[2154]. 'And stamp, as a man would stamp on a live eel, to try to secure it.' Already in Plautus, Pseudolus, 2. 4. 56, we have the proverb anguilla est, elabitur, he is an eel, he slips away from you; said of a sly or slippery fellow. In the Rom. de la Rose, 9941, we are told that it is as hard to be sure of a woman's constancy as it is to hold a live eel by the tail. 'To have an eel by the tail' was an old English proverb; see Eel in Nares' Glossary, ed. Halliwell and Wright.
[2158]. The poem ends here, in the middle of a sentence. It seems as if Chaucer did not quite know how to conclude, and put off finishing the poem till that more 'convenient season' which never comes. Practically, nothing is lost.
The copy printed by Caxton broke off still earlier, viz. at l. 2094. In order to make a sort of ending to it, Caxton added twelve lines of his own, with his name—Caxton—at the side of the first of them; and subjoined a note in prose, as follows:—
And wyth the noyse of them [t]wo[[64]]
I Sodeynly awoke anon tho[[65]]
And remembryd what I had seen
And how hye and ferre I had been
In my ghoost / and had grete wonder
Of that [that?] the god of thonder
Had lete me knowen / and began to wryte[[66]]