T

and tender kissing

Boccaccio, ar

beautiful sta

simple sens lighter str 1098.

Tale, 10 1133 been n

ewers said to be of India, to

a

distinguish him, it may be, from Saint

Nome is cnlarged upon in Lenvoy de Chaucer à Bukton, New Emax Whenever this Apostle is mentioned, he is nearly Pomas of Canterbury. Some account of the shrine of St. Thomas, of Marco Polo, bk. iii. ch. 19. Colonel Yule tells us that the body of the manner of his death, and of miracles wrought by him, is given in St. Thomas's preaching in India is of very high antiquity. St. Jerome lix.. ad Marcellam. Gregory of Tours (A.D. 544-595) speaks of the speaks of the Divine Word being everywhere present in His fulness place in India where the body of St. Thomas lay before it was trans'cum Thoma in India, cum Petro Romae,' &c.; Sci. Hieronomi Epist. note upon the subject; and the account of Saint Thomas in Mrs. ported to Edessa in the year 394. See the whole of Colonel Yule's long Jameson's Sacred and Legendary Art.

suburb of Madras. The legend of

1. I

ро

II

IJ

St Thomas lay at Mailapúr,

NOTES TO THE MERCHANT'S END-LINK.

2420. Swich a wyf, i.e. the wife described in the Marchauntes Tale, as

deceiving her husband. 2422, Bees.

In the Clerk. Ta. 204, Chaucer has been as the plural of

bee; see Been in the Glossary, and cf. Nonne Pr. Ta. 571.

2431. 2435.

In conseil, in (secret) council, between ourselves.

The phrase cause why is now considered vulgar; it is common in London. The word causë is dissyllabic.

=

2436. Of somme, by some, by some one. So of whom by whom, in the next line. He says he need not say by whom it would be told; women are sure to utter such things. This is a clear allusion to the ladies in the company, and to the Wife of Bath in particular, who certainly would not have kept such things to herself. Outen, to utter, occurs again in the Chanouns Yemannes Tale, Group G, 1. 834. It is a rare word.

NOTES TO THE SQUIERES TALE.

Group F, 1. There is nothing to link this tale inseparably with the preceding one, and, accordingly, in the Six-text edition, the sixth fragment is made to begin here. In the Ellesmere MS., and several others, the Squire Head-link follows the Merchant End-link without any break. In many MSS. it follows the Man of Law's Tale; but that is the wrong place for it. See note to Group B, 1, 1165, p. 141.

2. An allusion to Prol. 1. 97, unless (which is quite as probable) the passage in the Prologue was written afterwards.

6

9. Sarray, Sarai. This place has been identified, past all doubt, by Colonel Yule in his edition of Marco Polo's Travels, vol. i. p. 5, and vol. ii. p. 424. The modern name is Tsarev, near Sarepta. Sarepta is easily found on any good map of Russia by following the course of the Volga from its mouth upwards. At first this backward course runs N.W. till we have crossed the province of Astrakhan, when it makes a sudden bend, at Sarepta and Tsaritzin. Tsarev is now a place of no importance, but the ancient Sarai was so well-known, that the Caspian Sea was sometimes named from it; thus it is called the sea of Sarain' in Marco Polo, ed. Yule, ii. 424: the sea of Sarra' in the Catalan map of 1375; and Mare Seruanicum, or the Sea of Shirwan, by Vincent of Beauvais. Thynne, in his Animadversions on Speight's Chaucer, speaks to the same effect, and says of 'Sara' that it is 'a place yet well knowen, and bordering vppon the lake Mare Caspium.' But it is still more to the point to observe that Sarai was the place where Batu Khan, the grandson of Gengis Khan, held his court. Batu, with his Mongolian followers known as the Golden Horde, had established an empire in Kaptchak, or Kibzak, now S. E. Russia, about A.D. 1224. The Golden Horde further invaded Russia, and made Alexander Newski grand-duke of it, A.D. 1252. (See Golden Horde in Haydn's Dictionary of Dates.)

It is also quite clear that Chaucer has here confused two accounts. There were two celebrated Khans, both grandsons of Gengis Khan, who were ruling about the same time. Batu Khan held his court at Sarai, and ruled over the S.E. of Russia; but the Great Khan, named Kublai, held his court at Cambaluc, the modern Pekin, in a still more magnificent manner. And it is easy to see that, although Chaucer names Sarai, his description really applies to Cambaluc. See the Preface.

