Part 4

‘And that I do no diligence To shewe craft but o sentence.’

The result is that the most experienced reader often hesitates in his metre and is obliged to read lines over twice or even thrice, before he can satisfy himself how the poet meant his words to be accented and what exactly was the rhythm he intended. In fact, instead of smoothing the way for his reader, he often deliberately chooses to spare himself labour by taking every advantage, fair or unfair, of those licences of accent and syllable suppression for which the unstable condition of the literary language afforded scope. The reader of Gower’s verse is never interrupted in this manner except by the fault of a copyist or an editor; and when we come to examine the means by which the smoothness is attained, we feel that we have to do with a literary craftsman who by laborious training has acquired an almost perfect mastery over his tools. The qualities of which we are speaking are especially visible in the more formal style of utterance which belongs to the speeches, letters and epitaphs in our author’s tales. The reply of Constance to her questioner (ii. 1148 ff.) is a good example of the first:

‘Quod sche, “I am A womman wofully bestad. I hadde a lord, and thus he bad, That I forth with my litel Sone Upon the wawes scholden wone, Bot what the cause was, I not: Bot he which alle thinges wot Yit hath, I thonke him, of his miht Mi child and me so kept upriht, That we be save bothe tuo.”’

And as longer instances we may point to the reflexions of the Emperor Constantine near the end of the same book (ii. 3243 ff.), and the prayer of Cephalus (iv. 3197-3252). The letters of Canace and of Penelope are excellent, each in its own way, and the epitaphs of Iphis (iv. 3674 ff.) and of Thaise (viii. 1533 ff.) are both good examples of the simple yet finished style, e.g.

‘Hier lith, which slowh himself, Iphis, For love of Araxarathen: And in ensample of tho wommen, That soffren men to deie so, Hire forme a man mai sen also, Hou it is torned fleissh and bon Into the figure of a Ston: He was to neysshe and sche to hard. Be war forthi hierafterward; Ye men and wommen bothe tuo, Ensampleth you of that was tho.’ (iv. 3674 ff.)

In a word, the author’s literary sphere may be a limited one, and his conception of excellence within that sphere may fall very far short of the highest standard, but such as his ideals are, he is able very completely to realize them. The French and English elements of the language, instead of still maintaining a wilful strife, as is so often the case in Chaucer’s metre, are here combined in harmonious alliance. More especially we must recognize the fact that in Gower’s English verse we have a consistent and for the moment a successful attempt to combine the French syllabic with the English accentual system of metre, and this without sacrificing the purity of the language as regards forms of words and grammatical inflexion. We shall see in our subsequent investigations how careful and ingenious he is in providing by means of elision and otherwise for the legitimate suppression of those weak terminations which could not find a place as syllables in the verse without disturbing its accentual flow, while at the same time the sense of their existence was not to be allowed to disappear. The system was too difficult and complicated to be possible except for a specially trained hand, and Gower found no successor in his enterprise; but the fact that the attempt was made is at least worthy of note.

With considerable merits both of plan and execution the Confessio Amantis has also no doubt most serious faults. The scheme itself, with its conception of a Confessor who as priest has to expound a system of morality, while as a devotee of Venus he is concerned only with the affairs of love (i. 237-280), can hardly be called altogether a consistent or happy one. The application of morality to matters of love and of love to questions of morality is often very forced, though it may sometimes be amusing in its gravity. The Confessor is continually forgetting one or the other of his two characters, and the moralist is found justifying unlawful love or the servant of Venus singing the praises of virginity. Moreover the author did not resist the temptation to express his views on society in a Prologue which is by no means sufficiently connected with the general scheme of the poem, though it is in part a protest against division and discord, that is to say, lack of love. Still worse is the deliberate departure from the general plan which we find in the seventh book, where on pretence of affording relief and recreation to the wearied penitent, the Confessor, who says that he has little or no understanding except of love, is allowed to make a digression which embraces the whole field of human knowledge, but more especially deals with the duties of a king, a second political pamphlet in fact, in which the stories of kings ruined by lust or insolence, of Sardanapalus, Rehoboam, Tarquin, and the rest, are certainly intended to some extent as an admonition of the author’s royal patron. The petition addressed to Rehoboam by his people against excessive taxation reads exactly like one of the English parliamentary protests of the period against the extravagant demands of the crown. Again, the fifth book, which even without this would be disproportionately long, contains an absolutely unnecessary account of the various religions of the world, standing there apparently for no reason except to show the author’s learning, and reaching the highest pitch of grotesque absurdity when the Confessor occupies himself in demolishing the claim of Venus to be accounted a goddess, and that too without even the excuse of having forgotten for the moment that he is supposed to be her priest. Minor excrescences of the same kind are to be found in the third book, where the lawfulness of war is discussed, and in the fourth, where there is a dissertation on the rise of the Arts, and especially of Alchemy. All that can be said is that these digressions were very common in the books of the age--the Roman de la Rose, at least in the part written by Jean de Meun, is one of the worst offenders.

