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X—Chaucer's Tale of Ireland
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
There seem many strong reasons for deeming the unhappy love-story in Chaucer's Anelida and Arcite the invention of the poet's own day and hour. Unlike its seventy-line prelude of Theseus and Ipolita and desolate Thebes, which as everybody knows, is a blending of Statius and Boccaccio—anticipating the riper treatment of the same theme in the beginning of The Knight's Tale—the story owes nothing to any known source. Indeed Chaucer implicitly disclaims any originals of his narrative, even when explicitly professing them, for, “when speaking of his finding an old story in Latin, he is actually translating from an Italian poem which treats of a story not found in Latin,” and his solemn appeal to the misty authority of that nominis umbra, “Corinne,” of whom more anon, seems devised to blur the credulous reader's vision. Moreover, he runs directly counter to a dominant motive of the Teseide, the unswerving loyalty of that paragon among lovers, the Theban Arcite, by making him, in this little poem, the weakest of philanderers. For that violent reversal of character there must have been indeed some strong provocation from without, but certainly not from any books that we know. The precedent, too, of The Complaint of Mars suggests strongly some contemporary court-scandal, cloaked in the protecting garb of the antique. Our poem rises far above the conventional “complaint” in its leitmotif—a distinctive situation, concrete and personal, unfolded with an abiding sense of reality and in the glow of a righteous indignation.
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References
1 Skeat, Complete Works of Chaucer, I, 530.
2 Lydgate doubtless felt deeply the embarrassment of the double identity of this Chaucerian figure, when, in his Complaint of the Black Knight, 368, 379, he cites Arcite both among true knights and false.
3 Poetry of Chaucer, p. 68. Ten Brink, too, assumes “some drama in real life” (Eng. Lit., ii, 190).
4 Notes and Queries, 1896, i, 301.
5 Development and Chronology of Chaucer's Works, pp. 83 f.
6 Koeppel ia naturally surprised at the inclusion of a “Queen of Ermony” among the “noble folk” of Thebes; and suggests (Englische Studien, xx, 157) the unhappy emendation, “Emony,” Haemonia or Thessaly.
7 History of the Viceroys of Ireland, 1865, p. 169.
8 Chartularies of St. Mary's Alley (Rolls Ber.), edited by Gilbert, ii, 285.
9 Rotulorum Patentium et Clausorum Cancellariae Hiberniae Calendarium, 1828.
10 See Carte's citation (Life of the Duke of Ormonde, Introduction, i, lxix, lxxiv) of a grant of 3 Richard II to “James le Botiller, Earl of Ermon,” and one of 8 Henry IV “at the request of the late Earl of Ermon.” The English Patent Rolls employ not infrequently the “Ermon” form (see particularly 1377–1381).
11 See King's Council m Ireland, 16 Richard II (Rolls Ser.), edited by Graves, pp. 40, 45, 49, 224.
12 It is of interest that the Digby MS. of Anelida and Arcite uses this same Latin form, “Explicit lamentatio Annelide Régine Ermonie.”
13 Graves, King's Council in Ireland, xii, cites as a specimen of the palatinate jurisdiction employed by the Earl of Ormonde in the Tipperary district, a “Pardon,” which follows almost verbatim the royal instruments of the same nature: “Jacobus le Botiller, Comes Ermonie, Dominus Libertatis Typpareriensis, omnibus baillivis et fidelibus suis ad quos présentes litere pervenerint salutem! Sciatis quod de gratia nostra speciali pardonavimus Roberto Prendergast de Novo Castro sectam pacis, et.” And Wylie in his admirable chapter on the third Earl (History of England under Henry the Fourth, chap, xlv, ii, 126 f.), shows that he exerted sovereign rights, sometimes in defiance of the King.
14 Chaucer's use of the ambiguous “Ermony” for the Ormonde title (Comtissa Ermonie) is exactly paralleled by Spenser, who takes the name “Roffy” (“Roffin”) from the Eclogues of Marot, where it stands for Pierre Roffet, and applies it in his Calendar (September, 179, 201, 203) to the Bishop of Rochester (Episcopus Roffmensis). Mark in a later day the popular adaptation of the romantic “Malbrouk” of old song, “Malbrouk s'en va-t-en guerre,” to John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough.
