A Literary History of the English People, from the Origins to the RenaissanceJusserand, J. J. (Jean Jules)
History
A Literary History of the English People, from the Origins to the Renaissance
Jusserand, J. J. (Jean Jules)
English literature -- History and criticism
[366] "Cursor Mundi," i. p. 21. _Cf._ Bartholomew the Englishman, in his
"De Proprietatibus Rerum," book xv., chap. xiv., thus translated by
Trevisa: "Englonde is fulle of myrthe and of game and men oft tymes able
to myrth and game, free men of harte and with tongue, but the honde is
more better and more free than the tongue."--"Cest acteur monstre bien
en ce chapitre qu'il fut Anglois," observes with some spite Corbichon,
the French translator of Bartholomew, writing, it is true, during the
Hundred Years' War.
[367] English text: "Dame Siriz" in Th. Wright, "Anecdota Literaria,"
London, 1844, 8vo, p. 1; and in Goldbeck and Matzner, "Altenglische
Sprachproben," Berlin, 1867, p. 103. French text in the "Castoiement
d'un pere a son fils," Barbazan and Meon, "Fabliaux," vol. ii. The
English text belongs to the end of the thirteenth century, and the story
is localised in England; mention is made of "Botolfston," otherwise, St.
Botolph or Boston. See above, p. 154; on a dramatisation of the story,
see below, p. 447.
[368] Story of a drinking horn from which husbands with faithless wives
cannot drink without spilling the contents. Arthur invites his knights
to try the experiment, and is not a little surprised to find that it
turns against himself. French text: "Le lai du Cor, restitution
critique," by F. Wulff, Lund, 1888, 8vo, written by Robert Biquet in the
twelfth century; only one MS. (copied in England) has been preserved.
English text: "The Cokwolds Daunce," from a MS. of the fifteenth
century, in Hazlitt's "Remains of the early popular poetry of England,"
London, 1864, 4 vols, 8vo, vol. i. p. 35. _Cf._ Le "Mantel Mautaille,"
in Montaiglon and Raynaud, "Recueil General," vol. iii. and "La Coupe
Enchantee," by La Fontaine.
[369] French text: "De pleine Bourse de Sens," by Jean le Galois, in
Montaiglon and Raynaud, "Recueil General," vol. iii. p. 88. English
text: "How a Merchande dyd his wyfe betray," in Hazlitt's "Remains" (_ut
supra_), vol. i. p. 196. Of the same sort are "Sir Cleges" (Weber,
"Metrical Romances," 1810, vol. i.), the "Tale of the Basyn" (in
Hartshorne, "Ancient Metrical Tales," London, 1829, p. 202), a fabliau,
probably derived from a French original, etc.
[370] English text: "The Land of Cokaygne" (end of the fourteenth
century, seems to have been originally composed in the thirteenth), in
Goldbeck and Matzner, "Altengische Sprachproben," Berlin, 1867, part i.,
p. 147; also in Furnivall, "Early English Poems," Berlin, 1862, p. 156.
French text in Barbazan and Meon, "Fabliaux," vol. iii. p. 175: "C'est
li Fabliaus de Coquaigne."
[371] "Aucassin and Nicolete," Andrew Lang's translation, London, 1887,
p. 12. The French original in verse and prose, a _cante-fable_, belongs
to the twelfth century. Text in Moland and d'Hericault, "Nouvelles
francoises en prose, du treizieme siecle" (the editors wrongly referred
"Aucassin" to that century), Paris, 1856, 16mo.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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