having derived this beautiful story from the "Teseide" of Boccaccio. The accuracy of this opinion I much question; and at another and more fitting opportunity I hope to prove, as I believe I shall be enabled to do, that Chaucer is only indirectly, and not, as has heretofore been supposed, immediately indebted to Boccaccio for the story of Palamon and Arcite, although there are passages in the very portion of this tale, to which I am directing attention, which correspond almost word for word with Boccaccio's description of the Temple of Mars.
Boccaccio himself was however, in this part of his poem, an imitator of Statins; and Dr. Morell, in his excellent edition of this tale, being ignorant of the existence of the "Teseide," pronounces Chaucer's description to be "a fine copy of the beautiful original in Statius."—Lib. vii.
"Hic steriles delubra notat Mavortia Sylvas," &c.
As Tyrwhitt's edition is in every body's hands, and the excellent, but unfinished one of Morell is comparatively unknown, the quotation to which the reader's attention is requested, shall be given from the latter. It is as follows:
"Why schulde I not ek als well tell Yow all
The Portreyture that was upon the wall,
Within the Temple of mighty Mars the redde.
Al peynted was the Wal in lenthe and bredde.
Like to the Estris of the gresely Place,
That hyght the grete Temple of Mars in Trace,
In thylke northern frosty Regioun,
Thereas Mars hath his sovereign Mancyon.
Ferst on the Wal was peyntid a Forest,
In whiche there dwellyth neyther Man, ne Beste;
With knotty knavry bareyne Treis olde.
Of Stubbis scharpe and hideous to beholde,
In which there ran as rombilin a Swough
As thow a Storm schulde brestyn every Plough,
And downward from an hill under a bente,
There stod the Temple of Mars Omnipotent,
Wrought al of bornede Stele, of which th Entre
Was long and streyt, and gastely for to se.
And thereout came a Rage in swiche a wese
That it made al the Gatys for to rese.
The Northern Lyght in al the dorys schow,
For Window on the Wal ne was there now,
Throw whiche Men mighten any Lyght desserne.
The doris were of Athamante eterne,
I elenchede overthwerte and ende long,
With iryn tough, and for to make it strong,
