'Deux tonealx ad [Cupide] dont il les gentz fait boire;
L'un est assetz plus douls que n'est pyment,
L'autre est amier plus que null arrement.'
180. The saying referred to is written in the margin of Dd., as Tyrwhitt
tells us. It runs:--'Qui per alios non corrigitur, alii per ipsum
corrigentur.' With regard to its being written in Ptolemy's Almagest,
Tyrwhitt quaintly remarks:--'I suspect that the Wife of Bath's copy of
Ptolemy was very different from any that I have been able to meet with.'
The same remark applies to her second quotation in l. 326 below. I have no
doubt that the Wife is simply copying, for convenience, these words in Le
Roman de la Rose, 7070:--
'Car nous lisons de Tholomee
Une parole moult honeste
Au comencier de s'Almageste,' &c.
Jean de Meun then cites a passage of quite another kind, but the Wife of
Bath did not stick at such a trifle. The Almagest is mentioned again in the
same, l. 18772. [296]
As to the above saying, cf. Barbour's Bruce, i. 121, 2; and my notes to the
line at pp. 545 and 612 of the same. 'Felix quem faciunt aliena pericula
cautum'; cf. Rom. de la Rose, 8041; Robert of Brunne, Handlyng Synne, 8086.
183. _Almageste._ The celebrated astronomer, Claudius Ptolemaeus, who
flourished in the second century, wrote, as his chief work, the [Greek:
megalê suntaxis tês astronomias]. This work was also called, for brevity,
[Greek: megalê], and afterwards [Greek: megistê] (greatest); out of which,
by prefixing the Arab. article _al_, the Arabs made _Al-mejisti_, or
_Al-magest_.
197. Here _wér-e_ is made dissyllabic. For _The three_, Hl. has _Tuo_;
which is clearly wrong.
199. In the margin of E. is written part of the last sentence in Part I. of
Jerome's treatise:--'hierophantas quoque Atheniensium usque hodie cicutae
sorbitione castrari; et postquam in pontificatum fuerint electi, uiros esse
desinere.' Probably quoted to emphasize the sense of _uiros_.
207-210. Imitated from Le Rom. de la Rose, 13478-82.
218. _Dunmowe_, in Essex, N. W. of Chelmsford. Tyrwhitt refers us to
Blount's Ancient Tenures, p. 162, and adds:--'This whimsical institution
was not peculiar to Dunmow; there was the same in Bretagne. "A l'Abbaie
Sainct Melaine, près Rennes, y a, plus de six cens ans sont, un costé de
lard encore tous frais et non corrumpu; et neantmoins voué et ordonné aux
premiers, qui par an et jour ensemble mariez ont vescut san debat,
grondement, et sans s'en repentir."--_Contes d'Eutrap_, t. ii. p. 161.' See
P. Plowman, C. xi. 276, and my long note on the subject.
220. _fawe_, fain; a variant form of _fain_, A. S. _fægen_, _fægn_. See
Havelok, 2160; Alisaunder, ed. Weber, 1956; &c.
221. Here occurs the first reference to the _Aureolus Liber de Nuptiis_,
written by a certain Theophrastus, who is mentioned below (l. 671), and in
E. 1310. Jerome gives a long extract from this work in his book against
Jovinian (so frequently cited above), and has thus preserved a portion of
it; and John of Salisbury transferred the whole extract bodily to his
Policraticus. It it clear that Chaucer used the work of Jerome rather than
that of John of Salisbury. The extract from Theophrastus occurs not far
from the end of the first book of the epistle against Jovinian; and near
the beginning of it occur the words--'de foro ueniens quid
attulisti?'--Jerome (as above), p. 51. This probably suggested the present
line, as it is a question put by a wife to her husband.