With Chaucer the ordinary fossilizing process, to which every classical author is subject, has been complicated by the petrifaction5 of his language. Five hundred years have almost sufficed to turn the most living of poets into a substitute on the modern sides of schools for the mental gymnastic of Latin and Greek. Prophetically, Chaucer saw the 195fate that awaited him and appealed against his doom6:
Within a thousand year, and wordes tho
That hadden price, now wonder nice and strange
Us thinketh them; and yet they spake them so,
And sped as well in love as men now do.
The body of his poetry may have grown old, but its spirit is still young and immortal9. To know that spirit—and not to know it is to ignore something that is of unique importance in the history of our literature—it is necessary to make the effort of becoming familiar with the body it informs and gives life to. The antique language and versification, so “wonder nice and strange” to our ears, are obstacles in the path of most of those who read for pleasure’s sake (not that any reader worthy10 of the name ever reads for anything else but pleasure); to the pedants11 they are an end in themselves. Theirs is the carcass, but not the soul. Between those who are daunted12 by his superficial difficulties and those who take too much delight in them Chaucer finds but few sympathetic readers. I hope in these pages to be able to give a few of the reasons that make Chaucer so well worth reading.
Chaucer’s art is, by its very largeness and 196objectiveness, extremely difficult to subject to critical analysis. Confronted by it, Dryden could only exclaim, “Here is God’s plenty!”—and the exclamation13 proves, when all is said, to be the most adequate and satisfying of all criticisms. All that the critic can hope to do is to expand and to illustrate14 Dryden’s exemplary brevity.
“God’s plenty!”—the phrase is a peculiarly happy one. It calls up a vision of the prodigal16 earth, of harvest fields, of innumerable beasts and birds, of teeming17 life. And it is in the heart of this living and material world of Nature that Chaucer lives. He is the poet of earth, supremely19 content to walk, desiring no wings. Many English poets have loved the earth for the sake of something—a dream, a reality, call it which you will—that lies behind it. But there have been few, and, except for Chaucer, no poets of greatness, who have been in love with earth for its own sake, with Nature in the sense of something inevitably20 material, something that is the opposite of the supernatural. Supreme18 over everything in this world he sees the natural order, the “law of kind,” as he calls it. The teachings of most of the great prophets and poets are simply protests against the law of kind. Chaucer does not protest, he accepts. It is precisely21 this acceptance that 197makes him unique among English poets. He does not go to Nature as the symbol of some further spiritual reality; hills, flowers, sea, and clouds are not, for him, transparencies through which the workings of a great soul are visible. No, they are opaque22; he likes them for what they are, things pleasant and beautiful, and not the less delicious because they are definitely of the earth earthy. Human beings, in the same way, he takes as he finds, noble and beastish, but, on the whole, wonderfully decent. He has none of that strong ethical23 bias24 which is usually to be found in the English mind. He is not horrified25 by the behaviour of his fellow-beings, and he has no desire to reform them. Their characters, their motives26 interest him, and he stands looking on at them, a happy spectator. This serenity27 of detachment, this placid28 acceptance of things and people as they are, is emphasized if we compare the poetry of Chaucer with that of his contemporary, Langland, or whoever it was that wrote Piers29 Plowman.
The historians tell us that the later years of the fourteenth century were among the most disagreeable periods of our national history. English prosperity was at a very low ebb30. The Black Death had exterminated31 nearly a third of the working population of 198the islands, a fact which, aggravated32 by the frenzied33 legislation of the Government, had led to the unprecedented34 labour troubles that culminated35 in the peasants’ revolt. Clerical corruption36 and lawlessness were rife37. All things considered, even our own age is preferable to that in which Chaucer lived. Langland does not spare denunciation; he is appalled38 by the wickedness about him, scandalized at the openly confessed vices39 that have almost ceased to pay to virtue40 the tribute of hypocrisy41. Indignation is the inspiration of Piers Plowman, the righteous indignation of the prophet. But to read Chaucer one would imagine that there was nothing in fourteenth-century England to be indignant about. It is true that the Pardoner, the Friar, the Shipman, the Miller42, and, in fact, most of the Canterbury pilgrims are rogues43 and scoundrels; but, then, they are such “merry harlots” too. It is true that the Monk44 prefers hunting to praying, that, in these latter days when fairies are no more, “there is none other incubus” but the friar, that “purse is the Archdeacon’s hell,” and the Summoner a villain45 of the first magnitude; but Chaucer can only regard these things as primarily humorous. The fact of people not practising what they preach is an unfailing source of amusement to him. Where Langland cries aloud 199in anger, threatening the world with hell-fire, Chaucer looks on and smiles. To the great political crisis of his time he makes but one reference, and that a comic one:
Certes he Jakke Straw, and his meyné,
Ne maden schoutes never half so schrille,
Whan that they wolden eny Flemyng kille,
As thilke day was mad upon the fox.
