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The theory, once axiomatic, that the manuscripts of Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde preserve revision states of the text has been brought into question in recent years. In his new edition of the poem,[1] Barry Windeatt dismisses the view of the text developed by William McCormick and Robert Root. In Root's formulation, the bewildering manuscript relationships, which had proved impossible to classify in a fashion suitable for editing by recension, would be explained by recourse to the hypothesis of a single manuscript, a fair copy of the first draft in Chaucer's possession, successively corrected and revised by the poet.[2] Early copies made from this manuscript would preserve the unrevised form of the poem, what McCormick and Root called the alpha text; copies made after Chaucer had performed some or all of his revisions would preserve beta or gamma texts. McCormick, who made the original classifications, held that beta represented the intermediate and gamma the final forms of the text. In Root's hypothesis the beta manuscripts would derive from the authorial copy in its finally revised form and the gamma manuscripts from a single copy made from Chaucer's working text at a time when most but not all of his revisions had been incorporated. His hypothesis not only provided Root with the means to explain the genesis of three authentic, authorial versions of the poem; it would also account for the confusion of agreements between unrelated manuscripts and the shifting of individual manuscript affiliation from one textual tradition to another, without recourse to coincident variation and contamination. All could be explained by the confusing Chaucerian exemplar, with its additions and cancellations.
Root's account of the textual tradition of the Troilus has not met with complete acceptance. In particular, the privileged status he accords the beta variants has largely been repudiated, and most subsequent scholars have preferred to edit and cite from gamma texts.[3] But the evidence for the earlier, unrevised form of the poem had until recently gone unchallenged. In discussing the text, Windeatt minimizes the importance of the alpha variants, treating the vast majority of them as scribal in origin and the rest as chance preservations of alternative readings present in Chaucer's draft. Windeatt goes to great lengths to demonstrate that certain passages absent from or added later to various alpha manuscripts—Troilus's Hymn to Love in Book 3 (1744-71), his predestination soliloquy in Book 4 (953-1085), and his ascent to the spheres in Book 5 (1807-27)—are not the evidence for revision Root claimed them to be but are, from context, an integral part of Chaucer's original
Many of the criticisms levelled by Windeatt and Hanna are well-founded. Certainly coincident variation and contamination play a larger role than Root would allow, and his fanciful hypothesis explaining the confusion of manuscript relationships is more convenient than credible. Much of his enthusiasm for detailing revision states rather than identifying and eliminating scribal error may be explained by the fact that his was the first full account of the new textual theory to be published.[6] But if Root's enthusiasm for revision went too far in one direction, the skepticism of Windeatt and Hanna goes too far in the other, and there is a real danger that a new orthodoxy will simply replace the old. Since the appearance of Windeatt's edition most writers who mention the question of revision in the Troilus seem to regard Windeatt's as the final word, and only Charles Owen has come to the defense of Root's theories.[7] In the new Riverside Chaucer, Windeatt and Hanna are said to have "persuasively undermined Root's argument,"[8] and if this new edition of the Robinson text has anything like the influence of its predecessors, this is the sum total of what many future Chaucerians will come to know and believe about the textual tradition of the Troilus. With this much at stake, a more thorough reexamination of the textual situation is clearly warranted.
The three extended passages mentioned previously, those which Root took to be late additions to the text, have been discussed more extensively by textual critics than any other part of the poem, and because Windeatt's reinterpretation of this evidence underlies his rejection of revision, these passages may serve as a convenient starting point. Troilus's Hymn to Love in Book 3 (1744-71), adapted from Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy Book 2, metrum 8, was originally omitted from Ph and H2, two of the four manuscripts attesting alpha for this part of the poem,[9] although the scribe of Ph has supplied the passage on an inset leaf. The other alpha manuscripts, Gg and H5, give the song in its normal position. As Root comments, the omission in PhH2 might seem to have been accidental, particularly since these manuscripts are related genetically by a long series of common errors and so in agreement have the authority of only a single witness.[10] But there is nothing about the passage that might have led a scribe to omit it; the opening and closing lines of the song contain no verbal similarities to the textual environment that could induce an eyeskip error, and the passage is too short for its omission to have been caused by the loss of a leaf in an antecedent copy.
This much Windeatt will concede: "What may survive at this point is a randomly preserved trace of the process of Ch's composition of the poem. . . . Such an expansion perhaps existed originally in the form of a physical addition to the draft which has been confused by certain scribes" (p. 38). Windeatt thus agrees with Root concerning the separate composition of the Hymn; he takes issue only with Root's theory that the poem circulated in an early version without the passage. Chaucer always intended to include a song here, he says, for "the context is, and must always have been, utter nonsense without it" (p. 38). To be sure, the context is better served by the inclusion of the song, but its omission does not make "utter nonsense" of the passage:
This Pandarus, and in-to gardyn lede,
And swich a feste and swich a proces make
Hym of Criseyde, and of hire wommanhede,
And of hire beaute, that, with-outen drede
It was an heuene his wordes forto here;
And thanne he wolde synge in this manere.
