Jif PR 1857 .S4 Copy 1 THE SOURCE OF CHAUCER'S AN ELI DA AND A R CITE BY EDGAR F^SHANNON [Keprinted from the Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, xxvil, 4.] The Modern Language Association of America 1912 THE SOURCE OF CHAUCER'S ANELIDA AND ARCITE The question as to the source of Chaucer's unfinished poem Anelida and Arcite is an unsolved problem. Pro- fessor Skeat points out in his introduction to this poem * that the first three stanzas are from Boccaccio's Teseide, as are also stanzas 8, 9, and 10; and that stanzas 4 to 7 are partly from Statius. The origin of the rest of the poem, which is far the greater part, is unknown. The poem belongs among that class of lyrics known technically as complaints,, as its title indicates, The Com- pleynt of feire Anelida and Fals Arcite. Chaucer begins with a proem of three stanzas taken largely from Boc- caccio. This proem ends with a verse giving hia authorities : " First folow I Stace and after him Corinne." The story then opens with an adaptation of some verses from Statius's Thebaid, xu, 519, etc. The eighth, ninth, 1 Oxford Chaucer, Vol. I, p. 77. 461 462 EDGAK F. SHANNON and tenth stanzas again are from Boccaccio. After line 70, we have no further trace of a source, and for three Teasons we may fairly consider the story itself to be an original attempt. First, Chancer takes his setting, the court of Theseus, from the Teseide of Boccaccio ; but that source does not furnish the story which he here tells. It is improbable that he would have taken this setting from the Teseide if he had had another source for his story. Second, the names, Anelida and Arcite, come from different cycles of stories, Anelida apparently originating in the Arthurian romances, 1 and Arcite coming from the Alexandrian cycle. Third, the story was left unfinished. If Chaucer had been following a definite source, he would no doubt have finished the story. 1 Schick, in his edition of the Temple of Glas, E. E. T. S., p. cxx, says in a note upon the list of lovers given in the Intelligenza: " This list is interesting as giving, amongst others, the following pair of lovers (stanza 75, 1. 2) : ' La bella Analida et lo bono Ivano.' This seems to point to one of the Romances treating of Iwain and the Round Table for the origin of the name Anelida, which would at once upset Bradshaw's and Professor CowelPs ingenious etymologies from 'Awi'ns and Anahita: for I do not believe that both the poet of the Intelligenza and Chaucer mistook a t for an I. We have also in Froissart's Dit du bleu Chevalier the line (ten Brink, Chaucer- Studien, p. 213) : ' Ywain le preu pour la belle Alydes.' One and the same personage is evidently indicated by the two names Analida and Alydes for Iwain's paramour: I am not, however, sufficiently acquainted with the Arthur-romances to know of the occurrence of such a name. Laudine in Chrestien's Chevalier au Lion is not very like it." On the name Anelida being a misreading of the name of the goddess Anahita of the Zoroastrian religion in some Latin text see Professor Cowell's article on Chaucer's Queen Anelyda in Essays on Chaucer, Chaucer Society, 1892, p. 615. ±*~lA~ chaucee's aneleda and aecite 463 This would seem a simple enough theory and so we might let the matter rest, but there are two troublesome questions which refuse to down. These are: first, why should Chaucer insist upon giving us an authority, Cor- inne, whom he apparently never followed; and second, why is this complaint so different from the ordinary complaints of the period? Let us consider first the possibilities of such an authority as Corinne. There are two whom it has been conjectured Chaucer might have had in mind, Corinnus, a reputed Greek author, and Corinna, 1 a Theban poetess. Either one of these names would assume, of course, the form that we find in Chaucer's verse. Modern historians of Greek literature, such as Christ and Croiset, make no mention of Corinnus. But from Roscher 2 we find that Corinnus was supposed to be an epic poet, a native of Ilium who lived before Homer, and during the Trojan war wrote an Iliad from which Homer borrowed the argument for his poem. He wrote in the Doric characters which had been invented by Palamedes; for he was a pupil of Palamedes. He also wrote the story of the war of Dardanus against the Paphlagonians. Roscher cites Suidas as his authority. The mere recital of the reputed facts about Corinnus seems to remove him from the range of possibility. Certainly Suidas is poor dependence in the way of an 1 See Lounsbury, Studies in Chaucer, Vol. n, pp. 402-5 ; Skeat, Oxford Chaucer, Vol. I, p. 531; Globe Chaucer, p. 336. Miss Hammond, Chaucer: A Bibliographical Manual, p. 88, has, " I have queried if a MS. could have given Chaucer Corinnus instead of Corippus: see Sandys, Hist, of Classical Scholarship, 436; but there appears no evidence of Corippus' influence." 2 See Roscher, AusfuhrUches Lexikon der Griech. u. Rom. Mytho- logie, under Korinnos. Fabricius in his Bibliotheca Graeca, Vol. I, p. 16, gives something about Corinnus based also only upon Suidas. 