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The cõforte of louers / The Comfort of Lovers cover

The cõforte of louers / The Comfort of Lovers

Chapter 1: About the Text
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About This Book

A first-person narrator, troubled by unrequited love, composes a long allegorical poem that blends dream vision and moral counsel. The speaker invokes sacred and classical examples, reflects on nature and social roles, and describes a visit to a fragrant garden where an older, wise woman offers consolation and practical advice about patience, prudence, and honor. The poem shifts between lyrical description, personal lament, and didactic digression, exploring courtly behavior, the trials of love, and the duties of gentility, and closes with exhortations to temper desire with wisdom and hope.

About the Text

Abbreviations are shown as superscripts. The word shown as ye was printed with the e directly above the y: yͤ. Not all browsers can display this form correctly. Abbreviations in t (what, that) were similarly written; note that the second occurrence of þt uses true thorn, not the more common y. The “-us” abbreviation, similar to a small 9, is shown here as us. In verse, abbreviations were used only when a long line had to be shortened to fit the width of the page.

Damaged Words were reconstructed based on surviving parts of letters. Some reconstructions are more secure than others.

Page A.vi.

Page B.i.

Page B.i.verso
The word “tens” was used in the text because it occurs elsewhere in conjunction with “future”.

Other possible pairs:  

Page B.iii.

Page B.iiii.verso
The words “mayes touche” are not completely satisfactory, but the text demands a word-final s.

Page B.vi.

Page B.vi.verso

Page C.ii.

Page C.iii.

Page C.iii.verso
Note the õ abbreviation, indicating that the line spanned the full width of the page.

Page C.iiii.

Page C.v.

Page C.v.verso
The complete line was compared against long lines from other pages to make sure the length was not excessive.

Page C.vi.
Much of this is obviously conjectural. The likeliest endings for the first two lines are “tendre” and “fayre”.