For remarks on the sources of this Tale, see vol. iii. p. 458. The modern
version by Pope may be compared, though it was a juvenile performance. Cf.
Lydgate, Minor Poems, p. 28.
This Tale frequently adopts passages from the Tale of Melibeus, which was
doubtless written several years before it. See also the article by Dr.
Köppel in Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen, vol. 86, p. 39.
1246. _Pavye_, Pavia. I suppose that Chaucer had no special reason for
locating the tale in Lombardy.
1248-52. For _sixty_, some MSS. have _lx._; the scribes of MSS. Hl. and Ln.
wrongly have _fourty_, which looks as if they took _lx._ to mean _xl._ I
see no point in turning the former _sixty_ (in 1248) into _fourty_, as
Wright does, on the pretence that the first twenty years of his life did
not count. Sixty was considered a great age (l. 1401). [354]
1251. _seculeer_, secular; as distinguished from the monks and friars.
Chaucer probably speaks ironically, meaning that these holy orders were as
bad as the rest. See l. 1322.
1267-1392. The whole of this passage presents the arguments that prevailed
with January; as shewn by the words _For which_ (i. e. wherefore) in l.
1393. That is to say, Chaucer here purposely keeps reasons _against_
marriage out of sight, reserving them for ll. 1521-1565, 1659-1681. Hence
the opinion in l. 1269, that a man should marry when old, is not Chaucer's
opinion at all.
1270. 'The fruit of his treasure,' i. e. purchased with his own wealth. A
queer reason, and not Chaucer's. Cf. l. 1276.
1277. _sit wel_, is very fit. Palsgrave has: 'It sytteth, it becometh, _il
siet_.'
1284. For _blisful_, MS. Hl. wrongly has _busily_.
1294. _Theofraste_, Theophrastus. The allusion is to the Liber Aureolus
Theophrasti de Nuptiis, partly preserved by St. Jerome, who quotes a long
extract from it in his tractate Contra Iovinianum, lib. i. John of
Salisbury quotes the same passage, almost word for word, in his
Polycraticus, lib. viii. c. 11. The point discussed is:--'an uir sapiens
ducat uxorem.' Amongst other things, he has a passage answering to ll.
1296-1304 below. 'Quod si propter dispensationem domus ... ducuntur uxores:
multo melius seruus fidelis dispensat, obediens auctoritati domini, et
dispensationi eius obtemperans quàm uxor.... Assidere autem aegrotanti
magis possunt amici et uernulae beneficiis obligati, quàm illa quae nobis
imputat lachrymas suas, et haereditatis spe uendit illuuiem.' Cf.
Lounsbury, Studies, ii. 366.
1305-6. These two lines occur in E. Cm., and are doubtless correct. The
MSS. vary considerably; see Six-Text, Pref. p. 70.
Hn.--And if thow take a wyf _she wole destroye_
_Thy good substance, and thy body annoye_.
N.B. The words in italics are added in a later hand.
Hl.--And if that thou take a wif be war
Of oon peril which declare I ne dar.
Neither of these lines will scan. MSS. Harl. 7335 and Bodley 686 nearly
agree with this, but read _be wel y-war_ for _be war_.
Arch. Seld.--And if thow take a wiff in thin age oolde
Ful lightly maist thow be a cokewoolde.
Pt.--And if thou take a wif that to the is vntrewe
Ful ofte tyme it shal the r[e]we.
So also MS. Harl. 1758, Laud 600 and 739, Lichfield, &c. The black-letter
editions of 1550 and 1561 have a much better version of the same, for they
omit _that_ and _is_ in the former (too long) line, and insert _sore_
before _rewe_ in the latter (too short) one.
Dd.--And if thow take a wyf of heye lynage
She shal be hauteyn and of gret costage.
[355] So also (according to Tyrwhitt) the Haistwell MS. and MS. Royal 17.
D. xv; and, according to Furnivall, MS. Chr. Ch. C. 6.
In six MSS., according to Tyrwhitt, they are omitted; and on this account
he omits them, on the plea that they 'form the opening of a new
argument,... and consequently would have been cancelled, if he [Chaucer]
had lived to publish his work.' But the sense is quite complete in the form
in which I give them, from the two best MSS.
