Chapter 5 CHAUCER'S HUMOUR

Critics may be divided in opinion as to Chaucer's right to be called the Father of English poetry, but there can be no question that he is the first great English humorist. As far back as Henry III's reign fabliaux had been imported from France, but they took no real root in English soil, and though their coarse jests and indecent situations were fully appreciated by thirteenth- and fourteenth-century readers, they never rose above the level of collections of "merrie tales" and made no pretensions to originality or literary style.

The same stories were repeated again and again, with slight variations, and are often to be found in Indian or Arabian versions as well as in French and English. Chaucer alone, showed that it was possible to see in them a revelation of human nature. The romances, as has been said, were far more French than English, and, even so, comparatively few of them show any flicker of humour. Aucassin and Nicolette stands out as a conspicuous exception, but this is pure French, and the more English romances, such as Guy of Warwick or Bevis of Hampton, take everything with intense seriousness. It is true that the Continental animal epic had begun to make its influence felt in England, but it was still the Continental epic: it belonged to the days of literary free-trade before the national spirit made itself felt in literature. Satire, it is true, had long since made its appearance in England, but except for rude popular rhymes and an occasional poem of greater pretensions-such as the Land of Cokaygne-it was in Latin, and had nothing distinctively English about it. In the Miracle Plays, it is true, we find that mixture of shrewd common-sense and real feeling, of comedy and tragedy, which we are accustomed to regard as characteristically English, but though they had been popular in England for many years before Chaucer began to write, the best of them date from the fifteenth century, and the comic element in the earlier plays seems chiefly to have consisted in rough-and-tumble farce. It was left for Chaucer to show the true meaning and value of the comic point of view, and at the same time to embody the characteristics of a nation which had but recently awakened to the consciousness of its own individuality.

To say that humour is the most subtle and illusive of qualities, is to utter a truism. Certain situations are in themselves necessarily and essentially tragic. The slaying of parent by child, or child by parent; a great shipwreck involving terrible loss of life; any sudden and overwhelming catastrophe must always bring with it a sense of horror. But comedy depends on point of view rather than on situation. An absurdity of dress or manner which would cause us to smile under normal circumstances, would cease to be amusing if it indicated dangerous insanity: a man falling off the roof of a house might go into the most ridiculous attitudes without in the least stirring the spectator's sense of humour. It is this which makes it difficult to accept Professor Bergson's most interesting and suggestive theory of the mechanical nature of comedy as wholly satisfactory. And again, while such tragic incidents as have been suggested appeal to every normal human being, what amuses one person may leave another absolutely untouched. We all know the blank sensation of having our best story received with stony politeness, and the despair of trying to explain a joke. Certain things, however, do appeal in greater or less degree to the majority of people, and among these is the element of unexpectedness. The whole point of the modern musical comedy consists in making the actor behave as no sane person ever dreamed of behaving in actual life. If it were the fashion to enter a room in a series of cart-wheels we should see nothing funny in it. The audience roars with laughter when the elderly gentleman sits on his hat, because hats are not intended to be used as cushions. Nor is this element of unexpectedness confined to mere farce. It constitutes more than half the point of a brilliant repartee or play upon words. The child's misuse of terms is amusing because it suggests something which would never have occurred to us. And it is this which underlies the assertion that humour consists in incongruity. True humour, however, contains far more than this. If comedy plays on the surface of life, its greatest exponents bring home to us the fact that that surface covers a depth. It is no accident that causes Shakespeare's comedies to deepen in tone until they become well-nigh indistinguishable from tragedies, or that leads Chaucer to introduce a Pandarus into the tragedy of Troilus and Criseyde. Comedy has a double value. It is amusing, and it is also a bond which connects us with everyday life. It keeps tragedy from soaring into worlds peopled exclusively by heroes and heroines of almost superhuman greatness, and romance from dwelling wholly in a land of faery. Had the poets of the Restoration ever dared to view their heroes from the comic point of view we should have been spared the bombastic grandiloquence of their Almanzors and Osmyns. Had Rosalind no sense of humour, were Touchstone and Jaques non-existent, As You Like It might still be a charming forest idyll, but it would cease to have any hint of realism.

