c. 83, we find:--'In quolibet mense sunt duo dies, qui dicuntur

_Ægyptiaci_, quorum unus est a principio mensis, alter a fine.' He goes on to shew how they are calculated, and says that, in January, the Egyptian days are the 1st, and the 7th from the end, i. e. the 25th; and he expressly refers the name _Ægyptiaci_ to the plagues of Egypt, which (as some said) took place on Egyptian days; for it was asserted that there were minor plagues besides the ten. See also Brand's Pop. Antiquities, ed. Ellis, from which I extract the following. Barnabe Googe thus translates the remarks of Naogeorgus on this subject [of days]:--

'But some of them Egyptian are, and full of jeopardee, And some again, beside the rest, both good and luckie bee.' Brand (as above), ii. 45.

'The Christian faith is violated when, so like a pagan and apostate, any man doth observe those days which are called _Ægyptiaci_,' &c.--Melton's Astrologaster, p. 56; in Brand, ii. 47. 'If his Journey began unawares _on the dismal day_, he feares a mischiefe'; Bp. Hall, Characters of Virtues and Vices; in Brand, ii. 48. 'Alle that take hede to _dysmal dayes_, or use nyce observaunces in the newe moone,' &c.; Dialogue of Dives and Pauper (1493); in Brand, i. 9. 'A _dismol_ day'; Tale of Beryn, 650. Compare also the following:--

'Her _disemale daies_, and her fatal houres'; Lydgate, Storie of Thebes, pt. iii. (ed. 1561, fol. 370).

In the Pistil of Swete Susan (Laing's Anc. Pop. Poetry of Scotland), l. 305, Daniel reproves one of the elders in these terms:--

'Thou hast i-be presedent, the people to steere, Thou dotest now on thin olde tos, _in the dismale_.'

In Langtoft's Chronicle, l. 477 (in Wright's Polit. Songs, p. 303), John Baliol is attacked in some derisive verses, which conclude with:--'Rede him at ride _in the dismale_'; i. e. advise him to ride on an unlucky day. Cf. The Academy, Nov. 28, 1891, p. 482; &c.

The consequence of 'proposing' on an unlucky day was a refusal; see l. 1243.

1208. A priest who missed words in chanting a service was called an _overskipper_; see my note to P. Plowman, C. xiv. 123.

1219. Similarly, Troilus was reduced to saying--

'Mercy, mercy, swete herte!'--Troil. iii. 98.

1234. 'Unless I am dreaming,' i. e. unintentionally.

1246. _Cassandra._ The prophetic lamentation of Cassandra over the impending fate of Troy is given in the alliterative Geste Hystoriale (E. E. T. S.), p. 88, and in Lydgate's Siege of Troye, bk. ii. c. 12, from Guido de Colonna; cf. Vergil, Æn. ii. 246.

1248. Chaucer treats _Ilion_ as if it were different from _Troye_; cf. Nonne Prestes Tale, B 4546 (C. T. 15362). He merely follows Guido de Colonna and others, who made _Ilion_ the name of the _citadel_ of Troy; see further in note to Ho. of Fame, l. 158.

1288. M. Sandras (Étude sur Chaucer, p. 95) says this is from Machault's Jugement du Bon Roi de Behaigne--

'De nos deux cuers estoit si juste paire Qu'onques ne fu l'un à l'autre contraire. Tuit d'un accord, une pensee avoient. De volenté, de desir se sambloient. Un bien, un mal, une joie sentoient. Conjointement. N'onques ne fu entre eux deux autrement.'

1305-6. Repeated from ll. 743, 744. Cf. ll. 1137-8.

1309. Imitated in Spenser's Daphnaida, 184. The Duchess Blaunche died Sept. 12, 1369. The third great pestilence lasted from July to September in that year.

1314. _King_, i. e. Edward III; see note to l. 368.

1318. Possibly the _long castel_ here meant is Windsor Castle; this seems likely when we remember that it was in Windsor Castle that Edward III. instituted the order of the Garter, April 23, 1349; and that he often resided there. _A riche hil_ in the next line appears to have no special significance. The suggestion, in Bell's Chaucer, that it refers to Richmond (which, after all, is not Windsor) is quite out of the question, because that town was then called Sheen, and did not receive the name of Richmond till the reign of Henry VII., who renamed it after Richmond in Yorkshire, whence his own title of Earl of Richmond had been derived.

