179-81. This passage, says Tyrwhitt, 'is attributed by Gratian (Decretal. P. ii. Cau. xvi. q. l. c. viii.) to a pope Eugenius: Sicut piscis sine aqua caret vita, ita sine monasterio monachus.' Joinville says, 'The Scriptures do say that a monk cannot live out of his cloister without falling into deadly sins, any more than a fish can live out of water without dying.' Cf. Piers Plowman, B. x. 292; and my note.
Wyclif (Works, ed. Matthew), p. 449, has a similar remark:—'For, as they seyn that groundiden [founded] these cloystris, thes men myghten no more dwelle out ther-of than fizs myghte dwelle out of water, for vertu that they han ther-ynne.' The simile is very old; in The Academy, Nov. 29, 1890, Prof. Albert Cook traced it back to Sozomen, Eccl. Hist. bk. i. c. 13 (Migne, Patr. Graec. 67. 898):—τοὺς μὲν γὰρ ἰχθύας ἔλεγε τὴν ὑγρὰν ὀυσίαν τρέφειν, μοναχοῖς δὲ κόσμον φέρειν τὴν ἔρημον. ἐπίσης τε τοὺς μὲν ξηρᾶς ἀπτομένους τὸ ζῆν ἀπολιμπάνειν, τοὺς δὲ τὴν μοναστικὴν σεμνότητα ἀπολλύειν τοῖς ἄστεσι προσιόντας. And in The Academy, Dec. 6, 1890, Mr. H. Ellershaw, of Durham, shewed that it occurs still earlier, in the Life of St. Anthony (c. 85) attributed to St. Athanasius, not later than A.D. 373:—ὥσπερ ὁι ἰχθύες ἐγχρονίζοντες τῇ ξηρᾷ γῇ τελευτῶσιν· οὕτως ὁι μοναχοὶ βραδύνοντες μεθ' ὑμῶν καὶ παρ' ὑμῖν ἐνδιατρίβοντες ἐκλύοντα
ι.
Moreover, the poet was thinking of a passage in Le Testament de Jehan de Meung, ed. Méon, l. 1166:—
'Qui les voldra trover, si les quiere en leur cloistre ...
Car ne prisent le munde la montance d'une oistre.'
i. e. 'whoever would find them, let him seek them in their cloister; for they do not prize the world at the value of an oyster.' Chaucer turns this passage just the other way about.
182. text, remark, saying (as above, in l. 177). held, esteemed.
183. 'And I said.' This is a very realistic touch; as if Chaucer had been talking to the monk, obtaining his opinions, and professing to agree with them.
184. What has here its earliest sense of wherefore, or why.