Chaucer's comedy touches both extremes: it includes the most elementary, and the most subtle forms, and though he never rises to the height of the great Shakespearean dramas, he does reveal possibilities hitherto undreamed of in English literature. For the sake of clearness it may be well to consider his comedy under four heads: farce, wit, satire, humour proper.

(1) Farce.-Farce may be defined as that form of comedy which makes least appeal to the intelligence, which is, in fact, almost wholly physical. An imbecile may be incapable of realising that there is anything unusual in wearing straws in one's hair and therefore may not find the spectacle amusing, but it needs but a very low order of intelligence to appreciate such physical peculiarity-hence the popularity of costume songs, and pantomime generally, which call for no mental effort on the part of the audience. But while farce is undoubtedly the lowest form of comedy, it does not necessarily follow that it is to be despised. The greatest authors do not disdain to make use of it, only they keep it subordinate to other interests. Shakespeare contrives to blend farce with character-study in a way that is truly marvellous. Falstaff's fatness is eminently farcical, and yet it is something more-a starveling Sir John would be a wholly different person. It is farce touched with humour. Dogberry and Verges are of a different species from the comic policeman of musical comedy.

In Chaucer we find both forms of farce. The "sely carpenter" of the Milleres Tale provides plenty of incident well suited to tickle the most elementary sense of the comic. The picture of the unfortunate John victualling his tub in readiness for a second edition of Noah's flood, and sitting in it, slung up to the ceiling, "awaytinge on the reyn," is irresistibly funny, and it is easy to fancy the delight of the audience when, thinking the flood has come, he cuts the cord and comes bumping on to the floor; for the truest farce of all is the practical joke which makes someone else ridiculous. All the coarser tales are full of such episodes. It would make no difference if the incidents were transferred from one tale to another, they have no subtle connection with the personality of those involved in them; the absurdity lies in the actual situation, and is exactly on a level with the rough-and-tumble fights between Noah and his wife, which proved so popular in the Miracle Plays, or the tossing of Mak in a blanket in the well-known Townley Mystery.

The portrait of the drunken Cook contains farce of a somewhat higher order. He is a most unattractive person, and from any other point of view would be merely repulsive. But humour, while it cuts through false sentiment, not infrequently softens down the harsher lines in a character. There is no bitterness in true laughter; we cannot wholly despise what amuses us. In a tract the Cook and the Wife of Bath, the Friar and the Pardoner, would serve as awful warnings. In the Canterbury Tales they show an extraordinary power of disarming criticism and worming themselves into our affections:-

The Cook of London, whyl the Reve spak,

For joye, him thoughte, he clawed him on the bak.

He is a genial rascal after all, and we almost resent his having so unfortunately appropriate a name as Hogge. When he falls asleep as he rides and rolls off his horse our sympathies are with him, though we fully appreciate the force of the Maunciple's plea that he shall not be permitted to tell his tale. The picture of the rest of the pilgrims shoving him to and fro in their efforts to mount him again, is farce of the simplest and most primitive kind, but Roger himself is a live man, not a mere occasion of mirth in others.

The Wyf of Bath, again, is a foul-mouthed, coarse-grained woman, selfish and self-indulgent. Her prologue shows an amazing ignorance of the meaning of clean living, and her piety merely serves as an excuse for seeing the world. Yet such is the power of the comic point of view that it is quite impossible to judge her from the conventional moral standpoint. Comedy lays stress on her good-humour and her sense, and, above all, on her power of amusing the company. Compare her for one moment with Mrs. Sinclair in Clarissa, or the old hag in Dombey and Son, and the effect produced by comic treatment at once becomes evident. It is not that it dulls our moral sense, but it gives us a peculiar tolerance of its own. Instead of judging all men from our own particular plane, we learn to see these illiterate and common folk as they see each other, and we find them extraordinarily human after all.

