Excerpt
ILLUSTRATIONS OF CHAUCER.
(Vol. iii., pp. 131. 133.)
I am glad to perceive that some of the correspondents of "Notes and Queries" are turning their attention to the elucidation of Chaucer. The text of our father-poet, having remained as it were in fallow since the time of Tyrwhitt, now presents a rich field for industry; and, in offering free port and entry to all comments and suggestions, to be there sifted and garnered up, the pages of "Notes and Queries" may soon become a depository from which ample materials may be obtained for a new edition of Chaucer, now become an acknowledged desideratum.
One excellent illustration has lately been added, at page 133., in a note without signature upon "Nettle in, dock out." If confirmed, it will furnish not only a most satisfactory explanation of that hitherto incomprehensible phrase, but also a curious example of the faithful preservation of an exact form of words through centuries of oral tradition.
And if the note which precedes it, at page 131., upon a passage in Palamon and Arcite, is less valuable, it is because it is deficient in one of the most essential conditions which such communications ought to possess—that of originality. No suggestion ought to be offered which had been previously published in connexion with the same subject: at least in any very obvious place of reference, such as notes or glossaries already appended to well-known editions of the text.
Now the precise explanation of the planetary distribution of the twenty-four hours of the day, given by ε. in the first portion of his communication, was anticipated seventy or eighty years ago by Tyrwhitt in his note upon the same passage of Palamon and Arcite. And with respect to ε.'s second explanation of the meaning of "houre inequal," that expression also has been commented upon by Tyrwhitt, who attributes it to the well-known expansive duration of ancient hours, the length of which was regulated by that of the natural day at the several seasons of the year: hence an inequality always existed; except at the equinoxes, between hours before, and hours after, sunrise. This is undoubtedly the true explanation, since Chaucer was, at the time, referring to hours before and after sunrise upon the same day. On the contrary, ε.'s ecliptic hours, if they ever existed at all (he has cited no authority), would be obviously incompatible with the planetary disposition of the hours first referred to.
I shall now, in my turn, suggest explanations of the two new difficulties in Chaucer's text, to which, at the conclusion of his note, ε. has drawn attention.
The first is, that, "with respect to the time of year at which the tournament takes place, there seems to be an inconsistency." Theseus fixes "this day fifty wekes" from the fourth of May, as the day on which the final contention must come off, and yet the day previous to the final contention is afterwards alluded to as "the lusty seson of that May," which, it is needless to say, would be inconsistent with an interval of fifty ordinary weeks....