1322. _Belle_, i. e. bell of a clock, which rang out the hour. This bell, half heard in the dream, seems to be meant to be real. If so, it struck midnight; and Chaucer's chamber must have been within reach of its sound.

IV. THE COMPLAINT OF MARS.

For general remarks on this poem, see p. 64, above.

By consulting ll. 13 and 14, we see that the whole of this poem is supposed to be uttered by a bird on the 14th of February, before sunrise. Lines 1-28 form the proem; the rest give the story of Mars and Venus, followed by the Complaint of Mars at l. 155. The first 22 stanzas are in the ordinary 7-line stanza. The Complaint is very artificial, consisting of an Introductory Stanza, and five Terns, or sets of three stanzas, making sixteen stanzas of nine lines each, or 144 lines. Thus the whole poem has 298 lines.

Each tern is occupied with a distinct subject, which I indicate by headings, viz. Devotion to his Love; Description of a Lady in an anxiety of fear and woe; the Instability of Happiness; the story of the Brooch of Thebes; and An Appeal for Sympathy. A correct appreciation of these various 'movements' of the Complaint makes the poem much more intelligible.

1. _Foules._ The false reading _lovers_ was caught from l. 5 below. But the poem opens with a call from a bird to all other birds, bidding them rejoice at the return of Saint Valentine's day. There is an obvious allusion in this line to the common proverb--'As fain as fowl of a fair morrow,' which is quoted in the Kn. Tale, 1579 (A 2437), in P. Plowman, B. x. 153, and is again alluded to in the Can. Yeom. Tale, G 1342. In l. 3, the bird addresses the _flowers_, and finally, in l. 5, the _lovers_.

2. Venus, the planet, supposed to appear as a morning-star, as it sometimes does. See note to Boethius, bk. i. met. 5. l. 9.

_Rowes_, streaks or rays of light, lit. rows. In the Complaint of the Black Knight, l. 596, Lydgate uses the word of the streaks of light at eventide--'And while the twilight and the _rowes_ rede Of Phebus light,' &c. Also in Lydgate's Troy-Book, bk. i. c. 6, ed. 1555, fol. E 1, quoted by Warton, Hist. E. Poetry, 1871, iii. 84:--'Whan that the _rowes_ and the rayes rede Estward to us full early gonnen sprede.' Hence the verb _rowen_, to dawn; P. Plowm. C. ii. 114, xxi. 28; see my Notes to P. Plowman. Tyrwhitt's Glossary ignores the word.

3. For _day_, Bell's edition has _May_! The month is February.

4. _Uprist_, upriseth. But in Kn. Tale, 193 (A 1051), _uprist-e_ (with final _e_) is the dat. case of a sb.

7. The final _e_ in _sonn-e_ occurs at the cæsural pause; _candle_ is pronounced nearly as _candl'_. The sun is here called the _candle of Ielosye_, i.e torch or light that discloses cause for jealousy, in allusion to the famous tale which is the foundation of the whole poem, viz. how Phoebus (the Sun) discovered the amour between Mars and Venus, and informed Vulcan of it, rousing him to jealousy; which Chaucer doubtless obtained from his favourite author Ovid (Metam. bk. iv). See the description of 'Phebus,' with his 'torche in honde,' in ll. 27, 81-84 below. Gower also, who quotes Ovid expressly, has the whole story; Conf. Amant. ed. Pauli, ii. 149. The story first occurs in Homer, Odys. viii. 266-358. And cf. Statius, Theb. iii. 263-316; Chaucer's Kn. Tale, 1525 (A 2383), &c. Cf. also Troilus, iii. 1457.

8. _Blewe_; 'there seems no propriety in this epithet; it is probably a corruption'; Bell. But it is quite right; in M. E., the word is often applied to the colour of a wale or stripe caused by a blow, as in the phrase 'beat black and _blue_'; also to the gray colour of burnt-out ashes, as in P. Plowman, B. iii. 97; also to the colour of lead; 'as blo as led,' Miracle-Plays, ed. Marriott, p. 148. 'Ashen-gray' or 'lead-coloured' is not a very bad epithet for tears:--

'And round about her tear-distained eye _Blue_ circles streamed.' Shak. Lucrece, 1586.

