The marginal Latin glosses, identified by a capital L in the left margin next to the text, are transcribed and translated in the notes and can be accessed by clicking on (see note) at the corresponding line.


CONFESSIO AMANTIS: FOOTNOTES


Prologue

1 Listlessness, dull discernment, little schooling and least labor are the causes by which, I, least of all, sing things all the lesser. Nonetheless, in the tongue of Hengist in which the island of Brutus sang, with Carmentis’ aid I will utter English verses. Let then the boneless one that breaks bones with speeches be absent, and let the interpreter wicked in word stand far away.

2 Present-day Fortune has left behind the blessed times of the past, and overturned on her world-wheel the ancient ways. Harmonious love engendered the old-time peace, when the face was the messenger of a person’s thought: then the unicolored air of the times was aglow with laws, and then the paths of justice were broad and even. But now hidden hatred presents a painted face of love, and clothes under false peace an age at arms. The law carries itself like the chameleon, changeable with every varied thing; and new laws are for new kingdoms. Regions that were most steady throughout the world’s orb are unmoored, nor do they possess axis-points of quiet.

3 The laws of yesterday that old Moses and new John — that one — cultivated, this day hardly keeps. Thus the church, formerly glittering with a double virtue and now instead disheveled, grows pale at either path. At the word of Christ the sword of Peter, regaining its peaceful sheath, abhorred the way of blood; now, however, with sacred law grown tepid, covetousness vigorously thrusts its blood-stained sword. Thus the wolf is the shepherd, the father the enemy, death the commiserator, the brigand the benefactor, and the peace on earth is fear.

4 So long as the commonfolk lies subjugated by royal law, it will bear its burden as meek as a ewe lamb; if its head should come up and the law relax its reins on it, as desire commands for itself, it becomes like a tiger [or, like the Tigris River]. Fire, domination by water are two things without mercy, but the wrath of the commoners is more violent.

5 Fortunate and adverse, turning through its mazy trail, the unclean, disordered world deceives every sort. The world is overturned in its outcomes as a die in a toss, as quickly as the covetous hand throws at the games. Like an image of man do the ages of the world vary, and nothing besides the love of God stands firm.

Book 1

1 Love fashioned for nature’s ends subjects the world to the laws of nature, and incites harmonized ones to wildness [or: incites wild ones to harmony]. Love is seen to be the prince of this world, whose bounty rich man, poor man, and every man demand. Equal in the contest are Love and Fortune, both of which turn their blind wheels to entrap the people. Love is a sharp salvation, a troubled quiet, a pious error, a warring peace, a sweet wound, a soothing ill.

2 I do not indeed outdo Sampson’s powers or Hercules’ arms; but I am conquered as they were, by an equal love. Experience of the deed teaches so that others might learn what path should be held amidst uncertain circumstances. The twisting progress of one leading instructs another following at his back in the dangers already met, so that he too should not fall. Therefore, those disasters by which Venus ensnared me as a lover I strive to write, publicly, as example for the world.

3 Having confessed to Genius, I will try to discover whether that is the healing medicine for the diseases that Venus herself has transmitted. Even limbs wounded by the knife may be brought to health by treatment; yet rarely does the wound of love have a physician.

4 Vision and hearing are fragile gateways of the mind, which no vice-weakened hand can keep shut. A wide path is there by which an enemy strides to the inner cave of the heart and, entering, seizes the buried coin. These first principles Genius the Confessor offers me, while my vexed life is in deadly peril. But now in order that a half-living speech might be able to be uttered, I will fearfully press out through my mouth words privy to my thoughts.

5 Higher than an eagle and more fierce than a lion is that one whom the swelling of a heart, borne upwards, moves to the heights. There are five species over which Pride clamors that she is the leader, and the world clings to those in many ways. By enchanting the face with a feigned paleness, Hypocrisy decks out honey-sweet words with his frauds. And thus time and again he overwhelms pious, womanly souls by means of humble speech with deceit hidden underneath.

6 To bend is thought better than to break, and the attack of the earthen pot cannot prevail over the cauldron. Many a time the man whom neither human nor divine law is strong enough to bend is bent over in his heart by love. The man whom love cannot bend cannot be bent by anything, for his inflexibility stands more rigid than an elephant. Love disdains those he can recognize as rebels, and he sees to it that the uncivil have an uncivil fate. But he who, a pious man, freely subjects himself to Love in his heart, in adversities shatters all fates.

7 The proud man generates grumbling in adversities in such a way that the penalty from a twofold fate presses down upon him. When ready hope in love struggles against fortune, not without a grumbling in the mind does the lover complain.

8 All things Presumption thinks he knows, but he does not know himself, nor does he think that anyone similar to him is his equal. He who thinks himself more astute in winning the battle falls all the more tightly into Venus’s snares. Often Cupid betrays the man who presupposes a lover for himself, and Hope itself turns back down empty roads.

9 The boasting of a bombastic tongue diminishes the genuine fame that being silent would, with honor, confirm as stable. That one does not perceive praise of his merit, so he openly extolls himself in his own words to the world. There is moreover the sinful boasting of a man, which makes the guilty cheeks on a woman redden.

10 Worldly glory engenders continual sorrows, but he who is vain desires vain joys. A plain and simple man will not gain without flattery the friendship of a man whom empty glory has raised up. He who knows how to curry Favel with carefully composed words will succeed in mounting up the saddled laws as a knight. Thus in love, the one who more greatly prepares flattering words in his mouth takes by this the prize that another cannot. And nonetheless elaborate songs and varied adornments and cheerful hearts — these love selects for its laws.

11 Even when the human race possesses a greater glory, sorrow often is likely to lie very near by. An exalted spirit will often drop down dangerous descents; a humble spirit establishes a reliable and gentle path. Fortune turns with innumerable movements through the world-wheel; when you seek the greater heights, fear the places that are all the lower.

12 It is a humble power by which high God carried himself to the depths, and possessed the bowels of our flesh. Thus the humble is exalted, and love subdues all to itself, whose power the proud by no chance possesses. The earth hates the proud, even heaven itself expels him, and he remains in the regions of hell where he has been received.

Book 8

1 This rule that favors the old vice is useful at the present time, nor does the new order please which teaches contrarily to that. Love long blind has not yet received its eyes, wherefore devious Venus warps with deception the affixed path.

2 Love belongs to all the community; but let he who carries out immoderate excesses not be thought a lover. Yet the fate by which Venus attracts hearts does not allow [us] by means of reason to see the things of reason.

3 Whoever desires what he cannot have, wastes his time; where "I'm able" is absent, "I want" is unhealthy. Winter, hairy with icy locks, is not equal to summer's work, when its heat has receded. Nature does not give to December just as May has, nor can clay compare to flowers; and thus old men's lust does not flower in youthful compliance, as Venus herself demands. It would be appropriate, therefore, for those whom white old age touches henceforth to cultivate chaste bodies.

4 Spare I pray, O Christ, the people in order that they may rejoice; stand in opposition, highest king, lest England should sadly go down. Correct each estate, absolve frail defendants. May this blessed place thereupon thrive, grateful [or pleasing] to God.

5 That is, Henry Bolingbroke, who ascended to the throne in 1400. Gower shifted his endorsement from Richard to Henry well before that time, at the latest by 1392. See Prologue, lines 24-92, and the note to Prologue, lines 22ff.

6 Whether the songs are "full of praise" for England, or England "full of praise" for Gower's poetry is grammatically ambiguous (laude repleta). For a similar grammatically possible, hyperbolic praise of Gower's poem, see the Latin verses after *2971, along with the note. That the verse here too allows that meaning by the same technique, along with metrical and other features of the Latin here, suggests either that Gower himself wrote these words of the "certain philosopher," or that a Latinist very much in his "school" of Latin poetry constructed them. The very existence of marginal glosses written by the author for his own work somewhat supports the former possibility. At the least, he had no modesty about including them.



CONFESSIO AMANTIS: EXPLANATORY NOTES


Abbreviations: Anel.: Chaucer, Anelida and Arcite; BD: Chaucer, Book of the Duchess; CA: Gower, Confessio Amantis; CT: Chaucer, Canterbury Tales; HF: Chaucer, House of Fame; LGW: Chaucer, Legend of Good Women; Mac: Macaulay (4 vol. Complete Works); MED: Middle English Dictionary; Met.: Ovid, Metamorphoses; MO: Gower, Mirour de l’Omme; MS(S): manuscript(s); OED: Oxford English Dictionary; PF: Chaucer, Parliament of Fowls; PL: Patrologia Latina; RR: Lorris and de Meun, Roman de la Rose; TC: Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde; Tilley: Tilley, Dictionary of Proverbs in England; Vat. Myth.: Vatican Mythographer I, II, or III; VC: Gower, Vox Clamantis; Whiting: Whiting, Proverbs, Sentences, and Proverbial Phrases. For manuscript abbreviations, see Textual Notes, below.

Notes to Prologue

Latin verses i (before line 1). Lines 1–2: Opening protestations of literary modesty were legion in medieval Latin poetry. This verse parallels in brief outline the longer, preliminary sections of the popular twelfth-century school-text, Johannes de Hauvilla’s Architrenius, which inveighs against Sloth, Lechery, Sleep, Detraction, Mockery, Error, etc. (lines 1–40), asserts the poet’s modest abilities yet confidence in success (lines 55–56), and exhorts envious detractors to remain far off (lines 213–15). Behind the modesty trope, Gower challenges his audience to read his work sympathetically, even though it is written in English. The implication is that English, Hengist’s language (line 3), is inferior as a literary language. To counteract its insularity he alludes to the history of the peoples of the island and the heroic origins of the nation founded by Brutus, the great-grandson of Aeneas. See Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain for the full account of the Trojan descendant’s winning of the island from giants, founding his kingdom, and siring a line of kings that culminates with King Arthur, despite the treachery of Hengist. Hengist was the first Saxon on the island. One anecdote in this mythical history recounts that Hengist’s daughter greeted the reigning British king, Vortiger, with the drinking toast “Wassail!” (“Be healthy!”); according to the fourteenth- and fifteenth-century prose Brut, a popular French and English adaptation and continuation of Geoffrey’s history, this was the first “Englisshe” word spoken in Britain (Brut, ch. 57; ed. Brie, 1.52). Line 4: Carmentis is said by Isidore of Seville to have first brought Latin script to the speakers of ancient Italy (Etymologies 1.4.1). Gower will “utter” but also write his English verses, an event implicitly as foundational as Hengist’s and Carmentis’ founding contributions to linguistic history. See Echard, “With Carmen’s Help,” pp. 3–10, on Carmen as Gower’s muse and one who makes tongues. Line 5: The tongue, whose lack of bones yet had “bone-breaking” power, was the subject of many Latin proverbs (ed. Echard and Fanger, pp. xxxvii and 3). See also VC 5.921–22: “Res mala lingua loguax, res peior, pessima res est, / Que quamuis careat ossibus, ossa terit” (“An evil thing is a talkative tongue . . . / which although it lack bones, destroys bones”); and CA 3.462–65: “the harde bon . . . [a] tunge brekth it al to pieces.” Line 6: The Architrenius also concludes its introductory sections with the same ritual apotropaicism: “Let the slanderous razor of envy, keen only in treachery, remain far off, and far off too be that viper whose venom is harmful only to noteworthy achievements” (lines 213–15).

On the subject of CA as a bilingual poem with distinct functions for each language, see Yeager, “‘Oure englisshe’ and Everyone’s Latin”; Minnis, Medieval Theory of Authorship, pp. 274–75n45; and Olsen, “Betwene Ernest and Game,” pp. 5–18 (on likenesses between its bilingual structure and that of Dante’s Vita Nuova). Pearsall suggests that the vernacular author who nearest approaches Gower in his extensive use of Latin in diverse ways (vatic verse headings, scho­lastic apparatus of prose commentaries, Latin speech prefixes, and elabor­ate Latin apparatus at the end of the poem including a long colophon and various Latin poems) is Boccaccio (“Gower’s Latin in the Confessio Amantis,” p. 15). For further discussion of Gower’s Latin verses see Echard and Fanger, Latin Verses, especially pp. xiii–lviii, and sundry notes. On Gower’s shorter Latin poems see the edi­tion by Yeager (Minor Latin Works). On tensions between Latin and English texts see Batchelor, “Feigned Truth and Exemplary Method.”

2 bokes duelle. Gower positions books as the repository of moral values and his­tory, against which he encourages the reader to judge present behavior. Books provide examples from “olde wyse” (line 7); that wisdom of the past enables people to see what is new, whether in method, topic, or circumstance.

7 Essampled. For discussion of Gower’s use of narrative exempla see Yeager, “John Gower and the Exemplum Form”; Shaw, “Gower’s Illustrative Tales”; Simpson, Sciences and the Self; Runacres, “Art and Ethics”; and Mitchell, Ethics and Ex­emplary Narrative. For his use of Ovid see Harbert, “Lessons from the Great Clerk.” See also note to Book 1, line 79.

