Volume 16 — JOHN GOWER
Reading edition
(1325?-1408)
ince Caxton, the first printer of 'Confessio Amantis' (The Confession of a Lover), described Gower as a "squyer borne in Walys in the tyme of Kyng Richard the second," there has been a diversity of opinion about his birthplace, and he has been classed variously with prosperous Gowers until of late, when the county assigned to him is Kent. His birth-year is placed approximately at 1325. We know nothing of his early life and education. It has been guessed that he went to Oxford, and afterwards traveled in the troubled kingdom of France. Such a course might have been followed by a man of his estate. He had means, for English property records (in this instance the rolls of Chancery, the parchment foundation of English society) still preserve deeds of his holdings in Kent and Essex and elsewhere.
John Gower
His life lay along with that of Chaucer's, in the time when Edward III. and his son the Black Prince were carrying war into France, and the English Parliament were taking pay in plain speaking for what they granted in supplies, and wresting at the same time promises of reform from the royal hand. But Gower and Chaucer were not only contemporaries: they were of like pursuit, tastes, and residence; they were friends; and when Chaucer under Richard II., the grandson and successor of Edward, went to France upon the mission of which Froissart speaks, he named John Gower as one of his two attorneys while he should be away. Notice of Gower's marriage to Agnes Groundolf late in life—in 1397—is still preserved. Three years after this he became blind,—it was the year 1400, in which Chaucer died,—and in 1408 he died.
"The infirm poet," says Morley, "spent the evening of his life at St. Mary Overies [St. Mary-over-the-River], in retirement from all worldly affairs except pious and liberal support of the advancing building works in the priory, and in the church now known as St. Saviour's [Southwark], to which he bequeathed his body. His will, made not long before death, bequeathed his soul to God, his body to be buried in St. Mary Overies. The poet bequeathed also 13s. 4d. to each of the four parish churches of Southwark for ornaments and lights, besides 6s. 8d. for prayers to each of their curates. It is not less characteristic that he left also 40s. for prayers to the master of St. Thomas's Hospital, and, still for prayers, 6s. 8d. to each of its priests, 3s. 4d. to each Sister in the hospital, twenty pence to each nurse of the infirm there, and to each of the infirm twelve pence. There were similar bequests to St. Thomas Elsing Spital, a priory and hospital that stood where now stands Sion College. St. Thomas Elsing Spital, founded in 1329 by William Elsing, was especially commended to the sympathies of the blind old poet, as it consisted of a college for a warden, four priests, and two clerks, who had care of one hundred old, blind, and poor persons of both sexes, preference being given to blind, paralytic, and disabled priests. Like legacies were bequeathed also to Bedlam-without-Bishopsgate, and to St. Mary's Hospital, Westminster. Also there were bequests of ten shillings to each of the leper-nurses. Two robes (one of white silk, the other of blue baudekin,—a costly stuff with web of gold and woof of silk), also a new dish and chalice, and a new missal, were bequeathed to the perpetual service of the altar of the chapel of St. John the Baptist, in which his body was to be buried. To the prior and convent he left a great book, a 'Martyrology,' which had been composed and written for them at his expense. To his wife Agnes he left a hundred pounds, three cups, one coverlet, two salt-cellars, and a dozen silver spoons; also all his beds and chests, with the furnishings of hall, pantry, and kitchen; also a chalice and robe for the altar of the chapel of their house; and she was to have for life all rents due to him from his manors of Southwell (in Nottingham) and Moulton (in Suffolk)."
His wife was one of his executors. The will is still preserved at Lambeth Palace.
Gower's tomb and monument may also still be seen at St. Saviour's, where the description Berthelet gave of them in 1532 is, aside from the deadening of the paintings, true:—"Somewhat after the olde ffashion he lyeth ryght sumptuously buryed, with a garland on his head, in token that he in his lyfe dayes flouryshed freshely in literature and science." The head of his stone effigy lies upon three volumes representing Gower's three great works; the hair falls in long curls; the robe is closely buttoned to the feet, which rest upon a lion, and the neck is encircled with a collar, from which a chain held a small swan, the badge of Henry IV. "Besyde on the wall where as he lyeth," continues Berthelet, "there be peynted three virgins, with crownes on theyr heades; one of the which is written Charitie, and she holdeth this devise in her hande:—
'En toy qui fitz de Dieu le Pere Sauve soit que gist souz cest piere.' (In thee, who art Son of God the Father, Be he saved who lieth under this stone.)