9. _Taketh_, take ye. _With seynt Iohn_, with St. John for a surety; _borwe_ being in the dat. case; see note to Squi. Tale, F 596. It occurs also in the Kingis Quair, st. 23; Blind Harry's Wallace, bk. ix. l. 46; &c.

13. _Seynt Valentyne_; Feb. 14. See note to Sect. V. l. 309.

21. Cf. 'And everich of us take his aventure'; Kn. Tale, 328 (A 1186).

25. See note to line 7 above; and cf. Troilus, iii. 1450-70:--'O cruel day,' &c.

29. In the Proem to Troilus, bk. iii. st. 1, Chaucer places _Venus_ in the third heaven; that is, he begins to reckon from the earth outwards, the spheres being, successively, those of the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn; see the description of the planets in Gower's Confessio Amantis, bk. vii. So also, in Troilus, v. 1809, by the _seventh_ sphere he means the outermost sphere of Saturn. But in other poems he adopts the more common ancient mode, of reckoning the spheres in the reverse order, taking Saturn _first_; in which case Mars comes third. In this he follows Macrobius, who, in his Commentary on the Somnium Scipionis, lib. i. c. 19, has:--'A sphæra Saturni, quæ est _prima_ de septem,' &c.; see further on this borrowing from Macrobius in the note to l. 69. The same mode of reckoning places Venus in the _fifth_ sphere, as in Lenvoy to Scogan, l. 9. In the curious manual of astronomy called The Shepheards Kalendar (pr. in 1604) we find, in the account of Mars, the following: 'The planet of Mars is called the God of battel and of war, and he is the _third_ planet, for he raigneth next vnder the gentle planet of Jupiter.... And Mars goeth about the twelue signes _in two yeare_.' The account of Venus has:--'Next after the Sun raigneth the gentle planet _Venus_, ... and she is lady ouer all louers: ... and her two signes is _Taurus_ and Libra.... This planet Venus runneth _in twelue months_ ouer the xii. signes.' Also:--'Next under Venus is the faire planet Mercury ... and his principall signes be these: _Gemini_ is the first ... and the other signe is _Virgo_,' &c. See Furnivall's Trial Forewords, p. 121.

Hence the 'third heaven's lord' is _Mars_; and Chaucer tells us, that by virtue of his motion in his orbit (as well as by desert) he had won Venus. That is, Venus and Mars were seen in the sky very near each other. We may explain _wonne_ by 'approached.'

36. _At alle_, in any and every case. There is a parallel passage to this stanza in Troilus, bk. iii. st. 4 of the Proem.

38. _Talle_, obedient, docile, obsequious. See the account of this difficult word in my Etym. Dictionary, s.v. _tall_.

42. _Scourging_, correction. Compare the phr. _under your yerde_; Parl. Foules, 640, and the note. I see no reason for suspecting the reading.

49. 'Unless it should be that his fault should sever their love.'

51. _Loking_, aspect; a translation of the Latin astrological term _aspectus_. They regard each other with a favourable aspect.

54. _Hir nexte paleys_, the next palace (or mansion), which belonged to Venus. In astrology, each planet was said to have two _mansions_, except the sun and moon, which had but one apiece. A _mansion_, or _house_, or _palace_, is that Zodiacal sign in which, for some imaginary reason, a planet was supposed to be peculiarly at home. (The whole system is fanciful and arbitrary.) The mansions of Venus were said to be Taurus and Libra; those of Mars, Aries and Scorpio; and those of Mercury, Gemini and Virgo. See the whole scheme in the introduction to Chaucer's Astrolabe. The sign here meant is _Taurus_ (cf. l. 86); and the arrangement was that Mars should 'glide' or pass out of the sign of Aries into that of Taurus, which came next, and belonged specially to Venus.

55. _A-take_, overtaken; because the apparent motion of Venus is swifter than that of Mars. This shews that Mars was, at first, further advanced than Venus along the Zodiac.

61. Actually repeated in the Nonne Prestes Tale, l. 340 (B 4350):--'For whan I see the beautee of your face.' Compare also l. 62 with the same, l. 342; and l. 63 with the same, l. 350.

65. _come_, may come; pres. subj. (Lounsbury says 'preterite').

