Chaucer's Works (ed. Skeat) Vol. VI

by Geoffrey Chaucer

THE COMPLETE WORKS

OF

GEOFFREY CHAUCER

EDITED, FROM NUMEROUS MANUSCRIPTS

BY THE

Rev. WALTER W. SKEAT, M.A.
Litt.D., LL.D., D.C.L., Ph.D.
ELRINGTON AND BOSWORTH PROFESSOR OF ANGLO-SAXON
AND FELLOW OF CHRIST'S COLLEGE,
CAMBRIDGE

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INTRODUCTION, GLOSSARY, AND INDEXES

'Thou shall have yit, or hit be eve,
Of every word of this sentence
A preve, by experience;
And with thyn eres heren wel
Top and tail, and everydel.'
⁠The Hous of Fame, 876-880.

Oxford

AT THE CLARENDON PRESS

M DCCC XCIV

IN GRATEFUL MEMORY
OF
HENRY BRADSHAW

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CONTENTS.

General Introduction.—§ 1. Objects in view in preparing this edition. § 2. Romaunt of the Rose. § 3. The Minor Poems; Canon of Chaucer's works. § 4. A Compleint to his Lady; the Former Age; Merciless Beautee; Balade to Rosemounde; Against Women Unconstaunt; Complaints. § 5. Boethius. § 6. Troilus. § 7. The House of Fame. § 8. The Legend of Good Women. § 9. The Astrolabe. § 10. The Canterbury Tales. § 11. Obligations to others. § 12. Thomas Tyrwhitt; Thomas Wright; Bell and others. § 13. Prof. Child; Dr. Ellis; Dr. Sweet; Prof. Ten Brink; and others. § 14. The Glossarial Index. § 15. Aesthetic criticism. § 16. The Dialect of Chaucer. § 17. Chaucer's Kenticisms. § 18. Pronunciation. §19. The Vowels and Diphthongs. § 20. The Consonants. § 21. Accentuation. § 22. Explanation of phonetic symbols. § 23. The M.E. vowels. Example of pronunciation. § 24. Scansion and accents. § 25. Rimes illustrating the Pronunciation. Open and close ō. Long and short open o. § 26. Long and short open o in the Minor Poems. § 27. The same; in the Legend. § 28. The same; in the Tales. § 29. Open and close ō in Chaucer. § 30. Open and close ē. § 31. Sources of long e. § 32. Development of long e. § 33. Development of close ē. § 34. Summary of the preceding results. §35. Examples of unstable ē. §36. Word-lists. § 37. Apparent exceptions in the Tales. § 38. Apparent exceptions elsewhere. § 39. Use of the above tests. § 40. Further examples. § 41. Fuller word-lists; types A, B, and C, Chaucer's rules. § 42. Some peculiarities of rime. § 43. Rimes involving two words; other feminine rimes. § 44. Permissible rimes. Double word-forms. § 45. Repetitions. § 46. Prof. Lounsbury's objections: supposed false rimes in Chaucer and Gower. § 47. Feet, accusative, and fete, dative; entente; fore; broughte riming with nought. § 48. Further attacks upon rimes in Chaucer and Gower. § 49. General failure of these attacks. § 50. Assonances. § 51. Non-riming of -y and -y-ë. § 52. Metres and Forms of Verse. § 53. Lines of four accents; ballad-metre; four-line stanza. § 54. The eight-line stanza. § 55. The seven-line stanza; from Machault. § 56. Terza Rima. § 57. A ten-line stanza. § 58. Two nine-line stanzas. § 59. Stanzas of six and five lines. § 60. Stanzas in Anelida. § 61. Roundels. §62. Chaucer as a metrist. §63. Balades and Terns. § 64. The Envoy. § 65. The Heroic Couplet. § 66. Grammatical Outlines. § 67. General Rules. § 68. The Strong Declension of Substantives. § 69. Archaisms. § 70. Three Types of Strong Substantives. § 71. Effect of Accent. § 72. Double forms. § 73. The Weak Declension. § 74. Genitive Singular. § 75. Dative Singular. § 76. Plurals. § 77. Substantives of French origin. § 78. Adjectives. § 79. Comparatives. § 80. Superlatives. § 81. Numerals. § 82. Pronouns. § 83. Possessives. § 84. Demonstratives. § 85. Interrogatives. § 86. Relatives. § 87. Other pronominal forms. § 88. Verbs. § 89. General formulae for verbs. § 90. Seven Conjugations of Strong Verbs. § 91. Formation of Weak Verbs. § 92. Three Classes of Weak Verbs. § 93. Some other Verbs. § 94. Negative forms. § 95. Adverbs. § 96. Prepositions and Conjunctions. § 97. Constructions. § 98. Versification. § 99. Three Latin terms; iamb, trochee, amphibrach. § 100. Speech-waves. § 101. Prose and Verse. § 102. Some new symbols. § 103. Old French metres. § 104. Sixteen forms of lines. § 105. Chaucer's chief licences. § 106. Examples of scansion. § 107. His moveable pause. § 108. Additional syllables explained. § 109. Examples of additional syllables. § 110. Syllable dropped in the midst of a line. § 111. Accentuation. § 112. Elision. § 113. The vowel i not counted as a syllable. § 114. Suppression of syllables. § 115. Contraction. § 116. No elision at a pause. § 117. Four-accent metre. § 118. Alliteration. § 119. Chaucer's authorities

Glossarial Index: [ A—D ] - [ E—K ] - [ L—R ] - [ S—Z ]

Glossary to Fragments B and C of the Romaunt of the Rose

Glossary to Gamelyn

Index of Proper Names

Index of authors quoted or referred to by Chaucer

Index of books referred to in the notes

List of Manuscripts

General list of Errata

General Index