Part 7

(2) Si scit, metuat necesse est, ne amittat, quod amitti posse non dubitat; quare continuus timor non sinit esse felicem. An vel si amiserit, negligendum putat? Sic quoque perexile bonum est, quod æquo animo feratur amissum.

(Boethius, lib. ii. prose 4.)

XIII. FORTUNE.

----Fortune That semeth trewest when she wol bigyle, . . . . . . . . . . . . . And, when a wight is from hire whiel ithrowe, Than laugheth she, and maketh hym the mowe.

(Troylus and Cryseyde, bk. iii. st. 254, vol. iv. p. 299.)

She (Fortune) vseþ ful flatryng familarité wiþ hem þat she enforceþ to bygyle.

(Chaucer’s Boethius, p. 30.)

. . . . . . . She lauȝeþ and scorneþ þe wepyng of hem þe whiche she haþ maked wepe wiþ hir free wille . . . . Yif þat a wyȝt is seyn weleful and ouerþrowe in an houre.

(Ib. p. 33.)

In book v., stanza 260, vol. v. p. 75, Chaucer describes how the soul of Hector, after his death, ascended ‘up to the holughnesse of the seventhe spere.’ In so doing he seems to have had before him met. 1, book 4, of Boethius, where the ‘soul’ is described as passing into the heaven’s utmost sphere, and looking down on the world below. See Chaucer’s Boethius, p. 110, 111.

Ætas Prima is of course a metrical version of lib. ii. met. 5.

Hampole speaks of the wonderful sight of the Lynx; perhaps he was indebted to Boethius for the hint. --(See Boethius, book 3, pr. 8, p. 81.)

I have seen the following elsewhere:

(1) Value not beauty, for it may be destroyed by a three days’ fever.

(See Chaucer’s Boethius, p. 81.)

(2) There is no greater plague than the enmity of thy familiar friend.

(See Chaucer’s translation, p. 77.)

* * * * *

Chaucer did not English Boethius second-hand, through any early French version, as some have supposed, but made his translation with the Latin original before him.

Jean de Méung’s version, the only early French translation, perhaps, accessible to Chaucer, is not always literal, while the present translation is seldom free or periphrastic, but conforms closely to the Latin, and is at times awkwardly literal. A few passages, taken haphazard, will make this sufficiently clear.

Et dolor ætatem jussit inesse suam. And sorou haþ comaunded his age to be in me (p. 4).

Et ma douleur {com}ma{n}da a vieillesse Entrer en moy / ains quen fust hors ieunesse.

Mors hominum felix, quæ se nec dulcibus annis Inserit, et mæstis sæpe vocata venit.

Þilke deeþ of men is welful þat ne comeþ not in ȝeres þat ben swete (i. mirie). but comeþ to wrecches often yclepid. (p. 4)

On dit la mort des ho{m}es estre eureuse Qui ne vie{n}t pas en saiso{n} pla{n}tureuse Mais des tristes mo{u}lt souue{n}t appellee Elle y affuit nue / seche et pelee.

Querimoniam lacrymabilem. Wepli compleynte (p. 5). Fr. ma complainte moy esmouuant a pleurs.

Styli officio. Wiþ office of poyntel (p. 5). Fr. (que ie reduisse) p{ar} escript.

Inexhaustus. Swiche . . . þat it ne myȝt not be emptid (p. 5). Fr. inconsumptible.