1. This Tale was originally composed by Chaucer as a separate
work, and as such it is mentioned in the “Legend of Good
Women” under the title of “The Life of Saint Cecile”. Tyrwhitt
quotes the line in which the author calls himself an “unworthy
son of Eve,” and that in which he says, “Yet pray I you, that
reade what I write”, as internal evidence that the insertion of the
poem in the Canterbury Tales was the result of an afterthought;
while the whole tenor of the introduction confirms the belief
that Chaucer composed it as a writer or translator — not,
dramatically, as a speaker. The story is almost literally
translated from the Life of St Cecilia in the “Legenda Aurea.”
2. Leas: leash, snare; the same as “las,” oftener used by
Chaucer.
3. The nativity and assumption of the Virgin Mary formed the
themes of some of St Bernard’s most eloquent sermons.
4. Compare with this stanza the fourth stanza of the Prioress’s
Tale, the substance of which is the same.
5. “But he answered and said, it is not meet to take the
children’s bread, and cast it to dogs. And she said, Truth, Lord:
yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master’s
table.” — Matthew xv. 26, 27.