Chaucer [54]
That they his death by hunger did devise. "Alas!" quoth he, "alas! that I was wrought!" Therewith the teares fell from his eyes
His youngest son, that three years was of age, Unto him said: "Father, why do ye weep? When will the gaoler bring us our pottage? Is there no morsel bread that ye do keep? I am so hungry that I cannot sleep. Now woulde God that I might sleep for ever! Then should not hunger in my belly creep. There is no thing save bread that I would liever."
Thus day by day this child began to cry, Till in his father's lap adown he lay, And saide: "Farewell, father, I must die!" And kissed his father, and died the same day. The woeful father saw that dead he lay, And his two arms for woe began to bite, And said: "Fortune, alas and well-away! For all my woe I blame thy treacherous spite."
His children weened that it for hunger was, That he his arms gnawed, and not for woe. And saide: "Father, do not so, alas! But rather eat the flesh upon us two. Our flesh thou gavest us, our flesh thou take us fro, And eat enough." Right thus they to him cried; And after that, within a day or two, They laid them in his lap adown and died.
The father in despair likewise died of hunger; and such was the end of the mighty Earl of Pisa, whose tragedy whosoever desires to hear at greater length may read it as told by the great poet of Italy hight Dante.
The other instance is that of the "Pardoner's Tale," which would appear to have been based on a fabliau now lost, though the substance of it is preserved in an Italian novel, and in one or two other versions. For the purpose of noticing how Chaucer arranges as well as tells a story, the following attempt at a condensed prose rendering of his narrative may be acceptable:--
Once upon a time in Flanders there was a company of young men, who gave themselves up to every kind of dissipation and debauchery--haunting the taverns where dancing and dicing continues day and night, eating and drinking, and serving the devil in his own temple by their outrageous life of luxury. It was horrible to hear their oaths, how they tore to pieces our blessed Lord's body, as if they thought the Jews had not rent Him enough; and each laughed at the sin of the others, and all were alike immersed in gluttony and wantonness.
And so one morning it befel that three of these rioters were sitting over their drink in a tavern, long before the bell had rung for nine o'clock prayers. And as they sat, they heard a bell clinking before a corpse that was being carried to the grave. So one of them bade his servant-lad go and ask what was the name of the dead man; but the boy said that he knew it already, and that it was the name of an old companion of his master's. As he had been sitting drunk on a bench, there had come a privy thief, whom men called Death, and who slew all the people in this country; and he had smitten the drunken man's heart in two with his spear, and had then gone on his way without any more words. This Death had slain a thousand during the present pestilence; and the boy thought it worth warning his master to beware of such an adversary, and to be ready to meet him at any time. "So my mother taught me; I say no more." "Marry," said the keeper of the tavern; "the child tells the truth: this Death has slain all the inhabitants of a great village not far from here; I think that there must be the place where he dwells." Then the rioter swore with some of his big oaths that he at least was not afraid of this Death, and that he would seek him out wherever he dwelt. And at his instance his two boon- companions joined with him in a vow that before nightfall they would slay the false traitor Death, who was the slayer of so many; and the vow they swore was one of closest fellowship between them--to live and die for one another as if they had been brethren born. And so they went forth in their drunken fury towards the village of which the taverner had spoken, with terrible execrations on their lips that "Death should be dead, if they might catch him."
They had not gone quite half
His youngest son, that three years was of age, Unto him said: "Father, why do ye weep? When will the gaoler bring us our pottage? Is there no morsel bread that ye do keep? I am so hungry that I cannot sleep. Now woulde God that I might sleep for ever! Then should not hunger in my belly creep. There is no thing save bread that I would liever."
Thus day by day this child began to cry, Till in his father's lap adown he lay, And saide: "Farewell, father, I must die!" And kissed his father, and died the same day. The woeful father saw that dead he lay, And his two arms for woe began to bite, And said: "Fortune, alas and well-away! For all my woe I blame thy treacherous spite."
His children weened that it for hunger was, That he his arms gnawed, and not for woe. And saide: "Father, do not so, alas! But rather eat the flesh upon us two. Our flesh thou gavest us, our flesh thou take us fro, And eat enough." Right thus they to him cried; And after that, within a day or two, They laid them in his lap adown and died.
The father in despair likewise died of hunger; and such was the end of the mighty Earl of Pisa, whose tragedy whosoever desires to hear at greater length may read it as told by the great poet of Italy hight Dante.
The other instance is that of the "Pardoner's Tale," which would appear to have been based on a fabliau now lost, though the substance of it is preserved in an Italian novel, and in one or two other versions. For the purpose of noticing how Chaucer arranges as well as tells a story, the following attempt at a condensed prose rendering of his narrative may be acceptable:--
Once upon a time in Flanders there was a company of young men, who gave themselves up to every kind of dissipation and debauchery--haunting the taverns where dancing and dicing continues day and night, eating and drinking, and serving the devil in his own temple by their outrageous life of luxury. It was horrible to hear their oaths, how they tore to pieces our blessed Lord's body, as if they thought the Jews had not rent Him enough; and each laughed at the sin of the others, and all were alike immersed in gluttony and wantonness.
And so one morning it befel that three of these rioters were sitting over their drink in a tavern, long before the bell had rung for nine o'clock prayers. And as they sat, they heard a bell clinking before a corpse that was being carried to the grave. So one of them bade his servant-lad go and ask what was the name of the dead man; but the boy said that he knew it already, and that it was the name of an old companion of his master's. As he had been sitting drunk on a bench, there had come a privy thief, whom men called Death, and who slew all the people in this country; and he had smitten the drunken man's heart in two with his spear, and had then gone on his way without any more words. This Death had slain a thousand during the present pestilence; and the boy thought it worth warning his master to beware of such an adversary, and to be ready to meet him at any time. "So my mother taught me; I say no more." "Marry," said the keeper of the tavern; "the child tells the truth: this Death has slain all the inhabitants of a great village not far from here; I think that there must be the place where he dwells." Then the rioter swore with some of his big oaths that he at least was not afraid of this Death, and that he would seek him out wherever he dwelt. And at his instance his two boon- companions joined with him in a vow that before nightfall they would slay the false traitor Death, who was the slayer of so many; and the vow they swore was one of closest fellowship between them--to live and die for one another as if they had been brethren born. And so they went forth in their drunken fury towards the village of which the taverner had spoken, with terrible execrations on their lips that "Death should be dead, if they might catch him."
They had not gone quite half