For to been gay and amorous,

The time is then so savourous.
Hard is his heart that loveth nought
In May, when all this mirth is wrought,
When he may on these branches hear
The smale birdes singen clear
Their blissful swete song pitous.'

Under the influence of the prevalent taste for novelty and splendor, he writes the House of Fame, known to modern readers chiefly through Pope's paraphrase, bearing the statelier title of the 'Temple of Fame.' Chaucer is transported in a dream to the Temple of Venus, which is of glass, in a wide waste of sand, and on whose walls are figured in gold all the legends of Virgil and Ovid. Dante's eagle, glittering like a carbuncle, looks on him from the sun:

Suddenly the eagle descends with lightning wing, and, bearing him aloft in his talons above the stars, drops him at last before the House of Fame, built of polished beryl, and standing on a rock of almost inaccessible ice. All the southern side is covered with the names of famous men- perpetually melting away! The northern side is alike graven, but the names, here shaded, remain. All around, on the turrets, are the minstrels, with Orpheus, Arion, and the renowned harpers. Behind them are myriad musicians, then charmers, magicians, and prophets. He enters, and at the upper end of the hall, paved and roofed with gold, and embossed with gems, sees Fame seated on a throne of carbuncle, a 'gret and noble quene,' amidst an infinite number of heralds, robed nobles, and crowned heads. From her throne to the

gate stretches a row of pillars, on which stand the great historians and poets. The palace rings with the sounds of instruments, and the celestial melody of Calliope and her seven sisters, in eternal praise of the goddess. People of every nation and condition crowd the hall to present their claims. Some ask fame for their good works, and are denied good or bad fame. Others who merit well, are trumpeted by Slander. A few obtain their just reward. Some, who have done nobly, desire their good works

to be hidden, and their request is granted. Others make request, and their deeds are trumpeted through clarion of gold. Chaucer himself refuses to be a petitioner. Enough that he best knows what he has suffered, and what thought. He is then carried by the eagle to the House of Rumor, sixty miles long and perpetually whirling. Made of twigs like a cage, it admits every sound. Its doors, more numerous than forest leaves, stand ever ajar. Thence issue tidings of every description, like fountains and rivers from the sea, flying first to Fame, who gives them name and duration. Would you know how the waves of air perambulate the oceans of space-how the lightest word speeds unerringly to its destination, and mayhap in the Hereafter will vibrate still in the speaker's ear—how the atmosphere we breathe may be the ever-living witness of the sentiments we have uttered? Listen:

'Sound is naught but air that's broken,

And every speeche that is spoken,

Whe'er loud or low, foul or fair,

In his substance is but air:

For as flame is but lighted smoke,
Right so is sound but air that's broke.
Now, henceforth, I will thee teach
However, speeche, voice or sown,
Through his multiplicion,

Though it were piped of a mouse,
Must needs come to Fame's House.
I prove it thus; taketh heed now
By experience, for if that thou
Throw in a water now a stone,
Well wot'st thou it will make anon
A little roundel as a circle,

Par venture as broad as a covercle,

And right anon thou shalt see well

That circle cause another wheel,

And that the third, and so forth, brother,

Every circle causing other,

Much broader than himselfen was:

Right so of air, my leve brother,

Ever each air another stirreth

More and more, and speech upbeareth,

Till it be at the House of Fame.'

The occupants of this house-chiefly sailors, pilgrims, and pardoners are continually employed in hearing or telling news, inventing and circulating reports and lies. In one corner, the poet sees a throng of eager listeners around a narrator of lovestories. The uproar about this shadow of himself wakes him from his dream.

Grand suggestiveness here, true strokes of the Gothic imagi

nation. Pass away the highest things! There are no eternal corner-stones. All things that have been in this place of hope, all that are or will be in it, earth's wonder and her pride, have to vanish,-rising only to melt in air and be no more!

Amid all this exuberancy, love is the sovereign passion. As we have seen, it has the force of law. It is inscribed in a code, combined with religion, confounding morality with pleasure, displaying the fatal excess and pedantry of the age. From his sojourn beneath Italian skies, Chaucer returns with his Northern brain powerfully stimulated, and, with close attention to his originals, writes the story of Troilus and Creseide, in which the wellloved visions wear a more tangible form, and mingle in a more consecutive history, than in the hazy distance of allegory. It is a tale of Troy told in the Middle Ages. A Trojan seer, warned by Apollo that Troy must fall, deserts to the Greeks, leaving behind him in the beleaguered city his beautiful daughter Creseide, overwhelmed with grief at her father's treachery. Troïlus, valorous brother of Hector, sees her in the temple, clad in mourning, and loves:

And when that he in chaumber was allon,
He down upon his beddes feet him sette,
And thought ay on hire so, withouten lette
That as he satt and woke, his spirit mette
That he hire saugh, and temple, and al the wyse
Right of hire loke, and gan it new avise."