69. That is, the apparent motion of Venus was twice as great as that of Mars. Chaucer here follows Macrobius, Comment. in Somnium Scipionis, lib. i. ch. 19, who says:--'Rursus tantum a Iove sphæra Martis recedit, ut eundum cursum _biennio_ peragat. Venus autem tanto est regione Martis inferior, ut ei annus satis sit ad zodiacum peragrandum'; that is, Mars performs his orbit in _two_ years, but Venus in _one_; accordingly, she moves as much in _one day_ as Mars does in _two days_. Mars really performs his orbit in rather less than two years (about 687 days), and Venus in less than one (about 225 days), but Chaucer's statement is sufficiently near to facts, the apparent motion of the planets being variable.

71. This line resembles one in the Man of Lawes Tale, B 1075:--'And swich a blisse is ther bitwix hem two'; and ll. 71, 72 also resemble the same, ll. 1114, 1115:--

'Who can the pitous Ioye tellen al Betwix hem three, sin they ben thus y-mette?'

81. Phebus here passes the palace-gates; in other words, the sun enters the sign of Taurus, and so comes into Venus' chamber, within her palace. Cf. note to l. 54.

In Chaucer's time, the sun entered Taurus on the twelfth of April. This is actually mentioned below, in l. 139.

84. _Knokkeden_, knocked at the door, i. e. demanded admission.

86. That is, both Mars and Venus are now in Taurus. The entry of Venus is noticed in l. 72.

89. The latter syllable of _Venus_ comes at the cæsural pause; but the scansion is best mended by omitting _nygh_; see footnote.

96. In the Shepheards Kalendar, Mars is said to be 'hot and dry'; and Venus to be 'moist and colde.' Thus Mars was supposed to cause heat, and Venus to bring rain. The power of Venus in causing rain is fully alluded to in Lenvoy to Scogan, st. 2.

100. _Girt_, short for _girdeth_; not _gerte_, pt. t.

104. Nearly repeated in Kn. Tale, 1091 (A 1949):--'Ne may with Venus holde champartye.'

105. _Bad her fleen_, bade her flee; because her motion in her orbit was faster than his. Cf. l. 112.

107. 'In the palace (Taurus) in which thou wast disturbed.'

111. _Stremes_, beams, rays; for the eyes of Mars emitted streams of fire (l. 95). Venus is already half past the distance to which Mars's beams extend. Obscure and fanciful.

113. _Cylenius_, Cyllenius, i. e. Mercury, who was born on Mount Cyllene in Arcadia; Vergil, Æn. viii. 139. _Tour_, tower; another word for _mansion_. The tower of Cyllenius, or mansion of Mercury, is the sign Gemini; see note to l. 29. Venus passes out of Taurus into the next sign Gemini. 'The sign _Gemini_ is also _domus Murcurii_, so that when Venus fled into "the tour" of Cyllenius, she simply slipped into the next door to her own house of _Taurus_, leaving poor Mars behind to halt after her as he best might'; A.E. Brae, in Notes and Queries, 1st Series, iii. 235.

114. _Voide_, solitary; Mars is left behind in Taurus. Besides (according to l. 116) there was no other planet in Gemini at that time.

117. _But litil myght._ A planet was supposed to exercise its greatest influence in the sign which was called its _exaltation_; and its least influence in that which was called its _depression_. The _exaltation_ of Venus was in Pisces; her _depression_, in Virgo. She was now in Gemini, and therefore halfway from her exaltation to her depression. So her influence was slight, and waning.

119. _A cave._ In l. 122 we are told that it stood only two paces within the gate, viz. of Gemini. The gate or entrance into Gemini is the point where the sign begins. By _paces_ we must understand _degrees_; for the F. word _pas_ evidently represents the Lat. _gradus_. Venus had therefore advanced to a point which stood only two degrees within (or from the beginning of) the sign. In plain words, she was now in the second degree of Gemini, and there fell into _a cave_, in which she remained for _a natural day_, that is (taking her year to be of nearly the same length as the earth's year) for the term during which she remained within that second degree. Venus remained in the cave as long as she was in that second degree of the sign; from the moment of entering it to the moment of leaving it.

A _natural day_ means a period of twenty-four hours, as distinguished from the _artificial day_, which was the old technical name for the time from sunrise to sunset. This Chaucer says plainly, in his Treatise on the Astrolabe, pt. ii. § 7, l. 12--'the _day natural_, that is to seyn 24 houris.'

