Penn State University Press
  • “Tyl Mercurius House He Flye”: Early Printed Texts and Critical Readings of the Squire’s Tale

One of the more bizarre readings of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales is George Nott’s interpretation of the Squire’s Tale in 1815. To Nott, the Knight’s Tale is inferior to the Squire’s Tale: “In the Squire’s Tale every thing is of a piece; the subject, the figures, the ideas, the machinery, are all purely Gothic, with a certain mixture of eastern imagery which gave, at the time of the Crusades, a peculiar colouring to our northern romances.” But even the excellencies of the extant Squire’s Tale cannot match the unwritten portions: “had the Squire’s Tale been finished. . . . I am persuaded that Chaucer would have left us the noblest specimen of romantic imagination to be found within the compass of modern literature.” 1 That such a tale, with what seems to us its rather obvious burlesque elements, should have been analyzed, even its unwritten portions, as achieving this level of greatness is odd to say the least. Some years ago, I addressed this problem in terms of genre and critical reception, a reception determined in large part by the authoritative praise of Spenser and Milton. 2 In this paper, I examine a type of evidence I earlier ignored. And that concerns specific features of the books in which these tales appeared prior to the late eighteenth century—editorial notes and details of format. Prior to the modern edition of Skeat and the many American editions that followed, what readers confronted when reading the Squire’s Tale was a text that would have made the modern reading (as parody) as preposterous to them as their own reading surely seems to us.

Let us consider one among the many examples of twentieth-century responses—the first reading recorded in Baker’s Variorum volume to claim that the tale is deliberately unfinished and complete as it stands in modern editions. The date of this reading is 1914: “It is here that the Franklin breaks in, and in the most courteous and charming manner succeeds in checking the story, of which the pilgrims have evidently had as much as they want, and in skillfully leading up to his own tale.” 3 Since [End Page 309] 1914, this reading has become institutionalized; Chaucer, through the Franklin, interrupts the tale, and indicates to us that the tale itself is boring, incompetent, etc. Thus it is not a bad tale per se, but an imitation of a bad tale, or a parody of a bad tale. The argument has many variants, incorporating the familiar clichés of twentieth-century criticism: the appropriateness of tale to teller, the relation of the Franklin to the Squire, etc. 4 But the argument also depends on a continuous reading of the tale’s two-line opening to “Pars tercia” and what is now the Squire-Franklin link, containing the Franklin’s interruption—a reading that only began to find support in editions following Skeat’s edition in 1894.

The Link (Modern Editions)

Modern editions represent the link variously. I use as representative examples a series of Ellesmere-based editions, beginning with that of Skeat:

Appollo whirleth up his char so hye, Til that the god Mercurius hous the slye—    . . . . . . . . . . . . .   [dingbat] Here folwen the wordes of the Frankelin to the Squier, and the   wordes of the Host to the Frankelin. “In feith, Squier, thou hast thee wel y-quit, . . .”

Skeat’s text and format appear in Robinson’s editions from 1933, and continue in the latest Riverside edition; the Franklin’s words follow the text immediately, with a rubric, but minimal editorial intervention. 5 The dots probably indicate that the tale is unfinished, but I cannot find any explicit statement to that effect in Skeat’s or Robinson’s notes. The last of the editions in this line (editions based on the Ellesmere manuscript) is Fisher’s. It is identical to those of Skeat and Robinson, but takes the additional step of omitting the row of dots or asterisks.

Appollo whirleth up his chaar so hye, Til that the god Mercurius hous, the slye— Heere folwen the wordes of the Frankeleyn to the Squier, and the   wordes of the Hoost to the Frankleleyn. “In feith, Squier, thow hast thee wel yquit. . . . ” 6

The text gives no indication whatsoever that the tale is not complete as Chaucer intended, although the notes do state correctly that the rest of [End Page 310] the page in El is blank. A version of the same seamless text found in Fisher’s edition is found earlier in the 1938 translation by Tatlock. 7

It is somewhat paradoxical that these texts, increasingly smoothing the transition here, are based closely on the Ellesmere manuscript. In the Ellesmere manuscript, the tale ends on a verso, which contains two lines of text, two lines of explicit and incipit, and the two lines beginning the presumed “Pars tertia.” But thirty-eight ruled, blank, and doubtless costly lines follow. The Squire-Franklin link begins on the next quire.

