Chaucer's Legende of Goode Women

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F. Leypoldt, 1864 - 145 pages

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Page xi - It were an easy matter to produce some thousands of his verses, which are lame for want of half a foot, and sometimes a whole one, and which no pronunciation can make otherwise.
Page 45 - Wisdom's self Oft seeks to sweet retired solitude ; Where, with her best nurse, Contemplation, She plumes her feathers, and lets grow her wings, That in the various bustle of resort Were all too ruffled, and sometimes impair'd. He that has light within his own clear breast, May sit i...
Page 125 - For woman is not undevelopt man But diverse: could we make her as the man, Sweet love were slain : his dearest bond is this Not like to like, but like in difference. Yet in the long years liker must they grow ; The man be more of woman, she of man ; He gain in sweetness and in moral height, Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world ; She mental breadth, nor fail in childward care, Nor lose the childlike in the larger mind; Till at the last she set herself to man, Like perfect music unto noble...
Page iii - I READ, before my eyelids dropt their shade, " The Legend of Good Women," long ago Sung by the morning star of song, who made His music heard below ; n.
Page 74 - tis, to cast one's eyes so low! The crows and choughs, that wing the midway air, Show scarce so gross as beetles : Half way down Hangs one that gathers samphire; dreadful trade! Methinks, he seems no bigger than his head: The fishermen, that walk upon the beach, Appear like mice; and yon...
Page x - Emilie, and you shall remember her as long," we do remember her as long. And he sent us a train of pilgrims, each with a distinct individuality apart from the pilgrimage, all the way from Southwark and the Tabard Inn, to Canterbury and Becket's shrine : and their laughter comes never to an end, and their talk goes on with the stars, and all the railroads which may intersect the spoilt earth for ever cannot hush the " tramp, tramp " of their horses
Page x - Gower, his contemporaries : there is the rude sweetness of a Scotch tune in it, which is natural and pleasing, though not perfect. 'Tis true, I cannot go so far as he who published the last edition of him ; for he would make us believe the fault is in our ears, and that there were really ten syllables in a verse where we find but nine : but this opinion is not worth confuting...
Page xxiii - Saxon original, where it cannot have been added for any such purpose, as herte, childe, olde, zmlde, &c. In these therefore we must suppose that it was pronounced as an e feminine, and made part of a second syllable ; and so, by a parity of reason, in all others, in which, as in these, it appears to have been substituted for the Saxon a.
Page 3 - So glad am I, whan that I have presence Of it, to doon it alle reverence, As she that is of alle...
Page xxix - O God ! Methinks it were a happy life To be no better than a homely swain. To sit upon a hill, as I do now; To carve out dials quaintly, point by point...

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