1311. Against this line is written, in the margin of MS. E.--'Uxor est
diligenda quia donum Dei est: Iesus filius Sirac: domus et diuicie dantur a
parentibus, a Domino autem proprie uxor bona uel prudens.' But the
reference is wrong; the quotation is not from Ecclesiasticus (or Jesus the
son of Sirach), but from Prov. xix. 14. The Vulgate has _uxor prudens_,
omitting _bona uel_. The _whole_ quotation is from Albertano of Brescia's
Liber de Amore Dei (Köppel).
1315. Compare B. 1199, and I. 1068.
1318. This parenthetical line is Chaucer's very own.
1319. 'Sacramentum hoc magnum est'; Eph. v. 32. Marriage, in the Romish
Church, is one of the seven sacraments.
1323-35. All from Albertano of Brescia's Liber de Amore Dei (Köppel).
1326. Hl. has _body-naked_; but all the rest (like the old editions) have
_bely-naked_, which is the usual expression; see examples in Halliwell.
1328. In the margin of E.--'Faciamus ei adiutorium,' &c. From Gen. ii. 18,
24.
1335-6. From Le Roman de la Rose, 16640-4.
1337. _Seint-e_ is feminine; _ben'cite_ is trisyllabic.
1358-61. Of course these lines are genuine; they occur in nearly every MS.
but E. and Trin. Coll. R. 3. 3. The scribe of E. slipped from _reed_ in
1357 to _rede_ in 1362; a common mistake. Dr. Furnivall objects that _wyse_
in 1359 is made to rime with _wyse_ in 1360, and _rede_ in 1361 with _rede_
in 1362; the riming words being used _in the same sense_. This is not the
case. The first _wyse_ is plural; the second is singular, and used
generally. The first _rede_ means 'advise'; the second, 'read.' To leave
them out would give a rime of _reed_ (monosyllable) with _rede_
(dissyllable).
1362. The examples of Rebecca, Judith, Abigail, and Esther are quoted, in
the same order and in similar terms, in the Tale of Melibeus; see B.
2288-2291, and the Notes.
1373, 4. _Mardochee_, Mordecai; in the Vulgate, Mardochaeus. _Assuere_,
Ahasuerus; in the Vulgate, Assuerus; see l. 1745.
1376. In the margin of MS. Hn. is written:--'Seneca: sicut nichil est
superius benigna coniuge, ita nichil est crudelius infesta muliere.' This
is from Albertano of Brescia, Lib. Consolationis, cap. v. (p. 18). Sundby
gives the reference, not to Seneca, but to Fulgentius, Mythologiarum, L. i.
c. 27.
1377. _bit_, biddeth, bids. The passage referred to is in Dionysius [356]
Cato, lib. iii. dist. 25, and is given in the margin of MSS. E. Hn. and
Dd.,
Uxoris linguam, si frugi est, ferre memento.
Quoted, at second-hand, from Albertano (Köppel).
1380. In the margin of MS. E.--'Bona mulier fidelis custos est, et bona
domus.' From Albertano, as above.
1381-2. 'Ubi non est mulier, ingemiscit _egens_'; Ecclus. xxxvi. 27.
Albertano quotes this, but alters _egens_ to _eger_; hence Chaucer has 'the
syke man'; see Köppel's article, p. 42.
1384. See Eph. v. 25, 28, 29, 31.
1385. _thou lovest_, thou wilt love; the present for the future; in the
second instance. There is no real difficulty here, though Tyrwhitt makes
one, and alters the text to _love thou_.
1401. 'On the brink of my grave.' Cf. Ps. xxx. 3, 9; &c.
1407-16. 'Uxorem accipias potius puellam quam uiduam'; from Albertano. See
Köppel's article, p. 42.
1412. _mo_, more in number; T. has _more_ (badly).
1418. 'I like fish when old, preferring a full grown pike to a pikerel; and
I like flesh young, preferring veal to beef.'