14a The King of Armenia was in England as Richard's guest for two months after Christmas, 1385 (see Ypodigma Neustriae, p. 543, and Malverne's Cont. of Polychronicon, ix, 79)—a date, which, as we shall see, is very close to the time of our poem.
15 See Crowell, “Chaucer's ‘Queen Anelida,‘” Essays on Chaucer, Chaucer Society, 1892, p. 615.
16 Temple of Glas, E. E. T. S., Extra Ser., lx, p. cxx.
16a “Anelida” as a word-play upon “Anne Welle” recalls the familiar “Philisides” for “Phili(p) Sid(ney) and ”Art (h) egal“ for ”Arthur Grey.“ And who was Spenser's ”Rosalinde?“ Chaucer's ”fair Anelida“ (Anelida and Arcite, 139, 167) suggests that he was indebted to the romantic name (”la bella Analida “), which so admirably suited his enigmatic purpose. Tradition and wordplay seem to contend in the two spellings, ”Anelida“ and ”Annelida“ of Chaucer's scribes and followers—a variation which probably goes back to Chaucer himself. I have discovered that Chauoer elsewhere uses the same device with even larger significance, but that is another story, which awaits the telling.
17 For an account of the family and barony of Welle or Welles—Chaucer's day prefers the first spelling, as ours the second—see Massingberd, Lincolnshire Notes and Queries, vol. vi (1900–1901), Dugdale, Baronage, ii, 10, and Burke, Extinct Peerages, s. v. “Welles.” Anne's nephew, Lionel, Lord Welle, was appointed Viceroy of Ireland in 1438, perhaps on account of his kinship with the Ormondes.
18 On May 6, 1373, John, Lord Welle, proves his age and has seisin of his land, and the King takes his homage and fealty (Cal. Close Rolls). He had evidently attained his majority within a year. He was a “bonny fighter” in both public and private warfare. He served in both the French and the Scottish wars (Froissart, Chroniques, ed. by Kervyn, viii, 280, ix, 31). He was just under forty in 139ff, when he ran a-tilt on London Bridge with Lindsay, Lord Crawford, for the honor of England against Scotland and was unhorsed after a gallant breaking of lances (John of Malverne, Cont. of Polychronicon, ix, 235; Holinshed's Scotland, (wrongly under 1398), Wyntoun, Cronykill, Bk. ix, oh. xi (1390), Stow's Survey of London, used by Kervyn, xxiii, 282, Wylie, Hist. of Henry IV, ii, 62–63, etc.) He is frequently Commissioner for the Lindsay region of Lincolnshire, and is summoned to Parliament until his death in 1421.
19 Her elder sister, Margery, married first John de Huntingfield and second, Lord Scrope of Masham (Test, Eboracensia, Surtees Soc, 1836, i, 385, ii, 184). Margery died in 1422.
20 Anne's eldest son, James, the fourth Earl of Ormonde, was born in 1390–1391, for he came of age in 13 Henry IV, 1411–1412 (Graves, King's Council in Ireland, pp. xxix, 281).
21 The “twenty yeer of elde” of the heroine of Anelida and Arcite (l. 78) causes little difficulty, as a middle-aged bard, like a middle-aged professor, makes small distinction between sixteen and twenty. In those days girls matured early. On the other hand, Froissart tells us that Blanche of Lancaster was but twenty-two (“environ de vingt-deux ans”), when she was really twenty-eight (Poesies, Scheler, ii, 8).
