For gode in Chaucer and the Gawain Poet

Abstract

In a recent article I pointed out and illustrated a set phrase used in thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Middle English that is not recognized in dictionaries of medieval English, namely, for gode.1 It is not an oath but an innocent or non-profane asseveration or exclamation, literally, ‘for good.’ As I suggested in that article, the phrase is comparable to the French pour de bon (‘seriously,’ ‘really’), and the earlier (tout) de bon and (tout) à bon, and has something in common with the emphasizing element of various idiomatic phrases in Italian and Spanish that use the words for ‘good’ in their respective languages not to express merit or desirability, but rather authenticity or truth. Indeed, as I further argued, a sense of ‘genuine,’ ‘valid,’ and, in certain contexts, ‘true’ is acknowledged for Old English and early Middle English god(e), so that a coupling of for and god(e) could understandably have produced a sense like ‘genuinely’ or ‘truly.’The Middle English phrase can be best recognized, and thus distinguished from the oath ‘for God,’ by the way that its second word is spelled by scribes who consistently differentiate in spelling—throughout long texts in single hands—between the words for ‘God’ and for ‘good,’ specifically when the words are subject to a preposition. My article presented evidence of several such texts. Occasionally, too, identification is helped by a rhyme that points to the tense (or closed) long o of the word for ‘good’ rather than the short o of the word for ‘God.’ In a few cases, moreover, we can also recognize the improbability that an oath would be put into the mouth of a particular character in a narrative. One of the earliest examples of for gode comes, from the beginning of the thirteenth century, in the words of a saint embracing martyrdom, and another comes, from a few decades later, in the words of Moses descending from Mount Sinai. At that stage, it was clearly a polite and potentially solemn phrase of emphasis, perhaps close to forsooth or verily in Elizabethan usage.By about 1300 or a little later, in such works as Bevis of Hampton, the Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester, and the South English Legendary, which together offer twenty-one examples of the phrase, its tone had evidently changed a little. Although it could still be forcefully emphatic, particularly when enforcing a negative or a contradiction, it often seems to have been used more casually, and sometimes in contexts that suggest a wryly humorous or bantering tone. This usage, however, marks the last phase of its general use by educated authors. After the first half of the fourteenth century, for gode seems never to have been used in works of edification or sentence, and only to have been used in such works of entertainment as would have been considered either unsophisticated or provincial by educated writers of the London area. In surviving works it seems only to appear, after the mid-century, in a few relatively homely romances or tales. One such is the Ashmole Sir Ferumbras, the composition and sole copy of which must date from close to 1380.2 The copy, all in one hand, invariably spells the word for ‘God,’ subject to a preposition, as god,3 while spelling the word for ‘good’ as either god or gode, in fact, more often the latter when weak or plural. Thus an example of gode in conjunction with the preposition for is easily recognizable as the phrase in question: “Damesel,” saide duk Gyoun: “my prayer ys now ido.”“For gode,” saide erld Ogeroun: “so ys myn al-so.”(lines 2563–64)4 Another undoubted example is seen in The Tale of Gamelyn,5 and probable examples in Syre Gawene and the Carle of Carelyle6 and in the AM2 revision of Arthur and Merlin.7 The first of these works was apparently written at some time in the second half of the fourteenth century, the others probably close to 1400, with all the relevant manuscript evidence seeming to date from the first half of the fifteenth century. That apart, most fifteenth-century copyists of the early fourteenth-century works already mentioned that had freely used for gode did at least recognize the phrase, and either reproduced its exact form or replaced it with equivalent non-profane words. But if there are any occurrences of the phrase in original compositions from after about 1425, they must be very rare.It may seem surprising that three further late examples of for gode should occur in what many would consider the greatest works in Middle English, the Canterbury Tales and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. In each case, however, the use of the phrase is not only understandable but part of the subtlety of the writing. The example in the Canterbury Tales is found in the Miller's Tale, at the point where Nicholas has just told John of the imminence of the supposed flood, and John has earnestly asked whether there is “no remedie in this cas” (I 3525): “Why, yis, for Gode,” quod hende Nicholas,“If thou wolt werken after loore and reed.”