1424. _Wades boot_, Wade's boat. Wade was a famous hero of antiquity, to
whom Chaucer again alludes in Troil. iii. 614. In the Traveller's Song, l.
22, we find:--'Witta w[=e]old Sw[=æ]fum, Wada Hælsingum,' i. e. Witta ruled
over the Swabians, Wada over the Hælsings.' Wade is again mentioned in the
alliterative Morte Arthure, l. 964. In a translation of Guido delle
Colonne, in MS. Laud K. 76, in the Bodleian library, the romance of Wade is
mentioned in conjunction with those of Havelok and Horn, both of which are
well known; see the whole passage, as cited in Warton, Hist. E. Poetry, in
a note to Section III. In Sir Beves of Hamtoun, ed. Kölbing, 2605, we have
an allusion to his fight with a fire-drake or fiery dragon. And in Sir T.
Malory's Morte Arthur, bk. vii. c. 9, we find:--'were thou as wyghte as
euer was Wade or Launcelot.' Speght knew the story, but has not recorded
it; his note is:--'Concerning Wade and his bote called Guingelot, as also
his straunge exploits in the same, because the matter is long and fabulous,
I pass it over.' On which Tyrwhitt remarks--'_Tantamne rem tam
negligenter?_ Mr. Speght probably did not foresee, that posterity would be
as much obliged to him for a little of this _fabulous matter_ concerning
_Wade_ and his _bote_, as for the gravest of his annotations.' Tyrwhitt
also refers us, for a mention of Wade, to Camden's Britannia, 907, and to
Charlton's History of Whitby, p. 40. M. Michel endeavoured to collect the
particulars concerning Wade, and published them in a brochure, entitled
_Wade: Lettre à M. Henri Ternaux-Compans, &c. sur une Tradition Angloise du
Moyen Age_; Paris, 1837; 8vo. But it does not tell us much more that is
helpful, except in furnishing a reference to the Wilkina Saga, capp. 18-20.
After all, the most light is given us by the following sentence in the
[357] Corpus Poeticum Boreale, ed. Vigfusson and Powell, i. 168, with
reference to the Lay of Weyland. 'Weyland is trapped by Nidad, king of the
Niars, hamstrung, and forced to work for him in his forge on the isle of
Seastead in lake Wolfmere. He contrives to slay his tyrant's sons, beguile
his daughter [named Bodwild], and by the aid of a pair of wings which he
has fashioned to soar away from his prison-house, rejoicing in his
revenge.... That the King's daughter had a son by Weyland, _the famous
Wade_ (the memory of whose magic boat _Wingelock_ lingered in N. England
till the Reformation), we know from Wilkina Saga.'
I entirely differ from M. Michel's extraordinary conclusion about the
boat--'Nous avons quelques raisons de croire que ce bateau n'étoit pas
d'une course aussi rapide: en effet, dans l'Edda il est dit qu'Odin avoit
un valet et une servante nommés _Ganglate_ et _Gangloet_, mots qu'on dit
signifier _marchant lentement_.' Of course _Ganglati_ and _Ganglöt_ (as
they should be written) mean 'slow-goer,' but this has nothing to do with
_Guingelot_, which is merely a French spelling of some such form as
_Wingelok_. It is obvious that the sole use of a magic boat is to transport
its possessor from place to place in a few minutes, like the magic wings of
Wade's own father. This is all we need to know, to see the point of the
allusion. Old widows, says Chaucer in effect, know too much of the craft of
Wade's boat; they can fly from place to place in a minute, and, if charged
with any misdemeanour, will swear they were a mile away from the place at
the time alleged. Mr. Pickwick, on the other hand, being only a man, failed
to set up the plea of an _alibi_, and suffered accordingly.
