bed once all the other occupants are asleep. However,
feeling his way in the dark, he trips over a stool and
hurts his shin, cracks his forehead on a table on getting
up, and causes a large bronze basin to fall off the table
with a huge clang. This wakes the dogs and disturbs
three English merchants who think he is a thief after
their packs. A host is raised to hunt for him. Dafydd
hides under a table, and prays to God for forgiveness.
Modern scholarship has examined the extent of
Continental literary traditions on Dafydd ap Gwilym,
as well as the ways he plays with the COURTLY LOVE tra-
dition. For instance, a number of his poems, like this
one, involve the character Dafydd going to his lover’s
house or setting up an amorous adventure at night in
order to maintain secrecy; however, the trysts fail, and
secrecy is blown. In these, Dafydd is the central, comic
fi gure who rarely succeeds in fi nding the girl. Some
scholars suggest that these poems are deliberate paro-
dies of ROMANCE texts, while others believe that this
lightheartedness indicates reliance upon OVID, not an
attempt to undermine another tradition.
FURTHER READING
Bromwich, Rachel. Aspects of the Poetry of Dafydd ap Gwilym.
Collected Papers. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1986.
Edwards, Huw Meirion. Dafydd ap Gwilym: Infl uences and
Analogues. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Johnston, David. “The Serenade and the Image of the House
in the Poems of Dafydd ap Gwilym.” Cambridge Medieval
Celtic Studies 5 (1983): 1–19.
Sara Elin Roberts
“TRUTH” (“BALADE DE BON CONSEYL”)
GEOFFREY CHAUCER (1386) Judging by manuscript
evidence, GEOFFREY CHAUCER’s short poem “Truth” was
the most popular of his lyric poems in the late Middle
Ages, surviving in 22 manuscripts and two editions.
The poem belongs to a group of Chaucerian lyrics that
also include the poems “Gentilesse,” “Lak of Stedfast-
nesse,” “The Former Age,” and “Fortune,” and which,
because of their tone and subject matter, are often
called his “Boethian” poems. This group of moral and
philosophical lyrics was probably written in the 1380s,
when Chaucer was translating BOETHIUS’s The CONSOLA-
TION OF PHILOSOPHY into Middle English. Boethius’s
views colored Chaucer’s literary output throughout
this decade, particularly in “The Knight’s Tale,” (see
The CANTERBURY TALES) TROILUS AND CRISEYDE, and in
these Boethian short poems.
“Truth,” also called the “Balade de Bon Conseyl” (“Bal-
lad of Good Counsel”) in some manuscripts, is composed
in the French poetic form called the ballade and includes
three RHYME ROYAL stanzas (ababbcc). In it, Chaucer
explores the ethical principle of truth, which in Chaucer’s
day was defi ned as a personal integrity that included
fi delity to one’s word, one’s lord, and one’s God, and by
extension involved right moral conduct in one’s relation-
ships with others. The speaker of Chaucer’s poem advises
his reader to fl ee from the crowd, and not to seek the
rewards of FORTUNE and the world. Our true home, he
says, is in heaven, and we are only pilgrims passing
through this life. Alluding to John 8:32 (“the truth shall
set you free”), Chaucer ends each STANZA with the REFRAIN
“And trouthe thee shal delivere, it is no drede” (“And
truth shall deliver you, there is no doubt”).
Modern editions of the poem invariably include a
fi nal ENVOI, also in rhyme royal, that is attached to the
poem in one manuscript. It is a direct address to “thou
Vache,” presumably Sir Philip de la Vache, a courtier
and acquaintance of Chaucer in the court of the Eng-
lish king Richard II. This stanza has been used by many
critics to date the poem to the years 1386–89—the
period when both Chaucer and Vache, as well as other
supporters of the king, were in disfavor under the
ascendancy of Richard’s uncle, the duke of Gloucester.
It is possible that the poem had been composed earlier
and that the envoy was added later, when Vache
needed Chaucer’s special counsel. However, since the
poem contains several apparent puns on the name
Vache (French for “cow”)—puns such as “Forth, beste,
out of thy stal!” in line 18—it seems quite feasible that
the poem was written with Vache in mind.
See also MIDDLE ENGLISH POETRY.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 Ruud“TRUTH” 443