Han sped hem for to burie him ful fast;
And whan thay halywater on him cast,

Yet spak this child, whan spreynde was the water,
And song O alma redemptoris mater.

This abbot, which that was an holy man,
As monkes ben, or elles oughte be,
This yonge child to conjure he bigan,
And sayd: 'O deere child, I halse the,
In vertu of the holy Trinite,

Tel me what is thy cause for to synge,
Sith that thy throte is kit at my semynge.'

My throte is kit unto my nekke-boon,'
Sayde this child, and as by way of kynde
I schulde han ben deed long tyme agoon;
But Jhesu Crist, as ye in bookes fynde,
Wol that his glorie laste and be in mynde;
And for the worschip of his moder deere,
Yet may I synge O alma lowde and cleere.
'This welle of mercy, Cristes moder swete,
I loved alway, as after my connynge;
And whan that I my lyf schulde leete,
To me sche cam, and bad me for to synge
This antym verraily in my deyinge,

As

ye have herd; and, whan that I had songe, Me thought sche layde a grayn under my tonge. 'Wherfor I synge, and synge moot certeyne In honour of that blisful mayden fre, Til fro my tonge taken is the greyne. And after that thus saide sche to me: 'My litil child, now wil I fecche the, Whan that the grayn is fro thi tonge i-take; Be nought agast, I wol the not forsake.'

This holy monk, this abbot him mene I, His tonge out caught, and took awey the greyn; And he gaf up the gost ful softely.

And whan the abbot hath this wonder seyn,

His salte teres striken doun as reyn;

And gruf he fel adoun unto the grounde,
And stille he lay, as he had ben y-bounde.
The covent eek lay on the pavyment
Wepyng and herying Cristes moder deere.
And after that thay rise, and forth thay went,
And took away this martir fro his beere,
And in a tombe of marble stoones cleere
Enclosed thay this litil body sweete;
Ther he is now, God lene us for to meete!
O yonge Hughe of Lyncoln;' slayn also
With cursed Jewes (as it is notable,
For it nys but a litel while ago),
Pray eek for us, we synful folk unstable,
That of his mercy God so merciable
On us his grete mercy multiplie,
For reverence of his modir Marie.

PROLOGE TO SIRE THOPAS.

WHAN sayd was this miracle, every man

As sober was, that wonder was to se,

Til that oure Host to jape he bigan,
And than at erst he loked upon me,

And sayde thus: 'What man art thou?' quod he.
'Thou lokest as thou woldest fynde an hare,
For ever upon the ground I se the stare.

'Approche ner, and loke merily.

Now ware you, sires, and let this man have space.
He in the wast is schape as wel as I;
This were a popet in an arm to embrace
For any womman, smal and fair of face.
He semeth elvisch by his countenaunce,
For vnto no wight doth he daliaunce.

1 See Introduction to this tale.

2 This description of Chaucer's appearance and bearing is confirmed by Occleve's portrait, which represents him as rather below the middle

'Say now som what, sins other folk han said;
Telle us a tale and that of mirthe anoon.'

'Host,' quod I, 'ne beth nought evel apayd,
For other tale certes can I

noon,

But of a rym I lerned yore agoon.'

'Ye, that is good,' quod he, 'now schul we heere Som deynte thing, me thinketh by thy cheere.'

THE TALE OF SIR THOPAS.

[THIS tale is a burlesque upon the popular metrical romances of chivalry, and was evidently intended to ridicule their pompous descriptions of unimportant circumstances and impossible incidents. It has been asserted by Dr. Hurd (Letters on Chivalry and Romance), 'that The Boke of the Gyant Olyphant and Chylde Thopas was not a fiction of his (Chaucer's) own, but a story of antique fame;' upon which Tyrwhitt observes, 'I can only say that I have not been so fortunate as to meet with any traces of such a story of an earlier date than The Canterbury Tales;' and Ritson characteristically pronounces the assertion to be 'a lye.' See Warton, Hist. Engl. Poetry, § 16. Mr. Wright thinks that the antiquity of the story is somewhat favoured by the irregular terminations of different MSS., which look as though different scribes omitted some, or added as from a poem which they had in memory.' It is not very probable, however, that Chaucer could have found a romance ready-made so essentially calculated to throw discredit on the whole class. Sir Thopas appears to be the beau idéal of a knight; he does everything which a knight should do according to the most approved plan. Even the forest through which he rides is a 'model' forest, in which the most incongruous species of birds sport and sing; and nutmegs, cloves, and cinnamon grow

size, but inclined to corpulence (upon which the Host twits him ironically), with small features, a thoughtful look, and eyes fixed on the ground. This smallness of feature, and absence or reserve of manner, seem to be described by the word elvisch.

