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Chaucer's Summary of Statius' Thebaid II-XII

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2016

Francis P. Magoun Jr.
Francis P. Magoun Jr.*
Affiliation:
Harvard University
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Extract

Toward the end of his Troilus and Criseyde (5.1457-1533), hereinafter TC, Chaucer has Cassandra set about interpreting for her young brother Troilus his dream of seeing Criseyde (5.1233-42) in the arms of a boar and in due course includes a twenty-six line summary of the last eleven books (II-XII) of Statius' Thebaid. This summary occupies TC 5.1485-1510, i.e., stanzas 213-216, except for the end of stanza 216, where Cassandra passes on to other matters. In all manuscripts of TC (essentially sixteen) except British Museum MS Harleian 2392 (siglum H4) and Bodleian MS Rawlinson Poet. 163 (siglum R), there are inserted between TC stanzas 214 and 215, and accordingly as near the middle of Cassandra's summary as is practicable, twelve Latin hexameters outlining in very sketchy fashion the twelve books of the Thebaid at the rate of one hexameter per book. This Latin twelve-line argument will be referred to hereinafter mostly as Arg. with line number.

Type
Miscellany
Information
Traditio , Volume 11 , 1955 , pp. 409 - 420
Copyright
Copyright © Fordham University Press 

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References

1 Unless otherwise specified references to, and quotations from, Chaucer are to Robinson, Fred Norris, The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer (1st ed. Boston 1933; 2nd revised edition in advanced preparation). MS Corpus Christi College Cambridge 61 (C) is the basis of both the English text and the Latin Argument. Stanzaic divisions are according to Skeat, Walter William, The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer II: Boethius and Troilus (Oxford 1894), essentially based on C, including the Latin, and Root, Robert Kilburn, The Book of Troilus and Criseyde (3rd printing, Princeton 1945, with a few corrections [1st printing 1926]), also essentially based on C, including the Latin Argument. Google Scholar

2 Described in Robinson 1023-24; Root lii-lxi.Google Scholar

3 Robinson, 1030; Root 388 n. (cf. 554 n. 1498).Google Scholar

4 Text according to TC in Robinson 1030 n. 1498; Skeat II 404, with variants from TC manuscripts; Root 388-9, with similar variants. Shannon, Edgar Finley, Chaucer and the Roman Poets (Cambridge, Mass. 1929) 154, writes briefly and somewhat oddly of this as though the Latin were Chaucer's; at any rate he assumed that the English was based altogether on this Latin Argument — which is not the case, as will appear below.Google Scholar

5 I am most grateful to my colleague Professor Eric Alfred Havelock for controlling the translation of this as well as of the following Arguments and thus for saving me several mistakes in comprehension of the Latin.Google Scholar

6 Robinson, 559–60; Root 387-8.Google Scholar

7 As suggested above, the following Latin text is what one may call Chaucer's with proper names often quite quaintly distorted. What may be viewed as the standard edition is that of Queck, Gustav, Publius Papinius Statius II: Thebais (Leipzig 1854) 3–4 (not included in Klotz, , ed. cit. infra); more recently Max Manitius transcribed the lines from a Dresden MS of Statius (Kgl. Bibl. Dc 156): Rheinisches Museum N.F. 57 (1902) 397f. The text was also printed in the Valpy edition ‘in usum Delphini’ (London 1824) 592 and by Jean Augustin Amar and Nicolas Éloi Lemaire, , Thebais Publii Papini Statii (Paris 1825) 2. For comparison with Chaucer I give here the text according to Queck: Google Scholar

Argumenta Duodecim Librorum Thebaidos ex Aliis Codicibus
Associat profugum primus Tydeo Polynicen.
Tydea legatum docet insidiasque secundus.
Tertius Haemonidem canit et vates latitantes.
Quartus habet reges ineuntes proelia septem.
5 Mox Furiae seni quinto narrantur et anguis.
Archemori bustum sexto ludique leguntur.
Dat Graios Thebis et vatem Septimus umbris.
Octavo cecidit Tydeus, spes fida Pelasgis.
Hippomedon nono queritur cum Parthenopaeo.
10 Fulmine percussus decimo Capaneus superatur.
Undecimo sese perimunt per vulnera fratres.
Argian flentem memorat duodenus et ignes.

