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Confessio Amantis: Book 3

The marginal Latin glosses, identified by a capital L in the left margin next to the text, are transcribed and translated in the notes and can be accessed by clicking on (see note) at the corresponding line.

JOHN GOWER, CONFESSIO AMANTIS, BOOK 3: FOOTNOTES



1 Wrath is on par with its peers, the furies of Acheron, where Fury has no timely pity. Wrath provokes melancholic tempers, so that its scale holds no weights in equal judgment. In every law case, Wrath weighs heavily; among lovers it stirs up weighty grievances on little grounds. Where a man is full of discord and lightly assails love, lamentation instead of playfulness often fills his face.

2 Wrath stirs up conflict, which, released and loosening the tongue's reins, runs everywhere through the paths of infamy. The nursemaid of quarrels, she informs those chatterers, and Venus releases them from her side to be wanderers. But he who proceeds patiently and keeps things concealed, conquers with a silent mouth and follows the path of a desired love.

3 Hatred is like the devil's scribe, to whom Wrath will give the content of the inscription for the heart's inner sanctum. Love will not release whomever the reins of hatred hold [or: The love of hatred will not release whomever its reins hold], nor will it permit entry to the secrets of its law.

4 Let the one who cannot restrain his hand but get his "spirit in his nostrils," and he will often be fearsome to the people. Too often Venus transforms joys into sorrow when such a partner is present in the wedding-bed. Love must be enticed by a caress, not by blows; a hasty hand shatters loving friendships.

5 The creature that God himself creates, Homicide slays, sprinkling the ground with human blood as an avenger. A human being's bloodthirstiness is like a beast's: once - alas! - it is poured out, pity lies conquered, and rage urges on the work. The Angel said "peace on earth," and the final words of Christ express a peace that wars now drive away.
 

JOHN GOWER, CONFESSIO AMANTIS, BOOK 3: EXPLANATORY NOTES

Abbreviations

AG
Anel.
BD
CA
Civ. Dei
CT
Fab.
Gest Hyst.The
HF
KJV
LGW
MED
Metam.
MO
OED
PF
PL
Rom.
RR
TC
Vat. Myth.
VC
Andrew Galloway
Anelida and Arcite
Book of the Duchess
Confessio Amantis
De Civitate Dei (Augustine)
Canterbury Tales
Hygini Fabvlae (Hyginus)
"Gest Hystoriale" of the Destruction of Troy
House of Fame
King James Version (Bible)
Legend of Good Women
Middle English Dictionary
Metamorphoses (Ovid)
Mirour de l'Omme
Oxford English Dictionary
Parliament of Fowls
Patrologia Latina, ed. Migne
Romaunt of the Rose (Chaucer)
Le Roman de La Rose
Troilus and Criseyde
Vatican Mythographers
Vox Clamantis


*For MS abbreviations, see head of textual notes.


1 If thou the vices lest to knowe. See Simpson (1995), ch. 6 (pp. 167-97) on the "psychological information" of Book 3 and of the limitations of both Genius' and Amans' abilities to sort through the limitations of what they can understand.

5 A vice forein fro the lawe. The MED glosses forein in this line as "contrary, inimical" (see adj. 3 [d]). The "foreignness" of wrath to law makes it particularly dangerous to social and political structure. See Fisher, p. 196, who sees the line as Gower's means of focusing on legal issues throughout his canon.

8 And yit to kinde no plesance. See note to 3.2263-64 on the contrariness of pride, envy, and wrath to nature.

8 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic in tercio libro tractat super quinque speciebus Ire, quarum prima Malencolia dicitur, cuius vicium Confessor primo describens Amanti super eodem consequenter opponit. [Here in the third book he discusses the five types of Wrath, the first of which is called Melancholy, which the Confessor first describes then asks the Lover concerning it.]

18 For his servantz ben evere wrothe. On violence in Book 3, particularly against women - Canace, Cornide, Laar, Daphne, Clytemnestra - in which men seem to feel that such rage is their special prerogative, see Donavin, "'When reson torneth into rage.'" The victims expose mechanisms behind taboos against such behavior as "Gower builds a case against violence" (p. 216). "Women's bodies are pierced, sliced, dismembered, and metamorphosed to expiate a men's frustration about love" (p. 219).

27 Malencolie. On melancholy as a mental or emotional disorder affiliated with wrath in Gower's day, see Mary F. Wack, Lovesickness and Its Commentaries (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990), pp. 11-13, 162.

47-48 mennes game . . . pure grame. Itô (John Gower, pp. 244-45), sees Gower's prominent use of adnominatio (a paronomasia - punning and word-play through phrasal rhymes) as a means of sharpening the contrast of ideas. Gower uses comparable word play in MO. For other examples, see CA 2.55-56, 5.4885-86, 5.5327-28, 5.7053-54, 6.1379-81, 6.3571-72, and 8.479-80.

128 angri snoute. A fine example of Gower's persona surpassing, through "comical deformity," "self-satire," and "dramatic self-parody," the literary mold in which he has been cast. See Peck (1978, p. 81).

131 In loves stede. Compare the Latin construction in vicem amoris, which defines a role, rather than a physical location.

143 Gower's source for the Tale of Canace and Machaire is Ovid, Heroides 11. Genius softens the story and appeals to the reader's sympathy for Canace by adding her speech to her father and her letter to her brother. To heighten the pathos and focus on the father's cruel anger, he places the death of the child, bathed in his mother's blood, after the mother's death. See Chaucer's witty allusion to this "wikke ensample" in the introduction to The Man of Law's Tale, CT II(B1)77-80. Lydgate retells Gower's version in his Fall of Princes (1.6833- 7070). The tale reveals "none of the stock responses of the narrow moralist, but a sober and compassionate meditation on the blind instinctual nature of sexual passion" (Pearsall, "Gower's Narrative Art," p. 481). "Melancholy, not incest, is the topic governing the tale" (Olsson, Structures of Conversion, p. 112).

143 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic ponit Confessor exemplum contra istos, qui cum vires amoris non sunt realiter experti, contra alios amantes malencolica seueritate ad iracundiam vindicte prouocantur. Et narrat qualiter Rex Eolus filium nomine Macharium et filiam nomine Canacem habuit, qui cum ab infancia vsque ad pubertatem inuicem educati fuerant, Cupido tandem ignito iaculo amborum cordis desideria amorose penetrauit, ita quod Canacis natura cooperante a fratre suo inpregnata parturit: super quo pater, intollerabilem iuuentutis concupiscenciam ignorans nimiaque furoris malencolia preuentus, dictam filiam cum partu dolorosissimo casu interfici adiudicauit. [Here the Confessor presents an instructive example against those who, although they have not really experienced the powers of love, are vindictively provoked to wrathfulness against other lovers, in a melancholic severity. And he narrates how King Eolus had a son, Macharius by name, and a daughter, Canace by name. After they had been raised together from infancy up to adolescence, Cupid at length penetrated the desires of both their hearts amorously with a burning arrow, such that Canace, with nature cooperating, became pregnant by her brother and gave birth. Whereupon their father, ignorant of the unbearable lusts of youth and prepossessed by an excessive melancholy of fury, judged that the said daughter with her offspring in this most mournful case be put to death.] The story is attractively told in Gower, despite the quibbling of Chaucer's Man of Law. Lydgate was evidently moved by Gower's version, as he somewhat incongruously inserts it into Fall of Princes as the conclusion to Book 1 (1.6835-7070). As in Gower, the heart of Lydgate's narrative is Canacee's touching letter of complaint to her brother.

148-81 See White's discussion of the basic natural sexual instinct (CA 8.68-70) where, before the positing of laws to the contrary, incest was accepted behavior, a perspective that remains present in nature and that is "certainly operative of Genius' account of what happened to Canace and Machaire" (Nature, Sex, and Goodness, p. 194).

154-57 In Book 3, especially, Gower explores richly the complex ambiguities of nature. On questions of whether persons may go against the lawes of nature (line 157) without punishment - "fordon the lawe of kynde," as Chaucer puts it (TC 1.238) - see Olsson (1982, pp. 232-34). But although Gower grants some allowances toward leges naturae, neither he nor his priest "is content merely to exonerate the impulses of animalic 'kinde'" (p. 233).

172 lawe positif. "Nature informed by reason." (Kelly, Love and Marriage, p. 141). Macaulay notes:

Gower's view is that there is nothing naturally immoral about incestuous marriage, but that it is made wrong by the "lex positiva" of the Church. This position he makes clear at the beginning of the eighth book, by showing that in the first ages of the world such marriages must have been sanctioned by divine authority, and that the idea of kinship as a bar to marriage had grown up gradually, cousins being allowed to marry among the Jews, though brother and sister might not, and that finally the Church had ordered:
That non schal wedden of his ken
Ne the seconde, ne the thridde.
III.147 ff.
If attacked by Chaucer with regard to the subject of this story, he would no doubt defend himself by arguing that the vice with which it dealt was not against nature, and that the erring brother and sister were in truth far more deserving of sympathy than the father who took such cruel vengeance. (2:493)

As Schueler emphasizes, in this tale Gower does not defend incest but rather acknowledges the power of natural love ("Gower's Characterization," p. 253).

178 enchaunted. Gower's term here has received considerable commentary, from "overlaid with the nostalgia of his own loss but instinct with a pity and understanding" (Fison, p. 21); the blinding of creatures as blind Cupid does (Bennett, 1986, p. 108); and a spell cast on people regardless of law and reason (Collins, p. 120); to children "innocently blind" (Runacres, p. 125). The enchantment does not exculpate the lovers, however; as C. David Benson points out, the term "usually carried a clearly sinister meaning" (pp. 103-04). See Nicholson (1989), p. 221.

205 The sothe, which mai noght ben hid. Proverbial. See Whiting S490.

213 he was to love strange. See Bullón-Fernández's reading of the tale (pp. 158-72) on levels as diverse as confinement of the body politic by an absolutist king to the confinement of Canacee, whose subtext is confined by patriarchy and Genius, her "literary father." In this respect "Canacee exemplifies literary creativity" (p. 160). See explanatory note to line 268.

225 ff. When Eolus ignores Canacee's touching plea, Olsson suggests, "he rejects a basic good in nature, the good of cognatio. . . . The extraordinary power of this tale is that while it exposes a weakness in kinde itself, it also builds that perception into a dissuasion from melancholic wrath" (1992, p. 113).

248 naked swerd. It is "as though [Eolus] is proposing incest at a double remove, substituting the knight for himself and the sword for the phallus" (Spearing, p. 217).

268 I wole a lettre unto mi brother. Bullón-Fernández sees Canacee as a woman locked in a private sphere. In Ovid she has a nurse to talk to. In Gower she is totally isolated, able only to write a letter with ink and, ultimately, with the blood of her body. "Writing the letter can . . . be seen as Canacee's attempt to create a private space for herself . . . . [P]erhaps both Chaucer and Gower explored and developed a sense of privacy of the self in their work partly as a response to Richard's pretense that he owned both everybody's goods and their lives. Both writers may have seen a need . . . to erase the line between private and public" (p. 165). C. David Benson makes the point that the tale is "a 'wikke ensample' of one who loved sinfully," which "does not invite our sympathy for the couple so much as our horror at the sin they have committed and the evil it produces." Gower, he points out, has added to Ovid the secrecy of their passion, "inspired by irrational desire," which all recognize, "including the couple themselves, as wrong, and disastrous in its consequences" (pp. 102-03). Olsson observes that incest may be "inordinatus, but it is not innaturalis": "Nature 'kepth hire lawes al at large' (3.174), but the human being is obligated to temper or 'modifie' those laws by reason and, as derived from it, the 'lawe positif'" (1992, p. 113).

312-15 See Nolan ("Lydgate's Literary History," pp. 61-69) on Lydgate's borrowing from Gower in his Fall of Princes.

322 ne bad to do juise. Literally: "would not order [someone] to impose judicial punishment," the infinitive setting up a sequence of parallel infinitives in the next lines, ". . . to bear . . . to seek . . . to cast." Perhaps the sequence begins with "to win" in line 316.

337-59 "The moral perspective that Gower adopts for the Canace and Machaire story tends to protect Nature from censure by turning over attention to the father's culpability, as he overreacts to something presented as a natural necessity" (White, Nature, Sex, and Goodness, p. 197), which from the position of positive law seems to proclaim "Nature's potential moral anarchy" (p. 199). On love as "a disease endemic in the natural God-given order, the lawe of kinde," see pp. 204-05.

342-59 Kelly observes that the proposition that Amans has no power to alter the laws of nature (see 3.154-57) simply demonstrates once again that "Gower has let his confessor run away with himself. . . . Genius is not speaking the truth but merely the opinion of lovers" (p. 144).

344-50 Simpson compares Genius' excusing the incestuous lovers to Dante's Francesca "in her claims for moral leniency in . . . her technically incestuous love" ("Genius's 'Enformacioun,'" p. 173).

352 That nedes mot that nede schal. Proverbial. See Whiting N61. The fatalistic maxim is a favorite of Gower. See also 1.1714 and 8.1020.

355 Bennett notes that "law of kind" and "kindly law" were "the earliest English equivalents to lex naturae; 'laws of nature' first occurring in Gower" (1957, pp. 197-98n3). He goes on to note that "natural law" first occurs in Cursor Mundi.

361 The details for the story of Tiresias and the snakes occur in Ovid, Met. 3.324-27, Hyg. 75, and Vat. Myth I 16, all of which Gower probably had access to, though it is Ovid that he cites. The tale is a good follow-up to Canacee and Machaire in defining the virtues and limitations of nature. See explanatory note to lines 373-75.

364 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic narrat qualiter Tiresias in quodam monte duos serpentes inuenit pariter commiscentes, quos cum virga percussit. Irati dii ob hoc quod naturam impediuit, ipsum contra naturam a forma virili in muliebrem transmutarunt. [Here he narrates how Tiresias discovered on a certain mountain two serpents mingling together, whom he struck with a rod. The gods, wrathful on account of the fact that he had impeded nature, transmogrified him unnaturally from a male into a womanly form.]

369-94 The author of Chaucer's Ghoast (1672) borrows these lines as his "translation/retelling" in an ancient manner of the tale of Socrates' patience in Arg. 11. Chaucer's Wife of Bath does allude to the tale, but the source of the seventeenth-century poet's ghostly version is Gower, not Chaucer.

373-75 Fisher (John Gower, p. 196), cites this passage to demonstrate the interface between law and nature: the Tale of Tiresias and the Snakes "illustrates the all-embracing virtue of legitimate sexual intercourse." "Tiresias is punished for disrupting nature by having his own nature disrupted" (Cresswell, "tales of Acteon and Narcissus," p. 37, as cited by Nicholson, Annotated Index, p. 224).

383 More is a man than such a beste. Simpson (Sciences and the Self, pp.176-77) juxtaposes the act of Tiresias against the snakes with that of Aeolus (Eolus), who destroys Canacee and her baby for her incestuous coupling with Machaire, to show how man is more than beast and thus lives by more complex rules.

398-99 Let every man love as he wile, / Be so it be noght my ladi. Earlier, Amans recognizes his own destructive impulses as he terrorizes his household (2.87-98). But now he seems more moderate, even potentially sympathetic of Canacee and Machaire, providing he gets his way. This leads to his invoking his wrath "Alone upon miself" (3.402), which Elizabeth Allen ("Chaucer Answers Gower," pp. 634-35) likens to the progress of Canacee's suicide, as she brings home her guilt. The point is that "Amans's limitations encourage us to face a particular danger of self-examination: the risk of an obsessive, self-destructive, disconnection from an outside world where every man can 'love as he will' as long as it does not touch others. . . . The Confessio insists not only on the reader's inward turn but also, in response, on a search for willed interconnections, however tenuous or tangential: the Confessio seeks to make self-examination socially responsible" (p. 636).

417 ff. See Craun (Lies, Slander, and Obscenity, pp. 117-18) on Cheste and Detraction as Sins of the Tongue in penitential manuals.

421 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic tractat Confessor super secunda specie Ire, que Lis dicitur, ex cuius contumeliis innumerosa dolorum occasio tam in amoris causa quam aliter in quampluribus sepissime exorta est. [Here the Confessor treats the second species of Wrath, which is called Conflict, from whose aggressions very often arises many an occasion of sorrows both in the cause of love and elsewhere in very many things.]

433 as a sive kepeth ale. Proverbial. See Whiting S305. Stockton, p. 405n3, notes other examples in VC 3.1546, 6.1359, and MO 17656-58.

463-65 the harde bon / Althogh himselven have non, / A tunge brekth. For the proverbial idea, see the Latin verses at the opening of CA (Prol.i, and note on p. 284 of vol. 1 of this edition).

502-03 instede of chese, / For that is helplich to defie. Soft and semisoft cheese was considered an aid to digestion: "mylky chese moysteþ þe wombe (stomach) . . . . And chese y-ete after mete þrusteþ dounward the mete" (Trevisa, trans., On the Properties of Things 2.1334.15-20). Seymour emends mylky to [newe], but I have preferred to follow the reading of the six principal manuscripts.

532 agein the pes. A legal phrase. Any crime is something done "against the [king's] peace" (contra pacem). For references, see John Alford, Piers Plowman: A Glossary of Legal Diction (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1988), s. v. pes.

577-78 no man mai his time lore / Recovere. Proverbial. See Whiting T307. Compare CA 4.1485-87. Perhaps the most amusing expression of the proverb is Harry Bailey's in CT II(B1)28-31.

585 oule on stock and stock on oule. Proverbial. See Whiting O69. The implication is that the branch (stock) on which the owl roosts becomes beshitten and thus befouls the bird in return.

616 ff. Latin marginalia: Seneca: Paciencia est vindicta omnium iniuriarum. [Seneca: Patience is the conquerer of all injuries.] The thought is consistent with the moral essays of Seneca popular in the Middle Ages (esp. "On Wrath" and "On Mercy"), but the precise formulation does not come from those, nor from the apocryphal collection of "proverbs" associated with Seneca (Proverbia Senecae) (AG).

621 wol noght bowe er that he breke. Proverbial. See Whiting B484. Compare Chaucer's TC 1.257-58: "The yerde is bet that bowen wole and wynde / Than that that brest."

640 Chaucer's Jankyn puts his chiding Wife of Bath in her place with the same story (CT III[D]727-32). He learned the story from Jerome, Adversus Jovinianum 1.48 (PL 23, col. 278), whence Gower may also have learned it, though the story was a commonplace epitome of patience.

643 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic ponit Confessor exemplum de paciencia in amore contra lites habenda. Et narrat qualiter vxor Socratis ipsum quodam die multis sermonibus litigauit; set cum ipse absque vlla responsione omnia probra pacienter sustulit, indignata vxor quandam ydriam plenam aque, quam in manu tenebat, super caput viri sui subito effudit, dicens, "Euigila et loquere": qui respondens tunc ait, "O vere iam scio et expertus sum quia post ventorum rabiem sequuntur ymbres": et isto modo litis contumeliam sua paciencia deuicit. [Here the Confessor presents an instructive example concerning the necessity in love of keeping patience against attacks. And he narrates how Socrates' wife attacked him one day with many speeches; but when he endured all trials patiently without any response, the wife, indignant, suddenly poured out on her husband a pot full of water that she was holding in her hand, saying, "Wake up and speak." He then responded, "O truly now I know and have experienced, that after a frenzy of winds follow rains." And by this means he conquered the invective of the strife with his patience.]

671 swelle. Wrath is the pent-up vice; often in medieval lore the angry man is said to swell to bursting. The idea dates at least as early as Seneca (first century), "On Anger" 1.20 and 2.36.

693 Chaucer's Xantippa is less gentle than Gower's. In her rage she dumps a pisspot upon Socrates' head; he calmly wipes his beard and observes: "Er that thonder stynte, comth a reyn!" CT III(D)732.

731-64 "A lover of antiquity," the author of Chaucer's Ghoast (1672) "borrows" these lines for his Arg. 3 on Ovid's Tiresias, as if they were his own "penn'd after the ancient manner of writing in England."

734 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic ponit Confessor exemplum, quod de alterius lite intromittere cauendum est. Et narrat qualiter Iupiter cum Iunone super quadam questione litigabat, videlicet vtrum vir an mulier in amoris concupiscencia feruencius ardebat; super quo Tiresiam eorum iudicem constituebant. Et quia ille contra Iunonem in dicte litis causa sentenciam diffiniuit, irata dea ipsum amborum oculorum lumine claritatis absque remissione priuauit. [Here the Confessor presents an instructive example concerning how one must take care not to interfere in another's quarrel. And he tells how Jupiter was arguing with Juno on a certain question: whether a man or a woman felt hotter passion in the lust of love; for this they established Tiresias as their judge. And since he declared against Juno in the case of the said conflict, the irate goddess deprived him forever of sight in both eyes.]

781-814 These lines are plagiarized as Arg. 4 of Chaucer's Ghoast (1672) as the "antiquarian" poet attempts to effect "Chaucer's" style.

783 ff. Chaucer's Manciple also rehearses a version of this tale. It is a story from Ovid, Metam. 2.531-632, often told by medieval authors: e.g., Ovide Moralisé; Machaut, Le Livre dou Voir Dit, lines 7773-8110; Seven Sages of Rome, lines 2193-2292; and various allusions in RR. See James Work, in Sources and Analogues of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, pp. 699-722.

