Geoffrey Chaucer

“ That the Northern forms are not due to the scribe, is obvious; for he usually avoids them where he can. Thus in l. 2309, he writes sitting instead of sittand; but in l. 2263, he could not avoid the form sittand, because of the rime.
§ 8. Test III.—The riming of -y with -y-ë.—With two intentional exceptions (both in the ballad metre of Sir Thopas, see note to Cant. Ta. B 2092) , Chaucer never allows such a word as trewely (which etymologically ends in -y) to rime with French substantives in -y-ë, such as fol-y-ë, Ielos-y-ë (Ital. follia, gelosia) . But in fragment B, examples abound; e. g. ”

“ The God of Love seeks to wound the poet, or lover, with his arrows, and succeeds in doing so; after which he calls upon the lover to yield himself up as a prisoner, which he does (1715-2086) . Love locks up the lover's heart, and gives him full instructions for his behaviour (2087-2950) ; after which Love vanishes (2951-2966) . The Rose-tree is defended by a hedge; the lover seeks the assistance of Bialacoil or Belacoil (i. e. Fair-Reception) , but is warned off by Danger, Wicked-Tongue, and Shame (2967-3166) ; and at last, Fair-Reception flees away (3167-3188) . ”

“ At last Love pities the lover, and descends to help him; and, with the further assistance of Bounty, Honour, and other barons of Love's court, proceeds to lay siege to the castle in which Jealousy has imprisoned Fair-Reception.
§ 32. Here begins Fragment C; in which the ranks of the besiegers are joined by other assistants of a doubtful and treacherous character, viz. False-Semblant and Constrained-Abstinence (5811-5876) . Love discusses buying and selling, and the use of bounty and riches (5877-6016) . ”

“ The only exceptions are the editions by Bell and Morris. Bell's text was the first for which 'G.' was consulted, and he follows the MS. as his general guide, filling up the deficiencies from Speght's edition, which he describes as 'corrupt and half-modernised.' Why he chose Speght in preference to Thynne, he does not tell us. In consequence, he has left lines incomplete in a large number of instances, owing to putting too much faith in the MS., and neglecting the better printed sources. ”

“ This displacement of the material was first noticed in Bell's edition, where the editor found it out by the simple process of comparing the English 'translation' with the French 'Roman'; but he gives no account of how it came about. But a closer investigation is useful as showing how exactly 'Th.' and 'G.' agree in following an original displacement in 'O.', or rather in the still older MS. from which the C-portion of O. was copied. ”

“ He added 18004 lines, so that the whole poem finally extended to the enormous length of 22074 lines.
Jean de Meun was a man of a very different temperament from his predecessor. Guillaume de Lorris merely planned a fanciful allegorical love-poem, in which the loved one was represented as a Rose in a beautiful garden, and the lover as one who desired to pluck it, but was hindered by various allegorical personages, such as Danger, Shame, Jealousy, and Fear, though assisted by others, such as Bel Accueil (Fair Reception) , Frankness, Pity, and the like. ”

“ Here ends Fragment B, and a large gap occurs in the translation. The omitted portion of the French text continues the discourse of Reason, with examples from the stories of Virginia, Nero, and Crœsus, and references to the fall of Manfred (conquered by Charles of Anjou) and the fate of Conradin. But all this is wasted on the lover, whom Reason quits once more. The lover applies a second time to his Friend, who recommends bounty or bribery. ”

“ Rime-tests.—If, for instance, we apply the simple but effective test of the rimes of words ending in -y with those ending in -y-e, we at once find that this fragment fails to satisfy the text.
Examples: covertly, Ipocrisy (e) , 6112; company (e) , outerly, 6301; loteby, company (e) , 6339; why, tregetry (e) , 6373; company (e) , I, 6875; mekely, trechery (e) , 7319. These six instances, in less than 1900 lines, ought to make us hesitate.
If we look a little more closely, we find other indications which should make us hesitate still more. ”

“ At l. 6045, we find fare, are; but Chaucer never uses are at the end of a line; he always uses been. At l. 6105, we find atte last, agast; but Chaucer only has atte last-e (which is never monosyllabic) . At l. 6429, we find paci-ence, venge-aunce, a false rime which it would be libellous to attribute to Chaucer; and, at l. 6469, we find force, croce, which is still worse, and makes it doubtful whether it is worth while to go on. However, if we go a little further, we find the pl. form wrought riming with nought, 6565; but Chaucer usually has wrought-e, which would destroy the rime. ”

“ Both are remarkable for an extraordinary misarrangement of the material, in which respect they closely agree; and we are enabled, from this circumstance, to say, definitely, that the C-portion of O. (i. e. their common original) was written (doubtless on vellum) in quires containing 8 leaves (or 16 pages) each, there being, on an average, 24 lines upon every page. Of these quires, the fourth had its leaves transposed, by mistake, when the MS. was bound, in such a manner that the middle pair of leaves of this quire was displaced, so as to come next the two outer pair of leaves ”

“ The answer is, that it first appeared in Thynne's edition of 1532, a collection of Chaucer's (supposed) works made more than a hundred and thirty years after his death. Such an attribution is obviously valueless; we must examine the matter for ourselves, and on independent grounds.
§ 3. A critical examination of the internal evidence at once shews that by far the larger part of 'the translation' cannot possibly be Chaucer's ”

“ The style of translation, not to speak of its accuracy, is much better in the first 1700 lines than in the subsequent portions. We may notice, in particular, that the French word boutons is translated by knoppes in ll. 1675, 1683, 1685, 1691, 1702, whilst, in l. 1721 and subsequent passages, the same word is merely Englished by botoun or botouns. A closer study of the passage extending from l. 1702 to l. 1721 shews that there is a very marked break at the end of l. 1705. Here the French text has (ed. Méon, l. 1676) :—
'L'odor de lui entor s'espent ”

“ Considering that loreres rimes with oliveres, it is obvious that the right forms are lorer and loreres (French, loriers) ; see laurer in Stratmann.
In l. 1420, where the authorities have veluet, the modern editions have velvet. But the u (also written ou) was at that time a vowel, and velu-et (or velou-et) was trisyllabic, as the rhythm shews. The modern velvet seems to have arisen from a mistake.
Several other restorations of the text are pointed out in the notes, and I need not say more about them here.
N.B. After l. 4658, the lines in Morris's edition are misnumbered. His l. ”

“ Nine other leaves are also lost, containing ll. 1387-1482, 2395-2442, 3595-3690, and 7385-7576; for the contents of which (as of the former two) Th. remains the sole authority. The date of the MS. is about 1440; and its class-mark is V. 3. 7. ”