The complete works of John Gower, volume 4 : $b The Latin worksGower, John
General
The complete works of John Gower, volume 4 : $b The Latin works
Gower, John
Poetry
As regards the picture in this MS., the features of the archer
are quite different from those represented in the Cotton MS. He
has a prominent pointed nose and a light-coloured moustache and
beard; the arrow, held between the fore-finger and the second and
aimed upwards, covers the mouth. The dress consists of a grey
fur cap with a hood under it of light crimson, covering also the
upper part of the body: below this a blue surcoat with brown
lining and wide sleeves thrown back so as to leave the arms bare:
a red belt with buckle and pendant, and red hose. The globe is
at a higher level and smaller in proportion than in the other
pictures. Like them it is divided into three, the left hand upper
division having a crescent moon and four stars: a red cross with
a banner stands at the summit of the globe.
D. DIGBY 138, Bodleian Library, Oxford. Contains _Vox Clamantis_
only, preceded by the Table of Chapter-headings. Parchment and paper,
ff. 158 originally, with other leaves inserted at the beginning and
end in the sixteenth century; about 10½ x 7¼ in., in quires of eight
with catchwords; neat writing of the second quarter of the fifteenth
century, about 37 lines to the page. No decoration except red and
blue initials, numbering of chapters in red, &c. The rubricator has
introduced some corrections here and there, but there are no passages
rewritten over erasure. There is some transposition of leaves in the
fourteenth quire, dating from before the rubricator’s numbering of
chapters. The name of a sixteenth-century owner, Roger Waller, occurs
on f. 158 v^o. and Kenelm Digby’s device, ‘Vindica te tibi, Kenelme
Digby,’ on f. 1.
The text of D is of a mixed character. Sometimes, in company with
TH₂ it reproduces the original form of a passage, as i. 1029
ff., vi. cap. xviii and xix, vii. 189 f., 1409 ff., 1454 ff.,
1479 ff. In other places, as iii. 1 ff., vi. 545, and elsewhere,
the readings of D are those of the revised MSS. It is peculiar
in the addition after vi. 522, where eight lines are introduced
from the original text of the altered passage which follows at
the end of the chapter. The text of D generally is much less
correct than that of the older copies, and it is derived from a
MS. which had lines missing here and there, as indicated by the
‘deficit versus in copia,’ which occurs sometimes in the margin.
In the numbering of the chapters the Prologues of Libb. ii. and
iii. are reckoned as cap. i. in each case. The corrections and
notes of the rubricator are not always sound, and sometimes we
find in the margin attempts to improve the author’s metre, in a
seventeenth-century hand, as ‘Et qui pauca tenet’ for ‘Qui tenet
et pauca’ (ii. 70), ‘Causa tamen credo’ for ‘Credo tamen causa’
(ii. 84). Some of these late alterations have been admitted
(strange to say) into Mr. Coxe’s text (e.g. ii. 70).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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