210, Z. 14 "Demetrius glaubt an sich selbst und zeigt sich ganz seines neuen Standes würdig"; S. 222, Z. 25; S. 223, Z. 29 "musz... sich über seinen Stand erhaben zeigen"; S. 225, Z. 17 ff.; S. 226, Z. 9 "Körperliche Stärke, Schönheit, kühner Muth, Geist und Einsicht, Hochsinn finden sich in ihm, weit über seinen Stand und sein Schicksal"; S. 233, Z. 2 "Ein Hohes blickt aus allen seinen Zügen, obgleich er sans aveu ist und nur von der Gnade des Woiwoden lebt"; Z. 20 ff.; S. 86, Z. 3 "Grischka antwortet erst mit edelm Selbstbewusztseyn”; S. 88, Z. 1 "Demetrius verändert nach geschehener Erkennung seine Kleider und ist eine ganz andre Person geworden, wenn er wieder auftritt"; Z. 5 "er selbst aber ist nie liebenswürdiger gewesen, obgleich er sich vollkommen in die Würde seines Standes findet"; S. 89, Z. 17 ff.; S. 90, Z. 5 "Er beträgt sich mit einer gewissen Grandezza gegen die Mitbedienten, mit edelm Devouement gegen seinen Wohlthäter, mit Verehrung und Anmuth gegen seine Tochter"; S. 104, Z. 7 "Grischka zeigt bei seinen Antworten die edle Hoheit seines Charakters"; S. 92, Z. 31 f.; S. 95, Z. 3 "Und mit bewundernswürdiger Leichtigkeit findet er sich in diesen auszerordentlichen Glückswechsel, er ist so schnell und so ganz Fürst, als ob er es immer gewesen. Sein erstes Gefühl ist für Marina, deren er sich nun auf einmal würdig und mehr als gleich fühlt"; S. 106, Z. 5 ff.; S. 108, Z. 13 ff.; Z. 23 "Die Natur scheint ihn zu etwas höherem bestimmt zu haben, als das Glück aus ihm machte (Anm. "Geist volle Reden, Tapferkeit und Kühnheit. Hochfliegende Neigung. Stolz, doch mit Bescheidenheit. Einsichten und Gaben). Sein hoher Geist im Contrast mit seinem Zustand, er erscheint als ein merkwürdiges Kind des Schicksals"; Z. 29; S. 109, Z. 1 f S. 110, Z. 33 ff.; S.116, Z. 30 ff.; S. 122, Z. 2 ff.; Z. 21 ff.; Z. 33 "Sie schilt die Blindheit des Glücks, wenn sie ihren Bräutigam mit dem Grischka vergleicht"; S. 124, Z. 20 "Aber wenn er nicht von edler Geburt ist so hat die Natur sich sehr vergriffen"; S. 127, Z. 31 "Und wie ihm nun seine Geburt bewuszt ist, so weisz er sich gleich darein zu finden. (man sieht die schnelle Wirkung des Fürst-seyns auf einen Character) Er nimmt die Huldigung der russischen Flüchtlinge

N

Sauger Freiheit und 15: S. 154, Z. 22

er hm naht erfährt Raubsucht, kein Ueberand Ghade"; S. 155, Z. 9

ཆོས གཞས 1:|:ཀྱང

em Gipfel des Glücks und

Case Wendung zu nehmen. at gen Beherrscher"; S. 173, Z. .net ein edles Selbstvertrauen socne thm gleich die Herzen geand Aufrichtigkeit des Jüng

weis an Sapieha); S. 67, V. 119 stochte ich ihn zeihen,/ Sein ganz Xxx Notas V. 123 "Doch warlich ist So was in groszer Miszgriff der Natur"; Moelog nach der Erkennung); ebenso das 06 & 74: S. 6, V. 73 "Ihr gebt euch für Night wahrlich euer Anstand wider、e Mode d'esem stolzen Anspruch"; S. 14, Z. cx och aus seiner schlichten Rede / Und reinen Nie Warbeit an",19

Me bei 186 Dometrius so in Fleisch und Blut übergeganwith Roca vor der Katastrophe den Empörern noch maje*** W. Bei der Catastrophe ist er schon soweit, Ayger be'd berumbringt, so sehr imponiert seine Gestalt "N 165, 2, 6 "Demetrius bringt die wüthenden a că serie Majestät und Kühnheit auf einige Augenblicke Sugen "; 2. 12 "Die Macht des Herrscheransehens, x su der Ausübung der höchsten Gewalt ligt, kommt

CHAUCER'S LEGEND OF GOOD WOMEN.

(Continued from Vol. VII, No. 4.)

