The first three stanzas are from Boccaccio's Teseide, as shewn in the Notes; so also are stanzas 8, 9, and 10. Stanzas 4-7 are partly from Statius. The origin of ll. 71-210 is at present unknown. It is difficult to date this poem, but it must be placed after 1373, because of its quotations from the Teseide, or rather from Chaucer's own Palamon and Arcite. The mention of 'the quene of Ermony' in l. 72 suggests that Chaucer's thoughts may have been turned towards Armenia by the curious fact that, in 1384, the King of Armenia came to England about Christmas time, stayed two months, and was hospitably entertained by King Richard at Eltham; see Fabyan's Chronicles, ed. Ellis, p. 532. At an earlier time, viz. in 1362, Walsingham says that some knights of Armenia appeared at a tournament in Smithfield. In the Transactions of the Cambridge Philological Society, May 13, 1886, there is a short paper by Prof. Cowell, from which we learn that Mr. Bradshaw believed the name of Anelida to be identical 'with Anáhita (Ἀναΐτις), the ancient goddess of Persia and Armenia.... He supposed that Chaucer got the name Anelida from a misreading of the name Anaetidem or Anaetida in some Latin MS., the t being mistaken for l.' We must remember that Creseide represents a Greek accusative form Χρυσηΐδα, of which the gen. Χρυσηΐδος occurs in Homer, Il. i. 111; and perhaps the form Dalida (for Dalilah) in the Septuagint is also due to association with Greek accusatives in -ιδα. The genitive Anaetidos occurs in Pliny, xxxiii. 4; in Holland's translation of Pliny, ii. 470, she appears as 'the goddesse Diana syrnamed Anaitis.' It may be as well to explain to those who are unaccustomed to MSS. of the fourteenth century, that it was then usual to write e in place of ae or æ, so that the name would usually be written, in the accusative case, Anetida. This suggests that Anelida should be spelt with but one n; and such is the practice of all the better MSS.
It remains to be added that one source of the part of the poem called the Complaint (ll. 211-350) is the piece printed in this volume as no. VI. That piece is, in fact, a kind of exercise in metrical experiments, and exhibits specimens of a 10-line stanza, resembling the nine-line stanza of this Complaint. Chaucer seems to have elaborated this into a longer Complaint, with additional varieties in the metre; and then to have written the preceding story by way of introduction. One line (vi. 50) is repeated without alteration (vii. 237); another (vi. 35) is only altered in the first and last words (vii. 222). Other resemblances are pointed out in the Notes.
It is also worth while to notice how the character of the speaking falcon in the second part of the Squire's Tale is precisely that of Anelida. The parallel lines are pointed out in the Notes. The principal MSS. may be thus grouped: Aa.—F. B. Ab.—Tn. D. Lt. B.—Harl. Cx. Here A and B are two groups, of which the former is subdivided into Aa and Ab. See Koch, in Anglia, iv. b. 102.
[§ 25]. VIII. Chaucer's Wordes unto Adam.
This is evidently a genuine poem, written by the author of the translation of Boethius and of the story of Troilus.
[§ 26]. IX. The Former Age.
First printed in 1866, in Morris's Chaucer, from a transcript made by Mr. Bradshaw, who pointed out its genuineness. It is ascribed to Chaucer in both MSS., and belongs, in fact, to his translation of Boethius, though probably written at a later date. In MS. I. the poem is headed:—'Chawcer vp-on this fyfte metur of the second book.' In MS. Hh., the colophon is: 'Finit Etas prima: Chaucers.' Dr. Koch thinks that the five poems here numbered IX. X. XIII-XV. 'form a cyclus, as it were, being free transcriptions of different passages in Boethius' Consolatio Philosophiae.' There is, in fact, a probability that these were all written at about the same period, and that rather a late one, some years after the prose translation of Boethius had been completed; and a probable date for this completion is somewhere about 1380.
Both MS. copies are from the same source, as both of them omit the same line, viz. l. 56; which I have had to supply by conjecture. Neither of the MSS. are well spelt, nor are they very
satisfactory. The mistake in riming l. 47 with l. 43 instead of l. 45 may very well have been due to an oversight on the part of the poet himself. But the poem is a beautiful one, and admirably expressed; and its inclusion among the Minor Poems is a considerable gain.