תמונות בעמוד
PDF
ePub

Several of Dante's fictions are derived from the same fountain. Dante has honoured some of them with a seat in his Paradise: and in his tract DE VULGARI ELOQUENTIA, has mentioned Thiebault king of Navarre as a pattern for writing poetry. With regard to Dante's capital work the INFERNO, Raoul de Houdane, a Provencial [French] bard about the year 1180, wrote a poem entitled, LE VOYE OU LE SONGE D'ENFER". Both Boccacio and Dante studied at Paris, where they much

agreeable stories, pleasant adventures, emblems, and proverbs. Boccacio has taken from it four Tales, viz. Nov. ii. Giorn. iii. Nov. iv. Giorn. vii. Nov. viii. Giorn. viii. And the Tale of the Boy who had never seen a woman, since finely touched by Fontaine. An Italian book called Erastus is compiled from this Roman of the Seven Sages. It is said to have been first composed by Sandaber the Indian, a writer of proverbs: that it afterwards appeared successively in Hebrew, Arabic, Syriac, and Greek; was at length translated into Latin by the monk above mentioned, and from thence into French by Herbers. It is very probable that the monk translated it from some Greek manuscript of the dark ages, which Huet says was to be found in some libraries. Three hundred years after the Roman of Herbers, it was translated into Dutch, and again from the Dutch into Latin. There is an English abridgement of it, which is a story-book for children. See Mem. Lit. Tom. ii. p. 731. 4to. Fauchet, p. 106. 160. Huet, Orig. Fab. Rom. 136. Fabric. Bibl. Gr. x. 339. Massieu, Poes. Fr. p. 137. Crescimben. Volg. Poes. Vol. i. L. v. p. 332.

[The ground-work of DOLOPATHOS is a Greek story-book called SYNTIPAS, often cited by Du Cange, whose copy appears to have been translated from the Syriac. See GLOSS. MED. et INFIM. GRÆCITAT. IND. AUCTOR. p. SS. Among the Harleian manuscripts is another, which is said to be translated from the Persic. MSS. HARL. 5560. Fabricius says, that Syntipas was printed at Venice, lingua vulgari. BIBL. GR. X. 515. On the whole, the plan of SYNTIPAS appears to be exactly the same with that of LES SEPT SAGES, the Italian ERASTO, and our

own little story-book the SEVEN WISE MASTERS: except that, instead of Dioclesian of Rome, the king is called CYRUS of PERSIA; and, instead of one Tale, each of the Philosophers tells two. The circumstance of Persia is an argument, that SYNTIPAS was originally an oriental composition. See what is collected on this curious subject, which is intimately concerned with the history of the invention of the middle ages, by the learned editor of the CANTERBURY TALES, vol. iv. p. 329. There is a translation, as I am informed by the same writer, of this Romance in octosyllable verse, probably not later than the age of Chaucer. MSS. CorTON. GALB. E ix. It is entitled "The Proces of the seven Sages," and agrees entirely with LES SEPT SAGES DE ROME in French prose. MSS. HARL 3860. See also MSS. C. C. Coll. Oxon. 252. in membran. 4to. The Latin book, called HISTORIA SEPTEM SAPIENTUM ROMÆ, is not a very scarce manuscript: it was printed before 1500. I think there are two old editions among More's books at Cambridge. Particularly one printed in quarto at Paris, in 1493.-ADDITTONS.] [See the Introduction to the Seven Wise Masters in Mr. Ellis's Specimens of English Metrical Romances, and Mr. Weber's edition of the same romance.-EDIT.]

Many of the old French minstrels deal much in Tales and novels of humour and amusement, like those of Boccacio's Decameron. They call them Fabliaux.

See vol. i. p. 121. Compare Crescimben. Volg. Poes. L. i. c. xiv. p. 162. See p. 43. 45. And Commed. Infern. cant. xxii.

"Fauch. Rec. p. 96.

improved their taste by reading the songs of Thiebauld king of Navarre, Gaces Brules, Chatelain de Coucy, and other antient French fabulists". Petrarch's refined ideas of love are chiefly drawn from those amorous reveries of the Provencials which I have above described; heightened perhaps by the Platonic system, and exaggerated by the subtilising spirit of Italian fancy. Varchi and Pignatelli have written professed treatises on the nature of Petrarch's love. But neither they, nor the rest of the Italians who, to this day, continue to debate a point of so much consequence, consider how powerfully Petrarch must have been influenced to talk of love in so peculiar a strain by studying the poets of Provence. His Triumfo di AMORE has much imagery copied from Anselm Fayditt, one of the most celebrated of these bards. He has likewise many imitations from the works of Arnaud Daniel, who is called the most eloquent of the troubadours*. Petrarch, in one of his sonnets, represents his mistress Laura sailing on the river Rhone, in company with twelve Provencial ladies, who at that time presided over the COURT OF LOVE'.

