Oxford.
_Dulcarnon_.--Dulcarnon is one of those words in Chaucer which Tyrwhitt
professes that he does not understand. It occurs in _Trolius and
Creseide_, book iii. 931.933. Creseide says:--
"I am, til God me better minde sende,
At _Dulcarnon_, right at my witt'is ende.
Quod Pandarus ye nece, wol ye here,
_Dulcarnon_ clepid is fleming[3] of wretches."
This passage of _Trolius and Creseide_ is quoted in the life of Sir
Thomas More, given in Wordsworth's _Ecclesiastical Biography_. More's
daughter said to him, when he was in prison, "Father, I can no further
goe; I am come, as Chaucer said of Cressid Dulcarnon, to my witt's end."
Has this passage been satisfactorily explained since Tyrwhitt's time?
The epithet "Dulcarnon" is mentioned in a note to the translation of
Richard de Bury's _Philobiblon_, London, 1832. I give the note in full.
It is in reference to the word "Ellefuga":--
"This word was a pons asinorum to some good Grecians,--but that is
probably its meaning[4]; at least making it the name of a problem
gets over all difficulty. The allusion is to the flight of Helle,
who turned giddy in taking a flying leap, mounted on a ram, and
fell into the sea;--so weak a head fails in crossing the pons. The
problem was invented by Pythagoras, 'and it hath been called by
barbarous writers of the latter time Dulcarnon,'--_Billingsley_.
This name may have been invented after our author's time. Query
[Greek: dolkarenon]."
If we take the words "Dulcarnon" in this sense, it will help to explain
the passage in the _Troilus and Creseide_.