can be taken unequivocally. The poem is a topical
piece that is best looked upon as an exercise in comic
irony.
See also SATIRE.
FURTHER READING
Bertolet, Craig E. “Chaucer’s Envoys and the Poet-Diplo-
mat.” Chaucer Review 33 (1998): 66–89.
Braddy, Haldeen. “Sir Peter and the Envoy to Bukton.” PQ
14 (1935): 368–370.
Chance, Jane. “Chaucerian Irony in the Verse Epistles
‘Wordes unto Adam,’ ‘Lenvoy a Scogan,’ and ‘Lenvoy a
Bukton.’ ” PLL 21 (1985): 115–128.
Lowes, John Livingston. “The Date of the Envoy to Bukton.”
MLN 27 (1912): 45–48.
Ruud, Jay. “Many a Song and Many a Leccherous Lay”: Tradi-
tion and Individuality in Chaucer’s Lyric Poetry. New York:
Garland, 1992.
Jay Ruud
“ENVOY TO SCOGAN” (“LENVOY DE
CHAUCER A SCOGAN”) GEOFFREY CHAUCER
(1393) GEOFFREY CHAUCER’s “Envoy to Scogan” is a
short poem in seven STANZAs of RYME ROYAL verse, the
last of which is an envoy (ENVOI) directly addressed to
Henry Scogan. Scogan was Chaucer’s friend and fellow
poet, who was to become tutor to the four sons of
Henry IV and author of a poem called A Moral Ballade
in which he quotes from Chaucer’s short poem “Gen-
tillesse” while discussing the nature of true nobility.
Chaucer’s envoy takes the form of a verse letter to Sco-
gan, after the gently satiric manner of the Roman poet
Horace, in which Chaucer apparently asks Scogan to
put in a good word for him at the court. The poem is
relatively late in Chaucer’s career, most likely after
1391, when the poet lived away from the court. There
were heavy rains around Michaelmas in the year 1393,
which might suggest the poem belongs to that year.
The poem survives in three manuscripts, where it is
called “Lenvoy de Chaucer a Scogan.” It begins with a
mock-serious lament that the laws of heaven have been
broken, and Venus herself is weeping so abundantly
that she has caused the recent deluge in England,
threatening to drown the world—all because Scogan
has given up the love of his lady. Scogan’s scorning of
love is dangerous, Chaucer insists, and he fears that
Love will take vengeance not only on Scogan but on all
of those who, like him and Chaucer, are old and
“rounde of shap” (l. 31), so that they will receive no
reward for all their labor. To Scogan’s imagined
response, “Lo, olde Grisel lyst to ryme and playe” (l.
35)—that is, the old man (Chaucer) likes to rhyme and
play—Chaucer responds that he is past all that, that
his muse is sleeping and rusting in his sheath, imply-
ing that, perhaps, he has, like Scogan, also given up on
love—or at least on love poetry.
The fi nal stanza of the poem, the envoi, has caused a
great deal of critical commentary. Here Chaucer asks
Scogan, kneeling at the head of the stream of grace, to
remember Chaucer, forgotten in a solitary wilderness.
Think on “Tullius kyndenesse,” he tells Scogan, and
mention his friend where it will prove most fruitful.
The stream’s head is apparently Windsor, while the
solitary wilderness may be Greenwich, where Chaucer
was living after 1390 when he was appointed deputy
forester of Petherton. The reference to Tullius is not
completely clear, though most likely it refers to Cicero’s
treatise on friendship, De Amicitia. Cicero emphasizes
that friendship should be based on mutual love and
not the expectation of profi t, and that one should
befriend others similar to oneself. Chaucer may be
implying that Scogan’s relationship with his lady did
not follow Cicero’s advice, but that his friendship with
Chaucer himself is a more natural relationship. Ironi-
cally, of course, Chaucer seems to be ignoring Cicero’s
advice by asking to profi t from Scogan’s friendship. It
is the kind of irony that Chaucer seems to have enjoyed
a great deal.
See also “ENVOY TO BUKTON,” SATIRE.
FURTHER READING
Minnis, A. J., V. J. Scattergood, and J. J. Smith. Oxford
Guides to Chaucer: The Shorter Poems. Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1995.
Ruud, Jay. “Many a Song and Many a Leccherous Lay”: Tradi-
tion and Individuality in Chaucer’s Lyric Poetry. New York:
Garland, 1992.
Jay RuudEPIC An epic poem is a long narrative piece focus-
ing on the story of one or more heroic characters. Epic
poets strive to craft serious and elevated poems thatEPIC 165