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
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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
The Aldine edition was reprinted in 1866, on which occasion it was edited
by Dr. Morris. With respect to the Legend of Good Women, Dr. Morris says
that it is copied from MS. F., collated with MSS. A., C. (privately printed
at Cambridge by Mr. H. Bradshaw, 1864), and MSS. Addit. 9832 and 12524. In
this edition, variations from the MS. (F.) are denoted by italic letters,
but such variations are very few. Practically, we here find a correct print
of MS. F., with most of the missing lines supplied by collation, and with
very few corrections. Lines 960, 961 are, however, still omitted, though
found in MS. C.; but ll. 1326, 1327 (also omitted by Thynne) are duly
given, being found, in fact, in MS. F. At l. 2338, the correct line is
given, but the spurious line is also retained; so that (as in Thynne)
_three_ lines here rime together. In the former part of l. 2153, a part of
l. 2150 is repeated, giving us _by_ instead of _eek_; the fact is that the
scribe slipped from _gayler_ in l. 2150 to _gayler_ in l. 2153, omitting
all that came between these words. Nothing is said about the interesting
form of the Prologue as existing in MS. C. There are no explanatory notes.
Besides the English editions, two editions of the Legend of Good Women have
appeared in America, which demand some notice.
Of these, the former is a very handy edition of the Legend of Good Women,
published _separately_ for the first time, and edited by Professor Hiram
Corson. The text is that of Bell's edition; but the explanatory notes are
fuller and better, and I have carefully consulted them. At the end is an
Index of all the words explained, which really serves the purpose of a
glossary. This is certainly the best edition I have met with.
The other edition is that of Chaucer's Works, edited by Arthur Gilman, and
published at Boston in 1879, in three volumes. The Legend of Good Women
occurs in vol. iii. pp. 79-183. The harder words are explained in
footnotes, and there are just a few notes on the subject-matter. The chief
point in this edition is that the editor quotes some of the more remarkable
variations in the Prologue from MS. C., which he says is 'evidently an
earlier one than the one followed in the text, Fairfax 16, in the Bodleian
Library, Oxford.' Yet his text is a mere reprint from that of Morris; it
omits ll. 960, 961, and gives l. 2338 both in its correct and in its
spurious form. Consequently, it contains 2722 lines instead of 2723. The
true number of lines is _odd_, because of the Balade of 21 lines at l. 249.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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