A proem is a short introduction, in verse, to the matter and meaning of the rest of the poem. Some published editions of the poem do not make a division between The Proem and The Dream. The Proem is lines 1 through 290, and The Dream is lines 291 through 1334, the end of the poem.

In The Book of the Duchess, the poet is introduced in the first person. He has difficulty getting to sleep and has not slept, he says, for eight years. He reaches for a copy of a "romaunce" (a word describing the Metamorphoses of the ancient Roman poet Ovid) and reads the tale of King Seys and Queen Alcyone.

The king goes across the sea on a ship, and a storm arises and drowns all aboard. Queen Alcyone, anxious at home and awaiting his return, sends to the east and west looking for him. Until she knows the king’s fate, she will not eat bread. Distraught, she prays to Juno to send her a dream that would tell her of the fate of Seys. Juno immediately sends Alcyone to sleep, and he sends a messenger to Morpheus, the god of sleep. Morpheus is to go to the Great Sea (the Mediterranean) and enliven the king’s drowned body with his own spirit. This reanimated corpse he should send to Alcyone to speak to her and show her he has drowned.

Juno's messenger goes to the dark valley where the gods Morpheus and Eclympasteyr sleep. He rouses Morpheus, who does Juno's bidding and conveys the dead Seys to speak to his wife Alcyone. In her dream, Alcyone sees Seys at the foot of her bed, and he tells her that he has died and that she must find his body by the sea and bury it. He also tells her not to remain in sorrow too long. He adds that she was his true love in life. With "To lytel while oure blysse lasteth" [too little while our bliss lasts] (line 211), he leaves her, echoing a theme of this and other poems in Chaucer's love-poetry oeuvre. Alcyone awakens, and Seys is gone.

The narrator now reflects how helpful it would be to have the god of sleep come and give him much-needed rest himself. He describes the offering he would make to Morpheus and to his goddess, Juno: an elaborate bed of doves' down, with striped gold and black satin and linen from Reynes. He would give this gift to obtain the swift and deep sleep that Alcyone did when Juno answered her prayer.

The narrator then falls asleep on his book and experiences so strange and wonderful a dream that, he says, no one on earth can properly interpret it. Not even the famous Biblical interpreter of dreams, Joseph, who read dreams for Pharaoh (see Genesis, Book 41), nor Macrobius, the late Roman author who wrote a famous (in Chaucer's day) commentary on Cicero's Dream of Scipio, would have the skill to read the fantastic dream the narrator had that night.

Analysis

Burying the body of a relative with proper rites was a recurring theme in classical literature (such as in Sophocles' play Antigone), so it was not surprising that Ovid would make it part of the story of Seys and Alcyone. It was believed by the ancient Greeks (and held as a pious belief by the ancient Romans, although by Ovid's time it was probably considered more of a superstition among the educated classes) that if a body wasn't buried properly, the departed's soul would not rest. Therefore, the living were required to treat the dead properly, and the prevention of survivors from doing so was the instigation of dramatic crisis in many works of classical literature.

The narrator's slightly humorous description of the gift he would give the god Morpheus is a parallel to the pious offering that Alcyone makes in her prayer to Juno. Alcyone asks Juno to give her news of her lost husband, and in return Alcyone will give to Juno "sacrifise/And hooly youres become I shal/With good wille, body, herte, and al:" (lines 114-116)—in short, to become the goddess's acolyte. Since Juno was, among other things, the goddess of wives and of marriage, she would welcome a pious wife (now widow) into her service.

In the same fashion, the poet offers to Morpheus something fitted to his needs, namely a bed in which to sleep. When Morpheus is described in his dark cave, he has "good leyser for to route" (line 172; "plenty of time to snore"), so he sleeps all day and does no other work. This comedic turn shows the difference between the noble, allegorical characters in the story (Alcyone, Juno, Seys) and the realistic, human characters of the poet's world. The fact that the poet is foolish enough to assume that his offer of a gaudy bed in return for a night's sleep would carry the same weight, with Juno, as Alcyone's anguished offer of her life's service in search of knowledge of the fate of her husband, again shows Chaucer poking fun at the narrator.

However, the poor insomniac narrator receives an immediate answer to his prayer (although it is implied that he simply fell asleep while reading). Once he finally falls into a deep sleep, his dream is so fantastic that it apparently defies description. Nevertheless, in a common literary reversal, the narrator endeavors to tell the reader anyway. Here Chaucer shows off his knowledge of classical literature, mentioning two major instances of dream-visions among the ancients. The story of Joseph from the Hebrew Bible would have been known to most people through stories, but the reference to Macrobius's Latin commentary on the earlier Latin writer Cicero's Dream of Scipio was erudite. The fact that both of the dreams described in these references contained important commentary on real events foreshadows that the narrator's dream will do the same. Chaucer has now established himself as well-versed in the Latin literature held in high regard at the time, especially with his references to Ovid and classical mythology.

