Notes

I. olde stories It is characteristic of medieval writers to take pride not in
their originality but in the authority conferred by ancienl sources. Sometimes
indeed they refer to sources which we may suspect never existed. In this case
Chaucer's main source is the Teseida of Boccaccio, but since Boccaccio was a
contemporary cannot fairly be described as 'old'. Chaucer probably wished hit
audience to think that his source was classical Latin, not modern Italian,
just as in Troilus and Criseyde, also translated from Boccaccio, he speaks of
his authority as being a Latin author called Lollius (who never existed).

2. duc Like other medieval authors, Chaucer "medievalized" the past, and gave
great men titles of nobility current in his own time. There was a 'Duke of
Athens' in the fourteenth century.

7. What with 'by means of'.

8. regne of Femenye 'realm of the Amazons'. Femenye is a name invented in the
Middle Ages (from Latin femina, 'woman') for a mythical country inhabited entirely
by warlike women.

12. solempnitee 'ceremony' or 'festivity'. In Middle English this word did not
possess its modern suggestions of seriousness.

15. 'I leave this noble ruler riding to Athens.'

17-27. An example of the rhetorical figure called occupatio or praeteritio, by
which a writer explains what he is not going to say. The figure may be used as a
means of surreptitiously mentioning something while pretending not to mention it;
but here it is a quite genuine indication of an omission of source-material, since
the events summarized by Chaucer in twenty lines are narrated at length in over a
thousand lines in the Teseida.

18-19. manere How 'way in which'.

20. chivalrye This word may either mean the accomplishments of knighthood (as
in line 7 above) or a company of knights (as probably here).

21. for the nones 'particularly'. The phrase is one of the many tags available in
the idiom of Middle English poetry as rhymes or fillers of metrical space. Here clearly
the phrase is used for the rhyme with Amazones. Such tags are natural in the style of
a poetry written with listeners in mind, since they give the audience time to catch up
with the narrative.

22. Atthenes (here) 'Athenians'.

27. as This word is often used by Chaucer redundantly with adverbial phrases.

27-8. This metaphor, of ploughing for writing, is not uncommon in medieval literature.
Agricultural imagery would be familiar to medieval people, living in a society of small
towns based on agriculture.

31 'Also I do not wish to hinder any of this company.'

33. lat se now 'then let us see'.

31-3. The pilgrims had agreed before setting out that they would tell tales in turn to
pass away the time on the journey to and from Canterbury, and that the one who was con-
sidered to have told the best tale would be given a supper by the whole company when
they returned to the Tabard Inn.

39. that Often used redundantly in relative constructions in Middle English.

40. tweye and tweye 'two by two'--a first indication of the symmetrical order which
is characteristic of the poem's action.

41. Ech after oother 'one behind another'.

42-4. It is typical of medieval poetry, and particularly of romances, to present a
fictional world in which everything is superlative--the best or the worst, the richest,
the loudest, the sweetest of its kind. The extreme thus becomes a quality of the world
itself rather than of any particular incident within it.

57-8. The first of many indications that the world of the poem, like the world as seen
by Boethius (see p. 97 above), is governed by Fortune, the fickle goddess. The lady seems
to hint that even Theseus's seemingly complete triumph is unstable; and Theseus is the one
stable point in the poem.

65. That she ne hath 'who has not'.

66. as it is wel seene 'as is perfectly clear'.

67. Thanked be 'thanks to'. Fortune was regularly pictured with a moving wheel, which
raised people to prosperity and dropped them to misery.

68. 'Who (i.e. Fortune) gives secure prosperity to no condition of life.' This reference
to the universality of Fortune's fickleness again seems to glance at Theseus himself: as
the ladies used to be, so he is; as they are, so he may be.

70. Clemence Like Fortune, a deified abstraction such as actually became part of Roman
religion (Clementia's temple is mentioned by Statius), and was passed on as a way of
thinking to the Middle Ages.

74. Cappaneus One of the seven who besieged Thebe

84. 'To do dishonour to the corpses.'

89. A horrifyingly blunt and concrete picture as the climax to a brilliantly
constructed speech. The picture of dogs eating human bodies is physically disgusting,
but also represents an offence against religious practice, whether pagan or Christian

97-8. 'When he saw those who had formerly been of such high rank now so pitiful and so
downcast.' This fall from high position to wretchedness precisely corresponds to the
medieval conception of tragedy, which Chaucer learned from Boeithus and states expli-
citly in The Monk's Tale.

102-3. "He would do everything in his power to avenge them on the tyrant Creon."

105-6. "of Theseus yserved As he that" treated by Theseus like someone who'.

109. To Thebes-ward 'towards Thebes'.

111 "go ne ride 'walk or ride", a tag used for emphasis, not to be taken literally.

112. "But he camped that night on his journey towards Thebes"

117-22. These details are added by Chaucer. He evokes the pageantry of medieval
warfare, and at the same time, in the reference to Mars, hints at the sinister
supernatural forces at work behind the human action.

119."That the fields all about glittered with its brilliance."

