Gower's story is in his Confessio Amantis, bk. iii, ed. Pauli, i. 305-6; but it is so briefly sketched, in 35 lines, that Chaucer could have derived nothing from it, even if he had wished to do so.
Another Middle-English analogue, much more important than Gower's, is the story of the Magpie, being the 10th Tale in the collection known as The Seven Sages, printed in Weber's Metrical Romances, iii. 86. It is much the same as the story of the Popinjay in Wright's edition of the Seven Sages, p. 73. The version in the Seven Sages clearly points to an Eastern origin for the story. See Mr. Clouston's essay on The Tell-tale Bird, in Originals and Analogues (Chaucer Soc.), p. 437; to which I refer the reader for further information.
Dr. Köppel[[176]] has shewn that several passages in the moral advice with which the Tale concludes (including nearly the whole of lines H 325-358), are taken from a work by Albertano of Brescia, entitled De Arte Loquendi et Tacendi, written in 1245, and newly edited by Thor Sundby in the second Appendix to his work called Brunetto Latinos levnet og skrifter (Life and Writings of Brunetto Latino), Copenhagen, 1869. See further in my Notes.
Group I.
§ 76. The Parson's Prologue. Most copies place this after the Manciples Tale, and insert the word maunciple in the first line. The black-letter edition of 1542 added the spurious Plowman's Tale after the Parson's, i.e. at the end of all. But all the later editions in black-letter inserted this spurious Tale before the Parson's, and hence the editors had to alter the word maunciple (above) into Plowman; which they did.
The Persones Tale was clearly meant to come last (I 47), and there is an allusion to the hour of 4 P. M. (I 5, and note). The Maunciples Tale well precedes it, because the Prologue to that Tale says they were approaching Canterbury (H 2, 3). But there is a great difficulty in the mention of the early morning (H 16); and this is why Group I has to be taken as a separate Fragment.
The reading Foure, in l. 5, is explained and justified in the Notes.
Some German commentators have endeavoured to discover the date of the Tales from lines 10, 11, by giving these lines a wholly gratuitous and impossible interpretation, as if they were meant to express that the moon's position was in Libra! But Chaucer says nothing of the sort; he is speaking of the moon's exaltation, and adds, parenthetically, 'I mean (to say) Libra.' Unluckily, he happens to go wrong; for Libra was the exaltation of Saturn: but this does not alter the fact, that exaltation never denotes position, but was a common astrological term. It invariably refers to a sign of the Zodiac; and although Chaucer, for the moment, forgot to which planet Libra caused an exaltation or increase of strength, he really did know the meaning of one of the commonest terms in all astrology. It is much to be regretted that theories should be founded on such gross misconceptions.
§ 77. The Persones Tale. It is now known that this Tale is little else than an adaptation (with alterations, omissions, and additions, as usual with Chaucer) of a French treatise by Frère Lorens, entitled La Somme des Vices et des Vertus, written in 1279. The English work by Dan Michel of Northgate, usually known by the title of The Ayenbite of Inwyt, or Remorse of Conscience, is a much more literal and closer translation of the same treatise, and thus affords a good guide for comparison between Chaucer and the French original. The French treatise has never been printed, but exists in two MSS. in the British Museum[[177]], viz. Cleop. A v, and Royal 19 C ii.
An excellent dissertation on this Tale, in which a close comparison with its original is duly made, was written in German by Dr. W. Eilers in 1882, and has been rendered more accessible to Chaucer students by an English translation made in 1884, and printed in Essays on Chaucer (Chaucer Soc.), p. 501. Of this Essay I have made much use in the Notes, to which I refer the reader for further information.