The proem sets the stage for the main story of this poem, the narrator's dream. It can be considered that everything that comes after the proem is the elegy for Blanche, Duchess of Lancaster, or is in praise of the poet's patron, the Duchess's husband, John of Gaunt. This slightly humorous and earthy beginning—earthy because it includes references to snoring, nakedness, and human infirmity—is a convention of this type of poetry, and it does not necessarily include any biographical details from Chaucer's life.

The narrator now begins recounting his dream. He thinks that it is the month of May. He hears a great number of birds singing loudly outside his window. The windows of the chamber in which he lies are stained glass, and they depict the story of the Trojan War. The walls are painted with the text and pictures of the Romaunce of the Rose. Through the window the dreamer hears the sounds of a great many horsemen assembling for a hunt. The dreamer, in his dream, goes to his horse and joins the hunt.

He asks one of the huntsmen whose hunt this is and learns that it is the Emperor Octavian's. A young dog, obviously at a loss when the deer give the hunting company the slip, approaches the narrator. The narrator follows it down a green and flowery pathway. The dreamer then describes a primeval forest of great trees, overrun with flowers—more flowers, he thinks, than can be in heaven. It is filled with deer and other animals, more than can be counted. There the dreamer meets a knight dressed in black. The knight is sorrowful, and while he sits he is composing a verse (called a complaint) about his sorrow in love.

The complaint details how his lady-love, whom he "loved with al my might" (line 478), has been lost. When the knight has finished his song, he suffers a kind of emotional heart attack and becomes deathly pale. The knight is insensible, though the narrator greets him. Finally the knight is roused and apologizes. The sorrowing knight is courteous, and the narrator endeavors to learn more about him. The narrator tries to comfort the knight, but he is inconsolable. In fact, the knight is sorrowful unto death. "For y am sorrow, and sorw ys y" ("For I am sorrow, and sorrow is I," line 597).

The knight then begins a tirade against Fortune, who turns her wheel at a whim, making him, a man she has favored before, into a miserable wretch. The knight describes a chess game between himself and Fortune in which Fortune has tricked him and won. The dreamer hears the knight's tale of woe, and he begs the knight to remember the teachings of Socrates. Socrates taught that the philosophical man should be above the vagaries of Fortune.

The dreamer tries to talk the knight out of suicide by enumerating the foolish people in history who killed themselves for love and were judged harshly for it. The knight explains that he has lost more than the narrator knows, and he will tell him the story of it if he promises to hearken to it. The narrator gladly agrees.

The knight says that he was an idle youth, but dedicated to the service of Love, when he met a golden-haired lady who surpassed all other ladies in beauty and perfection. He describes her modesty, moderation, courtesy toward all, and the general integrity of her character. The sorrowing Black Knight also lists her physical charms from her head downward. The Black Knight and Lady White, as she is called, were married and lived in harmony for some years.

The narrator agrees that this was a lovely lady, but he wonders why the Black Knight is still so upset about a game of chess. Finally, after the full explanation of the lady's worth, the knight, under questioning from the narrator, blurts out that she has died. At last the dreamer understands and agrees that the Black Knight has indeed suffered a great loss. The hunting horn sounds, signaling the end of the hunt. The king's hunting party goes off toward a long castle, and a bell tolls twelve hours, the time allotted to the knight to tell his tale.

The dreamer awakens from this fantastic dream with Ovid's Metamorphoses still in his hand. He marvels at the clarity and wonder of the dream, and he decides that it is so good that it should be put into a poem.

Analysis

The dream of the narrator is replete with classical and biblical allusions. While they mainly come from the Black Knight, both the knight and the dreamer understand them. The allusions serve several purposes: they were standard literary conceits for Chaucer's day; they establish both the knight and the dreamer as of a literate, educated class who read the classical literature considered so important at this time; they elevate the tone of the subject matter of the story, investing the hunt and the knight with a kind of worthiness and status associated with classical things; the reference to Octavian (Caesar Augustus, a long-reigning and very successful Roman emperor) may be a side compliment to Chaucer's patron, John of Gaunt (son of the then-reigning Edward III); the allusions show the poet's extensive knowledge of classical literature, something necessary for an author to be taken seriously during this time; and they give the knowledgeable reader a sort of inclusive feeling of understanding the unexplained references and comparisons without needing each of the stories to be explained. Each reference does correspond well to a comparison that the poet is trying to make.

The depiction of Fortune as a frivolous woman who spins her wheel and wantonly ruins people's lives is not Chaucer's invention. It is taken from Boethius's The Consolation of Philosophy, a late Roman philosophical text that was greatly admired during Chaucer's time, particularly by Chaucer himself (who translated it into English with the title Boece). This bemoaning of Fortune's vagaries takes the medieval literary form of a complaint (a "compleynt"), which was usually a short, sometimes musical poem, sung by a lover about his loss of a love, essentially a lyric genre. But Chaucer, while remaining true to the contemporary style, also asserts Boethius's older, more pious reflection (buttressed by the reference to Socrates) that the self-possessed person should be above these up and downs. It is a complicated, thoroughly medieval idea with roots also in the classical Stoics. The lyric emotion of the bereft lover is appreciated and turned into a poetic form, but the philosophical conventions of Christianity and medieval philosophical thought are held at the same time. The medieval mind was able to hold contradictions well, and the conflicts between human feeling and philosophical resolve, or emotion and reason, are the stuff of many poems of this time.

