BOOK I.

BOOK II.

BOOK III.

BOOK IV.

BOOK V.

BOOK I.

I must refer the student to Mr. Rossetti’s work (Chaucer Soc. 1875) for a detailed comparison of Chaucer’s poem with the Filostrato of Boccaccio. The following table roughly indicates the portions of these works which are more or less similar, down to the end of Book I. Similar tables are prefixed to the Notes on the other books. It often happens that a stanza in Chaucer has a mere general resemblance to the corresponding one in Boccaccio. The lines in Chaucer not mentioned below are, in the main, original; e. g. 1-20, 31-56, c.; and so are many others that cannot be here more exactly specified.

BOOK II.

The chief correspondences are shewn in the following table.

Other passages are mainly original; as, e. g. ll. 1352-1757 at the end, and 1-264 at the beginning.

BOOK III.

The following scheme gives a general idea of the relationship of this Book to the original.

BOOK IV.

The following scheme gives some notion of the relationship of the contents of this book to the Filostrato, but Chaucer constantly expands and adds to the original, and not unfrequently transposes the order of the text.

BOOK V.

The following sketch gives a general notion of the relation of this Book to the Filostrato, though Chaucer often amplifies and transposes the material in a way that it would be tedious to particularise more minutely.

ADDITIONAL NOTE TO BOOK III. 674.

As the curious word voidee has been suppressed in all previous editions, I add some more examples of it, for some of which I am indebted to Dr. Murray. It occurs, e. g., in the extremely interesting account of the death of James I of Scotland.

‘Within an owre the Kyng askid the voidee, and drank, the travers yn the chambure edraw [= y-drawe, drawn], and every man depairtid and went to rist’: (1400) Jn. Shirley, Dethe of James Stewarde, Kyng of Scotys, p. 13, ed. 1818.

Hence, no doubt, Mr. Rossetti, in his poem of The King’s Tragedy, drew the line:—‘Then he called for the voidee -cup.’

‘A voidy of spices’: (1548) Hall’s Chron. 14 Hen. VIII.

‘A voidee of spices’: (1577-87) Holinshed’s Chron. vol. iii. p. 849.

In A Collection of Ordinances and Regulations for the Royal Household, London, 1790, there are several examples of it.

‘The Archbishoppe to stand on the Kinges right hand, and the King to make him a becke when hee shall take spice and wine. And when the voide is donne, then the King to goe into his chamber; and all other estates to goe into their chambers, or where it shall please them,’ c.: p. 111; in Articles ordained by King Henry VII.

At p. 113, there are minute directions as to the voidè. The chamberlain and others fetch a towel, the cups, and the spice-plates; the king and the bishop take ‘spice and wine,’ and afterwards the lords and people are served ‘largely’ with spice and wine also; after which the cups are removed. At p. 36, we read: ‘the bourde avoyded [cleared] when wafyrs come with ypocras, or with other swete wynes. The King never taketh a voyd [read voydè ] of comfites and other spices, but standing.’ At p. 121: ‘as for the voide on twelfth day at night, the King and Queene ought to take it in the halle.’ At the Coronation of Queen Anne Boleyn, there was a voidè ‘of spice-plates and wine’; English Garner, ed. Arber, ii. 50.

The voidee was, in fact, a sort of dessert. The word spices included many things besides what it now implies. In the Ordinances above-mentioned, there is a list of spices, at p. 103. It includes pepper, saffron, ginger, cloves, maces, cinnamon, nutmegs, dates, prunes, quinces, comfits, raisins, currants, figs, and even rice. In the North of England, even at the present day, it includes sweetmeats, gingerbread, cakes, and dried fruits.