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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 February 2009
It is quite unnecessary, in addressing such a Society as this, for me to enlarge on the help that may be obtained in historical investigations from other researches that are purely literary. I may, however, venture to express a regret that so little mutual assistance is usually afforded by those who confine themselves, too exclusively, to one or other of these branches of seeking after truth. A remarkable instance of this want of co-operation is afforded us in the earliest of the poems, which I shall now bring under your notice: Chaucer's ‘Dream,’ or, as it has well been renamed in our time, his ‘Isle of Ladies.’ For as, on the one hand, by establishing the true meaning of this poem, we present to the historian new pastures, whence he may here and there glean, by comparison with known historical facts, some additions to the story of the time; so, on the other, by a due use of history, we may throw new light on the works of our first and almost our greatest poet. I know that the school of modern criticism, which trusts the counting of its fingers rather than the evidence of its ears or its reason, has pronounced this poem spurious; but I trust to show you that its agreement with history prevents our taking that view, which rests wholly on the ungrounded assumption that because Chaucer used no rhymes of –y and –ye in his later poems, he could not have done so in this, his very earliest that has come down to us.
page 122 note 1 In this poem Chaucer falls asleep, hears huntsmen and hounds, and follows them to the woods. Here he finds a knight sitting under an oak, lamenting his lady's death, who tells him the history of his sorrow. Chaucer rides home and is awaked by the castle clock striking twelve. Blanche, the lady, is identified from her name ‘fair White.’
page 122 note 2 In a dream Publius Scipio appears to Chaucer, and takes him to a garden, where on St. Valentine's day the birds are choosing, in the presence of the goddess Nature, their mates for the year. Three eagles (one of them royal) dispute for a female eagle who sits on Nature's wrist; their claims are referred to the birds' conclave. They disagree: Nature puts off the decision for a year.
page 122 note 3 This poem, which Chaucer says he finds in Latin, which he follows first in Statius and after him in Corinna (who was not a Latin poetess), describes the progress of Theseus, his wife Hippolyta, and her young sister Emily, towards Athens. This is from Statius; but Chaucer breaks off suddenly to relate the forsaking of Annelyda, the young Queen of Armenia, by the false Theban knight Arcite. Annelyda makes her complaint and avoweth sacrifice to Mars. Here the poem ends abruptly.
page 125 note 1 Mars overtakes Venus in the sign or palace of Taurus; Phœbus espies them together; Venus flies into the tower of Cyllenius, that is Mercury, who receives her. Mars makes his complaint in solitude.
page 125 note 2 But this is very doubtful: death in the Dream and in the Good Women certainly means nothing more than separation between lovers.
page 125 note 3 Chaucer on the 1st of May dreams that he sees the God of Love leading a queen, ‘lyke a daisie for to seen,’ with nineteen ladies following. She reproves him for making his Cryseide and translating the Romaunce of the Rose. The lady excuses him that he was ‘boden maken thilke twaye of somme person', and durste yt not withsaye.’
The queen (Alceste) orders him, while he lives, year by year, to spend the most part of his time in making a glorious legend of good women and false men, and when the book is made to give it the queen at Shane or Eltham.
page 126 note 1 Of course I do not admit the mistaken view that the version of the Legend in the MS. Gg. 4. 27, Camb. Univ. Libr., is the earlier version. It is clearly a revision made in 1394, after the death of Constance and Queen Anne. Proof of this is abundant, but would be out of place in an historical paper.