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
I have not thought it necessary to encumber the pages with wholly inferior
readings that are of no value, but I have carefully collated the best MSS.,
viz. C., F., Tn., T., A., B., and sometimes P., besides keeping an eye upon
Th., i.e. Thynne's edition. I thus was enabled to see the true state of the
case, viz. that the MSS. of the first class (C., T., A., P., Addit. 9832,
12524, and 28617) have been practically neglected altogether; whilst, of
the MSS. &c. of the second class (F., Tn., B., Th.), only F. and Th. have
received sufficient attention. It is now abundantly clear that the best
authorities are C. and F., as being of different classes, and that the
right plan is to consult these _first_, and then to see how the other MSS.
support them. A long list of important emendations, and an exposure of the
extreme inaccuracy of most of the previous editions, will be found in the
Introduction to my edition of 1889, and need not be repeated here.
§ 15. CONCLUSION. In conclusion, I may mention the Poem in MS. Ashmole 59,
entitled 'The Cronycle made by Chaucier. ¶ Here nowe folowe the names of
the nyene worshipfullest Ladyes ... by Chaucier.' It is a poor production,
perhaps written by Shirley, and merely gives a short epitome of the
contents of the Legend of Good Women. The words 'by Chaucier' refer to
Chaucer's authorship of the Legend only, and not to the authorship of the
epitome, which, though of some interest, is practically worthless. The
author makes the odd mistake of confusing the story of Alcestis with that
of Ceyx and Alcyone in the Book of the Duchesse (62-230). This 'Cronycle'
was printed by Dr. Furnivall in his Odd-texts of Chaucer's Minor Poems,
Part i.
I have now only to record my indebtedness to others, especially to Dr.
Furnivall for his invaluable prints in the Parallel-Texts; to the excellent
essay by M. Bech, in vol. v. of Anglia[45]; to Mr. Jephson for his notes in
'Bell's' edition; and to the notes in the edition by Professor Corson. Also
to Professor Ten Brink, the second part of whose second volume of the
Geschichte der englischen Litteratur has just appeared (1893).
NOTE.--If the reader finds the _two_ forms of the Prologue troublesome, he
has only to confine his attention to the 'B-text,' in the _lower_ part of
pp. 65-105. The text agrees with that usually given, and contains 579
lines. The first line of 'Cleopatra' is l. 580, the numbering being
continuous. Besides this, the lines of each Legend are given _separately_,
within marks of parenthesis. Thus l. 589 is the 10th line of 'Cleopatra';
and so in other cases.
I here subjoin an Additional Note to lines 1896-8.
At p. xxxix. above (footnote no. 2), I give Bech's reference to Godfrey of
Viterbo. The passage runs thus:--
'_De Ioue primo rege Atheniensi._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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