Geoffrey Chaucer

“ The definition of 'tragedy' here given is repeated from Chaucer's own translation of Boethius, which contains the remark—'Glose. Tragedie is to seyn, a ditee [ditty] of a prosperitee for a tyme, that endeth in wrecchednesse'; bk. ii. pr. 2. 51. This remark is Chaucer's own, as the word Glose marks his addition to, or gloss upon, his original. ”

“ The first three lines of the stanza refer to Bertrand Du Gueschlin, who 'brew,' i. e. contrived Pedro's murder, viz. by luring him to Enrique's tent. But the last three lines refer to another knight who, according to Chaucer, took a still more active part in the matter, being a worker in it. This second person was a certain Sir Oliver Mauny, whose name Chaucer conceals under the synonym of wicked nest, standing for O. Fr. mau ni, where mau is O. Fr. for mal, bad or wicked, and ni is O. Fr. for nid, Lat. nidus, a nest. Observe too, that Chaucer uses the word need, not deed. ”

“ Seneca opened a vein, but the blood would not flow freely; whereupon, to expedite its flow, he entered into a warm bath, and thence was taken into a vapour stove, where he was suffocated. 'Nero constreynede Senek, his familier and his mayster, to chesen on what deeth he wolde deyen'; Chaucer's Boethius, lib. iii. pr. 5. 34 (vol. ii. 63) .
3692. 'It was long before tyranny or any other vice durst attack him'; literally, 'durst let dogs loose against him.' To uncouple is to release dogs from the leash that fastened them together; see P. Pl. B. pr. ”

“ Tugging hard and closely grasping,
⁠Brother proves his strength with brother.'
It is remarkable that Pedro was very popular with his own party, despite his crimes, and Chaucer takes his part because our Black Prince fought on the side of Pedro against Enrique at the battle of Najera, April 3, 1367; and because John of Gaunt married Constance, daughter of Pedro, about Michaelmas, 1371. ”

“ He asked them if he should tell Enrique; they all said yes: so he told the king. Thereupon Enrique promised Bertrand the same reward that Pedro had offered him, but asked him also to assure Men Rodriguez of Pedro's safety if he would come to his (Du Guesclin's) lodge. Relying on Bertrand's assurance, Pedro came to him on March 23; Enrique entered the lodge directly afterwards, and after a struggle, stabbed Pedro, and seized his kingdom.
'We see then that Chaucer was justified in asserting that Du Guesclin and Sir Oliver Mauny "brew this cursednesse" ”

“ But at a later period of English, when the prefix to- was less understood, a new and mistaken notion arose of regarding al to as a separable prefix, with the sense of all to pieces. I have observed no instance of this use earlier than the reign of Henry VIII. Thus Surrey, Sonnet 9, has 'al-to shaken' for shaken to pieces. Latimer has—'they love and al-to love (i. e. entirely love) him' ”

“ 'And kis the steppes wheras thou seest pace
Virgile, Ovyde, Omer, Lucan, and Stace.'
Lucan is expressly cited in B. 401, 3909. ”

“ But the reading of the Six-text is well enough here; for in the preceding line Chaucer is speaking of Fortune under the image of a person fleeing away, to which he adds, that no one can stay her course. Fortune is also sometimes represented as stationary, and holding an ever-turning wheel, as in the Book of the Duchesse, 643; but that is another picture.
3188. Be war by, take warning from.
Lucifer.
3189. Lucifer, a Latin name signifying light-bringer, and properly applied to the morning-star. In Isaiah xiv. 12 the Vulgate has—'Quomodo cecidisti de caelo, Lucifer, qui mane oriebaris? ”

“ The other is 'the eighth labour,' when Hercules killed Diomedes, a king in Thrace, who fed his mares with human flesh, till Hercules slew him and gave his body to be eaten by the mares, as Chaucer himself says in his translation. The confusion was easy, because the story of Busiris is mentioned elsewhere by Boethius, bk. ii. pr. 6, in a passage which Chaucer thus translates (see vol. ii. p. 43) :—'I have herd told of Busirides, þat was wont to sleen his gestes [guests] þat herberweden [lodged] in his hous ”

“ A shade that follows wealth or fame,
⁠And leaves the wretch to weep?'
Zenobia.
3437. Cenobia. The story of Zenobia is told by Trebellius Pollio, who flourished under Constantine, in cap. xxix. of his work entitled Triginta Tyranni; but Chaucer no doubt followed later accounts, one of which was clearly that given by Boccaccio in his De Mulieribus Claris, cap. xcviii. Boccaccio relates her story again in his De Casibus Virorum, lib. viii. c. 6; in an edition of which, printed in 1544, I find references to the biography of Aurelian by Flavius Vopiscus, to the history of Orosius, lib. vii. cap. ”

“ Fortune in l. 3868 is a trisyllable; so also in l. 3876.
3870. 'Against Pompey, thy father-in-law.' Rather, 'son-in-law'; for Caesar gave Pompey his daughter Julia in marriage.
3875. puttest; to be read as putt'st; and thórient as in l. 3883.
3878. Pompeius. Boccaccio gives his life at length, as an example of misfortune; De Casibus Virorum, lib. vi. cap. 9. He was killed Sept. 29, B.C. 48, soon after the battle of Pharsalia in Thessaly (l. 3869) .
3881. him, for himself; but in the next line it means 'to him.'—M.
3885. Chaucer refers to this triumph in the Man of Lawes Tale, B. 400 ”