The text in these editions both promotes and reacts to the increasing popularity of the parodic or burlesque reading—the reading suggesting that the tale is deliberately unfinished. In earlier editions, there are several textual differences, including of course the actual sequence of tales, as well as the identification of the speaker who interrupts the Squire as the Merchant. Most important are the editorial statements and supporting format that define the nature of the end of the Tale, a tale these editions claim is not interrupted, but rather unfinished, incomplete, or simply missing.

Early Editions

The Canterbury Tales is printed five times before 1532, twice by Caxton (1478 and 1484, STC 5082, 5083), once by Wynkyn de Worde (1498, STC 5085), and twice by Pynson (1492, 1526, STC 5084, 5086). 8 The first Caxton edition (1478) has continuous text, with a single line rubric; but the link is to the Merchant’s Tale, and there is no implied interruption or criticism of the tale:

And there I lefte I wold ayen begynne Apollo whirlith up his chare so high Til that the god Mercurius the sligh Here endith the squyeris tale. And begynneth the Marchauntis prolog. Wepynge & waylinge care & other sorow I knowe Inough . . .

In the second edition of 1484, the tale is followed as in later editions by the Franklin’s Tale, and there are Latin explicits and incipits marking the beginning of the interrupted Pars Tertia.

Explicit secunda pars Incipit pars tertia Apollo whyrlith up hys chare so hygh [End Page 311] Tyl that god Mercurius hous the sligh. Ther is nomore of the squyers tale. The wordes of the frankeleyn

(sig. p1v)

Pynson’s text in the 1492 and 1526 editions is substantially the same, with the break occurring in mid-column in both editions.

The 1498 edition by Wynkyn de Worde expands the editorial intervention, and it is de Worde’s comment that finds its way into the later folio editions:

Explicit secunda pars Et inci-pit tercia pars Appollo whirllyth up his chare so hyghe Tyl that god mercurius the sligh. §There can be founde no more of this for- sayd tale. whyche I have ryght dilygently ser- chyd in many diverse scopyes. The words of the frankeleynto the squyre. And the wordesof the hoste to the frankeleyn.

(sig. m6r)

The rubrics in this case (“Explicit . . . ” and “The words of the frankeleyn”) are in display type. The editorial remark is in the same type as the text.

For the history of Chaucer interpretation, these editions are completely superseded by the series of folio editions beginning with the edition of 1532 by William Thynne—an editorial tradition that establishes for nearly two hundred years what would be the standard text of Chaucer. 9 In the 1532 edition, the nature of the ending of the tale (or Thynne’s opinion of it) is absolutely clear. Thynne changes the last couplet (the opening couplet of Pars Tertia) to read as follows:

Apollo whirleth up his chare so hye Tyll that the god Mercurius house he flye.

(sig. h2r, end of column 1)

I confess I am not entirely certain how Thynne believes this should be translated or even parsed: “until it flew by the house of the god Mercury”? But the change Thynne makes, presumably without manuscript or editorial support, is certainly intended to make a complete sentence of the fragmentary couplet in all previous editions. Thynne then repeats, without attribution, the statement of Wynkyn de Worde: “There can be founde no more of this foresaid tale / which hath ben sought in dyvers [End Page 312] places.” The identical statement appears in all these editions to 1687. To say that “no more” can be found implies of course that “more” exists (or once did exist). And if “more” does in fact exist, the conclusion (or presumption) is that the Squire’s Tale as written by Chaucer is not the unfinished tale that happens to appear in all editions. The format of the 1532 edition only supports the intrusive editorial comment. The tale ends at the end of a column; the link begins the next column. This format varies in later editions in this series, but in none of them is Thynne’s editorial comment removed. The comments by the Franklin must be read not ironically (as an interruption), but as straight-forward, pedestrian, and quite uninteresting praise—praise intended to apply not only to the tale printed, but to the unwritten portions Wynkyn de Worde was unable to find (the same nonexistent text so extolled by George Nott in 1815!). 10

The textual tradition of these folio editions ends in 1721 with Urry’s edition. Urry’s edition further reinforces the implications that the Squire’s Tale is unfinished by Chaucer, and that the link is an autonomous link, rather than a comment on the tale. In Urry’s edition, the Squire’s Tale ends on sig. R2v and is followed by an ornament. A variant of de Worde’s comment follows: “there can no more be found of this TALE, which hath been sought for in diverse places, say all the Printed Books that I have seen, and also MSS.” The short link appears on the facing folio page, filling barely a third of the available space. It is followed by another large ornament. In Urry, the various sections (the Squire’s Tale proper, and the link to the next tale) have a clearly articulated physical autonomy. The Tales exist as single independent units.