There are two references, in this rather short poem, to chess. The narrator decides not to play chess because he thinks it will not help with his insomnia, and the knight in the dream describes his battle with Fortune as a game of chess. This was another example of class distinction for Chaucer's time, for chess was a game of the middle and noble classes. The game also serves as a rich mine for metaphor: the Black Knight describes the wily gambits that Fortune uses to lure him to his own destruction.

The Black Knight is, ostensibly, an allegorical figure for John of Gaunt, and White is Blanche, Duchess of Lancaster, his first wife (who predeceased him). There is a lot of evidence to support this idea: the play on words Blanche=White and, in the last lines of the poem (1318-1319), references to long castle for Lancaster and a rich hill for Richmond, two titles of the families of John and Blanche. Even so, not all scholars agree that this is an elegy for a real person. If it an elegy for Blanche, it is an allegorical one. Notably, readers can appreciate the tale without even knowing of the historical personages who are possibly referenced.

The top-to-bottom physical description of the Black Knight's lady is a poetic convention of the time. The blazon, as this was called, is later mocked by Shakespeare in Sonnet 106, when he puts the parts out of order ("Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow"). But in Chaucer's time, some 250 years before Shakespeare, this method of description was standard and considered poetic.

Describing a nearly inhuman perfection of the lady-love was also a convention of the time. While giving an alarmingly realistic description of Lady White's physical qualities (such as her lack of a visible collarbone ("canel-boon," line 943), he also speaks of the "worship to my lady dere." Courtly love demanded not only the perfection of the lady, but also the deification and worship of her by her lover. Thus, one should not presume that it is merely nostalgia after his wife's death that makes the Black Knight describe Lady White without a fault; most love poetry of the time did the same.

This poem, a slightly rough but still brilliantly conceived example of the dream-vision genre, is a good example of Chaucer's flexibility and vast classical knowledge. The difference between this kind of poetry and, for example, the majority of The Canterbury Tales shows that Chaucer was a master of the forms of poetry of his day. The references to the classics and the touches of irony and humor also mark Chaucer's ability.

The Proem to “The House of Fame” begins with a prayer to God, asking that only dreams with good results be sent to humans. The poet muses on what may cause dreams and why some are fulfilled but some are not. He wonders if they are caused by the personality of the dreamer, external factors, or Heaven. He professes no knowledge, only the hope that each dream will be turned to good.

The Christian beginning (which mentions the "holy cross") yields to an Invocation (line 66) made to the pagan god of sleep. A rush of classical allusions follows, interspersed with a reference to the Christian God and Jesus Christ again, asking him to send only good dreams to human beings.

The Story (line 111) begins as the poet relates that on the tenth of December, he fell asleep and dreamed that he was within a temple of glass. In this temple is wonderful artwork and statuary, and the dreamer perceives that the temple is dedicated to Venus. As the dreamer walks about the temple, he comes upon a brass tablet on a wall. This tablet tells the story of Virgil's Aeneid, including an English approximation of the first words of the Aeneid—"I wol now syng, yif I kan/The armes and also the man" (lines 143-144)—for Virgil's "Arma virumque cano" (Aeneid, line 1).

The tablet also gives a full explanation of the main points of the story in the ancient poem. These include the destruction of Troy, as recounted by Virgil, and the escape from the burning city by Aeneas, his father Anchises, and his son Iulius. They leave with ships full of other Trojan people and head toward the land of Italy. Juno, the queen of the gods, has a grudge against all Trojans, so she blows Aeneas off course to the land of Carthage, a North African city ruled by Queen Dido.

Through Venus’s (Aeneas's goddess-mother’s) intercession with Jupiter, king of the gods, the company of refugee Trojans are not destroyed, merely delayed. While staying in Carthage, Aeneas has an affair with Dido the queen, and he makes her some false promises. He finally decides to leave Carthage, for this was never the Trojans' ultimate destination, and he goes to Italy as directed by Mercury, the messenger of the gods. Dido does not take his decision to leave Carthage well, for she has grown to love Aeneas obsessively, and she cannot bear his betrayal. Nevertheless, Aeneas leaves with all his people, and once Dido discovers that he has abandoned her, she dramatically stabs herself to death.

Here Chaucer pauses for sermonizing about how women should not be taken in by men's looks or false promises—woe to she who enters into a relationship with a man whose character she does not know well.

