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VII.—The Nature and Fabric of the Pearl

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

William Henry Schofield
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Extract

At the request of my friend Dr. Brown, who in the preceding article has cast so much light on the character of the author of The Pearl, I have undertaken to state in print certain heterodox opinions, which I have long held, concerning the nature and fabric of that beautiful poem.

Briefly, to indicate my main thesis at the outset, I would maintain that The Pearl is not in the least elegiac or autobiographical, as hitherto regularly regarded by scholars and critics, and that the conclusions as to the author's life and domestic sorrows frequently drawn from it are wholly without foundation.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 19 , Issue 1 , 1904 , pp. 154 - 215
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1904

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References

page 154 note 1 Professor Palgrave regards The Pearl as “perhaps the most purely and ideally beautiful specimen of our elder poetry which good fortune has left us” (Landscape in Poetry, London, 1897, p. 117).

page 154 note 2 For Mr. Courthope's opinion, see below p. 161.

page 154 note 3 Early English Alliterative Poems, EETS, 1864, p. ix.

page 154 note 4 English Writers, London, 1897, iv, 144.

page 154 note 5 Literacy History of the English People, 1895, p. 351.

page 155 note 1 Paul's Grundriss der germ. Phil., 1892, ii, 661 (§ 74).

page 155 note 2 Short History of English Literature, 1898, p. 80.

page 155 note 3 English Literature, an Illustrated Record, 1903, i, 119 ff. Dr. Garnett dates the poem at least twenty years too early: the author undoubtedly knew Mandeville. (See above, pp. 149 ff., and below, pp. 189 ff.)

page 155 note 4 The Age of Chaucer, London, 1901, p. 22.

page 155 note 5 Pearl, London, 1891, p. xix.

page 155 note 6 Landscape in Poetry, p. 115.

page 155 note 7 Gollancz, p. xlviii, et al.; cf. Wülker, Gesch. der engl. Litt., 1896, p. 107.

page 155 note 8 English Writers, iv, 144.

page 156 note 1 History of English Literature, trans. Kennedy, 1889, I, 348 (ed. Brandl, Straszburg, 1899, i, 406).

page 156 note 2 Pearl, pp. xlvii ff.

page 157 note 1 See the opening lines of Cleanness.

page 158 note 1 He refers to her as his “pearl,” with various adjectives: pleasaunt (1), privy (2), precios (3), maskelez (63), thryven (100), etc.; his jewel (21), gem (23, 25), swete (28), blysful beste (24), blysful (92), lyttel quene (96), frely (97); as a rose (23, 96), a “maskelez bryd” (65), a “makelez (motelez) may” (65, 81); as “that precios (special) pyece” (20); “that swete” (20), “that (worthy) wyght” (29, 42), “that damyselle” (31), “that gay” (37), “thatgentyl” (51), “that myrry quene” (66), “that specyal spyce” (79), “that lufly flor,” “that schene” (81)—never by any nearer epithet. She on her side addresses him always most formally, twice as “syr” (22, 37), once as “burne” (34), as “jueler” (gentyl, gente, kynde, joyful, 22ff)—but otherwise only as “thou.”

With the phrases that the poet applies to the Pearl, compare such as the following, applied by the author of Death and Life (see below, pp. 194 f.) to one or other of his allegorical characters: “that grim dame” (147), “that sorrowfull ladye” (178), “quaintfull (wrathefull) queene” (155, 221), “yonder damsell” (181)—“that ladye” (70, 76), “that lowly ladye” (82), “that lady soe true” (444), “my winn ladye” (129), “my lady dame Liffe” (229), “thatfayre” (64, 450).

page 159 note 1 I quote always from Mr. Gollancz's edition, London (Nutt), 1891. The numbers indicate the stanzas in which the quotations may be found.

page 161 note 1 On which see, for example, Moore, “Beatrice,” Studies in Dante, Second Series, Oxford, 1899, pp. 79 ff.

page 161 note 2 History of English Poetry, 1895, i, 350.

page 164 note 1 L. Pannier, Lapidaires Français des XIIe, XIIIe et XIVe Siècles, Paris, 1882, p. 209. Chaucer, in describing the hall of the goddess in the House of Fame, says that the walls and floor and roof

wer set as thikke of nouchis

Fulle of the fynest stones faire

That men rede in the Lapidaire. (1350 ff.)