Pasquier observes, that the Italian poetry arose as the Provencial declined. It is a proof of the decay of invention among the French in the beginning of the fourteenth century, that about that period they began to translate into prose their old metrical romances: such as the fables of king Arthur, of Charlemagne, of Oddegir the Dane, of Renaud of Montauban, and other illustrious champions, whom their early writers had celebrated in rhyme. At length, about the year 1380, in the

"See Fauchet, Rec. p. 47. 116. And Huet, Rom. p. 121. 108.

* See vol. i. p. 121. He lived about 1189. Recherch. Par Beauchamps, p. 5. Nostradamus asserts, that Petrarch stole many things from a troubadour called Richard seigneur de Barbezeiuz, who is placed under 1883. Petrarch however was dead at that time.

y Sonnet. clxxxviii, Dodici Donne, &c. The academicians della Crusca in their Dictionary, quote a manuscript entitled, LIBRO D'AMORE of the year

1408. It is also referred to by Crescimbeni in his Lives of the Provencial poets, It contains verdicts or determinations in the Court of Love.

2 Pasq. Les Recherch. de la France, vii. 5. p. 609. 611. edit. 1633. fol.

a These translations, in which the originals were much enlarged, produced an infinite number of other romances in prose: and the old metrical romances soon became unfashionable and neglected. The romance of PERCEFORREST, one of the largest of the French ro

place of the Provencial a new species of poetry succeeded in France, consisting of Chants Royaux, Balades, Rondeaux, and Pastorales. This was distinguished by the appellation of the NEW POETRY: and Froissart, who has been mentioned above chiefly in the character of an historian, cultivated it with so much success, that he has been called its author. The titles of Froissart's poetical pieces will alone serve to illustrate the nature of this NEW POETRY: but they prove, at the same time, that the Provencial cast of composition still continued to prevail. They are, The Paradise of Love, A Panegyric on the Month of May, The Temple of Honour, The Flower of the Daisy, Amorous Lays, Pastorals, The Amorous Prison, Royal Ballads in honour of our Lady, The Ditty of the Amourous Spinett, Virelais, Rondeaus, and The Plea of the Rose and Violet. Whoever examines Chaucer's smaller pieces will per

mances of chivalry, was written in verse about 1220. It was not till many years afterwards translated into prose. M. Falconet, an ingenious inquirer into the early literature of France, is of opinion, that the most antient romances, such as that of the ROUND TABLE, were first written in Latin prose: it being well known that Turpin's CHARLEMAGNE, as it is now extant, was originally composed in that language. He thinks they were translated into French rhymes, and at last into French prose, tels que nous les avons aujourduy. See Hist. Acad. Inscript. vii. 293. But part of this doctrine may be justly doubted.

b With regard to the Chaunt royal Pasquier describes it to be a song in honour of God, the holy Virgin, or any other argument of dignity, especially if joined with distress. It was written in heroic stanzas, and closed with a l'Envoy, or stanza containing a recapitulation, dedication, or the like. Chaucer calls the Chant royal above mentioned, a Kyngis Note. Mill. T. v. 111. p. 25. His Complaint of Venus, Cuckow and Nightingale, and La belle Dame sans Mercy, have all a l'Envoy, and belong to this species of French verse. His Envoy to the Complaint of Venus, or Mars and Venus, ends with these lines, v. 79:

And eke to me it is a grete penaunce,
Sith rime in English hath soche scarcite,
To follow word by word the curiosite
Of gransonflour of them that make in
Fraunce.

Make signifies to write poetry; and here
we see that this poem was translated from
the French. See also Chaucer's Dreame,
v. 2204. Petrarch has the Envoi. I am

inclined to think, that Chaucer's Assemble of Fowles was partly planned in imitation of a French poem written by Gace de la Vigne, Chaucer's cotemporary, entitled, Roman d'Oiseaux, which treats of the nature, properties, and management of all birds de chasse. But this is

merely a conjecture, for I have never seen the French poem. At least there is an evident similitude of subject.