He was, and ay, the first in armes dyght. . . .
(3.1737-1743, 1772-1773)
The weight of the evidence, then, supports the independent composition of the Hymn. The only circumstance indicating that its omission might be scribal in origin is the inclusion of the passage in the alpha manuscripts Gg and H5, and even this discrepancy may be easily explained. Like Ph and H2, Gg and H5 are closely related,[12] and we therefore have only two independent witnesses to alpha here, one including and the other omitting the passage in question. There is every possibility that the scribe of some antecedent copy from which both Gg and H5 descend supplied the missing stanzas from another source, just as the scribe of Ph has done. In the end Windeatt must admit that the textual situation here reflects "the processes of Chaucer's composition"; he differs with Root only over Chaucer's intentions. Root held that "Chaucer's text existed for a time without the Boethian hymn to love" (p. 157), and he would attribute its inclusion in the majority of manuscripts to late copies made from Chaucer's working text after its substantial revision. Windeatt argues that Chaucer always intended to include the Hymn and that its absence from alpha may have resulted from its being "in the form of a physical addition to the draft which has been confused by certain scribes" (p. 38). On the independent composition of the Hymn, however, Windeatt and Root are in agreement.
For the predestination soliloquy of Book 4 (953-1085), Chaucer again abandons the narrative of the Filostrato and looks to Boethius, and again the textual evidence suggests that the interpolation was composed independently, although the nature of that evidence is extremely complex. Of the four manuscripts attesting alpha here, only H3 omits the passage in its entirety and without indication that the scribe noticed any irregularity in the text; line 1086 follows immediately after line 952. Gg omits all but the final, "transitional" stanza of the soliloquy, so that line 952 is followed by 1079, without any gap or mark in the manuscript. Ph originally omitted the whole passage, but the scribe has added it on two inset leaves and has marked its point of insertion, just as he had done in the case of the Hymn to Love. In J the passage follows normally, but after line 1078, at the bottom of folio 83r, a note has been appended: "her faileth thing yt / is nat yt made."[13] The back of the folio is blank; the next leaf, last of the quire, has been cut out, and the text resumes with line 1079 after a blank space the length of one stanza, at the top of folio 84r. Because in J there are normally five stanzas to a side, the space left empty corresponds to either six or sixteen stanzas, depending on when and for what reason the missing leaf was removed, but in any case no part of the text has been omitted. To further complicate matters, the entire passage is missing in H4, which is regularly a beta manuscript in this part of the poem.
The possibility that the omission is scribal in origin must be admitted, particularly since manuscripts representing two distinct traditions of the text, one presumably revised and the other unrevised, share in this textual feature. Unlike the Hymn to Love, the predestination soliloquy is long enough (nineteen stanzas) for its omission to have been caused by the loss of leaves in an antecedent copy. But the context of the passage and Chaucer's
fful tendrely he preyde and made his mone,
To doon hym sone out of this world to pace,
ffor wel he thoughte ther was non other grace.
I! who say euere a wis man faren so?
Whi Troilus, what thinkestow to doone?
Hastow swich lust to ben thyn owen fo? . . ."
(4.949-952, 1086-1089)
The context of the soliloquy, then, tends to refute Windeatt's assertion that "the poem is unlikely to have been regarded as authentically completed without the predestination passage" (p. 40). Comparison with the Italian also fails to provide the corroboration he claims. Windeatt maintains that Chaucer's Pandarus "expresses himself much more urgently" than Boccaccio's Pandaro, that this "implies that Troilus is in a much more desperate state than in Fil," and that "without the presence of the soliloquy there is nothing to suggest that this is so or to draw such a response from Pandarus" (p. 42).
