ON READING CHAUCER.

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lish Pronunciation, by A. J. Ellis, published by the Early English Text and Chaucer Societies.

Exception was taken to the views of Mr. Skeat by the late Professor Joseph Payne, of the Philological Society, whose hypothesis is presented in an essay published by the Chaucer Society in 1874. Mr. Payne held that "when Chaucer wrote the Canterbury Tales, the final e had become little more than a modal orthographic note of spelling, scarcely, if at all, recognized in common parlance, while at the same time the use of it as an element of rhythmical composition was freely admitted. It was therefore adopted at the will of the poet, wherever thought necessary, in the middle of his verse (except at the sectional pause, where as a rule it was silent), but not at the end, where it was unnecessary."

There is little difficulty with regard to the consonants, though the following hints will be of service.

C is hard before a, o, u, and consonants, as cow, clerk; soft before e, i, and y, as cell, city; and never sh, as in vicious, which should be pronounced vi-si-us.

Ch is always hard, as in cheese, and is sometimes sounded like k, in words from the Greek, as christen.

S final was frequently sharp, as in hiss. It was never sounded like sh, or zh, as in vision, which was pronounced in three syllables.

Tion, sion, cion, were pronounced sž-on.

U consonant is equivalent to v, though the use of u and v is irregular in the MSS., and is not followed in the present text.

Y consonant has the sound of y in yet, but y vowel was usually sounded like i in pin.

The chief vowel sounds are the following: A long is equivalent to a in father, alms. The sound of a in same did not arise till two centuries after Chaucer.

A short is like no sound now heard in received English. It is the continental short a, heard in the French chat.

Aa is equivalent to a long, above.

Ai is equivalent to ah'ee. The sound in wait is modern.

Au, aw, are equivalent to ah'oo (not as in Paul).

Ay is equivalent to ah'ee, as ai above.

E long is equivalent to ai in pair, e in there. E short is equivalent to e in met.

ON READING CHAUCER.

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Ea is equivalent to ea in break. The sound in seal is modern.

Ee is equivalent to e in there.

Ei, ey, are equivalent to ah'ee, as in aye

now.

Eo is equivalent to e in there; not as in people.

Es final is generally pronounced.

Eu, ew, are equivalent to ui, or the German ü, or the French long u.

Ge final, or before a or o in French words, is equivalent to j. Sometimes the e of ge final was omitted.

I long is equivalent to ee in meek, nearly. The present sound of i in sine was never given to that letter, but was represented by y.1

I short is equivalent to i in pit.

1 In an essay published by the Chaucer Society in 1878, entitled "Here" and "There" in Chaucer, by R. F. Weymouth, Doctor of Literature, the conclusions of Mr. Ellis regarding the sounds of e, i, ei, and ai are excepted to at considerable length. Mr. Weymouth argues (1) that "here' and the words that rhyme with it were probably sounded in Chaucer's time with the same vowel as in the present day;" (2) "that i in Chaucer's time was diphthongal, or approaching the sound that symbol still represents in" mine, drive; (3) that ai and ei were equivalent to ey in they, ay in day. Mr. Weymouth considers that the words rhyming with "here and "there in Chaucer fall into two classes, which rhyme among themselves only, the exceptions (out of the twelve hundred and forty-six cases in Chaucer) being eighty-nine, or a little over seven per cent., less than the percentage of imperfect rhymes in Cowper, Byron, Keats, Scott, Morris, and other modern poets. The words that he finds most frequently rhyming with "here" are dere, deer, manere, ma tere, bachiler, bokeler, neer, fere (companion), appeere, peer, com peer, spere (sphere), frere, emispere, lere. Among those rhyming with "there are were, bear, forbear, here (her), spere (spear), swere, fere (fear), ere (ear), where.

Te is equivalent to e in there. The sound in sieve is modern.

O long is equivalent to oa in boar. Oo had the same value.

O short is equivalent to o in got, nearly.

Oi is equivalent to oo'ee, as in wooing, nearly.
Ou had three sounds:

1. Oo in boot was the most common, as in schoures, flour, pourchase, south, ploughman, pronounced shoo'ress, floor, poorchass, sooth, ploochman. In the last example ch stands for the sound of ch in the Scotch loch, and the German licht.

2. U in pull, put. This is not very common, but is found in boucleer, of which the last syllable is sounded like ere in there.

3. Ou in soul, ow in snow. This is found in words having aw, or ow in very Early English. Yknow, though, i-kno-oo, tho-oo-ch.

Ow has the sounds of ou just mentioned.

U long is equivalent to the German and occurs in French words only. The u in tune comes near it.

U short is equivalent to u in bull, never u in but.

W vowel is equivalent to u, or oo, as wdę, herberwe, oodë, herberoo.

ON READING CHAUCER.

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In compiling these brief directions the effort has been to make them as simple and comprehensive as possible. In reading Chaucer it should be remembered that even the writers of the present day cannot all be understood fully without a dictionary. Many of the words used by Emerson, Browning, or Ruskin are not completely comprehended by the ordinary reader at first sight. When Mr. Lowell writes of the "secular leisures of Methuselah," it is probable that all do not immediately understand him to use the word "secular" in its primary sense; and when Mr. Longfellow entitled his lines to Tennyson "Wapentake," not a few were surprised to find the word in their dictionaries. It is by no means strange if we meet many words that we do not fully understand in a poet who lived half a millennium ago. The real wonder is that we can read Chaucer as readily as we can. He is much more easily read than is the "Vision concerning Piers the Plowman," of the same date.