“ There is little about Hercules in Boccaccio; but Chaucer's favourite author, Ovid, has his story in the Metamorphoses, book ix, and Heroides, epist. 9. Tyrwhitt, however, has shewn that Chaucer more immediately copies a passage in Boethius, de Cons. Phil. lib. iv. met. 7, which is as follows:—
'Herculem duri celebrant labores ”

“ The English Romaunt of the Rose does not contain the passage about Nero, but it is interesting to refer to Chaucer's translation of Boethius. Vincent of Beauvais has an account of Nero, in his Speculum Historiale, lib. ix. capp. 1-7, in which he chiefly follows Suetonius. See also Orosius, lib. vii. 7, and Eutropius, lib. vii.
3657. South; the MSS. have North, but it is fair to make the correction, as Chaucer certainly knew the sense of Septemtrioun, and the expression is merely borrowed from the Roman de la Rose, ed. Méon, l. 6271, where we read,
'Cis desloiaus, que ge ci di ”

“ His remark refers to a passage in Boethius immediately preceding, viz. 'Quid tragoediarum clamor aliud deflet, nisi indiscreto ictu fortunam felicia regna uertentem?' De Consolatione Philosophiae, lib. ii. prosa 2. See also the last stanza of 'Cresus' in the Monkes Tale (vol. i. p. 268) .
3169. exametron, hexameter. Chaucer is speaking of Latin, not of English verse; and refers to the common Latin hexameter used in heroic verse; he would especially be thinking of the Thebaid of Statius, the Metamorphoseon Liber of Ovid, the Aeneid of Vergil, and Lucan's Pharsalia. ”

“ She was acquainted with Egyptian literature, and studied Greek under the philosopher Longinus, author of a celebrated treatise on 'The Sublime.'
3502. housbonde. Her husband was Odenathus, or Odenatus, the ruler of Palmyra, upon whom the emperor Gallienus had bestowed the title of Augustus. He was murdered by some of his relations, and some have even insinuated that Zenobia consented to the crime. Most scribes spell the name Onedake, by metathesis for Odenake (Odenate) , like the spelling Adriane for Ariadne. ”

“ Tyrwhitt argues that the true spelling of the phrase had already become corrupted in Chaucer's time, and such seems to have been the fact, as all the MSS. have word. See Zupitza's note to Guy of Warwick, l. 7927, where more examples are given; and cf. my note to Troil. ii. 1495. Ord and ende explains our modern odds and ends; see Garnett's Essays, p. 37. Moreover, it is not uncommon to find a w prefixed to a word where it is not required etymologically, especially before the vowel o. ”

“ This is from Suetonius, who says—'Piscatus est rete aurato, purpura coccoque funibus nexis'; cap. xxx. So also Orosius, vii. 7; Eutropius, vii. 9.
3669. This passage follows Boethius, bk. ii. met. 6, very closely, as is evident by comparing it with Chaucer's translation (see vol. ii. p. 44) . 'He leet brenne the citee of Rome, and made sleen the senatoures. And he, cruel, whylom slew his brother. And he was maked moist with the blood of his moder; that is to seyn, he leet sleen and slitten the body of his moder, to seen wher he was conceived ”

“ Hickes, in his Anglo-Saxon Grammar, p. 70. Hickes would make the same emendation in Troil. and Cres. v. 1669;
'And of this broche he tolde him ord and ende,'
where the editions have word. He also cites the expression ord and ende from Cædmon; see Thorpe's edition, p. 225, l. 30. We also find from orde ōð ende = from beginning to end, in the poem of Elene (Vercelli MS.) , ed. Grein, l. 590. Orde and ende occurs also at a later period, in the Ormulum, l. 6775 ”

“ Eadem nocte uidit in somnis quod Jupiter eum aqua perfunderet, et sol extergeret. Quod cum filiae suae mane indicasset, illa (vt res se habebat) prudenter absoluit, dicens: quod cruci esset affigendus et aqua perfundendus et sole siccandus. Quod ita demum contigit, nam postea a Cyro crucifixus est.' Compare the few following lines from the Roman de la Rose, with ll. 3917-22, 3934-8, 3941, and l. 3948:—
'Qui refu roi de toute Lyde ”

“ Serp. of Division, prefixed to Gorboduc, 1590.
3906. lay on deying, lay a-dying. In l. 3907, deed = mortally wounded.
3909. recomende, commit. He means that he commits the full telling of the story to Lucan, &c. In other words, he refers the reader to those authors. Cf. Lounsbury, Studies in Chaucer, ii. 254, 274.
Lucan (born A.D. 39, died A.D. 65) was the author of the Pharsalia, an incomplete poem in ten books, narrating the struggle between Pompey and Caesar. There is an English translation of it by Rowe. ”

“ Of, for. Cf. 'thank God of al,' i. e. for all; in Chaucer's Balade of Truth.—M. See note in vol. i. pp. 552-3.
3422. Tyrwhitt has trusteth, in the plural, but thou is used throughout. Elsewhere Chaucer also has 'on whom we truste,' Prol. A. 501; 'truste on fortune,' B. 3326; cf. 'syker on to trosten,' P. Pl. Crede, l. 350.
3427. Dárius, so accented. degree, rank, position.
3429-36. I have no doubt that this stanza was a later addition.
3436. proverbe. The allusion is, in the first place, to Boethius, de Cons. Phil., bk. iii. pr. 5—'Sed quem felicitas amicum fecit, infortunium faciet inimicum' ”

“ 'Go, litel book, go, litel myn tragédie,' &c. ”