#Dialect#: London (SE. Midland) with Kentish features.
#Inflexions#:
VERB: pres. ind. 3 sg. _loveth_ _a_ 5; contracted _stant_ _a_ 74.
3 pl. _schewen_ _a_ 136, _halsen_ _a_ 148, _be_
(in rime) _a_ 92.
pres. p. _growende_ _a_ 80.
strong pp. _schape_ (in rime) _a_ 130, beside _schapen_ _a_
169.
PRONOUN 3 PERS.: sg. fem. nom. _sche_ _a_ 32;
pl. _thei_ _a_ 148; _here_ _a_ 144; _hem_ _a_ 112.
Unaccented final _-e_ is treated as in Chaucer, having its full value in
the verse when it represents an inflexion or final vowel in Old English
or Old French, e.g.
_And for he scholdė slepė softė_ _a_ 93
_An apė, which at thilkė throwė_ _b_ 5
#Sounds#: _e_ appears as in Kentish for OE. _y_: _hell_ 'hill' _a_ 65,
79, 86; _keste_ 'kissed' _a_ 178; note the rimes _unschette_: _lette_
_a_ 71-2; _pet_ 'pit': _let_ _b_ 9-10; and less decisive _pet_: _knet_
(OE. _knyttan_) _b_ 29-30, 53-4; _dreie_: _beie_ _b_ 23-4.
#Spelling#: _ie_ represents close _ẹ̄_: _flietende_ _a_ 157, _hier_
_b_ 34; _diemed_ _b_ 216.
#Syntax#: The elaborate machinery of sentence connexion deserves special
attention; and many turns of phrase are explained by Gower's fluency in
French.
* * * * *
_a_ 1. Gower follows Ovid, _Metamorphoses_, Bk. xi. Chaucer tells the
story of Ceix and Alcyone in his _Death of Blanche the Duchess_, ll. 62
ff. This is presumably the early work to which the Man of Law refers:
_I kan right now no thrifty tale seyn
But Chaucer, thogh he kan but lewedly
On metres and on rymyng craftily,
Hath seyd hem, in swich Englissh as he kan,
Of olde tyme, as knoweth many a man;
And if he have noght seyd hem, leve brother,
In o book, he hath seyd hem in another;
For he hath toold of loveris up and doun
Mo than Ovide made of mencioun
In his ~Epistelles~, that been ful olde.
What sholde I tellen hem, syn they ben tolde?
In youthe he made of Ceys and Alcione_, &c.
(Link to _Man of Law's Tale_, ll. 46 ff.)
Gower's rendering is the more poetical.
_a_ 2. _Trocinie._ Ovid's _Trachinia tellus_, so called from the city of
Trachis, north-west of Thermopylae.
_a_ 23. _As he which wolde go_: otiose, or at best meaning no more than
'desiring to go'. Cp. _b_ 25 _As he which hadde_ = 'having' simply; and
similarly _b_ 37, 203. It is an imitation of a contemporary French idiom
_comme celui qui_.
_a_ 26. _and_: the displacement of the conjunction from its natural
position at the beginning of the clause is characteristic of Gower's
verse. Cp. l. 152 _Upon the morwe and up sche sterte_ = 'and in the
morning she got up', and _a_ 45, 49, _b_ 121, 124, 135, 160, 182. See
notes to ll. 32, 78 f.
_a_ 32. Editors put a comma after _wepende_, and no stop after
_seileth_: but it is Alceoun who weeps. The displacement of _and_ is
exemplified in the notes to l. 26 and ll. 78 f.
_a_ 37. 'One had not to look for grief'; a regular formula of
understatement, meaning 'her grief was great'.
_a_ 53. _Hire reyny cope_, &c.: the rainbow, which was the sign or
manifestation of Iris.
_a_ 59 ff.
_Prope Cimmerios longo spelunca recessu,
Mons cavus, ignavi domus et penetralia Somni._
(_Metamorphoses_ xi. 592-3.)
Much of the poetry of Gower's description is due to Ovid.
_a_ 78 f. Editors put no stop after _may_ and a comma after _hell_.
Hence _The New English Dictionary_ quotes this passage as an isolated
instance of _noise_, transitive, meaning 'disturb with noise'. But
_noise_ is intransitive, _hell_ is governed by _aboute round_, and the
position of _bot_ is abnormal as in l. 105. Cp. notes to ll. 26, 32, and
render 'But all round about the hill'.
_a_ 105. For the word order see notes to ll. 26, 32, 78 f.
_a_ 117. _The lif_, 'the man', cp. IV _a_ 43.
_a_ 118. _Ithecus_: for Icelos. According to Ovid 'Icelos' was the name
by which he was known to the gods, but men called him 'Phobetor'.
_a_ 123. _Panthasas_: Ovid's _Phantasos_.
_a_ 152. See note to l. 26.
_a_ 197. The halcyon, usually identified with the kingfisher, was
supposed to build a floating nest on the sea in midwinter, and to have
power to calm the winds and waves at that season, bringing 'halcyon
weather'.
_b_ 2. _I finde._ Matthew Paris in his _Chronica Maiora_ (ed. Luard,
Rolls Series, vol. ii, pp. 413 ff.) gives a similar story, which, he
says, King Richard the First often told to rebuke ingratitude. In this
version, Vitalis of Venice falls into a pit dug as a trap for wild
beasts. The rescued animals are a lion and a serpent; the rescuer is
nameless, and the gem given to him by the serpent has not the magic
virtue of returning whenever sold. Nearer to Gower is the story told in
Nigel Wireker's _Speculum Stultorum_, a late twelfth-century satire in
Latin verse, which, from the name of its principal character Burnellus
the Ass, who is ambitious to have a longer tail, is sometimes called
_Burnellus_; cp. Chaucer, _Nun's Priest's Tale_, l. 492:
_I have wel rad in Daun Burnel the Asse
Among his vers_, &c.
The poem is printed in T. Wright's _Anglo-Latin Satirical Poets and
Epigrammatists of the Twelfth Century_ (Rolls Series, 1872), vol. i. At
the end the Ass returns disappointed to his master Bernardus (= Bardus).
Bernardus, when gathering wood, hears Dryanus (= Adrian), a rich citizen
of Cremona, call from a pit for help. The rescued animals are a lion, a
serpent, and an ape. The gem given by the serpent in token of gratitude
always returns to Bernardus, who, with more honesty than Gower's poor
man shows, takes it back to the buyer. The fame of the marvellous stone
reaches the king; his inquiries bring to light the whole story; and
Dryanus is ordered to give half his goods to Bernardus.
Gower probably worked on a later modification of Nigel's story.
_b_ 86. _blessed_, 'crossed (himself)'.
_b_ 89. _Betwen him and his asse_, i.e. pulling together with the ass.
The ass is, of course, the distinguished Burnellus.
_b_ 116. _his ape_: for _this ape_ (?).
_b_ 191. _Justinian_, Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire (d. 565), was
best known for his codification of the Roman Law, and so is named here
as the type of a lawgiver.