Walter William Skeat

“ Her hair was golden, and she was covered with innumerable ears and tongues. Her shoulders sustained the names of famous men, such as Alexander and Hercules. On either side of the hall were huge pillars of metal. On the first of these, composed of lead and iron, was the Jew Josephus; the iron was the metal of Mercury, and the lead of Saturn. Next, on an iron pillar, was Statius; and on other iron pillars were Homer, Dares, Dictys, Guido, and the English Geoffrey, who upbore the fame of Troy. On a pillar of iron, but covered over with tin, was Vergil; and beside him Ovid and Lucan. ”

“ In one corner men were telling stories about love, and there was a crush of men running to hear them. At last I saw a man whom I knew not; but he seemed to be one who had great authority— (here the poem ends, being incomplete; ll. 1868-2158) .
The general idea of the poem was plainly suggested by the description of Fame in Vergil, the house of Fame as described near the beginning of the twelfth book of Ovid's Metamorphoses, and various hints in Dante's Divina Commedia. ”

“ Chaucer defines it in his Treatise on the Astrolabe, and adds that astrologers, in calculating horoscopes, were in the habit of giving it a wider meaning; they further reckoned in 5 degrees of the zodiac above the horizon, and 25 degrees below the ascending point, so as to make the whole ascendent occupy 30 degrees, which was the length of a 'sign.' In calculating nativities, great importance was attached to this ascendent, the astrological concomitants of which determined the horoscope. The phrase to be 'in the ascendant' is still in use. ”

“ The above 'reasons' prove nothing whatever as regards the fish in the sea, or the trees in the earth; but the eagle's mode of reasoning must not be too closely enquired into. The fault is not Chaucer's, but arises from the extremely imperfect state of science in the middle ages. Chaucer had to accept the usual account of the four elements, disposed, according to their weight, in four layers; earth being at the bottom, then water, then air, and lastly fire above the air. ”

“ Society, I find: 'Hots, s. pl. a sort of panniers to carry turf or slate in'; and Halliwell gives it as a Cumberland word. Dickenson's Cumberland Glossary has: 'Muck-hots, panniers for conveying manure on horseback.' Brockett's Gloss. of Northern Words has: 'Hot, a sort of square basket, formerly used for taking manure into fields of steep ascent; the bottom opened by two wooden pins to let out the contents.' Thus the existence of the word in English is fully proved; and the fitness of it is evident.
1943. 'Al ful of chirking was that sory place'; Kn. Tale, A 2004.
1946. Again from Ovid, Met. ”

“ A pelet was a stone ball, such as used to be fired from the earliest kind of cannon, of which this is a very early mention. See my glossary to P. Plowman (Clar. Press) .
1670. Lat goon, let go, lay aside.
1702. The word turned, which is dissyllabic, has evidently been substituted here in the printed editions and in MS. P. for the older and rare word clew, which does not occur elsewhere in Chaucer. The line means—'With that (therupon) I rubbed my head all round'; which is a rustic way of expressing perplexity. The verb clawen, to scratch, stroke, is not uncommon, but the usual pt. t. is clawed. ”

“ Charge, a heavy weight, opposed to light thing. The verb seke is understood from l. 744. 'A light thing (seeks to go) up, and a weight (tends) downwards.' In Tyrwhitt's glossary, the word charge, in this passage, is described as being a verb, with the sense 'to weigh, to incline on account of weight.' How this can be made to suit the context, I cannot understand. Charge occurs as a sb. several times in Chaucer, but chiefly with the secondary sense of 'importance' ”

“ Lewedly, in unlearned fashion; in his Astrolabe, l. 43, Chaucer says he is 'but a lewd compilatour of the labour of olde Astrologiens.'
868. The eagle characteristically says that his reasons are so 'palpable,' that they can be shaken by the bills, as men shake others by the hand. It is perhaps worth adding that the word bill was too vulgar and familiar to be applied to a hawk, which had only a beak (the French term, whereas bill is the A.S. bile) . ”

“ Thus, in the Nonne Preestes Tale, B 4120, the choleric man is said to dream of arrows, fire, fierce carnivorous beasts, strife, and dogs; whilst the melancholy man will dream of bulls and bears and black devils. ”

“ For a close and searching comparison between the House of Fame and Dante's great poem, see the article by A. Rambeau in Engl. Studien, iii. 209.
1. For this method of commencing a poem with a dream, compare The Book of the Duchesse, Parl. of Foules, and The Romance of the Rose.
For discourses on dreams, compare the Nonne Preestes Tale, and the remarks of Pandarus in Troilus, v. 358-385. Chaucer here propounds several problems; first, what causes dreams (a question answered at some length in the Nonne Preestes Tale, B 4116) ; why some come true and some do not (discussed in the same, B 4161) ”