To return to the textual situation: the evidence of Ph and H3 is unproblematic. There are some variations in their reading of 4.950-952, which immediately precedes the soliloquy where present, but these differences do not indicate that "at any stage of composition represented by the extant manuscripts, Ch intended the predestination soliloquy to be present in his poem," as Windeatt argues (pp. 41-42). The two versions are these:
PhH3 | REST |
he fast made his compleynt and his mone Bysekyng hem to sende hym oþir grace Or from þis world to done hym sone to pace |
fful tendrely he preyde and made his mone To doon hym sone out of this world to pace ffor wel he thoughte ther was non other grace |
A partial explanation may be suggested by the even more confusing situation in J. Root (p. 212) notes a generally close agreement between Gg and J in this part of the poem, so it is significant that here again the transitional stanza is divorced from the soliloquy, this time by a blank space left in the manuscript. Much has been written about this feature of the text and about the scribal note concerning the "thing yt is nat yt made." In Root's formulation both note and lacuna go back to an ancestor of J whose scribe was awaiting "matter not yet composed" (p. 217). This hypothesis fits his overall conception of the way the poem was revised, but it is neither necessary nor particularly compelling. As Windeatt points out, the note follows the
We are still left with two puzzling situations: the independent preservation of the transitional stanza in Gg and J, and the omission of the entire passage from H4, which attests beta throughout the last three books. Any number of hypotheses might be advanced to explain the first of these, though Root's solution, as noted above, seems more far-fetched than necessary. All that can be said for certain is that the state of Chaucer's production copy made it possible for scribes to pass over either the entire passage or the stanzas of the soliloquy alone. Windeatt suggests that "It would not be unlikely if the long soliloquy were actually put together as an exercise separately and then married to the draft, always with the consequent possibility of scribal misinterpretation" (p. 41); it may be that the stanza of transition was inserted in a different fashion, perhaps in the margin rather than on the separate leaves containing the soliloquy, so that it might be copied independently. This state of affairs would also allow for the omission of the passage from a manuscript like H4 representing a different tradition of the text. Whatever the true situation may have been, the context of the soliloquy and its relationship to Chaucer's sources reinforce the textual evidence suggesting that the passage was composed independently, as even Windeatt will concede, and that it was inserted into the preexisting and logically completed narrative.
The evidence for revision is less clear in the case of Troilus's ascent to the spheres, 5.1807-1827. Although here again Chaucer abandons the narrative of the Filostrato, this time turning to the stanzas of the Teseida (11.1-3) that describe the ascent of Arcita's soul, and although certain manuscripts omit the passage, the witnesses to the text do not divide along the usual lines. Of the manuscripts attesting alpha in Book 5, only Ph originally omitted the three stanzas, and here again the scribe has supplied them on an inset leaf. H3 and J include the passage normally, as presumably would the closely related Gg and H5 had the five leaves containing 5.1702-1869 in Gg and the entire conclusion of the poem in H5, from 4.687 on, not been lost. On the
Again Windeatt is concerned to argue from context that "these stanzas were always to be included where they occur" (p. 39). He bases his assertion on two short phrases included in all manuscripts: "false worldes brotelnesse" (5.1832), words which, he says, "implicitly contrast this world and the next one where Troilus has gone," and "Swich fyn hath his estat real aboue" (5.1830) which "can have little relation to anything that has gone before, except to the hero's ascent to the spheres." This reasoning is prejudiced by knowledge of the content of those stanzas, however. Nothing incongruous would be apparent to a reader whose text lacked the description of Troilus's ascent, for the transition between lines 1806 and 1828 is perfectly smooth and logical:
Of Troilus the Grekis boughten deere;
ffor thousandes hise hondes maden deye,
As he that was with-outen any peere,
Saue Ector in his tyme as I kan heere;
But weilawey, saue only goddes wille,
Despitously hym slough the fierse Achille.
Swich fyn hath al his grete worthynesse;
Swich fyn hath his estat real aboue,
Swich fyn his lust, swich fyn hath his noblesse;
Swich fyn hath false worldes brotelnesse:
And thus bigan his louyng of Criseyde,
As I haue told, and in this wise he deyde.
(5.1800-1806, 1828-1834)
If the context allows, even suggests, the possibility that the passage was added by Chaucer, the textual evidence does not support the omission as a feature of alpha. In the case of the Hymn to Love, the two alpha manuscripts that include the passage are closely related and can be supposed to have been subjected to scribal interpolation at some point in their shared ancestry.
There are, in addition to these large-scale variations between the manuscript groups, several instances of a more limited nature in which, nevertheless, the differences between the textual traditions may be attributed to the hand of the poet. A single stanza in Book 1, lines 890-896, is preserved only in PhH2H4, the manuscripts attesting alpha here, and in the early printed edition of Thynne, which presents a conflated text agreeing with alpha on occasion in Book 1.[21] The stanza comes soon after Troilus's revelation that Criseyde is the object of his love, whereupon Pandarus exhorts Troilus with these words:
ffor certeinly the first poynt is þis
Of noble corage and wele ordeigne
A man to haue pees with hym-self y-wis
So oghtest þou for [nought but] good it is
To loue wele and in [a] worthy place
The oght not to clepe hit hap but grace[22]
In two other cases the evidence for revision involves not the presence or absence of material but the order of stanzas in one tradition of the text as opposed to another. In each instance both textual orders are possible, although one is demonstrably closer to the reading of the Filostrato. In the central love scene of Book 3, the narrator introduces two stanzas in his own voice in which he subjects his poem to the correction of lovers:
As kan myn auctour of his excellence,
ʒet haue I seyd, and god to-forn, and shal
In euery thyng al holly his sentence;
And if that ich, at loues reuerence,
Haue eny word in-eched for the beste,
Doth ther-with-al right as ʒoure seluen leste.
