Chaucerian and Other Pieces: Being a Supplement to the Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer
General
Chaucerian and Other Pieces: Being a Supplement to the Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer
Chaucer, Geoffrey, -1400
18. _A Praise of Women._ Noticed in vol. i. p. 37. Though decisively
rejected by Tyrwhitt, and excluded from Moxon's reprint, it was revived
(for no good reason) by Bell, and consequently appeared in the Aldine
edition, which was founded on Bell's. It enumerates the merits of
womankind, and condemns the slanders of men concerning them. We ought to
worship all women out of reverence for the Queen of heaven, and we shall do
well to pray to Our Lady to bring us to the heaven in which she and all
good women will be found. Thynne is not the sole authority for this poem,
as it occurs also (in a Scottish dress) in the Bannatyne MS., fol. 275. The
whole of this MS. (written in 1568) was printed for the Hunterian Club in
1873-9; see p. 799 of that edition.
21. _The Lamentation of Mary Magdalen._ Noticed in vol. i. p. 37. This
lugubrious piece was probably the wail of a nun, who had no book but a
Vulgate version of the Bible, from which all her quotations are taken. It
bears no resemblance to any work by Chaucer, nor to any of the pieces in
the present volume. It consists of 102 seven-line stanzas. The metre
resembles Lydgate's, but the final _-e_ is hardly ever used. Bell's text is
not taken from Thynne, but from some later and inferior reprint of it. For
this poem, Thynne's first edition is the sole authority.
22. _The Remedy of Love._ Noticed in vol. i. p. 38. It appears that the
'remedy of love' is to be found in a consideration of the wicked ways of
women. Twelve whole stanzas are taken up with a metrical translation of one
of the chapters in the book of Proverbs. The author refers us to 'the fifth
chapter,' but he is wrong. He means chapter vii, verses 6-27. He also
quotes from Ecclesiasticus, ix. 9, and xxv. 25.
Nos. 28, 29, 30 (vol. i. p. 32) are not found in Thynne, but were first
printed by Stowe. I give them below, at p. 297. The first two stanzas are
Lydgate's; and probably the third is his also. It is no great matter.
No. 41 (vol. i. p. 33) was also first printed by Stowe. To save words, I
have printed it below, at p. 450, from the original MS.
§ 3. I now consider the non-Chaucerian pieces in Part II. of Stowe's
Edition (see vol. i. p. 33). Of these, nos. 45, 50, 56, and 59 are here
reprinted.
Nos. 46, 47, 48, 49, 51, 52, 53, 54, and 55 were all taken by Stowe from
MS. Trin. R. 3. 19. Perhaps they are sufficiently noticed in vol. i. p. 41,
as they present few points of interest. However, I enumerate them, adding a
few remarks.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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