122. The Minotaur was a monster, half bull and half man, which lived in Crete
and devoured Athenian boys and girls sent to it as tribute, until Theseus killed
it.

126. Faire "satisfactorily, as planned". A term of praise with little precise
meaning, but helping to provide the alliteration that tends to accompany battles
in this poem.

127-42. But shortly for to speken of this thing. . . But it were al to longe for
to devyse . . But shortly for to telle is myn entente Expressions of a wish to be
brief are common in medieval narrative poetry, though sometimes as substitutes for
brevity itself.

135. 'To carry out funeral ceremonies according to the custom of the time.'
The bodies were burnt, whereas the medieval practice was burial.

136. 'But it would take very much too long to describe.'

146. The lack of explicitness sounds sinister: a hint of the savagery involved in
Theseus's chivalrous response to the ladies'

149. 'The pillagers worked with diligence and care.'
request.

153-4. Amidst the confusion of the battlefield the two knights are arranged as
symmetrically as the company of ladies. Symmetry will be a persistent quality in
their story.

154. in oon arms 'in the same armour'.

158-61. Over their armour, medieval knights wore jackets (cote-armures) bearing
their heraldic devices. The heralds would be able to identify them by these, and
thus would be able to tell that they were of noble family and night therefore bring
in a ransom if captured.

159-60. knewe hem best in special As they that weren 'recognized them distinctly as being'

166. he nolde no raunsoun 'he would not accept any ransom'.

171. Terme of his lyf 'for the duration of his life'. what nedeth wordes mo? A casual
remark, little more than a tag; but already we are being conditioned to expect a world
in which, as a matter of course, opposite extremes of the human condition will co-exist-
Theseus 'in joye and in honour' for ever, the two knights 'in angwissh and in wo' for ever-
with no comment either necessary

177-81. The effect of the three comparisons---with the lily, the rose, or possible.
and May itself-is to make Emelye almost a personification of the season, rather than a
person in her own right. Belonging to a long convention in medieval poetry, this May mor-
ning setting has become almost symbolic by Chaucer's time: the youth and beauty of the lady
and the freshness of the season have become the expression of feelings rather than the ob-
jective description of facts. The references were added by Chaucer.

187. As and do thyn observaunce 'rise up and perform the rites of May'. On May Day it was
the custom to get up early in the morning, walk in the fields or woods, and make garlands
of may-flowers.

193. at the some upriste 'at sunrise'.

195. party white and rede May-blossom is mixed white and red in colour; on the other hand,
the branches are prickly, and hence not very suitable for a garland to be worn.

198. The grew tour The part of a medieval castle that was used as a place of refuge, not
the part that was lived in.

202. evene joinant 'right next to'.

203. hadde hirpleyinge 'went for relaxation'.

215. "He often said, 'Alas that! was born'"

216. by aventure or cas 'by accident or chance'. The two are not really alternatives,
but serve as an emphatic way of saying that what happened happened accidentally, not by
anyone's choice-pan of the contingency of a world governed by Fortune.

217-18. 'That through a window, thickly barred with pieces of trots as solid and strong as beams.'

224. on to see 'to look at'.

226-7. 'For the love of God, endure our prison with complete patience, for it cannot be altered.'
Here Arcite produces spon tan eously the same philosophy of despairing endurance that emergei from
Theseus's reflexions at the end of the poem: 'take it weel that we may nat eschue' (2185).

228-33. Here once again Fortune is referred to, and, to judge from the abrupt transition, is
identified by Arcite with the influence of the planetary deities.

229-30. aspect. . . disposicioun . . . constellacioun In astrology, the aspect of planets was their
position relative to one another and to the earth, their disposicioun was simply their position,
and their constellacioun was their position at the time when someone ware born, which might in-
fluence his whole life. Arcite seems to be using the words rather vaguely, much as a modern person
might loosely employ technical psycho-analytic terms ('complex', 'neurosis', etc.). Saturn was
normally a planet of evil influence, as he himself explains later; see lines 1595-1611.

231. although we hadde it sworn 'although we had sworn to the contrary', cf. lines 808-9.

233. this is the short and plain 'that is the long and short of it'.

235-6. of this opinioun Thow hast a veyn imaginacioun 'this belief of yours is an empty fantasy'.

239. that wol my bane be 'and it will be the death of me'. Arcite had supposed that Palamon was
crying out in misery at the thought of their imprisonment; in fact, his 'wound' was caused by
love.

243-4. In Virgil's Aeneid, Aeneas, meeting a beautiful maiden, had asked whether she was a mortal
or a goddess; it was in fact Venus in disguise. Here the idea is taken up again, though Emelye
is not Venus; and this explains the use of the word transfigure in line 247.

246-53. This reverent attitude of Palamon's towards Venus is in keeping with his later prayer to
Venus (lines 1363-1402). The present speech was added by Chaucer; in Boccaccio it is Arcite who
sees Emelye first.

250-1. 'And if it should be that it is my fate, fixed by an eternal decree, to die in prison.'

252. oure linage i.e. the royal house of Thebes.

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