7–8 wyse . . . wyse. Gower’s verse thrives on rime riche, the rhyming of homophones (words with the same sound but different meanings or functions). The device catches the ear off-guard and provokes double, more careful reading, the way riddles do. Single glosses (e.g., wyse as both “wise” [men or books] and “man­ner”) can scarce­ly do justice to the device which, like puns, flourishes on multi­plicity of mean­ings and function, such as adjective versus noun, etc. The de­vice reminds us that glosses are starting points only, not simple equations or “facts.” See note to Prol.237–38.

11-18 An inkblot in the middle of the first column obliterates a portion of the text. The blot apparently was made sometime after the page had been copied and bound, for two streaks extend toward the center, as if running down the page. A corresponding blot occurs on the facing page, a mirror image of the first blot. If this MS was in fact corrected by Gower, as Macaulay suggested, the poet himself could be the culprit (2:cxxx). More likely, the accident occurred at some later date after the presentation of the copy.

17 The middel weie is both a rhetorical and an ethical proposition. Gower would see his poem as a mediator between social issues and personal moral choices. See Middleton (“Idea of Public Poetry,” pp. 101–02) on the public dimen­sions of Gower’s methodological agenda. By striking a medial position be­tween wisdom and delight, with English as his medium, the poet would make fictive paradigms from which moral therapy might be achieved. See Intro­duction.

19 Somwhat of lust, somewhat of lore. See Zeeman on Gower’s appropriation of “Amans, his love, his text and all texts of courtly love into an exemplum of worldly uncertainty and deceit” (“Framing Narrative,” p. 223). Lust, she sug­gests, denotes desire, the feeling of pleasure and delight, but also the object of desire and something causing pleasure. The shift of the narrator from auctor to Amans engages the reader in the pleasure of narrative, while the conversion of the lover into the old man in Book 8 brutally subverts the courtly narrative as a deceit from which there is no “recoverir” (pp. 231–32, with reference to 8.2443).

22 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic in principio declarat qualiter in anno Regis Ricardi secun­di sexto decimo Iohannes Gower presentem libellum composuit et finaliter com­ple­uit, quem strenuissimo domino suo domino Henrico de Lancastria tunc Derbeie Comiti cum omni reuerencia specialiter destinauit. [Here in the beginning he de­clares how in the sixteenth year of King Richard II John Gower composed and ultimately completed the present little book, which he especially designated with all reverence for the most vigorous lord, his lord Henry of Lancaster, at that time Earl of Derby.] This Latin inscription is found in only five MSS, and appears to be a late addition, after the establishing of the third recension, though not necessarily in third recension copies. It does not occur, however, in Fairfax 3. Olsson points out that what is important here is the fact that the note replaces a gloss at Prol.34 of the first recension, which read: “John Gower . . . most zealously compiled the present little book, like a honeycomb gathered from various flowers” (see full text of the gloss below, at the end of the following note). Olsson suggests that the shift from compilauit to compleuit (from compilation to composition) may indicate a shift in Gower’s conception of his work as he puts aside the earlier sense of himself as a compilator gather­ing flowers of wisdom from the past to consider himself more confidently in the role of auctor (Structures of Conversion, pp. 5–11). Nicholson (“Dedications,” pp. 171–74), on the other hand, suggests that the Latin note was added by Gower or a scribe long after the original presentation to Henry, and thus the gloss gives a misleading account of the history of CA.

24 A bok for Engelondes sake. Aers (“Reflections on Gower as ‘Sapiens in Ethics and Politics’”) sees in the phrase an epitome of Gower’s attack on ecclesiastical fail­ure. Aers suggests that Gower is attempting to persuade lay power, es­pecially that of the sovereign (line 25), that what was destructive of the church was also subversive of royal power, and that “the sovereign needed the whole­hearted support of the church. . . . The auctor of the Prologue and Genius in Book II [with his attack on the papacy] develop a radical critique of the actually exist­ing church combined with a defence of the secular sovereign’s role in chal­lenging the ecclesiastical hierarchy when it is judged to be in serious error” (p. 196).

24-92 These lines are found only in third recension MSS. That is, they must have been written c. 1392 when Gower rededicated the poem to Henry of Lan­caster, count of Derby. Nicholson (“Dedications”) argues that the change in text represents the honoring of a patron, not some disenchanted transfer of allegiance from Richard to the count of Derby; others have seen evidences of disappoint­ment in Richard (e.g., Peck, Kingship and Common Profit, pp. 7–9; “Politics and Psychology,” pp. 224–38; Ferster, Fictions of Advice, pp. 109–10; and Simpson, Sciences and the Self, pp. 297–99). The majority of the MSS include the Richard citation here marked as *24–*92, rather than the dedi­cation to Henry that was introduced in 1392 as in the carefully corrected Fair­fax 3 MS. But the earlier dedication continued to be copied after 1392, almost certainly with Gower’s approval. Thus I have placed the first dedication as a parallel text in this edition. For further com­ment see note to Prol.25, below. On Gower as a Lancastrian advocate, see Staley, Languages of Power, pp. 351–55.

[The Ricardian recension of the poem reads as follows:]

   
*25   
   
   
   
   
*30   
   
   
   
   
*35   
   
   
   
   
*40   
   
   
   
   
*45   
   
   
   
   
*50   
   
   
   
   
*55   
   
   
   
   
*60   
   
   
   
   
*65   
   
   
   
   
*70   
   
   
   
   
*75   
   
   
   
   
*80   
   
   
   
   
*85   
   
   
   
   
*90   
   
   
 A book for King Richardes sake
To whom bilongeth my ligeance
With al myn hertes obeissance
In al that ever a liege man
Unto his king may doon or can;
So ferforth I me recomaunde
To him which al me may comaunde,
Prayend unto the hihe regne
Which causeth every king to regne,
That his corone longe stonde.
I thenke and have it understonde,
As it bifel upon a tyde,
As thing which scholde tho bityde,
Under the toun of newe Troye,
Which took of Brut his ferste joye,
In Temse whan it was flowende
As I by bote cam rowende,
So as Fortune hir tyme sette,
My liege lord par chaunce I mette;
And so bifel, as I cam neigh,
Out of my bot, whan he me seigh,
He bad me come into his barge.
And whan I was with him at large,
Amonges othre thinges seyde
He hath this charge upon me leyde,
And bad me doo my busynesse
That to his hihe worthinesse
Som newe thing I scholde booke,
That he himself it mighte looke
After the forme of my writyng.
And thus upon his comaundyng
Myn hert is wel the more glad
To write so as he me bad;
And eek my fere is wel the lasse
That non envye schal compasse
Without a resonable wite
To feyne and blame that I write.
A gentil herte his tunge stilleth,
That it malice noon distilleth,
But preyseth that is to be preised;
But he that hath his word unpeysed
And handeleth onwrong every thing,
I pray unto the heven king
Fro suche tunges He me schilde.
And natheles this world is wilde
Of such jangling, and what bifalle,
My kinges heste schal nought falle,
That I, in hope to deserve
His thonk, ne schal his wil observe;
And elles were I nought excused,
For that thing may nought be refused
Which that a king himselve byt.
Forthi the symplesce of my wit
I thenke if that it may avayle
In his service to travaile.
Though I seknesse have upon honde,
And long have had, yit wol I fonde,
So as I made my byheste,
To make a book after his heste,
And write in such a maner wise,
Which may be wisdom to the wise
And pley to hem that lust to pleye.
But in proverbe I have herd seye
That who that wel his werk begynneth
The rather a good ende he wynneth;
And thus the prologe of my book
After the world that whilom took,
And eek somdel after the newe,
I wol begynne for to newe.
 (see note)
allegiance
   
   
   
myself admit
all people may
Praying; high ruler (i.e., God)
   
   
   
time
then happen
(see note)
   
Thames; flowing
came rowing by in a boat
   
   
near
saw
(see note)
comfortably (without restraint)
   
   
   
   
compose
   
   
   
   
commanded
fear
   
   
misconstrue
   
   
what
unleashed
meanly perverts
   
shield
   
happens
behest
   
obey
   
   
ordered; (t-note)
   
(t-note)
   
illness
attempt
promise
command
   
   
   
(see note)
   
   
   
once came about
   
   

[Here ends the passage for which Gower substituted new lines in Fairfax 3.]

*24-*25 book . . . bilongeth. N.b. spelling differences here as juxtaposed to the spelling of the Fairfax scribe. Macaulay uses Bodley 294 as the text for the Ricardian version, as do I. He allows that the spelling in his edition has been “slightly normalized” (2:457), which is an understatement. I have followed the spelling of Bodley 294 as an antidote to any notion that the spelling of the Fairfax 3 scribe necessarily equates with Gower’s.

25 The yer sextenthe of Kyng Richard. Gower completed his first version of CA dur­ing or prior to the fourteenth year of Richard’s reign. Although some por­tions of the poem may have been written four or five years or perhaps even seven years earlier, when Chaucer was working on TC and beginning LGW, the Pro­logue of CA may have been completed later. In that first version, lines *24–*92 tell of Gower’s boarding of the royal barge and the king’s requesting that he write the poem, which the poet agrees to do despite ill health (*79–*80), out of “ligeance” and “obeissance” (lines *25–*26) to his king. By 1392, the sixteenth year of Richard’s reign, Gower rewrote this beginning and conclusion of the poem, deleting the king’s commission here and the ending of the poem in praise of Richard’s worthiness, and dedicated the poem to Henry of Lancaster (see Prol. 81–92 and the Latin postscript to Book 8), even as much as seven years before Henry would become king. (See Mac 2:cxxvii–clxx, for a description of most of the known MSS and an account of the revisions; see Fisher, John Gower, pp. 116– 17, for discussion of the revisions in their historical setting.) The politics underlying the revision are not known. Perhaps Gower became disenchanted with Richard’s behavior as king at the time of the king’s harsh treatment of London officials earlier in 1392. That he sees hope for England in a man like Henry of Lancaster so long before he would return from exile to “save” England seems clairvoyant, though it is quite possible that Gower meant only for the Fairfax 3 version of CA to be a compliment to Henry and that recopying of the earlier recensions continued with the poet’s approval.

*33 That his corone longe stonde. This line, especially, resonates in its omission from the third recension, where Gower speaks of time reversing itself as it yearns for the good rule of one like Henry of Lancaster. In the Tripartite Chronicle, Gower, per­haps anachronistically, sees Richard’s misbehavior reaching back to 1392 and earlier as he quite boldly speaks of not only shortening but ending Richard’s reign.

*34–*35 Latin marginalia: Inserted between lines *34–*35 in MS Bodley 294, a second recension MS which has been my copy-text for lines *24–*92, is a Latin summary: Hic declarat in primis qualiter ob reuerenciam serenissimi principis domini sui [Regis Anglie Ricardi secundi] totus suus humilis Iohannes Gower, licet graui infirmitate a diu multipliciter fatigatus, huius opusculi labores suscipere non recusauit, sed tanquam fauum ex variis floribus recollectum, presentem libellum ex variis cronicis, historiis, poetarum philosophorumque dictis, quatenus sibi infirmitas permisit, studio­sissime compilauit. [Here he declares particularly how, because of reverence of the most serene prince, his lord king of England Richard II, his own and humble John Gower, although long wearied in many ways by grave illness, did not refuse to take up the labors of this little work, but instead has most zeal­ously compiled the present little book from various chronicles, histories, and sayings of poets and philosophers, like a honeycomb gathered from various flowers, to the extent that his infirmity allowed him.] In some first and second recension MSS, e.g., Cambridge University Library Mm 2.21, the Latin note appears in the margin, though the practice of inserting marginal prose summaries into the text itself, just as the Latin verse epigrams appear in the text, is common in many of the later MSS, even though the insertion disrupts the sense and syntax of the English verse. Usually the Latin insertions are written in a different colored ink, as here. On the variis floribus trope as evidence of Gower’s initial regard for his work as compilatio, a sort of anthology of purposeful writing from former days, see Olsson, Structures of Conversion, pp. 5–11.

*37 newe Troye. Gower flatters Richard and the kingdom with the allusion to London as the “new Troye,” as if to identify a renaissance of ancient culture of which they are the heart. The designation was encouraged by Edward III and Richard II, as part of the celebration of the new vernacular culture surpassing that of France or even Italy. The term evolves from the mythography of Geoffrey of Monmouth, since the Trojan descendant Brutus founded his kingdom on the happy island. Contemporary romances based on Geoffrey, such as The Alliterative Morte Arthure, impress their audience with the superiority of Arthur’s culture to that of Rome or France. See note to Latin verses i, above.

*45 He bad me come into his barge. For speculation against the historicity of the meeting on the Thames, see Grady, “Gower’s Boat.” But see Staley, Languages of Power, pp. 16–17.

52 burel clerk. Literally, one dressed in coarse clothing — hence common or ignorant; possibly a lay clerk, though more likely an oxymoron (secular-religious). See Galloway, “Gower in His Most Learned Role,” on the unusual posture of secular learnedness that Gower cultivates.

