
but rather a Smaller personality, more akin to Rumor, the fickle
and feckless holder of local reputation. Chaucer has, we have seen,
elevated Dido's personality, the size of her role. She is human,
warm, and gullible. But this alteration has another effect: by
making her human, Chaucer has--de1iberately, I think--minimized her
royalty, her dignity, and her rank. One result of this reduction is
to bring Dido closer, to diminish the distance between classical
queen and current audience. But there is another, I think, equally
viable and significant in terms of the subject of the H9u§g_gj_fgmg;
that is, the society out of which Dido operates becomes correspond-
ingly less regal and less grand. With the romance of flattering
distance and rank removed, the figures of both Venus and Fame
appear equally less glamorous. With Chaucer's rejection of mythology,
his insistent shaping of his source-characters into occupants of a
real world who feel human emotions, the personification of allegori-
cal figures is also shaped and changed. They appear in the harsh

glare of reality. Dido is treated by Venus, protector and patron of

90

lovers, as an object rather than a human being. The cynicism and
cold expediency of this act is unparalleled in the bitterest lines
of Jean de Meun. The love which in the French romances was pre-
sented as courtly and ideal is seen, in Chaucer's more personal
exposition, as lust and ambition, ephemeral as the glass walls of
the temple and base as the brass of the tablet-altar.

In Book III, we will find details of Fame's bipartite per-
sonality. That Chaucer's Fame is as unlike Virgil's mighty abstrac-
tion as the Venus whose fragile and base nature is reflected in
her temple is unlike the goddess of mythology and courtly love is
made manifest in these lines. It is important to note that when
Dido cries out against her fate, her complaint is Specifically
lodged against wicked Fame, the lament being a neat blend of the
two phases of Fame's function, rumor and reputation. The evil for-
tune of love, the Slander, the loss of reputation, all of which
Dido laments in this passage, point toward the third book where
Fame is seen in action.

If Book I is to be understood in terms of the unity of the
poem as a whole, we must deal with the relationship between the
activities of Venus and those of her sister Fortune.26 W. O.
Sypherd argues that Chaucer's conception of the goddess Fame was
greatly influenced by the current notions of the goddesses of Love
and Fortune, and that the idea of Fame or Rumor was enlarged by
adding to her simple function of hearing tidings and Spreading them

26That Chaucer was well aware of this practical identifica-

tion of Love and Fortune may be seen from "A Complaint to his Lady"
(33-36); "Fortune“ (50); and Troilus and Criseyde (IV, 323 ff.)

91

abroad, the more powerful attribute of sitting as a divinity to

27 In this guise, she shares

decide on the worldly fame of mankind.
the mutability of Venus and Fortune, as defined both by Boethius and
Jean de Meun.

There is sufficient practical identification of these three
deities in the fl9g§g_9f_fgmg_to warrant the recounting of a fateful
love story in a poem which is to be concerned chiefly with the meting
out of fame as well as with the nature of the goddess herself. Book
I provides a specific account of Dido caught in the contrivances of
Venus, of the fortunes of Love, and of Fame, as an introduction to
what Geffrey is to behold in Book III, the goddess Fame doling out
favor and disgrace with random caprice to mankind, in matters of
love as well as the countless other pursuits of men. By showing the
Carthaginian queen aware of the ill-repute that Fame will bring to
her unhappy love, Chaucer relates Love to Fame in a way that
explains why Jove's eagle, in the following book, can suggest that
tidings of love are logically to be found in Fame's house.

The narrator's comment on Dido's lament is drily sensible:

But that is don, is not to done;
Al hir compleynt ne a1 hir moone,
Certeyn, avayleth her not a stre.
(361-63.)
And we are plunged once more into the cold air of reality. We have
noted earlier Chaucer's use of this technique to bring his audience

back to the real world when highly colored or over-elevated senti-

ments threaten to become too unwieldy or too ethereal. The narrator

27Chaucer's "Hous gf_Fame," pp. 116 ff.

 

92

is of course correct: all Dido's tears will not change the facts.
The nature of Fame and her relationship with Love was, I think, the
lesson Chaucer intended to draw from the legend of Dido. That

point made, Dido's lament is placed in its proper perspective and we
are forced to recognize its excess and futility. Dido does not
speak directly again and Chaucer takes only sixteen lines to
describe her later actions and her suicide. There is no implication
of moral or theological condemnation of suicide here as there was in

the Book gj_the Duchess: Chaucer's purpose and subject in House 91_

 

Fame render such a judgment unnecessary. He is concerned in Book I
with the influence of Fame on a specific individual. That influence
established, Chaucer'a narrator compresses the remaining eight
books of the Aeneid into seventy-eight lines (387-465). Of these,
thirty-eight make up a catalogue of unfaithful lovers. Aeneas, of
course, heads the list. And only after this catalogue does Chaucer
offer any softening explanation of Aeneas's actions.

An example of the relationship between Chaucer and his
source, as well as of the poetic mandates of his period, occurs in
this six-line justification. The narrator says, with palpable lack
of enthusiasm:

But to excusen Eneas
Fullyche of a1 his grete trespas,
The book seyth Mercurie, sauns fayle,
Bad hym goo into Italye
And leve Auffrikes regioun,
And Dido and hir faire toun.
(427-32.)
Virgil, on the other hand, Spends over half of Book IV describing

the necessity of Aeneas's departure, his destiny and the higher duty

93

he owed it, and his sorrow at hurting Dido. As Aeneas listened to
Dido's plea, Virgil says, "ille IoviS monitas inmota tenebat / lumina
et obnixus curam sub corde premebat" (IV, 331-32.)28 Moreover,
Aeneas explains the need for his departure in twenty-eight lines of
logical, often tender poetry (IV, 333-61). After Dido's passionate
outburst ends in a swoon, Virgil eloquently describes his hero's
feelings as he watches her carried away:
At pius Aeneas, quamquam lenire dolentum
solando cupit et dictus avertere curas,
multa gemens magnoque animum labefactus amore,
iussa tamen divum exsequisur3;;agzemaue revisit.
We have seen how Chaucer Shaped his source to focus on Dido, and how
Aeneas, conversely, was painted from the first as villain of the
piece. In the Aeneid, Aeneas has no choice and Virgil places the
major blame for the tragic outcome on Rumor, who is described at
length and in consistently condemnatory terms. But the Story of
Troy is familiar to medieval audiences, and Chaucer--or any poet of
his age--can shape but cannot change the story entirely, nor would
he want to. That Chaucer's brief dutiful excuse of Aeneas's per-
fidy is half-hearted is, of course, obvious. But it is included and
so fulfills the requirements of literary custom.
The narrator's prayer to Venus, "The whiche I preye alwey
save us, / And us ay of oure sorwes lyghte," serves to end the dream
28"He by Jove's command held his eyes steadfast and with a
struggle smothered the pain deep within his heart."
29"But good Aeneas, though longing to soothe and assuage
her grief and by his words turn aside her sorrow, with many a sigh,

his soul shaken by his mighty love, yet fulfills heaven's bidding
and returns to the fleet.“

94

with a picture of the goddess with whom it began. Yet this prayer
is as ambiguous as the Invocation. It may be construed as addressed
to Venus-~a construction which the matter of the dream renders
improbable. Or, as J. A. W. Bennett believes, it may be read as
addressed to Jupiter.3O But there are echoes of the Christian God
in Chaucer's Jupiter, king of gods. That there is a connection is
indicated certainly by the narrator's expletive which immediately
follows the prayer: "'A, Lord!‘ thoughte I, 'that madest us.'"
Similar juxtaposition of Christian and pagan deities has occurred
before in this poem. We remember, especially, the Invocation where
Morpheus is almost literally superimposed on God, "the movere of us
al." This ambivalence is compounded in the next lines. The narrator
summarizes his impression of the multi-faceted temple of Venus:

Yet sawgh I never such noblesse

Of ymages, ne such richesse,

AS I saugh graven in this chirche.

(471-74.)

The narrator's respect for authority is unimpaired: this is his
judgment of the temple. But we know that the nobility of the images
and the richness of the engraving is appearance. The reality of
Venus and the love she represents has been exposed as brass; cruel
and unstable and founded in illusion. The narrator had unknowingly
described the nature of Venus and her temple earlier, in another
context: ”Hyt is not al gold that glareth." The reference to this

most profane temple as "chirche," particularly in conjunction with

the narrator's earlier appeal to the God "that madest us," and Who

30Chaucer's Book 9f_Fame, p. 46.

 

95

alone can "us ay of our sorwes lyghte," is as strongly ironic as any

3] Chaucer further forces our recognition of the

line in Chaucer.
irony by stressing the anonymity of the engraver of these wonders:
"But not wot I whoo did hem wirche."

In a transition remarkable for its brevity as well as its
conformity to the character of the narrator, Chaucer changes the
subject and sets up motivation for his exit from the temple and the
appearance of the eagle. The narrator is reminded by his statement
of ignorance about maker of temple and engraving that there are
other things he does not know:

Ne where I am, ne in what contree

But now wol I goo out and see,

Ryght at the wiket, yf y kan

See owhere any stiryng man,

That may me telle where I am.

(475-79.)
But outside, he finds only wasteland, as sterile and empty of life
as the country which surrounded Morpheus's cave in the Book gj_thg_
Duchess.
There are a number of studies which deal with the origin of

32

this desert. But Chaucer's narrator himself has provided us with

two. Earlier, in the catalogue of betrayed lovers, he cited Virgil
and Dante, with Claudian, as authorities on the lower world. And
Virgil and Dante have great Significance to the House 9f_Fame.
31(3hristopher Marlowe used the same metaphor to create the
same effect in Hero and Leander over two centuries later. He writes:
"So fair a churEh’as this had Venus none: / The walls were of dis-
colored jasper stone." L. C. Martin, ed., Marlowe's Poems (London:
Methuen, 1931), 1, 135-36.

32See for example Works, p. 781; Clemen, pp. 88-90; and
Sypherd. pp. 52-54.

 

96

Virgil, author of the matter of Book I, described the cave-entrance
to Pluto's underworld in similar terms (flea, VI, 236 ff.). In his
description of the "domos Ditis vacuas et inania regne" (VI, 269),33
there is the same feeling of total unfitness for the feet of men
that we sense in the empty land which surrounds Venus's temple. And
Dante, unanimously accepted as source for the eagle who is Geffrey's
guide, describes a similar barren plain:

Dico che arrivammo ad una landa
che dal suo letto ogni pianta rimove.

Lo spazzo era una rena arida e Spessa,

non d'altra foggia fatta che colei

che fu da'pie di Caton ia soppressa. 34

131;, XIV, 8-15.)

Moreover, Books II and III have echoes of Dante beyond the borrowing
of the eagle-guide. I think in this reference to Virgil and Dante,
Chaucer was signaling, perhaps, an addition to his primary literary
sources: as Virgil, with Ovid, had been his "auctour" in Book I,
Dante was to become a third influence in the rest of the poem.35
This speculation is borne out, first of course, by the introduction
of the eagle, but also by the phrase, "movere of us al" which

occurred early in the poem. Dante was not, I think simply discovered
33

34"I have to tell you that we reached a plain that rejects
every plant from its bed . . . The ground was a dry deep sand, much
like that once trod by the feet of Cato." Divine Comed I (Inferno),
ed. John D. Sinclair (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1961). All
citations from Dante are to this edition.

"the empty halls of Dis and his phantom realm."

 

35See for example Koonce, pp. 73-88; Sypherd, pp. 44-72;
H. S. Bennett pp. 46, 51; J. A. W. Bennett, pp. 49-51 and elsewhere;
and Muscatine, p. 108 for a discussion of Chaucer's debt to and use
of Dante.

97

fortuitously between the writing of Book I and Book II, as Lowes

36 but is rather used deliberately when his work and

implies,
philOSOphy best serve Chaucer's subject, as they do in Books II
and III.

This stretch of empty sand is the first of the wastelands
which Separate the urban arenas of action, so to speak. That these
are as unnatural as Venus's temple and the houses of Fame and Rumor
is clear: the narrator comments on the lack of any "maner creature
/ That ys yformed be Nature," and we are again reminded of the
artificiality which governs the dream-country of this poem. More-
over, in these lines there is the strong implication that it is an
artificiality which iS more than an imitation of life: rather, it
is literally "ageyns kynde."

Chaucer signals again the ambivalence which is inherent in
the Hgg§g_gj_fame, The narrator prays to Christ "that art in blysse"
to save him "fro fantome and illusion." This is a singularly appro-
priate prayer: not only does it specify the nature of appearance--
"fantome and illusion" which Dido had early identified as undesir-
able--but it implies the source of that reality to be sought, Christ
or God. The irony of this prayer lies of course in the fact that
we as reader know that the narrator is indeed surrounded by such
illusion and that the eagle which seems to appear as answer to
that prayer Will only bear him to another plane of "fantome and

illusion." That the narrator does not recognize it, of course,

36Geoffrey Chaucer, pp. 106-07.

 

98

does not negate the existence of such irony. AS he looks to heaven
“with devocion," he sees what he thinks is an eagle but can only

be certain is gold. And Book I ends with the gilded bird's down-

ward flight.

CHAPTER III

HOUSE o_F FAME, BOOK II

As in the Proem to Book I the narrator had catalogued the
causes and kinds of dreams, in the Proem to Book II he catalogues
famous dreamers: Isaiah, Scipio, Nebuchannezzer, Pharaoh, Turnus,

and Elcanor.1

In this catalogue as in the earlier Proem and Invo-
cation, the references are mixed, although the numerical stress is
on the Biblical dreamers. Again classical and Christian authority
is merged to continue the ambivalence with which Chaucer ended
Book I. But not even these varied authorities ever dreamed such a
dream as the narrator is about to describe. Its scape is beyond
the experience of all history, Christian or pagan. The Proem pre-
pares for the dream'which is to be played on a stage outside of
nature and alien to it. The narrator, acknowledging his lack of
wit and Skill to "endite and ryme" its wonders adequately, begs
Venus to favor him and the muses help hiniwrite all he dreamed so
that
Now shal men se
If any vertu in the be

To tellen a1 my drem aryght.
(11, 525-28.)

1See Works, p. 782, for critical comment on sources for the
Still-unidentified Elcanor.

99

100

This proem serves the primary function of further linking Books I
and II: it is addressed to Venus, whose temple was the subject of
Book I, and the muses. According to J. A. W. Bennett, "To invoke
the Muses, either at the outset or at a turning point in the action
was the prerogative of epic poets."2 And Chaucer does, throughout
the Hgg§g_gf_fam§_and particularly Book II, work within the techni-
cal framework of heroic poetry. But, especially in Book II, the
subject and tone are far from epic. The heavenward journey of
Geffrey and his guide is brilliantly mock-heroic. AS he has done
before and will continue to do, Chaucer follows the letter of the
literary form he has chosen as model, but the Spirit is all his own,
original, lively and wonderfully crafted. In contrast to the Sixty-
five lines of received medieval dream lore which opens Book I, the
second proem, crisp and fast paced, produces an effect of eager
expectancy. We are prepared for marvels and Chaucer does not disap-
point us.

As Book I ended, the narrator had spied a huge golden bird
spiraling downward. Awed by and uncertain of the nature of the
approaching bird, Geffrey tells us:

But this as sooth as deth, certeyn,
Hit was of gold, and shon so bryghte
That never saw men such a syghte,
But yf the heven had ywonne
Al new of gold another sonne.
(I, 500-05.)
The implication that the golden bird appeared in answer to the nar-

rator's prayer to Christ for delivery from "fantome and illusion"

2Chaucer's Book gf_Fame, p. 54.

 

101

further elevates the creature's stature. As he neared the desert
on which the narrator stood, the wonder and grandeur of him grew.
Not only is doubt of his kind removed--he is indeed an eagle--but
his supranatural quality is intensified:
This egle, of which I have yow told,
That shon with fethres as of gold,
Which that so hye gan to sore,
I gan beholde more and more,
To se the beaute and the wonder;
But never was ther dynt of thonder,
Ne that thyng that men call fouder,
That smot somtyme a tour to powder,
And in his swifte comyn e brende. . . .
II, 529-39.)
The narrator's description continues and further power and glory are
ascribed to the marvelous bird. His strength and implacability are
detailed in the ease with which he lifted the narrator "as lyghtly"
as if he had been a lark. There is no small emphasis placed on the
danger implicit in so large a fowl. The eagle gripped Geffrey
"with hys grimme paws stronge, / withyn his Sharpe nayles longe“
(541-42) and bore him upward "in his clawes starke" (545). This is
a formidable creature indeed, supranaturally large, beautiful,
strong, and armored, appearing without warning--surely a bird worthy
of a deity.
Chaucer's eagle is generally acknowledged to be derived in
part from the eagle which carries Dante aloft in Purgatorio IX.3
There, of course, in the valley of negligent princes, Dante is
3Conversely, Sypherd, p. 89, follows Lounsbury, Studies 31
Chaucer (New York: Russell 8 Russell, 1962), p. 246, in citing
Metamorphoses X as major source for the eagle. Certainly Meta-

morphoses was a strong influence on both 80 and Hf_but in Book X,
the reference is brief (the whole episode—TS covered in seven lines,

 

102

assailed by thoughts of corruption and decay of Empire. A golden
eagle, appropriately the symbol of Empire, law, and justice,
snatches the dreaming Dante into the fiery sphere: the dream is a
prophetic almost prefatory one and Dante awakes from it with a

sense of the disparity between the ideal of the empyrean and the
flawed environment of this earth. Certainly there is connection
between Chaucer's bird and the awful eagle of Dante. But I have
not found this connection examined in terms of its application to
the sense of Book II and, indeed, of Fame herself. The Similarities
are superficial and essentially physical. The narrator, like Dante,
was borne out of a wasteland; that for Dante this wasteland was of
the Spirit while for the narrator it was primarily physical does

not make the likeness less. It does however insist subtly and from
the start that Chaucer will describe a more secular journey.
Chaucer's eagle, like Dante's, bears his narrator to a place in the
limbo between heaven and earth. Both birds are messengers of a
higher power; both have as their stated purpose the increased under-
standing of their passengers. But we must note the very different
quality of these respective similarities. Where Dante's eagle shows
him the "Empire of God's intention,”4 Chaucer's bird bears Geffrey

to the house of Fame. Where Dante's eagle brings him to the "sommo

 

Meta., X, 155-61) and shorn of detail. Too much of the description of
Chaucer's bird occurs in Dante's eagle for this ascription to be
accepted. A major support, other than Chaucer's use of Ovid in gen-
eral, may be his inclUsion of Ganymede in his catalogue of aeronauts
(582-92). Still.the argument seems thin.

4Sinc1air, $1., p. 127.

103

consistoro," the divine conclave, Chaucer's bird takes him on an
equally marvelous journey to hear love tidings. Where Canto IX is
concerned with divine order and the commitment of the mortal soul

to God with salvation as the ultimate reward, Book II prepares us
for chaos and the whimsical judgment of Fame as reward for Geffrey's
commitment to Venus. In a sense, Chaucer's eagle is, like Dante's,
a symbol of Empire, law, and justice, but the Empire is Jupiter's,
the law is Venus's, and the justice iS Fame's.

Moreover, the eagle of the Purgatorio presages another

 

eagle which Dante is to see, the lecturing, rebuking eagle of the
Paradiso. Paul Ruggiers finds, "Both the eagle of Jove in Purgatory
and the eagle of God in Paradise seem implicit in Chaucer's talking
bird."5 And he is, I think, correct. John Sinclair writes in his
note to Canto VI of the Paradiso, "The victorious flight of the
eagle, 'the bird of God,’ from land to land and from age to age,
following 'the course of heaven' from Troy to Rome and from Rome to
the ends of the earth, was the divine preparation for the Christian
GOSpel and the appointed co-operation with it."6 The narrator's
prayer to "Crist that art in blysse" in Book I, as well as our
familiarity with Dante as source for the golden bird, leads us to
expect a similar function for the eagle who appears from nowhere in
answer to that prayer. It is not a long step from the aloof,
learned eagle of Dante to the pedagogical, somewhat pompous,

II, 265 5"Unity in Chaucer's H9g§g_gf_famg," Shoeck and Taylor,

6Sinc1air, 3:35., p. 98.

104

generally self-satisfied bird of Chaucer's poem: the difference is
one of attitude.

Chaucer's eagle is clearly of this world. As the brass
tablet was incongruous in the richness of Venus's temple, so is
Jove's bird incongruous in a different way. Supranaturally large,
descending with the strength and speed of the thunderbolt which
marks his coming, splendidly golden, the eagle engenders awe and
amazement in the narrator and arouses us as reader to the expecta-
tion of event or message equally magnificent. That he seizes
Geffrey and bears him upward in silence increases our sense of his
power. But scarcely doesiueopen his beak than he reveals himself as
I“) heavenly being but a bird neither grand nor wise. Rather, he iS
prolix, proverbial, somewhat vulgar, and inordinately proud.

AS the contraries--experience versus authority, moderation
and reason versus excess, and amor_versus natural love--were opera-

tive in the Book gf_the Duchess and in Venus's temple, so are they

 

here. In Book II, the opposition is primarily between authority and
experience, as it was to a lesser degree in the Bogk_9f_the Duchess.
But here, it is played out on a stage at once larger and more subtle
than in the earlier poem. Chaucer's bookish narrator has met his
match in the pedantic eagle, so devoted to authority and so bent
upon impressing his hapless captive.

The narrator tells us that he "longe in hys clawes lay"
(554) in a swoon until the eagle, "in mannes vois, cried out "Awak!
/ And be not agast so, for Shame!" (558) and called him by name.

Moreover:

105

And for I shulde the bet abreyde,

Me mette, "Awak," to me he seyde,

Ryght in the same vois and stevene

That useth oon I koude nevene.

And with that vois, soth for to seyn,

Me mynde cam to me ageyn,

For hyt was goodly seyde to me,

So nas hyt never wont to be.

(559-67.)

There is much scholarship dealing with the autobiological elements
in this passage7 which need not concern us here. What is Signifi-
cant, I think, are the final lines of the passage. According to the
narrator, the eagle had pierced his swoon by calling "Awak! / And be
not agast so, for Shame!" By no stretch of the imagination can this
statement be read as "goodly seyde": rather, in it the eagle
rebukes the narrator roughly for his terror and apparently is gentle
neither in tone nor word. AS we have noted before, Chaucer's denial
of expertise frequently precedes or follows proof of such expertise
and contradictory statements usually serve to point an incongruity
between what seems to be and what is, as well as to provide much of
Chaucer's comic irony.

In the Miller's Tale, for example, the characteristics mani-

 

fest in "hende Nicholas“ are not, I think, generally ascribed to one

who is truly "hende"--that is, gentle and courteous as well as near

8

at hand. This term, commonly used to reflect approbation, is, when

7Note for example Bethurum, p. 217; Muscatine, p. 110;
J. A. W. Bennett, p. 58; and Kemp Malone, p. 55. Koonce, pp. 143-44,
however, finds the lines not autobiographical but scriptural--logical,
I suppose, for a study which reads Book I as "Hell,“ Book II as
"Purgatory,“ and Book III as "Paradise."

8According to QED, "courteous, gracious, kind, gentle"; "gen-
1:1e, polite" in Halliwells' Dictionar 9j_Archaic and Provincial
Words (London: J. R. Smith, 1847); ”prompt, graciois?‘ in Stratmann's

 

106

used to describe the "swete clerke," a startlingly incongruous one
in the context of the tale. The incongruity is underscored by the
un-gentle, discourteous but clever and, indeed, dextrous department
of Nicholas. Allison loved Nicholas in part because "Alwey the
nye slye / Maketh the ferre leeve to be looth" (MI, 3392-93). In
the next five lines there are two further references to "hende
Nicholas," reiteration which usually indicates an incongruity or
ambiguity which Chaucer seems to want made obvious. The lines suc-
ceeding this repetition are:

And hende Nicholas and Alisoun

Accorded been to this conclusioun,

That Nicholas Shal shapen hym a wyl

This sely jalous housbonde to bigyle;

And if so be the game wente aright

She sholde slepen in his arm al nyght.

(MI, 3401-06.)

There is further precedent which lends authority to this conclusion.