The second work upon which Cupid, in the Prologue to the Legend, has chosen to rest his indictment of Chaucer is the Troilus and Criseyde. Its use by the little god, as a basis for his charge of heresy, seems still less apposite than that of the Rose. Surely Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, a book given exclusively to the theme of love, is a curious work to have been written by one who cherishes bitterness toward Cupid. We have Lydgate's own testimony, on the contrary, that the book was a favorite with lovers:

Whiche for to rede lovers them delyte

They have therein so grete devocyon.

Furthermore, Cupid's original accusation is that Chaucer is guilty of heresy, not specifically against women, but against love. Now this work of the poet's is not less a story of the triumph than of the failure of love, not less a tale of the truth of Troilus' ("one of the patterns of love," as Shakespeare calls him) than of the falsehood of Cressid. Indeed, the fact that Cressid proves unfaithful is, as "Chaucer" himself indicates, little to the point: Ne a trewe lover oghte me nat blame,

(466)

Thogh that I speke a fals lover som shame. Yet, even so, he is putting his case weakly, for the author of the Troilus, so far from exhibiting any gratification at Cres

"The choice of the Troilus, as the basis of Cupid's charge, becomes especially ironical in the light of Alceste's command to Chaucer to write of women

That weren trewe in lovinge al hir lyves;
And telle of false men that hem betrayen.

(485)

If to make the faithfulness of woman shine out on the dark background of man's falsehood be a legitimate method of honoring love, why is not the reverse process just as lawful, and why, therefore, is not a tale in which the truth of Troilus is contrasted with the perfidy of Cressid a poem to the glory of love instead of a heresy against it? It is a poor rule that will not work both ways.

of detachment toward his story

Nanoce pervaded with irony, but the irony gnadamentally tragic), and in spite of

In her his

acanças of character, no candid reader can deny Now a real affection for his heroine. No, perhaps-he has wrought the miracle of tec weak woman thoroughly attractive, and of y tragic emotion when she proves false.

scary clear, then, that Cupid has chosen to rest his e og fler unconvincing evidence. One wonders, indeed, wieciet he has really read the works in question at all. Alceste, ranga in not quite such blunt terms, practically tells Cupid That he does not know what he is talking about. Somewhat m the fashion in which Cicero says his omissis and then gives an exhaustive list of the things he is leaving out, the Queen Tematica

And if ye nere a god, that knowen al,
Than mighte hit be, as I yow tellen shal,

(348)

hundred

whereupon she proceeds, in a speech of nearly a huca, to state in detail the ways in which the omniscient Cupid, had he not been omniscient, might have been deceived. But now, the question of Cupid's literary attainments aside, suppose that a wader of the A Prologue is himself unacquainted with the Nomance of the Rose and the Troilus. He will be quite unable, 11. st. 107, Nee also IV, st. 3.

on his own account, to pass upon the merits of Cupid's accusation. He is compelled, in other words, to go beyond the poem itself for its interpretation, to depend on his comprehension of an extrinsic reference for an individual opinion as to Chaucer's guilt-an arrangement constituting a palpable artistic blemish. In B, on the other hand, though the extrinsic reference remains, the blemish is effaced by putting the ballad in Chaucer's mouth. What the author has done might be illustrated in some such way as this: If we see a man arrested for cruelty to animals and hear from his accuser a number of lurid stories of his inhumanity, we shall probably be considerably affected, but, till the man has stated his side of the case, we shall, if we are wise, hold our final judgment in abeyance. If, on the other hand, only five minutes before he is arrested, we have ourselves beheld the prisoner (quite unaware that he is being watched) treating with the utmost kindness an old, broken-down horse, we shall certainly be inclined to think that the wrong man has been taken into custody and to accept with much more than the proverbial grain of salt the stories of his cruelty. It is quite thus in the case of Chaucer in the Legend. Things seen are mightier than things heard especially when the latter are the windy charges of an ill-tempered little god. What confidence-whether he knows the Troilus or not-will the reader of Prologue B be inclined to place in the story of Chaucer's poetical transgressions, in the face of having seen him, only a moment or two before, in the very act of composing a ballad in praise of the Queen of Love? The number of improvements flowing from this one change in the B version is astonishing.

But leaving the question of the ballad,1 let us return to a

'The appearance of the names of two men in the ballad at once suggests that this is part of the satire, and, indeed, few aspects of the whole jest would be funnier than the intimation that there were not enough beautiful and virtuous women to fill up even a little ballad and that the poet, therefore, had to eke out with two masculine names. But this at once introduces a difficulty: if Chaucer has carried his satire, in this and other respects, into the ballad, he is thereby detracting from its value as a spontaneous expression of his own reverence for