A time when the whole world seems ready to mount a green bandwagon -
in Canada there is even a Federal Green Party - seems an appropriate
time to raise a matter that has bothered me for many years, in fact,
from the time I wrote an article on The Shepheardes Calender over
fifty years ago. It concerns E. K.'s gloss on the November emblem:
'For though the trespasse of the first man brought death into the
world, as the guerdon of sinne, yet being ouercome by the death of
one, that dyed for al, it is now made (as Chaucer sayth) the grene
path way to lyfe'.
Evidently Chaucer did not say this though only a major poet would be
capable of such a powerful statement, even more powerful, surely,
than Marvell's 'green Thought in a green shade'. I recall making my
way unsuccessfully through Thynne in the hope that the line was from
a poem attributed to Chaucer. In 1982 I used E. K.'s phrase as the
title of an essay on Spenser's poem in the hope that I would be
shamed into finding its source. I didn't and I am.
I can't recall that any comment on E. K.'s gloss in later
twentieth-century editions of the poem, and, surprisingly, not even
in the Variorum Spenser. Of recent editions, the Yale Shorter Poems,
has no comment at all. In a recent edition of the poem, Douglas
Brooks-Davies writes: 'E. K. paraphrases the opening of the Parson's
Tale (itself translated from Jeremiah 6:16: "seeth . . . which is the
good way, and walketh in that way, and ye shall find refreshing for
your souls".' That tale begins by citing Jeremiah: 'Stondeth upon the
weyes, and seeth and axeth of olde pathes (that is to seyn, of olde
sentences) which is the good wey, / and walketh in that wey'. In his
edition, Richard McCabe glosses: 'cf. the opening sentences of The
Parson's tale quoting Jeremiah 6:16'. Robinson's edition of Chaucer
notes that Chaucer cites the Vulgate; and the Geneva Bible, which E.
K. would certainly know, urges that we 'aske for the olde waie, which
is the good way & walke therein, and yet shal finde rest for your
soules'. No hint here that death is 'the grene path way to lyfe',
though in the November eclogue, death for Dido is the green pathway
to life, for once resurrected, she is seen walking in 'fieldes ay
fresh, the grasse ay greene', which is redolent of the 'green
pasture' promised by the Psalmist.
Is E. K.'s gloss simply unglossable, apart from idle speculation that
Spenser as 'our new poet' demonstrated that he has replaced 'that
good old poet', Chaucer, by attributing to him a line that he wrote
himself? Bert
|