'What flowers are these?' &c.
270. Ll. 270-283 are certainly genuine, and the passage is in the Latin
text. It is also in the French version, but it does not appear in the Early
English version of the story printed by Mr. Furnivall from MS. Ashmole 43,
nor in the English version printed by Caxton in 1483; [409] nor in the
version in the South-E. Legendary. Tyrwhitt's supposition is no doubt
correct, viz. that this passage 'appears evidently to have been at first a
marginal observation and to have crept into the [Latin] text by the blunder
of some copyist.' He truly observes that these fourteen lines 'interrupt
the narrative awkwardly, and to little purpose.'
271. _Ambrose._ 'Huic miraculo de coronis rosarum Ambrosius attestatur in
praefatione, sic dicens,' &c. I cannot find anything of the kind in the
indices to the works of St. Ambrose.
In the Sermons of Jacques de Vitry, a story is given beginning with the
words--'Beatus Ambrosius narrat,' to this effect. St. Ambrose tells of a
virgin going to martyrdom, who was asked by a pagan whither she was going.
She answered: 'to see my friend, who has invited me to his wedding-feast.'
The pagan, deriding her, said: 'Tell your friend to send me some of his
roses.' Shortly after her death, a beautiful youth brought to the pagan a
basket full of full-blown roses, saying, 'The friend of the woman, who just
now passed by, sends you some of the roses you desired,' and then
disappeared. The pagan was converted and himself suffered martyrdom. This
is the story of St. Dorothea, whose day is Feb. 6; for which Alban Butler
refers us to Aldhelm, De Laude Virginitatis, c. 25.
276. _eek hir chambre_, even hir marriage-chamber, i. e. even marriage.
_weyve_, waive, abandon. Lat. 'ipsum mundum est cum thalamis exsecrata.'
_weyve_ occurs again in some MSS. of Chaucer's _Truth_, l. 20.
277. _shrifte_, confession. Lat. 'testis est Valeriani coniugis et Tiburtii
prouocata confessio, quos, Domine, angelica manu odoriferis floribus
coronasti.' For _Valerians_, all the MSS. have _Cecilies_. Whether the
mistake is Chaucer's or his scribes', I cannot say; but it is so obviously
a mere slip, that we need not hesitate to correct it. The French text is
even clearer than the Latin; it has--'et de cest tesmoing Valerien son mary
et Tiburcien son frere.' Besides, the express mention of 'these men' in l.
281 is enough, in my opinion, to shew that the slip was _not_ Chaucer's
own; or, at any rate, was a mere oversight.
282. 'The world hath known (by their example) how much, in all truth, it is
worth to love such devotion to chastity.' Lat. 'mundus agnouit, quantum
ualeat deuotio castitatis;--haec Ambrosius.' This is quoted as St.
Ambrose's opinion. The parenthesis ends here.
288. _beste_, i. e. void of understanding, as a beast of the field is. Lat.
'pecus est.'
315. _And we._ Tyrwhitt remarks that _we_ should have been _us_. But a
glance at the Latin text shews what was in Chaucer's mind; he is here
merely anticipating the _we_ in l. 318. Lat. 'et _nos_ in illius flammis
pariter inuoluemur, et dum quaerimus diuinitatem latentem in coelis,
incurremus furorem exurentem in terris.' The sentence is awkward; but _we_
was intended. The idiom has overridden the grammar. Cf. the South-E.
Legendary (see note to l. 120), l. 121:--
'Forberne he scholde, and _we_ also, yif we with him were.' [410]
319. _Cecile._ This is one of the clearest instances to shew that Chaucer
followed the Latin and not the French version. Lat. 'Cui Caecilia'; Fr. 'et
Valerien dist.' Mr. Furnivall has noted this and other instances, and there
is no doubt about the matter.