2 . * 0 ~ w jT-yg ^¥^¥0Fkr^ *** 'S8»#§£ ^*sg3X- life V fc*Sv, Chaucer Society's Publications : First Series. 3 XX. The Man of Law’s Tale, from the Lansdowne MS. Part III. (each with woodcuts of fourteen drawings of Tellers of Tales in the Ellesmere MS.) XXI, A Parallel-Text edition of Chaucer’s Minor Poems, Part I: — 1..‘ The Bethe of lilaunche the lhichesse ,’ from Thynne’s ed. of 1532, the Fairfax MS 16. and Tanner MS 346; 2. ‘ the Compleynt to Fite ,' 3. ‘ the Par lament of Foules,' and 4- l the Compleynt of Mars,' each from six MSS. XXII. Supplementary Parallel-Texts of Chaucer’s Minor Poems, Parti, containing 1. ‘The Parlament of Foules,’ from three MSS. [Reprinted in LIX, First Series.] XXIII. Odd Texts of Chaucer’s Minor Poems, Part I, containing 1. two M S fragments of ‘ The Parlament of Foules ; ’ 2. the two differing versions of ‘ The Prologue to the Legende of Good Women,’ arranged so as to show their differences ; 3. an Appendix of Poems attributed to Chaucer, i. ‘The Balade of Pitee by Chauciers ; ’ n. ‘The Cronycle made by Chaucer,’ both from MSS written by Shirley, Chaucer’s contemporary. XXIV. A One-Text Print of Chaucer’s Minor Poems, being the best Text from the Parallel-Text Edition, Part I, containing, I. The Dethe of Blaunclie the Duckesse, II. The Compleynt to Pite, III. The Parlament of Foules, IV. The Compleynt of Mars, V. The ABC, with its original from Be DeGuile- ville’s PUer inage de la Vie humaine (edited from the best Paris MSS by M. Paul Meyer). The issue for 1872, in the First Series, is, XXV. Chaucer’s Tale of Melibe, the Monk’s, Nun’s-Priest’s, Doctor’s, Pardoner’s, Wife of Bath’s, Friar’s, and Summoner’s Tales, in 6 parallel Texts from the MSS above named, with the remaining 13 coloured drawings of Tellers of Tales, after the originals in the Ellesmere MS, and with Specimens of the Variations of 30 MSS in the Doctor-Pardoner Link. (Six-Text, Part IV.) XXVI. The Wife’s, Friar’s, and Sunnnoner’s Tales, from the Ellesmere MS, with 9 woodcuts of Tale-Tellers. (Part IV.) XXVII. The Wife’s, Friar’s, Summoner’s, Monk’s, and Nun’s-Priest’s Tales, from the Hengwrt MS, with 23 woodcuts of the Tellers of the Tales. (Part III.) XXVIII. The Wife’s, Friar’s, and Summoner’s Tales, from the Cambridge MS, with 9 woodcuts of Tale-Tellers. (Part IV.) XXIX. A Treatise on the Astrolabe, addressed to his son Lowys, in 1391 A.D.,'by Geoffrey Chaucer, edited by the Rev. Prof. Walter W. Skeat, M.A. The issue for 1873, in the First Series, is, XXX. The Six-Text Canterbury Tales, Part V, containing the Clerk’s and Mer- chant’s Tales. The issue for 1874, in the First Series, is, XXXI. The Six-Text, Part VI, containing the Squire’s and Franklin’s Tales. XXXII. The Clerk’s, Merchant’s, Squire’s, Franklin’s, Doctor’s, Pardoner’s, Ship- man’s, Prioress’s Tales, Sir Thopas, Melibeus, Monk’s, Nun’s-Priest’s. Second Nun’s Tales, Ellesmere MS, Part V. XXXIII. The Clerk’s, Merchant’s, Squire’s, Franklin’s, Doctor’s, Pardoner’s, Ship- man’s, Prioress’s Tales, Sir Thopas, Melibeus, Monk’s, Nun’s-Priest’s Second Nun’s Tales, Cambridge MS, Part V. XXXIV. Squire’s, Wife of Bath’s, Friar’s, Summoner’s, Clerk’s, Merchant’s, Franklin’s Tales, Corpus MS, Part IV. XXXV. Squire’s, Merchant’s, Wife of Bath’s, Friar’s, Summoner’s, Clerk’s, Frank- lin’s, Second Nun’s Tales, Petworth MS, Part IV. XXXVI. Squire’s, Wife of Bath’s, Friar’s, Summoner’s, Clerk’s, Merchant’s, Franklin’s Tales, Lansdowne MS, Part IV. The issue for 1875, in the First Series, is, XXXVII. The Six-Text, Part VII, the Second Nun’s, Canon’s-Yeoman’s, and Manciple’s Tales, with the Blank-Parson Link XXXVIII. Second Nun’s, Canon' s-Yeoman’s, Manciple’s Tales, Ellesmere MS, Part VI. XXXIX. Manciple’s, Man of Law’s, Squire’s, Merchant’s, Franklin’s, Second Nun’s, Clerk’s, Doctor’s, Pardoner’s, Shipman’s, Prioress’s Tales, Sir Thopas, Melibeus Tales, Hengwrt MS, Part IV. XL. Second Nun’s, Canon’s-Yeoman’s, Manciple’s Tales, Cambridge MS, Part VI. XLI. Second Nun’s, Canon’s-Yeoman’s, Doctor’s, Pardoner’s, Shipman’s, Prioress’s Tales, Sir Thopas, Melibeus, Monk’s, Nun’s-Priest’s, Manciple’s Tales, Corpus MS, Part V. XLII. Second Nun’s, Canon’s-Yeoman’s, Doctor’s, Pardoner’s Tales, Sir Thopas, Melibeus,. Monk’s, Nun’s-Priest’s, Manciple’s Tales, Petworth MS, Part V. XLIII. Second Nun’s, Canon’s-Yeoman’s, Doctor’s, Pardoner’s, Shipman’s, Prioress’s Tales, Sir Thopas, Melibeus, Monk’s, Nun’s-Priest’s, Manciple’s Tales, Lansdowne MS, Part V. 4 Chaucer Society's Publications : First Series . XLIV. A detaild Comparison of the Troylus and Cryseyde with Boccaccio’s Filos- trato , with a Translation of all Passages used by Chaucer, and an Abstract of the Parts not used, by TV. Michael Rossetti, Esq., and with a print of the Troylus from the Harleian MS 3943. Part I. XLV. Ryme-Index to the Ellesmere MS of the Canterbury Tales, by Henry Cromie, Esq., M.A. In 8vo for the separate Ellesmere MS. XLVI. Ryme-Index to the Ellesmere MS, by Henry Cromie, Esq., M.A. In Royal 4t.o for the Six- Text. XLVII. Notes and Corrections for the 8vo Ryme-Index, by H. Cromie, Esq., M.A. The issue for 1876, in the First Series, is, XLV1II. Autotype Specimens of the Chief Chaucer MSS, Part I, 16 Autotypes, with a Note on the MSS, by Dr. F. J. Furnivall. The issue for 1877, in the First Series, is, XLIX. The Six-Text, Part VIII, containing the Parson’s Tale, with a Table of its Contents ; and Mr Cromie’ s Notes and Corrections for the 4to Ryme-Index. L — LV. L. The Parson’s Tale, Ellesmere MS, Part VII ; LI. Hengwrt MS, Part V; LII. Cambridge MS, Part VII; LIII. Corpus MS, Part VI; L1V. Petworth MS, Part VI ; LV. Lansdowne MS, Part VI. The issue for 1878, in the First Series, is, LVI. Autotype Specimens of the Chief Chaucer MSS, Part II : 9 from the Cambridge MS Gg. 4. 27, and 1 from Lord Leconfield’s MS. LVII. A Parallel-Text edition of Chaucer’s Minor Poems, Part II : — 5. The ABC, from 6 MSS ; 6. The Mother of God , from 3 MSS ; 7. Anelida and Arcyte , from 5 MSS and Caxton’s print; 8. The Former Age, from 2 MSS (with the Latin original, and Chaucer’s prose Englishing) ; 9. To his Scrivener from Shirley’s MS and Stowe’s print; 10. The House of Fame, from 2 MSS and Caxton’s and Thynne’s prints. The issue for 1879, in the First Series, is, LVIII. A Parallel-Text edition of Chaucer’s Minor Poems, Part III, completing the Parallel-Text, and containing, 11. The Legend of Good Women from 5 MSS and Thynne’s print; 12. Truth from 6 MSS ; i3. The Compleynt of Venus from 6 MSS ; 14. The Envoy to Scogan from 3 MSS ; 15. Marriage, or The Envoy to Bukton, from 1 MS and Notary’s and Thynne’s prints ; 16. Gentil- esse from 6 MSS ; 17. Proverbs from 3 MSS ; 18. Stedfastness, from 6 MSS; 19. Fortune from 6 MSS ; 20. Chaucer to his empty Purse, from 6 MSS. The issue for 1880, in the First Series, is, LIX. Supplementary Parallel-Texts of Chaucer’s Minor Poems, Pai-t II : — la. The Parlament of Forties from 3 MSS ; 2. The A B Cfrom 6 MSS ; 3. Anelida and Arcite from 6 MSS ; 4. The Legend of Good Women, in whole or part from 4 MSS ; 5. The Complaint of Mars from 3 MSS ; 6. Truth from 6 MSS ; 7. The Compleynt of Venus from 3 MSS ; 8. Gentilesse from 3 MSS ; 9. Lack of Stedfastness from Thynne’s print and 2 MSS ; 10. Fortune from 2 MSS and Caxton’s print. LX. Odd-Texts of Chaucer’s Minor Poems, Part II, containing, 3. The ^4 B C, from 2 MSS ; 4. The House of Fame, from the Pepys’ MS, &c. ; 5. The Legend of Good Women from 3 MSS ; 6. The Hetlre of Blaunche the Duchesse from 1 MS ; 7. The Complaint to Pity from 2 MSS ; 8. The Parlament of Fowl es from 1 MS ; 9. Truth from 3 MSS; 10. Envoy to Scogan from 1 MS; 11. Purse from 1 MS. LXI. A One-Text Print of Chaucer’s Minor Poems, Part II, containing, VI. Mother of God; VII. Anelida; VIII. The Former Age ; IX. Adam Scrivener ; X. The House of Fame ; XI. Legende ; XII. Truth; XIII. Venus; XIV. Scogan; XV. Marriage; XVI. Gentilesse; XVII. Proverbs; XVIII. Stedfastness; XI 7L. Fortune; XX. Purse. LXII. Autotype Specimens of the chief Chaucer MSS. Part III : 2 from Henry V’s MS of the Troilus, when he was Prince of Wales (now Mr Bacon Frank’s) ; 1 from Shii’ley’s MS of the ABC at Sion Coll. The issue for 1881, in the First Series, is, LXIII. A Parallel-Text edition of Chaucer’s Troilus <£• Criseyde from the Campsall MS, b. 1415 a.d. (written for Henry V when Prince of Wales), Harleian MS. 2280, and Cambr. Univ. Libr. Gg. 4. 27. Part I. Books 1 and 2. The issue for 1882, in the First Series, is, LXIV. A Parallel-Text edition of Chaucer’s Troilus § Criseyde from the Campsall MS, before 1415 a.d. (written for Henry V when Prince of Wales), Harleian MS 2280, and Cambr. Univ. Libr. Gg. 4. 27. Part II. Books 3, 4, 5. The issue for 1883, in the First Series, is, LXV. Part II of Mr W. M. Rossetti’s Comparison of Chaucer’s Troylus and Cry- seyde with Boccaccio’s Filostrato, completing the work. The issue for 1884, in the First Series, is to be, LXVI — LXXI. 6 Appendixes to the 6 MSS of the Six-Text, with Wood-cuts and colord Lithographs of 6 Tellers of Tales and of 6 emblematical Figures from the Cambridge Univ. MS, Gg. 4. 27, &c., and Process Engravings, for the Chaucer Society ’« Publications : First Series. 5 Ellesmere MS Part, of the 23 Ellesmere MS Miniatures. The Hengwrt MS, Part VI, contains The Canon’s-Yeoman’s Tale from the Lichfield MS. LXXII. The Six-Text, Part IX, with colord Lithographs of 6 Tellers of Tales and G emblematical Figures from the Cambridge Uni vers. MS Gg.4.27; Forewords, Title-pages for the three volumes, &c. ; and Prof. Hiram Corson’s Index to the Subjects and Names of The Canterbury Tales. The issue for 1885, in the First Series, is, LXXIII. The Harleian MS 7334 of The Canterbury Tales, with Woodcuts of 23 Teiiers of Tales from the Ellesmere MS, &c. LXXIV. Autotype Specimens of the chief Chaucer MSS. Pt IV. The Ellesmere. The issue for 1886, in the First Series, is, LXXV. Chaucer’s Boece from the Cambridge University MS. Ii. 3. 21. LXXV1. Chaucer’s Boece from the Additional MS 10,340 in the British Museum, as edited by the Rev. Dr. R. Morris for the E. E. Text So'c. in 18C8. LXXVII. More Odd Texts of Chaucer’s Minor Poems, containing, 1. The Com- pleynte to Bite ; 2. The Complaint of the Anelida and Arcite; 3. Truth ; 4. Lack of Stedfastness ; 5. Fortune; 6. Burse. Appendix: I. The Balade of Bite. II. Roundels (Mercilesse Beaute). The issue for 1887, in the First Series, is, LXXVIII. A Ryme-Index to Chaucer' s Minor Boems, by Miss Isabel Marshall and Miss Lela Porter, in Royal. 4to for the Barallel-Text. The issue for 1888, in the First Series, is, LXXIX. A One-Text Print of Chaucer’s Troilus, from the Campsall MS bef.1415 a.d. The issue for 1889, in the First Series, is, LXXX. A Ryme-Index to Chaucer s Minor Boems , by Miss Isabel Marshall and Miss Lela Porter, in 8vo for the One-Text print of the Minor Boems. The issue for 1890, in the First Series, is, LXXXI. Barallel-Text Specimens of all accessible imprinted Chaucer MSS: The Bar doner' s Brolog and Tale , edited by Prof. Zupitza, Ph.D. Part I, from 7 MSS : Cambridge Dd.4. 24, Christ-Church, Additional 5140, Devonshire, Haistwell (or Egerton 3726), Ingilby, Northumberland : the Dd. Group. LXXXII. The Romaunt of the Rose, from Thynne’s print, 1532, eel F. J. Furnivall. The issue for 1891, in the First Series, is, LXXXIII. A Parallel text of The Romaunt of the Rose (of which the first 1705 lines are most probably Chaucer’s), from the unique MS at Glasgow, and its French original, Le Roman de la Rose, edited by Dr Max Kaluza. Part I. LXXXIV. A Rime-Index to Chaucer’s Troilus , by Prof. Skeat, Litt.D. The issue for 1892, in the First Series, is, LXXXV. Barallel-Text Specimens of all accessible unprinted Chaucer MSS : The Bardoner's Brolog and Tale, edited by Prof. Zupitza, Ph.D. Part II, from 10 MSS. The issue for 1893, in the First Series, is, LXXXVI. Barallel-Text Specimens of all accessible unprinted Chaucer MSS : The Bardoner's Brolog and Tale , edited by Prof. Zupitza, Ph.D. Part III, from 6 MSS. The issue for 1894, in the First Series, is, LXXXV1I. A Parallel-Text of 3 more MSS of Chaucer’s Troilus , the St. John’s and Corpus, Cambridge, and Harl. 1239, Brit. Mus., put forth by Dr. F. J. Furnivall. Part I, with a Note by G. C. Macaulay, M.A. The issue for 1895, in the First Series, is, LXXXV1II. A Parallel-Text of 3 moie MSS of Chaucer’s Troilus , Part II. The issue for 1896, in the First Series, will he, LXXXIX. Prof. McCormick’s Introduction to Chaucer’s Troilus , discussing its MSS, its Text, its Metre and Grammar : 2nd Parallel-Texts, Part III. The issue for 1897, in the First Series, is, XC. Barallel-Text Specimens of all accessible imprinted MSS: The Bardoner's Brolog and Tale , Part IV, from 17 MSS, edited by the late Prof. Zupitza, Ph.D., and Prof. John Koch, Ph.D. The issue for 1898, in the First Series, is, XCI. Barallel-Text Specimens , Part V : The Bardoner's Brolog and Tale , a Six- Text, from 3 MSS and 3 black-letters, edited by Prof. John Koch, Ph.D., and Dr. F, J. Furnivall. The ssue for 1899, in the First Series, is, NCII. Barallel-Text Specimens , Part VI : The Clerk's Tale , a Six-Text Print from 6 MSS not containing The Bardoner' s Tale, put forth by Dr. F. J. Furnivall.. The issue for 1900, in the First Series, is, XCIII Barallel-Text Specimens, Part VII: The Clerk's Tale from the Phillipps MS 8299 and the Longleat MS, put forth by Dr. F. J. Furnivall. XCIV Barallel-Text Specimens , Part VIII : The Bardoner's Brolog and Tale from the Hodson MS 39, put forth by Dr. F. J. Furnivall with an Introduction by Prof John Koch, Pb.B. 6 Chaucer Society's Publications : First and Second Series. The issue for 1901, in the First Series, is, XCY. The Cambridge MS Dd. 4. 24. of the Canterbury Tales, completed by the Egerton MS 2726 (the Haistvvell MS), ed. F. J. Furnivall. Fart I. The issue for 1902, in the First Series, is, XCVI. The Cambridge MS Dd. 4. 24. of the Canterbury Tales, completed by the Egerton MS 2726 (the Haistvvell MS), ed. F. J. Furnivall. Part II. XCVII. Parallel-Text Specimens , Part IX : An Introduction to the eight Specimens of Chaucer’s Cleric’s Tale , by Prof. Dr. John Koch. The issue for 1907, in the First Series (none in 1903-6) will probably be, XC VIII. Specimen-Extracts from nine unprinted MSS of Chaucer's Troilus , with an Introduction on the MSS, Metre and Grammar of the Poem, by Dr. W. H. McCormick. SECOND SERIES. Of the Second Series, the issue for 1868 is, 1. Early English Pronunciation , with especial reference to Shakspere and Chaucer, by Alexander J. Ellis, Esq., F.R.S. Part I. This work includes an amalgamation of Prof. F. J. Child’s two Papers on the use of the final -e by Chaucer (in T. Wright’s ed. of The Canterb. Tales') and by Gower (in Dr Pauli’s ed.of the Confessio Amantis). 2. Essays on Chaucer, his Words and Works, Part I.: 1. Prof. Ebert’s Review of Sandras’s Etude sur Chaucer , translated by J. W. van Rees Hoets, M.A. ; 2. A 13th-century Latin Treatise on the Chilindre (of the Shipman's Tale), edited by Mr. E. Brock. 3. A Temporary Preface to the Society’s Six-Text edition of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales , Part I, attempting to show the right Order of the Tales, and the Days and Stages of the Pilgrimage, &c. &c., by F. J. Furnivall, Esq., M.A. Of the Second Series, the issue for 1869 is, 4. Early English Pronunciation, with especial reference to Shakspere and Chaucer, by Alexander J. Ellis, Esq., F.R.S. Part II. Of the Second Series, the issue for 1870 is, 5. Early English Pronunciation, with especial reference to Shakspere and Chaucer, by Alexander J. Ellis, Esq., F.R.S. Part III. Of the Second Series, the issue for 1871 is, 6. Trial-Forewords to my Parallel-Text edition of Chaucer's Minor Poems for the Chaucer Society (with a try to set Chaucer’s Works in their right order of Time), by Fredk. J. Furnivall. Part I. Of the Second Series, the issue for 1872 is, 7. Originals and Analogues of some of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Part I. 1. The original of the Man of Laic's Tale of Constance, from the French Chronicle of Nicholas Trivet, Arundel MS 56, ab. 1340 a.d., collated with the later copy, ab. 1400, in the National Library at Stockholm ; copied and edited, with a translation, by Mr. Edmund Brock. 2. The Tale of “Merelaus the Emperor,” englisht from the Gesta Romanorum by Thomas Hoccleve, in Harl. MS 7333 ; and 3. Part of Matthew Paris’s Vita Offcc Primi, both stories illustrating incidents in the Man of Laic's Tale. 4. Two French Fabliaux like the Reeve' s Tale. 5. Two Latin Stories like the Friar's Tale. Of the Second Series, the issue for 1873 is, 8. Albertano of Brescia’s Liber Consilii et Consolationis , a.d. 1246 (the Latin source of the French original of Chaucer’s Melibe), edited from the MSS, by Dr. Thor Sundby. Of the Second Series, the issue for 1874 is, 9. Essays on Chaucer , his Words and Works, Part II.: 3. John of Hoveden’s Practica Chilindri, edited from the MS. with a translation, by Mr. E. Brock. 4. Chaucer’s use of the final -e, by Joseph Payne, Esq. 5. Mrs. E. Barrett- Browning on Chaucer : being those parts of her review of the Rook of the Poets, 1842, which relate to him ; here reprinted by leave of Mr Robert Browning. 6. Professor Bernhard ten Brink’s critical edition of Chaucer’s Compleynte to Pite. Of the Second Series, the issue for 1875 is, 10. Originals and Analogues of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Part II. 6. Alphon- sus of Lincoln, a Story like the Prioress's Tale. 7. How Reynard caught Chanti- cleer, the source of the Nun's-Priest's Tale. 8. Two Italian Stories, and a Latin one, like the Pardoner' s Tale. 9. The Tale of the Priest’s Bladder, a story like the Summoner's Tale, being ‘Li dis de le Vescie a Prestre,’ par Jakes de Basiw. 10. Petrarch’s Latin Tale of Griseldis (with Boccaccio’s Story from which it was re- told), the original of the Clerk's Tale. 11. Five Versions of a Pear-tree Story like that in the Merchant' s Tale. 12. Four Versions of The Life of Saint Cecilia, the original of the Second Nun's Tale. Edited by F. J. Furnivall. 11. Early English Pronunciation, with especial reference to Shakspere and Chau- cer, by Alexander J. Ellis, Esq., F.R.S. Part IV. 12. Life-Records of Chaucer, Part I, The Robberies of Chaucer by Richard Brere- lav and others at Westminster, and at Hatcham, Surrey, on Tuesday, Sept. 6, 1390 with some Account of the Robbers, from the Enrolments in the Public Record Office, by Walford D. Selby, Esq., of the Public Record Office. She gate of (Hhanjjera Sijmtus and 0|hauqi| Jlftatt^s. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015 https://archive.org/details/dateofchaucerstrOOkitt (Tito Qatij of Ctmiujfr’s iUpIus and (DtJtc L r 0Ihauc L ct[ |ftatti^ BY GEORGE LYMAN KITTREDGE, LL.D., Litt.D. PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY LONDON: PUBLISHED FOR THE CHAUCER SOCIETY BY KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO., Ltd., DRYDEN HOUSE, 43 GERRARD STREET, SOHO, W. AND BY HENRY FROWDE, OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, AMEN CORNER, E.C., AND IN NEW YORK. 1909, for the Issue of 1905 CONTENTS PAG B The Date of Chaucer’s Troilus 1 Appendices : — I. Summary of Benoit’s Roman de Troie, yy. 1 2931— 21744 (being that Portion of the Poem which INCLUDES THE STORY OF TROILUS AND BR1SEIDA) . 62 II. The Genesis of the Troilus Story in Benoit . 66 III. Armannino 72 IY. Gower’s Balades 75 Y. Alice Perrers and Gower’s Mirour de l’Omme . 79 VI. The Date of the Mirour de l’Omme ... 80 Cljc Cjjanrcr J&aratjj. NOTICE. During the years 1903-6, the Society’s Editors did not enable it to issue any Text except the short No. 36, the Four- Days Journey from London to Canterbury and back of the Aragonese Ambassadors in 1JJ5. But several Subscribers generously continued to pay their Subscriptions, so that the Society had in 1907 rather more than £800 in hand to pay for its issues of 1903, 1904, 1905, 1906 and 1907, five years. These issues will be dated 1907 or 1908, &c., the year in which they are sent out, but about £180 worth of work will be assigned to each of the back years in which no Text was issued. As three Essays have been issued for 1903, and two for 1904, the present volume, Prof. Tatlock’s The Harleian MS. 733J/. and Revision of the Canterbury Tales will be taken as the final Text for 1904. The three numbers of our Second Series for 1905, by Prof. Kittredge, Prof. Skeat, and Dr. Kenyon, are all set and revised, and will be issued soon. Two of those for 1906 are in type ; and the first, Prof. Carleton Brown’s Study of the Miracles of Our Lady , told by Chaucers Prioress , has been past for press. So far as is possible, the money paid in for every year will be spent on Texts for that year ; and these Texts will be sent to the payers of the money. The Announcements as to the issues for 1907 on the cover of Prof. Tatlock’s Development and Chronology of Chaucer s Works, Second Series, No. 37, will be alterd, in future Texts, so as to correspond with the Notice above. F. J. Furnivall. Nov. 6 , 1909. 1 gate of $\o\\m mul ot\m\ a|haiupti gftattyp. In the Mirour de VOmme , Gower, in treating of Sompnolence, the eldest daughter of Accidie, says that the Sleepy Man ( ly Sompnolent), when he has to go to church on the morning of a high feast-day, does not say his prayers, but lays his head down on the stool ( eschamelle ) and takes a nap. He dreams that he is drinking wine, or else that he hears somebody “ sing the tale of Troylus and the fair Creseide,” and that is how he offers his petition to God ! Au Sompnolent trop fait moleste, Quant matin doit en liaulte feste Ou a mouster ou a chapelle Venir ; mais ja du riens s’apreste A dieu prier, ainz bass la teste Mettra tout suef sur l’eschamelle, Et dort, et songe en sa cervelle Qu’il est au bout de la tonelle, U qu’il oit chanter la geste De Troylus et de la belle Creseide , et ensi se concede A dieu d’y faire sa requested This passage is thought to have been written in 1377. 2 Pro- fessor Tatlock, who first utilized it as a criterion for chronology, 3 1 Yv. 5245-56. 2 In an article in Modern Philology, I, 324 (1903), Mr. Tatlock holds that the passage in the Mirour “can hardly have been written later than 1376.” In his important treatise The Development and Chronology of Chaucer’s Works (Chaucer Society, 1907, p. 15 ; cf. pp. 26, 32, 33, 225), he shifts the date to “about 1377.” We may accept 1377, provisionally, as a basis for investigation, though we shall have to test its accuracy by-and-by (see Appendix VI, below). 3 Mr. Macaulay called attention to the passage in his edition of Gower, 1899 (I, xiii), but took it for granted that Chaucer’s Troilus is later than the Mirour. Dr. G. L. Hamilton, in 1903, assumed (without argument) that Gower was referring to the Troilus ( The Indebtedness of Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde to Guido delle Colonne’s Historia Trojana, p. 136). Later in 1903, Professor Tatlock utilized the passage as evidence for the date of Chaucer’s poem ( Modern Philology, I, 317 ff. ; cf. Lowes, Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, XX, 824, note 1 ; Tatlock, The Development and Chronology of Chaucer’s Works, p. 26, note 1). Mr. Tatlock’s argument is elaborated and supplemented, with much learning and great acuteness and controversial skill, in The Development and Chronology of Chaucer’s Works DATE OF C. T. B 2 TROILUS IN GOWER. holds that Gower is referring to Chaucer’s Troilus, and that there- fore the Troilus must already have achieved popularity. Since most scholars are disposed to put the Troilus several years later, the soundness of Mr. Tatlock’s reasoning is a matter of considerable interest. The whole argument turns on a question of names : — Benoit de Sainte Maure and Guido delle Colonne, as is well known, call Troilus’ ladylove Briseida, and Boccaccio calls her Griseida ; * 1 Chaucer changed Griseida into Criseyde (or Criseyda). 2 We are forced to infer, according to Mr. Tatlock, that it is Chaucer’s Troilus to which Gower refers in the passage quoted. But, before the case can be regarded as closed, a number of facts, some of which have not been brought into the discussion hitherto, need to be considered. Many of these are familiar, and none of them are recondite. Their bearing will be clear enough as we proceed. The question is: What does Gower mean by “la geste de Troylus et de la belle Creseide”? Is he alluding to Chaucer’s Troilus ? The word geste does not help us at all. It conveys no more (Chaucer Society, 1907), pp. 15 ff., by way of rejoinder to Professor Lowes (Publications, as above, XX, 819 ff.). I must refer the reader to this treatise (cited as “Tatlock”) very particularly, in order that Mr. Tatlock’s position may be understood, and that it may not suffer — however slightly — from my way of stating the case. It should be especially noted that Mr. Tatlock does not regard his contention as resting altogether on Gower’s use of the name Creseide instead of Briseida. I have not intentionally neglected any of his subsidiary arguments, although, in my opinion, the question really hinges on a single letter (cf. Lowes, p. 826). 1 Mr. E. H. Wilkins, in an article published after the present essay was in the hands of the printer, makes it probable that Boccaccio’s form was rather Criseida than Griseida ( Modern Language Notes, XXIV, 65-66 ; reprinted in Boccaccio Studies, Baltimore, 1909, pp. 50 ff.). The acceptance of this view would somewhat simplify my argument in several places. 2 Criseyde rhymes with the preterites deyde (i, 56, 460, 875 ; iii, 1171 iv, 151, 668.; v, 1834); pleyde (i, 1006; v, 1112); seyde or icithseyde (i, 457, 1005 ; ii, 879, 1233, 1415 ; iii, 1052, 1174, 1421, 1471 ; iv, 152, 179, 215, 345, 377, 827, 874, 960, 1148, 1253, 1653 ; v, 217, 506, 509, 522, 689, 734, 870, 932, 945, 1033, 1121, 1146, 1244, 1265, 1424, 1440, 1676, 1713, 1730) ; leyde (ii, 1548 ; iii, 1055'; iv, 135, 180, 1163 ; v, 873, 1034, 1145, 1439); preyde (i, 1006; ii, 1602; iv, 137, 196, 214, 1438); breyde or abreyde (iv, 1212 ; v, 1243) ; with the first person present or preterite breyde (v, 1262) ; with the infinitive breyde, abreyde, upbreyde (iii, 1113 ; iv, 230, 348 ; v, 520, 1710) ; with the noun mayde (ii, 880). See Skeat’s Rime Index, p. 13*, and cf. my Observations on the Language of Chaucer's Troilus, pp. 34, 247-8, 251, 258, 271-2. The full form Criseyde is common in the interior of the verse (i, 99, 392 ; ii, 386, 1100, etc., etc.). Elision of the final e occurs before a vowel (i, 273 ; ii, 598, 1562, etc.), before his (iii, 95), hath (v, 1247), and hadde (iv, 825). Criseyde (with apocope) occurs before the caesura, that following (ii, 689). Criseyda (three syllables) is found once (i, 169). Criseydd (four syllables) occurs twice (ii, 1426, 1646)* Some manuscripts show Creseyde, Cresscyde, Cresseide, and other variants. TROILUS IN GOWER. 3 definite meaning in Gower’s French than “story” would convey in modern English. Earlier in the Mirour , at the wedding feast of the Seven Daughters of Sin, we are told that Temptation made himself very agreeable as a raconteur: — Car mainte delitdble geste Leur dist, dont il les cuers entice Des jofnes dames au delice Sanz cry, sanz noise, et sanz tempested The word geste in Gower’s Troilus passage is, to be sure, quite compatible with Mr. Tatlock’s theory, for Chaucer’s poem is undoubtedly a story. But “ the story of Troilus and Creseide ” has another sense, equally applicable. “The tale of Troy” is not necessarily the Iliad, or the fiction of Dictys Cretensis, or the Hist or ia Trojana of Guido, or Benoit’s Roman de Troie , or any other actual text: it may be, and commonly is, merely “ what is said to have happened at Troy,” the res gestae of the war, often recorded, to which each fresh narrator gives concrete expression as he tells them. With this sense of geste in mind, one cannot deny that Gower’s language is consistent with the view that — grant the story of Troilus and Cressida already existed in any form — what the Sleepy Man heard in his dream was simply a chanson (in French or English) dealing with that material, a song that can no more be identified with any particular poem that ever existed than ly Sompnolent himself can be identified with any particular subject of the English crown, or the eschamelle with any particular stool in an English church. The term geste , then, does not advance us a particle toward an answer to our question, “Was Gower alluding to Chaucer’s poem?” 2 Let us see if the form Creseide will prove more serviceable. Before attacking the problems involved in this name and in Gower’s employment of it in 1377, we must attend to a preliminary matter. We must ask ourselves whether the substance of the Troilus story was known to Gower — independently of Chaucer’s poem — when he wrote the passage under review ; and furthermore, whether he may well have had the story in mind — still inde- pendently of Chaucer — at the moment of composition. 1 Vv. 981-4. 2 This paragraph, which may seem a work of supererogation, is made necessary by what appear to be Mr. Tatlock’s views with respect to the significance of the word geste in the Mirour passage. For the whole matter see Lowes, Publications of the Modern Language Association of America , XXIII, 300-1. 4 benoit in gower’s mirour. Here we get a foothold of solid fact. When Gower wrote the Troilus passage he was already thoroughly familiar with Benoit’s Roman de Troie. This is proved by three other passages in the Mirour, — (1) vv. 3724-40, (2) vv. 5515-20, and (3) vv. 16700-2. In the first of these three passages, in characterizing Envie, Gower writes, — C’est ly serpens toutdis veillant, Jason de sa prouesce fine Q’en l’ille Colcos fuist gardant Portoit grant pris en conquestant Le toison d’orr, dont par covine, Malgre la geule serpentine. Q’en fist Medea la ineschine, That this brief summary of the tale of the Golden Fleece is based either on Benoit or on Guido appears from Gower’s calling “Colcos ” an island. 1 In the second passage (vv. 5515-20) Gower, describing the panic fear of a coward, asserts that he suffers from “ a palsy which he who cured Hector of Troy will never cure ” : — Car combien q’il fort corps avra, Ove tout l’entraille tremblera : Le cuer dedeinz malade esta, Tieu parlesie ne guarra Du quoy le pulmon et la foie Cil qui guarist Ector de Troie. 