Is ther ought elles? tel me faithfully.'

Madame, quod he, 'how thynke yow therby?' How that me thynkith?' quod sche; 'so God me speede!

I say, a cherl hath doon a cherles deede.

What schuld I say? God let him never the!
His syke heed is full of vanyte.

I hold him in a maner frenesye.'

'Madame,' quod he, 'I wis I schal not lye,
But I in othir wise may be wreke,

I schal defame him over al wher I speke;
The false blasfememour, that chargid me
To parten that wil not departed be,
To every man y-liche, with meschaunce!'

The lord sat stille, as he were in a traunec,
And in his hert he rollid up and doun,
How had this cherl ymaginacioun

To schewe such a probleme to the frere?
Never erst' er now herd I of such matiere;
I trowe the devel put it in his mynde.
In arsmetrik schal ther no man fynde
Biforn this day of such a questioun.
Who schulde make a demonstracioun,
That every man schuld have alyk his part
As of a soun or savour of a fart?

O nyce proude cherl, I schrew his face!
Lo, sires,' quod the lord, with harde grace,
'Who ever herde of such a thing er now?
To every man y-like? tel me how.
It is impossible, it may not be.
Ey, nyce cherl, God let him never the!
The romblyng of a fart, and every soun,
Nis but of aier reverberacioun,

And ever it wastith lyte and lyte away;
Ther nys no man can deme, by my fay,

1 Harl. MS. eft

If that it were departed equally.

What, lo, my cherl,' what, lo, how schrewedly
Unto my confessour to day he spak!

I hold him certeinly demoniak.

Now etith your mete, and let the cherl go
Let him go honge himself on devel way!'

play,

Now stood the lordes squier at the bord,
That carf his mete, and herde word by word
Of al this thing, which that I of have sayd.
'My lord,' quod he, 'be ye nought evel payd,
I couthe telle for a gowne-cloth

To yow, sir frere, so that ye be not wroth,
How that this fart even departed schuld be
Among your covent, if I comaunded be.'

'Tel,' quod the lord, and thou schalt have anoon
A goune-cloth, by God, and3 by Seint Johan!'
'My lord,' quod he, whan that the wedir is fair,
Withoute wynd, or pertourbyng of ayr,
Let bring a large whel into this halle,
But loke that it have his spokes alle;
Twelf spokes hath a cart whel comunly;
And bring me twelve freres, wit ye why?
For threttene is a covent as I gesse;

Your noble confessour, her God him blesse,

1 This nobleman speaks of the churl as my churl, that is, my serf ot villain. On the extinction of slavery, which thus appears to have been in force in Chaucer's time, Ld. Macaulay remarks:-' The bene volent spirit of the Christian morality is undoubtedly adverse to distinctions of caste. But to the Church of Rome such distinctions are peculiarly odious, &c.' To the influence, therefore, of the theology of the church of the middle ages, he ascribes its imperceptible disuse. He adds:- Some faint traces of the institution of villanage were detected by the curious so late as the days of the Stuarts; nor has that insti tution ever, to this hour, been abolished by statute.'-Hist. Eng., vol. i., p. 22.

2 It appears that the elegant and rational practice latterly introduced, of having the dishes carved by an attendant, is a return to that of our ancestors.

And is omitted in the Harl. MS., but it is here supplied from Tyrwhitt, as manifestly required by the sense and metre.

4 Mr. Wright quotes from Thorn to show that a convent of monks, with their superior, properly consisted of thirteen, in imitation of

Schal parfourn up the nombre of this covent.
Thanne schal thay knele doun by oon assent,
And to every spokes ende in this manere
Ful sadly lay his nose schal a frere;

Your noble confessour ther, God him save,
Schal hold his nose upright under the nave.
Than schal this churl, with bely stif and tought
As eny tabor, hider ben y-brought;

And sette him on the whele of this cart
Upon the nave, and make him lete a fart,
And ye schul seen, up peril of my lif,
By verray proef that is demonstratif,
That equally the soun of it wol wende,
And eek the stynk, unto the spokes ende;
Save that this worthy man, your confessour,
(Bycause he is a man of gret honour)
Schal have the firste fruyt, as resoun is.
The noble usage of freres is this,

The worthy men of hem first schal be served.
And certeynly he hath it wel deserved;
He hath to day taught us so mochil good,
With preching in the pulpit ther he stood,
That I may vouchesauf, I say for me,
He hadde the firste smel of fartes thre;
And so wold al his covent hardily,

He berith him so fair and holily.'