464 EDGAE F. SHANNON authority. Nobody contends that Chaucer knew of any work of Corinnus ; for had there been an abundance of it extant, Chaucer would not have been able to read it on account of his lack of a knowledge of Greek. The question involved in considering Corinnus is whether Chaucer might have heard of him as a great writer and, in his desire to cite an authority, have seized upon his name. There seems, indeed, little probability of this being the case; for Corinnus was certainly little known to the Middle Ages, even as a reputed writer, if his name is found only in such doubtful authorities as Suidas and " Eudocia." In the case of the Theban poetess Corinna we have a little more definite information, at least as to her work. Guilelmus Cronert in an article in the Rheinisches Museum, entitled Corinnae quae supersunt, 1 gives; first, under the heading " Testimonial a list of writers of anti- quity who mention Corinna in any way. The names include Suidas, Themistocles, Pausanias, some Scholia, and Statius. Cronert's second heading includes what he designates as " Fragmenta apud Veteres servata." This list is made up chiefly of Scholia and grammarians such as Hephaestion and Herodian. A third list of " Fragmenta incertae Sedis " contains Priscian, Heyschinus, and Heraclides Milesius. Of the three classes, there are all told, according to Cronert, forty-one references to Corinna, the poetess. He adds a few which he designates as " Dubia " and which we need not consider. He says in a concluding paragraph that Corinna was much read by the Alexandrian poets, authors of antiquities, grammarians, and metricians. 1 Guilelmus Cronert, RJi-einteches Museuvi fur Philologie, N. F. lxiii (1908), pp. 161-189. chaucer's anelida and aecite 465 Here, then, was a poetess who was much celebrated in antiquity, but only her name had come down to later times with a few fragments of her work. We have again the same question as in the case of Corinnus. There is no supposition that Chaucer knew Corinna's work or even thought he was copying it; but whether he might not have heard of her as a celebrated ancient who would sound well as an authority is the question. In other words, can it be that he was using her name as a literary device in much the same way as he seems to have done with the name Lollius? This is, as anyone will admit, a tempting theory, but before we can assume it, we must see if it is likely that Chaucer had ever heard of Corinna. It is, of course, dangerous to assert that Chaucer did not know or could not know such and such a thing. We can only proceed from what we can gather from his writings and from what works we know to have been available in his time. So far as has been ascer- tained, there is no reasonable ground for assuming that he knew any of these writers who mention or quote from Corinna except Statius. Certainly we have abundant evidence of Chaucer's knowledge of Statius, for he quotes from the Thebaid in this very poem. Statius's works include two epic poems, the Thebaid, already mentioned, and the Achilleid, and a series of occasional poems en- titled Silvae. Now Statius in his Silvae, Lib. v, Eclogue in, line 158, has the following mention of Corinna: " Tu pandere docti Carmina Battiadae, latebrasque Lycophronis atri Sophronaque implicitum, tenuisque arcana Corinnae." This evidence would go far toward showing that Chaucer might have known the name Corinna as a famous authority at least, if it were not true that, though Stati- 466 EDGAR F. SHANNON' us's Thebaid and Achilleid were well known and quoted, his Silvae was practically lost during the Middle Ages. There is only one instance known in all the literature of the Middle Ages of a quotation from Statius's Silvae. This is the occurrence of one line which seems to be from the Silvae in a letter written during the age of Charlemagne and therefore not later than the early part of the ninth century. After this the Silvae was appar- ently unknown until the discovery of a manuscript at St. Gallen in 1416, sixteen years after Chaucer's death. 1 Such a theory, therefore, as to the origin of Chaucer's use of the name Corinna must rest upon the assumption that it is a literary device and that the name of the Theban poetess was known to Chaucer. For the first we can adduce the parallel of Lollius, but for the second there seems no reasonable basis. There is one other Corinna of ancient literature whose name has never been connected with this one of Chaucer, but the facts in the case seem much more to point to her name as the one to which Chaucer meant to refer than to either of the others we have considered. This Corinna was the mistress of Ovid whom he ad- dressed in the Amoves. Chaucer in the Anelida was writing a love-poem, and Ovid was the great authority in the Middle Ages upon love. The great popularity of his works is attested by all authorities. 2 It is needless to dwell upon how universally Ovid was celebrated in the Middle Ages as the poet of love. One of his works on love so popular at that time was the work which is now 1 See Sandys, A History of Classical Scholarship, p. 618; Manitius, Phil, lii, pp. 538-45; O. Miiller, Rheinisches Museum, xvin, p. 189. 2 A. Graf, Roma nella memoria e nelle immaginationi del medio evo, Vol. n, pp. 296-315; Sandys, p. 615. CHAUCER S ANELIDA AND AECITE 467 known as Amoves. Most of the poems in this collection, especially in Book I, are addressed to his mistress, Cor- inna, and from Manitius we learn that it was only the first book which was much quoted by medieval writers. 1 But a curious fate seems to have overtaken this book of Ovid's in the Middle Ages. Its real title, Amorum, which was given it by Ovid, seems to have fallen pretty generally into disuse. For it various others were sub- stituted. Numerous manuscripts refer to the work as sine titulo; and from the early editors of Ovid, who put themselves to great pains to explain the true name and get it re-established, we find that it was also called Elegiae and Corinna. In enumerating Ovid's writings, Vincent of Beauvais gives the Amoves under the name of sine titulo. 