"The second is wrytten Mercye, which holdeth in her hande this devise:—
'O bone Jesu fait ta mercy Al alme dont le corps gist icy.' (O good Jesus, grant thy mercy To the soul whose body lies here.)
"The thyrde of them is wrytten Pity, which holdeth in her hand this devise:—
'Pur ta pite, Jesu regarde, Et met cest alme en sauve garde.'" (For thy pity, Jesus, see; And take this soul in thy safe guard.)
The monument was repaired in 1615, 1764, and 1830.
The three works which pillow the head of the effigy indicate Gower's 'Speculum Meditantis' (The Looking-Glass of One Meditating), which the poet wrote in French; the 'Vox Clamantis' (The Voice of One Crying), in Latin; and the 'Confessio Amantis,' in English. It should be remembered in noting this mixture of tongues, that in Gower's early life the English had no national speech. The court, Parliament, nobles, and the courts of law used French; the Church held its service in Latin; while the inhabitants of Anglo-Saxon blood clung to the language of their fathers, which they had modified by additions from the Norman tongue. It was not until 1362 that Parliament was opened by a speech in English. "There is," says Dr. Pauli, "no better illustration of the singular transition to the English language than a short enumeration and description of Gower's writings." Of the 'Speculum Meditantis,' a treatise in ten books on the duties of married life, no copy is known to exist. The 'Vox Clamantis' was the voice of the poet, singing in Latin elegiac of the terrible evils which led to the rise of the commons and their march to London under Wat Tyler and Jack Straw in 1381. It is doubtless a true picture of the excesses and miseries of the day. The remedy, the poet says, is in reform—right living and love of England. Simony in the prelates, avarice and drunkenness in the libidinous priests, wealth and luxury in the mendicant orders, miscarrying of justice in the courts, enrichment of individuals by excessive taxes,—these are the subjects of the voice crying in the wilderness.
Gower's greatest work, however, is the 'Confessio Amantis.' In form it is a dialogue between a lover and his confessor, who is a priest of Venus. In substance it is a setting-forth, with moralizings which are at times touching and elevated, of one hundred and twelve different stories, from sources so different as the Bible, Ovid, Josephus, the 'Gesta Romanorum,' Valerius Maximus, Statius, Boccaccio, etc. Thirty thousand eight-syllabled rhymed lines make up the work. There are different versions. The first was dedicated to Richard II., and the second to his successor, Henry of Lancaster. Besides these large works, a number of French ballades, and also English and Latin short poems, are preserved. "They have real and intrinsic merit," says Todd: "they are tender, pathetic, and poetical, and place our old poet Gower in a more advantageous point of view than that in which he has heretofore been usually seen."
Estimates of Gower's writings are various; but even his most hostile judges admit the pertinence of the epithet with which Chaucer hails him in his dedication of 'Troilus and Creseide':—
"O morall Gower, this bookè I direct To thee and to the philosophicall Strode, To vouchsafè there need is to correct Of your benignities and zealès good."
Then Skelton the laureate, in his long song upon the death of Philip Sparrow (which recalls the exquisite gem of Catullus in a like threnody), takes occasion to say:—
"Gower's englysshè is olde, And of no valúe is tolde; His mattér is worth gold, And worthy to be enrold."
And again:—
Gower that first garnishèd our English rude."
Old Puttenham also bears this testimony:—"But of them all [the English poets] particularly this is myne opinion, that Chaucer, with Gower, Lidgate, and Harding, for their antiquitie ought to have the first place."
Taine dismisses him with little more than a fillip, and Lowell, while discoursing appreciatively on Chaucer, says:—
"Gower has positively raised tediousness to the precision of science; he has made dullness an heirloom for the students of our literary history. As you slip to and fro on the frozen levels of his verse, which give no foothold to the mind; as your nervous ear awaits the inevitable recurrence of his rhyme, regularly pertinacious as the tick of an eight-day clock, and reminding you of Wordsworth's
'Once more the ass did lengthen out The hard dry seesaw of his horrible bray,'
you learn to dread, almost to respect, the powers of this indefatigable man. He is the undertaker of the fair mediæval legend, and his style has the hateful gloss, the seemingly unnatural length, of a coffin."