“ The note in Bell's Chaucer says: 'This appears to be an allusion to Plato's Republic.' But it was probably suggested by the word respublica in Alanus (see note to l. 986) .
932. Eyrish bestes, aerial animals; alluding to the signs of the zodiac, such as the Ram, Bull, Lion, Goat, Crab, Scorpion, &c.; and to other constellations, such as the Great Bear, Eagle, Swan, Pegasus, &c. Chaucer himself explains that the 'zodiak is cleped the cercle of the signes, or the cercle of the bestes; for zodia in langage of Greek sowneth bestes in Latin tonge'; Astrolabe, Part 1, § 21, 1. 37. Cf. ”

“ It is almost impossible for us moderns, with our facilities for reference, to imagine what were the difficulties of learned men in the olden time. Perhaps Chaucer was thinking of Ovid's line (ex Ponto, i. 1. 51) —'Uidi ego linigerae numen uiolasse fatentem Isidis.' The story is in Solinus, Polyhistor, cap. ”

“ Willert suggests that there is here an allusion to the so-called Ecloga Theoduli, a Latin poem of the seventh or eighth century, wherein the shepherd Pseustis and the shepherdess Alithia [who represent Falsehood and Truth] contend about heathendom and Christianity; and Pseustis adduces various myths and tales, from Ovid, Vergil, and Statius. ”

“ Palsgrave has: 'Masty, fatte, as swyne be, gras.' The Promp. Parv. has: 'Mast-hog or swyne, [or] mastid swyne, Maialis'; and 'Mastyn beestys, sagino, impinguo.' Way rightly explains masty as 'glutted with acorns or berries'; cf. 'Acorne, mast for swyne, gland,' in Palsgrave. See The Former Age, l. 37.
1779. Wher, whether, 'is it the case that?'
1782. As the word oughte is never followed by to with a following gerund, it is certain that to-hangen is all one word, the prefix to- being intensive. MSS. F. and B. omit to, but the rest have it, and the syllable is wanted. ”

“ Julian (to our speed) ; lo! (here is) a good hostelry.' The eagle invokes or praises St. Julian, because they have come to their journey's end, and the poet may hope for a good reception in the House of Fame. St. Julian was the patron saint of hospitality; see Chaucer's Prologue, 340. In Le Roman de la Rose, 8872, I find (cf. note to l. 118 above) :—
⁠'Ainsinc m'aïst saint Juliens,
Qui pelerins errans herberge.'
In Bell's Chaucer, i. 92, is the following: '"Ce fut celluy Julien qui est requis de ceux qui cheminent pour avoir bon hostel"; Legende Dorée. ”

“ The fact is, that the Latin races declined to accept an account which did not sufficiently praise the Trojans, whom they regarded as their ancestors. Geoffrey of Monmouth ingeniously followed up this notion, by making the Trojans also the ancestors of the ancient Britons. Hence English writers followed on the same side; Lydgate, as well as Chaucer, exclaims against Homer. See Warton, ed. Hazlitt, iii. 82. But Dante exalts Homer above Horace, Ovid, and Lucan: Inf. ”

“ But, as there is no other clear example in Chaucer, Koch thinks the passage is corrupt, and proposes to read:—
⁠'Which than be, lo! thise tydinges,
That bringe thee hider, and thise thinges
That thou wilt here'; &c.
1920. Here that means 'that very.' The description of 'the house of Dædalus' is in Ovid, Met. viii. 159; and the word labyrinthus, used with reference to it, is in Vergil, Æn. v. 588. Chaucer again refers to it in the Leg. of Good Women (Ariadne) , 2010; and it is mentioned in his translation of Boethius, bk. iii. pr. 12. 118 (vol. ii. p. 89) . And see Gower, Conf. Amant. ed. ”

“ They fall and die, but are avenged; and so the whole war was renewed. Lydgate reduces the two tigers to one; see his chapter 'Of a tame Tigre dwelling in Thebes'; in part 3 of his Sege of Thebes.
1460. Stace (as in Troil. bk. v, near the end, and Kn. Tale, A 2294) is Publius Papinius Statius, who died A.D. 96, author of the Thebais and Achilleis (see l. 1463) , the latter being left incomplete. Tholosan means Toulousan, or inhabitant of Toulouse; and he is here so called because by some (including Dante, whom Chaucer follows) he was incorrectly supposed to have been a native of Toulouse. ”

“ Comme undes ensemble ondoians.'
1390. 'And tongues, as (there are) hairs on animals.' 'Her feet are furnished with partridge-wings to denote swiftness, as the partridge is remarkable for running with great swiftness with outstretched wings. This description is taken almost literally from the description of Fame in the Æneid [iv. 176-183] , except the allusion to the Apocalypse and the partridge-wings'; note in Bell's Chaucer. But it is to be feared that Chaucer simply blundered, and mistook Vergil's pernicibus as having the sense of perdicibus ”