59 neweth every dai. See Olsson, Structures of Conversion, pp. 10 ff., on Gower’s con­cept of the value of reading and of the past as new ideas come out of old works. The idea is intimately linked to his technique of compilatio, which be­comes a means of invention rather than encyclopedic accumu­lation. The re­telling converts dead ideas to living ones for the audience as well as for Amans. Olsson goes on to suggest that this process of perpetual renewal provides an interconnectedness between Gower’s earlier writings and CA (pp. 16 ff.). Com­pare Chaucer’s “For out of olde feldes, as men seyth, / Cometh al this newe corn from yer to yere” (PF lines 22–23).

60 So as I can, so as I mai. Proverbial: “As I am able, so will I do.” Not in Whiting, though Tilley, Dictionary of Proverbs, offers the variant: “Men must do as they may (can), not as they would” (M554).

61-62 Although the allusion to the poet’s illness enhances the Prologue’s theme of the degenerating world and thus anticipates the conclusion to the poem where the poet rejects mundane love because of his decrepitude, biographers gen­erally agree that Gower was in fact in ill health during his later years. He had retired from public life some fifteen years earlier and was now over sixty years old. It is note­worthy that this couplet alone is found in both the first and third recensions (compare *79–*80). Gower changed the dedication, but not the reference to his illness.

67 to wisdom al belongeth. Simpson argues that the branch of wisdom to which Gow­er is referring is that of the stoic and moral philosophers (Socrates, Seneca, and Boethius), who, according to Robert Holcot’s third kind of sapientia in his Com­mentum super librum sapientiae, define sapientia as “the collection of intel­lectual and moral powers” (“Ironic Incongruence,” pp. 618–19).

72 bot the god alone. Conceivably the sense might be “God alone.” But Macaulay (2:459) notes the preeminence of locutions such as “the god” (i.e., the good) in 2:594, and “the vertu” (Prol.116), “the manhode” (Prol.260), “the man” (Prol.546, 582), and “[t]he charité” (Prol.319), etc. See also “the vertu and the vice” (Prol.79). The placement of the article reflects a French affectation. The implication seems deterministic, as if the good know by virtue of their good­ness. See Mark 4:11–12, where the good see and hear the mysteries of God, but to others (those outside the faith) things happen in parables.

77 ff. Macaulay suggests that in lines 77 ff. Gower alludes to Book 7, which deals with the instruction of great men. He glosses the lines to read: “I shall make a discourse also with regard to those who are in power, marking the distinction between the virtues and the vices which belong to their office” (2:459). Cer­tainly the sense of the lines is complex with respect to authority and submis­sion (see marginal gloss to lines 77–80). Book 7 provides one context; but the lines might also be understood in terms of CA 8.2109–20, where the focus shifts from great men as power figures now to kingship as a psycho­logical phenomenon. That is, in writing about love which has upset so many men he will in this “wise” (that is, in the mode of courtly romance) consider virtues and vices which have general significance to “great” men of all times. See Peck’s discussion of 8.2109 ff. in Kingship and Common Profit, pp. 173–74, and his earlier edition (1967), pp. xxi–xxii.

81-87 Bot for my wittes . . . amendement . . . is Henri named. The modesty trope with deference to the patron is common in late fourteenth- and early-fifteenth-century literature, as the author presents his work as receptive to criticism.

*86–*88 in proverbe. See Whiting W646.

Latin verses ii (before line 93). Line 2: vertit in orbe has punning implications difficult to translate in brief: vertit may mean “has overturned, destroyed,” but also in context the rotation of Fortune’s orb; in orbe may mean “on [Fortune’s] wheel” or “in the world.” The association between Fortune’s orbis and the world’s orbis is increasingly clear in the verse (as throughout Gower’s poetry). “World-wheel” makes an effort to capture both the global sense and the pun on For­tune’s inexorably turning wheel. Compare Chaucer’s “Lak of Sted­fast­nesse” and “Fortune: Balade de Visage sanz Peinture.” The idea of a “golden age” is a commonplace of ancient and medieval poetry; for Gower’s likeliest models see Boethius, Consolation 2.m.5, and Jean de Meun, RR, lines 8381–9668. Compare Chaucer’s “The Former Age.” Line 9: For a dif­ferent comparison to the chameleon, see CA 1.2698–2702.

94 The tyme passed. On Gower’s nostalgic feel for the ancients and former days as an ubi sunt golden age, see Peter, Complaint and Satire, p. 70.

Latin marginalia: De statu regnorum, vt dicunt, secundum temporalia, videlicet tempore regis Ricardi secundi anno regni sui sexto decimo. [Concerning the status of kingdoms, as they say, in regard to worldly matters, in the time of King Richard II in the sixteenth year of his reign.]

113 The word was lich to the conceite. A phrase equivalent to Chaucer’s “The wordes moote be cosyn to the dede” (CT I[A]742), which Chaucer attributes to Plato. The phrase is proverbial. See Whiting W645.

120 in special. “In its specifics, or singularities,” or “in its details, or particularities.” Gower frequently uses the term with philosophical precision, as if it marks features of the minor premise from which causation might be deduced. See Prol.165, 281, 383, 432, 572, 946. Boethius speaks of the confusion of human­kind in terms of knowing and not knowing simultaneously: “while the soule is hidd in the cloude and in the derknesse of the membres of the body, it ne hath nat al foryeten itself, but it withholdeth the somme of thinges and lesith the singularites. Thanne who so that sekith sothnesse, he nis in ney­ther nother habite, for he not nat al, ne he ne hath nat al foryeten; but yit hym remem­breth the somme of thinges that he withholdeth, and axeth conseile, and retretith deepliche thinges iseyn byforne (that is to seyn, the grete somme in his mynde) so that he mowe adden the parties that he hath foryeten to thilke that he hath withholden” (Chaucer’s Boece, 5.m.3.43–56; emphasis mine).

124 comune vois. Macaulay emends to comun vois. His emendation improves the meter. In his idealism, Gower imagines an innate voice of truth lying within the people of every society, like a God-given conscience which might be sounded in hard times despite the almost universal corruptions of sin and oppression. See Peck, Kingship and Common Profit (especially pp. xi–xxv), for discussion of the people and the common voice. Compare the proverb vox populi vox dei, which recurs in MO and VC. See Whiting V52–V54.

143 Stonde in this world upon a weer. Weer derives from Old Germanic *warra, mean­ing “conflict,” “doubt,” “uncertainty.” N.b. OHG werra, MDu, MLG werre, ONF wiere, and OE and ME wer(e). In ME its homonym weir, for a bog or stagnant water, provides a rich pun, as one who stonde in doubt is akin to one who stands on unstable ground or is “bogged down.” A second homonym, were (the past tense of the verb to be), provides a further pun, as if the newness of an idea passes, becomes lost, and the mind falls back into a forgetting. See Chaucer’s HF, lines 970–82, for a similar use of the term. This wordplay is highly Boethian in its sense of place versus lack of steadfastness, a sensibility commonly implicit in the often-repeated main verb to stand, which is used philosophically several hundred times in CA (e.g., “evere stant . . . in doute” [Prol.562] or “stant evere upon debat” [Prol.567]). On uncertainty and muta­bility as philosophical concepts within the Prologue and Book 1, see Simpson, Sciences and the Self.

152-53 Latin marginalia: Apostolus. Regem honorificate [The Apostle: "Honor the king" — I Peter 2:17]

155 With al his herte and make hem chiere. “And welcome them with all his heart.” Gower commonly places the conjunction in a medial position where we would require its position at the head of the clause. See also Prol.521, 756, and 1014. Macaulay cites Prol.759 as well, which is possible, though I have punctuated the sentence as if the first clause were an instance of enjambment and “wroghte” a transitive verb.

156 ff. Latin marginalia: Salomon. Omnia fac cum consilio [Solomon: “Do all things with counsel”] Fili sine consilio nihil facias, et post factum non paeniteberis [My son, do nothing without counsel, and thou shalt not repent when thou hast done — Vulgate/Douai, Ecclesiasticus 32:24]. Macaulay (2:460) notes that Gower often cites Ecclesiasticus in MO, but the proverb is very common. Compare Chaucer’s Miller’s Tale (CT I[A]3529–30): “For thus seith Salomon, that was ful trewe: / ‘Werk al by conseil, and thou shalt nat rewe’”; and Merchant’s Tale (CT IV[E]1485–86): “Wirk alle thyng by conseil . . . And thanne shaltow nat repente thee.” See Whiting C470. The proverb also occurs in The Tale of Melibee (CT VII[B2]1003) which Benson suggests is due to Albertanus of Brescia, Lib. consolationis et consilii, a source for The Tale of Melibee.

167 Among the men to geve pes. Gower is alluding to the recurrent wars with France, Spain, and Scotland. A three-year truce had been made with France and Scotland in 1389, but, because of profiteering, it was not maintained. An attempt for a truce with Spain in the same year failed. Not until 1396, when Richard married the daughter of the king of France, was a firm truce established with the French.

Latin verses iii (before line 193). Line 4: Macaulay suggests the double virtue to be charity and chastity (2:460).

194-99 Latin marginalia: De statu cleri, vt dicunt, secundum spiritualia, videlicet tempore Roberti Gibbonensis, qui nomen Clementis sibi sortitus est, tunc antipape. [Concerning the status of the clergy, as they call them, in regard to spiritual matters, in the time of Robert of Geneva, who took to himself the name Clement, at that time the antipope.] In 1378 the Great Schism began, in which both Pope Urban VI (supported by the English) and Clement VII (supported by the French) were elected popes, in Rome and Avignon respectively; the schism did not end until 1418. Gower attacks the Avignon pope Clement also in VC 3.955–56. It may be a sign of his different anticipated audiences or different kinds of linguistic decorum that, although Gower discusses in English the moral point of the schism (below, lines 360–77), he names names only in Latin.

196 Ensample. The term is a favorite of Gower in defining “a fitting vehicle for his personal philosophy by mirroring the complexities and interrelatedness of the microcosm and the macrocosm in its multileveled construction” (Shaw, “Gower’s Illustrative Tales,” p. 447). See Simpson, Sciences and the Self; Runacres, “Art and Ethics”; and Mitchell, Ethics and Exemplary Narrative, on the diversity of rhetorical functions of “ensamples” in CA as Gower effects the trans­formation of sources for judiciously particularized situations.

204 Simon. Simon Magus, a Samaritan sorcerer mentioned in Acts 8:18–24. Simon offers money for purchasing the power of the Holy Spirit, but Peter rebukes him, condemning his iniquity. Hence, simony, the practice of buying or selling ecclesiastical preferment, benefices, emoluments, or sacred objects for personal gain. Simon’s name became synonymous with ecclesiastical corruption. See also line 241.

207-11 Lumbard . . . withoute cure. Lombardy, especially Milan and Lucca, was the banking center of Europe in the fourteenth century. The Lombards were so notorious as bankers, moneylenders, and pawnbrokers that their name came to denote such behavior in both Old French and Middle English (OED ). Lang­land links Lombards and Jews to exemplify avarice in Piers Plowman B 5.238, and in C 4.193–94 he yokes merchants, “mytrede bysshopes,” Lom­bards, and Jews as enemies of Conscience. Lombard bankers were often em­ployed as intermediaries in church and state transactions, which sometimes became confused. The Lombard’s refusal to make eschange alludes to King Richard’s dispute with London when city officials would not lend revenue to the king but would lend to the Lombards. Macaulay notes that “the ‘letter’ referred to [in line 209] is the papal provision, or perhaps the letter of request addressed to the pope in favour of a particular person” (2:461). Gower makes a similar complaint in VC 3.1375 ff. (See also CA 2.2093 ff.) For full discussion of the relationship of the Lombard bankers to English kings in the previous century, see Kaeuper, Bankers to the Crown.

237-38 goode . . . goode. Rime équivoque, where the poet repeats words or portions of words with punning effect (compare rime riche), and metonymic structures are preeminent features of Gower’s rhetoric and the basis of much of its wit and innuendo. For discussion of the devices and their effects upon the poem’s texture see Olsen, “Betwene Ernest and Game,” pp. 33–69. For a tour de force example of the device see 5.79–90.

247 lawe positif. Positive law refers to any law which is arbitrarily instituted; it is customarily classified as distinct from divine law and natural law. Gower’s point is that the church has departed from its own regulation. It is perhaps note­worthy that under positive law fell the selling of indulgences, pardons, trentals, and the like, a jurisdiction that was much abused. Chaucer satirizes the manipulations of such laws in The Friar’s Tale, The Summoner’s Tale, and The Pardoner’s Tale. See also Piers Plowman B 7.168–95 and VC 3.227 ff.

266-77 “The allusion is to the circumstances of the campaign of the Bishop of Nor­wich in 1385; cf. Vox Clam. iii. 373 (margin), and see Froissart (ed. Lettenhove [Brussels, 1879]), vol. x. p. 207” (Mac 2:461–62).

