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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:

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.

There is no basis for numerals of any sort in the MSS. Moreover, the numerals would seem to imply an assumption which I am not sure the text will bear out: that the Proverbs were intended as a completed work. With the numerals removed, the Proverbs look more to me like what they may well in actuality be: a fragment, a work begun but abandoned, or, alternatively, quotations, appealing because of their sententious cast, from a work now lost. This latter possibility receives support from such quoted stanzas as the following, itself a kind of proverb, found in MS. Trinity College, Cambridge, R. 3. 20: This stanza, which is Troilus and Criseyde I.631-637, occurs by itself, as a separate item, in two MSS, both by the scribe John Shirley, who wrote MS. A of the Proverbs. Other such stanzas exist.[14] The suggestion that the Proverbs may have had a similar origin, but in a work now lost, has at least as much basis as the alternate hypothesis, that the Proverbs are a poetic whole complete with Roman numerals. Furthermore, it explains one troubling aspect of the Proverbs, their slightness. No one need expect a fragment to be highly satisfying artistically, not even a fragment by Chaucer.

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.