Peasants may revolt, priests break their vows47, lawyers lie and cheat, and the world in general indulge its sensual appetites; why try and prevent them, why protest? After all, they are all simply being natural, they are all following the law of kind. A reasonable man, like himself, “flees fro the pres and dwelles with soothfastnesse.” But reasonable men are few, and it is the nature of human beings to be the unreasonable48 sport of instinct and passion, just as it is the nature of the daisy to open its eye to the sun and of the goldfinch to be a spritely and “gaylard” creature. The law of kind has always and in everything dominated; there is no rubbing nature against the hair. For
God it wot, there may no man embrace
As to destreyne a thing, the which nature
Hath naturelly set in a creature.
Take any brid, and put him in a cage,
200And do all thine entent and thy corrage
To foster it tendrely with meat and drynke,
And with alle the deyntees thou canst bethinke,
And keep it all so kyndly as thou may;
Although his cage of gold be never so gay,
Yet hath this brid, by twenty thousand fold,
Lever in a forest, that is wyld and cold,
Gon ete wormes, and such wrecchidnes;
For ever this brid will doon his busynes
To scape out of his cage when that he may;
His liberté the brid desireth aye ...
Lo, heer hath kynd his dominacioun,
And appetyt flemeth (banishes) discrescioun.
Also a she wolf hath a vilayne kynde,
The lewideste wolf that she may fynde,
Or least of reputacioun, him will sche take,
Alle this ensaumples tell I by these men
That ben untrewe, and nothing by wommen.
(As the story from which these lines are quoted happens to be about an unfaithful wife, it seems that, in making the female sex immune from the action of the law of kind, Chaucer is indulging a little in irony49.)
For men han ever a licorous appetit
On lower thing to parforme her delit
Than on her wyves, ben they never so faire,
Ne never so trewe, ne so debonaire.
Nature, deplorable as some of its manifestations50 may be, must always and inevitably assert itself. The law of kind has power 201even over immortal souls. This fact is the source of the poet’s constantly expressed dislike of celibacy51 and asceticism52. The doctrine53 that upholds the superiority of the state of virginity over that of wedlock54 is, to begin with (he holds), a danger to the race. It encourages a process which we may be permitted to call dysgenics—the carrying on of the species by the worst members. The Host’s words to the Monk are memorable55:
Allas! why wearest thou so wide a cope?
God give me sorwe! and I were a pope
Though he were shore brode upon his pan (head)
Should han a wife; for all this world is lorn;
Religioun hath take up all the corn
Of tredyng, and we burel (humble) men ben shrimpes;
Of feble trees there cometh wrecchid impes.
This maketh that our heires ben so sclendere
And feble, that they may not wel engendre.
But it is not merely dangerous; it is anti-natural. That is the theme of the Wife of Bath’s Prologue59. Counsels of perfection are all very well when they are given to those
That wolde lyve parfytly;
But, lordyngs, by your leve, that am not I.
202It is characteristic of Chaucer’s conception of the world, that the highest praise he can bestow61 on anything is to assert of it, that it possesses in the highest degree the qualities of its own particular kind. Thus of Cressida he says:
But all her limbes so well answering
Weren to womanhood, that creature
Nas never lesse mannish in seeming.
So well proportioned to be strong,
Right as it were a steed of Lombardye,
Thereto so horsely and so quick of eye.
Everything that is perfect of its kind is admirable, even though the kind may not be an exalted65 one. It is, for instance, a joy to see the way in which the Canon sweats:
For sweat, and for to keep his head from heat.
But it was joye for to see him sweat;
His forehead dropped as a stillatorie
Were full of plantain or of peritorie.
