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II
The major reason for believing that Chaucer wrote the Proverbs is the ascription of them to him in the titles of two of the MSS, F and H.[10] What effect does the reclassification have on the testimony given by these titles?
One effect is clear: H's testimony has been shown to have no independent value, for H has been demonstrated to be a copy of F and it is reasonable to presume that the scribe of H simply copied the ascription (title) in F along with the text. Even so, the reclassification strengthens the argument for authenticity. The removal of H is more than balanced by the addition of S, for the inclusion of the Proverbs in Stowe's edition of Chaucer is tantamount to an ascription and S has been shown, unlike H, to derive independently from the archetype.[11] Accordingly, in one line of descent an actual ascription appears (F's title); in another line of descent occurs the quasi-ascription of S. This situation allows only the conclusion that the Proverbs were probably ascribed to Chaucer in the archetype itself.
The phrasing of the ascription can be tentatively reconstructed. The fact that the word proverb occurs in the titles of all three lines of descent (A, F, and S) implies that this word was in the title of the archetype, and in the singular form. It is plausible to assume that the ascription was made in the simplest way, by the phrase, of Chaucer. Combining these two elements yields, of course, the title of F: Proverbe of Chaucer. Since there are two proverbs, F's title is less appropriate than the plural title used in this paper, which follows popular custom. But the inappropriate singular form would seem to go back to the archetype.
The choice of a basic MS. can now be made. If F is chosen, only shul, line 1, and my, line 6, require correcting; if S is selected, mokel, line 7, and cher, line 8, must be changed, and the title also. The preference is thus in F's favor. With F as the basic MS., the following text results:
What shal these clothes thus manyfolde
Loo this hoote somers day
After grete hete cometh colde
No man caste his pilche away
Of all this worlde the large compas
It wil not in myn armes tweyne
Who so mochel wol embrace
Litel ther of he shal distreyne
Looked at objectively, with no presuppositions as to the kind of poem Chaucer might or might not write, what grounds remain for doubting the authenticity of the Proverbs? I can see none. But I would not argue that matters of authenticity can be determined wholly through objectives means. Before concluding, I should like to call attention to a striking difference between the text just given and the version of the Proverbs found in modern editions.[12] In the latter it has become customary, since the nineteenth century, to place a Roman numeral I between the title and the first line and a II between the fourth and fifth lines. The effect is attractive, giving an appearance of form to what, objectively speaking, is hardly a poem at all — merely two stanzas juxtaposed, unrelated except that each expresses a proverb.
And yitte . it makeþe / sharpe kerving toolis
If þow . wost ought / where þat I haue miswent
Eschuwe . þow þat / for suche thing to þee scolle is /
þus wyse men / beon offt / ware by foolis
If þowe do so / þy witte is wele bewared
By his contrarie . is every thing declared[13]
This paper has not set out to prove the authenticity of the Proverbs, which is probably unprovable. What it has done is to furnish a text based upon a classification of four authorities, not three, and to set the record straight, perhaps, on certain matters connected with authenticity.
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