1. For the plan and principal incidents of the "Knight's Tale,"
Chaucer was indebted to Boccaccio, who had himself borrowed
from some prior poet, chronicler, or romancer. Boccaccio
speaks of the story as "very ancient;" and, though that may not
be proof of its antiquity, it certainly shows that he took it from
an earlier writer. The "Tale" is more or less a paraphrase of
Boccaccio's "Theseida;" but in some points the copy has a
distinct dramatic superiority over the original. The "Theseida"
contained ten thousand lines; Chaucer has condensed it into less
than one-fourth of the number. The "Knight's Tale" is supposed
to have been at first composed as a separate work; it is
undetermined whether Chaucer took it direct from the Italian of
Boccaccio, or from a French translation.
2. Highte: was called; from the Anglo-Saxon "hatan", to bid or
call; German, "Heissen", "heisst".
3. Feminie: The "Royaume des Femmes" -- kingdom of the
Amazons. Gower, in the "Confessio Amantis," styles
Penthesilea the "Queen of Feminie."
4. Wonnen: Won, conquered; German "gewonnen."
5. Ear: To plough; Latin, "arare." "I have abundant matter for
discourse." The first, and half of the second, of Boccaccio's
twelve books are disposed of in the few lines foregoing.
6. Waimenting: bewailing; German, "wehklagen"
7. Starf: died; German, "sterben," "starb".
8. The Minotaur: The monster, half-man and half-bull, which
yearly devoured a tribute of fourteen Athenian youths and
maidens, until it was slain by Theseus.
9. Pillers: pillagers, strippers; French, "pilleurs."
10. The donjon was originally the central tower or "keep" of
feudal castles; it was employed to detain prisoners of
importance. Hence the modern meaning of the word dungeon.
11. Saturn, in the old astrology, was a most unpropitious star to
be born under.
12. To die in the pain was a proverbial expression in the French,
used as an alternative to enforce a resolution or a promise.
Edward III., according to Froissart, declared that he would
either succeed in the war against France or die in the pain --
"Ou il mourroit en la peine." It was the fashion in those times to
swear oaths of friendship and brotherhood; and hence, though
the fashion has long died out, we still speak of "sworn friends."
13. The saying of the old scholar Boethius, in his treatise "De
Consolatione Philosophiae", which Chaucer translated, and
from which he has freely borrowed in his poetry. The words are
"Quis legem det amantibus?
Major lex amor est sibi."
("Who can give law to lovers? Love is a law unto himself, and
greater")
14. "Perithous" and "Theseus" must, for the metre, be
pronounced as words of four and three syllables respectively --
the vowels at the end not being diphthongated, but enunciated
separately, as if the words were printed Pe-ri-tho-us, The-se-us.
The same rule applies in such words as "creature" and
"conscience," which are trisyllables.
15. Stound: moment, short space of time; from Anglo-Saxon,
"stund;" akin to which is German, "Stunde," an hour.
16. Meinie: servants, or menials, &c., dwelling together in a
house; from an Anglo-Saxon word meaning a crowd. Compare
German, "Menge," multitude.
17. The pure fetters: the very fetters. The Greeks used
"katharos", the Romans "purus," in the same sense.
18. In the medieval courts of Love, to which allusion is
probably made forty lines before, in the word "parlement," or
"parliament," questions like that here proposed were seriously
discussed.
19. Gear: behaviour, fashion, dress; but, by another reading, the
word is "gyre," and means fit, trance -- from the Latin, "gyro," I
turn round.
20. Before his head in his cell fantastic: in front of his head in
his cell of fantasy. "The division of the brain into cells,
according to the different sensitive faculties," says Mr Wright,
"is very ancient, and is found depicted in mediaeval
manuscripts." In a manuscript in the Harleian Library, it is
stated, "Certum est in prora cerebri esse fantasiam, in medio
rationem discretionis, in puppi memoriam" (it is certain that in
the front of the brain is imagination, in the middle reason, in the
back memory) -- a classification not materially differing from
that of modern phrenologists.
21. Dan: Lord; Latin, "Dominus;" Spanish, "Don."
22. The "caduceus."
23. Argus was employed by Juno to watch Io with his hundred
eyes but he was sent to sleep by the flute of Mercury, who then
cut off his head.
24. Next: nearest; German, "naechste".
25. Clary: hippocras, wine made with spices.
26. Warray: make war; French "guerroyer", to molest; hence,
perhaps, "to worry."
27. All day meeten men at unset steven: every day men meet at
unexpected time. "To set a steven," is to fix a time, make an
appointment.
28. Roundelay: song coming round again to the words with
which it opened.
29. Now in the crop and now down in the breres: Now in the
tree-top, now down in the briars. "Crop and root," top and
bottom, is used to express the perfection or totality of anything.
30. Beknow: avow, acknowledge: German, "bekennen."
31. Shapen was my death erst than my shert: My death was
decreed before my shirt ws shaped -- that is, before any clothes
were made for me, before my birth.
32. Regne: Queen; French, "Reine;" Venus is meant. The
common reading, however, is "regne," reign or power.
33. Launde: plain. Compare modern English, "lawn," and
French, "Landes" -- flat, bare marshy tracts in the south of
France.
34. Mister: manner, kind; German "muster," sample, model.
35. In listes: in the lists, prepared for such single combats
between champion and accuser, &c.
36. Thilke: that, contracted from "the ilke," the same.
37. Mars the Red: referring to the ruddy colour of the planet, to
which was doubtless due the transference to it of the name of
the God of War. In his "Republic," enumerating the seven
planets, Cicero speaks of the propitious and beneficent light of
Jupiter: "Tum (fulgor) rutilis horribilisque terris, quem Martium
dicitis" -- "Then the red glow, horrible to the nations, which
you say to be that of Mars." Boccaccio opens the "Theseida" by
an invocation to "rubicondo Marte."
38. Last: lace, leash, noose, snare: from Latin, "laceus."
39. "Round was the shape, in manner of compass,
Full of degrees, the height of sixty pas"
The building was a circle of steps or benches, as in the ancient
amphitheatre. Either the building was sixty paces high; or, more
probably, there were sixty of the steps or benches.
40. Yellow goldes: The sunflower, turnsol, or girasol, which
turns with and seems to watch the sun, as a jealous lover his
mistress.
41. Citheron: The Isle of Venus, Cythera, in the Aegean Sea;
now called Cerigo: not, as Chaucer's form of the word might
imply, Mount Cithaeron, in the south-west of Boetia, which was
appropriated to other deities than Venus -- to Jupiter, to
Bacchus, and the Muses.
42. It need not be said that Chaucer pays slight heed to
chronology in this passage, where the deeds of Turnus, the
glory of King Solomon, and the fate of Croesus are made
memories of the far past in the time of fabulous Theseus, the
Minotaur-slayer.
43. Champartie: divided power or possession; an old law-term,
signifying the maintenance of a person in a law suit on the
condition of receiving part of the property in dispute, if
recovered.
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