The lover of things mediæval will find in this little book not only
the familiar garden of Guillaume de Lorris, of Boccaccio and of
Chaucer, but an unexpected and enchanting vision of great forest and
rushing water, of hillside and plain, of crystal cliffs and
flame-winged birds; of the Pearl among her white peers; of the
Apocalyptic Jerusalem, discovered to the poet, it may be, as a goodly
Gothic city, though its walls are built of precious stone, and its
towers rise from neither church nor minster.

If even a few readers turn from the modern to the original version,
the translation will have had fair fortune, for the author of "The
Pearl" is, though unknown and unnamed, a poet second only to Chaucer
in Chaucer's generation.

It is a pleasure to record my many debts of gratitude: to Professor
Frank H. Chase of Beloit, Professor John L. Lowes of Swarthmore, and
Dr. Charles G. Osgood of Princeton, for their careful reading of the
translation in manuscript, with invaluable assistance and suggestion;
to Professor Martha Hale Shackford, and Miss Laura A. Hibbard, for
constant aid while the work was in making, and, above all, to
Professor Katharine Lee Bates for a critical, line by line, comparison
of this version with the original.


[Footnote 1: Par. III.]

[Footnote 2: Pearl, stanza 71.]

[Footnote 3: Par. VII, II. 17-18; Par. VIII, I. 15.]