About this time, a Prior of S. Ge

nevieve at Paris wrote a small treatise
entitled, L'Art de Dictier BALLADES ET
See Mons. Beauchamps
RONDELLES.
Rech. Theatr. p. 88. M. Massieu says
this is the first ART OF POETRY printed
in France. Hist. Poes. Fr. p. 222. See
L'ART POETIQUE du Jaques Pelloutier
du Mons. Lyon, 555. 8vo. Liv. 11. ch. i.
Du L'ODE.

d Pasquier, ubi supr. p. 612. Who calls such pieces MIGNARDISES.

ceive that they are altogether formed on this plan, and often compounded of these ideas. Chaucer himself declares, that he wrote

-Many an hymne for your holidaies

← That hightin balades, rondils, virelaies.

But above all, Chaucer's FLOURE AND THE LEAFE, in which an air of rural description predominates, and where the allegory is principally conducted by mysterious allusions to the virtues or beauties of the vegetable world, to flowers and plants, exclusive of its general romantic and allegoric vein, bears a strong resemblance to some of these subjects. The poet is happily placed in a delicious arbour, interwoven with eglantine. Imaginary troops of knights and ladies advance: some of the ladies are crowned with flowers, and others with chaplets of agnus castus, and these are respectively subject to a Lady of the Flower, and a Lady of the Leafs. Some are cloathed in green, and others in white. Many of the knights are distinguished in much the same manner. But others are crowned with leaves of oak or of other trees: others carry branches of oak, laurel, hawthorn, and woodbine. Besides this profusion of vernal ornaments, the whole procession glitters with gold, pearls, rubies, and other costly decorations. They are preceded by minstrels cloathed in green and crowned with flowers. One of the ladies sings a bargaret, or pastoral, in praise of the daisy.

A bargaret in praising the daisie,
For as methought among her notis swete
She said si douce est le margaruite.

[blocks in formation]

This might have been Froissart's song: at least this is one of his subjects. In the mean time a nightingale, seated in a laureltree, whose shade would cover an hundred persons, sings the whole service, "longing to May." Some of the knights and ladiés do obeysance to the leaf, and some to the flower of the daisy. Others are represented as worshipping a bed of flowers. Flora is introduced "of these flouris goddesse." The lady of the leaf invites the lady of the flower to a banquet. Under these symbols is much morality couched. The leaf signifies perseverance and virtue: the flower denotes indolence and pleasure. Among those who are crowned with the leaf, are the knights of king Arthur's round table, and Charlemagne's Twelve Peers; together with the knights of the order of the Garter now just established by Edward the Third'.

But these fancies seem more immediately to have taken their rise from the FLORAL GAMES instituted in France in the year 1324", which filled the French poetry with images of this sort". They were founded by Clementina Isaure countess of Tholouse,

is again introduced in the Prologue to Marguerite, by Guillaume Machaut, the Leg. of G. Wom. v. 180.

The long daie I shope me for to abide
For nothing ellis, and I shall not lie
But for to lokin upon the daisie,
That wel by reason men it callè maie
The Daisie, or els the eye of the daie:
The emprise, and the floure, of flouris
al, &c.

v. 688.

Speght supposes that he means to pay a compliment to Lady Margaret, countess of Pembroke, king Edward's daughter, one of his patronesses. See the Balade beginning In Fevrere, &c. p. 556. Urr. Froissart's song in praise of the daisy might have the same tendency: for he was patronised both by Edward and Philippa. Margaruite is French for Daisy. Chaucer perhaps intends the same compliment by the "Margarite perle," Test. Love, p. 485. col. i. &c. Urr. See also Prol. Leg. G. Wom. v. 218. 224. That Prologue has many images like those in the Flower and the Leafe. It was evidently written after that poem.

[Sec Le dit de la fleur de lis et de la

ACAD. INSCRIPT. XX. p. 381. x. 669. infr. citat. On the whole, it may be doubted whether, either Froissart, or Chaucer, means Margaret, countess of Pembroke. For compare APPEnd. Pref. CANTERB. TALES, vol. i. p. xxxiv. I add, that in the year 1547, the poetical pieces of Margaret de Valois, queen of Navarre, were collected and published under the title of MARGUERITE de la Marguerites des princesses, tres illustre Royne de Navarre, by John de la Haye, her valet de chambre. It was common in France, to give the title of MARGUERITES to studied panegyrics, and flowery compositions of every kind, both in prose and verse.-ADDITIONS.]

1 v. 516. 517. 519.

m Mem. Lit. tom. vii. p. 422. 4to. n Hence Froissart in the EPINETTE AMOUREUSE, describing his romantic amusements, says he was delighted with

Violettes en leur saisons

Et roses blanches et vermeilles, &c. See Mem. it. tom. x. p. 665. 287. 4to.

« הקודםהמשך »