part 3
of his Sege of Thebes.
1460. _Stace_ (as in Troil. bk. v, near the end, and Kn. Tale, A 2294) is Publius Papinius Statius, who died A.D. 96, author of the Thebais and Achilleis (see l. 1463), the latter being left incomplete. _Tholosan_ means Toulousan, or inhabitant of Toulouse; and he is here so called because by some (including Dante, whom Chaucer follows) he was incorrectly supposed to have been a native of Toulouse. He was born at Naples, A.D. 61. Dante calls him _Tolosano_ in Purg. xxi. 89, on which Cary remarks:--'Dante, as many others have done, confounds Statius the poet, who was a Neapolitan, with a rhetorican of the same name, who was of Tolosa or Thoulouse. Thus Chaucer; and Boccaccio, as cited by Lombardi: "E Stazio di Tolosa ancora caro"; Amorosa Vis. _cant._ 5.'
Dr. Köppell quotes the last passage, from Boccaccio, Am. Vis. v. 34, in Anglia, xiv. 237, and shews that other passages in the same resemble other lines in the Hous of Fame. See notes to ll. 1311, 1342, 1360, 1483, 1487, and 1499.
1463. 'Cantai di Tebe, e poi del grande Achille'; Dante, Purg. xxi. 92.
1466. _Omeer_, Homer; see ll. 1477-1480 below.
1467. In Chaucer's Troil. i. 146, is the line--'In Omer, or in Dares, or in Dyte.' _Dares_ means Dares Phrygius; and _Tytus_ is doubtless intended for the same person as _Dyte_, i.e. Dictys Cretensis. See the account in Warton, Hist. E. Poet., ed. Hazlitt, ii. 127, beginning:--'But the Trojan story was still kept alive in two Latin pieces, which passed under the names of Dares Phrygius and Dictys Cretensis,' &c.; and further in vol. iii. p. 81. The chief source of the romantic histories of Troy in the middle ages is the Roman de Troie by Benoit de Sainte-Maure, which appeared between 1175 and 1185, and has lately been edited by M. Joly. This was copied by Guido delle Colonne (see note to l. 1469 below), who pretended, nevertheless, to follow Dares and Dictys. Chaucer cites Dares and Dictys at second-hand, from Guido.
1468. _Lollius_; evidently supposed by Chaucer to be a writer on the Trojan war. See Tyrwhitt's note on the words _the boke of Troilus_, as occurring at the end of the Persones Tale. Chaucer twice quotes _Lollius_ in Troilus, viz. in bk. i. 394 and bk. v. 1653. At the beginning of sect. xiv of his Hist. of Eng. Poetry, Warton shews that there was a Lollius Urbicus among the _Historici Latini profani_ of the third century; 'but this could not be Chaucer's Lollius; ... none of his works remain.' The difficulty has never been wholly cleared up; we know, however, that the Troilus is chiefly taken from Boccaccio's Filostrato, just as his Knight's Tale is chiefly taken from Boccaccio's Teseide. My idea of the matter is that, in the usual mode of appealing to old authorities, Chaucer refers us (not to Boccaccio, whom he does not mention, but) to the authorities whom he supposed Boccaccio must have followed. Accordingly, in his Troilus, he mentions Homer, Dares, Dictys, and Lollius, though he probably knew next to nothing of _any one_ of these authors. On this account, the suggestion made by Dr. Latham (Athenæum, Oct. 3, 1868, p. 433) seems quite reasonable, viz. that he got the idea that Lollius wrote on the Trojan war by misunderstanding the lines of Horace, Epist. i. 2:--
'Troiani belli scriptorem, maxime Lolli, Dum tu declamas Romæ, Præneste relegi.'
See Ten Brink, Studien, p. 87. This supposition becomes almost a certainty when we observe how often medieval writers obtained their information from MSS. containing short extracts. Chaucer clearly never read Horace at all; he merely stumbled on a very few extracts from him in notebooks. In this way, he may easily have met with the _first line_ above, apart from its context. Cf. vol. ii. pp. lii, liii.