784 ff. Latin marginalia: Quia litigantes ora sua cohibere nequiunt, hic ponit Confessor exemplum contra illos qui in amoris causa alterius consilium reuelare presumunt. Et narrat qualiter quedam auis tunc albissima nomine coruus consilium domine sue Cornide Phebo denudauit; vnde contigit non solum ipsam Cornidem interfici, set et coruum, qui antea tanquam nix albus fuit, in piceum colorem pro perpetuo transmutari. [Since disputants cannot conceal their utterances, here the Confessor presents an instructive example against those who in the cause of love presume to reveal the counsel of another. And he narrates how a certain bird who was the whitest of white, the crow [corvus] by name, laid bare to Phoebus the counsel of his mistress Cornida; whence it happened that not only was Cornida killed, but also Corvus, who had previously been snow white, was transmuted forever into pitch black.]

815 Be war therfore and sei the beste. "Beware, therefore, and speak only the best." Compare 3.768. The admonitory phrases bear some resonances with the repeated injunctions to "beware" by Chaucer's Manciple, who admonishes the Cook: "My sone, keep wel thy tonge, and keep thy freend. / A wikked tonge is worse than a feend" (CT IX[H]319-20); see also "Beth war, and taketh kep what that ye seye" (IX[H]310) and "Kepe wel thy tonge and thenk upon the crowe" (IX[H]362). Some have held that Chaucer, with his ten "my sone's" in forty lines, is sending up Gower's story.

Ultimately the point derives from early medieval sayings about guarding the tongue, e.g., "maledicus ne esto" (pseudo-Cato, "Do not be abusive" [Minor Latin Poets, p. 596, line 41]). Translations of such advice poetry were popular in the later fourteenth through the fifteenth centuries, and sometimes emphasize Gower's phrase about careful restraint of the tongue. For a direct parallel, see Lydgate's "Say the Best, and Never Repent" (in The Minor Poems, pp. 795-99). While Lydgate's short advice poem clearly draws on Chaucer's many comments on the same topic, his collection of notions more often parallels Gower, and Lydgate's poem may even be inspired by this moment in the CA. For broad discussion of the pastoral background of the topic of "sins of the tongue" and aspects of its place in Middle English literature, see Craun (Lies, Slander, and Obscenity).

818 another place. I.e., Ovid's Fasti 2.585-616, where the story is told at greater length. In Ovid, Laar is not condemned as a jangler, except by Jupiter.

818 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic loquitur super eodem: Et narrat qualiter Laar Nimpha de eo quod Iupiter Iuturnam adulterauit, Iunoni Iouis vxori secretum reuelauit. Quapropter Iupiter ira commotus lingua Laaris prius abscisa ipsam postea in profundum Acherontis exulem pro perpetuo mancipauit. [Here he speaks about the same thing: and he narrates how Laar the Nymph had secretly revealed to Juno, Jupiter's wife, how Jupiter had committed adultery with Juterna. On account of this Jupiter, moved to wrath, first had Laar's tongue cut away, then committed her perpetually to exile in deepest Acheron.]

838 reule. With his keen interest in law, Gower uses the noun reule with technical precision in diverse ways. In CA Prol.108 "reule" connotes "jurisdiction"; in 1.883 its sense is that of "a religious practice." In 4.2642 it implies "a norm of procedure within an academy"; or in 7.1051, "the law of nature." In 7.47, it suggests "a set of rules governing morality in general." In expressions like "oghe reule" (3.1169) or "oute of reule" (6.1283), the sense is "lack of control" or "disorder." Here, given the terms of confession that Genius has established, Amans uses the word to suggest the regulation governing the religious contract he has set up with Genius, his priest.

847 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic tractat Confessor de tercia specie Ire, que Odium dicitur, cuius natura omnes Ire inimicicias ad mentem reducens, illas vsque ad tempus vindicte velud Scriba demonis in cordis papiro commemorandas inserit. [Here the Confessor discourses about the third species of Wrath, which is called Hatred, whose nature, summarizing all enmities of Wrath in its mind like the devil's scribe, inserts them into the heart's paper as memoranda until the time of inflicting them.]

973 The story of Nauplius' revenge occurs in Benoît, Le Roman de Troie, lines 27671-930, Gest Hyst. 32.12552-704, Hyg. 116; and Vat. Myth. II (201 ff.). Gower appears to have followed more than one source.

973 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic ponit Confessor exemplum contra illos qui, cum Ire sue odium aperte vindicare non possint, ficta dissimilacione vindictam subdole assequuntur. Et narrat quod cum Palamades princeps Grecorum in obsidione Troie a quibusdam suis emulis proditorie interfectus fuisset, paterque suus Rex Namplus in patria sua tunc existens huiusmodi euentus certitudinem sciuisset, Grecos in sui cordis odium super omnia recollegit. Vnde contigit quod, cum Greci deuicta Troia per altum mare versus Greciam nauigio remeantes obscurissimo noctis tempore nimia ventorum tempestate iactabantur, Rex Namplus in terra sua contra litus maris, vbi maiora saxorum eminebant pericula, super cacumina montium grandissimos noctanter fecit ignes: quos Greci aspicientes saluum portum ibidem inuenire certissime putabant, et terram approximantes diruptis nauibus magna pars Grecorum periclitabatur. Et sic, quod Namplus viribus nequiit, odio latitante per dissimilacionis fraudem vindicauit. [Here the Confessor presents an instructive example against those who, when they are not able openly to inflict their wrath's hate, pursue their punishment surreptitiously. And he narrates that when Palamades, prince of the Greeks, had been treacherously killed by certain rivals at the siege of Troy, his father King Namplus, when he had learned while he was in his own country the certainty of this event, collected in his heart a hatred for the Greeks above all others. Whence it happened that, after Troy was sacked, when the Greeks were returning home by ship toward Greece across the deep ocean, at the darkest point of night they were tossed about by a tempest of extraordinarily strong winds; and King Namplus, in his land across from the seashore where the greatest dangers of rocks jutted out, caused great fires to be set on the peaks of mountains. The Greeks, seeing those, firmly believed that they had discovered a safe harbor there, and as they approached the land their ships were torn apart, endangering nearly all the Greeks. And thus, what Namplus was not able to do by force, he inflicted through fraud of dissimulation by means of a hidden hatred.] Runacres cites the opening of this gloss as an example of moralitas that serves "as a constant reminder of the importance of the ethical purpose of the poem" that may not be "closely linked to the . . . narraciones" (p. 121).

977 tornen hom agein. See Olsson ("Love, Intimacy, and Gower," pp. 86-92) on the centrality of the woman and home to Gower's ideology of return and repose. He notes perceptively the large number of rough homecomings, such as those of the Greeks here (compare the tales of Leucothoe, 5.6722-51, or Elda's desperate circumstance as he would wake his wife, 2.836-38, or Jephthah's unhappy return, 4.1517). "Life at home can be disrupted or destroyed by domestic tyranny, external assault, random misfortune, and, perhaps most tragically, betrayal" (p. 92). But regardless of circumstances, the quality of the return is likely to be bound up in memory, that Boethian domicile possessed well by Gower's four good wives in 8.2617-18, "a memory that . . . fully acknowledges their own unsettled condition and their suffering. They understand their humanity [as the Greeks in these lines do not], and they also understand what it means to be rooted in relationship: their lives 'at home,' for all they must remember, help give them, unsentimentally, both constancy and stability" (p. 93). It is this sense of home and repose upon which Gower builds the conclusion to his poem in Book 8.

981-1000 "Ships and the sea, indeed, are always good in Gower . . . . This excellence in Gower's sea-pieces has led some to suppose that he was familiar with sea travel - as he may well have been; but it is, in fact, only one manifestation of his devotion to movement and progression, his preoccupation with things that change as you watch them" (Lewis, Allegory of Love, p. 207). See also 4.1741 ff., 4.3063, and 8.1928-29.

1073-75 Proverbial. A variant of Whiting J75.

1076-78 Compare 2.1921-22. Mitchell, remarking on the intrinsic deception of mirrors to which Gower alludes, notes the common use of mirror imagery in didactic discourse on memory and meditation in the later Middle Ages and suggests that by means of such recurring remarks, Gower craftily "implicates the specular supposition of exemplary rhetoric itself" (p. 130). For a summary of uses of mirrors in speculation on mental behavior see Herbert Grabes, The Mutable Glass: Mirror-Imagery in the Titles and Texts of the Middle Ages and English Renassance, trans. Gordon Collier (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982). Gower uses the idea of a mirror's illusory reflection that has nothing therinne (3.1078) to underscore the trickiness of imagination as it feeds such illusions as hatred, a self-deception that can overthrow a person (3.1079-80), or sustains Falssemblant, who, indeed, offers a treacherous "glas" (2.1921).

Latin verses iv (before line 1089). Lines 1-2: sit spiritus eius / Naribus, "whose spirit is in his nostrils," a biblical phrase for an angry man; see Isaiah 2:22 (AG).

1094 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic tractat Confessor super quarta et quinta specie Ire, que impetuositas et homicidium dicuntur. Set primo de impetuositate specialius tractare intendit, cuius natura spiritum in naribus gestando ad omnes Ire mociones in vindictam parata pacienciam nullatenus obseruat. [Here the Confessor treats the fourth and fifth species of Wrath, which are called Aggressiveness and Homicide. And first he intends particularly to discuss Aggressiveness, whose nature, bearing its "spirit in his nostrils," prepares it to inflict all manner of wrath in its readiness for vengeance and makes it not at all act with patience.] For the phrase "spirit in his nostrils," see above, note on Latin verses iv (before line 1089).

1141-44 al my time in vein despended. See Galloway ("gower's Quarrel") on Amans' assessment of lost labor in love as "almost purely mercantile" (p. 247). See also 5.4438-75 on the failure of his usurious investments (p. 248).

1193-99 See White on the power of natural love, whose influence may sometimes be overwhelming ("Naturalness of Amans' Love," p. 319). "Gower does not seem to see the universe as a place considerately arranged so that the man of goodwill shall move reasonably smoothly towards salvation; rather he sees it as a battleground on which man in his weakness must face adversaries immensely superior to him and by no means wholeheartedly committed to his spiritual good" (p. 321). See also White ("Division and Failure," p. 605).

1194-99 love is of so gret a miht . . . Will scholde evere be governed / Of Reson more than of Kinde. A focal passage on the potential destructive powers of blind Nature without the good governance of Reason. On the proverbial wisdom of line 1194, see Whiting L518, L534, L538, L540, and L544, on CA 1.18, 1.35, and 5.4556. See also Chaucer's The Franklin's Tale, CT V(F)764-66, and PF, line 12.

1201 The story of Diogenes' confrontation with Alexander is a favorite medieval tale. See Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum Historiale 3.68 ff.; Latin Gesta Romanorum, cap. 183; Walter Burley, De Vita Philosophorum, cap. 1. The messenger and the axletree are apparently Gower's additions to the story. Pfister suggests that Gower draws on Valerius Maximus ("Spuren Alexanders des Grossen," p. 86). But see also Dicts and Sayings, which includes many questions and sayings not found in Gower.

1204 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic ponit Confessor exemplum, quod hominis impetuosa voluntas sit discrecionis moderamine gubernanda. Et narrat qualiter Diogenes, qui motus animi sui racioni subiugarat, Regem Alexandrum super isto facto sibi opponentem plenius informauit. [Here the Confessor presents an instructive example showing that a man's aggressive will must be guided by discretion's rudder. And he narrates how Diogenes, who had subjugated the motions of his mind to reason, very fully informed King Alexander when he questioned him about this.]

1331 Chaucer also tells the story of Pyramus and Thisbe in LGW. The story is based on Ovid, Metam. 4.55-166. Of the two, Chaucer follows the source more closely, in a mood of high sentiment. For a brief comparison of these two Middle English accounts with Ovid, see Macaulay (2.497-98). See Harbert (pp. 91-93) for an insightful comparison of Gower and Ovid.

1331 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic in amoris causa ponit Confessor exemplum contra illos qui in sua dampna nimis accelerantes ex impetuositate seipsos multociens offendunt. Et narrat qualiter Piramus, cum ipse Tisbee amicam suam in loco inter eosdem deputato tempore aduentus sui promptam non inuenit, animo impetuoso seipsum pre dolore extracto gladio mortaliter transfodit: que postea infra breue veniens cum ipsum sic mortuum inuenisset, eciam et illa in sui ipsius mortem impetuose festinans eiusdem gladii cuspide sui cordis intima per medium penetrauit. [Here the Confessor presents an instructive example against those who in the cause of love very often offend by rushing excessively from aggressive impetuosity to their own destruction. And he narrates how Piramus, when he did not find his beloved Thisbe ready at the time of his arrival in the place designated by both, with a spirit made impetuous from anguish drew his sword and fatally transfixed himself. And when she, arriving within a short time, found him thus dead, hastening her own death she pierced the innermost regions of her heart with the point of the same sword.]

1370-71 In Gower the lovers work together to make a hole in the wall, unlike in Ovid, where the chink is simply found.

1375-76 . . . hote / . . . hote. Kim Zarins, "Rich Words: Gower's Rime Riche in Dramatic Action" (Dutton, pp. 239-53), explores the extended resonances of Gower's prominent use of this device. Pyramus is not just hote [called] Pyramus, "he is hot and hotly desired," as his name, derived from the Greek word for fire, implies. It is as if "hote" "determines Pyramus's character and fate" (unpublished essay "Poetic Justice: Rime Riche and Wordplay in Gower's Confessio Amantis, presented at the Cornell/Rochester graduate student symposium at the University of Rochester, April 13, 2002, p. 4). See also the puns on "hote" in 4.87-88, which anticipate Dido's fiery doom, and 3.21-22, where wrath is presented as burning passion.

1386 the softe pas. Gower's Middle English uses some case inflections for certain idioms. Here, the final 'e' is a weak adjective ending, used when a monosyllabic adjective follows a definite or demonstrative article. Gon the pas means "travel the way"; gon the softe (or grete etc.) pas means "travel quietly" ("rapidly" etc.). At 6.150-51: Mi limes ben so dull / I mai unethes gon the pas.

1420-23 A. B. taylor notes Gower's use of 1 Cor 2:9, proposing that Shakespeare, who also draws on the same passage in Midsummer Night's Dream, may well have been using Gower's version of the story as well as Ovid's as a source for the rude mechanicals' sentimental farce ("John Gower," p. 382). Shakespeare, like Gower, changes Ovid's lioness (leaena) to a ravenous male lion (lines 1398-1400) with his "blodi snoute."

1469 what hath he deserved? Pearsall emphasizes Gower's ignoring of Ovid's metamorphoses to focus instead on moral issues as his characters perceive them. The word deserved provides "an index of Gower's preoccupation with human actions as responsible, as part of a meaningful pattern" (1966, p. 480).

1537 Daunger. The personification of female insecurity, resistance, and aloofness in RR, who repeatedly thwarts Amans in his love quest. See Maxwell Luria, A Reader's Guide to the Roman de la Rose (Hamden, Connecticut: Archon Books, 1982), pp. 42-44; and John V. Fleming, The Roman de la Rose: A Study in Allegory and Iconography (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), pp. 187-89.

1615-58 This tour de force of proverbs is unusual even for the sententious Genius. The point seems to be that therapy often begins in commonplace wisdom, out of which something more substantial may come. Compare Philosophy's use of proverbs as she begins to engage the confused Boece in Consolation of Philosophy 1.m.6 and 3.m.1. Several of the wise sayings are cited in Whiting, though not all.

1630-31 Thanne if he felle and overthrewe - / The hors. The syntax seems awkward because of the delayed antecedent (it is the horse that falls, not the rider) and the use of overthrewe as an intransitive verb (see Macaulay 2.499 on overthrewe). The passage, beginning at line 1629, is proverbial, combining two proverbs - the chaffing at the bridle (see Whiting B533) and "Dun is in the myre" (see Chaucer's The Manciple's Tale, CT IX[H]5; and Whiting D434).

1639-40 Suffrance hath ever...That secheth reste. Proverbial. See Whiting, S859.

1658 He hath noght lost that wel abitt. Proverbial. See Whiting A6. Compare CA 4.1776.

1680 Folhaste doth non avantage. Proverbial. See Whiting F463. Compare 3.1861.

1685 ff. The source may be Ovid, Metam. 1.452-567.

1688 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic ponit Confessor exemplum contra illos qui in amoris causa nimia festinacione concupiscentes tardius expediunt. Et narrat qualiter pro eo quod Phebus quamdam virginem pulcherimam nomine Daphnem nimia amoris acceleracione insequebatur, iratus Cupido cor Phebi sagitta aurea ignita ardencius vulnerauit: et econtra cor Daphne quadam sagitta plumbea, que frigidissima fuit, sobrius perforauit. Et sic quanto magis Phebus ardencior in amore Daphnem prosecutus est, tanto magis ipsa frigidior Phebi concupiscenciam toto corde fugitiua dedignabatur. [Here the Confessor presents an instructive example against those who in the cause of love desire too hastily and too slowly carry it out. And he narrates how since Phebus pursued a certain very beautiful virgin, Daphne by name, with too great a hastiness for love, Cupid irritably wounded Phebus' heart with a golden arrow burning very hotly, but in contrast pierced Daphne's heart more somberly with a certain lead arrow which was exceedingly cold. And thus the more ardently in love Phebus pursued Daphne, the more coldly she disdained him, wholeheartedly fleeing Phebus' lust.]

1716-20 Genius' remarks on the significance of the laurel tree seem to be based on Ovide Moralisé rather than Ovid. See Mainzer, ("Gower's Use of the 'Mediaeval Ovid,'" pp. 217-18).

1729-35 Amans' response reveals "a flicker of wit sometimes [to be found] in the lover's literal-minded responses" (Pearsall, "Gower's Narrative Art," p. 477). The wry humor is part of Gower's dramatic sense of narrative voice. See also Runacres, ("Art and Ethics," p. 128) and Bennett (Middle English Literature, p. 413) cited by Nicholson (Annotated Index, pp. 242-43).

1757-1862 Gower's story of Athemas (Acamas) and Demephon is based chiefly on Le Roman de Troie, lines 28147 ff., though it is found also in the Troy stories of Dictys and Guido.

1760 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic ponit Confessor exemplum contra illos qui nimio furore accensi vindictam Ire sue vltra quam decet consequi affectant. Et narrat qualiter Athemas et Demephon Reges, cum ipsi de bello Troiano ad propria remeassent et a suis ibidem pacifice recepti non fuissent, congregato aliunde pugnatorum excercitu, regiones suas non solum incendio vastare set et omnes in eisdem habitantes a minimo vsque ad maiorem in perpetuam vindicte memoriam gladio interficere feruore iracundie proposuerunt. Set Rex Nestor, qui senex et sapiens fuit, ex paciencia tractatus inter ipsos Reges et eorum Regna inita pace et concordia huiusmodi impetuositatem micius pacificauit. [Here the Confessor presents an instructive example against those who, inflamed by excessive fury, desire to inflict the punishment of their wrath beyond what is appropriate. And he tells how Kings Athemas and Demephon, having returned from the Trojan War to their own people and having not been received peacefully there by them, collected from elsewhere an army and, in a frenzy of anger, proposed not only to devastate their own regions but also to put to the sword everyone living in them, from the least to the most important, as a permanent memorial to their revenge. But King Nestor, who was old and wise, allowed patience to lead him and mildly pacified this aggressiveness, initiating a peace and a treaty between the kings and their kingdoms.]

1772 soghten frendes ate nede. Proverbial. See Whiting F634. Compare 5.4912-14, for variant.

1792-1800 Of yonge men the lusti route . . . / Of hem that there weren yonge. Compare the portrayal of the hasty foolishness of the young in matters of war in Chaucer's Tale of Melibee CT VII(B2)1034-35, as they oppose the wise counsel of the elderly.

1861 Folhaste is cause of mochel wo. Proverbial. See Whiting F463. Compare 3.1680.

1885 Gower's most direct source for the story of Orestes seems to be Benoît, Le Roman de Troie, lines 28047-112, 28285-412, 28469-533. For a lively modern English translation see Meek, Historia Destructionis Troiae, pp. 243-46. See also Gest Hyst., ed. Panton and Donaldson, 33.12937-13042, and Lydgate's adaptation, Troy Book, 5.1467-1780. This is one of the few instances in which Gower's story, with its conflict of religious and political obligations and its intimations of later Renaissance elaborations of royal family tragedy, is longer than his author's. Its reception by critics has been mixed. Pearsall ("Gower's Narrative Art," p. 483) remarks that Gower's retelling "fails completely to make its point or to extract any simple story line" and refers to it as "a sad mangling of high tragedy." Hiscoe ("Ovidian Comic Strategy") sees the omission of the murder of Agamemnon as comic. See Nicholson (Annotated Index, pp. 244-45) for a review of critical opinions.