2 In an Ovidii Vita ex Lilii Gregor. Gyraldi de Poetarum Historia Libro IV, prefixed to an edition of Ovid's works by Cornelius Schrevelius, Vol. i, we find another refer- to the designation sine titulo. Gyraldus, who died in 1552, has the following on this point: " Quae vero inge- nissimi Poetae opera supersint, breviter colligam Elegiae Amorum vel de sine titulo: de quibus sunt Grammati- corum controversial" Of the extant manuscripts of the Amoves and those of which the descriptions have come down to us in the catalogues of medieval libraries now lost, six designate 1 Manitius says, — " Anfiihrungen aus Lib. II fehlen : iiberhaupt ist im Mittelalter kein Buch so wenig beriicksichtigt worden wie Am. II (und III), ausser den Medic, faciei, aus welchem ich iiber- haupt kein Citat gefunden babe" (Philologus, Supplement-Band vil, p. 736). 2 Bartsch, Bibliothek der deutschen National- Literatur, Vol. xxxviii, Einleitung, p. 111. 468 EDGAR F. SHANNON" the work as sine iitulo. 1 Three mss. indicate the title as Amorum. 2 Though we have preserved no ms. describing this book as Corinna, we have excellent testimony to the fact that such a designation was common. From Fabricius, we learn that Hermolaus Barbaras, a distinguished Venetian scholar, born in 1454, called it by this name. This is what Fabricius has to say upon the Amoves: 3 " Amorum libri III, memorati Ovidio, Art. Ill, 343 : ' Deve tribus libris, titulus quos signat Amorum, Elige, quod docili molliter ore legas.' " Hinc patet falli Hermolaum Barbarum, qui illos libros laudat sub titulo Corinnae Ovidii: vel autorem glossarum veterum, quas servo mss. et Jeremiam de Mon- tagnano, qui in Epitoma Sapientiae Venet. 1505. 4. edita vocat indium sine titulo." Further testimony upon the use of the title Corinna we find in the early printed editions of Ovid's works. 1 Becker gives the description of four such mss., Catalogi Biblio- thecarum Antiqui, page 174, No. 74; page 196, No. 82; page 233, No. 115; page 239, No. 117. And the catalogues of French manu- scripts give two: Catalogue des Manuscrits, Departments, Vol v, p. 121; Bibliotheque de V Arsenal, Vol. II, p. 156. 2 These are described in the following: Catalogue des Manuscrits, Departments, Vol. 37\ p. 635; Catalogus Codicum MSS. Bibliothecae Bodleianae, pars tertia, p. 115, (this MS. is prefixed by this distich: " Hoc opus est Naso titulo quo signat amorum Cantata est libris una Corinna tribus " ) ; Catalogus Codicum Manuscriptorum Bibliothecae Regiae, VIIM- CCCXI. This last ms. has animorum, which is plainly a mistake for amorum. See It. Merkel, Ovidius, 1855, p. iv, for a description of this MS. 3 J. A. Fabricius, Bibliotheca Latina, ed. J. A. Ernesti, Tom. I, p. 444. chaucer's anelida and arcite 469 In an edition at Frankfort, 1601/ there is a preface to the reader by the Venetian, Dominicus Marius Niger, who lived about 1490. Niger makes it clear that Elegiae, sine titulo, and Corinna were all known as titles to the work: " Praefandum illud mihi tantum, studiose lector, ex multis, quae Grammatici hac in parte quaerenda tradidere, hisce in libris, quis videlicet eorum sit titulus; atque eo quaerendum diligentius existi- niavi, quod doctorum hominum hac in re sententiae variant. Ele- giarum nomine multi treis hos libros appellant: sed parum recte, ut mea quidem fert opinio. Nam Elegiae quoque sunt, quas in Tristibus scripsit Naso; unde incertus et ambiguus his titulus red- deretur. Alii Corinnam vocant: inter quos est noster Hermolaus Barbarus, qui quoties ex hoc opere carmina citat: Ovidius, inquit, in Corinna etc. Verum non de Corinna solum hie loquitur auctor, neque Corinnam solam amavit, quod liquido patet ex elegia 4 et 19 libri 2 Amorum, atque ex aliis in quibus factetur ingenue Naso, se multarum puellarum captum fuisse. Non tamen inficias eo, Corinnam ei caeteris chariorem fuisse, de eademque frequentius scriptum esse: ut si a majori parte ducendus sit titulus, parum peccet qui Corinnae nomine hoc opus vocant. Gravius auteni illi errare mihi videntur, qui licet manuscriptorum, depravatorum tamen exemplarium auctoritatem secuti, hos treis libellos De sine titulo nominant: ex quibus (quod maxime miror) sunt Laurentius Vallen- sis et Joannes Tortellius, qui non ineruditi habentur. Horum opinionem pluribus argumentis refellere non oportet: satis enim fuerit poetae sententiam et voluntatem de hujus operis titulo, ipsius verbis adduxisse. Naso igitur lib. 3 de Arte, hujus sui operis ita meminit: De tribus libris, titulos quos signat Amorum, Elige, quod docili molliter ore legas." Mcolaus Heinsius (1620-1681), the great Ovid com- mentator, in a note on the Amo'res which Burmann copied, says : " Amorum libros dici oportere quicquid obstrepant mss. ipse Ovidius lib. III. Art. 343 docet: 'Deque tribus libris, titulus quos signat Amorum Elige.' " Burmann after quoting this note adds his testimony 1 Ovidius, 3 torn., Francofurti, 1601, f°., torn. I, p. 177. 