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.

15. ORATE PRO ANIMA (ARMIGERI SCUTUM): 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.

Orate pro anima (Armigeri scutum): Intended as an epitaph (once inscribed on his tomb, it is no longer visible), it seems likely from the same period and impulse as Dicunt scripture -- i.e., early fall of 1408. Macaulay (4.420) calls attention to CVP, lines 217-24, as a passage similar in style and sentiment. The prose text survives in two distinct versions: C (also surviving in H) and G versions, with the C version probably being the older of the two; the poem itself only appears in G. The form is Leonine hexameters rhyming unisontantly eight times in "-utum."

In G a sketch of two angels holding a shield bearing three lion heads in a chevron is included between the heading and the poem -- presumably Gower's arms. (See Fisher, John Gower, pp. 37-39, and Figure 1.) A similar shield now hangs above his tomb in Southwark Cathedral (see Fisher, John Gower, Figure 2). A drawing of a bier, with candles at head and foot, follows the poem, suggesting G's completion after Gower's death.

Glasgow version

2 Reddidit immo lutum. Compare Genesis 3:19, and CVP, note to lines 218-19,above.