Part 131

2599 ff. This anecdote is told also in the Mirour, 5029-5040, and there also it is ascribed to Solinus. I do not find it, however, in his book.

2608 ff. For the irregularity of this sentence cp. 1593 ff.

2639 ff. The story is taken from Benoît (Rom. de Troie, 6497-6590), as we may see at once from the name ‘Theucer,’ which Guido gives rather more correctly as ‘Theutran.’ Also ll. 2674-2680, Roman de Troie, 6545-6553, have nothing corresponding to them in Guido. Guido here certainly referred to a copy of the so-called Dares, where the name occurs in its classical form ‘Teuthras.’ He is particularly interested in the story on local grounds, being concerned to show that the ‘Messe’ which he found in Benoît might be connected with the name of his place of residence, Messina, and that the events related occurred actually in Sicily. Accordingly he speaks of certain columns popularly called ‘columns of Hercules,’ which existed in his own time in Sicily, ‘ex parte Barbarorum,’ i.e. on the south coast, and takes them as evidence of the connexion of Hercules with the island, and hence of the probability that this story (which in the original has to do with Hercules, though Gower has excluded him from it) had its scene in Sicily. Dares, he admits, says nothing of this, and his reference to Dares is here in more precise form than usual, ‘in suo codice’ according to the Bodleian MS., though the printed editions give ‘in suo opere’ (MS. Add. A. 365, f. 50 v^o).

He says of the place where these columns are, ‘qui locus dicitur adhuc columpnarum,’ and adds that the emperor Frederic II has established a town there, and that the place is now called ‘terra nova.’ This is obviously identical with the modern Terranova, founded by Frederic II near the site of the ancient Gela. It seems probable that Guido may have been himself a native of this place or of its immediate neighbourhood, and that he chose to call himself after its former designation, ‘Columpna’ or ‘Columpnae,’ instead of by the new name which had come into use during his own lifetime.

2643. His Sone. This is a mistake on the part of Gower. Both Benoît and Guido state quite clearly that Telephus was the son of Hercules, and that it was to Hercules that the obligation was due which is referred to in 2690 ff. Perhaps the copy of the Roman de Troie which Gower used had ‘Thelefus fu filz Achilles’ for ‘Thelefus fu filz Hercules,’ in l. 6506.

2756. We should rather have expected ‘That I fro you wol nothing hele.’

LIB. IV.

9. Cp. Mirour, 5606,

‘Lachesce dist, Demein, Demein.’

38. Thou schalt mowe: cp. ii. 1670, where we have ‘mow’ for ‘mowe.’

60. a fin. This is a French expression, which appears repeatedly in the Mirour as ‘au fin.’

77 ff. The only definite indication of sources here is the reference (such as it is) to Ovid, Her. Ep. vii., contained in ll. 104-115.

92. as it be scholde, cp. iii. 1348.

104 ff. This picture seems to be constructed partly from a misreading or misunderstanding of Ovid, Her. Ep. vii. 1 f.,

‘Sic ubi fata vocant, udis abiectus in herbis Ad vada Maeandri concinit albus olor.’

It is difficult to see how our author translated these lines, but the result, which must have been chiefly due to his imagination, is rather creditable to him. Chaucer gives the true sense in the Legend of Good Women, 1355 ff.,

‘Ryght so,’ quod she, ‘as that the white swan Ayenst his deth begynneth for to synge. Ryght so to yow I make my compleynynge.’

128. such a lak of Slowthe, ‘such a fault of Sloth.’

137. That is, to put all the slothful in mind (of their duty).

147 ff. The general idea of this is taken from the letter of Penelope to Ulysses, Ovid, Her. Ep. i, but this is not closely followed in details, and it will be noticed that Gower represents the letter as sent while the siege of Troy still continued, and apparently he knows nothing of the great length of the wandering afterwards: cp. 226 ff.

170. The reading ‘Had’ for ‘Hath’ is given by many MSS., including F. We find ‘Hath’ in the following, H₁C, SAdTΔ, W, and it must certainly be the true reading.

196 ff. Ovid, Her. Ep. i. 2, ‘Nil mihi rescribas, attamen ipse veni.’

234. Robert Grosteste’s reputation for learning in the sciences earned for him, as for his contemporary Roger Bacon, the character of a student of magic. In the metrical life of Grosteste by Robert of Bardney (Wharton, Anglia Sacra, i. 333) one chapter is ‘De aeneo capite quod Oxoniae fecit Grosthede ad dubia quaeque determinanda.’ This author says only that by some accident the head fell and was broken, and that its inventor thereupon abandoned the study of forbidden sciences.

Naudé in his Apologie pour les grands hommes soupçonnez de Magie classes ‘Robert de Lincolne’ and Albertus Magnus together as supposed makers of speaking images, but the former only on the authority of Gower, with whom he had been made acquainted by Selden.

242 f. That is, he lost all that he had done from the time when he first began to work; an inversion of clauses for the sake of the rhyme: cp. ii. 709 ff.

249. kept: more properly ‘kepe,’ but the infinitive is attracted into the form of the participle ‘wold,’ much as the participle of the mood auxiliary in modern German takes the form of the infinitive: see note on ii. 1799.

305. hadde I wist, cp. i. 1888, ii. 473. It is the exclamation of those who fall into evil by neglect of proper precaution. The same sentiment is expressed more fully in l. 899,

‘Ha, wolde god I hadde knowe!’