Later, on an island on the way to Italy, Aeneas is taken on a trip to the underworld by a Sibyl, who shows him his now-dead father Anchises and the suicide Dido, among others, and he sees the torments of hell. He finally arrives in Italy, where he wins battles, kills a rival, marries Lavinia (daughter of the king of the local tribe, the Latins), and establishes his group of Trojans.

The dreamer ends his description of what he saw on the walls and the plaque in the temple. He leaves the temple and goes to the gate to ask someone where this temple is situated. When he goes outside, he finds that he is on an open plain of sand with no houses, trees, or inhabitants. He prays to heaven and, casting his eyes to the sky, sees a large golden eagle descending toward him.

Analysis

It is important to note that the word "fame" had several meanings in Chaucer's time. It was not simply notoriety but also Fama, the goddess of Fame in the Roman myth. Other meanings included references to reputation and gossip.

The moralization circa lines 260-290 is a standard medieval response to illicit or extra-marital love. Though Dido and Aeneas were both unmarried at the time (Aeneas was widowed), their sexual relationship was considered a "scandal," primarily for Dido. Though Aeneas is condemned by Chaucer for his falsity in love, it is clear that Chaucer, as was typical, blamed Dido for her error in judgment in engaging in a love affair before marriage. Chaucer's society often held women, especially in the case of sexual continence, to a much higher moral standard than men. It is telling that Aeneas is condemned for his falsity, but not necessarily for engaging in the affair in the first place. Chaucer brings up other famously false-in-love men from classical history (Demophon, Achilles, Paris, Jason, and Hercules) in order to compare Aeneas with many others. Introducing a great many classical analogues for the story at hand is characteristic of Chaucer’s dream-vision poems.

Chaucer also encompasses some of the lofty subject that Dante had treated, noting Aeneas's trip through the infernal regions. Chaucer makes direct reference to Dante.

The description of the temple of glass is beautiful, and the summary of the Aeneid is accurate and concise. The commentary by Chaucer is a typical medieval exercise. Writing marginalia was considered an art, and original storytelling was accorded a lower status than it is today.

The extraordinary combination of pleas and prayers to pagan gods alongside sincere Christian prayer and invocation to God does not necessarily produce a contradiction. This, again, was a common medieval device, and it was not considered to be in any way heretical. Invocation of pagan gods was assumed by a Christian audience to be only allegory or a literary device. It was entirely acceptable to write poems praising the idea of the pagan "goddess of love" or "god of sleep." Direct challenges to Catholic theology, however, would have been taken as heresy. This is an important reason why poets used their license to pay homage to the classical tradition in their poetry; paradoxically, it was safer.

This poem, written after The Book of the Duchess—possibly some seven to eight years later, though the date is unclear—shows Chaucer's growth as a poet. Though this poem is in the same form as The Book of the Duchess, using octosyllabic rhyming couplets, the style is considerably more polished and the rhymes smoother and more flexible (such as unkydely/utterly, lines 295 and 296). In The Book of the Duchess the rhymes were sometimes more forced in order to make them exact, such as evermore/tresor (lines 853 and 854). The overall tone, though lighthearted, is not as frivolous as that of The Book of the Duchess.

A very short introduction of twenty lines tells the reader that the continuation of the dream is as wondrous as any in the Old Testament or the classics.

The eagle from the end of Book I begins to descend. He swiftly takes up the dreamer in his talons. The golden eagle then speaks to the narrator in the voice of a human being. He calls the dreamer by name and tells him to come out of his dazed and frightened state to pay attention to him. The bird reassures the dreamer that he will not be harmed and that he will actually benefit from this adventure.

The dreamer will not die, for he has been singled out by Jupiter (also called Jove). This is because he is a poor maker of love verses in service to Jupiter's grandson Cupid (also called Love). Jupiter therefore decreed that the dreamer is to be borne to a place called The House of Fame. This will be for the dreamer's amusement as compensation for his devotion.

In The House of Fame, says the eagle, the dreamer will hear every manner of love story, reconciliation, and tragedy that takes place on earth. This is possible because the location of Fame's house is at the center of earth, sea, and the heavens, the confluence of the flow of all the sounds from beneath it. The eagle explains how this is possible in an extended spate of medieval logic based primarily on the idea that all things have a point at which they are ideally conserved. For spoken words (as well as words that are thought), that point in space is The House of Fame, which functions as a sort of clearing house for all the words on earth.

The dreamer says that he sees the logic of the eagle's argument; probably all this is so. The eagle announces that they will now speak only for their own amusement. The dreamer is to point out anything that he recognizes below, and the eagle will tell him the distance to it. The dreamer cannot do this himself, for they are high in the air and in the sphere of the aerial beasts.

They see the various constellations, and the narrator muses on the writings of various astronomy texts that he has read. The eagle flies up, and the narrator is filled with a sense of the glory of God and his creation. The dreamer recalls Boethius, who wrote that "A thought may flee so hye/Wyth fetheres of Philosophye/To passen everych element,/And whan he hath so fer ywent/Than may be seen behynde hys bak/Cloude" (lines 974-978). He may be as high as thoughts may go, with clouds at his back.

