Imatges de pàgina
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474. But I do not know who caused them to be made.'

475. Read ne in as nin; as in Squi. Tale, F 35.

482. This waste space corresponds to Dante's 'gran diserto,' Inf. i. 64; or, still better, to his ‘landa' (Inf. xiv. 8), which was too sterile to support plants. So again, l. 486 corresponds to Dante's 'arena arida e spessa,' which has reference to the desert of Libya; Inf. xiv. 13.

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487. As fine [said of the sand] as one may see still lying.' Jephson says yet must be a mistake, and would read yt. But it makes perfect sense. Cx. Th. read at eye (put for at yë) instead of yet lye, which is perhaps better. At ye means 'as presented to the sight'; see Kn. Ta., A 3016.

498. Kenne, discern. The offing at sea has been called the kenning; and see Kenning in Halliwell.

500. More, greater. Imitated from Dante, Purgat. ix. 19, which Cary translates thus:

'Then, in a vision, did I seem to view

A golden-feather'd eagle in the sky,

With open wings, and hovering for descent.'

Cf. also the descent of the angel in Purg. ii. 17-24.

504-7. The omission of these lines in F. and B. is simply due to the scribe slipping from bright in 1. 503 to brighte in 1. 507. Cf. note to l. 280.

BOOK II.

511. Listeth, pleases, is pleased; the alteration (in MS. F.) to listeneth is clearly wrong, and due to confusion with herkneth above. (I do not think listeth is the imp. pl. here.)

514. Isaye, Isaiah; actually altered, in various editions, to I saye, as if it meant I say.' The reference is to 'the vision of Isaiah'; Isa. i. 1; vi. 1. Scipioun, Scipio; see note to Parl. Foules, 31, and cf. Book of the Duch. 284.

515. Nabugodonosor, Nebuchadnezzar. The same spelling occurs in the Monkes Tale (Group B, 3335), and is a mere variant of the form Nabuchodonosor in the Vulgate version, Dan. i-iv. Gower has the same spelling; Conf. Amant. bk. i., near the end.

516. Pharo; spelt Pharao in the Vulgate, Gen. xli. 1-7. See Book of the Duchesse, 280-3.

Turnus; alluding to his vision of Iris, the messenger of Juno; Eneid ix. 6. Elcanor; this name somewhat resembles Elkanah (in the Vulgate, Elcana), 1 Sam. i. 1; but I do not know where to find any account of his vision, nor do I at all understand who is meant. The name Alcanor occurs in Vergil, but does not help us.

518. Cipris, Venus, goddess of Cyprus; called Cipryde in Parl. Foules, 277. Dante has Ciprigna; Par. viii. 2.

519. Favour, favourer, helper, aid; not used in the ordinary sense of Lat. fauor, but as if it were formed from O. F. faver, Lat. fauere, to

be favourable to. Godefroy gives an example of the O. F. verb faver in this sense.

521. Parnaso; the spelling is imitated from the Ital. Parnaso, i. e. Parnassus, in Dante, Par. i. 16. So also Elicon is Dante's Elicona, i. e. Helicon, Purg. xxix. 40. But the passage in Dante which Chaucer here especially imitates is that in Inf. ii. 7-9:—

'O Muse, o alto ingegno, or m' aiutate;

O mente, che scrivesti ciò ch' io vidi,
Qui si parrà la tua nobilitate.'

This Cary thus translates :

'O Muses! O high genius, now vouchsafe
Your aid. O mind, that all I saw hast kept
Safe in a written record, here thy worth

And eminent endowments come to proof.'

Hence ye in l. 520 answers to Dante's Muse, the Muses; and Thought in 1. 523 answers to Dante's mente. Cf. also Parad. xviii. 82-87. And see the parallel passage in Anelida, 15-19.

The reason why Chaucer took Helicon to be a well rather than a mountain is because Dante's allusion to it is dubiously worded; see Purg. xxix. 40.

528. Engyn is accented on the latter syllable, as in Troil. ii. 565, iii. 274.

529. Egle, the eagle in 1. 499; cf. 11. 503-7.

534. Partly imitated from Dante, Purg. ix. 28-30:

'Poi mi parea che, più rotata un poco,

Terribil come fulgor discendesse,

E me rapisse suso infino al foco.'

Cary's translation is :

'A little wheeling in his aëry tour,

Terrible as the lightning, rushed he down,
And snatch'd me upward even to the fire.'