(I 3526–27)8 Thus does the text appear in the Riverside edition of 1987 with manuscript gode given a capital g, as it is in Robinson's second edition of 1957, Baugh's edition of 1963, Fisher's edition of 1977, and the Variorum edition of the Miller's Tale of 1983.9 Even when, in other editions, it is printed with a minuscule g, it is still, apparently invariably, translated as “by God” or with a form of words that implies the same.10Again, however, the spelling shows this to be wrong. We know very well from an abundance of evidence how the scribes of the better-regarded surviving copies of the Canterbury Tales chose to write the word for ‘God,’ and specifically how they did so when the word was subject to a preposition. It was, in the overwhelming majority of cases, god or (much less commonly) God, and, in almost all other cases, godde or Godde. As a fair indication, one can take the fifty examples in the Canterbury Tales of oaths sworn “by God” (including those in which the word for ‘God’ is augmented by some description or attribute). In the six copies printed in the Chaucer Society's A Six-Text Print of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in Parallel Columns,11 every example of these oaths has the word for ‘God’ spelled as god/God, except for two examples of godde in one copy and one of the same in another.12 Moreover, in what would probably be considered the four most authoritative of these six texts—those in the Ellesmere and Hengwyrt manuscripts, in Cambridge, University Library MS Gg.4.27, and in Oxford, Corpus Christi College MS 198—all further examples of the word for ‘God’ subject to a preposition throughout the Canterbury Tales (almost 200 of them in each of the slightly varying texts) are spelled god/God, except for half a dozen scattered occurrences of good in one copy.13 Yet at line I 3526 all four of these copies read for gode. To dismiss this as a chance misspelling, happening to occur at the same point in all four copies, would be absurd. It is patently a deliberate use of the phrase already described.What gives this more than merely lexical interest is the aptness with which the phrase has been chosen. It was fitting that Nicholas should contradict John with a firm asseveration, but it would have been out of place to use an oath. Throughout this episode Nicholas is being outrageously pious: “For it is Cristes conseil that I seye” (I 3504); “I wol nat tellen Goddes pryvetee” (I 3558); “For it is Goddes owene heeste deere” (I 3588). For a hundred lines (I 3501–3600) of what he calls his “sermonyng” (I 3597), as he reveals God's plan, Nicholas maintains the pretence of piety. John swears (I 3508, 3512); Nicholas does not. The innocent for gode provides the ideal alternative.It is ideal because, besides being dramatically appropriate, it is part of the humor of the tale. As already implied, Chaucer does not use for gode elsewhere in his known works, nor, apparently, was it used by any other sophisticated London or South-East Midland authors of his day. Chaucer's introduction of it here must be another example of his ironic or burlesque use of the “idiom of popular poetry” which, following E. Talbot Donaldson, many readers recognize as a sustained comic coloring of the narrative.14 Repeatedly, that is, Chaucer introduces into the Miller's Tale the hackneyed vocabulary of popular rhymed romances or love lyrics, words that he shunned in his own polished love stories, as part of his caricaturing of the “love” of Nicholas, Absolon, and Alisoun. They alone among the characters of the Canterbury Tales (short of Sir Thopas himself) can suffer “deerne love” (I 3278) and “love-longynge” (I 3349, 3679, and 3705) and appeal for “Lemman … thyn oore!” (I 3726). Only Nicholas, among Chaucer's protagonists, can be labeled “hende,” not once but six times, as a virtual soubriquet (I 3199, 3272, etc.). It can hardly be a matter of chance that it is in the midst of such un-Chaucerian diction that we find his only example of an exclamation that he must have considered outworn, while homelier versifiers of the late fourteenth century did not.15The two examples of for gode in Gawain are found at lines 965 and 1822. Both have consistently been treated as oaths, the second word of each being translated as ‘God,’ with capitalizing of the initial