Yet hear Morley:—
"To this day we hear among our living countrymen, as was to be heard in Gower's time and long before, the voice passing from man to man, that in spite of admixture with the thousand defects incident to human character, sustains the keynote of our literature, and speaks from the soul of our history the secret of our national success. It is the voice that expresses the persistent instinct of the English mind to find out what is unjust among us and undo it, to find out duty to be done and do it, as God's bidding.... In his own Old English or Anglo-Saxon way he tries to put his soul into his work. Thus in the 'Vox Clamantis' we have heard him asking that the soul of his book, not its form, be looked to; and speaking the truest English in such sentences as that 'the eye is blind and the ear deaf, that convey nothing down to the heart's depth; and the heart that does not utter what it knows is as a live coal under ashes. If I know little, there may be another whom that little will help.... But to the man who believes in God, no power is unattainable if he but rightly feels his work; he ever has enough, whom God increases.' This is the old spirit of Cædmon and of Bede; in which are laid, while the earth lasts, the strong foundations of our literature. It was the strength of such a temper in him that made Gower strong. 'God knows,' he says again, 'my wish is to be useful; that is the prayer that directs my labor.' And while he thus touches the root of his country's philosophy, the form of his prayer—that what he has written may be what he would wish it to be—is still a thoroughly sound definition of good English writing. His prayer is that there may be no word of untruth, and that 'each word may answer to the thing it speaks of, pleasantly and fitly; that he may flatter in it no one, and seek in it no praise above the praise of God.'"
The part of Gower's writing here brought before the reader is the quaintly told and charming story of Petronella, from 'Liber Primus' of the 'Confessio.' It may be evidence that all the malediction upon the poet above quoted is not deserved.
The 'Confessio Amantis' has been edited and collated with the best manuscripts by Dr. Reinhold Pauli (1857). The 'Vox Clamantis' was printed for the first time in 1850, under the editorship of H. O. Coxe and for the Roxburghe Club. The 'Balades and Other Poems' are also included in the publication of the Roxburghe Club. Other sources of information regarding Gower are 'Illustrations of the Lives and Writings of Gower and Chaucer' by Henry J. Todd (1810); Henry Morley's reviews in 'English Writers'; and various short articles.
PETRONELLA
From the 'Confessio Amantis'
A king whilom was yonge and wise, The which set of his wit great prise. Of depe ymaginations And straunge interpretations, Problemes and demaundès eke His wisedom was to finde and seke; Wherof he wolde in sondry wise Opposen hem that weren wise. But none of hem it mightè bere Upon his word to yive answére;[1] Out taken one, which was a knight: To him was every thing so light, That also sone as he hem herde The kingès wordès he answerde, What thing the king him axè wolde, Whereof anone the trouth he tolde. The king somdele had an envie, And thought he wolde his wittès plie To setè some conclusion, Which shuldè be confusion Unto this knight, so that the name And of wisdom the highè fame Towárd him selfe he woldè winne. And thus of all his wit withinne This king began to studie and muse What straungè matér he might use The knightès wittès to confounde; And atè last he hath it founde, And for the knight anon he sente, That he shall tellè what he mente. Upon three points stood the matére, Of questions as thou shaltè here. The firstè pointè of all thre Was this: what thing in his degre Of all this world hath nedè lest, And yet men helpe it allthermest. The second is: what moste is worth And of costáge is lest put forth. The thrid is: which is of most cost, And lest is worth, and goth to lost. The king these thre demaundès axeth. To the knight this law he taxeth: That he shall gone, and comen ayein The thriddè weke, and tell him pleine To every point, what it amounteth. And if so be that he miscounteth To make in his answére a faile, There shall none other thinge availe, The king saith, but he shall be dede And lese his goodès and his hede. This knight was sory of this thinge, And wolde excuse him to the kinge; But he ne wolde him nought forbere, And thus the knight of his answére Goth home to take avisement. But after his entendement The more he cast his wit about, The more he stant thereof in doubte. Tho[2] wist he well the kingès herte, That he the deth ne shulde asterte,[3] And suche a sorroe to him hath take That gladship he hath all forsake. He thought first upon his life, And after that upon his wife, Upon his children eke also, Of whichè he had doughteres two. The yongest of hem had of age Fourtene yere, and of visage She was right faire, and of stature Lich to an hevenlich figure, And of manér and goodly speche, Though men wolde all landès seche, They shulden nought have founde her like. She sigh[4] her fader sorroe and sike,[5] And wist nought the causè why. So cam she to him prively, And that was wher he made his mone Within a gardin all him one.