1885-2195 See Wetherbee ("Rome, Troy, and Culture," pp. 27-29) on the "latent violence" that becomes a recurrent theme in tales of chivalric values in CA. The "anti-social aspect of knightly conduct is presented as a function of chivalric education itself and serves to reinforce Gower's treatment of . . . the uneasy relationship between chivalric prerogative and obligation on the one hand and the institutions of family, society, and civic government on the other" (p. 27). Gower goes beyond Benoît in introducing Idomeneus as guardian to the child Orestes to shape the boy's purpose; in Gower Menestheus interrupts the trial with a vehement attack on Clytemnestra that cuts off the judicial proceedings "in a sort of coda, Aegisthus's daughter Egiona is driven to suicide" at the failure of parliament to banish Orestes, "but Genius sees in this only a divine judgment on her complicity in the murder of Agamemnon" (p. 28). "The harshness of Menetheus's uncontested judgments on Clytemnestra and the virtual equation of justice with violence against women in the subsequent action leave the story conspicuously unresolved" (p. 29).

1887 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic ponit Confessor exemplum contra illos qui ob sue concupiscencie desiderium homicide efficiuntur. Et narrat qualiter Climestra vxor Regis Agamenontis, cum ipse a bello Troiano domi redisset, consilio Egisti, quem adultera peramauit, sponsum suum in cubili dormientem sub noctis silencio trucidabat; cuius mortem filius eius Horestes tunc minoris etatis postea diis admonitus seueritate crudelissima vindicauit. [Here the Confessor presents an instructive example against those who, on account of the desire of their lust, are made murderers. And he narrates how Climestra the wife of King Agamemnon, when he had returned home from the Trojan War, stabbed her spouse to death in the silence of the night while he was sleeping, by the counsel of Egistus, whom she, adulterer, doted on. Afterwards, Horestes, then of tender age and alerted by the gods, with a most cruel severity revenged his death.]

1899-1901 Who that is slyh . . . makth the ferre lieve loth.' Compare Chaucer's The Miller's Tale (I[A]3392-93); see Whiting S395 for other variants.

1920 moerdre, which mai noght ben hedd. Proverbial; see Whiting M806. Compare Chaucer's The Prioress's Tale, "Mordre wol out" (CT VII[B2]576), and The Nun's Priest's Tale (CT VII[B2]3052 ff.).

2033 'Old senne newe schame.' Proverbial. See Whiting S338. Compare CA 6.5116 and VC 4.874.

2055 O cruel beste unkinde. White cites this line, along with 1.2565 (Rosamund and Albinus), 5.5906 (Philomela, Procne, and Tereus), and 8.222 (Amon, Thamer, and Absolon), to define Gower's regard for "the high dignity of the natural order," that order being the "action and feeling conceived as normal and appropriate to the relationship between man and wife" (Nature, Sex, and Goodness, p. 177). Simpson (Sciences and the Self, pp. 190-91) sees this as "a critical moment in the argument of Book III" as the question is raised, "is one 'unkynde' act justly dealt with by another?" The question goes back to the Tale of Canacee and Machaire at the beginning of the book and stands in contrast to the behavior of Tiresias and the snakes, where an "'unkinde' act of disturbing natural law is readily understandable." The implication in such passages is that natural law is insufficient in itself, demanding "a politics" formed out of personal ethics that places constraint on human relationships (Simpson, pp. 191-92). See also Olsson, "Natural Law," pp. 229-61.

2121-22 worste speche is rathest herd / And lieved. Proverbial. See Whiting S619. Compare Chaucer's The Squire's Tale (CT V[F]222-23), where the adage defines that cynical component of the "lewednesse" of the press as "[t]hey demen gladly to the badder ende."

2206 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic queritur quibus de causis licet hominem occidere. [Here is asked what causes justify killing a man.]

2220 ff. Latin marginalia: Seneca: Iudex qui parcit vlcisci, multos improbos facit. [Seneca: A judge who is sparing in retribution makes many shameless men.] I have not found the precise source, though the passage resembles mottos from the pseudo-Seneca Proverbs (AG).

2225 ff. Latin marginalia: Apostolus: Non sine causa Iudex gladium portat. [Apostle: Not without cause does the Judge bear a sword.] Adapting Romans 13:4, describing the prince (not the judge).

2235 ff. Latin marginalia: Pugna pro patria. [Fight for your country.] Found among the short sayings attributed to Cato (Minor Latin Poets, p. 594, line 23). Conrad Mainzer ("Albertano of Brescia's Liber Consolationis et Consilii as a Source-Book of Gower's Confessio Amantis," Medium Ævum 47 [1978], 88-90), p. 89, suggests Albertano of Breccia's Liber Consolationis as another possible source.

2249-50 Mitchell ("Reading for the Moral," p. 134) notes the frequency with which Gower rhymes evidence and conscience (no fewer than eight times; see especially 1.247-48 and 5.2919-20). The pairing magnifies the contingency of rule of conscience because of the instability of intuited particulars. But, as Mitchell observes, "Judgement exists because of the uncertainty of moral application" (p. 137).

Latin verses v (before line 2251). Line 1: there is an obvious echo in the creature that God creates (creatum/creat); line 2: a more subtle punning echo appears in the earth (humum) that is sprinkled with human blood (humano). The second pun emphasizes, among other things, the origins of human flesh from earth (Gen. 2:7); the line recalls Cain's murder of Abel, whose blood calls out from the earth to God (Gen. 4:8-10). Line 5: In terra pax. "Peace on earth"; see Luke 2:14. Lines 5-6: vltima Cristi / Verba. The reference to Jesus' "final words" invokes Paul's summary of Jesus' message rather than the gospels' description of his actual last words; see especially 1 Corinthians 7:15, Ephesians 2:17.

2252 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic loquitur contra motores guerre, que non solum homicidii set vniuerse mundi desolacionis mater existit. [Here he speaks against those who instigate war, which is the mother of homicide and of the world's total destruction.] On the debate over war, at the center of which were Richard's peace efforts in 1389, see Saul (Richard II, pp. 205-34).

2263-64 That Nature loves peace is a featured proposition in Gower. Compare 3.386-87. Olsson (1982, p. 244) suggests that pride, envy, and wrath are the most unnatural vices. But wrath is especially unkind.

2263-2437 The story of Alexander and the Pirate was popular; see, for example, St. Augustine, De Civ. Dei 4.4; the Latin Gesta Romanorum, cap. 146; and Jofroi of Waterford's Secretum Secretorum. Chaucer alludes to the story in The Manciple's Tale. See note to 3.2393.

2299 ff. Latin marginalia: Apostolus: Stipendium peccati mors est. [Apostle: The wages of sin are death.] Romans 6:23.

2317 ff. Latin marginalia: Nota, quod Greci omnem terram fertilem debellabant, set tantum Archadiam, pro eo quod pauper et sterilis fuit, pacifice dimiserunt. [Note that the Greeks attacked every fertile land, and only left Arcady in peace, because it was poor and sterile.]

2342-60 alwei som cause he feigneth . . . / For lucre and for non other skyle. For an ironic illustration of hypocritical militaristic arguments to gain lucre of the sort Genius condemns, see Piers Plowman B.3.175-208. Pacifist sentiment was high among intellectuals in the late fourteenth century, especially after the failure of the 1360 Treaty of Bretingny in 1377, followed by successive English defeats in the Hundred Years' War. The most extreme pacifists were the Lollards (see Hudson, Premature Reformation, pp. 369-70), whose views on this as on some other topics are paralleled by Gower (Galloway, "Literature of 1388"). See also Gower's Latin poem O Deus Immense (Mac 4:362-64), appealing to the king at the end of the century, after he had returned England to military solutions for problems, to seek peaceful solutions. Saul summarizes the point of the poem well: the people suffer because of the king's commitment to war. Instead of initiating purges and imposing censorship, he should hasten into the highways and byways and listen to what his subjects had to tell him. He should let them speak openly, for to suppress their talk was to store up danger. Above all, he should avoid avarice, for the treasure to be collected in people's hearts was more valuable than any amount of treasure he could collect in coin" (Richard II, p. 288). See also pp. 436-37 on Gower's disillusionment with the king.

2366 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic declarat per exemplum contra istos Principes seu alios quoscumque illicite guerre motores. Et narrat de quodam pirata in partibus marinis spoliatore notissimo, qui cum captus fuisset, et in iudicium coram Rege Alexandro productus et de latrocinio accusatus, dixit, "O Alexander, vere quia cum paucis sociis spoliorum causa naues tantum exploro, ego latrunculus vocor; tu autem, quia cum infinita bellatorum multitudine vniuersam terram subiugando spoliasti, Imperator diceris. Ita quod status tuus a statu meo differt, set eodem animo condicionem parilem habemus." Alexander vero eius audaciam in responsione comprobans, ipsum penes se familiarem retinuit; et sic bellicosus bellatori complacuit. [Here he speaks through an instructive example against those princes or any others who instigate illicit wars. And he tells about a certain pirate who was a most notorious pillager in the ocean regions, who, when he was captured and brought in judgment before King Alexander and accused of robbery, said, "O Alexander, truly, since I venture forth with only a few associates for the sake of robbing ships, I am called a pillager; but you, since you have pillaged by subjugating the whole earth with a vast multitude of soldiers, are called an emperor. Thus your estate differs from mine, but we possess an equal circumstance and the same intention." And Alexander, approving his audacity in this response, retained him among his household affinity; and thus the warlike one was pleased with another warlike one.] Yeager ("Oure English,'", p. 47) cites this gloss as a characteristic example of Gower's use of marginalia to create a double voicing, one inside, the other (the Latin) looking in as if from a different world. The story may be found in Augustine, De Civ. Dei 4.4 and Cicero, De repubblica 3.14. In Gesta Romanorum 146, the pirate is named Diomede.

2393 art named "Emperour." Chaucer's Manciple offers the idea in miniature as he describes the relativity of words and deeds, using Alexander and the Outlaw as his example (CT IX[H]223-39).

2438 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic secundum gesta Regis Alexandri de guerris illicitis ponit Confessor exemplum, dicens quod quamuis Alexander sua potencia tocius mundi victor sibi subiugarat imperium, ipse tandem mortis victoria subiugatus cunctipotentis sentenciam euadere non potuit. [Here according to the deeds of King Alexander, the Confessor presents an instructive example, saying that although Alexander by his power subjugated to himself an empire as the conqueror of the whole world, he was nonetheless subjugated by the victory of death, and was not able to avoid the sentence of the Almighty.]

2461 Thus was he slain that whilom slowh. Alexander is not a victim of chance but of his own choices. He epitomizes the unwise king tyrannized by his own will. See Peck (1978, pp. 87-89) on Gower's views on will, choice, and fate. See, especially, VC 2.4.203-08 on this matter.

2484 Withoute cause resonable. For a balanced view of when to wage war but of the preferability of peace, see VC 5.13.961-76.

2490-2515 Gower's attack on the crusades reflects his general disaffection for clerical abuse. See Peck (Kingship and Common Profit, p. 89). Coleman (Medieval Readers, pp. 91-92 and pp. 300-01n88) sees Gower's lack of military ethic to be part of a "disappointment in England's chivalry," where chivalric romance leans toward complaint, and where anticrusade sentiments (e.g., CA 4.1608 ff.) echo "the opinions of the Lollards" (p. 301).

2547 ff. Latin marginalia: Facilitas venie occasionem prebet delinquendi. [Ease of lust offers occasion for sinning.]

2580-98 "The law of nature is here defined by the behaviour of animals" (White, Nature, Sex, and Goodness, p. 183). Compare 5.4917-31 and 3.2631-32, "where kinde may refer to impulse of an instinctive nature"; see also MO 4885-87 (White, p. 184n32). The point is that Nature does not give reason to human beings. That comes from God in conjunction with humankind's immortal soul. Compare 7.490-93. See also Baker ("Priesthood of Genius," p. 290) on Gower's condemnation of war as part of his affirmation of "kinde" and reason.

2588-89 Olsson (1982, p. 234) suggests that, for Gower, these lines show that a "lawe of kinde" as well as reason "should keep man from injuring others".

2597 honeste. Olsson (1982, p. 232) suggests that the term implies "a generic moral probity (honestum)" (compare 8.1994-97); Genius expressly uses the term here in his accommodation of natural law to reason. It refers to the relationships of shamefastness to reasonability. Compare Gower's use of the term in 7.5388 and 8.2026. See also the Latin marginal gloss at 7.4218.

2599 ff. Latin marginalia: Nota secundum Solinum contra homicidas de natura cuiusdam Auis faciem ad similitudinem humanam habentis, que cum de preda sua hominem juxta fluuium occiderit videritque in aqua similem sibi occisum, statim pre dolore moritur. [Note according to Solinus against homicides concerning the nature of a certain bird having a face like a human one, which, when it killed a man for its prey next to a river and saw in the water that he was similar to the one he had killed, immediately died for grief.]

2600-01 Solyns spekth of . . . fowhles. Compare MO 5029-40. The reference appears to be to Solinus' Collectanea Rerum Memorabilium, which describes strange lands, peoples, and other creatures of the world; but I have been unable to identify the specific passage. Much of Solinus is copied from Philip's Natural History, but I find no reference to such a bird there either. Perhaps he has in mind some form of vulture, with "a face of blod and bon / Lich to a man in resemblance" (3.2602-03) but the point is that the bird serves as a figure of remorse that is deep-seated within its nature, a kind of conscience.

2639-2717 Apparently Gower follows Benoît, Roman de Troie, lines 6519-6612, though the story also occurs in Dares, De Excidio Troiae Historia 16, and Guido, Historia Destructionis Troiae (Gest Hyst. 13.5225 ff.). The moral He mai noght failen of his mede / That hath merci (lines 2639-40) is Augustinian. See Yeager (Pax Poetica, pp. 105-06). The tale itself shows how to end war and stands in opposition to the foolish and fatal war-making of Alexander (see Peck, Kingship and Common Profit, p. 90).

2642 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic ponit Confessor exemplum de pietate contra homicidum in guerris habenda. Et narrat qualiter Achilles vna cum Thelapho filio suo contra Regem Mesee, qui tunc Theucer vocabatur, bellum inierunt; et cum Achilles dictum Regem in bello prostratum occidere voluisset, Thelaphus pietate motus ipsum clipeo suo cooperiens veniam pro Rege a patre postulauit: pro quo facto ipse Rex adhuc viuens Thelaphum Regni sui heredem libera voluntate constituit. [Here the Confessor presents an instructive example concerning maintaining a pitying [or pious] restraint against killing in war. And he tells how Achilles along with Thelaphus his son waged war against King Mesea who then was called Theucer; and when Achilles wanted to kill the said king who had fallen in the battle, Thelaphus, moved by pity [or piousness], covered him with his shield and begged mercy from his father on behalf of the king; for which deed the king, still living, willingly established Thelaphus as the heir to his kingdom.]

2703-06 Immoderate love is only partially successful in teaching benevolence. Nonetheless, "by nature man should be inclined to graciousness, trust, and a liberality modeled on the 'fre largesse' of Nature" (Olsson, "Natural Law," p. 246). In Books 1, 2, and 3 Genius "discovered a good in the 'lawe of kinde' independent of its power to offset the sins of malice" (p. 246); in Books 5, 6, and 8, he identifies a "reson" that is "independent of its power to remedy the sins of 'nature'" (p. 247).

2722 Tak pité and compassioun. Pity is the fifth daughter of Patience, the remedy against homicide and wrath in general. See MO 13897-969, where Gower compares it to treacle, a remedy that cures the heart of poisonous swelling and the abscess of old rancor. On the troubled nature of this topic, especially during the machinations of the Merciless Parliament, see Galloway, "Literature of 1388."

JOHN GOWER, CONFESSIO AMANTIS, BOOK 3: TEXTUAL NOTES

Abbreviations: A = Bodleian Library MS Bodley 902 (SC 27573), fols. 2r-183r; B = Bodleian Library MS Bodley 294 (SC 2449), fols. 1r-197r; C = Oxford, Corpus Christi College MS 67, fols. 1r-209r; F = Bodleian Library MS Fairfax 3 (SC 3883; copy-text for this edition), fols. 2r-186r; J = Cambridge, St. John's College MS B.12 (34), fols. 1r-214r; Mac = G. C. Macaulay; S = Stafford, now Ellesmere 26, fols. 1r-169v; T = Cambridge, Trinity College MS R.3.2 (581), fols. 1r-147v.


446He. So in J, S, B, and Mac; F: His.

663 axeth. So in J, B, and Mac; F: axex.

847 ff. Latin marginalia, line 3: velut. F: velud. Mac's emendation.

858 gaderende. F: gadarende. Mac's emendation.

901 here. So in J and Mac; F: hire; B: her.

1174 wisshinge. So in C and B; F, A, and J: wihssinge. Mac adhers to F.

1503 loves. So in J, S, B, and Mac; F: loue.

1605 in such. Mac: such, as in B, despite F, S, A, J, and T.

1731 bot. So in F and J; Mac: but, as in S and B.

1771 thei. So in F, J, S, and B; Mac: they. So too in line 1812.

1866 Thurgh. So in S, B, and Mac; F: Thourgh; J: Thorouh.

1914 ferste. So in A, S, B, and Mac; F: ferst; J: firste.

1930 herd. So in F and S; A, J, B, and Mac: herde.

1968 Unto. So in J, S, B, and Mac; F: Vnto to.

2538 al. So in F, J, S, and B; Mac: all.

2252 ff. Latin marginalia, line 2: vniversi. So S and Mac; F and B: uniuerse.

2544 manslawte. So in F; J, S, and Mac: manslawhte; B: manslaughter.
 

 

 

 

        
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Confessio Amantis: Book 3

by: John Gower (Author) , Russell A. Peck (Editor) , Andrew Galloway (Translator)

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Incipit Liber Tercius

Ira suis paribus est par furiis Acherontis,
   Quo furor ad tempus nil pietatis habet.
Ira malencolicos animos perturbat, vt equo
   Iure sui pondus nulla statera tenet.
Omnibus in causis grauat Ira, set inter amantes
   Illa magis facili sorte grauamen agit:
Est vbi vir discors leuiterque repugnat amori,
   Sepe loco ludi fletus ad ora venit.
1

"If thou the vices lest to knowe,
Mi sone, it hath noght ben unknowe,
Fro ferst that men the swerdes grounde,
That ther nis on upon this grounde,
A vice forein fro the lawe,
Wherof that many a good felawe
Hath be distraght be sodein chance.
And yit to kinde no plesance
It doth, bot wher he most achieveth
His pourpos, most to kinde he grieveth,
As he which out of conscience
Is enemy to pacience
And is be name on of the sevene,
Which ofte hath set this world unevene,
And cleped is the cruel Ire,
Whos herte is everemore on fyre
To speke amis and to do bothe,
For his servantz ben evere wrothe."
   "Mi goode fader, tell me this:
What thing is Ire?"
      "Sone, it is
That in oure Englissh Wrathe is hote,
Which hath hise wordes ay so hote,
That all a mannes pacience
Is fyred of the violence.
For he with him hath evere fyve
Servantz that helpen him to stryve:
The ferst of hem Malencolie
Is cleped, which in compaignie
An hundred times in an houre
Wol as an angri beste loure,
And no man wot the cause why.
Mi sone, schrif thee now forthi:
Hast thou be Malencolien?"
   "Ye, fader, be Seint Julien,
Bot I untrewe wordes use,
I mai me noght therof excuse.
And al makth love, wel I wot,
Of which myn herte is evere hot,
So that I brenne as doth a glede
For Wrathe that I mai noght spede.
And thus fulofte a day for noght
Save onlich of myn oghne thoght
I am so with miselven wroth,
That how so that the game goth
With othre men, I am noght glad;
Bot I am wel the more unglad,
For that is othre mennes game
It torneth me to pure grame.
Thus am I with miself oppressed
Of thoght, the which I have impressed,
That al wakende I dreme and meete
That I with hire alone meete
And preie hire of som good ansuere.
Bot for sche wol noght gladly swere,
Sche seith me nay withouten oth;
And thus wexe I withinne wroth,
That outward I am al affraied,
And so distempred and esmaied,
A thousand times on a day
Ther souneth in myn eres 'Nay,'
The which sche seide me tofore.
Thus be my wittes as forlore;
And namely whan I beginne
To rekne with miself withinne
How many yeres ben agon,
Siththe I have trewly loved on
And nevere tok of other hede,
And evere aliche fer to spede
I am, the more I with hir dele,
So that myn happ and al myn hele
Me thenkth is ay the leng the ferre,
That bringth my gladschip out of herre,
Wherof my wittes ben empeired,
And I, as who seith, al despeired.
For finaly, whan that I muse
And thenke how sche me wol refuse,
I am with anger so bestad,
For al this world mihte I be glad:
And for the while that it lasteth
Al up so doun my joie it casteth,
And ay the furthere that I be,
Whan I ne may my ladi se,
The more I am redy to wraththe,
That for the touchinge of a laththe
Or for the torninge of a stree
I wode as doth the wylde se,
And am so malencolious,
That ther nys servant in myn hous
Ne non of tho that ben aboute,
That ech of hem ne stant in doute
And wenen that I scholde rave
For anger that thei se me have.
And so thei wondre more and lasse,
Til that thei sen it overpasse.
Bot, fader, if it so betide,
That I aproche at eny tide
The place wher my ladi is,
And thanne that hire like ywiss
To speke a goodli word unto me,
For al the gold that is in Rome
Ne cowthe I after that be wroth,
Bot al myn anger overgoth;
So glad I am of the presence
Of hire, that I all offence
Forgete, as thogh it were noght,
So overgladed is my thoght.
And natheles, the soth to telle,
Ageinward if it so befelle
That I at thilke time sihe
On me that sche miscaste hire yhe,
Or that sche liste noght to loke,
And I therof good hiede toke,
Anon into my ferste astat
I torne, and am withal so mat,
That evere it is aliche wicke.
And thus myn hand agein the pricke
I hurte and have do many day,
And go so forth as I go may,
Fulofte bitinge on my lippe,
And make unto miself a whippe
With which in many a chele and hete
Mi wofull herte is so tobete,
That all my wittes ben unsofte
And I am wroth, I not how ofte;
And al it is malencolie
Which groweth of the fantasie
Of love, that me wol noght loute.
So bere I forth an angri snoute
Ful manye times in a yer.
Bot, fader, now ye sitten hier
In loves stede, I yow beseche
That som ensample ye me teche,
Wherof I mai miself appese."
   "Mi sone, for thin hertes ese
I schal fulfille thi preiere,
So that thou miht the betre lere
What mischief that this vice stereth,
Which in his anger noght forbereth,
Wherof that after him forthenketh,
Whan he is sobre and that he thenketh
Upon the folie of his dede;
And of this point a tale I rede.