(2) Wit.-Wit is the intellectual counterpart of farce. Farce at its lowest is actually physical-the jester trips his victim up, 'Arry and 'Arriet exchange hats-and at its highest consists in physical absurdity. Wit appeals as much to a blind man as to one who can see. In neither case has the comic element any necessary connection with the characters of those concerned. Farce, as we have seen, may be combined with humour, and wit may gain an added keenness from our knowledge of the witty person, but in their simplest form neither depends on any such connection. A man chasing his hat is a funny sight, quite apart from our having any idea of who he is. Any additional element of humour which may be added by the fact that it is Mr. So-and-so, who prides himself on his dignified deportment, is not purely farcical. In like manner, a brilliant repartee is amusing, though we may have no notion who uttered it: in fact, not infrequently the same story is told, with equal effect, about two or more different men. At the same time a remark, witty in itself, often gains additional force from its context, and in certain cases the chief point depends on the setting. The wit-traps so beloved by Restoration comedy writers, of which George Meredith speaks in his Essay on Comedy, are typical examples of pure wit. It does not matter in the least by whom the remark is made: the actual verbal sword-play is in itself amusing. Frequently such dialogue does nothing whatever to help on the plot. Its wit is in itself sufficient to justify its existence. Shakespeare, on the other hand, has extraordinarily few passages which can be detached from the play in which they occur, and quoted as essentially amusing. Falstaff's jests without Falstaff lose all their savour, and the wit of a Rosalind or a Beatrice is too intimate a part of her personality for the two to be divorced. Millament's brilliant jests are scintillating jewels of wit. The wit of Shakespeare's heroines is a facet of their character.

Drama naturally affords more scope for the display of wit than does narrative poetry. That Chaucer is witty is undeniable, but his wit shows itself chiefly in sly comments and parentheses, or in the adroit use of an unexpected simile. His dry comment on the probable fate of Arcite's soul; the parenthesis which tells us how small is the number of those who having done well desire to hide their good deeds; the eagle's complaint, in the Hous of Fame, that the poet is "noyous for to carie"; Placebo's explanation of the reason why he has never yet quarrelled with any lord of "heigh estaat," are good examples of the former method. Detached from their context, there is little or nothing in any of them to raise a smile. They contain no play upon words, nothing intrinsically amusing. But in their proper setting they cause that pleasant shock which breeds laughter; they give a sudden whimsical turn to the thought.

The Nonne Preestes Tale illustrates, not only Chaucer's comic use of simile, but, what is closely allied to this, the comic effect produced by speaking of one thing in terms of another. The mock-heroic effect produced by the learning of Chauntecleer and the weight of the illustrations which he adduces in support of his faith in dreams, is inimitable. This cock quotes Josephus and Macrobius and Cato with such pompous gravity that he almost persuades us to share his own sense of his importance. The grave disquisition on predestination and free-will which prefaces the account of his untoward fate has an irresistibly comic effect. This is, however, not purely comic. It is characteristic of Chaucer that he should treat a matter which was evidently much in his thoughts, in this half-ironic manner. The comparison of the bereaved Pertelote to "Hasdrubales wyf," and her sister hens to the wives of the senators of Rome

-whan that Nero brende[109] the citee-

is no less effective. The whole story indeed is treated consistently from the comic point of view, and while here again there is nothing inherently funny in detached passages, wit lights up the poem from end to end.

(3) Satire.-Satire differs from farce or wit in that it has a definite moral purpose.

It is our purpose, Crites, to correct

And punish with our laughter ...