1 “ En l’isle de Colcos en mer ” (Benoit, v. 753) ; “ In quadam insula dicta Colcos” (Guido, bk. i, ch. 1, ed. 1489, sig. a 2 recto, col. 1 ; cf. sig. a 2 verso, col. 2). This point is not conclusive in itself, for the error was doubtless widespread (partly under the influence of Delos, Samos , and other island names ; cf. Delphos for Delphi). Boccaccio, Amorosa Visione, cap. 25, writes “All’ isola de’ Colchi” ( Opere Volgari, 1833, XIV, 99). Still, taken in connection with the Jason story in the Confessio Amantis (v, 3247 ff.), with Gower’s general record in the use of Benoit (see pp. 6-7, below), and with the epithet “toutdis veillant,” the error may pass as significant. That Gower’s summary is based rather on Benoit than on Guido is shown by the epithet “ toutdis veillant ” applied to the dragon ; Benoit’s words are “ uns serpenz qui toz jorz veille” (v. 1357) ; Guido has nothing that corresponds. The evidence is clinched by the fact that when Gower, later in life, repeated the tale at full length in the Confessio Amantis, he not only expressly cited “the bok of Troie” (v, 3245), but used Benoit as his chief authority, as a detailed comparison demonstrates beyond a perad venture. There too he speaks of “an yle which Colchos was cleped” (v, 3265), and calls the guardian of the Fleece “a serpent which mai nevere slepe ” (v, 3514) ; cf. also — For that serpent which nevere slepte The flees of gold so wel he kepte In Colchos, as the tale is told (v, 6607-9). This detail, both in the Mirour and in the Confessio, might be held to come from Ovid’s “pervigilem draconem ” {Met., vii, 149) if the evidence for Gower’s use of Benoit in the Confessio were not, as it is, conclusive and admitted. See Mr. Macaulay’s note on Conf. Aon., v, 3247 ff. I have verified his results by a careful comparison of Gower, Benoit, and Guido. Boccaccio {De Genealogia Deorum, xiii, 26, ed. 1511, fol. 98 recto) calls the dragon “ peruigilem.” For “ l’isle de Colchos” see also Gower’s Traitte, viii, 1. Chaucer’s ‘ ‘ an yle that called was Colcos, Beyonde Troye, estward in the see ” {Legend, w. 1425-6) is from Guido, i, 1 (“in quadam insula dicta Colcos ultra regni Troiani confinia versus orientalem plagam,” the italicized words not appearing in Benoit). BENOIT IN GOWER S MIROUR. 5 Here we have an obvious allusion to Benoit’s “ good physician,” Goz. When Hector had returned to Troy after the Second Battle, triumphant hut severely wounded, — Li bons mires Goz li senez, Qui devers Orient fu nez, Qui plus preisiez fu en son tens Que Ypocras ne Galiens, Li a ses plaies reguardees E afaitiees e lavees. Beivre li fist une poison Que tost le traist a guarison. Li cors li est asoagiez : Ne puet mais estre trop gregiez. Un poi l’a fait desgeiiner, Puis font la chambre delivrer. Ainz qu’il s’endormist, vient li Reis, Prianz li sages, li corteis. Demand a li com li estait ; Et il li dist que bien li vait : “Demain, senz autre demorance, Et o m’espee e o ma lance Lor mosterrai si jo sui sains : De 90 seiez vos bien certains.” 1 And again, after the Eighth Battle, — Bros [veer. Goz] li Puilleis, li plus Dedenz la Chambre de Labastre, senez Tailla Hector si gentement Qui de mirgie fust usez Que mal ne trait, dolor ne sent. 2 Ne d’oignement freis ne d’emplastre, There can he no douht at all that Gower is alluding to Benoit’s narrative, for Guido says nothing whatever about the physician or his treatment of Hector. 3 In the third passage in the Mirour (vv. 16700-2), Gower says that Paris first saw Helen in an island : — Auci Paris ne fist que sage, Qant vist Heleine, q’ert venue En l’isle presde son rivage. This implies a knowledge of the Trojan story in the form in which it occurs in Benoit and Guido : — In the course of his Grecian voyage, Paris lands on the island of “ Citherea,” where there is a famous temple of Venus near the shore. The inhabitants are celebrating an annual feast-day in the temple. Paris and his comrades visit the building and make an offering to Diana. The beauty of Paris and the fine appearance of his troop attract the attention of the great assembly. Helen hears the news and goes to 1 Roman de Troie , vv. 10183-202. 2 Yv. 14557-62. Sec the numerous variants in the edition of Constans. Gower may have had either or both of these passages in mind : it makes no difference. Very likely his manuscript of Benoit had Goz in both places. 3 Guido (sig. h 3 recto, col. 2) has not a word corresponding to Benoit, vv. 10183-202 (his “ Troiani vero interea treuga ipsa durante eorum vulneratos in hello peritorum consilio medicorum curare faciunt et mederi ita quod in fine duorum mensium eorundem restituti sunt qui vulnerati fuerant integre sani- tati ” reflects the passage very faintly, but is in the main from Benoit, vv. 10253-8). In the other place (Benoit, vv. 14557-62) he has “ Hector sibi de vulneribus suis medetur iacens tunc in aula pulchritudinis ” (sig. i 4 verso, col. 1). 6 benoit in gower’s mirour. the festival, desiring to see the handsome stranger. They fall in love with each other in the temple. 1 The variation from the classical tale is evident. That Gower is indebted rather to Benoit than to Guido cannot be proved, but probability sets strongly that way ; for when he tells the fate of Paris and Helen in the Con- fessio Amantis , 2 he demonstrably follows Benoit, as in the case of the Golden Fleece. From these three passages, then, it is certain that Gower was familiar with Benoit’s Roman de Troie when he wrote the Mirour de TOmme. This would be antecedently probable anyway. An English author of the fourteenth century could hardly venture to write a French poem of 30,000 lines without some previous acquaintance with French literature, in which Benoit was, and is, a distinguished figure. It is a satisfaction, however, not to appeal to arguments a priori , but to build, for once on a solid foundation of fact. What we have observed of Gower’s familiarity with the Roman de Troie when he wrote the Mirour , agrees with the extensive and continual employment that he makes of the poem in his later works. In the Vox Clamantis lie describes the reign of the mob in London (nova Troia) under the figure of the Fall of Troy, mention- ing the “ wise old man ” Calcas, Antenor, Diomedes, and others, 3 — including Troilus in his martial capacity and in proverbial associa- tion with Hector, 4 and he narrates the murder of the Archbishop of Canterbury under the figure of Helenus “qui palladium Troie seruabat ab ara.” 5 The Confet'sio Amaniis abounds in matter from Benoit. Three of the Balades contain similar material, 6 and the Traitie several times has recourse to Benoit for examples. 7 Thus from his earliest 1 Benoit, vv. 4235 ff. ; Guido, fol. d 3 recto. The source for the temple incident (with the mistake of the island of Citherea for Cythera) is Dares, 9-10 ; Dictys, i, 3, makes Paris (Alexander) and Helen meet at Sparta. Nobody will maintain that Gower derived the detail of the island from Dares rather than from Benoit. Boccaccio, De Gencalogia Deorum , xii, 12, fol. 88 recto, cites Dares Phrygius as authority for the ‘ £ insula Cytherea ” story. 2 v, 7195 ff. For the island, see v, 7469 ff. I do not mean to exclude the influence of Guido on this part of the Confessio Amantis, but Benoit is clearly Gower’s real source, as Mr. Macaulay has noted. 3 Book i, chap. 13, heading ; also vv. 961 ff. 4 “ Hectoris aut Troili nil tunc audacia vicit ” (i, 933). This verse has escaped the notice of Mr. Tatlock, who remarks that Gower “ never men- tions Troilus but as a lover ” (p. 30), 5 i. 1001 ff. 6 Nos. 20, 30, and 43. 7 vi, 3 ; viii, 1 ; ix, 2-3 ; x, 1. BENOIT IN GOWER’S MIROUR. 7 extant work 1 to his latest Gower evinces unwavering devotion to the Roman de Troie. Manifestly it was one of his favorite books and he made it his constant companion. We can hardly doubt that there was a manuscript of the poem in his bookchest, and that he read it enthusiastically, returning to its pages with unabated delight. Gower’s lifelong interest in the Roman de Troie is significant enough, for it helps us to a conception of what may he called the background of his mind during the composition of the Mirour. But, as we have seen, we are not dependent on a retroactive infer- ence from the later poems for our knowledge that he knew Benoit well when he wrote the verses about Troilus. We have first-rate evidence in the Mirour itself. The three passages which we have studied are decisive. Two of them, to be sure, refer to well-known stories (Jason and Medea, Paris and Helen), but in terms that instantly betray the source of information which Gower had in mind. The other is in a category by itself. Goz, the skilful physician from the East, is mentioned but twice in the Roman de Troie, and all that is said about him occupies just twenty-six verses in this vast poem of more than 30,000 lines. 2 Yet Gower alludes to him as casually as he might have alluded to Galen or Hippocrates. Is it likely that a poet who had the details of Benoit’s romance so vividly in mind could have mentioned “ the story of Troylus and the fair Creseide ” without thinking of Benoit’s account of their amour 1 But we have not yet done with the proved allusions to Benoit in the Mirour. Let us see where they come in that poem with respect to the verses about Troilus. The Jason passage is vv. 3724-30, the Troilus passage isvv. 5253-6, the physician passage is vv. 5519-20. In other words, the three passages, Jason, Troilus, physician , fall within a compass of 1800 lines, the Troilus verses standing about 1500 lines after the Jason passage and less than 300 lines before the physician passage. Further, the Troilus passage and the physician passage are in consecutive and closely related chap- 1 Before Gower composed the Mirour, he had written love poems — “ les fols ditz d’amour fesoie, Dont en chantant je carolloie” (vv. 27341-2). Either these are lost — like most of Chaucer’s “ ditees and songes glade ” -which Gower mentions as filling the land everywhere {Confessio Amantis, first version, viii, 2941-7, Macaulay, III, 466), or, as is extremely probable, some of them are included in the Cinkcmte Balades (see Appendix IV). 2 I assume that Gower’s copy of Benoit mentioned the same physician in both places (see p. 5, note 2, above). If it had “ Broz ” in the second passage, the argument is not affected. 8 TROILUS IN BENOIT. ters — the former in the chapter on Sompnolence, eldest daughter of Accidie, the latter in that on her second daughter, Peresce. Under these circumstances, it is not merely unlikely, it is inconceivable, that Gower failed to think of the story of Troilus in the Roman de Troie as he wrote his pretty verses about the Sleepy Man’s dream, whatever else he may have been thinking of. 1 Let us now consider whether there is anything surprising in Gower’s mentioning the Troilus story in this passage, even if he knew it from Benoit alone. Certainly not. It was “ vain and pleasant,” a tale of worldly love, fit occupation for a leisure hour or for the idle thoughts of a lazy fellow. The contrast between such a story and the solemn service to which ly Sompnolent ought to have been attending is complete. Gower could have mentioned no more appropriate theme for the Sleepy Man’s dreams in church. But, it is objected, the story of Troilus’ love “ does not form a unified episode ” in Benoit’s romance ; 2 it exists there merely as “ a few scattered hits lost in a long poem.” 3 Gower, therefore, would not have thought of mentioning the matter at all, unless both he and his readers had known the work of Chaucer well. This objection will not long detain us. It springs from a misapprehen- sion in matters of fact. Benoit’s story of Troilus’ unhappy love and his death falls within a compass of some 8800 lines, 4 and of those lines it occupies about 1900. I append a table, that the reader may see at a glance, how the material is distributed. 5 The breaks are due merely to Benoit’s straightforward chronological method, — he is writing an orderly history of the Trojan War. They do not blur the outlines of the love story, nor do they interfere with its essential unity. The thread is kept well in hand, or picked up readily when the time comes. And the intervening portions of the general narrative more than once concern themselves with Troilus, so that, if one were disposed to claim everything, the sum of 1900 verses might he substantially increased. Bor it is obviously impossible to separate Troilus the lover from Troilus the valiant knight, ‘ ‘ the 1 This conclusion, which needs no argument, might be strengthened — if it were not already as cogent as possible — by considering that Benoit mentions Troilus almost immediately after the episode of Hector’s cure, exalting his prowess shown in the same battle in which Hector has been wounded (vv. 10221-26, with an interval of only eighteen lines). 2 “While Troilus is very prominent all through Benoit’s and Guido’s works as a warrior, the mention of his lady and his amour are at very little length, and do not even form a unified episode ” (Tatlock, p. 28). 3 Tatlock, p. 30. 4 Between v. 12930 and v. 21745. 5 See pp. 62 ff., below. TROILUS IN BENOIT. 9 wise and worthy Hector the seconde.” In short, Benoit’s Troilus story is a considerable affair ; it does not consist of scattered bits, and it is by no means “ lost ” in the Roman de Troie. On its merits I need not here insist ; they have been sufficiently brought out by several critics who, haying no particular thesis to defend or attack, have had no temptation either to belittle them or to emphasize them unduly. 1 It will be enough to say that, if Chaucer is much indebted to Boccaccio, Boccaccio in his turn owes far more to Benoit than is commonly recognized. Clearly, then, there is nothing in the form or the situation of the Troilus story in the Roman de Troie to make against the pregnant and unforced position that Gower might well have alluded to it on the basis of Benoit alone. A love story of 1900 lines was at least as likely to impress itself upon his imagination as the two brief passages (twenty-six verses in all) about the physician who cured Hector. We need not appeal to the general mediaeval habit of citing authorities, bringing in exempla , and accumulating names without much regard to “obviousness or propriety.” For an allusion to Benoit’s Troilus story was both natural and appropriate. 2 Indeed, there is a pertinent fact which takes the question of naturalness quite out of the class of ordinary a priori considerations. 1 It is impossible not to quote the eloquent tribute of Savj-Lopez, Romania, XXVII, 471-2: “Ma quando Griseida [i. e. Briseida] nel campo greco s’accende di Diomede e comincia a dimenticare Famico lontano, tutta la sua intima lotta e descritta dal trovero [sc. Benoit] con efficacia grande e con profonda finezza psicologica, tin che in lei prorompe irresistibile la voce della passione : Dex donge bien a Troylus ! Quant nel puis amer, ne il tnei, A cestui me done et otrei.” Perhaps it is only fair to append the highly figurative passage in which another eminent scholar pays his respects to Benoit and Boccaccio: — “So finden wir also die Rudimente von Boccaccio’s Gedicht in Benoits Roman, wo sie aber unter den dreissigtausend Versen fast ganz verschwinden. Es sind einzelne rohe Perlen, welche Boccaccio aus dem Meere Benoits lierausfischte und mit den glanzenden kostbaren Diamanten seines eigenen Geistes zum prachtvollen Kleinod verband” (Landau, Giovanni Boccaccio, 1877, p. 90). This same critic, it may be added, speaks of Chaucer as a plagiarist (“ Boccaccio’s Filostrato hat aber nicht*bloss von einem Plagiator, sondern auch von seinem Herausgeber zu leiden gehabt,” p. 94), and says that in his Troilus we have neither the heroes of Homer, nor the adventurous knights of Benoit, nor yet Boccaccio’s Neapolitan court ladies, “sondern derbe englische Spiessbtirger des vierzehnten Jahrhunderts” (p. 93). 2 To avoid the possibility of misunderstanding, let me remind the reader that we are here considering the naturalness and propriety of an allusion to the Troilus story, not the naturalness of calling Troilus’ love Creseide. We shall take up that name in due season. 10 TROILUS IN FROISSART. Froissart, in the Paradys d' Amours , 1 a poem written before 1370 and under French influences alone, puts Troilus at the head of a long list of lovers. 2 This shows what effect Benoit’s episode had upon Froissart. And, in citing Froissart, we should not forget that he had been in England in the service of Queen Philippa, that the Duchess Blanche was his patroness, 3 and that both he and his works were well known to Englishmen. Chaucer, for example, utilized the Paradys d' Amours in the Booh of the Duchess 4 and again in the Prologue to the Legend of Good Women . 5 Any argument that can be urged to prove that Gower was unlikely to mention the Troilus story in 1377 on the basis of Benoit alone, will apply with equal or greater force to Froissart before 1370. Yet Froissart did mention Troilus ; he even gave him a highly con- spicuous position in a poem intended not only for Frenchmen but — like Gower’s Mirour — for French-reading natives of England. 6 1 Y. 974 (Potsies, ed. Scheler, I, 29). Froissart’s mention of Troilus is noted by R. Dernedde, Uber die den altfranzosischen Dichtern bekannten epischen Stoffe aus dem Altertum, 1887, p. 123, and Neilson, The Origin and Sources of the Court of Love , 1899, p. 79 (Harvard Studies and Notes, VI ; cf. Tatlock, Modern Philology, I, 323, note). It is utilized by Lowes (Publications of the Modern Language Association, XX, 825) in reply to Tatlock (Modern Philology, I, 317 ff.) ; cf. Tatlock Origin and Development, p. 29, and Lowes, Publications, as above, XXIII, 301-2. 2 Froissart’s knowledge of the Roman de Troie is shown also by his mention of the prophecies of Helenusand Cassandra (see Benoit, vv. 3925-66, 4127-50) and of the fatal love of Achilles for Polyxena (see Benoit, vv. 21911 tf.) in Le Joli Buisson de Jonece, vv. 3336-59 (Poesies, II, 99-100). 3 Joli Buisson, vv. 241-52 ( Poesies , II, 8). 4 See Englische Studien, XXVI, 321 ff. Longnon, in his Reponse aux Objections de M. Kittredge ( Meliador , III, 364, n. 1), accepts the use of the Paradys in the Book of the Duchess. 5 SeeYollmer, The Boke of Cupide, pp. 101-2, and especially, Lowes, Pub- lications of the Modern Language Association, XIX, 612 ff. ; cf. Tatlock, p. 88. 6 In the Joli Buisson, vv. 230-77, Froissart pays a tribute to the following English patrons, — Edward III, Queen Philippa, the Duchess Blanche of Lancaster, Ysabel de Couci (daughter of Edward III), the Earl of Hereford, Monseigneur de Mauni, the Earl of Pembroke, and “ le grant seigneur Espensier.” Among Scots (vv. 364-9) he thanks the King, the good Earl of Douglas, “cils de Mare [Mar] et cils de la Marce [March], Oils de Surlant [Sutherland] et cils de Fi [Fife].” Chaucer’s wife appears as domicella of Queen Philippa’s chamber, September 12, 1366 (Life- Records, p. 158), and it is clear that she had already been for some years in the queen’s service (Kirk, Life- Records, p. xix), in which she remained till the Queen’s death (August 15, 1369). Froissart was in Queen Philippa’s service from 1365 to 1369, and, though absent from England during a considerable portion of that period, he w r as in personal attendance during most of 1367 and for the first three months of 1368 (see the details in Englische Studien, XXYI, 326-7). Of course Chaucer’s wife must have known Froissart, and it is equally probable that Chaucer was personally acquainted with him. For Froissart’s sole mention of Chaucer, see Kervyn de Lettenhove’s edition, VIII, 382 (cf. Kirk, Life Records, pp. xxvi-vii). Froissart was on good terms with Sir Richard Stury (XV, 143, 157), whom Chaucer of course knew well. TROILUS IN FROISSART 11 If the difference in character between Froissart’s work and the Mirour be urged in reply, — an objection of little or no weight, — it is more than counterbalanced by the fact that a conspicuous mention of Troilus as a lover by Froissart — much read in England, and sure to have been read by Gower, who may even have been personally acquainted with him, — became instantly a potential moving cause for further mention . 1 But the end is not yet. The community of culture between the French and English courts in the latter half of the fourteenth century is a matter of common knowledge, though the details still afford good opportunities for investigation. French fashions of literary composition were English fashions as well, and what Frenchmen read and understood, — particularly in the way of 1 Mr. Tatlock’s list of French poems, etc., which refer to Troilus as a warrior (p. 29) but do not mention him as a lover, is interesting and valuable, but it does not tend to prove that Gower, — who had the Roman de Troie in his mind while he was writing the Mirour, — might not naturally have referred to the Troilus story even if Chaucer’s poem had never existed. Under the circumstances, the single passage from Froissart outweighs a great deal of silence (a rather imponderable commodity in any event). If it were worth while to linger on this point, there is some temptation. Let us see what we can do with two or three instances which Mr. Tatlock has overlooked. In 1377, as we have seen, Gower mentioned Troilus as a lover ; a few years later, in book i, verse 993, of the Vox Clamantis, he mentions him as a warrior, not as a lover : “ Hectoris aut Troili nil tunc andacia vicit.” More striking is the procedure of Boccaccio himself. In the Amorosa Visione, he twice mentions Troilus, once as a prosperous aspirant for worldly glory, and again as dead (caps. 7, 34, Opere Volgari, 1833, XIV, 30, 139). in both places it is Troilus the warrior, rather than Troilus the lover. Of course, if we did not know the facts, there would be some temptation for anybody who could utilize such a point to infer that when he wrote the Visione , Boccaccio had not already exalted Troilus as a lover, and that therefore the Filostrato was later than the Visione. And such an argument might be further supported by the fact that the Visione does mention as lovers “ Florio and Biancotiore ” (cap. 29, XIV, 118), whom Boccaccio had already written up in the Filocolo. “ But,” as Lord Bacon says, “enough of these toys ! ” The Parlement of the Thre Ages (vv. 323-31) mentions Troilus in its brief summary of the Trojan story : — Bot the lure at the laste light appon troye ; For there sir Priam us the prynce put was to dethe, And Pantasilia )>e quene paste hym by fore, Sir Troylus, a trewe knyghte, tristyly hade foghten, Neptolemus, a noble knyghte at nede J>at wolde noghte fayle, Palamedes, a prise knyghte and preued in armes, Vlixes and Ercules ]> a t full euerrous were bothe, And oJ?er fele of l>at ferde fared of the same, As Dittes and Dares demed[e]n togedir. Edited by Gollancz, for the Roxburghe Club, 1897, p. 17. The source appears to be Guido. The editor dates the poem about 1350, or a little earlier (p. xi) ; cf. H. Bradley, Athenceum, April 18, 1903, pp. 498-9. This passage has apparently escaped Mr Tatlock’s eye. 12 TROILUS IN THE CHAMBRILLAC. romance, — was equally intelligible to the household of Edward III and of Eichard II. 1 We know that the Roman de Troie was much, read on both sides of the Channel. It would be strange, indeed, if the episode of Troilus and Briseida had been overlooked by readers whose intellectual and social diversions centered in the discussion of chivalric love and of the casuistry to which its complications gave rise. Of course, most of the occasional lyrics thrown off impromptu by the mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease, have perished — like many of Gower’s and most of Chaucer’s. So much the greater is the significance attaching to such of them as the iniquity of oblivion has spared. The second of the Responses to Les Cent Bcdlades is by Jean de Chambrillac. 2 It contains the following stanza : — Bien ay oy de Troyluz, Car quant de Troie fu partie, Le beau, le preux de hault pouoir, Dyomedes en fu saisiz : At first sight this graceful stanza may seem too late to throw any light on the subject that we are discussing, for it was written in 1389. A moment’s thought, however, suffices to reveal its place in the argument. The stanza is based solely on Benoit, with no influence from Boccaccio or Chaucer, as the name Brisayda proves. So was Froissart’s mention of Troilus at the head of a list of distinguished lovers, — before 1370. What follows? Why, that from 1370 to 1389 — a period that overlaps at both ends the time which we have to consider — it was perfectly natural for any courtly poet, in France or England, to allude to the amour of Troilus, merely on the ground of the episode in the Roman de Troie. 2, Three things must now be clear: (1) that Gower knew the 1 Some of the relations between the French circle of chivalric versifiers and English poetry in the fourteenth century are noted in an article in Modern Philology, 1, 1 ff. See also Lowes, Publications of the Modern Language Association , XIX, 593 ff. (with references). 2 Les Cent Ballades, ed. Raynaud, pp. 203-4. Mr. Tatlock refers to this poem in a footnote (p. 29, note 5), inadvertently ascribing it to Jean le Seneschal ; but its significance does not strike him. 3 How dangerous the argumcntum ex silentio is, when applied to vers de socttt& of the interval in question, appears from the fact that the ballade in which this stanza occurs appears to be the sole surviving poem of Jean de Chambrillac, — and yet we cannot doubt that he was a fluent versifier of more than ordinary merit. Qui a Brisayda fu druz, Ne d’autre amer n’ot nul vouloir. Le bien qu’il en pot recevoir Fu qu’il demoura sans amie ; Sa dame fu, il ses amis. Cela m’aprent que je m’atieigne Qu’en lieu seul soit mon cuer assiz ; Je ne creing pas que mal m’en vieigne. CRESEIDE AND BR1SEIDA. 13 Troilus story in Benoit when he composed the Mir our ; (2) that he had Benoit’s account in his mind when he wrote the Sompnolent passage, whatever else he may have had his eye on, and (3) that there would have been nothing strange in his alluding to the amour of Troilus merely on the basis of that account, without any knowledge of Boccaccio or Chaucer. In other words, if the Sleepy Man had dreamt that he heard somebody singing “la geste de Troylus et de la belle Briseide”. instead of 11 Creseide” there would be no problem. The whole argument does, then, as Mr. Lowes has said, depend in the last analysis on a single letter. 1 We have only one phenomenon to account for, the appearance of Creseide instead of Briseide in the text of the Mirour. Mr. Tatlock, as we know, explains this phenomenon by supposing that Gower is alluding to Chaucer’s poem, and infers that the Troilus was published (and popular) not later than 1377. This seems, perhaps, the most obvious explanation, but it carries with it, in the opinion of most scholars, much too early a date for the Troilus. In all fairness, then, we should look about us a little before we fall in with Mr. Tatlock’s theory. And first we should consider, as reasonable beings, whether it is possible that Gower made the change from B to C himself, “ solely and merely of his own spontaneous motion,” without any help from either Boccaccio or Chaucer. In order to answer this question judicially, we shall be forced to turn back to Benoit for a moment. The only information about Briseida which the French romancer found in his sources was contained in a single brief passage of Dares Phrygius. In concluding his famous list of Greek portraits, Dares writes : “ Briseidam formosam, non alta statura, candidam, capillo flavo et molli, superciliis iunctis, oculis venustis, corpore aequali, blandam, affabilem, verecundam, animo simplici, piam.” This is every word that Dares vouchsafes on the subject of Briseida, and Dictys does not mention her at all. The association of Briseida with Troilus was Benoit’s own idea. As for Chryseida, she is mentioned by neither Dictys nor Dares. I have said that Dictys does not mention either Briseida or Chryseida at all. Nevertheless, he does tell, with additions and 1 Publications of the Modern Language Association , XX, 826. The difference between Creseide and Criseyde, and the adoption of a French form in final e instead of a Latin (or Italian) form in final a are matters of no moment. 14 BRISEIS AND CHRYSEIS IN DICTYS AND BENOIT. variations, the Homeric story of Briseis and Chryseis, and here is (in brief) the account that he gives of them, — In the early days of the war an oracle is reported to the Greeks to the effect that they must offer a hecatomb to Apollo Sminthius. [There is, as the context shows, a temple of this god not far from Troy.] Chryses, the priest of the temple, finding himself between two fires, feigns friendship for the Greeks or the Trojans pro re nata. 1 He superintends the sacrifice. 2 About the same time, Achilles attacks various towns which are the natural allies of Troy. 3 He invades the country of the Cilicians and takes the city of Lyrnessus ; its king, Eetion, is killed ; his wife, Astynome, daughter of Chryses, is captured. Next Achilles takes Pedasus, a city of the Leleges. Its king, Brises, hangs himself ; his daughter, Hippodamia, is carried off by the victor. 4 In the division of the spoil, Astynome falls to Agamemnon and Achilles keeps Hippodamia. 5 Chryses visits the Grecian camp to beg that his daughter Astynome may be given up to him. All agree except Agamemnon, who dismisses the aged priest with threats. 6 Chryses goes home, and a pestilence soon attacks the Greeks. Calchas, the Grecian seer, declares that this is due to Apollo’s wrath, and that Astynome must be restored to her father. 7 Agamemnon consents, provided he shall receive Hippodamia in exchange. Accordingly, she is torn away from Achilles, and Astynome is sent to Chryses. 8 Achilles sulks in his tent. 9 After some time, Chryses comes to the camp to thank the Greeks, and, in gratitude for their kindness, as well as for the good treatment which Astynome has received while a prisoner, he returns her to Agamemnon. 10 Agamemnon takes an oath “ inviolatam a se in eum diem Hippodamiam mansisse.” 11 There is a public reconciliation, and Hippodamia is sent back to the tent of Achilles, 12 where she remains till his death. 13 This narrative is repeated, in detail, by Benoit. But he does not insert it in its chronological place. He makes it a part of the interminable oration which Ajax delivers when the Grecian leaders are contending for the Palladium . 14 Now it so happens that Dictys never uses the patronymics Briseis ( Briseida ) and Chryseis ( Chryseida ), though he tells us, in so many words, that Hippodamia was Brises’ daughter and he calls Astynome “ Chrysi filiam.” 15 Benoit, it is perfectly clear, did not know that Briseidam (in Dares) means “ Brises’ daughter.” Hence it did not occur to him that Briseida (whom he knew only from the portrait in Dares) and Hippodamia (in Dictys) were one and the same person. Dares’s Briseida, therefore, remained for Benoit merely “ the portrait of a lady.” Accordingly, he felt at liberty to invent a history for her, 1 “ Quisque partium ad eum venerat, cum his se adiunctum esse simulabat.”' 2 Dictys, ii, 14. 3 ii, 16. 4 ii, 17. 5 ii, 19. 6 ii, 28-29. 7 ii, 30. 8 ii, 33. 9 ii, 34. 10 ii, 47. 11 ii, 49. 12 ii, 51-52. 13 iii, 12 (she prepares the body of Patroclus for burial) ; iv, 15 (Pyrrhus finds her in charge of his dead father’s property). 14 Vv. 26739 ff. In Dictys (and hence in Benoit) this contest takes the place of the classical quarrel over the arms of Achilles (see Ovid, Met., xiii, 1 ff. ; Dictys, v, 14-15). 