Faults of detail it would be easy enough to point out. The style is at times prosaic and the matter uninteresting, the verse is often eked out with such commonplace expressions and helps to rhyme as were used by the writers of the time, both French or English. Sometimes the sentences are unduly spun out or the words and clauses are awkwardly transposed for the sake of the uninterrupted smoothness of the verse. The attainment of this object moreover is not always an advantage, and sometimes the regularity of the metre and the inevitable recurrence of the rhyme produces a tiresome result. On the whole however the effect is not unpleasing, ‘the ease and regularity with which the verse flows breathes a peaceful contentment, which communicates itself to the reader, and produces the same effect upon the ear as the monotonous but not wearisome splashing of a fountain.’ Moreover, as has already been pointed out, when the writer is at his best, the rhyme is kept duly in the background, and the paragraph is constructed quite independently of the couplet, so that this form of metre proves often to be a far better vehicle for the narrative than might have been at first supposed.

ii. DATE AND CIRCUMSTANCES.--The Confessio Amantis in its earliest form bears upon the face of it the date 1390 (Prol. 331 margin), and we have no reason to doubt that this was the year in which it was first completed. The author tells us that it was written at the command of King Richard II, whom he met while rowing on the Thames at London, and who invited him to come into his barge to speak with him. It is noticeable, however, that even this first edition has a dedication to Henry earl of Derby, contained in the Latin lines at the end of the poem, so that it is not quite accurate to say that the dedication was afterwards changed, but rather that this dedication was made more prominent and introduced into the text of the poem, while at the same time the personal reference to the king in the Prologue was suppressed. If the date referred to above had been observed by former editors, the speculations first of Pauli and then of Professor Hales, tending to throw back the completion of the first recension of the Confessio Amantis to the year 1386, or even 1383, would have been spared. Their conclusions rest, moreover, on the purest guess-work. The former argues that the preface and the epilogue in their first form date from the year 1386, because from that year the king (who was then nineteen years old) ‘developed those dangerous qualities which estranged from him, amongst others, the poet’; and Professor Hales (Athenæum, Dec. 1881) contends that the references to the young king’s qualities as a ruler, ‘Justice medled with pite,’ &c. certainly point to the years immediately succeeding the Peasants’ revolt (a time when Gower did not regard him as a responsible ruler at all, but excuses him for the evil proceedings of the government on account of his tender age), that the reference to Richard’s desire to establish peace (viii. 3014* ff.) must belong to the period of the negotiations with the French and the subsequent truce, 1383-84, though Professor Hales is himself quite aware that negotiations for peace were proceeding also in 1389, and finally that the mention of ‘the newe guise of Beawme’ must indicate the very year succeeding the king’s marriage to Anne of Bohemia in 1382, whereas in fact the Bohemian fashions would no doubt continue to prevail at court, and still be accounted new, throughout the queen’s lifetime. It is on such grounds as these that we are told that the Confessio Amantis in its first form cannot have been written later than the year 1385 and was probably as early as 1383.