says Mercury in Cynthia's Revels. The satirist deliberately alienates our sympathies from those whom he describes, and as the true humorist is apt to pass from comedy to romance, and from romance to tragedy, so the satirist not infrequently ends by finding rage and disgust overpower his sense of the ridiculous. Ben Jonson passes from the comedy of Every Man in his Humour to the bitterness of Volpone, Swift from the comparative lightness of Gulliver in Lilliput, to the savage brutality of the Hounyhymns. Of satire pure and simple few examples are to be found in Chaucer. The Hous of Fame is indeed satiric in conception, and certain of the pictures it contains are decidedly effective. The fourteenth-century equivalent of the game of Russian Scandal which it describes, has already been noticed. No less ironic is the account of the

shipmen and pilgrymes

With scrippes bret-ful of lesinges

Entremedled with tydinges,[110]

whom the poet meets in the house of Rumour. But the poem as a whole is so lengthy and so much of it is occupied with the description of symbols, references to classical mythology, and other equally serious matters, that the more witty portions stand out conspicuously, and the reader is apt to find some difficulty in seeing the various parts in their proper relation. Successful satire must ever keep its object in view. The Hous of Fame is too discursive to be really effective as a whole.

The fact is that satire is not Chaucer's natural bent. He is too quick-witted not to see through sham and humbug, but his interest lies in portraiture rather than in exposure. His object is to paint life as he sees it, to hold up the mirror to nature, and, as has justly been said, "a mirror has no tendency," it reflects, but it does not, or should not, distort. In two cases only does Chaucer deliberately draw a one-sided picture, and both are topical skits, too slight to regard as satire proper. The Compleint of Mars, which is not specially witty or amusing in itself, is said to have been written at the expense of my lady of York and the Earl of Huntingdon, but any savour which the jest may once have had, has long since passed away. The rhyme of Sir Thopas has already been noticed as a good-natured parody of the conventional romance.

But if Chaucer is too tolerant and genial, too little of a preacher and enthusiast, for a satirist, enough has already been said to show that his wit has often a satiric turn. The student of the Canterbury Tales is often reminded of the worth of another great English humorist. Chaucer and Fielding are alike in a certain air of rollicking good-fellowship, a certain virility, a determination to paint men and women as they know them. Neither is particularly squeamish, both enjoy a rough jest, and have little patience with over-refinement. Both give one a sense of sturdy honesty and kindliness, and know how to combine tenderness with strength. Both, with all their tolerance, have a keen eye for hypocrisy or affectation and a sharp tongue wherewith to chastise and expose it. Chaucer hates no one, not even the Pardoner, as whole-heartedly as Fielding hates Master Blifil, but the Pardoners Tale affords the best instance of the satiric bent of the poet's humour when he is brought face to face with a scheming rogue.

The Host, who has been much moved by the piteous tale of Virginia, turns to the Pardoner for something to remove its depressing influence:-

"Or but I here anon a mery tale."

he cries,

"Myn herte is lost for pitee of this mayde.

Thou belamy,[111] thou Pardoner," he seyde,

"Tel us som mirthe or japes[112] right anon."

The Pardoner is ready enough to oblige, as soon as he has called at the inn they are passing and has eaten and drunk. But it is noteworthy that the pilgrims, who have listened to the Miller's tale without a murmur, are nervous as to what the Pardoner's idea of a merry tale may be. With one voice they protest:-

"Nay! lat him telle us of no ribaudye;[113]

Tell us som moral thing, that we may lere[114]

Som wit, and thanne wol we gladly here."

To the Pardoner it is all one. Practised speaker as he is, a comic story or a sermon comes equally readily to his lips, and he promises with ready good-nature, though he begs for a moment for reflection:-

"I graunte, y-wis," quod he, "but I moste thinke

Up-on som honest thing, whyl that I drinke."

Of their insinuations as to the kind of tale he is likely to tell if left to himself, he takes not the slightest notice. His tongue loosened by the ale, he begins with a cynical confession of his methods as a popular preacher.

"Lordings," quod he, "in chirches whan I preche

I peyne me to han an hauteyn[115] speche,

And ringe it out as round as gooth a belle,

For I can al by rote that I telle.[116]

My theme is alwey oon, and ever was-

'Radix malorum est Cupiditas.'"

