theare right to make his rendeuous first known:
gainst whome Algarsif rann from thambuscado,
to prove his ernest provd no French bravado.'
Since I wrote the preceding remarks, which were formerly printed in my edition of The Prioresses Tale, &c., for the Clarendon Press, Mr. Clouston has taken up the subject in a very exhaustive manner. I must therefore refer the reader to his essay 'On the Magical Elements in Chaucer's Squire's Tale, with Analogues,' printed for the Chaucer Society in 1889. He there deals fully with the subjects of Magic Horses, Chariots, &c., Magic Mirrors and Images, Magic Rings and Gems, the Language of Animals, and Magic Swords and Spears. He lays particular stress upon the Romance of Cléomadès and Claremonde above mentioned, to which Keightley had already drawn attention. 'The French prose version, called L'Histoire et Chronique du vaillant Chevallier Cléomadès et la belle Claremonde, appeared about the year 1480[[158]]; and of this work Count Tressan published an extrait in the Bibliothèque des romans, April 1777, t. i. 169 ff.; see also Œuvres du Conte de Tressan, Paris, 1822, t. iii. pp. 255-298. Of this abstract Keightley gives an English translation in his Tales and Popular Fictions, pp. 43-69.
'Keightley has remarked that the name of Claremonde occurs in the romance of Valentine and Orson, it being that of the lady beloved by the valiant hero, and also that a magic horse figures in the same work; but he has strangely overlooked a number of incidents which have evidently been adopted from the story of Cléomadès and Claremonde. The magic horse is described in the 21st chapter of a chap-book version of The Renown'd History of Valentine and Orson, the two Sons of the Emperor of Greece.
'I quite agree with M. Paris in considering that the origin of the French metrical romance was Morisco-Spanish, whether Adenès derived his materials from Blanche of Castile, or otherwise.'
With respect to the story of the Falcon, Mr. Clouston observes: 'The scene between Canacé and the Falcon is essentially Asiatic, and Warton's complaint that the bird is represented as talking of Troilus, Paris, and Jason, is utterly absurd. It is, in fact, an Indian fable, with a bird talking out of the Grecian classics instead of out of the Vedas and the Shastras. If the poet had any purpose in writing the story of the deserted Falcon, it could only have been that of any Asiatic fabler, namely, to convey certain moral lessons through the feigned speech of a bird. That Chaucer had before him, or in his memory, a model for his story of the Falcon is not only possible but highly probable. There exists a somewhat analogous ancient Indian tale of two birds—a male parrot and a hen-maina, a species of hill-starling—in which, however, it is the male bird who is distressed at the female's treachery, and is about to cast himself into the midst of a forest-fire, when he is rescued by a benevolent traveller, to whom he relates the story of his woes. This tale forms the third of the Twenty-five Tales of a Vampyre (Vetála panchavinsati), and may be found in Tawney's translation of the Kathá Sarit Ságara, vol. ii. pp. 245-250.'
It is necessary to mention here that Prof. Brandl, of Göttingen, in Englische Studien, xii. 161, actually propounded a theory that Cambinskan was intended to represent Edward III., and that Canacee does not mean 'the king's daughter,' as Chaucer (who might be supposed to know) expressly says, but his daughter-in-law Constance, second wife of John of Gaunt; with much more to the same effect, all purely gratuitous. Fortunately, his theory was promptly shewn to be untenable by Prof. Kittredge, of Harvard University, in a paper which also appeared in Englische Studien, xiii. 1; and we may dismiss this dream as being wholly unfounded. The Tale was written after Edward's death.
§ 69. Words of the Frankeleyn. See F 673-708. In at least fifteen MSS. and in the black-letter editions, the Squieres Tale is followed by the Marchantes Tale. In order to suit this arrangement, the word Frankeleyn in F 675 is altered to Marchant. So again, in ll. 696 and 699. In the last case, the rime is affected; and, to bring this right, the words the frankeleyn are altered to the marchant, certeyn. Tyrwhitt well points out two grave objections to this arrangement. The former is, that, in this case, the Marchant is made (in F 682, 690) to say that he has a son who has learnt to play at dice, and only a few lines further on (in E 1233-4) that he has been married just two months, and not more! The latter is, that the sentiments attributed to the speaker, who laments his son's extravagance and praises 'gentillesse,' are suitable to the character of the honest and hospitable Frankeleyn, but not to that of the Marchant, if we may judge of his sentiments from the loose character of his Tale. In the same editions and in most of the MSS., the Frankeleyns Tale follows the Clerkes Tale, causing further trouble. The editions also transpose one of the stanzas in Chaucer's Envoy to the Clerkes Tale, so as to make E 1195-1200 come at the end. They then insert the (genuine) stanza printed in the footnote to vol. iv. p. 424, and afterwards pass on at once to F 709. The same arrangement occurs in MS. Harl. 7333. Other MSS. insert (after the Clerkes Tale) various scraps taken from E 2419-40, followed by lines corresponding to F 1-8, at the same time changing Squyer (in F 1) to Sire Frankeleyn, which makes the line too long. Cf. § 67.
However, the best MSS., including E. and Dd., are here correct; and we have only to follow their guidance. In these, the Words of the Frankeleyn (F 673-708) are immediately followed by the true Prologue to the Frankeleyns Tale (F 709-728).