Summary
In the first stanza, the speaker advises Sir Philip to avoid the general population, and seek out truthfullness instead. He should acknowledge that his own possesions are enough, even if they are humbler than those of his peers. After all, to hoard wealth makes others hate you, while attempting to climb the social ladder leads one to frequently change their loyalties and affections. The speaker continues in this fashion, stressing that praise will only lead to others envying Philip, while wealth will make him blind to the rest of the world. Therefore, he should enjoy what he has, and seek only to “rule” himself. The stanza ends by assuring Philip that if he does these things, the truth will deliver him from the fickle opinions of the crowd.
In the second stanza, the speaker turns his attention from Philip’s attempts to gain wealth and status, to his attempts to make the world a better place. He states that the world is a crooked and unreliable place, and that Philip will feel better if he avoids “busyness,” or overexerting himself with too many responsibilities. After all, trying to change the world is as futile as kicking an awl or throwing dishes against a hard wall. Instead, again, he should seek only to control himself, and eventually truth will deliver him from the fickle world.
The third stanza continues to give advice, but the tone becomes much more assertive and agitated. The speaker stresses that the world is not Philip’s home at all, but rather a “wilderness’ through which he wanders like a pilgrim. He should seek to leave it behind and fix his gaze on his real “country,” heaven above. By letting his spirit steer him along the path to salvation, Truth will deliver him from suffering.
The final stanza is an “envoy.” The envoy was a conventional concluding device in French poetry, which summarized the poem or dedicated it to a particular person. Here, Chaucer addresses the message of “Truth” to Sir Philip directly. He instructs him to stop being sad about his lost power, suggesting that this sadness puts him under the control of the unjust world. Instead, he should cry out to God for mercy, again focusing on his salvation after his death. Finally, the poem returns one more time to its refrain, “Truth shall deliver you, have no fear,” asserting that if Philip follows this advice, he will be saved.
Analysis
Although “Truth” was extremely popular when it was written, modern critics have paid it less attention than much of Chaucer’s other work, probably because it is much more conventional in its themes. Nevertheless, the poem still exhibits the poet’s hallmark sensitivity to the subtleties of language. Furthermore, the ideas it suggests were important to the Middle Ages, and thinking about how Chaucer presents them can help us better understand how medieval people thought about nobility, wealth, power, and salvation.
The first stanza is structured as a series of binary statements. Each line is divided into two phrases. The choppy rhythm allows the speaker to efficiently address a number of interconnected ideas. The stanza reads almost like a series of philosophical axioms. There is no imagery or figurative language, only a series of statements about abstract ideas: hoarding, praise, wealth, social climbing, and their negative impacts.
Already, however, the poem is slightly more complex than it appears at the surface. Although hoarding, climbing, praise, and wealth all have negative ramifications, some of these are internal and others external. For example, hoarding brings hatred because possessing disproportionate wealth will cause others to resent you. However, social climbing is bad because even though it makes you more popular, it also makes you a “fickle,” or flighty and unreliable, friend. The speaker’s rhetoric thus addresses both Philip (and the reader’s) desires to be a good person, and their desire to be liked. Even though the former motivation should be sufficient, the speaker recognizes that the two together will make his case more convincing.
Nevertheless, the message of the first stanza is probably unsurprising to a modern reader. Advice to be satisfied with what you have and humble about your own station in life is pretty unobjectionable, the kind of thing we might imagine hearing in a church sermon or even an elementary school classroom. The second, however, is quite distinct from contemporary moral standards. Although the speaker wants the reader to care about becoming a better person, he explicitly discourages him from trying to improve the behavior of others, “the crooked.” Strangely, he implies that seeking to make other people better would be to trust “in her who wobbles like a ball,” or in the unreliable and inconsistent earth. In other words, if you aspire to make other people better, you are usurping God’s role by pretending that you, as a mortal person residing on earth, has what it takes to bring virtue.
Unlike the first stanza, this one includes some striking imagery. Beyond the earth wobbling like a ball, the speaker compares the reader’s attempts to improve others to someone kicking an “awl” (a tool or instrument with a sharp point), thus injuring himself without effecting the awl. He repeats the point with a second, similar metaphor, describing the reader as someone who attempts to do battle with the wall by throwing his dishes at it, thus breaking the dishes without effecting the wall. The two successive metaphors cast attempts at making the world a better place as not only futile but also self-destructive. Just like the hoarding, social climbing, praise, and wealth described in the first stanza, misguided attempts to improve others will only end up hurting one’s own character.
In the third stanza, this renunciation of the world only becomes more intense. Where the tone of the first stanza had been measured and balanced, by the third he desperately entreats the reader to abandon the world. The second stanza employed metaphor as a tool of comparison, suggesting that the reader is akin to someone throwing their dishes at the wall. Here, the figurative language is more direct; Philip, or any other the virtuous reader, IS the pilgrim, and this world IS the wilderness. He is to see himself as a wanderer in a strange land, and fix his gaze on his true country, the heavenly kingdom of God. The identification is at its most intense in the exclamation, “Forth, beast, out of your stall!” In describing Philip as a beast, he emphasizes his humility and unimportance in the eyes of God. He also puns on his name, “Vache,” which is French for cow. The pun emphasizes that the image of the beast in the stall is not just a figurative image or a casual comparison, but a description of Philip’s own true nature.
Finally, in the fourth stanza, Chaucer sums up the poem and explicitly dedicates it to Sir Philip with a device known as an “Envoy.” The envoy was typical of French poetry, and in borrowing it, Chaucer seeks to associate his own work with the continent, which was perceived as more cultured and intellectual than England in the Middle Ages. Generally, the envoy’s content aligns with the first three stanzas. However, it points Philip towards a much more intimate relationship with God than that described in the rest of the poem. The third stanza briefly instructs Philip to thank God, but here Chaucer repeatedly emphasizes the relationship between man and God, instructing Philip to “cry” to God for mercy, call on him, draw towards him, and pray for both himself and others. This final instruction slightly deviates from the rest of the poem’s focus on self-improvement. Though it does not refute the instruction to avoid trying to mold other people directly, it suggests that Philip still has a duty towards his fellow man, appropriately exercised by praying to God on their behalf.
It is therefore important not to see “Truth” as simply an expression of individualism. Although the poem certainly praises a certain level of independence, its addressee ultimately depends wholly on God’s will. Indeed, part of the problem with seeking wealth, power, or even to make the world a better place is that these actions might trick Philip into thinking of himself as self-sufficient. For medieval Christians, mankind was created by God. People were to see their continued survival as a divine gift, and they were to think always of their fate after death, when they would be most obviously in God’s power as he decided whether they would end up in heaven or hell. By the end of the poem, Chaucer hints at the necessity of thinking of others at the same time as oneself, all in the power of the God who “made thee from naught.”
