1. Though the manner in which the Merchant takes up the
closing words of the Envoy to the Clerk’s Tale, and refers to
the patience of Griselda, seems to prove beyond doubt that
the order of the Tales in the text is the right one, yet in
some manuscripts of good authority the Franklin’s Tale
follows the Clerk’s, and the Envoy is concluded by this
stanza: —
“This worthy Clerk when ended was his tale,
Our Hoste said, and swore by cocke’s bones
‘Me lever were than a barrel of ale
My wife at home had heard this legend once;
This is a gentle tale for the nonce;
As, to my purpose, wiste ye my will.
But thing that will not be, let it be still.’”
In other manuscripts of less authority the Host proceeds, in
two similar stanzas, to impose a Tale on the Franklin; but
Tyrwhitt is probably right in setting them aside as spurious,
and in admitting the genuineness of the first only, if it be
supposed that Chaucer forgot to cancel it when he had
decided on another mode of connecting the Merchant’s with
the Clerk’s Tale.
2. Saint Thomas of Ind: St. Thomas the Apostle, who was
believed to have travelled in India.