Today | News | Books | Recipes Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History BookChevalier au Cigne, and into the still more ancient Anglo-Saxon romance of King Offa, preserved in a Latin form by Matthew Paris. It is also found in the Italian collection, said to have been composed in 1378, under the title of Il Pecorone di Ser Giovanni Fiorentino (an imitation of the Decameron), gior. x. no. 1. The treason of the Knight who murders Hermengilde is an incident in the French Roman de la Violette, and in the English metrical romance of Le Bone Florence of Rome (printed in Ritson's collection); and is found in the English Gesta Romanorum, c. 69 (ed. Madden)[112], joined, in the latter place, with Constance's adventure with the steward. It is also found in Vincent of Beauvais[113], and other writers.' The tale in the Gesta Romanorum is called 'Merelaus the Emperor' (MS. Harl. 7333, leaf 201), and is printed in the Originals and Analogues (Chaucer Society), Part I, pp. 57-70. Mr. Furnivall adds--'This tale was versified by Occleve, who called Merelaus "Gerelaus;" and Warton quotes Occleve's lines describing how the "the feendly man" stabs the Earl's child, and then puts the bloody knife into the sleeping Empress's hand-- For men shoulde have noon othir deeming But she had gilty ben of this murdring.' See Warton, Hist. Eng. Poetry, ed. 1871, i. 296. See the whole story in Hoccleve's Works, ed. Furnivall, p. 140. In the Originals and Analogues, Part I. pp. 71-84, is also printed an extract from Matthew Paris, Vita Offae Primi, ed. Wats, 1684, pp. 965-968, containing the story of 'King Offa's intercepted Letters and banished Queen.' Some account of Ser Giovanni is given in Dunlop's History of Fiction, 3rd ed. 1845, p. 247. He was a Florentine notary, who began his Tales in 1378, at a village in the neighbourhood of Forli. His work is called Il Pecorone, i.e. the Dunce, 'a title which the author assumed, as some Italian academicians styled themselves Insensati, Stolidi, &c., appellations in which there was not always so much irony as they imagined.' The first tale of the tenth Day is thus analysed by Dunlop: 'Story of the Princess Denise of France, who, to avoid a disagreeable marriage with an old German prince, escapes in disguise to England, and is there received in a convent. The king, passing that way, falls in love with and espouses her. Afterwards, while he was engaged in a war in Scotland, his wife brings forth twins; but the queen-mother sends to acquaint her son that his spouse had given birth to two monsters. In place of his majesty's answer, ordering them to be nevertheless brought up with the utmost care, she substitutes a mandate for their destruction, and also for that of the queen. The person to whom the execution of this command is entrusted, allows the queen to depart with her twins to Genoa. At the end of some years she discovers her husband at Rome, on his way to a crusade; she there presents him with his children, and is brought back with them in triumph to England.' Dunlop points out the likeness of this story to those told by Chaucer and Gower, mentions the Lay of Emarè, and adds: 'it is the subject, too, of a very old French romance, published in 4to without date, entitled Le Roman de la Belle Helene de Constantinople. There, as in Emarè, the heroine escapes to England to avoid a marriage, &c. At length she is ordered to be burnt, but is saved by the Duke of Gloster's niece kindly offering to personate her on that occasion.' The story appears again in a collection of tales by Straparola, in the fourth tale of the first night; but Straparola merely borrowed it from Ser Giovanni. See Dunlop, Hist. Fiction, 3rd ed. p. 268. A very similar story is told in the Roman de la Manekine, by Philippe de Reimes, edited by F. Michel for the Bannatyne Club in 1840. For a brief analysis of this story, see Bibliographia Britannica Literaria (Anglo-Norman Period); by T. Wright, p. 344. Ten Brink bids us observe the strong Christian element in the original story. Constance herself is almost a personification of the Christian Church, afflicted and persecuted, but at last victorious. It occurs to me that Shakespeare, in delineating Imogen, did not forget Chaucer's portrait of Constance. § 38. We must now compare Gower's version of this Tale with Chaucer's, which at once raises the question as to priority of composition; and there can be little doubt that, as a matter of fact, Chaucer's story was written _first_. We must first of all notice that _both_ stories really existed in two editions; and it is precisely this fact that makes caution necessary. Most likely, Chaucer first wrote his story about 1380 or even earlier, and revised it about 1387. But meanwhile Gower had been busy with his Confessio Amantis, which was certainly written _before_ 1386, and seems to have been in hand in 1382-5; see Dr. Pauli's preface to Gower, pp. xxviii, xxxii. It was revised, as Gower himself tells us, in the sixteenth year of king Richard II., i.e. in 1392-3. From this the order of things readily appears, and may conveniently be tabulated as follows:-- (_a_) Chaucer's first edition; ab. 1380. (_b_) Gower's first edition; ab. 1382-5. (_c_) Chaucer's second edition; ab. 1387. (_d_) Gower's second edition; ab. 1393. We can hence understand what happened. After Chaucer had written his story, he doubtless lent Gower, then his particular friend, a copy. Gower took advantage of the occasion to introduce some expressions which certainly give the impression that he copied them; for several of these verbal resemblances occur in places where there was little or nothing in the original to suggest the phrases which he actually used. Lücke (in Anglia, xiv. 183) gives twenty-seven examples of this, and draws what is, in my opinion, the erroneous conclusion, that it was Chaucer who copied Gower; which seems like suggesting that Tennyson was capable of borrowing from Martin Tupper. We may readily understand that, if Chaucer observed this use of his work, it could not have given him much pleasure; and perhaps we may here see some reason for the seemingly undue asperity with which, in his revised edition, he refers to Gower's performance; see B 77-89, and the notes. On the other side Gower, who in his first edition, just near the end, had introduced a complimentary allusion to Chaucer, may well have thought fit to suppress that passage in his revised copy, from which it is certainly absent. This seems to me to be the simplest solution of the facts as they stand. I here take occasion to give my proposed explanation of Gower's reference to Chaucer in his first edition, where he puts _into the mouth of the goddess Venus_ the following words (ed. Pauli, iii. 374):-- 'And grete wel Chaucer, whan ye mete, As _my_ disciple and _my_ poete. For, _in the floures of his youthe_, In sondry wyse, as he wel couthe, Of ditees and of songes glade, The which he _for my sake_ made, The lond fulfild is overal; Wherof to him in special Above al other I am most holde. Forthy now, |