To performe al thi wil in engendrure,
Thow haddist bigeten many a creature.
Allas! why werest thou so wyd a cope?
God gif me sorwe! and I were a pope,
Nought only thou, but every mighty man,
Though he were schore1 brode upon his pan,
Schuld han a wif; for al this world is lorn;
Religioun hath take up al the corn

Of tredyng, and we burel men ben schrympes;
Of feble trees ther cometh feble ympes.
This makith that oure heires ben so sclender
And feble, that thay may not wel engender.
This makith that our wyfes wol assaye
Religious folk, for thay may bettre paye
Of Venus payementes than may we.
God woot, no lusscheburghes' paye ye!
But beth nought wroth, my lorde, though I play,
For oft in game a soth I have herd say.'

This worthy Monk took al in pacience,
And saide, 'I wol doon al my diligence,
Als fer as souneth into honeste,3
To telle yow a tale, or tuo or thre;
And if yow lust to herken hider-ward,
I wil yow say the lif of seint Edward,*
Or elles first tregedis wil I yow telle,
Of which I have an hundred in my celle."

1 Alluding, of course, to the tonsure.

2 Base coins, so called, as Skinner supposes, because first imported from Luxembourg. They are called in stat. 25 Edward III. c. 2, la monoie appelle Lucynbourg.-T. A similar comparison occurs in Piers Plowman, thus given in the correct text of Mr. Wright's⚫ edition: 'As in lussheburwes is a luther alay,

And yet loketh he like a sterlyng.'

3 As far as its tone is consistent with propriety. The same expression is used in the Preces de Chauceres :- Alle thilke that sounen into synne.' 4 St. Edward the Confessor.

5 Such histories would naturally be popular in a monastery, as affording consolation to those who had entered the cloister from disappointed hopes, or had been consigned to it for state crimes, like the

A

Tregedis is to sayn a certeyn storie,
As olde bookes maken us memorie,
Of hem that stood in greet prosperite,
And is y-fallen out of heigh degre
Into miserie, and endith wrecchedly;
And thay ben versifyed comunly

Of six feet, which men clepe exametron.1
In prose ben eek endited many oon;

Earl of Douglas, whose history is related by Sir Walter Scott, Hist. of Scotland, vol. i. He had been taken in rebellion by James II. of Scotland, but was by that monarch granted his life on condition that he retired to the monastery of Lindores, to which sentence he submitted calmly, only using a popular proverb, He that cannot do better must be a monk!'' The recollections suggested by such tragedies, of contests past and dangers escaped, would also have attractions for those who retired to a monastery to spend the evening of an eventful life in peace and seclusion, like Charles V., or the subject of the following curious picture, quoted by the learned Dean Butler in his Hist. of Trim

Ipse post militiæ cursum temporalis,
Illustratus gratiâ doni spiritualis,
Esse Christi cupiens miles specialis,

In hâc domo monachus factus est claustralis.

Ultra modum placidus, dulcis et benignus,
Ob ætatis senium candidus ut cygnus,
Blandus et affabilis ac amari dignus,
In se sancti spiritus possidebat pignus.
Nam sanctam ecclesiam sæpe frequentabat,
Missarum mysteria lætus auscultabat,
Et quas scire poterat laudes personabat,
Ac cœlestem gloriam mente ruminabat.

Ejus conversatio dulcis et jocosa,
Valde commendabilis et religiosa,
Ita cunctis fratribus fuit gratiosa,

Quod nec gravis exstitit nec fastidiosa.

Hic per claustrum quotiens transiens meavit,
Hinc et hinc ad monachos caput inclinavit,
Et sic nutu capitis eos salutavit,

Quos affectu intimo plurimum amavit,' &c.

1 The Monk probably means Latin hexameter; for, though the verse of Gamelyn, the supposititious Ploughman's Tale, and prologues, like the verse afterwards generally used by Surrey and Wyatt, consists sometimes of six iambic feet, the term 'hexameter' has been generally appropriated to the metre of Homer and Virgil.

In metre eek, in many a sondry wise;'
Lo, this declaryng ought y-nough suffise.
Now herkneth, if yow likith for to heere;
But first I yow biseche in this matiere,
Though I by ordre telle not thise thinges,
Be it of popes, emperours, or kynges,
After her age, as men may write fynde,
But telle hem som bifore and som byhynde,
As it cometh now to my remembraunce,
Haveth me excused of myn ignoraunce.

THE MONKES TALE.

