3. Called in the editions before 1597 “The Dream of Chaucer”.
The poem, which is not included in the present edition, does
indeed, like many of Chaucer’s smaller works, tell the story of a
dream, in which a knight, representing John of Gaunt, is found
by the poet mourning the loss of his lady; but the true “Dream
of Chaucer,” in which he celebrates the marriage of his patron,
was published for the first time by Speght in 1597. John of
Gaunt, in the end of 1371, married his second wife, Constance,
daughter to Pedro the Cruel of Spain; so that “The Book of the
Duchess” must have been written between 1369 and 1371.
4. Where he bids his “little book”
“Subject be unto all poesy,
And kiss the steps, where as thou seest space,
Of Virgil, Ovid, Homer, Lucan, Stace.”