d brought wealth and a dukedom, ordered services, in pious
remembrance of her, to be held at her grave. The elaborate elegy
which--very possibly at the widowed Duke's request--was composed by
Chaucer, leaves no doubt as to the identity of the lady whose loss it
deplores:--

--Goode faire "White" she hight;
Thus was my lady named right;
For she was both fair and bright.

But, in accordance with the taste of his age, which shunned such sheer
straightforwardness in poetry, the "Book of the Duchess" contains no
further transparent reference to the actual circumstances of the wedded
life which had come to so premature an end--for John of Gaunt had
married Blanche of Lancaster in 1359;--and an elaborate framework is
constructed round the essential theme of the poem. Already, however,
the instinct of Chaucer's own poetic genius had taught him the value of
personal directness; and, artificially as the course of the poem is
arranged, it begins in the most artless and effective fashion with an
account given by the poet of his own sleeplessness and its cause
already referred to--an opening so felicitous that it was afterwards
imitated by Froissart. And so, Chaucer continues, as he could not
sleep, to drive the night away he sat upright in his bed reading a
"romance," which he thought better entertainment than chess or
draughts. The book which he read was the "Metamorphoses" of Ovid; and
in it he chanced on the tale of Ceyx and Alcyone--the lovers whom, on
their premature death, the compassion of Juno changed into the seabirds
that bring good luck to mariners. Of this story (whether Chaucer
derived it direct from Ovid, or from Machault's French version is
disputed), the earlier part serves as the introduction to the poem.
The story breaks off--with the dramatic abruptness in which Chaucer is
a master, and which so often distinguishes his versions from their
originals--at the death of Alcyone, caused by her grief at the tidings
brought by Morpheus of her husband's death. Thus subtly the god of
sleep and the death of a loving wife mingle their images in the poet's
mind; and with these upon him he falls asleep "right upon his book."

What more natural, after this, than the dream which came to him? It
was May, and he lay in his bed at morning-time, having been awakened
out of his slumbers by the "small fowls," who were carolling forth
their notes--"some high, some low, and all of one accord." The birds
singing their