470 EDGAR F. SHANNON as follows : " Amores inscribi debere hos libros docet quoque Spartiamis in Vita Aelii Veri Cap. V. ubi narrat, Verum Ovidii libros Amorum in lecto semper habuisse." x Jahn, 2 a nineteenth-century editor, assigns a reason for the substitution of the titles, Corinna and sine titulo. In addition he cites an instance of the controversy of the grammarians over sine titulo as a name: " Inscripsit autem Amorum nomine [v. Art. Am. in, 343] qui titu- lus tamen librariis displicuit, qui in codicibus haec carmina plerum- que aut Corinnam aut libros sine titulo inscripserunt. Quam mirifico modo illi homines in hac re versati sint, apparet ex scholiis codicis Lipsiensis [senatorii], in quibus haec leguntur: De tituli carentia diversi diversa sentiunt. Quidam enim dicunt, hunc librum intitu- latum fuisse ab armis, solum auctoris attendentes propositum. Pro- posuerat enim Ovidius de Gigantomachia facere quinque libros, i. e. } de bello Caesaris, quod fuit inter Augustum, Cleopatrum et\ Antonium, habens Antonium et Cleopatrum pro Gigantibus et Augustum pro Jove. Sed cum tanto operi sufficere non posset, eo relicto de amore [scripsit], Sumerem titulum ab operis exsecutione, praesertim quia ab illo proposito fuit a Cupidine abstractus. Erant alii, qui dicebant, hunc librum intitulatum esse ab amore, sumentes titulum ab operis exsecutione, ubi solum de amoribus tractat. Alii vero dicunt, quod prae metu invidorum titulum apponere non est ausus. Erant enim Romae quidam invidi, qui titulos libris abra-' dentes suos apponebant et, quia sic de titulo dissentiebant, idem liber iste sine titulo quasi sub incertitudine tituli manet. Alii dicunt, quod damnato Ovidio librisque suis ab Augusto propter 1 librum de arte amandi quidam, hunc librum reticere volentes, titulum abstraxerint, qui talis erat: Incipit liber amorum qualem habemus in libro de arte amatoria." Whatever may have been the reason that the real title, Amorum, was discarded or lost, the copyists seem gener- ally to have followed two courses, sometimes giving the title of sine titulo, and sometimes giving the name of the mistress to whom the majority of the elegies were ad- 1 See Ovidii Opera, ed. Burmann, 1727, Tom. I, p. 323. 3 Ovidii Opera Omnia, ed. Jahn, 1828, Vol. I, p. 227. chaucer's anelida and arcite 471 dressed, Corinna. Ovid's prediction about her name and his being indissolubly united had come true: " Nos quoque per totum pariter cantabimur orbem, Iunctaque semper erunt nomina nostra tuis." Am. X, m, 25, 26. When the Renaissance came and men began again to read the classics for themselves in a critical way instead of Scholia upon them, they noticed that Ovid had him- self in the Ars Amatoria, in, 343, given the name of Amorum to this book which had been masquerading widely as sine titulo or Corinna. Consequently the printed editions, which were, of course, published in the light of this knowledge, all give the correct title, Amores or Amorum Liber. But the early editors, who had access to the mss. with the titles sine titulo and Corinna, found it necessary to explain why they made the change. There are similar instances of substitution or loss of names during the Middle Ages and their re-discovery after the Renaissance. A striking illustration of the loss of a name is the case of the Roman poet Martial who was called almost universally in the Middle Ages by the name Coquus. 1 Chaucer is usually found to cite his authorities quite accurately. Why he does not do so in the case of Boc- caccio we do not know. At any rate he has no aversion to citing ancient authorities, and he refers to Ovid under the names of Ovide, Naso, and Metamorphoseos. From the foregoing evidence we must admit that it would also be very natural for him to refer to Ovid under the name of Corinna. Let us now see whether there is any reason for his referring to Ovid in this particular poem. This brings us to a consideration of our second question, why Sandys, Hist. Class. Schol., p. 619. 472 EDGAR F. SHANNON the Compleynt of Anelida is so different from the ordinary complaints of the period. A study of the complaints of this period not only fails to disclose a single poem which might appear to be a source for the Anelida, but it also shows that the Anelida is essentially different from the general type to which the other complaints conform. The conventional complaint was so general and abstract that it conveys an impression of a literary exercise rather than the expression of sincere feeling. It is this stereotyped poem which we find so abundant in the French love poetry of the Middle Ages. 1 It had become the fashion, and the poets expressed their artificial complaining with little or nothing in the way of incident or situation as a basis. The Compleynt of Anelida, on the other hand, is based upon a distinctive situation and is full of a spirit of reality and genuine feeling which places it quite outside this type. For the sake of illustrating the difference it may be well to quote some single examples of the French complaint to be com- pared with the Anelida. For such a comparison it would seem necessary to select poems which bear as close simi- 1 Rutebeuf, a trouvere of the 13th century, wrote complaints, but none of them deals with love. See (Euvres Computes de Rutebeuf, ed. Jubinal, pp. 13 ff., 40 ff., 55 ff., 91 ff., 100 ff. For Machault's " complaintes," see Guillaume de Machaut, Poisies Lyriques, ed. Chichmaref, tome 1, pp. 241-69. Froissart wrote amorous ballads of the conventional type; see (Euvres de Froissart, Po6sies, ed. Scheler, Vol. II, pp. 366 ff. Granson, from whom we know Chaucer translated his Compleynt of Venus, wrote a Complainte de Saint Valentin. For a discussion of this poem and others of Gran- son's, see A. Piaget, Romania, xix, pp. 