Chaucer's Works, Volume 1 — Romaunt of the Rose; Minor PoemsChaucer, Geoffrey
General
Chaucer's Works, Volume 1 — Romaunt of the Rose; Minor Poems
Chaucer, Geoffrey
English poetry -- Middle English, 1100-1500
Another poem in this MS. requires a few words. At the back of leaf 38 is a
poem entitled 'The Cronycle made by Chaucier,' with a second title to this
effect:--'Here nowe folowe the names of the nyene worshipfullest Ladyes
that in alle cronycles and storyal bokes haue beo founden of trouthe of
constaunce and vertuous or reproched (_sic_) womanhode by Chaucier.' The
poem consists of nine stanzas of eight lines (in the ordinary heroic
metre), and is printed in Furnivall's Odd Text of Chaucer's Minor Poems,
Part I. It would be a gross libel to ascribe this poem to Chaucer, as it is
very poor, and contains execrable rimes (such as _prysoun_, _bycome_;
_apply-e_, _pyte_; _thee_, _dy-e_). But we may easily see that the title is
likely to give rise to a misconception. It does not really mean that the
_poem itself_ is by Chaucer, but that it gives a brief epitome of the
'Cronicle made by Chaucier' of 'the nyene worshipfullest Ladyes.' And, in
fact, it does this. Each stanza briefly describes one of the nine women
celebrated in Chaucer's Legend of Good Women. It is sufficient to add that
the author makes a ludicrous mistake, which is quite enough to acquit
Chaucer of having had any hand in this wholly valueless production; for he
actually addresses 'quene Alceste' as sorrowing for 'Seyse her husbande.'
_Seyse_ is Chaucer's _Ceyx_, and _Alceste_ is the author's comic
substitution for _Alcyone_; see Book of the Duchess, l. 220. This is not a
fault of the scribe; for _Alceste_ rimes with _byheste_, whereas _Alcione_
does not. I much suspect that Shirley wrote this poem _himself_. His
verses, in MS. Addit. 16165, are very poor.
TN. (Tanner 346) is a fair MS. of the 15th century, and contains, besides
six of the Minor Poems, the _Legend of Good Women_, Hoccleve's _Letter of
Cupid_ (called _litera Cupidinis dei Amoris directa subditis suis
Amatoribus_), the _Cuckoo and Nightingale_ (called the _god of loue_),
Lydgate's _Temple of Glas_ and _Black Knight_, &c. One of them is the
Ballad no. 32 discussed above (p. 40). At fol. 73 is a poem in thirteen
8-line stanzas, beginning 'As ofte as syghes ben in herte trewe.' One
stanza begins with these lines:--
'As ofte tymes as Penelapye
Renewed her werk in the _raduore_,' &c.
I quote this for the sake of the extremely rare Chaucerian word spelt
_radevore_ in the Legend of Good Women. The same line occurs in another
copy of the same poem in MS. Ff., fol. 12, back.
AR. (Arch. Seld. B. 24) is a Scottish MS., apparently written in 1472, and
contains, amongst other things, the unique copy of the _Kingis Quair_, by
James I. of Scotland. This is the MS. wherein the scribe attributes pieces
to Chaucer quite recklessly: see p. 47. It is also the authority for the
pieces called _Prosperity_ and _Leaulte vault Richesse_. Here, once more,
we find the _Letter of Cupid_ and the _Cuckoo and Nightingale_; it is
remarkable how often these poems occur in the same MS. It also contains
_Troilus_ and the _Legend of Good Women_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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