284 Gregoire. The allusion is to Gregory I’s Pastoral Care 1.8, 9. (See PL 76.1128.)

298-305 Latin marginalia: Gregorius. Terrenis lucris inhiant, honore prelacie gaudent, et non vt prosint, set vt presint, episcopatum desiderant. [Gregory: "They gulp down worldly riches, rejoice in the honor of the prelacy and desire a bishopric, not to be a help but to be the head."] Macaulay observes that the passage is taken loosely from Gregory's Homilies on the Gospel, printed in PL 76:1128 and Regula Pastoralis 2.6. See his note (2.462).

329 Ethna. Mt. Etna, the Sicilian volcano (the highest in Europe, over 10,000 feet), frequently cited in classical sources from Thucydides to Lucretius and repeatedly used in Gower as a metaphor of the explosive fires of Envy. See CA 2.20, 163, 2337, 5.1289, and so on. Perhaps Gower takes the figure from Ovid, Met. 8.868, though references abound in all mythographers.

331 Gower refers to the papal dispute between Clement VII at Avignon and Boniface IX at Rome, both of whom claimed the allegiance of Christendom. He sees the schism in the head of the church as responsible for schismatic heresies such as Lollardry throughout the clergy.

349 Lollardie. A derogatory term implicating Christian fundamentalists who, fol­lowing the views of Wyclif and promulgating the first straight translation of the Bible into English since the Norman Conquest, challenged the authority of the priest­hood and the efficacy of the sacraments.

369 For trowthe mot stonde ate laste. Proverbial. See Whiting T509.

389 ther I love, ther I holde. Proverbial. See Whiting L571. The sense is that one is loyal to what one loves and that that may be the best "defence" (line 388).

434-36 Latin marginalia: Qui vocatur a deo tanquam Aaron. ["Who is called by God, like Aaron" — Hebrews 5:4.] Aaron was the articulate priest, chosen by God to assist his brother Moses in guiding the children of Israel out of Egypt and through the desert. The full passage (Hebrews 5:1-6) refers to those who choose themselves for the priesthood versus those chosen by God. See Exodus 4:14. In Gower's day, Hebrews was thought to have been written by St. Paul.

462 ff. betwen ernest and game. Gower's objection is to evasiveness by ecclesiasts who turn moral issues into word games with which to advantage their worldly estates. They use fiction ("holy tales") for harm rather than common profit.

484 made ferst the mone. I.e., created the first sphere, beneath which is the chaos of the world (see line 142), the sublunar realm of shadows, doubts, sloth, greed, and such confusions that so afflict the church these days.

491–92 For every man hise oghne werkes / Schal bere. Proverbial. See Whiting M79.

496 mirour of ensamplerie. Good “clerkes” (line 492) reflect the “goodnesse” of “the hyhe God” (line 485), and, thus, though in the realm of sublunar chaos, pro­vide good example of ordinances between “the men and the Godhiede” (line 498).

Latin verses iv (before line 499). Line 1: Vulgaris populus. . . . The tone of these verses is akin to that of the first book of VC, where Gower assails the people for becoming destructively willful during the Rising of 1381.

504-07 Latin marginalia: De statu plebis ut dicunt, secundum accidencium mutabilia. [Concerning the status of the people, as they say, in regard to the changeability of events.]

511 Wher lawe lacketh, errour groweth. Proverbial. See Whiting L109.

518–19 And therupon his jugement / Gifth every man in sondry wise. “And thereupon every man gives his judgment in diverse ways.”

529-43 Latin marginalia: Nota contra hoc, quod aliqui sortem fortune, aliqui influenciam planetarum ponunt, per quod, vt dicitur, rerum euentus necessario contingit. Set pocius dicendum est, quod ea que nos prospera et aduersa in hoc mundo vocamus, secundum merita et demerita hominum digno dei iudicio proveniunt. [Note against this, that some posit the chance of fortune, some the influence of planets, as the means by which, as is said, the outcome of things is contingent on necessity. But it should rather be said that those things we call prosperity and adversity in this world devolve according to the merit or demerits of human beings, by the worthy judgment of God.]

567-71 Latin marginalia: Boicius. O quam dulcendo humane vite multa amaritudine aspersa est. [Boethius: "O how the sweetness of human life is stained by much bitterness."] See Consolation 2.pr.4. Gower's rendition simplifies the wording.

Latin verses v (before line 585). Line 1: Prosper et . . . . The vision of Nebuchadnezzar is frequently depicted at this point in MSS which have miniatures at or near the beginning of CA (see illustrations 2 and 4). Gower's account of the vision is based on Daniel 2:19-45, though Gower expands Daniel's commentary anachronistically (lines 633-821) in order to comment on the decadence of contemporary history. See VC 7, where he uses the same biblical device. For discussion see Introduction, and Peck, “John Gower and the Book of Daniel.”

591-608 Latin marginalia: Hic in prologo tractat de Statua illa, quam Rex Nabugodonosor viderat in sompnis, cuius caput aureum, pectus argenteum, venter eneus, tibie ferree, pedum vero quedam pars ferrea, quedam fictilis videbatur, sub qua membrorum diuersitate secundum Danielis exposicionem huius mundi variacio figurabatur. [Here in the Prologue he discourses about that Statue that King Nebuchadnezzar had seen in dreams, whose head was gold, chest silver, stomach brass, legs iron, but whose feet were some part iron, some part clay, through which diversity of members, according to Daniel's exposition, the variation of this world is figured.] See Daniel 2:31-45. The passage was a common locus for medieval historical allegory.

617-24 Latin marginalia: Hic narrat vlterius de quodam lapide grandi, qui, vt in dicto sompnio videbatur, ab excelso monte super statuam corruens ipsam quasi in nichilum penitus contruit. [Here he narrates further concerning the certain great stone, which, as appeared in the said dream, rushed from a high mountain onto the statue and utterly crushed it almost to nothing.]

619 of sodein aventure. Gower treats fortune (aventure) as a demonstrative com­ponent of God’s will, an important counterforce to the classical notion of the degeneration of time.

626-30 Latin marginalia: Hic loquitur de interpretacione sompnii, et primo dicit de significacione capitis aurei. [Here he speaks concerning the interpretation of the dream, and first he speaks concerning the interpretation of the head of gold.]

635-39 Latin marginalia. Brief Latin directors at the appropriate lines: line 635: De pectore argenteo [Concerning the silver chest]; line 637: De ventre eneo [Concerning the brass stomach]; line 639: De tibeis ferreis [Concerning the iron legs].

641 ff. Latin marginalia: De significacione pedum, qui ex duabus materiis discordantibus adinuicem diuisi extiterant. [Concerning the significance of the feet, which exist in division because of the two mutually discordant materials.]

641–42 the werste of everydel / Is last. Proverbial. See variants in Tilley W918 and W911. The saying is congruent with an entropic theory of history, one which Daniel counters with his theory of divine purpose that he proceeds to explicate.

651-54 Latin marginalia: De lapidis statuam confringentis significacione. [Concerning the significance of the stone shattering the statue.]

658 the laste. Gower projects an apocalyptic conclusion to the old world, after which the new age of the Parousia shall begin.

661-69 Latin marginalia: Hic consequenter scribit qualiter huius seculi regna variis mutacionibus, prout in dicta statua figurabatur, secundum temporum distincciones sencibiliter hactenus diminuuntur. [Here consequently he writes how the kingdoms of this world, because of various mutations, just as they are figured in the said statue, are perceptibly diminished in accord with each distinction of historical times right up to the present.]

663 thus expondeth Daniel. Daniel’s explication satisfies Nebuchadnezzar’s concern by providing meaning to the king’s otherwise depressing vision of the de­gen­eration of time, where worse moves to worst.

670-76 Latin marginalia: De seculo aureo, quod in capite statue designatum est, a tempore ipsius Nabugodonosor Regis Caldee vsque in regnum Ciri Regis Persarum. [Concerning the golden age, which is designated in the statue's head, from the time of that Nebuchadnezzar, king of Chaldea, up to the kingdom of Cyrus, king of the Persians.]

688-94 Latin marginalia: De seculo argenteo, quod in pectore designatum est, a tempore ipsius Regis Ciri vsque in regnum Alexandri Regis Macedonie. [Concerning the silver age, which is designated in the chest from the time of king Cyrus up to the kingdom of Alexander, king of Macedonia.]

698 soffre thei that nedes mote. Proverbial. Variant of Whiting N61. See 1.1714 and 8.1020.

699-705 Latin marginalia: De seculo eneo, quod in ventre designatum est, a tempore ipsius Alexandri vsque in regnum Iulii Romanorum Imparatoris. [Concerning the age of brass, which is designated in the belly, from the time of that Alexander up to the kingdom of Julius, emperor of the Romans.]

731-37 Latin marginalia: De seculo ferreo, quod in tibeis designatum est, a tempore Iulii vsque in regnum Karoli magni Regis Francorum. [Concerning the age of iron, which is designated in the legs, from the time of Julius up to the kingdom of Charles the Great, king of the Franks.]

745 ff. "It is hardly necessary to point out that our author's history is here incorrect. Charlemagne was not called in against the Emperor Leo, who died in the year before he was born, but against the Lombards by Adrian I, and then against the rebellious citizens of Rome by Leo III, on which latter occasion he received the imperial crown" (Mac 2:464). Gower is following Brunetto Latini's account in the Trésor.

759 wise; and. See note to line 155.

772 ff. Macaulay notes (2:464) that “Here again the story is historically inac­curate, but it is not worthwhile to set it straight.” Gower’s historicist/ethical point is plainly evident, despite the deficiency of historical accuracy.

779-806 Latin marginalia: De seculo nouissimis iam temporibus ad similitudinem pedum in discordiam lapso et diuiso, quod post decessum ipsius Karoli, cum imperium Romanorum in manus Longobardorum peruenerat, tempore Alberti et Berengarii incepit: nam ob eorum diuisionem contigit, vt Almanni imperatoriam adepti sunt maiestatem. In cuius solium quendam principem theotonicum Othonem nomine sublimari primitus constituerunt. Et ab illo regno incipiente diuisio per vniuersum orbem in posteros concreuit, vnde nos ad alterutrum diuisi huius seculi consummacionem iam vltimi expectamus. [Concerning the age of the most recent times, in the likeness of the feet, fallen and divided in discord, which began after the passing of that Charles, when the Roman Empire fell to the hands of the Lombards, in the time of Albert and Berengar: for on their account division occurred as the Germans seized the imperial majesty. In this throne they caused to be raised up a certain Teutonic prince, Otto by name. And from the inception of this kingdom, division hardened through the whole world for subsequent generations, whence we expect from one or the other of the divisions the end of this present, last age.]

851-52 divisioun . . . moder of confusioun. On divisioun as a moral crux in CA see Intro­duction. Also see White, “Division and Failure,” p. 600, and Peck, Kingship and Common Profit, pp. 14–22 and 32–35. Right use of memory is the best remedy for division, which is, ultimately, a kind of forgetting. See Chand­ler on three types of remembering — confession, tales, and spiritual memory — that “work to reunite Amans’ divided self” (“Memory and Unity,” p. 18).

881–83 Th’apostel writ . . . Th’ende of the world. Macaulay (2:465) sees an allusion here to St. Paul, 1 Corinthians 10:11–12: “These things . . . are written for our correction, upon whom the ends of the world are come . . . let him take heed lest he fall.”

881-85 Latin marginalia: Hic dicit secundum apostolum, quod nos sumus in quos fines seculi deuenerunt. [Here he speaks in accord with the Apostle, that we are "those upon whom the end of the world has come."] See 1 Corinthians 10:11–12: “these things . . . are written for our correction, upon whom the ends of the world are come. . . . [L]et him take heed lest he fall.” N.b. the apocalyptic overtones of the various references to the world divided against itself in wars, especially lines 883–904 and 1029–44.

904 Wher dedly werre is take on honde. The first of Gower’s antiwar assertions, which remain prominent to the end of his life. See his last English poem In Praise of Peace (ed. Livingston).

910 ff. See MO, lines 26605 ff. and VC 7.509 ff. on the corruption of all creation due to man’s fall.

918-23 Latin marginalia: Hic scribit quod ex diuisionis passione singula creata detrimentum corruptibile paciuntur. [Here he writes that from the suffering of and desire for division, all created things suffer a corrupting diminishment.] "Suffering of and desire for division" seeks to translate divisionis passione. "Suffering" is the routine sense of passio elsewhere to mean, like ME "passioun," both "desire to sin" as well as "suffering" (see e.g., the marginal Latin at line 9). Thus it is likely that an ambiguous sense of "sinful desire for" as well as "suffering of" obtains in the Latin as in the corresponding English here: "man hath passioun / Of seknesse" (Prol.915-16). This ambiguity, however, is absent from the verb for the second Latin clause, paciuntur, as from the corresponding English: "So soffren othre creatures" (Prol.917).

