244. upsete: see Introduction, p. cxix, and cp. vii. 2864.
271 ff. Gower tells us here that he finds the story in the Pantheon. That is true, no doubt: it is told there in the peculiar kind of verse with which Godfrey of Viterbo diversified his chronicle, and a most useful text of this particular story, showing the differences of three redactions, is given by S. Singer in his Apollonius von Tyrus, Halle, 1895, pp. 153-177. There is ample evidence that Gower was acquainted with the Pantheon, but it is not the case that he followed it in this story, as has been too readily assumed. Godfrey tells the tale in a much abbreviated form, and Gower unquestionably followed mainly the Latin prose narrative which was commonly current, though he thought the Pantheon, as a grave historical authority, more fit to be cited. The very first sentence, with its reference, ‘as seith the bok,’ is enough to indicate this, but a few more points may be mentioned here in which the story of the Pantheon differs from Gower and from the prose Historia Apollonii Tyrii. (1) Godfrey of Viterbo does not say what was the problem proposed by Antiochus, nor does he mention the period of thirty days. (2) He gives no details of the flight of Apollonius or of the mourning of his people, and he does not mention the incident of Taliart (or Thaliarchus). (3) The name Pentapolim is not introduced. (4) There is no mention in the Pantheon of the wooing of the daughter of Archistrates by three princes (or nobles) or of the bills which they wrote. (5) There is no mention of the nurse Lichorida being taken with Apollonius and his wife on shipboard, of the master of the ship insisting that the corpse should be thrown into the sea, or of the name of the physician, Cerimon. (6) The Pantheon says nothing of the vow of Apollonius in ll. 1301-1306. (7) The name Theophilus is not given. (8) There is no mention of the tomb of Thaise (or Tharsia) being shown to Apollonius. (9) In the Pantheon the punishment of Strangulio and Dionysia precedes the visit to Ephesus, and there is no mention of the dream which caused Apollonius to sail to Ephesus.
There are indeed some points in which Gower agrees with the Pantheon against the Historia, for example in making the princess ask for Apollonius as her teacher on the very night of the banquet instead of the next morning, and in representing that Apollonius went to his kingdom after leaving his daughter at Tharsis (cp. E. Klebs, Die Erzählung von Apollonius aus Tyrus, Berlin, 1899). Perhaps however the most marked correspondence is where Gower makes the wife of Apollonius ‘Abbesse’ of Diana’s temple (l. 1849), which is evidently from Godfrey’s line, ‘Sic apud Ephesios velut abbatissa moratur’: cp. also l. 1194 ‘warmed ofte.’ These are both among the later additions to the Pantheon, and apparently were overlooked by Singer and Klebs when they pronounced that Gower probably knew only the earlier redaction: cp. notes on vii. 2765, 4181.
The Latin prose narrative has been printed in Welseri Opera, ed. 1682, pp. 681-704, and also in the Teubner series (ed. Riese, 1871, 1893). It is a translation from a Greek original, as is sufficiently indicated by the Greek words that occur in it, and by the Greek customs which it refers to or presupposes. Gower agrees with it pretty closely, but the story is not improved in his hands. It loses, of course, the Greek characteristics of which we have spoken, and several of the incidents are related by Gower in a less effective manner than in the original. For example, in the scene near the beginning between Antiochus and Apollonius, the king asks, ‘Nosti nuptiarum conditionem?’ and the young man replies, ‘Novi et ad portam vidi,’ to which there is nothing corresponding in Gower. Again, at a later stage of the story, when the three young nobles send in their proposals to the daughter of Archistrates, the original story makes her reply in a note which declares that she will marry only ‘the ship-wrecked man.’ The king innocently inquires of the three young men which of them has suffered shipwreck, and finally hands the note to Apollonius to see if he can make anything of it. This is much better managed than by Gower. On the other hand our author has done well in dispensing with the rudeness and boastfulness of Apollonius on the occasion when the king’s daughter plays the harp at the feast, and also in modifying the scenes at the brothel and excluding Athenagoras from taking part in them. The quotations given in the following notes are made from the Bodleian MS. Laud 247, a good copy of the twelfth century, which has a form of text more nearly corresponding to that which Gower used than that of any of the printed editions, and by means of which we can account for the names Thaise and Philotenne.
It can hardly be necessary to observe that the play of Pericles, Prince of Tyre, had another source besides Gower, and especially as regards its fourth and fifth acts. Marina is waylaid while going to visit the tomb of her old nurse, as in the original story, the scene of the pirates agrees more nearly with the original than with Gower, Lysimachus plays a part very like that which Gower took away from Athenagoras, and the scene between Cleon and Dionyza (iv. 4) seems to be suggested by the original. The story was current in English prose, as is well known.
386. And seileth: cp. v. 3291 and note.
395. he moste, ‘that he might,’ ‘ut sibi liceret,’ a common use of the word in older English (see examples in Bosworth and Toller’s Dictionary).
405 ff. (margin). The riddle as given in the Laud MS. is, ‘Scelere uehor. Materna carne uescor. Quero patrem meum matris mee uirum uxoris mee filiam, nec inuenio.’ Most copies have ‘fratrem meum’ for ‘patrem meum,’ but Gower agrees with the Laud MS. I do not attempt a solution of it beyond that of Apollonius, which is, ‘Quod dixisti scelere uehor, non es mentitus, ad te ipsum respice. Et quod dixisti materna carne uescor, filiam tuam intuere.’
484. the Stwes. For the spelling cp. ‘Jwes,’ v. 1713, 1808.
536. This is by no means in accordance with the original. Antiochus exclaims on hearing of the flight of Apollonius, ‘Fugere modo quidem potest, effugere autem quandoque me minime poterit,’ and at once issues an edict, ‘Quicunque mihi Apollonium contemptorem regni mei uiuum adduxerit, quinquaginta talenta auri a me dabuntur ei: qui uero caput eius mihi optulerit, talentorum c. receptor erit’ (f. 205 vo), and he causes search to be made after him both by land and sea. The change made by Gower is not a happy one, for it takes away the motive for the flight from Tarsus, where Apollonius heard of this proscription.