Go, little book
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"For a century and more, “Go, little book," which we have already noted in John de Hauteville and in Gower, dominates the close of the poems, religious and secular, of the Chaucerian school."--"The Envy Theme in Prologues and Epilogues" (1917) by Frederick Tupper |
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"Vade liber" or "Go, little book" is a dictum found in medieval literature.
It can be found as "Go, little book, God send thee good passage" in "La Belle Dame sans Mercy".
It can also be found in Troilus and Criseyde by Geoffrey Chaucer as:
Go, litel book, go litel myn tregedie,
Ther god thy maker yet, er that he dye,
So sende might to make in som comedie!
But litel book, no making thou n'envye,
But subgit be to alle poesye;
And kis the steppes, wher-as thou seest pace
Virgile, Ovyde, Omer, Lucan, and Stace.
It was used in many Baedeker editions of guidebooks for Italy:
And specially let this he thy prayere
Unto them all that thee will read or hear,
Where thou art wrong, after their help to call,
Thee to correct in any part or all."
--Italy: Handbook for Travellers
In Confessio Amantis by Gower:
Explicit iste liber, qui transeat, obsecro liber,
Vt sine liuore vigeat lectoris in ore.
Qui sedet in scannis celi det vt ista lohannis
Perpetuis annis stet pagina grata Britannis,
Derbeie Comiti, recolunt quem laude periti,
Vade liber purus, sub eo requiesce futurus.
See also
