The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales [antikvár]

INTROD UCTION. The present edition of Chaucer's Prologue to the Canterbury Tales is intended to serve as an introductory text-book to the study of Middle English and of Chaucer's works. Those who have mastered it may profitably proceed to the study of the Prologue, Knightes Tale, and Nun's Priest's Tale, and to the other similar selections from the Canterbury Tales, as published in the Clarendon Press Series. The account of Chaucer's Life and Poetry in the first of these contains further information on these subjects, particularly in the way of references to originál authorities. The text of the Prologue in the present edition, founded on the excellent Ellesmere MS., has been carefully revised with a special view to representing more accurately and systematically the true Middle-English pronunciation. With this view, a few inconsistencies in the spelling employed by the seribe have been avoided. The text is amended, where emendation seemed necessary, by comparison of the Ellesmere MS. with six others; and the various readings are given in the footnotes. The MSS. are de-noted by the following abbreviations. E. (Ellesmere MS.) ; Hn. (Hengwrt MS.); Cm. (Cambridge MS. Gg. 4. 27) ; Cp. (MS. in Corpus Christi College, Oxford); Pt. (Petworth MS., belonging to Lord Leconfield) ; Ln. (Lansdowne MS. 851, in the British Museum) ; and Hl. (MS. Harleian 7334> in the same). The numbering of the lines agrees with that in the Six-text