Having thus warned his hearers against the love of money, he proceeds to show his credentials, sprinkling a few Latin terms here and there in his speech:-

"To saffron with my predicacioun[117]

And for to stire men to devocioun,"

and then shows his relics, the shoulder-bone of "an holy Jewes shepe," a miraculous mitten which will cause the crops of the man who wears it to increase manifold:-

"By this gaude have I wonne, yeer by yeer,

An hundred mark sith I was Pardoner"-

a pillow-case, which he swears is our Lady's veil, etc., etc. After this he preaches a vehement sermon against avarice, the object of which, he frankly explains, is

"... for to make hem free

To yeve her pens, and namely unto me.

For my entente is nat but for to winne,

And no-thing for correccioun of sinne.

I rekke never, whan that they ben beried,

Though that her soules goon a-blakeberied."[118]

If anyone has offended him, he takes care so to point at him in what he says that the reference is unmistakable and the whole congregation understands who it is that is being denounced:-

"Thus quyte I folk that doon us displeasances."

In fact, the whole object of his preaching is neither more nor less than the amassing of money:-

"Therfore my theme is yet, and ever was-

'Radix malorum est Cupiditas.'

······

For I wol preche and begge in sondry londes;

I wol not do no labour with myn hondes

······

I wol have money, wolle, chese, and whete,

Al were it yeven of the poorest page,

Or of the poorest widwe in a village."

No wonder that

Up-on a day he gat him more moneye

Than that the person[119] gat in monthes tweye.

After this shameless confession, the Pardoner offers to relate one of the moral tales which he has found most efficacious in cajoling money out of unwilling pockets.

In Flaundres whylom was a companye

Of yonge folk, that haunteden folye[120] ...

thus he begins, and so moved is he with the thought of the folly of these young people that, with his own lips scarce dry from their last draught of corny ale, he proceeds to denounce gluttony and drunkenness in no measured terms. It is an admirable sermon, full of apt illustrations and appropriate references to the Bible. It enables us to see, at the outset, how the preacher succeeds in dominating his illiterate audiences when he speaks in the village churches. Having got well into his stride, the Pardoner passes on to the promised tale. Among the riotous company are three young men. One day, as they sit drinking in a tavern, they hear the bell toll, and sending a servant to inquire the cause, they learn that Death has carried away one of their companions. With pot-valiant courage they declare their intention of seeking out and slaying this false traitor Death, and without more ado set forth on the quest. An old man, whom they meet by the way, tells them that Death is to be found in a neighbouring grove, under a tree:-

And everich of thise ryotoures ran

Til he cam to that tree, and ther they founde

Of florins fyne of golde y-coyned rounde

Wel ny an eighte busshels, as hem thoughte.

The sight effectually puts Death out of their minds. They decide that the treasure must be hidden, and since it will be well to wait for darkness before venturing to remove it, they draw lots to determine which of them shall run to the town for meat and drink, while the other two keep guard. The lot falls on the youngest, but no sooner has he gone than the two who remain plot to murder him when he comes back, since there will be the more gold for them if he is out of the way. The youngest also thinks it a pity to divide such wealth by three, and having reached the town he goes to an apothecary and demands

Som poyson, that he mighte his rattes quelle.[121]

He then buys three bottles, puts poison in two and reserves the third for his own use. On his return he is slain by the other two.

And whan that this was doon, thus spak that oon,

"Now lat us sitte and drinke, and make us merie

And afterward we wol his body berie."

Thus all three find Death where they sought him.