21a Chaucer's sly indication of Ormonde by a disguised form of the maternal d'Arcy will not seem forced to him who remembers that the mother's name of a man of rank was usually as well known as the father's, and indeed was not infrequently assumed for the sake of property or title (as by Froissart's Viscount D'Acy, sometimes called d'Aunay, Chroniques, x, 118, or by the Lusignans, who became d'Angles). Chaucer's “Arcite” for d'Arcy is as good wordplay as the popular puns on King Richard's Ministers, Bush(ey), Bag(ot) and Green(e) (Political Poems, i, 363), and is much better than Grower's “Nova Villa Macedo” for Alexander de Neville, “Tribulus” for Brembel, and “hirundo” for Arundel (Tripertite Chronicle, i, 103, 154, 215), or than Skelton's “maris lupus” (“sea-wolf” or “wolf-sea”) for Wolsey. Froissart's “(d')art” for the last syllable of his name, -art, offers a suggestive parallel (L'Espinette Amoureuse, 3380–3381):—“Je hantoie la tempre et tart Dont frois, dont chaux, navres d'un dart.”
22 See Carte, Life of the Duke of Ormonde, lxix, Lodge, Peerage of Ireland, iv, 8–9, Gilbert, Viceroys of Ireland, chap, vi, D. N. B., s. v. James Butler. Elizabeth d'Arcy was still alive at the time of Anelida and Arcite, having married shortly after her first husband's death Sir Robert Herford (Cal. Close Rolls, July 24, 1384).
23 Cal. Pat. Rolls, Nov. 16, 1383.
24 See Cal. Pat. Rolls for the presentation of three men successively (Jan. 20, 1383, Mar. 18, 1383, June 23, 1384) to the church of Retherfield Pippard in Oxon., by reason of their custody of the land and heir of James, late Earl of Ormonde.
25 Cal. Close Rolls, March 10, 1385.
26 Malverne, Cont. of Polychronicon, ix, 70.
27 See Carte, Life of Duke of Ormonde, Ixxiii.
28 Rot. Claus. Hiberniae, Jan. 2, 1406; Cal. Pat. Rolls, May 1, 1408; Gilbert, Viceroys of Ireland, 300–301, 309–310. When Wylie tells us (Hist. of Henry IV, chap, xlv, ii, 136) that the Prior had already served for four or five years with a great company of horse and foot in Cork, Tipperary and Kilkenny, he is confounding him with his father's brother, who was also Thomas Butler (Graves, King's Council in Ireland, pp. 20, 109, 210, 220).
29 Rot. Pat. Hiberniae.
30 Complete Works of Chancer, i, 534. So also Wells, Manual of Writings in Middle English, 631, and Langhans, Anglia, xliv, 1920, 244.
31 Skeat remarks that “the whole of the passage in ‘The Squire's Tale,‘ 548 f., is a recast of Chaucer's earlier poem of Anelida,” where Lamech is introduced just in the same way (l. 150). The courtly convention of the lover serving long for his lady is emphasized in both (Anelida, 99, F. 523). In both the lover obeys at first the lady's will (Anelida, 119, F. 569), but afterwards errs through “new-fangemesse” (Anelida, 141, F. 610). In both green is the color of inconstancy (Anelida, 146, F. 644), and the recreant male is a thief (Anelida, 161, F. 537). In both there is much sorrow over the deserted one (Anelida, 162, F. 462–463), who suffers the pangs of hell (Anelida, 166, F. 448), and weeps, wails and swoons (Anelida, 169, F. 412, 417, 430, 631).
32 Compare Farnham's suggestive articles on The Parlement of Foules, P.M.L.A., xxxii (1917), 492 f.; Univ. of Wisconsin Studies, 1918, 340 f.
33 Lodge, Peerage of Ireland, vol. iv, s. v. “Mountgarret”; Burke, Peerage of Great Britain, s. v. “Ormonde ”; Carte, Life of Duke of Ormonde, p. xxv. The nobles of tne late fourteenth century are frequently indicated in contemporary verse by their badges, supporters or crests. In “King Richard's Ministers,” in “Richard the Redeles,” in Gower's “Tripertite Chronicle” (all of them printed by Wright in Political Poems, i, 363–454) the Duke of Lancaster and his son Henry are Eagles, the Duke of Gloucester is the Swan, the Earl of Oxford the Boar, the Earl of Warwick the Bear, the Earl of Arundel the Horse, and the Percies and Nevilles Geese and Peacocks. So in later ages Anne Boleyn is the White Falcon; and Lady Douglas Howard is the White Lioness (Daphnaida).