1469. Guido delle Colonne, or Guido de Columnis (_not_ da Colonna), finished his translation or version of Benoit de Sainte-Maure's Roman de Troie in the year 1287. His work is called Historia Troiana. The 'Geste Hystoriale' of the Destruction of Troy, edited by Panton and Donaldson for the Early English Text Society, is a translation of Guido's Historia into Middle English alliterative verse. See Warton, Hist. E. P., ed. Hazlitt, iii. 81; and Introd. to vol. ii. pp. liv-lxv.
1470. _Gaufride_, Geoffrey, viz. Geoffrey of Monmouth, who died A.D. 1154, and wrote a History of the Britons in Latin, full of extravagant but lively fictions, which was completed in 1147; see Morley's Hist. E. Writers, i. 496. He is rightly mentioned among the writers who 'bore up Troy,' because he makes the Britons the descendants of Æneas. See note below.
1477. _Oon seyde_, one (of them) said. Guido was one of those who said this; this appears from the Gest Hystoriale above mentioned, which was translated from Guido; see ll. 41-47, and 10312-10329 of Panton and Donaldson's edition. Guido asserts, for example, that Achilles slew Hector by treachery, and not, as Homer says, in fair fight; and Chaucer asserts the same, Troil. v. 1560. The fact is, that the Latin races declined to accept an account which did not sufficiently praise the Trojans, whom they regarded as their ancestors. Geoffrey of Monmouth ingeniously followed up this notion, by making the Trojans also the ancestors of the ancient Britons. Hence English writers followed on the same side; Lydgate, as well as Chaucer, exclaims against Homer. See Warton, ed. Hazlitt, iii. 82. But Dante exalts Homer above Horace, Ovid, and Lucan: Inf. iv. 88.
1482. 'Homer's iron is admirably represented as having been by Virgil covered over with tin'; note in Bell's Chaucer.
1483. There is a similar mention of Vergil in Boccaccio, Amorosa Visione, v. 7. See note to l. 1460.
1487. _Ovide_, Ovid; from whom perhaps Chaucer borrows more than from any other Latin writer. He stands on a pillar of copper, the metal sacred to Venus. See note to l. 820 of Can. Yeom. Tale. And cf. Boccaccio, Amorosa Visione, v. 25: 'Eravi Ovidio, lo quale poetando Iscrisse tanti versi per amore.'
1494. _High the_ (as in F.) is an error for _highthe_, height; Cx. Th. have _heyght_. Read _highte_, as in l. 744.
1499. _Lucan_; alluding to Lucan's Pharsalia, which narrates the war between Cæsar and Pompey. See Man of Lawes Tale, B 401; Monkes Tale, De Caesare, B 3909 (and note), and a fourth mention of him in Troilus, v. 1792. There is an English translation by Rowe. Cf. Boccaccio, Amorosa Visione, v. 19: 'A' quai Lucan seguitava, ne' cui Atti parea ch'ancora la battaglia Di Cesare narrasse, e di colui Magno Pompeo chiamato.'
1509. Claudius Claudianus, in the fourth century, wrote a poem De Raptu Proserpinæ, alluded to here and in the Merchant's Tale (C. T., E 2232), and several other pieces. See note to Parl. Foules, 99.
1512. Imitated from Dante, Inf. ix. 44: 'Della regina dell' eterno pianto.'
1519. _Write_, wrote; pt. t. pl. _Highte_, were named.
1521. Perhaps from Dante, Inf. xvi. 1, which Cary translates:--
'Now came I where the water's din was heard,... Resounding like the hum of swarming bees, When forth together issued from a troop,' &c.