The Canon is supreme in the category of sweaters, the very type and idea of perspiring66 humanity; therefore he is admirable and joyous67 to behold68, even as a horse that is supremely 203horsely or a woman less mannish than anything one could imagine. In the same way it is a delight to behold the Pardoner preaching to the people. In its own kind his charlatanism69 is perfect and deserves admiration70:
Mine handes and my tonge gon so yerne,
That it is joye to see my busynesse.
This manner of saying of things that they are joyous, or, very often, heavenly, is typical of Chaucer. He looks out on the world with a delight that never grows old or weary. The sights and sounds of daily life, all the lavish71 beauty of the earth fill him with a pleasure which he can only express by calling it a “joy” or a “heaven.” It “joye was to see” Cressida and her maidens72 playing together; and
So aungellyke was her native beauté
That like a thing immortal seemede she,
As doth an heavenish parfit creature.
The peacock has angel’s feathers; a girl’s voice is heavenly to hear:
Antigone the shene
Gan on a Trojan song to singen clear,
That it an heaven was her voice to hear.
204One could go on indefinitely multiplying quotations73 that testify to Chaucer’s exquisite74 sensibility to sensuous75 beauty and his immediate76, almost exclamatory response to it. Above all, he is moved by the beauty of “young, fresh folkes, he and she”; by the grace and swiftness of living things, birds and animals; by flowers and placid, luminous77, park-like landscapes.
It is interesting to note how frequently Chaucer speaks of animals. Like many other sages78, he perceives that an animal is, in a certain sense, more human in character than a man. For an animal bears the same relation to a man as a caricature to a portrait. In a way a caricature is truer than a portrait. It reveals all the weaknesses and absurdities79 that flesh is heir to. The portrait brings out the greatness and dignity of the spirit that inhabits the often ridiculous flesh. It is not merely that Chaucer has written regular fables80, though the Nun’s Priest’s Tale puts him among the great fabulists of the world, and there is also much definitely fabular matter in the Parliament of Fowls81. No, his references to the beasts are not confined to his animal stories alone; they are scattered82 broadcast throughout his works. He relies for much of his psychology83 and for much of his most vivid description on the comparison 205of man, in his character and appearance (which with Chaucer are always indissolubly blended), with the beasts. Take, for example, that enchanting84 simile85 in which Troilus, stubbornly anti-natural in refusing to love as the law of kind enjoins him, is compared to the corn-fed horse, who has to be taught good behaviour and sound philosophy under the whip:
As proude Bayard ginneth for to skip
Out of the way, so pricketh him his corn,
First in the trace, full fat and newe shorn,
Yet am I but an horse, and horses’ law
I must endure and with my feeres draw.”
Or, again, women with too pronounced a taste for fine apparel are likened to the cat:
She will not dwell in housé half a day,
To show her skin and gon a caterwrawet.
In his descriptions of the personal appearance of his characters Chaucer makes constant use of animal characteristics. Human beings, both beautiful and hideous, are largely described in terms of animals. It is interesting to see how often in that exquisite description 206of Alisoun, the carpenter’s wife, Chaucer produces his clearest and sharpest effects by a reference to some beast or bird:
Fair was this younge wife, and therewithal
As any weasel her body gent and small ...
But of her song it was as loud and yern
As is the swallow chittering on a barn.
Thereto she coulde skip and make a game
Her mouth was sweet as bragot is or meath,
Long as a mast and upright as a bolt.
Again and again in Chaucer’s poems do we find such similitudes, and the result is always a picture of extraordinary precision and liveliness. Here, for example, are a few:
Gaylard he was as goldfinch in the shaw,
or,
Such glaring eyen had he as an hare;
or,
The self-indulgent friars are
Like Jovinian,
Fat as a whale, and walken as a swan.
207The Pardoner describes his own preaching in these words:
Then pain I me to stretche forth my neck
And east and west upon the people I beck,
As doth a dove, sitting on a barn.
Very often, too, Chaucer derives96 his happiest metaphors97 from birds and beasts. Of Troy in its misfortune and decline he says: Fortune
Gan pull away the feathers bright of Troy
From day to day.
Love-sick Troilus soliloquizes thus:
That whilom japedest at lovés pain,
The metaphor98 of Troy’s bright feathers reminds me of a very beautiful simile borrowed from the life of the plants:
Each after other, till the tree be bare,
So that there nis but bark and branches left,
Lieth Troilus, bereft of each welfare,
Ybounden in the blacke bark of care.
