Walter William Skeat

“ For whatever knowledge Chaucer may have had of the philosophy of Plato, he was probably indebted to the Italian poets, with whom, especially Petrarch, Plato was a favourite.' Corson also quotes the following from Sir Wm. Hamilton:—'Plato agreed with the rest of the ancient philosophers in this—that all things consist of matter and form; and that matter of which all things were made, existed from eternity, without form; but he likewise believed that there are external forms of all possible things which exist, without matter ”

“ Egeus, Ægeus, king of Athens; Met. vii. 402, 404.
1954. 'That thou wouldst be deeply indebted to any one who,' &c.
1960. 'Furthermore, after he [Theseus] was arrived in Creta, he slew there the Minotaur ... by the means and help of Ariadne: who being fallen in fancy with him, did give him a clue of thread, by the help wherof she taught him, how he might easily wind out of the turnings and crancks of the labyrinth.'—Shak. Plutarch, p. 283. Cf. Ovid, Met. viii. 172; Hyginus, Fab. xlii. ”

“ Three good MSS. read wond, which is the past tense of winden, to wind. Bell and others read wonde, explained by 'dwelt'; but this is open to two objections, viz. (1) the pt. t. of wonien to dwell, is woned or wonede, not wonde; and (2) an owl cannot dwell about a balk, but only on it. The pt. pl. woneden (three syllables) occurs in the Kn. Ta. 2069 (A 2927) ; and we learn from the Clerkes Tale, E 339, that the pp. woned rimes with astoned. Ovid, indeed, has incubuit and sedit; but that does not prove much; for Chaucer expresses things in his own manner at will. ”

“ Chaucer made an excellent prose translation of Boethius de Consolatione Philosophiæ, a Latin treatise much admired in the middle ages, and still worthy of admiration. For further remarks, see vol. iii.
—A. 414. This is the only notice we possess of a work by Chaucer which is no longer extant. We gather from it that he made a translation of the Latin prose treatise by Pope Innocent III., entitled De Miseria Conditionis Humanæ, a gloomy enumeration of human woes without a single alleviating touch of hope, fiercely and unrelentingly set forth. It is probable that it was written in 7-line stanzas ”

“ The chief sources for the history are Plutarch, Appian, Dion Cassius, and Orosius (bk. vi. c. 19) . I shall refer to the Life of M. Antonius in my edition of Shakespeare's Plutarch (denoted below by Sh. Plut.) . Bech points out that one of Chaucer's sources was Florus; see note to l. 655.
581. Ptolemy XI., or Ptolemy Auletes, king of Egypt, died B.C. 51, leaving two sons, both called Ptolemy, and two daughters, Cleopatra and Arsinoe. Cleopatra was then 17 years of age, and was appointed queen of Egypt in conjunction with her brother, the elder Ptolemy, whom she was to marry ”

“ Mätzner only gives three examples of the present tense of this verb, when used impersonally; viz. 'Hym awe to rise,' it behoves him to rise, Metrical Homilies, p. 77; 'Vus oȝe,' it behoves us, Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, i. 552; 'Him owith to mynystre,' Reliquiæ Antiquæ, ii. 48.
The only right way of thoroughly understanding Chaucer's grammar is by comparing one passage with another, observing how particular expressions occur. This is best done by the proper process of reading the text; but even the usual glossarial indexes will often furnish ready examples. ”

“ Prof. Lounsbury would read 'the goodë man that ther-for payede,' and remarks that this gives a false rime, because the preterite form payede will not rime with the pp. betrayed. He adds—'in order to follow the reading of the one MS. that makes payed a participial form, the adj. goode, of the definite declension, has to be shorn of its final e in pronunciation.'—Studies in Chaucer, i. 405. I take good-man to be, practically, one word, as in the A. V., Matt. xx. 11, so that the def. form of the adj. is not really required. ”

“ The reading Guido (in MSS. C., T., A.) where the other MSS. and the editions have Ouyde, is important; especially as it is correct, and gives us a new clue. The Historia Troiana of Guido delle Colonne begins with the story of Jason, and it is evident that Chaucer follows him, at least as far as l. 1461. This can easily be seen by comparing the present passage with the beginning of Book I. of the alliterative Troy-book, ed. Panton and Donaldson, otherwise called the Gest Historiale of the Destruction of Troy, which is closely translated from Guido; or else with Lydgate's Troy-book, bk. i. capp. ”

