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Updated: June 1, 2025
Already, long ago, at the first call of Petrarch, Chaucer, by the side of the merely mediæval love types of brutish lust and doglike devotion of the Wife of Bath and of Griseldis, had rough-sketched a kind of modern love, the love which is to become that of Romeo and Hamlet, in his story of Palemon and Arcite.
Chaucer makes Arcite violent in his love, and unjust in the pursuit of it; yet when he came to die, he made him think more reasonably: he repents not of his love, for that had altered his character, but acknowledges the injustice of his proceedings, and resigns Emilia to Palamon. What would Ovid have done on this occasion? He would certainly have made Arcite witty on his death-bed.
Then he thought, "If I do not say who I am, I may live unknown in Athens for years. Then I shall see my lady day by day." Quickly he called to him a squire, and told him all his will, and bound him to keep his name a secret and to answer no questions about himself or his master. Then Arcite sent his squire to find clothes such as the laborers in Athens wore.
There he waited till the master of the servants who waited on Emelia came out. Then he said to him, "Take me, I pray thee, into thy service. Drudge I will and draw water, yea, and in all thou dost command I will obey." The master of the servants asked Arcite what was his name. "Philostrate, my lord," said Arcite, and as "Philostrate" he entered that part of the castle where Emelia's home was.
Then the duke, the queen, Emily, and the rest, rode to the lists with trumpets and melody. They had no sooner taken their places than through the gate of Mars rode Arcite and his hundred, displaying a red banner. At the self-same moment Palamon and his company entered by the gate of Venus, with a banner white as milk.
He writes often like Fielding, he never writes as Smollett sometimes does. These stories, ranging from the noble romance of Palamon and Arcite to the rude intrigues of Clerk Nicholas, the one fitted to draw tears down the cheeks of noble ladies and gentlemen; the other to convulse with laughter the midriffs of illiterate clowns, give one an idea of the astonishing range of Chaucer's powers.
Horne invited Miss Barrett to contribute, and, besides executing modernisations of 'Queen Annelida and False Arcite' and 'The Complaint of Annelida, she also advised generally on the work of the other writers during its progress through the press. The other literary project was for a lyrical drama, to be written in collaboration with Horne.
Theseus, shading his eyes from the sunlight with his hand, saw them, and, spurring his horse between them, cried, 'What manner of men are ye, fighting here without judge or officer? Whereupon Palamon said, 'I am that Palamon who has broken your prison; this is Arcite the banished man, who, by returning to Athens, has forfeited his head. Do with us as you list.
Theseus was glad to find something he could do to please his dear friend, so one morning he took him with him to the prison where Palamon and Arcite were. The attendants could scarcely follow, for the royal robes filled all the dingy little space! A streak of light from the window fell on the Duke's mantle and his jewels.
One of old Chaucer's quaintly worded legends came to his mind, telling how the courtly knight Arcite,
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