For a discussion of the source of this Tale, see vol. iii. p. 447.
A very similar story occurs in Gower's Confessio Amantis, bk. i. (p. 89,
Pauli's edition), where the hero of the story is named Florent, and is said
to have been a grandson of the Roman Emperor Claudius.
It also occurs in the Book of Ballymote, an Irish MS. of the fourteenth
century. The Irish text was printed, together with a translation by Dr.
Whitley Stokes, in The Academy, Apr. 23, 1892, p. 399. Dr. Stokes claims
for the Tale a Celtic origin. See also The Academy, Apr. 30, 1892.
Chaucer's Tale has been modernised by Dryden. This later version contains
many spirited lines, but lacks the grace of the original. It is interesting
as a commentary, and is worth comparison.
This Tale has been well edited, with notes, in Mätzner's Altenglische
Sprachproben, i. 338.
857. The author of the spurious Pilgrim's Tale, which, it is said, William
Thynne wished to insert in his edition of Chaucer, has plagiarised from the
opening lines of the Wife of Bath's Tale in the coolest manner. I quote
some of his lines, for comparison, from Thynne's Animadversions, &c., ed.
Furnivall, Appendix I., p. 79, ll. 85-98:--
'The cronikis old from kynge Arthur
He could rehers, and of his founder
Tell full many a whorthy story.
Wher this man walked, there was no farey
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Ner other spiritis, for his blessynges
And munbling of his holy thinges
Did vanquyche them from euery buch and tre:
There is no nother incubus but he;
For Chaucer sathe, in the sted of the quen elfe,
"Ther walketh now the limitour himself."
For whan that the incubus dyd fle,
Yt was to bringe .vii. worse than he;
And that is the cause there beyn now no fareys
In hallis, bowris, kechyns, ner deyris.'
For a general discussion of the legends about King Arthur, see the essay in
vol. i. (p. 401) of the Percy Folio MS., ed. Hales and Furnivall. In
Malory's Morte Arthure we have an example of a fairy in Arthur's sister,
Morgan le Fay, who was 'put to scole in a nonnery; and ther she lerned so
moche that she was a grete clerke of nygromancye'; bk. i. cap. 2.
860. _elf-queen_, Proserpine, according to Chaucer; see E. 2229; also B.
754, 1978, and the notes.