Note 39 — Chapter X · POETIC ACHIEVEMENT IN VERNACULAR
Reading edition
The reference to romance which follows the Nun’s Priest’s sarcastic dilation of truisms suggests that here too, as well as in the direct reference to Geoffrey, Chaucer was glancing at rhetorication of narrative.
God woot that worldly joye is sone ago; And if a rethor coude faire endyte, He in a cronique saufly mighte it wryte, As for a sovereyn notabilitee. Now every wys man lat him herkne me. This storie is also trewe, I undertake, As is the book of Launcelot de Lake. B. 4396-4402.
Perhaps also he was thinking of Geoffrey’s dilation on the instability of “worldly joye” (277-291, Quid gaudia tanta).