Most of these works depended on the De Gemmis of Marbodus, Bishop of Rennes, who died ca. 1124. For the description of the marguerite in the Pseudo-Mandevile Lapidary see the edition, with commentary, by Is. del Sotto, Le Lapidaire du XIVe Siècle, Vienna, 1862, pp. 45 ff.

page 165 note 1 In The Pearl (sts. 83–85) these twelve stones are dwelt upon in the description of the New Jerusalem, following the words of St. John; also (in st. 87) their similitude for the tribes of Israel.

page 165 note 2 I share the opinion of Professor Kittredge that Cleanness and Patience are probably earlier than the author's other works.

page 165 note 3 It will be noted that in the passage quoted the poet recommends his readers to become pearls (“pure e wi penaunce tyl ou a perle wore”)—not simply like pearls. The teaching of The Pearl is the same: in concluding the poet prays that all may be “precious pearls” to the pleasure of God.

page 166 note 1 Pannier, pp. 65, 182.

page 166 note 2 Paradiso, Canto xxii—trans. C. E. Norton, 1902, p. 174.

page 166 note 3 Opera, ed. Giles, Oxford, 1844. Cf. Leo Bönhoff, Aldhelm von Malmesbury, Ein Beitrag zur ags. Kirchengeschichte, Dresden, 1894, p. 108.

page 169 note 1 Old English Miscellany, ed. Morris, EETS, 1872, pp. 93 ff.

page 170 note 1 The Pearl is called “that swete” (20), “that specyal spyce” (79).

page 171 note 1 Ed. Cockayne, EETS, 1866.

page 172 note 1 The Pearl is described as a “mayden of menske” (14).

page 172 note 2 The Pearl wore a “garlande gay” (99).

page 173 note 1 Ed. Furnivall, EETS, 1867—from the Vernon ms., ca. 1370 a. d.

page 173 note 2 Scinte Marharete, Meiden and Martyr, EETS, 1886.

page 174 note 1 Cf. Pearl, st. 22.

page 174 note 2 Chaucerian and other Pieces, ed. Skeat, Oxford, 1897, pp. xxviii f., 145; cf. Gollancz, Pearl, pp. xxii f.

page 177 note 1 I quote from the translation of H. R. James, London, 1897.

page 179 note 1 Everybody of consequence in the fourteenth century was more or less acquainted with Boethius.

page 179 note 2 Ed. Skeat, Oxford, 1886, i, 20 ff. (B Text, Passus I); trans. Miss Warren, 1895, pp. 11 ff. For a similar situation in Death and Life, see below, pp. 194 ff.

page 179 note 3 Ed. Francisque Michel, Paris, 1864, i, 97 f. Mr. Ellis in his translation of this passage (Temple Classics, 1900, i, 103 f.) seems almost to have had in mind our Pearl “of rych renoun” (99); cf. the following lines, which are hardly an exact rendering of the French text:

Her head a crown

Bedecked, like queen of high renown.

An angel seemed she, pearl past price

Born in the realms of paradise.

page 180 note 1 Ed. Migne, Patrologia, ccx (1853), 451 ff.

page 180 note 2 Of our author's acquaintance with this most influential poem we have fortunately no doubt, for he refers to it plainly in Cleanness. The adjective he applies to the rose, namely, “Clopyngel's clene rose,” is perhaps significant. It looks as if he was fain to interpret the allegory ideally, and therefore emphasized the Hose's cleanness. Indeed, the French poet gave ground for its interpretation as Chastity through such remarks as this of Jealousy.

En abaïe ne en cloistre

N'est mès Chastée asséur:

Por ce ferai de novel mur

Clore les rosiers et les roses. (4217 ff.)

It may be noted that the Pearl in her marvellous abode is referred to as a rose: “That thou lestey wacz but a rose” (23); “And thou so riche a reken rose” (76).