In the General Prologue, Chaucer the pilgrim judges the Monk, "Now

 

certeinly he was a fair prelaat" (GenProl, 204), immediately follow-
ing a catalogue of the Monk's activities and qualities which are
dubious if not actually blasphemous.
The same incongruity obtains in the description of the
Friar:
He was an esy man to yeve penaunce

Ther as he wiste to have a good pitaunce.
(223-24.)

k

lViddle English Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1891); and "gen-
tle, courteous, comely'r in Shipley's Dictionar of Early En liSh
(lVew York: PhilOSOphical Library, 1955). See aTSb RR 1n w 1c the
Word is used to mean "gentle and courteous" in the ch‘i'valric or
C<3urt1y sense (33, 285, 1306, and 3345, for example).

 

107

He knew the tavernes wel in every toun

And everich hostiler and tappestere.
(240-41.)

It is nat honest, it may nat avaunce

For to deelen with no swich poraille.
(246-47.)

Chaucer the pilgrim concludes his description of this most unworthy

churchman with the judgment: "This worthy_lymytour was cleped

 

Hubert" (269, italics mine). Later, in the Knight's Tale, the most
unchivalric, uncourtly behavior on the part of Theseus is followed
by the same type of seemingly unsuitable praise. So we have

. . and he ful Soone hem sente

To Atthenes, to dwellen in prisoun

Perpetuelly--he nolde no ransoun.

And whan this worthy duc had thus ygon. . . .

(XI, 1022-25.)
I cannot stress too strongly the contradiction implicit in the use
of’"worthy" to describe Theseus in this line. Chaucer emphasizes
Theseus's action: in fact, he repeats to eliminate any possible
misunderstanding. A true knight fellowing the code of chivalry
would not imprison other knights, much less royal princes, forever,
without hope of ransom. Politically practical as it is, this act
is diametrically opposed to the premise of the courtly code. Yet
the knight who narrates the tale continues immediately to relate fur-
ther doings of "this worthy duc." The satire on the artificiality
of the chivalric code is strengthened and made manifest by the
incongruous use of "worthy duc."9 Similarly, I believe Chaucer uses
9This conclusion is not based on the one instance cited here.

'There are in the Knight's Tale enough other examples of Similar

llicongruities to make this point valid and defensible: for example,
952, 1001-02, 1809-10, to name a few.

 

108

"hende" in the Miller's Tale to intensify the difference between what
Nicholas appears to be and what he is in reality. In Book I of
House 9f_Fame the difference between what Venus appeared to be and
what she was in reality was made clear by similar incongruities. So
does Chaucer, I think, utilize that technique here. The eagle's
words deny the narrator's generous judgment: there is no kindness
in them, and we as reader can recognize that fact whether or not
Chaucer's narrator does.

The rough “Awak!" however has had its effect. Consciousness
returned, Geffrey began to stir in the great bird's grip. Encouraged
by such immediate reaction to his ministrations, the eagle set about
comforting his passenger: he

sayde twyes, "Seynte Marye!
Thou art noyous for to carye,
And nothyng nedeth it, pardee!
For also wis God helpe me,
And this caas that betyd the is,
IS for thy lore and for thy prow;--
Let see! darst thou yet loke now?
Be ful assured, boldely,
I am thy frend."
(573-82.)
This, the first extended speech of the splendid bird, is significant
for several reasons. First, of course, is that in these lines
Chaucer prepares us for the character of the eagle and sets the
tone which will govern the relationship between the bird and his
human burden throughout the book. To the eagle, Geffrey is no
superior creation, little less than angel. 0n the contrary, he is
too heavy, too frightened for no reason the eagle can recognize,

and not very bright--all in all, a rather inferior Specimen.

A‘lthough the eagle assures his terrified burden, "I am thy frend,"

 

 

ill III." 111 . .111 III‘IIII.

llil I‘ll:
1‘11 ‘lllll'lll

109

there iS the strong implication that, to the eagle at least, such
friendship is certainly not between equals.

The eagle's Speech is further notable in that it provides
very little solid information. Chaucer has Specifically prefaced
this speech with a statement of the eagle's intent: when he knew
Geffrey had recovered from his faint, the narrator says, he began
"me to disporte, / And with wordes to comforte" (571-72). We are
of course accustomed to read such introductory remarks with SUSplClOfl,
and this passage, like the earlier example, surely merits such dis-
trust. There is little of comfort in the eagle's words: in fact
they could only add to the narrator's uncertainty. The irritated
invocation to "Seynte Marye," the chiding reference to Geffrey's
weight and general unwieldiness, and the obscure statement of the
reason for his unceremonious seizure would do little to allay the
narrator's terror at his situation. Moreover, the vast gulf between
the first Sight of the shining bird, appearing as relief from "fan-
tome and illusion," and its reality, the sudden transition from
desert--barren and strange but still within the range of natural
law--to alien space, dangling from the talons of an unknown and per-
haps malevolent force requires more than a few ambiguous words to
bridge.

There is humor and immediacy in the narrator's thoughts about
his unexpected and quite unwanted flight. Always the accurate
reporter, he records the mechanics of the eagle's grip as well as
his reaction to every aspect of an experience Wthh would destroy a

less curious man. He even dissects his own terror with an interest

110

more clinical than personal. The narrator reacts to his unique situ-
ation as he had to every previous one: he is interested, seeks
precedence and comfort in authority, and strives, naive and single-
minded as always, to relate every detail clearly and precisely.

0f the three books of 131122915102. BookII is the most thor-
oughly wasteland: here, however, the setting is the desert of space,
that most alien of atmospheres. Not only is the setting of Book II an
empty Space which separates the urban arenas of Books I and III, the
action itself is virtually nonexistent. Despite the swooping soaring
flight, the piled-on authorities and lessons which make up the eagle's
speech--a11 of which give the illusion of speed and activity--over two-
thirds of Book II is dialogue. And of the remaining one hundred
seventy-four lines, forty-three are concerned with the narrator's
description of his Situation and state of mind, twenty-one with the nar-
rator's view of the earth spinning far below him, seven with the philo-
sophy of Boethius, and seven with their arrival at Fame's mountain.

The eagle's last words, "for thy lore and for thy prow,"
unsatisfying as they are to Geffrey, remind us that Chaucer regularly
presents himself as searching in and through his poetry for "lore"
as much as for "luste," for "sentence" as much as for "solace." How-
ever, this assurance of benevolence and benefit comforts the narrator
not a whit:

"0 God," thoughte I, "that madest kinde,
Shall I non other weyes dye?"
(584-85.)
There is a kind of desperate hope in his remembrance here that

the eagle iS one of Nature's creatures and so obedient to that

111

"vicaire of the almighty lord" whose hierarchy of birds is dis-
played in the later Parliament gf_Fowls. "Kinde" in that poem as in

the Book gf_the Duchess and here includes not only animate nature

 

but the universe that was created by the joining of the elements, a
universe which includes all things from stone to star. That refer-
ence gains strength as the narrator begins to wonder if his fate is
to be "stellified." To create another star would expand the universe
while to be transmuted to heaven alive would violate the natural
order. To the hapless Geffrey, these alternatives appear equally
unnatural and equally undesirable. But when the eagle assures him
that Jove has no intention of making him a star "as yet"--a delight-
fully ambiguous reservation--we realize that the matter of destina-
tion iS still unresolved.

At last, after some prefatory comment about Jupiter and his
own function as messenger, the eagle explains--elaborately and at
length--the reason for Geffrey's adventure. Promising to take
Geffrey to a place where he may hear love tidings, the eagle's
recapitulation of Jupiter's concern is provocatively qualified: it
is because, despite Geffrey's long service to ”hys blynde nevew
Cupido" and Venus, the eagle says,

That thou hast no tydynges
0f loves folk yf theye be glade,
Ne of noght elles that God made.
(644-46.)
§§uch qualification of course has precedent earlier in the poem. As
“it prepared us there for a rather dubious view of love, so does it

here. And this doubtful vision is borne out in both instances.

112

The tidings Geffrey is to hear are neither idealized nor traditional
in a love-vision. That the house of Fame is to provide the setting
for a very different exemplum is made manifest in the eagle's next
speech. In Fame's house, the eagle promises, the narrator will hear:

Mo wonder thynges, dar I leye,

And of Loves folk moo tydynges,

Both sothe saweS and lesinges;

And moo love newe begonne,

And longe yserved loves wonne. . . .

(674-78.)

Even here, of course, the eagle is promising the narrator not experi-
ence but more authority, albeit authority more immediate.

There iS a progression in this catalogue of "sawes and
lesinges'I awaiting the narrator. These first lines describe kinds
of love acceptable to Venus and the genre of courtly love. But
with the next lines, a new element enters the list. The eagle
continues:

And moo loves casuelly

That ben betyd, no man wot why,

But as a blynd man stert an hare;

And more jolytee and fare,

While that they fynde love of stel,

AS thinketh hem, and over-a1 wel.

(679-84.)

The overall effect of this litany of love tidings is achieved by a
subtle and pervasive build-up of images. Beginning with the conven-
tional references to loves newly begun and loves successful after
long service, the catalogue moves into less innocuous areas. The
riarrator will hear of more casual loves, loves rising as senselessly
iand automatically as a hare.starts at a blind man's step. The

llnromantic homeliness of the eagle's proverbial simile, its

113

inappropriateness in its setting, forces us to look more closely at
the lines which inspire it. While accident is no proscribed cause
for love, it lacks the elevated idealism which marks the courtly
romances. With the next lines, suspicion becomes certainty as the
eagle, blithely blind to implication, completes his list of "wonder
thynges":

Mo discordes, moo jelousies,

Mo murmures, and moo novelries,

And moo dissymulacions,

And feyned reparacions;

And moo berdys in two houres

Withoute rasour or Sisoures

Ymad, then greynes be of sondes;

And eke moo holdynge in hondes,

And also moo renovelaunces

Of olde forleten aqueyntaunces;

- Mo love-dayes and acordes;

Then on instrumentes be cordes;

And eke of loves moo eschaunges

Then ever cornes were in graunges.

(685-98.)

The jealousy, disagreement, pretense, cheating, casual couplings,
and assorted infidelities which mark the love tidings with which
Geffrey's service to Venus is to be rewarded take up well over half
of this twenty-five line catalogue. And only two examples of love
are unequivocally desirable by eithernatural or courtly standards.
The eagle has promised "jolytee and fare" in Fame's house but there
is little evidence of either in the cruelty and ignoble ratiocination
10f "Loves folk." Chaucer uses "mo," "moo," and "more" fifteen
'times, ten of which occur in the last fourteen lines where the most
<:ynical and antithetical results of love's influences are explicated.
\(et this is not enough. As the listing of love-doings grows more

Lincourtly, as the activities become more a matter of games and

114

manipulation, Chaucer marks the intensification by increasingly fre-
quent comparisons. The first of these occurs eighteen lines into
the passage; the second, five lines later; and the last, two lines
after that. The primary effect of these comparisons is to further
emphasize the frequency of such experiences in Fame's house. Grains
of sand and the strings of instruments are very like the Biblical
"seventy times seven": each implies a number so great as to be
literally uncountable but is not, in itself, particularly ungentle.
But neutrality vanishes with the final comparison. "Then ever
cornes were in graunges" is the coarsest and least suitable to any
discussion of love of the three. This is reality intruding with a
vengeance. Barns have no place in courtly romances or in dream-
visions; their proper literary milieu is the fabliau. And it is
with this incongruous figure that the eagle's catalogue of marvels
ends.

Jove's bird, unconscious of irony or inconsistency, then
reveals to Geffrey, in the tone of one academician to another, the
location of Fame's house, "So thyn oune bok hyt telleth." The book,

of course, is Metamorphoses, and in Book XII there is, of course, a

 

structure very like the eagle's description of Geffrey's destina-
tion. And here Chaucer follows Ovid's geography closely: Fame's
liouse stands between heaven, earth, and sea, and all the words of
the world are heard there.

After the eagle describes Fame's house, he offers "a worthy

Ciemonstracion / In myn ymagynacion":

115

"Geffrey, thou wost ryght wel this
That every kyndely thyng that is
Hath a kyndely stede ther he.
May best in hyt conserved be;
Unto which place every thyng,
Thorgh his kyndely enclynyng
Moveth for to come to,
Whan that hyt is awey therfro. . . ."
(729-36.)
We have noted before that Chaucer is concerned with the nature of
things but nowhere has he been so insistent: "kyndely“ occurs
three times in this passage. To underestimate its importance to an
understanding of the House gf_Fame, particularly of Book III, for
which Book II is in large part a preparation, would be to fly
against the wind. The many-sourced philosophy expressed in these
lines is, I think, central to the meaning of the poem. Essentially,
the eagle is arguing strongly and convincingly for natural law.
There is no sense of the comic which marks his usual speech. There
is no incongruous "Seynte Marye," no harsh "Awak": once he has got
past the inevitable vaunt which prefaces his treatise on natural
order, his tone is consistently serious. Moreover, his explanation
represents the received view of Chaucer's time. The concepts the
eagle espouses are true: if one lifts a stone and releases it, the
stone will drop; fire and smoke do rise; rivers "by kynde" flow to
the sea and trees grow out of the earth. The humor of the passage
--for it is humorous--is external. This champion of natural law is
trimself an unnatural creature. The setting out of which he speaks

‘1 s. by any standards, contrary to nature. Their destination has

‘i ts source in Ovid's description of the house of Rumor, the

116

10 The tidings Geoffrey will hear in this cacaphonous

pseudo-Fame.
structure are not of love but of artificial passions, distorted
and misshapen, which men have in their ignorance mistaken for love.
The practices the eagle cited earlier are for the most part the
diseased machinations of lust, not love, that highest human emotion
according to both courtly and Christian doctrine.]] Our awareness
of these contradictions provides the irony which permeates this pas-
sage. But its major significance, I think, is that by the introduc-
tion of natural order, Chaucer presents the opposition of reality
and appearance explicitly within the framework of this book. The
lines are here clearly drawn: we are not dependent on incongruity,
proverbial statements, or inappropriate language to remind us of the
unnaturalness--that is, the unreality--of eagle, environment, situ-
ation, and, indeed, of Fame herself.

After his discussion of "kynde," the eagle returns to the
character we have grown to expect. He is again comic follower or

authority, unable to resist citing sources to bolster the weight of

his words:

10Ovid's "Fama" is glossed as "Rumor" in both scholarly and
popular translations. See for example Frank Justus Miller, Metamor-
hoseS, p. 183, and Horace Gregory, Metamorphoses (New York: Mentor
E300ks, 1958), p. 326, respectively. _And normally—in Classical
l_atin, if "fama" is used as "fame," it means "ill fame": it is
"what pe0ple say."

11That the courtly tradition is concerned with worldly and
1:he Christian with spiritual love does not invalidate their agree-
n'IEnt on its position in their respective canons.

117

L00, this sentence ys knowen kouth

0f every philosophres mouth,

As Aristotle and daun Platon,

And other clerkys many oon.
(757-60.)

In Chaucer's bird, we see authority unobscured. The narrator, until
now major proponent of authority, becomes in Book II essentially a

witness to the theory and lore presented by the eagle. As Chaucer

 

provided the narrator of the Book 9f_the Duchess with a logical and
consistent motive for his position as listener, so does he in this

episode. But where the Book 9f_the Duchess was, by its nature,

 

necessarily serious, here Chaucer is working under no such stricture.
Book II is unabashedly comic. Poor Geffrey's taciturnity is founded
in terror. And his monosyllabic answers, literally forced from
between teeth clenched against a very natural scream, are funny,
particularly Since the eagle is totally impervious to any problem.
The eagle is traditionally a symbol of pride. And Jove's
messenger is no exception. His pride, however, is greater than its
source. But nothing in the Hou§g_gf_Eamg_is as it seems: not the
richness of the temple nor the grandeur of the eagle, nor, later,
the houses of Fame and Rumor. As the love celebrated in Venus's
shrine is in reality lustful and self-seeking, so is the eagle's
pride and magnificence exposed as vanity: as Venus's brass tablet
vuas of base metal, the eagle's glorious plumage is merely gold-
lalate. And, by extension, the Jove we do not meet but whose servant
1:his gilt bird is becomes diminished, as Juno was by Chaucer's
<:haracterization of her meSSenger in the ngk_gf_the Duchess. The

tone here is very different than it was in Book I. In a real sense,

118

the generally serious tone there gives way to a tour_gg_fgrgg_of
Chaucerian humor, urbane, witty, gently aimed at the folly of men--
and birds--who take themselves too seriously.

Nowhere in a book full of such examples is the eagle's
promise that the purpose of this journey will be "for thy lore and
for thy prow" more literally carried out. With "Soun ys noght by
eyr ybroken" (765), the eagle begins his longest lecture on scien-
tific theory in Book II. Much has been written about the source
and science of the eagle's discourse and it is unnecessary to

12

rehearse it here. It is sufficient to my purpose to acknowledge

that the science of this passage reflects the medieval enthusiasm

‘3 In these lines, the eagle's attitude

for encyclopedic knowledge.
toward the narrator, indicated earlier, is wonderfully limned. We
have heard Geffrey rebuked for his fear, but that was understandable:
after all, the eagle is in his element and throughout Shows no
empathy with those unlike himself. We can dismiss the bird's con-
tempt as simply insensitivity. But in this passage, the eagle
reiterates obvious statements to be sure the "lewed" narrator under-
stands: for example, he says, "Soun is noght but eyr ybroken"
(765), and "every speche . . . In his substaunce ys but air" (766-68).
12See for example 0. S. Brewer, Chaucer (Norfolk, Eng.:
Longman, 1973), p. 56; Clemen, p. 98; Sheila Delany, Chaucer's
"House gf_Fame" (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1972). pp. 71-75;
Malone, p. 57; Muscatine, pp. 111-12; Ruggiers, pp. 266-57; and
James Winney, Chaucer's Dream Poems (London: Chatto & Windus,
1973). P. 92, among others.

13John Lawlor, "The Earlier Poems," in Chaucer and Chauceri-
Tans, ed. 0. S. Brewer (University, Ala.: Univ. of Alabama Press,

\—

1 6 l, P. 47, for example.

 

 

119

Finally he repeats, "Ryght soo soun ys air ybroke" (770). In all,
he defines sound as air disturbed Six times. He offers elaborately
detailed examples reduced, we feel, to simplest language so as not
to strain the narrator's faculties: pipes or harps or speech are
all carefully qualified for accuracy ("lowd or pryvee, foul or
fair," "moche or lyte"). Here the eagle's tutorial character is
most perfectly displayed. The passage is rich with remonstrances
which reek of the schoolroom: "10, thus ys my sentence" (776);
"Thus wost thou wel" (781); "Now hennesforth y wol the teche" (782);
"take hede now" (787); "Wel wost thou" (790); "Although thou mowe
hyt not ysee" (804); "Although thou thenke hyt a gret wonder" (806);
"yf thou have mynde" (823); and "Mayst thou fele" (826). The cumu-
lative effect is of a teacher instructing a not very apt pupil in
his ABC's.

But these interjections to the narrator have further signifi—
cance. In what is, in fact, a monologue, they provide a sense that
the narrator is participating, that while the eagle domfinates the
conversation, it is a conversation nonetheless. By this point in
Book II, a pattern has been established: the narrator Speaks only
when he cannot avoid it; otherwise he remains silent.

Chaucer's bird, we have seen, iS not without intellectual
pride: He says "I preve hyt thus" (787), "As I have of the watir
preved" (814), and "wel I preve" (826). Even his "Take yt in ernest
(or in game" (820) is aimed more at the narrator's unlearned state
‘than at any suspicion of criticism. As Clemen points out, “The

eagle's zeal toinstruct becomes a vehicle--as the character of the

120

narrator himself has been--through which Chaucer can parody medieval

didacticism on the Score of complacency, polixity, and exaggerated

14

self-importance." But I think he is also parodying logical incon-

sistency if not, in fact, error. The eagle, we have noted, repeats
the Simplest examples and examines obvious physical phenomena to
the point of absurdity. For example, he says:

For yf that thow
Throwe on water now a stoon,
Wel wost thou, hyt wol make anoon
A litel roundel as a sercle,
Paraunter brod as a covercle;
And ryght anoon thow shalt see wel,
That whel wol cause another whel,
And that the thridde, and so forth, brother,
Every sercle causynge other
Wydder than hymselve was;
And thus fro roundel to compas,
Ech aboute other goynge
Causeth of othres sterynge
And multiplyinge ever moo,
Til that hyt be so fer ygoo,
That hyt at bothe brynkes bee.

(787-803.)

Further, he maintains, "Although thou mowe hyt not ysee / Above, hyt
gooth yet alwey under" (804-05). This, while delightful and not
illogical, has on closer examination no roots in science and no
proof in earlier lines. Yet it is after this statement that the
eagle issues his strongest challenge to the narrator and to authority:
"And whoso seyth of trouthe I varye, / Bid hym proven the contrarye"
(807-08). Later he makes another leap to arbitrary conclusion, fol-

lowed by a similar claim to proof:

14Chaucer's Early Poetry, p. 99.

 

121

And of thys movynge, out of doute,
Another ayr anoon ys meved,
AS I have of the watir preved,
That every cercle causeth other.
(812-15.)
The movement from the example of circles in water--a single and
elementary cause-effect relationship--to "every cercle causeth
other" (italics mine) is breathtaking in its solecism. And it
establishes a pattern which will be maintained throughout the
eagle's impressive lectures. When his point is simple and easily
proved, he belabors it in a manner which would be suitable to the
most abstruse and difficult theory. When the point is dubious or
complex, he passes over it casually. And Chaucer insures our
recognition of this by having his vainglorious bird follow each
such assertion by claiming it to be proved.
The eagle closes his peroration:
Now have I told, yf thou have mynde,
How, speche or soon, of pure kynde,
Enclyned ys upward to meve;
This mayst tho fele, wel I preve.
(823-26.)
And there is truth in this statement: the eagle has told the nar-
rator several times that sound, by its very nature, does move upward.
But he has offered no proof. I suspect that this aSpect of medieval
didacticism, more even than "complacency, polixity, and exaggerated
self-importance," is Chaucer's target in this passage. But the
scope of Chaucer's philosophical attack is, I think, broader than
this. Certainly the eagle's Sincere but erroneous belief in his

own wisdom and superior logic is a trait not limited to medieval

academecians. Rather it is a trait to which all men can fall

122

victim if they surrender their humanity to a flawed perspective of
the world and their place in it.

As the eagle introduced his discussion of sound with “Every
kyndely thyng that is / Hath a kyndely stede," he follows it with
very similar words:

And that same place, ywys,
That every thyng enclyned to ys,
Hath his kyndelyche stede:
That sheweth hym withouten drede,
That kyndely the mansioun
0f every speche, of every soun,
Be hyt eyther foul or fair,
Hath hys kynde place in ayr.
(827-34.)
And every word of every man "Moveth up on high to pace / Kyndely
to Fame's place" (851-52). With these lines, a reason for the
emphasis on "kynde," on natural law, becomes inescapable. Themati-
cally, such detailed concentration on the theory of sound is not
only justifiable but necessary, since Chaucer's presentation of the
nature of Fame's house rests upon it. And by bracketing this passage
with references to immutable natural law, Chaucer imbues it with
respectability and so strengthens our acceptance of Book III which
is to follow. In these lines, the focus is firmly on the power
and influence Fame holds over the affairs of men. Moreover She is
cloaked with the appearance of adhering to, if not, indeed, being a
part of Nature. And again the elemental conflict between appear-
ance and reality is made manifest.
Before we are lost in the contemplation of this paradox,

the eagle reverts to form. 'Delighted with his skill and erudition,

he cannot refrain from crowing: "Telle me," he exhorts the narrator,

123

Have y not preved this symply,
Without any subtilite
0f speche, or gret prolixite
0f termes of philosophie,
0r figures of poetrie,
Or colours of rethorike?
(853-59.)
First, of course, this speech is high comedy indeed. It bares and
intensifies Chaucer's tolerant satire of the rhetoricians. The
humor iS increased by our recognition that the eagle has used
medieval academic rhetoric throughout what Lowes rightly calls "one
of the most masterly pieces of exposition as exposition that I
know.“15 And there is irony in the bird's assumption that the
dreamer we know aS poet would be grateful for a simple explanation
free of "figures of poetrie" from a bird who shares our knowledge.
The irony is intensified by the narrator's polite terse answer to the
bird's demand for applause: "Yis," he says, firmly but apparently
too succinctly for the eagle's taste. His pride in his skill is
inexhaustible and he restates his triumph:
"A ha!" quod he, "10, so I can
Lewedly to a lewed man
Speke and shew hym swich skiles
That he may shake him be the biles.
So palpable they shulden be.
But telle me this, now preye y the,
How thinketh the my conclusyon?"
(865-71.)
Beyond demonstrating the eagle's irrepressible immodesty,
this passage is interesting for other reasons. As in his previous
apotheosis to his technique, the eagle's attitude here is not

unlike that of Harry Bailly of the later Canterbury Tales. As "oure

15Geoffrey Chaucer, p. 111-12.

