Chapter One
Counselor or Critic?
An intellectual in its modern sense, as has been elaborated in the introductory part, is usually expected to be a social critic. Unsatisfied with the status quo, he should make efforts to improve the situation by combating social unfairness or discontent through his pen rather than his sword. Thus, Chaucer the poet, if regarded as an intellectual in modern sense, is supposed to write to expose the harsh reality, or to criticize the crimes and combat the corruption of his time.
However, Chaucer's identity of a courtier seems to have dismissed the probability of his being a courageous fighter against the evils of the society. His job determines that he should serve and please his court superiors; and poetry by him as a court poet is supposed to sing the royals praises, or to provide them with advice. So he might also act as a court counselor, not entitled to the name though. He is expected to feed his royal audience the morals or advice through his literary expression.
Then, was Chaucer a counselor who intended to help the authority to consolidate the existent power relationship, or was he a social critic who perceived the darkness of the reality and attempted to express his dissatisfaction? There is in fact a dialectical relationship in between.
Court Poet as Prince-pleaser, Counselor, or Critic?
Because of his multiple identities, Chaucer played several roles in the court. What role to play depended on what job he took. All his jobs however were related with each other and relevant to his position in the court. As a poet, Chaucer had to take his audience into consideration when he composed poems. The reason is evident:
The audience whether in social or in individual contexts brings to a literary situation certain expectations. [. . .] A poet's social functions are determined in some large measure by the occasion at which he performs and by the expectations of his audience (Bloomfield and Dunn 6).
Chaucer's audience, therefore, determined Chaucer's poetry writing in respect of his choice of subject matter, tone, and style etc. As a court poet, Chaucer would inevitably concern more about his royal audience.
So in the first place, he was apparently a prince-pleaser. He had to engage the interest of the royal audience, including kings and queens, aristocrats and other social superiors, and his colleagues. His image on the frontispiece of a manuscript of Troilus and Criseyde portrayed Chaucer's reading his poetry to what looked like a courtly audience.〔1〕 Chaucer's self-portrait as naïve, dim, bookish, though definitely fictional and tongue-in-cheek, couldn't be more appropriate for a court poet, who wrote and read poems to please or entertain his social superiors. In fact, the subjects of his early poems were mostly of royal events and to the courtly taste. He was expected to dedicate poems to the king, which though were not necessarily confined to praises. He could at least make use of any royal occasions. For example, the Book of the Duchess provided comforts for the "prince" who had lately lost his beloved. Thus, Chaucer the court poet was expected to play the role of a prince-pleaser.〔2〕
However, Chaucer's poems seemed never to have been devotedly and exclusively prince-pleasing. Chaucer was not a professional minstrel, who gave performance merely to entertain the court. He functioned as a poet in early society was generally expected to be. As Bloomfield and Dunn point out, "Early poets were teachers, diviners, prophets, and preservers of tradition. Part of their sacred office was to admonish and warn rulers and subjects alike, and to hand on the accumulated wisdom of the past" (4). Thus early poets served as teachers. Court poets functioned to provide moral or political models for his royal audience to follow. In a sense, therefore, Chaucer wrote and read to his royal audience to provide advice as a counselor.
Yet, his counseling role is debatably complicated. The complex nature is relevant to the controversy on Chaucer's politicalness and related to a rise of court poets over professional minstrels in late fourteenth century. The controversy on whether Chaucer is political or apolitical results from two aspects.
Firstly, the rare reference to any social events in his writings presents Chaucer to be a detached, low-profile courtier who accidentally had a hobby of composing poems. On one hand, Chaucer appeared to have no political interest, let alone ambition. Unlike Thomas Usk, he never sought to climb the slippery pole of political appointment by way of singing the royals praises. Most of his poems were not make-work projects for someone with connections, though he might include some court occasions. For instance, the Book of the Duchess, and the Parliament of Fowls. On the other hand, different from what his contemporary John Gower did in his Vox Clamantis, he never made any pointed and critical commentary on current conditions in his poems (though Gower did it in Latin from circumspection). Even in some poems that are apparently related to the court, it is always difficult to decide what the real political message is. For example, it is not correct to presume Chaucer's good standing with Henry Ⅳ if we judge from his short poem The Complaint of Chaucer to His Purse, in which he saluted him as a "true king" (verray kyng). The very fact that he had difficulty getting paid (though no difficulty getting approved by the King) after Henry Ⅳ's accession to the throne is on the contrary evidence of Chaucer's loss of favor.
Secondly, in his life, Chaucer seemed to have never played the power game, either. On the contrary, he made efforts to stay far away from any factional struggles. He distanced himself from Richard at some moments. His giving up the controllership of Customs, and relinquishing the lease on his house in Aldgate are ambiguously telling. It might be a by-product of the English crown's leaving Richard Ⅱ's head, which means he was one of Richard's men and now stepped back. Or he might have sensed the threat after the execution of his associates in the king's affinity. It must have been a shock for Chaucer when he saw his colleague Thomas Usk's head displayed on a spike on London Bridge. So it is always difficult to detect or decide about any of his political involvements.