405-7. Deschamps wrote many " balades amoureuses." See (Euvres Completes de Eustache Deschamps, ed. Saint-Hilaire, Vol. in, pp. 209 ff. Christine de Pisan wrote " amorous complaints " of the established type. Her work was probably done too late to influence Chaucer. See (Euvres Poetiques de Christine de Pisan, ed. Roy, Vol. 1, pp. 281-95 and Vol. in, pp. 203-8. chatjcek's anelida and aecite 473 larity in situation as possible to Chaucer's complaint. But just here is the difficulty. The situation in all of them is so little elaborated, the theme is so general and conventional, that there is little choice to make. The selections, however, have been made on the basis of simi- larity of situation, distinguishing details, and sincerity of spirit, as far as it has been possible to find these qualities. The following is a little poem in Froissart's typical manner. The theme is the complaining of a lover to his obdurate mistress. " A voua sui tout, dame gente, Apareillies d'obeir, De coer, de foi et d'entente A faire votre plaisir; Loyalment vous ai servi En espoir d'avoir merci. Mais ce trop fort m'espoente Que ne me dagni6s oir; Je voi bien que longe atente Me menra jusqu 'au morir Las! j'ai vescu jusqu 'a ci En espoir d'avoir merci. La riens qui plus me contente En confortant mon desir Et 1'assaut que j'ai de rente C'est un tres doulc souvenir Dont Amours m'a enriei En espoir d'avoir merci." 1 As the following selection from Deschamps is analogous in theme with the Compleynt of Anelida, a comparison may more easily be made: Plaintes d'une dame. " Se j'ay ame" longuement De vray cuer et bonnement 1 CEuvres de Froissart, Poe'sies, ed. Scheler, Vol. n, p. 387. 474 EDGAB F. SHANNON Mon doulz ami, Et il s'est retrait de mi Soudainement, Sanz cause et sans mouvement, Amours regni. Car je 1'ay long temps servi, Am6, doubte" et chery Tresloyaument. N'onques a autre qu 'a ly Mon las cuer ne s' assenty Aucunement. Et je voi tout clerement Que malicieusement M'a deguerpy Et qu'il a amours choisi Nouvellement, Sanz dire au departement: Adieu vous dy Se j'ay ame - longuement. Et pour ce l'eure maudy Qu' amours en moy s'embaty Premierement, Et les yeux dont je le vy Et moy quant mon cuer ravi Si folement: En amours n'a que tourment, A Dieu du tout le commant Des ce jour cy. De moy n'ot onques mercy Certainement Aincoiz m'a couvertement Le cuer ocy. Se j'ay ame longuement, De vray cuer et bonnement." * Of Machault's complaints, the example which suggests a situation most like that of the Anelida, is one where a lady avows her love and complains of the lover's absence : 1 CEuvres Completes de Enstache Deschamps, ed. Saint-Hilaire, Vol. iv, p. 185. chaucer's anelida and arcite 475 " Mes dous amis, a vous me vueil compleindre Dou mal qui fait mon cuer palir et teindre, Car de vous vient, si le devez savoir, Ne sans vous seul confort ne puet avoir. Or vueilliez dont entendre ma clamour Et avec ce considerer l'amour Dont je vous aim, car brief seroit ma fin Se ne m'amies de cuer loial et fin. Amis, je n'ay nulle joieuse vie, Eins suis toudis en grant merencolie, Mais je ne fais jour et nuit que penser A vous veoir; mais po vaut mon penser, Quant il n'est tour, subtilite' ne voie, Ne maniere que j'y sache ne voie; Si qu' einsi sont mi mortel anemy Tuit mi penser, et toudis contre my. Si n'ay confort, amis, fors que tant plour Que je cuevre ma face de mon plour. Et quant je suis saoulg de plourer, Souvenirs vient mon las cuer acorer; Car il n'est biens ne joie qu'il m'aporte, Einsois toudis me grieve et desconforte, Dont j'ay souvent estrangle" maint souspir, Pour ce que trop parfondement souspir. Apres desirs ne me laisse durer. Si n'ay pas corps pour tel fais endurer, Car foible sui, dont piessa fusse morte, S'espoirs ne fust qui un po me conforte, Et si ne say que c'est de cest espoir, Car pas ne vient: si me degoit espoir, Et s'ay cause de penser le contraire De ce qu'il dit; pour ce ne say que faire. Or soit einsi come Dieu l'a ordonne; Mais je vous ay si franchement donne Moy et m'amour que c'est sans departir, Et s'il convient m'ame don corps partir, Ja ceste amour pour ce ne finera, Tu apres ma mort m'ame vous amera." 1 It is easy to see that these complaints vary little from the characteristics of the general type which have been pointed ont. They are conventional and impersonal in 1 Guillaume de Machant, Poesies Lyriques, ed. Chiclimaref, I, p. 254. 476 EDGAR F. SHANNON style. They might apply to the case of almost any lover. It is the artificial complaining of courtly love that we find in all the love poems of the period. Some of Chau- cer's complaints are of this conventional type. The Compleynt of Venus, which is merely a translation from the French of Granson, deals with the usual abstractions, jealousy, constancy, and the like. The Compleynt unto Pite has the characteristic personifications, Love, Pity, etc. The Compleynt to his Lady, though it exhibits the stereotyped characteristics, especially in parts i, 11, and iii, shows in part iv more resemblances to Anelida's com- plaint in the Anelida and Arcite. But the Anelida and Arcite itself differs greatly from all of these complaints. In the first place Chaucer has a story to tell, and the Compleynt of Anelida is woven into the story so as to make a component part of it. 1 For instance, the story 1 It may be well to indicate what is meant by complaint as it is used in this discussion. Skeat, in the Oxford Chaucer, Vol. I, p. 61, has defined