All such conjectures are destroyed by the fact that the manuscripts of the first recension bear the date 1390 at the place cited, and though this does not absolutely exclude a later date for the completion of the book, it is decisive against an earlier one. Moreover, the fact that in the final recension this date is omitted (and deliberately omitted, as we know from the erasure in the Fairfax MS.) points to the conclusion that it is to be regarded definitely as a date of publication, and therefore was inappropriate for a later edition.

This conclusion agrees entirely with the other indications, and they are sufficiently precise, though the fact that one of these also has unluckily escaped the notice of the editors has caused it to be generally overlooked.

The form of epilogue which was substituted for that of the first recension, and in which the over-sanguine praise of Richard as a ruler is cancelled, bears in the margin the date of the fourteenth year of his reign (viii. 2973 margin), ‘Hic in anno quarto decimo Regis Ricardi orat pro statu regni,’ &c. Now the fourteenth year of King Richard II was from June 21, 1390, to the same day of 1391. We must therefore suppose that the change in this part of the book took place, in some copies at least, within a few months of its first completion.

Thirdly, we have an equally precise date for the alteration in the Prologue, by which all except a formal mention of Richard II is excluded, while the dedication to Henry of Lancaster is introduced into the text of the poem; and here the time indicated is the sixteenth year of King Richard (Prol. 25), a date which appears also in the margin of some copies here and at l. 97, so that we may assume that this final change of form took place in the year 1392-93, that is, not later than June 1393.

Having thus every step dated for us by the author, we may, if we think it worth while, proceed to conjecture what were the political events which suggested his action; but in such a case as this it is evidently preposterous to argue first from the political conditions, of which as they personally affected our author and his friends we can only be very imperfectly informed, and then to endeavour to force the given dates into accordance with our own conclusions.

It will be observed from the above dates that we are led to infer two stages of alteration, and the expectation is raised of finding the poem in some copies with the epilogue rewritten but the preface left in its original state. This expectation is fulfilled. The Bodley MS. 294 gives a text of this kind, and it is certain that there were others of the same form, for Berthelette used for his edition a manuscript of this kind, which was not identical with that which we have.

In discussing the import of the various changes introduced by the author it is of some importance to bear in mind the fact already mentioned that even the first issue of the Confessio Amantis had a kind of dedication to Henry of Lancaster in the Latin lines with which it concluded,

‘Derbeie comiti, recolunt quem laude periti, Vade liber purus sub eo requiesce futurus.’

This seems rather to dispose of the idea that a dedication to Henry would be inconsistent with loyalty to Richard, a suggestion which would hardly have been made in the year 1390, or even 1393. No doubt those copies which contained in the preface the statement that the book was written at the command of the king and for his sake, and in the epilogue the presentation of the completed book to him (3050* ff.), if they had also appended to them the Latin lines which commend the work to the earl of Derby, may be said to have contained in a certain sense a double dedication, the compliment being divided between the king and his brilliant cousin, and very probably a copy which was intended for the court would be without the concluding lines, as we find to be the case with some manuscripts; but the suggestion that the expressions of loyalty and the praises of Richard as a ruler which we find in the first epilogue are properly to be called inconsistent with a dedication of the poem to Henry of Lancaster, his cousin and counsellor, is plausible only in the light of later events, which could not be foreseen by the poet, in the course of which Henry became definitely the opponent of Richard and finally took the lead in deposing him. It is true that the earl of Derby had been one of the lords appellant in 1387, but after the king’s favourites had been set aside, he was for the time reconciled to Richard, and he could not in any sense be regarded as the leader of an opposition party. That Gower, when he became disgusted with Richard II, should have set Henry’s name in the Prologue in place of that of the king, as representing his ideal of knighthood and statesmanship, may be regarded either as a coincidence with the future events, or as indicating that Gower had some discrimination in selecting a possible saviour of society; but it is certain that at this time the poet can have had no definite idea that his hero would become a candidate for the throne.

