Book of the Duchess ^68 31 



VI. BOOK OF THE DUCHESS 368 



The present Master of Peterhouse, writing in 1880/ thus com- 

 ments on this Hne: 'The Emperor Octovian (a favorite character 

 of Carolingian legend,- ... in Chaucer's poem probably a 

 flattering allegory for the King) is holding his hunt.' Skeat, 

 though he says^ 'the name originally referred to the emperor 

 Augustus,' and notwithstanding its occurrence in that sense in 

 L. G. W. 624, apparently accepts Ward's view, and supposes the 

 allusion to be to the personage of the mediaeval romance. 



As bearing on this matter, it may be noted that Deschamps, 

 who employs the name five times, never alludes to the legendary 

 personage. Once, in discoursing on the Nativity, and the con- 

 ditions then prevailing in the Roman world, he says* : 

 Octovien sanz doubtance 

 Regnoit vertueusement. 



^Le temps Octovien' is conceived as a golden age. Thus (2. 5) : 



Quant verray je le temps Octovien, 

 Que toute paix fut au monde affermee? 



And at the beginning of another ballade (7. 251) : 



Je voy le temps Octovien 



Que toute paix fut reformee, 



Je voy amer le commun bien, 



Je voy justice estre gardee, 



Je voy Saincte Eglise essaucee, 



Chastete en religion, 



Bonnes euvres, devocion, 



Charite, foy, droit jugement 



Faire et tenir sanz fiction. 



— Dit il voir? — Par may foy, il ment. 



Elsewhere he compares the Emperor Charles IV (i 316-1378), 

 son of John of Bohemia, to Augustus (i. 296) : 



Et I'empereur ot gracieux renom, 

 L'empire tint com fist Octoviens, 

 Sanz nul debat. 



^Chaucer (English Men of Letters), pp. 68-9. 



^ Cf. Gaston Paris, Litt. Fr. au Moyen Age, 3d ed., p. 50; Wells, 

 Manual, p. 118. 

 ^ Oxford Chaucer i. 472-3. 

 * O euvres, ed. Saint-Hilaire, 7. 153. 