complaint as follows : " The word compleynt answers to the 0. F. complaint, sb. masc, as distinguished from 0. F. complainte, sb. fern., and was the technical name, as it were, for a love-poem of a mournful tone, usually addressed to the unpitying loved one." This is a somewhat technical limitation of the word, but this seems to be the kind of complaint that was fashionable among the French love-poets of the Middle Ages, and the kind that Chaucer imitated in his early complaints. Professor Neilson has shown in his dis- cussion of the court of love genre that it was common enough for someone to present himself before Venus or her representative in the court of love with a complaint. (The Origins and Sources of the Court of Love, Harvard Studies and Notes, Boston, 1899, Vol. vi, pp. 231-2.) In these instances the complaint may be said to be an organic part of the story. But the word complaint is in such cases used in its broadest sense to mean any kind of grievance, and it really is a petition or " bill " presented te Venus for her judgment and is not a love-poem addressed to the unpitying loved one. In the same way we may call the d6bat a complaint. For instance, there is the complaint of the White Canonesses against the Gray chaucer's anelida and aecite 477 part of the poem, told in the third person, narrates how Anelida in her faithfulness to Arcite showed him all the letters written to her by other lovers (lines 113-115). This same idea is brought into the Compleynt in lines 2G4-5. In this respect Chaucer's Compleynt of Mars is similar to the Anelida; for it has a story in which ap- pears a complaint containing reference to the story. But as we have seen, Chaucer was not writing here altogether in the manner of his French contemporaries ; for he took his story from Ovid. Except for these direct references to the preceding story, the complaint in the Mars is of the artificial type. In the Pile there may be said to be a story in which a " bill " to Pity is introduced. But the whole poem is really a complaint written in the first person, and into this complaint of the death of Pity in his lady's heart the poet introduces a "bill" addressed to Pity herself. But the Compleynt of Anelida is more concrete and personal throughout. There is genuine feel- Nuns in Jean de Conde's Le Messe des Oisiaus et li Plais des Channonesses et des Grises Nonains. (See Neilson, pp. 67-9.) Here the Canonesses come before Venus, who is to decide the question, to complain that the Gray Nuns have taken their lovers. It will readily be seen, however, that these petitions are not complaints in the sense in which Skeat defines the term and in which I am using it in discussing Chaucer's complaints. There are numerous instances later than Chaucer where the complaint or lament is jv made an organic part of a story. Professor Neilson has called my attention to three instances of such complaints in Scottish poetry which show likewise the nine-line stanzas of the Complaint of Anelida. These are Sir William Wallace, Bk. n, 11. 170-359, Scottish Text Society, 1889; The Complaint of Cresseid in The Testament of Cresseid, 11. 407-69, Henryson, Poems and Fables, ed. David Laing, Edinburgh, 1865; and the complaint in the Quare of Jalusy, 11. 191 ff., The Kingis Quair and the Quare of Jalusy, Alexander Lawson, London, 1910. But Chaucer in the Compleynt of Mars and in the Anelida and Arcite appears to be the first poet to use the complaint in this way. 2 478 EDGAR F. SHANNON ing and passion in it. We are made to feel that Anelida is an individual and our sympathies are aroused in her behalf. Thus it will be seen that though this poem is generally thought to be an early one, and though Chaucer's early work was much influenced by French writers, there is not to be discovered any close relationship between Chau- cer's Anelida and the work of his French contemporaries. There is, however, one fertile field as yet unnoted from which Chaucer may have conceived his idea of this love- poem and complaint, and that is Ovid's Heroides. 1 From Chaucer's works written before the Anelida,, it appears that Statius and Ovid were the Latin writers with whom he was up to that time familiar. We know that he drew upon his knowledge of Statius for this poem ; and I be- lieve a careful study of it will be convincing that, although the story of Anelida is Chaucer's own creation, as has 1 J. Schick, in discussing Lydgate's Complaint of the Black Knight, has suggested that the origin of the complaint may have been in- fluenced by Ovid's Heroides. He says, " Further, the ' Complaints ' of the Lady and the Knight as they present them to the goddess, recall to us a certain species of poetry which was at one time much in vogue in England and France. These ' Complaints ' are usually put into the mouth of a rejected or forsaken lover, bewailing his wretched state and calling upon his lady for pity. It is not impossible that their origin may have been influenced by Ovid's Heroides, which enjoyed so remarkable a popularity in the Middle Ages. We have such ' Complaints ' from French poets — -for instance, from Rutebeuf, Christina de Pisan and Machault: Chaucer wrote the 'Complaints' of Mars, of Venus, and of Anelida (of somewhat different genre, the Complaint to Pity, and turned jokingly^ the Compleint to his Purse) " Temple of Glass, E. E. T. S., p. cxxii. If in its origin the genre owed something to the Heroides, it is interesting to observe that Chaucer in the