1527. Cf. Ovid, Met. xii. 53: 'Atria turba tenent; ueniunt leue uulgus, euntque.'
1530. _Alles-kinnes_ is in the gen. sing., and _Of_ governs _condiciouns_; thus the line is equivalent to--'Of conditions of every kind'; whereas modern English uses--'Of every kind of condition.' This peculiar idiom was formerly common; and precisely similar to it is the phrase _noskinnes_, for which see note to l. 1794. Observe that the phrase is oddly written _alle skynnes_ in MS. F., by a misdivision of the words. So in Piers Plowman, A. ii. 175, we have the phrase _for eny kunnes yiftus_, for gifts of any kind, where one MS. has _any skynes_. In my note to P. Plowman, C. xi. 128, I give numerous examples, with references, of phrases such as _none kynnes riche_, _many kynnes maneres_, _summes kunnes wise_, _what kyns schape_, &c.
1550. 'Those that did pray her for her favour.'
1564. 'Because it does not please me.'
1570. I here alter _Vpon peyne_ to _Vp peyne_, as the former will not scan, and the latter is the usual idiom. See _up peyne_ in Kn. Tale, A 1707, 2543; Man of Lawes Tale, B 795, 884. Cf. _vp the toft_, upon the toft, P. Plowman, B. i. 12; _vp erthe_, upon earth, id. B. ix. 99.
1571. Cf. Rom. Rose, 18206--'Car Eolus, li diex des vens.' From Vergil, Æn. i. 52; cf. Ovid, Met. xiv. 223, where Æolus is said to reign over the Tuscan sea. The connection of Æolus with Thrace is not obvious; cf. l. 1585. Ovid, however, has 'Threicio Borea'; Art. Am. ii. 431. And see Lounsbury, Studies in Chaucer, ii. 382.
1596. _Took to_, delivered to. _Triton_, Triton; imitated from Ovid, Met. i. 333, where Neptune calls Triton, and bids him sound his 'shell,' the sound of which resounded everywhere.
1598. We rarely find _to_ used after _leet_; the usual formula is _leet go_. But cf. _leet to glyde_ in Cant. Ta., F 1415. Or read _to-go_, _to-glyde_.
1618. _Wite_ is badly spelt _wete_ or _wote_ in the MS. copies; but the very phrase _wite ye what_ occurs in C. T., E 2431. However, Ch. certainly uses the phrase _ye woot_ instead of _ye wite_, more than once.
1640. _Overthrowe_, be overthrown; as in the Tale of Gamelin, 512. Cf. Melibeus, B 2755.
1643. A _pelet_ was a stone ball, such as used to be fired from the earliest kind of cannon, of which this is a very early mention. See my glossary to P. Plowman (Clar. Press).
1670. _Lat goon_, let go, lay aside.
1702. The word _turned_, which is dissyllabic, has evidently been substituted here in the printed editions and in MS. P. for the older and rare word _clew_, which does not occur elsewhere in Chaucer. The line means--'With that (therupon) I rubbed my head all round'; which is a rustic way of expressing perplexity. The verb _clawen_, to scratch, stroke, is not uncommon, but the usual pt. t. is _clawed_. We find, however, at least one other example of the strong form of the past tense in the Seven Sages, ed. Weber, l. 925--He _clew_ the bor on the rigge,' he stroked the boar on the back, and made him go to sleep; cf. 'thi maister the _clawes_,' i.e. your master strokes you, to flatter you, in l. 937 of the same. Chaucer has, 'to _clawen_ [rub] him on his hele' [heel], Troil. iv. 728; 'he _clawed_ him on the bak,' he stroked him on the back, to encourage him, Cook's Prol., A 4326 (where _clew_ would suit the line better). See _claw_ in Jamieson's Scot. Dict.
1708. 'They would not give a leek.' Cf. 'dere ynough a leek'; Can. Yeom. Tale, Group G, 795.
1740. 'Although no brooch or ring was ever sent us.'
1742-4. 'Nor was it once intended in their heart to make us even friendly cheer, but they might (i.e. were ready to) bring us to our bier'; i.e. so far from caring to please us, they would be satisfied to see us dead.
