Chaucer's Truth: Some Background

I wanted the poem to have its own entry (below this post), because it deserves it. I also want people to hear it, and though I've made a recording of myself reading it in Middle English, I can't seem to figure out how to get it on here. I'll work on that this weekend...at some point. Really it does need to be heard aloud. But there are some words and references in there that aren't so obvious to us nowadays, and I can run through them, because that's what I do on Friday nights. Ahem!

I'll start at the end, first line of the last stanza. Lots of people puzzled over "Vache" for a long time--who it was, or what it meant. Literally it means "cow" in French, which Chaucer knew, but it also seems meant for someone--Chaucer could have just written "cow" after all--and some scholar in the last century puzzled out who. There was a friend of Chaucer's named Sir Philip de la Vache, a man of court like Chaucer--how it was he came from a cow, I know not. But nevermind that. When I learned this, the first thing I thought of was the Theophilus adressed by St. Luke in his Gospel and the Book of Acts. How much do we need to consider that this book was written to someone? Not much, maybe. In fact, the last stanza of Truth is extant in only one of many manuscripts, and I doubt many of us keep ol' Theophilus assiduously in mind while reading the Gospel of our Lord. But it keeps us in mind that this is not just a treatise, something to know and nod our knowing heads at. It has a truth universal, but it also has a sticking point--on this Theophilus, this lover of God, or on Sir Philip of the Cow. In the case of Chaucer, remember his milieu (note the French word) is the court, or the "prees," the press, that most mirror gazing crowd. Chaucer himself was somewhat bourgeois (French again!). His father was a fairly wealthy merchant, obviously with connections, since he had his son sent to a royal household for training, but still a merchant. Chaucer learned the movements of court well and early, but that division was always there, and he obviously felt both the need to play the game (for survival's sake) and also somewhat of a distance from it by definition of his not being of noble blood. Thus he could see the effects of court on people and the world, probably better than those most embroiled in it; perhaps he could see the effects of court on himself, and it is not really clear whether he ever stopped playing the game.

But the name Vache also has obvious connections to the rest of the poem. Chaucer talks about beasts coming out of their stalls in the third stanza. Now, it just so happens that Chaucer made a translation of Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy, and it just so happens that I have read it. The "heye wey" is a phrase that Chaucer uses to describe (in translation) the end of Hercules's labors, which I won't recount here. I'll give you the modern(ish) English: "Go now then, you strong men, there as the high way of the great example leadeth you...for the earth, overcome, yieldeth the stars, which is to say, that when earthly lust is overcome, a man is made worthy of heaven." The beast is of the earth, and this is its home. Man also is of the earth, but has he also a "gost," a spirit, which is not of this earth, but from God in heaven--"Know thy contree, look up, thank God of al." Now, if anybody knew about fleeing the press, it was Boethius, and one can imagine why Chaucer would be drawn to him--he was a shining man of the "court" of his day, cast suddenly and unceremoniously by Fortuna into the abyss; Chaucer was a merchant's son, cast suddenly (though at an early age) into the court. Boethius was an "insider" cast out, Chaucer an outsider cast in. Either way, there was no security, no stability but that of the mind, that gotten by philosophy. Fortuna's wheel is another classical image, used famously by Boethius as well as by Chaucer in the second stanza of this poem..."hir that turneth as a bal."

Now, I haven't said too much about the poem itself, and I don't really intend to. I've just tried to provide context, and you don't necessarily need it. I don't always need it, but I find it enriching all the same. Only a few more notes on certain words and phrases that may cause pause: "sothfastnesse" is security or moral stability, while its opposite is "tykelnesse," which is insecurity or Fortune and desire. "Wele" is prosperity--earthly in this case--and "blent" means blind. "Rede" is counsel. "Spurne ayeyns an al" basically means "kick against the pricks." "Daunte" means control. "Buxumnesse." ...doesn't mean what you might think it means. It means humility or obedience. So...be buxum. "Mede" is reward. The wonderfully beautiful refrain "it is no drede" means "without a doubt," but I love the word "drede" for doubt. Can I just say also that I love the line, "Savour no more than thee bihove shal?" It just rolls out of the mouth. Try it. Pronounce the final "e" in "bihove," and the "ee" in "thee" is more like "ey" in "they," without enunciating the final "y." And now I'm just gushing.