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Chaucer's Reeve and Miller
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
My recent article, The Secret of Chaucer's Pardoner, was the first of a series of studies advanced in support of the general thesis that Chaucer, in his choice of physical peculiarities that would fittingly correspond to the characters of his Canterbury Pilgrims, made use of, or at least was influenced by, the rules and regulations laid down in the universally popular Physiognomies of his time. More specifically, I attempted to show that the Pardoner is a typical example of what the physiognomists would call a eunuchus ex nativitate. The present article demonstrates that Chaucer's Reeve and Miller, in the exact correspondence of their respective personal appearances and characters, are also “scientifically” correct according to the specifications of physiognomical lore, and that the quarrel between these traditional and professional enemies cannot properly be understood unless scanned from the medieval point of view.
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1920
References
1 The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, xviii, pp. 593 ff.
2 Oxford Chaucer, ed. W. W. Skeat, C. T., A, 587. All other quotations from Chaucer in this paper are taken from this edition.
3 For a full discussion of the significance of this custom, vide W. C. Curry, The Middle English Ideal of Personal Beauty, pp. 36, 30.
4 Secreta Secretorum, ed. Robert Steele, EETS, E. S. lxxiv, p. 220. With this should be compared another translation by Lydgate and Burgh, Secrees of Old Philisoffres, ed. R. Steele, EETS, E. S. lxvi, p. 104. Chaucer alludes to “the secree of secrees” (C. T., G, 1447) and, as I shall show, is familiar with the material contained in the physiognomical part of it at least, Steele and Lounsbury to the contrary.
5 Richard Saunders, Physiognomie and Chiromancie, London, 1671, p. 189.
6 Aristotle's Physiognomonika, Bartholomaei de Messana interpretatio Latina, ed. R. Foerster in Scriptores Physiognomonici, i, p. 55.
7 Polemonis de physiognomonia liber Arabice et Latine, ed. Georgius Hoffman, in Scrip. Physiog., Foerster, p. 204. This is Antonius Polemo Laodicensis, the celebrated rhetorician and historian who flourished under Trajan and Hadrian and who died about 144 A. D. Cf. Foerster, op. cit., i, pp. lxxiv ff. His Physiognomon is also edited by I. G. F. Franzius in Scriptores physiognomoniae veteres, 1780, pp. 209 ff.
8 Anonymi de physiognomonia liber Latinus, Scrip. Physiog., Foerster, ii, p. 133. The editor collates fifteen codices of this version. Cf. i, pp. cxlvi.
9 The Quarrels of the Canterbury Pilgrims, Jour. Eng. and Germ. Philol., xiv, pp. 265.
10 Ibid., p. 269.
11 Op. cit., Scrip. Physiog., Foerster, I, p. 29.
12 Ibid., p. 37.
13 Op. cit., Foerster, ii, p. 120.
14 Op. cit., in Scrip. Physiog., Foerster, i, p. 31.
15 Rasis physiognomoniæ versio Latina a Gerardo Cremonensi facta, ed. in Scrip. Physiog., Foerster, ii, p. 176. This is the second Book of the De Re Medicina translated from the original Arabic of Abubecri Rasis (Mohammed Abou-Bekr Ibn-Zacaria), an eminent physician of the tenth century, born at Rey (Ragés), and died 923. Cf. Biographie Universelle, Michaud; T. Warton, History of English Poetry, 1774, p. 441; T. R. Lounsbury, Studies in Chaucer, ii, p. 394. Chaucer alludes to Rasis in the General Prologue (A, 432), placing him among the celebrated physicians whom the Doctour of Physik knew well.
16 Op. cit., in Scrip. Physiog., Foerster, i, p. 35. Cf. also the Secreta Secretorum, p. 224.
17 Op. cit., in Scrip. Physiog., Foerster, ii, p. 173 f.
18 Ibid., Foerster, ii, p. 138. A like opinion may be found in Physiognomica & Chiromantica specialia, à Rodolpho Goclenio, Marpurgi Cattorum, 1621, p. 29.
