‘This man may be a good poet, but he spells awfully badly. Fancy “certain” spelt with an “e-y-n,” and “duke” without an “e.” It sounds like “duck.” And then, what was the “height of Theseus”? I can’t understand it at all.’
However, she read on, skipping pages here and there, for it was almost impossible for her to understand it. Now it happened that as she turned the pages over listlessly—for she was thinking of something else—her eye happened to fall on the name of ‘Dian.’
‘Why, that must be Diana! only they’ve forgotten the “a.” I’ll look a little farther and see what it says about her.’
So she ran her eye down the page, and sure enough she came upon the name.
‘Why, it’s spelt with a “y” now,’ she said. ‘Chaucer evidently doesn’t know his own mind in the matter of spelling. I’ll write to him, and ask him about it. Now, let’s see what it says. Why, it appears to be a prayer, or an invocation, or something.’
So she read:
‘O chaste goddes of the woodes greene
To whence bothe heven and erthe are seene
Queen of the regne of Pluto dark and lowe
Goddes of maydens that myn hert has knowe