 

124

hoost of Tabard" was self-appointed arbiter of literature and good
taste there, so is the eagle arbiter of intellect in this book.

The comic irony in both cases lies in our recognition that neither
are qualified for the position they assume. AS Harry Bailly rejects

Chaucer's brilliant Tale gf_$ir Thopas as "rym dogeral . . . nat

 

worth a toord" (1951, 925-30), so the eagle judges Geffrey "a lewed
man“ which even in the persona Chaucer affects we know he is not.
And the eagle's patronizing tone intensifies the attitude of con-
tempt we have noted earlier in his exchanges with the narrator and
so emphasizes his bird's-eye view of man.

This time Geffrey's answer, still terse, is full enough to
satisfy and the vain bird promises that everything he has said will
be proved by Geffrey's experience in Fame's place, if not as par-
ticipant, at least as direct audience.

Serious discussion over, at least for a time, the eagle
declares a recess: "Now wil we Speken of game" (886), and queries
whether "yond adoun, / Wher that thou knowest any toun, / Or hous,
or any other thing" (889-91). For long periods we almost forget
where we are, but references like this and the earlier "Shake hem
be the biles" remind us of the height as well as the fact that the
speaker is a bird. So reality intrudes again. For the next sixty-
five lines, there is more than a hint of the tour guide in the
eagle's tone. The narrator, following instructions to look below,
describes the panoramic view in much the same terms Troilus used
later. And it is wonderful--fields, plains, valleys, forests,

brooks, rivers, cities, great trees, and ships. But there is

125

qualification here, too. Only briefly was the narrator allowed a
clear view of the world below:

But thus sone in a while he

Was flowen fro the ground so hye

That al the world, as to myn Ye,

No more semed than a prikke;

Or elles was the air so thikke

That y ne myghte not discerne.

(904-09.)

Later Troilus, from the "holughnesse of the eighthe spere" (IQ, V,
1809), looks down upon "his litel spot of erthe" and repudiates
earthly love as "Al vanite" (19, V, 1817). The contrast between
earthly and heavenly love was, of course, one of the most familiar
commonplaces of the age and, as Professor Robinson points out, "is

16 In this passage, however,

more than once brought out by Chaucer."
the implication of such a contrast, made viable by the echo of
Dante's "vidi questo globo / tal, ch'io sorrisi del suo vil

sembiante" (335;, xx11, 134-35)17

which is, I think, operative both
here and in the passage from Troilus, is ambivalent at the least.
It falls in the category of "loves tydynges yf they be glade," dis-
cussed earlier, and continues the hints of doubt about the nature
of Fame which color Book II.

As Chaucer uses proverbs, colloquialisms, and comnonsensical
comments to remind us of the reality behind the seductive appearance

of a situation, so does he provide elusive references to the Fame

Geffrey is to meet in Book III. These references are fleeting and

16works, p. 837.
1711
semblance."

and I saw this globe such that I smiled at its paltry

126

casual but their function iS nonetheless achieved: we are prepared
for the explication of Fame's effect on men and so of her nature
in Book III. Such ambiguities and ambivalent allusions are not
disjunct. They have in common their source in either Boethius or
Dante. Overt acknowledgment of these authorities serve to streng-
then and give credence to the covert and casual allusions by which
Chaucer maintains the tension between the contraries with which
this book and the poem are concerned.18

In what has become his habit, the eagle interrupts any
philosophical pondering with a second "Seest. thou any toun / Or
ought thou knowest yonder doun?" (911-12). The narrator's negative
a foregone conclusion, the great bird repeats what we have already
been told. With great satisfaction, he admits, "No wonder nys,"
for Alexander nor Scipio nor Daedalus nor Icarus had risen "half so
high as this." This litany of aeronauts includes no Christian
examples. Moreover, two referenceS--Daedalus and Icarus--are mytho-
logical and a third--Alexander--is a figure from the romances.]9
Only Scipio has either philosophical significance or Significance
in terms of experience with a dream vision. This passing reference
to Scipio "That saw in drem, at point devys, / Helle and erthe and
paradys" is one of the few reminders in Book II that the narrator

18D. W. Robertson, (Preface t9_Chaucer, pp. 252-53) denies
the existence of both contraries and tension, a signal, I suSpect,
of the richness and genius of a poet who can provide grounds for
such variant readings.

19Robinson (Works, p. 783) points out that in the "Ethiopic

version in E. A. T. W. Budge, Life and Exploits gf_Alexander, London,
1896, p. 277 ff," Alexander was carried aloft by an eagle.

 

 

127

is himself in the midst of just such a dream, although the heaven
and hell and earth he will witness in Fame's place are metaphorical
and worldly indeed. The progression of ascension implicit in the
eagle's words is provocative as well and further stresses the
vertical architecture which marks the structure of the House gf_
Fame.
After this bow to the narrator's earthly origin, the eagle
points out the wonders of his own milieu:
"Now turn upward," quod he, "thy face,
And behold this large Space,
This eyr; but loke thou ne be
Adrad of hem that thou shalt se."
(925-28.)
But before the narrator can do more than glance at the "eyryssh
bestes," the figures of the zodiac, his guide is eagerly pointing
out the galaxy above them:
Se yonder, 100, the Galaxie,
Which men clepeth the Milky Wey,
For hit ys whit (and some, parfey,
Kallen hyt Watlynge Strete).
(936-39.)
This is delightful fun, combining high and serious learning with the
colloquial name--in case the dreamer didn't understand the "scien-
tific" term. Its comedic impact is increased by the setting and
position of both eagle and dreamer. Here, of course, Geffrey,
frightened nearly speechless, is being borne through space to an
unknown though not unnamed destination. Moreover, the speaker is
servant to Jupiter, mightiest of gods. It is, like the alteration

of Juno's messenger into the top sergeant of the Book 9f_the Duchess,

strikingly un-Olympian and irresistibly comic. As that messenger

128

Shared the narrator's single-minded attention to the problem at
hand, so does the eagle Share not only that Single-mindedness but
Geffrey's devotion to authority as well.

Moreover, these lines provide the most compressed example
of the combination of elevated and colloquial language which mark
the eagle's character. "Galaxie" or even "Milky Wey" is not in
the same class with "Watlynge Strete" as a descriptive term.
"Watlynge Strete" is- of course completely English,20 affectionate in
tone, and, perhaps most important, less of the courts than the com-
mons. We have noted before that Jove's bird has a fairly comprehen-
sive knowledge of and fondness for what we would call "street slang"
today. While this lends verve and vitality and humor to his speech,
it is nonetheless unexpected if not inappropriate in a messenger
of Jupiter.

There has been throughout Book II a duality between Jupiter
and God, between pagan and Christian, which has added to the ambi-
guity of the nature of the eagle, the nature of Fame's house as well
as of Fame herself, and the nature of the tidings the narrator will
hear there. And this ambiguity has been present from the first. The
golden bird appeared as if in answer to a prayer to Christ but his
arrival was announced by a thunderclap, symbol of Jove. He swears
to God ("wis god helpe me," “By God," "wis God rede me," and "God

of hevene sende the grace") and by the saints ("Seynte Marye,"

20Robinson (Works, p. 783) cites similar uses of certain
Southern European placenames ("la vie de San Jocabo" and "la
strada di Roma," etc.) as analogues.

129

"Seynt Jame," "Peter," "Seynt Julyan," and "Seynte Clare") but the
eagle is a creature of Jupiter, cognizant of his power and obedient
to his will. His glorious and supranatural appearance is countered
and diminished by his Speech and attitude. And what do we know of
the Jove whose servant this bird is? We know that he has heard of
the narrator's long and unrewarded service to "hys blynde nevew
Cupido, / And faire Venus also," that he considered that the narrator
had no knowledge of "Loves folk" nor "of noght elles that God made"
beyond his books. We know Jove "thorgh hys grace," ordered his mes-
senger to carry Geffrey to the house of Fame to remedy this lack.
Outside the dream frame of the poem, Chaucer has spoken of the "A11-
Mover," Dante's "Primo Mobile," as being aware of lovers and as hav-
ing the power to give them joy (11. 81-89). The identity of this
deity with Jupiter is implicit in the eagle's discourse and is con-
firmed when he avers that the poet lacks tidings not only of love
but of "noght elles that God made" (italics mine). Essentially,
Jupiter is presented as omniscient, powerful and merciful. Father
and highest of pagan gods, he merits reSpect. In some ways he is

21 an ur-God served by

prototype, as it were, of God the Father,
those without knowledge of God Almighty. Jove is, however, neither
Creator nor divine. His influence is limited to the secular side
of man's life. That the eagle is more a guide to amor_than natural
love is made clear in Book III. Jupiter's relationship with Fame
is likewise made clear by Chaucer's bird when he describes Jupiter

2‘This view is held by Koonce, pp. 124-25 and elsewhere,
for example.

130

as a god who "thorgh his merite" metes out reward in recompense for
earthly "labour and devocion." This labor, of course, is the labor
of writing poetry, the devotion is to Venus and Cupid, both most
secular occupations, eSpecially' in the context of Book II. So
Fame is no less a servant of Jupiter than the eagle, although She
is a more powerful one. As earlier Venus's intervention in Aeneas's
behalf was essentially a family affair, so does Jupiter repay the
narrator's service to love because of similar family feeling. His
scope is set by his relationship to Cupid, "hys blynde nevew," and
to Venus, and his rewards are meted out by Fame, as Jupiter's judge.

The eagle's lecture on astronomy gives way to mythological
digression: having cited several names for the galaxy, he continues
with further--and essentially superfluous--identification. It is,
he tells the narrator, that which was once "ybrent with hete" during
Phaeton's wild chariot ride. This passage is, I think remarkable
for several reasons. First, as Jupiter's servant, the eagle would
be particularly conscious of an episode in which his master literally
saved the world from destruction. The whole passage, moreover,
iterates the tendency to over-explanation noted earlier in the
eagle's exposition on sound. And the eagle's aside ("the rede")
reminds us of the narrator's dedication to authority which will be
the subject of their next exchange and for which this journey is to
substitute experience. In this passage, too, we find the only
reference to a Specific astrological Sign:

Til that he sey the Scorpioun

Which that in heven a sygne is et.
(848-49.)

131

In the corresponding lines of Metamorphoses II, source for this

 

passage, the Scorpion is used dramatically: Phaeton saw the crea-
ture, black, Shining with poison, poised to sting, and, at the
sight, "mentis inopo gelida formidine,"22 dropped the reins. More-
over, Ovid had earlier used the figures of the Zodiac to warn
Phaeton of the dangers of the ride:
thue viam teneas nulloque errore traharis
per tamen adversi gradieris cornua Tauri
Haemoniosque arcus violentique ora Leonis
saevaque circuitu curvantem bracchia longo
Scorpio atque aliter curvantem bracchia Cancrum.
(Meta II, 79-83.)23
But the reference to "Scorpioun" here, shorn of Ovid's
elaborate imagery, has another interpretation which strengthens the
ambiguity of the nature of Fame and Love. In A_Treatise gg_thg.
Astrolabe, Chaucer discusses zodiacal influence:
And everich of / these 12 Signes hath respect to
a certeyn / parcel of the body of a man, and hath
it in / governaunce; as Aries hath thin heved, and /
Taurus thy nekke and thy throte, Gemini thin /
armholes and thin armes, and so furth, as Shall /
be shewid more pleyn in the 5 parties of this /
tretis.
(I, 70-77.)
The Treatise was of course never completed and we cannot know what
Chaucer would have written there. We do know, however, that the

ascription of the control of certain parts of the body to certain

22%., II. 200: "bereft of wits from chilling fear."

23"And though thou shouldst hold the way, and not go stray-
ing from the course, still shalt thou pass the horned Bull full in
thy path, the Haemonian Archer, the maw of the raging lion, the
Scorpion curving his savage arms in long sweeps, and the Crab reach-
ing out in the opposite direction."

132

signs follows received medieval theory. And according to that
theory, Scorpio governs the hips as well as the sexual organs and
their disorders.24 Koonce likens Scorpio to the "'fals flaterynge -
beste' which Chaucer elsewhere compares to Fortune."25 Curry
explicates the unfortunate aspects of Scorpio, "the darker house" of
Mars, at some length.26 Here again, in passing, we have another
signal that love's tidings are not what they appear to be.
The eagle ends his astrological excursion with:

Loo, ys not a gret myschaunce

To lete a fool han governaunce

0f thing that he can not demeyne?

(957-59.)
As elsewhere, the eagle is speaking sound commonsense. But the
echoes of the poem are heavy around us. Geffrey, who studies love
in books, is being spirited to Fame's house to experience "Loves
folk"; the eagle, Jove's servant, full to the beak with examples
and theory is, as we have seen, unaware of the implications of his
learning. The eagle's judgment is harsh indeed but there is truth
behind the sanctimony. That this truth iS as applicable to the
eagle as to the unfortunate Phaeton provides the comic irony in
24Paul Christian, History and Practice 9f_Magjg_(New York:

Citadel Press, 1969), p. 474. See also Curry, Mediaeval Sciences,
p. 9.

25Chaucer and the Tradition g Fame, p. 165.

26F. 174 ff. The scorpion is an image of Fortune in Book
93' the Duchess, 636-41, and the Merchant's Tale, 2057-60. Cf. 11. R.
F’iatch, The Goddess Fortuna ig_Medieva1 Literature (Cambridge, Mass.:
Pliarvard Univ. Press, 1948),.p. 52. Chauncey Wood, Chaucer and the
Countr ofthe Stars (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ. Press,
lg70), p. 2797 Believes rather that this reference is used with
CC>rinotations extrinsic of astrology.

 

 

133

these lines. Moreover, Chaucer intensifies the effect of the irony
by having Jove's bird, straight-faced and unaware, deliver the
judgment, as it were, against himself.

So rapidly have the pair ascended that the "ayerissh bestes"
are below them, and the terrified Geffrey, acknowledging the power
of God "that made Adam," turns his thoughts to Boethius

That writ, "A thought may flee so hye,

With fetres of philosophie,

To passen everich element;

And whan he hath so fer ywent,

Than may be seen, behynde hys bak,

Cloude."

(973-78.)

The ironic implications of the narrator's very Special journey are,
I suspect, made manifest and irreducible by Chaucer's references to

Boethius and Dante. Throughout this book, paraphrases of or lines

from either the Consolation or the Commedia usually signal some

 

basic disparity between the situation, statement, or example in the

poem and its source. In the Consolation, Book IV, Pr. I, which

 

innediately preceds Me. I, the source of the narrator's words,
Philosophy, having rehearsed for Boethius the form of true happiness,
promises to Show him the road which would lead him to his home. In
Me. I, according to Chaucer's Boece, when the "swifte thoght hath
clothed itself in the fetheris, it dispiseth the hateful erthes" in
favor of the "verray knowleche of God": Boethius's mind, free of
the "felounious tyrantz" of the world, "schal be makid parfit of

the worschipful lyght of God." It is important to recognize the

very different objects of the two pasSageS. In Book II, the wings

of the eagle are bearing the very corporeal narrator to an intensely

134

worldly neighborhood'UDhear tidings of wholly secular loves. But
Boethius was concerned with transcending the world and its affairs.

Philosophy, throughout the Consolation, urges a rejection of

 

worldly values in favor of higher Spiritual ones.
Led by thoughts of Boethius and philosophy to his own con-
dition, the narrator admits:

Thoo gan y wexen in a were,

And seyde, "I wot wel y am here;

But wher in body or in gost

I not, ywys; but God thou wost!"
(979-82.)

And he seeks further comfort in authority:

And than thoughte y on Marcian,

And eke on Anticlaudian,

That sooth was her descripsion

0f alle the hevenes region,

As fer as that y sey the preve;

Therfore y kan hem now beleve.
(985-90.)

According to Lowes, in Qn_the Marriage gf_Philology and Mercury of

 

 

Martianus Capella, Philology lightened herself for her astonishing
flight by "ejecting from her brain the learned treatises whose

27 Certainly the lectures of the

ponderousness weighted her down.“
eagle who bore the narrator into Similar heights contradict such a
theory: they are heavy with authority, burdened with "learned
treatises" to prove the eagle's extraordinary erudition. The place

in the Anticlaudianus to which Chaucer refers is summarized by

 

Bossard: "Prudentia goes in a chariot driven by Ratio through

the immense fields of the sky, considers all things and the causes

27Geoffrey Chaucer, p. 110.

135

"28 Both journeys are, as James Winney points out,

of things.
"flights of fancy taken by allegorical or mythological figures:

and of this fabulous element in their work Chaucer's pseudo-solemn
asseveration that 'sooth was hir descripcioun' is an ironic
reminder."29 Whenever journeys to the heavens appear in medieval
literature, they serve some specific noble aim and are treated as a

30 There is no need to stress the fact that this

lofty theme.
journey contrasts ironically with its medieval models. One area of
irony of course lies in the fact that only when such authorities
support the eagle's lesson does Geffrey believe his guide or, in
fact, the reality of his situation.

AS the narrator seeks precedent and comfort in remembered
accounts of others who had journeyed similarly heavenward, the
eagle rejects such philosophical musings in favor of the concrete:

“Lat be," quod he, "thy fantasye
Wilt thou lere of sterres aught?“
(992-93.)
And we are suddenly in the middle of an overt and explicit debate
between authority and experience, a debate the narrator wins.

Refusing the eagle's offer of one more lesson, he says, "For y am

now to old" (995) and, besides:

 

 

28Eugene Bossard, Alani gg Insulis: Anti-Claudianus cum
Diviga Dantis Aligihieri Comoedia Collatus (Andigavi: n.p., 1885),
p. 3 ff.

29

3oClemen, p. 96, for example. This comment occurs in so
"any studies that it almost amounts to a commonplace.

Chaucer's Dream Poems, p. 93.

 

136

I leve as wel, so God me spede,

Hem that write of this matere

AS though I knew her places here;

And eke they shyne here so bryghte,

Hyt Shulde shenden al my syghte,

To loke on hem.

(1012-17.)

And so, after some five-hundred lines, the narrator rejects Simply
and flatly the proffered experience. The eagle has told him the
purpose of the journey, provided unsolicited orations on science and
geography and Fame's house, offered examples of Jupiter's might and
love's variety, and displayed the wonders of space, his world.
Interestingly, it is only this latter which touched on experience;
the rest were Simply different versions of authority. No matter:
Geffrey is unmoved, still loyal to his books. Surprisingly, the
eagle contents himself with a cryptic last word--"That may wel be"--
which in its uncharacteristic brevity catches our attention. There
is in this line further substance for the eagle's established
attitude toward his burden: he is of course twitting the narrator
for his human vision, weak indeed compared to the traditionally
sharp eyesight of his own race. But it is, I think, defensible to
read it on another level as a response to the narrator's last words:
that is, as "If you look upon the stars (experience), their bright-
ness may very well destroy your Sight since you are accustomed to

seeing only second hand (authority)."3]

3lKoonce ( . 169) reads this line as indicating "the sound-
ness of Chaucer's EGeffrey's] attitude." A major problem with this
study is, I think, Koonce's failure to differentiate between
Cflaucer and his persona.

137

Characteristically, Chaucer allows us little time for
Speculation: almost immediately the eagle proclaims their proximity
to Fame's house with, "Seynt Julyan, loo, bon hostel!" Chaucer's
use of minor saints to enhance his effect demands acknowledgment.

We have noted earlier the ironic appropriateness of Saint Leonard

to the fl9u§g_gf.famg_(ll7). St. Julian, as patron saint of hospi-
tality, is equally appropriate--almost excesSively so in light of
the eagle's insistence that all sounds find harbor in Fame's mansion.
~The use of "hostel"--that is, a public lodging place--emphasizes the
aptness and irony of "Seynt Julyan“ and, at one deft stroke, reduces
Fame's position from goddess to concierge. Later the eagle's oath,
"by Seynt Clare" (1066), continues this pattern of ironic signifi-
cance, coming as it does immediately before their arrival at the
very noisy mansion of Fame, sister of Fortune and arbiter of
worldly reputation.

The ruling quality of Fame's house is previewed, reiterated,
and made immediate in the eagle's words. Where earlier he had
described sound and its destination abstractly, here we are immersed
in the fact of it and the sensation is intense and almost physical
in its power:

"The grete soun,"
Quod he, "that rumbleth up and doun
In Fames Hous, ful of tydynges,
Both of feir speche and chidynges,
And of fals and soth compouned."
(1024-29.)

'This passage is notable, too, in that it contains no mention of

1¢>ve. What had begun as a promise of specialized and specific

138

tidings has, in the course of Book II, been subtly metamorphosed
into news of all mankind, as varied as humanity. There is, in the'
eagle's words, a magnification of the stage upon which Book III
will be played. The hint of the darker nature of these tidings,
however, is present here as it has been in the earlier lines. The
linkage between the catalogue of causes of dreams in the Proem to
Book I is here made concrete. The matter of Book III, the examina-
tion of Fame's justice and her influence on men, is not to be
limited. The contraries will be displayed there without disguise.

It is interesting to note in passing that, as the eagle's
arrival was heralded by thunder, so the imminence of Fame's place
is similarly announced. It sounds, the narrator says,

Lyk the last humblynge

After the clappe of a thundringe,

Whan Joves hath the air ybete.

(1039-41.)

Certainly these lines suggest that we are approaching the heart of'
the work, that its "sentence" is shortly to be pronounced. And that
suggestion is confirmed by the Invocation which follows at the head
of Book III and which drives home the point that the purpose of
Book III is much more than to dazzle us with "novelries."

At the overwhelming wave of noise, the narrator's terror
returns, but before the eagle can do more than assure him that
"Thou shalt non harm have trewly," they have arrived. With a final
--and structurally necessary--explanati0n of the nature of noise in

Fame's house, the eagle says:

But understand now ryght wel this,
Whan any speche ycomen yS

139

Up to the palays anon-ryght

Hyt wexeth lyke the same wight

Which that the word in erthe spak,

Be hyt clothed red or blak;

And hath so verray hys lyknesse

That spak the word, that thou wilt gesse

That it the same body be,

Man or woman, he or she. 32

(1073-82.)

In this brief passage, Chaucer has prepared us for the personifica-
tion of sound: essentially he has removed to Fame's house--unnatural,
allegorical, and completely imaginary--the world from which the nar-
rator began his long dream journey. Ovid, of course, gave a Similar
quality to his description of Fame's place: "unde quod est usquam,
quamvis regionibus absit, / inspicitur" (Meta, x11, 41-42).33 This
of course is the same passage which provided the source fOr the
eagle's earlier description of Fame's house. But the tone and
effect are very different. Most obviously, Chaucer's lines are
more vivid and elaborate. In the straightforward description of

the Metamorphoses, this is one quality among many which mark Fame's

 

place. Moreover, Ovid simply tell us, "whatever is . . . is seen,"
with neither need nor inclination for the mechanics of the phenome-
non. Chaucer's bird of science, we know, is less succinct. And
Chaucer's poetic plan has different requirements. This example of
Chaucer's craft is particularly lovely. The idea of sounds carrying,
somehow, the Shapes of their sources, invisible until they reach
32Koonce, p. 175, finds "red or blak" to mean charity or
cupidity, God or Lucifer, respectively. Certainly this is an

appealing interpretation although I think the more obvious "truth"
or "falsehood" makes the point clearly enough.

33"From this place, whatever is, however far away, is seen."

140

Fame's house, is not only delightful but, of course, necessary.
Otherwise Geffrey would sojourn in a mansion of ghosts, bombarded
by disembodied voices, an effect obviously unsuitable to the environ-
ment of Book III. By saving this particular aspect of Fame's mansion
until their arrival, Chaucer continues a habit begun with the
eagle's first long speech: Geffrey's guide does not tell his pas-
senger more than he thinks he needs to know. From the first "for
thy lore and for thy prow," through the incomplete tally of the
wonders of Fame's place, to this final delineation, he has teased
his mortal burden--and the audience--with increasingly detailed
bits of information. In addition to maintaining interest and pro-
viding a sense of movement in an essentially static episode, this
device is dramatically effective. We, with Geffrey, are prepared
for the wonders of the next Book. Moreover, the groundwork is laid
for the reappearance of the eagle later in the poem.

