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

By god, I wolde hit here wryte.'

House of Fame; 375.

The last quotation proves clearly, that Chaucer was already meditating a new version of the Legend of Dido, to be made up from the Æneid and the Heroides, whilst still engaged upon the House of Fame (which actually gives this story at considerable length, viz. in ll. 140-382); and consequently, that the Legend of Good Women succeeded the House of Fame by a very short interval. But this is not all; for only a few lines further on we find the following passage:—

'Lo, Demophon, duk of Athenis,

How he forswor him ful falsly,

And trayed Phillis wikkedly,

That kinges doghter was of Trace,

And falsly gan his terme pace;

And when she wiste that he was fals,

She heng hir-self right by the hals,