The next significant edition is Tyrwhitt’s 1775 edition, the basis for a number of later editions. The Squire’s Tale ends with the last line of Pars Secunda (“And ther I left I wold again beginne” followed by a line of asterisks and the heading “The Frankeleines Prologue.” Tyrwhitt’s implied break is strengthened by later editions that use his text. The Chalmers edition follows the tale with a row of dots, a dingbat marking a major break, and the heading “The Frankeleines Prologue.” The single-volume Moxon edition of 1843, an edition that uses Tyrwhitt for the Canterbury Tales, further strengthens this break. The Tyrwhitt ending of Pars Secunda is followed by a double line indicating a section break, and following that is a major heading “The FRANKELEINS TALE” followed by “The Frankeleines Prologue.” 11

The popular six-volume Aldine edition of 1845 has a volume break between the two tales: the Squire’s Tale ends volume two; the Franklin’s response, rather than serving as a coda to the Squire’s tale as it does in most modern editions, is placed at the beginning of volume 3, as a prologue to the Franklin’s Tale. Readers of this Chaucer would have had no indication of a hostile or critical response in the text itself. 12 Not only is [End Page 313] a continuous reading not encouraged in these editions, in many it is not even contemplated. There simply is no “text” providing an interruption of the Squire’s Tale by the Franklin. 13

Conclusion

The reading of the tale as parody requires a number of things: first, that the very critical language of parody and burlesque be available (which it was not before the late eighteenth century); second, that the reader have available the authorial or textual clues that a reflective or critical reading was intended. But as any examination of these early books reveals, not only were these clues absent in early editions, there were specific editorial statements denying that such a reading was appropriate.

The early books simply offer no support for the modern reading. Twentieth-century readings of the text as parody require a linguistic competence far beyond the reach of all but the grimmest specialists, and require as well a mental and physical agility for moving quickly around unindexed books. It is not easy when working through the Squire’s Tale to find the distant and unindexed General Prologue description in the folios—a description that in the multi-volume Tyrwhitt edition and in all subsequent small-format editions occurs in a separate volume. Twentieth-century Chaucerians read and write under the assumption or pretense of what might be called the complete presence of the text. That is, an academic critic writing an interpretation is responsible for all textual facts, and accountable for those missed or ignored. But few if any readers read Chaucer that way before the institutionalization of Chaucer as a “school author” in the late nineteenth century. Readers struggling through the black-letter folios in the sixteenth and seventeenth century, marking sententiae as many of the physical books prove they did with an apparent high seriousness post-Arnoldian Chaucerians might find naive, or wrestling with Urry’s Chaucerian idiolect in the eighteenth, simply did not engage in the kinds of readings we take for granted: continuous readings over large portions of text—readings that produce the pairings of tales dear to criticism thirty years ago; Kittredgean readings requiring the tales to be expressions of their General Prologue tellers; or readings involving a great deal of textual self-reflection or critical self-denigration. These are readings we take for granted. They may also be readings that Chaucer intended. But they are not readings that would be accessible to early Chaucerians nor ones represented in early Chaucer books.

Joseph A. Dane
Huntington Library
San Marino, CA

Footnotes

1. George Frederick Nott, The Works of Henry Howard Earl of Surrey and of Sir Thomas Wyatt the Elder, 2 vols. (1815), 1: cclxix, quoted by Caroline F. E. Spurgeon, Five Hundred Years of Chaucer Criticism and Allusion, 5 pts. (1908–1917; rpt. Cambridge, Engl., 1925), 2: 79–80.

2. “Genre and Authority: The Eighteenth-Century Creation of Chaucerian Burlesque,” Huntington Library Quarterly 48 (1985): 345–62; the words parody and burlesque were developed as genre terms in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and with those terms came interpretations of certain tales, such as Sir Thopas, to fit them.

3. Donald C. Baker, ed., The Squire’s Tale, Variorum Chaucer, 2, 12 (Norman, Okla., 1990), 42, quoting Grace E. Hadow, Chaucer and His Times (London, 1914), 79.