These lines have also prepared the way for physical as
well as aural onslaught: not only will the narrator's ears be
assaulted from all directions, his physical being will also be
subject to the chaos that is Fame's place. Such a conceit inten-
sifies beyond exaggeration the busy-ness and turmoil which will
replace the sterile and alien space which was the environment of
Book II.

The flight is over and Jove's bird sets his passenger down
(an a "strete" (1049), a construction suggestive of civilization.

‘1rhat this road is constructed continues the pattern which began

i’n Venus's temple. Everything in this most singular dream vision

141

is "made." Nothing is natural, all is artifice: in this dream
there are no brooks nor trees nor mossy paths. Earlier, I noted
that the House of Fame was divided into urban and desert areas.
The "strete" upon which the narrator was deposited marks his
arrival at what is, in an entirely modern sense, the urban environ-
nent of Book III.
The eagle leaves, as abruptly as he appeared, with a final
word of advice to his passenger:
And Gode of heven sende the grace
Some good to lernen in this place.
(1087-88.)
J. A. W. Bennett reads this couplet as reflecting the same "faint
doubt whether the narrator is capable of profiting by such

34

'good'" that colors Africanus's parting words:

And if thou haddest conning for t'endite
I Shal the shewen mater of to wryte.
(Pf, 167-68.)
But the eagle is not the solemn Africanus and Chaucer's way in the

Parliament 9f_Fowls is not the path he walks in House of Fame.

 

There are the earlier catalogues of loves as well as the exposition
of the theory of sound with their echoing hints of duality to con-
tend with. To read "some good" as expressing hope that there will
be some good for Geffrey to hear amid the indiscriminate noise of
the world which is drawn to and reverberates through Fame's house
is equally viable. But Geffrey is unconcerned with recondite ques-

tions of interpretation. Unchanged by his marvelous flight,

34Chaucer's Book gf_Fame, p. 99.

 

142

grateful for solid ground, however fabulous, and the eagle's final
instructions, the narrator "of him tok leve anon" and set about

exploring the strange country of Fame.

CHAPTER IV

HOUSE 91; FAME, BOOK III

The Proem and Invocation of Book I are echoed by Book II's
Proem and Book III'S Invocation to retain the structural unity
within the poem. In each pair of Proems and Invocations, Chaucer
moves from the general to the specific. As the Proem of Book I
is concerned with the subject of dreams, the second Proem deals
with the Specific matter of this dream. A similar relationship
exists between the Invocations: in Book I, the narrator prays to
Morpheus to grant men the dreams they deserve and, in Book III, he
begs Apollo, "god of science and of lyght," to give him craft to
describe his dream of Fame's house. There is, of course, additional
delight in one more instance of Chaucer denying craft or art in his
persona of narrator, a gentle irony which convinces few of his audi-
ence, either his medieval listeners or his modern readers.1

In the Invocation, Chaucer's use of his source, generally
accepted to be the opening lines of the Paradiso,2 is as ambiguous
and elusive as we have grown to expect. J. A. W. Bennett asserts
that "when he [Chaucer] begins his 'little last book' by invoking
Apollo it is primarily because Paradiso opens with the prayer that

1For comment on the Sophistication of Chaucer's audience,
see Clemen, p. 67, and Discarded Image, p. 206 ff.

 

2Works, p. 784, for example.

143

144

Apollo will bless the work and grant its maker the laurel crown."3

But Dante appeals to Apollo only as god of light, a figure of that
great light whose source is divine. Moreover, Dante's prayer imme-
diately precedes his vision of Beatrice and the sublimation of his
human love to the greater love of God. And Dante's vision is of an
ordered universe, made forever quiet ("sempre quieto," £95,, I, 122)
by the regulation of Providence and Nature. That Chaucer's subject
will be a different one is signaled in the first line of Book III:
he appeals to Apollo as "god of science and of lyght." The order
of Apollo's areas of authority is important here, I think. That
Chaucer stresses science at the beginning of Book III rather than
of Book II whose matter would more aptly merit such a god's protec-
tion is interesting and evocative.4 In Fame's house there will be
little of science: rather we will find whimsy, caprice, impulse
and unreason, certainly the antithesis of any requirements of sci-
ence which has at its base order and natural law. There, too, we
will find little of Dante's hushed silence. Even the light of
Fame's house is artificial, far beyond the authority of Apollo as
god of the sun, nature's great light. Moreover, " in medieval tra-
dition, Apollo was especially the god of poetry and music."5 That

Chaucer evokes the god of poetry is logical enough. He is, after

3Chaucer's Book of_Fame, pp. 100-01.

 

4Similarly, in Book I, the narrator evokes Morpheus for aid,
though it is about the temple of Venus, while in Book II, whose sub-
ject is of the three least about love, he invokes Venus.

5Bert Dillon, A_Chaucer Dictionary: Proper Names and Allu-
sions (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1973), p. 13.

 

145

all, a poet. And such commentators as J. A. W. Bennett, John
Norton-Smith, Laurence Shook, and James Winny have considered "ars
poetica" to be the theme of the floo§g_of_fgme,6 But to evoke Apollo
at the beginning of a book whose hallmark is disharmony, dissonance,
and discord is surely as ironic as the eagle's earlier oath to St.
Clare, whose followers were pledged to silence,7 was as preface to
his lesson on the personification of sound in Fame's house. And
Chaucer's audience would recognize the irony. So from the first
line of the Invocation to Book III, we are enmeshed in the web of
contradiction.

For the remainder of the Invocation, Chaucer continues the
self-deprecating posture of his persona. He would not wish for
mastery, he says, but only asks:

Yit make hyt sumwhat agreable,
Though som verS fayle in a sillable,
And that I do no dilligence

To shewe crafte, but 0 sentence.
(1097-1100.)

Geffrey does not ask, as Dante did, to be granted the laurel crown,8

but only pledges that, if Apollo helps him tell his dream:

6Chaucer's Book of_Fame, p. 102; Geoffrey Chaucer (London:
Routledge 8 Kegan Paul, 1974), p. 39; "The House of_Fame:“ in Com-
anion to_Chaucer Studies, ed. Beryl Rowland (Toronto: Oxford
niv. Press, 1968), pp. 341-54; and Chaucer's Dream Poems (London:

Chatto & Windus, 1973 , p. 92, respectively, and elséfihere.

 

 

7Catholic Encyclopedia III (Washington, 0.c.: Catholic
Univ. of America, 1967), . 913; and Marie Neville, "Chaucer and
St. Clare," JEGP 55 (1956), pp. 423-30.

8

 

22:}, I, 13-15.

146

Thou shalt se me go as blyve

Unto the nexte laure y see,

And kisse yt, for hyt iS thy tree.
(1107-09.)

As the narrator had promised Morpheus a feather bed in exchange for

Sleep in the Book of_the Duchess, so here he promises Apollo to

 

honor the laurel in his name in exchange for poetic help. There is
no Similar sense of bargaining in the Invocation and Proem to

Book I or the Proem to Book II. In those, however, as we have seen,
the Christian God was superimposed upon and merged with the pagan

deities. In the Book of_the Duchess and this Invocation, there is

 

no such obvious duality. Apparently, while Chaucer's narrator feels
free to negotiate with classical gods, he, quite properly, takes no
such liberties with God the Maker of us all. And the matter of
Book III, the nature of Fame and the vanity of worldly greatness,

is far indeed from that Maker.

With this rather brief prayer, the narrator returns to the
matter of the dream. He immediately begins to explore his new
environment with the endearing curiosity and enthusiasm for detail
we have come to associate with his character. Geffrey takes us with
him on his journey of discovery. All we have been told is that he
was set down on a "strete." The technique of step-by-step unveil-
ing builds the dramatic tension throughout this book. In the first
lines, the fact that Fame's place is located on a mountain is men-
tioned, but no more information is given. And this artistic pattern
is continued in what can be called a series of vignettes. Fame,

her house, servants, and supplicants are, from the outset, presented

147

almost as a series of theatre sets, each impressive, each adding

to the total drama of Fame but each clearly art, fiction, and
hence unreal. The structure and skeleton of the poem itself places
appearance in opposition to reality, a reality which is unstated
but against which every excess, every catalogue, and every action
is juxtaposed by implication.

Geffrey continues his examination of the peak which "Hier
stant ther non in Spayne" (1117). The unreality of the place is
further implied in this line. J. A. W. Bennett has suggested that
castles in Spain meant fantasy, in Chaucer's time as in our own.9
And the painstaking investigation continues:

But up I clomb with alle payne,

And though to clymbe it greved me,

Yit I ententyf was to see,

And for to powren wonder lowe,

Yf I koude any weyes knowe

What maner stoon this roche was.

(1118-23.)

As J. A. W. Bennett has pointed out, these lines are significant as
indication that Fame's house (i.e., renown) was not easily

‘0 But the repetition is also, I think, a sly reminder

achieved.
that the narrator is no man of action but a sedentary student of
the actions of others, as they are described in his books. The
narrator's curiosity, his determination to discover the nature of
"thys place"--a delightfully noncommital statement--despite the
pain of exercise, is set. Here there is no authority but his own

9Chaucer's Book oi: Fame, pp. 103-04. For a different view,
see Works, p. 784.

10

 

Chaucer's Book of_Fame, pp. 104 ff.

 

148

senses--what he can see, touch, smell, taste or hear. Geffrey is
touchstone to reality, aS he has been in the earlier books of this

poem as well as in the Book of_the Duchess. But here, he is our

 

only anchor, our only reminder of what-is, in a kingdom of what-
seems-to-be.

The mystery, sustained and enlarged by the use of neutral
phrases like "thys place" and "thys roche," continues. The narrator
tells us:

For hyt was lyk alum of glas

But that hyt shoon ful more clere;

But of what congeled matere

Hyt was, I nyste redely.

(1124-27.)

It--itself indefinite--was like glass but shone more brightly. That
the rock shone like glass suggests, of course, Venus's temple ”ymad
of glas." But this structure, we will find, is even more ephemeral.

"Ful more clere" marks the first of a long series of superlatives

which, taken jo_toto, present a picture of Fame's house as not only

 

fantastic and unnatural but excessively so. The cumulative effect
of the superlatives which this passage begins is to emphasize and
magnify the excess which identifies all aspects of Fame's house,
her creatures, and Fame herself. And the governing set of con-
traries--here, reason and moderation versus excess--by which the
opposition between reality and appearance will be explicated is
made manifest. Even, we shall see, her penalties and rewards are
excessive and, indeed, separate from any requirements of justice.

The "congeled matere"--a very technical sounding term which was

149

apparently original with Chaucer]]--is significant in that it assumes
that the base of Fame's house was unnatural. This assumption of
man-made or artificial material is manifest in Geffrey's realization
that it was “yse and not of stel" (1130). As J. A. W. Bennett says,
"the emphatic negative is not a mere tr0pe: it underlines the

12

double significatio." Certainly the material of Fame's hill is

 

as impermanent as steel is enduring. But steel, too, is a man-made
substance.

The wonder of the structure diverts Geffrey from his destina-
tion. Throughout the poem, the architecture of the dream has been
increasingly artificial and this artifice culminates in the environ-
ment of Fame's house, the narrator's final destination. Not only is
Fame's palace man-made and unnatural, the material of its setting
is the most evanescent of substances, a fantasy hill indeed.

Geffrey, however, is unimpressed by the fabulous material
of Fame's hill: with the uncompromising eye of a contractor, he
pronounces it "a feble fundament" and its builder a fool. So before
we have even glimpsed the marvelous palace which is our objective,
we are brought again to reality. The effect of this early prag-
matic dismissal of the fantastic is, of course, to color our atti-
tude toward Fame and her work later in the poem. The grandeur of
Fame is torn asunder and exposed as appearance by the narrator's

prosaicism.

11
12

Works, p. 784.

Chaucer's Book oj_Fame, p. 104.

 

150

But there is more to be seen on this glimmering peak.

Geffrey finds carved in an ice wall the names of many folk whose
fame, he declares, had been widespread:

But wel unnethes koude I knowe

Any lettres for to rede

Hir names by; for out of drede,

They were almost ofthowed so

That of the lettres oon or two

Was molte away of every name,

So unfamous was woxe hir fame.

(1140-46).

The oxymoron of fame made unfamous, ironic and evocative, simply
emphasizes the fragility of worldly renown demonstrated by the
melting names. But Geffrey has no time for tedious and insistent

sermons on the theme of contemptus mundi: he comments only, "But

 

men seyn, 'What may ever laste?'" Continuing his dogged explora-
tion of this strange "roche," he discovers that the names were
“molte away with hete / And not awey with stormes bete" (1149-50).
This discovery is reminder that Fame's place is closer to the sun
than earth and also, presumably, above weather or at least untouched
by it. ItS alien location is subtly underscored by such small and
insignificant references throughout Book III.

The arbitrary and equivocal climate of this hill is still
not complete. On the north wall, Geffrey finds the names of "folkes
that hadden grete fames / Of olde tyme" (1154-55), as clear as if
they were newly carved. There is a fleeting hint in this discovery
that perhaps the names of these folk were preserved by a merit not
earned by the others. "North," however, has more Sinister connota-

tions in folklore and in Chaucer's own poetry. We recall the

151

yeoman of the Friar's Tale whose origin in the "north countree"

 

(fl, 1413) suggests his demonic nature before he admits it ([1;
1448).13 But even this recognition has no place in Fame's uncertain
realm. With the echo of hell still clear in our minds, Geffrey
suddenly discovers the immediate explanation for the pristine state
of these names:

But wel I wiste what yt made;

Hyt was conserved with the shade

Of a castel that stood on hye.

(1159-61.)

So, we find, these have been preserved by simple chance, not merit
nor satanic intervention, as the others have melted because of the
accident of location.

This passage, fifty-one lines into the dream of Book III,
contains the first concrete mention of Fame's house Since the last
line of Book II. The art by which Chaucer introduces the castle is
lovely indeed. Rapt in the examination of the names engraved on the
ice hill, puzzling over the melting of some and the clarity of

others, the narrator suddenly discovers the solution: the names of

those who "hadden grete fames / Of olde tyme" were protected by

13As Robinson points out, "both in Biblical tradition and
Germanic mythology the North is associated with the infernal
regions" (Works, p. 705). J. A. W. Bennett, p. 108, disagrees,
saying that "out of the commonplaces about human vanity grows the
conception of a fame that endures for at least some folk," with
the implication that their endurance was due to merit. Koonce,
p. 193, finds those whose names are preserved to represent those
"who achieved renown . . . under the Old Law, the state of man
without charity" while the melting names are those "in whom the ice
of cupidity or the desire for renown has been removed by the heat
of the Holy Spirit." Most studies simply accept the passage, agree
with Bennett, or ignore it.

152

the shadow of a castle which he only then noticed looming above
him. Moreover, this castle is set on the coldest point--so cold
that no heat could melt its anchorage--of this cold mount, apt set-
ting indeed for the goddess whose home it is.

The words Chaucer uses to describe this marvelous castle are
worthy of close examination. It is, of course, beautiful beyond the
wit of man to duplicate or describe. But this beauty is alien and
artificial. It was "wonderlych ywrought," its "grete crafte,
beaute; / The cast, the curiosite" quite beyond description.
"erought," "crafte," "cast" (that is, contrivance), and "curiosite"
serve to emphasize the manufactured quality of its construction and
its distance from the world of man and Nature which is reality.

And the emphasis on "crafte" and "curiosite" persists through the
fare more detailed description of the castle. Fame's house is no
more suitable climate for man than the desert beyond Venus's temple
or the vast space through which the narrator traveled to reach it.
Today, to readers accustomed to the excesses of science fiction,
such a description would trigger immediate recognition of an alien
universe, ordered and erected by a non-human intelligence, neither
necessarily better nor worse than human but certainly different.
This supranatural quality is intensified by the details of the
architecture which Geffrey swears "by Seynt Gyle!" he will always
remember. Slipped inconspicuously and casually in the account of
the castle's wonders is this natural-sounding oath. As St. Leonard,
St. Julian, and St. Clare proved ironically appropriate in the

earlier books of this poem, so is this: St. Aegidius (Gyles) is

153

'4 While

patron of cripples, beggars, and, incidentally, lepers.
the subject of leprosy does not arise in the hordes of Fame's sup-
plicants, certainly they are all beggars and many, we will find,

are at least moral cripples. As in the cases of St. Leonard and

St. Julian especially, this invocation serves to diminish the

actors in Chaucer's drama of Fame.

For Geffrey, the inveterate investigator, the practical
details--the "hows" and "whats"--are of prime importance. And his
careful study of the castle continues. He says:

Al was of ston of beryle,

Both the castel and the tour

And eke the halle and every bour,

Wythouten peces or joynyges.

But many subtil compassinges,

Babewynnes and pynacles,

Ymageries and tabernacles,

I say; and ful eke of wyndowes,

AS flakes falle in grete snowes.

(1184-92.)

Chaucer has decked this antechamber with a prodigality of architec-
tural features, so many and so varied that we are breathless with
the reading of them. In twelve lines of tightly packed verse--one
sentence, by the way--he has described nine such features. But one
of these, I believe, is of signal importance to our understanding
of the nature of Fame's house, hence of Fame herself. There are,
Geffrey tells us, "babewynnes" carved on the walls of the ante-
chamber. Robinson glosses this term as "baboons, grotesque figures,
and gargoyes," and to us, accustomed as we are to gargoyles on early

cathedrals and castles, this would seem an obvious meaning. But I

14Dillon, p. 3.

154

think Chaucer may well have meant the term literally, as "baboons.“
Twenty-three lines later, we are told of the "smal harperes“ who
sat below the famous minstrels

And counterfete him as an ape,

Or as craft counterfeteth kynde.

(1212-13.)

There is here and throughout Book III an underlying sense of "craft"
aping "kynde," and the carved baboons become apt indeed as signal
that such imitation of nature is the rule in Fame's house.

The sources for Chaucer's portrayal of Fame and her place
have been subject to much scholarly attention. Edgar Shannon's
study of the influence of Ovid, Virgil, and other classical poets
has been particularly enlightening and fruitful. Sypherd's examina-
tion of love-vision poetry and other' continental genres for ana-
logues is also helpful, although his argument that these were
Chaucer's primary models is perhaps overstated. Koonce, I think,
is the most dedicated of those scholars who have investigated

15 The value of such commentaries iS great

Chaucer's debt to Dante.
and our debt to them hardly needs acknowledgment here. But I am
more interested in how these sources were used, particularly in the
catalogues. The thematic unity in this poem is maintained in

part, I suspect, within the characters of these catalogues. Arion,

in the catalogue of musicians, earned his place in Fame's anteroom

15Chaucer and the Roman Poets (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
Univ. Press, 1929):“Ehaucer's "HouscHiFame,"and Chaucer and the 133:
dition of_Fame, respectively. This—is not, of course, a comhlhte
list of such source studies but it does represent the major "schools"
of such studies.

 

 

 

 

155

through his skill with a lyre: lost at sea, his music attracted a
dolphin who bore Arion and instrument safely ashore. As reward,

‘6 Earlier, the

both dolphin and lyre were translated into stars.
eagle had previewed what he could have told Geffrey about the stars
if the narrator had been willing:

How goddes gonne stellify

Bridd, fissh, best, or him or here,

As the Raven or eyther Bere,

Or Arionis har e fyn,

Castor, Pol ux, or Delphyn,

Or Athalantes doughtres sevene,

How alle these arn set in hevene.

(1002-08. Italics mine.)

Hercules and Dianira are included in the list of faithless lovers in
Book I (402) as are Jason and Medea (401). And both Hercules and
Medea reappear in Fame's castle: Hercules, with Alexander, is borne
up on Fame's shoulders in her hall and Medea is included in the
catalogue of seers and magicians in Fame's anteroom. The identify-
ing detail attached to Hercules in Book III--"Hercules, / That with
a sherte hys lyf les'I (l413-l4)--serves to emphasize the interweaving
as well as point up the ironic disjunction of qualities in Fame's
house, I think, especially to an audience more conscious than we of
the matter of the old stories.17 Certainly the sordid death inspired
by his infidelity is not the traditional fame attached to the great
Hercules. According to Sheila Delaney, the reputation of Hercules

was "consistently virtuous. He is admired as an example of the

16
17

Dillon, p. 17.

The Discarded Image, pp. 211-12.

 

156

virtue of fortitude, the moral strength symbolized by his physical
prowess."18

Medea's inclusion among the magicians serves the same struc-
tural function and is as ambiguous. She was famous less for her
. ability as an enchantress than for her single-minded obsession with
revenge and the murder of her children which resulted from that
obsession. But there is more. Both these mythological characters
were included as examples of failed love--Hercules as betrayer,
Medea as betrayed--in Venus's anomalous temple. And Geffrey in
Book II is carried to Fame's place specifically to hear love tidings,
tidings, we recall, which were of a very dubious nature. In the
characters of these permanent servants of Fame, there are echoes
and reminders of the ambiguity which has colored all comments about
love in this poem. Moreover, we find that Fame Shares many of
Venus's servants. The relationship between Venus and Fame which has
been subtly established in the earlier books is here made manifest.
Such echoes force our attention to the other figures in the cata-
logues, both within and without Fame's gilded hall.

In the minstrels' niche, Orpheus is primary. But Orpheus,
we recall, possessed a reputation as divided as any of these
figures. He was often taken as a symbol of unnatural lust, "a tra-
dition, like his reputation as a figure of virtue, so widespread

18Chaucer's House of Fame (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press,
1972), p. 92. The Ovide MahaTISE, ed. C. deBoer (Amsterdam: M.
Sindig, 1966), refers to him consistently as "Diex 1i glorieuz
vainquerres," and Boeth1us prOVIdes a l1st of Hercules heroic

labors with an exhortation that men Should take him as a model to
emulate. Chaucer glosses this exhortation in Boece, 4, me. 7.

 

 

157

19 Moreover,

that Chaucer could hardly have been unaware of it."
both he and Arion with whom he shares this highest niche are famous
for their Skill, sogreat that their music can bind beasts to their
will or need. Chiron, third of this first rank of minstrels, is
himself a fabulous creature, called by Ovid "geminique,"20 half-
man, half horse, who as turor to Achilles and Jason used music to

21

soothe and win his pupils. Glascurion, last of this group,

according to J. A. W. Bennett the English counterpart of Orpheus,
harped a fish out of water and water out of stone.22 So in this
highest level of harpers and poets, all have won fame primarily in
terms of their power over or commonality with beasts. While this
connective thread is not openly pejorative, it does diminish their
stature.

Of the second ranked minstrels listed by name, Atiterus
(Tyrtaeu523), Pseustis, and Marsyas are certainly questionable

representatives. Indeed the narrator's identification, very like

the description of Hercules, forces our doubt. He says:

19Delaney, p. 79.
20"Two-formed," Meta., II, 630.
21

"Phillyrides puerum cithara perfecit Achillem, / Atque
animos placida contudit arte feros" ("The son of Philyra made the
boy Achilles accomplished on the lyre, and by his peaceful art
subdued those savage passions"), Ars Amatoria,I, 12-13, ed. with
Eng. trans. J. H. Mozley (New York: G. P. Putnam Sons [Loeb
Classical Library], 1929).

22Chaucer's Book of Fame, p. 122. I should think there
would be a closer analogy with Arion, but no matter.

 

 

23Works, p. 785.

158

And Marcia that loste her skyn,

Both in face, body, and chyn,

For that She wolde envien, 100!

To pipen bet than Appolloo.

(1229-32.)
The emphasis on how completely Marsyas "loste her skyn" in the sec-
cond line of this ingenuously insistent couplet Should be hint
enough to look further. Marsyas is presented less as musician--
which would be suitable and relatively credible-—than as challenger
to the god of music, Apollo himself, subject of this book's Invoca-
tion. Moreover, envy--here of a greater musician--has been intro-
duced, a dissonant emotion which will recur later in Fame's hall.
The mention of Apollo, of course, also serves to remind us that he,
most famous classical musician, is not represented in this catalogue,
a further diminution of its stature.
Pseustis, we find, is Similarly less a symbol of musician-

ship than of hobrjs, He is generally identified as the shepherd
who challenged Alithea to a poetical debate and lost in the Eglogg_

24

Theoduli. But according to J. A. W. Bennett, Chaucer associated

Pseustis "etymologically and archtypically" with Fraud.25 Moreover,
in the Ecloga Theoduli, Pseustis debated on the strength of pagan

mythology and Alithea drew upon the Old Testament for support.26

 

So in both of these we have examples of arrogant and ape-like envy
of their betters, ironic indeed in the castle of Fame, Jove's judge.