The remark of the poet in st. 1; “I dewyne for-dokked of luf-daungere” (cf. “in del and gret daunger,” 21) seems to be a reminiscence of the Romance, where, after Danger has driven the lover away from the rose, he is made to say:

Si voi que livrés est ma cors

A duel, à poine et à martire. (2968 f.)

Cuers ne porroit mie penser

Ne bouche d'omme recenser,

De ma dolor la quarte part. (2977 ff.)

Reason then tries to comfort him, but at first ineffectually. Thus, likewise, we read in The Pearl (5):

Bifore that spot my honde I spennd,

For care full colde that to me caght;

A denely dele in my herte denied,

Thagh resoun sette my selven saght.

page 184 note 1 The author's frequent protestations of his inability to describe the surpassing beauty of what he saw, and the superlatives he lavishly employs, are quite in the style of the Romance.

page 185 note 1 See Kölbing, St. Patricks Purgatorium, in Englische Studien, i, 57 ff., where Owayne Miles is also edited (113 ff). Cf. Ernest J. Becker, A Contribution to the Comparative Study of the Medieval Visions of Heaven and Hell, with Special Reference to the Middle English Versions, Baltimore, 1899.

page 189 note 1 On the season-motive in mediæval allegory, see Triggs, in his edition of Lydgate's Assembly of Gods, EETS, 1896, pp. liii ff.: “Lyndesay's Dreme opens appropriately with a dreary winter's night in January, Dunbar's horrible Dance of the Sinns is seen in February, Sackville's Mirrour far Magistrates, which harks back to the Chaucer school, begins in the ”wrathful winter.“ In one instance Chaucer opens a poem, the Hous of Fame, modelling his work upon Dante, with the December season.”

page 190 note 1 Ed. Warner, with both English and French texts, Roxburghe Club, 1899, p. 137.

page 190 note 2 Note the recurrence of this unusual word in the passage quoted from the English poem. Dr. Brown has shown that the author of The Pearl was familiar with the French text of Mandeville; see above, pp. 149 ff.

page 190 note 3 Perhaps, moreover, our poet's remark of the Virgin:

Now for synglerty o hyr dousour

We calle hyr fenyx of araby. (36)

may have been suggested by the remark in Mandeville “of the bird Fenix of Arabye:” “Et puet homme comparer cel oisel a Dieu, en ceo qe ni ad forsqe vn soul” (p. 25). But this comparison was a common one; cf. Chaucer's Book of the Duchess, 981 ff.:

Trewely she was, to myn yë,

The solyn fenix of Arabye,

For ther liveth never but oon.

page 192 note 1 Ed. Gollancz, Roxburghe Club, London, 1897. The same volume contains (pp. 89 ff.) Winnere and Wastoure. A new edition of these poems is announced for the Early English Text Society; but they are not now accessible to many. On W. and W., cf. Neilson, Huchown of the Awle Ryale, pp. 90 ff.

page 194 note 1 Ed. Hales and Furnivall, London, 1868, iii, 49 ff.

page 196 note 1 Ed. Robson, Three Early Eag. Met. Romances, Camden Society, 1842.

page 197 note 1 Ed. A. Kauffmann, Trentalle Sancti Gregorii (Erlanger Beiträge, iii), 1889. Mr. Neilson (Huchown of the Awle Ryale, pp. 111 ff.) forces the parallelism between the Trentalls and The Pearl unjustifiably.

page 198 note 1 A similar mistaking of an otherworld being for the Virgin may be seen in the ballad-romance of Thomas of Erceldoune, the opening of which is reminiscent of the didactic Christian vision, though blended with fairy elements. It will be remembered that this “ferly,” like the Anturs, served as a means of giving dignity to prophecies delivered by a departed or supernatural lady to a valiant mortal, to be communicated by him to the world. See the editions of Murray, EETS; Brandl, Berlin, 1880; and Child, Ballads, i, 317 ff.