[The Tale of Canace and Machaire]

   Ther was a king which Eolus
Was hote, and it befell him thus,
That he tuo children hadde faire.
The sone cleped was Machaire,
The dowhter ek Canace hihte.
Be daie bothe and ek be nyhte,
Whil thei be yonge, of comun wone
In chambre thei togedre wone,
And as thei scholden pleide hem ofte,
Til thei be growen up alofte
Into the youthe of lusti age,
Whan kinde assaileth the corage
With love and doth him for to bowe,
That he no reson can allowe,
Bot halt the lawes of nature.
For whom that love hath under cure,
As he is blind himself, riht so
He makth his client blind also.
In such manere as I you telle
As thei al day togedre duelle,
This brother mihte it noght asterte
That he with al his hole herte
His love upon his soster caste.
And so it fell hem ate laste,
That this Machaire with Canace
Whan thei were in a privé place,
Cupide bad hem ferst to kesse,
And after sche which is maistresse
In kinde and techeth every lif
Withoute lawe positif,
Of which sche takth no maner charge,
Bot kepth hire lawes al at large,
Nature, tok hem into lore
And tawht hem so, that overmore
Sche hath hem in such wise daunted,
That thei were, as who seith, enchaunted.
And as the blinde another ledeth
And til thei falle nothing dredeth,
Riht so thei hadde non insihte;
Bot as the bridd which wole alihte
And seth the mete and noght the net,
Which in deceipte of him is set,
This yonge folk no peril sihe,
Bot that was likinge in here yhe,
So that thei felle upon the chance
Wher witt hath lore his remembrance.
So longe thei togedre assemble,
The wombe aros, and sche gan tremble,
And hield hire in hire chambre clos
For drede it scholde be disclos
And come to hire fader ere.
Wherof the sone hadde also fere,
And feigneth cause for to ryde;
For longe dorste he noght abyde,
In aunter if men wolde sein
That he his soster hath forlein.
For yit sche hadde it noght beknowe,
Whos was the child at thilke throwe.
Machaire goth, Canace abit,
The which was noght delivered yit,
Bot riht sone after that sche was.
Now lest and herkne a woful cas.
The sothe, which mai noght ben hid,
Was ate laste knowe and kid
Unto the king, how that it stod.
And whan that he it understod,
Anon into malencolie,
As thogh it were a frenesie,
He fell, as he which nothing cowthe
How maistrefull love is in yowthe.
And for he was to love strange,
He wolde noght his herte change
To be benigne and favorable
To love, bot unmerciable
Betwen the wawe of wod and wroth
Into his dowhtres chambre he goth,
And sih the child was late bore,
Wherof he hath hise othes swore
That sche it schal ful sore abye.
And sche began merci to crie,
Upon hire bare knes and preide,
And to hire fader thus sche seide:
'Ha mercy! Fader, thenk I am
Thi child, and of thi blod I cam.
That I misdede yowthe it made,
And in the flodes bad me wade,
Wher that I sih no peril tho.
Bot now it is befalle so,
Merci, my fader, do no wreche!'
And with that word sche loste speche
And fell doun swounende at his fot,
As sche for sorwe nedes mot.
Bot his horrible crualté
Ther mihte attempre no pité.
Out of hire chambre forth he wente
Al full of wraththe in his entente,
And tok the conseil in his herte
That sche schal noght the deth asterte,
As he which malencolien
Of pacience hath no lien,
Wherof his wraththe he mai restreigne.
And in this wilde wode peine,
Whanne al his resoun was untame,
A kniht he clepeth be his name,
And tok him as be weie of sonde
A naked swerd to bere on honde,
And seide him that he scholde go
And telle unto his dowhter so
In the manere as he him bad,
How sche that scharpe swerdes blad
Receive scholde and do withal
So as sche wot wherto it schal.
Forth in message goth this kniht
Unto this wofull yonge wiht,
This scharpe swerd to hire he tok.
Wherof that al hire bodi qwok,
For wel sche wiste what it mente,
And that it was to thilke entente
That sche hireselven scholde slee.
And to the kniht sche seide: 'Yee,
Now that I wot my fadres wille,
That I schal in this wise spille,
I wole obeie me therto,
And as he wole it schal be do.
Bot now this thing mai be non other,
I wole a lettre unto mi brother,
So as my fieble hand may wryte,
With al my wofull herte endite.'
Sche tok a penne on honde tho,
Fro point to point and al the wo,
Als ferforth as hireself it wot,
Unto hire dedly frend sche wrot,
And tolde how that hire fader grace
Sche mihte for nothing pourchace.
And over that, as thou schalt hiere,
Sche wrot and seide in this manere:
'O thou my sorwe and my gladnesse,
O thou myn hele and my siknesse,
O my wanhope and al my trust,
O my desese and al my lust,
O thou my wele, o thou my wo,
O thou my frend, o thou my fo,
O thou my love, o thou myn hate,
For thee mot I be ded algate.
Thilke ende may I noght asterte,
And yit with al myn hole herte,
Whil that me lasteth eny breth,
I wol thee love into my deth.
Bot of o thing I schal thee preie,
If that my litel sone deie,
Let him be beried in my grave
Beside me, so schalt thou have
Upon ous bothe remembrance.
For thus it stant of my grevance.
Now at this time, as thou schalt wite,
With teres and with enke write
This lettre I have in cares colde:
In my riht hond my penne I holde,
And in my left the swerd I kepe,
And in my barm ther lith to wepe
Thi child and myn, which sobbeth faste.
Now am I come unto my laste.
Farewel, for I schal sone deie,
And thenk how I thi love abeie.'
The pomel of the swerd to grounde
Sche sette, and with the point a wounde
Thurghout hire herte anon sche made,
And forthwith that al pale and fade
Sche fell doun ded fro ther sche stod.
The child lay bathende in hire blod
Out rolled fro the moder barm,
And for the blod was hot and warm,
He basketh him aboute thrinne.
Ther was no bote for to winne,
For he, which can no pité knowe,
The king cam in the same throwe,
And sih how that his dowhter dieth
And how this babe al blody crieth;
Bot al that mihte him noght suffise,
That he ne bad to do juise
Upon the child, and bere him oute,
And seche in the forest aboute
Som wilde place, what it were,
To caste him out of honde there,
So that som beste him mai devoure,
Where as no man him schal socoure.
Al that he bad was don in dede.
Ha, who herde evere singe or rede
Of such a thing as that was do?
Bot he which ladde his wraththe so
Hath knowe of love bot a lite.
Bot for al that he was to wyte,
Thurgh his sodein malencolie
To do so gret a felonie.
   Forthi, my sone, how so it stonde,
Be this cas thou miht understonde
That if thou evere in cause of love
Schalt deme, and thou be so above
That thou miht lede it at thi wille,
Let nevere thurgh thi Wraththe spille
Which every kinde scholde save.
For it sit every man to have
Reward to love and to his miht,
Agein whos strengthe mai no wiht.
And siththe an herte is so constreigned,
The reddour oghte be restreigned
To him that mai no bet aweie,
Whan he mot to nature obeie.
For it is seid thus overal,
That nedes mot that nede schal
Of that a lif doth after kinde,
Wherof he mai no bote finde
What nature hath set in hir lawe
Ther mai no mannes miht withdrawe,
And who that worcheth theragein,
Fulofte time it hath be sein,
Ther hath befalle gret vengance,
Wherof I finde a remembrance.

[The Tale of Tiresias and the Snakes]

   Ovide after the time tho
Tolde an ensample and seide so,
How that whilom Tiresias,
As he walkende goth per cas,
Upon an hih montaine he sih
Tuo serpentz in his weie nyh,
And thei, so as nature hem tawhte,
Assembled were, and he tho cawhte
A yerde which he bar on honde,
And thoghte that he wolde fonde
To letten hem, and smot hem bothe:
Wherof the goddes weren wrothe;
And for he hath destourbed kinde
And was so to nature unkinde,
Unkindeliche he was transformed,
That he which erst a man was formed
Into a womman was forschape.
That was to him an angri jape;
Bot for that he with Angre wroghte,
His Angres angreliche he boghte.
   Lo thus, my sone, Ovide hath write,
Wherof thou miht be reson wite,
More is a man than such a beste.
So mihte it nevere ben honeste
A man to wraththen him to sore
Of that another doth the lore
Of kinde, in which is no malice,
Bot only that it is a vice.
And thogh a man be resonable,
Yit after kinde he is menable
To love, wher he wole or non.
Thenk thou, my sone, therupon
And do Malencolie aweie;
For love hath evere his lust to pleie,
As he which wolde no lif grieve."
   "Mi fader, that I mai wel lieve;
Al that ye tellen it is skile.
Let every man love as he wile,
Be so it be noght my ladi,
For I schal noght be wroth therby.
Bot that I wraththe and fare amis,
Alone upon miself it is,
That I with bothe love and kinde
Am so bestad, that I can finde
No weie how I it mai asterte.
Which stant upon myn oghne herte
And toucheth to non other lif,
Save only to that swete wif
For whom, bot if it be amended,
Mi glade daies ben despended,
That I miself schal noght forbere
The Wraththe which that I now bere,
For therof is non other leche.
Now axeth forth, I yow beseche,
Of Wraththe if ther oght elles is,
Wherof to schryve."
      "Sone, yis."

Ira mouet litem, que lingue frena resoluens
   Laxa per infames currit vbique vias.
Rixarum nutrix quos educat ista loquaces,
   Hos Venus a latere linquit habere vagos.
Set pacienter agens taciturno qui celet ore,
   Vincit, et optati carpit amoris iter.
2

   "Of Wraththe the secounde is Cheste,
Which hath the wyndes of tempeste
To kepe, and many a sodein blast
He bloweth, wherof ben agast
Thei that desiren pes and reste.
He is that ilke ungoodlieste
Which many a lusti love hath twinned;
For he berth evere his mowth unpinned,
So that his lippes ben unloke
And his corage is al tobroke,
That everything which he can telle,
It springeth up as doth a welle,
Which mai non of his stremes hyde,
Bot renneth out on every syde.
So buillen up the foule sawes
That Cheste wot of his felawes.
For as a sive kepeth ale,
Riht so can Cheste kepe a tale.
Al that he wot he wol desclose,
And speke er eny man oppose.
As a cité withoute wal,
Wher men mai gon out overal
Withouten eny resistence,
So with his croked eloquence
He spekth al that he wot withinne;
Wherof men lese mor than winne,
For ofte time of his chidinge
He bringth to house such tidinge,
That makth werre ate beddeshed.
He is the levein of the bred,
Which soureth al the past aboute.
Men oghte wel such on to doute,
For evere his bowe is redi bent,
And whom he hit I telle him schent,
If he mai perce him with his tunge.
And ek so lowde his belle is runge,
That of the noise and of the soun
Men feeren hem in al the toun
Welmore than thei don of thonder.
For that is cause of more wonder;
For with the wyndes whiche he bloweth
Fulofte sythe he overthroweth
The cites and the policie,
That I have herd the poeple crie,
And echon seide in his degré,
'Ha wicke tunge, wo thee be!'
For men sein that the harde bon,
Althogh himselven have non,
A tunge brekth it al to pieces.
He hath so manye sondri spieces
Of vice, that I mai noght wel
Descrive hem be a thousendel.
Bot whan that he to Cheste falleth,
Ful many a wonder thing befalleth,
For he ne can nothing forbere.
   "Now tell me, sone, thin ansuere,
If it hath evere so betidd,
That thou at eny time hast chidd
Toward thi love."
       "Fader, nay;
Such Cheste yit unto this day
Ne made I nevere, God forbede:
For er I sunge such a crede,
I hadde levere to be lewed;
For thanne were I al beschrewed
And worthi to be put abak
With al the sorwe upon my bak
That eny man ordeigne cowthe.
Bot I spak nevere yit be mowthe
That unto Cheste mihte touche,
And that I durste riht wel vouche
Upon hirself as for witnesse;
For I wot, of hir gentilesse
That sche me wolde wel excuse,
That I no suche thinges use.
And if it scholde so betide
That I algates moste chide,
It myhte noght be to my love.
For so yit was I nevere above,
For al this wyde world to winne
That I dorste eny word beginne,
Be which sche mihte have ben amoeved
And I of Cheste also reproeved.
Bot rathere, if it mihte hir like,
The beste wordes wolde I pike
Whiche I cowthe in myn herte chese,
And serve hem forth instede of chese,
For that is helplich to defie;
And so wolde I my wordes plie,
That mihten Wraththe and Cheste avale
With tellinge of my softe tale.
Thus dar I make a foreward,
That nevere unto my ladiward
Yit spak I word in such a wise,
Wherof that Cheste scholde arise.
This seie I noght, that I fulofte
Ne have, whanne I spak most softe,
Per cas seid more thanne ynowh;
Bot so wel halt no man the plowh
That he ne balketh otherwhile,
Ne so wel can no man affile
His tunge, that som time in rape
Him mai som liht word overscape,
And yit ne meneth he no Cheste.
Bot that I have agein hir heste
Fulofte spoke, I am beknowe;
And how my will is, that ye knowe.
For whan my time comth aboute,
That I dar speke and seie al oute
Mi longe love, of which sche wot
That evere in on aliche hot
Me grieveth, thanne al my desese
I telle, and though it hir desplese,
I speke it forth and noght ne leve.
And thogh it be beside hire leve,
I hope and trowe natheles
That I do noght agein the pes;
For thogh I telle hire al my thoght,
Sche wot wel that I chyde noght.
Men mai the hihe God beseche,
And He wol hiere a mannes speche
And be noght wroth of that he seith;
So gifth it me the more feith
And makth me hardi, soth to seie,
That I dar wel the betre preie
Mi ladi, which a womman is.
For thogh I telle hire that or this
Of love, which me grieveth sore,
Hire oghte noght be wroth the more,
For I withoute noise or cri
Mi pleignte make al buxomly
To puten alle wraththe away.
Thus dar I seie unto this day
Of Cheste in ernest or in game
Mi ladi schal me nothing blame.
   Bot ofte time it hath betidd
That with miselven I have chidd,
That no man couthe betre chide.
And that hath ben at every tide
Whanne I cam to miself alone.
For thanne I made a privé mone,
And every tale by and by,
Which as I spak to my ladi,
I thenke and peise in my balance
And drawe into my remembrance;
And thanne, if that I finde a lak
Of eny word that I mispak,
Which was to moche in eny wise,
Anon my wittes I despise
And make a chidinge in myn herte,
That eny word me scholde asterte
Which as I scholde have holden inne.
And so forth after I beginne
And loke if ther was elles oght
To speke, and I ne spak it noght.
And thanne, if I mai seche and finde
That eny word be left behinde,
Which as I scholde more have spoke,
I wolde upon miself be wroke,
And chyde with miselven so
That al my wit is overgo.
For no man mai his time lore
Recovere, and thus I am therfore
So overwroth in al my thoght,
That I myself chide al to noght.
Thus for to moche or for to lite
Fulofte I am miself to wyte.
Bot al that mai me noght availe,
With Cheste thogh I me travaile.
Bot oule on stock and stock on oule:
The more that a man defoule,
Men witen wel which hath the werse;
And so to me nys worth a kerse,
Bot torneth on myn oghne hed,
Thogh I, til that I were ded,
Wolde evere chyde in such a wise
Of love as I to you devise.
Bot, fader, now ye have al herd
In this manere how I have ferd
Of Cheste and of dissencioun,
Gif me youre absolucioun."
   "Mi sone, if that thou wistest al,
What Cheste doth in special
To love and to his welwillinge,
Thou woldest flen his knowlechinge
And lerne to be debonaire.
For who that most can speke faire
Is most acordende unto love:
Fair speche hath ofte brought above
Ful many a man, as it is knowe,
Which elles scholde have be riht lowe
And failed mochel of his wille.
Forthi hold thou thi tunge stille
And let thi witt thi wille areste,
So that thou falle noght in Cheste,
Which is the source of gret destance.
And tak into thi remembrance
If thou miht gete pacience,
Which is the leche of alle offence,
As tellen ous these olde wise.
For whan noght elles mai suffise
Be strengthe ne be mannes wit,
Than pacience it oversit
And overcomth it ate laste;
Bot he mai nevere longe laste,
Which wol noght bowe er that he breke.
Tak hiede, sone, of that I speke."
   "Mi fader, of your goodli speche
And of the witt which ye me teche
I thonke you with al myn herte.
For that world schal me nevere asterte,
That I ne schal your wordes holde,
Of pacience as ye me tolde,
Als ferforth as myn herte thenketh,
And of my wraththe it me forthenketh.
Bot, fader, if ye forthwithal
Som good ensample in special
Me wolden telle of som cronique,
It scholde wel myn herte like
Of pacience for to hiere,
So that I mihte in mi matiere
The more unto my love obeie
And puten mi desese aweie."

[The Patience of Socrates]

   "Mi sone, a man to beie him pes
Behoveth soffre as Socrates
Ensample lefte, which is write.
And for thou schalt the sothe wite
Of this ensample what I mene,
Although it be now litel sene
Among the men thilke evidence,
Yit he was upon pacience
So sett, that he himself assaie
In thing which mihte him most mispaie
Desireth, and a wickid wif
He weddeth, which in sorwe and strif
Agein his ese was contraire.
Bot he spak evere softe and faire,
Til it befell, as it is told,
In wynter, whan the dai is cold,
This wif was fro the welle come,
Wher that a pot with water nome
Sche hath, and broghte it into house,
And sih how that hire seli spouse
Was sett and loked on a bok
Nyh to the fyr, as he which tok
His ese for a man of age.
And sche began the wode rage,
And axeth him what devel he thoghte,
And bar on hond that him ne roghte
What labour that sche toke on honde,
And seith that such an housebonde
Was to a wif noght worth a stre.
He seide nowther 'nay' ne 'ye,'
Bot hield him stille and let hire chyde;
And sche, which mai hirself noght hyde,
Began withinne for to swelle,
And that sche broghte in fro the welle,
The waterpot sche hente alofte
And bad him speke, and he al softe
Sat stille and noght a word ansuerde.
And sche was wroth that he so ferde,
And axeth him if he be ded.
And al the water on his hed
Sche pourede oute and bad awake.
Bot he, which wolde noght forsake
His pacience, thanne spak,
And seide how that he fond no lak
In nothing which sche hadde do.
For it was wynter time tho,
And wynter, as be weie of kinde
Which stormy is, as men it finde,
Ferst makth the wyndes for to blowe,
And after that withinne a throwe
He reyneth and the watergates
Undoth; 'And thus my wif algates,
Which is with reson wel besein,
Hath mad me bothe wynd and rein
After the sesoun of the yer.'
And thanne he sette him nerr the fer,
And as he mihte hise clothes dreide,
That he no more o word ne seide;
Wherof he gat him somdel reste,
For that him thoghte was the beste.
   I not if thilke ensample yit
Accordeth with a mannes wit,
To soffre as Socrates tho dede:
And if it falle in eny stede
A man to lese so his galle,
Him oghte among the wommen alle
In loves court be juggement
The name bere of Pacient,
To give ensample to the goode
Of pacience how that it stode,
That othre men it mihte knowe.
And, sone, if thou at eny throwe
Be tempted, agein Pacience,
Tak hiede upon this evidence;
It schal per cas thee lasse grieve."
   "Mi fader, so as I believe,
Of that schal be no maner nede,
For I wol take so good hiede,
That er I falle in such assai,
I thenke eschuie it, if I mai.
Bot if ther be oght elles more
Wherof I mihte take lore,
I preie you, so as I dar,
Now telleth, that I mai be war,
Some other tale in this matiere."
   "Sone, it is evere good to lere
Wherof thou miht thi word restreigne,
Er that thou falle in eny peine.
For who that can no conseil hyde,
He mai noght faile of wo beside,
Which schal befalle er he it wite,
As I finde in the bokes write.