15 ii, 17. BRISEIS IN OVID. 15 and he attached her to Troilus and Diomedes without a suspicion of the inconsistency in which he was entangling himself. But how about Gower 1 ? So fluent a Latinist can hardly have been ignorant of the ordinary patronymic endings . 1 Would he not have perceived, at a glance, that Briseida means “ daughter of Brises,” and that Benoit had confused the dramatis personae ? This question,, however, need not be pressed. For Gower was not dependent on liis knowledge of Latin suffixes. He had an external source of inform- ation. From the third epistle of Ovid’s Heroides ( Briseis A chilli), professedly written while Briseida 2 was in the hands of Agamemnon,, and from two famous passages in the Remedia Amoris 3 Gower had learned her genuine story . 4 When, therefore, he read in Benoit of 1 ‘ £ Patronymica dicuntur eo, quod trahuntur a patribus, ut Ty dides Tydei filius, Aeneius Aeneae filius, quamvis et a matribus et maioribus ducantur” (Isidore, Etymologiac, i, 22, ed. Otto, in Lindemann, Corpus Grammaticorum Latino rum Veterum , III, 22). 2 I adopt the accusative because that was the form which Gower himself would employ. The third Epistle of the Heroides contains only Briseide, abl. (v. 1), and Briseida , acc. (v. 137) except in the superscription ( Briseis Achilli) ; the Remedia has only Briseide (v. 777) and Briseida (v. 783). In the Confessio, ii, 2455, Gower writes Brexeida (the marginal Latin has “ de amore Brexeide”). Chaucer uses Briseida {Hous of Fame, v. 398) and Brixseyde {Cant. T., B, 71). Briseidam is the only form in Dares (cap. 13) ; Dictys does not use the word at all. 3 Vv. 461-86, 777-84. 4 That Gower was acquainted with the Heroides and the Remedia when he- composed the Mirour cannot be proved ; but he certainly knew both works, uncommonly well when he wrote the Vox Clamantis, for he borrows more than thirty lines — in parcels of from one to four verses — from the Remedia (ranging from v. 81 to v. 732 of that poem) and he appropriates passages from at least eleven out of the nineteen complete epistles of the Heroides , three being from the Epistle of Briseis itself ( Vox , i, 1188, 1420, 1517-18 ; Her., iii, 4, 24, 43-44). Between v. 1358 and v. 1460 of book i, Gower borrows from books iii, iv, xiv, and xv of the Metamorphoses, from books ii and iii of the Ars Amatoria, from books i and v of the Tristia, from Heroides, iii, v, and xix, from the Fasti, and from the Ex Ponto (see Macaulay’s notes). I am well aware that mediaeval authors often used collections of fiosculi, or elegant extracts, and that there is a formidable list of Ovidian floscidi in Vincent of Beauvais {Speculum Historiale , vi, 106-122, ed. 1494, fols. 67-69), but no use of fiosculi will explain Gower’s knowledge of Ovid as shown in the Vox Clamantis. Ncr will any one have recourse to such an argument unless he is “ at Dulcarnon, right at his wittes ende.” Still, we may note, for safety’s sake, that some of the verses which Gower borrows are not of a kind to be included in anthologies, — for instance, v. 24 of the Epistle of Briseis, “ ‘ Quid fles ? hie parvo tempore,’' dixit, 1 eris,’ ” — which he reproduces as ‘ £ Quid fugis ? hie parvo tempore vivus- eris ” {Vox Clamantis, i, 1420). That Gower makes little or no use of Ovid in the Mirour need not surprise us. He likewise makes very little use of Benoit, though we have seen that he had the Roman de Troie at his fingers’ ends. The matter and style of the Mirour — as well as the encyclopaedic treatises on ethics and religion which were its models — were not favorable to the extensive employment of either the Roman poet or the French romancer. The quotations and allusions in the Mirour generally go back to the Bible, Seneca, the Latin fathers, and other 16 GOWER AND OVID. “ Hippodamia, daughter of Brises,” and of her relations with Agamemnon and Achilles, he could not fail to perceive that this was the Briseida of the Her aides, a personage already associated in his mind with the most illustrious ladies of the antique world — with Phyllis and Medea and Helen and Hero and Dido. And Benoit’s error in assigning to her two distinct and inconsistent rdles — one under the name of “ Briseida ” and the other under that of “Hippodamia, Brises’ daughter” — would he clear to him in an instant. But Gower had no occasion to reject Benoit’s account of Troilus’ unhappy love affair , — that was right enough, for it collided with nothing in Ovid or elsewhere. Troilus and Diomedes, then, were rivals for the favor of an inconstant daughter of Calclias, hut her name could not have heen Briseida, for Briseida was some- body else, the heroine of a famous story. The conclusion was inevitable in Gower’s mind : Benoit had simply got the name wrong . 1 Gower’s interest in the genuine Briseida story comes out in the Confessio Amantis, where he cites her case in discussing “ supplantacioun ” : — Ensample I finde therupon, At Troie how that Agamenon Supplantede the worthie knyht Achilles of that swete wiht Which named was Brexeida ; And also of Criseida, Whom Troilus to love ches, Supplanted hath Diomedes. 2 serious books (see Macaulay’s Gower, I, Ivi-lviii. Cf. Miss E. Elfreda Fowler’s thesis, Une Source frangaise des Pobmes de Gower , Macon, 1905,— a learned and laborious treatise, to the conclusions of which, however, I do not feel ready to subscribe). In contrasting the materials and contents of the Mir our with those of the Confessio Amantis, we may well remember a similarly striking contrast between the Speculum Morale and the Speculum Historicile of Vincent of Beauvais. Note also that whereas the Vox Clamantis, which is in the elegiac stanza, contains many borrowings from Ovid, the Cronica Tripertita, which is in leonine hexameters, shows little or no acquaintance with him ; yet the Cronica Tripertita is later than the Vox Clamantis (cf. Macaulay’s Gower, IV, xxxiii). When Gower wrote the Troilus passage in the Mirour he was forty-five years old ; when he negotiated loans in the Vox Clamantis, he was about fifty. Surely he did not obtain his 0 vidian knowledge between these ages. If a man had not read Ovid before he was forty-five, he was not likely to read him at all. We may cheerfully accept the judgment of Mr. Macaulay, who has no thesis to maintain : “ His knowledge of Ovid seems to have been pretty complete, for he borrows from every section of his works with the air of one who knows perfectly well where to turn for what he wants” ( Works of Gower , IV, xxxiii). 1 I assume that Gower read Ovid before he read Benoit, but the argument works equally well if he read Benoit first. We may take our choice. 2 ii, 2451 ff. The reference to Criseida need not here be discussed, for no argument of any sort can be founded upon it. It is quoted merely that the reader may have the whole passage before him. CHRYSEIS IN OVID. 17 Of course this passage from the Confessio is not quoted to prove Gower’s acquaintance with the Heroides when he wrote the Mir our, hut merely to bring out his continued interest in a story which, as we already have seen, must have been familiar to him early in his career. Gower, as his works reveal him to us, was a scholar; his intellect was of the schematic, comparative, and classifying order. Con- fronted with a striking blunder in Benoit, — the ascription of the name Briseida to Troilus’ amie — he would have a natural inclination to substitute the correct name, at least in his own mind, if he knew what it was. Let us see whether — independently of all acquaintance with the Filostraio or with Chaucer’s Troilus — he might have hit upon the name Creseide as a good substitute. Whence could he have derived any information that might have suggested this particular change ? The answer is at hand, — from the Remedia Amoris itself (vv. 467-84) : — Yidit ut Atrides — quid enim non ille videret, cuius in arbitrio Graecia tota fuit ? — Marte suo captain Chryseida victor, amabat. at senior stulte flebat ubique pater. Quid lacrimas, odiose senex? bene convenit illis : officio natam laedis, inepte, tuo. quam postquam reddi Calclias, ope tutes Achillis, iusserat, et patria est ilia recepta domo, “est” ait Atrides “illius proxima forma, et, si prima sinat syllaba, nomen idem : hanc mihi, si sapiat, per se concedat Achilles : si minus, imperium sentiet ille meum. quod si quis vestrum factum hoc accusat, Achivi, est aliquid valida sceptra tenere manu.” dixit et hanc habuit solacia magna prioris, et posita est cura prima repulsa nova. From this passage Gower learned that Chryseida 1 was a Trojan girl (or at all events not a Greek) ; that her aged father besought that she might be restored to him ; that she herself did not wish to be restored, since she was happy in her love, which would be interrupted by her return, and that she finally was given back through the influence of Calehas. These were striking points of agreement between her story and that of Troilus’ amie in Benoit. And then that clever line about just changing the first letter of the name (“ et, si prima sinat syllaba, nomen idem” )! Such a verbal 1 I purposely use the accusative, which is the only form that occurs in the Remedia. DATE OF C. T. 0 18 CREISEIDE IN GOWER. trick was fascinating to a man like Gower, whose turn of mind appears in the transparent riddle in which he wrapped up his own name in the Vox Clamantis . 1 He had hut to change a single letter, — to substitute Criseida for Briseida , — and he would have released Achilles’ love from all entanglement with the quite independent story of Troilus. Of course it was as plain to Gower as it is to us that by substituting Creseide 2 for Briseida he was getting rid of one error by running into another. For he knew perfectly well, from the Ovidian passage, that Criseida was Agamemnon’s captive, Chryses’ daughter . 3 But one cannot have everything. Unless he wished to invent a name outright, — which would hardly have occurred to him, especially in so venerable a matter as the Tale of Troy, — he had to choose between two alternatives : — admit the existence of two Chryseidas or of two Briseidas. To us, perhaps, one alternative seems as bad as the other, but not so in the eyes of Gower and his contemporaries. For Briseida had, to an Ovidian like him, a strong prescriptive right to her name and her personality : she was the heroine who had written a famous letter to her lover Achilles. Agamemnon’s Chryseida, on the other hand, enjoyed no such distinction, and besides, the history of Chryseida was in several respects parallel — as Briseida’s was not — to the experiences of Troilus’ amie. The contradiction or confusion involved in substituting Criseide for Briseida in the tale of Troilus was, then, appreciably less than that involved in allowing Briseida to retain the role to which Benoit had assigned her. And so, we may reasonably conjecture, Gower made the change, and wrote of “ la geste de Troylus and de la belle Creseide.” Boccaccio, we should remember, made the same change in the Filostrato for similar reasons , 4 preferring the smaller or less noticeable inconsistency 1 Book i, Prologue, vv. 19-24 : Scribentis nomen si queras, ecce loquela Sub tribus implicita versibus inde latet. Primos sume pedes 6rodefredi desque lohanni, Principiumque sui TFallia iungat eis : Ter caput amittens det cetera membra, que tali Carmine compositi nominis ordo patet. 2 The e in Creseide is a trivial variation. 3 Whose story, under the name of Astynome ( Astronomen , Astrinomen), he knew also from Benoit, vv. 26747 ff. 4 It will not do to object that Boccaccio was a much better scholar than Gower, — for that argument would cut both ways. Besides, within the limits which confine our question, Gower was as learned as Boccaccio, — he knew Ovid and he knew Benoit. CRBSEIDE IN GOWER. 19 to the greater , 1 and Chaucer had no hesitation in following his example. That Gower, as a matter of fact, did not shrink from admitting the existence of two Cressids, is shown by a curious piece of evidence. After he had thoroughly committed himself to Creseide as the name of Troilus’ amie, —in the Mir our, in the Vox Clamantis , 2 and in Book ii of the Confessio Amantis , 3 — he did not hesitate to tell, in Book v of the Confessio , 4 how King Agamemnon, in taking the city of “ Lesbon,” found there a fair maiden called “ Criseide, doubter of Crisis,” priest of Phoebus; how he carried her to Troy as his mistress; how Phoebus punished the sacrilege with a pestilence; and how the maiden was sent home to her father. This reproduces, with slight variations, a considerable part of the tale of Astynome, Chryses’ daughter, as told by Benoit . 5 That Gower saw fit to repeat it in the Confessio 1 In the Filocolo , he gives Briseida her rightful position, on the basis of Ovid’s third Epistle. Elorio, who had been a victim of jealousy, believed, when he read Biancofiore’s letter, that she was sincere in her written protesta- tions that she loved none but him. But he soon began to doubt again, “ e a dire fra se : ‘ Fermamente ella m’inganna, e quello ch’ella mi scrive non per amore, ma per paura lo scrive. Briseida lusingava il grande imperadore de’ Greci, e disiderava Achille ’ ” (bk. iii, Opere Volgari, VII, 278). Cf. Ameto ( Opere Volgari , XV, 136): “Ma se tu non meno savia che bella sarai, tu seguiterai gli esemple della bellissima Elena, abbandonante le gia biancheggianti tempie di Menelao per le dorate di Paride, la qual cosa Briseida avrebbe fatta, se Achille l’avesse voluta ricevere.” In cap. 24 of the Amorosa Visione ( Opere Volgari , XIV, 97-98) Boccaccio introduces Achilles and Briseida and brings in a part of the third epistle of the Eeroides. Greif supposes that it was Boccaccio’s acquaintance with Homer which led him to change Briseida to Griseida in the Filostrato {Die mittelalterlichen Bearbeitungen der Trojanersage, p. 69). But this can hardly be, for Boccaccio did not make the acquaintance of Leontius Pilatus, his Homeric instructor, before 1360 (Fracassetti, note to Petrarch, Fpist. Fam., xviii, 2, Letters di Francesco Petrarcci delle Cose Familiari volgarizzate , IV, 1866, 95 ff. ; Hortis, Studj suite Opere Latine del Boccaccio , p. 21, note 2), long after the Filostrato was published. His perception of Benoit’s error was due rather to his familiarity with Ovid (cf. the conclusions at which Mr. Wilkins has arrived in a paper published while the present essay was in the printer’s hands : Modern Language Notes, XXIV, 66-67, reprinted in Boccaccio Studies, Baltimore, 1909, pp. 55 ff.). 2 vi, 1325-8 : Mortuus est Troilus constanter amore fidelis, Iamque Iasonis amor nescit habere fidem : Solo contenta moritur nunc fida Medea, Fictaque Crisaida gaudet amare duos. 8 ii, 2456-8. 4 v, 6433-75. 6 On this story in Gower, Mr. Macaulay (note to v, 6435 ff.) remarks: “ This shows more knowledge than could have been got from the Homan de Troie. The story is told by Hyginus, Fab. 121, but not exactly as we have it here.” In writing these comments, the learned and in evuy way praise- 20 CRESEIDE IN GOWER. after Chaucer’s Troilus was before the world, shows that he was not disturbed by having two Cressidas in the field. That was a very different thing in his eyes from ascribing a new role as Benoit had unwittingly done, to the famous writer of the third “Epistle of Ovide.” It is now plain that Gower’s use of the name Creseide in the Mirour , in 1377, by no means demonstrates that Chaucer’s Troilus had already been published, or even that it had been thought of. We have arrived at another explanation which, though it cannot be proved, — any more than Mr. Tatlock’s hypothesis can be proved, — is at all events natural and probable enough. The works of w r hich it implies the use on Gower’s part were well known to him ; Benoit and Ovid, indeed, were two of his favorite authors. He had all the materials at hand and in his head. Gower was interested in Benoit, he was interested in Ovid, and he was interested in stories. To compare and rectify, under the circum- stances, was an easy and obvious thing. Let us see what he did with the Jason tale in the fifth book of Confessio Amantis , for it is more satisfactory to observe what a writer’s ways actually were than to guess what they may have been. The story of Jason, in the Confessio is — beyond question — made up as follows : — 1 (1) vv. 3247-3930, from Benoit, freely treated, with additions and changes of Gower’s own, and with possibly some slight influence from Guido delle Colonne ; (2) vv. 3931-4173, from Ovid’s Metamorphoses , vii, 159-293; (3) vv. 4187-4222, from an unknown source, with some use of Metamor- phoses , , vii, 394-401 ; (4) vv. 4243-4361, Phrixus and Helle, from worthy editor of Gower has overlooked Benoit, vv. 26747-907, in which the whole story of “ Astronomen [Astynome], fille Crises ” is reported in detail as given by Dictys (see the outline, p. 14, above). This, I think, Gower followed, with some recollection of the Remedia Amoris. Doubtless he wrote from memory, and this (with Ovidian reminiscences) would account for some slight variations from the Roman de Troie. Thus in Benoit it is Achilles, not Agamemnon, who captures Crises’ daughter ; but Ovid (Rem. Am., 469) calls her “Marte suo [sc. Agamemnonis] captam Chryseida.” The ascription of her capture to Agamemnon doubtless led Gower to speak of her, by a slip of the mind, as taken at “Lemnon” ; he was probably thinking of the capture of “Tenedon,” a castle which Benoit represents the Greeks under Agamemnon as reducing and plundering on their way to the war (vv. 5991 ff. ; cf. Guido, sig. f recto). The story in Hyginus (Tabulae, 121) does not resemble Gower’s account so closely as Benoit’s does (cf. also Fabulae, 106). 1 See Mr. Macaulay’s notes. Cf. Karl Eichinger, Die Trojasage als Quelle fur John Gower's Confessio Amantis, 1900, pp. 58 ff. THE CHANGE FROM B TO C. 21 a different unknown source. 1 This example is noted not, of course, as a precise parallel to Gower’s procedure in the case of Creseide , but to show his learning and his manner of going to work. A man who compiled a narrative from so many different authorities was assuredly equal to the feat of changing Briseida to Creseide without being inspired by Chaucer’s poem. We have, then, in the case of Gower and the change from B to C, a motive, the means, and the general temper and habit of mind, — and we have the result. Our explanation, therefore, is neither over-subtle nor far-fetched, and it interposes an effectual barrier to the hasty inference that Gower must have written the chapter on Sompnolence in the Mirour after the composition or the publication of Chaucer’s Troilus. There is, however, still another way in which one may reasonably account for Gower’s form Creseide : — Chaucer may have made the change from B to C himself, under the influence of Boccaccio and Ovid, while he was studying the Troilus material, and may have communicated his discovery to Gower. This, of course, would not necessitate the publication of the Troilus before 1377, or even its composition. A work like the Troilus is not written at a sitting, nor is it undertaken without some previous thought and special preparation. This theory may or may not turn out to be more probable than that which we have already discussed. Let us, at all events, see whether it is reasonable in itself. Blanche, Duchess of Lancaster, died September 12, 13G9. 2 The Book of the Duchess must have been written immediately, and 1 It is impossible to hold that Gower found the whole story of Jason and the Fleece in some single unknown source and followed that, for the verbal resemblances to Benoit in the first division of the tale, and to Ovid in the second division, prove beyond a doubt that he had both those authors before him. But neither of them afforded him the materials for the third division, nor yet for the story of Phrixus and Helle, which he appends in close connection with that of Jason, putting it into the mouth of Genius in response to the Lover’s request for an explanation how the Fleece got to Colchos (v, 4230-37). On Jason and Creusa, see Boccaccio, De Gencalogia, Deorum, xiii, 26 (fol. 98 recto) and xiii, 64 (fols. 99 verso — 100 recto). In the tale of Phrixus and Helle, Gower is fairly close to the outline given by Boccaccio (xiii, 67-68, fol. 100). Ovid refers to the Phrixus tale {Her., xvii, 139-44 ; xviii, 123 ff. ; Ars. Am., iii, 175-6), but nowhere tens' it. On Gower’s relation to Ovid, one may compare E. Stollreither, Quel.len- Nachwcise zu John Gower's Confessio AmanHs, 1901, pp. 32 ff. Stollreither’s comments on Gower and Hyginus are unconvincing. He says, for example, that Gower’s account of Alcestis {Confessio, vii, 1917-34) is “ nichts anderes als eine weitschweifige Wiedergabe der 51. Fabel Hygins ” (p. 47), which is really an absurd proposition. 2 See the evidence in Englische Studien , XIII, 19, notes, 3, 5. 22 CHAUCER AND BENOIT. cannot be later than the early part of 1370. This is one of the two or three indisputable dates in the literary chronology of Chaucer. Now when Chaucer wrote the Book of the Duchess , he was undoubtedly familiar with what he calls “al the storie of Troye.” 1 He refers casually to Cassandra’s lament over “the destruecioun of Troye and of Ilioun,” 2 and to Antenor, “ the traytour that betraysed Troye.” 3 He tells how Achilles, in revenge for Hector’s death, was slain in a temple — he and Antilogus — “for love of Polixena.” 4 These references and allusions make it practically certain that Chaucer was v T ell acquainted with the Roman de Troie before he went to Italy, 5 and we are therefore forced to infer that his introduction to the story of Troilus came, in the first instance, through Benoit. When, therefore, he utilized the Roman de Troie in the Troilus — after he had come into possession of the Filostrato — he was merely reverting to a book that he had known for years. 6 1 Y. 326. 2 Vv. 1246-9. See note 5, below. Observe also the names Ector , Priamus, Achilles, Lamedou, Medea, Iason, Paris, Eleyne and Laryne (vv. 328-31), all of which (except the last) are of course in Bonoit (for Lavine, see Roman de la Rose, ed. Michel, II, 321). 3 Vv. 1119-20. 4 Yv. 1065-71. Cf. Benoit, vv. 22101 ff., especially vv. 22241-50 ; Guido, sig. 1 3 verso — 1 4 recto. The texts of Chaucer have Antilegius, but Anti- logus ( —Antilochus ), is in both Benoit (var. Antilocus) and Guido, and it improves the metre. Skeat adopts it as an emendation (VI, 360, under Antilegius). 5 For the death of Achilles, Chaucer refers to “Dares Frigius ” (v. 1070), but there is no reason to suppose that he knew Dares at first hand. Some MSS. of Benoit mention Dares here (“ S’ai en l’escrit Daires trove,” v. 22248 Joly ; cf. Chaucer’s “ And so seyth Dares Frigius ”), but Guido does not (sig. 1 3 verso — 1 4 2 recto). So far as I know, however, the form Dares Frigius (Phrygius) does not occur in Benoit, who calls this author Dares, Daires, and Daire( see vv. 106, 5183, 5562, 8799, 12018, 12292, 14048, 23722, etc. : for lists, cf. Joly, I, 207, note 1 ; Greif, Die mittdalterlichen Bearbeitungcn der Trojanersage, p. 15, n., Ausgaben und Alhandlungen, LXI), whereas Guido does refer to “ phrigium daretem” ( Prologue , sig. a recto, col. 2). Still the name was well known, in any case. Antenor the traitor is a notable character in Dares as well as in Benoit and Guido. But the lamentation of Cassandra is not in Dares or Dictys at all ; it is described in a striking passage by Benoit (vv. 26009-18), from whom Guido borrows it (sig. m 4, 2 verso, col. 2). Guido says merely, “Cassandra vero quasi demens etfecta sola fugit et minerue templum intrauit vbi suorum omnium excidium grauiter lamenta- tur.” Virgil, Aen., ii. 403-6 would not have given Chaucer the hint. There is a prophetic lament of Cassandra in Benoit, vv. 10355-84, in which both “Ylion” and Troy are mentioned (cf. ^uido, sig. h 3 verso, where Ilion is not specified). This, too, is in neither Dictys nor Dares. Chaucer may have had his eye on it. It is possible that Chaucer drew his Trojan material in the Book of the Duchess from Guido rather than from Benoit, but, on the whole, Benoit seems more likely, and the question is of no real consequence to us at this moment. 6 For Chaucer’s use of Benoit in the Troilus, see especially Dr. Karl Young’s monograph, The Origin and Development of the Story of Troilus and Criseyde, Chaucer Society, 1908, where full references to previous studies will be found. CHAUCER AND OVID. 23 When Chaucer wrote the Booh of the Duchess he was about thirty years old, if not more. Acquaintance with Ovid might therefore be assumed without argument. 1 But there is some evidence. The Metamorphoses is utilized ; 2 the Remedia Amoris is mentioned. 3 As to the Heroides, we cannot prove that Chaucer knew it at this time, 4 but there is nothing against such a view, and even if he did not, he had time enough to read it before his Italian journey of 1372-1373. If Chaucer, when he wrote the Booh of the Duchess — or at any time before his Italian journey — was familiar with the Heroides and the Remedia Amoris (or with either of them), he knew perfectly well that Briseida was the captive whom Agamemnon took away from Achilles. He was at least as quick-witted as we are, and it is incredible that he, as well as Gower, should have failed to perceive Benoit’s oversight and the consequent inconsistency in which the French poet had involved himself. Still, whether Chaucer had made this observation before he read the Filostrato is a point of no importance in the present discussion, for we are not obliged to consider what he thought about the matter until Boccaccio’s treatment of the story came under his eye. Indeed, we have more leeway than that, for anything that he thought or observed before Gower wrote the Mirour passage in 1377 is usable for our purposes. How we cannot doubt, that, if Chaucer brought home a Filostrato 1 Mr. Tatlock says that when Chaucer was introduced to Italian literature, “he had long been . . . familiar with the greatest poets of the Romans” (p. 18). I should not go so far as this, but no doubt he read Ovid early. 2 For the relations of the Ceyx and Alcyone passage to Ovid and Machaut, see ten Brink, Chaucer : Studicn, pp. 8-12 ; Skeat’s note on v. 62. For a detail, not in Machaut, cf. “brak hir mast” (v. 71) with “frangitur . . . arbor” (Met. , xi, 551). 3 “The remedies of Ovyde” (v. 568). 4 There are no allusions to material in the Heroides that are not such as Chaucer might have got at second hand. On Dido (vv. 732-4), cf. Roman cle la Rose, II, 80 ff . ; on Penelope (v. 1081), cf. Roman de Troie, vv. 28821-34 ; on Phyllis (vv. 728-31), cf. Roman de la Rose, II, 80, 82. See Skeat’s note on v. 726. As to Phyllis, use of the Roman de la Rose is practically certain. Professor C. G. Child, in his interesting essay on Chaucer’s Legend of Good Women and Boccaccio’s De Genralogia Deorum (Modern Language Notes, XI, 478-9, cf. X, 380), remarking that Ovid nowhere says in so many words that Phyllis hanged herself, quotes the De Genealogia (xi, 25, ed. 1511, fol. 84 verso) as the source of Chaucer’s knowledge on this point in the Legend (v. 2485). It may be added that Boccaccio’s De Casibus supplies the same information : “ Phillis amoris Demophoontis impaciens se suspendit ” (i. 18, ed. 1544, p. 29). But Chaucer pot a plain statement of Phyllis’s suicide from the Roman de la Rose, II, 82 (“ qu’ele se pendi ” ; “ heng hirself,” B. Duch., v. 729), years before he could have known Boccaccio’s handbooks. However, the use of the Roman de la Rose is no proof that Chaucer did not know the Heroides. 24 CHAUCER AND GOWER. manuscript in 1373, he had read the poem by 1375 or 1376. And as soon as lie reached the third stanza of the First Book he en- countered the name Griseida. The eleventh stanza informed him that she was the daughter of Calcas, the renegade Trojan priest, and long before he had finished the First Book it was, of course, evident to him that she was the same person whom Benoit had celebrated under the name of Briseidci. And he was familiar with Froissart’s Paradys d' Amours, which he had used in the Book of the Duchess 1 and was to use again in the Prologue to the Legend . 2 A man like Chaucer could hardly overlook the story of Troilus and Briseida when he read Benoit, and, even if it had made little impression on him — as is hardly conceivable — his attention would have been specially called to it by the very conspicuous position which Froissart assigns to Troilus as a lover. We should not forget, in passing, that when Chaucer came to write his own Troilus , he reverted to Benoit for more than a few passages. 3 One of the first things that struck him in reading the Filostrato was the change from Briseida to Griseida which Boccaccio had made. He had never seen the name Griseida before, and his knowledge of Italian was doubtless insufficient to teach him that G in this position is a good phonological representative of a Latin C ; but, in any case, the form could not pass unnoticed. He straightway perceived (even if he had never thought of such a thing before) that Benoit had made a mistake in assigning to Briseida the role of Troilus’ amie. The third epistle of the Heroides ( Briseida to Achilles) and the well-known passage in the Remedia Amor is inevitably occurred to him, and he saw at once that Boccaccio had adopted — with a slight modification — the name Cliryseida to avoid the contradiction in which Benoit had unwittingly entangled himself. 4 These are not conjectures : they are things that must have happened, unless Chaucer forgot all he knew whenever he opened a book, and then went on to read it with his eyes shut. Now, unless we are to believe that Chaucer never conversed on literary topics with his friend Gower — both parties confining 1 Englische Studien , XXVI, 321 ff. 1 2 See p. 10, note 5, above. 3 Gower’s continual use of Benoit, from the beginning of his career to the end, justifies us in believing that he possessed a manuscript of the Homan de Troie. It is quite legitimate to conjecture that he lent it to his friend Chaucer. On the nature of Gower’s text of Benoit, see Hamilton, Publications of the Modern Language Association , XX, 179 ff. 4 Here the argument will be somewhat simp'ified if we adopt Mr. Wilkins’s view that Boccaccio wrote Criseida not Griseida (see p. 2, note 1, above). CHAUCER AND GOWER. 25 themselves to long-distance messages in their published poems — we may feel quite safe in conjecturing that Gower was one of the first persons in England to whom he talked about his Italian discoveries. And he could not by any possibility have talked with Gower about this Filostrato — this new and highly original version of a story already well known to both of them in Benoit’s romance — without commenting on the name Griseida. 