Dieux absoille le bon Roy trespassé! Et Dieux consault cellui qui est en vie! A mon vivant; laquelle je n'ay mie. The Envoy has but six lines, though the stanzas have eight; similarly, Chaucer's Envoy has but five lines (rimed a a b b a), though the stanzas have seven. Chaucer's Envoy is in a very unusual metre, which was copied by the author of the Cuckoo and the Nightingale' [cf. Oxford Chaucer 7. 347-358]. This opinion of Skeat is not very convincing. In the first place, Chaucer's envoy, which, if we adopt Skeat's view, would be the link between Chaucer's ballade and that of Deschamps, has the air of being an afterthought, and, in tone, as well as in construction, is quite different from the body of the poem. Like Steadfastness and Truth, this poem has an envoy; but while in the former it is a rhyme-royal stanza, on the same rhymes as the three preceding stanzas, in this it has five lines, on entirely new rhymes.5 But not only is the envoy different from the body of the poem; the latter is quite different, in tone and diction, from the ballade of Deschamps. Deschamps' ballade is not light and humorous, nor is its language that of an amatory poem. Chaucer's ballade has the air of being a genial parody of a love-lyric, perhaps a well known one—or, at least, of employing some of its phraseology. Such a love-lyric exists-famous, too, in its period. It was written by Guy de Coucy, who was castellan of the castle of that name from 1186 to 1203, and of whom VillehardouinR relates that he was lost at sea in 12039 on the way from the island of Andros, south-east of Euboea, to Constantinople: 'Et rentrerent en lor vaissiaus et corrurent par mer. Lors lor avint uns granz domaiges; que uns halz hom de l'ost, qui avoit nom Guis. li chastelains de Coci, morut et fu gitez en la mer.' The Châtelain de Coucy, as he is generally designated, was an imitator of the troubadours, belonging to the same general Cf. Ten Brink, Chaucers Sprache und Verskunst, p. 213; Schipper, Altenglische Metrik 1. 335. Not 1201, as Lanson would have it (Hist. de la Litt. Fr., p. 85). period as Conon de Béthune, Blondel de Nesles, Gace Brûlé, and Thibaut de Navarre.10 Of his poems, some fifteen or sixteen are accredited by modern criticism, of which none attained the celebrity of that which we print below. Our text is taken from Brakelmann, Les Plus Anciens Chansonniers Français, pp. 103-5. Another is to be found in Michel, Chansons du Châtelain de Coucy, 1830, pp. 79-84 (its ancient music on pp. 190-1), and a critical text in Fath, 1883, Die Lieder des Castellans von Coucy, pp. 36-9 (from twelve MSS.). Still a fourth is incorporated in L'Histoire du Châtelain de Coucy, 1829, pp. 244-5 (translation on pp. 409-11). A vos, amant, plus" qu'a nule altre gent Dolce dame, qu'iert ce donc et coment Car de nule altre avoir joie n'atent Fors que de vos, ne sai se c'iert jamais. Dolce dame, qu'iert il del consirrer, Des dolz solas et de la compaignie, Del bel semblant que me soliez mostrer Quant vos m'estiez, dame, compaigne, amie? Et les dolz moz que solt a moi parler, Coment me puet li cuers el cors durer Que ne s'en part? Certes, trop est malvais !12 10 Lanson, as above. "The Histoire and MS. A have ains. 12 This stanza is quoted in La Chastelaine de Vergi, ed. Brandin, p. 69 (= Romania 21. 173, Raynaud's text, from which Brandin's is taken), with a translation on p. 18; line 2 of stanza 3 here reads: Du dous solaz et de la compaingnie. Or voi je bien qu'il m'estuet comparer 13 Merci, amors, que Deus hait vilenie, Or seront lié li fals losengeor Por ce qu'a els en bone pais resoie. Se Deus voloit qu'il reüssent m'amor Je m'en vois, dame, a Deu le creator, The romance in question was written about 1280 (Gaston Paris) or between 1282 and 1288 (G. Raynaud, in Romania 21. 