Moreover, in Pseustis, we have the first hint of the opposition

24Works, p. 785.

25Chaucer's Book of_Fame, p. 123.

 

26Dillon, p. 86.

159

between theological truth and pagan falsehood. Tyrtaeus, apparently
something of a flatterer and arrogant beyond his station, was more

27 Cer-

a popular military elegist than a conventional minstrel.
tainly neither his renown nor his musicianship merit his position
here. But, like the two with whom he is linked, he was an over-
reacher whose aspirations exceeded his abilities. AS we shall see
in the remaining catalogues and in the workings of Fame's court
itself, these characteristics become almost a unifying link among
the denizens of this uncertain kingdom.

I have said above that nothing is as it seems in Fame's
place. All is appearance, an imitation of reality, of "kynde."
Earlier the eagle said truly, "Every kyndely thyng that is / Hath a
kyndely stede" (730-31). And here is ironic evidence of that
truth: Fame's house draws to it all things which Share her nature.
But her "stede" is lodestone for the artificial, the unnatural, and
the flawed. Here all is the Fals-Semblaunce of Jean de Meun. There
is no life on this hill and the cold of its setting is the cold of
death or of life sold cheap or of imitation. The "smal harperes"
who ape the minstrels are in fact imitating imitations, minstrels
whose fame is dubious or whose arrogance destroyed them.

After a nod to "famous, olde and yonge, / Pipers of the
Dutch tonge" (1233-34) who taught and learned "love-daunces,

27According to Charles Anthon, A_Classical Dictionary (New
York: Harper Bros., 1841), p. 1387, contests were held among
Spartan soldiers on campaign to see who could recite his elegies
best. The victors won a larger portion of meat--practical but

hardly elevated. On march and in battle, his marching songs were
sung.

 

160

sprynges, / Reyes" and other "straunge thynges," Geffrey describes
the martial musicians who stood in "an other place," those
that maken blody soun

In trumpe, beme, and claryoun;

For in fight and blod-shedynge

Ys used gladly clarionynge.

(1239-42.)

And we are in the midst of another of the illusory catalogues which
mark this most equivocal book. In this, Misenus, Joab, and

Theodamas, with all the Catalonian heralds28

share the spotlight.
And certainly the first two, at least, were warrior trumpeters.
But, like the figures in the earlier catalogues, they were more.
While Misenus was trumpeter to Hector and Aeneas, Virgil Spends more
space on another aspect: he challenged the gods to a musical con-
test and Triton dragged him to sea and drowned him for his impiety.29
So Misenus is linked spiritually to Pseustis and Marsyas. All
three were losers in contests they initiated. Moreover, in the
generally accepted sources of all three, their arrogance was subject
to lengthier comment than their artistic or poetic ability.30
And Joab is an equally suggestive example. He is, of course,
the first Biblical character in Fame's house, King David's nephew

and captain. Joab's trumpeting is frequent and apparently

28
29

See Works, p. 785, for comment.
Ago,, VI, 162 ff.

30Misenus is only referred to by name as a trumpeter in
Aeneid. The challenge and loss is the only extended comment I could
find. Pseustis is not mentioned in Ecloga Theoduli except in terms
of the debate. For Marysas, see Meta., VI, 382-400.

161

31

effective. But he also betrayed his king and broke his vow:

moreover, that betrayal involved the murder of David's son Absolom

32 Theodamas, like Pseustis, is

when he was trapped and helpless.
an anomaly. AS Pseustis was a poet-debater among minstrels, so is
Theodamas a seer among martial musicians. Structurally, his inclu-
sion here forms a link between this catalogue and the next. But
Theodamas is still an oddity and as such is distracting and
ambiguous. As Robinson points out, in Thebiad VIII, “His invocation
is followed by trumpeting though he is not actually mentioned as
himself being a trumpeter."33 This ambiguity is particularly dan-
gerous to ignore considering the ambiguity of the other figures of
this as well as the preceding catalogue. In the Thebiad, Theodamas
incited the besiegers to attack the city with his augeries so he

was not totally alien to the music of war.34

Chaucer, we recall, links Theodamas with the trumpeting of

Joab in the later Merchant's Tale:

 

At every cours thanne cam loud mynstralcye,

That never tromped Joab for to heere

Nor he Theodomas, yet half so clere,

At Thebes, whan the citee was in doute.
(MerT, 1718-21.)

3'11 Samuel 2.28, 18.16, 20.22.

3211 Samuel 18.5-17. Because Joab "shed the blood of war
in peace," David bade Solomon on his death bed, "Let not his [Joab's]
hoar head go down to the grave in peace" (I Kings 2.5-6).

33Works, p. 785.

34Statius Thebiad, VIII, ed. with Eng. trans. J. H. Mozley
(New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons [Loeb Classical Library], 1928),
342 ff.

 

162

It is difficult to imagine minstrels more inappropriate to a wed-
ding celebration than these two veterans, and that inappropriateness
is signaled by the inclusion of Theodamas who was apparently not
a musician at all. The irony implicit in this comparison is made
concrete three lines later in the picture of January, old and impo-
tent, as Venus's knight. This connection rather increases than
diminishes the ironic unsuitability of both of these in a catalogue
of Fame's servants. All in all, the peripheral activities of these
footmen of Fame are so ignoble and so inappropriate--both in nature
and degree--for the retinue of a goddess that we are caught in a
tangle of paradox that will persist throughout this book.
And the ambivalence continues into the list of
jugelours,

Magiciens, and tregatours,

And Phitonesses, charmeresses,

Olde wicches, sorceresses,

That use exorsisacions

And eke these fumygacions;

And clerkes eke, which konne wel

A1 this magik naturel,

That craftely doon her ententes

To make, in certeyn ascendentes

Ymages, lo, thrugh which magik

To make a man ben hool or syk.

(1259-70.)

Even before we meet the practitioners of this curious catalogue of
unnatural arts, we are prepared for further examples of craft.
J. A. W. Bennett finds that while the array of magicians, jugglers,
sorcerers and illusionists "may seem at first pointless or
supererogatory . . . their presence on the outer walls betokens

some of the operations within just as surely as do the pipes and

163

"35 And of course they do just that. But by

harps and trumpets.
their nature, they force us to define the meaning of those "Opera-
tions within."

The inclusion of masters of illusion as a major element of
Fame's staff is of course questionable in itself. But Chaucer's
mages are not simply practitioners of the dark arts: they are
betrayers, misusers of their skill for personal and unacceptable
reasons. The members of the first company of magicians have actively '
embraced the side of the warped, the selfish, and the blasphemous.
The reference to "phitonesse" in the introductory catalogue--identi-
fied as the biblical Witch of Endor36--is the first concrete internal
Sign that the litany of sorcerers to come is highly suspect. So from
the first the mages who work their art in Fame's anteroom are to
be outside God's or Nature's pale, the antithesis of fame won hon-
estly on merit. This duality is continued with "exorsisacions,"
exorcism being pr0per1y a function of the Church, a formal term for
a formal ceremony. We are prepared for the mixture of classical and
biblical figures which follow as well as for the ambivalence which
surrounds them as Fame's creatures.

With this dubious introduction, the litany of Fame's sor-
cerers begins. Medea, the leader of this company, is less famous,
then as now, for her magical powers than for her obsession with
revenge against Jason and the bloodiness of her parricide: his-

torically she has become synonymous with unnatural womanhood,

35
36

Chaucer's Book of_Fame, p. 124.

 

Dillon, p. 239.

164

symbol of the ultimate and most frightening perversion of Nature's

37 Circe and Calypso were both enchantresses who imprisoned

38

order.
Odysseus against his will for long periods of time. Earlier,
Circe's irrational jealousy and her use of magic to attack the source

of that jealousy had been spelled out in Metamorphoses XIV, 4-67.

 

Both used feigned friendship to cover their less friendly purposes.
Moreover, all three--Medea, Circe, and Calypso--were motivated by
lust and their use of enchantment grew out of the frustration of
that lust: they represent the excesses of power, uncurbed by reason
or nature. The futility of such power is made clear by Jean de
Meun's Romgh_gg_lg_fio§g_where three of the figures of this catalogue
are linked:

Mais gart que ja ne seit Si sote
Pour reins que clers ne lais 1i note,
Que ja riens d'enchantement creie,
Ne sorcerie, ne charaie,
Ne balenus, ne sa science,
Ne magique, ne nigromance,
Que par ce puisse ome esmouveir
A ce qu'il l'aint par estouveir,
Ne que pour li nule autre hee:
anues ne pot tenir medee
Jason pour, nul enchantement;
N'onc Circe ne tint ensement
Ulixes qu 'il ne 5 'en foist
Pour nul sort que faire en poist.
(BR_, 14395 408. )39

37August Staub, "Viewpoints in Modern Drama," Diss. Louisiana
State University 1961, pp. 17 ff.

38Meta., x1v, 8- 74, 241 357, and Ars Amat., ,125- 26,
respectively. Circe imprisoned Odysseus for one year, Calypso for
seven.

39But let no woman be so great a sot
As to believe, whatever clerks may say,
Or laymen, that by magic, sorcery,
Enchantment, necromancy, or by chanm,

165

Chaucer's "Ballenus," less famous than his master Hermes Tresmegistus
by whom he was identified, was the reputed author of a work on astro-
logical images and "two reprehensible books of necromancy," accord-

40

ing to Lynn Thorndyke. He was generally associated with what can

only be called "black magic" and which apparently involved the names

4] that his magic is associated with the

(and calling up) of demons:
worship of Venus would indicate the accuracy of Jean's characteriza-
tion, at least in terms of medieval tradition. And the opposition
between gmog_and natural love, here secondary but nonetheless impor-
tant to our understanding of the theme of the hoh§g_oj_§gmg, is
recollected. That there is no overt example of natural love in

this kingdom of appearance does not obviate our awareness of its
function as unstated standard against which the baseness of gmo:_
must be measured. The presence of this set of contraries is made
explicit later in Rumor's house, but it exists throughout Book III.

From those pagan sorcerers who misused their power in the

name of amor, the catalogue moves to the New Testament seers.

 

Though Balenus should help with all his lore,
She may compel a man to fall in love

With her or hate another for her sake.
Medea's incantations could not hold

Her Jason; nor could Circe's witchcraft keep
Ulysses when he wished to flee from her.

40 o o o o
H1story of_Ma 1c and Exper1mental Sc1ence (New York:
Columbia Univ. Press, 1923), II, 214 ff.

4‘Thorndyke, p. 698, and elsewhere. There is a thread of
unsavoriness which runs through Thorndyke's discussion of any
material attached to Belenus. This is not limited to his comments
alone but exists in other commentators he cites.

166

42 a "false prophet," sought to persuade his master to reject

43

Limote,
the teachings of Paul and was blinded for his disbelief. Simon
Magus is an even more meretricious figure. A sorcerer of Samaria,
he attempted to buy the power of the Holy Spirit and was rebuked by
Peter for his blasphemy.44 According to J. A. W. Bennett, it is
Simon Magus "with whose name we must associate the ancient tradi-
tion that linked him with deviltry, bogus alchemy, and even Anti-
christ himself."45

With the introduction of these New Testament figures, the
theological batteries are brought to bear against the servants of
appearance. There are no virtuous prophets in this list. From the
Invocation to Book I, we remember the prophetic "avisiouns" which
are acceptable to the Church. Such a prophet was Samuel, adviser
to Saul until the king disobeyed God and linked to this catalogue
by the earlier reference to "phitonesse." In his books, the differ-
ing attitudes toward false wizards and God's prophets are explicated.
Saul had continued to "put away those that had familiar spirits,

46

and the wizards, out of the land." And when Saul complained to

the Shade of Samuel called up by the witch of Endor that "God is

42Identified by both Dillon (p. 138) and Koonce (p. 203)
as Elymas or Bar-Jesus.

43Acts 13.6-11.

44Acts 8.9-20.
45

46

Chaucer's Book of_Fame, p. 125.

 

I Samuel 28.3.

167

departed from me and answereth me no more, neither hy_prophets nor

47 he was clearly aware of the difference.

27. dreams."
In the face of the New Testament prophets of reality, the
apostles, the falseness of Fame's seers is unmistakable. The
thread which links these figures is similar to that which bound
those of earlier catalogues. They are losers to a greater reality,
all Slaves of misdirected lust and false masters. That their stage
is pagan or Christian does not matter. They represent in their
variety the varied faces of appearance. In the last line of this
passage,.Geffrey says, "That by such art don men han fame” (1276).
Our examination of the followers of "such art" has made the fame
they give seem flawed indeed.
The catalogue of mages is complete when Geffrey tells us:

Ther saugh I Colle Tregatour

Upon a table of sycamour

Pleye an uncouth thynge to telle;

Y saugh hym carien a wynd-melle

Under a walSh-note shale.

(1277-81.)

From the magicians of Troy and Samaria, false and lost but on a
grand scale, we descend to the picture of a local sleight-of-hand
artist, part of the stock in trade of every fair or traveling show
in the land, mystifying us with his tricks. That his stage is a
"table of sycamore like that table in the Chambre of Beautes on
which ships were shown sailing and fishes swimming and horned men

48 does not add to his stature but only underscores his

and apes"
4 7 o I o o
I Samuel 28.15, italics m1ne.

48Lowes, p. 113.

168

status as a small-scale prestidigitator, entertaining, but inspiring
neither belief or fear.

With this catalogue, appropriately, Geffrey ends his inves-
tigation of the habitués of Fame's anteroom and turns his attention
to the fabric of its walls of beryl,

That shoon ful lyghter than a glas

And made wel more than hit was

To semen everything, ywis,

As kynde thyng of Fames is.
(1287-90.)

The magnifying properties of beryl were almost axiomatic when
Chaucer wrote, part of the furniture of the romances and stories his

audience would surely know.49 Similarly, in the Aeneid, Fama mag-

50

nified Dido's fault, a detail Chaucer had withheld in his adapta-

tion of Virgil's passage in Book I. J. A. W. Bennett finds, "This
magnifying power (and this alone) is the feature common to Virgil's

Fama (the 'wikke Fame' or malicious rumor of Dido's exclamatio, IV,

349) and to the goddess of renown whose house this proves to be."51

And Jean de Muen's Reason had eloquently warned against such decep-
tive "glas" and its effect upon its beholder:

E quant ainsinc sont deceu

Cil qui teus choses ont veu

Par miroers ou par distances

Qui leur ont fait teus demonstrances,
Si vont puis au peuple e se vantent,
E ne dient pas veir, ainz mentent,

49Sypherd, p. 133, and Koonce, p. 186.

50622:, IV, 189-90: "haec tum multiplici populos sermone
replebat / gaudens" ("At this time, exulting with manifold gossip,
she filled the nations"). 1

51Chaucer's Book of_Fame, pp. 115-16.

 

169

Qu'il ont les deables veuz,
Tant sont es regarz de ceuz.

N'il n'est nus qui Si bien se gart
Qui souvent ne faille en regart. 52
(RB, 18231-44.)

If Colle with his trick of size manipulation had not ade-
quately prefigured the physical and philosophical caprice of Fame,
as well as the magnification or shrinkage of good and ill which will
mark her court, the properties of beryl--which Chaucer mentions
twice--certainly does. Again, we find the casual reference to
artifice: the mountain upon which this changeable castle rests,
we remember, also shone like glass. Even artifice wears the guise
of another artificial material. These two lines again link Fame's
place with Venus's temple "ymad of glas," a connection subtly main-
tained by those figures in the catalogues who either appeared there
or whose activities were motivated by EEK!)

That Fame's nature will be marked by instability, trickery,
ambivalence, and appearance is stated with remarkable directness in
the last line of this passage. Here, Geffrey drives home the lesson

of what we are to see, the final scene of what may be called the

prologue to Fame. And with the nature of Fame's "thyngs" clear in

52How many times when men have been deceived

By mirrors or the effect of distances

Which have made things appear as they are not,
They straightway to their neighbors run and boast,
Not telling truth, but lies, that they have seen
The demons, so their eyes have been betrayed!
There is no man who sees so well

That he may never be betrayed in vision.

170

our minds, the narrator finds "the castel-yate on my ryght hond."
In a cascade of negatives, he describes its wonders:

Hyt nedeth noght you more to tellen,

To make yow to longe duellen,

Of this yates florisshinges,

Ne of compasses, ne of kervynges,

Ne how they hatte in masoneries,

As corbetz, ful of ymageries.

(1299-1304.)

Suffice it to say the gate was made of gold. We have noted earlier
the use of certain words--"curiosite," "craft" and the like--which
permeate Geffrey's tale. "Ymageries," glossed as "carved work,"
onomatopoeically calls up "imaginings" or "images," again artifice
and unreality. The refrain of some form of "too great [beautiful,
rich, complex, or whatever] for men to describe," used by Chaucer
both before and after this poem, takes on an air of commonplace in
this book. In a structure crowded with marvels, wonders, magic,
and, above all, craft, only of Fame's gate does Geffrey say:

And yit it was be aventure

Iwrought, as often as be cure.

(1297-98.)
"Aventure" governs the mood and tone of Book III. Chaucer uses it
four times in this book, a fairly heavy usage, each time at an
important turn in the narrative.
Within Fame's hall, the crowds of petitioners overpower the

senses: they all cried at once;

A larges, larges, hold up wel,

God save the lady of this pel,

Our owne gentil lady Fame

And hem that wilnen to have name

0f us.
(1309-13.)

171

The flatterers who mill about Fame's court, ribboned, fringed, each
wearing a coat of arms, are so many and so varied, Geffrey says in
another flurry of negatives, that to describe them:

Men myght make of hem a bible

Twenty foot thykke, as y trow.

For certeyn, who so koude iknowe

Myghte ther all the armes seen

Of famous folk that ban ybeen

In Auffrike, Europe, and Asye,

Syth first began the chevalrie.

(1334-40.)

This picture of a twenty-foot bible (almost as tall as a modern two-
story building) fat with the livery of great houses is comic, of
course. But the hyperbolic metaphor and its prosaic measuring tone
cuts into the grandeur of these colorful folk: they are the servants
of the great, "pursevants and heraudes, / That crien ryche folkes
laudes" (1321-22), imitators and agents. Beneath the Spectacle,
they are not only flatterers of Fame but of their masters as well,
seeking the crumbs of the fame they beg for those they serve. The
emphasis on "ryche folkes" is ironically juxtaposed with the temporal
qualification, "Syth first began the chevalrie." There is little
of chivalry about Fame's anonymous army of hangers-on, or about
Fame herself. Chivalry implies "gentilesse," courtesy, kindness,
and grace. Moreover, there is a sense of aristocracy about the
word which is totally lacking here, in this suburb of Fame's court.
And the irony is strengthened by the fact that this is the first--
and only--use of the term in the House of_Fame. It increases the
impression that Fame is eminently purchasable.

As he has done before,Geffrey dismisses the rout of syco-

phants to describe the hall itself--floors, walls, and ceiling, all

172

plated Six inches thick with gold, "and that nas nothyng wikke"
(1346). Once more, we recognize the excessive richness and ornamen-
tation, a tumult of things. The effect of Geffrey's assurance that
there was nothing wicked in all this is of course to spotlight the
excess which marks the environment of this book. Moreover, we are
reminded that Fame's throneroom imitates the nature which has no
place here. While the anteroom had windows, though they faced the
sere and frozen icescape, in this room there are none: only the
pseudo-brightness of Sol's metal to ape his light. And in the next
lines the smell of the real world cuts through the perfume of Fame's
hall. First Geffrey, reminded by the gold-paved hall of the light-
ness of his own purse, complains ruefully that it is
As fyn as ducat in Venyse
Of which to lite al in my pouche is.
(1348-49.)
Then he finds the walls
were set as thik of nouchis
Ful of the fynest stones faire,
That men rede in the Lapidaire,
As grasses growen in a mede.
(1350-53.)
The narrator ends with a Simile of fields and grass and sun and sky,
the antithesis of Fame's ornate construction. At last, he says,
with a hint of ennui:
But hit were al to longe to rede
The names; and therfore I pace.
(1354-55.)
There is, it seems a limit even to Geffrey's indefatigable interest

in listing and naming. This dismissal further diminishes the sta-

ture of Fame's house. In most cases in Chaucer's poetry, this

173

formula is used in conjunction with an acknowledgment of authority,
a kind of ”This is where you may read it for yourself." But here
there is no authority, only dismissal.
At last, he says, in "this lusty and ryche place," above a

dais in a "see imperiall" made of a single ruby:

Y saugh perpetually ystalled

A femynyne creature,

That never formed by Nature

Nas such another thing yseye.

(1364-67.)

So, after almost a quarter of the Dream of Book III, we meet the
"creature" who is its subject. The delicacy of Chaucer's word
choice in this passage merits acknowledgment: Fame was a female
creature, a "thing" the likes of which was never again formed by
nature. Here, the hints and suggestions of Fame's essential alien-
ness merge into the concrete. The gods and even the planets of
classical mythology are anthropomorphic, as are allegorical per-
sonifications of abstracts. Fame is a grotesque, as unlike in
form to the men who woo her as she is in psychology. She varies in
size and shape and is as amorphous as a cloud, and as impossible
to capture. But, more wonderful, Geffrey says:

For as feele eyen hadde she

As fethres upon foules be,

Dr weren on the bestes four

That Goddes trone gunne honoure,

As John writ in th' Apocalips.
(1381-85.)

174

The argus-eyed beasts of the Apocalypse53 were of course servants

and worshipers of God, allegorical creatures in an allegorical

book. Here the Simile is jarring in its unsuitability. We have

noted the naive simplicity of Chaucer's persona earlier and seldom

has that Simplicity been used to greater effect. This Simile has

two parts and only in the last does Geffrey think of the four beasts

of Revelations. First, he says, she has as many eyes as birds have
feathers. Then, apparently in what is almost a stream-of-consciousness
connection of images, he recalls the feathered and many-eyed beasts who
surround "Goddes trone." To read this passage literally would not only
deny all we know of the narrator-persona Chaucer has created but would
ignore the essential conflict such juxtaposition provides. The

vast gulf between Fame's jewel throne and the throne of God has been
hovering about the description of Fame's hall at least since the
"berile" walls of the outer chamber were first mentioned. Koonce is,

I think, correct in recognizing the inversion of values which exists

54 Further, I believe, Chaucer intended such an inversion to be

here.
recognized as ironic: certainly that is its effect. Geffrey's com-
parison of Fame to the servants of God, creator and source of all

good, simply stresses that inversion. As his assurance that there is
nothing "wikke“ in the gold which framed Fame's hall reminds us that

such excess is at odds with Nature's and God's rule, so does this

53Revelations 4.6-10. This passage read literally as
Chaucer's voice and given inordinate weight provides much of the
impetus, I suspect, for such eschatological studies as Koonce's.

54Chaucer and the Tradition of_Fame, p. 205 and elsewhere.

 

175

reference to "Goddes trone" accentuate the Opposing values which
govern the respective seats of God and Fame. The grotesquerie of
her being is emphasized and enlarged by the juxtaposition presented
in this brief Simile.
But there is more. Geffrey tells us:
Hir heer, that oundy was and crips,
As burned gold hyt shoon to see;
And soth to tellen, also she
Had also fele upstondyng eres
And tonges, as on bestes heres;
And on hir fet woxen, saugh y,
Partriches winges redely.
(1386-92.)
Fame's golden hair, Chaucer's single nod to traditional standards of
feminine beauty, takes on a different texture in these surroundings:
"crips" and "burned" imply a bristliness which is more appropriate
to the multiple ears and tongues, as many "as on bestes heres," than
to any romantic heroine. The whole description in fact is more
bestial than human. J. A. W. Bennett believes Chaucer may have
changed Virgil's "pernicibus alis"55 to "partriches winges" because
he found "this chattering bird an appropriate symbol" for his char-

56 However Chaucer arrived at the image, cer-

acterization of Fame.
tainly there is less grandeur in it than in Virgil's less homely
and specific original.
Exposition, we are told, is inadequate to describe the
jewelry and richness she wore or the music and "hevenyssh melodye"
557331., IV, 180: "swifte wings." In Troilus, IV, 661,
Chaucer correctly translates this phrase. -_—____
56Chaucer's Book Of 5292; p. 131. Koonce, p. 212, reads this

"striking alteration" as T'a'nother instance of Fame's metamorphosis
into a Christian symbol."