1 Gower, at the same time, or soon after, is engaged in writing the Mirour. The romance of Benoit is in his mind, as we have already seen. At v. 3724 he alludes to it, at v. 5515 he alludes to it again. Between these two allusions, at v. 5245, comes theTroilus passage. On the basis of his conversation with Chaucer, he alters Benoit’s Briseida to Creseide — and there you have it ! 2 . If confirmation is needed for the reasonableness of this hypothesis, we have it in an observation of Mr. Tatlock’s own. He has noted that vv. 3831-4 of the Mirour “ cannot be inde- pendent of Dante’s words on envy” in Inferno , xiii, 64-66, and adds : “ We can hardly avoid believing that Chaucer read or repeated the passage to Gower.” 3 We observe, with interest, that these verses in the Mirour stand about 100 lines after Gower’s first allusion to Benoit, and about 1400 lines before the Troilus passage. Let us arrange some of the significant facts in a tabular form : — 3724. Gower alludes to Benoit’s romance (Jason). 3831. Gower uses a Dante passage which he got from Chaucer. 5254-5. Gower mentions both Troilus and Creseide . 5520. Gower alludes to Benoit’s romance again (Goz the physician). I think it is clear enough that — even if Gower did not, according to our first hypothesis, write Creseide instead of Benoit’s Briseida of his own motion, — he may very well have done so after talking the Filostrato over with Chaucer. 4 1 Slick a conversation, let me hasten to add, was not “learned” or “ pedantic,” any more than it would be learned or pedantic for two English literary men of the present day to chat about the latest novel, and, in the course of their talk, to mention Fielding and (say) Balzac. 2 There is no evidence that Chaucer and Gower ever had a falling-out, except Gower’s omission, in the revised Covfessio , of the passage relating to Chaucer, and that is no evidence at all. But the question need not trouble us on this occasion. Chaucer and Gower were certainly on good terms at the date we are considering, for Chaucer made Gower one of his attorneys when, in 1378, he left England for Lombardy {Life-Records, No. 120, p. 216 ; Skeat’s Chaucer, I, xxxii). 3 P.. 221. 4 Cf. Lowes, Publications of the Modern Language Association of America , XXIII, 305-6. 26 “obviousness and popularity.” Mr. Tatlock does not deny that Chaucer may have talked with Gower about the Filostrato. But he seems to think that no mere conversation could have resulted in Gower’s speaking of “ la geste de Troylus et de la belle Creseide ” in this passage. “I do not ask,” he continues, “what point there would have been in [Gower’s] referring to [Boccaccio], but how could it ever have occurred to him, even if he had heard Chaucer speak of the poem, to make in so off-hand a manner a remark so unintelligible 1 Is it impertinent to ask whether a modern preacher would rail at his'parishioners for staying at home on Sunday to read the last Sherlock Holmes story or the works of a novelist of Paraguay 1 Obviousness and popularity are necessarily implied in Gower’s remark. This and the apparently rather humble station of Sompnolent are what suggest that the poem [which ly Sompnolent heard in his dream] is in English.” How, in the first place, we must note that “Sompnolent” is not a person in a “rather humble station.” Indeed, he has no definite rank at all. He is not a person , anyway, — he is not even “ Sompnolent,” character in an allegory. He is u ly Sompnolent,” — the sleepy man, the sluggard of the Bible. The vice of somno- lence is not confined by social barriers. Gower makes this plain enough, if we read the whole chapter. 1 “ Sompnolence lives at ease,” he tells us, “when he can sleep without opposition on a soft couch that is surrounded by curtains, where his subordinate ( soubgit ) or his servant dare not wake him. . . . When he has once gone to bed, there is a valet or a maid trained to rub him gently — hand and foot and back — till he falls asleep; and that is his customary way of living. His chamberlain will lose his fees if the mattress and bedclothes are not soft, and if the sheets and pillow are not sprinkled with rosewater.” All this applies, of course, only to the sluggard who lives in luxury. But Gower goes on to include other sluggards, thus showing the shifting character of his allegorical method. “When the Sleepy Man is a wage-earner and his master calls him in the morning, ‘ Come now, quick ! ’ what a pang it gives him to leave his warm bed, and how he grumbles as, half-asleep, he puts on his breeches ! A man who has such a man- servant or such a maid may well wish that he or she ( cil et celle) had gone away and would never come back.” Then follows a general remark, unlimited by considerations of rank or occupation : 1 What follows is not a full or literal translation, but it suffices to bring out the main points. OBVIOUSNESS AND POPULARITY. 27 (t — “ The Sleepy Man is like a child, — he doesn't like to get up, because it is cold. He makes a pitiful show of getting up long enough to warm his shirt ; he gets half out of bed, and then lies down again and hugs the pillow.” What follows — and contains our passage — is also of general application : — “ It is a great trial to the Sleepy Man when he has to rise early on a high festival and go to church. He doesn’t pray, but lays his head down on the stool, Et dort, et songe en sa cervelle De Troylus et de la belle Qu’il est au bout de la tonelle, Creseide, et ensi se concede TJ qu’il oit chanter la geste A dieu d’y faire sa requeste.” We are not dealing, then, with anybody in particular; the social position of the Sluggard shifts with the course of the sermon. Nothing can be inferred from his social position as to the story that he dreams about, for he has no definite rank in the world. We are reduced, therefore, to more general considerations. We must ask ourselves whether there is anything in Gower’s literary methods — more specifically, in the method of that pedantic and rambling moral allegory the Mirour de VOmme — to indicate that he was likely to trouble himself much about the obviousness or popularity of an allusion. The question answers itself. We have already seen that Benoit must have been in Gower’s mind when he wrote the passage that we are considering — what- ever else he may or may not have been thinking of. And we have also observed that the subject of which the Sleepy Man is dreaming is highly appropriate. Furthermore, it has been made clear that a mention of Troilus and I?riseida would have been no more surprising in Gower than a mention of Troilus at the head of a list of lovers is in Froissart, — that is, not surprising at all in a poem written in French and addressed to the court and the gentry. The only thing in the passage that can conceivably be regarded as likely to cause any difficulty to Gower’s readers, then, is Creseide instead of Briseide. In other words, there is nothing whatever that can be urged against the hypothesis that Gower’s change of B to C may well have come about as the result of a conversation with Chaucer except the idea that Gower never would have used the name Creseide here unless it had already been familiar to his readers. “ What readers 1 ” one may ask. Had the Mirour any readers in 1377, except Chaucer and other private friends ? Was it published serially 1 If not, since its completion was a good way off, — perhaps, Mr. Tatlock thinks, as far off as 1381, — Avhy should Gower have 28 WHY C INSTEAD OF B 1 been so scrupulous 1 This inquiry need not be pressed, for there is no likelihood that Gower’s readers, either in 1377 or in 1381, would have worried over Creseide for Briseide, 1 or that any such remote contingency would have given him a moment’s concern if he found occasion to think, for any reason, that Creseide was the preferable name. Such an opinion on his part — even if he had never come to entertain it without help — might very probably have resulted from half-an-hour’s talk with his friend Chaucer, who had just come home from Italy with some highly interesting documents in his luggage. In this hypothetical but really inevitable conversa- tion, let it be Gower — if one chooses — who furnished the Ovidian learning and who actually suggested that the strange form Griseida 2 which Chaucer called to his attention was merely Ovid’s Chryseida slightly modified. There are so many ways in which — when Ovid and Benoit were familiar to both English poets — the change from B to C may have come about, that we cannot be precise — nor does the argument require it — as to the exact course of events. In all this there is not the slightest indication that Chaucer was at work on his own Troilns yet, or that he had even conceived the idea of translating or adapting the Filostrato. All that is needed is that he should have begun to read Boccaccio’s poem and that he should have talked with Gower. Ear from affording us a date for the publication of the Troilus, the Mir our passage does not even give us a date for the inception or the planning of the work. Let us now take account of stock. The Sleepy Man takes a nap in church and dreams that he hears somebody singing “ the story of Troylus and the fair Creseide.” There is nothing to indicate that the Sluggard is a person of low degree or that the song he hears in his sleep is in English. The word geste applies just as well to the story in the abstract as to any extant concrete version of it. Gower knew the history of these lovers as narrated by Benoit, and he had Benoit’s romance in mind when he wrote 1 Mediaeval readers are perforce habituated to varieties in proper names. Mars and Marte, Allccto and Alete , Polixene and Polyxenen, Briscida and Brexseida , Ceres and Cereres, need not be cited. The manuscripts of the Roman de Troie afford us abundance of examples. Thus in v. 6681 we have, in different manuscripts, Hupoz, Hupo, Huspos , Leipos, Empres ; in the same verse, Cupesus, Cnpensus , Cupesuc, Cuspesus, Cupresus, Crupesus , Adrastus ; in v. 6691, Cisonie , Sisonie, Osonie, Tysonic, Cyfonie, Yfonie ; in v. 6715, Pileus, Calles, and Thereplcx ; in the same verse, Acamus, Alcamus, Calamus , Calcamus , Arcasmus ; in v. 6773, Boetes, Ocs'.es , and Doctcs ; in v. 6832, Scrses, Perses, and Sercxes. 2 See p. 2, note 1, above. FOUR POSSIBILITIES AT LEAST. 29 the passage, whatever else he may have been thinking of. But Benoit always calls the lady Briseida. If Gower had kept this form, none of us would have been surprised at the occurrence of the passage in the Mirour. Every one would have said, without fear of contradiction, that ly Sompnolent heard — not (to he sure) Benoit’s romance, hut an imaginary song deriving its materials therefrom. Gower, however, wrote Creseide, not Briseida. Why did he change B to C ? This is the only problem involved in the allusion. Mr. Tatlock holds that Gower’s change of B to G implies that Chaucer’s Troilus had already been published and had become popular. This would force us to put the completion of the Troilus in 1377 at the latest, a date that seems to most scholars a good deal too early. We have therefore found it necessary to consider the possibility of accounting for Gower’s change of a letter on other grounds, and we find that there are at least four other ways — all of them natural and easy — in which this modification of the name may have come about : — (1) Gower saw Benoit’s error, and made the change from B to 0 of his own motion, without any influence from either Boccaccio or Chaucer ; (2) The change is due to Chaucer, who was led to perceive Benoit’s error by reading the Filostrato and communicated his discovery to Gower ; (3) Chaucer told Gower of the Filostrato , with its form Griseida} and Gower, who was very familiar with Ovid, was led by this communication to perceive Benoit’s error and so made the change ; (4) The change was made, so to speak, by Gower and Chaucer jointly, in the course of a literary conversation in which Chaucer mentioned the Filostrato and the different forms of the story were discussed. None of these four explanations implies that Chaucer had begun to write his own Troilus or had even planned it. Each of them accounts for all the phenomena in a natural manner, without compelling us to accept an improbably early date for so mature and competent a piece of work. It should be carefully noted that the conditions of the problem do not require us to accept any particular one of these four hypotheses in case we reject Mr. Tatlock’s theory. The question is merely : What are the chances that Mr. Tatlock' s single explanation is correct as against the chances that some one of 1 See p. 2, note 1, above. 30 USK AND THE TROILUS. the other four — no matter which — accords with the truth ? “ Davus sum, non Oedipus,” and I am quite willing to leave the decision to impartial judges. But is there not evidence — quite apart from the passage in Gower — that makes in favor of as early a date as 1377 for the completion of the Troilus ? Mr. Tatlock thinks there is, and, though it is impossible to agree with him, we must at least interrogate his witnesses. The supposed pieces of testimony fall under three heads. I. Thomas Usk mentions Chaucer’s Troilus in his Testament of Love and refers expressly to the discussion of free will in Chaucer’s Fourth Book, — a passage which, according to Mr. Tatlock, belongs to the second version of Chaucer’s poem. 1 The date of the Testament is 1387. “We find, then,” writes Mr. Tatlock, “ that Chaucer’s revised version of the Troilus was known to Usk in 1387. If, as Lowes thinks, the first version was not finished till 1385, is not this rather quick work? So extensive and minute a revision of a poem originally so finished as the Troilus , it seems to me, implies the passage of a number of years. But all this agrees perfectly with the date 1377 for the original completion and 1380 or later for the revision.” 2 This argument surprises me a little. I have spent some time over the Troilus , on various occasions, and - — as Mr. Tatlock indicates in a very generous acknowledgment in his preface — have studied the matter of the two versions rather carefully. The revision, so far as I can see, might have been done in a month or two. However, since we are not here concerned with Mr. Lo wes’s date of 1385, and since even the change of that date to 1384 would allow three years for Chaucer’s polishing hand, we may grant all that Mr. Tatlock claims under this head without its affecting at all the question of the completion of the Troilus in 1377. II. Lydgate’s references to the Troilus as “translated” in Chaucer’s “ youth ” [Falls of Princes ) 3 4 aud as made “ long or that he deyde ” ( Falls of Princes;* Troy Book 5 ) are used by Mr. Tatlock as evidence in favor of his early date for the Troilus. 1 Troilus, iv, 953-1078. I do not feel quite sure that the free-will passage came into the Troilus on the revision, but this may be granted so far as the present argument is concerned. 2 Pp. 24-25. 3 Prologue, stanza 41 (Way land’s edition, sig. A. ii verso). 4 Ibid. 5 Book ii, chap. 15 (Marshe’s edition, 1555, sig. K. ii recto) ; book iii, chap. 25 (sig. ft. ii verso). LYDGATE AND THE TROILUS. 31 “ Fifteen years,” he comments, “ would not be so very long before he died, and youth in the fourteenth century certainly did not extend to the middle forties.” 1 Now “ fifteen years” is computed on the basis of Mr. Lo wes’s date, 1385, for which (though I regard it as probable) I am not contending. I do not care to discuss the precise lapse of time implied in a Lydgatian “long”; but even fifteen years was about a quarter of Chaucer’s whole life. Youth, it is quite true, did not extend to the middle forties ; but neither did it extend to the age of thirty-seven, which (even if Chaucer was not born until 1340) is what Mr. Tatlock’s date of 1377 would give us. Clearly, then, on Mr. Tatlock’s own showing, Lydgate’s “ in youth ” is worthless. I do not know whether Lydgate “ knew Chaucer personally,” as Mr. Tatlock thinks distinctly probable. I do know, however, that he used the phrase “ I have heard tell,” at the end of his Troy Booh , in describing Chaucer’s gentleness as a critic, — My maister Chaucer, that founde ful many spot, Hym liste not pinche nor gruche at every blot, Nor meue hym-silf to perturbe his reste, I finite herde tell , but seide alweie the best[e]. 2 The fact is, we students of Chaucer are always calling upon good old Dan John to tell us things, but never with much success. One can almost hear him saying reproachfully, “ Why hast thou disquieted me to bring me up ? ” 3 III. “ A fairly early date for the Troilus ,” Mr. Tatlock thinks, is indicated by the fact that, while “ the present Knight's Tale is connected with the Troilus on the one hand and the Legend of Good Women on the other, by a large number” of repetitions of 1 P. 25. 2 MS. Cotton Aug. 4, fol. 153 (in Five Hundred Years of Chaucer Criticisms and Allusions, by Miss Spurgeon and Miss Fox (for some proof-slips of which I am indebted to Dr. Furnivall). 3 Mr. Tatlock regards Lydgate’s list of Chaucer’s works in the Falls of Princes as “roughly but rather strikingly chronological.” The list is T. C., Boeth ., Astrolabe , Ceyx, B.D., II. It . , P.F., Origen, Book of the Lion, Anel., Mars, L.G. W., C. T., Melibeus , Cl. T. , Monk’s T. , lyrics. The roughness of the chronology is more obvious than its strikingness. If the order proves anything, it proves that the Troilus was the earliest of Chaucer’s works, and very likely that was Lydgate’s opinion — hence his “in youthe.” The fact that the Troilus stands first in the retraction at the end of the Parson’s Tale also seems significant to Mr. Tatlock (p. 25, note 2). But th's fist, too, is not chronological, and there is no reason why it should be. The motive for putting the Troilus at the head of a list of “ translacions and endytinges of worldly vanitees ” for which the author expresses contrition is surely plain enough. 32 PARALLELS BETWEEN TROILUS AND LEGEND. phrases or lines, there is an almost complete “ absence of such parallels between the Troilus and the Legend” which is “ very- striking, considering their frequent parallels to other poems.” 1 This argument is simply a mistake. Mr. Tatlock has overlooked the parallels whose absence he emphasizes. His list of such resem- blances between the Knight’s Tcde and the Legend foots up to nineteen, that of resemblances between the Knight's Tale and the Troilus to twenty-one. 2 How there are more than thirty such parallels between the Troilus and the Legend. 3 We have now examined all the evidence which Mr. Tatlock adduces — apart from the passage in Gower — in favor of an early date for the Troilus. Manifestly it amounts to nothing. The passage in Gower must stand on its own legs. Unless it he re- garded — alone and unsupported — as sufficient to settle the question, we must give due heed to the maturity which, as all agree, the Troilus evinces, and must assign that great masterpiece to a time considerably later than 1377. But the case cannot yet he closed. For it may still seem to some readers that Mr. Tatlock’s interpretation of the passage in Gower is enough to decide the controversy, although there is no other evidence of any kind in support of his date. We must therefore examine the records of Chaucer’s life for some years, beginning with 1372, when he set out on his first Italian journey, and we must give particular attention to the presumable nature of his studies and to his literary activity during the period which, accord- ing to Mr. Tatlock’s theory, would have been spent in getting materials for the Troilus and in its actual composition. Whatever the result of our examination may be as to the date of the Troilus , 1 P. 19. 2 P. 77. 3 Prol. B. 48-49 ; ii, 967-70. Prol. B. 69 ; ii, 13. Prol. B. 535-6 ; ii, 645-6. 710-11 ; i, 64-65. 735 ; ii, 537-9. 773-5 ; iii, 129, v, 1107-9. 878 ; iv, 1161. 930 ; i, 141. 954 ; i, 142. 1019 ; i, 185. 1028 ; v, 1062. 1159 ; i, 461-2. 1166 ; i, 699. 1167 ; ii, 1306. 1180-1 ; ii, 320-21. 1192; ii, 1099 ; cf. ii, 1105. 1258; i, 760. 1387; i, 810. 1429 ; i, 294. 1554 ; ii, 29-30. 1627 ; i, 1010. 1662 ; v, 1852. 1725 ; ii, 123. 1773 ; iv, 600-1. 1797-8 ; iii, 1191-2. 1852 ; v, 796. 1863-4 ; i, 90-91. 2025 ; ii, 1299. 2132; iii, 999. 2208-9 ; v, 1791. 2580 ; iii, 617. 2604 ; v, 212. 2648 ; iii, 1200. 2677 ; ii, 947-9 ; cf. iii, 675-6. 2704-5 ; iii, 786-8. It would be easy to extend the list. Some of my parallels are striking, others are the reverse ; but they average quite as well as Mr. Tatlock’s, and will serve as a more than sufficient offset. He says, of his own lists, “ Some of these parallels are small, a few are due to Boccaccio or Le Roman de la, Rose, or are proverbial, and one or two are (rather rare) idioms. But the important thing is their number, which is far greater than that of parallels between any others of Chaucer’s poems” (p. 78). THE FIRST ITALIAN JOURNEY. 33 it will perhaps throw some light on the intellectual biography of the poet. Chaucer’s first Italian journey occupied exactly 174 days (Dec. 1, 1372, to May 23, 1373), from the hour of his departure from London to that of his arrival there on his return. 1 He crossed the Channel, travelled to Genoa on horseback, thence to Florence, and returned to London via Genoa. 2 There is no likelihood that he picked up any Italian manuscripts at Genoa, nor can we suppose that he went on to Florence immediately after his arrival, for the only errand mentioned in his commission is to negotiate a com- mercial treaty with the Genoese. 3 Many of his 174 days, then must have passed before he had any opportunity to acquire copies of Dante or Boccaccio. We must also reduce the total still further by allowing for the return from Florence to Genoa, and from Genoa to London ; for Chaucer was hardly studying Italian manuscripts en route. Then, too, we must allow a reasonable amount of time, while Chaucer was in Italy, for learning the ropes, seeing the sights, getting some colloquial knowledge of Italian, 4 and other 1 Mather, Modern Language Notes, XI, 419 ff. ; Life-Records , No. 72, pp. 183-4. 2 These details are safe inferences from Chaucer’s account of expenses. The actual length of his stay in Italy has been variously computed. Dr. Mather, to whom we are all much indebted for his discoveries in this affair, makes it two or three months ( The Nation, N.Y., Oct. 8, 1896, LXIII, 269 ; Modern Language Notes, XI, 423-4 ; XII, 18-19). Mr. Tatlock at first accepted this estimate (“ two and a half or three months,” Modern Philology , I, 321) ; in his later treatise (p. 157) he increases it slightly (“certainly less than four months”), and this seems a safe and judicious figure. 3 Li f- Records, No. 68, pp. 181-2. Dr. Mather considers the possibility that Chaucer made no stay at Genoa but proceeded to Florence at once {Modern Language Notes, XII, 5), but this is merely in order to allow all reasonable leeway to the advocates of the theory that Chaucer met Petrarch, — - a pleasing fancy that he effectually disposes of. To assume that Chaucer took no part in the Genoese business would be unwarrantable. We do not know what his errand in Florence was, but the words “ alant vers les parties de Jeene et de Florence par acunes noz secrees busoignes ” {Life- Records, No. 75, p. 187) show that it is not safe to limit the application of the phrase “in secret is negociis ” (No. 70, p. 182) to the Florentine matter. 4 There is no proof that Chaucer knew Italian before he went to Italy. Professor Lounsbury {Parlament of Foules, p. 7) and Professor Hales {Dictionary of National Biography, X, 160 ; The Bibliographer, I, 37-39 ; Folia Litteraria , pp. 68-69) argue tentatively in favor of such a theory, but the general opinion is the other way. Mr. Tatlock seems rather inclined to favor their view in his article in Modern Philology (I, 321) ; in his later treatise (p. 41, n. 2), he says merely that Professor Hales “argues, but un- convincingly,” for it. He also drops the suggestion that Chaucer may have learned something en route from “Johannes de Mari, a Genoese citizen.” Certainly, as his works show, Chaucer had no acquaintance with Italian literature before that time, and any lessons that he may have got from Johannes on the road were not in reading, and not in the dolce stil nuovo. DATE OF C. T. D 34 chaucer’s occupations to june, 1374. incidentals, remembering that he was at least as much interested in men as in books. Finally, it is to be noted that Chaucer visited Italy on the king’s business, and not for the sake of cultivating his mind. In short, if we do not regard the active man of affairs — immersed in troublesome diplomatic negotiations and held to a strict account of his employments by the home government — in the light of a “travelling fellow” sent abroad to become a specialist in Italian literature, we shall be forced to doubt whether he actually read both the Teseide and the Filostrato in the scanty leisure of his first Italian journey. When he arrived in London (May 23, 1373), he had certain Italian manuscripts among his luggage which were to exert a momentous influence on his ideals and methods, and incidentally to make an epoch in the history of literature. That was a good deal ; it was quite enough. Surely it was not until he got back to England that he actually began to read Italian literature, except, perhaps, in the most casual hit-or-miss fashion. 1 Eor more than a year after his return, Chaucer had no public employment. “ Not till over a year later,” writes Mr. Tatlock, “June 8, 1374, was he appointed Comptroller of Customs, and during the interim, adorned by several benefactions and payments from the king, he may probably have enjoyed much well-earned leisure at court, with his books and pen. After his responsible mission to Italy, he would surely not be worked very hard as Esquire of the King’s Chamber.” 2 Thus Mr. Tatlock counts this interval as a year of elegant leisure. I read the records differently. In the first place, Chaucer’s accounts for the journey showed a balance due to him of £2 5, : 3 or about £400 in modern values, but the king was a slow paymaster. The writ to the Exchequer was not issued until November 11, 1373, — about six months after Chaucer’s arrival, 4 — and he did not receive the money until the next February. 5 This lingering and vexatious business of getting his accounts settled must have cost him much time and trouble. Then there 1 Mr. Tatlock writes, somewhat unguardedly : “He had returned from Italy by May 23, 1373, after an absence of six months, during which he doubtless read much Italian, including very likely the Filostrato and Teseide. On his return, having once learned Italian, is it not natural that he should plunge with zeal into the study of Italian literature ? ” (p. 33). It seems reasonable to suppose that most of Chaucer’s efforts in the way of acquiring Italian during his stay in the peninsula were directed to the end of speaking and understanding the colloquial idiom. 2 P. 33. 3 Life-Fecords, No. 72, p. 184. 4 No. 75, p. 187. 6 No. 78, p. 189. NOT AN INTERVAL OF LEISURE. 35 ■was an old claim against him for £10 advanced “ for wages and expenses” by the king in 1369, “at the commencement of the war.” 1 This required adjustment, and Chaucer was excused from accounting for it, Sept. 29, 1373, along with many other persons 2 who were similarly held. Of course this does not mean a gift on the king’s part ; it is merely a specimen of the haphazard fashion in which men got their salaries in the good old times. Further, Chaucer’s wife’s annuity was badly behindhand, for, on July 6, 1374, he received the arrears for two years and a half. 3 A good deal of Chaucer’s time for the first year after his return to England must have been consumed in seeking some permanent post in the government employ. It was more than a twelvemonth before he secured the Comptrollership of the Customs. The business of getting an office, then as now, was scarcely compatible with the enjoyment of learned leisure or with extensive literary planning and performance. Waiting at court and social matters also must have claimed their tribute. The duties of an Esquire of the Chamber are too well known to need repetition. 4 Incidentally, Chaucer was house-hunting, for he was going to keep house, apparently for the first time since his marriage. In the spring of 1374 he probably had assurance of office, for on May 10 he took the “ mansion ” over the gate of Aldgate on a life-lease, 5 doubt- less after the usual tedious dickerings and formalities, which would not be lessened by the consideration that he was commit- ting himself to a life tenancy. On June 8th, he was appointed Comptroller, and on June 12th, he took the oath. 6 The upshot of the matter appears to be that the thirteen months from Chaucer’s return in May, 1373, to his appointment in June, 1374, were by no n leans an interval of leisure. If, during these months, he found time to improve his knowledge of Italian — which cannot have been either accurate or extensive on his return — and now and then to write a lyric in the conventional French style, he surely did all that could be expected of him. From June, 1374, to the end of 1376, Chaucer was in daily attendance at the receipt of custom. The labor was not excessive, probably, and he neither repined nor complained. 7 Still, the post 1 No. 61, pp. 175-6. 2 No. 74, pp. 186-7. 3 No. 84, p. 192. 4 See King Edward ITs Household and Wardrobe Ordinances , edited by Furnivall {Life- Records, II). 6 No. 80, p. 19.0. 6 No. 82, pp. 191-2. 7 Of. The Nation, N.Y., Oct. 25, 1894, LIX, 309. 36 chaucer’s occupations 1374-76. was no sinecure. We know, at all events, that he was busy all day long, and that his only leisure for study and writing was in the evening. The responsibilities, too, were pretty heavy ; the sums accounted for between February 26, 1374, and July 26, 1375, foot up nearly £34,000 — a great deal of money in those days. 1 After a while Chaucer’s duties of course fell into a routine, but they were not “ routine work ’’ at the outset. He had never been in the customs before. Six months will not be thought an excessive allowance for learning the business and settling down into the jog-trot of a comfortable official programme. And during this same half-year, the poet had also another kind of routine to settle into — for he had just gone to housekeeping, doubtless for the first time in his life. This brings us squarely up to the beginning of 1375. Let us look, for a moment, at the other end of our limited period. Gower’s Troilus passage was written by 137 7. 2 By what time in 1377 2 There is no telling for certain. Still, we have no reason to assume — and Mr. Tatlock does not assume — the very end of the year. Indeed, the facts that the passage is vv. 5245-56, that v. 2142 must have been written before June, 1377, that v. 18817 may be as early as 1378, and that v. 30000 was penned before the disorders of 1381, 3 make the middle of 1377 seem not too early for the Troilus passage. To be safe, however, let us say that it was penned when the year was two-thirds gone. At that time, according to Mr. Tatlock’ s view, the Troilus had already been published: it was “ spreading abroad and exciting every one’s interest.” 