But Chaucer's turning away from any political issues in his work, especially in the Canterbury Tales, should not be understood as his lack of interest in, nor his being fully free from any political involvements. As Patterson correctly notes,
(A)s one of the Richard's royal servants the poet did not, as is usually assumed, disclaim any interest or role in politics; on the contrary, he was very much the king's man in the crucial Parliament of 1386, suffered for his allegiance when the king's party failed, and was finally rewarded for his loyalty when the king regained power in 1389. ("No Man His Reson Herde" 122)
Chaucer's political attributes, as has been argued by Paul Strohm, are closely associated his connection with Richard Ⅱ. While detailing Chaucer's social and political attitudes during the late 1380s, Strohm believes that Chaucer was not totally detached from the political turbulence, nor did he keep a foot in both camps as early scholars had believed.〔3〕 Chaucer was after all Richard's man, at least for a certain period of time. His long and close association with John of Gaunt, ever a protector and supporter of King Richard, his various appointments, the annuities and fees he received from the Crown during Richard's reign, all contributed to Chaucer's standing with King Richard.
Jones's suspicion of the truth about Chaucer's death in his book Who Murdered Chaucer? also poses a question that has never been attempted.〔4〕 For Jones, the mystery of the total silence of any details expected concerning such an illustrious man has been odd and this fact is significant in contributing to what Chaucer really is. The quiet disappearance can be rather the result someone is trying to achieve than a mere historical coincidence. So his mysterious death could be an event with political color.
Based on the above elaboration of his politicalness, it is sensible to conclude that Chaucer had his own political views and would inevitably express them in one way or another through his poems. It is also possible for him to criticise the unreasonable and the unfair in the social and political life. But his way of expression to them was different and special due to his own position as a court poet. This is mostly illuminating examined against the background of the rise of poets over minstrels in fourteenth century court.
The fourteenth century witnessed the decline of professional minstrels and the rise of poets in the court culture. This change of fashion is significant.〔5〕 First, the relationship between minstrels or poets and their audience, especially the king had changed. Thus appeared poems which differed from the songs of the minstrels in subject, style, tone, and language. Second, the social role court poets played, for example, to instruct or give advice to the king had not been expected from the minstrels. Poets began to ascend to the centre stage of state affairs. They were not exclusively entertainers as the minstrels were. Hence there emerged special characteristics of court poetry. They were different in both subject and style from minstrels' performance.
Minstrels, when they gave their performance, reciting old tales and songs, were granted certain authority. They would discourse authoritatively on subjects like battles, chivalry or courtly love, although they might never have been in a battle, or have experienced the grief of being separated from their beloved ladies. It was a tradition that they might address the court audience directly without fear of being blamed for their tone of authority, because that was what one might expect from a professional performer. However, for a court poet, it was unthinkable for him to address his courtly audience, including the king and his social superiors, in the manner of a minstrel. They must be more careful and cautious about both the subjects and the manner of his composing, especially in providing moral instructions or political counseling. This was determined by the status of a court poet.
Meanwhile, court poets remained lesser gentry, despite their access to the world of the aristocracy. They were naturally supposed to show due respect to their superiors. For example, Chaucer's writing was characteristic of self-effacement and deference to his audience. In Troilus and Criseyde, when dealing with the love-longing matter, which was supposed to be an exclusively aristocratic prerogative, he deferred to the judgment of his audience: "Thow, redere, maist thiself ful wel devyne / That swuch a wo my wit kan nat diffyne." (V. ll. 270-1)〔6〕
Therefore, when giving moral instruction or political advice, a court poet must be aware of his status in the court. His way of instructing or advising must be appropriate for his identity of a court poet. He should make efforts not to offend his audience, though he was well-intended. So to stay safe, he preferred to explore the wealth of the authoritative texts and to pass a message implicitly rather than revealing his views by direct and plain expression. The tradition of "Mirror for Prince" Chaucer followed is one example of such wealth.
The main purpose of this genre is to offer advice. Bloomfield and Dunn briefly analyze the point of writing in this tradition as follows.
We find advice to the princes in various forms of literature, above all in praise poems, but we apply the generic term only to those works whose chief task is to advise the prince. [. . .] In these works the poet was carrying out in a more systematic way an ancient function: to instruct the ruler or any ruler in the ways of wisdom, that is, the rational processes in the universe and society so that he may fit himself into the proper cosmic and social roles he assumed or is about to assume when he becomes a chief, ruler, or king. [. . .] The recognized poets had a certain leeway in criticism and suggestion, but they had to be careful. Their advice was presented both in direct and indirect speeches and poems. (137)
It is generally taken that there won't be any provocation in the tradition of "Mirror for Prince" because they are usually political treatise thought of adopting the king's point of view. Thus it will be hard to find from poems of "Mirror for Prince" any provocative or aggressive elements. Besides,
they are often seen as compilations of platitudes, clichés, and ancient stories so general, so distant in time and place, and so inert that they have no bearing on political concerns contemporary with their writers and translators [. . .] would have little to say to their specific contemporary contexts. (Ferster 2)
Therefore Chaucer employed this genre in his writing. The choice of the genre "Mirror for Prince" was consistent with his status and his role of a court poet.
The seeming impossibility of any opposition to the king in the tradition of the "Mirror for Prince" helps to lower our expectation of Chaucer's role as critic, even without consideration of Chaucer's own position. And the often general assembly of cliché and old stories demonstrates little in the way of contemporary events. However, the apparent distancing from contemporary events in a poem is itself significant. It was especially true in late medieval England.