33a Reprint of 1496 edition, C, V.
33b One who feels in Part II of “The Squire's Tale” the presence of historical allegory finds his thoughts turned by this mention of the “mediation of Cambalus the King's son” to the Earl of Cambridge, the son of King Edward (D. N. B. s. v. Edmund Langley). Besides the aptness of word-play, the identification has not a little in its favor, as this prince knew Ormonde, receiving ducal honors on the very November day of 1385 on which the Irish Earl was knighted (Malverne, Polychronicon, ix, 70). Moreover he was well qualified both by temper and experiences to be a mediator between wife and false husband. A man of gentle nature, he keenly resented Robert de Vere's infidelity to his niece, Philippa de Coucy, at this very period, and he himself had suffered from a wife's unfaith,—the probable theme of The Complaint of Mars. That, when “The Squire's Tale” was in the making, he had been for several years Duke of York is not a strong objection to this equation of names, as Edmund retained with the greater title the lesser by which he had been long known. On September 29, 1386, payments out of the customs were made to Thomas, Duke of Gloucester and Earl of Buckingham and Essex and to Edmund, Duke of York and Earl of Cambridge (Life Records of Chaucer, iv, 263). It is a far more potent objection—which to some will seem final—that the name “Cambalus” or “Cambalo” is conferred, independently of the falcon's plight, upon “the kinges sone” in Part i (F. 31), which is sheer romance; and that his kinspeople, Cambuskan and Canace and Algarsife, have no allegorical significance. Yet ten lines after our passage (F. 667) Chaucer so confuses the identity of Cambalo that he makes him, as Skeat says in his note, “quite a different person from the Cambalus in F. 656 (called Cambalo in F. 31). He is Canace's lover, who is to fight in the lists against her brothers, Cambalo and Algarsife, and win her.” So Protean a personality may well serve the ends of allegory. My conclusion of the whole matter is that, while the identification of Cambalus and Cambridge is not improbable, it is not demonstrable by a mass of accumulative evidence like the equations of Anelida and Arcite. It is sheer co-incidence doubtless that Cambridge was the keeper of the royal falcons—“ The KLyng then made the Duke of Yorke mayster of the mewhouse and his hautes fayre” (Harding's Chronicle)—and was therefore well fitted to compose their domestic differences.
33c See Miss Rickert, “A New Interpretation of The Parlement of Foules,” Modern Philology, May, 1920.
33d Skeat recognizes the humanity of the story, though not its allegorical import, in his note to F. 499:—“The numerous expressions in this narrative certainly show that the falcon was really a princess (cf. F. 559), who had been changed into a falcon for a time, as is so common in the Arabian Tales. Thus in line 500, the roche or rock may be taken to signify a palace, and the tercelet (line 504) to be a prince. This gives the whole story a human interest.”
34 Cal. Pat. Rolls.
35 Dugdale, Monasticon, vi, 1509, mentions the foundation—“Aylesbury, a house of Grey Friars at South end of the town, founded by James, Earl of Ormonde, in 1387—their revenues were valued at 3, 2s, 5d, only, in the reign of Henry VIII.” For further description of the house, see Leland, Itinerary, iv, 129, and for discussion of an effigy found there see Archaeologia l, 84, and Lysons, Account of Parishes in Middlesex, 1800, i, 502.
