Today | News | Books | Recipes Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History Book, and Lavyne.' Book of the Duch. 330. 'By as good right as Medea was, That slow her children for Iason; And Phyllis als for Demophon Heng hir-self, so weylaway! For he had broke his terme-day To come to her. Another rage Had Dydo, quene eek of Cartage, That slow hir-self, for Eneas Was fals; a! whiche a fool she was!' Id. 726. --'as moche debonairtee As ever had Hester in the bible.' Id. 986. 'For love of hir, Polixena-- ... She was as good, so have I reste, As ever Penelope of Greece, Or as the noble wyf Lucrece, That was the beste--he telleth thus, The Romain, Tytus Livius.' Id. 1071, 1080. 'She passed hath Penelope and Lucresse.' Anelida; 82. 'Biblis, Dido, Tisbe and Piramus, Tristram, Isoude, Paris, and Achilles, Eleyne, Cleopatre, and Troilus.' Parlement of Foules; 289. 'But al the maner how she [Dido] deyde, And al the wordes that she seyde, Who-so to knowe hit hath purpos, Reed Virgile in Eneidos Or the Epistle of Ovyde, What that she wroot or that she dyde; And, nere hit to long to endyte, By god, I wolde hit here wryte.' House of Fame; 375. The last quotation proves clearly, that Chaucer was already meditating a new version of the Legend of Dido, to be made up from the Æneid and the Heroides, whilst still engaged upon the House of Fame (which actually gives this story at considerable length, viz. in ll. 140-382); and consequently, that the Legend of Good Women succeeded the House of Fame by a very short interval. But this is not all; for only a few lines further on we find the following passage:-- 'Lo, Demophon, duk of Athenis, How he forswor him ful falsly, And trayed Phillis wikkedly, That kinges doghter was of Trace, And falsly gan his terme pace; And when she wiste that he was fals, She heng hir-self right by the hals, For he had do hir swich untrouthe; Lo! was not this a wo and routhe? Eek lo! how fals and reccheles Was to Briseida Achilles, And Paris to Oënone; And Iason to Isiphile; And eft Iason to Medea; And Ercules to Dyanira; For he lefte hir for Iöle, That made him cacche his deeth, parde! How fals eek was he, Theseus; That, as the story telleth us, How he betrayed Adriane; The devel be his soules bane[31]! For had he laughed, had he loured, He mostë have be al devoured, If Adriane ne had y-be[32]!' &c. Id. 387. Here we already have an outline of the Legend of Phyllis; a reference to Briseis; to Jason, Hypsipyle, Medea, and to Deianira; a sufficient sketch of the Legend of Ariadne; and another version of the Legend of Dido. We trace a lingering influence upon Chaucer of the Roman de la Rose; see notes to ll. 125, 128, 171. Dante is both quoted and mentioned by name; ll. 357-360. Various other allusions are pointed out in the Notes. In ll. 280, 281, 284, 305-308 of the A-text of the Prologue (pp. 89, 90), Chaucer refers us to several authors, but not necessarily in connexion with the present work. Yet he actually makes use (at second-hand) of Titus (i.e. Livy, l. 1683), and also further of the 'epistles of Ovyde.' He takes occasion to refer to his own translation of the Roman de la Rose (B. ll. 329, 441, 470), and to his Troilus (ll. 332, 441, 469); besides enumerating many of his poems (417-428). I. THE LEGEND OF CLEOPATRA. The source of this legend is by no means clear. As Bech points out, some expressions shew that one of the sources was the Epitome Rerum Romanarum of L. Annæus Florus, lib. iv. c. 11; see notes to ll. 655, 662, 679. No doubt Chaucer also consulted Boccaccio's De Claris Mulieribus, cap. 86, though he makes no special use of the account there given. The story is also in the history of Orosius, bk. iv. c. 19; see Sweet's edition of King Alfred's Orosius, p. 247. Besides which, I think he may have had access to a Latin translation of Plutarch, or of excerpts from the same; see the notes. It is worth while to note here that Gower (ed. Pauli, iii. 361) has the following lines:-- 'I sigh [_saw_] also the woful quene Cleopatras, which in a cave With serpents hath her-self begrave Al quik, and so was she to-tore, For sorwe of that she hadde lore Antonie, which her love hath be. And forth with her I sigh Thisbe'; &c. It is clear that he here refers to Chaucer's Legend of Good Women, because he actually repeats Chaucer's very peculiar account of the manner of Cleopatra's death. See § 9, p. xl. Compare L. G. W. ll. 695-697; and note that, both in Chaucer and Gower, the Legend of Thisbe follows that of Cleopatra; whilst the Legend of Philomela immediately follows that of Ariadne. This is more than mere coincidence. See Bech's essay; Anglia, v. 365. II. THE LEGEND OF THISBE. This is from Ovid's Metamorphoses, iv. 55-166, and from no other source. Some of the lines are closely translated, but in other places the phraseology is entirely recast. The free manner in which Chaucer treats his original is worthy of study; see, as to this, the excellent criticism of Ten Brink, in his Geschichte der Englischen Litteratur, ii. 117. Most noteworthy of all is his suppression of the mythological element. The story gains in pathos in a high degree by the omission of the mulberry-tree, the colour of the fruit of which was changed from white to black by the blood of Pyramus; see note to l. 851. This is the more remarkable, because it was just for the sake of this very metamorphosis that Ovid admitted the tale into his series. See also notes to ll. 745, 784, 797, 798, 814, 835, 869, &c.; and cf. Gower's Confessio Amantis, ed. Pauli, i. 324. III. THE LEGEND OF DIDO. Chiefly from Vergil's Aeneid, books i-iv. (see note to l. 928, and compare the notes throughout); but ll. 1355-1365 are from Ovid's Heroides, vii. 1-8, quoted at length in the note to l. 1355. And see, particularly, the House of Fame, ll. 140-382. Cf. Gower, C. A. ii. 4-6[33]. IV. THE LEGENDS OF HYPSIPYLE AND MEDEA. The sources mentioned by Morley are Ovid's Metamorphoses, bk. vii., and Heroides, epist. vi.; to which we must add Heroides, epist. xii. But this omits a much more important source, to which Chaucer expressly refers. In l. 1396, all previous editions have the following reading--'In Tessalye, as _Ovyde_ telleth us'; but four important MSS. read _Guido_ for _Ovyde_, and they are quite right[34]. The false reading _Ovyde_ is the more remarkable, because _all_ the MSS. have the reading _Guido_ in l. 1464, where a change would have destroyed the rime. As a matter of fact, ll. 1396-1461 are from Guido delle Colonne's Historia Troiana, book i. (see notes to ll. 1396, 1463); and ll. 1580-3, 1589-1655 are also from the same, book ii. (see notes to ll. 1580, 1590). Another source which Chaucer may have consulted, though he made but little use of it, was the first and second books of the Argonautica of Valerius Flaccus, expressly mentioned in l. 1457 (see notes to ll. 1457, 1469, 1479, 1509, 1558)[35]. The use made of Ovid, Met. vii., is extremely slight (see note to l. 1661). As to Ovid, Her. vii., xii., see no |