in most editions. But again spelling could always have shown that this is highly improbable. In the four works of London, British Library MS Cotton Nero A.x, generally considered to be in a single hand, the word for ‘God,’ subject to a preposition, is never spelled gode. There are thirty-three examples (unless one includes the two readings in question), and thirty-one are spelled god and two godde.16 Six of the eight examples in Gawain are oaths written bi/be god or bi godde (lines 1110, 1245, 1498, 2122, 2205, and 2250); the other prepositions used in the thirty-three examples are with, to, vnder, of, als, and bot. It must always have seemed improbable that on the only two occasions when the governing preposition was for, the same noun should appear as gode. Since gode was one of the common forms in the manuscript of the word for ‘good,’17 a sense of ‘for good’ must have suggested itself even if one did not recognize the words as being a well-attested asseveration with an appropriate sense at each of the two points.And that it certainly has. On both occasions its sense is more appropriate than that of an oath. To take the simpler case first, in line 1822 we are seeing Gawain's response when the Lady has offered him a gold ring with a radiant precious stone: bot þe renk hit renayed, and redyly he sayde,“I wil no gifteƷ, for gode, my gay, at þis tyme”(lines 1821–22)18 It would be surprising if the studiously courteous Gawain, when offered such a splendid gift, were to burst out: “I don't want any gifts, by God!” He had, admittedly, sworn by God in each of the two previous bedroom scenes, at lines 1245 and 1498, but in those cases the context seems to make the oath understandable and inoffensive. Each time Gawain is responding to what seems to us a speech of surprising forwardness by the Lady,19 and each time he is doing so with heightened deference and an eagerness that could be seen as a credible reaction to embarrassment. At line 1245, he is protesting his desire to serve her in word or deed.20 At line 1498, he is commending her, unconvincingly, for her distinctly uncourtly words: “‘Ʒe, be god,’ quoþ Gawayn, ‘good is your speche.’” At line 1822, by contrast, a rejection of her offer of something both innocent and very desirable with the bluntness of an oath would be far from courteous. A phrase of emphasis without profanity was needed, and among such phrases the choice of for gode would have been part of the framing of the alliteration of the line.The other example of for gode in Gawain is found in Fitt 2, at the end of several lines of detailed description of the forbidding auncian, Morgan le Fay, as Gawain first sees her: a mensk lady on molde mon may hir calle for gode.hir body watz schort and þik,hir buttokeƷ bay and brode.more lykkerwys on to lykwatƷ þat scho hade on lode.(lines 964–69) Line 965 is taken as an oath in almost all editions,21 often with added capitalization of the g. It can, however, be recognized as the phrase under discussion on three separate grounds.The improbability on grounds of spelling that gode could be the word for ‘God’ has already been argued. An equally strong objection to taking the two words as an oath lies in a curious convention of Middle English alliterative stanzaic verse. Alliterative verse did not use oaths as bobs. There survive, by my reckoning, 289 examples of bobs in Middle English verse that is wholly or preponderantly alliterative, and none of them is an oath.22 Even in works in nonalliterative verse that use bobs frequently, among over 1,000 examples only about half a dozen are oaths (including four occurrences of perdé).23 This evidence is despite the fact that many of the works in which these bobs are found—alliterative and nonalliterative—are otherwise ready enough to include oaths, as of course is Gawain itself. More significantly, it is despite the fact that oaths would seem to be ideal material for bobs. The most common oaths are brief, often with just one stressed syllable, as the bob required; they are usually exclamatory, a jolt in the flow of speech, as bobs may well have been made to sound in recitation; and they can be syntactically and rationally linked to either what comes before or what follows, or both, as bobs regularly are. Any writer selecting the words for a bob must always have been tempted to use an oath, and yet none, in nearly three hundred cases in ten separate works, seems ever to have done so. It defies belief that the Gawain poet broke the convention with an oath that just happened to have the precise form of another asseveration, not an oath, which fits the context perfectly.And that, again, is what for gode seems to do. The preceding line (964), following such an unflattering description of the ancian (she was mostly hidden by clothes and the visible parts of her face “were soure to se and sellyly blered”), can hardly be whole-hearted praise. In fact, the description mensk is hedged by saying simply that that is what “mon may hir calle” (you could call her that). Coming straight after such equivocation, the bluntness of an oath would lack subtlety. The use of for gode, on the other hand, is reminiscent of several examples of the phrase in earlier Middle English where it is used half-ironically to “emphasize” statements that are obviously untrue or improbable.24 An innocent asseveration with an overtone of that sort would be ideal for capping praise of such a disconcerting figure.It remains to acknowledge two possible objections that could be proposed to the readings of for gode in Gawain just described. One, which deserves mention only because of the authority of the scholars who have repeated it, concerns the rhymes of lines 965/967/969. In the words of the Tolkien-Gordon-Davis edition of the work: “gode with tense [or closed] o … would not rhyme with brode with slack [or open] o.”25 By contrast, they say, the short o of the word for ‘God,’ as in the conventional reading of the line, gives what would be an acceptable rhyme with the slack long o of brode and lode. Indeed it might, but the rhyme that they are ruling out would, demonstrably, have been equally possible if not more so.If we assume that the author of Gawain also wrote Pearl, we have a total of 1,717 rhyming lines from his pen. No one can possibly know from so small a sample what rhymes he would not use. (Imagine deciding what rhymes Chaucer would never use from just one book of Troilus and Criseyde.) It is all the more unconvincing to claim that such a small amount of evidence rules out a rhyme that is found, however infrequently, in all major writers in English verse of the later fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries.26 In fact, the most obvious conclusion to draw from the Gawain poet's 1,717 surviving rhyming lines is that he was an exceptionally flexible or cavalier rhymer. He could rhyme knot/clot with hyl coppe (Pearl, lines 788/789/791); obes (‘[they] obey’) with never þe les (Pearl, lines 886/888); and deuise/pryse (‘prize’) with wedes hys (Pearl, lines 1129/1131/1133). While repeatedly rhyming lengthened o with slack long o, to which it probably had a very similar sound, he also rhymes it with tense long o; for example, he rhymes vpon(e) (‘upon’) with the slack long o of ston (‘stone’) (Pearl, lines 206/208, 822/824), but also with the tense long o of mone (‘moon’) (Pearl, lines 1054/1056).27 Most pertinently, at Pearl, lines 1066/1068, he rhymes lone (‘lane’), which almost certainly contains slack long o, with the tense long o of mone (‘moon’).28 Not only, then, is he often imprecise in rhyming, and in particular imprecise in his rhyming of long o, but he seems to use the very rhyme said to be unacceptable at lines 965/967/969.We might nevertheless have reservations about recognizing the use of for gode in Gawain on grounds of tone or style. If the phrase seemed so tired or shopworn to Chaucer that he could only use it tongue-in-cheek, and other major London authors of his day chose not to use it at all, could it really belong in a work as sophisticated as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight? It is not, however, the only item of vocabulary in the work that seems to belong chiefly to popular rhymed romance and love lyric, and that was never used by Chaucer except for comic effect. Chaucer's serious heroes, unlike Nicholas, are never hende, but in Gawain Arthur (once) and Gawain (repeatedly) are so described. Chaucer's heroines are never cumly or comly, but Gawain, the Lady, and even the castle are. Lemman for ‘lover’ is only used by Chaucer in the Miller's Tale and Sir Thopas, but is used in all seriousness in Gawain (line 1782) and repeatedly in Pearl (lines 763, 796, 805 and 829). The Gawain poet evidently did not think that such vocabulary, or such conventional phrases as stif in stalle (Gawain, line 104) or lufsum vnder lyne (Gawain, line 1814), were unworthy of him because they were overused elsewhere. He was, in fact, an extraordinarily inclusive user of English vocabulary in all four works that we attribute to him, mixing what might well have seemed archaic, provincial, or jaded to some listeners with what might have seemed uncomfortably bookish and neologistic to others. Given this promiscuousness, any tiredness or association with popular rhyming that attached to for gode in the late fourteenth century is not likely to have troubled him.