945 Gregoire in his Moral. Moralia VI.16 (PL 75.740). Macaulay (2:465) notes that this idea of man as a microcosm is one of Gower’s favorite citations. Gregory is commenting on Job 5:10 (“Who giveth rain upon the earth, and sendeth waters upon the fields” — Douai), where he gives the sensus mysticus of universa as “man.” See MO, lines 26869 ff., which attributes the “man as a microcosm” idea to Aristotle (see especially line 26929), and VC 7.639 ff. Gregory’s passage is also quoted in RR, lines 19246 ff. See Fox, Mediaeval Sciences, pp. 18–19.

949 ff. Following Gregory's elaboration of Job 5:10 (see note above), Gower delineates the medieval concept of a triparte soul, with intelligence akin to the divine, feeling akin to that of the animal, and growth to that of the vegetable.

967-70 Latin marginalia: Hic dicit secundum euangelium, quod omne regnum in se diuisum desolabitur. [Here he speaks in accord with the Evangile, that "every kingdom divided against itself will be devastated."] See Luke 11:17, with the present tense changed to future.

971–72 Division aboven alle / . . . makth the world to falle. On division as the primary ef­fect of the Fall that leaves the psyche stranded amidst contingencies, see Intro­duction, pp. 11–13, and White (“Division and Failure,” pp. 601–03, 607 ff.) on such bifurcations as soul and body, reason and its antagonists (sex, desire, appetite, complexion, need, etc.), and other forms of fragmentation both so­cial and personal.

974-77 Latin marginalia: Quod ex sue complexionis materia diuisus homo mortalis existat. [That, divided because of the components of his constitution, every human being is mortal.]

975–79 complexioun / Is mad upon divisioun . . . the contraire of his astat. Macaulay: “That is, the opposite elements in his constitution (‘complexioun’) are so much at vari­ance with one another” (2:465).

978 He mot be verray kynde dye. Gower’s theory of death and the corruptibility of mixed elements is in agreement with medical theories of his day. Averroës, following Aristotle’s thesis that all living things consist of mixtures of the primal elements, argues that if bodies were one and the same there would be no contrariety corrupting them. But unlike stones, which have one nature and are permanent, the body is composed of various natures and thus decays (Avicennae Cantica cum Averrois Commentariis, I.19. See Fox, Mediaeval Sciences, p. 34.) Plato explains this idea of corruptibility fully in Timaeus 81c–82b. The Timaeus was the one Platonic dialogue that was well known and honored in the Latin West during the Middle Ages. Although Gower probably did not know the Timaeus firsthand, he certainly knew of it.

982 no final pes be nome. The line anticipates Gower’s conclusion where Venus gives Amans a “peire of bedes” upon which is written “Por reposer” (8.2904–07), put­ting to rest his internal conflict, giving him back his true name “John Gower,” and restoring his quiet vision of “pes” (see below, 8.2913 ff.).

989–90 he may noght laste, / That he ne deieth ate laste. “He may not survive / But that he dies in the end.” The noght . . . That . . . ne idiom occurs repeatedly in Gower, where ne functions not as a negative but as a calque with That to form a relative conjunction “But that,” “Than that.” See MED that conj. 2c on that ne con­structions that the MED glosses as “lest.” Gower’s additional noght alters the sense somewhat. See notes to 1.786–88, 1.2046–47, and 1.2091–93.

991-96 Latin marginalia: Quod homo ex corporis et anime condicione diuisus, sicut sal­ua­cionis ita et dampnacionis aptitudinem ingreditur. [That every human being, di­vided because of the condition of body and soul, is capable of salvation as much as of damnation.]

1001 The fieble hath wonne the victoire. In sin, beginning with the fall from Paradise (Prol.1005), the proverb “the weaker has the worse” becomes inverted (so it seems). See Whiting W131 and F110.

1002-06 Latin marginalia: Qualiter Adam a statu innocencie diuisus a paradiso voluptatis in terram laboris peccator proiectus est. [How Adam, divided from a state of in­nocence as a sinner, was cast from a paradise of pleasure into a world of labor.]

1005 ferst began in Paradis. Sin began in Paradise, but it is noteworthy that Gower does not place the blame for divisiveness on Eve. The Latin marginalia at 1002 mentions Adam’s division from innocence, but the Fall is not otherwise linked to gender problems.

1011-17 Latin marginalia: Qualiter populi per vniuersum orbem a cultura dei diuisi, Noe cum sua sequela dumtaxat exceptis, diluuio interierunt. [How the populace of the entire earth, divided from the worship of God, were destroyed in the flood, except for Noah with his following.]

1013 sende. A preterit form. Macaulay cites 1.851, 992, 1452, etc., as parallel exam­ples (2:466).

1018-26 Latin marginalia: Qualiter in edificacione turris Babel, quam in dei contemptum Nembrot erexit, lingua prius hebraica in varias linguas celica vindicta diuidebatur. [How in the building of the Tower of Babel, which Nembrot erected in con­tempt of God, language, at first Hebrew, was divided by heavenly retribution into various languages.]

1022-25 On the “poetic Babel” that Gower, a master at multiple voicing, introduces in this passage — a babel of voices that oppose and even contradict, so that the mind can scarcely contain the contradictions — see Echard, “With Carmen’s Help,” p. 30. Elsewhere in her essay Echard stresses Gower’s awareness of “the uncontrollable nature of text, in both its intellectual complexities and physical manifestations” (p. 10). Throughout the Confessio “language — all language — is shown to be radically unreliable” (p. 9).

1031-41 Latin marginalia: Qualiter mundus, qui in statu diuisionis quasi cotidianis pre­senti tempore vexatur flagellis, a lapide superueniente, id est a diuina potencia vsque ad resolucionem omnis carnis subito conterentur. [How the world, which is almost daily in a state of division at the present time and is ravaged by punishments, will, by the stone coming down on it (that is, by divine power), be suddenly crushed, destroying all flesh.]

1045–52 One reason love is so powerful in Gower’s scheme is that it has the capacity, when experienced wholesomely, to heal division. See lines 967–1044.

1047 loveday. A day set for making peaceful settlement of deadlocked disputes.

1053-54 wolde God . . . An other such as Arion. Echard, “With Carmen’s Help,” pp. 29–30, notes the conditional tense as part of her argument that Gower is keenly aware of the inability of language, even that of the poet, to contain authority in any stable way. Echard agrees with Yeager (John Gower’s Poetic) that Gower may be in search of a new Arion, but that Gower knows how difficult it will be to find him. The story of Arion first appears in Herodotus 1.24. Also see Ovid, Fasti, 2.79–118 ff., Hyginus, Fables 194, and Solinus, cap. 11, for a third-century account of Arion as a dolphin. The story is well known in the later Middle Ages and appears in collections of Latin moralized tales such as those de­scribed in the British Museum Catalogue of Romances and in some versions of the Gesta Roma­norum (for example, see Oesterley, cap. 148). Gower ignores that part of the story which deals with the dolphin and concentrates on Arion the peace­maker to create an effect appropriately reminiscent of the peaceable king­dom in Isaias 11:1–10. See VC 1.i.1–124, for a description of what En­gland might be like if it were to find its Arion. The figure of Arion, with his harp and sense of good measure, becomes a metaphor for the poet himself. See Yeager (John Gower’s Poetic) for an extended analysis of Gower’s Arion poetic. See also Peck, Kingship and Common Profit, pp. 22–23; and Simpson, Sciences and the Self, p. 289.

1053-72 Latin marginalia: Hic narrat exemplum de concordia et vnitate inter homines pro­uocanda; et dicit qualiter quidam Arion nuper Citharista ex sui cantus cithareque consona melodia tante virtutis extiterat, ut ipse non solum virum cum viro, set eciam leonem cum cerua, lupum cum agno, canem cum lepore, ipsum audientes vnanimiter absque vlla discordia adinvicem pacificauit. [Here he tells a story about the stim­ulating of concord and unity among human beings: and he says how a certain Arion, a harper in recent times, was of such power and virtue because of the harmonious melody of his song and his harp that he pacified unani­mously and without any discord those hearing him, not only mutually pacifying man with man, but even lion with deer, wolf with sheep, and hound with hare.]

1056 good mesure. The idea is Pythagorean and could allude to the harmonic ratio of sounds to each other in a well-tempered instrument, though more likely the sense is that the performer kept good rhythm.

1088 In his revisions of the first recension, Gower may have added ten lines. Macaulay (2:466) notes that Sidney College MS concludes the Prologue as follows:
So were it gode at õþis tide
Þat eueri man vpon his side
besowt and preied for þe pes
wiche is þe cause of al encres
of worschep and of werldis welþe
of hertis rest of soule helþe
withouten pes stant no þing gode
forthi to crist wiche sched his blode
for pes beseketh alle men
Amen amen amen amen.
Macaulay observes that the Sidney College MS is related to the Stafford MS, which is missing the conclusion to the Prologue. Had they been found in the Stafford MS, Macaulay suggests, “the authority of S would be conclusive in their favour.” The lines were printed by Caxton and Berthelet, with some variation in spelling.


Notes to Book 1

Latin verses i (before line 1). Line 1: Naturatus amor. The translation presented for the enigmatic and crucial phrase naturatus amor is informed by Winthrop Wetherbee's discussion of this phrase (1991, pp. 7-35) in terms of the self-conflicting presentations of human love in Boethius, Alanus de Insulis, and Jean de Meun that Gower mines throughout the CA. Wetherbee remarks that Gower's phrase "conveys a sense of scholastic authority that is belied by close scrutiny" (p. 7). Yet the translation here is also informed by an analogous phrase from medieval Latin discussions of Aristotle, natura naturata, which may be understood as "nature instantiated in specific forms of life," or in a broader sense as the means by which nature has furthered its inherent purpose of creating life, as shown by twelfth-century Latin translations of Averroës' Arabic commentary on Aristotle, the means by which Aristotle's works were known in the west: "for this is the end of Nature, namely that it does not act except on account of something, just as artifice does not act except on account of something. Then [Aristotle] has declared that that on account of which, having been [specifically] instantiated [naturata], Nature acts, is seen to be the soul [or: life force, anima] in living things [animalibus]" (Averrois Cordubensis Commentarium Magnum in Aristotelis De Anima Libros, ed. Crawford, p. 187). The teleological and instantiating freight of the medieval Aristotelian tradition of natura naturata has at least indirectly influenced Gower's Latin, and perhaps more pervasively his historical and ethical outlook on nature and love, available to Gower in the works of the thirteenth-century popular purveyers of medieval Aristotelianism, Brunetto Latini, Giles of Rome, and Bartholomeus Anglicus, although none of these uses the phrase natura naturata or, less surprisingly, naturatus amor (Brunetto Latini comes close to the former when he defines Nature as "double: that which gives birth, and that which is born" [une ki fet naistre, et une de ce ki est net]— Li Livres dou tresor 3.52, ed. Carmody, p. 360). Significantly, elsewhere Gower novelly adapted the Latin verb naturare to English, evidently to mean "to give a species specific traits": "He which natureth every kinde, / The myhti god" (CA 7.393-94). He is the only writer attested before the sixteenth century to have used this word in English. Line 2: vnanimes concitat esse feras. The syntax is perfectly ambiguous, so the diametrically opposed alternate meanings have been printed in the translation itself. Line 3 Huius enim mundi Princeps. White (Nature, Sex, and Goodness, p. 219) notes that huius princeps mundi is also the title of the Devil.
Translation of the epigram is also assisted by the marginal gloss (see the next note), where Gower states that he is discussing “that love by which not only the human species but indeed every living thing is naturally subjected.” Yet an in­herent contradiction and instability lies in the phrase, as Wetherbee cor­rectly emphasizes: human love, in Gower’s and the medieval Christian per­ception of the post-lapsarian world, is the very thing that most resists harmony with Nature’s positive, pristine purposes. In the context of the CA, the two terms of the phrase resist reconciliation as few other pairings might. The radi­cal am­biguity of the rest of Gower’s sentence emphasizes this irreconcil­ability.

9 ff. Latin marginalia: Postquam in Prologo tractatum hactenus existit, qualiter hodierne condicionis diuisio caritatis dileccionem superauit, intendit auctor ad presens suum libellum, cuius nomen Confessio Amantis nuncupatur, componere de illo amore, a quo non solum humanum genus, sed eciam cuncta animancia naturaliter subiciuntur. Et quia nonnulli amantes ultra quam expedit desiderii passionibus crebro stimulantur, materia libri per totum super hiis specialius diffunditur. [After he has set forth to this point the treatment in the Prologue of how the division of today's condition has overcome the love of charity, the author presently intends to compose his little book, whose name is "The Confession of a Lover," concerning that love by which not only the human species but indeed every living thing is naturally subjected. And since some lovers are often goaded by the passions of desire beyond what is appropriate, the matter of the book throughout is set forth for these especially.] For a picture of this gloss in the manuscript itself, see Illustration 3.