 

176

which filled her palace. In five lines of exclamatio, Geffrey
invokes God twice ("But Lord," 1393; and "And Lord," 1395), the
heaviest use of such epithets in this book. In conjunction with
the "heveynssh" music andthe allusions to the Apocalypse, these
invocations solidify the inversion and, by their irony, strengthen
the lesson that fame is a perversion of nature and of the divine
order that is God's.

The riot of description over, Fame's appearance set, and
the inversion of values which mark her seat established, Geffrey
becomes aware that "thys ilke noble quene" bore the arms and name
of Alexander and Hercules on her Shoulders. Chaucer, we have noted,
has included many of the figures of the catalogues or characters in
their stories elsewhere in the poem. Triton who punished Mesinas'
for his impiety appears in Fame's hall as Eolus's trumpet-bearer,
itself a strange demotion for the god of the sea. Further, Virgil
refers to Mesinas as the son of Eolus: even if the relationship is
metaphorical, the three are still tied together in their source.
Certainly, this is a piquant and provocative intermingling of rela-
tionships. Chiron, one of the quadrivium of minstrels, was tutor
to Jason, Medea's husband, and Achilles whose name is upheld by
Statius in Fame's hall. Moreover, Chiron was killed by Hercules
whose name and arms, with Alexander's, are supported on the shoulders
of Fame herself. To make this ambivalent interlocking inescapable,
Chaucer emphasizes it by the reminder of Hercules's death: he was,
we recall, poisoned by a Shirt soaked in Chiron's blood sent by

Dianira to her unfaithful husband.

177

Alexander, in Book II one of a catalogue of heavenly trave-
lers (915), also has a mixed reputation. With Julius Caesar
(occupant of the sixth pillar) one of the Nine Worthies,57 Alexander
is sometimes mentioned in the chivalric romances as the model of
largess, one of the foremost courtly and chivalric virtues. But far
more dominant is the use of Alexander as an example of pride and
ambition, a medieval overreacher who must be taught the lesson of
humility.58 Vincent of Beauvais's Speculum Historiale tells the
story of Alexander at some length in Book IV. Some chapter headings
reflect his use of the material: 31, gg_luxuria Alexandri, gt_
superbia; 42, dg_insolentia Alexandri post victoriam; 61, gg_

iactantia gt_ambitione Alexandri; and 62, gg_soperstitione eiusden,

 

gglivore.59 Boccaccio, too, presents a harsh judgment of Alexander

in Qg_Genealogia Deorum Gentilium.60 Delaney finds that "Hercules

 

as setter of limits and Alexander as trespasser Of limits form a
pair with implications sufficiently important to warrant their being

5' This reading, of course. has its basis

supported by Fame herself."
in the concept of the dual nature of Fame; that is, as source of

merited renown as well as rumor. But I think the pair imply a more
57

58OeTaney, p. 92. See also George Cary, The Medieval
Alexander (Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1956.)

59Ed. with Eng. trans. Arpad Steiner (Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard Univ. Press [Loeb Classical Library]. 1938).

6OLiber 13, Cap. 71, Charles G. Osgood, Boccaccio oh_Poetry
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ. Press, 1930).

Discarded Image, p. 181.

 

61Chaucer's House of_Fame, p. 94.

 

178

complete indictment of Fame, one that was prefigured in the blind
causality that Operated on the names carved in the ice of her hill
and that will be demonstrated later in her final judgment as well
as in the events of Rumor's house. There is still the provocative
addendum to Hercules--"By shert he 1ys his lyf"--to contend with.
With this, Geffrey iterates Fame's position:
Thus fond y syttynge this goddesse
In nobley, honour, and rychesse.
(1415-16.)
Earlier we have discussed the technique by which Chaucer draws our
attention to a questionable quality or action by praising it. Cer-
tainly that technique Obtains here. We have met Fame's servants in
the antechamber, we have seen the flatterers who circle her hall, we
have recognized the excess and artifice and ambivalence which are
the hallmark of her house, and we have experienced, through Geffrey's
detailed report, her unnatural, not to say monstrous appearance. We
have, through the scriptural allusions and invocations to God, been
taught the inverted and transient values by which her domain is
ruled. And none of these in any way merit the use of such words as
"noble" or "honour."
With another of the lightning changes of subject we have

noted before in this book, Geffrey says:

Of which I stynte a while now,

Other thing to tellen yow.

(1417-18.)

And with the last astonishing and ironic description ringing in our

minds, we are Off on a further tour ofthe wonders of the hall. On

either side of the throne, we discover, are rows of great pillars

179

made of metal "that shoon not ful clere," extending the length of

the hUge hall. AS Fame's shoulders supported the renown of Alexander
and Hercules, these pillars support Fame's surrogates, the means by
which men's fame is propagated.

The first of these worthies is the only historian of the
group, "The Ebrayke Josephus the olde" (1433) who, with seven others
to help him "bere up the charge," supported the "fame up of the
Jewerye." His pillar, Geffrey tells us twice, is of iron, Mars's
metal, and lead, "the metal Of Saturne, / That hath a ful large
whel to turne" (1449-50). Chaucer's use of "whel," here and in the
eagle's scientific lectures in Book II, does not in context refer
to Fortune's wheel but it does recall that most pervasive medieval
image subliminally. Certainly, that the two goddesses share powers
and characteristics is explicit later in the poem. Interestingly,
as Dillon points out, "To the middle ages, he [Saturn] represented
Prudence and was the protector of . . . beggars, cripples, and

62 This is the third suggestion that Fame's folk are 1"

prisoners."
need of such a protector. The appropriateness of St. Leonard as
patron of Fame's folk and of Geffrey's pilgrimage to Fame's house is
underscored here. Fame's mendicants, because they have accepted
appearance as reality, are as surely prisoners of their false
aspirations and mistaken ideals as any cutpurse in Old Bailey. And
these darting subtle allusions, each insignificant in itself, are

one means by which Chaucer, I think, keeps us as reader aware of

the contraries which underlay this poem.

62Chaucer Dictionary, p. 207.

 

180

The second pillar, of iron covered with "tigres blod," was

occupied by Statius,

That bar of Thebes up the fame

Upon his shuldres, and the name

Also of cruel Achilles.

(1461-63.)

Close to this pillar is another, also of iron, on which stood "the
gret Omer," flanked by Dares and Titus and Lollius, Gudo delle
Colonne and "Englyssh Gaufride," each of whom was "besy for to here
up Troye" (1472). With this catalogue of "auctours," we are again
deep in ambiguity. Josephus, as author of the Historia Judaeorum,63
would seem a satisfactory representative of the Hebrew era of the
history Chaucer is presenting on these pillars. That there are
seven unnamed others with him simply contributes to the sense of
numbers with which Fame's house is heavy. But with "cruel Achilles,"
we begin to wonder. Chaucer's identification of Statius as "Thelo-
san," a native of Toulouse, is generally cited as evidence of

Dantean influence.64

But where Dante calls Achilles "grande,"
Chaucer calls him "cruel," an unsettling epithet fOr a hero, even
one under the patronage of Mars, but still possible. The presence
of Homer, too, seems logical. Dillon says that even though he was
"known to the middle ages in piecemeal translations and selections,"

Homer was universally revered.65 Dares and Titus, though their

63works. p. 786.

64335 , XXI, 89, according to Robinson, works, p. 786, and
others. “""

65

Chaucer Dictionary, p. 114.

 

181

accounts of the Trojan War were fraudulent, are also not inherently

66

unsuitable. But the inclusion of the fictional Lollius, "auctour"

of Troilus and Criseyde, in such a company, is suspicious indeed.

 

While Guido delle Colonne is historical, his Historia Trojana is a
rhetorical Latin paraphrase of Benoit's Roman _c_i_e_TrOie.67 Sypherd,
however, cites Benoit as source for much of Chaucer's material on

68 and nowhere could I find ascription of Chaucer's Trojan

Troy,
references to Guido's book.

Although Chaucer's elevation Of the apparently fictional
Lollius and Guido the Sicilian judge to major supporters of the fame
of Troy is provocative, it does not necessarily impeach the other
poets who support the fame of the world. Adhering strictly to
chronology, as he had done in the earlier catalogues--most notably
in the catalogue of magicians--Geffrey ends his list of the poets of
Troy with "Englyssh Gaufride," Geoffrey of Monmouth whose History of_
thg_Kihg§_of_Britain was largely responsible for the tradition of
Brut as a descendant of Aeneas, hence the British connection with the
story of Troy. But after explaining the difficulty of bearing up the
heavy fame Of Troy, Geffrey confides:

But yet I gan ful wel espie,

Betwex hem was a litil envye.
Oon seyde that Omer made lyes,

66See Discarded Image, pp. 11-12, 149, and 174 ff. for
medieval attitudes toward authority.

67

 

Dillon, p. 107.

68Chaucer's "Hous of_Fame," p. 211, as well as Shannon, p. 11.

 

182

Feynynge in hys poetries,

And was to Grekes favorable;

Therfore held he hyt but fable.

(1475-80.)
In Fame's anteroom, we have seen the results of envy in the figure
of Marsyas. Here the picture Of the poets squabbling over view-
points atop the great iron pillar is comic indeed. Geffrey's deli-
cately tactful "oon" only adds to the comedy. Moreover, this homely
and realistic touch serves to continue the diminution of the great
or exalted which has stamped the House of_Fame.
The third column, of "tynned yren cler," is occupied by

The Latyn poete, Virgile,

That bore hath up a longe while

The fame of Pius Eneas.

(1483-85.)

Tin, Of course, is the metal of Jupiter, a suitable medium for the
celebration of the fame Of "Pius Eneas," as Virgil called him,69
especially in light Of Geoffrey of Monmouth's presence among the
poets of Troy. But in Book I, largely an examination of the rela-
tionship between Dido and Aeneas, piety is hardly the hero's
dominating characteristic. The weight of the irony is made manifest
with the description of the fifth pillar. There Ovid, ensconced on
a pillar of copper, is celebrated as Venus's clerk:

That hath ysowen wonder wide

The grete god Of Loves name.

And ther he bar up wel hys fame

Upon his pillar, also hye

As I myghte see hyt with myn ye;
For-why this hall, of which I rede,

69522,. IV, 393, and throughout.

183

Was woxen on heighte, length, and brede,

Wel more, be a thousand del,

Than hyt was erst, that saugh I wel.

(1488-96.)

While Virgil has presented Aeneas as heroic, generous, virtuous, and,
indeed, pious, Ovid in the Heroides portrays him as a fickle seducer
of women, a portrait very like Chaucer's.70 As Delaney points out,
"The placement of Virgil between these two major critics of Aeneas
--Ovid and the anti-Homerites--illustrates the ironic possibilities

7] And, as we have seen,

of juxtaposition as a structural device."
such juxtaposition abounds in Fame's house.

This passage is evocative for other reasons, of course.
First, while Ovid is "Venus clerke" and is seated on a column made
of her metal, he is praised for spreading the fame Of Eros, her son,
Jupiter's "blynde nevew" of Book II. So there is the further
diminution of Venus's stature which was begun in Book I. In these
lines, too, we find the reiteration of the waxing and waning which
is a major faculty of Fame herself. Apparently the pillars share
the properties Of the goddess whose hall they ornament.

The penultimate column, "Of yren wrought ful sternely," is

occupied by Lucan:

And on hys shuldres bar up than,

As high as that y myghte see,

The fame of Julius and Pompe.
(1500-02.)

70Heroides, VII, "Dido Aeneae," ed. with Eng. trans. Grant
Showerman (New York: Harvard Univ. Press [Loeb Classical Library],
47 .

7(Chaucer's House of_Fame, p. 110.

 

184

Caesar, second Of the Nine Worthies represented in Fame's hall,
seems a straightforward and logical choice. But Lucan, whose
Pharsalia narrated the wars between the two, portrays Caesar as a
monster of egotism, hypocrisy, and treachery and exalts Pompey as
symbol of freedom. The unnamed "clerkes / That writen of Romes
myghty werkes" (1503-04) who shared Lucan's pillar apparently did
not Share his bias, considering the general respect accorded
Caesar in the middle ages. Certainly the two warriors for whose
renown Lucan is given primary credit are uneasy pillar-mates, at
best. Moreover, according to Delaney, Lucan was not only a critic

72 His presence, then, is a silent

of Caesar but of Virgil, too.
ironic commentary on the hero whose fame he upholds as well as on
Virgil, the greatest poet of the story of Troy.
Claudian, the last of Fame's saints, stands on a pillar of
sulphur, symbol Of the underworld,73
That bar up al the fame of helle,
Of Pluto, and of Proserpyne,
That quene ys of the derke pyne.
(1510-12.)
This passage, with its poignant last line, serves to remind us, I
think, of the folly of men's petty clamoring after a fame which is
transitory at best, a brief glory that flares and dies and leaves
no trace that it has ever been. With this echo of the earlier
"What may ever laste?" the description of the pillars and their occu-

pants ends:
72

73For further discussion, see Robert Pratt, "Chaucer's
Claudian," peculum 22 (1947), 419-45.

Chaucer's House of_Fame, p. 101.

 

185

What shulde y more tell of this?

The halle was a1 ful, ywys,

Of hem that writen olde gestes,

As ben on trees rokes nestes;

But hit a ful confus matere

Were alle the gestes for to here,

That they of write, or how they highte.

(1513-19.)

The subject is closed with a typical reprise: Fame's hall, Geffrey
says, was full Of as many writers of old tales as there are rooks'
nests in trees. The laconic inelegance Of this most graphic Simile
removes any grandeur which might adhere to the metal monuments to
Fame's saints, and we turn to the first of Fame's supplicants with
the raucous cawing of crows evoked by Geffrey's very earthly image
echoing about us. The last couplet is necessary only for emphasis:
the confusion concomitant with sorting out the matter of their tales
or understanding the mechanics of the elevation has been made very
clear in the preceding one.

We, with Geffrey, however, have an even greater confusion
and noise before us. The first of the nine groups of petitioners
to Fame are arrived:

A ryght gret companye withalle,

And that of sondry regiouns

0f alleskynnes condiciouns

That duell in erthe under the mone,

Pore and ryche.

(1528-32.)

The variety--in class, condition, and nationality--of Fame's folk
increases the sense of chaos that pervades this hall and stresses
the universality of Fame's appeal. This passage contains the only

specific mention of "poor" among the press of seekers after fame

and it is rather a nominal nod at variety than a serious description

186

of the company, I suspect. And Chaucer's “under the mone" only
underscores the inconstancy of the Fame to whom this company offers
obeisance. All we are told, fall on their knees before "this ilke
noble quene"--interestingly, the second use of this phrase to
describe Fame--and beg, "Ech of us Of thy grace a bone.“ The panoply
of royalty governs the scene: the subjects enter, kneel before
their sovereign, and are dealt with according to their merit. It is
so like a royal court we can almost hear the trumpets and see the
banners of the realm. And Geffrey continues the mood as he recites
Fame's adjudication: some of the requests she granted immediately,
others She cautioned "wel and faire," and still others she granted
the opposite of their requests. That the Similarity is appearance
only, however, is soon demonstrated. Geffrey--naive, eager to
believe the best, and puzzled by what he seeS--confesses:

But thus I seye yow, trewley,

What her cause was, y nyste,

For of this folk ful wel y wiste

They hadde good fame ech deserved

Although they were dyversely served;

Ryght as her suster, dame Fortune,

Ys wont to serven in comune.

(1542-48.)

The most striking part of this passage is, of course, Fame's rela-
tionship with Fortune. Robinson finds no definite authority for the
assertion that they are sisters but points out that "the frequent
association of the two and the Obvious derivation of much of Chaucer's

description Of Fame from the accounts of Fortune, make it natural for

him to invent the relationship (if he did)."74 Sypherd agrees in a

74Works, p. 786.

187

lengthy discussion of the connection based on analogies in other
love-visions and supports his agreement by citing "the frequent
association of Fortune (and with Fortune may be joined Aventure)

75 Kemp Malone finds that Chaucer used "traditional

and Love."
accounts of the Goddess Fortuna in creating his character of Fame,
and he directly acknowledges this debt in the passage where he makes

"76 J. A. W. Bennett says, "Justly is Fame

Fame sister to Fortune.
described as Fortune's own sister: She Shares Fortune's duplicity,
symbolized by her one auspicious and one drOOping eye, or by a

77 Koonce maintains, "Fame's own

countenance now fair, now fierce."
providential role, suggested by her admission that she has no jus-
tice, is implicit in her elevation to the rank of 'her suster, dame

'"78 Despite this cannonade of comment, no study I could

Fortune.
find proposes any analogue or presents any evidence denying Chaucer's
invention of the relationship. Certainly it is an inspired one.

AS important, I think, as the connection between the two
goddesses are the lines which inspire the comparison in which it
occurs. Geffrey had confessed himself confused by Fame's judgments,
admitted her "cause" unfathomable by the standards of reason, and
found her as unjust and capricious as Fortune, whose arbitrary and
erratic wheel was a commonplace of his time. Certainly the two have

75Chaucer's "Hous of_Fame," p. 126.

 

76§hoptgr§_oh_Chaucer, pp. 58-59. Clemen, pp. 104-05, agrees.
77

78

Chaucer's Book othame, p. 147.

 

 

Chaucer and the Tradition of_Fame, p. 229.

188

been sisters under the Skin, whatever their genealogy. And to prove
the truth of Fame's injustice, Geffrey says:
Now herke how she gan to paye
That gonne her of her grace praye.
(1549-50.)

The tone of the second line is at odds with the first, as
indeed the attitude of Fame is at odds with those who seek her favor:
the first is rude and abrupt while the last reflects the subservience
and acknowledgment of inferiority Of those who worship a deity. But
the identity of that deity is ambiguous. The second line, reminis-
cent of a lover's suit in the courtly love tradition, reminds us of
Fame's connection with Venus and so of the opposition of amor_and
natural love. To pray for grace, however, has another meaning
which evokes the Shadow of the Christian God. Here again is the
ironic inversion of values we have noticed before but, intensified by
the multiple connotations of "of her grace praye," it becomes almost
a double parody of the worship of God, rightful subject of man's
aspiration. And the inversion continues. The company beseeches
their goddess to give them "good renoun" in recompense for their
good works. And Fame answers their plea in her first words of the
poem:

"I werne yow hit," quod She anon;
"Ye gete of me good fame non,
By God! and therfore goo your we ."
(1559-61.
A ruder, less elevated response would behard to imagine. The god-

dess, we find, is a fish-wife. When the petitioners cry, "Allas!"

and ask her to explain her judgment, She tells them bluntly:

189

"For me lyst hyt noght," quod she;
"Ne wyght shal speke of yow, ywis,
Good ne harm, ne that ne this."
(1564-66.)
Fame's first words come almost halfWay through Book III. And with
them, it is clear that Fame's justice is a travesty. Sypherd spoke
rightly when he linked Aventure with Fortune, hence with Fame.
Chance governs all Fame's judgments.
The unnamed company disposed of, Fame summons
Her messenger that was in halle
And bad that he shulde faste goon,
Upon peyne to be blynd anon,
For Eolus, the god of wynd.
(1568-70.)
We have grown familiar with the messengers of gods, both here and in

the Book of_the Duchess, and Fame's messenger, we will find, is cut

 

from the same cloth. All are single-minded and dedicated to the
rapid fulfillment of their orders. Usually they are brusque and
often they are comic. But in the earlier instances, there was no
Specific pejorative action by the controlling deities: their loss
of stature came largely through the character of their messengers.
Both Juno in the Booh_of_the Duchess and Jupiter in Book II were
victims of such diminution. But in neither of those earlier epi-
sodes did the deities themselves speak or act, as far as we know,
uncharacteristically, that is, in a way unbefitting their status.
Here, however, the goddess threatens her servant with instant blind-
ness, not if he should fail in his mission, but if he should not
fulfill it rapidly enough. .

The caprice which has governed Fame's brief judgments is

operative here: apparently her decision to call Eolus was as

190

impulsive and as arbitrary as her treatment Of those who "good fame
ech deserved." Moreover, the careless cruelty and unreason which her
dealings with servant and subject alike reflect is prefigured here.
In this scene, as in the earlier cases of Juno and Jupiter, Fame's
behavior is, we realize, consistent with her character. That char-
acter has, of course, been covertly demonstrated by the nature of

her hill, her house, her footmen, and her saints. The subtle deteri-
oration Of her grandeur has been steady and corrosive. Geffrey has
reported her inequity and her own words have proved her lack of
"gentilesse," deSpite the decoration with which she masks her essen-
tial cheapness like a bandage. Fame's own fame is set. Her dispo-
sition of the eight remaining companies of supplicants for her favor
will only detail and intensify the fickleness and futility of the
worldly fame for which she is symbol.

The messenger, spurred by her threat, does indeed "faste
goon": that Chaucer uses ”faste" twice in the nine lines describing
the journey emphasizes, I think, the threat and its ironic inappro-
priateness in the mouth of a goddess, hence Fame's un-god-like
nature. The messenger, we are told, finds Eolus in "a cave of ston"
reminiscent of Morpheus's cave of sleep. The beleaguered god, hard-
pressed to hold the winds of the world in check--a delightful
picture--heeded the messenger's frantic plea:

"Rys up," quod he, "and faste hye,
Til thou at my lady be;

And tak thy clariouns eke with the,
And sped the forth."
(1592-95.)

191

Pausing only to collect Triton to bear his trumpets, the wind god
sped to answer Fame's command: so rapidly did he obey, in fact,
that he
let a certeyn wynd to goo,

That blew so hydously and hye

That hyt ne lefte not a ske

In alle the welken long and brod.

(1598-1601.)

Nowhere in the source studies of this passage79 nor in my reading of
those sources could I find any reference to Eolus's loss of control
and the ensuing disaster. If, as it appears, it is original with
Chaucer, this detail, almost an aside, is a further small example Of
the humanizing touch that Chaucer brings to the most exalted subjects
or most closely followed sources.

With Eolus, Triton, and the trumpets "Clere Laude" and
"Sklaundre" at her side, Fame declares her court in session. A
second company of "goode folk" appear before her crying:

"Lady, graunte us now good fame,

And lat our werkes han that name

Now in honour Of gentilesse,

And also God youre soule bless!

For we han wel deserved hyt,

Therfore is ryght that we been quyt."

(1609-14.)

The fawning subservience and flattery which marks the first two
groups' Speech will be common to most of those who seek Fame's
grace. A hint of doubt about their worthiness was raised by
Geffrey's identification of them as "goode folk," a continuation of
the technique which has become almost a signal that what iS to

79Sypherd, Shannon, and Robinson, among others.

192

follow should not be taken at face value. But this is still only
implication. Fame's rejection of their claim and her judgment,
"Good werkes Shal yow noght availle," seems harsh and, as before,
unfounded in reason. And she calls on Eolus to break out
"Sklaundre" to "trumpe all the contrayre / Of that they han don
wel or fayre" (1629-30).
The whim and irrationality of this decree does not pass
without comment. Geffrey says:
"Allas!" thoughte I, "what aventures
Han these sory creatures!
For they, amonges al the pres,
Shul thus be shamed gilteles.
But what! hyt moste nedes be."
(1631-35.)
The second use of "aventure" intensifies the climate of uncertainty
and casual impulse which was prefigured in the "castel-yate,"
despite its richness achieved more by chance ("aventure”) than by
intent ("cure"), and which governs the residents of Fame's place.
That these petitioners were guiltless, shamed without cause, con-
tinues the sense Of chance and emphasizes it. But Geffrey, we
know, has little patience with disturbing implications. In the
same tone and with the same effect as his earlier proverbial "What
may ever laste." he dismisses the episode with "hyt moste nedes be,"
and turns his attention to the drama before him.
The effect of Eolus's black trumpet, "feuler than the
devel," is dramatic enough for the most blasé. Chaucer's descrip-

tion of it and its results is redolent of war or hell. Three times

described as "foul," its sound spread through the world "As swifte

193

as pelet out of gonne, / Whan fyr is in the poudre ronne" (1643-44).
Eolus blew his trumpet "As all the world shulde overthrowe" (1640).
From its bell came smoke "Blak, bloo, grenyssh, swartish red, / As
doth where that men melte led" (1647-48). Our senses are assaulted
by this noxious horn. And the effect is to personalize the loss of
reputation, to display it as it is, a destruction of self for those
who live by such values. The speed with which Scandal's blast
covers the land obviates any possibility of defense, the smoke which
issues from its throat is as impossible to trap or control as the
wind which slipped Eolus's grasp. Sound and smoke are intangible,
echoing and pervasive, beyond escape or denial. That the childhood
chant of "Sticks and stones / May break my bones / But words will
never hurt me" is bluff and bravado has never been so clearly demon-
strated as in this passage. And the shape and scope of this foul
trumpet's breath is as amorphous and unnatural as Fame herself.
The narrator says:

And therto oo thing saugh I wel,

That the ferther that hit ran,

The gretter wexen hit began,

As dooth the ryver from a welle.