And this, in turn, reminds me of that couplet 208in which Chaucer compares a girl to a flowering pear-tree:
She was well more blissful on to see
Than is the newe parjonette tree.
Chaucer is as much at home among the stars as he is among the birds and beasts and flowers of earth. There are some literary men of to-day who are not merely not ashamed to confess their total ignorance of all facts of a “scientific” order, but even make a boast of it. Chaucer would have regarded such persons with pity and contempt. His own knowledge of astronomy was wide and exact. Those whose education has been as horribly imperfect as my own will always find some difficulty in following him as he moves with easy assurance through the heavens. Still, it is possible without knowing any mathematics to appreciate Chaucer’s descriptions of the great pageant102 of the sun and stars as they march in triumph from mansion103 to mansion through the year. He does not always trouble to take out his astrolabe and measure the progress of “Phebus, with his rosy104 cart”; he can record the god’s movements in more general terms than may be understood even by the literary man of nineteen hundred and twenty-three. Here, for example, is a description 209of “the colde frosty seisoun of Decembre,” in which matters celestial105 and earthly are mingled106 to make a picture of extraordinary richness:
That in his hoté declinacioun
Shone as the burned gold, with streames bright;
But now in Capricorn adown he light,
Where as he shone full pale; I dare well sayn
Destroyed hath the green in every yerd.
Janus sit by the fire with double beard,
And “noel” cryeth every lusty man.
In astrology he does not seem to have believed. The magnificent passage in the Man of Law’s Tale, where it is said that
In the starres, clearer than is glass,
Is written, God wot, whoso can it read,
The death of every man withouten drede,
is balanced by the categorical statement found in the scientific and educational treatise112 on the astrolabe, that judicial113 astrology is mere58 deceit.
His scepticism with regard to astrology is not surprising. Highly as he prizes authority, he prefers the evidence of experience, and where that evidence is lacking he is content 210to profess114 a quiet agnosticism. His respect for the law of kind is accompanied by a complementary mistrust of all that does not appear to belong to the natural order of things. There are moments when he doubts even the fundamental beliefs of the Church:
That there is joye in heaven and peyne in helle;
And I accorde well that it be so.
But natheless, this wot I well also
That there is none that dwelleth in this countree
That either hath in helle or heaven y-be.
Of the fate of the spirit after death he speaks in much the same style:
His spiryt changed was, and wente there
As I came never, I cannot tellen where;
Of soules fynde I not in this registre,
Ne me list not th’ opiniouns to telle
He has no patience with superstitions117. Belief in dreams, in auguries118, fear of the “ravenes qualm or schrychynge of thise owles” are all unbefitting to a self-respecting man:
As is a man shall dreaden such ordure!
So when this Calkas knew by calkulynge,
And eke by answer of this Apollo
That Grekes sholden such a people bringe,
Through which that Troye muste ben fordo,
He cast anon out of the town to go.
It would not be making a fanciful comparison to say that Chaucer in many respects resembles Anatole France. Both men possess a profound love of this world for its own sake, coupled with a profound and gentle scepticism about all that lies beyond this world. To both of them the lavish beauty of Nature is a never-failing and all-sufficient source of happiness. Neither of them are ascetics122; in pain and privation they see nothing but evil. To both of them the notion that self-denial and self-mortification are necessarily righteous and productive of good is wholly alien. Both of them are apostles of sweetness and light, of humanity and reasonableness. Unbounded tolerance123 of human weakness and a pity, not the less sincere for being a little ironical124, characterize them both. Deep knowledge of the evils and horrors of this unintelligible125 world makes them all the more attached to its kindly126 beauty. But in 212at least one important respect Chaucer shows himself to be the greater, the completer spirit. He possesses, what Anatole France does not, an imaginative as well as an intellectual comprehension of things. Faced by the multitudinous variety of human character, Anatole France exhibits a curious impotence of imagination. He does not understand characters in the sense that, say, Tolstoy understands them; he cannot, by the power of imagination, get inside them, become what he contemplates127. None of the persons of his creation are complete characters; they cannot be looked at from every side; they are portrayed128, as it were, in the flat and not in three dimensions. But Chaucer has the power of getting into someone else’s character. His understanding of the men and women of whom he writes is complete; his slightest character sketches129 are always solid and three-dimensional. The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, in which the effects are almost entirely130 produced by the description of external physical features, furnishes us with the most obvious example of his three-dimensional drawing. Or, again, take that description in the Merchant’s tale of old January and his young wife May after their wedding night. It is wholly a description of external details, yet the result is not 213a superficial picture. We are given a glimpse of the characters in their entirety:
Thus laboureth he till that the day gan dawe.
