with fear in the presence of his lady, and should forget everything he had to say in his own behalf, the confessor meets with the practical argument: "He who fails to speak, loses all. As a man pursues love, so fortune follows. As for forgetfulness, no grace is to be obtained unless it be asked." And he advises the lover, who confesses that he has sinned in this matter, to "pull up a busy heart" and not to let any chance to speak escape him.1 Another courtly notion which the poet opposes is that lovers must approve themselves in arms. The lover argues that little or no good can come from passing over the seas and slaying the heathen. It would be better to spend time in converting them in harmony with Christ's command than in slaying them for the sake of glory. As for himself in particular, it would be very foolish of him to cross the seas to fight Saracens, if in the meantime he lost his lady at home. The good sense which the lover manifests in this argument is characteristic of him throughout the work. In portraying him the author evinces his own sentiments toward courtly love. Gower utilizes the conventions freely. Yet there emerges a figure which is very different from the usual courtly lover. The confessor sets before him, as we have seen, the qualities which the courtly lover should have; the hero falls short of the ideal in many points. The confessor recites in detail the sins which a lover should avoid; the penitent admits that he is in many respects a grievous offender. Throughout he is far less romantic than the traditional lover, but he is far more human. A similar departure from the courtly type appears in the lady. She is a creature to be loved, but she is not the perfect being who is set upon a pedestal and worshipped. She is indifferent to the lover's passion, but her coldness is a matter of principle and not of caprice. She is far from being "the abstract divinity of 1 See bk. iv, 1. 723. the old lyric convention." 1 The homely quality in these two pictures is highly significant. Obviously Gower found little to his taste the extravagances of his predecessors in their delineation of the ideal lover and his amie. Adulterous love, which was inherent in the courtly system, Gower frankly condemns. The Madle is mad for the female, Bot where as on desireth fele, That nedeth noght be weis of kinde. . . . Forthi scholde every good mon knowe And thenke how that in mariage His trouthe plight lith in morgage, Which if he breke, it is falshode, And that discordeth to manhode (vii, 4215–4229). Here the moralist speaks with no uncertain voice. This is the doctrine he teaches in his Traitié, which he wrote, as he says, "touchant lestat de matremoine dont les amantz marietz se pourront essampler a tenir la foi de lour seintes espousailes." 2 The examples he uses as warnings are such stock lovers as Hercules, Jason, Helen, and others who took delight in wanton love. Contrary to the old courtly idea that love and marriage are incompatible, he exalts marriage and speaks rather slightingly of love par amours: "Men see that the love par amours is seldom without troubles arising from false envy and jangling. But love leading to marriage dares show its face openly in all places. It is a great wonder that maidens do not hasten to that feste," Whereof the love is al honeste (iv, 1473–1484). Elsewhere he is even more outspoken. The heading of the Traitié reads: "Puisqu'il ad dit ci devant en Englois par voie d'essample la sotie de cellui qui par amours aime par especial, dirra ora apres en François a tout le monde en general un traitié 1 W. P. Ker, Essays on Medieval Literature, p. 123. selonc les auctors pour essampler les amantz marietz, au fin q'ils la foi de lour seintes espousailes pourront par fine loialté guarder, ."1 As the poet, at the end of the Confessio, declares that his Muse bids him to write no more of love which turns the heart from reason, and that he will therefore take his final leave of such love, so in this statement, which can refer only to the Confessio, he condemns completely the ideas put forth in that work. This is nothing more than we should expect of a man in whom the practical was so prominent, a man who decided to treat the subject of love only after having concluded that it was a task greater than he could compass to stretch his hand up to the heaven and set the world in order.2 1 Macaulay, I, 379. 2 Confessio Amantis, i, 1−5. CHAPTER IV THE ELEMENT OF LOVE IN CHAUCER'S WORKS In examining the element of love in Chaucer's works,1 we shall, for the sake of convenience, make a division of the poems which is purely arbitrary. In the first group will be included those poems which are entirely lyric in quality, and which were composed on French models. This group falls into two parts: (1) those pieces which contain little or nothing but ideas common in the conventional love poems of contemporary French writers; and (2) those poems which, though in form following French models, are infused with the personality of the poet, and are written in the racy style characteristic of Chaucer at his best. The second group consists of the Complaint of Mars and the Anelida and Arcite. They are classed together because of a certain similarity of structure, each of them containing a narrative portion followed by a lyric in the French style. The third group comprises The Book of the Duchess, The House of Fame, and The Parliament of Fowls. These all have the form of the love-vision, common in Old French poetry. The fourth group consists of the Troilus and the Legend of Good Women.2 The fifth and last group contains such parts of the Canterbury Tales as we may have to consider. 1 The references are to the Oxford Chaucer, ed. by Skeat, Oxford, 18941897. 2 The form of the Prologue to the Legend would justify us in classing it with the third group; but the arrangement here adopted seems better on account of the close connection between the Legend and the Troilus. In this arrangement, no account has been taken of chronology, and yet the order of the poems mentioned is roughly chronological. With the exception of the second subdivision of the -poems which must have been written towards the first group, end of Chaucer's life, — the order of the pieces is not far from the order in which they were composed. CONVENTIONAL LYRIC POEMS The Complaint to Pity The Complaint to Pity belongs to the large class of pieces in which the poet-lover laments the rigor of his lady. By translating the allegory into its underlying meaning, we shall make the conventional elements clearer : The poet is unfortunate in his love. Although he is true and constant, the lady does not look with favor on his suit. This lady is the possessor of all the good qualities of the perfect being: Bountee parfit, wel armed and richely, And freshe Beautee, Lust and Jolitee, Wisdom, Estat, and Dreed, and Governaunce. One of her attributes, too, is pity, which however has not been spent on the unhappy lover (11. 29-32). It is the conventional situation: a lady beautiful in person and character is cold and cruel to her devoted servant, and he utters his complaint. The "bille " itself, reduced to a single statement, is the lover's appeal for mercy and for relief from his woes. Other conventionalities may be seen in the idea of the malevolence of Love, conceived as a personality (11. 4-6); in the lover's woes and pains, his service, and his declaration of its continuance (ll. 113-116). The allegory is well sustained; briefly stated, it is: The poet, driven by pain of love, composes a bill of complaint against |