The advice to the king supposedly embedded in this genre was especially important when a king's incapacity to govern resulted from immaturity or illness. Under such circumstances, the council played an important role in government. Conflicts and struggles between the council, the monarch, the nobles and the king's friends became central; and the establishment and development of parliament complicated the situation further. The fact that this genre was so popular but had not any direct reference to contemporary events is thought-provoking. The writers were well aware of the dangers of criticizing the king and his advisers.〔7〕 Thus the choice of this genre is in fact a guise or strategy for voicing their own views.〔8〕
On the other hand, "(a)dvice can become critique," as Ferster believes, "and the audience for the work may include not only the prince to whom it is nominally addressed, but his subjects as well" (4). The readers of this advice literature included not only royalty, but also those who were interested in the governance of the king, such as those who worked in or out of the court, holding an office. Thus the same poem may actually have two effects which could be different. It depends on the audience's hermeneutic reception. For the prince, it should at least sound like well-intentioned advice. For those who were almost Chaucer's equals in the court, and the readers outside the court, it could have the effect of criticizing. Chaucer couldn't be ignorant of this.
The deconstructive reading of the Melibee's Tale as belonging to the genre of advice, for example, is proof that Chaucer was a supporter, not an opponent, of the disempowered monarch. He used the deconstruction of advice to oppose the Appellants when they were in power.〔9〕 He was in this case a critic of the Appellants because he stood by the monarch, his patronage.
To generalise, the role Chaucer played as a court poet is multiple. He was a prince-pleaser, a counselor, and sometimes a critic. It all depends on what position he took. It was his duty to compose poems to please his royal audience. Meanwhile, he had the opportunity to instruct and advise his superiors, though he had to do it in a wise way. In addition, his writing was a relatively safer place for his own political utterance, voicing his pros and cons in a muffled way.
To write by following the genre of the "Mirror for Prince" is a typical example of this. While political actors use it to oppose the king, as it has been part of political thought, writers make use of it to achieve political address with less danger. The Tale of Melibee makes a good case study, because it can illuminate Chaucer's role of a counselor through his poetry composing.
Chaucer's Counseling: The Tale of Melibee
The Tale of Melibee, as its genre indicates, provides general advice for its audience, though it is now frequently recognized as a political tract written specifically for Richard Ⅱ.〔10〕 The Chaucerian narrator temptingly associates the tale with Chaucer the author. Thus a detailed analysis of the tale will help further a better understanding of Chaucer's role of a counselor and his way of counseling.
Despite of its importance, the Tale of Melibee is not a tale often admired by modern readers, mainly because of its clogged prose style, with allegorical abstraction, moralizing didacticism and long catalogues of proverbs.〔11〕 However, its reputation has recently risen. It has been considered as an essential structural unit in the Canterbury Tales.〔12〕 More importantly, the interpretation of the tale as a satire on chivalry and as an attack on wars, including civil conflicts and the French War, helps to foster a better appreciation of it. The issues it discusses are still and even more significant nowadays: "They are problems of war and peace, of the maintenance of national honor and its relation to a policy of pacific disarmament, of how policy is made and of the proper roles of legislatures and advisers in formulating that policy" (Benson 17).
But the tale's peace-making subject is not irrelevant to nor does it contradict the subject of counseling. They are in fact two threads intertwined. The tale tells how Melibee, a landowner, takes counsel from "the grete congregacioun of folk" (l. 1004) on how to respond to the injustice done to his family in his absence: house invaded, wife beaten and daughter wounded. Prudence the wife argues with her husband Melibee on whether he should listen to any of the discordant counsels from the folk: to be cautious or to take revenge. She tells him to choose counselors carefully and to evaluate their advice based on their motives. She criticizes all the counsel he has received, and judges against open war or feud, both for practical reasons (Melibee is outnumbered) and moral ones, and provides remedy for it: to negotiate peace and leave all to God's grace and forgiveness. Thus, it is a tale about taking counsels and advocating peace.
Superficially, the tale is about a domestic issue entailing personal revenge. Judging by the order of it in the Tales, it has also been considered as Geoffrey's revenge against the Host, who interrupts his telling of Sir Thopas. But the tale in fact addresses not only private but also public policy. It has acquired a wider vision concerning the war and peace, the counseling, and any other serious messages, moral or political. It becomes one of the rare samples of Chaucer's writing with topicality.
Peacemaking: Melibee and Richard Ⅱ
The tale's subject of peacemaking, and the status and character of Melibee, associate the reading of it closely with Richard Ⅱ, which endows the tale with a profound topical significance.
In the first place, Melibee's threat to exile his adversaries attributes to him kingly powers. This extends the tale beyond private matters to public concerns, and thus easily reminds its audience of the similarity of Melibee to Richard Ⅱ. The similarity, according to Cooper, is also well indicated in the primacy of the virtue of mercy in a ruler in the more freely expanded closing part, plus Chaucer's rare but deliberate excision of the lament over a land governed by a young king. And the few additions, such as "the wilde hert" in "Ovyde seith that 'the litel wesele wol slee the grete bole and the wilde hert'," are also telling proofs (1324). "(T)he wilde hert" is a close association of the white hart, a personal badge Richard assumed in 1390 (Guides 312).
