Note 29 — THE PATIENT GRISELDA[29]

This, the most famous of Boccaccio's stories, is the last of those related on the tenth day. Lowndes's "Manual" mentions under Boccaccio "the Booke called de John Bochas, descriving the Falle of Princis and Princessis and Other Nobles, translated into Englisshe by John Lydgate, Folio, London, 1494." Another early translation appeared in 1560, but this appears to have contained parts only of the "Decameron." An edition issued in 1620-25 is called by Lowndes "the first English translation," by which apparently is meant the first complete one. A translation by E. Dubois was issued in 1806. Boccaccio's Tales were known in England before the invention of printing. Chaucer, who made use of the story of Griselda, has told as follows how he first obtained it from Petrarch in Padua.