The M.E. _temen_, to produce, to bring, is the same word as mod. E. _teem_, to produce. _To temen on bere_ is parallel to the old phrase _to bringen on bere_; cf. Gaw. Douglas, tr. of Æneid, bk. x. ch. 10, l. 138 (ed. Small, iii. 326), where _brocht on beyr_ means 'brought to their grave.' See _Bier_ in the New Eng. Dictionary.
1747. _For wood_, as (if) mad, 'like mad.' The same phrase recurs in Leg. Good Women, _Phyllis_, l. 27; cf. _as it were wood_, Kn. Tale, A 2950; and _for pure wood_, Rom. Rose, 276.
1759-62. Cf. Rom. de la Rose, 9887-90:--
'Si se sunt maint vanté de maintes; Par paroles fauces et faintes, Dont les cors avoir ne pooient, Lor non à grant tort diffamoient.'
1761. _The name_, the name of it, the credit of it.
1777. _Masty_ (miswritten _maisty_ in F., but _masty_ in the rest) means fat, fattened up, and hence unwieldy, sluggish. Bell alters it to _maisly_, and Moxon's edition to _nastie_; both being wrong. Palsgrave has: '_Masty_, fatte, as swyne be, _gras_.' The Promp. Parv. has: 'Mast-hog or swyne, [or] mastid swyne, _Maialis_'; and 'Mastyn beestys, _sagino, impinguo_.' Way rightly explains _masty_ as 'glutted with acorns or berries'; cf. 'Acorne, _mast_ for swyne, _gland_,' in Palsgrave. See The Former Age, l. 37.
1779. _Wher_, whether, 'is it the case that?'
1782. As the word _oughte_ is never followed by _to_ with a following gerund, it is certain that _to-hangen_ is all one word, the prefix _to-_ being intensive. MSS. F. and B. omit _to_, but the rest have it, and the syllable is wanted. I know of no other example of _to-hangen_, to hang thoroughly, but this is of little moment. The prefix _to-_ was freely added to all sorts of verbs expressing strong action; Stratmann gives _more than a hundred_ examples. Cf. note to l. 1598.
1783. We must read _sweynte_, the form preserved in MS. B, where the final _e_ is added to the pp. _sweynt_, as if it were an adjective used in the definite form. The reading _swynt_ is false, being an error for _sweynte_. The reading _slepy_ is a mere gloss upon this rare word, but fairly expresses the meaning. Bell's Chaucer has _swynt_, which the editor supposes to be put for _swinkt_ = _swinked_, pp. of _swinken_, to toil, as in Milton's 'swinkd hedger'; Comus, 293. He is, however, entirely wrong, for Milton's _swink'd_ is quite a late form; in Chaucer's time the verb _swinken_ was strong, and the pp. was _swunken_! Chaucer has _queynt_ as the pp. of _quenchen_, Kn. Tale, A 2321; and _dreynt_ as the pp. of _drenchen_, Non. Prest. Tale, B 4272. Similarly _sweynt_ is the pp. of _swenchen_, to cause to toil, to fatigue, tire out, the causal verb formed from the aforesaid strong intransitive verb _swinken_, to toil. For examples, see _swenchen_ in Stratmann; I may instance, 'Euwer feond eou ne scal ... _swenchen_,' your enemies shall not harass you, Old Eng. Homilies, ed. Morris, i. 13; and 'hi _swencten_ swiðe heom-seolfe,' they sore afflicted themselves, id. 101. Hence, 'the sweynte cat' means the over-toiled or tired-out cat; or, secondarily, a cat that will take no trouble, a slothful or _sleepy_ cat, as the gloss says. Compare Gower, Conf. Amant. ed. Pauli, ii. 39, where the same cat is brought forward as an example of the deadly sin of _Sloth_:--
'For he [a knight] ne wol no travail take To ride for his ladies sake, But liveth al upon his wisshes, And--as a cat wolde ete fisshes Withoute weting of his clees-- So wolde he do, but netheles He faileth ofte of that he wolde.'