4. Derek Pearsall, The Canterbury Tales (London, 1985), 143, seconding Coghill: “The Franklin . . . having listened with something approaching dismay to the Squire’s sketch of his threatened epic . . .”; Derek Brewer, A New Introduction to Chaucer (1988; 2nd ed. London, 1998), 332: “the effusive praise from the Franklin . . . is perhaps meant to stifle any continuation.” See earlier examples in Baker, Squire’s Tale, 43, 243. See also William Kamowski, “Trading the ‘Knotte’ for Loose Ends: The Squire’s Tale and the Poetics of Chaucerian Fragments,” Style 31 (1997): 391–412. The notes in Larry D. Benson, ed., The Riverside Chaucer (Boston, 1976), 890, by Vincent J. DiMarco suggest that the denigration of the tale begins as early as the fifteenth century. Dimarco follows Paul Strohm, “Jean of Angoulême: A Fifteenth Century Reader of Chaucer,” NM 72 (1971): 69–76, whose argument involves a misreading of the referent of Jean’s phrase “valde absurda”; see Joseph Dane, Who is Buried in Chaucer’s Tomb? Studies in the Reception of Chaucer’s Book (East Lansing, Mich., 1998), 199–202.

5. F. N. Robinson, The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer (Boston, 1933; 2nd ed. 1957).

6. John H. Fisher, ed., The Complete Poetry and Prose of Geoffrey Chaucer (New York, 1977).

7. John S. P. Tatlock, The Complete Poetical Works of Geoffrey Chaucer (New York, 1938), 250, has this text, again, without the interrupting row of asterisks or dots. John Matthews Manly, The Canterbury Tales (London, 1928), 378, includes the Ellesmere text but inserts a bracketed note “[The tale is incomplete.]” The text in Alfred W. Pollard, The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer (New York, 1898), is the same as Skeat’s; a dash follows “slye” with a row of dots. The note, however, is ambiguous: “The ‘half-told’ tale breaks off here.” (Half-told is Milton’s word, not Chaucer’s.)

8. The manuscript variants are obviously of less importance for reception of Chaucer than those in the printed editions, and several show the link to the Merchant’s Tale (Manly-Rickert, Text of the Canterbury Tales, 6: 569). There seem to be none of the peculiar variants found in the concluding couplet of the Tale in the printed editions from 1532 (ibid, 6:567). For the spurious conclusion, see Baker, Squire’s Tale, 242.

9. The series includes editions, with variants, of 1532, 1542, [1550], 1561, 1598, 1602, and 1687. The best surveys of these editions are Charles Muscatine, The Book of Geoffrey Chaucer (San Francisco, 1963); and John R. Hetherinton, Chaucer, 1532–1602: Notes and Facsimile Texts (Birmingham, 1964). For textual relations, see my “Fists and Filiations in Early Chaucer Folios (1532–1602),” Studies in Bibliography 51 (1998): 48–62; on the Thynne edition, see James E. Blodgett, “William Thynne (d. 1546),” in Paul E. Ruggiers, Editing Chaucer: The Great Tradition (Norman, Okla., 1984), 35–52.

10. See the minimal editorial intervention at the end of the Tale of Sir Thopas: “Here endeth the ryme of sir Thopas/ and begynneth the wordes of our host” (sig. k1r). By the 1602 edition, the break between the end of Thopas and the link is reduced even further to “The words of our hoste” (sig. N1r).

11. [Thomas Tyrwhitt], ed., The Canterbury Tales of Geoffrey Chaucer to which are added An Essay upon his Language and Versification . . ., 5 vols. (London, 1775–78), 2:126; Alexander Chalmers, The Works of the English Poets, from Chaucer to Cowper, vol. 1 (Chaucer), (London, 1810), 85; The Poetical Works of Geoffrey Chaucer (London, 1843), 84.

12. The Poetical Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, 6 vols. (London, 1845). The 1866 revision by Morris (using Wright’s text) moves the link from the beginning of volume 3 to the end of volume 2. Wright follows Harley 7334 and omits the two-line opening of “Pars tercia”; a row of asterisks follows “And ther I left I wol ageyn beginnne,” followed by the Franklin’s Prologue, with a note on the addition in the Landsdowne MS. linking the tale with the Wife. Later reprints of Wright that I have seen follow this format. Thomas Wright, ed., The Canterbury Tales of Geoffrey Chaucer, 3 vols. (London, 1847–51), 2:157.

13. An extreme example is the three-volume translation The Canterbury Tales of Chaucer, Modernis’d by Several Hands, ed. Ogle (London, 1741). The last tale in volume 2 is the Squire’s Tale, translated into Spenserian stanzas; but Chaucer’s text ends with stanza CXL and is completed in 53 additional stanzas by an expansion by Ogle of Bk. 4 of the Faerie Queene. The link (to the Merchant) in vol. 3 thus is pure praise: “Well clos’d (The Merchant thus applauds the Squire) / Your Tale is ful of Fancy and of Fire.”

Share