The eagle mockingly asks him if he wants to learn about the stars, but the narrator claims he is too old to learn. They hear a great roar as they near The House of Fame. The eagle informs the narrator that the sound is of all the speech on earth, rushing to its proper destination. The narrator learns, too, that each speech on earth appears in the House as the speaker who spoke it, clothed in red or black. The dreamer is deposited on a street near the House and sent on his way.

Analysis

The fashionable love poems in Chaucer’s time were often addressed to the god Cupid in the form of a prayer or invocation, or they referred to the god of love in the text. That Chaucer, as a poet, is in "hys servyse" (line 626)—in the service of Cupid—is a poetic way of saying that Chaucer is a writer and practitioner of love poems.

The discussion of some of the ideas of Aristotle's theory of motion (about lines 720-760) takes liberty with this ancient Greek philosopher's thoughts. It is a poetic take on how phenomena (such as sound) come to exist and to move. Aristotle would not have seemed out of place in the discussion, for the Middle Ages was a time when science, or "natural philosophy," was hardly specialized. Aristotle was greatly admired among the classical philosophers and was held in high esteem in Chaucer's time, so much so that some teachers argued that all the science of the earth had already been understood essentially by Aristotle, so that no further inquiry was necessary—the transmission of this wisdom to future generations was enough. Most learned people, including most of Chaucer's readers, would have had at least a cursory understanding of the ideas of Aristotle, and they would not have found such a discussion of them amiss in a poetic text. Chaucer includes the natural philosophy rather lyrically (compare Lucretius’s The Nature of Things), making it part of the explanation of the location and existence of the House of Fame. The precise truth of the scientific theory regarding the creation and motion of sounds would not have been of much concern to the majority of Chaucer's readers.

Other Aristotelian and Ptolemaic philosophy appears in language about how the universe is constructed. These ideas are salient in the references to the various spheres (such as those of the stars and the aerial beasts) through which the eagle and the dreamer pass. They are heading to a particular point in space, The House of Fame, toward which all sound on earth passes. The dreamer and the author know this and know the various astronomical philosophers (Martian and Anticlaudianus)—they are showing their knowledge. The House of Fame seems to be also a House of Information, for each speech passes through it in the form of the speaker, clothed in red or black.

When Boethius is brought up again, it is in a rather poetic passage from The Consolation of Philosophy, which Chaucer once translated into English (Boece). The material is a variation on ideas about the purity of the thought, how an all-powerful Philosophy can send thoughts higher than the clouds. This worship of the metaphysical, the focus on spiritual rather than earthly things, is characteristic not only of Boethius but of medieval philosophy (and a fair amount of ancient philosophy) in general.

It is with some trepidation that the dreamer sets out toward The House of Fame. He does not know exactly what he will find there, but he is prepared to see a series of talking people, the representation of their own speech duplicated visually in the House. This is the ultimate allegory brought down to a personal, specific level; each person's speech makes a double of his or her own body, which utters those words aloud in The House of Fame. This is a tricky, very imaginative idea. It creates a way for the dreamer to experience something other than disembodied sound, and the representations–in red or black–foreshadow some kind of judgment or distinction between two kinds of speeches. Moreover, this pattern is another variation on a medieval theme, common in religious bestiaries, that everything has its double or opposite; everything in heaven is somehow represented on earth.

The last book of The House of Fame, Book III, is unfinished. It begins with another short Invocation, this time to the god of light and reason, Apollo. The poet modestly asks that his poem be made pleasing to his readers, not because of any vanity on his own part but in order to accurately describe The House of Fame.

The dreamer has left the eagle. He walks towards The House of Fame. It is on a high rock, which he begins to climb. He notes that the rocks are not made of stone but of ice, and this frozen water seems to be an unstable foundation on which to build a house. The names of people recently brought to fame are etched in the rock face, and the names of the famous from ancient times are on another slope. The ancient slope is shaded by The House of Fame itself, and it is quite cold. Thus, the ancient names are protected and permanent. But the names on the forward-facing slope are already melting away.

The narrator enters the beautifully ornate House of Fame. He witnesses famous harpists (such as Orpheus), trumpeters, and pipers making music. Other musicians of lesser rank are sitting at their feet, "And countrefete hem as an ape" ("counterfeiting them as an ape," line 1212). Also, great magicians, sorcerers, and illusionists, those who were famous in their day for their performances or were infamous for their black magic, are practicing in the hall of the House.

The dreamer further describes the House. It has walls made of beryl (emerald or aquamarine, or perhaps some other precious or semi-precious stone), which magnifies the things inside. Great poets of antiquity (such as Virgil) are standing atop pillars of metal that represent the subjects of their poems (iron for war, copper for love, etc.). The poets are said to have to carry the weight of the fame of their subjects on their shoulders.

