The Canterbury tales and Faerie queene &c., &c., &c., ed. for popular perusal with current illustrations and explanatory notes, by D. Laing Purves.

274 POEAMS OF GEOFFREY CHAUCER.
Such fine his lust,, such fine hath his nobless! Of Jove, Apollo, Mars, and such rascaille! 1
Such fine hath false world6's brittleness! 2 Lo! here the form of olde clerk's' speech,
And thus began his loving of Cresside, In poetry, if ye their bookes seech! 12
As I have told; and in this wise he died.
O young and freshe folke, he or she,3'Envoy of Chaucer.
In which that love upgroweth with your age,
Repaire home from worldly vanity, O moral ower! this book I direct
And of your heart upcaste the visage 4 To thee, and to the philosophical Strode,14
To thilkd 5 God, that after his image To vouchesafe, where need is, to correct,
You made, and think that all is but a fair, Of your benignities and zeales good.
This world that passeth soon, as flowers fair! And to that soothfastChrist that starf onrood,5
With all my heart, of mercy ever I pray,
And love Him, the which that right for love,,
And lov6 Him, the which that,~right for love, And to the Lord right thus I speak and say:
Upon a cross, our soules for to bey,6
First starf,7 and rose, and sits in heav'n above; "Thou One, and Two, and Three, etern on
For he will fals 8 no wight, dare I say, live,l6
That will his heart all wholly on him lay; That reignest ay in Three, and Two, and One,
And since he best to love is, and most meek, Uncircumscrib'd, and all may'st circumscrive,
What needeth feigned loves for to seek? From visible and invisible fone 18
Defend us in thy mercy ev'ry one;
Lo! here of paynims9 cursed olde rites So make us, Jesus, for thy mercy dign,l
Lo! here what all their goddes may avail For love of Maid and Mother thine benign!
Lo! here this wretched world's appetites!
Lo! here the fine and guerdon for travail,l Explicit Liber Troili et Cresseidis.
CHAUCER'S DREAM.
[THIs pretty allegory, or rather conceit, containing one or two passages that for vividness and
for delicacy yield to nothing in the whole range of Chaucer's poetry, had never been printed
before the year 1597, when it was included in the edition of Speght. Before that date, indeed,
a Dream of Chaucer had been printed; but the poem so described was in reality " The Book
of the Duchess; or the Death of Blanche, Duchess of Lancaster"-which is not included
in the present edition. Speght says that " This Dream, devised by Chaucer, seemeth to be
a covert report of the marriage of John of Gaunt, the King's son, with Blanche, the daughter
of Henry, Duke of Lancaster; who after long love (during the time whereof the poet feigneth
them to be dead) were in the end, by consent of friends, happily married; figured by a
bird bringing in his bill an herb, which restored them to life again. Here also is showed
Chaucer's match with a certain gentlewoman, who, although she was a stranger, was, notwithstanding, so well liked and loved of the Lady Blanche and her Lord, as Chaucer himself
also was, that gladly they concluded a marriage between them." John of Gaunt, at the age
of nineteen, and while yet Earl of Richmond, was married to the Lady Blanche at Reading
in May 1359; Chaucer, then a prisoner in France, probably did not return to England till
peace was concluded in the following year; so that his marriage to Philippa Roet, the sister
of the Duchess Blanche's favourite attendant Katharine Roet, could not have taken place
till some time after that of the Duke. In the poem, it is represented to have immediately
followed; but no consequence need be attached to that statement. Enough that it followed
at no great interval of time; and that the intimate relations which Chaucer had already
begun to form with John of Gaunt, might well warrant him in writing this poem on the
occasion of the Duke's marriage, and in weaving his own love-fortunes with those of the
principal figures. In the necessary abridgement of the poem for the present edition, the
1 Pleasure. 2 Fickleness, instability. 12 Seek, search.
3 Of either sex. 13 John Gower, the poet, a contemporary and friend
4 " Lift up the countenance of your heart." of Chaucer's; author, among other works, of the " Con5 That. 6 Buy, redeem. fessio Amantis." See note 9, page 61.
7 Died. 8 Deceive, fail. 14 Strode was an eminent scholar of Merton College,
9 Pagans. 10 The end and reward for labour. Oxford, and tutor to Chaucer's son Lewis.
1l " And all that rabble;" French, " racaille "-a mob 15 Died on cross. 16 Eternally living.
or multitude, the riff-raff; so Spencer speaks of the 17 Yet able to circumscribe or comprehend all.
"rascal routs" of inferior combatants. 1s Foes. 19 Worthy of thy mercy.