Today | News | Books | Recipes Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History Bookbe found a parallel passage in a fifteenth-century poem which has wrongly been ascribed to Barbour. Hence Lydgate, in his Troy-book, bk. i. c. 5 (fol. C 3, back), says of the chief city of Colchos:--'And Iaconites tho it bare the name.' 1594. Read _Preyíng_; and drop the final _e_ of _moste_. 1597. Compare the allit. Troy-book, ll. 388-391:-- 'The kyng was full curtais, calt on a maiden, Bede his doughter come downe, and his dere heire, To sit by that semely, and solas to make. This mayden full mylde Medea was callid.' 1605. 'And in his mien as royal as a lion.' 1606. _Famulere_, familiar, affable. See Ch. Prol. 215. 1609. 'And, as Fortune owed her an evil mishap.' 1617. Cf. the Troy-book, l. 544:-- 'That causes me with counsell to caste for your helpe, And put you in plite your purpos to wyn, In sound for to saile home, and your sute all.' 1620. Cf. the same, l. 554:-- 'Now louely and leell, for your lefe speche I thanke you a thowsande tymes in my thro hert, That ye kythe me suche kyndnes withouten cause why; And here I put me full plainly in your pure wille, To do with me, damsell, as your desyre thynke.' 1631. _Disioint_, perilous situation, peril. Cf. Kn. Ta., A 2962. 'But sith I see I stonde in this _disioint_'; Shipman's Tale, B 1601. 1639. Cf. the Troy-book, 942; and 711:-- 'Yow swiftly shall sweire vppon swete goddes, This couenaunt to kepe and for no case chaunge.' 'And swiftly he sware on that swete[70] god, All tho couenaundes to kepe, and for no cause let, Whill hym lastes the lyffe; he laid on his hond.' 1653. _Unwist of_, unknown to. Cf. Troy-book, 987:-- 'Then leuyt thai the lond, and no leue toke, Stale from the styth king stylle by night; With the maiden Medea and myche other goodes, Thai turne into Tessaile with-outen tale more.' Here Chaucer ceases to follow Guido, except in ll. 1662-6. 1661. Her name was Creusa; cf. Ovid, Met. vii. 391-6; Horace, Epod. v. 64. 1662. Cf. the Troy-book, l. 718:-- 'And thou hedis not the harme of that hend lady, Ne tentes not thy trouth that thou tynt has; Soche a maiden to mar that the most louet, That forsec hir fader and hir fre londe.' 1667. _Vassalage_, prowess; cf. Kn. Ta., A 3054. It is here used ironically. Trench refers us to Lydgate's Minor Poems, ed. Halliwell, p. 176:-- 'And Catoun seith, is noon so greet encress Of wordly tresour, as for to live in pees, Which among vertues hath the _vasselage_.' 1670. _Lettre_, letter; i.e. the 12th letter in Ovid's Heroides; see l. 1678. Lines 1672-7 answer to lines 13, 14, and 19 in Ovid:-- 'Cur mihi plus aequo flaui placuere capilli, et decor, et linguae gratia ficta tuae?... Quantum perfidiae tecum, scelerate, perîsset!' 1672. _Why lyked me_, why did it please me? But, in l. 1674, _lyked_ is a personal verb. V. THE LEGEND OF LUCRETIA. Chaucer cites Ovid and Livy, and in l. 1873 again appeals to Livy as the authority. The story is in Livy, bk. i. c. 57-59; and in Ovid, Fasti, ii. 721-852. Chaucer doubtless appeals to Livy as being a professed historian, but the reader will find that, as a matter of fact, he follows mainly the account in Ovid from beginning to end, and sometimes almost word for word. Livy and Ovid were contemporary; the former was born B.C. 59, and died A.D. 17; the latter was born B.C. 43, and died A.D. 18. Gower also tells this story, and likewise follows Ovid and (near the end) Livy; C. A. iii. 251. 