[Of Jupiter, Juno, and Tiresias]

   Yit cam ther nevere good of strif,
To seche in all a mannes lif.
Thogh it beginne on pure game,
Fulofte it torneth into grame
And doth grevance upon som side.
Wherof the grete clerk Ovide
After the lawe which was tho
Of Jupiter and of Juno
Makth in his bokes mencioun
How thei felle at dissencioun
In manere as it were a borde,
As thei begunne for to worde
Among hemself in priveté.
And that was upon this degree,
Which of the tuo more amorous is,
Or man or wif? And upon this
Thei mihten noght acorde in on,
And toke a jugge therupon,
Which cleped is Tiresias,
And bede him demen in the cas;
And he withoute avisement
Agein Juno gaf juggement.
This goddesse upon his ansuere
Was wroth and wolde noght forbere,
Bot tok awey foreveremo
The liht fro bothe hise yhen tuo.
Whan Jupiter this harm hath sein,
An other bienfait theragein
He gaf, and such a grace him doth,
That for he wiste he seide soth,
A sothseiere he was forevere.
Bot yit that other were levere,
Have had the lokinge of his yhe,
Than of his word the prophecie.
Bot how so that the sothe wente,
Strif was the cause of that he hente
So gret a peine bodily.
   Mi sone, be thou war ther by,
And hold thi tunge stille clos.
For who that hath his word desclos
Er that he wite what he mene,
He is fulofte nyh his tene
And lest ful many time grace,
Wher that he wolde his thonk pourchace.
And over this, my sone diere,
Of othre men, if thou miht hiere
In priveté what thei have wroght,
Hold conseil and descoevere it noght,
For Cheste can no conseil hele,
Or be it wo or be it wele.
And tak a tale into thi mynde,
The which of olde ensample I finde.

[The Tale of Phebus and Cornide]

   Phebus, which makth the daies lihte,
A love he hadde, which tho hihte
Cornide, whom aboven alle
He pleseth. Bot what schal befalle
Of love ther is no man knoweth,
Bot as fortune hire happes throweth.
So it befell upon a chaunce,
A yong kniht tok hire aqueintance
And hadde of hire al that he wolde.
Bot a fals bridd, which sche hath holde
And kept in chambre of pure yowthe,
Discoevereth all that evere he cowthe.
This briddes name was as tho
Corvus, the which was thanne also
Welmore whyt than eny swan,
And he (that schrewe) al that he can
Of his ladi to Phebus seide.
And he for wraththe his swerd outbreide,
With which Cornide anon he slowh.
Bot after him was wo ynowh,
And tok a full gret repentance,
Wherof in tokne and remembrance
Of hem whiche usen wicke speche,
Upon this bridd he tok this wreche,
That ther he was snow whyt tofore,
Evere afterward colblak therfore
He was transformed, as it scheweth,
And many a man yit him beschreweth
And clepen him into this day
A raven, be whom yit men mai
Take evidence, whan he crieth,
That som mishapp it signefieth.
Be war therfore and sei the beste,
If thou wolt be thiself in reste,
Mi goode sone, as I thee rede.

[Jupiter and Laar]

   For in another place I rede
Of thilke nimphe which Laar hihte.
For sche the priveté be nyhte,
How Jupiter lay be Jutorne,
Hath told, god made hire overtorne.
Hire tunge he kutte, and into helle
Forevere he sende hir for to duelle,
As sche that was noght worthi hiere
To ben of love a chamberere,
For sche no conseil cowthe hele.
And suche adaies be now fele
In loves court, as it is seid,
That lete here tunges gon unteid.

Mi sone, be thou non of tho,
To jangle and telle tales so,
And namely that thou ne chyde,
For Cheste can no conseil hide,
For Wraththe seide nevere wel."
   "Mi fader, soth is everydel
That ye me teche, and I wol holde
The reule to which I am holde,
To fle the Cheste, as ye me bidde,
For wel is him that nevere chidde.
Now tell me forth if ther be more
As touchende unto Wraththes lore."

Demonis est odium quasi Scriba, cui dabit Ira
   Materiam scripti cordi ad antra sui.
Non laxabit amor odii quem frena restringunt,
   Nec secreta sui iuris adire sinit.
3

"Of Wraththe yit ther is another,
Which is to Cheste his oghne brother,
And is be name cleped Hate,
That soffreth noght withinne his gate
That ther come owther love or pes,
For he wol make no reles
Of no debat which is befalle.
Now spek, if thou art on of alle,
That with this vice hast ben withholde."
   "As yit for oght that ye me tolde,
Mi fader, I not what it is."
"In good feith, sone, I trowe yis."
   "Mi fader, nay, bot ye me lere."
"Now lest, my sone, and thou schalt here.
Hate is a wraththe noght schewende,
Bot of long time gaderende,
And duelleth in the herte loken,
Til he se time to be wroken.
And thanne he scheweth his tempeste
Mor sodein than the wilde beste,
Which wot nothing what merci is.
Mi sone, art thou knowende of this?"
   "Mi goode fader, as I wene,
Now wot I somdel what ye mene.
Bot I dar saufly make an oth,
Mi ladi was me nevere loth.
I wol noght swere, natheles,
That I of hate am gulteles;
For whanne I to my ladi plie
Fro dai to dai and merci crie,
And sche no merci on me leith
Bot schorte wordes to me seith,
Thogh I my ladi love algate,
Tho wordes moste I nedes hate,
And wolde thei were al despent,
Or so ferr oute of londe went
That I nevere after scholde hem hiere.
And yit love I my ladi diere.
Thus is ther Hate, as ye mai se
Betwen my ladi word and me;
The word I hate and hire I love,
What so me schal betide of love.
   Bot forthere mor I wol me schryve,
That I have hated al my lyve
These janglers, whiche of here Envie
Ben evere redi for to lie.
For with here fals compassement
Fuloften thei have mad me schent
And hindred me fulofte time,
Whan thei no cause wisten bi me,
Bot onliche of here oghne thoght.
And thus fuloften have I boght
The lie, and drank noght of the wyn.
I wolde here happ were such as myn.
For how so that I be now schrive,
To hem ne mai I noght forgive,
Til that I se hem at debat
With love, and thanne myn astat
Thei mihten be here oghne deme,
And loke how wel it scholde hem qweme
To hindre a man that loveth sore.
And thus I hate hem everemore,
Til love on hem wol don his wreche.
For that schal I alway beseche
Unto the mihti Cupido,
That he so mochel wolde do,
So as he is of love a godd,
To smyte hem with the same rodd
With which I am of love smite;
So that thei mihten knowe and wite
How hindringe is a wofull peine
To him that love wolde atteigne.
Thus evere on hem I wayte and hope,
Til I mai sen hem lepe a lope,
And halten on the same sor
Which I do now: for overmor
I wolde thanne do my myht
So for to stonden in here lyht,
That thei ne scholden finde a weie
To that thei wolde, bot aweie
I wolde hem putte out of the stede
Fro love, riht as thei me dede
With that thei speke of me be mowthe.
So wolde I do, if that I cowthe,
Of hem, and this, so God me save,
Is al the hate that I have,
Toward these janglers everydiel;
I wolde alle othre ferde wel.
Thus have I, fader, said mi wille;
Say ye now forth, for I am stille."
   "Mi sone, of that thou hast me said
I holde me noght fulli paid.
That thou wolt haten eny man,
To that acorden I ne can,
Thogh he have hindred thee tofore.
Bot this I telle thee therfore,
Thou miht upon my beneicoun
Wel haten the condicioun
Of tho janglers, as thou me toldest,
Bot furthermor, of that thou woldest
Hem hindre in eny other wise,
Such Hate is evere to despise.
Forthi, mi sone, I wol thee rede,
That thou drawe in be frendlihede
That thou ne miht noght do be hate;
So miht thou gete love algate
And sette thee, my sone, in reste,
For thou schalt finde it for the beste.
And over this, so as I dar,
I rede that thou be riht war
Of othre mennes hate aboute
Which every wysman scholde doute.
For Hate is evere upon await,
And as the fisshere on his bait
Sleth, whan he seth the fisshes faste,
So, whan he seth time ate laste,
That he mai worche another wo,
Schal no man tornen him therfro,
That Hate nyle his felonie
Fulfille and feigne compaignie
Yit natheles, for Falssemblant
Is toward him of covenant
Withholde, so that under bothe
The privé wraththe can him clothe,
That he schal seme of gret believe.
Bot war thee wel that thou ne lieve
Al that thou sest tofore thin yhe,
So as the Gregois whilom syhe.
The bok of Troie whoso rede,
Ther mai he finde ensample in dede.

[The Tale of King Namplus and the Greeks]

   Sone after the destruccioun,
Whan Troie was al bete doun
And slain was Priamus the king,
The Gregois, whiche of al this thing
Ben cause, tornen hom agein.
Ther mai no man his happ withsein;
It hath be sen and felt fulofte,
The harde time after the softe.
Be see as thei forth homward wente,
A rage of gret tempeste hem hente;
Juno let bende hire parti bowe,
The sky wax derk, the wynd gan blowe,
The firy welkne gan to thondre,
As thogh the world scholde al to sondre;
Fro hevene out of the watergates
The reyni storm fell doun algates
And al here takel made unwelde,
That no man mihte himself bewelde.
Ther mai men hiere schipmen crie,
That stode in aunter for to die.
He that behinde sat to stiere
Mai noght the forestempne hiere;
The schip aros agein the wawes,
The lodesman hath lost his lawes,
The see bet in on every side.
Thei nysten what fortune abide,
Bot sette hem al in Goddes wille,
Wher He hem wolde save or spille.
And it fell thilke time thus:
Ther was a king, the which Namplus
Was hote, and he a sone hadde
At Troie, which the Gregois ladde,
As he that was mad prince of alle,
Til that fortune let him falle.
His name was Palamades,
Bot thurgh an hate natheles
Of some of hem his deth was cast
And he be tresoun overcast.
His fader, whan he herde it telle,
He swor, if evere his time felle,
He wolde him venge, if that he mihte,
And therto his avou behihte.
And thus this king thurgh privé hate
Abod upon await algate,
For he was noght of such emprise
To vengen him in open wise.
The fame, which goth wyde where,
Makth knowe how that the Gregois were
Homward with al the felaschipe
Fro Troie upon the see be schipe.
Namplus, whan he this understod,
And knew the tydes of the flod,
And sih the wynd blew to the lond,
A gret deceipte anon he fond
Of privé hate, as thou schalt hiere,
Wherof I telle al this matiere.
This king the weder gan beholde,
And wiste wel thei moten holde
Here cours endlong his marche riht,
And made upon the derke nyht
Of grete schydes and of blockes
Gret fyr agein the grete rockes
To schewe upon the helles hihe,
So that the flete of Grece it sihe.
And so it fell riht as he thoghte:
This flete, which an havene soghte,
The bryghte fyres sih aferr,
And thei hem drowen nerr and nerr,
And wende wel and understode
How al that fyr was mad for goode,
To schewe wher men scholde aryve,
And thiderward thei hasten blyve.
In Semblant, as men sein, is guile,
And that was proved thilke while;
The schip, which wende his helpe acroche,
Drof al to pieces on the roche,
And so ther deden ten or twelve;
Ther mihte no man helpe himselve,
For ther thei wenden deth ascape,
Withouten help here deth was schape.
Thus thei that comen ferst tofore
Upon the rockes be forlore,
Bot thurgh the noise and thurgh the cri
These othre were al war therby.
And whan the dai began to rowe,
Tho mihten thei the sothe knowe,
That wher thei wenden frendes finde,
Thei founden frenschipe al behinde.
The lond was thanne sone weyved,
Wher that thei hadden be deceived,
And toke hem to the hihe see;
Therto thei seiden alle yee,
Fro that dai forth and war thei were
Of that thei hadde assaied there.
   Mi sone, hierof thou miht avise
How fraude stant in many wise
Amonges hem that guile thenke;
Ther is no scrivein with his enke
Which half the fraude wryte can
That stant in such a maner man.
Forthi the wise men ne demen
The thinges after that thei semen,
Bot after that thei knowe and finde.
The mirour scheweth in his kinde
As he hadde al the world withinne,
And is in soth nothing therinne;
And so farth Hate for a throwe:
Til he a man hath overthrowe,
Schal no man knowe be his chere
Which is avant, ne which arere.
Forthi, mi sone, thenke on this."
   "Mi fader, so I wole ywiss;
And if ther more of Wraththe be,
Now axeth forth per charité,
As ye be youre bokes knowe,
And I the sothe schal beknowe."

Qui cohibere manum nequit, et sit spiritus eius
   Naribus, hic populo sepe timendus erit.
Sepius in luctum Venus et sua gaudia transfert,
   Cumque suis thalamis talis amicus adest.
Est amor amplexu non ictibus alliciendus,
   Frangit amicicias impetuosa manus.
4

"Mi sone, thou schalt understonde
That yit towardes Wraththe stonde
Of dedly vices othre tuo:
And for to telle here names so,
It is Contek and Homicide,
That ben to drede on every side.
Contek, so as the bokes sein,
Folhast hath to his chamberlein,
Be whos conseil al unavised
Is Pacience most despised,
Til Homicide with hem meete.
Fro Merci thei ben al unmeete,
And thus ben thei the worste of alle
Of hem whiche unto wraththe falle,
In dede bothe and ek in thoght.
For thei acompte here wraththe at noght,
Bot if ther be schedinge of blod;
And thus lich to a beste wod
Thei knowe noght the God of lif.
Be so the have or swerd or knif
Here dedly wraththe for to wreke,
Of pité list hem noght to speke;
Non other reson thei ne fonge,
Bot that thei ben of mihtes stronge.
Bot war hem wel in other place,
Where every man behoveth grace,
Bot ther I trowe it schal hem faile,
To whom no merci mihte availe,
Bot wroghten upon tiraundie,
That no pité ne mihte hem plie.
Now tell, my sone."
      "Fader, what?"
"If thou hast be coupable of that."
   "Mi fader, nay, Crist me forbiede!
I speke onliche as of the dede
Of which I nevere was coupable
Withoute cause resonable.
   Bot this is noght to mi matiere
Of schrifte. Why we sitten hiere?
For we ben sett to schryve of love,
As we begunne ferst above.
And natheles I am beknowe
That as touchende of loves throwe,
Whan I my wittes overwende,
Min hertes contek hath non ende,
Bot evere it stant upon debat
To gret desese of myn astat
As for the time that it lasteth.
For whan mi fortune overcasteth
Hire whiel and is to me so strange,
And that I se sche wol noght change,
Than caste I al the world aboute
And thenke hou I at home and oute
Have al my time in vein despended,
And se noght how to ben amended,
Bot rathere for to be empeired,
As he that is wel nyh despeired.
For I ne mai no thonk deserve,
And evere I love and evere I serve,
And evere I am aliche nerr.
Thus, for I stonde in such a wer,
I am, as who seith, out of herre;
And thus upon miself the werre
I bringe, and putte out alle pes,
That I fulofte in such a res
Am wery of myn oghne lif.
So that of Contek and of strif
I am beknowe and have ansuerd,
As ye, my fader, now have herd.
Min herte is wonderly begon
With conseil, wherof Witt is on,
Which hath Resoun in compaignie;
Agein the whiche stant partie
Will, which hath Hope of his acord,
And thus thei bringen up Descord.
Witt and Resoun conseilen ofte
That I myn herte scholde softe,
And that I scholde Will remue
And put him out of retenue,
Or elles holde him under fote.
For as thei sein, if that he mote
His oghne rewle have upon honde,
Ther schal no witt ben understonde.
Of Hope also thei tellen this,
That overal, wher that he is,
He set the herte in jeupartie
With wisshinge and with fantasie,
And is noght trewe of that he seith,
So that in him ther is no feith.
Thus with Reson and Wit avised
Is Will and Hope aldai despised.
Reson seith that I scholde leve
To love, wher ther is no leve
To spede, and Will seith theragein
That such an herte is to vilein,
Which dar noght love and, til he spede,
Let Hope serve at such a nede.
He seith ek, where an herte sit
Al hol governed upon Wit,
He hath this lyves lust forlore.
And thus myn herte is al totore
Of such a Contek as thei make.
Bot yit I mai noght Will forsake,
That he nys maister of my thoght,
Or that I spede, or spede noght."
   "Thou dost, my sone, agein the riht;
Bot love is of so gret a miht,
His lawe mai no man refuse,
So miht thou thee the betre excuse.
And natheles thou schalt be lerned
That Will scholde evere be governed
Of Reson more than of Kinde,
Wherof a tale write I finde.

[The Tale of Diogenes and Alexander]

   A philosophre of which men tolde
Ther was whilom be daies olde,
And Diogenes thanne he hihte.
So old he was that he ne mihte
The world travaile, and for the beste
He schop him for to take his reste,
And duelte at hom in such a wise,
That nyh his hous he let devise
Endlong upon an axeltré
To sette a tonne in such degré,
That he it mihte torne aboute;
Wherof on hed was taken oute,
For he therinne sitte scholde
And torne himself so as he wolde,
To take th'eir and se the hevene
And deme of the planetes sevene,
As he which cowthe mochel what.
And thus fulofte there he sat
To muse in his philosophie
Solein withoute compaignie:
So that upon a morwetyde,
As thing which scholde so betyde,
Whan he was set ther as him liste
To loke upon the sonne ariste,
Wherof the propretes he sih,
It fell ther cam ridende nyh
King Alisandre with a route.
And as he caste his yhe aboute,
He sih this tonne, and what it mente
He wolde wite, and thider sente
A knyht, be whom he mihte it knowe,
And he himself that ilke throwe
Abod, and hoveth there stille.
This kniht after the kinges wille
With spore made his hors to gon
And to the tonne he cam anon,
Wher that he fond a man of age,
And he him tolde the message,
Such as the king him hadde bede,
And axeth why in thilke stede
The tonne stod, and what it was.
And he, which understod the cas,
Sat stille and spak no word agein.
The kniht bad speke and seith, 'Vilein,
Thou schalt me telle, er that I go;
It is thi king which axeth so.'
'Mi king?' quod he, 'That were unriht.'
'What is he thanne?' seith the kniht,
'Is he thi man?' 'That seie I noght,'
Quod he, 'bot this I am bethoght,
Mi mannes man hou that he is.'
'Thou lyest, false cherl, ywiss,'
The kniht him seith, and was riht wroth,
And to the king agein he goth
And tolde him how this man ansuerde.
The king, whan he this tale herde,
Bad that thei scholden alle abyde,
For he himself wol thider ryde.
And whan he cam tofore the tonne,
He hath his tale thus begonne:
'Al heil,' he seith, 'what man art thou?'
Quod he, 'Such on as thou sest now.'
The king, which hadde wordes wise,
His age wolde noght despise,
Bot seith, 'Mi fader, I thee preie
That thou me wolt the cause seie,
How that I am thi mannes man.'
'Sire king,' quod he, 'and that I can,
If that thou wolt.' 'Yis,' seith the king.
Quod he, 'This is the sothe thing:
Sith I ferst resoun understod,
And knew what thing was evel and good,
The will which of my bodi moeveth,
Whos werkes that the God reproeveth,
I have restreigned everemore,
As him which stant under the lore
Of reson, whos soubgit he is,
So that he mai noght don amis.
And thus be weie of covenant
Will is my man and my servant,
And evere hath ben and evere schal.
And thi will is thi principal,
And hath the lordschipe of thi witt,
So that thou cowthest nevere yit
Take o dai reste of thi labour;
Bot for to ben a conquerour
Of worldes good, which mai noght laste,
Thou hiest evere aliche faste,
Wher thou no reson hast to winne.
And thus thi will is cause of sinne,
And is thi lord, to whom thou servest,
Wherof thou litel thonk deservest.'
The king of that he thus answerde
Was nothing wroth, bot whanne he herde
The hihe wisdom which he seide,
With goodly wordes this he preide,
That he him wolde telle his name.
'I am,' quod he, 'that ilke same,
That which men Diogenes calle.'
Tho was the king riht glad withalle,
For he hadde often herd tofore
What man he was, so that therfore
He seide, 'O wise Diogene,
Now schal thi grete witt be sene;
For thou schalt of my gifte have
What worldes thing that thou wolt crave.'
Quod he, 'Thanne hove out of mi sonne,
And let it schyne into mi tonne;
For thou benymst me thilke gifte,
Which lith noght in thi miht to schifte.
Non other good of thee me nedeth.'
   This king, whom every contré dredeth,
Lo, thus he was enformed there.
Wherof, my sone, thou miht lere
How that thi will schal noght be lieved,
Where it is noght of wit relieved.
And thou hast seid thiself er this
How that thi will thi maister is;
Thurgh which thin hertes thoght withinne
Is evere of Contek to beginne,
So that it is gretli to drede
That it non homicide brede.
For love is of a wonder kinde,
And hath hise wittes ofte blinde,
That thei fro mannes reson falle;
Bot whan that it is so befalle
That will schal the corage lede,
In loves cause it is to drede.
Wherof I finde ensample write,
Which is behovely for to wite.