The 'adage' is referred to in Macbeth, i. 7. 45. It occurs in MS. Harl. 2321, fol. 146, printed in Reliq. Antiquæ, i. 207, in the form: 'The cat doth love the fishe, she will not wett her foote.' In Heywood's Proverbs, 1562 (p. 28, ed. Spenser Soc.): 'The cat would eate fyshe, and would not wet her feete.' So also in Camden's Remains, 1614, p. 312. Hazlitt gives a rimed version:--
'Fain would the cat fish eat, But she's loth to wet her feet.'
In Piers the Plowman's Crede, 405, is the allusion:--
'Thou woldest not weten thy fote, and woldest fich cacchen.'
In a medieval Latin verse, it appears as: 'Catus amat piscem, sed non vult tingere plantam'; see Proverbialia Dicteria ... per A. Gartnerum, 1574, 8vo. Ray quotes the French: 'Le chat aime le poisson, mais il n'aime pas à mouiller la patte.' The German form is--'Die Katze hätt' der Fische gern; aber sie will die Füsse nit nass machen'; N. and Q. 4 S. ix. 266.
1794. _Noskinnes_; miswritten _no skynnes_ in MSS. F. and B.; Th. and Cx. _no kyns_. _Nos-kinnes_ is short for _noneskinnes_, of no kind; _noskinnes labour_ is 'work of no kind'; in mod. E. 'no kind of work.' It also occurs without the former _s_; as in _no kyne catel_, property of no kind, P. Plowm. C. xi. 250; _none kynnes riche_, rich men of no kind, id. B. xi. 185. Cf. also _of foure kunne thinges_, of things of four kinds, of four kinds of things, where one MS. has _of foure skynnes thinges_; P. Plowm. A. x. 2. And see note to l. 1530 above.
1796. _Bele Isaude_, Isaude (or Isoude, or Isolde) the fair; here a type of a high form of female beauty. See Parl. Foules, 290; and the note.
1798. 'She that grinds at a hand-mill'; a poor slave.
1810. _Hir_ (their) refers to the 'seventh company.' 'Such amusement they found in their hoods'; a phrase meaning 'so much did they laugh at them'; see Troil. ii. 1110. Cf. the phrase 'to put an ape in a man's hood,' i.e. to make him look like an ape, or look foolish; see note to C. T., Group B, 1630.
1823. 'Then a company came running in.'
1824. _Choppen_, strike downwards. They began hitting people on the head, regardless of consequences. The same expression occurs in Richard the Redeless, iii. 230--'And ich man i-charchid to schoppe at his croune'; where _i-charchid_ = _i-charged_, i.e. was charged, was commanded, and _schoppe_ = _choppe_.
1840. _Pale_, a perpendicular stripe; chiefly used as an heraldic term. The object of the conspicuous stripe upon the hose was to draw men's attention to him; for the same reason, he wore a bell on his tippet, and, in fact, his dress resembled that of the professional fool. _Paled_ or striped hose were sometimes worn for display.
'Buskins he wore of costliest cordwayne, Pinckt upon gold, and _paled_ part per part, As then the guize was for each gentle swayne.' Spenser, _F. Q._ vi. 2. 6.
I.e. his buskins were adorned with golden dots or eyelets, and regularly intersected with stripes arranged perpendicularly.
1844. _Isidis_, Isis; _Isidis_ being a form of the genitive case. Chaucer doubtless refers to Herostratus, the wretch who set fire to the temple of Diana at Ephesus, in order to immortalise his name. Why Diana here appears as Isis, and Ephesus as Athens, I cannot explain. Perhaps it was due to a defect of memory; we are apt to forget how _very_ largely medieval authors had to trust to their memories for names and facts. It is almost impossible for us moderns, with our facilities for reference, to imagine what were the difficulties of learned men in the olden time. Perhaps Chaucer was thinking of Ovid's line (ex Ponto, i. 1. 51)--'Uidi ego linigerae numen uiolasse fatentem _Isidis_.' The story is in Solinus, Polyhistor, cap. xl. § 3.
