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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 March 2023
Whilst Chaucer and Petrarch may not have met in life, they do in death. John Lydgate's praise of Chaucer in poems such as The Floure of Curtesye transposes the Clerk's encomium to Petrarch:
Chaucer is deed, that had suche a name
Of fayre makyng, that, without[en] wene,
Fayrest in our tonge, as the laurer grene.
We may assay for to countrefete
His gaye style, but it wyl not be;
The welle is drie, with the lycoure swete.
(The Floure of Curtesye, 236–41)In the Life of Our Lady, Lydgate not only echoes Chaucer's praise of Petrarch but also notes the importance of translation to the literary polysystem:
And eke my maister Chaucer is ygrave
The noble Rhetor, poete of Brytayne
That worthy was the laurer for to have
Of poetrye, and the palme atteyne
That made firste, to distille and rayne
The golde dewe, dropes, of speche and eloquence
Into our tunge, thurgh his excellence (II. 1628–34)
That Lydgate had the Clerk's prologue in mind may be surmised from the fact that, just a couple of lines earlier, he had referred to ‘the Retorykes swete| Of petrak Fraunces that couthe so endite’ (II. 623–4). Interestingly, the two passages mark a distinction between interlingual and intralingual translation. Chaucer's role as translator of the Italian avant-garde is lauded on the one hand; on the other, later poets ‘may assay for to countrefete | His gaye style, but it wyl not be’. Lydgate accords Chaucer the same status as Petrarch had achieved in Italy, the reference to ‘the laurer grene’ rendering him England's ‘lauriat poete’ (IV. 31).
Yet prior to posthumous reputation, in their literary attempts to make a good end in accordance with the ars moriendi, both Chaucer and Petrarch occupy the same impulse:
Vergine, quante lagrime ò già sparte,
quante lusinghe et quanti preghi indarno,
pur per mia pena et per mio grave danno!
[…]
Mortal bellezza, atti et parole m’ànno
tutta ingombrata l’alma.
[…]
e ‘l cor or conscïentia or morte punge.
Raccomandami al tuo figliuol, verace
homo et verace Dio,
ch’accolga ‘l mïo spirto ultimo in pace.
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