[THE idea of this tale, very appropriately related by the Monk (see ante, p. 184, note 5), was probably derived from Boccaccio's great work, De Casibus Virorum Illustrium, though in the tragedy of Zenobia the poet quotes as from Petrarch. This mistake Tyrwhitt supposes to have arisen from 'Boccaccio's book having fallen into his hands under the name of Petrarch,' an explanation which is far from satisfactory. Both in the substance and order of the tales, however, as Mr. Wright observes, Chaucer has departed from his original, introducing some tragedies which are not to be found in Boccaccio's work, and remodelling others. The reader will perceive that he follows and even transcends the custom of medieval writers generally, by deducing his story from times anterior even to the creation of the world, which was their remotest starting-point. The plan of this collection of tales was afterwards adopted, and elaborated, in the Mirror of Magistrates; and we may thus trace Buckhurst's design through Chaucer up to the common original of both-those old tragedies of which the Monk says, 'I have an hundred in my celle.'-See notice of Buckhurst in Ann. Ed. of Surrey's Poems, p. 261.]

1 The Harl. MS. reads

'And in metre eek, and in sondry wise,' which does violence alike to the sense and metre. the Lansd. MS.

The text is from

WOL bywaile, in maner of tregedye,

The harm of hem that stood in heigh degre.
And fallen so ther is no remedye

To bring hem out of her adversite;
For certeynly, whan fortune lust to flee,

Ther may no man the cours of hir whiel holde;
Let no man truste in blynd prosperite,
Beth war by these ensamples trewe and olde.
1
LUCIFER.

At Lucifer, though he an aungil were,
And nought a man, at him wil I bygynne;
For though fortune may non aungel dere,
From heigh degre yit fel he for his synne
Doun into helle, wher he yet is inne.
O Lucifer! brightest of aungels alle,

Now art thou Sathanas, thou maist nought twynne Out of miserie in which thou art falle.

ADAM.

Lo Adam, in the feld of Damassene❜
With Goddes oughne fynger wrought was he,
And nought bigeten of mannes sperma unclene,
And welt al paradys, savyng oon tre.
Had never worldly man suche degre
As Adam, til he for mysgovernance
Was dryven out of heigh prosperite,

To labour, and to helle, and to meschaunce.

1 This tragedy is not found in Boccaccio. It seems to be taken from Isaiah xiv. 12-15, How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God . . . I will be like the Most High. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.'

2 So Lydgate, from Boccace, speaks of Adam and Eve, Trag. b. i.

C. 19:

'Of slime of the erth in Damascene the felde

God made them above ech creature.'

Boccace is much longer in relating this story, which is the first of his tragedies.-T.

SAMPSON.1

Lo Sampson, whiche that was annunciate
By thangel, long er his nativite,

And was to God Almighty consecrate,
And stood in nobles whil that he might se.
Was never such another as was he,

To speke of strength, and therto hardynesse;
But to his wyfes told he his secre,

Thurgh which he slough himselfe for wrecchidnesse,
Sampson, this noble and myhty champioun,
Withouten wepen save his hondes tueye,
He slowhe and al to-rent the lyoun

To-ward his weddynge walkinge be the waie.
The false wif couthe him plese and preie

Til sche his counseile knewe, and sche, untrewe,
Unto his foos his consel gan bewreye,
And him for-soke, and toke another newe.*
Thre hundred foxis took Sampson for ire,
And alle her tayles he togider bond;
And sette the foxes tailes alle on fuyre,
For he in every tail hath knyt a brond;
And thay brent alle the cornes of that lond,
And alle her olyvers and vynes eeke.

A thousand men he slough eek with his hond,
And hadde no wepen but an asses cheeke.

Whan thay were slayn, so thursted him that he
Was wel ner lorn, for which he gan to preye
That God wolde of his peyne have som pite,
And send him drynk, and elles must he deye.
And out of this asses cheke, that was so dreye,
Out of a woung-toth sprong anon a welle,
Of which he dronk y-nough, schortly to seye;
Thus halp him God, as Judicum3 can telle.

1 Tyrwhitt says that Chaucer appears to have taken this story immediately from Judges xiv. xv. xvi., rather than from Boccaccio. 2 This stanza has been accidentally omitted in the Harl. MS., and is here inserted from the Lansd. MS.-W.

3 The poet quotes the title of the Book of Judges, Liber Judicum, in the Vulgate, just as he quotes Virgil as Eneidos.