The parlament of foules, by Geoffrey Chaucer. Ed., with introduction, notes, and glossary, by T. R. Lounsbury.

SOURCES OF THE POEM.

So far as I know, Tyrwhitt was the first to call attention to
the fact that the passage in " The Parlament of Foules" was
taken from the Italian poet. A comparison of the two will
show, that, beside minor variations and transpositions, Chaucer
sometimes introduced particulars which are not found in the
original. One of the most striking of these is that emblematic
picture of calm and resigned endurance amid the shifting
changes of life and love, which is conveyed by the representation of Patience sitting upon a hill of sand. Moreover, nearly
all of the twenty-ninth and thirtieth verses consists of additions
which owe nothing at all to " La Teseide; " and these two are
among the very finest stanzas in the description of the garden
and temple. Still the general resemblance is throughout very
close. The original, moreover, settles some points about which
the manuscripts vary. For illustration, in line 277, some of
them read Cupide, and others Cypride. It is evident, from the
sixty-sixth stanza of Boccaccio, that the latter is the correct
reading; for in it Venus is represented as sitting between Ceres
and Bacchus. This might, indeed, have been independently
inferred from the fact, that, in both the Italian and the English
poem, Cupid is represented as sitting at the fountain. In line
22I, also, of "The Parlament of Foules," the corresponding
place in Rossetti's translation shows that the proper reading
is, " To don by force a wight to do folye," though half of the
manuscripts vary from this.
These are the only passages of any extent which Chaucer
has either borrowed or adapted. A few short lines have been
pointed out as having been taken from the " Inferno " of Dante;
but they are not only slight in number, but of very slight
importance. But the nineteenth and twentieth verses of " The
Parlament of Foules " are usually spoken of as founded directly
upon the famous inscription with which the third canto of the
"Inferno" opens. I subjoin, for the sake of comparison,
Longfellow's translation of the latter: -
Through me the way is to the city dolent;
Through me the way is to eternal dole;
Through me the way among the people lost.