Today | News | Books | Recipes Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History Bookully 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 abray |