36 See Carte, Introduction, cxviii.
37 Graves, Kind's Council in Ireland, passim, Wylie, ii, 126 f.
38 Chroniques, ed. by Kervyn, xv, 177 f.
39 Chartularies of St. Mary's, ii, 326.
40 The contemporary values of Anelida and Arcite seem to have passed unnoticed in the next century. Shirley, in his wonted ignorance (according to Manly, Modern Philology, xi, 226, he never possesses an authoritative tradition), misses completely the hidden meaning of the poem, when he calls it in bis headings “both of Trin. Coll. Carrib. R. 3. 20, and of BM Addit, 16165, ”The Complaint of Anelida Queen of Cartage,“ and adds in the first MS, that it was ”Englished by Geoffrey Chaucer“ (Hammond, 356–357). The copyist's ”Hermony“ of Harl, 7333, and the colophon, ”Hermenye“ in both Phillipps 8299 and Pepys 2006, disguise the word-play. In The Complaint of the Black Knight, Lydgate does not recognize the false Arcite as more modern than the true. The authoress (if the writer be woman) of The Assembly of Ladies is writing either during the Wars of the Roses, when the name of Robert de Welle (s), the Lincolnshire captain, was resounding through England (Camden Miscellany, i, 20) or a generation later, when the last of the Welles, now a Viscount, was half-uncle to King Henry VII. But she has doubtless no suspicion that ”Anelida the Queen,“ whom she cites (ll. 465–466), was a lady of that ancient English family. It does not appear that the poem has been read aright since Chaucer's own day.
40a In The Booh of the Duchesse the lady is, in her death, the lost “fers” or queen (655, 669, 681, 741), she is as good as Penelope or as the noble wife, Lucretia (1080)—the wifely paragons of the Roman de la Rose (8694)—she exchanges vows with her lover and receives him as her knight (1178–1224) and she gives him a ring (1271); yet throughout, in accord with romantic conventions, the words “marriage” and “husband” are never used. As Anelida is “the lady” of Arcite (100, 228, 251), so the fair “Whyte” is “the lady” of the bereaved knight (478, 483, 859, 949, 967, 1055, 1089, 1110, 1179, 1225, 1269). Francis Thynne, with an ignorance of medieval conventions perhaps pardonable in 1599, suggested in his Animadversions (Chaucer Soc. 1876, p. 30) that “Whyte” was not the Duchess, but “a Miss Whyte, one of the Duke's paramours.” Only the uninitiated of our time will similarly plead that Anelida and Arcite are not a married pair. There are many other striking parallels in the stories of the two wives. The fairness of each is compared to the brightness of the sun (Anelida, 73; Duchesse, 821). In each case Nature rejoices in the beauty of her handiwork (Anelida, 80; Duchesse, 908, 1195). Both women surpass all others in “trouthe” (Anelida, 75–76, Duchesse, 999). The knight in black serves long for his lady (Duchesse, 1095, 1145, 1200), and Arcite “had ful mikel besynesse, er that he mighte his lady winne” (Anelida, 99–100). Each will die if his love is rejected (Anelida, 101, Duchesse, 1265). Many of these things are, of course, the veriest commonplaces of courtly love (see Dodd, Courtly Love in Chaucer and Gower, pp. 107–118). Both love-stories are dowered with the romantic setting of a far-off and glamorous world: the Duchesse with that of the mythical Octovien, Emperor of Rome; the Anelida with that of the equally mythical Theseus and Ipolita. Moreover the contemporary identification of the lovers and their titles is indicated in both by very skilful word-play: “a long castle (Lancaster) with walls white (Blanche), by St. John! (John) on a rich hill (Richmond) ”; and Anelida (Anne Welle), Queen of Ermony (Countess of Ermon or Ormonde), and Arcite (the Earl of d'Arcy blood).
40b The medieval poet employs the formulas of courtly love, illicit in its origin and often in its nomenclature, even when portraying fidelity to marriage vows or assailing an unfaithful husband. The Victorian laureate, on the other hand, speaks the language of the domestic sanctities, even in the wildwood of classical mythology. Tennyson's mountain nymph, Oenone, once beloved of Paris, cries “Husband,” as she leaps upon the funeral pile.
40c The Squire's Tale, F. 524 f. This length, of service is doubtless a concession to time-honored convention (supra), as Anne Welle's extreme youth forbids belief in- very long wooing.
40d Dodd, Courtly Love, p. 107.
41 Ecclesiastical History, i, 1.
42 History of the Britons, sect. 15.
42a Among the references usually cited in this conection are the Leabhar Gabhâla of The Book of Leimster, The Annals of the Four Masters (ed. by Donovan, 1851), The General History of Ireland by Keating, and the Genealogies of MacFirbis. See Chronicon Scotorum (“Chronicles of the Irish”), Rolls Ser., p. 10.