The political circumstances of the period during which the Confessio Amantis was written and revised are not very easy to disentangle. We may take it as probable that the plan of its composition, under the combined influence of Chaucer’s Legend of Good Women and of the royal command, may have been laid about the year 1386. Before this time Richard would scarcely have been regarded by Gower as responsible for the government, and he would naturally look hopefully upon the young sovereign, then just entering upon his duties, as one who with proper admonition and due choice of advisers might turn out to be a good ruler. During the succeeding years the evil counsellors of the king were removed by the action of the lords appellant and the Parliament, and in the year 1389 a moderate and national policy seemed to have been finally adopted by the king, with William of Wykeham as Chancellor and the young earl of Derby, who had been one of the appellants but had quarrelled with his uncle Gloucester, among the king’s trusted advisers. By the light of subsequent events Gower condemned the whole behaviour of the king during this period as malicious and treacherous, but this could hardly have been his judgement of it at the time, for Richard’s dissimulation, if dissimulation it were, was deep enough to deceive all parties. Consequently, up to the year 1390 at least, he may have continued, though with some misgivings, to trust in the king’s good intentions and to regard him as a ruler who might effectually heal the divisions of the land, as he had already taken steps to restore peace to it outwardly. It is quite possible also that something may have come to his knowledge in the course of the year 1390-91 which shook his faith. It was at this time, in July 1390, just at the beginning of the fourteenth year of King Richard, that his hero the earl of Derby left the court and the kingdom to exercise his chivalry in Prussia, and for this there may have been a good reason. We know too little in detail of the events of the year to be able to say exactly what causes of jealousy may have arisen between the king and his cousin, who was nearly exactly of an age with him and seems to have attracted much more attention than Richard himself at the jousts of St. Inglevert in May of this year. Whatever feeling there may have been on the side of the earl of Derby would doubtless reflect itself in the minds of his friends and supporters, and something of this kind may have deepened into certitude the suspicions which Gower no doubt already had in his heart of the ultimate intentions of Richard II. The result was that in some copies at least of the Confessio Amantis the concluding praises of the king as a ruler were removed and lines of a more general character on the state of the kingdom and the duties of a king were substituted, but still there was no mention of the earl of Derby except as before in the final Latin lines. Two years later, 1392-93, when the earl of Derby had fairly won his spurs and at the age of twenty-five might be regarded as a model of chivalry, the mention of Richard as the suggester of the work was removed, and the name of Henry set in the text as the sole object of the dedication.

The date sixteenth year must certainly be that of this last change, but the occasion doubtless was the sending of a presentation copy to Henry, and this would hardly amount to publication. The author probably did not feel called upon publicly to affront the king by removing his name and praises, either at the beginning or the end, from the copies generally issued during his reign. Whether or not this conduct justifies the charge of time-serving timidity, which has been made against Gower, I cannot undertake to decide. He was, however, in fact rather of an opposite character, even pedantically stiff in passing judgement severely on those in high places, and not bating a syllable of what he thought proper for himself to say or for a king to hear, though while the king was young and might yet shake himself free from evil influences he was willing to take as favourable a view of his character as possible. Probably he was for some time rather in two minds about the matter, but in any case ‘timid and obsequious’ are hardly the right epithets for the author of the Vox Clamantis.

Before leaving this subject something should perhaps be said upon a matter which has attracted no little attention, namely the supposed quarrel between the author of the Confessio Amantis and Chaucer. It is well known that the first recension of our poem has a passage referring to Chaucer in terms of eulogy (viii. 2941*-57*), and that this was omitted when the epilogue was rewritten. This fact has been brought into connexion with the apparent reference to Gower in the Canterbury Tales, where the Man of Law in the preamble to his tale disclaims on Chaucer’s behalf such ‘cursed stories’ as those of Canace and Apollonius, because they treat of incest. It has been thought that this was meant for a serious attack on Gower, and that he took offence at it and erased the praise of Chaucer from the Confessio Amantis.

It is known of course that the two poets were on personally friendly terms, not only from the dedication of Troilus, but from the fact that when Chaucer was sent on a mission to the Continent in 1378, he appointed Gower one of his attorneys in his absence. It is possible that their friendship was interrupted by a misunderstanding, but it may be doubted whether there is sufficient proof of this in the facts which have been brought forward.

