Chaucer's Works, Volume 5 — Notes to the Canterbury TalesChaucer, Geoffrey
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Chaucer's Works, Volume 5 — Notes to the Canterbury Tales
Chaucer, Geoffrey
Chaucer, Geoffrey, -1400. Canterbury tales -- Criticism, interpretation, etc.
2792. From Dionysius Cato, Distich. iv. 16:--
'Utere quaesitis opibus; fuge nomen auari;
Quo tibi diuitias, si semper pauper abundas?'
2795. From Dionysius Cato, Distich. iii. 22:--
'Utere quaesitis, sed ne uidearis abuti;
Qui sua consumunt, quum deest, aliena sequuntur.'
[221]
2796. _Folily_, foolishly. We find M. E. _folliche_, both adj. and adv.,
and _follichely_, _folily_ as adv. It is spelt _folily_ in Wycliffe, Num.
xii. 11, and in the Troy-book, 573; also _folili_, Will. of Palerne, 4596;
_folyly_, Rom. of the Rose, 5942 (see the footnote).
2800. _Weeldinge_ (so in E., other MSS. _weldinge_), wielding, i. e. power.
2802. Not in the Latin text.
2807. Compare Prov. xxvii. 20.
2811. 'Quamobrem nec ita claudenda est res familiaris, ut eam benignitas
aperire non possit; nec ita reseranda, ut pateat omnibus'; Cicero, De
Officiis, ii. 15.
2818. See Prov. xv. 16; xvi. 8.
2820. _The prophete_, i. e. David; see Ps. xxxvii. 16.
2824. See 2 Cor. i. 12.
2825. 'Riches are good unto him that hath no sin'; Ecclus. xiii. 24.
2828. From Prov. xxii. 1.
2829. The reference seems to be to Prov. xxv. 10 in the Vulgate version
(not in the A. V.):--'Gratia et amicitia liberant; quas tibi serua, ne
exprobrabilis fias.'
2832. The reference is clearly to the following:--'Est enim indigni [_al._
digni] animi signum, famae diligere commodum'; Cassiodorus, Variarum lib.
i. epist. 4. This is quoted by Albertano (p. 120), with the reading
_ingenui_ for _indigni_; hence Chaucer's 'gentil.' Mätzner refers us to the
same, lib. v. epist. 12:--'quia pulchrum est commodum famae.'
2833. 'Duae res sunt conscientia et fama. Conscientia tibi, fama proximo
tuo'; Augustini Opera, ed. Caillou, Paris, 1842, tom. xxi. p. 347.--Mr.
2837. Fr. text:--'il est cruel et villain.'--Mr.
2841. Lat. text:--'nam dixit quidam philosophus, Nemo in guerra constitutus
satis diues esse potest. Quantumcunque enim sit homo diues, oportet illum,
si in guerra diu perseuerauerit, aut diuitias aut guerram perdere, aut
forte utrumque simul et personam.'--p. 102.
2843. See Ecclesiastes, v. 11.
2851. 'With the God of heaven it is all one, to deliver with a great
multitude, or a small company: For the victory of battle standeth not in
the multitude of an host; but strength cometh from heaven.' 1 Macc. iii.
18, 19.
2854. The gap is easily detected and filled up by comparison with the Fr.
text, which Mätzner cites from Le Menagier de Paris, i. 226, thus:--'pour
ce ... que nul n'est certain s'il est digne que Dieu lui doint victoire _ne
plus que il est certain se il est digne de l'amour de Dieu_ ou non.' We
must also compare the text from Solomon, viz. Ecclesiastes, ix. 1, as it
stands in the Vulgate version.
2857. _Outher-whyle_, sometimes; see note to 2733.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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