Note 4 — LETTER XLV.
Reading edition
I must warn you against the false reading of the original, in many editions. Fournier’s five volume one is altogether a later text, in some cases with interesting intentional modifications, probably of the fifteenth century; but oftener with destruction of the older meaning. It gives this couplet, for instance,—
“Si n’avoit el plaisir de rien,
Que quant elle donnoit du sien.”
The old reading is,
“Si n’avoit elle joie de rien,
Fors quant elle povoit dire, ‘tien.’
Didot’s edition, Paris, 1814, is founded on very early and valuable texts; but it is difficult to read. Chaucer has translated a text some twenty or thirty years later in style; and his English is quite trustworthy as far as it is carried. For the rest of the Romanee, Fournier’s text is practically good enough, and easily readable. ↑