Compleynt of Anelida has broken away from his French masters who were by this time producing a type of complaint very different from Ovid's poems, and has gone back to the original source for his model. chaucek's anelida and akcite 479 already been pointed out, he modelled it after the Heroides of Ovid and drew thence various details. The situation in all of the epistles of the Heroides is practically the same: a lovely woman, who has fondly trusted her lover, suddenly and without apparent reason finds herself basely deserted. Under these circumstances Ovid makes each heroine address a letter to her lover, expressing her grief and resentment at his faithlessness and at the same time entreating him to return. Have we not exactly a parallel case in the Anelida? To be sure, Ovid's work in each case is based upon a legend which attributes to his heroine the fate which she is experiencing. The story itself was already presumably known to his reader ; as, for instance, the story of Ariadne, who was deserted on the island of IsTaxos by Theseus and was supplanted by her sister Phaedra, whom Theseus carried to Athens with him. These epistles of the Heroides, we may presume, had fired Chaucer's imagination to attempt something of his own upon a similar theme. He found first of all that he needed what Ovid had already, a story which would fur- nish the occasion of the complaint to the unfaithful lover. Quite naturally he drew upon such storehouse of knowl- edge as he possessed at that time. Thus he took the setting of Theseus's court from the Teseide, linked together the euphonious names of Anelida and Arcite, and introduced a complaint addressed by the heroine to her lover, and modelled after the Heroides of Ovid. The spirit of the Anelida, to be sure, is more refined than that of the Heroides, but this is to be expected. Earthly as Chaucer sometimes is in his treatment of love, in drawing from Ovid he always elevates the theme. Besides the general similarities mentioned, the details in the Anelida point to the Heroides as a source. 1 1 It may be noted that Penelope, to whom Chaucer compares Ane- 480 EDGAE F. SHANNON In the epistle of Ariadne to Theseus, Her. x, lines 137- 140, we find: " Adspice demissos lugentis more capillos Et tunicas lacrimis sicut ab imbe gravis! Corpus, ut impulsae segetes aquilonibus, horret, Litteraque articulo pressa tremente labat." These ideas may be found in the Anelida: the weeping of the heroine, " Upon a day, ful sorowfully weping," line 207; the trembling of her body, " That turned is in quaking al my daunee," line 214; and the writing of the letter with her own hand, lida, line 82, is Ovid's heroine in the first epistle of the Heroides, and that Lucretia, referred to in the same line is celebrated by Ovid in Fasti, n, 721-852. But the linking together of the names of Penelope and Lucretia as models of goodness and constancy was a favorite idea of Chaucer's caught from a passage in the Roman de la Rose. Professor Skeat notes this as follows in the Oxford Chaucer, Vol. I, p. 490, note to line 1081 of the Duchess: " Penelope is accented on the first e and on o, as in French. Chaucer copies this from the Roman de la Rose, line 8694, as appears from his coupling it with Lucrece, whilst at the same time he borrows a pair of rimes. The French has: ' Si n'est-il mes nule Lucrece, Ne Penelope nule en Orece.' In the same passage, the story of Lucretia is told in full, on the authority of Livy, as here. The French has: ' ce dit Titus Livius,' line 8654. In the prologue to the Legend of Good Women, Chaucer alludes again to Penelope ( line 252 ) , Lucrece of Eome ( line 257 ) , and Polixene (line 258) ; and he gives the Legend of Lucrece in full. He again alludes to Lucrece and Penelope in the lines pre- ceding the Man of Lawes Prologue (B. 63, 75) ; and in the Franke- lein's Tale (F. 1405, 1443)." To these instances may be added this mention of the two names in Anelida, line 82. CHAUCER S ANELIDA AND AECITE 481 " She caste hir for to make a compleyning, And with hir owne honde she gan hit wryte," lines 208-209. In Her. xii, 175-8, Medea says: " Forsitan et stultae dum te jactare maritae Quaeris et iniustis auribus apta loqui, In faciem moresque nieos nova crimina fingas, Rideat et vitiis laeta sit ilia meis." Anelida's reference in lines 229-234 to Arcite's new attachment and to his laughing at her pain is akin to Medea's words. Anelida says: " Now is he f als, alas ! and causeles, And of my wo he is so routheles, That with a worde him list not ones deyne To bring ayein my sorowful herte in pees, For he is caught up in another lees. Right as him list, he laugheth at my peyne." Both are thinking of the happiness of the lover and his new love; with Medea it is her rival who laughs at her in her grief, with Anelida it is her lover. The idea that is expressed in Her. n, 49: " Credidimus blandis, quorum tibi copia, verbis," Chaucer uses for a whole stanza, lines 247-255 : " Alas ! wher is become your gentilesse ! Your wordes fulle of plesaunce and humblesse? Your observaunces in so low manere, And your awayting and your besinesse, Upon me, that ye calden your maistresse, Your aovereyn lady in the worlde here? Alas! and is ther nother word ne chere Ye vouchesauf upon myn hevinesse? Alaa! your love, I bye hit al to dere." The idea that to be untrue in love will bring no glory to a man's name is expressed in two of the epistles and in the Anelida. Ovid in Her. n, 63-66, has on this subject: 