Читать книгу History of English Literature from "Beowulf" to Swinburne - Andrew Lang, Robert Kirk - Страница 67

It was not in the nature of these Reformers to follow the counsel of Chaucer's good Parson in the "Parson's Tale" (the spelling may here be modernized, as an example of the poet's prose).

"Certainly chiding may not come but out of a villain's heart, for after the abundance of the heart speaketh the mouth full often. And ye should understand that I Look ever when any man shall chastise another, that he beware of chiding and reproving, for truly, unless he be wary, he may full lightly kindle the fire of anger and of wrath which he should quench, and peradventure slayeth him whom he might chastise with benignity.... Lo, what saith saint Augustine, 'there is nothing so like the Devil's child as he that often chideth'. Now cometh the sin of them that sow and make discord among folk; which is a sin that Christ hateth utterly, and no wonder it is; for he died to make concord. And more sin do they to Christ, than did they that him crucified; for God loveth better that friendship be among folk than he did his own body, which he gave for unity."

Chaucer's country-priest, not the chiding Wyclifite Sons of Thunder, is the true Christian. There is more of the spirit of the Master in the caressing words of Chaucer's address to "little Louis my son... pray God save the king that is Lord of this lande, and all that him faith beareth and obeyeth, each in his degree, the more, and the less," than in torrents of bitter chiding, and a hail of unpublishable vituperation.

The English of Chaucer's treatise of "The Astrolabe," despite its difficult astronomical matter, is pellucid, and there is a charm of rhythm in his prose translations of the verses in Boëthius.