[The Tale of Pyramus and Thisbe]

   I rede a tale, and telleth this:
The Cité which Semiramis
Enclosed hath with wall aboute,
Of worthi folk with many a route
Was enhabited here and there;
Among the whiche tuo ther were
Above alle othre noble and grete,
Dwellende tho withinne a strete
So nyh togedre, as it was sene,
That ther was nothing hem betwene,
Bot wow to wow and wall to wall.
This o lord hadde in special
A sone, a lusti bacheler,
In al the toun was non his pier.
That other hadde a dowhter eke,
In al the lond that for to seke
Men wisten non so faire as sche.
And fell so, as it scholde be,
This faire dowhter nyh this sone
As thei togedre thanne wone,
Cupide hath so the thinges schape,
That thei ne mihte his hand ascape,
That he his fyr on hem ne caste:
Wherof her herte he overcaste
To folwe thilke lore and suie
Which nevere man yit miht eschuie;
And that was love, as it is happed,
Which hath here hertes so betrapped,
That thei be alle weies seche
How that thei mihten winne a speche,
Here wofull peine for to lisse.
   Who loveth wel, it mai noght misse,
And namely whan ther be tuo
Of on acord, how so it go,
Bot if that thei som weie finde.
For love is evere of such a kinde
And hath his folk so wel affaited,
That howso that it be awaited,
Ther mai no man the pourpos lette.
And thus betwen hem tuo thei sette
An hole upon a wall to make,
Thurgh which thei have her conseil take
At alle times whan thei myhte.
This faire maiden Tisbee hihte,
And he whom that sche loveth hote
Was Piramus be name hote.
So longe here lecoun thei recorden,
Til ate laste thei acorden
Be nihtes time for to wende
Alone out fro the tounes ende,
Wher was a welle under a tree;
And who cam ferst, or sche or he,
He scholde stille there abide.
So it befell the nyhtes tide
This maiden, which desguised was,
Al prively the softe pas
Goth thurgh the large toun unknowe,
Til that sche cam withinne a throwe
Wher that sche liketh for to duelle,
At thilke unhappi freisshe welle,
Which was also the forest nyh
Wher sche comende a leoun syh
Into the feld to take his preie,
In haste and sche tho fledde aweie,
So as fortune scholde falle,
For feere and let hire wympel falle
Nyh to the welle upon th'erbage.
The leoun in his wilde rage
A beste, which that he fond oute,
Hath slain, and with his blodi snoute,
Whan he hath eten what he wolde,
To drynke of thilke stremes colde
Cam to the welle, where he fond
The wympel, which out of hire hond
Was falle, and he it hath todrawe,
Bebled aboute and al forgnawe;
And thanne he strawhte him for to drinke
Upon the freisshe welles brinke,
And after that out of the plein
He torneth to the wode agein.
And Tisbee dorste noght remue,
Bot as a bridd which were in mue
Withinne a buissh sche kepte hire clos
So stille that sche noght aros;
Unto hirself and pleigneth ay.
   And fell, whil that sche there lay,
This Piramus cam after sone
Unto the welle, and be the mone
He fond hire wimpel blodi there.
Cam nevere yit to mannes ere
Tidinge, ne to mannes sihte
Merveile, which so sore aflihte
A mannes herte, as it tho dede
To him, which in the same stede
With many a wofull compleignynge
Began his handes for to wringe,
As he which demeth sikerly
That sche be ded. And sodeinly
His swerd al nakid out he breide
In his folhaste, and thus he seide:
'I am cause of this felonie,
So it is resoun that I die,
As sche is ded because of me.'
And with that word upon his kne
He fell, and to the goddes alle
Up to the hevene he gan to calle,
And preide, sithen it was so
That he may noght his love as tho
Have in this world, that of her grace
He miht hire have in other place,
For hiere wolde he noght abide,
He seith. Bot as it schal betide,
The pomel of his swerd to grounde
He sette, and thurgh his herte a wounde
He made up to the bare hilte.
And in this wise himself he spilte
With his folhaste and deth he nam.
For sche withinne a while cam,
Wher he lai ded upon his knif.
So wofull yit was nevere lif
As Tisbee was, whan sche him sih.
Sche mihte noght o word on hih
Speke oute, for hire herte schette,
That of hir lif no pris sche sette,
Bot ded swounende doun sche fell.
Til after, whanne it so befell
That sche out of hire traunce awok,
With many a wofull pitous lok
Hire yhe alwei among sche caste
Upon hir love, and ate laste
Sche cawhte breth and seide thus:
'O thou which cleped art Venus,
Goddesse of love, and thou, Cupide,
Which loves cause hast for to guide,
I wot now wel that ye be blinde,
Of thilke unhapp which I now finde
Only betwen my love and me.
This Piramus, which hiere I se
Bledende, what hath he deserved?
For he youre heste hath kept and served,
And was yong and I bothe also.
Helas, why do ye with ous so?
Ye sette oure herte bothe afyre,
And maden ous such thing desire
Wherof that we no skile cowthe;
Bot thus oure freisshe lusti yowthe
Withoute joie is al despended,
Which thing mai nevere ben amended.
For as of me this wol I seie,
That me is levere for to deie
Than live after this sorghful day.'
And with this word, where as he lay,
Hire love in armes sche embraseth,
Hire oghne deth and so pourchaseth
That now sche wepte and nou sche kiste,
Til ate laste, er sche it wiste,
So gret a sorwe is to hire falle,
Which overgoth hire wittes alle.
As sche which mihte it noght asterte,
The swerdes point agein hire herte
Sche sette, and fell doun therupon,
Wherof that sche was ded anon.
And thus bothe on o swerd bledende
Thei weren founde ded liggende.

   Now thou, mi sone, hast herd this tale,
Bewar that of thin oghne bale
Thou be noght cause in thi folhaste,
And kep that thou thi witt ne waste
Upon thi thoght in aventure,
Wherof thi lyves forfeture
Mai falle. And if thou have so thoght
Er this, tell on and hyde it noght."
   "Mi fader, upon loves side
Mi conscience I woll noght hyde,
How that for love of pure wo
I have ben ofte moeved so,
That with my wisshes if I myhte,
A thousand times, I yow plyhte,
I hadde storven in a day;
And therof I me schryve may,
Though love fully me ne slowh,
Mi will to deie was ynowh,
So am I of my will coupable.
And yit is sche noght merciable,
Which mai me give lif and hele.
Bot that hir list noght with me dele,
I wot be whos conseil it is,
And him wolde I long time er this,
And yit I wolde and evere schal,
Slen and destruie in special.
The gold of nyne kinges londes
Ne scholde him save fro myn hondes,
In my pouer if that he were;
Bot yit him stant of me no fere
For noght that evere I can manace.
He is the hindrere of mi grace;
Til he be ded I mai noght spede.
So mot I nedes taken hiede
And schape how that he were aweie,
If I therto mai finde a weie."
   "Mi sone, tell me now forthi,
Which is that mortiel enemy
That thou manacest to be ded."
   "Mi fader, it is such a qwed,
That wher I come, he is tofore,
And doth so, that mi cause is lore."
"What is his name?"
      "It is Daunger,
Which is mi ladi consailer.
For I was nevere yit so slyh,
To come in eny place nyh
Wher as sche was be nyht or day,
That Danger ne was redy ay,
With whom for speche ne for mede
Yit mihte I nevere of love spede;
For evere this I finde soth,
Al that my ladi seith or doth
To me, Daunger schal make an ende,
And that makth al mi world miswende.
And evere I axe his help, bot he
Mai wel be cleped Sanz Pité;
For ay the more I to him bowe,
The lasse he wol my tale alowe.
He hath mi ladi so englued,
Sche wol noght that he be remued;
For evere he hangeth on hire seil,
And is so privé of conseil,
That evere whanne I have oght bede,
I finde Danger in hire stede
And myn ansuere of him I have;
Bot for no merci that I crave,
Of merci nevere a point I hadde.
I finde his ansuere ay so badde,
That werse mihte it nevere be.
And thus betwen Danger and me
Is evere werre til he dye.
Bot mihte I ben of such maistrie,
That I Danger hadde overcome,
With that were al my joie come.
Thus wolde I wonde for no sinne,
Ne yit for al this world to winne,
If that I mihte finde a sleyhte,
To leie al myn astat in weyhte;
I wolde him fro the court dissevere,
So that he come ageinward nevere.
Therfore I wisshe and wolde fain
That he were in som wise slain;
For while he stant in thilke place,
Ne gete I noght my ladi grace.
Thus hate I dedly thilke vice,
And wolde he stode in non office
In place wher mi ladi is;
For if he do, I wot wel this,
That owther schal he deie or I
Withinne a while; and noght forthi
On my ladi fulofte I muse,
How that sche mai hirself excuse,
If that I deie in such a plit.
Me thenkth sche mihte noght be qwyt
That sche ne were an homicide.
And if it scholde so betide,
As God forbiede it scholde be,
Be double weie it is pité.
For I, which al my will and witt
Have gove and served evere yit,
And thanne I scholde in such a wise
In rewardinge of my servise
Be ded, me thenkth it were a rowthe.
And furthermor, to telle trowthe,
Sche, that hath evere be wel named,
Were worthi thanne to be blamed
And of reson to ben appeled,
Whan with o word sche mihte have heled
A man, and soffreth him so deie.
Ha, who sawh evere such a weie?
Ha, who sawh evere in such destresse -
Withoute pité gentilesse,
Withoute mercy wommanhede,
That wol so quyte a man his mede,
Which evere hath be to love trewe?
Mi goode fader, if ye rewe
Upon mi tale, tell me now,
And I wol stinte and herkne yow."
   "Mi sone, attempre thi corage
Fro Wraththe, and let thin herte assuage.
For whoso wole him underfonge,
He mai his grace abide longe,
Er he of love be received;
And ek also, bot it be weyved,
Ther mihte mochel thing befalle,
That scholde make a man to falle
Fro love, that nevere afterward
Ne durste he loke thiderward.
In harde weies men gon softe,
And er thei clymbe avise hem ofte.
Men sen alday that rape reweth;
And whoso wicked ale breweth,
Fulofte he mot the werse drinke:
Betre is to flete than to sincke;
Betre is upon the bridel chiewe
Thanne if he felle and overthrewe -
The hors - and stikede in the myr.
To caste water in the fyr
Betre is than brenne up al the hous.
The man which is malicious
And folhastif, fulofte he falleth,
And selden is whan love him calleth.
Forthi betre is to soffre a throwe
Than be to wilde and overthrowe.
Suffrance hath evere be the beste
To wissen him that secheth reste.
And thus, if thou wolt love and spede,
Mi sone, soffre as I thee rede.
What mai the mous agein the cat?
And for this cause I axe that,
Who mai to love make a werre,
That he ne hath himself the werre?
Love axeth pes and evere schal,
And who that fihteth most withal
Schal lest conquere of his emprise.
For this thei tellen that ben wise,
Wicke is to stryve and have the werse;
To hasten is noght worth a kerse;
Thing that a man mai noght achieve,
That mai noght wel be don at eve,
It mot abide til the morwe.
Ne haste noght thin oghne sorwe,
Mi sone, and tak this in thi witt:
He hath noght lost that wel abitt.
   Ensample that it falleth thus,
Thou miht wel take of Piramus,
Whan he in haste his swerd outdrowh
And on the point himselve slowh
For love of Tisbee pitously,
For he hire wympel fond blody
And wende a beste hire hadde slain;
Wher as him oghte have be riht fain,
For sche was there al sauf beside.
Bot for he wolde noght abide,
This meschief fell. Forthi be war,
Mi sone, as I thee warne dar,
Do thou nothing in such a res,
For suffrance is the welle of pes.
Thogh thou to loves court poursuie,
Yit sit it wel that thou eschuie
That thou the court noght overhaste,
For so miht thou thi time waste;
Bot if thin happ therto be schape,
It mai noght helpe for to rape.
Therfore attempre thi corage;
Folhaste doth non avantage,
Bot ofte it set a man behinde
In cause of love, and that I finde
Be olde ensample, as thou schalt hiere,
Touchende of love in this matiere.

[The Tale of Phebus and Daphne]

   A maiden whilom ther was on,
Which Daphne hihte, and such was non
Of beauté thanne, as it was seid.
Phebus his love hath on hire leid,
And therupon to hire he soghte
In his folhaste, and so besoghte,
That sche with him no reste hadde;
For evere upon hire love he gradde,
And sche seide evere unto him nay.
So it befell upon a dai,
Cupide, which hath every chance
Of love under his governance,
Syh Phebus hasten him so sore.
And for he scholde him haste more,
And yit noght speden ate laste,
A dart thurghout his herte he caste,
Which was of gold and al afyre,
That made him manyfold desire
Of love more thanne he dede.
To Daphne ek in the same stede
A dart of led he caste and smot,
Which was al cold and nothing hot.
And thus Phebus in love brenneth,
And in his haste aboute renneth,
To loke if that he mihte winne;
Bot he was evere to beginne,
For evere awei fro him sche fledde,
So that he nevere his love spedde.
And for to make him full believe
That no Folhaste mihte achieve
To gete love in such degree,
This Daphne into a lorer tre
Was torned, which is evere grene,
In tokne, as yit it mai be sene,
That sche schal duelle a maiden stille,
And Phebus failen of his wille.
   Be suche ensamples, as thei stonde,
Mi sone, thou miht understonde,
To hasten love is thing in vein,
Whan that fortune is theragein.
To take where a man hath leve
Good is, and elles he mot leve;
For whan a mannes happes failen,
Ther is non haste mai availen."
   "Mi fader, grant merci of this!
Bot while I se mi ladi is
No tre, bot halt hire oghne forme,
Ther mai me no man so enforme,
To whether part fortune wende,
That I unto mi lyves ende
Ne wol hire serven everemo."
   "Mi sone, sithen it is so,
I seie no mor; bot in this cas
Bewar how it with Phebus was.
Noght only upon loves chance,
Bot upon every governance
Which falleth unto mannes dede,
Folhaste is evere for to drede,
And that a man good consail take,
Er he his pourpos undertake,
For consail put Folhaste aweie."
   "Now goode fader, I you preie,
That for to wisse me the more,
Som good ensample upon this lore
Ye wolden telle of that is write,
That I the betre mihte wite
How I Folhaste scholde eschuie,
And the wisdom of conseil suie."
   "Mi sone, that thou miht enforme
Thi pacience upon the forme
Of olde essamples, as thei felle,
Now understond what I schal telle.

[The Tale of Athemas and Demephon]

   Whan noble Troie was belein
And overcome, and hom agein
The Gregois torned fro the siege,
The kinges founde here oghne liege
In manye places, as men seide,
That hem forsoke and desobeide.
Among the whiche fell this cas
To Demephon and Athemas,
That weren kinges bothe tuo,
And bothe weren served so.
Here lieges wolde hem noght receive,
So that thei mote algates weyve
To seche lond in other place,
For there founde thei no grace.
Wherof thei token hem to rede,
And soghten frendes ate nede
And ech of hem asseureth other
To helpe as to his oghne brother,
To vengen hem of thilke oultrage
And winne agein here heritage.
And thus thei ryde aboute faste
To gete hem help, and ate laste
Thei hadden pouer sufficant,
And maden thanne a covenant,
That thei ne scholden no lif save,
Ne prest, ne clerc, ne lord, ne knave,
Ne wif, ne child, of that thei finde,
Which berth visage of mannes kinde,
So that no lif schal be socoured,
Bot with the dedly swerd devoured.
In such Folhaste here ordinance
Thei schapen for to do vengance.
Whan this pourpos was wist and knowe
Among here host, tho was ther blowe
Of wordes many a speche aboute.
Of yonge men the lusti route
Were of this tale glad ynowh;
Ther was no care for the plowh.
As thei that weren Folhastif,
Thei ben acorded to the strif,
And sein it mai noght be to gret
To vengen hem of such forfet.
Thus seith the wilde unwise tonge
Of hem that there weren yonge.
Bot Nestor, which was old and hor,
The salve sih tofore the sor,
As he that was of conseil wys.
So that anon be his avis
Ther was a privé conseil nome.
The lordes ben togedre come;
This Demephon and Athemas
Here pourpos tolden, as it was;
Thei sieten alle stille and herde,
Was non bot Nestor hem ansuerde.
He bad hem, if thei wolde winne,
Thei scholden se, er thei beginne,
Here ende, and sette here ferste entente,
That thei hem after ne repente.
And axeth hem this questioun,
To what final conclusioun
Thei wolde regne kinges there,
If that no poeple in londe were;
And seith, it were a wonder wierde
To sen a king become an hierde,
Wher no lif is bot only beste
Under the liegance of his heste.
For who that is of man no king,
The remenant is as nothing.
He seith ek, if the pourpos holde
To sle the poeple, as thei tuo wolde,
Whan thei it mihte noght restore,
Al Grece it scholde abegge sore,
To se the wilde beste wone
Wher whilom duelte a mannes sone.
And for that cause he bad hem trete,
And stinte of the manaces grete.
Betre is to winne be fair speche,
He seith, than such vengance seche;
For whanne a man is most above,
Him nedeth most to gete him love.
   Whan Nestor hath his tale seid,
Agein him was no word withseid;
It thoghte hem alle he seide wel.
And thus Fortune hire dedly whiel
Fro werre torneth into pes.
Bot forth thei wenten natheles,
And whan the contres herde sein
How that here kinges be besein
Of such a pouer as thei ladde,
Was non so bold that hem ne dradde,
And for to seche pes and grith
Thei sende and preide anon forthwith,
So that the kinges ben appesed,
And every mannes herte is esed;
Al was forgete and noght recorded.
And thus thei ben togedre acorded;
The kinges were agein received,
And pes was take and wraththe weived,
And al thurgh conseil which was good
Of him that reson understod.
   Be this ensample, sone, attempre
Thin herte and let no will distempre
Thi wit, and do nothing be myht
Which mai be do be love and riht.
Folhaste is cause of mochel wo;
Forthi, mi sone, do noght so.
And as touchende of Homicide
Which toucheth unto loves side,
Fulofte it falleth unavised
Thurgh Will, which is noght wel assised
Whan Wit and Reson ben aweie,
And that Folhaste is in the weie,
Wherof hath falle gret vengance.
Forthi tak into remembrance
To love in such a maner wise
That thou deserve no juise.
For wel I wot, thou miht noght lette
That thou ne schalt thin herte sette
To love, wher thou wolt or non;
Bot if thi wit be overgon,
So that it torne into malice,
Ther wot no man of thilke vice
What peril that ther mai befalle.
Wherof a tale amonges alle,
Which is gret pité for to hiere,
I thenke for to tellen hiere,
That thou such moerdre miht withstonde,
Whan thou the tale hast understonde.

