A story, agreeing closely with The Man of Lawes Tale, is found in Book II.
of Gower's Confessio Amantis, from which Tyrwhitt supposed that Chaucer
borrowed it. But Gower's version seems to be later than Chaucer's, whilst
Chaucer and Gower were both alike indebted to the version of the story in
French prose (by Nicholas Trivet) in MS. Arundel 56, printed for the
Chaucer Society in 1872. In some places Chaucer agrees with this French
version rather closely, but he makes variations and additions at pleasure.
Cf. vol. iii. p. 409.
The first ninety-eight lines of the preceding Prologue are written in
couplets, in order to link the Tale to the others of the series; but there
is nothing to show which of the other tales it was intended to follow. Next
follows a more special Prologue of thirty-five lines, in five stanzas of
seven lines each; so that the first line in the Tale is l. 134 of Group B,
the second of the fragments into which the Canterbury Tales are broken up,
owing to the incomplete state in which Chaucer left them.