I speke hem all vnder correccioun
Of ʒow that felyng han in loues arte,
And putte it al in ʒoure discrecioun
To encresse or maken dymynucioun
Of my langage, and that I ʒow biseche—
But now to purpos of my rather speche.
(3.1324-1337; 3.1401-1414 in Root's edition)
chente fostù alli due lieti amanti!
Se la scienza mi fosse donata
che ebber li poeti tutti quanti,
per me non potrebbe esser disegnata.
Pensisel chi fu mai contanto avanti
mercé d'Amor, quanto furon costoro,
e saprà 'n parte la letizia loro.
The position of the stanzas in beta may be scribal, but if so the new
Windeatt admits that the order in beta is just as possible as that in alpha, but he is more inclined to explain the differences as scribal. The thrust of his argument is that the stanzas fit the earlier context better:
The repositioning of the narrator's apostrophe to lovers, far from being a "bizarre scribal error," represents a deliberate alteration of what must have been Chaucer's original plan for the poem. The responsibility for the shift may lie with the scribes; they were certainly not averse to introducing changes into the texts they copied, even those which, like the Troilus, do not invite and in some ways discourage their active intervention.[27] A motivation for the change is easy to imagine and would presumably be the same as that attributed to Chaucer, the desire to remove the passage to a less intrusive location. But if we are to accept this explanation of the textual situation, we must attribute to the scribe a conscious alteration of the text, involving the rewriting of lines to fit the stanzas to their new context, which at the same
The second case of revision involving the shift of a stanza comes in Book 4, in a passage describing the visit paid Criseyde by her friends upon learning that she is to be traded to the Greeks in exchange for Antenor. In Boccaccio the women take their leave, whereupon Criseida breaks down in grief:
stesa gittata, piangendo sì forte,
che dir non si poria; e 'l bianco petto
spesso batteasi, chiamando la morte
che l'uccidesse, poi che 'l suo diletto
lasciar le convenia per dura sorte,
e' biondi crin tirandosi rompea,
e mille volte ognor morte chiedea. (4.87)
PhGgH3J | REST |
The salt teris from her eyen tweyne Out ran as shour in Aprill ful swithe; Her white brest she bet & for þe peyne |
Ther-with the teris from hire eyen two Down fille as shoure in Aperil ful swithe; Hire white brest she bet and for the wo |
It seems clear that, as with the two stanzas in Book 3, the variations between alpha and beta/gamma represent a deliberate alteration of the text, and that alpha must approximate what Chaucer originally wrote. The alternative, that Chaucer composed the passage with the stanza in the beta/gamma position but that either he or some scribe later moved it, is hardly likely. Chaucer could have done so, but for the poet to revise his text to conform to his source after having written the stanzas in a deliberately original order would defy all reasonable expectation; for a scribe to restore the sequence of the Italian would require a degree of luck or intuition difficult to credit. The converse possibility, that it is the beta/gamma arrangement that is scribal, must be admitted, but the same arguments against a scribal explanation for the shift in Book 3 apply here, and to deny these would be to indict every editor of the Troilus, from Caxton to Windeatt, for printing the non-Chaucerian order in the present passage. Windeatt cannot get around these facts, although he again attempts to denigrate the authority of alpha:
In nearly all of the larger variations between the textual traditions, Windeatt's arguments from context fail to confute the evidence for revision. Only in the case of the Hymn to Love does he present a credible argument that the form of the received text must always have been that intended by Chaucer, and even here he will admit that the composition of the passage was independent of Chaucer's writing of the narrative. Only in the case of Troilus's ascent to the spheres does a suspected revision cut across the familiar lines of the textual traditions. The six examples thus far considered provide more than sufficient evidence that Chaucer revised his text, however locally and at whatever point in the process of composition. This evidence justifies a careful examination of the manuscript variants to determine whether any of these may be due to changes made by the poet.