The tale's subject of peace-making is not, as it appears, to be confined within the realm of the neighborhood. The significance of the subject is as extensive as it is related to a society, which is constant of conflicts and wars. Hotson, for example, holds that "the Melibus is a political tract, designed to dissuade John of Gaunt from launching on the invasion of Castile in 1386" (qtd. in Stillwell 433).〔13〕 Johnson takes it to be concerned with the war between England and France (137—155). George H. Cowling mentions the Hundred Years' War as a reason for the timeliness of the Melibee: "Its [Melibee's] appearance among the Canterbury Tales seems to indicate that the strain and loss in blood and treasure due to the Hundred Years' War with France had caused the prudence and pacifism of this allegory to appeal to others besides Chaucer." (qtd. in Stillwell 434)〔14〕 In fact the tale may associate with other possible wars, such as the battle with John of Gaunt, and the riot in London.
Therefore, Melibee should be read from a wider perspective so as to see its social and topical significance. The advice it provides, especially on the superiority of reconciliation to war, could have had relevance to a series of events during Chaucer's career. The date of Melibee contributes much to the tale's topicality.
Melibee, together with others in the Tales, such as Knight, Physician and perhaps Monk, is commonly accepted to be among the earliest written in the Canterbury Tales, and thus in the mid of late 1380s.〔15〕 The 1380s were a decade witnessing a series of domestic crises starting with the Peasant's Revolt in 1381. The tension of the Revolt was built up rather than resolved in the succeeding years and culminated in 1388, when the King's favorites were exiled or executed by the Merciless Parliament. Thus the military policy and the revolt of the Appellant lords against Richard Ⅱ appeared to be events Chaucer was reminded of in his composing of the tale.
Peace-making was however not a policy Richard was unfamiliar with. On the contrary, he was himself a pacifist. And theoretically speaking, Richard's pacifism was not alien either. It reflected the trend of his time. Peace had in fact been seen by many influential thinkers of the day as an ideal of kingship and the desire for peace as the mark of a just ruler (Jones 11). Richard might follow other great monarchs in Europe in cultivating a new court culture. For example, both Robert of Anjou in Naples (1309—1343) and Frederick Ⅱ in Sicily had been learned men, the latter having been the patron of Petrarch and Boccaccio. "They established a culture of literature, science and the liberal arts as the mark of the modern, sophisticated ruler," and thus most probably were examples for Richard to follow (Jones 18).
The peace policy might also have resulted from Richard's personal inclination and the influence upon him of his tutors, like Sir Simon Burley, or John of Gaunt.
As Richard grew to maturity he showed increasing signs of refinement and sensitivity and his court "assumes a rather precious, even effete, character." It is the court of Venus rather than of Bellona, comments the hawkish chronicler Thomas Walsingham, with evident disgust. (Jones 13)
According to the Westminster Chronicler, when Gloucester nearly came to blows with his brother, the Duke of York, in the parliament over the king's old tutor, Sir Simon Burley, Richard was described as a king who "with characteristic mildness and good-will, [had] been quick to calm them down." "He was trying to change the English court from a war culture to a peace culture." (Jones 14)
But his pacifist inclination became his merit as well as demerit. To some, it was a sign of his lack of valor and prowess, his inability to deal with warfare, which was in striking contrast with his father, the Black Prince, who had a great reputation as a warrior. As his son, Richard Ⅱ was expected to live up to that reputation. To their disappointment, he chose an alternative lifestyle and established a different ethos at court.
Contrast with his father, he was a peace advocator, especially with France. He married the seven-year-old Isabel for the clear purpose of consolidating the peace between the two countries.〔16〕 It remained the objective of royal policy until the end of his reign. But his pacifist concern was not welcomed at home because the hostility between the two nations had developed over two generations. More forceful and effective opposition came from the magnates, the barons, and members of the nobility, among whom the Duke of Gloucester, the Earl of Arundel and the Earl of Warwick were the most constant thorns. They held the opposite opinion mostly for the sake of their own personal rather than the national interest. Their difference in personal character and taste also set them and the king apart. They had a hearty distaste for the new court ethos. Thus there was a saying that Richard Ⅱ's court was dominated by an effeminate ethos rather than the worship of valor.
Though peace-making was controversially received in the political life of Richard, a theme of such is to the taste of the current court inclination. So if it is an overstatement to say that Chaucer wrote the tale to cater for the king as a prince-pleaser, it wouldn't be entirely without foundation. It is, in some sense, true. But he had done more than that. In writing this tale, he seemed to have played the part of a counselor as well.
Counseling: Prudence, Sophie and Chaucer
The tale's discussion of counseling also possesses historical and social significance. Acknowledging the wide application of the tale's allegory though, Gardiner Stillwell also illustrates the possible references of counseling to contemporary figures and events. For instance, the comparison between Richard and Melibee in their hastiness, their being quick to anger, their lack of good counselors, and the comparison of Prudence with Queen Ann, Philippa, or Joan of Kent.〔17〕 The tale's association with the domestic political situation highlights the importance of counselors' role. Cooper prefers the idea that it is a more general advice without referring to any specific one of the political crises (Guides 312). But as Ferster puts it, "When the tale appears to be referring to contemporary politics, it probably is. And when it appears not to be referring to contemporary politics, it may still be" (104). Chaucer's deliberate effort in making variations from the source texts in fact testifies the tale's contemporary significance.
