Geoffrey Chaucer

“ The Man, walking with that noble Animal, shewed him, in the Ostentation of Human Superiority, a Sign of a Man killing a Lion. Upon which the Lion said very justly, We Lions are none of us Painters, else we could shew you a hundred Men killed by Lions, for one Lion killed by a Man.' Observe that here, as in Chaucer, the reference is to a painting, not to sculpture. ”

“ Jerome, p. 42.
144. hoten, be called; A. S. hātan. The sense is—'Let virgins be as bread made of selected wheaten flour; and let us wives be called barley-bread; nevertheless Jesus refreshed many a man with barley-bread, as St. Mark tells us.' Chaucer makes a slight mistake; it is St. John who speaks of barley-loaves; see John vi. 9 (cf. Mark vi. 38) . For hoten, Tyrwhitt, Wright, Bell, and Morris, all give the mistaken reading eten, which misses the whole point of the argument; but Gilman has hoten. There is no question as to what the Wife should eat, but only as to her condition in life. ”

“ Outen, put out, set out or forth, is from A. S. ūtian, verb, a derivative of ūt, out. Both here and in G. 834, Tyrwhitt needlessly alters the reading to uttren, against all the MSS. The note in Bell's Chaucer says—'Difficulty in making our market makes us bring out all our ware for sale'; which is utterly remote from the true sense, and would be the conduct of a reckless, not of a cautious woman. Compare the next two lines.
522. 'A great throng of buyers makes ware dear (because there is then great demand) ”

“ We must conclude that a dart or spear was the prize given (in some games) to the best runner. That dart here means 'prize,' appears from another proof altogether. For in the margin of E. we here find a quotation from Jerome, p. 26, which runs in a fuller form, thus:—'Proponit ἀγωνοθέτης praemium, inuitat ad cursum, tenet in manu uirginitatis brauium, ... et clamitat, ... qui potest capere, capiat.' The word brauium, i. e. prize in a race, is borrowed from the Vulgate, 1 Cor. ”

“ The horrible story of 'the Widow of Ephesus' is of this character, but not quite so bad, as her husband died naturally. See Wright's introduction to his edition of The Seven Sages, p. lxvi; and the text of the same, pp. 84-9. It occurs in John of Salisbury, Policraticus, viii. 11. And see Exempla of Jacques de Vitry, ed. Crane, 1890, p. 228; Clouston's Pop. Tales, i. 29.
769. Alluding, doubtless, to Jael and Sisera; see note to A. 2007.
775. 'I had rather dwell with a lion and a dragon, than to keep house with a wicked woman'; Ecclus. xxv. 16. Cf. Prov. xxi. 19. ”

“ In sect. 28 of the same treatise, we find:—'Cum fuerit interrogatio pro muliere, simpliciter accipe significationem à Venere.' Hence Venus is the planet that ruled over women.
'The woman that is born in this time [i. e. under Taurus] shall be effectuall ... she shall have many husbands and many children; she shall be in her best estate at xvi years, and she shall have a sign in the middest of her body.'—Shepherdes Kalender, ed. ”

“ He consulted, in fact, the Thebaid of Statius, bk. iv, where we learn that Eriphyle betrayed her husband Amphiaraus, for a golden necklace; he was thus forced to accompany Polynices to the siege of Thebes, where he perished by being swallowed up by an earthquake. Chaucer again calls him Amphiorax in Anelida, 57, and in Troilus, ii. 105, v. 1500. Cf. Lydgate's Siege of Thebes, part 3.
747. Tyrwhitt says:—'In the Epistola Valerii, in MS. Reg. 12. D. iii. [in the British Museum] , the story is told thus: "Luna virum suum interfecit quem nimis odivit: Lucilia suum quem nimis amavit. ”

“ In MS. E. and most others, it follows the Man of Law's Tale, which cannot be right, as that Tale must be followed by the Shipman's Prologue. Curiously enough, that Prologue does follow the Man of Law's Tale in the Harleian MS., but the Wife of Bath's Tale is made to follow next, in place of the Shipman's Tale.
In MS. Pt., and several others, the Wife's Prologue follows the Merchant's Tale; such is the arrangement in edd. 1532 and 1561. This is possible, as the Merchant's Tale ends a Fragment, and the Wife's Prologue begins one ”

“ She died in 1164, and was buried in Abelard's tomb. I have no doubt at all that Chaucer derived his knowledge of her from the short sketch of her life given in Le Roman de la Rose, ll. 8799-8870, where the title of 'abbess' (F. abéesse) is conferred upon her. Only a few lines above, we find the name of Valerius, who (it is there said, at l. 8727) declared that a modest woman was rarer than a phœnix; and again, at l. 8759, we find: 'Si cum Valerius raconte' ”