In evaluating the textual work of Manly and Rickert, George Kane considers the question of revision in the text of the Canterbury Tales:
Root's argument for the primacy of alpha rested in large part on some striking variants confined to certain portions of the poem, most notably 1.1-1.300, 2.701-2.1113, and 3.400-4.1450. Windeatt accepts some of these as offering "an intriguing glimpse into the process of the poem's composition" (p. 44), but both he and Hanna are quick to point out that, in Hanna's words, "at many points by his [Root's] own account β or γ resembles the Italian more nearly than does a."[37] This state of affairs should hardly be surprising, however, considering the relatively extensive corruptness of the alpha manuscripts in general and Ph in particular, compared with the manuscripts of beta or gamma. The fact remains that there are a number of alpha variants that are remarkably closer to the Italian at points in the text where equally striking and apparently authorial readings are also to be found, while the converse situation is extraordinarily rare, although one could not infer this from the very general comments of Windeatt and Hanna. Clearly a more detailed analysis would reveal whether there is any justification for their objections to what Hanna sees as Root's belief in "a's unique similarity to the Italian" (p. 199).
In selecting the evidence for analysis, some criteria must first be established.
- 1.78 a+Th: Wherfor to departe all softely
- Rest: ffor which forto departen softely Per che segretamente di partirsi (1.9,1)
- 1.83 a: Hopyng in hym kunnyng hem to rede (kunnyng hem] them k. W)
- Rest: In trust that he hath konnynge hem to rede da lui sperando sommo e buon consiglio (1.9,7)
- 1.85 a+Th: Grete rumour was whan hit was ferst aspyed (rumour] noyse W. was] gan H2H4; began W; rose Th)
- Rest: The noise vp rose whan it was first aspied Fu'l romor grande quando fu sentito (1.10,1)
- 1.110-111 a: Byfor Ector on knees she fyll adoun (+CxTh) Wiþ chier & voys ful pytous and wepyng (chier &] clere, W)
- Rest: On knees she fil biforn Ector adown (b.E.s.f. GgH5) With pitous vois, and tendrely wepynge ginocchion si gittò a piè d' Ettore, e con voce e con vista assai pietosa (1.12,5-6)
- 1.124 PhH2H4: And she hym þonkyd oft in humble chere
- Rest: And she hym thonked with ful humble chere Ella di questo il ringraziò assai (1.14,5)
- 1.169 a: Among þe which was Criseida (was] was this H2; was than W)
- Rest: Among thise othere folk was Criseyda Tra li qua' fu di Calcàs la figliuola Criseida . . . . (1.19,1-2)
- 2.734-735 a+Th: Men love wymmen al this towne about; (al] þour al, Gg) Be they þe wors? [why] nay, without dout (why] GgH5Th; om PhH2)
- Rest: Men louen wommen al biside hire leue, And whan hem leste namore, lat hem byleue Io non conosco in questa terra ancora niuna sanza amante . . . . . . . e come gli altri far non è peccato, né ne può esser alcun biasimato. (2.70,3-4 and 7-8)
- 3.1482 aβ: Seth þat desire right now so streynith me
- Rest: Syn that desire right now so biteth me (biteth] brenneth Cl; bitleth H1) sì mi stringe il disio del ritornarci (3.46,2)
- 3.1617 aβ: Til al was seyd, and þan he þs answerde
- Rest: Tyl al was seyde, and than he hym answerde (hym] thus him H3) . . . e poi così rispose lieto a' detti suoi (3.59,7-8)
- 4.37 PhJ: Þis purpos & þat day þei [issen] mente (issen] J; issu Ph)
- Rest: This purpos and that day they fighten mente (they fighten mente] t. fouhten m. H4; þe þus m. H2; of assignement H5) incontro a' Greci uscì ne' campi piani (4.1,6)
- 4.246-247 α: His eyen too for pyte of his hert So wepyn þat þei semyn wellis twey
- Rest: His eyen two, for piete of herte, Out stremeden as swifte welles tweye; Li miseri occhi per pietà del core forte piangean, e parean due fontane (4.28,1-2) (Piangono si che paion due fontane, 5.24 in the Baroni ed., Paris 1789)
- 4.258 α: But þo bygan his teris out more to breste Þat wele vnnethe þe body may suffise
- Rest: But tho bygonne his teeris more out breste, That wonder is the body may suffise che 'l capo e 'l petto appena gli bastava (4.29,7)
- 4.290 α: How shal my sorowful lyf don in þis cas? (sorowful] reuful Gg)
- Rest: What shal my sorwful lif don in this cas? come farà la mia vita dolente (4.33,3)
- 4.318 α+ADH2: Who shal now yeue comfort to my peyne? (my] your H3)
- Rest: Who shal now ʒeuen comfort to the peyne? (the] thy S1Th) chi darà più conforto alle mie pene? (4.36,3)
- 4.590 α: Ne preciously, but help thi self anone
- Rest: Ne corteisly, but help thi selue anon (corteisly] preciently R; curyously Cx) Non guarda amor cotanto sottilmente (4.72,1)
- 4.596-597 α: Hit is no [rape] in my dome ne no vyse Hir to witholdyn þat þe louith moost (rape] iape PhGg. no(2)] om GgH5)
- Rest: It is no shame vn-to ʒow ne no vice Hire to withholden that ʒe loue most Tu non hai a rapir donna che sia dal tuo voler lontana . . . (4.73,1-2)
- 4.762-763 α: And cursid be þat day which þat Argyue Me of her body bare to bene a lyve
- Rest: O moder myn, that cleped were Argyue, Wo worth that day that thow me bere on lyue! Oh, trista me, che'n mal punto fui nata, dove ti lascio, dolce l' amor mio? Deh, or foss' io nel nascere affogata (4.88,3-5) Mal' abbia il giorno, che al mondo fui nata, E che di me mia madre ebbe desio! (5.73 in the Paris ed.)
