Chaucer の「数あそび」 (遠山淳教授退任記念号)

概要

論文の詳細を見る
One spring in about 1387, Geoffrey Chaucer decided to go on a pilgrimagejourney to Canterbury and stayed at the Tabard Inn in London, where he met a motley group who were also going to visit St Thomas Shrine at Canterbury. Chaucer counted them and he wrote about the number of them as follows: At nyght was come into that hostelrye Wel nyne and twenty in a compainye, Of sondry folk, by aventure yfalle In felaweshipe, and pilgrimmes were they alle, That toward Caunterbury wolden ryde. -"General Prologe" (ll. 23_27) The number of the pilgrims he counted was `nyne and twenty' but the actual figure was `thirty': the number cannot be made to fit the text. Why did this happen? Did Chaucer miscount them? There have once made many heated arguments on this disconcordance, which remains an open question. Although many of linguists studying Chaucer's works have tried to solve this mystery including the author, none has given a convincing explanation yet. In this paper, I am going to make another approach to this mystery of the number `nyne and twenty'.
桃山学院大学の論文
2007-12-10