as part of the history of the third Antiochus, about 200 years before Christ. It begins thus [MS. Reg. 14. c. xi.]
"Filia Seleuci regis stat clara decore
Matreque defunctâ pater arsit in ejus amore.
Res habet effectum, pressâ puellâ dolet."
"The rest in the same metre, with one pentameter only to two hexameters.
"Gower, by his own acknowledgment, took his story from the Pantheon; as the author, (whoever he was) of Pericles, prince of Tyre, professes to have followed Gower."—Tyrwhitt.
"It is observable, that the hero of this tale is, in Gower's poem, as in the present play, called prince of Tyre; in the Gesta Romanorum[1] , and Copland's prose romance, he is entitled King. Most of the incidents of the play are found in the Confessio Amantis, and a few of Gower's expressions are occasionally borrowed. However, I think it is not unlikely that there may have been (though I have not met with it) an early prose translation of this popular story from the Gesta Romanorum, in which the name of Apollonius was changed to Pericles;
- ↑ This is not strictly true. He is frequently called Princeps, and generally so in the opening of the story.
