Geoffrey Chaucer

“ Is no man wrecched, but he it wene,...
For he suffrith in pacience...
Richesse riche ne makith nought
Him that on tresour set his thought;
For richesse stont in suffisaunce;' &c.
13. No force of, it does not matter for; i. e. 'thy rigour is of no consequence to him who has the mastery over himself.' From Boethius, bk. ii. pr. 4, l. 98, which Chaucer translates: 'Thanne, yif it so be that thou art mighty over thy-self, that is to seyn, by tranquillitee of thy sowle, than hast thou thing in thy power that thou noldest never lesen, ne Fortune ne may nat beneme it thee.'
17. ”

“ Cf. l. 33.
75, 76. 'And I (Fortune) will requite you for your trouble (undertaken) at my request, whether there be three of you, or two of you (that heed my words) .' Line 76 occurs in MS. I. only, yet it is difficult to reject it, as it is not a likely sort of line to be thrust in, unless this were done, in revision, by the author himself. Moreover, we should expect the Envoy to form a stanza with the usual seven lines, so common in Chaucer, though the rime-arrangement differs. ”

“ Man makes his own wretchedness. What may come you know not; you were born under my rule of change; your anchor holds. Of the third part of the poem [third Ballad] , in which the Poet and Fortune each speak, the sum of the argument is, that what blind men call fortune is the righteous will of God. Heaven is firm, this world is mutable. The piece closes with Fortune's call upon the Princes to relieve this man of his pain, or pray his best friend "of his noblesse" that he may attain to some better estate.'
The real foundation of these three Ballads is (1) Boethius, bk. ”