And hyt stank as the pit of helle,

Allas, thus was her shame yronge,

And gilteles, on every tonge.

(1650-56.)

Appropriately, not even our sense of smell can escape the blight of
Scandal. We have noted before, in another context, the irony which
Chaucer achieves by juxtaposition of figures or events or words.

In the midst of the black foulness of Scandal's effluvium, Geffrey '

evokes sweet nature with his image of a river welling from a Spring:

194

the picture of clear water bubbling and racing cuts through the
rankness of Fame's blight to expose it as sham, dangerous and hurt-
ful but based on lies, a thing of shadows. That Fame's opprobrium

is appearance, important and real only if we in our folly make it so,
is underscored by the clashing discordance of the next line: "hyt
stank as the pit of helle." Simple, straightforward, and factual,
Geffrey's unadorned evaluation is striking and true. The irony
achieved by the juxtaposition of these apposite images cannot, I
think, be overstated. Nor can the artistic control from which they
sprang. If, as Muscatine suggests, Chaucer in this poem was strug-

80 certainly in

gling for the mastery which marked his later works,
this passage, at least, he found it.
With the caprice of Fame clear before us and the stink of
Eolus's great black horn still in our nostrils, Geffrey announces
the third company of Fame's pilgrims, who fell upon their knees,
And seyde, "We ben everychon
Folk that han ful trewly
Deserved fame ryghtfully,
And praye yow, hit mote be knowe,
Ryght as hit is, and forth yblow."
(1560-64.)
With the petition of this group, a pattern is established which will
continue through the lists Of Fame's supplicants. Like those who
preceded them, they merited Fame's grace; moreover, the words each
group used to phrase their desires are similar. Both are polite

and respectful to a fault; if anything, the first group exceeds in

80Chaucer and the French Tradition, p. 115.

 

195

courtesy, although neither gives examples or proof of their merit.
But Fame's reaction to this third company is very different:

"I graunt," quod she, "for me list,

That now your goode werkes be wist,

And yet ye shul han better loos,

Right in diSpit of all your foos,

Than worthy is, and that anoon."

(1665-69.)

Not only does Fame rule in favor of this almost identical group,
she offers them more than they asked for. Moreover, she admits the
inconsistency which directs her justice. In her answer to the com-
pany of mendicants who preceded her call for Eolus, she had
explained her rejection with "For me lyst hyt noghte." And in con-
demning the next group to Scandal's blast, she had said,

Good werkes shal yow noghte availle

To have of me good fame as now.

(l616-l7.)

Later, in the most direct admission of the indiscriminate nature of
her rule, she says, "Al be ther in me no justice" (l820). So she
is not unaware of her casuistry: rather, it seems, she glories in
it. She judges "for me list," without consideration of merit, on
whim, the only constant her innate instability. This time she calls
for Clere Laude to advertise their fame. And its notes are as clear
and lovely as Scandal's were foul, and as carrying: as loud as any
thunder, the narrator says, and as far-reaching. As Fame's judgment
here is the opposite of her last one, so is Clere Laude opposite of
Scandal. It, too, appeals to our senses:

And, certes, al.the breth that wente

Out of his trumpes mouth it smelde
As men a pot of bawme helde

196

Among a basket ful or roses.
This favor did he til her loses.
(1684-88.)

As infamy stank like the “pit of helle," so praise smells of spring
and rose gardens. Certainly the siren appeal of worldly fame is
presented in the strains of Clere Laude's notes as sweet and desir-
able indeed. And we can understand why men pursue it. But the
lingering stench of Scandal, with Geffrey's reminder that it was
undeserved only twenty lines away, is not so easily dispelled.
Here, too, is appearance, renown granted on whim, not worth. Seduc-
tive and tantalizing, it is no more real nor lasting than the
unmerited fame which was attached to the first of this pair of
Fame's suitors.

That the eight groups of petitioners can be divided into
pairs becomes palpable with the fourth and fifth groups who approach
Fame's seat. Both of these, Geffrey tells us, ask to be granted no
renown. But there are differences. The fourth company-—"wonder
fewe," as we are told--stood in a row,

And seyden, "Certes, lady bryght,

We han don wel with al our myght,

But we ne kepen have no fame.

Hyde our werkes and our name,

For Goddys love; for certes we

Han certeyn doon hyt for bounte,

And for no maner other thing."

. ‘ (l693-99.)

This group was remarkable among Fame's supplicants for several
reasons. First, of course, they neither knelt nor flattered. The

evaluation of Fame's pilgrims, suggested earlier by Geffrey's

"goode folk," is here, by contrast, made concrete. To this point,

197

the focus has been on the bench, as it were. Fame has held the
spotlight. This group's posture, however, emphasizes the sycophancy
of the others. And our recognition that fame, if it is granted at
all, has little relationship to value or virtue is assured. But the
pilgrims who bracket this small band exhibit no such awareness.
Aiming for what they consider the heights--that is, worldly fame--
they have set their sights too low. Men have made Fame a goddess:
she has no natural place either on Olympus or in heaven.

Certainly Fame handles the request of this fourth group
with unorthodox dispatch and forthrightness:

"I graunte yow alle your askyng,"
Quod she, "let your werkes be ded."
(l700-0l.)
This is the briefest of the encounters between Fame and the solici-
ters at her bar, eleven lines from start to finish.

The second of the repudiators of fame are hard on the heels
of their counterparts. And with their first act we see them as
pretenders,

That to this lady gunne loute,

And doun on knes anoon to falle;

And to hir thoo besoughten alle

To hide her goode werkes ek,

And seyden they yeven noght a lek

For fame ne for such renoun;

For they for contemplacioun

And goddes love hadde ywrought,

Ne of fame wolde they nought.

(l704-12.)

Structurally, this passage is separated from its predecessors. It
is one of the only two instances in which the supplicants do not

speak directly, the other being the eighth group, traitors,

198

criminals, unreconstructed villains all. The hypocrisy of this
group is clear: they are outdone by none in their boot-licking
servility. Moreover, there is suggestion of a slanginess in "they
yeven noght a lek" not usually associated with the contemplative

81 Their venality is intensified by their juxtaposition with

life.
the upright and quiet disclaimer of the fourth company. These sly
and meretricious poseurs are intended, I think, to be assessed by
us the reader as among the most despicable of Fame's petitioners.
Certainly that is the effect of this brilliantly ironic passage.
Fame's judgment of these two groups is among the most

interesting and provocative of any in Chaucer's three-hundred-line
delineation of the goddess in action. To this fifth company:

"What?" quod she, "and be ye wood?

And wene ye for to doo good,

And for to have of that no fame?

Have ye dispit to have my name?

Nay, ye shul lyven everychon!

Blow the trumpes, and that anon."

(l7l3-l8.)

Beyond the further amplification of the contradiction between Fame's
rank and her language, a contradiction which will increase in inten-
sity as the poem progresses, her verdict here in conjunction with
the preceding one is intriguing. This is the only pair of peti-
tioners who are both awarded according to their desires, although,
in the latter case, that desire is overtly denied. To the small
band who rejected Fame's largess, she granted oblivion. And to the
pseudo-contemplatives groveling at her feet, she gave world

8]See Works, p. 656, for discussion of such "homely" and
"vivid" comparisons used to denote worthlessness in this period.

199

renown, spread by Eolus's golden horn, the notes so clear, Gef-
frey says,

That thrugh the world wente the soun

Also kenely and eke so softe;

But atte last hyt was on-lofte.

(1724-26.)

The contrast between this lovely description and the hypocrites who
inspire it further intensifies the illogic and inconsistency which
dominates the proceedings in Fame's court. Koonce, who interprets
the pair as identical in motive, purity, and virtue, finds "Fame's
awards to these two groups--oblivion and praise, respectively--are

82 Moreover,

the high point of this ironic drama of earthly fame."
he makes much of "the Apocalyptic parallel as the sweet odor of
'Clere Laude' spreads throughout the world and at last goes

83 That this passage is ironic is,

'on-lofte'"--that is, to God.
of course, indisputable. But the irony lies more in the fact that
Clere Laude's notes have wended heavenward in praise of poseurs

who ape humility to gain renown. Theirs is Grisilde's sin without

84 Such a reading, I believe, is at

her sincerity, the sin of pride.
least more defensible in terms of the passage as a whole. Certainly
the "ironic drama of earthly fame" is rather increased than dimin-

ished by this interpretation.

82Chaucer and the Tradition 9f_Fame, p. 239.
83

84Patricia W. Cox, "Ethical Conflicts in Chaucer's Por-
trayals of Grisilde and Criseyde," Thesis University of Florida
1965, pp. 26-27.

 

Ibid., p. 240.

200

The sixth and seventh groups, marked by the frenzied speed
of their approach, are idlers, committed to nothing, with neither
"noble gestes," nor love, nor labor to commend them. In the longest
Speech of any of the supplicants (thirty-two lines), the members of
this company ask:

That we mowe han as good a fame,

And gret renoun and knowen name,

As they that han doon noble gestes,

And acheved alle her lestes,

As wel of love as other thyng.

(1735-39.)

An air of good humor seems to underlie Chaucer's attitude toward
these ingenuous aspirants: their plea is free of malice and mean-
ness. The proverbial ending of their Speech is comic: "Leet men
gliwe on us the name! / Sufficeth that we ban the fame" (l76l-62).
This is first instance among Fame's petitioners of such pure comedy.
Generally, the climate there seems more amenable to serious, often
desperate, glory-seeking. While the idlers are not deserving, they
are harmless and even amusing, especially to us who only observe-
them. And Fame orders the golden clarion for this eager boisterous
crowd.

The seventh rout, idlers too, simply ask for the same thing
their predecessors had received. In her longest speech, the mer-
curial goddess reveals herself as harridan, crude and shrill, more
alley cat than queen:

"Fy on yow," quod she, "everychon,
Ye masty swyn, ye ydel wrechches,
Ful of roten, slowe techches!

What? false theves! wher ye wolde
Be famous good, and nothing nolde

201

Deserve why, ne never ye roughte?
Men rather yow to hangen oughte!
For ye be lyke the sweynte cat
That wold have fissh; but wostow what?
He wolde nothing wete his clowes.
Yvel thrift come to your jowes,
And eke to myn, if I hit graunte,
Or do yow favor, yow to avaunte!
Thou Eolus, thou kyng of Trace,
Go blow this folk a sory grace. "
(l776- 90. )

Fame's tirade is, of course, a masterful example of the rant.
Nowhere in Chaucer's work could I find an equal in coarseness to
"ye masty swyn" or "roten, slowe techches." Even the common proverb
of the cat who liked fish but would not wet his claws is couched in
gutter language. One rather expects pots and pans and rolling pins
to clatter about the ears of the unfortunate idlers. As the sixth
band had not deserved the laud they received, neither, of course,
do these merit such calumny. But the whim by which Fame's court is
ruled is almost lost in the shrieks of her fury. And she is not
done with her mad attack.‘ Having ordered Scandal blown, she con-
tinues, but in a different tone.
She orders the horn to announce:

These ben they that wolde honour

Have, and do noskynnes labour,

Ne doo no good, and yet. have lawde;

And that men wende that bele Isawde

Ne coude hem noght of love werne,

And yet she that grynt at a querne

Ys al to good to ese her herte.

(l793-99.)

Here is unreason indeed. Apparently, in the first clause, Fame has

ordered this company condemned for their unwarranted assumption that

she would grant unearned renown, that she could be cozened into

 

202

false judgment. But we know, because Geffrey has told us, that her
court is founded on false--or at least capricious--judgment. More-
over, Fame herself admits, "Al be ther in me no justice." The
sanctimony of these lines, immediately following the vulgarity of
her rant, simply accentuates the vast gulf between what men believe
Fame to be and what she really is. By elevating worldly fame to the
position of a deity, an object of worship, an end in itself, man has
created a false and empty ideal. By accepting as true and real what
is only appearance, man has perverted his own humanity and denied
the divine spark that makes him man.

The sententia which ends this instruction is, I think, curi-
ous and out of place. Robinson explains it as a comparison between
the beauty of Isolde (apparently "earned renown") and the menial who

85 And that is useful as far as it goes. But

grinds at a handmill.
the company to whom it is directed is made up of idlers who, as far

as we know, did not even such useful if lowly work. And the final
line, "Ys al to good to ese her herte," is puzzling. I suspect that
this passage is further evidence of Fame's essential unreason. It
sounds lofty and meaningful but, on close examination, dissipates

into smoke. That Fame is a charade, plated and powdered and bejeweled
to cover her warped and tawdry person, is by this point in the poem
inescapable. That her judgments are based on impulse and vagary is

equally unequivocal. The alien nature of her seat and herself has

been established. And that the sterility and mutability of her

85Works, p. 787.

203

place emanates from Fame and reflects her nature has also been
recognized. But in this speech, we have some indication that at
the core of her nature lies swirling swelling unreason. Her viru-
lent attack on the seventh company hints at the fragile control
which holds this chaos in check. The possibility of a mad goddess
empowered by foolish men to arbitrarily mete out praise or shame is
staggering in its irony. But it is, I think, nonetheless possible.
And the black horn blares its message of perfidy; a sound,

we are told,

As lowde as beloweth wynd in helle;

And eke therwith, soth to telle,

This soun was so ful of japes

As ever mowes were in apes.

And that wente al the world aboute,

That every wight gan on hem shoute,

And for to lawghe as they were wod,

Such game fonde they in her hod.

(l803-10.)
These lines echo the imagery of hell which accompanied the earlier
loosing of Scandal's notes. But this is a hell of a different
color, the hell of ridicule. The scandal suffered by the hapless
idlers is devoid of the seriousness and dark grandeur which stalked
the earlier victims. Their doom is laughter, cruel, biting, and
ignominious. Moreover, the imagery continues, appropriately, the
suggestion that men act like apes as they dance to Fame's tune.
With these lines, the final pair of Fame's pilgrims approach

her throne. The eighth company, like the toadies of the fifth group,

do not, as we have observed, speak in their own voices. They are

villains, perpetrators of the greatest harm and "wikkednesse" that

204

"any herte kouthe gesse" (l8l4). Fame gives them short shrift and
rejects their plea for "good renoun" out of hand:

"Nay, wis," quod she, "hyt were al vice.

Al be ther in me no justice,

Me lyste not to doo hyt now,

Ne this nyl I not graunte yow.

(lBl9-22.)
Even here, the ambivalence and whim which surrounds Fame's activities
color her answer. The judgment is valid in this case: these mendi-
cants were given justice, perhaps the most honest justice of any in
this strange court. But here, Fame seems at pains to explain that
her ruling has nothing to do with merit. Rather she does not grant
their plea because she chooses not to, at least not now. This quali-
fication adds further ambiguity to a statement already weighted with
it.
The last group to approach is the most frenetic of all:

they leap and push and "choppen al aboute." At first, this assembly
speaks as the others have, in one voice. They have, they say,
delighted in wickedness as "goode folk han in godnesse," and take
pride in their reputation for vice. Their plea is that such repu-
tation be extended. As the other groups had yearned for the bene-
diction of Clere Laude, these court the foul smoke of Scandal to
make their crimes immortal. And Fame grants their plea. But she
singles out one among them dressed in the stripes and bells of a
fOO1 for more Specific identification. And we are in the midst

of the only real conversation between Fame and her folk in the poem.

He answers her comfortably that he it was who fired the temple of

/ .
‘_/— e.

205

86 To Fame's "Wherfore didst thou so?" he admits.

Isis at Athens.
still comfortably, that since he did not merit good fame,

That other nyl y noght forgoon.

And for to gette of Fames hire,

The temple sette y al afire.

(l856-58.)

This reference to Herostratus is highly ironic, of course. Accord-
ing to William Smith, under torture for his arson Herostratus con-
fessed he had fired the temple to immortalize himself: the
Ephesians, setting the punishment to fit the criminal, passed a

87 This, the only reference

decree condemning his name to oblivion.
to a specific figure in this part of Book III, serves neatly as
capstone to Fame's parade of pilgrims. He who committed blasphemy
to win her favor is granted his reward. Moreover, the granting
overrides the punishment decreed by his people. He has taken his
ambition for renown to a higher court, as it were. And Fame has
overruled the judgment of men. She underscores her earlier and
more impersonal order, and Eolus obeys graciously, in his second
speech of the poem: "'Madame, yis, ful wel,‘ quod he, / 'And I wil
trumpen it, pardel'" (l863-64). Scandal blares for the last time

the acrid notes of ill fame. And Fame's audience is, for us, at

an end.

86Generally believed to be Herostratus who burned the temple
of Diana, at Ephesus (Works, p. 787, but assumed in every study I
have read in which this passage was mentioned).

87Dictionarygf_Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology I
(London: Taylor & Walton, l884), p. 439. Other similar sources
contain the same information.

 

 

206

With this ruling, the final strokes of Fame's portrait are
laid on. The canvas is complete. Herostratus, alone among the
faceless importunates, has involved the goddess in the subversion
of a human court. And she is revealed in all her perversity, no
friend to man but actively involved in his corruption.

But Geffrey has had enough. For the first time, his atten-
tion wanders from Fame and her minions: he notices another standing
behind him who "goodly to me spak" (l870), and who asked his name
and if he, too, was a pilgrim to Fame. The alacrity and firmness of
the narrator's reply leaves no doubt about the effect of what he has
witnessed:

"Nay, for sothe, frend," quod y;

"I cam noght hyder, graunte mercy,

For no such cause, by my hed.

Sufficeth me, as I were ded,

That no wight have my name in honde.

I wot myself best how y stonde;

For what I drye, or’what I thynke

I wil myselven al hyt drynke,

Certeyn, for the more part,

As fer forth as I can myn art."

(l873-82.)

This passage is, I think, a crucial one. First, it marks Geffrey's
longest speech in the House gf_Fame. And there is a passion in it
we i1ave not seen before. The intensity of Geffrey's denial is
incaneased by his resounding negatives. Moreover, the epithet, "by
my hed," casual and natural as it is, prompts us to recall that
while~ Fame's house is rampant with emotion, there is precious little
thougtn; The only intelligence here is committed to shaping men's

minds, not freeing or enlarging them. Moreover, this passage, in

its matter-of-factness, reminds us that the pilgrims whose fates

207

we have watched are similacra, creatures of shadow and air, per-
sonified noise.
Geffrey explains to the friendly stranger that he came to
learn of "somme newe tydynges" of love or other happy subjects:
For certeynly, he that me made to comen
To comen hyder, seyde me,
Y shulde bothe here and se,

In this place, wonder thynges;
But these be no suche tydynges

As I mene of.
(l890-94.)
In these lines, Chaucer's narrator has shaken off the shock of his
experience and returned to the character we have come to expect.
Fame's fabulous realm, her creatures of legend, and her saints have
been examined, analyzed, recorded and dismissed. Fame's court, her
supplicants, her judgments and her character have been observed,
assessed, reported, and dismissed. None of this is what the eagle
promised. The plaintive tone of his statement is clear and humorous.
In this place, he tells the unidentified stranger, he has learned
nothing about men he had not known "sith that first y had wit."
And again there is an echo of the introduction of common sense into
Fame's excess we had noted earlier in the epithet, "by my hed."
True, Geffrey confesses:
y nyste how

Ne wher that Fame duelled, er now,

And eke of her descripcioun,

Ne also her condicioun,

Ne the order of her dom,

Unto the tyme y hidder com.

(190l-O6.)

But that is mere geography and statistics: the narrator, we know,

is interested in news of people. The stranger, dismissing his own

208

rhetorical question about the nature of the tidings Geffrey seeks,
says enigmatically:

But now no fors, for wel y se

What thou desirest for to here.

Com forth and stond no lenger here,

And y wil thee, withouten drede,

In such another place lede,

Ther thou shalt here many oon.

(l9lO-l5.)

And the final measure of Fame's antic dance is begun.

The mysterious stranger has been subject of general schol-
arly comment, the majority of which accepts his presence as similar
to Geffrey's: that is, as a friendly observer.88 Koonce, alone of
the commentators I know, finds the stranger demonic, one whose
position is not only "the same as Satan's in the role of tempter"
but who holds "also, with equal appropriateness to Chaucer's alle-
gory, the position of the detractor or backbiter" condemned by
Chaucer's parson.89 This reading seems to me essentially unneces-
sary. Certainly the stranger's presence is defensible structurally:
he provides a means for Geffrey to make his complaint, thus remind-
ing us of the reason for his presence as well as the means by which
that presence was achieved. Moreover, he provides an artistically

consistent way out of Fame's house and prepares us for the reappear-

ance of the eagle. Too, the matter-of—fact conversation between

88See for example J. A. W. Bennett, pp. l63-64 ("new inter-
locator, amiably. . . ."); Clemen, . l08 ("friendly stranger");
Delaney, p. lOZ ("fellow bystander"§; Ruggiers, p. 269 ("the
passer-by"); Shook, p. 352 ("the friend at Chaucer's back"); and
Shannon, p. 51 ("the stranger").

89Chaucer and the Tradition 9f_Fame, p. 245.

 

209

the two furnishes one more reminder of the unreality and unnatural-
ness of Fame's court.

At any rate, Geffrey, as we have seen, does not question
the nature of his convenient guide who leads him out where he saw,
in a valley below the castle:

An hous, that Domus Dedaly,

That Laboryntes cleped ys.

Nas mad so wonderlych, ywis,

Ne half so queyntelych ywrought.

And evermo, as swifte as thought,

This queynte hous aboute wente,

That never mo hyt stille stente.
(l920-26.)

Sypherd and Shannon, among others, have noted the influence of Ovid

90

in "Domus Dedaly" and Virgil in "Laboryntus." This reference, I

find, is particularly interesting in that it provides further struc-
tural unity within the poem. Daedalus or some part of his story

has functioned in the matter of all three books of the figu§g_gf_famg,
The Agngjg_has also provided material for the events of the poem
from Dido through the description of Fame to this strange whirling
house. And Ovid and Virgil, both Fame's saints, have been, I think,
the primary authorities for Chaucer's dream vision, with Boethius

91

its guiding philosopher. The governing word in this passage is

"queynt," used twice, and we recall the similar description of Venus's

90Chaucer's "Hous 9f_Fame," p. 203; and Chaucer and the Roman
Poets, p. 83. The maze of Daedalus, described in Meta., VIII,—161,
is named Labyrinth in Agn,, V, 588.

91Sypherd, pp. 20 ff., disagrees, finding Chaucer primarily
influenced by the French romances. Koonce, p. l0 and elsewhere,
maintains that Dante is the guilding spiritiyfthe poem. Shannon,
pp. 15 ff., shares my view of the poem but properly, considering the
nature of his study, does not investigate the unification which these
sources provide within the poem.

 

 

210

temple in Book I. The curious contrivances, the artificiality which
has pervaded the poem dominates the house that is Rumor's seat, as
well. Surely "aventure" is the watchword of this place and the folk
who peOple it.

The noise, Geffrey notes, is deafening, as loud as it had
been when first he entered this strange domain. And we remember
that since the "loude faire" of Book II, some 860 lines before,
neither we nor Geffrey have been bombarded with the almost physical
barrage of sound which heralded and identified Fame's place. Here,
however, the noise is so loud that it could carry from Paris to
Rome. In a rollicking passage crowded with similes--"as dooth the
rowtynge of the ston / That from th'engyn ys leten gon" (l934-35);
"Swich as men to these cages thwite / Or maken of these panyers"
(l938-39); "As fele as of leves ben in trees / In somer, when they
grene been" (l946-47)--Geffrey describes the noise and the unlikely
structure which is its source. It is made of twigs, yellow, red,
green, and white: [the noise which emanates from it is, in part, the
squeaking and "chirkynges" which result from its movement and mate-
- rial. So noise is part of the nature of the house itself, inherent
to and inseparable from it. We are told of the thousand holes in
its roof and its uncountable doors, all perpetually open. The
superlatives, cut with the homely prosaic similes, point up the
excess of this house, as they had earlier of Fame's grander castle.
In its way, it is as fragile and protean as the hill which anchors

Fame's beryl seat, and more impossible.