[ceasing

[fancied

[manner

[consider

Like Dante, he is reticent, would languish and die in silence but for Pandarus, her uncle, who persuades him to disclose the name of his love and promises to forward his suit. Troilus is born anew-an invincible knight, yet gentle, generous, and sincere; his cruelty, his levity, his haughty carriage, all gone; of so gentle

manner,

That each him loved that looked in his face.'

Pandarus seeks his niece, with the comforting adieu,

'Give me this labour and this business,

And of my speed be thine all the sweetness.'

He prevails upon her to pity his friend, takes his leave 'glad and well begone.' As she sits alone in troubled meditation, a shout in the street proclaims the victorious advance of Troïlus, who, omnipotent in hope, has put the Greeks to flight, and comes a conquering hero. She sees his triumph, marks his modest demeanor,

And let it in her heart so softly sink

That to herself she said, "Ho! give me drink."'

She blushes, drops her head, thinks of his prowess, his estate, his

fame, above all, of his distress; almost decides that she will love, then thinks of the woes of love:

For love is yet the moste stormy life
Right of himself that ever was begun,
For ever some mistrust or nice strife

There is in love some cloud over the sun;

Thereto we wretched women nothing conne,

When us is woe, but weep, and sit, and think:

Our wreak is this, our owne woe to drink.'

[foolish

[can do

[revenge

Troïlus, in wasting suspense, asks his friend, just returned,

'Shall I weep or sing?' his heart will leap forth,

Assured of her friendly regard, he fears it spreadeth so for joy':

serve.

'But, Lord, how shall I doen? how shall I liven?
When shall I next my own dear heart ysee?
How shall this longe time away be driven
Till that thou be again at her from me?
Thou may'st answer, "Abide, abide"; but he
That hangeth by the neck, the soth to sain,
In great disease abideth for the pain."

[discomfort

In answer, Pandarus recommends him to write a letter, and furthermore, to ride, as it were accidentally, by her house, when he will take care that she shall be at the window engaged in conversation with himself,—the subject the man whom he desires to When the letter is brought, she is ashamed to open it, and consents only when told the poor knight is about to die. When asked how she likes it, 'all rosy hued then waxeth she'; refuses, however, to answer it, but yields at length to the importunities of her uncle, and writes that she will feel for him the affection of a sister:

'She thanked him of all that he well meant
Towardes her, but holden him in hand
She woulde not, ne maken herself bond

In love, but as his sister him to please,

She would aye fain to do his heart an ease.'

When the messenger arrives, Troïlus trembles, pales, doubts his happiness. All night long he ponders how he may best merit her favor. Slowly, after many heart-aches, and much stratagem on the part of Pandarus, he obtains her delicate confession:

And as the new abashed nightingale,
That stinteth first, when she beginneth sing,
When that she heareth any herdes tale,

[shepherd's call

Or in the hedges any wight stirring;
And after, siker doth her voice out ring;-
Right so Creseid', when that her dread stent,
Opened her heart, and told him her intent.'

[more boldly [ceased

Of their delight, judge 'ye that have been at the feast of such gladness!' They exchange rings, and part, vowing eternal constancy. As to him,—

'But all too little, welaway! lasteth such joy.' A truce between the two armies is struck. Her father Calchas reclaims her. Told that she is to be exchanged for a prisoner, she swoons, and Troïlus, thinking her dead, cries:

'O cruel Jove! and thon Fortune adverse!

This all and some is, falsely have ye slain
Creseid', and sith ye may do me no worse,
Fie on your might and workes so diverse!
Thus cowardly ye shall me never win;
There shall no death me from my lady twin.'

[separate

Love sports with death when it makes the whole of life. With his sword unsheathed, he calls upon the loved and lost to receive his spirit:

'But as God would, of swoon she then abraid,
And gan to sigh, and "Troilus!" she cried;
And he answered; "Lady mine, Creseid'!
Liven ye yet?" and let his sword down glide.
"Yea, hearte mine! that thanked be Cupid,"

[awaked