- 4.820 α: Whan she hym sawe she gan for shame anone
- Rest: Whan she hym saugh she gan for sorwe anon La qual come lui vide, fra la braccia per vergogna nascose la sua faccia. (4.96,7-8)
- 4.882 αβ: As he þat [shortly shapith hym] to dey (shapith hym shortly, Ph; shortly he þat, H2H4)
- Rest: ffor verray wo his wit is al aweye il qual del tutto in duol ne vuol morire (4.102,8) Che cerca disperato di morire (5.84 in the Paris ed.)
- 4.906 α: To se hym in þat woo þat he is ynne
- Rest: To sen that sorwe which that he is inne ma più m' è di veder Troiolo afflitto (4.105,2)
- 4.1124α+RH2H4: But whan þat hit was tyme for to go
- Rest: And whan that it was tyme for to go . . . ma quando tempo gli parve di dovere andare (4.113,3-4)
- 4.1214 α: And he answerid, "hert myn, Criseyde, . . ."
- Rest: And he answerde, "lady myn, Criseyde, . . ." A cui el disse:—Dolce mio disiro (4.124,3)
- 4.1218 α: And he bygan comforte her as he might
- Rest: And he bigan to glad hire as he myghte . . . e 'l suo martiro, come potea, con parole alleggiando, la confortò . . . (4.124,5-7)
- 5.1028 α: The causes why, the soth for to telle (causes] cause H3)
- Rest: The cause whi, the sothe forto telle e da queste cagion sommossa . . . (6.34,7)
These twenty-four examples represent only a portion of those readings in which alpha may be thought to preserve an early stage in Chaucer's composition of the poem; they do not by any means include all of the most interesting or significant of the alpha variants, but have been selected because in these cases the Filostrato provides a test of authenticity. Windeatt (p. 43) may be justified in describing them as being "of very varying quality," but they are all arguably closer to the Italian, and in at least half of the examples the resemblance is so striking as to rule out coincidental similarity. Windeatt relegates discussion of this evidence largely to his Commentary, and his typical remark is that alpha "perhaps retains a trace of Ch's translating process." In his argument dismissing alpha's claim to priority, his examination of specific resemblances to the Italian is so brief that it may be quoted in its entirety:
- 1.57-58PhH4W: Knowyn þing is how þat þe grekys strong (þing] well it W) Wiþ armes in a m. shippes went
- Rest: Yt is wel wist how that the Grekes stronge In armes with a thousand shippes wente Erano a Troia li greci re d' intorno nell' armi forti, . . . . (1.7,1-2)
- 1.117-118 α: And seyd, "lete ʒour fadris tresoun gone To sory hap, & ʒe ʒour self in ioy . . . ."