18–24 loves lawe is out of reule . . . ther is no man . . . that can / Of love tempre the mesure. See White, Nature, Sex, and Goodness, pp. 218–19, on the potency of desire that affects all people in defiance of Aristotelian ideas of balance and measure. Loves lawe (line 18) here equates with that cupiditas that Boethius says is born into all creatures that could lead to the true good but seldom does (De cons. 3.p2).

35 love is maister wher he wile. Proverbial. See Whiting L518.

59 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic quasi in persona aliorum, quos amor alligat, fingens se auctor esse Amantem, varias eorum passiones variis huius libri distinccionibus per singula scribere proponit. [Here the author, fashioning himself to be the Lover as if in the role of those others whom love binds, proposes to write about their various passions one by one in the various sections of this book.] For discussion of this passage as Gower projects a persona and an epistemology of make-believe for his narrative, see Peck, “Phenomenology of Make Believe,” pp. 257 ff.

62 I am miselven on of tho. N.b., the Latin marginal gloss (above). From this point on, Gower projects a persona who is not simply a moral commentator on society but an embodiment of human stresses, a dramatic component of his "proof" (see line 61). In the Prologue he had announced that he would provide a "Mirour of ensamplerie" (Prol.496); henceforth the "ensample" will be complicated through a first-person drama as well as a textual one — an empirical mean between the abstract and the personal. See Spitzer, “Note on the Poetic and Empirical ‘I’ in Medieval Authors”; and Strohm, “Note on Gower’s Personas,” pp. 293–95. For discussion of the narrative of CA in terms of its framing devices, see Pearsall, “Gower’s Narrative Art”: “The poem as a whole gains enormously from the dramatic scheme, just as Gower himself gained from the freedom it gave him” (p. 477).

72 To hem that ben lovers. In defining a new dramatic function for his persona Gower likewise provides a dramatic role for his audience. On this love trope Staley raises the question “was Richard’s court during this period a place of love talk,” talk that was not simply a matter of sexual practice but rather a “lan­guage that expressed relationships of power?” (Languages of Power, p. 51). Compare love tropes in Usk, Chaucer, and the Gawain-poet (pp. 42–59).

79 That every man ensample take. On the philosophical premises of Gower's use of examples for instruction, see notes to Prol.7, 196, and 1.1339–40. Simpson, Sciences and the Self, using Alan de Lille’s Anti-claudianus as a text parallel in many ways with CA, explores Alan’s notion that narrative images provide the soul with a means of picturing itself (pp. 244–48). Such “ensamples” function as a kind of inducted “‘scientific’ information by which the soul can place itself in the cosmos and society” (p. 230).

88 jolif wo. Compare le jolif mal sanz cure of Gower's Cinkante Balades 13, line 24. The courtly phrase is a favorite. See also CA 6.84 and 8.2360, with variants such as "jolif peine" in 7.1910.

Latin verses ii (before line 93). Line 1: Non ego . . . . Latin proverbs often list powerful or wise men deceived by women; see Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, lines 2416-28, for a Middle English rendition of this tradition. Gower's passage resembles the longer discussion of lust's power in the Architrenius, where Hercules, rare in other Latin proverbs of this kind, appears along with Sampson, Solomon, and Ulysses as a victim of Venus (7.116-33).

98 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic declarat materiam, dicens qualiter Cupido quodam ignito iaculo sui cordis memoriam graui vlcere perforauit, quod Venus percipiens ipsum, vt dicit, quasi in mortis articulo spasmatum, ad confitendum se Genio sacerdoti super amoris causa sic semiuiuum specialiter commendauit. [Here he declares the substance of his story, saying how Cupid pierced through the memory of his heart by means of a certain burning missile, leaving a serious wound; whereby Venus, perceiving him, as he states, twitching as if in his death throes, particularly recommended that, half-alive, he confess to Genius the priest about the topic of love.]

100-39 in the monthe of Maii . . . And with that word I sawh anon / The kyng of love and qweene bothe. The poet imagines a characteristic dream vision situation when, in the month of May, the dreamer sets out into a wood, prays while listening to the birds, and sleeps to dream of the King and Queen of Love; except that here the "dreamer/lover" never goes to sleep. But this is not to say that he is "awake," either. As Olsson so aptly puts it, "The lover, though 'awake,' does not know he lives in a dream" (Structures of Conversion, p. 47).

124 [Amans.] The amanuensis of Fairfax 3 regularly places speech tags in the margin. The brackets indicate speech markers that do not appear in the MS but have been added to the edition for clarity.

O thou Cupide, O thou Venus. For discussion of Gower's use of these amorous deities, see Tinkle, Medieval Venuses and Cupids, especially pp. 178-97, though her remarks throughout the book are germane.

138 with that word I sawh anon. The important thing to notice here is that ideas appear as visual personifications to the lover. On the prominence of visual imaginings in medieval thought processes see Kolve, Chaucer and the Imagery of Nar­rative, especially pp. 24-42. See the Latin gloss on sight and hearing as doors of the mind (preceding 1.289) and Genius' discussion of eyes and ears as the dominant intuitive senses. See also footnotes 29-31 in the Introduction.

140 yhen wrothe. The situation is similar in ways to Chaucer's Prol. to LGW, where Cupid, the God of Love, with his queen, comes upon Geoffrey near the daisy and looks upon him with angry, piercing eyes. Chaucer's queen is Alceste, rather than Venus, but in neither instance is Cupid presented as blind.

145 herte rote. MED glosses the term as the seat of the passions, or the vital center of life. Exactly what the anatomical designations might be is unclear. MED suggests the hollow of the heart or perhaps the “apex.” The conclusion to Plato’s Timaeus (91 a–e) describes a conduit that runs down the spine to the scrotum, from which living sperm, seeking egress, take their path. Conceivably the herte rote may extend even to that depth. In the RR (lines 1679–2008) Cupid shoots five arrows into the lover’s heart, two (Beauty and Simplicity) through the eye, and three (Courtesy, Company, and Fair Seem­ing) through the side or below the breast. This pattern seems evident in CA 1.144–45, where “A firy dart me thoghte he [Cupid] hente / And threw it thurgh myn herte rote.” If it enters through the side and lodges in the heart’s inner chamber that would pre­cip­itate a sympathetic response in the lower region. Another organ linked to the concept of herte rote is the “reines,” which are also regarded the seat of passions and can refer to the kidneys, heart, or the male generative organ (MED reine n.[2]. 2a and 2b). E.g., in the treatise Sidrak and Bokkus we learn that if a lecher overexerts his lechery, “Of his reynes he leseþ þe might. / Þan is þe seed feble and veyne / And to engendre haþ no mayne [strength]” (lines 6874–76 in Bodleian Laud MS 559). According to the Middle English version of The Anatomy of Guy de Chauliae, “Þe sperme takeþ þe sauour off þe harte, of þe liuer, and þe Reynes, and bi þe nerues þe whiche, be cause of delectacioun, des­cenden fro þe braines to þe ballockes” (ed. Wallner, p. 73). Similarly The Prose Salernitan Questions (c. 1200) observes: “The natural heat is . . . aroused by the psychic virtue, and by their combined action, the blood contained in the liver moves and in moving emits heat; from it there evap­orates a smoky cloud which, when it has been made subtle, spreads from the liver to the heart. From the heart the spirit moves to the penis by means of the arteries and makes it stiffen” (see Jacquart and Thomasset, Sexuality and Medicine in the Middle Ages, p. 83). That is, Cupid’s arrow piercing the side and lodging in the heart might thus be thought to affect the whole emotional system, from the chambers of the heart to the kidneys and male organs, the herte rote.

148-49 source and welle / Of wel or wo. Traditionally, Venus carries two cups, one sweet, the other bitter, from which the lover drinks; thus, in medieval courtly poetry she is the source and welle of the lover's joy and/or pain.

161 caitif. It is noteworthy that two early MSS, Bodley 294 and Egerton 1991, identify the speaker here as Iohn Gowere, rather than caitif.

178 Mi world stod on an other whiel. Proverbial. See Whiting W208.

196 O Genius myn oghne clerk. The originals behind Gower’s Genius may be found in Jean de Meun’s portion of RR and Alanus de Insulis’ De Planctu Naturae. Gower’s Genius defines several voices in the poem. He is pre­sented as an agent of memory who can compile and relate afresh the stories and materials of history; he is a creative agent, capable of formulating propo­sitions accord­ing to nature and moral concepts as well; he is a priest of both the emotional and rational capacities of the individual, though his capacities as a philo­sopher are limited by the circumstances of the occasion; and he is usually be­nevolent in his role as intermediary between Amans, momen­tary situations, and Nature. See the Introduction, pp. 5–6, 7–10, 17, 18, 34. For further discussion of Genius, see Economou, “Character Genius”; Schueler, “Gower’s Characterization of Genius”; Nitzsche, Genius Figure; Baker, “Priest­hood of Genius”; Wetherbee, “Theme of Imagination” and “Genius and Inter­pre­tation”; Peck, Kingship and Common Profit and “Prob­lematics of Irony,” pp. 212–24; Olsson, Structures of Conversion, pp. 52–62; and Simpson, Sciences and the Self, pp. 148–97.

Latin verses iii (before line 203). The "wound" of love (line 4) is a topos reaching far back in medieval and classical writing. A widely influential classical instance is Dido in Aeneid 4.1-2, and much French poetry elaborated the metaphor. Boethius’ Consolation, whose dialogue form was a direct model for CA, invokes through­out its first book the metaphor of the narrator’s “illness” of false love for the goods of Fortune, and Philosophy’s “cure” by means of the “medicine” of her teach­ings. At the end of CA, Gower revisits the same issues in English (8.3152– 56). Simpson (Sciences and the Self, pp. 200–01) links this passage to Ovid’s Remedia amoris as a warning against love’s catastrophes.

203 This worthi prest, this holy man. On Genius as confessor to Amans, see Simpson, Sciences and the Self, especially pp. 148-66 ( "Genius, praeceptor amoris"). Simpson sees Genius and Amans as two aspects of a single person, with Genius as a figure of imagination and Amans as the will in an unstable relationship richly informed with Ovidian irony and what Gower calls elsewhere "double speche" (7.1733).

205 Benedicité. "Bless you." The standard form of address of the priest to the one confessing, answered by the penitent with Dominus, "Lord [father, I have sinned]."

209 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic dicit qualiter Genio pro Confessore sedenti prouolutus Amans ad confitendum se flexis genibus incuruatur, supplicans tamen, vt ad sui sensus informacionem confessor ille in dicendis opponere sibi benignius dignaretur. [Here he tells how the Lover, bowled over, kneels on bent knees to confess to Genius seated as a confessor, beseeching nonetheless that, to inform his understanding, the Confessor would graciously deign to question him in matters that ought to be said.] Pearsall (“Gower’s Latin,” pp. 22–24) reads this marginal com­men­tary as a means to establish a clerical code that underlies much of the poem. See also Craun on Gower’s methodology in querying the deviant speaker (Lies, Slander, and Obscenity, pp. 131 ff.).

236 Latin marginalia: Sermo Genii sacerdotis super confessione ad Amantem. [The sermon of Genius the priest to the Lover about confession.]

275-76 See note to lines 1339-40.

284 trowthe hise wordes wol noght peinte. Proverbial. See Whiting T515.

Latin verses iv (before line 289). The buried coin, fossa talenta (line 4), recalls the Gospel parable of the talents where the sinful servant takes the talent his lord has given him and buries it in the earth (Matthew 25:14-30).

294 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic incipit confessio Amantis, cui de duobus precipue quinque sensuum, hoc est de visu et auditu, confessor pre ceteris opponit. [Here begins the confession of the Lover, to whom the Confessor particularly inquires concerning two of the five senses, that is concerning sight and sound.]

299-308 This passage begins in the third person, then, by line 304, modulates into the voice of the confessor as he addresses Amans as "mi sone." It is not until line 530 that the MS starts using marginal speech tags, though beside line 233 the marginal Latin gloss identifies the speakers, along with their activities.

304-08 See Timaeus 45b-47e for Plato's explanation of why the eye is man's principal sense organ and the ear next in importance. These two senses enable man to perceive the numbers, motions, harmonies, and rhythms of the universe, whereby the soul is illuminated. Plato ignores the other three senses entirely as agencies for illuminating the soul, although later (61d-68d) he discusses all five senses as part of man's physical mechanism for understanding physical phenomena. Plato's premises constitute one basis for medieval preoccupations with vision and harmony (see the Latin verses after CA1.288). They also explain why Genius exorcizes only these two of the Lover's five senses. They are the doors to his soul, which Genius hopes to restore. See Introduction, notes 25 and 26, for citation of medieval medical treatises linking the eye to the frontal lobe of the brain, where Imagination and Fantasy reside.