4 The allusion, he says, implies “obviousness and popularity.” I do not know how long it took for the Troilus to fulfil these conditions, but I should think that — in view of the slow process of copying, and the labor of “rubbing and scraping” to ensure correctness — say three months must have elapsed after Chaucer had laid down his pen before, ex hypothesi , the time would have been ripe for Gower’s allusion. Add these three months to the other three, and subtract the six from December 31, 1377, and we have the middle of 1377 for the latest date w T hen, on the basis of Mr. Tatlock’s theory, Chaucer wrote explicit. But we are not at the end of our figuring. The first half of 1377 must be relegated to the limbo of impossible seasons. Between 1 Life-Records , No. 88, pp. 194-5. 2 I am accepting Mr. Tatlock’s date (p. 225). 3 I still follow Mr. Tatlock’s figures. 4 P. 33, note 6. ciiaucer’s occupations in 1377. 37 December 23, 1376, and June 26, 1377, Chaucer was thrice sent abroad on the king’s business. 1 This half-year, then, cannot have been spent in literary composition. It is evident, therefore, that if Chaucer finished the Troilus as early as the middle of 1377, he must have finished it six months before. In other words, Mr. Tatlock’s theory compels us to put the completion of the work, at the very latest, in December, 1376. Now, in working forward from the date of Chaucer’s return from Genoa in 1373, we have already arrived at January, 1375, as the earliest moment at which he can be thought to have settled into the routine of hia custom-house labors. 2 The actual com- position of the Troilus, then, is reduced to the space of two years. And these are not two years of elegant leisure. During the whole of them Chaucer was continuously employed at the custom-house ; he was forbidden to appoint a deputy, and he was required to keep his accounts with his own hand. Only his evenings were available for study and writing. Manifestly the time is too short for the composition of so extensive, so original, and so highly finished a work as the Troilus, even if we assume — as we cannot possibly do- — that the plan of the poem and the conception of the characters were framed and moulded during the year of restless practical activity and the preceding six months of induction into the novel duties of the comptrollership. Nor can we imagine that Chaucer wrote poetry every evening and all the evening long. Nobody works in that way. We do not need the celebrated passage in the House of Fame to teach us that many of his evenings were spent in reading. Even if the Troilus were nothing but a translation of eight thousand lines of Italian, we should have to pronounce such leisure as Chaucer could command during two busy years decidedly insufficient. But it is something very different from that. Most of it is original, and the originality is of a high order. Further, if we study the sources of the Troilus, we find that its composition involved not only the use of the Filostrato and the Filocolo, but that the poet drew also from Dante and Petrarch and that he reverted to both Benoit and Guido delle Colonne, to say nothing of his employment of Ovid and Statius and Boethius. Some of these authors are but slightly utilized, but others are drawn upon abundantly. Take only the Trojan materials. Before he began to 1 Life- Records, Nos. 98-106, pp. 201-6. 2 See p. 36, above. 38 chaucer’s french period. write, as well as during the progress of the poem, it is evident that Chaucer renewed his acquaintance with the older authorities — Benoit and Guido — and that he did this with the definite purpose of composing a new work. As for the Filostrato , he had mastered that, as well as the Filocolo — and had recognized its possibilities as the foundation for a great English poem. I have no wish to under- estimate his obligations to Boccaccio. He owed him not only matter, hut culture. Before he began the Troilus, then, he had not only learned to read Italian readily — far more readily than he could have learned it in the intervals of diplomatic business in a short visit to Italy — he had also immersed himself in Italian poetry. Long preparation of every kind was needed before the first stanza of the Troilus was written. When did Chaucer make this preparation? While he was getting his accounts adjusted, waiting for months to procure a warrant for payment, dancing attendance on the Exchequer for other months in a long series of efforts to get his warrant cashed, trying to collect the arrears of his wife’s annuity, waiting at court, leaving no stone unturned to get an office commensurate with his deserts, hunting up a house and hiring it on a life-lease, setting up housekeeping, learning the novel duties of his highly responsible comptrollership and reducing them to a routine ? I can hardly believe it, unless on the old principle of “ credo quia impossible,” and, so far as I can see, the change from B to C in the name of a Trojan beauty does not justify me in abandoning my reason and having recourse to an act of faith. But we are not confined to such considerations as these. There are other reasons for rejecting so early a date as 1377 for the completion of the Troilus. What they are becomes evident as soon as we inquire whether there are no works of Chaucer’s which certainly followed his return from Italy and are likely to have preceded this masterpiece. Before specifying them, however, let us see what kind of works we should expect them to be. Since the appearance of ten Brink’s distinguished Studieu in 1870, it has been customary to regard Chaucer’s return from Italy, in 1373, as marking the boundary between the French and the Italian Period in his poetical career. That the Italian journey marks a significant date cannot be questioned. When Chaucer set out for Genoa in 1372 he was dominated by French culture. His wife, who came of a French-speaking family and had been attached THE PERIOD OF TRANSITION. 39 to the household of a French-speaking queen, was quite as much at home in French as in English. Chaucer himself had been in France more than once, and spoke the language fluently for business and social purposes ; doubtless, too, he could use it readily enough in correspondence. He was an easy and practised poet in the French style. He was well acquainted with the Roman de Troie and with some of the . works of Froissart and Guillaume de Machaut ; he had translated the Roman de la Rose , in whole or in part ; he had made a version of the Dit du Lion ; he had written many lyrics in French measures and likewise the Booh of the Duchess, which is French to its finger-tips. We are quite justified, therefore, in designating as the French Period that portion of his literary career which came before 1373. 1 Is it accurate, however, to make the Italian Period begin immediately on Chaucer’s return to London? What do we mean, or what ought we to mean, by the Italian Period? Manifestly, that stage in Chaucer’s career in which we find him distinctly under the influence of Boccaccio, evincing those qualities which were fostered and developed by the study of Italian. 2 This period, then, should begin with either the Pdlamon and Arcite or the Troilus — whichever of the two came first. How Chaucer was not a new creature when he arrived in London after four months of diplomatic service in Italy. We must distinguish between the moment when he first came into contact with Italian literature and got an opportunity to study it, and the moment, somewhat later, when the rich fruitage of that study appeared in our literature. Between the end of the French Period and the beginning of the Italian Period there must have been what we may call a Period of Transition, during which Chaucer was reading and assimilating Italian poetry, was achieving emancipation from French fashions under its guidance, was “ find- ing himself,” was getting ready for the full exercise of his native power. This Period of Transition will fall between 1373 and the composition of the Palamon, or of the Troilus , as the case may be. If Chaucer wrote anything in the Transition Period — and he- could 1 The term French Period is, to be sure, inexact, for Chaucer came early under the influence of Ovid and of other Latin writers, sacred and profane. However, it will serve well enough, if it is understood to mean that period during which Chaucer was under the influence not of French writers altogether, hut of French culture, — that period during which his reading (apart from English) was in French literature and in such Latin hooks as Frenchmen studied or enjoyed. 2 Cf. Mather, Modern Language Notes, XI, 511. 40 THE LIFE OF ST. CECILIA. no more refrain from writing than from breathing — what he produced, apart from mere practice work, would naturally be in the old manner, but would also show some signs of his new intellectual and artistic interests. And such signs might be expected to appear in the shape of translated or adapted passages from the Italian, occurring in the course of poems still prevailingly French in matter and style. If the Chaucer canon affords us any works that fulfil this expectation, we shall of course refer them to the Transition Period — from 1373 to the composition of the Palamon or the Troilus — unless There is positive evidence that they belong elsewhere. Before we look for such poems, however, it is worth while to determine, if we can, what kind of purple patches they are likely to exhibit. This is not so futile an inquiry as it may at first appear to be. Our own experience and observation will guide us. To most men, Italian poetry means simply — Dante. To get at Dante as soon as possible is the aspiration of every unguided beginner. And Chaucer was an unguided beginner. If he bought any books at Florence, he of course bought the Divine Comedy first. And to this he would first turn when, on his return to England, he unpacked his foreign treasures. The seriousness of Dante would not deter him ; for Chaucer was mediaeval enough — and English enough — to like solid things. Good moral and religious reading never came amiss to the translator of Melibee and the Parson’s Tale and the Wretched Engendering of Mankind. To be sure, Dante’s genius and his own were very different, nor was the great Floren- tine to exercise any such influence upon him as was exercised by the lighter and more congenial Boccaccio. But Chaucer could not tell that. To Dante he would first turn, and, we may be equally sure, he would try his hand at the translation of particular passages that impressed him. We may expect, then, in case there are any poems in the Chaucer canon that meet our expectations for the Transition Period, that, while not in substance or in manner prevailingly Italian, they will contain passages from Dante. Now three such poems exist, the St. Cecilia , the Monk’s Tale, and the House of Fame. Naturally, therefore, one would refer them to the Period of Transition, beginning in 1373. But doctors disagree about their dates. Hence we must examine each of these poems separately. The Life of St. Cecilia need not long detain us. It is a typical THE MONK’S TALE. 41 legend, translated from the Latin. The introductory stanzas, whether or not they were developed from a hint in Jean de Yignay, are easily paralleled from French authors. Style, metre, everything about the poem are in perfect accord with assignment to the French Period. The only thing Italian is the invocation to the Virgin from Dante’s Paradiso , 1 The St. Cecilia , then, fulfils the conditions, and may be assigned to the Transition Period. The date usually adopted, 1373 or 1374, seems on the whole a little too early. But no one will think of putting the poem later than the Troilus, or the Falamon, 'or even the House of Fame. It has no marked excellences beyond tlidt ease and fluency of diction, that metrical skill, and that purity of language which came to Chaucer almost by nature. It is a pleasing poem, no doubt, but not too good for Chaucer at thirty-three or thirty-five. Nothing, therefore, prevents us from putting it where it appears to belong, — in the Transition Period. To the Transition Period I should also assign the Tragedies— later utilized as the Monk's Tale. The general idea of the Tragedies is derived from Boccaccio’s De Casibus, which is also drawn upon for material, though rather slightly. The moral of Fortune’s De- ceit and Malice, which gives the poem what structure it possesses, was a favorite commonplace of the French poets. The Roman de la Rose offers a long discourse thereon, 2 which is of particular interest to students of Chaucer, inasmuch as it is utilized, not only in the Book of the Duchess 3 and the House of Fame , 4 but, very strikingly, in the Tragedies also. After describing the actions of Fortune, Jean de Meun makes Reason remark, “ Mains essamples en puis trover.” 5 Chaucer, it will be remembered, in the proem to the Tragedies , bids his hearers £ ‘ Be war by thise ensamples trewe and olde.” Then, in the Roman de la Rose, Reason tells the stories of Seneca, Nero, and Croesus — all of which are used by Chaucer 6 — and adds : — Et se ces prueves rien ne prises, D’anciennes istoires prises, Tu les as de ton tens noveles, etc.' 1 There is no reason for regarding the prayer as a later insertion. Its con- nection is perfect, and if it is thought to be better than the rest of the poem, the superiority is at once intelligible when one remembers whom Chaucer is following. 2 Ed. Michel, I, 195 ff. 3 For the Game of Chess (vv. 617 ff.). 4 See Sypherd^fafefo'eS in Chaucer's House of Fame , Chaucer Society 1907, pp. 118 ff. 5 I, 206. I, 219. 6 Seneca in the section on Nero. 42 THE MONK’S TALE. Accordingly, Reason proceeds to give a number of Modern In- stances. Thus in spirit, and to some extent in plan, the Tragedies accords perfectly with Chaucer’s French Period . 1 The Ugolino chapter, however, is from Dante, and there is no reason to regard it as later than the rest of the poem . 2 We have the conditions of the Transition Period fulfilled. I have said that the moral of Fortune’s Deceit and Malice gives the Tragedies what structural unity it possesses. This is greater than is commonly supposed. The work has not only a formal In taking Professor Lounsbury to task for calling the Monk's Tale a parody, Mr. Tatloek (p. 167) declares, with great emphasis, that “ the genre represented ” therein “was wholly the creation of Boccaccio, both in con- ception and form, though hints are of course traceable to other mediaeval works,” and he goes on to refer to “Chaucer’s procedure in introducing the species ” into England. Certainly, the Monk's Tale is no parody, but were the tragedies that compose it so great a novelty ? Boccaccio’s originality in the Be Casibus lay not in writing “tragedies,” for, as everybody knows, tragoedia was a technical term for such pieces long before his day. The Monk’s definition of tragedy is from Boethius, and so is the remark at the end of the poem (vv. 3951 : cf. Skeat’s note, and Cloetta, Komodie und Tra- godieim Mittelalter, pp. 41-43). Indeed, to write tragedies was a customary rhetorical exercise. Johannes de Garlandia, for instance, describes this kind of composition in his Poetria (thirteenth century), and gives a specimen (Rockinger, Brief steller und Formelbiicher des eiften bis vierzehnten Jahrliun- derts, in Quellen und Erorterungen zur bayerischen und deutschen Geschichte, IX, 503 ; Haureau, Notices et Extraits , XXVII, ii, 82 ; Cloetta, pp. 126-7 ; Kittredge, Modern Language Notes, VIII, 502-3). Nor did Boccaccio’s origin- ality lie in accumulating a number of tragic tales to illustrate the instability of Fortune : that had already been done in the Roman de la Rose , which Chaucer utilized for his sections on Nero and Croesus. Nor did Boccaccio’s oiiginality lie in the schematism of his work, for schematism was no greater novelty in the fourteenth century than in the sixteenth. What was substan- tially original in Boccaccio’s De Casibus — though previous hints even for that may easily be found — was the device of making the personages appear to the author, bewail their own woes, and (in some instances) tell him their own histories. And this device Chaucer ignored, thus returning a long way toward the adoption of the pre-Boccaccian fashion of merely amassing exempla . That Chaucer himself did not look upon his Tragedies as a new literary genre just invented by Boccaccio, is shown by what the Monk says in his Prologue : — And they [sc. tragedies] ben versifyed comunly Of six feet, which men clepe exametron. In prose eek been endyted many oon, And eek in metre, in many a sondry wyse (vv. 3168-71). On hexameter as the metre of tragedy, see Cloetta, pp. 51-54, 139. Com- pare with the passage which he quotes (p. 51, note 3) from Honorius Augusto- dunensis {De Animae Exsilio et Patria, cap. 2, Migne, CLXXII, 1243 D) the following remark from a fourteenth-century treatise on versifica- tion: “Tragedya [sc. agit] de infelicitate sublimium personarurn, ut facit Lucanus et Statius” ( Notices et Extraits, XXII, ii, 418 ; cf. XXII, ii, 67, 63 and note 1). 2 Mr. Tatlock’s arguments on this point (p. 169) are convincing. THE MONK S TALE. 43 proem, but a formal conclusion which refers back to the beginning. It opens thus : I wol biwayle in maner of Tragedie The harm of hem that stode in heigh degree, And Alien so that ther nas no remedie To bringe hem out of her adversitee ; For certein, whan that fortune list to flee, The final stanza runs : — Anhanged was Cresus, the proude king, His royal trone mighte him nat availle. — Tragedie is noon other maner thing, Ne can in singing crye ne bivvaille, But for that fortune alwey woll assaille With unwar strnok the regnes that ben proude ; For when men trusteth hir, than wol she faille, And covere hir bright e face with a cloude. Compare the language of the conclusion with that of the proem, and the identity of idea and expression comes out strikingly. The poem begins and ends with a reference to the nature of its contents — Tragedies — and with emphasis on the lesson they teach, — that Fortune is so fickle and full of malice that no man should trust prosperity. The poem, it now appears, fulfils two- thirds of the Aristotelian requirement, inasmuch as it has a beginning and an end. That is doing pretty well for mediaeval times. If there is some little uncertainty about the middle , the author may claim our indulgence. An inspection of the several “ ensamples ” of which the poem consists brings out another fact of interest. Omitting the four Modern Instances for the moment, we note that the moral about Fortune has a strong tendency to appear at the end of each section. It stands there in Hercules, Nebuchadnezzar-Belshazzar (a structural unit ), 1 Zenobia, Hero, Alexander, Julius Caesar, and Croesus . 2 1 These two exempla form a unit. The account of Nebuchadnezzar ends with an account of God’s restoring his reason, and of the king’s subsequent piety ; that of Belshazzar begins — His sone, which that highte Balthasar, That heeld the regne after his fader day, He by his fader coude nought be war, — and ends with a stanza about Fortune. Thus the two exempla form a single (structural) chapter, with no break in the middle, and winding up with the customary moral. 2 In Holofernes and Antiochus the Fortune moral comes at the beginning. In Samson, the lesson is more pointed — “Do not tell your secrets to °a Ther may no man the cours of hir withholde ; Let no man truste on blind prosperi- tee ; Be war by thise ensamples trewe and olde. 44 THE MONK’S TALE. Turning now to the Modern Instances, we observe that the Ugolino chapter has the Fortune moral at the end, though there is no such reflection in Dante’s account. Next we note that the two stanzas relating to Pedro of Spain, with the single stanza relating to Pierre de Lusignan, form a structural unit. The first stanza begins “ 0 noble, 0 worthy Petro, glorie of Spayne ” ; the third begins ‘ ‘ 0 worthy Petro, king of Cypre, also and ends with the Fortune moral, which is applicable to both Peters and closes the whole section in the fashion that we have just remarked in so many other cases : — Thus can Fortune her wheel go verne and gye, And out of ioye bringe men to sorwe. The association of these two kings was natural, since they had the same name and were murdered in the same year (1369) ; * 1 besides, they were both figures of interest to Englishmen. 2 There is nothing to indicate that the section describing their fate was not written when the rest of the poem was composed. Perhaps, therefore, a consideration of the probable date of this section will give a clue to that of the poem itself. Now the idea of putting the two Peters together would be woman,” a precept on which Chaucer rings the changes in five out of the ten stanzas. Lucifer is exempt, since “fortune may non angel dere ” (v. 3191), and Adam’s Fall could of course not be ascribed to Fortune ; but Lucifer and Adam are merely introductory and have but one stanza apiece. All the sections, except the Modern Instances, being now accounted for, the tendency or structural principle noted is seen to be a substantial matter. 1 Pedro the Cruel was killed by his brother Enrique, March 23, 1369 (Ayala, Cronicas, I, 556). See Furnivall’s letter in Notes and Queries, 4th Series, VIII, 449, and Skeat’s note on the Monk's Tale , B, 3573. Pierre I. de Lusignan was murdered Jan. 17, 1369. See the passages and the discussion in Mas Latrie, Histoire de Vile de Chypre, II, 332-45 ; cf. N. Jorga, Philippe de Mezieres, 1896, p. 390, note 5. 2 Pierre de Lusignan visited England in 1363, and was royally entertained by Edward III. On his tour see Mas Latrie, Histoire de Vile de Chypre, II, 239-41, note 1, and Jorga, Philippe de Mezieres, chap, vii, pp. 144 ff. (especially pp. 178-82). His capture of Alexandria (in 1365) is mentioned in the Knight's Tale, as well as his successes at Satalye ( Attalea , modem Adalia) in 1361, and Lyeys ( Layas , Lajazzo, modern Ayas ) in 1367. These three exploits are mentioned, along with the capture of Tripoli (in 1367), in the epitaph of Philippe de Mezieres, apparently as the most notable achieve- ments of Pierre (Jorga, p. 511, note 5). Englishmen took part in them all. Humphrey de Bohun VIII, the 6th Earl of Hereford, was at Satalie (in 1361, it seems), and his successor (also named Humphrey), the last earl of the Bohun line (whose daughter Mary married the Earl of Derby, afterwards Henry IV), was at Alexandria, Tripoli, and Lyeys. See the references and the discussion in Manly, A Knight Ther Was ( Transactions of the American Philological Association , XXX VIII, 89 ff.), and cf. Jorga, pp. 121-4, 286 ff.,. 365-7, 369. THE MONK’S TALE. 45 more likely to occur to Chaucer four or five years after their death than fifteen or twenty. Besides, the heraldic riddle about the “feeld of snow with thegle of blak therinne,” and the punning allusion to Mauny as “ wikked nest,” in the second stanza, suggest composition not so very long after the fact. These are indications, not proofs, but they count for something. Let us see, therefore, if there was any particular occasion that may have prompted Chaucer to include either “ Petro ” in a poem that he composed soon after his return from Italy in 1373. Here we get upon firm historical ground. John of Gaunt, Chaucer’s great patron, married Constance, daughter of the Castilian king Pedro, in 1371, and brought her to England in 1372. 1 He immediately assumed the style of King of Castile and Leon, in his wife’s right, and the title was recognized by Edward III in two indentures of June 25, 1372. 2 On the 30th of August John of Gaunt granted to Chaucer’s wife the annual sum of <£10, during his good pleasure, in consideration of the service which she had done and shall do in the future to his “ treschere et tresame compaigne la Peine.” 3 Thus we learn that Philippa Chaucer became attached to the household of Constance almost immediately after the latter’s arrival in England. Chaucer left London for Italy on December 1st. His wife remained in Constance’s service not only during his absence but for some time after his return, until he had hired the tenement above Aldgate, had secured the Comptrollership of the Customs, and was ready to set up housekeeping. His appointment, we remember, occurred on June 8, 1374, and he took the oath of office on the 12th. Next day, John of Gaunt granted a life annuity of £10 to Chaucer for his services to him “et auxint pur la bon seruice que nostre bien ame Philippe, sa femme, ad fait a nostre treshonure Dame et Miere la Royne, . . . et a nostre tres- ame compaigne la Royne.” 4 This w r as in addition to the £10 previously granted to Philippa Chaucer, and not in lieu of it. 5 These dates are significant. Whether or not Chaucer was helped to his office by the Duke of Lancaster, he had abundant cause for gratitude to his patron and his patron’s new wife for favors 1 See the references in Englische Studien, XIII, 7, note 4 ; cf. Simeon Luce, Froissart, VIII, pp. xxi-ii. 2 ftymer’s Foedera , ed. Holmes, VI, 728-9 ; cf. Dugdale, Baronage of England, II, 115. 3 Life-Records, No. 67, p. 181. 4 Life- Records, No. 83, p. 192. 6 Kirk, Life-Records, p. xxiv. 46 THE MONK’S TALE. received both just before his departure for Italy and shortly after his return. Under the circumstances, we may feel pretty safe in inferring for the tribute to Constance’s father, Pedro of Castile, the date of 1373 or 1374. The royal title which John of Gaunt had recently assumed, by right of his wife, made such a tribute especially timely. 1 The date of the tribute to Pedro carries with it the date of the poem as a whole. So far everything fits uncommonly well. But what are we to make of the third modem instance, Bernabo Visconti, who died December 19, 1385? Must we on his account refer the whole poem to 1386 or later, 2 ignoring all the evidence to the contrary? I am by no means disposed to so violent a procedure. The Visconti section in the Tragedies is peculiar in that it consists of but a single stanza and has no mention of Fortune. It has every appearance of being an afterthought — an insertion made under stress of some special interest or emotion. Let us consider the circumstances. Bernabo Visconti had been in confinement for more than seven 1 I hasten to point out that the Castilian succession was likewise a matter of great interest to Chaucer and the English public from 1386 to 1389. On the 18th of February, 1386, a crusade in Spain was proclaimed at Paul’s Cross. On March 8, 1386, Richard II “in pleno consilio in quantum potuit confirmavit et declaravit dominum ducem Lancastriae verum fore heredem Hispaniae ac in signum regii honoris ilium in consilio supra archiepiscopos fecit juxta se sedere” (John Mai verne, continuation of Higden’s Polychronicon, Rolls ed., IX, 81-82). In July, John of Gaunt embarked for Spain to assert his title under arms. The expedition was a dismal failure. The English forces were attacked by pestilence in the spring of 1387. The Duke saw that he must disband his army, and he directed his constable, John de Holande, to draw off the troops. Holande executed this movement and returned to England, where we find him as early as June, 1388 ; no doubt he arrived in 1387. John of Gaunt retired (1387) from Spain to Aquitaine, where he remained until he was recalled by Richard II in 1389 (see the authorities cited in Englisclie Studien, XIII, 12-15). In the spring of 1388 he had made a treaty with Juan I, in which he and Constance renounced their rights to the Spanish throne but secured the marriage of their daughter to the Infante and the succession of her descendants (Ayala, Crdnicas, II, 272 ff. ; cf. Armitage- Smith, John of Gaunt, 1904, p. 330). These dates will fit Mr. Tatlock’s hypothesis. The question whether a tribute to Pedro was more timely when John of Gaunt’s military fiasco was fresh in the public mind than in 1373, when the Spanish marriage and the assumption of the royal title were brilliant novelties, must be left to the reader’s judgment. So likewise must the further question whether it was more natural to associate the two Peters in 1386-9 than it was when the fact that they were both murdered in the same year was a thing of comparatively recent memory. Here again, it should be remembered, we are merely weighing probabilities. Nothing is impossible. 2 Mr. Tatlock thinks that * ‘ the Monk's Tale was written when the Canter- bury Tales were well under way” (p. 172), and was intended for that collection (p. 166). He seems to date it about 1388. THE MONK’S TALE. 47 months at the time of his death. His fall took place on May 6, 1385, 1 when he was treacherously arrested by his nephew (and son-in-law), Gian Galeazzo. He had long been a highly spectacu- lar personage, and his overthrow made a great sensation through- out Europe. “ En celle saison,” writes Froissart, “ avint une autre incidense mervilleuse en Lombardie et de laquelle on parla moult par le monde.” 2 Of course the tidings of Gian Galeazzo’s coup d'etat reached England a good while before Bernabo’s death. Mai verne, the very trustworthy continuator of Higden, tells the story of the arrest under the correct date (May 6th), 3 and his narra- tive, which is lively, circumstantial, and accurate, may be unhesi- tatingly accepted as representing the form in which the report came to the English court and to Chaucer. Between May and December Chaucer had ample opportunity to reflect on one of the most amazing reverses of fortune that had taken place in his lifetime. Then, on December 19th, Bernabo died suddenly in prison. Chaucer knew him personally, having visited his court on an embassy in 1378. 4 That the Lombard despot had impressed his imagination, 5 if only hinted at in the Prologue to the Legend , 6 is proved beyond 1 Letter from Carlo Visconti, Bernabo’s son, to Sir John Hawkwood, dated May 6th, and saying that the arrest took place “ hodie” (printed by Temple- Leader and Marcotti, Giovanni Acuto, 1889, p. 285) ; Annales Mediolanenses, cap. 147 (Muratori, JRerum Italicarum Scriptores, XVI, 784) ; John Malverne, continuation of Higden’s Polychronicon (Rolls ed., IX, 59-60). 2 Ed. Kervyn de Lettenhove, X, 324. 3 Rolls edition of Higden’s Polychronicon , IX, 59-60. The Monk of St. Albans (Rolls ed., p. 366) also records Bernabb’s capture, in a passage which is not copied from Walsingham. 4 Life-Records , No. 122, p. 218. 6 Bernabo was of considerable interest to his literary contemporaries. See Sacchetti, Novelle, Nos. 4, 59, 74, 82, 152, 188, 193. Cf. L. di Francia, Franco Sacchetti Novelliere, 1902, ^p 112-120 ; A. Medin, Letteratura Poetica Viscontea ( Archivio Storico Lombardo, XII, 568 ff. ), and I Visconti nella Poesia Contemporanea (id. , XVLi. 733 ff.) ; V. Vitale, Bernabo Visconti nella Novella e nella Cronaca Contemporanea (id., XXVIII, 261 ff. ). Three contemporary “laments” in verse have been printed by A. Medin and L. Frati, Lamenti Storici dei Secoli XIV, XV e XVI, I, 63-213. 