Today | News | Books | Recipes Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History Bookf Lemnos; she saved her father when the women of Lemnos killed all the other men in the island, and subsequently entertained Jason. As the letter in Ovid does not give all the circumstances, perhaps Chaucer consulted Valerius Flaccus, Argonauticon, lib. ii., and Statius, Thebais, lib. v., or, perhaps, the Fables of Hyginus, cap. xv.; but he makes more of Hercules than do these authorities, and seems to be inventing. 1468. _Thoas doghter the king_, the daughter of king Thoas. This is the usual idiom; see my note to Squi. Tale, F 209. 1469. Cf. Valerius Flaccus, Argon. ii. 311:-- 'Ecce procul ualidis Lemnon tendentia remis Arma notant: rapitur subito regina tumultu, Conciliumque uocat: non illis obuia tela Ferre, nec infestos deerat furor improbus ignes, Ni Ueneris saeuas fregisset Mulciber iras.' In Statius, Theb. v., the Lemnian women receive the Argonauts with hostility at first, and attack them with missiles. 1476. _Socour_; cf. 'succurrere disco'; Verg. Æn. i. 630. 1479. This is a curious error; _him_ should be _her_. As the Lemnian women had just killed every man in the island, the messenger must needs have been a woman. In fact, her name was Iphinoë; Val. Flacc. Argon. ii. 327. The account in Apollonius Rhodius is somewhat fuller; but I find no mention of the _cogge_. 1481. _Cogge_, a cock-boat; from the O. Fr. _coque_, also spelt _cogue_, a kind of vessel, sometimes a ship of war, but also a merchant-vessel, and here a small boat. See _coque_ or _cogue_ in Godefroy's O. Fr. Dict. _Cogge_ occurs in the Morte Arthure, 476, 738; Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, iii. 152; &c. 'Cogboote, cokbote, _scafa_'; Prompt. Parv. 1487. _Broken_, ship-wrecked. 'The ships were _broken_' 1 Kings xxii. 48; cf. Jonah i. 4. _Oght wo begoon_, in any way distressed. Note resemblances to the tale of Dido. 1488. _Lodesmen_, pilots; see note to Ch. Prol. 403. 'Lodesman of a shippe, _pilotte_'; Palsgrave. 1509. Cf. Valerius Flaccus, Arg. ii. 351:-- 'Praecipueque ducis casus mirata requirit Hypsipyle; quae fata trahant, quae regis agat uis.' 1514. _Los_; spelt _loos_ in MS. Tn.; for the _o_ is long. It means 'praise' or 'renown,' and occurs six times in Ho. Fame (1620, 1621, 1626, 1722, 1817, 1900). _Los_, with short _o_, means 'loss.' 1515. Read _th'áventúres_, in four syllables. 1528. Prof. Corson cites some parallel passages, viz:-- 'And therto he was _hardy_, _wys_, and _riche_'; Squi. Ta., F 19. '_Hardy_, and _wyse_, and _riche_, and therto _free_'; Ship. Ta., B 1366. 'We alle desyren, if hit mighte be, To have housbondes _hardy_, _wyse_, and _free_, And _secree_'; Non. Pr. Ta., B 4103. 1529. _Three pointes._ The reference is not to l. 1528, which mentions _four_ points, but to ll. 1530-3 following. I.e. the three points are _fredom_, _lustihede_, and being _a greet gentil-man_; or otherwise, liberality, youthful vigour, and high birth. Cf. l. 1405. 1533. Accent _Tessálie_ on the second syllable. 1535. _Shamefast_ (from A.S. _sceamu_) is here trisyllabic. On the corrupt modern spelling _shamefaced_ see Trench, Eng. Past and Present. 1536. _He hadde lever_, he would have it dearer, he would rather. 