- Rest: And seyde, "lat ʒoure fadres treson gon fforth with meschaunce, and ʒe ʒoure self in ioie . . . ." dicendo:—Lascia con la ria ventura tuo padre andar che n' ha offeso tanto (1.13,5-6)
- 1.159 α: In meny wise shewed, as y rede
- Rest: In sondry wises shewed, as I rede e 'n diversi atti mostra suoi amori (1.18,4)
- 1.272 PhH2H4: His eye perceyvid, and so depe hit went
- Rest: His eye percede, and so depe it wente (percede] procede CpCl; preceded D; persedyn Gg; departed R; perceded S2) l' occhio suo vago giunse penetrando (1.26,5)
- 1.407 PhH2H4: And if y in myn owne lust brenne (y] om H4. brenne] I b. H4)
- Rest: And if that at myn owen lust I brenne S' a mia voglia ardo, onde 'l pianto e lamento? (Petrarch, Sonnet 132)
- 1.483 α+R: That all þe grekys as the dethe hym dredde (all þe] alle R; all H4)
- Rest: That the Grekes as the deth him dredde che li Greci il temien come la morte (1.46,8)
- 2.1093α+JRH4: This Pandare vp þer with, & þat betyme
- Rest: This Pandare tok the lettre, and that by-tyme (the lettre] om H3) Pandaro, presa la lettera pia (2.108,1)
- 3.349 α: And al þe rehetyng of his sikes sore
- Rest: And al the richesse of hise sikes sore (richesse] tresour H4; thoughtis Cx) Li sospir, ch' egli aveva a gran divizia (3.11,5)
- 3.1360α+others: And wel a C tymes gan he syke
- β+SI: And wel a thousand tymes gan he syke . . . e nessuna ora sanza mille sospiri valicava (3.37,3-4)
- 4.238 α: In his distresse, as y shall ʒow devise (distresse] distreste Gg)
- Rest: In his woodnesse, as I shal ʒow deuyse ch' uom non parea, ma arrabbiata fera (4.26,8)
- 4.295-296 α: What shal y do? y shal whil y may dure In woo, in turment, and yn cruel peyne
- Rest: What shal I don? I shal, while I may dure On lyue in torment and in cruwel peyne Io piangerò e sempre doloroso starò dove ch' io sia, mentre la vita mi durerà 'n questo corpo angoscioso! (4.34,1-3)
- 4.306 PhGgH5: ffle forth a none and do myn hert to brest (to] om GgH5)
- Rest: ffle forth out of myn herte and lat it breste esci del core e Criseida segui (4.34,7)
- 4.347 α: ffor Antenore to chaungyn [so] Criseyde (so] GgH3H5; om Ph)
- Rest: ffor Antenor to ʒelden so Criseyde e come aveano ancora per partito preso di render Criseida i signori (4.43,3-4)
- 4.506-507 α: Or deþe me slowe, y wold have ʒevyn hire But now his comyng is to me so swete (his]om H3J. comyng is] is c. J)
- Rest: Er thow me slowe I wolde haue yeuen hire; But now thi comynge is to me so swete Morte, tu mi sarai tanto soave, quant' è la vita a chi lieta la mena (4.61,1-2)
- 4.537 α: Rys vp anone and lete þis sorow be
- Rest: Ris vp anon and lat this wepyng be caccia via il dolor, caccial via, caccia l'angoscia tua e li dolenti guai, rasciuga il tristo pianto della faccia (4.65,4-6)
- 4.602 α+Cx: And fleith from wrecchis for hir cowardise
- Rest: And weyueth wrecches for hire cowardise . . . La Fortuna aiuta chiunque ardisce e' timidi rifiuta. (4.73,7-8)
- 4.732 αβ+Si: In to þe chambre went vp out of þe hall (went vp] Ph; w. GgH2H4; rest vp w.)
- Rest: In-to hire chambre vp went out of the halle nella camera sua piangendo piano se n' entrò dentro . . . (4.86,5-6)
- 4.1134 PhGg: As y seyd arst, for sorow and [for] wepyng (for(2)] Gg; om Ph)
- Rest: As I seyde erst, for wo and for sobbyng (wo] sorwe H3) sì gl'impedivan gli angosciosi pianti e' singhiozzi e' sospiri, . . . (4.115,4-5)
These eighteen examples include all of the "many instances" noted by Windeatt where alpha is further from the Italian. Most of these he treats only in his Commentary, but in a note supporting his contention that alpha's similarities to the Italian are not unique, he singles out a number of them, among which are several of the least compelling.[50] If the Italianate readings in alpha are "of very varying quality," as Windeatt suggests, these are not; with hardly an exception, they are uniformly scribal. Only alpha's rehetyng (3.349) can be
What then may be said of Windeatt's view of the text of Troilus and Criseyde as compared with the theory advanced by Root? Although the case made here places greater emphasis on alpha's priority than does Windeatt and disputes a number of his major conclusions, it is not intended as a defense of Root's overall conception of the textual tradition. In fact, the view taken here may in some ways be more compatible with Windeatt's position than with Root's. Root was concerned to show that Chaucer "published" his poem in an early version, and that he later made changes in the publication copy supplied by his scribe Adam. Quite apart from the lack of any evidence to support it, this hypothesis involved Root in some logical inconsistencies, as Hanna notes, the most important being that "if production of fair copy was a prerequisite for medieval publication (a view invoked in discussing α), Chaucer should have had a second fair copy produced in order to publish the β version."[51] In contrast, Windeatt offers no new and elaborate theory of the text, preferring not to speculate as to just how the traditions of the text arose and how authorial variation came to be preserved in the manuscripts. We should probably prefer Windeatt's agnosticism to Root's certitude, but on one point we can do more than speculate. It is clear from the manuscript evidence that the Troilus must have been copied more than once from some manuscript or manuscripts containing authorial variation. A single publication copy cannot account for the kind of authentic revision detailed above, unless the authorized version of the text was later conflated with the poet's earlier drafts. Whether these copies were made before Chaucer had completed his alterations, perhaps by associates of the poet enlisted "ther nede is, to correcte" what he had written,[52] or