“ The story is given by Jerome, in the treatise so often quoted above. 'Legimus quendam apud Romanos nobilem, cum eum amici arguerent quare uxorem formosam et castam et diuitem repudiasset, protendisse pedem, et dixisse eis: Et hic soccus quem cernitis, uidetur uobis nouus et elegans, sed nemo scit praeter me ubi me premat.'—Hieron. c. Iouinianum, lib. i.: Epist. ii. 52 (Basil. 1524) . John of Salisbury has the same story, almost in the same words, but gives the name of the noble Roman, viz. P. Cn. Graecinus. See his Policraticus, lib. v. c. 10. Chaucer alludes to it again below, in E. 1553. ”

“ Theofraste, Theophrastus, i. e. the treatise mentioned above; see note to l. 221. It is frequently quoted above; see notes to ll. 221, 235, 257, 271, 282, 285, 293, 303. He is called Theofrates in Le Roman, l. 8599.
676. Tertulan, Tertullian. I do not quite understand why Tyrwhitt (see note to l. 671) singled out his treatise De Pallio, which is a treatise recommending the wearing of the Greek pallium in preference to the Roman toga. Quite as much to the present purpose are his treatises De Exhortatione Castitatis, dissuading a friend from marrying a second time ”

“ Wayte, observe, watch; 'observe what thing it is that we have a difficulty in obtaining.'
521. 'With great demur (or caution) we set forth all we have to sell.' With daunger implies that the seller makes a great difficulty of selling things, i. e. drives a hard bargain, and makes a great favour of it. Withoute daunger means without opposition, or without resistance ”

“ In Sir Ferumbras, l. 1900, mention is made of a man striking another 'on the luste' with his hand. The original sense of A. S. hlyst is the sense of 'hearing'; but the Icel. hlust commonly means 'ear.' Cf. E. listen. For on the list, Hl. Cm. and Tyrwhitt have with his fist; but Tyrwhitt, in his note on the line, inclines to the reading here given, and quotes from Sir T. More's poem entitled 'A Merry Jest of a Serjeant,' the lines:—
'And with his fist
Upon the lyst
⁠He gave hym such a blow.'
This juvenile poem is printed at length in the Preface to Todd's edition of Johnson's Dictionary, ed. ”

“ Chaucer quotes this, as from Solomon, in the Pers. Tale, I. 631, and explains it there more fully; and again, in the Tale of Melibeus, B. 2276. An Anglo-French poet named Herman wrote a poem 'on the three words, smoke, rain, and woman, which, according to Solomon, drive a man from his house; and it appears from the poem that it was composed at the suggestion of Alexander, bishop of Lincoln, who died in 1147.'—T. Wright, Biographia Brit. ”

“ L'un est assetz plus douls que n'est pyment,
L'autre est amier plus que null arrement.'
180. The saying referred to is written in the margin of Dd., as Tyrwhitt tells us. It runs:—'Qui per alios non corrigitur, alii per ipsum corrigentur.' With regard to its being written in Ptolemy's Almagest, Tyrwhitt quaintly remarks:—'I suspect that the Wife of Bath's copy of Ptolemy was very different from any that I have been able to meet with.' The same remark applies to her second quotation in l. ”

“ We need not search in Ptolemy for this saying.
327. who hath the world in honde, i. e. who has abundant wealth. Cf. l. 330. The sense of the proverb is, that the wisest man is he who is contented, who cares nothing that others are much richer than himself. Cf. 1 Tim. vi. 6, 8; and the proverb—'Content is all.' In the margin of E. is written the Latin form of the saying:—'Inter omnes altior existit, qui non curat in cuius manu sit mundus.'
333. werne, forbid, refuse. The idea is from Le Roman de la Rose, l. ”

“ Illa uero non est paupertas, si laeta est. Cui enim cum paupertate bene conuenit, diues est. Non qui parum habet, sed qui plus cupit, pauper est.'—Seneca, Epist. ii. § 4. This passage is quoted by John of Salisbury, Policraticus, l. vii. c. 13.
Othere clerkes also includes Epicurus, whose sentiments Seneca here expresses; see Diogenes Laertius, x. 11. MS. E. here quotes the words 'honesta res est laeta paupertas' in the margin, and refers to 'Seneca, in epistola.' It also has:—'Pauper est qui eget, eo quod non habet; sed qui non habet, nec appetit habere, ille diues est ”

“ Also (2) the physician of Cnidos, in the time of Alexander the Great, frequently mentioned by Pliny. It is highly probable that neither the Wife of Bath nor Chaucer knew much about him. The poet certainly caught the name from Jerome's treatise against Jovinian, near the end of bk. i.; Epist. i. 52. We there find:—'Ridicule Chrysippus ducendam uxorem sapienti praecipit, ne Iouem Gamelium et Genethlium uiolet.'
Helowys, Heloise, niece of Fulbert, a canon in the cathedral of Paris, was secretly married to the celebrated Abelard, a proficient in scholastic learning. ”