'See, Erostratus the second Fires again Diana's fane.' Rejected Addresses; _Drury's Dirge_, st. 5.
1853. Thynne prints--'(Though it be naught) for shreudness'; but this is very forced. MS. B. and Caxton both omit _noght_, rightly.
1857. 'And, in order to get (some) of the meed of fame.'
1880. An allusion to the old proverb--'As I brew, so must I needs drink'; in Camden's Remains. Gower has it, Conf. Amant. bk. iii, ed. Pauli, ii. 334:--
'And who so wicked ale breweth, Ful ofte he mot the werse drinke.'
1908. The form _bringes_, for _bringest_, though (strictly speaking) a Northern form, is not uncommon in East Midland. It occurs frequently, for example, in Havelok the Dane. But, as there is no other clear example in Chaucer, Koch thinks the passage is corrupt, and proposes to read:--
'Which than be, lo! thise tydinges, That bringe thee hider, and thise thinges That thou wilt here'; &c.
1920. Here _that_ means 'that very.' The description of 'the house of Dædalus' is in Ovid, Met. viii. 159; and the word _labyrinthus_, used with reference to it, is in Vergil, Æn. v. 588. Chaucer again refers to it in the Leg. of Good Women (Ariadne), 2010; and it is mentioned in his translation of Boethius, bk. iii. pr. 12. 118 (vol. ii. p. 89). And see Gower, Conf. Amant. ed. Pauli, ii. 304.
1926. This somewhat resembles Dante, Inf. iii. 53, which Cary translates:--
'Which whirling ran about so rapidly That it no pause obtain'd.'
1928. _Oise_, a river which flows into the Seine, from the north, not far below Paris. Chaucer says the sound might have been heard from there to Rome. From this vague statement, Warton would wish us to infer that the whole poem was founded on some foreign production now (and probably always) unknown. There is no need to draw any such conclusion. The English were fairly familiar with the north of France in days when a good deal of French soil belonged more or less to the king of England. The Oise, being a northern affluent of the Seine, must have been a well-known river. I think the allusion proves just nothing at all.
1933. This is an excellent and picturesque allusion, but in these days can no longer be appreciated. Compare Barbour's Bruce, xvii. 681:--
'The engynour than deliuerly Gert bend the gyne in full gret hy, And the stane smertly swappit out. It flaw out, quhedirand, with a _rout_.'
1940. Though the authorities read _hattes_ (Th. _hutches_), I alter this word to _hottes_ without hesitation. We do not make _hats_ with twigs or osiers. Chaucer says that some of the twigs were white, such as men use to make cages with, or panniers (i.e. baskets), or _hottes_, or _dossers_. Now Cotgrave explains F. _Panier_ by 'a Pannier, or Dosser; also, a Pedlers Pack; also, a fashion of trunke made of wicker'; and he explains F. _Hotte_ by 'a Scuttle, Dosser, Basket to carry on the back; the right _hotte_ is wide at the top, and narrow at the bottom.' Dr. Murray kindly refers me to Cursor Mundi, l. 5524:--
'Apon þer neckes sal þai bere _Hott_ wit stan and wit morter.'
He also tells me that in Caxton's Golden Legend (1483), fol. cix. col. 2, is the sentence--'And bare on hys sholdres vij. _hottis_ or baskettis fulle of erthe.' In a Glossary of North of England Words, printed as Gloss. B. 1, by the Eng. Dial. Society, I find: '_Hots_, s. pl. a sort of panniers to carry turf or slate in'; and Halliwell gives it as a Cumberland word. Dickenson's Cumberland Glossary has: '_Muck-hots_, panniers for conveying manure on horseback.' Brockett's Gloss. of Northern Words has: '_Hot_, a sort of square basket, formerly used for taking manure into fields of steep ascent; the bottom opened by two wooden pins to let out the contents.' Thus the existence of the word in English is fully proved; and the fitness of it is evident.
1943. 'Al ful of chirking was that sory place'; Kn. Tale, A 2004.
