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The Source of Chaucer's Rime of Sir Thopas
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 December 2021
Extract
Numerous parallels, culled from Middle-English metrical romances to illustrate the style and the diction of Chaucer's Rime of Sir Thopas, have shown how successfully Chaucer burlesqued the verses of certain of his less gifted predecessors and contemporaries. More recently the parodistic character of Sir Thopas has been emphasized by Mr. J. M. Manly, who, in the same connection, adduced interesting evidence as to political satire latent in the poem. These studies of the style and the diction of Sir Thopas have contributed largely to our appreciation of the humorous character of the work itself and, more important still, to our knowledge of the poet; for a parody or a burlesque implies the special imitation of a model, and thus we conclude that Chaucer enjoyed an easy familiarity with at least one type of his native vernacular literature. Supplementing this rather imposing body of internal, stylistic evidence, comes a short but enlightening catalogue of metrical romances which the poet introduces towards the end of his own rollicking contribution to this genre:
- Men speke of romances of prys,
- Of Horn child and of Ypotis,
- Of Bevis and sir Gy, Of sir Libeus and Pleyn-damour. (C.T., B 2087–90)
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1927
References
1 For these parallels, see especially Skeat's notes to the poem; also C. J. Bennewitz, Chaucer's Sir Thopas. Eine Parodie auf die altenglischen Rillerromanzen. Diss. Halle a/S., 1879, and E. Kölbing, “Zu Chaucers Sir Thopas,” Eng. Stud., XI (1887–88), 495–511. It is not within the scope of the present paper to resume this aspect of Sir Thopas, but I draw attention to one passage of the many collected by Bennewitz (B.) and Kölbing (K.) in which Chaucer echoes especially closely the phraseology of the romance of Libeaus Desconus: compare “His sheeld was al of gold so reed/ And therin was a bores heed (C. T., B 2059, 60)” with “His scheld was of gold fin,/ þre bores heddes þer inne (Lib. Desc, vv. 1657, 58, C–MS.) (B., op. cit., p. 45). For other, and in the main far less striking, verbal parallels, see B., pp. 33, 36, 40, 41, 43, 49 and K., op. cit., pp. 498, 499, 507.
2 Lowell Lectures, “Some New Light on Chaucer,” Boston, Mass., January–February, 1924. For a resume of the lecture on Sir Thopas, see the [Boston] Evening Transcript, Monday, February 4, 1924, p. 9; this lecture is not included in the same author's New Light on Chaucer (N. Y., 1926).
3 Cf. Sir Perceval of Gales (ed. J. Campion and Ferd. Holthausen, Heidelberg, 1913), v. 7. The Perceval referred to here is not the titular hero of the romance, but the latter's father. The father is designated by this name only in the English romance and in Chaucer. On the various names (different in every version) of the hero's father, see R. H. Griffith, Sir Perceval of Cales. A Study of the Sources of the Legend, University of Chicago diss. [1911], p. 17, note 1.
4 To be discussed in detail in a later study.
5 Loc. cit. supra. He is Ypotis (Epictetus), the enfant sage so popular in mediæval tradition. According to J. E. Wells (Manual of the Writings in Middle English, pp. 425, 26) there are no less than eleven MSS in Middle English. Miss J. D. Sutton (“Hither-to unprinted MSS. of the Middle-English I potis,” PMLA, XXXI, 114ff.) prints two fragments of Y potis from a MS of the early 14th century—fifty years earlier than the Vernon text.
6 R. K. Root, Poetry of Chaucer (2d ed., Boston, 1922), p. 201.
7 Libeaus Desconus (abbr. LD.), ed. Max Kaluza, Altenglische Bibliothek, Bd. V, Leipzig, 1890. References are to verses (vv.). The Ile d'Or Episode occupies vv. 1297–1548. For a general comparative analysis of this episode in the English, French, and Italian versions of this story, see W. H. Schofield, “Studies on the Libeaus Desconus”, [Harvard] Studies in Philol. and Lit., IV (1895), 36–42.
8 In both poems the introduction is according to a convention (see Kaluza, ed. cit., p. 189, note to vv. 1303–08 for parallels); so the presence or absence of this element in one or the other poem would be of little or no significance. That both poems, however, do adopt the same convention in the same situation deserves passing notice.