And upright in his bed then sitteth he.
And after that he sang full loud and clear,
And kissed his wife and made wanton cheer.
The slacké skin about his necké shaketh,
While that he sang, so chanteth he and craketh.
But God wot what that May thought in her heart,
When she him saw up sitting in his shirt,
In his night cap and with his necké lean;
She praiseth not his playing worth a bean.
But these are all slight sketches. For full-length portraits of character we must turn to Troilus and Cressida, a work which, though it was written before the fullest maturity133 of Chaucer’s powers, is in many ways his most remarkable134 achievement, and one, moreover, which has never been rivalled for beauty and insight in the whole held of English narrative135 poetry. When one sees with what certainty and precision Chaucer describes every movement of Cressida’s spirit from the first movement she hears of Troilus’ love for her to the moment when she is unfaithful to him, one can only wonder why the novel of character should have been so slow 214to make its appearance. It was not until the eighteenth century that narrative artists, using prose as their medium instead of verse, began to rediscover the secrets that were familiar to Chaucer in the fourteenth.
Troilus and Cressida was written, as we have said, before Chaucer had learnt to make the fullest use of his powers. In colouring it is fainter, less sharp and brilliant than the best of the Canterbury Tales. The character studies are there, carefully and accurately136 worked out; but we miss the bright vividness of presentation with which Chaucer was to endow his later art. The characters are all alive and completely seen and understood. But they move, as it were, behind a veil—the veil of that poetic137 convention which had, in the earliest poems, almost completely shrouded138 Chaucer’s genius, and which, as he grew up, as he adventured and discovered, grew thinner and thinner, and finally vanished like gauzy mist in the sunlight. When Troilus and Cressida was written the mist had not completely dissipated, and the figures of his creation, complete in conception and execution as they are, are seen a little dimly because of the interposed veil.
The only moment in the poem when Chaucer’s insight seems to fail him is at the very end; he has to account for Cressida’s unfaithfulness, 215and he is at a loss to know how he shall do it. Shakespeare, when he re-handled the theme, had no such difficulty. His version of the story, planned on much coarser lines than Chaucer’s, leads obviously and inevitably to the fore-ordained conclusion; his Cressida is a minx who simply lives up to her character. What could be more simple? But to Chaucer the problem is not so simple. His Cressida is not a minx. From the moment he first sets eyes on her Chaucer, like his own unhappy Troilus, falls head over ears in love. Beautiful, gentle, gay; possessing, it is true, somewhat “tendre wittes,” but making up for her lack of skill in ratiocination139 by the “sudden avysements” of intuition; vain, but not disagreeably so, of her good looks and of her power over so great and noble a knight140 as Troilus; slow to feel love, but once she has yielded, rendering141 back to Troilus passion for passion; in a word, the “least mannish” of all possible creatures—she is to Chaucer the ideal of gracious and courtly womanhood. But, alas, the old story tells us that Cressida jilted her Troilus for that gross prize-fighter of a man, Diomed. The woman whom Chaucer has made his ideal proves to be no better than she should be; there is a flaw in the crystal. Chaucer is infinitely142 reluctant to admit the 216fact. But the old story is specific in its statement; indeed, its whole point consists in Cressida’s infidelity. Called upon to explain his heroine’s fall, Chaucer is completely at a loss. He makes a few half-hearted attempts to solve the problem, and then gives it up, falling back on authority. The old clerks say it was so, therefore it must be so, and that’s that. The fact is that Chaucer pitched his version of the story in a different key from that which is found in the “olde bokes,” with the result that the note on which he is compelled by his respect for authority to close is completely out of harmony with the rest of the music. It is this that accounts for the chief, and indeed the only, defect of the poem—its hurried and boggled conclusion.