“ The Wife's object was to go wherever there was a concourse of people, in order to shew her best clothes. Women still go 'to church' for a like reason. Wycliff speaks strongly of the evil of pilgrimages; see his Works, ed. Matthew, p. 279; ed. Arnold, i. 83.
558. 'The miracle-plays were favourite occasions for people to assemble in great numbers.'—Wright. Wright refers to a tale among his Latin Stories, p. 100. See the Sermon against Miracle-Plays, in Reliquiae Antiquae, ii. 42; reprinted in Mätzner's Sprachproben, ii. ”

“ So also in the Marriage of Sir Gawaine, st. 28:—
—'a woman will have her will,
And this is all her cheef desire.'
1069. The scansion is—'Shold' ev'r | so foul | e dis | pará | ged be.'
1074. It is curious to note how Chaucer seems to have felt that romance-writers were constrained to describe feasts, a duty which he usually evades. Cf. A. 2197, B. 419, 1120, E. 1710, F. 278. In fact, the original business of the minstrel was to praise his lord's bounty, especially on grand occasions. ”

“ In the margin of E. is written:—'Secundus philosophus: Paupertas est odibile bonum, sanitatis mater, curarum remocio, sapientie reparatrix, possessio sine calumpnia.' This is the very passage quoted, even more fully, in Piers Plowman, B. xiv. 275 (C. xvii. 117) . Tyrwhitt's note is—'In this commendation of Poverty, our author seems plainly to have had in view the following passage of a fabulous conference between the emperor Adrian and Secundus the philosopher, reported by Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum Historiale, lib. x. cap. 71. "Quid est paupertas? ”

“ This refers to a treatise which Mr. Wright attributes to Walter Mapes, entitled Epistola Valerii ad Rufinum, and common in manuscripts; the subject is, De non ducenda uxore. See Warton, Hist. E. Poetry, 1840, ii. 188, note. 'As to the rest of the contents of this volume, Hieronymus contra Jovinianum, and Tertullian de Pallio are sufficiently known; and so are the letters of Eloisa and Abelard, the Parables of Solomon, and Ovid's Art of Love. I know of no Trotula but one, whose book Curandarum aegritudinum muliebrium, ante, in, et post partum, is printed int. Medicos antiquos, Ven. ”

“ A. S. stela; hence the rime with hele (A. S. helan) is perfect.
950. 'Car fame ne puet riens celer'; Rom. de la Rose, 19420. See also the same, 16549-70.
952. Ovyde; see Metamorph. xi. 174-193. But Chaucer seems to have purposely altered the story, since Ovid attributes the betrayal of the secret to Midas' barber, not his wife; and again, Ovid says that the barber dug a hole, and whispered it into the pit. Chaucer's version is an improved one. Cf. Troil. iii. 1389.
961. Cf. Rom. de la Rose, 16724-32.
968. Dryden is plainer, and less polite:—'But she must burst or blab.' Cf. Rom. ”

“ Here Chaucer takes several hints from the book of Theophrastus as quoted by Jerome; see note to l. 221. Thus (in Jerome, as above, p. 51) we find:—'Deinde per noctes totas garrulae conquestiones:—Illa ornatior procedit in publicum; haec honoratior ab omnibus: ego in conuentu feminarum misella despicior. Cur aspiciebas uicinam? Quid cum ancillula loquebaris?' It is continued at l. ”

“ Suggested by the complaint of a jealous man to his wife, in Le Roman de la Rose, 9129:—
'Car quant ge vous voil embracier
Por besier et por solacier,' &c.
414. 'Everything has its price.'
415. This proverb has occurred before; see A. 4134. Lydgate quotes it in st. 2 of a poem with the burden—'Lyk thyn audience, so utter thy langage'; see Polit., Relig., and Love Poems, ed. Furnivall, p. 25, l. 15. John of Salisbury says:—'Veteri celebratur prouerbio: quia uacuae manus temeraria petitio est'; Policraticus, lib. v. c. 10. ”

“ The scansion is—Two cré-a-túr-es áccordínge in-fére.
925. Cf. Gower, Conf. Amant. i. 92:—
'To som woman it is plesaunce
That to another is grevaunce'; &c.
929-30. Cf. Rom. de la Rose, 9977-94. For y-plesed, Tyrwhitt and Wright read y-preised, contrary to the seven best MSS.; which gives an imperfect rime. preysed rimes with reysed (D. 706) .
940. galle, sore place. 'Galle, soore yn man or beeste'; Prompt. Parv. 'Let the galled jade wince'; Hamlet, iii. 2. 253.
clawe means 'to scratch'; and to clawe upon the galle is to scratch or rub a sore. This may be taken in two ways ”