The hall of The House of Fame is filled with group after group of people clamoring to Lady Fame, a woman of many eyes and tongues, for favors. Sometimes she grants them, but sometimes she does not, deciding entirely by whim. There is not necessarily any real reason or virtue that causes people to become famous or not. Fame uses her trumpeter, Aeolus, to send out either Clear Laud or Slander, irrespective of the worth of the individuals. Finally overwhelmed, the dreamer remarks to a bystander that he knew that people desired Fame, but he had never known the true nature of Fame before this day.

He leaves the House. He sees another house below in a valley. It is made of wicker twigs and whirls around endlessly. The house is very large, sixty miles long, and is shaped like a cage. Inside and out, people are telling each other news and gossip. These reports are constantly altered and debased as they pass from one person to another, acquiring lies along with any truth there might have been. These lies and exaggerations meld together with the truth and fly out the window back to earth. This is another way that Fame sends her messages around the world.

At this point, "A man of gret auctorite" [man of great authority] appears, and the unfinished book ends.

Analysis

It is not entirely certain that Chaucer intended to finish the poem. Some critics have argued that the ending, when a "man of great authority" appears, could have been intended as a segue to a new poem—even someone else’s poem, if this one were intended to be read aloud at an event. More likely, the poem may have been intended as part of a collection or sequence of tales, as in The Canterbury Tales. Or, perhaps, once a man of true authority appears, the unfounded half-truths of rumor and fame immediately disappear. But most scholars disagree with these scenarios and argue, more simply, that this poem was left unfinished.

The House of Fame is built on rocks made of ice, not stone, plainly suggesting the mutability of fame. Fame is built on rumor and reputation, the two things the poem later skewers as being unreliable and almost completely based on human vanity rather than truth. Although any fame that has lasted since ancient times has a certain permanence, the names of all those people of old are etched in ice which, under certain conditions, could melt as well.

The quizzing-glass qualities of the beryl walls serve, predictably, to show the exaggerations of fame. Things which are famous, Chaucer suggests, may not be as great as they appear. Chaucer’s was a time before lenses of glass were widely used, but the magnifying qualities of concave transparent stones (gems or rock crystal) would have been well-known. Not only is the whole house of Fame built on a changeable, mutable substance such as ice, but it also is made of a gaudy and optically distorting material, further demonstrating Chaucer's idea of the foolishness and falsity of fame.

In this book, we learn another long string of names of musicians and poets. The musicians, in ancient and medieval times, provided a medium for circulating reports of a famous person or event. Bards (often harpists) and singers told stories and sang songs of people and deeds. How a traveling bard felt about a particular subject greatly affected the stories he told. Therefore, the conveyers of this kind of fame, as they are shown in Fame's House, are suspect by Chaucer since they are prey to human vanity and bias.

The whirling wicker cage is the clearinghouse of gossip, The House of Rumor. Not only does Chaucer show how a person or event can be distorted by many people telling it over and over, but also he points out how the addition of downright lies and human bias can make the original truth unrecognizable. The breathless description (starting at line 1951) is thick with movement and with some of the most biting satire of the poem. It is apparent that between the ludicrous favors bestowed on the supplicants to Fame and the extreme distortion due to gossip in the wicker house, Chaucer had a major bone to pick with the injustices of fame and infamy, which all too often are based on the vagaries of Fame and the viciousness of gossip.

The short proem of The Parliament of Fowls pertains to the poet's feelings about art and love. He argues that life is short, but that learning the art of poetry is very difficult and takes a long time. Love, something that the poet has not personally succeeded at, is his obsession, and he makes poems about love. He has read about it and knows that love is a cruel master, but in his opinion, there is no denying it. Love is and always will be his subject.

The poet reads for pleasure and for learning. One day he came upon an old book. He read it diligently all day long, for he had been told that old books bring new wisdom. The book was of “The Dream of Scipio” by Cicero (Marcus Tullius Cicero, called "Tullyus" in line 31). The story of the Dream is then told by the poet.

Scipio the Younger, an ancient Roman general and senator, has met with the King of Numidia, with whom he is great friends. After a long day with the king, Scipio falls asleep and is visited by his grandfather, the great general Scipio Africanus. Africanus takes his grandson up into the stars and tells him his good fortune. He lectures his grandson on virtue and informs him of the rewards of the virtuous in the afterlife. Scipio the Younger asks earnestly if there is, indeed, an afterlife, and Africanus, who is already among the virtuous dead, tells him that the life we lead is just a kind of death—the true life is after death, in heaven.

Africanus and Scipio observe the heavens and the spheres, and they discuss Stoic philosophy. Africanus abjures Scipio from taking too much delight in earthly things, since earth is so inconsequential compared to heaven. Scipio asks his grandfather how to obtain this heavenly happiness. Africanus instructs him to believe in the immortality of his soul, adding that people who work for the common good are those who will come quickly to heaven. But people who are evil will continue being whirled around the earth in torment until their wickedness has been expunged.