1946. Again from Ovid, Met. xii. 44-47.
1970. Read--'Of estáts and éek of regióuns.' The _e_ in _estat_ was very light; hence mod. E. _state_.
1975. _Mis_ is here an adjective, meaning 'bad' or 'wrong'; cf. 'But to correcten that is _mis_ I mente'; Can. Yeom. Tale, G 999.
1980. 'Although the timber,' &c.
1982. 'As long as it pleases Chance, who is the mother of news, just as the sea (is mother) of wells and springs.'
1997. _Paráventure_; also spelt _paraunter_, shewing how rapidly the third syllable could be slurred over.
2000. _Peter!_ by St Peter; see note to l. 1034.
2004. _Cunne ginne_, know how to begin. (_Gin_, a contrivance, is monosyllabic).
2009. I substitute the dissyllabic _swich-e_ for the monosyllabic _these_, to preserve the melody.
2011. 'To drive away thy heaviness with.'
2017. MS. F. has _frot_, which has no meaning, but may be a misspelling of _froit_, which is another form of _fruit_. As Koch says, we must read _The fruit_, remembering that Chaucer uses _fruit_ in the peculiar sense of 'upshot' or 'result.'
'And for it is no _fruit_ but los of tyme'; Squi. Ta., F 74.
'The _fruyt_ of this matere is that I telle'; Man of Lawes Ta., B 411.
In the present case, it would be used in a _double_ sense; (1) of result, (2) of a fruit that withers and is ready to burst open. As to the spelling _froit_, we find _froyte_ in the Petworth MS. in the latter of the above quotations, where other MSS. have _fruyt_ or _fruite_. _The swote_ (Cx. Th.) means 'the sweetness.'
2019. _That_, in this line, goes back to _Sith that_ in l. 2007.
2021. I suppress _in_ after _yaf_, because it is not wanted for the sense, and spoils the metre.
2034-40. Suggested by Dante, Inf. iii. 55-57, just as ll. 1924-6 above are by the two preceding lines in Dante; see note to l. 1926. Cary has:--
'and following came Such a long train of spirits, I should ne'er Have thought that death so many had despoil'd.'
In l. 2038, _left_ means 'left alive.'
2044. I substitute _ech_ for _euerych_ (in Caxton). The two MSS. (F. and B.) have merely _Rouned in others ere_, which is of course defective.
2048. I here follow B. (except that it wrongly omits _lo_).
2059. _Wondermost_; superl. of _wonder_, which is very common as an _adjective_.
2076. As the reading of the MSS. is obviously wrong (the word _mouth_ being repeated three times), whilst the reading of the printed editions (_Wente every tydyng_) cannot be right on account of the scansion, I put _word_ for the first of the three _mouths_. This gives the right sense, and probably Chaucer actually wrote it.
2089. Again from Ovid, Met. xii. 54, 55. _A sad soth-sawe_, a sober truth.
2099. _With the nones_, on the condition; see Leg. of Good Women, 1540; and the note. So also in the Tale of Gamelyn, 206.
2101. See Kn. Tale, 273, 274 (A 1131).
2105. _Beside_, without; without asking his leave.
2119. Cf. Cant. Tales, D 1695--'Twenty thousand freres on a route,' where Tyrwhitt prints _A twenty_. But the MSS. (at least the seven best ones) all omit the _A_. Just as the present line wants its first syllable, and is to be scanned--'Twénty thoúsand ín a roúte'; so the line in the Cant. Tales wants its first syllable, and is to be scanned--Twénty thoúsand fréres ón a roúte. For having called attention to this fact, my name (misspelt) obtained a mention in Lowell's My Study Windows, in his (otherwise excellent) article on Chaucer. 'His (Chaucer's) ear would never have tolerated the verses of nine[63] syllables with a strong accent on the first, attributed to him by Mr. Skeate and Mr. Morris. Such verses seem to me simply impossible in the pentameter iambic as Chaucer wrote it.' Surely this is assumption, not proof. I have only to say that the examples are rather numerous, and nine-syllable lines are not impossible to a poet with a good ear; for there are twelve consecutive lines of this character in Tennyson's Vision of Sin. It may suffice to quote one of them:--
'Pánted hánd in hánd with fáces pále.'