1680. Ovid tells the story of Lucretia under the date Feb. 22 (viii Kal. Martii), which was commemorated as 'Fuga Tarquinii Superbi,' and begins his account in the Fasti, ii. 685. Chaucer here borrows from Ovid's first line, viz.:--'Nunc mihi dicenda est regis fuga.' Ll. 1680-1693 form Chaucer's own Prologue to the story. 1682. The 'last king' of Rome was Tarquinius Superbus, father of the Tarquinius Sextus whom Chaucer calls in l. 1698 'Tarquinius the yonge.' The word _And_, at the beginning of the line, though absolutely necessary to the sense, is preserved only in MS. Addit. 12524, a bad copy from a good type. It reads:--'And specially off the last king Tarquinius'; but no other MS. retains _specially_, and of course it makes the line too long. 1684. 'I do not tell the story for the sake of Tarquin's exile.' 1690. 'St. Augustin, commenting on the story in the milder and more rational spirit of Christian morality, while he admires the purity of Lucrece, blames her folly in committing the crime of self-murder as a punishment on herself for that of which she was really innocent. "Si adultera," he asks, "cur laudata? Si pudica, cur occisa?" See August. _De Civitate Dei_, c. xix.'--Bell. 1694. Here Chaucer begins his close copy of Ovid, Fast. ii. 721:--'Cingitur interea Romanis Ardea signis.' The original should be compared throughout. _Ardea_, capital of the Rutuli; in Latium. 1696. _Wroghte_, pt. t. 'The siege (or the besiegers) lay before the city long, and accomplished little'; G. L. Kittredge, Harvard Studies, p. 7. 1698. 'Tarquinius iuuenis'; i.e. Tarquinius Sextus. 1705. _Colatyne._ Chaucer found the name in Livy (or Augustine). Ovid merely has: 'cui dederat clarum Collatia nomen.' Livy has: 'ubi et Collatinus cenebat Tarquinius, Egerii filius.' Collatinus was the cousin of Sextus, and took his name from Collatia, an ancient town of the Sabines, in the neighbourhood of Rome. 1707. From Ovid: 'Non opus est uerbis, credite rebus, ait.' 1708. From Livy: 'paucis id quidem horis posse sciri, quantum ceteris praestet Lucretia sua.' 1711. 'That pleases me.' Ovid: 'Dicta placent'; l. 736. 1715. Cf. 'And knew the _estres_ bet than dide this John'; C. T., A 4295 (Reves Tale); and see Kn. Ta., A 1971; also, in particular, the Romaunt of the Rose, 1448, where the F. text has _l'estre_ (shewing where Ch. found the word); see vol. i. p. 153. We may explain _estres_ by 'inner premises' of a house or building. Godefroy's O. Fr. Dict. gives numerous examples. Cotgrave gives the verb _estre_, to be; whence the sb. _estre_, a being, substance, state; and then cites: '_les estres d'une maison_, the inward conveyances, private windings and turnings within, entries into, issues out of, a house.' The word is very common in Old French, and not uncommon in Middle English. Gower even has the sing. _estre_ in the sense of 'state'; C. A. i. 272. Cf. F. 'il sait tous les êtres de cette maison.' For all this, the old editions turned the form into _efters_, and Bell follows them! Moreover, _eftures_ is gravely quoted in Halliwell's Dictionary, with a reference to Sir T. Malory. The passage is:--'Pleaseth it you to see the _eftures_ of this castle?' bk. xix. c. 7 (p. 444 in the Globe edition). Here _eftures_ is a mere misprint (in Caxton's original edition) for _estres_, due to reading the long _s_ as an _f_. _Efters_ and _Eftures_ are mere 'ghost-words,' the products of ignorance. 1716, 7. 'Tecta petunt; custos in fore nullus erat'; l. 738. 1720. _Dischevele_, with hair hanging loose. _Malice_, evil. 1 |