The poet then stopped reading the book and went to bed. He reflects that the nature of his reading material may have affected the dream that came to him later. In the dream, Africanus came to him as well. Africanus told the poet that it was right of him to read the book, which had been transmitted by the extremely partial Macrobius (who had thought the book was perfect). Africanus promised to reward the poet for reading his book.

The poet ends with a supplication to Venus ("Cytherea," line 114), the goddess of love, to help him write the dream truly, as well as to give him the power to create good rhymes.

Analysis

“The Dream of Scipio” was a highly regarded text in Chaucer's day. Macrobius, a late Roman grammarian, had copied the text of Cicero's work (written about 350 years earlier, in the first century BC) and had added a long, laudatory commentary. Cicero's classical, Republican-era Latin had been greatly admired by Macrobius and was still admired among the later medieval writers. Even more admired was the Stoic philosophy of Cicero, which was focused on the afterlife and the achievement on earth of a common good. This book was of immense influence in Chaucer's time, though it was known only with Macrobius's commentary. Though “The Dream of Scipio” was a philosophical dialogue rather than a poem, the ending of Cicero’s much longer work De re publica, the fact that it was cast as a dream was especially attractive to Chaucer, who had become adept at the popular genre of the dream-poem. Making it figure in his own poem is an homage to Cicero.

The Latin Stoics (heirs of the ancient Greek Stoics) were of great interest to medieval Christians because of their focus on otherworldly values rather than materialism. This philosophical outlook fit well into much of the Christians’ beliefs about a proper Christian life. Though Cicero was a pagan, Chaucer (like St. Augustine 1,000 years earlier) had no difficulty reworking pagan wisdom for Christian purposes.

It was standard Chaucerian practice to begin a dream-vision poem, such as The House of Fame, with the recounting of classical story. In The House of Fame it was Virgil’s Aeneid, and in The Book of the Duchess it was an extract from Ovid's Metamorphoses. Here, in The Parliament of Fowls, Chaucer uses Cicero's “Dream of Scipio.” The classical story provides recognizable plot and themes to attune the reader to the new material presented by Chaucer. Comparing Cicero’s work with The Parliament of Fowls, the parallel is not so clear, but it is important to recognize that Scipio’s dream tells of the nature of the universe, while Parliament tells of the nature of a small part of that universe.

This poem is written in rime royal, a stanza usually consisting of seven lines with the rhyme scheme ABABBCC. The meter is iambic pentameter, or a set of ten-syllable lines made up of five iambs (one short syllable followed by one long syllable). Chaucer introduced the rime royal form into English as a way of elevating the tone of his poems, partially in admiration of the achievements of the Italian poets.

In the poet’s dream, Scipio Africanus takes the dreamer from his sleeping chamber to a gate that leads into a park. It is walled with mossy stone. The wall has two poems carved on it, one in gold and the other in black, one on each side of the wall. The sense of the poems is that some men will come into this garden and find peace and happiness, but others will come and find mischance and unhappiness.

The dreamer is afraid of making an error by entering. In the face of this indecision, Africanus counsels him that the verses do not apply to him. Entering this garden and being subject to these warnings are only for the person who is "Loves servaunt" (line 159). Since it has been established that the bookworm dreamer has had no success (and perhaps never will have success) with love, he is exempt from the promise and the warning of these verses. Africanus, in a slightly comedic passage, says that, while the dreamer is dull and not a participant in the affairs of Love, he can, like an infirm man who can enjoy watching a wrestling match, at least witness and record the events of Love, which would give him at least something to write about later.

Africanus takes the dreamer by the hand and draws him into the garden. The garden is supernaturally beautiful, sporting every kind of tree. By a river in a green meadow, there are many birds and beasts of the forest. It is a sort of Shangri-La, where no one can age or sicken. Cupid, the god of love, is forging arrows under a tree beside a spring. Several allegorical characters pass the dreamer–Pleasure, Fair Array, Courtesy, Joy, Deception, Delight, Gentle Breeding, Beauty, Youth, Foolhardiness, Flattery, Desire, Message-sending, and Bribery–in short, all the elements of love and love affairs are here, embodied allegorically.

A temple of brass stands on pillars of jasper. There are dancers around it as well as many pairs of doves. Lady Peace is there along with Lady Patience, Promise, and Cunning. The temple is filled with sounds of lovers sighing, and Priapus. the god of fertility, is within. Venus, in a corner, lounges with her porter Riches. She is reclining on a couch and wearing only a very transparent drape. Stories of many classical characters who remained virgins are painted on the wall, and so are the stories of some who lived lives of debauchery.

The dreamer leaves and returns to the garden, where he sees Dame Nature, the most beautiful allegorical personage he has seen so far, seated on a flowery hill in a grove. She is surrounded by all the birds in the world, and the scene is so crowded that the dreamer barely has a place to stand. Because it is Saint Valentine's Day, the birds are there to choose their mates in the presence of their sovereign lady.