But Chaucer follows still more closely, and verbally, a passage in Machault's Jugement du Roi de Navarre, ed. Tarbé, 1849, p. 72, which has the words

'la foudre

Que mainte ville mist en poudre';

i. e. literally, 'the foudre (thunder-bolt) which reduces many a town to powder.' Machault nearly repeats this; ed. Tarbé, p. 97.

Curiously enough, almost the same words occur in Boethius, bk. i. met. 4, where Chaucer's translation has :-'ne þe wey of thonderleyt, that is wont to smyten heye toures.' It hence appears that Chaucer copies Machault, and Machault translates Boethius. There

are some curious M. E. verses on the effects of thunder in Popular Treatises on Science, ed. Wright, p. 136.

Foudre represents the Lat. fulgur. One of the queer etymologies of medieval times is, that fulgur is derived a feriendo; Vincent of Beauvais, Spec. Nat. iv. 59. It was held to be quite sufficient that both fulgur and ferire begin with f.

537. Brende, was set on fire; cf. l. 163. The idea is that of a falling thunderbolt, which seems to have been conceived of as being a material mass, set on fire by the rapidity of its passage through the air; thus confusing the flash of lightning with the fall of a meteoric stone. See Mr. Aldis Wright's note on thunder-stone, Jul. Cæs. i. 3. 49.

543. Hente, caught. We find a similar use of the word in an old translation of Map's Apocalypsis Goliæ, printed in Morley's Shorter Eng. Poems, p. 13 :—

'And by and by I fell into a sudden trance,

And all along the air was marvellously hent.'

544. Sours, sudden ascent, a springing aloft. It is well illustrated by a passage in the Somp. Tale (D 1938) :—

'Therfor, right as an hauk up, at a sours,
Up springeth into their, right so prayeres
Of charitable and chaste bisy freres
Maken hir sours to Goddes eres two.'

It is precisely the same word as M. E. sours, mod. E. source, i. e. rise,
spring (of a river). Etymologically, it is the feminine of O. F. sors,
pp. of sordre, to rise (Lat. surgere). At a later period, the was
dropped, and the word was strangely confused in sound with the verb
souse, to pickle. Moreover, the original sense of 'sudden ascent' was
confused with that of 'sudden descent,' for which the correct term
was (I suppose) swoop.
Hence the old verb to souse, in the sense 'to
swoop down,' or 'to pounce upon,' or ' to strike,' as in Shak. K. John,
v. 2. 150; Spenser, F. Q. i. 5. 8; iii. 4. 16; iv. 3. 19, 25; iv. 4. 30;
iv. 5. 36; iv. 7. 9. The sense of 'downward swoop' is particularly
clear in Spenser, F. Q. ii. 11. 36 :—

'Eft fierce retourning, as a faulcon fayre,

That once hath failed of her souse full neare,

Remounts againe into the open ayre,

And unto better fortune doth her-selfe prepayre.'

Such is the simple solution of the etymology of Mod. E. souse, as used by Pope (Epilogue to Satires, Dial. ii. 15)—'Spread thy broad wing, and souse on all the kind.'

557. Cf. Dante, Inf. ii. 122 :—'Perchè tanta viltà nel core allette?' Also Purg. ix. 46:-' Non aver tema.'

562. 'One that I could name.' This personal allusion can hardly

refer to any one but Chaucer's wife. The familiar tone recalls him to himself; yet the eagle's voice sounded kindly, whereas the poet sadly tells us that his wife's voice sounded far otherwise: 'So was it never wont to be.' See Ward's Chaucer, pp. 84, 85; and cf. 1. 2015 below. Perhaps Chaucer disliked to hear the word 'Awak!'

573. It would appear that, in Chaucer, sëynt is sometimes dissyllabic; but it may be better here to use the feminine form seynt-e, as in l. 1066. Observe the rime of Márie with cárie.

576. For so certainly may God help me, as thou shalt have no harm.'

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586. loves, Jove, Jupiter; cf. 1. 597. This remarkable form occurs again in Troil. ii. 1607, where we find the expression Ioves lat him never thryve'; and again in Troil. iii. 3—'O Ioves doughter dere'; and in Troil. iii. 15, where Ioves is in the accusative case. The form is that of an O. F. nominative; cf. Charles, Jacques, Jules.

Stellifye, make into a constellation; 'whether will Jupiter turn me into a constellation.' This alludes, of course, to the numerous cases in which it was supposed that such heroes as Hercules and Perseus, or such heroines as Andromeda and Callisto were changed into constellations: see Kn. Tale, A 2058. Cf. 'No wonder is thogh love hir stellifye'; Leg. Good Women, prol. 525. Skelton uses the word (Garland of Laurell, 963); and it is given in Palsgrave.

