47 - Princeton, NJ, Princeton University, Firestone Library, MS Taylor 5

Summary

Confessio Amantis, with a brief index and an added ‘album’ of six short English poems, or excerpts from longer poems, s.xvi.

London, s.xv, first quarter.

Contents

1*

(fol. i verso), late s.xvi, a table of contents for the Confessio Amantis, with story-titles keyed to folio numbers book by book since the medieval foliation in this manuscript began again with each book, except for Prologue and Book I, foliated together. Book II, for instance, begins with ‘Polyphemus and galathee . 1.’ (II.97), ‘how Iubyter sende down þe anglell . 2.’ (II.291), ‘Tyberye and constaunce . 4.’ (II.587), ‘Demetryus and perseus . 10.’ (II.1613), etc. See Harris, ‘Ownership and Readership’, 237–38; she provides an edition of the table of contents in her Appendix V (304–07). See also Echard, ‘Pre-Texts’, 272–74.

2

(fols 1ra–186va) Confessio Amantis, Prol. 1–VIII.3114*

Torpor hebes sensus scola, etc. (six lines of Latin verse) Of hem þat wryten us to fore < > Oure ioie may ben endeles

Prologue (fol. 1ra) wants fols 2–3, with Prol. 154–509; Book I (fol. 7ra); Book II (fol. 26rb); Book III (fol. 45va); Book IV (fol. 60vb); Book V (fol. 81rb); Book VI (fol. 124vb); Book VII (fol. 138rb) wants fol. 157, with 3199–3382; Book VIII (fol. 169ra). Blank parchment leaves, counted in the foliation, are inserted where leaves are missing.

Text: II, in Macaulay’s classification (ed., Works, II.clvi), with sigil P2.

For further information about the following Latin and French addenda that Gower caused to be added to MSS of the Confessio, see Appendix III.

3

(fol. 186v, single column) ‘Explicit iste liber’

Explicit iste liber qui transeat < > sub eo requiesce futurus

Later six-line version with dedication to the earl of Derby.

Macaulay (ed.), Works, III.479.

4

(fol. 186v, single column) ‘Quam cinxere freta’ (four lines)

Quam cinxere freta < > stat sine meta

With prose rubric ‘Epistola super huius opusculi’

Macaulay (ed.), Works, III.479.

5

(fols 187r–191ra) Traitié pour essempler les amantz mariez

Puisquil ad dit cy deuant < > saluement tenir (prose rubric)

Le creator de toute creature < > lamour parfit en dieu se iustifie

Quis sit vel qualis < > omne latus (concluding rubric)

Macaulay (ed.), Works, I.391–92. The text is in single column with Latin apparatus in margins, ending with the usual nine lines of Latin verse below the French, in the left column of two on fol. 191ra.