Geoffrey Chaucer

“ We must suppose this teaching to be included in the mention of Christ in l. 295; otherwise there is no allusion to it in the words of Cecilia. The doctrine had been taught to Valerian however; see ll. 207, 208.
There are continual allusions, in the Lives of the Saints, to the difficulty of this doctrine.
338. Chaucer is not quite exact. The Latin says that three things reside in a man's wisdom, the said wisdom being but one. 'Sicut in una hominis sapientia tria sunt, ingenium, memoria et intellectus.' The notion resembles that in a favourite passage from Isidore quoted in Piers Plowman, B. xv. ”

“ Ambrose tells of a virgin going to martyrdom, who was asked by a pagan whither she was going. She answered: 'to see my friend, who has invited me to his wedding-feast.' The pagan, deriding her, said: 'Tell your friend to send me some of his roses.' Shortly after her death, a beautiful youth brought to the pagan a basket full of full-blown roses, saying, 'The friend of the woman, who just now passed by, sends you some of the roses you desired,' and then disappeared. The pagan was converted and himself suffered martyrdom. ”

“ The five stanzas in ll. 85-119 really belong to the Legend itself, and are in the original Latin. Throughout the notes to the rest of this Tale I usually follow the 2nd edition of the Legenda Aurea, cap. clxix, as edited by Dr. Th. Grässe; Leipsic, 1850.
87. Several of the Legends of the Saints begin with ridiculous etymologies. Thus the Legend of St. Valentine (Aur. Leg. cap. xlii) begins with the explanation that Valentinus means ualorem tenens, or else ualens tyro. So here, as to the etymology of Caecilia, we are generously offered five solutions, all of them being wrong. ”

“ Lat. 'sepulchra martirum.' It is worth observing, perhaps, that the form buriels is properly singular, not plural; cf. A. S. byrigels, a sepulchre, and see the examples in Stratmann. In P. Plowman, B. xix. 142, the Jews are represented as guarding Christ's body because it had been foretold that He should rise from the tomb—
'þat þat blessed body · of burieles shulde rise.'
The mistake of supposing s to be the mark of a plural was easily made, and the singular form buriel was evolved. ”

“ This mistake occurs as early as in Wyclif's Bible, IV Kings xxiii. 17; see Way's note in Prompt. Parv. p. 37, note 1. Consequently, it is most likely that Chaucer has made the same mistake here. The South-E. Legendary (see note to l. 120) says that Urban dwelt 'among puttes and burieles.'
There is here a most interesting allusion to the celebrated catacombs of Rome; see Chambers, Book of Days, i. 101, 102.
lotinge, lying hid. In MS. E., the Latin word latitantem is written above, as a gloss. ”

“ An old man; i. e. an angel in the form of an old man, viz. St. Paul. Cf. note to l. 207.
202. with lettre of gold; Lat. 'tenens librum aureis litteris scriptum.' L. 203 is not in the original.
205. 'When he (Valerian) saw him (the old man) ; and he (the old man) lifted up him (Valerian) ; and then he (Valerian) began thus to read in his (the old man's) book.' This is very ambiguous in Chaucer, but the Latin is clear. ”

“ Caecilia, see vol. iii. p. 489. Compare also the Life of St. Cecilia as printed in the South-English Legendary, ed. Horstmann (E. E. T. S.) , p. 490.
133. an heyre, a hair shirt. The usual expression; see I. 1052; and P. Plowman, B. v. 66. Lat. text—'cilicio erat induta.'
134. the organs; Lat. 'cantantibus organis.' We should now say 'the organ'; but in old authors the plural form is commonly employed. Sometimes the word organ seems to refer to a single pipe only, and the whole instrument was called 'the organs' or 'a pair of organs,' where pair means a set, as in the phrase 'a peire of bedes' ”

“ The translation is inexact. Dante says—'that its Maker (i. e. the Maker of human nature) did not disdain to become His own creature,' i. e. born of that very human nature which He had Himself created. ”

“ Bernard.
15. though men dradden never, even if men never feared.
17. roten, rotten; Wright reads rote of, i. e. root of. Yet his MS. has roten; observe its occurrence in the note to l. 14 above.
19. 'And (men also) see that Sloth holds her in a leash, (for her) to do nothing but sleep, and eat and drink, and devour all that others obtain by toil.' The reading hir refers to Idleness, which, as I have before explained, was a branch of Sloth, and was personified by a female. See notes to ll. 2 and 3 above. Tyrwhitt has hem, which is not in any of our seven MSS.
21. Compare Piers Plowman, B. prol. ”

“ The parenthesis ends here.
288. beste, i. e. void of understanding, as a beast of the field is. Lat. 'pecus est.'
315. And we. Tyrwhitt remarks that we should have been us. But a glance at the Latin text shews what was in Chaucer's mind; he is here merely anticipating the we in l. ”