Confessio Amantis: Wisdom on national survival from the first English-language poet.
Translation into Modern English by Richard Brodie
Everyone recognizes the name Geoffrey Chaucer, but relatively few people have ever heard of his contemporary, John Gower, who also produced significant works 600 years ago. Gower was actually our first major English poet, and for 200 years was regarded equally as highly as was Chaucer. Why did his reputation decline? Well, Chaucer was a “slice of life” kind of writer, inclined to depict human beings as they are rather than as they could be and should be. His “Canterbury Tales” is filled with “fabliaux”, french for “dirty little stories”, of the kind that our morally bankrupt modern culture has placed increasingly greater value on, along with unrealistic painting and cacophony passing for “music”.
By contrast the “moral Gower”, as he has been called, devoted his great “Confessions of a Lover” to the telling of over a hundred Tales designed to illustrate enduring moral principles. He first wrote major works in Latin and French, but later in life was challenged by King Richard II to compose something in the English tongue.While Chaucer has been translated into Modern English many times, Gower’s important moral lessons have been left on the shelf to accumulate centuries of dust in their Middle English original, inaccessible to all but medieval scholars. I have undertaken to remedy this neglect by producing a complete translation. The following excerpts are from a work in process which I am publishing on my website.
In the Prologue he explains his decision to write the world’s first major poem in English. The first few lines are in Gower’s own Middle English, just to give you a little flavor of what our incomparably great language was like just before it gelled into the uniquely rich treasure we are privileged to enjoy today. There follows my translation of those and subsequent selected lines. As with all great literary works dealing with timeless principles, you will be struck, as you read Gower’s reflections on conditions in his times, with how accurately he describes our own day:
And for that fewe men endite
In oure Englissh, I thenke make
A bok for Engelondes sake,
The yer sextenthe of Kyng Richard.
What schal befalle hierafterward
God wot, for now upon this tyde
Men se the world on every syde
In sondry wyse so diversed,
That it wel nyh stant al reversed,
Since these days men are disinclined
To write in English, I shall make
A book of verse for England’s sake,
Now in King Richard’s sixteenth year.
What shall hereafter come I fear
God only knows, for it is clear
Men see the world, in every way,
Has changed so much from yesterday,
That things have upside down been turned,
As far as kingdoms are concerned.
In former times to me it seemed,
A time when books were more esteemed,
Writing was held in high regard
By those whose virtue was not marred;
Thus I, who am a humble clerk,
Propose to undertake this work
About the world as once it was
In olden days long passed, because
By contrast I desire to show
How modern man has sunk so low;
Though I’ve been long beneath a cloud
Of sickness, yet will I attempt
To write and not myself exempt
From duty, that I might devise
A work that will instruct the wise.
Thus it I send to my own lord,
Henry who of Lancaster came.
Our God on high doth him proclaim
Possessed of grace and chivalry.
This work I now begin may He
See fit to bless, so I may be
Allowed to live its end to see.
And so he did live to see his great 30,000 line work completed, unlike Chaucer who finished less than a fourth of the plan for Canterbury Tales. One of the central allegories in Gower’s work is the dream of Nebuchadnezzar as interpreted by the prophet Daniel, which Gower sees as depicting immigration and race mixing as the primary cause why nations decline and fall:
As Nebuchadnezzar slept one night
He had a dream; till morning’s light
When he arose it left him not,
For it much terror to him brought.
To Daniel he his dream rehearsed,
And prayed, as with him he conversed,
That he it’s meaning might explain;
And said, “As I in bed had lain,
Upon a pedestal I thought
I saw an image that was wrought
Of many substances, behold
The head and neck were made of gold;
The arms, the shoulders, and the breast
Of silver were; as to the rest,
Clear from the waist down to the knees,
It’s only solid brass one sees;
The legs of solid steel were made,
But feet of steel were, I’m afraid,
Impure and cracked, with clay alloyed,
As in the potter’s trade employed;
When strong and feeble intersect,
It may well not long stand erect.
Then without hands I saw a stone
Cut from a hill, which then was thrown
Quite unexpectedly and crashed
Into the feet; the stone was dashed
To pieces, all the silver, brass,
Gold, steel, and clay into a mass
Of rubble turned, the statue high
Did on the ground in ruin lie.”
As we read Gower’s application of this prophecy to the subjugation of Rome by Germanic tribes, we can see the uncanny similarities to the dangers currently faced by modern White civilization in Europe and America. The following selections call to mind such things as the embrace of sexual perversion by various Christian denominations, the confusion and strife incident to inter-ethnic commingling, and the decay of once great cities like Detroit, as the pure, strong, racially homogeneous feet on which a nation stands, become increasingly mixed with third world clay:
The feuds and fights they had did flow
From Envy, and with Greed did grow,
Where each one’s following was fooled,
As mobs quite easily are ruled,
Wherever settlements extend.
True equity could boast no friend,
Law’s governance was at an end;
Since for these factions was the need
For goods and soldiers great indeed
As their resources they did burn,
They ultimately had to turn
To foreign immigrants for aid.
And thus a fatal choice they made,
Which left their power insecure;
Some German princes to procure,
Just one small favor they would ask,
That after they assumed the task
Of ruling, Rome would whole remain.
And thus not long did they retain
Control, but did relinquish it;
To German rule they did submit.
And to consolidate their grip,
That from their hands it might not slip,
Their right to rule and be obeyed,
Citing the compact they had made,
They to themselves did arrogate,
And did an emperor instate,
Whose name from history we know
As Otto; and it has been so
From then until the present day
That Rome has under German sway
Continued. And it’s in this way,
As heretofore has been explained
How Daniel to the king maintained
That in his dream the image stood
For kingdoms in this world that would
Collapse, we finally see the feet
Of steel and clay, a sign replete
With glaring parallels of how
The world is so commingled now,
With Rome in such a sorry state.
And this is something sad to hate,
For now we see in every way
Things go from bad to worse each day.
To bring this truthful lesson home,
It’s well that we begin with Rome.
That town that did with commerce hum
To ruin and decay has come,
A field where once the palace stood,
A wasted town oe’rgrown with wood;
And more, if we consider well
How once its citizens did dwell
As freemen in a noble way,
Contrasting that time with today
Is to compare the chaff with corn,
As Rome’s departed might we mourn.
Few structures standing now are left
Of church and business haunts bereft
The city stands, which once were reared.
And why true worship disappeared,
The cause is, if the truth be told,
Disunity has taken hold,
This mother of confusion reigns
Which every civic virtue drains,
Not just the temporal alone,
Religious things away are blown.
We see from what has there transpired,
The church, whose deeds were once admired,
Does now a mixture vile contain
Of holy things with things profane.
It is so open to the eye,
There is no need for me to try
Explaining all the reasons why;
But this is how a person learns
The manner in which this world turns,
Which now is well nigh all worn out,
According to that dream about
Which Daniel did in holy writ
Expound, as he deciphered it.
Through gold and silver, steel and brass
The world has gone, and now alas
On brittle toes it stands today
With steel all mixed with common clay,
An instability innate;
So must it soon disintegrate.
If you are a white parent looking for literature that will inculcate important moral values in your children, you can find everything I’ve translated so far on my website, richardbrodie.com. There you will also find a link to audio recordings where they can listen as I read some of the stories to them. You will need to be familiar with the confessional dialogue that precedes and follows these tales, in order to understand and explain to them what the principles are which the tales illustrate.