211

There are, Geffrey tells us in the flurry of negatives
which have marked his descriptions in this book, no porters, no check
n0r limit to tidings: unsurprisingly, "ne never rest is in that
place" (l956). There are tidings everywhere and of every kind:

Of werre, of pes, of mariages,

Of reste, of labour, of images,

Of abood, of deeth, of lyf,

Of love, of hate, acord, of stryf,

Of loos, of lore, and of wynnynges,

Of hele, of seknesse, of bildynges,

Of faire wyndes, and of tempestes,

Of qwalm of folk, and eke of bestes;

Of dyvers transmutacions,

Of estats, and eke of regions;

Of trust, of drede, of jelousye,

Of wit, of wynnynge, of folye;

Of plente, and of gret famyne,

Of chepe, of derthe, and of ruyne;

Of good or mys governement,

Of fyr, and of dyvers accident.

(l96l-76.)

In this catalogue, Chaucer pretty well exhausts the possibilities of
the human condition. And we recall the catalogue in which Geffrey's
guide promised him "moo tydynges" (675) earlier in Book II. Here,
however, the dubious nature of love--with its discords, jealousies,
dissimulations, pretense, and betrayals--has been extended to cover
all activities of man. As the eagle's lecture on sound extended
the scope of the matter which reached Fame's house, so this cata-
logue further broadens it. Interestingly, the list deals almost
exclusively with universals: birth, death, and life; government
of all kinds, feast and famine--all the good or ill which shapes
and affects men's lives.

That Rumor's house is cage-shaped iterates the aptness of

its material and implies again that those whose personified voices

212

inhabit it are indeed trapped by the falseness of the values to which
they do homage and the ideal to which they aspire. It is large--
"sixty myle of lengthe";-and paradoxical in nature. Geffrey says:

Al was the tymber of no strengthe,

Yet hit is founded to endure

While that hit lyst to Aventure.

(l980-82.)

This, the third occurrence of "aventure" in Book III, recollects
the force that governs Fame's land. Rumor's house, like the rest,
is dependent on chance, not design nor any natural law. The thrum
of "aventure" throughout this book echoes and stresses the connec-
tion between Fortune and Fame's stead. Immediately after this
acknowledgment of instability, Geffrey tells us that Rumor's house
is "the moder of tydynges, / As the see of welles and of sprynges"
(l983-84). The comparison of the status of this fragile wicker cage
with the sea stresses the contrast between the impossible and the
natural, of course. But it does more, I think. With this couplet,
Rumor's house takes on a new dimension. It is not, apparently,
simply a receiving and transmitting station. Rather, in these lines,
Rumor is represented in a more active role: one of propagating or,
at least, aiding in the promulgation of "tydynges." Such a function,
which has no source in Ovid or Virgil, forces us to reevaluate the
character of Rumor. While she is not herself creative, once started
the tidings which fill her house grow beyond intent and change, we
will find, into a new form. And, of course, this is an accurate
and profound description of the workings of rumor.

As Geffrey marveled at the wonderful spinning structure, he

became aware, as suddenly as he had earlier discovered the castle,

213

of "myn egle" perched on a stone. When he approached the bird for
help in reaching Rumor's house,

“Petre, that is myn intente,"

Quod he to me; ”therfore y duelle."

(lOOO-Ol.)

The great bird's oath to Peter is provocative: it continues the
irony which has surrounded the invocation of saints throughout this
poem. Peter, of course, is symbol of stability, that rock upon

92 and

which, according to Matthew, Christ would build his church,
his invocation here, in a place whose hallmark is instability, is
ironic indeed. Further, it reminds us that the "ston" upon which
the eagle roosts is not stone at all but ice.
Having established that his purpose is to bear Geffrey to
Rumor's wicker house, the eagle, garrulous and pedantic as always,
embroiders his intent in twenty-six lines of explanation, erudition,
explication of Jupiter's sorrow that "Fortune hath mad amys," and
his own fealty to the god his master. Jupiter has commanded him,
he says,
To further the with al my myght,
And wisse and teche the aryght
Where thou maist most tydynges here,
Shaltow here anoon many oon lere.
(2023-26.)
And "with this word"--a nice comic touch, considering the eagle's
long oration--the great bird lifted Geffrey "betweene hys toon" and

carried him through one of the innumerable windows of Rumor's

house.

92Matthew 16.18.

214

One of the marvelous properties of this structure is imme-
diately made clear. As soon as Geffrey enters, its spinning

93 As they have been consistently in this book, the narra-

ceased.
tor's description of its occupants is heavy with negatives. There
were such a congregatiOn of folk,

Some wythin and some wythoute,

Nas never seen, ne shal ben eft;

That, certys, in the world nys left

So many formed be Nature,

Ne ded so many a creature;

That wel unnethe in that place

Hadde y a fote-brede of space.

- (2036-42.)
In this passage, the negatives combine with "Nature" to stress
once more the unnaturalness of this place. Moreover, a major differ-
ence between the climate and character of Rumor's house and Fame's
castle is established. Fame's palace, we know, expands to accommo-
date the press of people and things which occupy it. In all the
crowded lists of richnesses, footmen, columns, and companies,
there was not the sense of hurly-burly, bodies touching and jos-
tling, that there is here. Chaos was there and anti-nature, but
with some sense of antic order. In Rumor's twig house, however,
chaos is unchecked: a teeming wave of creatures, incessantly talk-
ing, never listening nor, indeed, finishing a sentence, swarm
about. "Tydynges" are constant and, whether private or open, move
loudly and aimlessly about the room.
Interestingly, no one says anything memorable or important.

Geffrey describes the conversation of this milling throng:

93See Sypherd, pp. l4O ff., for analogues of such magical
structures and their source in folklore.

215

"Thus hath he sayd," and "Thus he doth,"

"Thus shal hit be," "Thus herde y seye,"

"That shal be founde," "That dar I leye"--

(2052-54.)
In Rumor's house, there is no first-hand experience; all is hearsay.
Nothing is proven but all is claimed: true and false mingle with
equal authority. And all the swelling sound is simply noise with-
out meaning, petty and empty. Confusion is complete and circular,
and the "tydynges," as we have seen, have a life of their own:
Thus north and south

Wente every tydyng fro mouth to mouth,

And that encresing ever moo,

As fyr ys wont to quyke and goo

From a sparke spronge amys,

Til al a citee brent up ys.

(2075-80.)

The destructive power of rumor unleashed could not be more strongly
or graphically shown than in this homely but impressive simile.
The swelling tide of Rumor's restless folk is echoed in the
"tydynges" themselves.

Moreover, Geffrey stresses the slyness and craft with which
rumor Spreads. After a rumor was "ful ysprOnge" and had "woxen more
in every tonge / Than ever hit was" (2081-82), it sought exit, by
window or crevice. And we are reminded that the eagle had explained:

When any speche ycomen ys
Up to the paleys anon-ryght
Hyt wexeth lyk the same wight
Which that the word in erthe spak.
(lO74-77.)
So human-like have the embodied voices in Rumor's house become that,
until the upward swirling of truth and falsehood, we have almost

forgotten their incorporeal nature. There is humor and irony as

216

well as reminder of their essential falseness in the bickering at
the window. Each of them, "a lesyng and a sad soth sawe" (2089)
that "of aventure" met there, began to push:

Til ech of hem gan crien lowde,

"Lat me go first!" "Nay, but let me!

And here I wol ensuren the

Wyth the nones that thou wolt do so,

That I shal never fro the go,

But be thyn owne sworen brother!

We will medle us ech with other,

That no man, be they never so wrothe,

Shal ban on [of us] two, but bothe

At ones, al beseyde his leve,

Come we a-morwe or on eve,

Be we cried or stille yrounded."

(2096-2lO7.)
So "fals and soth compouned" winged toward Fame's castle as one.
The nature of "tydynges" as well as the hierarchy which

operates in Fame's realm is clearly registered in these lines. The
twig structure is a clearing house, apparently, through which all
the news of the world passes, shaped and altered though it is by
its sojourn there. And this news reflects, we find, not only the
seeking of fame but all the doings of humanity. Its course is laid
out: from earth to Rumor's rickety creaking house and thence to
Fame's ornamented castle. The mechanics thus exposed and the sham
and dishonesty of the "tydynges" revealed, Rumor is recognized as
Fame's poor relation, stripped of her elegant trappings but no less
meretricious. The petty squabbling at the window, and truth's easy
partnership with falsehood, ensures our recognition of the vanity of
all worldly renown, whether elevated or debased in scope, courtly or

plebeian in station.

217

Geffrey provides further explanation of the relationship
between Fame and Rumor and of the make-up of the companies who
appear in Fame's court: every "tydynge" goes, he says,

streght to Fame
And she gan yeven ech hyr name,
After hir disposicioun.
(2lll-l3.)

And the numbers in each company of petitioners to Fame is estimated
for the first time. There are, we are told, "twenty thousand in a
route,“ and the judgments we had witnessed become even more indis-
criminate and arbitrary with our realization of the immensity and
variety of each group whose fate is so determined.

Geffrey's rehearsal of the folk who people Rumor's house
continues the sense of excess and error which has marked this shadow
kingdom from the start. There are, he says, shipmen and pilgrims
with "scrippes bret-ful of lesinges." He follows with what is, I
think, the most poignant and telling assessment of the nature of
these captive pilgrims, bound by their mistaken and inverted values,
trapped in the conviction that their man-made ideal, their invented
goddess, is worth the candle. Despite their numbers, Geffrey says,
each was "eek allone be hemselve" (2l25). The pathos--and essential
truth--of this statement tolls in our minds like a bell. And there
were even more of these lonely hordes pressing and shifting in the
cluttered room:

O,many a thousand tymes twelve
Saugh I eke of these pardoners,
Currours, and eke messagers,
With boystes crammed ful of lyes

As ever vessel was with lyes.
(2l26-30.)

218

Apparently truth was destroyed. At least, it has no further place
in Rumor's house. If there lingered any doubt about the character
of the folk in this room, the inclusion of pardoners, with the

couriers and messengers who are logical clients of Rumor and Fame,

would, I think, eliminate it. Later, in the Canterbury Tales's

 

bitterest indictment, Chaucer made his feelings about pardoners
quite clear. And there is much of the Pardoner of Rouncivale's bag
"bretful of pardoun" (GenProl, 687) in the "boystes crammed ful of
lyes" of this passage.

Immediately following the images of bags bursting with
"lesinges" and "lyes," the first mention of love-tidings is heard.
As he listened to the babble about him--of which, he says, others
"kan singe hit bet than I"--Geffrey heard a great noise from a
corner of the room where, at last, "men of love-tydynges tolde."
But when he arrived there, eager for the news which was the purpose
of his marvelous journey, he says:

I saugh rennynge every wight,
As faste as that they hadden myght;
And everych cried, "What thing is that?"
And somme sayde, "I not never what."
And when they were alle on an hepe,
Tho behynde begunne up lepe,
And clamben up on other faste,
And up the nose and yén kaste,
And troden fast on others heles,
And stampen, as men doon aftir eles.
(2l45-54.)
The clamor and tumbling disorder of this scene hardly needs the
inelegant final Simile to accent its mindlessness. Here indeed
are men acting like apes, the qualities that make us men discarded

in the simian avidity for news. And the news they seek, we feel,

219

is little more than locker-room lechery, gmgr_at its basest, sub-
ject of joke and leer and nudge, an ugly thing, coarse and animal
in its panting, sweating squalor. The love that men too often pro-
fess is, as Dido proclaimed and Geffrey agreed, like fame, a hollow
thing masquerading as substance. And neither lovely words nor rich
adornment disguise the fact that both are warped and unnatural
appearance, without basis in reality. Love, the highest and most
ennobling emotion of man, is here counterfeit. Fame, properly based
on merit, earned but not sought, is herefounded on vanity and lies,
desired for its own sake and twisted into error in the process.
Moderation, the golden mean of both pagan and Christian philosophy,
is lost to excess. The truth the eagle promised is only debased
authority, pretense and puffery parading in the cloak of experience.
In Rumor's cage-house, the three contraries which I believe
govern this poem and are its lesson are exposed. Here, gmgr_is seen
to be cheap imitation of that natural love which is desirable and
divinely inspired. Here, excess is seen to replace that reason which
marks man and makes him little less than angel. Here, there is no
experience, only hearsay. Even the authority of the poets so dear
to Geffrey's heart has been reduced to gossip. The only truth in
this domain, we know whether or not Geffrey does, has been dis-
covered through his senses, his experience. In Fame's castle,
authority was seen to be skewed, limited when not false. Here in
Rumor's house, it has no truth at all. In Fame's kingdom, we
recognize the essential emptiness of appearance. Only in reality is

there life and substance and any hope of safety or salvation.

220

The brutish scramblers for news of love are the last of
Rumor's folk we see. Chaucer ends his unfinished excursion to
Fame's place:

Atte laste y saugh a man

Which that y [nevene] nat ne kan;

But he semed for to be

A man of gret auctorite. . . .

(2l55-58.)

There has been, of course, much speculation about the identity of
this "man of great auctorite." and the question is provocative.94
I su5pect, however, any final answer is Unlikely, failing the for-
tuitous discovery of the ubiquitous "lost manuscript," a possibility
which daily grows less likely.

Equally futile, it seems to me, is speculation about
Chaucer's plan for ending this most delightful poem. Perhaps, as
Sypherd believes, he would have returned to the subject of love.95
Perhaps, as Ruggiers supposes, he would have made his philosophical
identification with Boethius and ended with some statement of

96

contemptus mundi. Perhaps J. A. W. Bennett is correct when he

 

94For example, R. C. Goffin, "Quiting by Tidings in Ihg_
House gf_Fame," Medium Aevum 22 (l943), 44, suggests, hithe form of
a question, that Boccaccio may be the man of authority: Koonce,
pp. 266-67, maintains that he can only be Christ; Ruggiers, p. 271,
believes him to be Boethius; R. J. Schoeck, "A Legal Reading of
Chaucer's House 9f_Fame, Univ. 9f_Toronto Quarterly 23 (l953),
191-92, identifies him as*“Master of Revels”; and James Winney,
p. llO, sees him as representing the discipline which must control
the creative activity. While this list is not complete, it is, I
think, representative of the variety of theories.

95

 

 

 

 

 

Chaucer's "Hous gf_Fame," p. 220.

96"The Unity of Chaucer's House gf_Fame, p. 272, a proposal
I find rather difficult to reconcile with Chaucer's other works.

221

suggests that the "true conclusion was to be found in the poetry

97

that was to follow," the Canterbury Tales. Perhaps, as Clemen

proposes, Chaucer would have postulated the "new critical attitude

98 In

toward poetry" which, he believes, is the theme of the poem.
fact, of course, we simply do not know.

Rather, such attempts may distract us from an examination
of what is in the poem we have. In the flog§g_9f_famg, I think,
there is a thematic unity which does not demand an ending or an
identification or the elimination or alteration of any part of the
text itself. Chaucer called his poem the flgu§g_gf_famg, I do not
believe it is too simplistic to assume that Fame was, therefore,
to be its subject. In Book 1, beyond the trappings and scenery of
a love-vision, we have the effect of Fame on one individual, Dido.
In Book II, we hear Fame described by Jove's bird, hence a picture
of Fame and the mechanics of her place by a detached though, of
course, sympathetic familiar who is not himself subject to her power.
In Book III, we see Fame in action on a larger stage. Her caprice,
her unreason, and her essential falseness are exposed in her own house
by her own words as she dooms or rewards the vast numbers who seek
her "grace." Rumor's suburban shack and the activities there simply
document what has been implied from the first: that worldly fame
is fraud and artifice; that its worship reduces men to apes; and

that not only is the winning of fame uncertain but, once won, it

97Chaucer's Book 9f_Fame, p. l85.

 

98Chaucer's Early Poetry, pp. ll3-l4.

 

222

has neither permanence nor virtue nor worth. This is, I think,

the point of Chaucer's House gf_Fame. And certainly it is enough.

CONCLUSION

In both the House gf_Fame and the Book gf_the Duchess,

 

Chaucer exposes false and man-made ideals and we recognize them as
appearance. Structurally, there are many differences in these early
dream-visions. The ngk_9f_the Duchess is an elegy, slow-paced and
quiet; it has only two characters, a single plot-line, and its tone
is essentially serious. Conversely, the Hou§g_gj_fam§_is an exami-
nation of the effects of Fame on various levels, frenetic and
cacaphonous; it has multiple settings, characters, and plots, and

it is less serious in tone, especially in the comedic tour g§_force

 

which is Book II. But the underlying conflict of appearance versus
reality exists in and motivates both dream-visions. In both,
Chaucer utilizes the three sets of contraries--excess versus modera-
tion and reason, authority versus experience, and amor_versus natural
love--to examine the larger elemental conflict.

Chaucer, like Shakespeare or Milton or Pope, was a man of
his age writing for an audience of that age. Such a truth is, of
course, self-evident. But that does not imply that modern readers
can find no truths, no application to self, no sense of recognition
in the inhabitants of Chaucer's poems, or no joy in his humor and
humanity. Rather, each generation, I suspect, focuses on aspects
of the poetry to which it is particularly sensitive and in which

its particular identity is reflected.

223

224

To enjoy and understand Chaucer's works, we need only read
the poems honestly and lovingly, aware that our reading is a per-
sonal one, conscious of the danger of casual presumption, and
bound only by the evidence of the text itself. Trevor Whittock
makes an important contribution to modern scholarly understanding,

I think, when he insists that "the poet's intention must be appre-

hended in terms of the poem's own structure, its own 'inner logic.‘

A valid reminder about the work of any poet, this is particularly
vital for a student of Chaucer. This "inner logic" is, in part,
what I have tried to identify and analyze in my interpretation of
these dream-visions.

The scholarship of Kittredge, Lowes, Robinson, Lewis,
Robertson and the rest continues to increase our appreciation of
Chaucer's early dream-visions, and our debt to them is great. But
there is more to be learned. This study has, I hope, continued
their tradition by defining the unifying theme--the philosophical
opposition of appearance and reality--which links these dream-
visions and the means--the three sets of contrarieS--by which that
theme is demonstrated. Its examination of how Chaucer shapes his
sources to his very individual artistic needs explicates his use of
those disparate sources more fully, I think, than the studies of
any single influence (the French poets, the Roman poets, the
Italian poets, etc.) have done. Lately, we have all benefited

from such an approach to the various Canterbury Tales, but less

 

1_A_Readin 9f_the Canterbury Tales (London: Cambridge
Univ. Press, l9681, p. lO.

1

225

attention has been focused on this aspect of the Book Qf_the Duchess

 

and the ng§g_9f_§gmg, I have tried, in part at least, to fill
that blank here. I believe that this paper, by providing grounds
for new questions and suggesting new directions, may contribute to
our continuing understanding of this, the first master of English

poetry.

In the Book 9f_the Duchess and the House gf_Fame, Chaucer

 

was, I think, as much concerned with universals as in his later
masterworks. His moral vision, generally recognized in the Canter-

bury Tales and Troilus and Criseyde, was no less discerning in

 

 

these early poems. In them, as in the later works, he was, I
believe, holding the mirror of reality up to the folly, the pre-
tense, the erroneously conceived ideals, and the hypocrisy of men.
Whether they recognized their reflections is, of course, another
matter. But the mirror does exist in Chaucer's poetry, in the pri-

vate débat of the Book gj_the Duchess as in the complex world of

 

the Canterbury_Tales; in the flamboyant contrivance of Fame's king-

 

dom as in the besieged city of Troilus and Criseyde.

It is hard to imagine more diverse settings than the quiet
wood-garden, the familiar tavern where the pilgrims met, the nervous
and threatened Troy, and the alien artifice of the ice hill. That
Chaucer can use these diverse settings and can reduce their very
dissimilar inhabitants to their essentials to imply the universal

truths they share is signal of his art. In the Book 9f_the Duchess,

 

the black knight's grief is gently exposed as excess, as error, and

as an essential denial of humanity, hence as appearance, unnatural

226

and, in fact, sinful. In the Hou§g_gj_§amg, Fame's kingdom, her
minions, and her saints are also exposed as appearance: the insis-
tent numbers, decoration, and "crafte" reveal the excess which
disguises emptiness and imitation. The artificiality and futility
of worldly greatness is subtly delineated throughout the poem and
the folly of men who pursue this false ideal is made manifest
through its progression.

The duality of love, the conflict between amp: and natural

love, has been recognized, especially in Troilus and Criseyde and

 

what Professor Kittredge called "the marriage group" of the Canter-

bury Tales, as well as in commentaries on the individual tales.

 

That duality--with amor representative of appearance, natural love
of reality--is seldom so strongly linked with the duality of man's
other activities as in the House gf_Fame, although, as we have seen,

it occurs clearly in the Book 9f_the Duchess as well.

 

The opposition of experience as handmaiden of reality and
authority as servant of appearance is maintained throughout
Chaucer's works, I believe, in the persona of narrator as advocate
of authority, a vehicle by which Chaucer achieves some of his
finest comedy. Pandarus, of course, is cut from the same bolt: a
comic expert in the theory but not the practice of love. But Pan-
darus and the narrator are no greater examples of the folly of
such total dedication to authority than the pedantic eagle of the

House gf_Fame. As lovely Alisoun of the Miller's Tale is kin to

 

the Wife of Bath, older, fatter, but with the same "likerous ye"

(BE) 3244), so is the eagle brother to Pandarus. Where Pandarus's

227

expertise is limited to matters of love, the eagle is less modest:
no subject from astrology to Geffrey's character, from physics to
mythology is beyond his scape. He is authority personified. And
like Pandarus and the narrator, he is exuberantly comic in his
pedantry. By such comedy, Chaucer juxtaposes authority with experi-
ence; and authority, no matter how impressive-sounding, is seen as
appearance, an imitation of and substitute for reality.

Fame's house is the world. And the world is filled with
those whose vision is flawed, who scramble desperately for the
renown which they think will make them matter, which will prove
that their small fearful mortality has meaning. That desperation
is epitomized by the eighth and ninth companies who seek disrepute,
the greatest infamy, to escape the terrible knowledge of their own
unimportance. Their error, of course, is clear, but it is an
error which men of all ages share. Man is small, his life a speck,
scarcely noticeable in the sea of human time or memory. In his
rejection of the faith he professes, he struggles to avoid the
abyss he sees before him, death and eternal oblivion. And, reject-
ing, he seeks.in appearance the illusion of immortality.

The man in black had to face the fact of White's death and,
more difficult, he had to accept his own human inability to change
that fact or deny it. There was for him or the Pearl_poet or for
us no easy escape, only reconciliation through the acknowledgment
of God's will and human limitation. Only with the acceptance of
this reality, the understanding that we are mortal, that happiness
remembered eases the pain which is part of life, can he or wehfind

peace. The folk who crowd Fame's hall cannot accept this reality and

228

are lost. Man cannot escape or deny his mortality through empty pur-
suit of earthly greatness. Only by accepting life and the reality of
God's will can he embrace his own humanity. The man in black, by
implication, did find such acceptance and the strength to continue
which is its reward. The press of folk who surged about Fame's bar
did not.

Chaucer is, above all, I believe, a poet of reality. This was

true in the Book gf_the Duchess and it is true in the House 9f_Fame.

 

In these poems as well as in the Canterbury Tales, he focuses the

 

sharp beam of his irony on men who mistake the tinsel of appearance

for the light of reality. In the Canterbury Tales, the juxtaposition

 

of appearance and reality is most diversely and subtly presented
through the portraits of the pilgrims and the contents of their sto-
ries. We see their frailties and disguises and strengths and follies
through the lens of Chaucer's moral vision; and perhaps, if we are
lucky or honest, we see ourselves more clearly as well. The Prioress's
vanities are exposed gently, as well as the Clerk's inexperience, the
Merchant's prurience, and the Knight's idealism. The hypocrisy of the
Pardoner and the Summoner, as they prey upon their fellows in the name
of God, is the subject of Chaucer's strongest condemnation. That this
hypocrisy is described in humorous terms does not conceal their fraud.

And in the Book 9f_the Duchess and the House 9f_Fame, Chaucer's earli-

 

est long poems, the humor does not conceal the folly of man who denies
his own humanity, worships his own inventions, and mistakes amor and

earthly renown and excess for love and virtue and reason.

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229

 

 

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