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Trohetsvisan and Chaucer's Lak ofStedfastnesse 299
more subtle. revelation. 67 The first, to my mind, is
unlikely, since the recipient perhaps should have been
more specifically distinguished.v" and because strong
feelings are not freely expressed in a rigid verse-form.
The second, however, is a possibility since, as Hildeman
says of the genre, "it is possible that such cases (of
unlawful action) were the 'sparks' that caused the poems
to be written", yet, he continues, "this should not be taken
for granted and certainly cannot be proved." 69 The last
phrase should be modified for there are occasions when
hints are given in the poems which may date or place them.
R. H. Robbins has produced some fascinating results
along these lines for Middle English verses in his Historical
Poems of the XIVth and XVth Centuries 7 0 and F. J. Raby
records 71 the exciting case of a Latin poem (in the Arundel
collection) attacking a bishop whose name was the
enigmatic 'Obliviosus'. 72 Bernhard Bischoff however
pointed out that the word was the 'interpretation' of the
name Manasses in Jerome's Liber de nominibus Hebraicis
and such was the name of a notorious Bishop of Orleans
(II46-n 85)·
Some alertness and care is needed. But, to my mind,
there is no conclusive evidence within the poem of the
identity of the recipient. The word "Prince" appears
promising but may well be conventional. Miss Cohen,
"A. Brusendorff, The Chaucer Tradition (1925), 274: "it was probably
intended as a Machiavellian compliment to Richard on his bold bid for
supremacy rather than as a somewhat commonplace reflection on his failure to
do justice, a reflection which Chaucer would hardly have dared to address to
the king."
.. See below for the comment on the term 'Prince' and note that Chaucer
drops the conventional mode of address when he wants money from Henry IV
in The Complaint of Chaucer to his Purse.
•• Hildeman, op. cit., 152.
,. Robbins, op, cit., xxiv-xxvi, The most interesting case is for no. 49,
p. xxiv,
71 Raby, op. cit., II 253.
72
a me si requiritur
quis est, qui sic dicitur
mendax et mendosus:
oblitus sum nominis,
quia nomen hominis
est 'Obliviosus',