“ Such usages have received careful attention in the present edition, and in almost every case the addition of a final e in an unexpected place can be amply justified by instances of Chaucer's usage in other passages. If the student will endeavour to verify some of the examples here given, he will soon come to a clearer knowledge of the matter.
52. Hit, it, i.e. the daisy. But in l. 53 it is referred to as she. We shall see why this is hereafter. As a mere flower, it is neuter; but as being the type of Alcestis, it is feminine. ”

“ So here, we are told that although Daunger (i.e. power to harm or to repel) seemed for a time to have the upper hand, yet at the last Pity induced relenting, and caused Mercy to surpass (or prevail over) Right (or Justice) . Just as Pity is opposed to Danger or Cruelty, so we find, in the old theological allegories, that Mercy is opposed to Justice. ”

“ The reference is to the Argonauticon of Valerius Flaccus, lib. i., where the list of the Argonauts may be found. It also occurs in bk. i. of the Argonautics of Apollonius Rhodius. It is a dreary catalogue; or, as Chaucer says, a sufficiently long tale. There is a shorter list in Statius, Thebaid, bk. v. All the lists make much of Hercules (see l. 1454) .
1459. Philotetes (so spelt by Guido, see the Eng. version, p. 12, ll. 6 and 10, where the passage from Guido is quoted) was the name of the pilot to the expedition. Valerius Flaccus identifies him with Philoctetes, son of Pœas or Pæas ”

“ Roman de la Rose; and Chaucer has transfused the quintessence of all the three works, upon the subject of Matrimony, into his Wife of Bathes Prologue and Merchant's Tale.'
Tyrwhitt further observes that the Epistola Valerii was written, according to Tanner, by Walter Map; of this there appears to be no doubt. Lounsbury (Studies, ii. 276) takes Valerie to mean Valerius Maximus, which is here improbable.
It is, at first, not very clear why the God of Love is here represented as appealing to books against women; but we are bidden to observe that, even there, good women are incidentally mentioned ”

“ Alcestis consented to die in his stead, and is therefore here taken as the chief type of wifely devotion. The mention of Alcestis in the Court of Love, st. 15, is merely copied from Chaucer; so also Lydgate's use of Alceste to mean 'a daisy,' in his Legend of St. Edmund, l. 235 of the additional stanzas found in MS. Ashmole 46, as printed in Horstmann, Alteng. Legenden, Neue Folge (1881) , p. 443. Gower has the story of Alcestis in his Confessio Amantis; ed. Pauli, iii. 149.
452. An allusion to the common proverb—'Bis dat, qui cito dat'; he who gives at once, gives twice. ”

“ Cancer. We may conclude that, at the period of taking Hypermnestra's horoscope, Mars was in Cancer, or else in Taurus or in Libra. Both Taurus and Libra were mansions of Venus; and, if Mars was in either of these, his evil influence would be kept under by her.
2594. Probably the whole of Chaucer's astrological talk was intended to shew why Hypermnestra disliked handling a knife in malice. He has made much of the weak influence of Mars, precisely because those who were born under his influence were very ready with a knife. See the note to the Kn. ”

“ Androgeus is again mentioned in Ovid, Her. x. 99; and in Vergil, Æn. vi. 20.
'There came certain of king Minos' ambassadors out of Creta, to ask a tribute, being now the third time that it was demanded; which the Athenians paid for this cause. Androgeus, the eldest son of king Minos, was slain by treason within the country of Attica: for which cause Minos, pursuing the revenge of his death, made very hot and sharp wars upon the Athenians, and did them great hurt.'—Shakespeare's Plutarch, p. 280.
1900. From this point to l. 1921 Chaucer follows Ovid, Met. viii. ”

“ The ghost of Hector appeared to Æneas, and advised him to flee; Æn. ii. 268-298.
935. The verb agreeing with fyr is appered. 'And there appeared also so mad a fire that it could not be controlled.' See Æn. ii. 311.
936. Ilioun, the usual M.E. form of Ilium; Æn. i. 68, ii. 241, 325, 625. Ilium is only another name for Troy, but the medieval writers invented the explanation here adopted by Chaucer, viz. that it was the palace of Priam, and the castle of Troy in particular. Perhaps they interpreted the word domus in too narrow a sense in the passage—'O patria, O Divum domus Ilium'; Æn. ii. 241. ”

