The Complete Works of John Gower, Volume 4 — John Gower
The Complete Works of John Gower, Vol. 4 | Project Gutenberg You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org . If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title : The complete works of John Gower, volume 4 The Latin works Author : John Gower Editor : G. C. Macaulay Release date : December 13, 2023 [eBook #72396] Language : English, Latin Other information and formats : www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/72396 Credits : Ted Garvin, Stephen Rowland, Krista Zaleski and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net The Complete Works of John Gower, Vol. 4 | Project Gutenberg Transcriber’s Notes Obvious typographical errors in punctuation have been silently corrected. THE COMPLETE WORKS OF JOHN GOWER G. C. MACAULAY * * * * THE LATIN WORKS The Complete Works of John Gower, Vol. 4 | Project Gutenberg HENRY FROWDE, M.A. PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD LONDON, EDINBURGH, AND NEW YORK The Complete Works of John Gower, Vol. 4 | Project Gutenberg MS. COTTON TIBERIUS A. IV., F. 9 ( Reduced in size ) The Complete Works of John Gower, Vol. 4 | Project Gutenberg THE COMPLETE WORKS OF JOHN GOWER EDITED FROM THE MANUSCRIPTS WITH INTRODUCTIONS, NOTES, AND GLOSSARIES BY G. C. MACAULAY, M.A. FORMERLY FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE * * * * THE LATIN WORKS De modicis igitur modicum dabo pauper, et inde Malo valere parum quam valuisse nichil. Oxford AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 1902 The Complete Works of John Gower, Vol. 4 | Project Gutenberg Oxford PRINTED AT THE CLARENDON PRESS BY HORACE HART, M.A. PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY CONTENTS PAGE Introduction vii Epistola 1 Vox Clamantis 3 Cronica Tripertita 314 Rex celi deus etc. 343 H. aquile pullus etc. 344 O recolende etc. 345 Carmen super multiplici Viciorum Pestilencia 346 Tractatus de Lucis Scrutinio 355 Ecce patet tensus etc. 358 Est amor etc. 359 Quia vnusquisque etc. 360 Eneidos Bucolis etc. 361 O deus immense etc. 362 Last Poems 365 Notes 369 Glossary 421 Index to the Notes 428 The Complete Works of John Gower, Vol. 4 | Project Gutenberg INTRODUCTION LIFE OF GOWER. To write anything like a biography of Gower, with the materials that exist, is an impossibility. Almost the only authentic records of him, apart from his writings, are his marriage-licence, his will, and his tomb in St. Saviour’s Church; and it was this last which furnished most of the material out of which the early accounts of the poet were composed. A succession of writers from Leland down to Todd contribute hardly anything except guesswork, and this is copied by each from his predecessors with little or no pretence of criticism. Some of them, as Berthelette and Stow, describe from their own observation the tomb with its effigy and inscriptions, as it actually was in their time, and these descriptions supply us with positive information of some value, but the rest is almost entirely worthless. Gower’s will was printed in Gough’s Sepulchral Monuments (1796), and in 1828 Sir Harris Nicolas, roused by the uncritical spirit of Todd, published the article in the Retrospective Review 1 which has ever since been regarded as the one source of authentic information on the subject. It does not appear that Nicolas undertook any very extensive searching of records, indeed he seems to have practically confined his attention to the British Museum; for wherever he cites the Close Rolls or other documents now in the Record Office, it is either from the abstract of the Close Rolls given in MS. Harl. 1176 or as communicated to him by some other person: but he was able to produce several more or less interesting documents connected either with the poet or with somebody who bore the same name and belonged to the same family, and he placed the discussion for the first time upon a sound critical basis. Pauli simply recapitulated the results arrived at by Nicolas with some slight elucidations from the Close Rolls of 6 Ric. II on a matter which had been already mentioned by Nicolas on the authority of Mr. Petrie. As the result of a further examination of the Close Rolls and other records I am able to place some of the transactions referred to in a clearer light, while at the same time I find myself obliged to cast serious doubt on the theory that all the documents in question relate to the poet. In short, the conclusions at which I arrive, so far as regards the records, are mostly of a negative character. It may be taken as proved that the family to which John Gower the poet belonged was of Kent. Caxton indeed says of him that he was born in Wales, but this remark was probably suggested by the name of the ‘land of Gower’ in Wales, and is as little to be trusted as the further statement that his birth was in the reign of Richard II. There was a natural tendency in the sixteenth century to connect him with the well-known Gowers of Stitenham in Yorkshire, whence the present noble family of Gower derives its origin, and Leland says definitely that the poet was of Stitenham 2 . It is probable, however, that Leland had no very certain information; for when we examine his autograph manuscript, we find that he first wrote, following Caxton, ‘ex Cambria, ut ego accepi, originem duxit,’ and afterwards altered this to ‘ex Stitenhamo, villa Eboracensis prouinciae, originem ducens.’ It is probable that the credit of connexion with the poet had been claimed by the Yorkshire family, whose ‘proud tradition,’ as Todd says, ‘has been and still is that he was of Stitenham,’ and we find reason to think that they had identified him with a certain distinguished lawyer of their house. This family tradition appears in Leland’s Itinerarium , vi. 13, ‘The house of Gower the poete sumtyme chief iuge of the commune place’ (i.e. Common Pleas) ‘yet remaineth at Stitenham yn Yorkshire, and diuerse of them syns have been knights.’ He adds tha