1538-40. In order to scan l. 1538, the word _almighty_ is necessary, though found in MS. A. only. Or else we must insert _him_, and read--'As wolde God that I hadde him i-yive.' The sense is--'As (I pray) that God would permit that I might have given [him] my blood and flesh, provided that I might still live (to see the result), on the condition that he had anywhere a wife (suitable) to his rank.' _So that_ means 'provided that'; as in '_so that_ ye be not wroth,' C. T., D 2248 (Sompnoures Tale), in the Harleian MS.; and in the following:-- 'Sche saide, sire, ich wille help the, _So that_ thou wille spousi me.'--Seven Sages, ed. Weber, 2663. As to the expression _with the nones_, we may compare it with such expressions as _with-than_, _with-thon-that_, _with-tho-the_, _with-that_, all meaning 'provided that,' and all occurring in the Glossary to Spec. of Eng., Part I. And since _for the nones_ means 'for the occasion' (see Prologue to C. T., 379), so _with the nones_ is 'with the occasion,' and hence 'provided that.' I cannot at all agree with what seems to me the ludicrous emendation in some late editions, which change _nones_ into _bones_, and delete the comma after _live_; 'provided that I might live with the bones.' At any rate, there is _no authority_ for this. The old editions and MSS. all alike read _nones_; and we have the phrase again (pronounced _with th' non-es_), in the Ho. Fame, 2099. 1546. _To come to hous upon_, to become at home with, to become familiar with. 1551. The former syllable in _Yiftes_ forms a foot by itself. 1552. _As wolde god_, as (I wish) that God might will or permit; as in l. 1538. 1558. _Thoriginal_, the original. As this 'tells all the case,' i.e. all Jason's subtlety, he is probably referring to Ovid, Her. Ep. vi. Flaccus says that Hercules induced Jason to quit Lemnos, and proceed on his voyage. Statius mentions Hypsipyle's twin sons, and relates some of her later history. 1564. Chaucer here follows the sixth letter of Ovid's Heroides. Lines 1569-1575 follow four lines of the Latin text, viz. 123-4, and 159-60, which refer to the twins and Medea:-- 'Si quaeris, cui sunt similes; cognosceris illis. Fallere non norunt; caetera patris habent.... Quam fratri germana fuit, miseroque parenti filia; tam natis, tam sit acerba uiro.' PART II. THE LEGEND OF MEDEA. 1580. From this line to l. 1655 Chaucer mainly follows the second book of Guido delle Colonne's Historia Troiana, which he epitomises. See Gower, C. A. ii. 236-258. 1581. 'Who is a devourer of love, and a very dragon'; with reference to the supposed insatiability of dragons. 1582. 'As matter always seeks to have a definite form, and may pass from one form into another.' Mr. Archer Hind refers me to Aristotle, Metaphysica, [LAMDA]. vii. 1072 b. 3:--[Greek: kinei de hôs erômenon, kinoumenon de talla kinei]. Bech shews that this is all from Guido, who has: 'Scimus enim mulieris animum semper uirum appetere, sicut appetit materia semper formam.... Sed sicut ad formam de forma procedere materiam notum est, sic mulieris concupiscentia dissoluta procedere de uiro ad uirum ... sine fine, cum sit quaedam profunditas sine fundo,' &c. Hence Lydgate, in his Troy-book, bk. i. c. 5 (fol. C 6, back) has:-- 'For as nature by kyndly appetyte Kyndly seketh to sewen after fourme,' &c. 1590. _Iaconitos_, Iaconites. This is a clear proof that Chaucer follows Guido. At p. 12* of the alliterative Troy-book, ed. Panton and Donaldson, the following passage is quoted from Guido, lib. ii.: 'In insula igitur Colcos erat tunc temporis quaedam ciuitas nomine _Iaconites_, caput regni pro sua magnitudine constituta.' Further extracts from this Latin text are given by Horstmann, in his edition entitled 'Barbours Legendensammlung,' vol. ii. (Heilbronn, 1882), p. 221; where will also |