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
As to the expression _with the nones_, we may compare it with such
expressions as _with-than_, _with-thon-that_, _with-tho-the_, _with-that_,
all meaning 'provided that,' and all occurring in the Glossary to Spec. of
Eng., Part I. And since _for the nones_ means 'for the occasion' (see
Prologue to C. T., 379), so _with the nones_ is 'with the occasion,' and
hence 'provided that.' I cannot at all agree with what seems to me the
ludicrous emendation in some late editions, which change _nones_ into
_bones_, and delete the comma after _live_; 'provided that I might live
with the bones.' At any rate, there is _no authority_ for this. The old
editions and MSS. all alike read _nones_; and we have the phrase again
(pronounced _with th' non-es_), in the Ho. Fame, 2099.
1546. _To come to hous upon_, to become at home with, to become familiar
with.
1551. The former syllable in _Yiftes_ forms a foot by itself.
1552. _As wolde god_, as (I wish) that God might will or permit; as in l.
1538.
1558. _Thoriginal_, the original. As this 'tells all the case,' i.e. all
Jason's subtlety, he is probably referring to Ovid, Her. Ep. vi. Flaccus
says that Hercules induced Jason to quit Lemnos, and proceed on his voyage.
Statius mentions Hypsipyle's twin sons, and relates some of her later
history.
1564. Chaucer here follows the sixth letter of Ovid's Heroides. Lines
1569-1575 follow four lines of the Latin text, viz. 123-4, and 159-60,
which refer to the twins and Medea:--
'Si quaeris, cui sunt similes; cognosceris illis.
Fallere non norunt; caetera patris habent....
Quam fratri germana fuit, miseroque parenti
filia; tam natis, tam sit acerba uiro.'
PART II. THE LEGEND OF MEDEA.
1580. From this line to l. 1655 Chaucer mainly follows the second book of
Guido delle Colonne's Historia Troiana, which he epitomises. See Gower, C.
A. ii. 236-258.
1581. 'Who is a devourer of love, and a very dragon'; with reference to the
supposed insatiability of dragons.
1582. 'As matter always seeks to have a definite form, and may pass from
one form into another.' Mr. Archer Hind refers me to Aristotle,
Metaphysica, [LAMDA]. vii. 1072 b. 3:--[Greek: kinei de hôs erômenon,
kinoumenon de talla kinei]. Bech shews that this is all from Guido, who
has: 'Scimus enim mulieris animum semper uirum appetere, sicut appetit
materia semper formam.... Sed sicut ad formam de forma procedere materiam
notum est, sic mulieris concupiscentia dissoluta procedere de uiro ad uirum
... sine fine, cum sit quaedam profunditas sine fundo,' &c. Hence Lydgate,
in his Troy-book, bk. i. c. 5 (fol. C 6, back) has:--
'For as nature by kyndly appetyte
Kyndly seketh to sewen after fourme,' &c.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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