GEOFFREY CHAUCER (c. 1340-1400)

The Complete Works. Edited . . . by the Rev. Walter W. Skeat... Oxford: . . . 1906.

(a) The Prologue; (b) The Miller's Tale, ll. 3190 ff.

What charming complementary pictures are presented by the Clerk, and the povre scoler, of Oxenford! This contrast of the Melancholy' and the ' Merry' Man was a favourite in the seventeenth century.

The Clerk of Oxenford

A CLERK ther was of Oxenford also,
That un-to logyk hadde longe y-go.
As lene was his hors as is a rake,
And he nas nat right fat, I undertake;
But looked holwe, and ther-to sobrely.
Ful thredbar was his overest courtepy';
For he had geten him yet no benefyce,
Ne was so worldly for to have offyce.
For him was lever have at his beddes heed
Twenty bokes, clad in blak or reed,
Of Aristotle and his philosophye,
Than robes riche, or fithele, or gay sautrye':
But al be that he was a philosophre,
Yet hadde he but litel gold in cofre;
But al that he myghte of his freendes hente,
On bokes and on lerninge he it spente,
And bisily gan for the soules preye
Of hem that yaf hym wher-with to scoleye.
Of studie took he most cure and most hede,
Noght o word spak he more than was nede,
And that was seyd in forme and reverence,
And short and quik and ful of hy sentence.
2 harp.

1 short coat.

THE CLERK OF OXENFORD

Souninge3 in moral vertu was his speche,
And gladly wolde he lerne, and gladly teche.
The Poore Scoler of Oxenford

With him ther was dwellinge a povre scoler,
Had lerned art, but al his fantasye
Was turned for to lerne astrologye.
A chambre hadde he in that hostelrye
Allone, with-outen any companye,
Ful fetisly y-dight with herbes swote;
His Almageste and bokes grete and smale,
His astrelabie, longinge for his art,
His augrim-stones layen faire a-part
On shelves couched at his beddes heed:
His presse y-covered with a falding reed.
And al above ther lay a gay sautrye,
On which he made a nightes melodye
So swetely, that al the chambre
And Angelus ad Virginem he song;
And after that he song the kinges note;
Ful often blessed was his mery throte.
And thus this swete clerk his tyme spente
After his freendes findings and his rente.
4 daintily. 5 numeration-counters.
according to. 8 provision.

3 tending to.

6

a coarse cloth.

rong;

9

SEBASTIAN BRANT (1457-1521)

The Shyp of folys of the worlde . . . translated... by
Alexander Barclay Preste:...1509.
1509. fol. [fol.
xiii b]

Reprinted 1874, ed. T. H. Jamieson.

[The German original. Das Narren Schyff. 1494.]

The Boke-Fole is one of the first of the numerous English sketches of the 'pedant mind' as Addison terms the type. One of his illustrations is his Tom Folio, who is certainly the Boke-Fole's descendant.

There are, of course, many examples of the Boke-Fole and the pedant outside English literature. Lucian's diatribe against The Ignorant Book-Collector has rich material for a character-sketch though hardly the form. One remark offers an interesting parallel to Brant's Fole: καὶ σὺ τοίνυν βιβλίον μὲν ἔχεις ἐν τῇ χειρὶ καὶ ἀναγιγνώσκεις ἀεί, τῶν δὲ ἀναγιγνωσκομένων οἶσθα οὐδέν, ἀλλ ̓ ὄνος λύρας ἀκούεις κινῶν τὰ ὦτα. You have always a book in your hand, you are always reading; but what it is all about, you have not an idea; you do but prick up asinine ears at the lyre's sound.' 1

The illustration depicts the essentials of the type sufficiently to prove an apt commentary on its many subsequent embodiments whether these were created by Overbury, Earle, Butler, 'A Lady,' or Addison himself. The woodcut is the second of that remarkable series which made the Shyp of Folys famous all over Europe far more, it is to be suspected, than the somewhat pedestrian text. This, however, had the recognised merit of substituting concrete types for the abstractions of medieval allegory.

The Boke-Fole

STYLL am I besy bokes assemblynge
For to have plenty it is a pleasaunt thynge

1 Lucian, trans. by H. W. and F. G. Fowler, iii. p. 267. Oxford Library of Translations, 1905.

ΙΟ

In my conceyt
and to have them ay in honde
But what they mene do I nat understonde
But yet I have them in great reverence

And honoure savynge them from fylth and ordure
By often brusshynge, and moche dylygence
Full goodly bounde in pleasaunt coverture
Of domas,1 satyn, or els of velvet pure

I kepe them sure ferynge lyst they sholde be lost
For in them is the connynge wherin I me bost

But if it fortune that any lernyd men
Within my house fall to disputacion

I drawe the curtyns to shewe my bokes then
That they of my cunnynge sholde make probacion
I kepe not2 to fall in altercacion

And whyle they comon3 my bokes I turne and wynde

For all is in them, and no thynge in my mynde

Lo in lyke wyse of bokes I have store
But fewe I rede, and fewer understande
I folowe nat theyr doctryne nor theyr lore
It is ynoughe to bere a boke in hande
It were too moche to be it suche a bande
For to be bounde to loke within the boke
I am content on the fayre coverynge to loke.

care not. 3 discuss. Cp. O.E.D. bond.