Chaucer seemed aware of the possible political reverberations the tale may arouse. He tried to control them by making variations on the source materials. For instance, he omitted proverbs in his French source like "Woe to the land that has a child as a lord" to disarm any possible political application of his tale.〔18〕 The proverb could easily be taken as a reference to Richard Ⅱ because of his accession to the throne at young age. Thus the omission is a deliberate choice to avoid any possible association of the tale to the troubles of having a child king. The deletion limits the interpretation of the tale.〔19〕
However, some variations on the source text direct to the political association of the tale. For instance, in line 1325, he quoted Ovid as saying that "the litel wesele wol slee the grete bole and the wilde hert. " His substitution of weasel for the viper in his French source is significant, especially when it is taken together with the comparison of Alison in the Miller's Tale to a weasel.〔20〕 The substitution contributes to the political possibility of the tale because the weasel was recognized to be Robert De Vere, and the hart, to be Richard, since it was the beast Richard had chosen to adorn the royal heraldic devices and badges of livery. Thus the mention of immature counselors may naturally be a reminder above all of Robert de Vere, one of those young counselors whom Richard was accused of paying too much heed to.〔21〕
Although there is much speculation about who Chaucer's audience is—the court, the London intelligentsia, the new middle class or some combination of it—we can be sure that the members of Richard's court have access to it.〔22〕 The real purpose in his choosing to translate a pedestrian work like Melibee at this particular moment, and deciding to include it to the Canterbury Tales, is hard to know.
Was he commissioned by the "court peace party" to translate it as part of the propaganda war against the hawks? Or did Chaucer choose to make the translation as his contribution towards a cause with which he agreed? Or, indeed, did Chaucer translate it in order to improve his own standing with the king and the court party? Whatever the truth, the fact that Chaucer chose this tale as his own contribution to The Canterbury Tales must have identified him indelibly as a member of the court peace party. (Jones 30)
The purpose of writing this tale is not to criticize, if it is only an analysis of the contemporary situation, but to offer valid and helpful advice. We cannot make an easy judgment on Chaucer's position. He might stand on the side of the King, as he himself benefited from him.
In fact, Chaucer was not within the advisory inner circle, yet he was never far away from the situation, no matter where he stayed at the moment, London or nearby Kent. He had the advantageous position of observing closely what was happening around him. The influence of the happening upon his writing would be inescapable, though silence has been well perceived as a characteristic feature of Chaucer's writing. He was to some extent a quasi-counselor, providing advice in his own way. Chaucer's addition to the original source serves to prove his role as a wise counselor: "Ovyde seith that 'the litel wesele wol slee the grete bole and the wilde hert.' And the book seith, 'A litel thorn may prikke a kyng ful soore, and a hound wol hold the wilde boor.'" (11.1324—1325) As Cooper indicates,
The addition carries no special emphasis, and is a warning, not a threat; but it would none the less serve to place Chaucer among the wise counselors of the treatise, not among the flatterers. His poem to the King on "Lack of Steadfastness" confirms his readiness to take up such a role. (Guides 312)
When he addressed Richard in the final stanza, "Shew forth thy swerd of castigacioun./ Dred God, do law, love trouthe and worthinesse" (26—27), we should not ignore the counseling role he was playing.
Interestingly, in their idea and way of counseling, there is an overlapping between Prudence and Chaucer. Prudence is a clear-headed political counselor, with great wisdom. She is an advocate of deliberation, which has been manifestive in Chaucer not only in his public life, but also in his relatively private writing where evasiveness is pervasive. Throughout the tale, Prudence doesn't spend much time in blaming the advisors' fault. On the contrary, she points out Melibee's lack of reason in choosing the advisors, his overwhelmed emotional situation before the real counseling, and finally his inability to make sound judgment after that. Chaucer might also hold that it was essential for a king to have a rational and objective mind, with the help of good counselors.
However, Prudence's "concern with the nature of power and thus with the ways in which political power can be manifested and sustained for the good of all" is debatable in Chaucer's case (Johnson 141—142). He actually showed deep concern over moral issues and common profit in his work. As Forster says, furthering Howard's view, "it unifies the double theme of 'commune profit' and personal salvation that had fascinated him since the 'Dream of Scipio' and which was emerging in the Tales as a whole" (408).〔23〕
Chaucer's naming of Melibee's daughter Sophie is also telling. Chaucer's assignment of Sophie, from the Greek for wisdom, to the wounded daughter can be interpreted literally as well as figuratively. Literally, Sophie is wounded physically in the breaching of their house by the evil neighbors. But Chaucer seemed to attract the readers to the figurative meaning even more. At the very beginning of the tale, the naming of the daughter is introduced. And Prudence says to her husband after a long quotation from an old book praising the good of wisdom and women,
And therefore, sire, if ye wol triste to my conseil, I shal restore yow youre doghter hool and sound.
And eek I wol do to yow so muche that ye shul have honour in this cause. (ll. 1109—1110)
Thus his daughter's being wounded is the indication of Melibee's lost or damaged wisdom. It might be Chaucer's advice that at this political crisis, Richard should resolve the problems with reason. He, as Prudence, offered a remedy.