We thus see that the _cave_ here mentioned is a name for the _second degree_ of the sign Gemini.

This being so, I have no doubt at all, that _cave_ is here merely a translation of the Latin technical astrological term _puteus_. In Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum Naturale, lib. xv. c. 42, I find:--'Et _in signis_ sunt quidam _gradus_, qui dicuntur _putei_; cum fuerit planeta in aliquo istorum, dicitur esse _in puteo_, vt 6 gradus Arietis, et 11, etc.' There are certain degrees in the signs called _putei_; and when a planet is in one of these, it is said to be _in puteo_; such degrees, in Aries, are the 6th, 11th, &c. Here, unfortunately, Vincent's information ceases; he refers us, however, to Alcabitius.

Alcabitius (usually Alchabitius), who should rather be called Abdel-Aziz, was an Arabian astrologer who lived towards the middle of the tenth century. His treatise on judicial astrology was translated into Latin by Johannes Hispalensis in the thirteenth century. This translation was printed at Venice, in quarto, in 1481, 1482, and 1502; see Didot, Nouv. Biograph. Universelle.

I found a copy of the edition of 1482 in the Cambridge University Library, entitled Libellus ysagogic_us_ abdilazi .i. serui gloriosi dei. q_ui_ d_icitu_r alchabiti_us_ ad magisteriu_m_ iudicior_um_ astror_um_; i_n_terpretat_us_ a ioa_n_ne hispale_n_si. At sign. a 7, back, I found the passage quoted above from Vincent, and a _full list_ of the _putei_. The _putei_ in the sign of Gemini are the degrees numbered 2, 12, 17, 26, 30. After this striking confirmation of my conjecture, I think no more need be said.

But I may add, that Chaucer expressly mentions 'Alkabucius' by name, and refers to him; Treat. on Astrolabe, i. 8. 9. The passage which he there quotes occurs in the same treatise, sign. a 1, back.

120. _Derk_, dark. I think it is sufficient to suppose that this word is used, in a purely astrological sense, to mean inauspicious; and the same is true of l. 122, where Venus remains under this sinister influence as long as she remained in the ill-omened second degree of Gemini. There is no need to suppose that the planet's light was really obscured.

129. The Fairfax MS. and some editions have the false reading _sterre_. As Mars was supposed to complete his orbit (360 degrees) in _two years_ (see note to l. 69), he would pass over one degree of it in about _two days_. Hence Mr. Brae's note upon this line, as printed in Furnivall's Trial Forewords, p. 121:--'The mention of _dayes two_ is so specific that it cannot but have a special meaning. Wherefore, either _sterre_ is a metonym for _degree_; or which is more probable, Chaucer's word was originally _steppe_ (_gradus_), and was miscopied _sterre_ by early scribes.' Here Mr. Brae was exceedingly near the right solution; we now see that _sterre_ was miswritten (not for _steppe_, but) for _steyre_, by the mere alteration of one letter. If the scribe was writing from dictation, the mistake was still more easily made, since _steyre_ and _sterre_ would sound very nearly alike, with the old pronunciation. As to _steyre_, it is the exact literal translation of Lat. _gradus_, which meant a degree or stair. Thus Minsheu's Dict. has:--'a _Staire_, Lat. _gradus_.' This difficulty, in fact, is entirely cleared up by accepting the reading of the majority of the MSS.

131. _He foloweth her_, i. e. the motions of Mars and Venus were in the same direction; neither of them had a 'retrograde' motion, but advanced along the signs in the direction of the sun's apparent motion.

133. _Brenning_, burning in the fire of the sun's heat.

137. 'Alas; that my orbit has so wide a compass'; because the orbit of Mars is so very much larger than that of Venus. Still larger was the orbit of Saturn; Kn. Tale, 1596 (A 2454). _Spere_ is sphere, orbit.

139. _Twelfte_, twelfth. The false reading _twelve_ arose from misreading the symbol '.xij.,' which was used as an abbreviation both for _twelfte_ and for _twelve_. See Furnivall, Trial Forewords, p. 88. As a fact, it was on the _12th day of April_ that the sun entered Taurus; see note to l. 81.