[The Tale of Orestes]

   Of Troie at thilke noble toun,
Whos fame stant yit of renoun
And evere schal to mannes ere,
The siege laste longe there,
Er that the Greks it mihten winne,
Whil Priamus was king therinne;
Bot of the Greks that lyhe aboute
Agamenon ladde al the route.
This thing is knowen overal,
Bot yit I thenke in special
To my matiere therupon
Telle in what wise Agamenon,
Thurgh chance which mai noght be weived,
Of love untrewe was deceived.
An old sawe is, 'Who that is slyh
In place where he mai be nyh,
He makth the ferre lieve loth.'
Of love and thus fulofte it goth.
Ther while Agamenon batailleth
To winne Troie, and it assailleth,
Fro home and was long time ferr,
Egistus drowh his qweene nerr,
And with the leiser which he hadde
This ladi at his wille he ladde.
Climestre was hire rihte name,
Sche was therof gretli to blame,
To love there it mai noght laste.
Bot fell to meschief ate laste,
For whan this noble worthi kniht
Fro Troie cam, the ferste nyht
That he at home abedde lay,
Egistus, longe er it was day,
As this Climestre him hadde asent,
And weren bothe of on assent,
Be treson slowh him in his bedd.
Bot moerdre, which mai noght ben hedd,
Sprong out to every mannes ere,
Wherof the lond was full of fere.
   Agamenon hath be this qweene
A sone, and that was after sene.
Bot yit as thanne he was of yowthe,
A babe, which no reson cowthe,
And as Godd wolde, it fell him thus.
A worthi kniht Taltabius
This yonge child hath in kepinge,
And whan he herd of this tidinge,
Of this treson, of this misdede,
He gan withinne himself to drede,
In aunter if this false Egiste
Upon him come, er he it wiste,
To take and moerdre of his malice
The child, which he hath to norrice.
And for that cause in alle haste
Out of the lond he gan him haste
And to the king of Crete he strawhte
And him this yonge lord betawhte,
And preide him for his fader sake
That he this child wolde undertake
And kepe him til he be of age,
So as he was of his lignage;
And tolde him over al the cas,
How that his fadre moerdred was,
And hou Egistus, as men seide,
Was king, to whom the lond obeide.
And whanne Ydomeneux the king
Hath understondinge of this thing,
Which that this kniht him hadde told,
He made sorwe manyfold
And tok this child into his warde,
And seide he wolde him kepe and warde,
Til that he were of such a myht
To handle a swerd and ben a knyht,
To venge him at his oghne wille.
And thus Horestes duelleth stille:
Such was the childes rihte name,
Which after wroghte mochel schame
In vengance of his fader deth.
   The time of yeres overgeth,
That he was man of brede and lengthe,
Of wit, of manhod, and of strengthe,
A fair persone amonges alle.
And he began to clepe and calle,
As he which come was to manne,
Unto the King of Crete thanne,
Preiende that he wolde him make
A kniht and pouer with him take,
For lengere wolde he noght beleve,
He seith, bot preith the king of leve
To gon and cleyme his heritage
And vengen him of thilke oultrage
Which was unto his fader do.
The king assenteth wel therto,
With gret honour and knyht him makth,
And gret pouer to him betakth,
And gan his journé for to caste,
So that Horestes ate laste
His leve tok and forth he goth.
And he that was in herte wroth,
His ferste pleinte to bemene,
Unto the cite of Athene
He goth him forth and was received,
So there was he noght deceived.
The duc and tho that weren wise
Thei profren hem to his servise;
And he hem thonketh of here profre
And seith himself he wol gon offre
Unto the goddes for his sped,
As alle men him geven red.
So goth he to the temple forth.
Of giftes that be mochel worth
His sacrifice and his offringe
He made; and after his axinge
He was ansuerd, if that he wolde
His stat recovere, thanne he scholde
Upon his moder do vengance
So cruel, that the remembrance
Therof mihte everemore abide,
As sche that was an homicide
And of hire oghne lord moerdrice.
Horestes, which of thilke office
Was nothing glad, as thanne he preide
Unto the goddes there and seide
That thei the juggement devise,
How sche schal take the juise.
And therupon he hadde ansuere,
That he hire pappes scholde of tere
Out of hire brest his oghne hondes,
And for ensample of alle londes
With hors sche scholde be todrawe,
Til houndes hadde hire bones gnawe
Withouten eny sepulture.
This was a wofull aventure!
And whan Horestes hath al herd,
How that the goddes have ansuerd,
Forth with the strengthe which he ladde
The duc and his pouer he hadde,
And to a cité forth thei gon,
The which was cleped Cropheon,
Where as Phoieus was lord and sire,
Which profreth him withouten hyre
His help and al that he mai do,
As he that was riht glad therto,
To grieve his mortiel enemy.
And tolde hem certein cause why,
How that Egiste in mariage
His dowhter whilom of full age
Forlai, and afterward forsok,
Whan he Horestes moder tok.
   Men sein, 'Old senne newe schame':
Thus more and more aros the blame
Agein Egiste on every side.
Horestes with his host to ride
Began, and Phoieus with hem wente;
I trowe Egiste him schal repente.
Thei riden forth unto Micene,
Wher lay Climestre thilke qweene,
The which Horestes moder is.
And whan sche herde telle of this,
The gates weren faste schet,
And thei were of here entré let.
Anon this cité was withoute
Belein and sieged al aboute,
And evere among thei it assaile,
Fro day to nyht and so travaile,
Til ate laste thei it wonne;
Tho was ther sorwe ynowh begonne.
   Horestes dede his moder calle
Anon tofore the lordes alle
And ek tofor the poeple also,
To hire and tolde his tale tho,
And seide, 'O cruel beste unkinde,
How mihtest thou thin herte finde,
For eny lust of loves drawhte,
That thou acordest to the slawhte
Of him which was thin oghne lord?
Thi treson stant of such record,
Thou miht thi werkes noght forsake;
So mot I for mi fader sake
Vengance upon thi bodi do,
As I comanded am therto.
Unkindely for thou hast wroght,
Unkindeliche it schal be boght:
The sone schal the moder sle,
For that whilom thou seidest "yee"
To that thou scholdest "nay" have seid.'
And he with that his hond hath leid
Upon his moder brest anon,
And rente out fro the bare bon
Hire pappes bothe and caste aweie
Amiddes in the carte weie,
And after tok the dede cors
And let it drawe awey with hors
Unto the hound and to the raven;
Sche was non other wise graven.
   Egistus, which was elles where,
Tidinges comen to his ere
How that Micenes was belein,
Bot what was more herd he noght sein.
With gret manace and mochel bost
He drowh pouer and made an host
And cam in rescousse of the toun.
Bot al the sleyhte of his tresoun
Horestes wiste it be aspie,
And of his men a gret partie
He made in buisshement abide,
To waite on him in such a tide
That he ne mihte here hond ascape:
And in this wise as he hath schape
The thing befell, so that Egiste
Was take, er he himself it wiste,
And was forth broght hise hondes bounde,
As whan men han a tretour founde.
And tho that weren with him take,
Whiche of tresoun were overtake,
Togedre in o sentence falle.
Bot false Egiste above hem alle
Was demed to diverse peine,
The worste that men cowthe ordeigne,
And so forth after be the lawe
He was unto the gibet drawe,
Where he above alle othre hongeth,
As to a tretour it belongeth.
   Tho fame with hire swifte wynges
Aboute flyh and bar tidinges,
And made it cowth in alle londes
How that Horestes with hise hondes
Climestre his oghne moder slowh.
Some sein he dede wel ynowh,
And som men sein he dede amis,
Diverse opinion ther is.
That sche is ded thei speken alle,
Bot pleinli hou it is befalle,
The matiere in so litel throwe
In soth ther mihte no man knowe
Bot thei that weren ate dede.
And comunliche in every nede
The worste speche is rathest herd
And lieved, til it be ansuerd.
The kinges and the lordes grete
Begonne Horestes for to threte
To puten him out of his regne.
'He is noght worthi for to renge,
The child which slowh his moder so,'
Thei saide; and therupon also
The lordes of comun assent
A time sette of parlement,
And to Athenes king and lord
Togedre come of on acord,
To knowe hou that the sothe was.
So that Horestes in this cas
Thei senden after, and he com.
King Menelay the wordes nom
And axeth him of this matiere.
And he, that alle it mihten hiere,
Ansuerde and tolde his tale alarge,
And hou the goddes in his charge
Comanded him in such a wise
His oghne hond to do juise.
And with this tale a duc aros,
Which was a worthi knight of los,
His name was Menesteus,
And seide unto the lordes thus:
'The wreeche which Horestes dede,
It was thing of the goddes bede,
And nothing of his crualté;
And if ther were of mi degree
In al this place such a kniht
That wolde sein it was no riht,
I wole it with my bodi prove.'
And therupon he caste his glove,
And ek this noble duc alleide
Ful many another skile, and seide
Sche hadde wel deserved wreche,
Ferst for the cause of spousebreche,
And after wroghte in such a wise
That al the world it oghte agrise,
Whan that sche for so foul a vice
Was of hire oghne lord moerdrice.
Thei seten alle stille and herde,
Bot therto was no man ansuerde,
It thoghte hem alle he seide skile,
Ther is no man withseie it wile;
Whan thei upon the reson musen,
Horestes alle thei excusen.
So that with gret solempneté
He was unto his digneté
Received, and coroned king.
And tho befell a wonder thing:
Egiona, whan sche this wiste,
Which was the dowhter of Egiste
And soster on the moder side
To this Horeste, at thilke tide,
Whan sche herde how hir brother spedde,
For pure sorwe, which hire ledde,
That he ne hadde ben exiled,
Sche hath hire oghne lif beguiled
Anon and hyng hireselve tho.
It hath and schal ben everemo,
To moerdre who that wole assente,
He mai noght faille to repente.
This false Egiona was on,
Which for to moerdre Agamenon
Gaf hire acord and hire assent,
So that be Goddes juggement,
Thogh that non other man it wolde,
Sche tok hire juise as sche scholde;
And as sche to another wroghte,
Vengance upon hireself sche soghte,
And hath of hire unhappi wit
A moerdre with a moerdre quit.
Such is of moerdre the vengance.
   Forthi, mi sone, in remembrance
Of this ensample tak good hiede.
For who that thenkth his love spiede
With moerdre, he schal with worldes schame
Himself and ek his love schame."
   "Mi fader, of this aventure
Which ye have told, I you assure
Min herte is sory for to hiere,
Bot only for I wolde lere
What is to done, and what to leve.
   And over this now be your leve,
That ye me wolden telle I preie,
If ther be lieffull eny weie
Withoute senne a man to sle."
   "Mi sone, in sondri wise, ye.
What man that is of traiterie,
Of moerdre or elles robberie
Atteint, the jugge schal noght lette,
Bot he schal slen of pure dette,
And doth gret senne, if that he wonde.
For who that lawe hath upon honde,
And spareth for to do justice
For merci, doth noght his office,
That he his mercy so bewareth,
Whan for o schrewe which he spareth
A thousand goode men he grieveth.
With such merci who that believeth
To plese God, he is deceived,
Or elles resoun mot be weyved.
The lawe stod er we were bore,
How that a kinges swerd is bore
In signe that he schal defende
His trewe poeple and make an ende
Of suche as wolden hem devoure.
Lo thus, my sone, to socoure
The lawe and comun riht to winne,
A man mai sle withoute sinne,
And do therof a gret almesse,
So for to kepe rihtwisnesse.
And over this for his contré
In time of werre a man is fre
Himself, his hous, and ek his lond
Defende with his oghne hond,
And slen, if that he mai no bet,
After the lawe which is set."
   "Now, fader, thanne I you beseche
Of hem that dedly werres seche
In worldes cause and scheden blod,
If such an homicide is good."
"Mi sone, upon thi question
The trowthe of myn opinion,
Als ferforth as my wit arecheth
And as the pleine lawe techeth,
I woll thee telle in evidence,
To rewle with thi conscience."

Quod creat ipse deus, necat hoc homicida creatum,
   Vltor et humano sanguine spargit humum.
Vt pecoris sic est hominis cruor, heu, modo fusus,
   Victa iacet pietas, et furor vrget opus.
Angelus "In terra pax" dixit, et vltima Cristi
   Verba sonant pacem, quam modo guerra fugat.
5

"The hihe God of His justice
That ilke foule horrible vice
Of Homicide he hath forbede,
Be Moises as it was bede.
Whan Goddes Sone also was bore,
He sende Hise anglis doun therfore,
Whom the schepherdes herden singe,
Pes to the men of welwillinge
In erthe be among ous here.
So for to speke in this matiere
After the lawe of charité,
Ther schal no dedly werre be.
And ek nature it hath defended
And in hir lawe pes comended,
Which is the chief of mannes welthe,
Of mannes lif, of mannes helthe.
Bot dedly werre hath his covine
Of Pestilence and of Famine,
Of Poverté and of alle wo,
Wherof this world we blamen so,
Which now the werre hath under fote,
Til God Himself therof do bote.
For alle thing which God hath wroght
In erthe, werre it bringth to noght.
The cherche is brent, the priest is slain,
The wif, the maide is ek forlain,
The lawe is lore, and God unserved.
I not what mede he hath deserved
That suche werres ledeth inne.
If that he do it for to winne,
Ferst to acompte his grete cost
Forth with the folk that he hath lost,
As to the worldes rekeninge
Ther schal he finde no winnynge;
And if he do it to pourchace
The hevene mede, of such a grace
I can noght speke, and natheles
Crist hath comanded love and pes,
And who that worcheth the revers,
I trowe his mede is ful divers.
And sithen thanne that we finde
That werres in here oghne kinde
Ben toward God of no decerte,
And ek thei bringen in poverte
Of worldes good, it is merveile
Among the men what it mai eyle,
That thei a pes ne conne sette.
I trowe senne be the lette,
And every mede of senne is deth;
So wot I nevere hou that it geth.
Bot we that ben of o believe
Among ousself, this wolde I lieve
That betre it were pes to chese,
Than so be double weie lese.
   I not if that it now so stonde,
Bot this a man mai understonde,
Who that these olde bokes redeth,
That Coveitise is on which ledeth,
And broghte ferst the werres inne.
At Grece if that I schal beginne,
Ther was it proved hou it stod:
To Perce, which was ful of good,
Thei maden werre in special,
And so thei deden overal,
Wher gret richesse was in londe,
So that thei leften nothing stonde
Unwerred, bot onliche Archade.
For there thei no werres made,
Because it was bareigne and povere,
Wherof thei mihten noght recovere;
And thus poverté was forbore,
He that noght hadde noght hath lore.
Bot yit it is a wonder thing,
Whan that a riche worthi king,
Or other lord, what so he be,
Wol axe and cleyme propreté
In thing to which he hath no riht,
Bot onliche of his grete miht.
For this mai every man wel wite,
That bothe kinde and lawe write
Expressly stonden theragein.
Bot he mot nedes somwhat sein,
Althogh ther be no reson inne,
Which secheth cause for to winne.
For Wit that is with Will oppressed
Whan Coveitise him hath adressed
And alle Resoun put aweie,
He can wel finde such a weie
To werre, where as evere him liketh,
Wherof that he the world entriketh,
That many a man of him compleigneth.
Bot yit alwei som cause he feigneth,
And of his wrongful herte he demeth
That al is wel, what evere him semeth,
Be so that he mai winne ynowh.
For as the trew man to the plowh
Only to the gaignage entendeth,
Riht so the werreiour despendeth
His time and hath no conscience.
And in this point for evidence
Of hem that suche werres make,
Thou miht a gret ensample take,
How thei her tirannie excusen
Of that thei wrongfull werres usen,
And how thei stonde of on acord,
The souldeour forth with the lord,
The povere man forth with the riche,
As of corage thei ben liche,
To make werres and to pile
For lucre and for non other skyle.
Wherof a propre tale I rede,
As it whilom befell in dede.

[The Tale of Alexander and the Pirate]

   Of him whom al this erthe dradde,
Whan he the world so overladde
Thurgh werre, as it fortuned is,
King Alisandre, I rede this:
How in a marche, where he lay,
It fell per chance upon a day
A rovere of the see was nome,
Which many a man hadde overcome
And slain and take here good aweie.
This pilour, as the bokes seie,
A famous man in sondri stede
Was of the werkes whiche he dede.
This prisoner tofor the king
Was broght, and there upon this thing
In audience he was accused.
And he his dede hath noght excused,
Bot preith the king to don him riht,
And seith, 'Sire, if I were of miht,
I have an herte lich to thin;
For if the pouer were myn,
Mi will is most in special
To rifle and geten overal
The large worldes good aboute.
Bot for I lede a povere route
And am, as who seith, at meschief,
The name of pilour and of thief
I bere; and thou, which routes grete
Miht lede and take thi begete,
And dost riht as I wolde do,
Thi name is nothing cleped so,
Bot thou art named "Emperour."
Oure dedes ben of o colour
And in effect of o decerte,
Bot thi richesse and my poverte
Tho ben noght taken evene liche.
And natheles he that is riche
This dai, tomorwe he mai be povere;
And in contraire also recovere
A povere man to gret richesse
Men sen: 'forthi let rihtwisnesse
Be peised evene in the balance.'
   The king his hardi contienance
Behield, and herde hise wordes wise,
And seide unto him in this wise:
'Thin ansuere I have understonde,
Wherof my will is, that thou stonde
In mi service and stille abide.'
And forthwithal the same tide
He hath him terme of lif withholde,
The mor and for he schal ben holde,
He made him kniht and gaf him lond,
Which afterward was of his hond
An orped kniht in many a stede,
And gret prouesce of armes dede,
As the croniqes it recorden.
   And in this wise thei acorden,
The whiche of o condicioun
Be set upon destruccioun.
Such capitein such retenue.
Bot for to se to what issue
The thing befalleth ate laste,
It is gret wonder that men caste
Here herte upon such wrong to winne,
Wher no begete mai ben inne,
And doth desese on every side:
Bot whan reson is put aside
And will governeth the corage,
The faucon which that fleth ramage
And soeffreth nothing in the weie,
Wherof that he mai take his preie,
Is noght mor set upon ravine,
Than thilke man which his covine
Hath set in such a maner wise.
For al the world ne mai suffise
To will which is noght resonable.
   Wherof ensample concordable
Lich to this point of which I meene,
Was upon Alisandre sene,
Which hadde set al his entente
So as fortune with him wente,
That reson mihte him non governe,
Bot of his will he was so sterne,
That al the world he overran
And what him list he tok and wan.
In Ynde the superiour
Whan that he was ful conquerour,
And hadde his wilful pourpos wonne
Of al this erthe under the sonne,
This king homward to Macedoine,
Whan that he cam to Babiloine,
And wende most in his empire,
As he which was hol lord and sire,
In honour for to be received,
Most sodeinliche he was deceived,
And with strong puison envenimed.
And as he hath the world mistimed
Noght as he scholde with his wit,
Noght as he wolde it was aquit.
   Thus was he slain that whilom slowh,
And he which riche was ynowh
This dai, tomorwe he hadde noght.
And in such wise as he hath wroght
In destorbance of worldes pes,
His werre he fond thanne endeles,
In which forevere desconfit
He was.
      Lo now, for what profit
Of werre it helpeth for to ryde,
For coveitise and worldes pride
To sle the worldes men aboute,
As bestes whiche gon theroute.
For every lif which reson can
Oghth wel to knowe that a man
Ne scholde thurgh no tirannie
Lich to these othre bestes die,
Til kinde wolde for him sende.
I not hou he it mihte amende,
Which takth awei foreveremore
The lif that he mai noght restore.
   Forthi, mi sone, in alle weie
Be wel avised, I thee preie,
Of slawhte er that thou be coupable
Withoute cause resonable."
   
[On Crusades]

"Mi fader, understonde it is,

That ye have seid; bot over this
I prei you tell me 'nay' or 'yee,'
To passe over the grete see
To werre and sle the Sarazin,
Is that the lawe?"
      "Sone myn,
To preche and soffre for the feith,
That have I herd the Gospell seith;
Bot for to slee, that hiere I noght.
Crist with his oghne deth hath boght
Alle othre men, and made hem fre,
In tokne of parfit charité;
And after that He tawhte Himselve,
Whan He was ded, these othre tuelve
Of Hise Apostles wente aboute
The holi feith to prechen oute,
Wherof the deth in sondri place
Thei soffre, and so God of His grace
The feith of Crist hath mad aryse.
Bot if thei wolde in other wise
Be werre have broght in the creance,
It hadde yit stonde in balance.
And that mai proven in the dede;
For what man the croniqes rede,
Fro ferst that holi cherche hath weyved
To preche, and hath the swerd received,
Wherof the werres ben begonne,
A gret partie of that was wonne
To Cristes feith stant now miswent.
Godd do therof amendement,
So as he wot what is the beste.
Bot, sone, if thou wolt live in reste
Of conscience wel assised,
Er that thou sle, be wel avised.
For man, as tellen ous the clerkes,
Hath God above alle ertheli werkes
Ordeined to be principal,
And ek of soule in special
He is mad lich to the Godhiede.
So sit it wel to taken hiede
And for to loke on every side,
Er that thou falle in Homicide,
Which senne is now so general,
That it welnyh stant overal,
In holi cherche and elles where.
Bot al the while it stant so there,
The world mot nede fare amis.
For whan the welle of pité is
Thurgh coveitise of worldes good
Defouled with schedinge of blod,
The remenant of folk aboute
Unethe stonden eny doute
To werre ech other and to slee.
So is it al noght worth a stree,
The charité wherof we prechen,
For we do nothing as we techen.
And thus the blinde conscience
Of pes hath lost thilke evidence
Which Crist upon this erthe tawhte.
Now mai men se moerdre and manslawte
Lich as it was be daies olde,
Whan men the sennes boghte and solde.
   In Grece afore Cristes feith,
I rede, as the cronique seith,
Touchende of this matiere thus,
In thilke time hou Peleus
His oghne brother Phocus slowh;
Bot for he hadde gold ynowh
To give, his senne was despensed
With gold, wherof it was compensed.
Achastus, which with Venus was
Hire Priest, assoilede in that cas,
Al were ther no repentance.
And as the bok makth remembrance,
It telleth of Medee also;
Of that sche slowh her sones tuo,
Egeus in the same plit
Hath mad hire of hire senne quit.
The sone ek of Amphioras,
Whos rihte name Almeus was,
His moder slowh, Eriphile;
Bot Achilo the Priest and he,
So as the bokes it recorden,
For certein somme of gold acorden
That thilke horrible sinfull dede
Assoiled was. And thus for mede
Of worldes good it falleth ofte
That Homicide is set alofte
Hiere in this lif; bot after this
Ther schal be knowe how that it is
Of hem that suche thinges werche,
And hou also that holi cherche
Let suche sennes passe quyte,
And how thei wole hemself aquite
Of dedly werres that thei make.
For who that wolde ensample take,
The lawe which is naturel
Be weie of kinde scheweth wel
That Homicide in no degree,
Which werreth agein charité,
Among the men ne scholde duelle.
For after that the bokes telle,
To seche in al this worldesriche,
Men schal noght finde upon his liche
A beste for to take his preie.
And sithen kinde hath such a weie,
Thanne is it wonder of a man,
Which kynde hath and resoun can,
That he wol owther more or lasse
His kinde and resoun overpasse,
And sle that is to him semblable.
So is the man noght resonable
Ne kinde, and that is noght honeste,
Whan he is worse than a beste.
   Among the bokes whiche I finde
Solyns spekth of a wonder kinde,
And seith of fowhles ther is on,
Which hath a face of blod and bon
Lich to a man in resemblance.
And if it falle him so per chance,
As he which is a fowhl of preie,
That he a man finde in his weie,
He wol him slen, if that he mai.
Bot afterward the same dai,
Whan he hath eten al his felle,
And that schal be beside a welle,
In which whan he wol drinke take,
Of his visage and seth the make
That he hath slain, anon he thenketh
Of his misdede, and it forthenketh
So gretly, that for pure sorwe
He liveth noght til on the morwe.
Be this ensample it mai wel suie
That man schal Homicide eschuie,
For evere is merci good to take,
Bot if the lawe it hath forsake
And that justice is theragein.
For ofte time I have herd sein
Amonges hem that werres hadden,
That thei som while here cause ladden
Be merci, whan thei mihte have slain,
Wherof that thei were after fain.
And, sone, if that thou wolt recorde
The vertu of Misericorde,
Thou sihe nevere thilke place,
Where it was used, lacke grace.
For every lawe and every kinde
The mannes wit to merci binde;
And namely the worthi knihtes,
Whan that thei stonden most uprihtes
And ben most mihti for to grieve,
Thei scholden thanne most relieve
Him whom thei mihten overthrowe,
As be ensample a man mai knowe.