43 Topographia Hiberniae, dist. iii, sects. 1–6.
44 See Elton, Origins of English History, pp. 154, 169, etc.
45 See Kervyn's ed. xv, 169, and Berner's trsl. ch. ccii.
45a For other accounts of “The wilde Irish” see “Libel of English Policy,” 1437 (Political Poems, ii, 185). Borde's “Introduction of Knowledge,” 1542, p. 132, and Stanyhurst in Holinshed, chap. viii.
45b That Ulster is preeminently the Scythian province, Spenser's words show (View of State of Ireland): “Surely the Scythians, at such time as the Northerne Nations overflowed all Christendome, came downe to the sea-coast, where inquiring for other countries abroad, and getting intelligence of this countrey of Ireland, finding shipping convenient, passed thither, and arrived in the North-part thereof, which is now called Ulster, which first inhabiting, and afterwards stretching themselves forth into the land, as their numbers increased, named it all of themselves Scuttenland, which more briefly is called Scutland, or Scotland.” All this is very much to our purpose.
46 Gilbert's Viceroys of Ireland, p. 215.
47 Rymer's Foedera, March 15, 1361.
48 Chartularies of St. Mary's, ii, 395, A. D., 1361:—“ Leonellus, Comes Ultonie, jure hereditaria uxoris sue et Alius Domini Regis Anglie, venit in Hiberniam, Tenens-locum Domini Regis Anglie, et applicuit apud Dublin in oetava die Beate Virginis Nativitatis, ducens secum uxorem suatn, Elizabetham, filiam et heredem Domini Willelmi de Burgo, Comitis Ultonie.”
49 This passage in Harding is quoted, with much other information about Lionel in Professor Cook's valuable monograph, “The Last Months of Chaucer's Earliest Patron,” Conn. Aead. of Arts and Sciences, Dec, 1916. See also D. N. B. s. v. “Lionel.”
50 This is Edward's summons to his nobles (Foedera, March 15, 1361): “Ordinavimus quod 'Leonellus, comes Ultonie, filius noster carissimus cum ingenti exercitu ad terram pradictam (Hiberniam) cum omni festinatione transmitteretur. Et quod omnes magnates et alii de dioto regno nostro terras in dicta terra Hiberniae habentes quanto potentius poterunt in comitiva dicti filli nostri profiscerentur, vel si débiles in corpore existant loco eorum alios sufficientes ibidem mittant.”
51 A woman of character, this Maud Ufford or de Vere, well worthy to foreshadow Emily. In 1386, when her son, Richard's favorite, Robert de Vere (1362–1392), the notorious Duke of Ireland, abandoned his wife, Isabella de Coucy, the Countess of Oxford “took the Duchess to her and kept her still in her estate, and such as owed the lady any good will gave her great thanks therefore.” (Froissart, xii, 328.) After Richard's death she was arrested and imprisoned for spreading the report that the King was still alive (Walsingham, ii, 262). “Emily” died on January 25, 1413 (Eulogium Historiae).
52 Chroniques, xv, 168–178.
52a It is possible that Chaucer, in calling Ormonde a “Theban knight” is recalling the knighthood conferred upon the Earl in November, 1385, but it is much more probable that he is merely using the phrase in accord with courtly convention, as in The Book of the Duchesse (supra).
53 Viceroys of Ireland, p. 221,
54 Statutes and Ordinances and Acts of the Parliament of Ireland, ed. by Berry, I, 430.
54a I do not wish to press this identification, but Gerald Fitzgerald, Earl of Desmond, was the only ruling spirit who fills the gap between the generations. His influence was felt both in Lionel's time and in the days of Anne Welle's coming to Ireland. He was Viceroy in 1367; in 1381 he was appointed to repress the malice of the rebels in Munster; and again in 1386 he acted in Munster as Deputy of the Viceroy. He was an hereditary enemy of the Butlers.