6 A, vv. 353 ff. ; B, vv. 373 ff. A fine example of Bernabb’s implacability may be found in Matteo Villari, Cronica, ix, 50, II, 237-8 (Collezione di Storici e Cronisti Italiani, VI). One is reminded of the “irons potestat” (from Seneca) in the Somnour’s Tale (D, 2017 ff.). Villani died in 1363. He records instances of Bernabb’s cruelty in book vii, chap. 48 (II, 43-45), excusing himself for so doing by remarking that they may serve “per esempio del pericolo che si corre sotto il giogo della sfrenata tirannia.” There is an appalling catalogue (ex parte ) of Bernabb’s crimes in the accusation brought against him by Gian Galeazzo and preserved in the Annales Mediolanenses (Muratori, XVI, 794-800; cf. G. Romano. Achirio Storico Lombardo , XX, 602 ff.). See also the first Lamento di Bernabo Visconti, sts. 113-141 (Medin and Frati, Lamenti Storici dei Secoli XIV, XV e XVI, I, 116-127). 43 THE MONK’S TALE. a shadow of doubt by the powerful line in which he apostrophizes him in the Tragedies,— 1 1 G od of deiit and scourge of Lumbardye !” 1 The stanza was certainly written as soon as the news of Bernabo’s death reached England . 2 Chaucer was ignorant of the details. He supposed, as most contemporaries did, that Gian Galeazzo had procured his uncle’s murder, 3 — but the particular reason .for killing 1 “Ceterorum principum sic cupiditatem iuexplebilem superabat, ut me- dietatem bonorum plebis extorqueret” (Monk of Saint Denys, xxiv, 18, III, 132). 2 There were special reasons, apart from the general fame of Bernabo, why his fall and death were of interest to Englishmen. Lionel, the Duke of Clarence (in the household of whose first wife Chaucer himself had served in 1357 : Life-Records, No. 33, pp. 152-3) married Violanta Visconti, niece of Bernabo, in 1368, and died in Piedmont in the same year, not without sus- picion of poison (Froissart, ed. Kervyn, VII, 246-7, 251-2 ; ed. Luce, VII, 64, 83). Edward Despenser, who was in his company, received the thanks of Edward III for holding Lionel’s possessions against Violanta’s father, Galeazzo (royal instructions, Dec., 1368, in Kervyn’s Froissart, XVIII, 489). Bernabo had offered his own daughter Katerina to Richard II, and an embassy had been sent to Milan on this business in 1379 (Rymer, Fcedera, 2nd ed., VII, 213 ; Record ed., IV, 60 ; Walsingham, Eistoria Anglicana, Rolls ed. II, 46 ; C. G. Chamberlayne, Die Eeirat Richards II. von England mit Anna von Luxemburg , Halle, 1906, p. 13). The wife of Sir John Hawkwood, the famous English free-lance, was Donnina, one of Bernabo Visconti’s daughters. It is also worth noting that in 1388 two sons of Bernabo, “venientes in Angliam,” received a gift of £40 from Richard II to aid in their support (Rymer, 2nd ed., VII, 601). 3 The current opinion was that Bernabo was poisoned. “ Veneno sumto in quodam ferculo,” say the Annales Mediolancnses (Muratori, XVI, 800). Andrea Gataro remarks that * * per quanto fu publicamente detto, fu avvelenato per tre fiate ” ( Istoria Radovana, Muratori, XVII, 499). Bernardino Corio (born 1459) is able to specify the very dish in w’hich the poison was adminis- tered, — “ in una scodella di fagiuoli ” ( Storia di Milano , ed. Butti and Ferrario, Part iii, chap. 7, II, 326 ; cf. Venice ed., 1554, fol. 259 r°). Ptomaines and acute indigestion occur to us as alternative possibilities, and one modern scholar is bold enough to assert that Bernabb died “ della malattia stessa di Napoleone a S. Elena, ambizione rientrata ” (C. Cantu, Archivio Storico Lombardo , XIV, 461). For the belief that he was poisoned, see also Sozomenus Pistoriensis, Specimen Historiae (Muratori, XVI, 1128) ; Matthaeus de Griffonibus, MemorialeEistoricum{id., XVIII, 196) ; Cronicadi Bologna {id., XVIII, 526) ; Goro (Gregorio) Dati, Istoria di Firenze, i, 9 (ed. Pratesi, 1902, p. 18; Florence ed., 1735, pp. 9-10); Chronique du Religieux de Saint-Denys, xxiv, 18 (III, 132, in Collection de Documents inidits sur VEistoire de France) ; Chronica di Milano dal 948 al 1487 (ed. Lambertenghi, Turin, 1869, p. 121) ; Paulus Jovius, Vitae Elustrium Virorum (ed. Basel, 1578, I, 82) ; Ripamonti, Eistoria Urbis Mediolani (in Graevius, Thesaurus Antiquitatum et Eistoriarum Italiae , II, 571). Cf. Raynaldus, Annales Ecclesiastici, VII, 486 (Lucea, 1752); Muratori, Annali dTtalia, VIII, ii, 266 ; Rosmini, Istoria di Milano, II (1820), 157 ; Verri, Storia di Milano, ed. 1834-5, I, 470 ; Litta, Famiglie Celebri Italians, vol. I, fasc. ix ( Visconti di Milano), tav. v. Sercambi expresses himself guardedly: “Vedendosi messer Bernabo esser privato di madonna Porrina, subito di malanconia amalb, e chi vuol dire che bevesse. Or chome la cosa fusse, lui amalato, doppo molto piangere e lamen- tarsi cadde in inalatia, della quale in picciolo tempo morio ” ( Croniche , Part i, chap. 296, ed. Bongi, I, 246, in Fontiper la Storia d’ Italia). THE MONK’S TALE. 49 him after he had been so many months in prison, and when there was no occasion to regard him as dangerous, Chaucer did not know, nor was he informed as to the precise manner of his taking off, — “ But why, ne how, noot I that thou were slawe ! ” It is even possible to determine, with some probability, the exact source from which Chaucer derived the news. About a fortnight after Bernabo’s death, a gentleman, presumably English, who had been for some time a number of Sir John Hawk wood’s company of free lances, arrived from Lombardy at the court of Ilichard II. We do not know his errand, but it seems safe to infer that he brought word that Bernabo was dead. Perhaps he had been sent for this very purpose by Hawkwood himself, who, w T e should remember, was the fallen tyrant’s son-in-law . * 1 At all events, Malverne, whose relations to the English court were close, records his arrival, and tells of a prophecy about England which he reported as rife in Lombardy . 2 Malverne’s text, to be sure, contains no mention of Bernabo’s death, but in the margin of the same page the manuscript of his chronicle shows the following significant entry “Quo in tempore dominus Barnabos moriebatur in carcere, qua morte an gladio aut fame aut veneno ignoratur .” 3 This gives us, at all events, the form in which the report reached English ears, and corresponds strikingly with Chaucer’s expressed uncertainty as to the precise method of Bernabo’s demise. What was more natural than that Chaucer, on hearing of the tyrant’s end, should dash off his vigorous stanza in the margin of his own copy of the Tragedies ? The obvious place for it was after the section on the two earlier modern Froissart has a very curious passage on Bernabo’s death : “Sesoncles [sc. Gian Galeazzo’s uncle, Bernabo] morut, je ne say mies de quel mort, je croy bien qu’il fu sainnies ou hateriel, enssi comme il ont d’usage de faire leurs sainnies en Lombardie, quant il voellent a un homme avanchier sa fin ” (ed. Kervyn de Lettenhove, X, 327 ; cf. XY, 258-9, with the variant reading). Several chronicles register Bernabb’s death without specifying a cause (Muratori, XV, 512 ; XYI, 544, 854 ; XVII, 1127). 1 Chaucer knew Hawkwood (see Life-Records, Nos. 121, 122, pp. 216-19). 2 “Circiter principium vero istius mensis [i. e. January, 1386] venit ad curiam domini regis quidam armiger, qui aliquamdiu in Lombardia stetit in comitiva domini Johannis Haukewode, et narravit de quodam religioso in illis partibus demorante quomodo praedicebat gentem Anglorum infra tres annos proxime secuturos propter eorum malam vitam fore atrociter casti- gandam,” etc. (John Malverne, in the Rolls ed. of Higden, IX, 78). If, as is possible, this gentleman from Hawkwood left Lombardy too early to report the death of Bernabb, he was at any rate in a position to furnish the court circle (including Chaucer, who was still engaged in giving personal attention to the customs) with interesting details about the tyrant’s arrest and incarceration. 3 Malverne, as above, IX, 78, note. DATE OF 0. T. E 50 THE MONK’S TALE. victims of assassination — Pedro of Spain and Pierre I de Lusignan ; and Chancer fitted it in as a kind of appendix to that section by putting it into the form of direct address. Compare the vocatives “ 0 noble, o worthy Petro, glorie of Spayne,” and “ 0 worthy Petro, King of Cypre, also,” with the vocative “ Of Melan grete Barnabo Viscounte.” Direct address is not the method in the other tragedies. 1 It is well to remember, as a possible associative influence in Chaucer’s mind, the fact that one of Bernabo’s daughters 2 had married Pierre II de Lusignan, the son and successor of Pierre I. “ Why sholde I nat thyn infortune accounte ? ” 3 is likewise eminently suggestive of an addition — “ Why should I not reckon in , or take into account , thy misfortune [also]]” The high probability that the Bernabo stanza is an insertion, an after- thought, comes out clearly if vv. 3565-96 are read as they stand, with the structure of the section on the two Peters in mind. 4 I see nothing that can be urged against it except the general principle that a poet is never to alter a work that he has once finished or laid aside. 5 1 The instances of direct address in Samson (vv. 3242-7), Alexander (vv. 3848-52), and Julius Csesar (vv. 3869-76) are merely apostrophic (cf. vv. 3883-4, 3909). 2 Valentina (or Valenza) Visconti. The marriage was celebrated by proxy April 2, 1376. Pierre II died in 1382 ; Valentina lived until 1393. See di Mas Latrie, Genialogie des Hois de Chypre de la Famille de Lusignan (. Archivio Veneto, XXI, 335-6 ; cf. also his Histoire de V lie de Chypre , II, 346 ff.). 3 Accounte is commonly taken as meaning “recount,” “relate” ( Oxford Dictionary , s.v., IV, 8), but the sense “reckon in,” “ take into account,” is much more likely. The passage from Gower ( Confessio , vii, 2226-7) quoted in the Oxford Dictionary under the same definition certainly does not belong there, nor — very emphatically — that from the Gcst Historiale of the Destruction of Troy (vv. 5443-4). The Gower passage should be punctuated — In here time thei surmonte Alle othre men, that — to acompte — Of hem was tho the grete fame (vii, 2265-7). To acompte is parenthetical. The meaning is : “ They surpass all other men in their time, so that (to estimate their reputation properly) the great talk was then of them,” i. e. “ they were more talked about, or had a greater reputation, than anybody else.” Of hem goes with the grete fame , not with acompte. In the Gest Historiale (v. 5443) “to acounte of the kynges” introduces a long enumeration, not a narrative ; it means, therefore, “ to make a list of the kings,” “ to enumerate them in their order.” 4 My argument for the late insertion of the Bernabo stanza does not involve the question whether the Modern Instances {minus Bernabo) originally stood at the end or where they stand now. It is equally consistent with both arrangements. For opinions on the original place of the Modern Instances, see Skeat’s Chavxer, III, 428-30 ; Tatlock, pp. 170-2 ; Skeat, The Evolution of the Canterbury Tales, 1907, pp. 21, 29. 5 It will hardly be objected that, in case my views about the Bernabb stanza are correct, the Tragedies ought to be extant in their earlier form, that is, without this stanza. Since the stanza was inserted, ex hypothesi , THE MONK’S TALE. 51 This theory accords with certain other facts or beliefs with regard to the planning or composition of the Canterbury Tales. If, as is quite possible, Chaucer was thinking of that great work as before group B of the Canterbury Tales was published, no manuscript of that group, or of the whole of the Canterbury Tales , would ever have lacked the Bernabb stanza. This will be true whether we suppose the stanza to have been inserted by Chaucer in the act of fitting the Tragedies into the Canter- bury Tales or earlier. Where is there a manuscript of the Canterbury Tales in which the Shipman's Tale, originally written for a woman to tell, is ascribed to anybody but the Shipman ? As to a separate manuscript of the Tragedies (by itself) without the stanza, — where is there a separate manuscript of St. Cecilia , which was not written for the Canterbury Tales at all, or of the Book of the Lion , or of the Wretched Engendering of Mankind , or of Origenes upon the Maudeleyne ? Nor will it be objected that revision — witness the Second Nun's Tale and the Shipman's — is contrary to Chaucer’s habits. The Troilus and the Prologue to the Legend are answer enough to that. If it be answered in sur- rebuttal, that these are not parallel cases, inasmuch as (1) the Troilus is a great poem, over which Chaucer lingered with loving care, and (2) the second Prologue is due to some special moving cause, one may answer that the inser- tion of the Bernabo stanza was due to a very special moving cause, the tragic death of that “ god of delyt and scourge of Lumbardye ” who had so impressed Chaucer’s imagination. And if this answer is not accepted, one may still call attention to the essential difference between revising a poem and writing, under stress of exciting news, a single stanza in the margin of one’s manu- sciipt. And, finally, if this remark is also scouted, one may fall back on the schoolman’s exceptio probat regulam and on Chaucer’s own evidence that “somtyme it shal fallen on a day That falleth nat eft withinne a thousand yere.” This guarding of the outposts seems rather superfluous, but the gentle reader is courteously petitioned to remember that the friendly contest over Chaucerian dates is being carried on with extraordinary vigor and quite particular keenness at the present moment. Mr. Tatlock thinks that v. 3851 (“ Thy sys fortune hath turned into as ”) was borrowed from Gower’s Mirour , vv. 22102-3 or v. 23399, and that this borrowing suggests a date not earlier than 1379-81 (p. 165). Yet, in arguing for a date of about 1379 for completion of the House of Fame, he thinks that vv. 22129-52 of the Mirour (a part of the same passage on Fortune in which vv. 22102-3 occur) were borrowed by Gower from the House of Fame (pp. 39-40). Such crisscross inferences seem a little too easy-going. What- ever may be true of vv. 22129-52 (which we need not discuss), I regard the resemblance pointed out between the Monk's Tale and the Mirour as quite fortuitous. Let us remember that, “ in the dees right as ther fallen chaunces,” so also verbal similarity may now and then occur by accident, especially in matters of common experience. Not only are figures from dice-play common (as Mr. Tatlock admits), but there was a fortune-telling game with dice, to which there may bean allusion in Troilus, ii, 1347-51. The throw six-six-one in this kind of divination has the following stanza attached to it in the Book of Brome (a fifteenth -century manuscript), edited by Miss Toulmin Smith, p. 16 : — Synys \i. e. two sixes] and asse tell me sekerly That $owr dessyer ys but folly, Schonge $owr thowt, I cowncell the, Yffe 3e wyll not a schamyd be. See also Macaulay’s note on Confessio Amantis, iv, 2792. Finally, one may cite as a parallel to the passages in Chaucer and Gower the remark of Love to the author of Trtsor Amoureux: “Tu as A la fois pour un six un as ” (vv. 589-90, in Scheler’s Froissart, III, 70). 52 THE MONK’S TALE. early as January, 1386, lie would naturally take account of stock, looking through his papers occasionally for old narrative material which might he available. The Tragedies , then, was in his mind — perhaps, indeed, he had just read the poem over — when he learned of Bernabo’s death. 1 On the whole, then, we may feel reasonably certain that Chaucer wrote the Tragedies, except for the Visconti stanza, in the Transition Period (about 1374), and that he put in that stanza in January, 1386, as soon as the news of Bernabo’s death came to his ears. No other theory appears to fit so many of the known facts. 2 1 Mr. Tatlock’s argument that the Monk’s Tale was composed expressly for the Canterbury collection, relies, in part, upon “ lordinges ” in v. 3429, x which he thinks suggests oral address to people actually present in the body (p. 170). But there is no reason why, for once in his life, Chaucer should not have used that extremely common vocative — the Middle English equivalent of the modern “gentlemen” — in a poem intended to be read aloud. We are prone to forget that the number of persons in the fourteenth century who heard a story read to them was much greater than the number of those who read it to themselves. Of. Troilus, ii, 81 if. ; Froissart, Dit du Florin , vv. 341-379, Poesies, ed. Scheler, II, 230-1. Some colloquialism and informality might be expected, perhaps, in a poem originally written for the Canterbury Tales, but their presence in a poem by no means proves, or tends to prove, that it was, as a matter of fact, composed for that collection. How about the House of Fame, with its “now herkneth” (vv. 109, 509, cf. v. 1549), “as I shal telle yow echoon ” (v. 150), “ Ne can I not to yow devyse” (v. 1179), “ to make yow to longe dwellen” (vv. 1300, 1454) ? Or the Troilus, with its “my purpos is, er that I parte fro ye ” (i, 5), “This, trowe I, knoweth al this companye” (i, 450), “if it happe in any wyse, That here be any lovere in this place ” (ii, 29-30), “ Eek scarsly been tlrer in this place three That han in love seyd lyk and doon in al ” (ii, 43-44), etc. ? But we need not multiply words on this score. The appeal to sporadic colloquialism and informality is unfortunate, for it at once calls our attention to the stilted and rhetorical style of the Tragedies as a whole. As for “I wol bewayle in maner of tragedie,” there is absolutely nothing colloquial or informal about that. What Mr. Tatlock calls ‘ ‘ the definition of tragedy” in v. 3951 (to say that this “echoes that in the Monk’s Prologue” begs the question) refers back perfectly to the beginning of the poem. Nothing can be made of such trifles. But, if one wishes to hold that they are significant, they may — as Mr. Tatlock reluctantly admits — signify a very slight revision at the time of the insertion of the Tragedies into the Canterbury Tales. And, if one chooses, the Bernabo stanza may have gone in at the same time. This is not my opinion — for I attach no weight whatever to these supposed evidences of oral delivery — but it is quite consistent with putting the Tragedies in the Transition Period. 2 Mr. Tatlock does not think that this stanza was written as early as 1386. “ That it [the whole second half of the poem] was not written so immediately after Bernabo’s death is suggested by the fact that his ‘ tragedy ’ is preceded by those of the tw r o Pedros, who died in 1369 ; we should expect that Chaucer would have begun with the modern potentate whom he had known, if he had just died” (p. 172). I do not quite understand this argument. However, Mr. Tatlock’s chief reasons for regarding the stanza as not written in 1386 seem to be that “ Professor Lowes has shown that Chaucer must have been occupied with the Legend in 1386, and [that] we have seen that this and the following year were pretty well occupied with this and with the zealous beginning of the Canterbury Tales.” He concludes, “Everything therefore THE HOUSE OF FAME. 53 The third poem which one would naturally refer to the Period of Transition is the House of Fame. The idea that the House of Fame is based upon Dante, or permeated with Dante’s influence, or modelled after the Divine Comedy , cannot be seriously enter- tained. It belongs, in form, technique, and mis en scene , to the great class of Drench vision-poems, and from them and the Latin classics it derives most of its material, so far as this is not original with the author. Yet, though the House of Fame is in no respect Dantesque, its relation to Dante, as all agree, is far more intimate than that of St. Cecilia or the Tragedies. The borrowed passages, though neither numerous nor extensive, are wrought into the texture of the poem: Chaucer has not merely appropriated them ; he has made them his own. And sometimes, without borrowing or imitating, he has taken a hint from Dante, and developed the suggestion in his own Chaucerian way. Not that Chaucer’s obligations to Dante in this poem — his visible and palpable obligations — are large. On the contrary they are very small indeed, compared with his obligations to the classics for material and to French literature for both material and technique . 1 This may be tested by a simple experiment. Suppose we were forced to put the House of Fame in a group of two, the other member being either the Divine Comedy or the Roman de la Rose. We should not hesitate an instant to associate it with the Roman. No, Chaucer’s real indebtedness to Dante in the House of Fame consists in nothing palpable or particular. It consists rather in the culture and stimulus and enlightenment that he could not fail to derive from studying the Divine Comedy , different as his genius was from indicates that the Monk's Tale was written when the Canterbury Tales were well underway” (ibid.). The difficulty one has in accepting Mr. Tatlock’s theory that the Tragedies was not written early and later inserted in the frame of the Canterbury Pilgrimage, but that it was really composed for the Monk, is only increased by the fact that this theory forces him to disregard the impression that the stanza about Bernabo makes upon most of us. If anything can be certain without documentary evidence, we may surely feel confident that this stanza was composed as soon as Chaucer heard of the tyrant’s end. It should be noted that, if we accept (as Mr. Tatlock does) the year 1386 as the date of the first version of the Prologue to the Legend of Good Women, the mention of “tyrants of Lombardy” therein coincides very nearly in time with the indubitable date of the stanza on Bernabo Visconti, the “ scourge of Lumbardye.” This seems pretty significant. 1 On the sources and technique of the House of Fame, see especially W. 0. Sypherd, Studies in Chaucer's Hous of Fame, Chaucer Society, 1907, where the French characteristics of the poem are well brought out. 54 THE HOUSE OF FAME. Dante’s in almost every way. And even in this respect we must take care not to exaggerate Dante’s influence, for Chaucer’s even- ings of study after office hours were not restricted to Italian. He was broadening his literary horizon in all directions. We no longer talk, as our ancestors did, of “ learned Chaucer.” Yet, leaving Italian out of the reckoning, we see at a glance that Chaucer is much more learned in the House of Fame than in the Booh of the Duchess. Indeed, the allusions and references in the House of Fame are so many and so curious as to baffle the best scholarship of to-day. It makes no difference where Chaucer got them, — from encyclopaedias or anthologies or what not : he did not get them all out of one or two encyclopaedias or out of one or two anthologies. He had spent many an evening “ sitting at another book ” until his eyes dazzled. He had been filling his head with information from various sources as well as cultivating his taste by reading Italian. And, in particular, he had been studying the Latin classics. Ovid he had long known, of course, but he had reverted to him just before he wrote the House of Fame, and he had recently read the iEneid, perhaps for the first time. I need not pursue the subject. The implications are obvious. It is neither accident nor whim that we have to thank for the Eagle’s descrip- tion of Chaucer’s studious habits. The composition of the House of Fame was directly preceded by a time of reading and study, during which Chaucer, busy at the custom-house in the daytime, spent evening after evening over French, Latin, and Italian books. What he wrote in the meantime was not essentially different from the product of his French Period, though he was always growing. It included, besides many occasional lyrics, the Tragedies and the St. Cecilia, — perhaps also the translation of Boethius, which fits this studious time and must have been a powerful educating influence. And then, still in the Transition Period, came the House of Fame, — full of spirit and verve and conscious power, but not to be compared with what was to follow, in the Italian Period, when Chaucer had “found himself,” recognizing Boccaccio as his proper guide . 1 The House of Fame, then, is an earlier poem than the Troilus, — how much earlier we need not now 7- consider. For years I have 1 The Italian Period, in my sense, begins with the Troilus or the Palamon, whichever came first. I am not yet ready to express a decided opinion on that point, nor is it of any moment in this argument. TROILUS LATER THAN HOUSE OF FAME. 55 believed and taught that this is the proper order. The Troilus is a great poem ; the House of Fame is merely a very clever poem. It is brilliant and spirited, and shows much liveliness in narrative and a good deal of humor; but, by the side of a masterpiece like the Troilus, it sinks into comparative obscurity. To he sure, merit is not an infallible test of chronology. Common sense and experience alike teach us that a later work may often fall below the level of one that is earlier. But here there is no question of failing powers or an uncongenial subject or hostile circumstances. Both poems are ambitious, 1 both are written con amove , and both exhibit a high degree of technical skill. But the Troilus is manifestly indicative of greater maturity. The conclusion is obvious, and we cannot avoid it unless there is evidence to the contrary. It is of no avail to assert in rebuttal that the appearance of maturity, in Chaucer, depends rather on the kind of subject than on the date of composition. 2 For maturity is indicated as well in choosing a subject worthy of one’s powers as in treating it adequately after it is chosen. There is no indication whatever that, when Chaucer began the Troilus , he meant to make a mere translation of the Filostrato , and that the project ran away with him, so that he produced a great original work. Indeed, the indications are all the other way. One has but to read (side by side with the Italian) the first thousand lines of the Troilus, which cover the period of about 700 in Boccaccio, to perceive that Chaucer took up his pen with a lively consciousness of what he was about. 3 Thanks to Dr. Young’s recent investigations, we now know that Chaucer used the Filocolo as well as the Filostrato. Such use appears within the first thousand lines. Within these limits also, we find echoes from Benoit and Boethius, an important reference to Ovid’s Heroides (with quotation), and a sonnet of Petrarch. These are not insertions or mere purple 1 It is not as if the House of Fame were a mere skit or brief jeu d’ esprit. Unfinished as it is, it runs to 2158 lines, and gives no sign of stopping. 2 See Tatlock, p. 18. 3 Mr. Tatlock remarks that Chaucer “would have begun to work on the Filostrato . . . with no intention of expanding it ” (p. 73). But the evi- dence is all the other way. The first thousand lines of the Troilus correspond to about 656 of the Filostrato, and that is a slightly larger expansion than the work shows as a whole (8246 lines against 5704). Mr. Tatlock remarks that Chaucer intended to finish his poem in the fourth book (pp. 67, note 1, 73). This, however, has nothing to do with his intention at the outset. It is wholly an inference (correct or not) from the proem to Book iv itself. 56 TROILUS LATE II THAN HOUSE OF FAME. patches ; they are, the sonnet excepted, worked into the texture of the whole, and even the sonnet is so introduced that we cannot regard it as an afterthought. Clearly, then, the varied materials that Chaucer expected to use, the freedom with which he intended to treat them, the plan and scope — everything essential to the struc- ture of the work — were in Chaucer’s head before he wrote the first verse. But this is not all. The most remarkable thing about the Troilus — that which gives it a well-recognized claim to be accounted a distinct novelty in our literature — is its profound and sympa- thetic knowledge of human nature and the subtlety and power with which it delineates character. The Troilus is not merely “ perhaps the most beautiful long narrative poem in our literature ” : it is a great psychological novel, and in this regard it is strikingly different from Boccaccio’s romance. Griseida is charming, amorous, and fickle — essentially, however, she differs in nothing from the Briseida of Benoit. But Chaucer’s Criseyde is one of the most complex and baffling of all heroines, yet perfectly natural and self- consistent even in her contradictions. Now it cannot be proved that Chaucer had fully conceived her character before he began to write — for its complete expression is possible, from the conditions of the problem, only in the later course of the narrative, — though it is clearly and firmly in hand no later than the early part of the Second Book. But one fact, equally significant, does come out be- yond the shadow of doubt within the first thousand verses of the poem. The character of Pandarus — in which Chaucer departs quite as strikingly from Boccaccio — has a chance to express itself within the limits that we are considering, and it does express itself. Pan- darus, in other words, was in Chaucer’s brain, fully conceived, before he began to write, and we have every reason to infer the same of the other dramatis personae . 1 Manifestly, then, Chaucer had in mind when he took pen in hand, not only the composition of an original work, in which other materials should be combined with what was to be taken from the Filostrato , but he had also in mind to write a novel of character, and he had the dramatis personae — who differ so strikingly from 1 Of course I do not mean to deny that Chaucer’s conception of the dramatis personae deepened and grew richer as the work went on — that is always the case with imaginative writers. But any such deepening or enriching does not make against what has just been stated. It appears, if at all, only in the intensification with which the character of each actor expresses itself in word and deed as the stress of circumstances tends to bring it out. TROILUS LATER THAN HOUSE OF FAME. 57 Boccaccio’s — firmly and definitely imagined. The Troilus comes of “ entencion,” not of “chaunce” ; it is a deliberate creation, not a splendid accident. Nothing, then, can justify us in regarding the Troilus as earlier than the House of Fame except definite evidence. Is there any such evidence 1 There is not a particle. Mr. Tatlock, to be sure, fancies that the passage on dreams in the proem to the First Book of the House of Fame, “ looks greatly like an expansion ” of that in the Fifth Book of the Troilus } But this is merely begging the question. Each of the passages is appropriate to its context, and grows naturally out of the situation. There is nothing to indicate which of them was written first. 