To complete the account of Arguments to the Thebaid, I also give here (with accompanying English translation) an Argument ‘ex vetustissimo codice Toletano’ not used by Chaucer (original Delphin edition [that of Claudius Beraldus: Paris 1685] I [2]: Bipontine edition [1785] 150 [neither of these editions carries the other 12-line argument]; Valpy 592; Amar-Lemaire 2; Queck 3): Google Scholar

Solvitur in primo fratrum concordia libro.
Denegat et foedus repetitaque regna secundus.
Tertius in Thebas inflammat Dorica castra.
In quarto Mavors bello rapit undique Graios.
5 Quintus et Hypsipyles luctus narratque dolores.
Archemori sextus ludos ad funera ducit.
Septimus obsessas Thebas vatisque sepulcrum.
Occidit octavo Menalippi cuspide Tydeus.
Hippomedonta solo dat nonus et Arcada telo.
10 Cuspide fulminea decimus Capanea terebat.
Chaucer's Summary of Statius’ Thebaid II-XII
Undecimus parili germanos funere iungit.
Ultimus Ogygias dat vincere Tesea Thebas.

[In the first book the understanding between the brothers (Eteocles and Polynices) is broken off. The second book rejects both alliance and alternate rule. The third inflames the Dorian camp against Thebes. In the fourth Mars in warfare carries off Greeks on all sides. The fifth tells of the grief and sorrows of Hypsipyle. The sixth conducts the games at the funeral of Archemorus (= Opheltes), the seventh (presents) besieged Thebes and the soothsayer's tomb. In the eighth Tydeus perishes from Menalippus’ javelin. The ninth gives Hippomedon and the Arcadian (= Parthenopaeus) to the earth by a weapon. The tenth pierced Capaneus with a lightening bolt. The eleventh joins the brothers in a common funeral. The last shows Theseus conquering Ogygian Thebes.] Google Scholar

8 Apparently distorted from Lemni ‘of Lemnos’ (Manitius’ Dresden MS actually showed lenni); note the reading Lemniadum Furiae in Root 388-9.Google Scholar

9 This extra verse appears in Arg. ad IX, below, whence it has been taken and incorporated in the TC text of Arg. Google Scholar

10 George Lane Hamilton in Modern Language Notes 33 (1908) 127 col. 2, and Wise, Boyd Ashby, The Influence of Statius upon Chaucer (Johns Hopkins dissertation [1905]; Baltimore 1911) 34-5.Google Scholar

11 So Root 554 n. 1498.Google Scholar

12 Ibid. Google Scholar

13 Robinson, 949 n. 1485.Google Scholar

14 The arguments of Bks. II-V, VII-XII were edited with variants by Klotz, Alfred, ‘Die Argumente zur Thebais des Statius,’ Archiv für lateinische Lexicographie und Grammatik 15 (1908) 261–74 (on approximate date see p. 269), thence (with the addition of the argument of Bk. VI) in his P. Papini Stati Thebais (Leipzig 1908) 476-82; note p. 475: ‘Libri primi argumentum deest.’ The argument of Bk. VI does not appear in the older MS tradition, being found only in the ‘recentiorum librorum turba’ (so Klotz, , ed. cit. lxxii); on its stylistic differences from the other ten arguments,s ee Klotz, , Archiv 15.261.Google Scholar

15 For the reader's convenience I have here and below given line-references to the portions of the Thebaid which appear to lie behind the epitomized Arguments. I have also supplied in parentheses identifications of certain names and appellatives which may not be clear to non-Hellenists; for this I have made much use of the very full and excellent ‘Index Nominum’ in Klotz’ edition of the Thebaid. Google Scholar

16 Understand divos cernuntque as if divosque cernunt with proceeding comma to set the phrase off from explorant (Havelock).Google Scholar

17 Read relevataque membra with Queck vs. Klotz’ unscanable membraque levata (Havelock).Google Scholar