Chaucer's Works, Volume 3 — The House of Fame; The Legend of Good Women; The Treatise on the Astrolabe; The Sources of the Canterbury TalesChaucer, Geoffrey
General
Chaucer's Works, Volume 3 — The House of Fame; The Legend of Good Women; The Treatise on the Astrolabe; The Sources of the Canterbury Tales
Chaucer, Geoffrey
English poetry -- Middle English, 1100-1500
i.e. thou know'st not how to dance, nor how to juggle, after the manner of
a Gascon juggler. A comparison of the forms leaves no doubt as to the
etymology. The Prov. _trasgitar_ answers to a Low Lat. form _trans-iectare_
= _tra-iectare_, frequentative of Lat. _trans-icere_, _tra-icere_, to throw
across, transfer, cause to pass. Thus, the orig. sense of _tregetour_ was
one who causes rapid changes, by help of some mechanical contrivance. The
F. _trajecter_, to ferry, transport, in Cotgrave, is the same word as the
Prov. _trasgitar_, in a different (but allied) sense.
1292. 'As is the usual way with reports.'
1295. Accent _Which_ and _so_.
1297. 'And yet it was wrought by haphazard quite as often as by heed.'
1300. _To longe_, too long; not 'to dwell long.' The barbarous practice of
inserting an adverb between _to_ and an infinitive, as in 'to
ungrammatically talk,' is of later date, though less modern than we might
perhaps imagine. Cf. l. 1354.
1302. Elide the former _Ne_; read _N'of_.
1303. Read--Ne hów they hátt' in másonéries; i.e. nor how they are named in
masonry, as, for example, corbets full of imageries. _They hatte_, i.e.
they are called, was turned into _hakking_, and the sense lost.
1304. _Corbets_, corbels. Florio's Ital. Dict. has, '_Corbella_,
_Corbetta_, a little basket'; shewing the equivalence of such forms. The E.
_corbel_ is the same word as O.F. _corbel_ (F. _corbeau_), apparently from
the Lat. _coruus_. The spelling with _z_ (= _ts_) in MSS. F. and B. shews
that the form is really _corbetts_ or _corbets_, not _corbelles_. Spenser
has the simple form _corb_; F. Q. iv. 10. 6:--
'It was a bridge ybuilt in goodly wise
With curious _corbes_ and pendants graven faire.'
'A _Corbel_, _Corbet_, or _Corbill_ in masonrie, is a iutting out like a
_bragget_ [bracket] as carpenters call it, or shouldering-peece in
timber-work'; Minsheu's Dict. ed. 1627. Tyrwhitt explains _corbets_ by
'niches for statues'; but 'imageries' are not necessarily statues or
_images_, but rather specimens of carved work.
1309. 'A bounty! a bounty! hold up (your hands) well (to catch it).' Sir W.
Scott explains _largesse_ as 'the cry with which heralds and pursuivants
were wont to acknowledge the bounty received from the knights'; note to
Marmion, canto i. St. 11. The word is still in use amongst gleaners in East
Anglia; see my note to P. Plowman, C. viii. 109.
1311. In Anglia, xiv. 236, Dr. Köppell points out some resemblances between
the present poem and Boccaccio's Amorosa Visione. He compares this line
with the A. V. vi. 75:--'Io son la Gloria del popol mondano.'
1316, 7. _Kinges_, i.e. kings-at-arms; _losenges_, lozenges (with _g_ as
_j_).
1326. _Cote-armure_, surcoat; see Way's note in Prompt. Parv.
1329-35. Imitated from Rom. Rose, 6762-4.
1330. _Been aboute_, used like the old phrase _go about_.
1342-6. Cf. Boccaccio, Amorosa Visione, iv. 9:--'Ed in una gran sala ci
trovammo; Chiara era e bella e risplendente d'oro.'
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