“ Chaucer's Prologue, 417-420. There is a parallel passage in Dante, Inf. xx. 116-123, where the word imago occurs in the sense of 'waxen image.' This of course refers to the practice of sticking needles into a waxen image, with the supposed effect of injuring the person represented. See Ovid, Heroid. vi. 91, and Ben Jonson's Masque of Queens (3rd Charm) . But this is only a particular case of a much more general principle. Images of men or animals (or even of the things representing the zodiacal signs) could be made of various substances, according to the effect intended ”

“ Alluding to sudden fallings in love, especially 'at first sight.' Such take place at haphazard; as if a blind man should accidentally frighten a hare, without in the least intending it. We find in Hazlitt's collection of Proverbs—'The hare starts when a man least expects it' ”

“ He succeeded Amphiaraus as augur, and furiously excited the besiegers to attack Thebes. His invocation was succeeded by a great sound of trumpets (Theb. viii. 343) , to which Chaucer here refers. But Statius does not expressly say that Thiodamas blew a trumpet himself.
1248. Cataloigne and Aragon, Catalonia and Arragon, in Spain, immediately to the S. of the Pyrenees. Warton remarks: 'The martial musicians of English tournaments, so celebrated in story, were a more natural and obvious allusion for an English poet' ”

“ I suspect that Ovid's triplicis confinia mundi is the origin of Chaucer's phrase tryne compas, in Sec. Non. Tale, G 45.
857. The 'terms of philosophy' are all fully and remorselessly given by Gower, Conf. Amant. bk. vii.
861. It is remarkable that Chaucer, some years later, repeated almost the same thing in the Prologue to his Treatise on the Astrolabe, in somewhat different words, viz. 'curious endyting and hard sentence is full hevy atones for swich a child to lerne'; l. 32. ”

“ Chaucer says that some of the twigs were white, such as men use to make cages with, or panniers (i.e. baskets) , or hottes, or dossers. Now Cotgrave explains F. Panier by 'a Pannier, or Dosser; also, a Pedlers Pack; also, a fashion of trunke made of wicker'; and he explains F. Hotte by 'a Scuttle, Dosser, Basket to carry on the back; the right hotte is wide at the top, and narrow at the bottom.' Dr. Murray kindly refers me to Cursor Mundi, l. 5524:—
⁠'Apon þer neckes sal þai bere
Hott wit stan and wit morter.'
He also tells me that in Caxton's Golden Legend (1483) , fol. cix. col. ”

“ Col. Yule cites the O.F. forms tregiteor and entregetour; also Ital. tragettatore, a juggler, and Prov. trasjitar, trajitar, to juggle. Bartsch, in his Chrestomathie Française, has examples of trasgeter, to mould, form, tresgeteïs, a work of mechanical art; and, in his Chrestomathie Provençale, col. 82, has the lines—
⁠'Non saps balar ni tras-gitar
a guiza de juglar guascon';
i.e. thou know'st not how to dance, nor how to juggle, after the manner of a Gascon juggler. A comparison of the forms leaves no doubt as to the etymology. The Prov. trasgitar answers to a Low Lat. ”

“ Curiously enough, almost the same words occur in Boethius, bk. i. met. 4, where Chaucer's translation has:—'ne þe wey of thonder-leyt, that is wont to smyten heye toures.' It hence appears that Chaucer copies Machault, and Machault translates Boethius. There are some curious M.E. verses on the effects of thunder in Popular Treatises on Science, ed. Wright, p. 136.
Foudre represents the Lat. fulgur. One of the queer etymologies of medieval times is, that fulgur is derived a feriendo; Vincent of Beauvais, Spec. Nat. ”

“ In the Rom. de la Rose, 9941, we are told that it is as hard to be sure of a woman's constancy as it is to hold a live eel by the tail. 'To have an eel by the tail' was an old English proverb; see Eel in Nares' Glossary, ed. Halliwell and Wright.
2158. The poem ends here, in the middle of a sentence. It seems as if Chaucer did not quite know how to conclude, and put off finishing the poem till that more 'convenient season' which never comes. Practically, nothing is lost.
The copy printed by Caxton broke off still earlier, viz. at l. ”

“ A 1810.
683. 'As long as they find love to be as true as steel.' Cf. Troilus, iv. 325:—'God leve that ye finde ay love of steel.'
689. 'And more beards made in two hours,' &c. 'Yet can a miller make a clerkes berd'; (Reves Tale) , C. T., A 4096. 'Yet coude I make his berd'; C. T., D 361. Tyrwhitt's note on the former passage is: 'make a clerkes berd,' i.e. cheat him. Faire la barbe is to shave, or trim the beard; but Chaucer translates the phrase literally, at least when he uses it in its metaphorical sense. Boccace has the same metaphor, Decamerone, viii. 10. ”