Chaucer's Works, Volume 3 — The House of Fame; The Legend of Good Women; The Treatise on the Astrolabe; The Sources of the Canterbury Tales

by Geoffrey Chaucer

NOTES TO THE LEGEND OF GOOD WOMEN.

NOTES TO THE PROLOGUE.

*** N.B. The references are to the B-text, except where special mention of the A-text is made. The latter is denoted by the letter 'A', preceded by a short line.

[2]. Compare Chaucer's Troilus, book ii. ll. 894-6.

[5]. Nis noon = ne is noon, is not none, i.e. is no one. This use of the double negative, as in modern provincial English, is extremely common, and need not be again remarked upon. Cf. ll. 7, 15, &c.

[9]. 'For there may no man prove it by actual trial.'

[10]. Leve, believe. Notice the numerous senses of leve, viz. (1) believe; (2) leave, v.; (3) grant; (4) dear; (5) leave, sb.; (6) leaf (dat. case).

[11]. Wel more thing, many more things. The word thing was originally neuter, and long remained unchanged in the plural. In l. 23, we have thinges. The M.E. more usually means 'greater'; it is seldom used (as here) in the modern sense.

[12]. Men shal nat, people ought not to. The use of men in the general sense of 'people' is extremely common in Chaucer, and the student should notice that it usually takes a singular verb, when thus used. With ll. 12, 13 cf. Hamlet, i. 5. 166.

[13]. But-if, unless, except. Great attention should be paid to the exact sense of these apparently less important words. Frequently the whole sense of a sentence is missed, even by editors, owing to inattention to their use.