10. Russye, Russia; invaded by the Golden Horde, as just explained. The end of the Tartar influence in Russia was in the year 1481, when Svenigorod, general of Ivan III, defeated them at the battle of Bielawisch. In the following year Ivan assumed the title of czar.

12. Cambynskan; so in all seven MSS. (Six-text and Harleian) except that in the Ellesmere MS. it more resembles Cambyuskan. Yet Tyrwhitt prints Cambuscan, probably in deference to Milton, who, however, certainly accents the word wrongly, viz. on the second syllable; Il Penseroso, 1. 110. Thynne, in his Animadversions on Speight's Chaucer, speaking of the year 1240, says-' whiche must be in the tyme of the fyrst Tartariane emperor called Caius canne, beinge, I suppose, he whome Chaucer namethe Cambiuscan, for so ys [it in] the written copies, such affynytye is there betwene those two names.'

Now,

1227. This theme is enlarged upon in Lenvoy de Chaucer à Bukton, a late minor poem.

1230. Seint Thomas. Whenever this Apostle is mentioned, he is nearly always said to be of India, to distinguish him, it may be, from Saint Thomas of Canterbury. Some account of the shrine of St. Thomas, of the manner of his death, and of miracles wrought by him, is given in Marco Polo, bk. iii. ch. 18. Colonel Yule tells us that the body of St. Thomas lay at Mailapúr, a suburb of Madras. The legend of St. Thomas's preaching in India is of very high antiquity. St. Jerome speaks of the Divine Word being everywhere present in His fulness 'cum Thomâ in India, cum Petro Romae,' &c.; Sci. Hieronomi Epist. lix., ad Marcellam. Gregory of Tours (A.D. 544-595) speaks of the place in India where the body of St. Thomas lay before it was transported to Edessa in the year 394. See the whole of Colonel Yule's long note upon the subject; and the account of Saint Thomas in Mrs. Jameson's Sacred and Legendary Art.

NOTES TO THE MERCHANT'S END-LINK.

2420. Swich a wyf, i.e. the wife described in the Marchauntes Tale, as deceiving her husband.

2422. Bees. In the Clerk. Ta. 204, Chaucer has been as the plural of bee; see Been in the Glossary, and cf. Nonne Pr. Ta. 571.

2431. In conseil, in (secret) council, between ourselves.

2435. The phrase cause why is now considered vulgar; it is common in London. The word cause is dissyllabic.

2436. Of somme, by some, by some one. So of whom - by whom, in the next line. He says he need not say by whom it would be told; women are sure to utter such things. This is a clear allusion to the ladies in the company, and to the Wife of Bath in particular, who certainly would not have kept such things to herself. Outen, to utter, occurs again in the Chanouns Yemannes Tale, Group G, 1. 834. It is a rare word.

NOTES TO THE SQUIERES TALE.

Group F, 1. There is nothing to link this tale inseparably with the preceding one, and, accordingly, in the Six-text edition, the sixth fragment is made to begin here. In the Ellesmere MS., and several others, the Squire Head-link follows the Merchant End-link without any break. In many MSS. it follows the Man of Law's Tale; but that is the wrong place for it. See note to Group B, 1, 1165, p. 141.

2. An allusion to Prol. 1. 97, unless (which is quite as probable) the passage in the Prologue was written afterwards.

9. Sarray, Sarai. This place has been identified, past all doubt, by Colonel Yule in his edition of Marco Polo's Travels, vol. i. p. 5, and vol. ii. p. 424. The modern name is Tsarev, near Sarepta. Sarepta is easily found on any good map of Russia by following the course of the Volga from its mouth upwards. At first this backward course runs N.W. till we have crossed the province of Astrakhan, when it makes a sudden bend, at Sarepta and Tsaritzin. Tsarev is now a place of no importance, but the ancient Sarai was so well-known, that the Caspian Sea was sometimes named from it; thus it is called the sea of Sarain' in Marco Polo, ed. Yule, ii. 424: 'the sea of Sarra' in the Catalan map of 1375; and Mare Seruanicum, or the Sea of Shirwan, by Vincent of Beauvais. Thynne, in his Animadversions on Speight's Chaucer, speaks to the same effect, and says of 'Sara' that it is a place yet well knowen, and bordering vppon the lake Mare Caspium.' But it is still more to the point to observe that Sarai was the place where Batu Khan, the grandson of Gengis Khan, held his court. Batu, with his Mongolian followers known as the Golden Horde, had established an empire in Kaptchak, or Kibzak, now S. E. Russia, about A.D. 1224. The Golden Horde further invaded Russia, and made Alexander Newski grand-duke of it, A.D. 1252. (See Golden Horde in Haydn's Dictionary of Dates.)