More may also be said about the character of alpha. Root used the designation α to refer to two separate entities, the corrected fair copy of Chaucer's first draft and the extant manuscripts supposed to represent it.[53] In his theory of the text it was also a version of the poem, distinct in time, and in the mind of the poet, from the later forms. As established in the foregoing argument, however, Root's theory presupposes a process of composition, publication, and textual transmission difficult to credit. Because no sequence can be established in the process of revision, it is impossible to regard the alpha readings in aggregate as forming a version of the poem, in any ordinary sense; and, in any case, the differences between alpha and beta or gamma are neither as extensive nor as pervasive as those between the versions of Langland's Piers Plowman or, for that matter, between the F and G Prologues to Chaucer's own Legend of Good Women.[54] Alpha is first and foremost a manuscript group or, more accurately, a tradition of the text represented throughout the poem by Ph and locally by a shifting alliance of manuscripts, and as such must be seen as a scribal product, as both Windeatt and Hanna remark. "What the Phetc MSS largely present," says Windeatt, "is the character of a manuscript grouping, not a 'version' of the text. To all intents and purposes the Phetc family has no identity which is anything other than scribal, except in certain parts of Books I, III and IV" (p. 45). Hanna says much the same, although in terms considerably more forceful and more critical of Root's treatment of the evidence: "Thus Root almost forgets to identify α as a genetic group (or scribal version, which it is . . .); only belatedly and offhandedly in The Textual Tradition, pp. 254-255, does he note this fact" (p. 286, n. 11). But to recognize the scribal character of alpha is not to denigrate the authority of many of its readings. Every text that has its origin in a manuscript culture survives as a scribal construct,[55] and textual traditions are defined in large measure by the common errors of copying shared by the individual manuscripts that make up the group; these observations are as true of gamma or beta as of alpha. The distinctive features that identify alpha as a group may not correspond to any authorized "version" of the poem as envisioned by Chaucer, but a substantial number of them, large and small, may be traced to the hand of the poet.
Finally, it may be asked in what precise sense the Troilus may be said to have been revised. Root used the term "revision" in its most formal sense, to refer to the changes made by the author on his completed and scribally published text, and in the portion of his Conclusion on "The Method of Revision" (pp. 256-260) he spells out in detail his theory concerning the fair copy produced by "Adam scriveyn" and the corrections and revisions performed on it by Chaucer. Windeatt justifiably rejects this hypothesis, but despite his efforts to minimize the importance of authorial variation, he finds himself referring
Windeatt summarizes his view of revision in the text of the Troilus with an intriguing analogy: "To say that TC existed for a while without its philosophical passages is comparable to saying that St Paul's Cathedral existed for a while without its dome: that is, until the plan implied by the rest of the structure was completed" (p. 51). Apart from exaggerating the prominence of the Boethian interpolations, the comparison endows them with an inevitability that the contextual evidence will not support. In point of fact, however, the analogy is apt in ways Windeatt does not intend, for the familiar aspect of Wren's masterpiece reflects only the final stage of a plan that underwent at least two major revisions and was altered by the architect even after construction had begun. In addressing the question of revision in the Troilus, Windeatt betrays an almost teleological approach to the text: because the finished poem evinces a certain plan, he seems to say, that plan must always have been the one intended by Chaucer. To be fair, there are certainly features of the text that belong to any state of the poem represented by the extant manuscripts, but the variations under discussion are not of this sort. Unlike Root, we cannot claim to know when the revisions were made or how they came to be preserved in the manuscript tradition. But we must recognize that in certain circumstances the evidence reveals Chaucer's continuing engagement with his text, whether during the initial process of composition or some time after he had completed the main part of the narrative, and that the revisions made by Chaucer altered the structure and meaning of the poem in significant ways and were not simply the inevitable final touches to a preconceived plan, as Windeatt would have it. In the absence of holograph manuscripts and explicit statements of authorial intent, the variations preserved in the manuscript tradition provide invaluable evidence for the method of composition of the greatest English poet of his time.
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