I cannot leave Cressida without some mention of the doom which was prepared for her by one of Chaucer’s worthiest143 disciples144, Robert Henryson, in some ways the best of the Scottish poets of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Shocked by the fact that, in Chaucer’s poem, Cressida receives no punishment for her infidelity, Henryson composed a short sequel, The Testament145 of Cresseid, to show that poetic justice was duly performed. Diomed, we are told, grew weary as soon as he had “all his appetyte and mair, 217fulfillit on this fair ladie” and cast her off, to become a common drab.
O fair Cresseid! the flour and A per se
Of Troy and Greece, how wast thow fortunait!
And be with fleshly lust sa maculait,
And go amang the Grekis, air and late
So giglot-like.
In her misery147 she curses Venus and Cupid for having caused her to love only to lead her to this degradation148:
The seed of love was sowen in my face
And ay grew green through your supply and grace.
And I fra lovers left, and all forlane.
In revenge Cupid and his mother summon a council of gods and condemn150 the A per se of Greece and Troy to be a hideous leper. And so she goes forth with the other lepers, armed with bowl and clapper, to beg her bread. One day Troilus rides past the place where she is sitting by the roadside near the gates of Troy:
Then upon him she cast up both her een,
And with ane blenk it cam into his thocht,
That he some time before her face had seen,
Yet then her look into his mind it brocht
Of fair Cresseid, one sometime his own darling.
He throws her an alms and the poor creature dies. And so the moral sense is satisfied. There is a good deal of superfluous153 mythology154 and unnecessary verbiage155 in The Testament of Cresseid, but the main lines of the poem are firmly and powerfully drawn156. Of all the disciples of Chaucer, from Hoccleve and the Monk of Bury down to Mr. Masefield, Henryson may deservedly claim to stand the highest.
The End
The End
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melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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sediment
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| n.沉淀，沉渣，沉积(物) | |
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attainment
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| n.达到，到达；［常pl.］成就，造诣 | |
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stony
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| adj.石头的，多石头的，冷酷的，无情的 | |
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petrifaction
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| n.石化，化石；吓呆；惊呆 | |
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doom
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| n.厄运，劫数；v.注定，命定 | |
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eke
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| v.勉强度日，节约使用 | |
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hem
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| n.贴边，镶边；vt.缝贴边；(in)包围，限制 | |
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immortal
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| adj.不朽的；永生的，不死的；神的 | |
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worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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pedants
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| n.卖弄学问的人，学究，书呆子( pedant的名词复数 ) | |
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daunted
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| 使（某人）气馁，威吓( daunt的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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exclamation
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| n.感叹号，惊呼，惊叹词 | |
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illustrate
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| v.举例说明，阐明；图解，加插图 | |
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lust
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| n.性(淫)欲；渴(欲)望；vi.对…有强烈的欲望 | |
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prodigal
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| adj.浪费的，挥霍的，放荡的 | |
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teeming
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| adj.丰富的v.充满( teem的现在分词 )；到处都是；（指水、雨等）暴降；倾注 | |
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supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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supremely
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| adv.无上地，崇高地 | |
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inevitably
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| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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opaque
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| adj.不透光的；不反光的，不传导的；晦涩的 | |
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ethical
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| adj.伦理的，道德的，合乎道德的 | |
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24
bias
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| n.偏见，偏心，偏袒；vt.使有偏见 | |
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25
horrified
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| a.(表现出)恐惧的 | |
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26
motives
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| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
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27
serenity
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| n.宁静，沉着，晴朗 | |
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placid
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| adj.安静的，平和的 | |
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29
piers
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| n.水上平台( pier的名词复数 )；（常设有娱乐场所的）突堤；柱子；墙墩 | |
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30
ebb
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| vi.衰退，减退；n.处于低潮，处于衰退状态 | |
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31
exterminated
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| v.消灭，根绝( exterminate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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aggravated
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| 使恶化( aggravate的过去式和过去分词 )； 使更严重； 激怒； 使恼火 | |
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33
frenzied
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| a.激怒的；疯狂的 | |
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34
unprecedented
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| adj.无前例的，新奇的 | |
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35
culminated
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| v.达到极点( culminate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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36
corruption
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| n.腐败，堕落，贪污 | |
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37
rife
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| adj.(指坏事情)充斥的，流行的，普遍的 | |
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38
appalled
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| v.使惊骇，使充满恐惧( appall的过去式和过去分词)adj.惊骇的；丧胆的 | |
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39
vices
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| 缺陷( vice的名词复数 )； 恶习； 不道德行为； 台钳 | |
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40
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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41
hypocrisy
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| n.伪善，虚伪 | |
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42
miller
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| n.磨坊主 | |
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43
rogues
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| n.流氓( rogue的名词复数 )；无赖；调皮捣蛋的人；离群的野兽 | |