spontaneously. The knight himself, as in duty bound, falls 'on love-longing;' but, no earthly beauty being worthy of him, he must love an 'elf-queen.' Then comes the meeting with the giant, the challenge, the arming of the knight, which is described even to the putting on of his shirt and breeches, all conducted, according to rule, to the sound of music and the recitation of Romances that ben reales.' His disdain, after the example of Sir Perceval, of the luxury of bed, and his repose under the canopy of heaven, with his helmet for a pillow, and water from the well for his drink, while his horse feeds beside him on herbes fine,' are all indispensable to his character. In short, Sir Thopas is the prototype of Don Quixote.

The introduction of this satire is managed with admirable tact. Had the poet attempted to make his own tale characteristic, it ought to have been the best of all; but then he would have been obliged to award himself the prize of the supper. He ingeniously avoids this difficulty by reciting the rhyme doggerel of Sir Thopas,' as the best he can;' an arrangement which enables him to vary the tone of laudation with which the tales are generally received by the Host, and at the same time to ridicule the false taste and barren puerilities with which the metrical romance was beginning to be disfigured.]

ESTENETH, lordyngs, in good entent,
And I wol telle verrayment

Of myrthe and solas,

Al of a knyght was fair and gent
In batail and in tornament,

His name was Sir Thopas.

I-bore he was in fer contre,
In Flaundres, al byyonde the se,
At Poperyng' in the place;

1 Poppering or Poppeling was the name of a parish in the marshes of Calais. Our famous antiquary, Leland, was once rector of it. Bib. Brit. in v. Leland.-T.

His fader was a man ful fre,
And lord he was of that contre,
As it was Goddes grace.

Sir Thopas wax a doughty swayn;
Whyt was his face as payndemayn,'
His lippes reed as rose;

His rode is lik scarlet en grayn,
And I yow telle, in good certayn
He had a semly nose.

His heer, his berd, was lik safroun,
That to his girdil raught adoun;
His schoon of cordewane ;
Of Brigges were his hosen broun;
His robe was of sicladoun,

That coste many a jane.

2

He couthe hunt at wilde deer,
And ride on haukyng for ryver*

With gray goshauk on honde;
Therto he was a good archeer,
Of wrastelyng was noon his peer,
Ther eny ram* schal stonde.

1 That this must have been a sort of remarkably white bread is clear enough. Skinner derives it from panis matutinus, pain de matin; and, indeed, Du Cange mentions a species of loaves or rolls called matinelli. [The suggested derivation is wrong. The Latin name was panis dominicus, so called because used for the Holy Eucharist. It was of course bread of the finest quality.-W. W. S.]

2 Tyrwhitt supposes that ciclaton signified originally a circular robe of state, from the latinized Greek word cyclas, and that it afterwards came to mean the cloth of gold of which such robes were made. The word is Arabic, and was applied to a kind of stuff; which, being brought from the East, is here, as Mr. Wright observes, appropriately said to coste many a jane,' i. e., coin of Genoa, one of the ports at which the Eastern trade was carried on.

3 See vol. i. p. 337, note 2. The goshawk was the largest and most courageous of the short-winged hawks used in falconry. A picturesque description of it will be found in the Assembly of Foules.

4 See vol. i. p. 100, note 2. A ram or he-goat appears to have been the prize at rustic contests from the earliest times. To such pastoral games Horace traces the origin of the Greek tragedy, and derives the name itself from the prize, as if it were ǹ Tpáyou won, the song of the goat 'Carmine qui tragico vilem certavit ob hircum.' HOR. de Arte Poetica, 220.