153). It is referred to by Froissart, Paradys d'Amour 992, and Prison Amoureuse 219, as well as by Deschamps 2. 182; cf. also pp. 26, 27, above. Chaucer would therefore have known of the romance, and, if he read it, as he doubtless did, would have had his attention attracted by this stanza, and by the fact that it was assigned by the author to the 'chastelains de Couci' (1. 292). Four ivory caskets, besides the fragment of another (Bargello, Florence), representing scenes from La Chastelaine de Vergi, and all belonging to the first quarter of the fourteenth century, are still preserved; these are in the British Museum (reproduced as the frontispiece of Brandin's edition), the Louvre, and the Pierpont Morgan collection (two). Others are to be found at Milan, Vienna, and Lyons (R. S. Loomis, in Romanic Review 8. 197, supplemented by information in a letter of Dec. 18, 1917). 18 Four MSS., including Brit. Mus. Egerton 274. 13(13th century), have Merci li cri. 14 1 'Pesant fais' occurs in an anonymous poem of the thirteenth century (Chansons du Châtelain de Coucy, ed. Michel, p. 101; cf. Gaston Paris, in Romania 8. 354). De moie part di, chançons, si t'en croie, Se je revieng, que por vos servir vais. If, now, the italicized passages in the French poem are compared with those written by Chaucer, as given below, I think it can hardly be doubted that he expected the literate to enjoy his playful allusions to the former. From line 6 it is evident that the manuscript Chaucer knew was of type ≈ (Fath, pp. 21, 36); see the variant reading at the foot of page 36. It will be observed that two of Chaucer's rhyming words, companye and curtesye, both coupled with the refrain, are also rhyming words of the French poet. To you, my purse, and to non other wight Now voucheth sauf this day, or hit be night, Now purs, that be to me my lyves light LENVOY DE CHAUCER O conquerour of Brutes Albioun ! 15 Cf. Prol. 590 (of the Reeve): For he was shave as ny as ever he can. Ben verray king, this song to you I sende; Chaucer's envoy is more in the vein of such demands as Deschamps sometimes made upon his patrons (cf. Skeat's remarks above, p. 33, and Deschamps, Oeuvres 11. 32 ff., 256, 300).16 The phrase, 'Brutes Albioun,' too, seems to repose on reminiscences of Deschamps, who introduces both words, and variants of them ('Albie,' etc.), not only in his poem addressed to Chaucer (2. 138-140; cf. Oxford Chaucer 1. lvi-lvii1), but elsewhere (1. 106-7, 318; 2. 33; 3. 110; 6. 87; 7. 244-5). In the rhymes with Albio (u)n, Latin derivatives are usually, and almost necessarily employed, as by Chaucer here (1. 317-8; 3. 109-10; 6. 133-4; 7. 244-5; but Bullion, 3. 110; Lion, 7. 244). IX. SIR GEOFFREY CHAUCER Would not the poet, from August, 1386, have been entitled to the above designation? On the 6th of that month, a writ was addressed to the Sheriff of Kent, requiring him to have 'duos Milites, gladiis cinctos, magis idoneos et discretos,' chosen as knights of the shire, whereupon he returned William Betenham as the one knight, and Chaucer as the other.1 Other testimony, some of it more dubious on account of its lateness, is as follows: I. Bale, in 1548, calls Chaucer 'eques auratus." and Leland (ca. 1545) had written 'De Gallofrido Chaucero, Equite." 16 The first two lines are illustrated by Gower's Cronica Tripartata 3. 322-5: Unde coronatur trino de jure probatur, Regnum conquestat, que per hoc sibi jus manifestat; Insuper eligitur a plebe que sic stabilitur. Cf. Stubbs, Const. Hist. Eng. 3. 11-12. 17 Critical edition by Jenkins, Mod. Lang. Notes 33. 268, 437. 1Kirk, Life-Records IV, pp. 261-2. 2 Hammond, Chaucer, p. 8. Pits (1619) has: 'Ipse tandem auratus factus est Eques' (ibid., p. 13). Phillips (1674) calls him 'Sir Geoffry Chaucer' and 'Knight' (ibid., p. 36). 3 Spurgeon, Five Hundred Years of Chaucer Criticism and Allusion, p. 87. |