But Edward the Confessor is certainly meant; and there is a remarkable story about him that he was 'warned of hys death certain dayes before hee dyed, by a ring that was brought to him by certain pilgrims coming from Hierusalem, which ring hee hadde secretly given to a poore man that askyd hys charitie in the name of God and sainte Johan the Evangelist.' See Mr. Wright's description of Ludlow Church, where are some remains of a stained glass window representing this story, in the eastern wall of the chapel of St. John. See also Chambers, Book of Days, i. 53, 54, where we read--'The sculptures upon the frieze of the present shrine (in Westminster Abbey) represent _fourteen scenes in the life_ of Edward the Confessor.... He was canonized by Pope Alexander about a century after his death.... He was esteemed the _patron-saint of England_ until superseded in the thirteenth century by St. George.' These fourteen scenes are fully described in Brayley's Hist. of Westminster Abbey, in an account which is chiefly taken from a life of St. Edward written by Ailred of Rievaulx in 1163. Three 'Lives of Edward the Confessor' were edited, for the Master of the Rolls, by Mr. Luard in 1858. See Morley's Eng. Writers, 1888, ii. 375. 3162. _celle_, cell. The monk calls it _his_ cell because he was 'the keper' of it; Prol. 172. 3163. _Tragédie_; the final _ie_ might be slurred over before _is_, in which case we might read _for to_ for _to_ (see footnote); but it is needless. The definition of 'tragedy' here given is repeated from Chaucer's own translation of Boethius, which contains the remark--'_Glose._ Tragedie is to seyn, a ditee [_ditty_] of a prosperitee for a tyme, that endeth in wrecchednesse'; bk. ii. pr. 2. 51. This remark is Chaucer's _own_, as the word _Glose_ marks his addition to, or _gloss_ upon, his original. His remark refers to a passage in Boethius immediately preceding, viz. 'Quid _tragoediarum_ clamor aliud deflet, nisi indiscreto ictu fortunam felicia regna uertentem?' De Consolatione Philosophiae, lib. ii. prosa 2. See also the last stanza of 'Cresus' in the Monkes Tale (vol. i. p. 268). 3169. _exametron_, hexameter. Chaucer is speaking of Latin, not of English verse; and refers to the common Latin hexameter used in heroic verse; he would especially be thinking of the Thebaid of Statius, [227] the Metamorphoseon Liber of Ovid, the Aeneid of Vergil, and Lucan's Pharsalia. This we could easily have guessed, but Chaucer has himself told us what was in his thoughts. For near the conclusion of his Troilus and Criseyde, which he calls a _tragedie_, he says-- 'And kis the steppes wheras thou seest pace _Virgile_, _Ovyde_, Omer, _Lucan_, and _Stace_.' Lucan is expressly cited in B. 401, 3909. 3170. _In prose._ For example, Boccaccio's De Casibus Virorum and De Claris Mulieribus contain 'tragedies' in Latin prose. Cf. ll. 3655, 3910.