Although without any claim to be reckoned among the best of her works, it is at least admirable in motive. Ostensibly it is addressed by the Goddess of Prudence or Wisdom to her _protégé_ Hector with the object of inciting him to the attainment of true knighthood by the practice of virtue, the name of the goddess being clearly no more than the Greek vocative ὦ θεά, commonly used in Homer in speeches addressed to Athena.[37] The plan of the work is somewhat peculiar. The epistle proper, which purports to be Othea’s own, is in verse, and is divided into a hundred “textes,” each of which after the first five consists of a single quatrain. These hundred “textes” serve as a medium for instilling into the mind of the pupil as many moral precepts or rules of behaviour, wrapped up in an allusion to some story from mythology, from the history of Troy or, very rarely, from other sources, without the least regard for chronological propriety. Othea indeed anticipates the charge of anachronism by claiming at the outset (p. 6) the divine prerogative of prophecy, by which means she obviates the incongruity of drawing lessons for Hector from the circumstances of his own death (p. 105), from the story of Cyrus and Queen Tomyris (p. 63), and even from the vision of Christ shown by the Sibyl to the Roman emperor Augustus (p. 113). Perhaps the most glaring anachronism is the reference to the fate of “Thune” (p. 110). It has been suggested in a note on the passage that this is a corruption in the MSS. for “Thyre” or Tyre; but the rhyme both in the French and English versions requires “Thune,” and possibly the allusion is to the much vaunted expedition of Louis, Duke of Bourbon, against Tunis in 1391. If so, this is a single instance of a reference to an event in more recent times. The “textes,” however, are not left to stand alone, being invariably followed by a “glose” and an “allégorie,” both of which are in prose and often of some length. The bulk of the work therefore is really a commentary by Christine herself upon Othea’s supposed teaching. Thus, in the “glose” she amplifies and explains the allusion in the “texte,” and as a rule points its application by a maxim from an ancient philosopher; and, having done this to her own satisfaction, she next dilates in the “allégorie” on its more spiritual meaning, which she illustrates by a passage from one of the Fathers or some later theologian, and finally by a more or less appropriate verse from Scripture. These last citations are from the Latin Vulgate, and from the fact that the translator omits them it may be inferred that he was either ignorant of Latin or intended to supply them from the Wycliffite English version. In this way Christine works through the Virtues and Vices, the Articles of the Creed, the Ten Commandments, the properties and influences of the seven planets, and so forth; and the whole forms a curious and ill-assorted medley, which is