9 “Termagant” is, as we know, a commonplace of mediaeval romance; cf. Skeat's note to C. T., B 2000 for explanation, allusions, and references; add reference, cited by Kölbing, art. cit. supra, p. 504, to Child's Ballad No. 53E, stanza 2, and see the numerous quotations in NED, sub voce and its derivatives. The significance of Termagant here lies not in its mere presence, but in its association with the prototype of Chaucer's Sir Olifaunt, the giant Maugis.
10 This is a feature important in differentiating the story from the very common type where a knight goes out on an adventure or quest in response to an appeal from a lady in distress; as, for example, Sir Perceval of Gales, vv. 965 ff., for the embassy from Lady Lufamour of Maidenland. On the relief of the besieged lady, cf. Griffith, op. cit. supra, pp. 78 ff.
11 By this last observation, I do not mean to minimize the significance of the localization by a body of water, in the English romance (also in the French, as we shall see below); for this is, of course, highly characteristic of the otherworld landscape, especially of a trysting place between mortal lovers and their otherworld amies. In illustration of this point, attention is directed to the admirable and richly documented articles by T. P. Cross, “The Celtic Elements in the Lays of Lanval and Graelent,” Mod. Phil., XII (1915), 15–20 (“The Fountain Scene”) and by H. R. Patch, “Mediaeval Descriptions of the Otherworld,” PMLA, XXXIII, 627–640 (“The River [and the Bridge]”). If, however, Chaucer is utilizing the Ile d'Or Episode, he is by no means bound to retain every detail, and the body of water and bridge-head may well have seemed less important to him than to us moderns eagerly searching after Celtic parallels. Here the fight's the thing!
12 Li Biaus Descouneus de Renaud de Beaujeu [Renais de Biauju, v. 6211] (ca. 1190), ed. Miss G. P. Williams, Oxford: Fox, Jones and Co., 1915. The relation of the English LD. to the French LBD. eludes precise definition, but the question is whether LD. is directly dependent upon LBD. (so Kaluza, ed. cit. supra, p. cxxxi–xlv) or whether both go back to a common original (so, with various modifications, most scholars). For the literature on this point, see Williams, ed. cit., p. xxxix. No one questions the close relationship of the two poems.
13 On tie name “Guinglains,” see H. Zimmer, “Beiträge zur Namenforschung in den altfrz. Arthurepen,” Zs. f. frz. Sprache u. Litteratur, XIII (1891), 17–18.
14 If, in many respects, Li Biaus Descouneus has been the subject to the influences of rationalization and twelfth-century “corteisie,” there is one detail in which it preserves what was very likely once an important feature of the story of episode. The account of the tenure of Malgiers (“I'usages”) is interesting and primitive (LBD., vv. 1983–2015): the lady of the land will marry whomsoever holds for seven years the position of guardian. If one guardian meets defeat at the hands of an invader and is slain, the victor assumes the role of the vanquished and begins in his turn a seven-year's probation (the conventional period). The tenure of these guardian knights is, indeed, scarcely less arduous and uncertain than that of the wretched priests of Diana Nemorensis who lived long ago in the shadow of the Golden Bough.
15 W. H. Schofield, op. cit. supra, p. 197.
16 Cf. LBD., vv. 2112–76. The fight is momentarily interrupted by the exhaustion of the protagonists (vv. 2131–40), but nothing more.
17 A “river” in LD., vv. 1361, 1441; “uns bras de mer” in LBD., vv. 1870, 1915, et passim. See note 11 above.
18 I Cantari di Carduino (ca. 1350), ed. Pio Rajna, Curiosità Lettararie, Vol. CXXXV, Bologna, 1873. References are to canto, stanza, and line. On the relation of Carduino to the Libeaus romances, see Schofield, op. cit., 183 ff.
19 Child's No. 177; Schofield, op. cit., p. 242.
20 English and Scottish Popular Ballads, Part X, p. 299.
21 This fourth (4) item is included in the analysis out of justice to the alleged relationship between the ballad and the romance, but its significance for the study of Sir Thopas must inevitably be entirely negative since the narrative of the latter is abruptly concluded before this stage is reached.