[6] Upon her knees she gan down falle With humble herte, and to him calle And saidè:—"O good fader dere, Why makè ye thus hevy chere,[7] And I wot nothinge how it is? And well ye knowè, fader, this, What ádventurè that you felle Ye might it saufly to me telle; For I have oftè herd you saide, That ye such truste have on me laide, That to my suster ne to my brother In all this worlde ne to none other Ye durstè telle a privete So well, my fader, as to me. Forthy,[8] my fader, I you praie Ne casteth nought that hert[9] awaie, For I am she that woldè kepe Your honour." And with that to wepe Her eye may nought be forbore;[10] She wisheth for to ben unbore,[11] Er[12] that her fader so mistriste To tellen her of that he wiste. And ever among mercy[13] she cride, That he ne shulde his counseil hide From her, that so wolde him good And was so nigh flesshe and blood. So that with weping, atè laste His chere upon his childe he caste, And sorroefully to that she praide[14] He tolde his tale, and thus he saide:— "The sorroe, doughter, which I make Is nought all only for my sake, But for the bothe and for you alle. For suche a chaunce is me befalle, That I shall er this thriddè day Lese all that ever I lesè may, My life and all my good therto. Therefore it is I sorroe so." "What is the cause, alas," quod she, "My fader, that ye shulden be Dede and destruied in suche a wise?" And he began the points devise, Which as the king tolde him by mouthe, And said her pleinly, that he couthe Answeren to no point of this. And she, that hereth howe it is, Her counseil yaf[15] and saide tho[16]:— "My fader, sithen it is so, That ye can se none other weie, But that ye must nedès deie, I wolde pray you of o[17] thinge,— Let me go with you to the kinge, And ye shall make him understonde, How ye, my wittès for to fonde, Have laid your answere upon me, And telleth him in such degre Upon my worde ye wol abide To life or deth, what so betide. For yet perchaunce I may purchace With some good word the kingès grace, Your life and eke your good to save. For oftè shall a woman have Thing, whiche a man may nought areche." The fader herd his doughters speche, And thought there was no reson in, And sigh his ownè life to winne He couthè done himself no cure.[18] So better him thought in àventure To put his life and all his good, Than in the manner as it stood, His life incertein for to lese. And thus thenkend he gan to chese To do the counseil of this maid, And toke the purpose which she said. The day was comen, and forth they gone; Unto the court they come anone, Where as the kinge in his jugement Was set and hath this knight assent. Arraièd in her bestè wise, This maiden with her wordès wise Her fader leddè by the honde Into the place,[19] where he fonde The king with other which he wolde; And to the king knelend he tolde As he enformèd was to-fore, And praith the king, that he therfore His doughters wordès woldè take; And saith, that he woll undertake Upon her wordès for to stonde. Tho was ther great merveile on honde, That he, which was so wise a knight, His life upon so yonge a wight Besettè wolde in jeopartie, And many it helden for folie. But at the lastè, netheles, The king commaundeth ben in pees, And to this maide he cast his chere,[20] And saide he wolde her talè here, And bad her speke; and she began:— "My legè lord, so as I can," Quod she, "the pointès which I herde, They shull of reson ben answerde. The first I understonde is this: What thinge of all the worlde it is, Which men most helpe and hath lest nede. My legè lord, this wolde I rede: The erthe it is, which evermo With mannès labour is bego As well in winter as in maie. The mannès honde doth what he may To helpe it forth and make it riche, And forthy men it delve and diche, And even it with strength of plough, Wher it hath of him self inough So that his nede is atè leste. For every man, birdè, and beste Of flour and gras and roote and rinde And every thing by way of kinde Shall sterve, and erthe it shall become As it was out of erthè nome,[21] It shall be therthe torne ayein.