The lord, the lady, and ech man, sauf the frere,
Sayde that Jankyn spak in this matiere
As wel as Euclide, or elles Phtolome.

Touchand the cherl, thay sayd that subtilte
And high wyt made him speken as he spak;
He nas no fool, ne no demoniak.

And Jankyn hath i-wonne a new goune;
My tale is don, we ben almost at toune.

Christ and the twelve apostles. Anno Domini M.C.XLVI., iste Hngo reparavit antiquum numerum monachorum istius monasterii, et eraut Ix. monachi professi præter abbatem, hoc est, quinque conventus in universo. Decem Scriptores, col., 1807.

VOL. I.

2 c

THE CLERK OF OXENFORDES PROLOGE.

IR Clerk of Oxenford,' our hoste sayde,

'SIR

'Ye ryde as stille and coy as doth a mayde,
Were newe spoused, sittyng at the bord;1
This day ne herd I of your mouth a word.
I trowe ye study aboute som sophime;
But Salomon saith, every thing hath tyme."
For Goddis sake! as beth of better cheere,
It is no tyme for to stody hiere.

Tel us som mery tale, by your fay;
For what man is entred unto play,
He moot nedes unto that play assent.
But prechith not, as freres doon in Lent,
To make us for our olde synnes wepe,
Ne that thy tale make us for to slepe.
Tel us som mery thing of aventures.
Youre termes, your colours, and your figures,
Keep hem in stoor, til so be that ye endite
High style, as whan that men to kynges write.
Spekith so playn at this tyme, I yow pray,
That we may understonde what ye say.'

This worthy Clerk benignely answerde;
'Sir host, quod he, 'I am under your yerde,
Ye have of us as now the governaunce,
And therfor wol I do yow obeissaunce,
Als fer as resoun askith hardily.
I wil yow telle a tale, which that I
Lerned at Padowe of a worthy clerk,
As proved by his wordes and his werk.
He is now deed, and nayled in his chest,
Now God give his soule wel good rest!

1 Tyrwhitt remarks that this line is an example of that construction, common to all writers of the age, which omits the relative pronoun. Eccles. iii. 1.

3 Sub feruiâ tuâ, under your rod, a common expression to denote the state of pupillage.

Fraunces Petrark,' the laureat poete,
Highte this clerk, whos rethorique swete
Enlumynd al Ytail of poetrie,

As Linian' did of philosophie,

Or lawue, or other art particulere;

But deth, that wol not suffre us duellen heere,
But as it were a twyncling of an ye,

Hem bothe hath slayn, and alle we schul dye.
But forth to telle of this worthy man,
That taughte me this tale, as I bigan,

I

say that he first with heigh stile enditith (Er he the body of his tale writith)

A proheme, in the which descrivith he
Piemounde, and of Saluces the contre,
And spekith of Appenyne the hulles hye,
That ben the boundes of al west Lombardye;
And of mount Vesulus in special,

Wher as the Poo out of a welle smal
Takith his firste springyng and his sours,
That est-ward ay encresceth in his cours
To Emyl-ward, to Ferare, and to Venise,
To which a long thing were to devyse.
And trewely, as to my juggement,
Me thinketh it a thing impertinent,
Save that he wold conveyen his matiere;
But this is the tale which that ye schuln heere.'

1 See ante, p. 21, et seq. Even if the reader should not be disposed to think that Chaucer meant to represent himself, in the person of the clerk, as having learned this tale from the mouth of Petrarch, at Padua, yet it must be conceded that this passage looks like an acknow. ledgment, on the part of Chaucer himself, of the obligations under which he lay to Petrarch, gracefully introduced in the words of the clerk. One cannot conceive what object the poet could have had in the passage except to commemorate a real interview.

Joannes of Lignano, near Milan, a canonist and natural philosopher, who flourished about 1378, mentioned by Panzerollus, De C7. Leg. Interpret., lib. iii. c. XXV.

⚫ Petrarch speaks of the Po as dividing the Emilian (hence Chaucer's Emyl-ward) and Flaminian regions from Venice.