Chaucer's counseling is, however, strategic. His choice of being a translator protects him from any censure and danger. Choosing Prudence, the female spokesperson, is an even further cover of his own position. As Lynn Staley Johnson points out, "this suggests that Chaucer availed himself of a double blind" (154). The genre of "Mirror for Prince" has a truism that it is the prince who makes the final choices among the options given by the counselor. A counselor takes no responsibility for what the prince finally decides. Similarly, as a translator, or a compiler of the original source, Chaucer thus didn't need to take any responsibility for the ideas of the tale.
It is conceivable that Chaucer was well aware of the possible effect to read "his" tale wrongly. Or did he do it deliberately? In the Prologue, Chaucer the pilgrim exclaims to the Host and the audience that the tale is going to be instructive, and has been told many times, but he will do it in his way.
It is a moral tale vertuous,
Al be it told somtyme in sondry wyse
Of sondry folk, as I shal yow devyse.
(ll. 940—942)
Meanwhile he requires that he be excused if there are any variations, but assures them that the "sentence" of his version is unchanged:
Blameth me nat; for, as in my sentence,
Shul ye nowher fynden difference
Fro the sentence of this tretys lyte
After the which this murye tale I write.
(ll. 961—964)
But as Cooper sensitively perceives, "when Chaucer excuses himself, something suspicious is always happening" (Guides 310). The "sentence" will remain constant despite the variation of words is suspect, especially when we consider how the rephrased tales differ from the original stories in the Tales.
On the other hand, what he cannot shun is at least the responsibility of the arrangement. There is in fact a paralleled line between the prince and the writer, or a translator or compiler such as Chaucer. He may excuse himself from any censure on the content. But it is he who made the translation at a particular moment. The choice to do this, in addition to his addition of, his deletion of, or his variation on the source material, all contributes his responsibility. It is the writer himself who performed the selection and adaptation of the sources, just as it is the prince who made the final decision on whether or not, or how, to take the counsels. This coincides with Foucault's notion of "author-function" well.〔24〕 But to play the role of counselor as a court poet, Chaucer must have his own way. "He thereby positions himself, along with Prudence, on the periphery of events, farsighted, astute, and artfully disguised by the inherent limitations of the role he has chosen for himself" (Johnson 155).
Similar to Prudence, Chaucer is more like an educator who appeals for rational and objective thought, who applies wisdom rather than force, who values brain rather than brawn. Because "(f)or all its stress on the processes of taking counsel, Melibee emphasizes that wisdom and understanding are a priori qualities, preexisting good advice" (Cooper, Guides 318).
Chaucer, taken as "a shrewd and centrally placed political observer" of the immediate political situation, quite naturally engaged these issues in his literary activities, even if not directly involved personally in the political activities (Johnson 137). Together with other intellectuals at that time, including chroniclers of Richard's reign, and his contemporary poet, John Gower, Chaucer had a profound concern with the topical situation, the nature of governance, authority etc. Though all people at that particular moment in England would have been involved in or concerned with the topical situation, their reflection and participation were definitely different in perspectives and depth.
Between Counsel and Critique: Mirror for Prince
Apparently, Chaucer seemed neither to be a political counselor in the court nor a courageous critic against the dominating ideology as are expected from modern intellectuals. Nevertheless, he was both, in some sense.
Chaucer was not, in the strict sense, a counselor. He was out of the inner royal circle and had no formal opportunity to offer advice. Yet his poems, quite often read aloud before the court audience, including the prince as well as other court people, inevitably had an impact upon them. Writing poems became a channel to let his voice out, thus enabled him to play the similar role of counseling. The Tale of Melibee serves as a good example to show it. As Green puts it, "his [Chaucer's] position as court entertainer, successor to generations of professional minstrels, is belittled in the self-mockery of 'Sir Thopas,' but as the adviser to kings the author of 'Melibee' writes essentially without irony" (Poets and Princepleasers 143).
Chaucer was not a direct critic either. In fact, his writing was characterized as "indirect discourse." However, Chaucer was not the only one whose "indirect discourse" became a feature of his writing. Under the same environments of political pressures, it was natural for the Ricardian poets to adopt strategic indirection. No matter to what extent they were critical about the contemporary situation, none of them was radical in the sense of their anti-authority, though their poetry had been labeled as "public poetry" concerned with common profit. In Middleton's arguments, "poetry was to be a 'common voice' to serve the 'common good'" (95).〔25〕 But these poets were not public intellectuals as might be expected from the modern view. On the contrary, they showed a kind of caution against any unfavorable interpretation of their works' ambiguity, as the alterations made by Gower, by Langland, as well as by Chaucer in Melibee, manifests. As Middleton points out, "their revisions seem largely dictated not by formal considerations, but by matters of social fact and currency" (98). Gower's alterations in the Confessio have incurred the suspicion of political trimming, and the C-vision of Piers might be an effort to mend the ambiguities which have been profited by those in the Rising of 1381, rather than the pursuit of fullness and clarity advanced by Donaldson (Middleton 98).
