271. Ambrose. 'Huic miraculo de coronis rosarum Ambrosius attestatur in praefatione, sic dicens,' &c. I cannot find anything of the kind in the indices to the works of St. Ambrose.
In the Sermons of Jacques de Vitry, a story is given beginning with the words—'Beatus Ambrosius narrat,' to this effect. St. Ambrose tells of a virgin going to martyrdom, who was asked by a pagan whither she was going. She answered: 'to see my friend, who has invited me to his wedding-feast.' The pagan, deriding her, said: 'Tell your friend to send me some of his roses.' Shortly after her death, a beautiful youth brought to the pagan a basket full of full-blown roses, saying, 'The friend of the woman, who just now passed by, sends you some of the roses you desired,' and then disappeared. The pagan was converted and himself suffered martyrdom. This is the story of St. Dorothea, whose day is Feb. 6; for which Alban Butler refers us to Aldhelm, De Laude Virginitatis, c. 25.
276. eek hir chambre, even hir marriage-chamber, i. e. even marriage. weyve, waive, abandon. Lat. 'ipsum mundum est cum thalamis exsecrata.' weyve occurs again in some MSS. of Chaucer's Truth, l. 20.
277. shrifte, confession. Lat. 'testis est Valeriani coniugis et Tiburtii prouocata confessio, quos, Domine, angelica manu odoriferis floribus coronasti.' For Valerians, all the MSS. have Cecilies. Whether the mistake is Chaucer's or his scribes', I cannot say; but it is so obviously a mere slip, that we need not hesitate to correct it. The French text is even clearer than the Latin; it has—'et de cest tesmoing Valerien son mary et Tiburcien son frere.' Besides, the express mention of 'these men' in l. 281 is enough, in my opinion, to shew that the slip was not Chaucer's own; or, at any rate, was a mere oversight.
282. 'The world hath known (by their example) how much, in all truth, it is worth to love such devotion to chastity.' Lat. 'mundus agnouit, quantum ualeat deuotio castitatis;—haec Ambrosius.' This is quoted as St. Ambrose's opinion. The parenthesis ends here.
288. beste, i. e. void of understanding, as a beast of the field is. Lat. 'pecus est.'
315. And we. Tyrwhitt remarks that we should have been us. But a glance at the Latin text shews what was in Chaucer's mind; he is here merely anticipating the we in l. 318. Lat. 'et nos in illius flammis pariter inuoluemur, et dum quaerimus diuinitatem latentem in coelis, incurremus furorem exurentem in terris.' The sentence is awkward; but we was intended. The idiom has overridden the grammar. Cf. the South-E. Legendary (see note to l. 120), l. 121:—
'Forberne he scholde, and we also, yif we with him were.'
319. Cecile. This is one of the clearest instances to shew that Chaucer followed the Latin and not the French version. Lat. 'Cui Caecilia'; Fr. 'et Valerien dist.' Mr. Furnivall has noted this and other instances, and there is no doubt about the matter.