The story is told with considerable force. The action moves quickly, and there is enough grim suggestiveness to stir the hearer's imagination without the detail being in any way overloaded. The picture of the old man vainly seeking death as he strikes his staff upon the ground and cries: "Leve moder, leet me in"; the brief dialogue between the two roisterers in the wood; the description of the thoughts that chase each other through the mind of the third as he runs, all show a power of vivid dramatic presentation. It is not in the least such a tale as the pilgrims expect from the Pardoner. The poor Parson himself could point no better moral. And it ends with (of all things!) an impassioned appeal against avarice. The Pardoner has fallen unconsciously into his professional manner. Carried away by his own eloquence, he forgets that he began by explaining the trick of the whole thing. No doubt, as he himself had said, he has used the tale often enough as a means of extorting money, and with the most convincing fervour he begs the pilgrims-with his confession fresh in their minds-to beware of covetousness, and to press forward and make their offerings to his holy relics. So naturally have we been led on step by step, so easily has he passed from cynicism to sermon, and from sermon to application, that it is something of a shock when the Host, instead of hastening to kiss the relics as he is bidden, responds to the invitation with a coarse jest. The anger of the Pardoner at this indignity is explicable only on the ground that he was so consummate an actor that he had literally forgotten himself in his part. A hypocrite he undoubtedly is, but not the crude, deliberate hypocrite whom the later satirists of the Puritans delighted to draw, nor even the Pecksniffian hypocrite who, while he retains his mask, even in private, never loses consciousness of the fact that it is a mask; he has something of the artistic temperament, and his failure to impress the pilgrims gives him a real, though momentary, jar. The subtle irony with which the whole picture is drawn is perfect in its restraint. The vulgar rogue is sufficiently represented by the Friar. The Pardoner is of higher intelligence, and while we condemn him we recognise his ability.

The suggestion that the various birds in the Parlement of Foules represent courtiers of the day, has already been noticed. If it is true, the satire is of so genial and playful a kind that even the goose can scarcely have been hurt by it. More than once Chaucer draws an amusing picture of a gossiping, foolish crowd, but while it is evident that he has no very high opinion of the intelligence of people in the mass, there is no trace of bitterness in his descriptions. The well-meaning busybodies who come to comfort Criseyde are as helplessly incompetent as "the goos, the cokkow, and the doke," but though fussy and self-centred, they have too much real kindliness for it to be possible not to feel a certain affection for them. Perhaps the best of all Chaucer's crowds is that in the Squieres Tale which gathers to look at the horse of brass, and the other magic gifts:-

Diverse folk diversely they demed;

As many hedes, as many wittes ther been.

They murmureden as dooth a swarm of been,[122]

And maden skiles after hir fantasyes,[123]

Rehersinge of thise olde poetryes,

And seyden, it was lyk the Pegasee,

The hors that hadde winges for to flee;

Or elles it was the Grekes hors Synon,[124]

That broghte Troye to destruccion,

As men may in thise olde gestes rede.

"Myn herte," quod oon, "is evermore in drede;

I trowe som men of armes been ther-inne,

That shapen[125] hem this citee for to winne.

It were right good that al swich thing were knowe."

Another rowned[126] to his felawe lowe,

And seyde, "He lyeth, it is rather lyk

An apparance y-maad by som magyk

As jogelours pleyen at thise festes grete."

Of sondry doutes thus they jangle and trete,

As lewed[127] peple demeth comunly

Of thinges that been maad more subtilly,

Than they can in her lewedness comprehende:

They demen gladly to the badder ende.

With equal learning they discuss the mirror and sword and ring, and having paraded their knowledge of "sondry harding of metal," "fern-asshen glass" and similar wonderful inventions, come to no conclusion.

(4) Humour.-If it is difficult to draw a hard-and-fast line round other elements of comedy, and detach wit from satire, or satire from farce, it is still harder to attempt to isolate humour and discuss it as a separate and distinct property. Humour is the sympathetic appreciation of the comic, the faculty which enables us to love while we laugh, and to love the better for our laughter. Something has already been said of the softening influence of comedy. It is humour which enables us to see the other person's point of view, to distinguish between crimes and misdemeanours, so that we no more wish to convert Sir Toby from the error of his ways than to reduce the fat boy's appetite. Above all, it is humour which points out those endearing peculiarities, those little foibles and harmless weaknesses which give Parson Adams and the Vicar of Wakefield so warm a place in our affections. There is no sting in such laughter, no conscious superiority; on the contrary, it contains an element of tenderness. Obviously humour is distinct from satire, but it can be distinguished from farce and wit only by insisting on the externals when speaking of them. Humour is indeed the soul of all comedy. Satire, being destructive, not constructive, is in a class apart, but even satire-as we have seen in Chaucer's picture of a crowd-may become so softened by humour that it loses the element of caricature and serves only to give a keener edge to wit.