But on the other hand, Chaucer had written many poems that both counseled and criticized, especially in those of Complaint and Mirror for Prince. Many poems of complaints in medieval England shared themes similar to those of the Mirror for Prince, such as "the inadequacies of young counselors and the danger that flatterers will distort the king's perspective" (Ferster 10). For the similar reasons of shunning censorship, most of them were anonymous. For those who were known to the audience, such as Chaucer, they needed both protection from their patrons as well as their intelligence in applying devices through choosing the proper genre and enabling intended ambiguity (Ferster 10).〔26〕
The benefits of writing in the tradition of "Mirror for Prince" are many. One of them is that writers, in doing so, exhibit great admiration and respect for authority, because they simply provide options but leave the king to make the final choices. It is the king who is ultimately responsible for his decision. Thus, they will not have to take any responsibility for the consequences of the king's choice since they are only advisers, and therefore shun any blame. But this is not always true. In Richard Ⅱ's time, the notorious "Appellants" accused some of Richard's advisers of treason in parliament. Advisers on the council and the king's personal friends and confidants became the focuses of conflict, since it was definitely safer to criticize the advisers of the king rather than the king himself. On the other hand, the repetitive morality of the literary works and their constraints and the veiled discussion of political issues become an effective way to protect the writers and translators from controversies and struggles.
But writings of "Mirror for Prince," in Ferster's view, "are not only more topical than they appear to be but also more critical of the powerful than we might expect. Their deployment of the comfortingly familiar stories and maxims of the advice tradition is often strategic" (3). The writings are camouflage for political commentary. Thus, the deliberate choice of the genre is in fact an indirect way for the writer to engage his contemporary political conflicts. The problem is that such strategies which protect the writers also risk being unintelligible to their readers and audience. The audience included not only the king or prince himself to whom it was nominally addressed, but also his subjects, including those in court who might be attendance at the reading, or those who read them or those who were read to outside the court. The advice to the king or prince may sound like critiques for his subjects. But there exists the risk that the criticism will not function if it is over disguised, "since if the critique is disguised well enough to 'fool' the government, there is no guarantee that it can be understood correctly by a wider audience" (Ferster 4).
So Chaucer is intelligent in choosing "Mirror for Prince" to be his genre. The difference between the tradition of "Mirror for Prince" and the outright topical criticism is that the former tends to be more general without contextual implications. Full of clichés, platitudes and ancient stories, they bear no political concerns contemporary to the writers and translators. And also to some extent, their sphere is more about morality than politics.〔27〕 Of course, one cannot totally separate morality from politics, because blame cast on immorality could be fairly good evidence for attacking the opposition in politics. But the writings of "Mirror for Prince" appear to be more like advice rather than blame.
The writings of "Mirror for Prince," however, also have a mixed tone of challenge and deference. The mixture of criticizing and counseling is in fact one of the characteristics of modern intellectuals. They are not necessarily the opposers of the government. They sometimes contribute their thoughts, of criticism or of counseling, to good governance for the sake of the common people. This will in turn consolidate the governance. Counsel or critique, they are different in their ways of action, but similar in involving the use of the intellect and knowledge, the domain of speech or writing.
(F)or all of them (Gower, Langland, and Chaucer), poetry is a mediating activity. This notion of the poetic enterprise reinforces the social ideals of a tonally felicitous middle style that was consciously chosen as appropriate to a particular expressive purpose. (Middleton 101)
Being the genre of "Mirror for Prince," and also the only one other than Sir Thopas that Chaucer attached to himself, the Tale of Melibee reveals Chaucer's double role of counselor and critic. His choice of the genre, the subject, and his variations on the source French text, direct the readers to his writings as well as his social strategies.
注释
〔1〕 The frontispiece is now at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.
〔2〕 However, some counter-arguments have been raised in recent years to the effect that Chaucer's audience is confined to a small coterie of professional men like himself, unconnected with the aristocracy, the king, or even a wider reading public. These counterarguments are based on the absence of any records of payments to the poet for works commissioned and of public dedication of his works to royal or aristocratic patrons, and also the lack of manuscripts dating from his time. Compelling and persuasive though, they are not waterproof. Jones rightly points out that the poets of Richard's court are different from minstrels, who are professional performers. They are rather seen as members of the gentry, and direct payment for their literary endeavors was something the "gentlemen-poets" may therefore have wished to avoid. The lack of manuscripts from his time is not sound evidence of that Chaucer's audience did not include aristocracy. On the contrary, it might be the very proof of his close connection with them, because it is possible that his manuscripts were deliberately destroyed by the usurping regime of Henry Ⅳ (Jones, 4).
〔3〕 Refer to Strohm, 1989, esp. Chapter 2: The King's Affinity.
〔4〕 See Jones, 2004.
〔5〕 The Canterbury Tales presents the reader with a good example of the contrast between a minstrel and a poet. When Chaucer the pilgrim recited the poem he had committed to memory a long time ago, that is, the Tale of Sir Thopas, he was cut off even at the third "fit" by Harry Bailey, the host. But immediately after that, Chaucer the pilgrim gave a highbrow example of the "advice to the princes" genre, that is, the Tale of Melibee. The switch from the role of a minstrel, who is simply entertaining, to an intellectual worthy of consultation by his monarch is striking. The different acceptance of the two tales by the pilgrims portrays the rise of poets as well.
〔6〕 The modern version of the two lines are: "You, reader, may easily guess yourself / That such a woe my wit cannot define."
