The lover of things mediæval will find in this little book not only the familiar garden of Guillaume de Lorris, of Boccaccio and of Chaucer, but an unexpected and enchanting vision of great forest and rushing water, of hillside and plain, of crystal cliffs and flame-winged birds; of the Pearl among her white peers; of the Apocalyptic Jerusalem, discovered to the poet, it may be, as a goodly Gothic city, though its walls are built of precious stone, and its towers rise from neither church nor minster. If even a few readers turn from the modern to the original version, the translation will have had fair fortune, for the author of "The Pearl" is, though unknown and unnamed, a poet second only to Chaucer in Chaucer's generation. It is a pleasure to record my many debts of gratitude: to Professor Frank H. Chase of Beloit, Professor John L. Lowes of Swarthmore, and Dr. Charles G. Osgood of Princeton, for their careful reading of the translation in manuscript, with invaluable assistance and suggestion; to Professor Martha Hale Shackford, and Miss Laura A. Hibbard, for constant aid while the work was in making, and, above all, to Professor Katharine Lee Bates for a critical, line by line, comparison of this version with the original. [Footnote 1: Par. III.] [Footnote 2: Pearl, stanza 71.] [Footnote 3: Par. VII, II. 17-18; Par. VIII, I. 15.] S.J. WELLESLEY COLLEGE, June, 1908. EDITIONS: R. Morris, Early English text Sc. 1864; I. Gollancz, London, 1891; C.G. Osgood, Boston, 1906 (with admirable introduction, etc.). TRANSLATIONS: Gollancz (above); S. Weir Mitchell, New York, 1906 (poetic, but incomplete); G.G. Coulton, London, 1906 (metre of the original); C.G. Osgood, Princeton, 1907 (prose). THE PEARL I Pearl that the Prince full well might prize, So surely set in shining gold! No pearl of Orient with her vies; To prove her peerless I make bold: So round, so radiant to mine eyes, smooth she seemed, so small to hold, Among all jewels judges wise Would count her best an hundred fold. Alas! I lost my pearl of old! I pine with heart-pain unforgot; Down through my arbour grass it rolled, My own pearl, precious, without spot. Since in that spot it slipped from me I wait, and wish, and oft complain; Once it would bid my sorrow flee, And my fair fortune turn again; It wounds my heart now ceaselessly, And burns my breast with bitter pain. Yet never so sweet a song may be As, this still hour, steals through my brain, While verity I muse in vain How clay should her bright beauty clot; O Earth! a brave gem thou dost stain, My own pearl, precious, without spot!