It is also quite clear that Chaucer has here confused two accounts. There were two celebrated Khans, both grandsons of Gengis Khan, who were ruling about the same time. Batu Khan held his court at Sarai, and ruled over the S.E. of Russia; but the Great Khan, named Kublai, held his court at Cambaluc, the modern Pekin, in a still more magnificent manner. And it is easy to see that, although Chaucer names Sarai, his description really applies to Cambaluc. See the Preface.

10. Russye, Russia; invaded by the Golden Horde, as just explained. The end of the Tartar influence in Russia was in the year 1481, when Svenigorod, general of Ivan III, defeated them at the battle of Bielawisch. In the following year Ivan assumed the title of czar.

12. Cambynskan; so in all seven MSS. (Six-text and Harleian) except that in the Ellesmere MS. it more resembles Cambyuskan. Yet Tyrwhitt prints Cambuscan, probably in deference to Milton, who, however, certainly accents the word wrongly, viz. on the second syllable; Il Penseroso, 1. 110. Thynne, in his Animadversions on Speight's Chaucer, speaking of the year 1240, says-' whiche must be in the tyme of the fyrst Tartariane emperor called Caius canne, beinge, I suppose, he whome Chaucer namethe Cambiuscan, for so ys [it in] the written copies, such affynytye is there betwene those two names.' Now,

although the celebrated Gengis Khan died probably in 1227, the allusion to the 'fyrst Tartariane emperor' is clear; so that Thynne makes the forms Cambius, Caius (perhaps miswritten for Caius, i.e. Camius) and Gengis all equivalent. But this is the very result for which Colonel Yule has found authority, as explained in the Preface, to which the reader is referred. It is there explained that Chaucer has used the title as a name; and, whilst he names Gengis Khan (the first 'Grand Khan'), his description really applies to Kublai Khan, his grandson, the celebrated ‘Grand Khan' described by Marco Polo.

18. Lay, religious profession or belief. See the Preface, p. xliv. 20. This line scans ill as it stands in the MSS. unless we insert eek, as proposed in the text. MS. HI. inserts and before alwey, which Tyrwhitt adopts; but this makes the line intolerable, as it gives two accented 'ands'

And pitous and just ánd / alwéy/yliche.

The Hengwit MS. has

Pietous and Iust, and euere moore yliche,

which, better spelt, becomes

Pitous and Iust, and euer-more yliche

and this I take to be, on the whole, the best solution of the difficulty. 22. Centre; often used in the sense of a fulcrum or point of extreme stability. Cf. Milton, Par. Reg. iv. 533

'Proof against all temptation, as a rock

Of adamant, and, as a centre, firm.'

In the old astronomy, the centre of the earth was the centre of the universe, and therefore immoveable.

30. Tyrwhitt inserts sone after eldeste; fortunately, it is not in the MSS. Whichë is a dissyllable, the e denoting the plural form. The words th' eldest form but two syllables, the e's being elided; but we may fairly preserve the e in highte (cf. 1. 33) from elision, for the greater emphasis, by a short pause, and we then have a perfect lineOf which/e th' el/dest' high/te-Al/garsif/.

31. Cambalo. I have no doubt that this name was suggested by the Cambaluc of Marco Polo. See the Preface, p. xliii.

39. Longing for, belonging to. Cf. longen, Kn. Ta. 1420.

44. I deme, I suppose. This looks as if Chaucer had read some account of a festival made by the Grand Khan on one of his birthdays, from which he inferred that he always held such a feast every year; as, indeed, was the case. See the Preface, p. xlv.

45. He leet don cryen, he caused (men) to have the feast cried. The use of both leet and don is remarkable; cf. E. 253. He gave his orders to his officers, and they took care that the proclamation was made.

47. It is not clear why Chaucer hit upon this day in particular.