In the first place I question whether Chaucer’s censure is to be taken very seriously. That it refers to Gower I have little doubt, but that the attack was a humorous one is almost equally clear. Chaucer was aware that some of his own tales were open to objection on the score of morality, and when he saw a chance of scoring a point on the very ground where his friend thought himself strongest, he seized it with readiness. Some degree of seriousness there probably is, for Chaucer’s sound and healthy view of life instinctively rejected the rather morbid horrors to which he refers; but it may easily be suspected that he was chiefly amused by the opportunity of publicly lecturing the moralist, who perhaps had privately remonstrated with him. As to the notion that Chaucer had been seriously offended by the occasional and very trifling resemblances of phrase in Gower’s tale of Constance with his own version of the same original, it is hardly worth discussion.

There is of course the possibility that Gower may have taken it more seriously than it was meant, and though he was not quite so devoid of a sense of humour as it has been the fashion to suppose, yet he may well have failed to enjoy a public attack, however humorous, upon two of his tales. It must be observed, however, that if we suppose the passage in question to have been the cause of the excision of Gower’s lines about Chaucer, we must assume that the publication of it took place precisely within this period of a few months which elapsed between the first and the second versions of Gower’s epilogue.

Before further considering the question as to what was actually our author’s motive in omitting the tribute to his brother poet, we should do well to observe that this tribute was apparently allowed to stand in some copies of the rewritten epilogue. There is one good manuscript, that in the possession of Lord Middleton, in which the verses about Chaucer not only stand in combination with the new form of epilogue, but in a text which has also the revised preface, dated two years later. Hence it seems possible that the exclusion of the Chaucer verses was rather accidental than deliberate, and from this and other considerations an explanation may be derived which will probably seem too trivial, but nevertheless is perhaps the true one. We know from the Fairfax MS. of the Confessio Amantis and from several original copies of the Vox Clamantis that the author’s method of rewriting his text was usually to erase a certain portion, sometimes a whole column or page, and substitute a similar number of lines of other matter. It will be observed here that for the thirty lines 2941*-2970*, including the reference to Chaucer, are substituted thirty lines from which that reference is excluded. After this come four Latin lines replacing an equal number in the original recension, and then follow fifteen lines, 2971-2985, which are the same except a single line in the two editions. It may be that the author, wishing to mention the departure of the Confessor and the thoughts which he had upon his homeward way, sacrificed the Chaucer verses as an irrelevance, in order to find room for this matter between the Adieu of Venus and the lines beginning ‘He which withinne daies sevene,’ which he did not intend to alter, and that this proceeding, carried out upon a copy of the first recension which has not come down to us, determined the general form of the text for the copies with epilogue rewritten, though in a few instances care was taken to combine the allusion to Chaucer with the other alterations. Such an explanation as this would be in accord with the methods of the author in some other respects; for, as we shall see later on, the most probable explanation of the omission in the third recension of the additional passages in the fifth and seventh books, is that a first recension copy was used in a material sense as a basis for the third recension text, and it was therefore not convenient to introduce alterations which increased the number of lines in the body of the work.

iii. ANALYSIS.

PROLOGUS.

1-92. PREFACE. By the books of those that were before us we are instructed, and therefore it is good that we also should write something which may remain after our days. But to write of wisdom only is not good. I would rather go by the middle path and make a book of pleasure and profit both: and since few write in English, my meaning is to make a book for England’s sake now in the sixteenth year of King Richard. Things have changed and books are less beloved than in former days, but without them the fame and the example of the virtuous would be lost. Thus I, simple scholar as I am, purpose to write a book touching both upon the past and the present, and though I have long been sick, yet I will endeavour as I may to provide wisdom for the wise. For this prologue belongs all to wisdom, and by it the wise may recall to their memory the fortunes of the world; but after the prologue the book shall be of Love, which does great wonders among men. Also I shall speak of the vices and virtues of rulers. But as my wit is too small to admonish every man, I submit my work for correction to my own lord Henry of Lancaster, with whom my heart is in accord, and whom God has proclaimed the model of knighthood. God grant I may well achieve the work which I have taken in hand.