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44
monk
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| n.和尚，僧侣，修道士 | |
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45
villain
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| n.反派演员，反面人物；恶棍；问题的起因 | |
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46
hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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47
vows
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| 誓言( vow的名词复数 )； 郑重宣布，许愿 | |
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48
unreasonable
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| adj.不讲道理的，不合情理的，过度的 | |
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49
irony
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| n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄 | |
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50
manifestations
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| n.表示，显示（manifestation的复数形式） | |
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51
celibacy
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| n.独身(主义) | |
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52
asceticism
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| n.禁欲主义 | |
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53
doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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54
wedlock
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| n.婚姻，已婚状态 | |
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55
memorable
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| adj.值得回忆的，难忘的，特别的，显著的 | |
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56
nought
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| n.／adj.无，零 | |
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57
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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58
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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59
prologue
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| n.开场白，序言；开端，序幕 | |
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60
enjoins
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| v.命令( enjoin的第三人称单数 ) | |
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61
bestow
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| v.把…赠与，把…授予；花费 | |
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62
stature
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| n.（高度）水平，（高度）境界，身高，身材 | |
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63
hood
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| n.头巾，兜帽，覆盖；v.罩上，以头巾覆盖 | |
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64
brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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65
exalted
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| adj.(地位等)高的，崇高的；尊贵的，高尚的 | |
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66
perspiring
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| v.出汗，流汗( perspire的现在分词 ) | |
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67
joyous
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| adj.充满快乐的；令人高兴的 | |
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68
behold
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| v.看，注视，看到 | |
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69
charlatanism
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| n.庸医术，庸医的行为 | |
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70
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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71
lavish
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| adj.无节制的；浪费的；vt.慷慨地给予，挥霍 | |
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72
maidens
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| 处女( maiden的名词复数 )； 少女； 未婚女子； （板球运动）未得分的一轮投球 | |
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73
quotations
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| n.引用( quotation的名词复数 )；[商业]行情（报告）；（货物或股票的）市价；时价 | |
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74
exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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75
sensuous
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| adj.激发美感的；感官的，感觉上的 | |
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76
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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77
luminous
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|
| adj.发光的，发亮的；光明的；明白易懂的；有启发的 | |
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78
sages
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| n.圣人( sage的名词复数 )；智者；哲人；鼠尾草（可用作调料） | |
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79
absurdities
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| n.极端无理性( absurdity的名词复数 )；荒谬；谬论；荒谬的行为 | |
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80
fables
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| n.寓言( fable的名词复数 )；神话，传说 | |
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81
fowls
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| 鸟( fowl的名词复数 )； 禽肉； 既不是这； 非驴非马 | |
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82
scattered
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|
| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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83
psychology
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| n.心理，心理学，心理状态 | |
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84
enchanting
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| a.讨人喜欢的 | |
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85
simile
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| n.直喻，明喻 | |
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86
sop
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| n.湿透的东西，懦夫；v.浸，泡，浸湿 | |
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87
lash
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| v.系牢；鞭打；猛烈抨击；n.鞭打；眼睫毛 | |
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88
prance
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|
| v.（马）腾跃，(人)神气活现地走 | |
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89
sleek
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| adj.光滑的，井然有序的；v.使光滑，梳拢 | |
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90
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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91
calf
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| n.小牛，犊，幼仔，小牛皮 | |
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92
dame
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| n.女士 | |
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93
hoard
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| n./v.窖藏，贮存，囤积 | |
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94
wincing
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| 赶紧避开，畏缩( wince的现在分词 ) | |
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95
skull
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| n.头骨；颅骨 | |
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96
derives
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| v.得到( derive的第三人称单数 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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97
metaphors
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| 隐喻( metaphor的名词复数 ) | |
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98
metaphor
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| n.隐喻，暗喻 | |
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99
snare
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|
| n.陷阱，诱惑，圈套；（去除息肉或者肿瘤的）勒除器；响弦，小军鼓；vt.以陷阱捕获，诱惑 | |
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100
gnaw
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|
| v.不断地啃、咬；使苦恼，折磨 | |
