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s anyone who has tried to parse Theseus’s “first moevere” speech (perhaps ex tempore before a classroom of undergraduates) will agree, the language of Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale is anything but straightforward and precise. Yet much Chaucer criticism has followed Theseus’s injunction to “make a virtue of necessite ” and has systematically disregarded or glossed over many of the knotty verbal problems that litter the poem. The description of the fatal accident that befalls Arcite following the conclusion of the tournament appears, upon close inspection, much less clear than at first glance. Indeed, were it not for the fact that we have boccaccio’s Teseida as a guide, one would be hard pressed to explain two crucial features of this episode: what exactly is it that spooks Arcite’s horse and how exactly is Arcite injured? e.talbot donaldson made a stab at the second question in a brief,speculative piece a quarter-century ago,but he himself was not entirely satisfied with his conclusions, hopefully suggesting that the great philologist norman davis might be able to solve this textual problem.1 The former question has not, I believe, received any critical attention. Although my own answers to these questions must remain speculative, too, I hope to show that the meaning of this passage is much less secure than our modern editions would have us believe. The scene of Arcite’s mortal injury is as dramatic as it is unexpected. Having just won the tournament against his cousin and rival Palamon and thus won the hand of emily, Arcite removes his helmet and takes a victory lap around the arena. emily, having accepted her fate that she must marry instead of remaining in diana’s service, casts a “freendlich ye” upon the victor. Yet there remain olympian scores to settle. Mars’s promise to Arcite (“victorie!”) has been Lectio difficilior and All That: Another Look at Arcite’s Injury †Stephen Stallcup A 43 fulfilled, yet venus’s promise to Palamon (love) remains and, seeing her tears, Saturn declares, “Mars hath his wille, his knyght hath al his boone, / And, by myn heed, thow shalt been esed soone” (2669–70).2 Within moments, the goddess ’s will is put in motion: Palamon will get the girl by default, owing to the untimely death of his rival. At the moment of Arcite’s greatest joy—emily “was al his chiere, as in his herte”(2683)—disaster strikes, from an unexpected quarter: out of the ground a furie infernal sterte, From Pluto sent at requeste of Saturne, For which his hors for fere gan to turne, And leep aside, and foundred as he leep; And er that Arcite may taken keep, He pighte hym on the pomel of his heed, That in the place he lay as he were deed, His brest tobrosten with his sadel-bowe. (2684–91) Within the space of eight lines, Arcite goes from victory to near death. but what exactly has happened here? The Fury The Riverside Chaucer says that a “furie” spooked Arcite’s horse, and commentors on the scene (donaldson included) talk about this Fury as if everyone knew what it was. but this is not the case. A survey of the fifty-six manuscripts containing The Knight’s Tale reveals a surprising (though ultimately explicable) lack of uniformity here. The reading of “furie”—adopted by all the modern editors of the poem—is present in only sixteen of the manuscripts.The remaining forty—which include the prominent manuscripts Cambridge, Cambridge university library MS Gg.4.27 and london, british library, MS Harley 7334—contain some variant of the word “fire.” Thus for many readers,not only of the tale in manuscript but also in the early printed editions, the horse is frightened not by a monster but by a flame. two reasons account for this misreading (for indeed it is an error in light of the unambiguous evidence of Chaucer’s source): a textual one and an authorial one. nine of the extant manuscripts have “fuyre”for “furye,”and it is easy to see how the transposition of r and y might lead a subsequent reader or scribe to interpret “fuyre” as “fyre” rather than “furye,” especially since the narrative gives the reader no clue as to what a “furye”actually is. A confused scribe might see a hellish fire as a logical device for Pluto to use to scare Arcite’s horse, given horses’well-known fear of fire. Yet the fact...

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