1425. _broken harm._ This is one of the phrases which Tyrwhitt includes in
his list as being 'not understood'; nor is it easy. But if we take it in
connexion with the context, I think it can be explained. _Harm_ is
'mischief, injury'; broken is 'fragmentary,' as in 'broken meat,' and the
like; so that _broken harm_ refers to slight disconnected acts of mischief,
or what we should now call 'petty annoyances,' or 'small worries.' Thus the
sense is that 'widows know so much about ways of creating small annoyances,
that I should never live in peace with one.' Taken all together, ll. 1424-6
simply imply that 'old widows are so full of tricks for deceiving me, and
can inflict at pleasure such small but constant annoyances, that I,' &c.
1447. _Take him_, let him take; see the Exhortation in the Marriage-Service
in the Book of Common Prayer; cf. Pers. Tale, I. 939, 940, 861.
1469. Cf. F. 202.
1474. _disputisoun_, disputation. Many MSS. have _disputacioun_, which is
too long. The form, as Tyrwhitt remarks, is quite correct; see B. 4428, F.
890. Spelt _desputeson_ in Gower, Conf. Amant. i. 90. See _disputoison_ in
Godefroy, with the variants in _-aison_, _-eison_, _-eson_, _-ison_.
Compare _orison_ with _oration_.
1476. _Placebo._ This name has reference to his complaisant disposition;
see note to D. 2075. So, in the Ayenbite of Inwyt, ed. [358] Morris, p. 60,
we have: 'The verthe zenne is, thet huanne hi alle zingeth Placebo, thet is
to zigge: "mi lhord zayth zoth, my lhord doth wel"; and wendeth to guode al
thet the guodeman deth other zayth, by hit guod, by hit kuead.'
1485. This quotation is not from Solomon, but from Jesus son of Sirach; see
Ecclus. xxxii. 19:--'Do nothing without advice, and when thou hast once
done, repent not.' Chaucer follows the Vulgate version; see note to B.
2193, where the quotation recurs.
1516. 'Your heart hangs on a jolly pin,' i. e. is in a merry state. A _pin_
was a name for a wooden peg; and _to hang on a pin_ was to be hung up
conspicuously. Palsgrave, p. 844, has: 'Upon a mery pynne, _de hayt_; as,
_il a le cueur de hayt_'; cf. '_Hait_, liveliness, ... cheerfulness' in
Cotgrave. Halliwell gives: '_on the pin_, on the _qui vive_.' Later, the
phrase became _in a merry pin_, i. e. in a good humour; but this is thought
to refer to the pins or pegs in a 'peg-tankard'; see _Pin_ in Nares.
Cowper, in his John Gilpin, has 'in merry pin.'
1523. See Seneca, De Beneficiis, capp. 14-16; Lounsbury, Studies, ii. 270.
However, it is _really_ taken from Map's Epistola Valerii, c. 9:
'Philosophicum est: Videto cui des. Ethica est: Videto cui te
des.'--Anglia, xiii. 183. Cf. P. Plowman, B. vii. 74, and the note.
1535. _chydester_, the feminine form of _chyder_, which is the form used in
MSS. Pt. and Hl. I can find no other example; but, in the Romaunt of the
Rose, ll. 150, 4266, we find _chideresse_.
1536. _mannish wood_, with masculine manners, and mad; virago-like.
Certainly the right reading, and found in E. Hn. Cm. Unluckily, Tyrwhitt
and others have adopted the nonsensical reading of Pt. and Hl., viz. _a man
is wood_! Cp. Ln. have _of maneres wood_, which is better, but is clearly a
mere substitution for the original _mannish_. For _mannish_, masculine, we
have Chaucer's own authority; see B. 782, and the note.
1538. 'A metaphor from horses, meaning, No woman is without faults, just as
there is no horse which will trot perfectly sound in all respects.'--Bell.
From Albertano of Brescia, Liber de Amore Dei: 'Nulla tam bona uxor, in qua
non inuenias quod queraris.'--Köppel.
1553. 'I know best where my shoe pinches me.' This story has been already
alluded to; see D. 492, and the note.
1558. Tyrwhitt has:--'By him that made water, _fire_, erthe, and aire.'
This will not scan, and the word _fire_ is introduced merely to please the
editor, being found in none of the seven MSS., nor in the old editions.
When Chaucer wishes to mention _all_ the four elements, he does so; see A.
1246, 2992.