This poem is a rather free translation of a similar poem by Guillaume de
Deguileville, as pointed out in the Preface, p. 60. The original is quoted
beneath the English text.
Explanations of the harder words should, in general, be sought for in the
Glossarial Index, though a few are discussed in the Notes.
The language of this translation is, for the most part, so simple, that but
few passages call for remark. I notice, however, a few points.
Chaucer has not adhered to the complex metre of the original, but uses a
stanza of eight lines of five accents in place of de Deguileville's stanza
of twelve lines of four accents.
3. Dr. Koch calls attention to the insertion of a second _of_, in most of
the MSS., before _sorwe_. Many little words are often thus wrongly inserted
into the texts of nearly all the Minor Poems, simply because, when the
final _e_ ceased to be sounded, the scribes regarded some lines as
imperfect. Here, for example, if _sinne_ be regarded as monosyllabic, a
word seems required after it; but when we know that Chaucer regarded it as
a dissyllabic word, we at once see that MSS. Gg. and Jo. (which omit this
second _of_) are quite correct. We know that _sinne_ is properly a
dissyllabic word in Chaucer, because he rimes it with the infinitives
_biginne_ (Cant. Ta. C 941) and _winne_ (same, D 1421), and never with such
monosyllables as _kin_ or _tin_. This is easily tested by consulting Mr.
Cromie's very useful Rime-index to the Canterbury Tales. The above remark
is important, on account of its wide application. The needless insertions
of little words in many of the 15th-century MSS. are easily detected.
4. Scan the line by reading--Glorióus virgín', of all-e flóur-es flóur. Cf.
l. 49.