〔7〕 To be an advisor of the king is a dangerous job. They may easily fall victim to factional struggles. As is easily understood, to attack the king himself would have been treason; to attack the king's advisers would avoid this charge while maintaining the pretence of loyalty to the crown. Chaucer was well placed to see the situation and tried to evade any possible blame of being a bad advisor. Even the king's old tutor, Sir Simon Burley, could not be effectively protected by the Crown despite of all the protest and appealing. His execution by the aptly named Merciless Parliament of 1388, though hard to understand and accept, taught a good lesson to other counselors, including Chaucer.
〔8〕 The risk is that they may suffer from censorship or suffer from ineffectiveness, that is, the failure of the implied message to be decoded. So they have to balance the two extremes. In Ferster's words, "The predicament of the writer facing restrictions on speech, as Robert Lane describes it, is that 'strategies that would protect him also risked rendering unintelligible the sensitive material that required protection in the first place." (4)
〔9〕 Detailed analysis, see Ferster, 176.
〔10〕 In Cooper's words, "The most cogent evidence for such a purpose lies in its omission of the quotation from Solomon found in the original, that laments the state of the land where the king is a child: a text that would hardly have been tactful in late fourteenth-century England." (1989:311)
〔11〕 See more in Cooper, 1989, 321.
〔12〕 See Riverside, 17. For more, refer to Riverside, 924: "A number of recent critics regard it as having a central thematic function in the Tales. Howard (Idea of Ct, 309—316) considers it a 'major structural unit' in the Tales, part of the 'address to the ruling class' that is a recurrent theme of the Tales. Ruggiers (in Ch Probs, 83—94) considers the tale's emphasis on prudent action, the taking of wise counsel, and the right use of the intellect part of the main concerns of The Canterbury Tales." Mann asserts the centrality of this Tale and of Prudence in particular (1991, 120—127, also Brewer, 1998, 364—369).
〔13〕 See Stillwell, note 6, 433: Hotson, Leslie, "The Tale of Melibeus and John of Gaunt", Studies in Philology, XVIII, 429—452.
〔14〕 See Stillwell, note 1, 434: George H. Cowling. Chaucer. Methuen. London. 1927, 162.
〔15〕 See Ferster, note 3, 90.
〔16〕 See Howard, 309—316.
〔17〕 Refer to Stillwell, "The Political Meaning of Chaucer's Tale of Melibee", Speculum, 19, 1944, 433—444.
〔18〕 See Ferster 92, note 13.
〔19〕 See Ferster 93, note 15.
〔20〕 The weasel is an embodiment of both a playful little animal figure and an ill-omen associated with trickery and lust.
〔21〕 From 1377, the year of Richard Ⅱ's coronation, there were criticisms against his advisors. But for the first four years of his reign, they were mainly from the Commons. The essence of the criticism was that Richard had patronized more of the new courtier nobility than the established aristocracy in royal access, which has determined the following more fierce hostility between the king and his counselors, and the royal aristocrats. The dissatisfaction was manifested in the continuous demands by the Parliament for investigation into the household expenditure. Facing such grumbles and challenges, Richard took hasty measures by letting the new council take control of the revenues, absenting himself from Westminster to be more closely connected with the young counselors represented by Robert De Vere. In the struggles, Richard played a role the effect of which is the inverse of his intention. He applied "violent, rather than constitutional" methods to fight against those aristocratic counterparts, and finally triggered the battle at Radcot Bridge between his supporters and the opposing royal aristocrats, the Appellants, who finally forced the ultimate destiny of the King's favorites: exile or execution. So from these events, Richard was shown to be the apparent protector of his counselors, but in fact helper of his opponents, because he had provided excuses for their action.
〔22〕 For more, see Strohm, 1989, 26—27.
〔23〕 The name of his daughter, Sophie, that is wisdom in Greek, is Chaucer's, which indicate Chaucer's view, politically or philosophically. (Riverside, 924: "Melibee's wounded daughter is not named in the Latin or French texts. Thundy (NM 77:596) suggests that the naming illustrates Chaucer's concern with the theme of wisdom in the tale; Sophie is Melibee's own wounded wisdom which needs to be healed.")
〔24〕 Michel Foucault, "What is an author?" in Foucault Reader, edited by Paul Rabinow. New York: Pantheon Books, 1984, 101—120.
〔25〕 "Common" here is set against the background of courtly or clerical values, thus more emphasis on common people in society. "Common love" can be shown from poets' concern with commons, as well serve the common as "public servants" in public service. See more in Anne Middleton's "The Idea of Public Poetry in the Reign of Richard Ⅱ."
〔26〕 Ferster's analysis is convincing: "According to Coleman, the poems of complaint in the late fourteenth century 'can be classified thematically as mirrors for princes.' They share with works that are more clearly derived from the Secretum Secretorum themes such as the inadequacies of young counselors and the danger that flatterers will distort the king's perspective. But perhaps because of the risks of retribution for pointed political critique, many of these poems are anonymous. If the writer was known to his audience, especially if he was in a patron's employ or wished to be, he needed protection other than anonymity. As R. F. Green argues, the delicacy of the social positions of a number of the writers of advice whose names we know may account for the abstractions, generalities, and circumspection of their works." (Ferster, 10)
〔27〕 For more, see Ferster, 2.
