SPURIOUS LINKS: NOTES
Series 1: BL Lansdowne 851
Cook's Tale-Gamelyn Link
6-7 Heavy alliteration marks this expression of moral repugnance at the wife's work as a whore. Note that the reviser alleges there was more to the tale, only he chose not to relay it.
8 The word spell is used only once by Chaucer, appropriately in his parody of popular verse romances, Sir Thopas (CT VII, 893).
Squire-Wife of Bath Link
11-12 Not interrupted in this version, the Squire makes his own stopping-point (knotte) until his turn comes around once more, according to their drawing of lots. A similar sense of turn-taking is expressed in the Summoner's threat to the Friar: "whan it comth to my lot, / By God, I shal hym quiten every grot" (CT III, 1291-92).
13-15 In the Lansdowne MS, the Squire comes early in the sequence, directly after the Man of Law, with seventeen other pilgrims after him telling their tales.
19-21 Not waiting for the Host's decision, the Wife of Bath insists on being next. Hathe is a Northern spelling of the Chaucerian oth. Though sexually daring, the Wife is not normally given to oaths like "By God's bones," which is more characteristic of the Host (CT II, 1166; IV, 1212b; VII, 1897).
22 Chaucer's Wife is well aware of the difference between text and gloss. See Carolyn Dinshaw, Chaucer's Sexual Poetics (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989), pp. 113-31 - "`Glose/bele chose': The Wife of Bath and Her Glossators."
Canon's Yeoman-Physician Link
7-11 The Host has a vivid recollection of the previous tale, picking up the term medel (CT VIII, 1184 and 1424) and recalling the Yeoman's duty to blow on the fire (CT VIII, 753 and 923).
12-14 The Host recalls the hasty departure of the Canon, afraid of being exposed as a scoundrel (CT VIII, 700-02).
15 Chaucer had associated the term subtilitee with the Canon's alchemical skills (CT VIII, 620-27).
18 The term cronyke (also line 21) is more archaic than the Chaucerian cronycle (CT VII, 3208).
Pardoner-Shipman Link
9-10 "Maister" is the form of address used by the Host to the Shipman at the end of his tale (CT VII, 437).
11 The phrase "glad al this company" is picked up from CT VIII, 598.
Series 2: BL Royal 18.C.ii
Merchant-Wife of Bath Link
13-14 This couplet echoes the opening of the Man of Law's Epilogue: "Owre Hoost upon his stiropes stood anon / And seyde, "Goode men, herkeneth everych on!" (CT II, 1163-64).
15 The Host speaks this same line in the General Prologue (CT I, 832).
17-18 Chaucer uses the jape/ape couplet four times in CT: I, 705-06; I, 3389-90; I, 4201-02; VIII, 1312-13.
26-27 The Wife's apology, echoing the Squire and the Franklin (CT V, 7-8 and 716-18), is framed to be disingenuous in light of the barrage of scriptural references that follow in her tale.
Clerk-Franklin Link
14-20 The murderous fury and blistering tongue of the Host's wife, ironically named Goodelief, are more fully described in CT VII, 1891-1923.
Canon's Yeoman-Physician Link
10 "This preest" refers back to the London chantry priest (CT VIII, 1012-21) who served as the dupe of the Yeoman's master, the alchemist canon.
11 The word philosophre had become synonymous with alchemist and magician.
Pardoner-Shipman Link
11 It is unclear whether the phrase by John is an oath by St. John, such as the Shipman swears below (line 19), or a reference to the Pardoner by way of the generic cant name for a priest or cleric (see CT VII, 1929 and 2810).
12-13 This phrase, also rhyming male/tale, is used in CT I, 3115-16.
16 The Host's reference to "thise riotoures thre" alludes back to the three nameless drunkards of the Pardoner's Tale. The term riotoures is used nowhere else in Chaucer's writings.