2 The idea that the treatment in the House of Fame is an expansion of that in the Troilus is shattered by the evidence adduced by Miss Cipriani, since the publication of Mr. Tatlock’s volume, that the proem in the House of Fame is in great measure translated from the Roman de la Rose. 3 The only other piece of evidence which Mr. Tatlock adduces is the mention of Lollius in ttie House of Fame among writers on the Trojan War. Ten Brink was the first to urge this circumstance as proof that the Troilus is the earlier of the two poems, and Mr. Tatlock follows him. Here again the supposed evidence is utterly ambiguous. Assume that the Troilus is the older, and it follows that, in mentioning Lollius in the House of Fame , Chaucer was 1 v, 358-85 ; Tatlock, p. 37. 2 True, Pandarus’ discourse is partly from the Filostrato and “ grows out of the situation in the Troilus ” (Tatlock, p. 37), but where is a discussion of dreams more appropriate or natural than in the prelude to an account of the most wonderful dream a man ever had ( House of Fame, vv. 59-65) ? To in- troduce a vision by insisting on the marvellous nature of the dream which one is going to describe is an obvious device, which Chaucer had already used in the Book of the Duchess (vv. 275-89). By the way, I do not understand what Mr. Tatlock means by his remark that in the House of .Fame Chaucer “dwells only on ill causes of dreams” (p. 37, note 3). Devotion and contemplation (vv. 33-34) are surely not had things. And how about vv. 43-48 ? Or if the soule, of proprekinde, And that it warneth alle and some Be so parfit, as men finde, Of everich of her aventures That it forwot that is to come By avisiouns or by figures. Nor is he right in saying that Pandarus dwells only on ill causes, for this is not the case in v, 372-7. But the point is of no consequence anyway. The Troilus passage is thoroughly in place, but no more so than the prelude, and it is idle to argue that either looks like a reminiscence of the other. Somnia ne cures. 3 Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, XXII, 586-8. Vv. 11-12, 15-18, 24-31, 33-42 correspond rather closely to the Roman. 58 TROILTJS LATER THAN HOUSE OF FAME. alluding to his previous employment of the name. Assume, on the other hand, that the House of Fame is the older, and it follows that Chaucer mentioned Lollius therein merely because — for what- ever reason — he thought he was a writer on Trojan history. The second assumption is j ust as good as the first. Unfortunately, however, it is necessary to dwell on the Lollius matter a little, for scholars have insisted on making a mystery out of it, and it is possible, therefore, that the complete ambiguity of the mention of this worthy in the House of Fame as evidence for the chronology of Chaucer may not be admitted without further discussion. Who is Chaucer’s Lollius ? Let us first see who he is not. He is neither Petrarch nor Boccaccio. He is simply the authority from whom Chaucer, by a perfectly lawful literary device — as common now-a-days as it ever was — pretends to have drawn all the material for his Troilus, as well that which he made up himself as that which he derived from the Filostrato. Did Chaucer invent the name 1 Ho, for it is a real name. He found it somewhere. Did he invent the idea that Lollius was an authority on the Trojan War? It is extremely improbable, for there is a well-known line of Horace which, with the slight corruption of scriptor for scriptorem, afforded ample ground for the belief that Lollius was not only a writer on that subject, but a very great writer as well. It is, then, almost certain that Chaucer — whether he had seen the verse himself in a corrupt form, or had blundered in reading it, or had suffered a lapse of memory about it, or had found a statement in some book by somebody else who had done one of these things — really believed that there once lived a Lollius who composed a work on the Matter of Troy. If this piece of erroneous lore — which, as we have seen, he might have acquired in any of at least half-a- dozen ways — came into his possession before he wrote the House of Fame, it was natural for him to utilize it therein when he was multiplying names in true mediaeval fashion. To object that such a reference “ would be quite unintelligible” to his readers “unless the Troilus was known to them ” 1 is neither here nor there. In the first place, it is a pure assumption, for we have no reason to imagine that Chaucer was the only person who supposed that Lollius was a writer on Trojan affairs. In the second place, even if it were admitted that the name was previously unknown to 1 See Tatlock, p. 37. TROILUS LATER THAN HOUSE OF FAME. 59 Chaucer’s readers, would that have made the passage unintelligible to them? By no means, for the passage tells its own story. Chaucer informs his readers that Lollius was an authority on the Trojan War. What more could a mediaeval reader ask ? What more, indeed, does a modern reader ask, unless he has the scholar’s artificially cultivated thirst for exhaustive information? But that is not all. Mediaeval writers were notoriously fond of piling up names and citing authorities. Was it necessary — in order to justify Chaucer in his own or his readers’ eyes — that every name he mentioned should be obvious and popular ? Such a pro- position would conduct us to preposterous conclusions. Did John of Gaunt and his family know all about the Bret Glascurion and Eleanor and Lymote and Atiteris and Eclympasteyr and Agaton and Hermes Ballenus ? Perhaps so, but some of these names are puzzles to the best learning of to-day. It appears, then, that Chaucer’s use of the name Lollius in the House of Fame and the Troilus implies, in all probability, his belief that such a writer on the Trojan War had once existed. Such a belief, in turn, was ground enough for Chaucer’s numbering Lollius among the worthies in the House of Fame , and also for his employing him when, for whatever reason, he desired a literary stalking-horse in the Troilus. No inference can be drawn as to which of these poems is the older. Clearly, then, neither the discourse on dreams in the House of Fame nor the mention of Lollius gives any handle for the contention that the House of Fame preceded the Troilus. Yet these are the only bits of evidence that Mr. Tatlock adduces. True, he appeals to the “ orthodox ” view, but he certainly does not mean to rest his case on that. The current opinion, which we may call “ orthodox ” if we like, is founded on the supposed allegory in the House of Fame and on the theory that Chaucer looks forward to that poem towards the close of the Troilus. Now the allegory is a mere fancy ; it rests upon nothing but air. Mr. Tatlock, though he is eager to find arguments for putting the House of Fame after the Troilus , dismisses the allegorical interpretation without ceremony. “ All attempts,” he says, “ to read a subtle personal or general allegory into the poem seem to me worse than futile .” 1 Nor is it any longer possible to hold that Chaucer’s wish, expressed near the end of the Troilus , “ to make in some comedye ” forecasts the House of Fame 1 P. 35. 60 SUMMING-UP OF TRANSITION PERIOD. or is in any manner fulfilled by it. That theory is bound up with the odd notion that the House of Fame is modelled on the Divine Comedy. 1 It has had astonishing vogue, but Mr. Tatlock frankly abandons it, despite the fact that its acceptance would settle the case in his favor. With the vanishing of these two phantoms, every conceivable reason for holding the “ orthodox opinion ” dissolves into thin air, and we are left with only the criterion of comparative excellence or comparative maturity. This — in the absence of all testimony to the contrary — is decisive. So far as we can tell, the House of Fame was written before the Troilus. Let us now sum up the results of our rather long investigation of Chaucer’s doings in the Transition Period. We have found that from the time of his return from Italy to 1375, he was full of business, and, during a considerable portion of that period, much unsettled. Then, during 1375 and 1376, we have a couple of years of routine occupation, which left him his evenings — and his evenings only — for reading, study, and composition. We have also found that — since there is no reason to date Gower’s Troilus passage later than (say) October 1, 1377, and since about three months may be estimated as the time necessary for Chaucer’s Troilus to achieve popularity, 2 and since during the first six months of 1377 Chaucer was thrice sent abroad — the whole of 1377 is accounted for, and therefore Chaucer’s Troilus must have been finished as early as December, 1376, in order to have been alluded to — on grounds of obviousness and popularity — in v. 5245 of the Mirour. Thus only the time from January 1, 1375, to the last of December, 1376 — or two years — is left free for the composition of the Troilus. And, finally, we have found that three poems — the St. Cecilia , the Tragedies , and the House of Fame must, in all probability, fall within the Transition Period, — that is, the period 1 For a full discussion (and rejection) of the supposed allegory as well as of the idea that the House of Fame is modelled on the Divine Comedy, see Sypherd, Studies in Chaucer's Hous of Fame (Chaucer Society, 1907), pp. 156 ff. (references, p. 156, note 1). The Dante theory is vigorously combated by Lounsbury, Studies in Chaucer, II, 242 ff. ; cf. also Robinson, Journal of Comparative Literature, I, 292 ff. 2 This proviso of ‘ ‘ obviousness and popularity ” is vital to Dr. Tatlock’s theory, as he very clearly realizes. Abandon that proviso and the hypothesis that Gower’s mention of “ the story of Troylusand the fair Creseide [with G\ n was prompted by something that Chaucer had told him about the Filostrato , or that Gower made the change from B to C of his own motion, and on the basis of his Ovidian knowledge, at once asserts itself as an unassailable explanation for the Troilus passage in the Mirour. CONCLUSION. 61 following Chaucer’s return from Italy and preceding the composition of his first great poem in the Italian manner — whether it be the Palcimon or the Troilus. Manifestly, all the time that Chaucer had for study, literary planning, and actual composition, from 1374 to 1377 or 1378 is accounted for, and more than accounted for. Indeed, Mr. Tatlock himself admits that it “ is quite impossible to put between 1374 and 1377 a poem so long and showing such familiarity with Dante as the House of Fame ,” and that is, he says, the “ chief reason ” why he dates the House of Fame later than the Troilus. It is quite clear that only the most unequivocal testimony can justify us in assigning the completion of so mature a work as the Troilus to so early a date as 1376 or 1377. There is no such testimony. The sole evidence for such a date is a C instead of a B in Gower’s Mirour. And that evidence, as we have seen, is susceptible of several explanations which free it from all entanglement with Chaucer’s Troilus. It is all a question of probabilities. Let us not forget that. Still, most questions that one has to decide in this life are settled on no better criterion than likelihood. And we need therefore feel few qualms in coming to a decision. What that decision must be, can hardly be doubtful. Mr. Tatlock has not made out his case. We cannot accept the form Greseide instead of Briseida in Gower as sufficient ground — and there is no other — for believing that Chaucer’s Troilus was completed, or even that it was begun or planned, in 1376 or 1377. Throughout the foregoing discussion we have taken for granted the correctness of the date — 1377 — which Mr. Tatlock assigns to Gower’s Troilus passage. This is the latest year to which we can reasonably assign it, since vv. 2142-8 (about 3000 lines earlier) were certainly written before the death of Edward III in June, 1377, 1 — how long before, it is impossible to say, — and since the whole poem of about 31000 verses was finished by June, 1381, and probably some time before. 2 The earlier the date of the Troilus passage, the greater the difficulty of Mr. Tatlock’s case. In closing, therefore, I must point out that 1377 is by no means an ascertained figure. For aught we know, the Troilus passage in the Mirour may have been written in 1376 or even in 1375. Still, I am content to rest the argument on 1377, the date which Mr. Tatlock prefers. 1 Macaulay, I, xlii ; Tatlock, p. 222. 2 See Appendix YI, below. 62 APPENDIX I. APPENDICES. APPENDIX I. Summary of Benoit’s Roman de Troie, yv. 12931-21744, being tiiat Portion of the Poem which includes the Story of Troilus and Briseida. (The verses are numbered as in Joly’s edition. Italics designate those passages which are not a part of the tale of Troilus and his love. Some of these passages, however, might be claimed, in part, for the Troilus story.) 12931-12986 (56 lines). In a conference between the Greeks and the Trojans with regard to an exchange of prisoners, Calchas asks for the restoration of Briseida. Priam agrees after an acrimonious debate with the seer. 12987 -1323 f (2^8 lines). Same day. Magnificent appearance of Hector and his train. 1 Achilles addresses him in a hitter and threatening speech. Hector challenges Achilles to single combat to end the war. Achilles is eager to accept , hut neither the Greeks nor the Trojans will allow it. 13235-13830 (596 lines). Same day. Troilus, who is deeply in love with Briseida, is sad because she is to be sent to the Grecian camp. Lament of Briseida when she hears that she must leave Troilus. He visits her that night; they spend the night in grieving. — Next morning (13301) Briseida makes ready for departure. Long description of her rich attire. She takes leave of her friends. Troilus leads her horse. She is sorrowful, but by-and-by she will be comforted with a new lover ; reflections on woman’s inconstancy. Troilus begs her to be true. Diomedes and others receive her outside the walls, and Troilus returns to the city. Diomedes, who escorts Briseida, pays his court to her in a long speech, to which she replies discreetly ; he continues to press his suit till they arrive at the tents. Briseida reproaches her father 1 This account of Hector and his train belongs to the second redaction (see Constans’s edition, II, 277-8.) SUMMARY OF BENOIT, 12931-21744. 63 for deserting the Trojans ; he defends his conduct. The Greek chieftains pay her visits of ceremony. Before the fourth evening she had lost all her desire to go back to Troy. 13831-llf218 ( 388 lines). The truce comes to an end. A great fight ( 8th battle), in which , on the Trojan side, Hector and Troilus distinguish themselves particidarly. 14219-14431 (211 lines). Diomedes joins battle with Troilus “por la pucele” (14239), unhorses him, and sends his steed to Briseida. The messenger presents the horse in a little speech, telling her that it is a love-token from his master, and informing her how Diomedes won it. She replies, praising Troilus and sending word to Diomedes that he may expect reprisals. The battle continues. Polydamas unhorses Diomedes and sends his steed to Troilus. Troilus, armed with a lance on which is a gonfanon which Briseida had given him, plunges into the fight, and encounters Achilles, whom he comes near killing. llflf.32-llf.926 ( lf95 lines). Further account of the 8th battle, which lasted thirty days. A truce for six months. Goz cures Hector's wounds, in “ la chambre de V Ambastrie." Elaborate description of this chamber and its marvels (Ilf583-llf87 lj). Paris goes hunting. The Greeks are tired of the long siege, but the young men like it, for it gives them a chance to gain credit with their amies. Achilles nurses his wrath against Hector. 14927-15112 (186 lines). Diomedes gets no rest or comfort out of the truce, for he is tortured by love for Briseida. She, knowing that he loves her, is thrice as cruel to him on that account. Often he goes to beg mercy of her, but in vain. One day he asks her to return the horse that he had given her. She replies in a coquettish speech, taunting him with having lost his own horse, and suggesting that Troilus will win this one back if he is not careful. Diomedes replies seriously, and urges his love. She is glad, and gives him her sleeve to wear as a gonfanon. Her love for Troilus is cassee. 15113-1551f7 {lf35 lines). The six months' truce is finished ; twelve days of fighting ensue ( 9th battle) ; then thirty days of truce. Andromache's dream. She tries in vain to persuade Hector to keep out of the fight. At last Hector yields to Priam's supplication. The 10th battle begins. 15548-15650 (103 lines). Combat between Troilus and Diomedes, the latter wearing Briseida’s sleeve on his lance. The 64 APPENDIX I. combat is interrupted by the coming of Menelaus. Troilus is called off by Polydamas to aid the king of Prise, whom they rescue. 15651-20056 (4506 lines). The 10th battle continued. Dis- comfiture of the Trojans. They rally , but are driven into the city. Hector renews the fight and wounds Achilles. Later , Achilles attacks Hector , who is dragging a prisoner “ par la. ventaille ” (16169), and kills him. The Trojans are driven back again. Lamentation of the Trojans for Hector. Truce for two months (16565). Hector's funeral ; description of his tomb, etc. Palamedes supersedes Agamemnon as Grecian leader ; indignation of Achilles . End of the truce (16999). — More hard fighting (11th battle ). — Another truce (17811). Achilles falls in love with Polyxena. His negotiations with Priam and Hecuba. Failing to induce the Greeks to make peace, he withdraws from all share in the war and forbids his followers to fight. — End of the truce (18455). Great (12tli) battle; death of Deiphobus and Palamedes ; Paris and Troilus set fire to the ships (18890) which are saved by Ajax. 1 Achilles ignores the request of the Greeks that he take part in the 4 war. Agamemnon elected leader. Battle takes place next day (18th battle) (19077 ff.). Troilus puts the Greeks to flight. Next day the fight is renewed, Troilus performing wonders. It continues for a week (19860). — Truce for two months (19868). Another vain attempt to induce Achilles to take part in the war. Calchas persuades the Greeks not to make peace (19911 ff.) Truce ends. The next (14th) battle is advantageous to the Trojans. Exploits of Troilus. — The 15th battle begins within a week (20045) and the Trojans fight well. 20057-20097 (41 lines). 2 Troilus encounters Diomedes and wounds him desperately, so that he is carried off the field for dead. 1 The account of the saving of the ships by Ajax ends with v. 18958 Joly ( = 18976 Constans). The attempt of the Greeks to persuade Achilles to fight, which is properly the next incident, is postponed by Joly until after the beginning of the 13th battle, because of an error in his MS. I follow the order in Constans, but use Joly’s verse-numbers in citing, as usual. The following table make the difference of order clear : — J.O«7/ • . • 18977-19087 . 19088-19294 . 19295 . . . Constans 18976 . Joly 18958 19167-1927 7 18960 (18959 blank)-19166 19279 (19278 blank) 2 Yv. 20057-20064 in Joly are omitted by Constans. SUMMARY OF BENOIT, 12931-21744. 65 Troilus addresses him “ en reprovier ” : “ Calchas’ daughter, who, they say, does not hate you — It is her treachery to me that has brought this upon you,” etc. His words were well remembered both by the Trojans and by the Greeks. 20098-20193 (96 lines). The battle goes on. Agamemnon wounded by Troilus. Truce for six months at the reguest of the Greeks. 20194-20330 (137 lines). Grief of Briseida for the wounded Diomedes. She can no longer conceal her love, but visits him often. She upbraids herself for being false to Troilus, but resolves to be true to Diomedes at all events. 20331-20653 (323 lines). Time of truce. Achilles, once more besought to help his friends, promises to send the Myrmidons. New (16th) battle. Troilus gains the day for the Trojans. He is greodly honored. 20654-20670 (17 lines). Troilus is troubled at the thought of his love who has abandoned him. Briseida is hated by the damsels for the disgrace she has brought upon them. 20671-21012 (31f2 lines). Love pangs of Achilles. — The 17th bcdtle begins (20805). Proivess of Troilus. A brief truce. — The 18th bcdtle (20867). 21013-21175 (163 lines). The Myrmidons are put to flight by Troilus. Achilles rushes into the fight. He encounters Troilus. Both are unhorsed. Their horses fall upon them, and Achilles is severely wounded by his hauberk. Troilus captures his horse. The battle continues for a week, and Troilus “le pris en ot.” 21176-21225 (50 lines). Wrath of Priam and grief of Polyxena at the reappearance of Achilles. 21226-21484 (259 lines). The 19th battle. Achilles is determined to be revenged on Troilus. He bids the Myrmidons keep together and attack him. Troilus discomfits the Greeks, but the Myrmidons surround him. His horse is killed, and Troilus falls. Before he can rise Achilles is upon him. Death of Troilus. His body is rescued by Memnon after Achilles has dragged it at his horse’s tail. 211f85-21652 (168 lines). Proivess of Memnon. Achilles retires wounded. The bcdtle lasts a week. Achilles, by the aid of the Myrmidons, kills Memnon. More fighting. 21653-21744 (92 lines). The mourning for Troilus. Hecuba’s lament. DATE OF C. T. F 66 APPENDIX II. APPENDIX II. The Genesis of the Troilus Story in Benoit . 1 Benoit found in Dares a description of Briseida 2 at the end of the portraits of the principal Greek chieftains. This was all he knew about her, for beyond question he did not understand that she was identical with Astynome, daughter of Brises, about whom Dictys gives much information. Dictys does not use the form Briseis {Briseida, Briseidam) at all, and therefore Benoit, not knowing that Briseidam means “daughter of Brises,” failed to recognize in the Briseida described by Dares the Hippodamia, daughter of Brises, of whom Dictys speaks. That he did not so recognize her is shown by the remarkable fact (which has attracted little attention) that, though he omits in its proper chrono- logical place the account which Dictys gives of the capture by Achilles of Astynome, daughter of Chryses, and Hippodamia, daughter of Brises, and the narrative of the reclaiming of Astynome by Chryses and the consequent seizure of Hippodamia by Agamem- non, he nevertheless reproduces this whole account later in his narrative. He brings it in as a part of the well-nigh interminable speech made by Ajax Thelamon in his dispute with Ulysses over the possession of the Palladium 3 — a dispute which replaces Ovid’s account of the quarrel over the shield of Achilles . 4 Ajax declares that Achilles would deserve the Palladium if he were alive, and in support of this assertion he takes occasion to rehearse the merits of the dead hero . 5 Thus he reproduces in considerable detail the account which Dictys gives of the capture of the two girls, of the 1 Compare the remarks of Joly, I, 287 ff., which contain many excellent observations. 2 The name occurs only once in Dares (cap. 13), and then in the accusative Briseidam , whence Benoit derived his nominative Briseida. 3 Yv. 26586 ff. 4 Dares of course does not mention this dispute. Dictys reports it briefly (v, 14-15), substituting the Palladium for the arms of Achilles. He does not give the speeches of the rivals, though he says that “Ulixes cum Aiace surnma vi contendere inter se, atque invicem industriae meritis exposlulare. ” It occurred to Benoit to have recourse for material to an earlier part of the narrative of Dictys. 5 Yv. 26707 ff. genesis of benoit’s troilus story. 67 request of Chryses that Astynome be delivered up, of the pestilence, of Agamemnon’s final yielding, and of the taking away of Hippo- damia, daughter of Brises, by Agamemnon . 1 There cannot be a moment’s doubt in the mind of anybody who compares Benoit with Dictys that the former derived his information from the latter. But Benoit had already inserted the love story of Troilus and Briseida — his own invention — and had represented Briseida as the daughter of Calchas the Trojan refugee. Evidently, then, he did not suspect that the Briseida mentioned so briefly by Dares and the Hippodamia , daughter of Brises , so fully dealt with by Dictys, were in reality one and the same. His error was natural — indeed, almost inevitable — and it was a fortunate mistake for literature, since we owe to it not only his delightful episode of Troilus and Briseida, but also Boccaccio’s Filostrato, Chaucer’s Troilus , and Shakspere’s Troilus and Cressida. It would be hard to cite another example equally striking of the advantage which art may derive from absence of scholarship. Briseida, then, was to Benoit a person quite unconnected with the story of Chryses and his daughter, quite unconnected with the wrath of Peleus’ son. He could do with her as he would, and he chose to represent her as the unfaithful love of Troilus. Obviously he was prompted to this invention by three things, — the portraits which Dares gives of Briseida and Troilus , 2 the emphasis which Dares lays upon Troilus’ valor , 3 and the feeling that so great a hero should have a love as his brothers Paris and Hector had. It should also be remembered that his sources, Dares and Dictys, provided Hector, Paris, and Achilles with very interesting lady- loves . 4 Two other characters on whose heroic qualities great stress is laid in Dictys and Dares are Troilus on the Trojan side (in Dares) and Diomedes on the Grecian (in both). It went against the grain for Benoit to leave these heroes unprovided with amies. But there was no interesting female character left for them in the sources except Briseida. Instead, therefore, of needlessly inventing a new dramatis persona , Benoit, by a happy inspiration, hit upon the idea of making Briseida love them both , 5 and the great story of 1 Vv. 26747 ff. 2 Caps. 12, 13. 3 Dares exalts Troilus as the equal of Hector in prowess (caps. 7, 30 ; cf. caps. 18, 20, 24, 29, 31, 32, 33). After Hector’s death he becomes the leading champion on the Trojan side. In Dictys Troilus is barely mentioned (iv, 9). 4 See also Joly, I, 274. 5 Dares brings Troilus and Diomedes together in battle and makes Troilus wound Diomedes (cap. 31). Cf. Joly I, 293. DATE OF C. T. F 2 68 APPENDIX II. “ supplantacioun ” (to use Gower’s word) sprang into existence. After all, the credit of inspiring Benoit is due in the last analysis to the celebrated “portraits” in Dares. These describe five women, — Hecuba, Andromache, Cassandra, Polyxena, and Briseida. Hecuba, Cassandra , 1 Andromache, and Polyxena had husbands or lovers. Only Briseida was left — the utterly charming Briseida, “beautiful, not tall in stature, a blonde, with soft golden hair, with eyebrows that joined, with lovely eyes and a graceful figure, soft-spoken, affable, modest, simple-hearted, affectionate.” Such a girl could not go through the Trojan War without a lover. Benoit’s interest in Briseida, then, was roused by the portrait sketched by Dares. But Dares afforded him no further information about her, — except the inference that she was a Greek, — and Dictys, so far as Benoit could see, did not mention her at all. Benoit determined to make Briseida an important personage, — to invent a history for her. It is easy to see how his mind worked. If she was to be Troilus’ love, it was natural to regard her as a Trojan ; yet Dares had attached her name to a list of Greeks. It was natural, then, for Benoit to represent her as a Trojan woman who came in some way to be a resident of the Grecian camp. For this he had two precedents in Dictys, — that of Astynome, daughter of Chryses, and that of Hippodamia (whom Benoit did not recognize as identical with the Briseida of Dictys ). 2 He might have made her — like Astynome and Hippodamia — a captive, assigned to one of the Greek leaders as a slave. But this would have been mere repetition ; there were two slave girls in the story already, — and besides, it made her more dignified as well as more interesting to represent her as a free gentlewoman. Troilus was a hero comparable to Hector , 3 and Benoit was too good an artist to spoil his invention — when he had, as in this case, a free hand, not being hampered by any account of her in his sources — by describing Troilus’ lady as a mere chattel. Hence he hit upon the happy idea of representing her father as a Trojan deserter or refugee, and of accounting for her presence in the 1 Cassandra is betrothed to Eurypylus (Dictys, iv, 14) and afterwards becomes the spoil of Agamemnon (Dictys, v, 13 ; Benoit, vv. 26195 ff.). 2 The fact that these two were not, strictly speaking, Trojans need not be pressed. They were captives taken by the Greeks and were regarded as belonging, in a general way, to the Trojan party. 3 Dares, caps. 7, 30 ; cf. Benoit, vv. 3972-6, 5417-23, 19893-904. See also Hamilton, Chaucer s Indebtedness to Guido delle Colonne, p. 76 ; Young, The Origin and Development of the Story of Troilus and Criseyde , pp. 108-11. genesis of benoit’s troilus story. 69 Grecian camp by her father’s natural wish to have her with him. Of course she had to have a father, now that she was to be raised to a position of dignity and importance in the plot, and to assign to her in this capacity a Trojan refugee of high station was a natural device. Here, too, Benoit was indebted to Dictys for a hint. There was Cliryses, a priest of Apollo whose natural sympathies were with the Trojans, but who had to all intents and purposes joined the Greek side, and this Chryses had a daughter (Astynome) from whom he had been separated by the fortunes of war and whom he wished to recover. Chryses, too, was a person of importance who had served the Greeks very materially by taking charge of the sacrifice of a hecatomb necessary, according to the oracle, for the final success of the Grecian arms. But Chryses would not do for Briseida’s father, since he already had a daughter of his own whose story Benoit intended to utilize — and did utilize — when the time came. Benoit therefore had either to invent a new character or to assign to Briseida as her father some personage already in the story. The latter course was the easier and the more obvious, and he adopted it. Both Dares and Dictys told him of “Calchas, son of Thestor.” Dictys represented Calchas as a Grecian (Acarnanian) seer 1 and chieftain, who accompanied the Grecians to Troy with twenty ships . 2 From Dares, however, Benoit learned that Calchas was a Trojan 3 diviner, who, being sent by his people to Delphi with gifts, consulted the oracle “ de regno rebusque suis,” and got a response commanding him to join the Greeks, and to urge them not to give up until they had taken Troy. In the temple he met Achilles, who was consulting the oracle on behalf of the Greeks. Achilles and Calchas compare notes, and Calchas, obedient to the oracle, accompanies Achilles to Athens, where the Greeks are waiting, joins them, is gladly received, and accompanies them to Troy. Here was precisely the character that Benoit needed for Briseida’s father, and he grasped thankfully at the idea. There was no difficulty in making the combination, 1 “Calchas, Thestoris films, praescius futurorum” (Dictys, i, 15). 