“ Etik, Lat. Ethica; alluding to the Ethics of Aristotle, in which happiness and virtue are discussed, and the nature of virtue is said to shew itself in its appearing as the medium or mean between two extremes. Similarly, Gower in his Conf. Amantis (ed. Pauli, iii. 153) refers us to Aristotle's advice to Alexander, to keep the mean between avarice and prodigality. See also Gower's remarks on ethique; id. iii. 140. Cf. Lounsbury, Studies in Chaucer, ii. 387.
170. So in the Parl. of Foules, 680, the birds are described as joining in the roundel—'Now welcom somer, with thy sonne softe.'
171. ”

“ Lemnoun, Lemnos; it is very common to quote proper names in forms resembling the accusative case. This, as Chaucer says, is not in Guido, but in Ovid; see Ovid's Heroid. vi. 50, 117, 136. At the same time it would be interesting to know what version of Guido Chaucer followed; for it is a very singular fact, that whilst the story of Hypsipyle is neither in the alliterative Eng. version, nor in Lydgate, it does occur, at this point, in a Spanish version, printed at Medina in 1587. ”

“ Only one entire poem of this character has been conjecturally assigned to Chaucer, but it is written in later English, and cannot possibly be his. It is not a true Virelay (in the French sense) , and first appeared in the edition of 1561; see vol. i. p. 33. In this poem, lines 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7 all rime together; and l. 4 rimes with l. 8. Then comes the 'veer' or 'turn,' which requires that, in the next stanza, lines 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15 shall rime with lines 4 and 8, as, in fact, they do; but lines 12 and 16 introduce a new rime, as they should not do. ”

“ Æneid, vi. 20-30; and cf. Gower, C. A. ii. 302-311.
1886. 'O Minos, king of Crete, judge in the infernal regions, now comes thy lot, now comest thou into the ring (concourse) .' In l. 1894 we again have mention of Minos, king of Crete; which looks as if Chaucer has confused the two kings of this name. The 'infernal judge' was, however, the grandfather of the second Minos; at least, such is the usual account. The mention of 'the lot' in connection with Minos looks as if Chaucer was thinking of Vergil's lines, Æn. vi. 431, 2:—
⁠'Nec uero hae sine sorte datae, sine iudice sedes. ”

“ The word panter is curiously preserved in the mod. E. painter, a rope for mooring a boat. I quote the following from my Etym. Dict.: '"Painter, a rope employed to fasten a boat"; Hawkesworth's Voyages, 1773, vol. i. p. xxix. Corrupted (by assimilation to the ordinary sb. painter) from M.E. panter, a noose, esp. for catching birds. See Chaucer, Leg. of Good Women, 131; Prompt. Parv., p. 381; spelt paunter, Polit. ”

“ Nothing is commoner than a confusion between c and t in old MSS.; hence Sitheo is for Sichco, i.e. Sichaeus. Sichaeus (Æn. i. 343) is Vergil's name for Acerbas, a wealthy Tyrian priest, who married Elissa (Vergil's Dido) sister of Pygmalion. Pygmalion murdered Acerbas, hoping to appropriate his treasure; but Elissa fled from Tyre, taking the treasure with her, and founded Carthage. Dante has the form Sicheo ”

“ In Tyrwhitt's Introductory discourse, he says of this Prologue—'The greatest part must have been of Chaucer's own invention, though one may plainly see he had been reading the popular invectives against marriage and women in general; such as, the Roman de la Rose ”

“ The first syllable Ther probably constitutes the first foot of the line. I believe Chaucer accents courser on the former syllable; see Kn. Ta., A 1502, 1704; Squi. Ta., F 195, 310.
1117. Fretted, adorned; not 'fraught,' as in Corson's note.
1119. Shynedè; trisyllabic; in MS. C. only; rest, shyned, shyneth, which will not scan. Cf. lakkedè, Prol. 756; knokkeden, Compl. Mars, 84. Line 2194 has shinèd, and l. 1428 has shoon. Shynede occurs in both the Wycliffite versions of Luke ii. 9; and is therefore an old form. We still have shined as a pt. t. in Ezek. xliii. ”