[22] And thus I may by reson sein That erthè is the most nedeles And most men helpe it netheles; So that, my lord, touchend of this I have answerde how that it is. That other point I understood, Which most is worth, and most is good, And costeth lest a man to kepe: My lorde, if ye woll takè kepe,[23] I say it is humilitè, Through whichè the high Trinitè As for desertè of pure love Unto Mariè from above, Of that he knewe her humble entente, His ownè Sone adown he sente Above all other, and her he chese For that vertu, which bodeth pees. So that I may by reson calle Humilitè most worthe of alle, And lest it costeth to mainteine In all the worlde, as it is seine. For who that hath humblesse on honde, He bringeth no werres into londe, For he desireth for the best To setten every man in reste. Thus with your highè reverence Me thenketh that this evidence As to this point is suffisaunt. And touchend of the remenaunt, Which is the thridde of your axinges, What lest is worth of allè thinges, And costeth most, I telle it pride, Which may nought in the heven abide. For Lucifer with hem that felle Bar pridè with him into helle. There was pride of to grete cost Whan he for pride hath heven lost; And after that in Paradise Adam for pridè lost his prise In middel-erth. And eke also Pride is the cause of allè wo, That all the world ne may suffice To staunche of pridè the reprise. Pride is the heved[24] of all sinne, Which wasteth all and may nought winne; Pride is of every mis[25] the pricke[26]; Pride is the worstè of all wicke, And costeth most and lest is worth In placè where he hath his forth. Thus have I said that I woll say Of min answére, and to you pray, My legè lorde, of your office, That ye such grace and suche justice Ordeignè for my fader here, That after this, whan men it here, The world therof may spekè good." The king, which reson understood, And hath all herde how she hath said, Was inly glad, and so well paid, That all his wrath is over go. And he began to lokè tho Upon this maiden in the face, In which he found so mochel grace, That all his prise on her he laide In audience, and thus he saide:— "My fairè maidè, well the[27] be Of thin answére, and eke of the Me liketh well, and as thou wilte, Foryivè be thy faders gilte. And if thou were of such lignage, That thou to me were of parage, And that thy fader were a pere, As he is now a bachelere, So siker as I have a life, Thou sholdest thannè be my wife. But this I saiè netheles, That I woll shapè thin encrese; What worldès good that thou wolt crave Are of my yift, and thou shalt have." And she the king with wordès wise, Knelende, thanketh in this wise:— "My legè lord, god mot you quite.[28] My fader here hath but a lite Of warison,[29] and that he wende Had all be[30] lost, but now amende He may well through you noble grace." With that the king right in his place Anon forth in that freshè hete An erldome, which than of eschete Was latè falle into his honde, Unto this knight with rent and londe Hath yove, and with his chartre sesed, And thus was all the noise appesed. This maiden, which sate on her knees To-fore the kingès charitees, Commendeth and saith evermore:— "My legè lord, right now to-fore Ye saide, and it is of recorde, That if my fader were a lorde And pere unto these other grete, Ye wolden for nought ellès lette, That I ne sholdè be your wife. And thus wote every worthy life A kingès worde mot nede be holde. Forthy my lord, if that ye wolde So great a charitè fulfille, God wotè it were well my wille. For he which was a bachelere, My fader, is now made a pere; So whan as ever that I cam, An erlès doughter nowe I am." This yongè king, which peisèd[31] all Her beautè and her wit withall, As he, which was with lovè hente,[32] Anone therto gaf his assente. He might nought the place asterte, That she nis lady of his herte. So that he toke her to his wife To holdè, while that he hath life. And thus the king towárd his knight Accordeth him, as it is right. And over this good is to wite[33] In the cronique as it is write, This noble kinge, of whom I tolde, Of Spainè by tho daiès olde The kingdom had in governaunce, And as the boke maketh remembraunce, Alphonsè was his propre name. The knight also, if I shall name, Danz Petro hight, and as men telle, His doughter wisè Petronelle Was clepèd, which was full of grace. And that was sene in thilkè place, Where she her fader out of tene[34] Hath brought and made her selfe a quene, Of that she hath so well desclosed The points whereof she was opposed.
ULYSSES S. GRANT.
