[624] Gower wrote two successive versions of his poem: the first about 1384, the second about 1393. In this last one, having openly taken the side of the future Henry IV. (which was very bold of him), he suppressed all allusions to Richard. In the first version, instead of,
A boke for Englondes sake,
he had written:
A boke for King Richardes sake.
[625] Vol. i. pp. 89 ff. In Chaucer, the story is told by the Wife of Bath.
[626] Beginning of Book i.
[627] Already had been seen in the "Roman":
Comment Nature la déesse
A son prêtre se confesse ...
"Génius, dit-elle, beau prêtre,
D'une folie que j'ai faite,
A vous m'en vuel faire confesse;"
and under pretence of confessing herself, she explains the various systems of the universe at great length.
[628] In Mrs. Egerton, 1991, fol. 7, in the British Museum, reproduced in my "Piers Plowman," p. 11.