Part 123

1191. made sche no chiere. This must mean here, ‘she gave no outward sign of her thought.’ Usually ‘to make cheer’ means to be cheerful.

1243. what child that were, subjunctive in indirect question: cp. 1943, iii. 708, 771, &c. See note on Prol. 41.

1259. alle well: ‘wel’ seems to be a substantive.

1275. as seith the bok. The ‘book’ only says ‘ia tut enflammé de ire.’

1285. I schal be venged: cp. v. 6766. The first and second recensions have ‘It schal.’

1300. was after sunge. The French book does not say this. It seems probable that Gower was acquainted with ballads on the subject, such as that of Emaré, printed in Ritson’s Metrical Romances, ii. 204 ff. It is to be noted that Emaré is taken from a Breton lay:

‘Thys ys of Brytayne layes, That was used by olde dayes Men callys playn the garye.’

1317. According to Trivet he came especially to get absolution for having killed his mother, and Chaucer follows him here.

1329. In help to ben his herbergour. This seems to mean that the question was asked with a view to helping to provide a lodging for the king. The expression is rather obscure however.

1351. seknesse of the See. This is absurd here, but not so in the original story. Constance attributes her weakness to the effects produced by her long wanderings at sea, ‘se acundut par feblesce de sa cervele que lui avint en la mere’ f. 36.

1369. sihe, subjunctive, ‘so that the king might see him.’

1381 f. Cp. viii. 1702 ff.

1393. ‘a ship which was,’ cp. i. 10.

1405 f. See note on 1163. Trivet speaks here only of the name of Moris.

1423 f. Gower’s more usual form would be, ‘Desireth not the heaven so much, that he ne longeth more,’ as i. 718, &c.

1464 ff. The connexion of this remark is clearer in the original story, which says that Constance told her husband, if the Emperor should refuse his prayer, to ask ‘pur l’amur q’il avoit al alme sa fille Constaunce’; because she knew that he denied no one who prayed in this form.

1586 ff. after that, ‘according as’: cp. Prol. 544, iii. 1074. The book says in fact with much apparent accuracy that Alla died nine months after his return, that Constance returned to Rome half a year after, ‘pur la novele qe ele oit de la maladie son pere,’ that on the thirteenth day after her arrival the Emperor died in the arms of his daughter, and she followed him in a year, the date being St. Clement’s day of the year 585. It is further stated that Elda, who had accompanied Constance to Rome, died at Tours on his way back to England.

1599. the wel meninge of love. In spite of the variations there can hardly be a doubt about the true reading here. The word is clearly ‘meninge’ both in F and S, and the change to ‘whel’ was suggested no doubt by the misreading ‘meuinge.’ For the expression cp. iii. 599, ‘To love and to his welwillinge.’

1613 ff. Gower apparently pieced together this story of Demetrius and Perseus from several sources, for it does not seem to occur in any single authority precisely as he gives it. The first part, which has to do with the false accusation brought against Demetrius and its consequences, agrees with the account given in Justin, Epitome, lib. xxxii. The story of the daughter of Paulus Emilius and her little dog is told by Valerius Maximus, Mem. i. 5. 3. Finally, the details of the defeat of Perseus seem to be taken from the account of a catastrophe which about the same time befell the Basternae, a Thracian tribe allied with Perseus, who according to Orosius (iv. 20), when crossing the Danube in winter with large numbers of men and horses, were almost annihilated by the breaking of the ice. The same author mentions that after the defeat and capture of Perseus his son exercised the craft of a brass-worker at Rome.

It is possible of course that Gower had before him some single account in which these elements were already combined. In Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum Hist. v. 65 f., we find first the catastrophe of the Basternae, taken from Orosius, then the Macedonian war from Justin and Orosius, with the incident of the dog inserted from Valerius.

1631 (margin). testibus que iudicibus, ‘witnesses and judges,’ a common use of the conjunction in Gower’s Latin: cp. ‘Celsior est Aquila que Leone ferocior,’ Latin Verses after i. 574.

1633. dorst, so here in the best MSS. for ‘dorste.’

1711. apparant, for ‘heir apparant,’ which was the original reading of the first recension: cp. Mirour, 5580,

‘Car d’autre bien n’est apparant.’

1723. livende his father: for this absolute use cp. 752.

1757. upon depos, that is, having his power given to him as a temporary charge. See the examples in the New Engl. Dict.

1778. And he. ‘As he’ is an error which crept into the third recension. The interchange of ‘As’ with ‘And’ in Gower MSS. is very common.

1793 f. ‘For such an omen of an hound was most like to him,’ the words being transposed for the sake of the metre.