588. Perhaps imitated from Dante, Inf. ii. 32, where Dante says that he is neither Æneas nor Paul. Chaucer here refers to various men who were borne up to heaven, viz. Enoch (Gen. v. 24), Elijah (2 Kings ii. 11), Romulus, and Ganymede. Romulus was carried up to heaven by Mars; Ovid, Metam. xiv. 824; Fasti, ii. 475-512. Ganymede was carried up to heaven by Jupiter in the form of an eagle; cf. Vergil, Æn. i. 28, and see Ovid, Metam. x. 160, where Ovid adds : 'qui nunc quoque pocula miscet,

Invitaque Iovi nectar Iunone ministrat.'

In the passage in Dante (Purg. ix. 19-30), already alluded to above (note to 1. 534), there is a reference to Ganymede (1. 23).

592. Boteler, butler. No burlesque is here intended. The idea of Ganymede being butler to the gods appears ludicrous to us, who are accustomed to see the office performed by menial servants. But it was not so in the middle ages. Young gentlemen of high rank carved the dishes and poured out the wine at the tables of the nobility, and grace in the performance of these duties was highly prized. One of the oldest of our noble families derives its surname from the fact that its founder was butler to the king'; Bell. So also, the royal name of Stuart is merely steward.

597. Therabout, busy about, having it in intention.

600-4. Cf. Vergil's words of reassurance to Dante; Inf. ii. 49. 608. The eagle says he is Jupiter's eagle; 'Iouis ales,' Æn. i. 394. 614-40. A long sentence of 27 lines.

618. I supply goddesse, to complete the line. Cf. In worship of Venús, goddésse of love'; Kn. Tale, A 1904; and again, 'goddésse,' id. A 1101, 2.

621. The necessity for correcting lytel to lyte is obvious from the rime, since lyte is rimes with dytees. Chaucer seems to make lyte dissyllabic; it rimes with Arcite, Kn. Ta., A 1334, 2627; and with hermyte in 1. 659 below. In the present case, the e is elided-lyt'is. For similar rimes, cf. nones, noon is, C. T. Prol. 523; beryis, mery is, Non. Pr. Ta., B 4155; swevenis, swevene is, id. B 4111.

623. In a note to Cant. Ta. 17354 (I 43), Tyrwhitt says that perhaps cadence means 'a species of poetical composition distinct from riming verses.' But it is difficult to shew that Chaucer ever composed anything of the kind, unless it can be said that his translation of Boethius or his Tale of Melibeus is in a sort of rhythmical prose. It seems to me just possible that by rime may here be meant the ordinary riming of two lines together, as in the Book of the Duchess and the House of Fame, whilst by cadence may be meant lines disposed in stanzas, as in the Parliament of Foules. There is nothing to shew that Chaucer had, at this period, employed the 'heroic verse' of the Legend of Good Women. However, we find the following quotation from Jullien in Littré's Dictionary, s. v. Cadence :-' Dans la prose, dans les vers, la cadence n'est pas autre chose que le rhythme ou le nombre: seulement on y joint ordinairement l'idée d'une certaine douceur dans le style, d'un certain art dans l'arrangement des phrases ou dans le choix des mots que le rhythme proprement dit ne suppose pas du tout.' This is somewhat oracular, as it is difficult to see why rhythm should not mean much the same thing.

637. 'And describest everything that relates to them.' (Here hir their), with reference to lovers.

639-40. Although thou mayst accompany those whom he is not pleased to assist.' Nearly repeated in Troilus, i. 517, 518.

652. In a note upon the concluding passage of the Cant. Tales, Tyrwhitt says of the House of Fame :-' Chaucer mentions this among his works in the Leg. Good Women, verse 417. He wrote it while he was Comptroller of the Custom of Wools, &c. (see Bk. ii. 1. 144-8 [the present passage]), and consequently after the year 1374.' See Ward's Chaucer, pp. 76, 77, with its happy reference to Charles Lamb and his 'works'; and compare a similar passage in the Prol. to Legend of Good Women, 30-6.

662. Cf. Dante, Inf. i. 113, which Cary thus translates :

and I, thy guide,

Will lead thee hence through an eternal space.'

678. Long y-served, faithfully served for a long time, i. e. after a long period of devotion; alluding to the word servant in the sense of lover.

681. Alluding to sudden fallings in love, especially 'at first sight.'

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