Verses on a table of brass, in Trevisa’s translation of Higden’s Polychronicon (Book 1, ch. 24) — five cross-rhymed quatrains

Note: Ringler Jr. (1988), TP 378.5.

Author(s): John Trevisa; Ranulf Higden

Title(s): Polychronicon

Subjects: aphorisms; death, approach of; time, use of

Versification: — four-line, two-line — abab, aa

Bibliographic Ghosts: Glasgow, Glasgow University Library Hunterian 83 (T.3.21): this is Brut Chronicle, not Trevisa; New York, Pierpont Morgan Library M275: neither this MS nor New York, Pierpont Morgan Library M875 [olim Helmingham Hall] with which it may be confused in Robbins and Cutler (1965), contain Trevisa’s trans. of Polychronicon.

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Note: One cross-rhymed quatrain and eight couplets in this witness.

Editions:

First Lines:

Last Lines:

Note: In this MS, one cross-rhymed quatrain followed by eight couplets; written as prose.

First Lines:

Last Lines:

Note: Written as prose.

First Lines:

Last Lines:

Note: One cross-rhymed quatrain and eight couplets in this MS; written as prose.

First Lines:

Last Lines:

Note: Written as prose. Folio number reflects the most recent folia.

First Lines:

Last Lines:

Note: Written as prose.

First Lines:

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Note: Written as prose; one quatrain rhyming abab, four couplets, another quatrain rhyming abba, and a final couplet; in Polychronicon, Book I, cap. 24: see Hanna (1980), n. 10.