2 Dictys, i, 17 (see Dederich’s note, p. 394) ; cf. Iliad , i, 69-72. 3 Dares (cap. 15) represents Calchas as a Phrygian (“dona propter Phrygas a suo populo missus Apollini portabat ”) ; but he seems to have regarded him as a Trojan in the strict sense, since he says that he consulted the oracle “ de regno rebusque suis" and received command to join the Greeks and urge them to stick to their task. At all events, Benoit so understood Dares. In translating the passage he says of Calcas (so he spells), “ Filz ert Testor [var. Nestor] un Troien” (v. 5813). 70 APPENDIX II. since, as we have seen, Briseida was the mere “portrait of a lady” in Dares and (as Benoit believed) was not mentioned by Dictys in any manner. For the combination, too, he had a precedent in the story of Chryses and his daughter. Accordingly, he adopted the account of the meeting of Calchas and Achilles as reported by Dares, and definitively put the Trojan seer into the position of a (blameless) Trojan refugee. How well this fitted the invention which Benoit intended to introduce later comes out in a striking fashion when we observe that since Calchas, when he left Troy to visit Delphi on public business, had no idea of deserting to the Greeks, it follows that he must have left his family, if he had one, at home in the city. Thus the separation between him and Briseida comes about naturally, and the incident of his urging that his daughter be sent to the Grecian camp — so necessary to Benoit’s purpose — is inevitable. Benoit, however, — who has great merits as a story-teller, which appear to good advantage in the tale of Troilus and Briseida, where, as we know, he had a free hand, — is careful to lay due emphasis on the motives which led Calchas to ask that his daughter be sent to him : Ne voleit pas d’ore en avant Qu’ ele fust plus en lor commune, Car trop les het, 90 set, Fortune ; Si ne vueut pas qu’ o eus peiisse, En l’ost o lui vueut que s’en isse . 1 It appears also that Briseida has been in some danger since her father’s change of sides, for Priam declares angrily that but for her beauty and excellent qualities she would have been “ burned and torn to pieces ” 2 on account of his treasonable conduct. The more we examine the details of the Troilus story as devised by Benoit, the greater will be our admiration for the felicity of his invention and for the skill which he has used in fitting his novel fiction into the facts (as he regarded them) which he derived from his sources. He contrives to attach the new episode to his old materials without interfering with the integrity of the latter. The only point, indeed, in which he is obliged actually to change his sources (as opposed to adding to them) is in the trifling matter 1 Yv. 12960 ff. 2 Se por 90 non que la pucele Est tranche et proz e sage e bele, Por lui [sc. Calcas] fust arse e desmembree (vv. 12977 ff.). genesis of benoit’s troilus story. 71 (vital to his new plot) of changing Briseida’s nationality from Greek to Trojan . 1 In one particular Benoit may be charged with an inconsistency. He introduces Briseida’s portrait at the end of the Grecian list instead of transferring it to the Trojan catalogue, and he even emphasizes its position by saying, when he has finished the sketch, De ceiis de Grece vos ai dit Les semblances, solonc l’escrit (vv. 5271-2). But here he is simply following Dares, as his own words indicate. One might hold that, when he adopted this portrait, Benoit had not decided to make Briseida a Trojan — or, in other words, that the episode of the love of Troilus was an afterthought. Against this, however, must be alleged the convincing argument that Benoit has so modified Dares’ portrait of Breseida as to prepare for her unfaithfulness: — Mout fu amee e mout amot Mes sis corages li chanjot (vv. 5267-8), — verses which correspond to nothing in Dares, — and that further he has modified Dares’ portrait of Troilus in such a way as to bring the two together in our minds and to foreshadow his unhappy love : — Ne fu sorfaiz ne outvajos, Mais liez e gais e amoros. Bien fu amez et bien ama, E maint grant fais en endura (vv. 5413 ff.). 2 1 In this point he was really reverting to the older tradition, but he did not know that, in all probability. It is, of course, possible that, in an older form of Dares than that which we possess (a Greek Dares), something more was said of Briseida than the four or five lines of portraiture which our Latin text affords. If that is the case, no doubt Briseida’s Trojan (or Phrygian) nationality was made clear. But there is no evidence that Benoit’s text of Dares was different from our own. Indeed, we may congratulate ourselves that it was not. For, if Dares had told Benoit anything more than he does, he would doubtless have informed him that Briseida w^as the slave girl whom Agamemnon took away from Achilles. Thus Benoit would have been sure to identify her (correctly) with that Hippodamia whose story he tells (from Dictys). Under those circumstances, we may fear that he would not have hit upon the happy fiction that she was the love of Troilus, and the world might have lost the whole story of Troilus — in Benoit, Boccaccio, Chaucer, and Shakspere. If he had known of the identity between Briseida and Hippo- damia, he might simply have referred the portrait to the latter and passed on. Such speculations may seem pretty idle, but, idle or not, they serve to bring out in high relief what I believe to be an important point in literary history — the fact that it was the beautiful portrait of Briseida the unattached that gave Benoit his first specific impulse toward the invention of the Troilus story. 2 Cf. Greif, Die mittelalterlichen Bearbeitungen der Trojanersage, pp. 35-36, 72 APPENDIX III. The slight inconsistency which Benoit perpetrated in keeping Briseida’s portrait where he found it makes no sort of difficulty in the reader’s mind. When the time comes to disclose the Trojan birth and Trojan paternity of Briseida, Benoit ignores any difficulty, saying simply : Calcas li sages, li corteis, Ot une fille mout preisiee, Bele e corteise e enseigniee : De li esteit grant renommee, Briseida ert apelee (w. 12952 IF.), — and the fact that Calchas is now among the Greeks allows the reader — if he happens to remember that Briseida has previously been put among them too, to correct his erroneous impression without any trouble. As to Benoit’s Troilus story, we may also remark that he found in a certain sense a prototype or suggestion for his Briseida and her fortunes in the history of Helen. As Helen was false to her Greek husband for the sake of a Trojan lover, so Briseida was false to her Trojan ami for the sake of a Grecian. If this is held to involve a frigid schematism, — as it does not, in reality, for the antiphrastic parallel is not brought out and is cited here merely as one of the obscure influences that may have been at work in Benoit’s mind, — let us remember that in Henry YI we have a son who has killed his father and a father who lias killed his son, and that Davenant and Dryden sought to improve the Tempest by so modifying Sliakspere’s conception that a heroine who had never seen a man (except her father) should be associated with a hero who had never seen a woman, “ that by this means those two Characters of Innocence and Love might the more illustrate and commend each other.” APPENDIX III. Armannino. The treatment which the Troilus material receives in the Fiorita of Armannino (1325) is not without instructive suggestions. Gorra thinks that this curious version of the Trojan story comes from the Roman de Troie, but not directly. The immediate source was, he believes, a French work composed in Italy and ARMANNINO. 73 based on Benoit. For our present purposes, it is immaterial whether the differences between the Fiorita and Benoit are due to Armannino or to his predecessor . 1 Benoit, expanding Dares, tells how, while the Greeks were at “ Tenedon,” Achilles and Telephus invaded Mese (i. e. Mysia), how Teutrans 2 (i. e. Teuthras) of Mese was killed and Telephus succeeded him, Achilles returning to the camp at Tenedos . 3 This story reappears in Armannino, but with strange variations. In Armannino, Achilles, with “ Tellamaco ” and Patrocolo, makes an expedition against three kings — Filomas of Neomasia or FTeumasia, Aganor of Thrace the Greater, and Teutras of Phrygia, all of whom are killed . 4 Tellamaco succeeds to their kingdoms. Achilles returns to the camp, bringing with him Brisseida and Crisseida. Then follows an account of the quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles . 5 Most of these peculiar features are immediately explained by referring to another passage in the Roman do Troie , — the speech of Ajax for the Palladium, in which he recalls his own and Achilles’ services in the earlier days of the war . 6 This is mostly from DictyS , 7 and Benoit, instead of weaving it into the Dares material, has preferred to introduce it in a reminis- cent way, without telling just where it belongs chronologically. Armannino or his predecessor, on the contrary, wished to make 1 For a careful discussion, with text of several chapters, see Gorra, Testi inediti di Storici Trojana, pp. 214 IT., 532 ff. For the date, see Mazzatinti, Giornale di Filologia Romanza, III, 3-4. 2 The manuscript variants (v. 6513) in Constans are instructive : they include treutrans, thretaus, cheutrax, cetraus, centraus , cetlurus , treucier, and tlieucer. 3 Benoit, vv. 6489-6635 (from Dares, 16). 4 Neomasia or Neumasia suggests Moesia (Benoit has Mese). It also reminds one a little of Lynv'ssus (Benoit’s Linerse), where Astynome ( Astronomen in Benoit) lived (Dictys, ii, 17). These would be monstrous corruptions, but no stranger than et Armone for Eetione (abl. , Dictys, ii, 17) in Joly’s text of Benoit (v. 26749), or Cetlurus for Teutrans (see note 2. above), or Botrillancie (v. 26661) for Petyam Zeleamque (Dictys, ii, 27). Note, too, Benoit’s Gerapolin (v. 26731) for Hierapolin (Dictys, ii, 16). Filomas may be for Phorbas, king of Lesbos, who was slain by Achilles (Dictys, ii, 16 ; Benoit, v. 26725, calls him Forbanta , following the accusative in Dictys). Aganor looks like Agenor, but I do not know what he should be doing dans cette galere. When we get a complete text of Benoit with all the variants, it will be more satisfactory to guess about such matters as these. Meantime, it is clear enough that most of the materials which Armannino (or his immediate predecessor) needed for the campaign described are in Benoit. 5 Gorra, pp. 551-5. 6 Vv. 26586-918. 7 For the general idea, see Dictys, v, 14 ; for details, see ii, 13, 16-19, 28-31, 33, 34, 47-52. Note, however, that Dictys does not actually report the speech. That was Benoit’s idea, and he found materials in Dictys. 74 APPENDIX III. the narrative continuous. He suppressed the dispute over the Palladium, and attempted a combination of material. His TeJlamaco is doubtless a mistake for Telephus, perhaps made under the influence of “Telamon,” i. e. Benoit’s “ Telamon Aiax.” 1 The exploits of Ajax in Thrace and Phrygia are combined with the campaign of Achilles against Teuthrans of Mysia and with other raids, and there is much transmogrification — intentional or otherwise — of proper names. The account of the quarrel of Agamemnon and Achilles over the captive maidens — which Gorra thinks is not in Benoit, 2 — is fully reported in Ajax’s speech in the Roman de Troie. Now in Armannino the names of the captives are not Astynome daughter of Chryses, and Hippodamia, daughter of Brises, — as they are in Dictys and Benoit, 3 — but Crisseida and Brisseida. For these patronymics, then, either Armannino or his predecessor was indebted to his knowledge of the classics, presumably Ovid’s Hevoides and Remedia Amoris. His use of the forms shows that he recognized Benoit’s error in assigning Briseida to Troilus as an amie. He met the situation by telling the story of the captives and by dropping the love-story of Troilus altogether. Yet he adds an oddly undecided remark, to the effect that Achilles brought with him, on his return from his Thracian campaign, a wise diviner, who came of his own free will, and who counselled the Greeks faithfully thereafter. “ One writer says,” adds Armannino, “ that this was Criseida’s father, .... whose name was Calcas ; others say that he was a Trojan bishop whom Achilles found in the temple of Apollo when he went to offer sacrifice before going to Thrace, and who, knowing the future, wished to join the Greeks. Still another says that the father of Criseida was a priest named 1 “Aiax Telamonius ” in Dictys (e. g., ii, 18). Benoit has “Thelamonius Aiax ” in v. 23493. “Telemacus” appears in Benoit as the son of Ulysses, but of course he takes no part in the Trojan War (vv. 28864 ff., 29719 ff., etc.). 2 Gorra has overlooked the fact that Benoit included in Ajax’s speech an account of the quarrel over the captive maidens. He remarks (p. 222, cf. p. 239) that Benoit, Guido, and Dares “ non conoscono Criseida e non sanno nulla dell’ira d’Achille per la perdita di Briseida.” This is true of Dares and Guido ; the former says nothing of the quarrel over the Palladium and the latter omits a great part of Ajax’s oration (noting the fact, sig. n recto, col. 2). But of Benoit it is correct only so far as the mere patronymics Criseida and Briseida are concerned, for he makes Ajax tell the whole story (from Dictys) of “Astronomen [Astynome] fille Crises” and “ Ypodamia ” daughter of Brises (see pp. 66-67, above). a With corruption of Astynome to Astronomen in Benoit (Joly’s text). GOWER S BALADES. 75 Crisis.” 1 When we remember that Benoit makes Briseida (not Griseida) the daughter of Calchas, this passage — which shows that the names w^ere of interest and were discussed — becomes very tantalizing. Benoit makes Calchas a Trojan diviner whom Achilles met in the temple of Apollo and who cast in his lot with the Greeks. Of course Benoit does not say that Creseida is Calchas’s daughter, for he mentions her only as “ Astronomen \i.e. Astynome], daughter of Crises.” But a careless reader might infer that Calchas was Chryseis’s father from Remedia Amoris, vv. 473-4: — Quam [sc. Chryseida] postquam reddi Calchas, ope tutus Achillis, Iusserat, et patria est ilia recepta domo, — especially as Ovid mentions her aged father just before (“ at senior stulte flebat ubique pater ”) but has not told us that his name was Chryses. 2 From all this tangle we emerge with three lessons in mind. They are (1) that at least one mediaeval writer, who knew nothing of Boccaccio, did note the fact that Benoit had unwittingly told two contradictory stories about Briseida ; (2) that he came to this know- ledge because he knew of Briseida in Ovid ; (3) that he decided that Ovid was a better authority than Benoit, and that therefore Briseida could not be the name of Troilus’ amieA APPENDIX IV. Gower’s Balades. Gower’s volume of Balades is dedicated to Henry IY, and there is every reason to think (with Mr. Macaulay) that “ the collection assumed its present shape probably in the year of his accession, 1399.” 4 But it is impossible to agree with him in ascribing the 1 “Alcuno dice che costui fu el padre di Criseida, sicome di lei disse, el quale per nome Calcas fu chiamato ; altri dicono che fu uno vescovo troiano, el quale Achille trov6 nel tempio d’ Apollo quando ando a fare el sacrificio, prim a che andasse in Tracia ; e sappiendo quello che avenire dovea del fatto, 6i voile tenere a’ GrecL Alcuno altro dice che il padre di Criseida fu uno prete, che ebbe nome Crisis ” (Gorra, p. 555). 2 For Chryses, see Ars Amatoria, ii, 399-405. 3 See also the article of Mr. Wilkins, p. 2, note 1, above. 4 Complete Works of Gower , I, lxxiii. 76 APPENDIX IV. poems themselves to Gower’s later years. 1 In the case of such a collection, there is always a strong antecedent probability that it consists of lyrics written at sundry times and on different occasions. Nor is there any reason to imagine that Gower’s book of Cinkante Balades is any exception to the rule. The natural hypothesis is that, toward the end of his poetical career, he selected such of his balades as pleased him best, arranged them to a certain extent, wrote others to round out the group, prefixed the dedication, and added the address to the Virgin and the General Envoy. A scrutiny of the poems themselves is almost enough to establish this inevitable hypothesis. No. 2 is a Spring-song; Nos. 32 and 33 are New Year’s Greetings; No. 34 and 35 are Valentines; Nos. 36 and 37 are May-songs ; 2 Nos. 41-43 are addressed by a lady to her false lover ; Nos. 44 and 46 by a lady to her faithful lover. The question is not whether any of the balades express Gower’s personal feelings or were written, so to speak, for his own use. On this point every one may have his own opinion. What seems perfectly clear is that, as was to be expected, many, if not all, of them are occasional poems , and that, so far as we can see, they may have been composed at widely different times. To be sure, we have them only in their collected form, but that is not surprising. Short occasional poems have a way of getting lost. Nobody doubts that Gower knew what he was talking about when, in the Confessio Amantis , he said that Chaucer had made “ ditees and songes glade ” in honor of love, and that the land was full of them everywhere. 3 And we have the testimony of the Eetraction at the end of the Parson’s Tale to the same effect, — “ many a song and many a lecherous lay.” Where are they 1 ? Very few of them have been preserved, and the reason is that Chaucer did not gather them into a volume as Gower did. Gower’s own activity as a writer of love-lyrics before the 1 Compare ten Brink’s remarks on the Balades ( Geschichte der Englischen Litteratur, II, 40, 102, 199, 624), and Koeppel’s observations ( Englische Studien, XX, 154). In his article on Gower in the Cambridge History of English Literature , II, 154 (cf. II, 138), Mr. Macaulay seems more inclined than in his edition (I, lxxii) to admit the theory of Warton that the Balades were written early. 2 So, possibly, Nos. 10 and 15. No. 13 may have been written in March, but the allusion to the changing weather of that month is proverbial. A bold conjecturer might guess that Nos. 6 and 31 had something to do with the social amusement of the Flower and the Leaf, but here again the expressions in point are perfectly conventional. 3 First Version, viii, 2941-7, Macaulay, III, 466. GOWERS BALADES. 77 accession of Henry IY is proved, if proof be necessary, by two passages, — one in the Mirour , which was finished before June 1381, and the other in the Confessio Amantis. They may be quoted, though they are familiar enough. Jadis trestout m’abandonoie Au foldelit et veine joye, Dont ma vesture desguisay Et les fols ditz d’amours fesoie, Dont en chantant je carolloie : Mais ore je m’aviseray And also I have ofte assaied Eondeal, balade and virelai For hire on whom myn herte lai To make, and also forto peinte Caroles with my wordes qweinte, Et tout cela je changeray, Envers dieu je supplieray Q’il de sa grace me convoie ; Ma conscience accuseray, Une autre chamjon chanteray Que jadys chanter ne soloie. 1 {Mirour de VOmme , vv. 27337-48.) To sette my pourpos alofte ; And thus I sang hem forth fulofte In halle and ek in chambre aboute, And made merie among the route. {Confessio Amantis, i, 2726-34.) It is manifest, then, that no balade in Gower’s collection can be pronounced “late,” or “probably late,” except on the strength of internal evidence, and there is no evidence of the kind in the vast majority of cases. Certainly, the allusions to Benoit’s Trojan material which are found in several of these poems are no such indication, for we have seen that the Roman de Troie was one of Gower’s favorite storehouses of lore and legend, and that he was very familiar with it before he wrote the Mirour de VOmme. 2 Such allusions occur in Nos. 30 (Ulysses’ return) and 43 (Hector and Penthesilea), and — in a fashion particularly interesting to us — in No. 20. The purport of this “ letter ” — for so the writer calls it — is that Fortune’s wheel, though said to be ever-moving, stands still in the writer’s case : he has only ill-luck in his love. To emphasize the peculiar harshness of his lot in being thus jpl ante Id, he cites two examples in which one man’s loss was another man’s gain. Fortune acts normally, it seems, in general, but Ids evil condition must endure until his lady sees fit to have mercy upon him : — Celle infortune dont Palamedes Chaoit, fist tant q’Agamenon chosi Fuist a l’empire : anci Diomedes, Par ceo qe Troilus estoit guerpi, De ses amours la fortune ad saisi, Du fille au Calcas mesna sa leesce : Mais endroit moi la fortune est faili, Ma dolour monte et ma joie descresce. Now the first of these examples is certainly taken from Benoit. 3 1 The second half of this stanza will scarcely be taken by any one as evidence that Gower never wrote of love again ! 2 See pp. 4-7, above. 3 For the election of Agamemnon to replace Palamedes, see Benoit, vv. 19027 ff. Benoit uses the word empire: “Nos n’i poons meillor eslire,” says Nestor, 78 APPENDIX IV. How about the second ] One thing is immediately clear : it may also be from Benoit, for it contains nothing that he does not tell. What reason, then, is there for imagining that Gower, who certainly drew from the Roman de Troie in the first example, did not draw from the same source in the second, which he brings into such close connection with the first] Ho reason whatever, unless we assume that the balade is later than the Troilus. And what reason is there for thinking that the balade is later than the Troilus ? Hone whatever, unless we assume that Gower is here alluding to that poem. It is quite impossible, then, to use Gower’s twentieth balade as evidence either for the early date of Chaucer’s T7'oilus or for the theory that the much-discussed lines in the Mirour allude to that poem. What the balade does prove is that Gower — whether before the writing of the Troilus or after — thought of the Troilus story, which is in Benoit, at the same moment at which he thought of the Agamemnon-Palamedes incident, which is also in Benoit. And our knowledge of the ordinary processes of thought would lead us to infer that, in this instance at all events, it was the Agamemnon- Palamedes incident — the first example — which suggested to Gower the citation of the Troilus incident — the second example. But we may learn another lesson from Gower’s twentieth balade. According to Mr. Tatlock, 1 “ in the Briseis narrative of Benoit, the more substantial subject-matter is the Briseida-Diomed amour, to which the Briseida-Troilus amour forms rather the proem ; whereas, in the Chryseis narrative of Boccaccio and Chaucer, the main interest by far centres in the Cryseyde-Troilus amour, to which the Cryseyde-Diomed amour forms but the sequel.” Let us apply this distinction to the stanza before us. Here, too, the emphasis is strong on the Diomedes amour. If one were disposed to imitate the keenness and subtlety with which Mr. Tatlock conducts his case throughout, one might easily argue that Gower is here following rather Benoit (on whom he is certainly drawing in the lines that precede) than Chaucer. The inference might then “ Qui si seit dignes de l’enpire ” (vv. 19065-6). Guido, condensing heroically, sums up Benoit’s vv. 19018-76 in the following sentence: ‘ ‘ In castris vero grecorum de rnorte Palamidis planctus fit maximus et eius corpore tradito sepulture greci conueniunt et cum sine ducis industria esse non possint de consilio nestoris communiter acceptato regem Agamemnonem in eorum ducem exercitus et principem iterunl elegsrunt” (sig, k 4, fol. 2 verso, coL 1). The word empire shows whom Gower is following. 1 P. 28, note 2, ALICE PERRERS AND GOWER’S MIROUR. 79 be drawn that the stanza was written before Chaucer’s poem. And then it would follow, as a logical certainty, that the writing and publication of the Troilus were not necessary conditions precedent for a mention of the Troilus story in the Mir our. Such a conclusion would spike one of Mr. Tatlock’s guns. “ If the reference [in the Mirour] is not to Chaucer’s poem, the spelling with C e is surprising ; and . . . the occurrence of the reference at all is still more surprising.’ 51 The argument which I have just sketched does not account for the first surprise, but, if accepted, it effectually disposes of the second. However, I attach no importance to this argument, and give it only for what it is worth and to show, in Sam Patch’s phrase, that some things can be done as well as others.” We have already seen that there is nothing to surprise anybody in Gower’s referring to the Troilus story in the next chapter to one in which he refers to the physician who cured Hector, 2 and exsufflicate and blown surmises need not be resorted to. APPENDIX Y. Alice Perrers and Gower’s Mirour. “ Macaulay points out that lines 22801-24 refer to the conditions at the end of Edward III.’s reign, especially to the domination of Alice Perrers : “ ‘Voir dist qui dist femme est puissant, Et ce voit om du meintenant. . . . Qe femme in terre soit regnant Et Rois soubgit pour luy scrvir. Rois est des femmes trop de9u, . . . Dont laist honour pour foldelit. ’ This implies a date some time later than August, 1369, when Queen Philippa died, after which the liaison become more open than before. . . . But the passage may quite well have been written after Edward’s death, June, 1377. It may reasonably be doubted whether Gower would have cared to express himself so fully and frankly on the king’s shortcomings, before the king’s 1 P. 32. 2 See pp. 7-8, above. 80 APPENDIX VI. death, in a poem meant for publication ; his other two great works were clearly meant to reach the royal eye. The passage simply expressed general contemporary conditions, and may well denote a foregone conclusion” (Tatlock, p. 220). The verses omitted by Mr. Tatlock should be restored before this question is decided. Voir dist qui dist femme est puissant, Et ce voit om du meintenant : Dieus pense de les mate guarir , O’ as toutes logs est descordant, Qe femme en terre soit regnant Et Rois soubgit pour luy servir (vv. 22806-11). If Gower is really alluding to the domination of Alice Perrers over King Edward, the italicized verses certainly seem to imply that the king is alive, and his subjection a thing of the present. This is doubtless why Mr. Macaulay believed that the passage was written before the death of Edward III in 1377, and why he felt compelled to regard vv. 18817-40, which must have been written as late as 1378, as a later insertion. 1 Still, it is unsafe to press details too much in a sermon which certainly has a more or less general application, and Mr. Tatlock may be right in supposing that the verses about kings and women were written after Edward’s death. APPENDIX VI. The Date of the Mirour de l’Omme. When was the Mirour de VOmme written? Mr. Macaulay says that “ we shall not be far wrong if we assign the composition of the book to the years 1376-1379.” 2 Mr. Tatlock, “considering the great length of the poem,” would “ extend the limits -to about 1375-81.” 3 Three chronological points are practically certain : — (1) vv. 2142-8 (2706-12) 4 were written before the death of Edward III, which occurred in June, 1377 ; (2) vv. 18817-40 (19381-404) 1 Works of Gower , I, xlii-iii. 2 Works of Gower , I, xliii. 3 P. 225. 4 The figures in parenthesis allow for the lost verses at the beginning of the poem (“probably about forty-seven [twelve-line] stanzas”: Macaulay, I, 3). DATE OF THE MIROUR. 81 were written after the beginning of the Great Schism in September, 1378; (3) the poem was finished before June, 1381, when the Peasants’ Revolt broke out. 1 Unfortunately, we cannot tell how long before June, 1377, vv. 2142-8 (2706-12) were written. In other words, we do not know when Gower began the Mirour. Sometime in the seventies, however, is a safe enough inference for the beginning of the work, and either 1375 (Tatlock) or 1376 (Macaulay) is, per se, a reasonable date. For the explicit we have, it will be noted, a rather limited field for conjecture. Gower must have written the last eleven or twelve thousand lines of the poem between September, 1378, and June, 1381. Is there any way of determining how long before the latter date he laid down his pen? This question cannot be answered, even provisionally, until we have made up our minds about the composition of the Vox Clamantis. Mr. Tatlock appears to have no doubt that the whole of this poem was written after the Revolt of 1381. This is certain for Book i, but there are strong reasons for believing that, in its original form, the Vox consisted of Books ii-vii, that these were composed before the Revolt broke out, and that Book i was a later addition. The arguments are given in full by Mr. Macaulay, and need not be repeated here. I do not see how any one can read the poem without being convinced. 2 Books ii-vii of the Vox Clamantis, then, in all probability were composed before June, 1381. It follows that, between September, 1378, and this date, Gower wrote not only the last eleven or twelve thousand lines of the Mirour , but the 8000 Latin verses (in the elegiac couplet) which Books ii-vii of the Vox comprise. If we allow a year and a half for these 8000 verses, — which seems little enough, — we arrive at ca. January, 1380, as the most probable date (at all events, as the latest probable date) for the completion of the Mirour . 3 1 Macaulay, I, xlii-iii ; cf. Tatlock, pp. 220 ff. 2 Mr. Macaulay was strongly tempted to adopt this view in 1902 (see his edition, IV, xxxi-ii), and he seems to have become even better disposed toward it since that time (see his article on Gower in the Cambridge History of English Literature , II [1908], 144). 3 Mr. Macaulay, it will be remembered, assigns the composition of the Mirour to 1376-1379. Thus, the result at which we have arrived by a consideration of the Vox accords exactly with the date which he sets for the completion of the work. 82 APPENDIX VI. Now if Gower wrote eleven or twelve thousand verses of the Mirour between September, 1378 (at the earliest), and January, 1380 (at the latest ), — that is to say, in a year and a quarter, — it is manifestly impossible to feel confident that the Troilus verses, vv. 5245-56 (5809-20) were written as late as 1377. If Gower began the poem in 1375 (as Mr. Tatlock seems to think), he may well have reached v. 5245 in 1375 or 1376. It appears, therefore, that 1377, which is Mr. Tatlock’s date for the Troilus verses in the Mirour, may be a year or two later than the facts warrant. DATE DUE 1 9 m GAYLORD PRINTED IN U S A. PR 1901 •A3 2d ser. no. 42 BOSTON COLLEGE 9031 01 317287 9 KITTREDGE. Baf f Library Bosti i College Chestnut Hji ' . Mass. 02167 ■