132. Nere, for ne were, were it not. goon is, &c., many a year ago, long since.
The Tale of the Man of Lawe.
A story, agreeing closely with The Man of Lawes Tale, is found in Book II. of Gower's Confessio Amantis, from which Tyrwhitt supposed that Chaucer borrowed it. But Gower's version seems to be later than Chaucer's, whilst Chaucer and Gower were both alike indebted to the version of the story in French prose (by Nicholas Trivet) in MS. Arundel 56, printed for the Chaucer Society in 1872. In some places Chaucer agrees with this French version rather closely, but he makes variations and additions at pleasure. Cf. vol. iii. p. 409.
The first ninety-eight lines of the preceding Prologue are written in couplets, in order to link the Tale to the others of the series; but there is nothing to show which of the other tales it was intended to follow. Next follows a more special Prologue of thirty-five lines, in five stanzas of seven lines each; so that the first line in the Tale is l. 134 of Group B, the second of the fragments into which the Canterbury Tales are broken up, owing to the incomplete state in which Chaucer left them.
134. Surrie, Syria; called Sarazine (Saracen-land) by N. Trivet.
136. spycerye, grocery, &c., lit. spicery. The old name for a grocer was a spicer; and spicery was a wide term. 'It should be noted that the Ital. spezerie included a vast deal more than ginger and other "things hot i' the mouth." In one of Pegoletti's lists of spezerie we find drugs, dye-stuffs, metals, wax, cotton,' &c.—Note by Col. Yule in his ed. of Marco Polo; on bk. i. c. 1.
143. Were it, whether it were.
144. message, messenger, not message; see l. 333, and the note.
145. The final e in Rome is pronounced, as in l. 142; but the words the ende are to be run together, forming but one syllable, thende, according to Chaucer's usual practice; cf. note to l. 255. Indeed in ll. 423, 965, it is actually so spelt; just as, in l. 150, we have thexcellent, and in l. 151, themperoures.