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101
bereft
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| adj.被剥夺的 | |
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102
pageant
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| n.壮观的游行；露天历史剧 | |
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103
mansion
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| n.大厦，大楼；宅第 | |
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104
rosy
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| adj.美好的，乐观的，玫瑰色的 | |
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105
celestial
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| adj.天体的；天上的 | |
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106
mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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107
hewed
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| v.（用斧、刀等）砍、劈( hew的过去式和过去分词 )；砍成；劈出；开辟 | |
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108
sleet
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| n.雨雪；v.下雨雪，下冰雹 | |
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109
bugle
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| n.军号，号角，喇叭；v.吹号，吹号召集 | |
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110
brawn
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| n.体力 | |
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111
tusked
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| adj.有獠牙的，有长牙的 | |
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112
treatise
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| n.专著；(专题)论文 | |
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113
judicial
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| adj.司法的，法庭的，审判的，明断的，公正的 | |
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114
profess
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| v.声称，冒称，以...为业，正式接受入教，表明信仰 | |
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115
herd
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| n.兽群，牧群；vt.使集中，把…赶在一起 | |
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116
stint
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| v.节省，限制，停止；n.舍不得化，节约，限制；连续不断的一段时间从事某件事 | |
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117
superstitions
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| 迷信，迷信行为( superstition的名词复数 ) | |
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118
auguries
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| n.（古罗马）占卜术，占卜仪式( augury的名词复数 )；预兆 | |
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119
foul
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| adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规 | |
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120
alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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121
ridicule
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| v.讥讽，挖苦；n.嘲弄 | |
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122
ascetics
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| n.苦行者，禁欲者，禁欲主义者( ascetic的名词复数 ) | |
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123
tolerance
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| n.宽容；容忍，忍受；耐药力；公差 | |
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124
ironical
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| adj.讽刺的，冷嘲的 | |
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125
unintelligible
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| adj.无法了解的，难解的，莫明其妙的 | |
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126
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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127
contemplates
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| 深思，细想，仔细考虑( contemplate的第三人称单数 )； 注视，凝视； 考虑接受（发生某事的可能性）； 深思熟虑，沉思，苦思冥想 | |
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128
portrayed
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| v.画像( portray的过去式和过去分词 )；描述；描绘；描画 | |
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129
sketches
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| n.草图( sketch的名词复数 )；素描；速写；梗概 | |
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130
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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131
coltish
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| adj.似小马的；不受拘束的；活泼的 | |
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132
jargon
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| n.术语，行话 | |
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133
maturity
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| n.成熟；完成；(支票、债券等)到期 | |
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134
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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135
narrative
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| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
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136
accurately
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| adv.准确地，精确地 | |
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137
poetic
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| adj.富有诗意的，有诗人气质的，善于抒情的 | |
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138
shrouded
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| v.隐瞒( shroud的过去式和过去分词 )；保密 | |
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139
ratiocination
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| n.推理；推断 | |
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140
knight
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| n.骑士，武士；爵士 | |
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141
rendering
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| n.表现，描写 | |
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142
infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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143
worthiest
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| 应得某事物( worthy的最高级 )； 值得做某事； 可尊敬的； 有（某人或事物）的典型特征 | |
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144
disciples
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| n.信徒( disciple的名词复数 )；门徒；耶稣的信徒；（尤指）耶稣十二门徒之一 | |
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145
testament
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| n.遗嘱；证明 | |
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146
filth
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| n.肮脏，污物，污秽；淫猥 | |
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147
misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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148
degradation
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| n.降级；低落；退化；陵削；降解；衰变 | |
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149
slain
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| 杀死，宰杀，杀戮( slay的过去分词 )； (slay的过去分词) | |
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150
condemn
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| vt.谴责，指责；宣判(罪犯)，判刑 | |
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151
plight
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| n.困境，境况，誓约，艰难；vt.宣誓，保证，约定 | |
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152
amorous
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| adj.多情的；有关爱情的 | |
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153
superfluous
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| adj.过多的，过剩的，多余的 | |
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154
mythology
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| n.神话，神话学，神话集 | |
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155
verbiage
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| n.冗词；冗长 | |
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156
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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