page 199 note 1 Ed. Linow (Erlanger Beiträge, i), 1889, from the Auchinleck ms. Fragments of the early alliterative version were edited by Buchholz (Erlanger Beiträge, vi) in 1890. For the A.-S. version, see Grein, Bibliothek, 198 ff.; for the Latin, T. Wright, Latin Poems attrib. to W. Mapes, London, 1841, pp. 95 ff.; cf. EETS, 53.

page 200 note 1 Legends of the Holy Rood, ed. Morris, EETS, 1871, pp. 131 ff., 197 ff.; cf. EETS, No. 117, pp. 612 ff. Cf. Brandl, Grundriss, § 46.

page 202 note 1 Cf. E. Jack, The Autobiographical Elements in Piers the Plowman, in Journal of Germ. Phil., iii (1901), 393 ff.

page 204 note 1 Printed by Oskar Hecker, Boccaccio-Funde, Braunschweig, 1902, pp. 84 ff.; summarized by A. Hortis, Studj sulle opere Latine del Boccaccio, Trieste, 1879, pp. 56 ff.

I am indebted to Dr. E. K. Band of this (Harvard) University for first calling my attention to the poem, and for kind aid in the interpretation of some obscure passages.

page 204 note 2 See Hecker, pp. 78 ff.

page 204 note 3 Cf. Zumbini, Le Egloge del B., in Giornale Storico, vii (1886), 139 ff.; A. Dobelli, Il Calto del B. per Dante in Giornale Dantesco, v (1897), 220, 241 ff.

page 205 note 1 Dobelli notes (p. 241): “A Dante invece le ombre appaiono nell' età in cui son morte, non si capisce perché il B. siasi allontanato dal suo modello per commettere una simile goffagione.” Compare what I have said of the Pearl's maturity, above, p. 167.

page 208 note 1 Silvius remarks to his servants on the odors he smells, the flowers he sees, and the singing he hears:

Non sentis odores

Insolitos siluis, nemus hoc si forte sabeum

Fecisset natura parens ? Quos inde recentes

Nox peperit flores? Quos insuper audio cantus? (35 ff.)

With which compare the following passages from the induction of The Pearl:

Yet thoght me never so swete sange,

As stylle stounde let to me stele. (2)

Blomez blayke and blue and rede,

Ther schynes ful schyr agayn the sunne. (3)

Yif hit wacz semely on to sene,

A fayrre flayr yet fro hit flot. (4)

I felle upon that floury flaght

Such odour to my hernez schot. (5)

page 209 note 1 Note the words of Silvias and his servant Terapon:

S.: Quid istud ?

Quid video ! sanis ne satis sum ? dormio forsan ?

Non facio ! Lux ista quidem, non flamma uel ignis.

Nonne uides letas frondes corilosque uirentes

Luminis in medio ualidas ac undique fagos

Intactas ? Imo, nec nos malus ardor adurit.

T.: Sispectes celo, testantur sydera noctem,

In siluis lux alma diem. Quid grande paratur?

In The Pearl the “gleam of the glades” and the shimmer of the “holt-woods,” though diversein nature, are similarly supernatural; “Never a web by mortal spun was half so wondrous fair” (6).

As bornyst sylver the lef onslydez,

That thike con trylle on ach a tynde,

Quen glem of glodez agaynz hem glydez,

Wyth schymeryng schene ful schrylle thay schynde . . . .

The sunne bemez bot bio and blynde,

In respecte of that adubbement. (7)

page 209 note 2 The “father” of the Pearl thus speaks:

More then me lyste my drede aros,

I stod full stylle and dorste not calle,

Wyth yghen open and mouth ful clos,

I stod as hende as hawk in halle;

I hope that ghostly wacz that purpose,

I drede on ende quat schulde byfalle,

Lest ho me eschaped that I ther chos,

Er I at steven hir moght stalle. (16)

page 209 note 3 See stanza 21, quoted above, p. 159.

page 210 note 1 Compare The Pearl:

'In blysse I se the blythely blent,

And I a man al mornyf mate, ....

Bot now I am here in your presente,

I wold bysech wythouten debate,

Ye wolde me say in sobre asente,

What lyf ye lede, erly and late;

For I am ful fayn that yoor astate

Is worthen to worschyp and wele iwyss.' (33)

'Quo formed the thy fayre fygure ?