333 ff. Compare Ovid, Met. 3.130-259. Genius omits from the story Acteon's companions and his friendly gesture of giving them the rest of the day off, the account of Diana's disrobing, the efforts of the nymphs to hide their mistress from the eyes of the intruder, the throwing of water on Acteon to distract him, the catalog of hounds, Acteon's efforts to speak, and the debate of the gods on the justice of Diana's revenge. Genius adds the detail of Acteon's pride (1.341). Ovid puts the blame on Fortune, but Genius implies that Acteon might have turned his eye away had he chosen to do so (1.366). The conventional romance description of his entering the forest (1.352-60) suggests why he did not: he turns the enclosed garden (hortus conclusus) into a garden of delight and does not get out. Amans fares better, thanks to Genius, and, ultimately, accepts the trials of old age.

334 touchende of mislok. See Schutz's discussion of the issues of seeing in her analysis of the stories of Acteon and Medusa as mirror images of each other (“Absent and Present Images,” pp. 108-15).

334 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic narrat Confessor exemplum de visu ab illicitis preseruando, dicens qualiter Acteon Cadmi Regis Thebarum nepos, dum in quadam Foresta venacionis causa spaciaretur, accidit vt ipse quendam fontem nemorosa arborum pulcritudine circumuentum superueniens, vidit ibi Dianam cum suis Nimphis nudam in flumine balneantem; quam diligencius intuens oculos suos a muliebri nuditate nullatenus auertere volebat. Vnde indignata Diana ipsum in cerui figuram transformauit; quem canes proprii apprehendentes mortiferis dentibus penitus dilaniarunt. [Here the Confessor relates an instructive example concerning the guarding of sight from illicit things, saying how Acteon the nephew of Cadmus the king of the Thebans, while he was walking in a certain forest to go hunting, happened to come upon a certain stream surrounded by the woodsy beauty of trees where he saw Diana nude with her nymphs bathing in the river, whom he carefully examined, not at all wishing to turn away his eyes from her womanly nudity. Wherefore Diana, indignant, transformed him into the form of a stag, whom his own dogs caught and tore to pieces with their deadly teeth.]

384 Betre is to winke than to loke. Proverbial. See Whiting W366.

389 ff. Compare Ovid, Met. 4.772–803. Gower is apparently using additional sources, however. Genius names Medusa’s sisters, as Ovid does, though he calls Stheno, “Stellibon,” and Euryale, “Suriale.” Moreover, he combines the story of the Graeae, who share one tooth and one eye, with the story of the Gorgons. Mac­aulay (2:468) notes that this confusion appears in Boccaccio, Genealogiae Deorum Gentilium 10.10, which Gower may have known. Whether Gower fol­lows Boc­caccio or not, the mingling of the two stories is fortuitous for Genius’ purpose in demonstrating the evil of “misloke” and the wisdom of looking well.

391 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic ponit aliud exemplum de eodem, vbi dicit quod quidam princeps nomine Phorceus tres progenuit filias, Gorgones a vulgo nuncupatas, que uno partu exorte deformitatem Monstrorum serpentinam obtinuerunt; quibus, cum in etatem peruenerant, talis destinata fuerat natura, quod quicumque in eas aspiceret in lapidem subito mutabatur. Et sic quam plures incaute respicientes visis illis perierunt. Set Perseus miles clipeo Palladis gladioque Mercurii munitus eas extra montem Athlantis conhabitantes animo audaci absque sui periculo interfecit. [Here he presents another instructive example about the same thing, where he says that a certain prince, Phorceus by name, bore three daughters, commonly called the Gorgons, who acquired the serpentine deformity of monsters from one aspect of their birth. For these, when they had come to maturity, nature had been destined in such ways that whoever should look at them was suddenly turned into a stone. And thus all those who incautiously glanced at them died at the sight. But Perseus, a knight furnished with the shield of Pallas and the sword of Mercury, with a bold spirit and without any danger to himself killed them as they were dwelling beyond Mount Athlans.]

423 Lente him a swerd. Macaulay notes that Mercury's sword is not mentioned by Ovid or Boccaccio (2:468).

463 ff. The legend of Aspidis derives from Psalm 57:5–6, which speaks of “the deaf asp that stoppeth her ears.” In his commentary on the psalm Augustine ex­plains how the serpent can stop two ears with one tail; his suggestion is fol­lowed by Isidore in Etymologies 12.4, though neither mentions the carbuncle (see also MO, lines 15253–64). That detail may come from the legendary jewel in the toad’s head, or perhaps from Brunetto Latini’s Trésor. Compare the jewel-bearing serpent in the Tale of Adrian and Bardus (CA 5.5060 ff.), or the serpent who carries a jewel of health in his mouth in the English Gesta Romanorum (cap. 7). For discussion of the ambiguity of the asp as an in bono (prudence) and in malo (obstinence) figure of the senses, see Ols­son, Structures of Conversion, pp. 63–72.

465–67 The ston noblest of alle / . . . carbuncle calle / Berth in his hed. On the folk-type of the serpent with a crown or precious jewel in/on/about his head, see Aarne-Thompson, Types of the Folktale 672 (the serpent’s crown), 672A (a man who steals a serpent’s crown), 672B (a little girl takes away the serpent’s gold crown), 672C (serpent at wedding leaves crown), and, especially, 672D (the stone of the snake). See also Stith Thompson, Motif-Index of Folk-Literature, vol.1, B103.42 (serpent with jewel in his mouth), B103.4.2.1 (grateful snake spits out lump of gold for his rescuer), B103.4.2.2 (snake vomits jewels), B108.1 (ser­pent as patron of wealth), B112 (treasure-producing serpent’s crown); and vol. 2 D1011.3.1 (magic serpent’s crown). The Epistola Alexandri ad Aristo­telem de Mirabilibus Indiae speaks of serpents with emeralds around their necks who, in the spring, sometimes fight, leaving behind “emeralds of enormous size” (Katz, Romances of Alexander, p. 123).

466 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic narrat Confessor exemplum, vt non ab auris exaudicione fatua animus deceptus inuoluatur. Et dicit qualiter ille serpens, qui aspis vocatur, quendam preciosissimum lapidem nomine Carbunculum in sue frontis medio gestans, contra verba incantantis aurem vnam terre affigendo premit, et aliam sue caude stimulo firmissime obturat. [Here the Confessor recounts an instructive example in order that a deceived soul might not be assailed by the ear's foolish overhearing. And he says how the serpent who is called Aspis, carrying a certain most precious stone, Carbuncle by name, in the middle of its forehead, protected himself against the words of an enchanter by pressing down one ear and fixing it to the ground, and closing off the other most firmly with the point of its tail.]

481 ff. Gower follows Guido delle Colonne, Hist. Troiae III (Gest Historiale lib. 32), in presenting his Tale of the Sirens. Benoît tells the story in Roman de Troie, but he does not include all the details that Gower includes, though Vat. Myth. II (101) does.

483 ff. Latin marginalia : Aliud exemplum super eodem, qualiter rex Vluxes cum a bello Troiano versus Greciam nauigio remearet, et prope illa Monstra marina, Sirenes nuncupata, angelica voce canoras, ipsum ventorum aduersitate nauigare oporteret, omnium nautarum suorum aures obturari coegit. Et sic salutari prouidencia prefultus absque periculo saluus cum sua classe Vluxes pertransiuit. [Another instructive example about the same thing: how King Ulysses, when he was returning toward Greece from the Trojan war travelled back on a ship. When approaching those seaside monsters called the Sirens, singers with angelic voices, he was forced to sail against the winds, and he ordered the ears of all his sailors to be stopped up. And thus assisted by a saving providence and safe from danger, Ulysses with his vessel passed through.]

576 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic loquitur quod septem sunt peccata mortalia, quorum caput Superbia varias species habet, et earum prima Ypocrisis dicitur, cuius proprietatem secundum vicium simpliciter Confessor Amanti declarat. [Here he says that there are seven mortal sins, whose head, Pride, has various species, and the first of these is called Hypocrisy, whose properties as a vice the Confessor declares to the Lover in simple terms.]

608 Ipocrisis Religiosa. [Religious Hypocrisy.]

627-28 Ipocrisis Ecclesiastica. [Ecclesiastic Hypocrisy.]

648 Ipocrisis Secularis. [Secular Hypocrisy.]

674 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic tractat Confessor cum Amante super illa presertim Ipocrisia, que sub amoris facie fraudulenter latitando mulieres ipsius ficticiis credulas sepissime decipit innocentes. [Here the Confessor discourses with the Lover particularly about that Hypocrisy that, fraudulently hiding under a face of love, very often deceives innocent, credulous women with his fictions.]

704-06 berth lowest the seil . . . to beguile / The womman. Proverbial. See Whiting S14.

708 Opponit Confessor. [The Confessor inquires.]

712 Respondet Amans. [The Lover replies.]

752 To love is every herte fre. Proverbial. See Whiting L516. See also CA 1.1929-30. Compare Chaucer, CT I(A)1606 and CT V(F)767.

759 a croniqe. Precisely what chronicle Genius alludes to is unclear. The story of Mundus and Paulina is said to be historical by Josephus, Antiquitatum Judai­carum 18. Hegesippus, 2.4, follows Josephus, who in turn is followed by Vin­cent of Beauvais, Speculum Historiale 7.4, any of which may have been Gower’s source. The story is told in verse by Godfrey of Viterbo, Pantheon 15, but Mac­aulay says this version was certainly not Gower’s source (2:470).

763 ff. Latin marginalia: Quod Ipocrisia sit in amore periculosa, narrat exemplum qualiter sub regno Tiberii Imperatoris quidam miles nomine Mundus, qui Romanorum dux milicie tunc prefuit, dominam Paulinam pulcherrimam castitatisque famosissimam mediantibus duobus falsis presbiteris in temple Ysis deum se esse fingens sub ficte sanctitatis ypocrisi nocturno tempore viciauit. Vnde idem dux in exilium, presbiteri in mortem ob sui criminis enormitatem dampnati extiterant, ymagoque dee Ysis a templo euulsa vniuerso conclamante populo in flumen Tiberiadis proiecta mergebatur. [Showing that Hypocrisy is most dangerous in love, he presents an instructive example how under the reign of Tiberius the Emperor a certain knight, Mundus by name, who then was preeminent before all others as a duke of the army of the Romans, defiled the most beautiful and most famously chaste lady Paulina, with two false priests as go-betweens in the temple of Isis, fashioning himself to be a god under the hypocrisy of a feigned sanctity at nighttime. Wherefore the same duke was condemned to exile, and the priests to death on account of the enormity of their crime, while the image of the goddess, pulled from the temple with universal approval by the people, was thrown into the Tiber river and sunk.]

767 of al the cité the faireste. An analogue to the Tale of Mundus and Paulina may be found in the Hebrew Tales of Alexander the Macedonian found in a compilation of the eleventh-century Chronicles of Jerahmeel. The surviving MS, now in the Bodleian Library, dates from about 1325. A very beautiful woman, the fairest on earth, goes once a month to the temple of the god Atzilin to offer sacrifice. The priest, Matan, smitten by her beauty, tells her that the god would beget a son upon her, “for there is no other woman in the entire world worthy to be with him” (Reich, ed., Tales of Alexander the Mace­donian, p. 75). She gets per­mission from her husband, who sends pillows, coverings, mattresses, and silk­en garments to adorn the occasion. Matan accepts the gifts and sends the woman’s maid away. At midnight he enters to perform his rites, but the maid slips into the room to watch. Matan has inter­course with the woman nine times. After he has exhausted his strength and rises to leave, the maid strikes him on the head with a statue of Atzilin, killing him. The beautiful woman is scandalized by the deception and insists on telling her husband, who goes to the king. He takes the case to Alexander who says the temple should be de­stroyed, since it has been defiled. He then asks to see the woman himself, and, amazed at her beauty, demands that she be given to him. The king would protect the woman and her husband, but is over­whelmed by Alexander, who locks the woman in a portable temple where he has his way with her night and day. She gives birth to a son whom he names Alexander. But the child dies at the age of nine months on the same day that Alexander’s horse Bucephalus dies. Alexander builds a mausoleum for his horse and son, then consoles his wife, who conceives a second child. She dies in childbirth. See Reich, ed., Tales of Alexander the Macedonian, pp. 73–79. This analogue ties in as well with Gower’s Tale of Nectanabus, CA 6.1789–2366. Gower’s knowledge of Alexan­der lore is extensive, though it is doubtful that he could have known the Hebrew manuscript directly, which was still in Italy during his lifetime.

773 Of thilke bore frele kinde. Macaulay observes: "Human nature is described as frail from birth, and by its weakness causing blindness of the heart" (2:470).

775 Just as the eye is the most important sense organ for human revelation (see note to lines 1.304-08 above), so too it is the principal sense organ for guiding reason. Augustine's three steps toward virtue (visio, contemplatio, actio) mark also the three steps toward sin. In both instances the process begins with the eye's response to beauty or the desirable, which in turn stimulates the will and desire. The process is one, though the ends are different. See all cupidinous lovers who are first struck through the eye by Cupid's first arrow — beauty. See RR, lines 1681 ff.

