SAGA-BOOK - Viking Society Web Publications

11
Trohetsuisan and Chaucer's Lak of Stedfastnesse 3II
especially verse 4 on the kingdom:
pat leuep wit, and worchep by wille,
and verse 5 on the people:
that leuep troupe and falshed vse
And lyue not after goddis sawe,
pe swerd of vengeaunce on hem is drawe
pat leuep wit, and worchep by wille.
1. 7 FNR p. 862: "al is lost; the words recur (with
variations) in Tr(oilus) iii 1266, 1764, passages which
go back, like this ballade, to Boethius ii m. 8. This is
a more probable source than the refrain of
Deschamps's ballade, 234 ("Tout se destruit et par
default de garde") suggested by Brusendorff "The
Chaucerian Tradition 1925), p. 487" But the words
'were al lost; lost were al' (Tr. iii 1266, 1764 resp.)
found in passages which do have contact with
Boethius's ideas that Love unites all, are slight
indication that L. of S. need have been influenced by
the Boethian verses in view of the identification with
the genre elsewhere. Deschamps's refrain: 'All is
destroyed and for lack of care' in a poem on carelessness
is even further removed from the Chaucerian
idea.
1. 8 On the 'variable' world:
I Thys warlde ys varyabyll
No-thyng per in ys stable (R. Hist. no. 61 11. 13-14).
l pis worlde is ful of stabulnesse
per is per inne no varyaunce (L p. 465, with 'destroying'
refrain).
3 'Fortune' poems (Carm. Bur. nos. 14, 15, 16, 17).
4 NB the idea in this Chaucerian stanza is the exact
opposite of Cons. Phil. ii m. 8:
Quod mundus stabili fide
concordes variat vices
quod pugnantia semina
foedus perpetuum tenent (11. 1-4)
where 'love rules all'.
I. 9 On 'discencioun':
'Ho(u) scholde eny frendshupe ben i founde?
Good feij> is flemed out of pis londe
per is more treupe in an hounde