482 EDGAE V. SHANNON " Fallere credentem non est opera puellam Gloria: simplicitas digna favore fuit. Sum decepta tuis et amans et femina verbis: Di faciant, laudis summa sit ista tuae." The same idea is found in Her. in, 144, where Briseis, after asserting that Achilles will cause her to die by his neglect, says: " Nee tibi magnificum femina iussa mori." A fairly close parallel to this is the following passage from Chaucer's Anelida, lines 273-277 : " And thenke ye that furthered be your name To love a newe, and been untrewe? Nay! And putte you in sclaunder now and blame, And do to me adversitee and grame, That love you most, god, wel thou wost ! alway ? " Ovid and Chaucer give almost identically the ideas that separation from her lover means death to the heroine, and that his neglect has already banished the color from her face: Her. in, 139-141: " Aut, si versus amor tuus est in taedia nostri, Quam sine te cogis vivere, coge mori! Utque facis, coges: abiit corpusque colorque." Anelida, 284-289: " For either mot I have yow in my cheyne, Or with the dethe ye mot departe us tweyne; Ther ben non other mene weyes newe; For god so wisly on my soule rewe, As verily ye sleen me with the peyne; That may ye see unfeyned of myn hewe." The circumstance of the heroine seeing her lover in her dreams is given by both authors: Her. xv, 123 &.: chaucer's anelida and abcite 483 " Tu mihi cura, Phaon ! te soninia nostra reducunt, Soninia formoso candidiora die Illic te invenio, quamvis regionibus absis; Sed non longa satis gaudia somnus habet." Anelida, 328-334: " And if I slepe a furlong wey or tweye, Tban thinketh me, that your figure Before me stant, clad in asure, To profren eft a newe assure For to be trewe, and mercy me to preye. The longe night this wonder sight I drye, And on the day for this afray I dye." Probably the most striking resemblance between any single one of Ovid's epistles and the Anelida is found in the suggestions of both Dido and Anelida that their laments are swamsongs. Both, in declaring that fate is against them and that they must accept the inevitable, compare themselves to the dying swan : Her. vn, 3-6 : " Sic ubi fata vocant, udis abjectus in herbis Ad vada Maeandri concinit albus olor. Nee quia te nostra sperem prece posse moveri, Adloquor (adverso movimus ista deo)." Anelida, 342-8: " Than ende I thus, sith I may do no more, I yeve hit up for now and ever-more; For I shal never eft putten in balaunce My sekernes, ne lerne of love the lore. But as the swan, I have herd seyd ful yore, Ayeins his deth shal singe in his penaunce, So singe I here my destiny or chaunce." Besides these similarities to the Heroides, there is another indication that Chaucer was under the influence of Ovid in this work. In the Amoves Ovid harps much 484 EDGAE F. SHANNON upon the theme that we eagerly desire what we can not get: " Quod licet, ingratumst : quod noil licet, acrius urit." Am. ii, xix, 3. " Nitimur in vetitum semper cupimusque negata." Am. hi, IV, 17. " Quicquid servatur, cupimus magis, ipsaque furem Cura vocat: pauci, quod sinit alter, amant." Am. hi, iv, 25-26. Chaucer refers to this same theme as follows, — Anelida, 201-203 : " The kinde of mannes herte is to delyte In thing that straunge is, also god me save! For what he may not get that wolde he have." Not only does the similarity to the Heroides indicate that the Anelida was written under the influence of the Heroides, but Chaucer's continued use of the Heroides in his subsequent work reinforces the position that he was writing under the influence of the Heroides here. Some of the foregoing points may seem trifling in themselves, and it may be that Chaucer was not con- sciously borrowing in every case. At any rate he had so absorbed Ovid's epistles that he could write one in imitation of them and use perhaps unconsciously many of Ovid's details. Another example of such assimilation is to be found in Milton's Lycidas, which shows that its author was thoroughly saturated with the classical pas- toral, though specific borrowings would be difficult to locate. Thus we have found that the Anelida is like the Heroi- des, first, in general theme, man's unfaithfulness in love ; second, in situation: a fair and faithful woman deserted by her false lover addresses a letter of complaint to him, chaucer's anelida and arcite 485 bemoaning the confidence she has placed in him, but avowing her constancy and offering forgiveness if he will return to her; third, in details, for almost every idea expressed in the Anelida has a parallel in some one of the Heroides. Now, as we have seen, it is quite probable that Chau- cer's ms. copy of Ovid, which he calls his " owne booke " 1 designated the Amoves as Corinna. It is probable that this book included all of Ovid's amatory verse ; for Chau- cer's works indicate familiarity with all of it. If the Amoves came first with the Hevoides following, as may very reasonably have been the case, we should have an explanation of why Chaucer refers to his use of the Hevoides in the Anelida under the name of Covinna. However that may have been, the striking similarity of this poem to the epistles of the heroines points to Ovid's Hevoides as the model for Chaucer's Compleynt of Ane- lida. And we may reasonably conclude that Chaucer intends to indicate his indebtedness to Ovid under the name Covinna when he says, " First folow I Stace and after him Corinne." Edgak F. Shannon. 1 House of Fame, Bk. n, 712. I 014 044 107 7 \