19 Physiognomoniæ secreti secretorum pseudaristotelici versiones Latinae, ed. Foerster, Scrip. Physiog., ii, p. 214. These versions, or others based on them, are probably the sources of the Middle English Secreta Secretorum, the Secrees of Old Philisoffres, and much of the material of which Chaucer shows a knowledge.
20 Scrip. Physiog., i, p. xxxii. Cf. also the ME. Sec. Sec., p. 227.
21 Op. cit., in Scrip. Physiog., Foerster, ii, p. 170.
22 Loc. cit., ii, p. 211.
23 Op. cit., in Scrip. Physiog., Foerster, i, p. 67.
24 Ibid., i, p. 232.
25 Ibid., ii, p. 206.
26 Cf. my dissertation, ME. Ideal of Personal Beauty, pp. 19 ff.
27 Foerster, op. cit., i, p. xxxi.
28 Cf. New Eng. Dict : piled, “covered with pile, hair, or fur.” Lydgate's De Guil., 1426, is quoted, “Off look and cher ryht monstrous, Piled and seynt as any katt, And moosy-heryd as a raat.”
29 Giraldus Cambrensis, Opera, Rolls Series, No. 21, ed. J. S. Brewer, iv, p. 240.
30 Op. cit., in Scrip. Physiog., Foerster, ii, p. 132.
31 Ibid., p. 32.
32 Op. cit., supra, p. 182.
33 Op. cit., in Foerster, ii, p. 139.
34 Op. cit., p. 26.
35 Op. cit., in Foerster, ii, p. 168.
36 Op. cit., in Foerster, ii, p. 205.
37 Op. cit., in Foerster, ii, pp. 226 f.
38 Op. cit., p. 196.
39 Op. cit., in Foerster, i, p. 85.
40 Op. cit., in Foerster, ii, p. 169.
41 Loc. cit., in Foerster, ii, p. 209. Cf. also i, p. 103, ii, p. 266, and Sec. Old Philis., note to 1. 2647.
42 Op. cit., in Foerster, i, p. 266.
43 Op. cit., in Foerster, i, p. 228.
44 Loc. cit., in Foerster, ii, p. 203. Cf. also ii, pp. 204, 167, 152; Goclenio, Op. cit., p. 58; Sec. Philis., “Cammyd nose … With gristel of nose litel redily, Is sone wroth, hoot and hasty,” ll. 2623 ff.; ME. Sec. Sec., “Tho that haue grete noosys lyghtely bene talintid to couetise, and bene desposyd to concupiscence,” p. 228.
45 Op. cit., in Foerster, ii, p. 167.
46 T. R. Lounsbury, Studies in Chaucer, ii, p. 394.
47 J. L. Lowes, Chaucer's “loveres maladye of Heroes,” Modern Philology, xi, p. 391 ff.; O. P. Emerson, Chaucer's “Opie of Thebes Fyn,” ibid., xvii, p. 287.
48 Cf. Saunders, op. cit., p. 305.
49 La Metoposcopie, Paris, 1658.
50 The full title of his work is Physiognomie, and Chiromancie, Metoposcopie, Dreams, and The Art of Memory, London, 2nd ed., 1671.
51 Cf. Saunders, op. cit., p. 287; T. Warton, op. cit., i, p. 440; Lounsbury, op. cit., ii, p. 393.
52 Translated in Cardan, op. cit., p. 223. Melampus flourished in the time of Julius Cæsar; vide Preface to Cardan.
53 In my next article, by the way, I shall have the pleasure of casting the horoscope of the Wife of Bath and of showing the nature of this “Martes mark,” together with its location and significance.
54 Op. cit., p. 203.
55 Op. cit., p. 334.
56 Op. cit., p. 203.
57 Op. cit., p. 335.
58 Op. cit., p. 195.