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V
We bring together below manuscripts which have been referred to as unpublished and also certain early printed editions which have never been reprinted.[46]
(1) Complaynt d'Amours. The authorities for this poem (uncertainly Chaucer's; see Robinson, p. 524) are Harley 7333, British Museum (ff. 135v-136r); Fairfax 16, Bodleian (ff. 197r-198v); and Bodley 638, Bodleian (ff. 212r-214r). Robinson says: "None of these copies has been printed exactly, but Skeat (Oxf. Chau., I, 411 ff.) gives a text based upon H[arley] and records numerous variants of F [Fairfax] and B [Bodley]" (p. 920). These manuscripts are "genuine witnesses"; they could be published elsewhere—although it is possible, while laborious and open to misinterpretation, to recover nearly all of the substantive variants if Skeat's readings are supplemented (they are far from complete) by the variants recorded in the Globe Chaucer, pp. 635-637, and by Koch, Geoffrey Chaucers Kleinere Dichtungen, pp. 72-74.[47] Some features cannot be got from the variant readings: a full picture of the spelling; the virgules (see fn. 44 above) with which Fairfax is punctuated.
(2) Against Women Unconstant. The copy in Harley 7578, British Museum (ff. 17v-18), as said above (part IV), has never been published.
(3) A Complaint to his Lady. Robinson (p. 916) cites the copy in Stowe's edition of Chaucer's Works (1561) as one of the three authorities and notes that it "closely resembles H [Harley 78]." Although there are differences, Stowe's version hardly requires reprinting, for the reason given immediately above.
(4) Adam Scriveyn. The Brown-Robbins Index of Middle English Verse includes (No. 120) among the authorities the copy in Cambridge University Library Gg. 4. 27, 1 b; Koch, in his Geoffrey Chaucers Kleinere Dichtungen, also refers to this manuscript (p. 26). This is one of the 17th-century additions to the famous manuscript; it has no textual value, being simply taken from the 1598 printed edition of Chaucer's Works; see fn. 4 above, and also Manly and Rickert, The Text of the Canterbury Tales, 1, 178.
(5) The Complaint of Chaucer to his Empty Purse. The Robbins-Cutler Supplement (1965) to the Brown-Robbins Index adds, under No. 3787, the copy in MS. Gg. 4. 27, 1 b (f. 35r); the comment made above under (4) applies.
(6) Merciles Beaute. The Brown-Robbins Index, under No. 4284, lists the copy in Additional 38179, British Museum (II, f. 51r) and identifies it as "xvii century transcript by Ainsworth". Since only one manuscript of this delightful poem has been known, the existence of a second manuscript should be exciting. Alas, the second appears to be taken from the first (Pepys 2006). Like Pepys (Chaucer Society, No. 77), Additional has the inversion in line 1 (Your two Yen) and this (apparently for ther) in the last line. There are differences, however, which seem worth noting (and which may mean that the source of Additional is not Pepys 2006 but Pepys 2006's source): numerous differences in spelling; a few minor substantive differences (wille for woll, line 1; will [so also Ch. Soc.] for woll, line 4; An for Mi, line 5); better handling of final -e. Interestingly, whereas Pepys is untitled, Additional is headed Mercilese Beautee (cf. Skeat: "The title 'Mercilesse Beaute' is given in the Index to the Pepys MS"; Works, I, 548).[48]
(7) Gentilesse. Eleanor P. Hammond[49] mentions a copy of the poem as being in Bossewell's Workes of Armorie (1572). This text (on ff. 13v-14r) is virtually identical with the second copy of the poem in Stowe's edition of Chaucer's Works (1561), from which it is obviously taken.
(8) Lak of Stedfastnesse. Caroline F. E. Spurgeon[50] mentions a copy of the envoy to this poem in Hanmer's The Auncient Ecclesiastical Histories (1577), p. 408. The source of this text is one of the Thynne editions (1532, etc.), all of which, like the Hanmer copy, omit O, line 25, and read the for thy, line 26.
(9) Truth. C. Brown (Register of Middle English Religious Verse, No. 515),[51] Brown-Robbins (Index, No. 809), and Robinson (p. 918) refer with a query to a possible copy in MS. Phillipps 11409; Mr. Nichols also mentions this possible copy (p. 46). The Phillipps collection has now been rather widely dispersed, and no one seems to know the location of this manuscript. We would note that the catalog of the Phillipps collection (Catalogus Librorum Manuscriptorum in Bibliotheca Phillippica, 1837) gives a table of contents for MS. 11409 but does not mention a copy of Truth.[52]
There are also three early printed copies of Truth which have never been reprinted (see fn. 40 above). That in Stowe's edition (1561; sig. O005v-6r) resembles Caxton's edition (Chaucer Society, No. 59) but has "right" readings in lines 1 (Fle; Caxton Fle ye), 2 (though; Caxton yf), and 6 (canst; Caxton omits). The copies in de Worde's Prouerbes of Lydgate (c. 1515; sig. A3v) and Pynson's edition of Chaucer's Works (1526; The boke of fame, sig. e4r) are similar and closely associated with the manuscript Arch. Selden B. 10, Bodleian (Chaucer Society, No. 77). The three share identical Latin titles and the striking variants cocle for crokke, line 12, and our lorde for God, line 19, as well as other similarities. Interestingly, the manuscript here is from one of the printed copies.[53] The manuscript,
(10) Fortune. The Truth in de Worde's Prouerbes of Lydgate just mentioned is preceded by, on sigs. A2r-A3v, a copy of Chaucer's Fortune which likewise appears to be the source of the version in the Selden B. 10 manuscript (which the Chaucer Society prints in No. 77); see fn. 53 above.
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