"
In Troilus we are told that Uncle Pandarus comes
into the paved parlour, where he finds his niece sitting
with two other ladies--
". . . And they three
Herden a mayden reden hem the geste
Of the Sege of Thebes . . ."
"What are you reading?" cries Pandarus. "For
Goddes love, what seith it? Tel it us. Is it of love?"
Whereupon the niece returns him a saucy answer, and
"with that they gonnen laughe," and then she says--
"This romaunce is of Thebes, that we rede;
And we can herd how that King Laius deyde
Thurgh Edippus his sone, and al that cede;
And here we stenten [left off] at these lettres recle,
How the bisshop, as the book can telle,
Amphiorax, fil through the ground to helle."[1]
[1] Troilus, ii. 81-105.
This picture of a little informal reading circle is not to be
found in like perfection elsewhere in English medieval
literature.[1]
[1] It seems to be Chaucer's own; only ahout one-third of the
poem comes from Boccaccio's Filostrato. Chaucer had a copy of the
Thebais of Statius.--Troilus, v. 1. 1484.
Section IV
By the middle of the fifteenth century book-collecting
was a more fashionable pastime.
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