55 Professor Cook, in his monograph, “The Historical Background of Chaucer's Knight” (Conn. Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1916, pp. 179–181), discusses in some detail Lionel's stay in Ireland, and conjectures that Chaucer was in his service during the whole six years of his rule. He finds “corroboration of this surmise” in Chaucer's oft-quoted account of an Irish wicker house in The Bouse of Fame, 1936 f. Anelida and Arcite furnishes much more potent evidence in favor of Chaucer's Irish residence.
56 See E. F. Shannon, “The Source of Chaucer's Anelida and Arcite” (P. M. L. A., xxviii, 465).
57 The Codices Neapolitanus and Vossianus, and Petrarch's famous manuscript, which Coluccio Salutato copied, all antedate Chaucer (see Butler's edition of Propertius, 1905, Introduction, and Sandys, History of Classical Scholarship, ii, 6).
58 Had Shannon known of this passage from Propertius, he would have made no claims for Ovid, the author of the Amores, sometimes known as “Corinna,” for the very starting point of his argument is the assumption that Chaucer could never have heard of the old poetess.
59 Though Chaucer is voicing something so real as Anne Welle's passion for Ormonde, it is very possible that he employed the Heroines of Ovid here and there in Anelida, as Mr. Shannon believes. All our thoughts have stirred dead bosoms.
59a The complete dissociation of the first group of characters, Theseus, Ipolita and Emily, from the second, Anelida and Arcite, negatives Heath's unfortunate suggestion (Globe Edition, xxxviii) that “Chaucer, doubtless, intended to reintroduce Theseus, with whom the poem opens, as the avenger of Anelida.” This dissociation constitutes convincing evidence of the priority of Anelida and Arcite. Having once brought together the heroic figures in the intimate relation of The Knight's Tale, no artist could or would have wrenched them as far asunder as they are in the smaller poem.
60 Ipolita possibly becomes again the Countess of Ulster for one brief moment in The Knight's Tale, when Chaucer, forsaking Boccaccio, mentions (l. 26) “the tempest at hir hoomcominge.” If that storm was ever brewed in England, it raged after the wedding of Elizabeth and Lionel thirty years before the landing of Anne of Bohemia, with which it has been associated (Lowes, Modern Language Notes, xix, 240–242). Anne had nought in common with the Scythian queen. Curry just now suggests (M. L. N., May, 1921) that “tempest” renders the clamor of Statius.
61 Development of Chaucer's Works, pp. 83 f. Tatlock runs directly counter to Ten Brink's contentions (Studien, 39, Eng. Lit., ii, 190).
62 Langhans, the writer of a very recent article on Anelida and Arcite in Anglia, xliv, 1920, 226–244, dates the poem in 1373–1374, “just before the Parlement of Foules (1374),” on the basis of a “chronology” supposedly long since extinct. Furnivall places it in 1375–1376, Pollard in 1380, Lowes in the early eighties, Koch in 1383, Tatlock in 1384–1385, Skeat 1384 (1385?), Ten Brink after 1390. Obviously the bugbear of “Chaucerian Chronology” is not a very formidable spectre. The year 1386, as the date of Anelida, seems to satisfy the two conditions of our problem, one of which has hitherto been entirely unknown, and the other misapplied: the Ormondes' early misadventure in marriage, and the indirect allusion to the poem in the Legend Prologue. Though, as we have already remarked, accurate knowledge of a very young noblewoman's years is not to be expected of a poet in his middle or late forties, Anelida's age, “twenty yeer of elde,” might suggest a later date for the poem than 1386, when Anne Welle could not have been more than sixteen. But much, if any, later it cannot be. Ormonde and his wife were certainly reconciled by 1389–1390, as their heir was born the next year. Then it seems natural to trace to a liaison that won so wide a notoriety as to gain a court-poet's rebuke the birth of one, if not both, of the Earl's natural children, who, to judge from the dates of their manhood, must have been in the world by 1385 or 1386; hence even 1387, the year in which Ormonde founds his Aylesbury house of Friars, perhaps as a penance for his sin, seems a bit too late. The Legend Prologue, the first version of which is a terminus ad quern of Anelida, is probably a product of the latest eighties; but more of that elsewhere.