534. _is went_, though only in the (excellent) Cambridge MS., is the right
reading; the rest have _he wente_, sometimes misspelt _he went_. In the
first place, _is went_ is a common phrase in Chaucer; cf. German _er ist
gegangen_, and Eng. _he is gone_. But secondly, the false rime detects the
blunder at once; Chaucer does not rime the weak past tense _wentë_ with a
past participle like _yhent_. This was obvious to me at the first glance,
but the matter was made sure by consulting Mr. Cromie's excellent
'Ryme-Index.' This at once gives the examples _is went_, [414] riming with
pp. _to-rent_, E. 1012 (Clerkes Tale); _is went_, riming with _instrument_,
F. 567 (Sq. Tale); _is went_, riming with _innocent_, B. 1730, and _ben
went_, riming with _pavement_, B. 1869 (Prioresses Tale). Besides this,
there are two more examples, viz. _be they went_, riming with _sacrement_,
E. 1701; and _that he be went_, riming with _sent_, A. 3665. On the other
hand, we find _wente_, _sente_, _hente_, and _to-rente_, all (weak) past
tenses, and all riming together, in the Monkes Tale, B. 3446. The student
should particularly observe an instance like this. The rules of rime in
Chaucer are, on the whole, so carefully observed that, when once they are
learnt, a false rime jars upon the ear with such discord as to be
unpleasantly remarkable, and should be at once detected.
535-536. These two lines are not in the original.
539. 'She began to preach to them whom she had fostered,' i. e. converted.
To _foster_ is here to nurse, to bring up, to educate in the faith; see l.
122 above. The Latin text has--'omnes quos ad fidem conuerterat, Urbano
episcopo commendauit.' Tyrwhitt makes nonsense of this line by placing the
comma after _hem_ instead of after _fostred_, and other editors have
followed him. In MSS. E. and Hn. the metrical pause is rightly marked as
occurring after _fostred_. The story here closely resembles the end of the
Prioresses Tale, B. 1801-1855.