I will merely add here, that similar lines _abound_ in Lydgate's 'Sege of Thebes,' and that there are 25 clear examples of such lines in the Legend of Good Women, as I shew in my Introduction to that Poem.
2123. Cf. P. Plowman; B. prol. 46-52. _Bretful_, brim-ful, occurs in P. Pl. C. i. 42; also in Chaucer, Prol. 687; Kn. Tale, 1306 (A 2164).
2130. _Lyes_; F. _lies_, E. _lees_. '_Lie_, f. the lees, dregs, grounds'; Cotgrave.
2140. Sooner or later, every sheaf in the barn has to come out to be thrashed.
2152. 'And cast up their noses on high.' I adopt this reading out of deference to Dr. Koch, who insists upon its correctness. Otherwise, I should prefer the graphic reading in MS. B.--'And up the nose and yën caste.' Each man is trying to peer beyond the rest.
2154. 'And stamp, as a man would stamp on a live eel, to try to secure it.' Already in Plautus, Pseudolus, 2. 4. 56, we have the proverb _anguilla est, elabitur_, he is an eel, he slips away from you; said of a sly or slippery fellow. In the Rom. de la Rose, 9941, we are told that it is as hard to be sure of a woman's constancy as it is to hold a live eel by the tail. 'To have an eel by the tail' was an old English proverb; see _Eel_ in Nares' Glossary, ed. Halliwell and Wright.
2158. The poem ends here, in the middle of a sentence. It seems as if Chaucer did not quite know how to conclude, and put off finishing the poem till that more 'convenient season' which never comes. Practically, nothing is lost.
The copy printed by Caxton broke off still earlier, viz. at l. 2094. In order to make a sort of ending to it, Caxton added twelve lines of his own, with his name--Caxton--at the side of the first of them; and subjoined a note in prose, as follows:--
And wyth the noyse of them [t]wo[64] I Sodeynly awoke anon tho[65] And remembryd what I had seen And how hye and ferre I had been In my ghoost / and had grete wonder Of that [that?] the god of thonder Had lete me knowen / and began to wryte[66] Lyke as ye haue herd me endyte Wherfor to studye and rede alway[67] I purpose to doo day by day Thus in dremyng and in game Endeth thys lytyl book of Fame.
I fynde nomore of this werke to-fore sayd. For as fer as I can vnderstonde / This noble man Gefferey Chaucer fynysshed at the sayd conclusion of the metyng of lesyng and sothsawe / where as yet they ben chekked and may nat departe / whyche werke as me semeth is craftyly made'; &c. (The rest is in praise of Chaucer). But, although Caxton's copy ended at l. 2094, lines 2095-2158 appear in the two MSS., and are obviously genuine. Thynne also printed them, and must have found them in the MS. which he followed. After l. 2158, Thynne subjoins Caxton's ending, with an alteration in the first three lines, as unsuitable to follow l. 2158. Hence Thynne prints them as follows:--
And therwithal I abrayde Out of my slepe halfe a frayde Remembri[n]g wel what I had sene.
We thus see that it was never pretended that the lines following l. 2158 were Chaucer's. They are admittedly Caxton's and Thynne's. Even if we had not been told this, we could easily have detected it by the sudden inferiority in the style. Caxton's second line will not scan at all comfortably; neither will the third, nor the fourth. (The seventh can be improved by altering _began_ to _gan_). And Thynne's lines are but little better.
NOTES TO THE LEGEND OF GOOD WOMEN.
NOTES TO THE PROLOGUE.
*** N.B. The references are to the B-text, except where special mention of the A-text is made. The latter is denoted by the letter 'A', preceded by a short line.
2. Compare Chaucer's Troilus,