Chaucer's whole point of view is that of the humorist. To the tragic writer things apparently trifling in themselves may be fraught with deep significance. A chance movement, a momentary impulse, may set fire to the train which brings about the catastrophe, or may reveal some subtle shade of character which it is essential that we should see. But the tragedian has no time to waste on trifles for their own sake. If Shakespeare shows us the sleepy porter unbarring the gate of Macbeth's castle, or the grave-diggers of Elsinore singing at their work, it is not because he wants our thoughts to dwell on either the one or the other. They have their place as part of the tragedy, and it is the sense of tragedy, not the triviality of the incident which is uppermost in our mind. But the comic poet saunters gaily through life pausing to notice every trifle as he passes. He views the world as the unaccustomed traveller views a foreign country; the old women at their cottage doors, the peasants plodding behind their patient oxen in the field, the very names above the shops, all are interesting. There is no such thing as a dull person, the mere fashion in which a man walks or wears his clothes is worth recording, not because it throws any subtle light upon his character, but because it is unusual and therefore quaint, because, in fact, the unexpected is manifesting itself in these homely details.

Chaucer possesses this faculty of amused observation in a pre-eminent degree. Again and again he contrives to invest some perfectly trifling and commonplace incident with an air of whimsicality, and by so doing to make it at once realistic and remote. We are never wholly absorbed by what amuses us, in the sense that we are absorbed by what appeals to our tragic emotions. Laughter implies a certain detachment, whereas in tragedy we feel with those concerned with an intensity which often causes us to lose all consciousness of our own individuality. We may be surprised to find the tears in our eyes, but we are always conscious of our laughter.

This homely, whimsical point of view shows itself in a thousand minute touches. Friar John, in the Somnours Tale, goes to call on friend Thomas:-

And fro the bench he droof awey the cat,

And leyde adoun his potente[128] and his hat,

And eek his scrippe, and sette him softe adoun....

The rout pursues dan Russel the fox:-

And cryden, "Out! harrow! and weylawey!

Ha, ha, the fox!" and after him they ran,

And eek with staves many another man;

Ran Colle our dogge, and Talbot, and Gerland,

And Malkin, with a distaf in her hand;

Ran cow and calf, and eek the verray hogges

So were they fered for berking of the dogges

And shouting of the men and wimmen eek,

They ronne so, hem thoughte hir herte brekke.

They yelleden as feendes doon in hell?;

The dokes[129] cryden as men wolde hem quelle;[130]

The gees for fere flowen[131] over the trees;

Out of the hyve cam the swarm of bees....

There is nothing wildly farcical in any of this. Friar John does not sit on the cat; the men and dogs do not tumble over each other. The humour consists in the point of view which finds such incidents worth recording. It is not what he says, but the way he says it; not what he sees, but the way he sees it.

As to the sympathetic quality of humour, that is even more obvious in all Chaucer's work. It is sympathy that lies at the bottom of a tolerance so wide that it hardly finds it necessary to forgive. When Chaucer needs a melodramatic villain or villainess such as Apius, or Alle's mother, he can depict one, but except when it affords opportunity for comedy he usually touches an evil character but lightly. His heart lies in the pure poetry of such women as Constance and Dorigen, or in broadly comic effect: he has no desire to sound the depths of human nature or to dwell upon the darker and more terrible side of life. Shakespeare's comedy is often touched with a suggestion of something faintly tragic. Even Falstaff is by no means a wholly comic figure, and the wisdom of Jaques, with all its affectation, contains a truth that goes beneath the surface. Chaucer seldom shows us the revealing power of comedy, but, like Shakespeare, he is not afraid to blend gaiety and gravity in the same person. From one point of view the Book of the Duchesse is surely the most cheerful elegy ever written. Chaucer does not tell off certain low-class characters for comic effect, he allows even the noblest and best a sense of humour. When we think of the serious and lachrymose heroines of romance, we feel that Chaucer's women owe half their vitality to the fact that they are not afraid to laugh, that noble and high-minded as they are, they are part and parcel of the ordinary stuff of human life.

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