That wroght thy wede, he wacz ful wys;

Thy beaute com never of nature; . . . .

Thy colour passez the flour-de-lys,

Thyn angel-havyng so clene cortez.' (63)

page 210 note 2 In The Pearl the “father” says:

'I trawed my perle don out of dawez,

Now haf I fonde hyt I schal ma feste,

And wony with hyt in schyr wod-schawez.' (24)

But the maiden explains that what he desires is impossible:

'Thy corse in clot mot calder keve,

For hit wacz for-garte at paradys greve,

Oure yore-fader hit con mysse-yeme;

Thurgh drury deth boz uch man dreve,

Er over thys dam hym dryghtyn deme.' (27)

To which he thus replies:

'Demez thou me,' quoth I, 'my swete,

To dol agayn, thenne I dowyne;

Now haf I fonte that I for-lete,

Schal I efte forgo hit er ever I fyne ?

Why schal I hit bothe mysse and mete ?

My precios perle docz me gret pyne,

What servez tresor bot garez men grete,

When he hit schal efte with tenez tyne?' (28)

page 211 note 1 There is likeness, naturally, in detail between the descriptions of paradise in the two poems; but whatever hints the author of The Pearl may have taken from the Eclogue, he seems to have used in his description of the “earthly” paradise at the opening of his poem (stanzas 8–12); for his account of heaven is more purely Scriptural.

With Olympia's remarks in the Eclogue:

Ambimus siluam, fontes, riuosque sonoros,

Et, medijs herbis ludentes, . . .

........Qusg gaudis silue

Enumerare queat ? Quis uerbis pandere ? Nemo !

(269 ff.)

Compare the following from The Pearl:

So al wacz dubbet on dere asyse;

That fryth ther fortune forth me ferez,

The derthe thereof for to devyse

Nis no wygh worthe that tonge berez.

I welke ay forthe in wely wyse,

No bonk so byg that did me derez,

The fyrre in the fryth the feirer con ryse

The playn, the plonttez, the spyse, the perez,

And rawez and randez and rych reverez. (9)

page 211 note 2 Hortis thus speaks of it (Studj, p. 57): “un inno in onor de Jesù (Codro) e della Vergine in versi eleganti e canori, con ritornello di armonica cadenza: il tutto così gentile di pensiero e di forma ch' è certo il più bel carme ehe il B. dettasse mai.”

Codrus, it may be said, is used for Christ through the identification of the pastoral Codrus with the Athenian king of the same name who gave his life for his country.

page 212 note 1 It is noteworthy, at all events, that The Pearl is divided up into sections of five stanzas each (only in one instance six—by accident?) with the refrain five times repeated. This metrical form, so far as I know, is nowhere else employed in an English poem.

page 213 note 1 The Pearl, it will be noted, like Olympia, had a name that indicated her heavenly condition: see Boccaccio's explanation of his choice of his symbolical name for Violante (above, p. 204).

page 214 note 1 In the Eclogue, no more than in The Pearl, is the mother mentioned. There was good reason for Boccaccio's neglect in this particular; and the English author had no inclination but to follow his example.

page 215 note 1 For other information about the child, see Hecker, pp. 78 ff.

page 215 note 2 Now that Professor Schofield has shown beyond a doubt that the author of The Pearl found the suggestion of his poem in Boccaccio's Eclogue, the new question arises whether he was also indebted to Boccaccio for the peculiar theological opinions to which I have called attention in the preceding article. In answer, it may be said that one does not find in the Eclogue any of the distinctive doctrines of The Pearl. Boccaccio does not engage in any discussion of the comparative rewards of baptized children and adults in the heavenly kingdom. Moreover, in his Eclogue the maiden replies to her father's question how he may best win an entrance to paradise by exhorting him to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and perform other works of piety. In The Pearl, on the other hand, emphasis is laid entirely upon the redeeming grace of Christ.

It is clear, then, that the theological ideas of The Pearl were not borrowed from Boccaccio, but were the author's own addition. This fact, in my opinion, increases their significance as a revelation of the poet's own thought and character.