Dame Nature is carrying a particularly beautiful formel (a female eagle), which is being romantically pursued by three tercels (male eagles). Dame Nature hears each of them in turn. First a royal tercel, then two tercels of lower orders, speak of their love and regard for the formel. Each one pledges to be faithful to her and to worship her more as his sovereign lady than as a mate. The debate is inconclusive, and it cannot be determined who loves the formel the best.

The other birds are impatient to leave, and they grow tired of the long-winded discussion. The goose, cuckoo, and duck particularly object, saying that the love affairs of the nobility are not something they should have to hang around and listen to when they have their own mates. The turtledove speaks up, telling the fowls that they shouldn't meddle. Nature replies and calls for the assembled birds to choose a judge.

The tercel-falcon is chosen to be the judge among the tercels for the formel. He determines that the contest cannot be decided by debate; there must be a battle. Though the tercels are ready to fight, a battle does not take place because the goose intervenes and says that the formel herself should choose. Much hilarity ensues as the various species of birds argue. The duck, once again, rails against fidelity in love. The cuckoo, an "unkynde" ("unnatural," line 358) bird, says that all birds should remain single, but the merlin disagrees. After this cacophony, Dame Nature commands silence. Nature decides that the formel must choose for herself.

The formel, in maidenly fashion, says that she cannot make a choice, and she asks for another year to decide. Dame Nature agrees, and the tercels are told to remain faithful to her in hopes of pressing their suits again next year. The other birds all pair off with their mates, and they sing a roundel. This noise wakes the dreamer, and he goes back to his books, hoping to learn something better from them.

Analysis

While the meaning of the poetry in lines 127-140 is somewhat obscure, we are to believe that Africanus and the dreamer are entering a garden that somehow represents romantic love. Simply by entering, some people will begin to find their greatest joy, but others will find nothing but unhappiness. Again, the conflicting possibilities are Chaucer's gentle irony as he points out the vagaries of human emotion.

The bumbling, unlucky-in-love narrator is not necessarily anything like Chaucer himself; this was a stock character of the unattractive, unfortunate, bookish poet, common in the dream-vision poems of the period. Chaucer uses the character to introduce some light humor. Scipio Africanus himself, a noted lecher in his own time, tells the narrator that he is so far off the charts because of dullness that he is simply disqualified from having to worry about happiness or unhappiness in love. This humorous observation may be to the good, however, because it makes the narrator a more objective observer and, besides, what has a good stoic philosopher to do with the passions? As in The House of Fame, the guide is showing the dreamer-poet some of the affairs and exploits of love so that he gains material to write poems about later.

Though Chaucer has prayed earnestly to Venus many times in his poems, in this poem he makes fun of her as a lazy person and an exhibitionist whose servant is Riches. This is part of a recurring Chaucerian theme, the vanity of human pursuits, here with the twist that the pursuit of human love is often bound up with the pursuit of earthly riches. Chaucer makes clear that he does not approve.

As for the birds, they are distinguished by rank (such as noble and royal, based in large measure on their feeding habits, with the seed-eating birds at the bottom), just as medieval society was divided by rank. Since birds of prey (goshawks, merlins, gerfalcons, and eagles) were used in falconry as hunting birds by the nobility, while certain species (some eagles and gerfalcons) were reserved for use by people only of the highest rank, it is not surprising that Chaucer would put the birds of prey in the top rank of birds. Taken literally, ranking birds would seem a bit ridiculous (compare the machinations of the lords of the pond in another work filled with animal characters, The Frogs by Aristophanes), but mirroring human social gradations among animals was a recognizable literary trope with some precedent, clearly meant as allegory.

It is not surprising that the tercel-falcon, another bird of prey used in falconry, is chosen as the judge. All the proceedings before Dame Nature are meant, somewhat, to mock the workings of the real English Parliament, which at this time was often engaged in a struggle between the commons and the aristocracy. The speeches and deliberations of the birds do not really change anything. Note that the English term “parliament,” based on a root word meaning “talk,” was new in the 13th century. Rhetoric, as valuable as it is, has usually been subordinated to philosophy.

Meanwhile, in a strong statement of women’s rights, or at least a woman’s rights in love, the conclusion of all the bellyaching is that the formel may choose her mate for herself. No external judge can make the decision. The formel takes the upper hand by saying, like Odysseus’s longsuffering wife Penelope in Homer’s Odyssey, that she is not ready to choose. She thus retains control and keeps the males in good form. This maidenly deferment leaves the story unresolved.

• Biography of Geoffrey Chaucer
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• Summary and Analysis of The Book of the Duchess, Proem (Lines 1-290)
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• Summary and Analysis of The House of Fame, Book III
• Summary and Analysis of The Parliament of Fowls, Proem (Lines 1-119)
• Summary and Analysis of The Parliament of Fowls, The Story (Lines 120-699)
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