JOHN GOWER: THE MINOR LATIN WORKS: NOTES

ABBREVIATIONS: CA: Gower, Confessio Amantis; CB: Gower, Cinkante Ballades; Cronica: Gower, Cronica Tripertita; CT: Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales; CVP: Gower, Carmen super multiplici viciorum pestilencia; IPP: Gower, In Praise of Peace; Mac: Macaulay edition; MO: Gower, Mirour de l'Omme; TC: Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde; Thynne: William Thynne, printer, The Works of Geffray Chaucer (1532) [prints IPP from Tr]; Traitié: Gower, Traitié pour essampler les amantz marietz; VC: Gower, Vox Clamantis.

All biblical citations are to the Vulgate text, and, unless otherwise noted, all biblical translations are from the Douai-Rheims. For a list of manuscript abbreviations, please see Manuscripts in the Introduction.

12. UNANIMES ESSE QUI SECULA: NOTES

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 the L at the corresponding line.

Unanimes esse qui secula: Also probably datable ca. 1402, although on slim evidence. In the manuscripts it occurs between Presul and Orate pro anima, a poem likely very late, perhaps ca. 1408, when Gower died. If "heri" in line 7 can be taken as a reference to Richard II's reign, and at roughly face value, it may denote a date of composition not long after Henry IV took power. The structure is unisonant hexameter couplets exhibiting five disyllabic rhymes, with the final line an elegiac distich.

The text here is based on C, read against H, G, and E.

1-2 Unanimes . . . amor superesse. The opening echoes Boethius: compare De cons. 3.met.9 and 2.met.8.

6 errorem quasi pestis. Gower often depicts heresy as plague; see Presul, note to line 1.