He introduces a sceptical friend who has a long conversation with the lover in which he points out with extreme clearness the drawbacks of marriage and the frailties of women. The English version of the poem consists of three fragments, A, B, and C (it is only 7,696 lines in all), and scholars are divided in opinion as to how much of the translation is actually by Chaucer himself. Professor Saintsbury, in the _Cambridge History of Literature_ considers that Chaucer is probably the author of A, possibly the author of B, and probably not the author of C. He must, however, have been known as the translator of the later part, for in the _Prologue to the Legend of Good Women_ (written about 1385), the god of love scolds the poet severely on the ground,-- Thou hast translated the Romauns of the Rose That is an hereyse ageyns my lawe. Another early work is the A.B.C., a hymn in honour of the Virgin, modelled upon a similar poem by Guillaume de Deguileville. Deguileville was well known as a devotional writer at the time, and according to Speght Chaucer's paraphrase was written "at the request of Blanch Duchesse of Lancaster, as a praier for her priuat vse, being a woman in her religion very deuout." There is, however, no evidence of this, and Ten Brink believes that the A.B.C. dates from a later period when the poet was passing through a phase of deep religious feeling. Whatever the facts about this particular poem may be, it is interesting to notice that even in these early days Chaucer combined some of the qualities of a satirist with those of an idealist. His first great original work was produced in 1369, when John of Gaunt's beautiful and charming young wife died. The _Book of the Duchesse_ makes no pretence to originality of treatment. The poet, after a conventional lament over the conventional hard-heartedness of his mistress, falls into a conventional slumber in the course of which he has a conventional dream that he is following a conventional hunt in a conventional forest. Here he meets a handsome young man Of the age of four and twenty yeer * * * * * And he was clothed al in blakke. The young man is complaining to himself most piteously:-- Hit was gret wonder that nature Might suffre(n) any creature To have swich sorwe and be not deed. The poet is touched by his sorrow, and since they have evidently lost the hunt, he begs the mourner to tell him of "his sorwes smerte." This opens the way for a long, rambling lament, full of allusions to classical mythology. So involved is it, that the poet finds some difficulty in grasping the point, and cuts into a description of the lady's charms with a puzzled,-- Sir ... wher is she now? The brief answer-- I have lost more than thou wenest * * * * She is deed-- strikes a note of tragedy which is beyond the scope of the youthful poet as yet, and the elegy ends abruptly with Is that your los? by god hit is routhe.[37]