786–88 noght . . . That . . . ne. See notes to Prol. 989–90, 1.1295–96, 1.2046–47, 1.2091–93, 1.2629–30, 1.2722–24, 1.3366–67. Gower’s construction here and in the other cited examples is unusual in Middle English, where the ne fol­lowing that serves as a calque rather than a simple negative. Andrew Gal­loway (correspondence May 2, 2005) suggests that the construction is parallel to the Old French construction “pres (que) ne,” “por poi (que) ne,” etc., where ne denotes not a negative but instead “an action that has/had almost occurred” (see Kibler, Introduction to Old French, pp. 264–65). The Old French analogy is insightful, it seems to me, in that it takes what might otherwise be regarded as a medial negative conjunction and binds it to the relative conjunction (“but that,” “than that”). The sense of “almost,” however, does not hold precisely. We could translate: “But yet he was not of such strength / To withstand the power of love / But that he was almost reined in [by love], / Despite whether he would or not,” though the so in line 788 displaces the adverbial sense of almost. I.e., the sense is more likely “But he was so reined in [by love] / That despite whether he would or not” (lines 788–89). Compare 1.1296, where the algate like­wise obliterates any sense of almost. In some instances the preceding “noght” is not required, though the sense is still “But that”: e.g., 1.1321. In other instances, instead of “noght,” Gower uses “non”: e.g., 1.1465, 1.1778– 79; or a neither/nor construction as in 1.2470–71. And there are several in­stances when the ne simply functions as a negative after That, as in 1.1379, where the for cancels the conjunctive function of ne; or 1.2800 and 1.3045, where it is part of a double negative. But there are instances in which it simply functions as a negative adverb: 1.3168 and 1.3307.

852 Glad was hire innocence tho. Gower’s Paulina “which in hire lustes grene / Was fair and freissch and tendre of age” (1.778–79) is innocent in her youth and of “humble cheire” (1.854). As Olsson observes, Gower presents Paulina in an entirely positive light: “Genius has left out the boasts of her counterparts in tra­di­tion: the Paulina of Josephus’ Antiquities (18.3.4), the foolish Madonna Lisetta da Ca’ Quirino of Boccaccio’s Decameron (4.2), and the Olympias of Gower’s later story of Nectanabus (6.1789–2366) all, to some degree, have an exaggerated sense of self-worth, and they easily succumb to the blandishments of a pretender-god or angel” (Structures of Conversion, p. 74).

966 Hire faire face and al desteigneth. N.b. the medial coordinating conjunction: “And stains her face all over.”

975 honeste. Of persons or their hearts, honest signifies virtuousness or chastity (MED). A wife is said to be chaste if she has to do only with her husband in a seemly manner. When Pauline learns "Now I defouled am of tuo" (line 977), she fears that she can no longer claim that honor. See Chaucer’s Parson’s Tale (X[I]940). On tensions between communal honor and manipulative deceit, see Craun, Lies, Slander, and Obscenity, pp. 129–31.

1003 til that sche was somdiel amended. See Rytting, “In Search of the Perfect Spouse,” p. 119, on the importance of compassion and appropriate displays of af­fection in Gower’s perception of what constitutes a good marriage like that epi­to­mized in the relationship of Paulina and her spouse.

1077 ff. The story of the Trojan Horse is found in Dictys, De Bello Trojano V.II,12; Benoît, Roman de Troie 25620 ff.; and Guido, Hist. Troiae III (Gest Historiale 29.11846 ff.), all of which Gower may have known. Guido and his translators (not Dictys or Benoît) describe the horse as made of brass.

1081 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic vlterius ponit exemplum de illa eciam Ypocrisia, que inter virum et virum decipiens periculosissima consistit. Et narrat, qualiter Greci in obsidione ciuitatis Troie, cum ipsam vi comprehendere nullatenus potuerunt, fallaci animo cum Troianis pacem vt dicunt pro perpetuo statuebant: et super hoc quendam equum mire grossitudinis de ere fabricatum ad sacrificandum in templo Minerue confingentes, sub tali sanctitatis ypocrisi dictam Ciuitatem intrarunt, et ipsam cum inhabitantibus gladio et igne comminuentes pro perpetuo penitus deuastarunt. [Here he presents a further instructive example concerning that same Hypocrisy, who stands as most dangerous when bringing deceit between man and man. And he tells how the Greeks in the siege of the city of Troy, although they were not able to take it by any means of force, with a false spirit established peace with the Trojans, in perpetuity, as they say. And in addition to this, fashioning a certain horse of miraculous size made from brass for sacrificing in the temple of Minerva, under such hypocrisy of sanctity they entered the said city, and threatening it along with its inhabitants with fire and the sword they utterly and permanently destroyed it.]

1085 The treachery of Calcas and of Crise is part of the medieval invention that ultimately culminated in Chaucer's Troilus. In Homer he is the son of Thestor, a diviner who accompanies the Greek army to Troy (Iliad 1.69 ff.), and in Virgil he helps build the Wooden Horse (Aeneid 2.185). But once he is made a Trojan who betrays the city and claims the return of his daughter in exchange for Antenor, his treachery becomes a key component of all retellings.

1087 hors of bras. An unusual detail, given the prominence of the wooden horse myth in Virgil. Perhaps Gower found the forging of a brass horse, as in Guido (see note to lines 1077 ff.), rather than the building of a wooden horse, as in Dares and Dictys and Benoît, to be more compatible with the machinations of hypocrisy. Hypocrites are forgers (lines 1087-88), not carpenters. Brass horses are not unknown in romance literature. See Chaucer's Squire's Tale.

1091 Epius. The name Epius (i.e., Epeius) appears to come from Virgil through Benoît (as opposed to Apius in Guido), as does the account of the destruction of Neptune's gates (lines 1151-55). In Homer's Odyssey 8.493, Epeius is the maker of the Wooden Horse, with the help of Athena.

1095 Anthenor . . . Enee. The treachery of Antenor and Aeneas is scarcely mentioned in Virgil, but it is much emphasized in Dictys, Benoît, and Guido. On Antenor's deceit see Chaucer's TC 4.197-205.

Latin verses vi (before line 1235). The reference in line 2 is to Ecclesiasticus 13:3.

1241 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic loquitur de secunda specie Superbie, que Inobediencia dicitur: et primo illius vicii naturam simpliciter declarat, et tractat consequenter super illa precipue Inobediencia, que in curia Cupidinis exosa amoris causam ex sua imbecillitate sepissime retardat. In cuius materia Confessor Amanti specialius opponit. [Here he speaks concerning a second species of Pride, which is called Disobedience; and first he declares in general terms the nature of that vice, and consequently discourses about that Disobedience in particular, which, despising the cause of love in the court of Cupid, is very often impeded because of its stupidity. In this matter the Confessor particularly questions the Lover.]

1273 Opponit Confessor. [The Confessor inquires.]

1274 Respondet Amans. [The Lover replies.]

1293 For specheles may no man spede. Proverbial. Macaulay compares CA 6.447, “For selden get a domb man lond” (2:472). See Whiting S554. See also CA 4.439–40.

1295–96 See note to 1.786–88.

1328 retenue. The gloss "engagement of service" is Macaulay's, who compares Balades 8.17: "Q'a vous servir j'ai fait ma retenue" (2:472).

1339-40 forme . . . enforme. See Simpson, Sciences and the Self, pp. 1–10, on Gower’s use of “information” as a component of self-formation in CA. (Compare 1.275–76, 1973–74, 2669–70 and 8.817–18.) Simpson reads CA as a fable of the soul “in which the impetus of the soul to reach its own perfection, or form, determines the narrative form” (Sciences and the Self, p. 230). Form informing form is a reciprocal inside-outside paradigm in which exemplary matter provides peda­gogical information that impresses the heart as text “follows the soul’s con­tours” (p. 7). “The peda­gogic sense lies in wait behind the artistic” (p. 8), a paradigm that makes pos­sible an “information” of the reader by the simul­taneous processes of under­standing backwards and forwards (inwards and outwards) required in any creative process. Simpson presents the argu­ment in terms of twelfth- and four­teenth-century philosophical/empirical theory.

1344 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic loquitur de Murmure et Planctu, qui super omnes alios Inobediencie secreciores vt ministri illi deseruiunt. [Here he speaks about Grumbling and Complaint, which above all others serve Disobedience very intimately as his ministers.]

1345 ff. See Echard, “With Carmen’s Help,” pp. 32-34, on the ambiguous relationships between the Latin marginal gloss and the English text as Genius shifts the topic from murmur and complaint to truth and obedience in the exemplary Tale of Florent.

1403–06 Unique to third recension manuscripts. See textual note. Hahn cites the first recension couplet, where, instead of Fairfax’s “In a cronique as it is write” (1.1404), we get: “And in ensample of this matiere / A tale I fynde, as thou shalt hiere.” Hahn concludes: “This revision transforms the pedigree of Gow­er’s retelling from a popular tale — perhaps Ragnelle, in its surviving form, or some other performative text — to literate narrative” (“Old Wives Tales,” p. 100).

1407 ff. The Tale of Florent is apparently based on the same source as Chaucer’s Wife of Bath’s Tale; or, more likely, Chaucer drew upon Gower’s story as he put together the marriage group of CT in the 1390s. See Peck, “Folklore and Powerful Women.” The tale joins two folk motifs, the loathly lady trans­formed through love and the answering of a riddle to save one’s life. See Thompson, Motif-Index of Folk-Literature, D732, and Whiting’s dis­cussion in Bryan and Dempster, eds., Sources and Analogues of Chaucer’s Canter­bury Tales, pp. 223–68. A similar story is found in The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle; see Hahn, ed., Sir Gawain, pp. 41–80. Macaulay (2:473) notes Shakespeare’s allusion to Gower’s version of the story in Taming of the Shrew, I.ii.69. For comparison of the three Middle English versions of the tale and the possibility that The Wife of Bath’s tale is a playful inversion of Gower’s more sober narrative, see Lindahl, “Oral Undertones,” pp. 72–75. Dimmick notes that Florent is the only one of the analogues that does not use an Arthurian setting (“‘Redinge of Romance,’” p. 135).

1408 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic contra amori inobedientes ad commendacionem Obediencie Confessor super eodem exemplum ponit; vbi dicit quod, cum quedam Regis Cizilie filia in sue iuuentutis floribus pulcherrima ex eius Nouerce incantacionibus in vetulam turpissimam transformata extitit, Florencius tunc Imparatoris Claudi Nepos, miles in armis strenuissimus amorosisque legibus intendens, ipsam ex sua obediencia in pulcritudinem pristinam mirabiliter reformauit. [Here against those disobedient to love and as commendation to Obedience, the Confessor presents an instructive example on the same thing, where he tells that, when a certain daughter of the King of Sicily who was most beautiful in the bloom of her youth but transformed into a most ugly old woman by her stepmother's incantation, Florent, then the nephew of the Emperor Claudius, a knight most strenuous in fighting and committed to the laws of love, miraculously refashioned her, because of his obedience, into her original beauty.] For discussion of the juxtaposition of this Latin text with the vernacular Tale of Florent to create a dynamic ambiguity, a kind of mise-en-page disputatio between the two texts, see Batchelor, “Feigned Truth and Exemplary Method,” pp. 3-10.

1409 nevoeu to th’emperour. Gower has shifted the location of some portions of the story from the Celtic Arthurian world found in Irish loathly lady narratives to the continent with its emperour. See the Latin marginal gloss where Florencius (Florent) is identified with his uncle, the Roman Emperor Claudius (Imparatoris Claudi). When the grantdame tells Florent to seek the answer to her question “in th’empire / Wher as thou hast most nowlechinge” (1.1482–83), she, in effect, sends him home to the familiar patriarchial terrain of his uncle, in whom Florent confides, but also whom he cautions against retaliation when he fails to obtain the answer. The grantdame’s strategy misleads the youth by returning him to the patriarchal ignorance of his roots, while, at the same time, co-opting the emperor’s revenge. That the hag (the wild card against the grantdame’s scheme) comes from “Cizile” (1.1841) also locates the story on the continent as do Florent’s learned but futile attempts to find the answer “be constellacion [and] kinde” (1.1508); such academic schemes help him no more than does Aurelius’ trip to the “tregetour” of Orleans in Chaucer’s Franklin’s Tale.

1413 ff. See Dimmick, “‘Redinge of Romance,’” pp. 128-30, on Florent as a tale of "wish-fulfilment disguised as an exemplum" (p. 128).

1417 marches. “Borderlands,” i.e., marginal areas where Florent seeks adventures. They could be the western marches of England, though not necessariy, given the fact that their location is unspecified. Thomas Hahn has suggested to me that perhaps Florent, like Arveragus in Chaucer’s Franklin’s Tale, seeks to make his name “In Engelond, that cleped was eek Briteyne / To seke in armes worshipe and honour” (CT V[F]810–11).

1474 under seales write. On the precision of legal contracts and procedures through­out the tale, see Peck, “Folklore