Today | News | Books | Recipes Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History Bookiginal which agreed rather closely with the account in the Legenda Aurea down to l. 348, or thereabouts. But _after_ this point (and in a few places even _before_ it) his translation better agrees with another Latin Life of St. Cecilia, derived from Simeon Metaphrastes. This account is quoted by Dr. Kölbing from the printed edition in Historiae Aloysii Lipomani de vitis sanctorum, pars II., Lovanii, 1571, p. 32; which he denotes by the symbol 'Lip.' Of this work, the only edition accessible to me is that entitled De Vitis Sanctorum, ab Aloysio Lipomano, episcopo Veronae, a F. L. Surio emendatis et auctis, Venetiis, 1581, p. 161; this I shall quote by the same symbol, as I suppose there is no material difference between the two editions. The best text of the former Life of St. Cecilia (which I denote by 'LA') is that given in the second edition of the Legenda Aurea by Dr. Th. Grässe, published at Leipsic in 1850. Dr. Furnivall has printed it at length, from Grässe's first edition, 1846, in his Originals and Analogues, Pt. ii. pp. 192-205; side by side with the French version of La Legende Dorée, as translated by Jehan de Vignay, printed at Paris in 1513. The suggestion was made in 'Bell's' edition of Chaucer (really edited by Mr. Jephson), that Chaucer's original was not the Latin, but the French text. A very slight comparison shews at once that this idea is wrong (as Dr. Furnivall points out), and that Chaucer unquestionably followed one or more Latin versions. It is, however, probable that Chaucer may have seen the French version also, as he seems to have taken from it the idea of his first four stanzas, ll. 1-28. But he has taken thence merely the general idea, and no more; see notes to l. 1 and to l. 7. The Invocation to the Virgin bears some resemblance to the Prioresses Prologue; see note to l. 50. It contains, moreover, a passage (36-56) which is a free translation of one in Dante's Paradiso; see note to l. 36. I may add here that Dr. Furnivall has also reprinted two more lives of St. Cecilia, one from Caxton's Golden Legende, in English prose, ed. 1483, fol. ccclxxvij, back; the other in English verse, in a metre similar to that used by Robert of Gloucester, from MS. Ashmole 43, leaf 185, back, in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. Another copy of the latter, found in MS. Laud 108, is printed in the Early South-English Legendary, ed. C. Horstmann, p. 490 (Early Eng. Text Society). There is yet another Middle-English version, in short rimed lines, found in MS. Harl. 4196 and MS. Cott. Tib. E 7; it is printed (from the former MS.) in Englische Studien, i. 235. These do not throw much further light upon the matter; and, in fact, the chief texts worth consulting are the Latin one of Jacobus a Voragine (or 'LA'), and the somewhat different version due to Simeon Metaphrastes (or 'Lip.'). Of these Dunlop says, in his History of Fiction, 3rd ed. p. 286--'The grand repertory of pious fiction seems to have been the Legenda Aurea of Jacobus de Voragine, a Genoese Dominican, a work entitled Golden from its popularity, on the same principle that this epithet was bestowed on the 'Ass' of Apuleius. A similar composition in Greek, by Simon Metaphrastes, written about the end of the tenth century, was the prototype of this work of the thirteenth century, which comprehends the lives of individual saints, whose history had already been written, or was current from tradition. The Golden Legend, however, does not consist solely of the lives of saints, but is said in the colophon to be interspersed with many other beautiful and strange relations, which were probably extracted from the Gesta Longobardorum, and other sources too obscure and voluminous to be easily traced; indeed, one of the original titles of the Legenda Aurea was Historia Lombardica. The work of [Jacobus a] Voragine was translated into French by Jean de Vignai, and was one of the three books from which Caxton's Golden Legend was compiled.' Dr. Kölbing further shews that Chaucer also took a few particulars from the Lives of Valerian and Tiburtius, as given in the Acta Sanctorum (April 14). For a curious example of this, see note to l. 369, on the word _corniculere_. Dr. Kölbing's article should be consulted. I here subjoin only some of the more important points. The numbers refer to the lines of the Tale, in Group G. 85-348. Chiefly from LA. 189: 'for Ioye.' Cf. Lip.: [Urbanus] _magno gaudio_ est affectus, ... et manibus in caelum extensis. LA has: ille manus ad caelum expandens. 218, 9. Cf. Lip.: Inuenit Caeciliam orantem in cubiculo, et Angelum Domini _stantem prope eam_. LA has: Caeciliam cum angelo loquentem in cubiculo inuenit. 233. Lip.: _assensus es_; LA: credidisti. 265. Lip.: _Quomodo_ hoc cognouisti; LA: unde hoc nosti. 315. Lip.: et nos quoque cum eo puniemur, si inuenti fuerimus ad eum ambulantes; LA: et nos in illius flammis pariter inuoluemur. 349-357. Lip.: _Tunc Valerianus deduxit fratrem suum ad_ sanctissimum _Papam Vrbanum_. Cui postquam narrauit omnia ... benigno _Deo egit gratias_. _Acceptum_ autem _cum omni gaudio et exultatione_ Tiburtium, cum ... _baptizasset_, &c. Quae quidem cum _perfecta_ fuissent _eius doctrina_, post septem dies _Christi militem restituit_. Here LA merely has: Ductus igitur et purificatus. Whence we see the importance of here consulting the second Latin text. Many similar examples occur throughout the latter part of the Tale, for which I must refer the reader to Dr. Kölbing's article and to the Notes in vol. v. The earliest English Life of St. Cecilia is the Anglo-Saxon version printed at p. 149 of Cockayne's 'Shrine,' of which I here offer a rather close translation:-- 'On the 22nd day of this month [November] is the martyrdom of St. Cecilia, the holy woman. She was wedded in her youth to a noble man, who was a heathen; but she was a Christian. She was clothed with a hair-cloth upon her body; and above the hair-cloth she was clothed with garments enwoven with gold. And, on the night when she was led into the bride-chamber, she said to the bridegroom that she saw an angel from heaven, who would slay him with a sudden death if ever he touched her with unclean love. Then she instructed the bridegroom, so that he received baptism, and believed in God. When he was baptised, and entered the bride-chamber, then stood the angel beside her with shining wings; and he had in his hand two crowns, that sometimes glistened like rose-blossoms and sometimes like lily-blossoms; and he gave one of the crowns to the woman, and the other to the bridegroom, and said: "Keep ye these crowns by cleanly deeds, because I have brought them to you from God's paradise." 'This woman suffered martyrdom for Christ. The prefect [lit. reeve] of the city of Rome was named Almatheus, who strove to compel her to forsake Christ; to which when she would not consent, he commanded her to be enclosed in a boiling [lit. burning] bath, in which she remained, without sweating, for a day and a night. The |