Notes and Queries, Number 78, April 26, 1851
Notes and Queries, Number 78, April 26, 1851
A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc
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lgrimage, but has placed it, as it were, beyond the danger of alteration by any possible corruption in the text, he set aside these physical facts altogether, and took in lieu of them the seventh and eighth lines of the prologue quoted above, which, I contend, Chaucer did not intend to bear any reference to the day of the journey itself, but only to the general season in which it was undertaken.
But Tyrwhitt, having seized upon a favourite idea, seems to have been determined to carry it through, at any cost, even at that of altering the text from "the Ram" into "the Bull:" and I fear that he can scarcely be acquitted of unfair and intentional misquotation of Chaucer's words, by transposing "his halfe cours" into "half his course," which is by no means an equivalent expression. Here are his own words:
"When he (Chaucer) tells us that 'the shoures of April had perced to the rote the drought of March' (ver. 1, 2.), we must suppose, in order to allow due time for such an o
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