[The Tale of Telaphus and Teucer]

   He mai noght failen of his mede
That hath merci, for this I rede,
In a cronique and finde thus.
Whan Achilles with Telaphus
His sone toward Troie were,
It fell hem, er thei comen there,
Agein Theucer the king of Mese
To make werre and for to sese
His lond, as thei that wolden regne
And Theucer pute out of his regne.
And thus the marches thei assaile,
Bot Theucer gaf to hem bataille;
Thei foghte on bothe sides faste,
Bot so it hapneth ate laste,
This worthi Grek, this Achilles,
The king among alle othre ches,
As he that was cruel and fell,
With swerd in honde on him he fell,
And smot him with a dethes wounde,
That he unhorsed fell to grounde.
Achilles upon him alyhte,
And wolde anon, as he wel mihte,
Have slain him fullich in the place;
Bot Thelaphus his fader grace
For him besoghte, and for pité
Preith that he wolde lete him be,
And caste his schield betwen hem tuo.
Achilles axeth him why so,
And Thelaphus his cause tolde,
And seith that he is mochel holde,
For whilom Theucer in a stede
Gret grace and socour to him dede,
And seith that he him wolde aquite,
And preith his fader to respite.
Achilles tho withdrowh his hond.
Bot al the pouer of the lond,
Whan that thei sihe here king thus take,
Thei fledde and han the feld forsake.
The Grecs unto the chace falle,
And for the moste part of alle
Of that contré the lordes grete
Thei toke, and wonne a gret begete.
And anon after this victoire
The king, which hadde good memoire,
Upon the grete merci thoghte,
Which Telaphus toward him wroghte,
And in presence of al the lond
He tok him faire be the hond,
And in this wise he gan to seie:
'Mi sone, I mot be double weie
Love and desire thin encress;
Ferst for thi fader Achilles
Whilom ful many dai er this,
Whan that I scholde have fare amis,
Rescousse dede in mi querele
And kepte al myn astat in hele.
How so ther falle now distance
Amonges ous, yit remembrance
I have of merci which he dede
As thanne: and thou now in this stede
Of gentilesce and of franchise
Hast do mercy the same wise.
So wol I noght that eny time
Be lost of that thou hast do by me;
For hou so this fortune falle,
Yit stant mi trust aboven alle,
For the mercy which I now finde,
That thou wolt after this be kinde:
And for that such is myn espeir,
As for my sone and for myn eir
I thee receive, and al my lond
I give and sese into thin hond.'
And in this wise thei acorde,
The cause was misericorde.
The lordes dede here obeissance
To Thelaphus, and pourveance
Was mad so that he was coroned:
And thus was merci reguerdoned,
Which he to Theucer dede afore.
   Lo, this ensample is mad therfore,
That thou miht take remembrance,
Mi sone; and whan thou sest a chaunce,
Of other mennes passioun
Tak pité and compassioun,
And let nothing to thee be lief,
Which to another man is grief.
And after this if thou desire
To stonde agein the vice of Ire,
Consaile thee with Pacience,
And tak into thi conscience
Merci to be thi governour.
So schalt thou fiele no rancour,
Wherof thin herte schal debate
With Homicide ne with hate
For Cheste or for Malencolie.
Thou schalt be soft in compaignie
Withoute Contek or Folhaste:
For elles miht thou longe waste
Thi time, er that thou have thi wille
Of love; for the weder stille
Men preise, and blame the tempestes."
   "Mi fader, I wol do youre hestes,
And of this point ye have me tawht,
Toward miself the betre sawht
I thenke be, whil that I live.
Bot for als moche as I am schrive
Of Wraththe and al his circumstance,
Gif what you list to my penance,
And asketh forthere of my lif,
If otherwise I be gultif
Of enything that toucheth sinne."
   "Mi sone, er we departe atwinne,
I schal behinde nothing leve."
   "Mi goode fader, be your leve
Thanne axeth forth what so you list,
For I have in you such a trist,
As ye that be my soule hele,
That ye fro me wol nothing hele,
For I schal telle you the trowthe."
   "Mi sone, art thou coupable of Slowthe
In eny point which to him longeth?"
   "My fader, of tho pointz me longeth
To wite pleinly what thei meene,
So that I mai me schrive cleene."
   "Now herkne, I schal the pointz devise;
And understond wel myn aprise:
For schrifte stant of no value
To him that wol him noght vertue
To leve of vice the folie.
For word is wynd, bot the maistrie
Is that a man himself defende
Of thing which is noght to comende,
Wherof ben fewe now aday.
And natheles, so as I may
Make unto thi memoire knowe,
The pointz of Slowthe thou schalt knowe."

Explicit Liber Tercius.











desire; (see note)

swords sharpened
there is a thing on earth
inimical to; (see note)

deranged
nature; (see note)
but rather



by; one
at odds
called

Both to speak and to do wrong
angry; (see note)



called


burned away by


them; (see note)
called

grimace
knows
confess


Unless



burning coal
succeed






(see note)
rage


dream; dream


pledge herself


frightened
disconcerted (upset)
[That]
sounds; ears

as if abandoned



Since; one

far from succeeding
deal
fortune; health
ever; longer the farther
out of kilter
are damaged



beset






thin strip of wood
straw
rage; sea

is not


think that I am raving mad



happens
time

it pleases her perchance



goes away




truth

[would] see
eye



return; checkmated
the same bad
against




(i.e., emotional swings)
pummeled
ill-willed (prickly)
know not


not obey me
Thus; angry expression (nose bent out of shape); (see note)


role (place as love's representative); (see note)




learn
incites

it is regrettable to him (he regrets)






(see note)
called


was called
(see note)
habitation
dwelt



nature attacks the heart; (see note)

[Such] that
abides by (obeys)





escape
whole




kiss


(see note)


instruction

conquered
(see note)

has no fear at all

bird; alight
food

saw
that which; pleasing to their eye

lost
copulate



father's notice


dared
On the chance that; say
robbed of virginity
admitted
at that time
remains
Who had not yet

listen and hear
(see note)





like one who knew nothing

distant; (see note)

gentle

wave of insanity and rage

saw

pay dearly



(see note)



saw; then

vengeance

in a faint
must





elude

fetter (moral restraint)

wild insane pain

calls
employed; message
(see note)



blade

knew where this must lead

creature

shook with fear
knew

slay
Yes

die



(see note)
Insofar as
write
pen in hand then

knows






health
despair
disease; pleasure
delight; woe


must; for sure
This finish; escape

breath







know
ink written
chilling dread


bosom; lies


soon die
pay for



wan
from where
bathing
[Having] rolled out from; mother's; (see note)
since
therein
forgiveness to be gained

moment
saw

satisfy
So that he would not pass sentence; (see note)

seek
whatever it might be

wild animal
come to his rescue
deed
sung or declared



blame


(see note)


arbitrate; powerfully positioned

destroy; (see note)
[That] which; nature
behooves; (see note)
Regard for
creature [persist]

harshness



(see note)
according to nature

(see note)
strength







(see note)

once
walking went by chance; (see note)
saw
near his path
taught them
Copulating; grabbed
stick; (see note)
attempt
stop them; struck

Both because he; (see note)

Unnaturally
[So] that; who first
transformed
infuriating prank

paid for

know
(see note)
honorable

Because another carries out the teaching




whether

put; aside


believe
reasonable
(see note)
Provided that it is not




put upon
may escape it
[That] which stands






remedy


confess









Contention (Quarreling); (see note)



(see note)
same most rude [person]
Who; estranged

unlocked
emotion; broken loose



runs
boils; malicious words
knows
sieve holds ale; (see note)


And [will] speak before asking anyone





lose


war; bed's head
yeast; (t-note)
dough nearby
such a person to fear

count him ruined


sound




Often times

So that; heard


bone; (see note)




by a thousandth-part











rather; stupid

set back

could impose
by mouth
That [which]

(i.e., his beloved's authority)




at any time

so advantageously positioned






choose
cheese; (see note)
assists digestion



pledge





By chance
plow
does not stumble once in a while

haste
casual word slip out

command
admit




continuously passionate
discomfort

keeping back nothing
without her permission
believe nonetheless
(i.e., to break the law); (see note)


implore

what

bold






humbly






[Such] that
time

furtive lament


review; weigh

fault

excessive in any way
disparage

should slip out of me





left unspoken
said
take vengeance

overwhelmed
lost; (see note)


to no result
too; little
blame

belabor myself
owl; branch; (see note)

which [one]
is not; sprig of cress

If I





Give
knew


flee acquaintanceship with it








intelligence restrain your desire

discord


healer

(see note)
By
patience endures it (the problem)


bow before he breaks; (see note)
what



state of things (world) shall for me never arise
cling to

far as; considers
And [as far as] I regret my wrath











earn quiet for himself
Must suffer; (see note)
recorded

(see note)
seen


for himself to try
displease
desires; shrewish






taken

hapless husband

Near

insane rage
silent; (t-note)
claimed; did not care
undertook

straw


hide [her emotions]
swell [with rage]; (see note)
what
held


behaved
dead

told him to wake up

spoke
found no fault
anything that
then
nature


in a moment
He (Winter)

stirred up

According to; (see note)
sat himself nearer; fire
dried
[Such] that


know not; still

did then
circumstance
lose

by




any time
against

perhaps vex you less

[there] shall be


to avoid it

take instruction



learn




knows




Never yet has come; from; (see note)


harm; (see note)






jest (game)
banter words
themselves
comparison

woman



arbitrate
thinking it over
Against



two eyes

favor in compensation

[Jupiter] knew; [Tiresias] spoke the truth
prophet
would be preferable to the other (Tiresias)
vision; eyes

whatever the truth might be
suffered


(i.e., guard your speech)


near; torment
loses





keep no secret
Whether it be
(see note)




(see note)
who then was called; (see note)



Except


desired

from its earliest youth





told
(Phebus); unsheathed
killed
woeful enough
felt remorse


vengeance
where


curses




speak [only] the best; (see note)

advise



read; (see note)

Because; by
beside
be overthrown




conceal
many

their tongues


gossip





norm of practice; (see note)












called

(see note); (t-note)





know not

teach

visible
gathering; (t-note)
locked
avenged




understand

dare; swear
hateful


bow (ingratiate myself)

bestows

entirely

exhausted


dearly

lady's words


confess

calumniators; their

scheming
undone

knew against me


The dregs





by their own judge; (t-note)
please them
intensely (fervently)

vengeance









spy
leap; leap
go lame from





place










pleased




with my blessing





counsel






wary

fear
in ambush

[hooked] tight

woe upon another person

would not; crime


by conspiracy
Retained


believe
eye
Greeks once saw





(see note)



(see note)
fate oppose


By sea; (see note)
seized
variegated bow

heaven began
split


powerless
have control over himself

Who stood at risk
guide
ship's prow hear
waves
helmsman; sense of direction

knew not; to expect

Whether; destroy


Was called
had conquered




By some
overthrown



promised
secret hatred
ambush
disposition
avenge himself; manner





tides; sea
toward
invented


weather
knew; must
Their; along his right border

kindling and blocks [of wood]

shine [as beacons]; high hills
[would] see
befell just as he planned

at a distance
nearer
believed well

make landfall
hasten quickly

in this instance
thought to get its help

died

there where they thought
their death

were lost


dawn
Then


soon quit

take themselves back; sea
agreed
[more] cautious
Because of what; experienced


who intend guile
scribe; ink


(see note)
according to what

(see note)


fares; for a time


before; behind

indeed



acknowledge









near
two others
their

are dreadful in all ways; (see note)





To Mercy unequal



worthless
Unless
insane beast

Provided that they; either sword
avenge

take

let them beware

be lacking to them

But [rather]
[Such] that; bend


guilty






confess

I confess
circumstances
overturn
quarrel (discord)



overturns
distant



wasted (see note)
improved
made worse
discouraged (in despair)
attain


doubt
confused (unhinged)


frenzy


admit

supplied


Against this faction stands




remove


must
uncontrolled behavior




(t-note)




cease
permission
To succeed
too lowborn
Who [would] not dare [to] love; until he succeeds


Completely; Reason
pleasure in this life lost



is not

(see note)
(see note)

you yourself
instructed

By; Nature




(see note)
once
was named
(see note)

prepared himself

had constructed
Along an axletree
barrel

one head (end)

in whatever way he wished
air
examine
knew a great many things


Alone
morning
happen
as it pleased him
arisen

riding nearby
troop

barrel; meant
know

for the moment
Waited; lingers

spur



commanded
asked; that place


in reply
Churl

thus asks
false (unright)


but this I have in mind
is what he is
lie; for sure
really angry


heard
Ordered; wait

barrel

Hello
a one; see







the fact of the matter
Since










your principal ruler
your intelligence




hasten




of what he had answered













move along; sun

take from me that gift
bestow




believed
reason sustained (supported)













obligatory



(see note)


crowd of people



then; neighborhood


house partition (wough)


equal
also

knew


dwelled



overwhelmed
pursue
avoid

their
[So] that

Their; relieve




disposition
conquered
howsoever; spied on
hinder
(see note)



was named
passionately; (see note)
called
their lesson (instruction by experiences)

go


whether she or
(That person)
at night time

[with] silent step; (see note)


was pleased to wait
ill-fortuned
near
coming; lion saw

And she in haste then

And in fear let
grass

had discovered





dragged about (ripped)
Stained [it] with blood; chewed [it]
went directly



flee
bird; mew (cote)

[dared] not move

[it so] befell

by moonlight

ear; (see note)

afflicted

place
lament

judged



crime














killed
took




aloud
stopped beating
value




eye






misfortune


(see note)
command

Alas


cause (reason) knew

wasted


preferable
sorrowful




knew

overcomes
escape



of one sword bleeding
lying dead


grief

be on guard that you do not waste your reason




(t-note)





would have died
confess myself


guilty









power









menaced with death
scoundrel
before [me]
lost

Standoffishness; (see note)
Who; lady's counselor




reward
succeed
[to be] true


turn awry
ask
called Pitiless


ensnared
does not want; removed
Because; sail (i.e., keeps company with her)

prayed
place



wicked


war



avoid

devious means












nonetheless



acquitted





given
If

pity

[so far] well-reputed

indicted
healed


(t-note)


reward

have pity

stop; listen [to]


be vassal to him [Wrath]; (see note)
wait a long time






difficult paths; cautiously
before; advise themselves
haste causes grief
foul ale

float
bite into
(i.e., the horse);overturned; (see note)
became stuck






fall over
Patience (see note)


counsel
mouse [do] against
ask
war
[Such] that; worse




It is wicked
sprig of cress

the end of the day



who can wait well; (see note)






supposed a beast
glad

wait


hasty action
peace
would pursue
eschew


Unless; circumstance
be hasty
moderate; passion
(see note)







once; one; (see note)
Who; was called

(see note)



cried out


circumstance

Saw; busy himself so vigorously

succeed




place
lead




always starting over

accomplished

Rashness

laurel; (see note)








permission
do without
fortunes fail

(see note)

tree; keeps her own shape; (t-note)
instruct
whatever


since










instruct


know
avoid
follow







besieged; (see note)

Greeks
their own vassals; (see note)




Who were


depart


(t-note)
(see note)


offense











their vow

known
blown
speech [spread] about
crowd; (see note)



in agreement about the violence
say
loss


gray
healing ointment saw rather than


taken








[So] that; [would] not repent


rule there [as] kings

strange fate
who became a shepherd
beast
command


also


avenge


them negotiate a peace
stop
by
seek
powerfully positioned








their kinds were equipped


peace; cessation of hostility






departed





be done by
(see note)




not very reliable; (t-note)





punishment
prevent


overwhelmed




hear
here
[So] that




(see note)

ear; (see note)









evaded

(see note)
near
distant love loathsome



far away


led





(t-note)


sent for
one

hidden; (see note)



evident
But since




(t-note)



before he knew it

for nurturing


went
entrusted



Because








keeping (protection)
guard







passes
[So] that; breadth; height




(t-note)
Praying
a force [of soldiers]
remain
leave (permission)

outrage


And with great honor makes him knight
entrusts




complaint to express


In such a manner that
duke and those who



success
advised him [to do]

are very valuable








murderess
duty



punishment

breasts; tear off
bosom; with his own hands

horses; torn apart by drawing

grave




duke










Raped; forsook [her]
took [in marriage]
sin; (see note)




himself




securely shut
their entrance obstructed

Besieged; waylaid
continually





before

unnatural; (see note)

love's cup
slaughter


put aside
must


Unnaturally
paid for

Since formerly; "yes"
that which you; "no"

mother's breast
tore; bone
threw away
cart's path
dead body
dragged

buried

News; ear
besieged
But [of] what more was said he heard nothing

gathered an army
rescue



ambush await
time



captured, before
[with] his hands bound
traitor discovered
those who were



condemned to various torments

by
gibbet




known

slew





so short a period of time
truth; understand [what happened]
Except those who; at [the] deed

most quickly heard; (see note)
believed; contradicted



rule









took


fully


[By] his own hand; judgment
duke
good reputation (fame)


vengeance; took
commanded





(i.e., threw down the gauntlet in challenge)
alleged
reason
vengeance
adultery

offend




It seemed; spoke reason
speak against



honor


knew


time
succeeded


betrayed
hanged; then






by

punishment







to expedite





because; learn
avoid
(see note)

lawful
sin
various ways, yes


Convicted

refrains


duty
squanders
one wicked person; (see note)
aggrieves


must be abandoned
before; (see note)







good deed
maintain justice
(see note)
war

[To] defend; own
kill; find no better [solution]


Concerning





common law
(see note)










same (specific); (see note); (t-note)
forbidden
By Moses; commanded



Peace; properly directed intention




also; prohibited; (see note)

most important factor

confederates




remedy

war reduces it to nothing
church; burnt
raped
lost
know not; desert (punishment)
introduces






heaven's reward



believe; reward; the complete opposite
since
by their very nature
merit
impoverishment

harm

sin; obstacle
reward; sin; death; (see note)

a single
ourselves; believe
to choose peace
lose
know not


Covetousness is the leading factor








Unassailed; (see note)

barren
gain a profit
avoided
had nothing lost nothing



demand; claim

because of; power
know
natural and written law
in opposition


Who seeks grounds





deceives

(see note)


Provided that; enough

[agricultural] profit
Just so the warrior squanders




their




disposition; alike
pillage
reason

once; fact



feared
tyrannized
Through war
(see note)
borderland

pirate; sea; captured
Who; overwhelmed
stolen their goods
pillager
places
did
before


behavior
give him justice

akin to your own


steal; everywhere

poor gang

pillager
troops
plunder

called
(see note)

one worth
poverty


poor


therefore; justice
weighed








loyal


valiant knight; place
prowess









profit


heart
flies untamed


rapaciousness
conspiracy



(see note)







pleased him



sun


had to return into



poison


repaid
slew; (see note)

nothing

peace
war
vanquished










nature would send for him
know not; remedy
Who



guilty
(see note)






ocean

(see note)





them

according to what







By war; the faith
been unstable

whoever reads




now has become profligate

might know
at peace
judged
slay; advised









has become commonplace


must necessarily go astray




Hardly have any fear
commit war against each
straw; (t-note)





(t-note)

sins
before; (see note)



killed
because; enough







two sons

sin acquitted







Absolved; payment

put aside


do

sins slip by as absolved
excuse themselves

(see note)






seek; kingdoms of the world
in his likeness; (see note)
beast; its prey




nature; exceed
kill what is most akin to him

not befitting [his] status; (see note)

(see note)
Solinus; wonder of nature; (see note)
birds; one



bird of prey






sees; match (likeness)

regrets

until the next day
follow








glad
bear witness to
compassion
[would] see












reward; (see note)
Who

(see note)

befell to them
Against; Mysia
seize


borderlands




chose
wicked


[So] that









loyal

provided









possession












Rescue








for me
(see note)



hope
heir

deliver

mercy

provision

rewarded





(see note)
dear
[cause for] grief

against






[Either] for




calm weather

commands

the more reconciled





guilty






soul's health
conceal

guilty; Sloth



confess myself thoroughly

teaching

exert himself

significant accomplishment
prohibit (protect)
commendable





 


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