144. _Cylenius_, Mercury; as in l. 113. _Chevauche_, equestrian journey, ride. Used ludicrously to mean a feat of horsemanship in l. 50 of the Manciple's Prologue. The closely related word _chivachye_, in Prologue to C. T. 85, means a military (equestrian) expedition. In the present case it simply means 'swift course,' with reference to the rapid movement of Mercury, which completes its orbit in about 88 days. Thus the line means--'Mercury, advancing in his swift course.'

145. _Fro Venus valance._ This is the most difficult expression in the poem, but I explain it by reading _fallance_, which of course is only a _guess_. I must now give my reasons, as every preceding commentator has given up the passage as hopeless.

The readings of the MSS. all point back to a form _valance_ (as in Ar.) or _valauns_ (as in Tn.); whence the other readings, such as _Valaunses_, _valanus_ (for _valauns_), _balance_, _balaunce_, are all deduced, by easy corruptions. But, as no assignable sense has been found for _valance_, I can only suppose that it is an error for _falance_ or _fallance_. I know of no instance of its use in English, but Godefroy gives examples of _fallance_ and _falence_ in O. French, though the usual spelling is _faillance_. The change from _faillance_ or _fallance_ to _vallance_ or _valance_ would easily be made by scribes, from the alliterative influence of the initial letter of the preceding word _Venus_. Moreover, we have _v_ for _f_ in E. _vixen_ (for _fixen_), and in Southern English generally. Even in a Chaucer MS., the curious spelling _vigour_ or _vigur_ for _figure_ occurs over and over again; viz. in the Cambridge MS. (Dd. 3. 53) of Chaucer's 'Astrolabe.'

The sense of _fallance_ or _faillance_ is failure, defection. Cotgrave gives us: 'Faillance, f. a defection, failing, decaying.' The numerous examples in Godefroy shew that it was once a common word. It represents a Lat. fem. *_fallentia_.

I hold it to be the exact literal translation into French of the Lat. technical (astrological) term _detrimentum_. In my edition of Chaucer's Astrolabe (E. E. T. S.), p. lxvii., I explained that every planet had either one or two _mansions_, and one or two _detrimenta_. The _detrimentum_ is the sign of the Zodiac opposite to the planet's mansion. The mansions of Venus were Taurus and Libra (see note to l. 54); and her _detrimenta_ were Scorpio and Aries. The latter is here intended; so that, after all, this apparently mysterious term 'Venus valance' is nothing but another name for _the sign Aries_, which, _from other considerations_, must necessarily be here intended.

If the correction of _valance_ to _fallance_ be disallowed, I should plead that _valance_ might be short for _avalance_ (mod. E. _avalanche_, literally _descent_), just as every reader of our old literature knows that _vale_ is a common form instead of _avale_, to descend or lower, being the verb from which _avalance_ is derived. This _valance_ (= _avalance_) is a fair translation of the Lat. _occasus_, which was an alternative name for the sign called _detrimentum_; see my edition of the Astrolabe, as above. The result would then be just the same as before, and would bring us back to _the sign of Aries_ again.

But we know that Aries is meant, from purely astronomical considerations. For the planet Mercury is always so near the sun that it can never have a greater elongation, or angular distance, from it than 29°, which is just a little less than the length of a sign, which was 30°. But, the sun being (as said) in the 1st degree of Taurus on the 12th of April, it is quite certain that Mercury was either in Taurus or in Aries. Again, as there was no mention of Mercury being in Taurus when Mars and Venus were there and were undisturbed (see note to l. 114), we can only infer that Mercury was then _in Aries_.

Moreover, he continued his swift course, always approaching and tending to overtake the slower bodies that preceded him, viz. the Sun, Mars, and Venus. At last, he got so near that he was able to 'see' or get a glimpse of his mansion Gemini, which was not so very far ahead of him. This I take to mean that he was swiftly approaching the end of Aries.

We can now tell the exact position of all the bodies on the 14th of April, two days after the sun had burst into Taurus, where he had found Mars and Venus at no great distance apart. By that time, Venus was in the second degree of Gemini, Mars was left behind in Taurus, the sun was in the third degree of Taurus, and Mercury near the end of Aries, sufficiently near to Venus to salute and cheer her with a kindly and favourable aspect.

I will add that whilst the whole of the sign of Aries was called the _occasus_ or _detrimentum_ of Venus, it is somewhat curious that the last ten degrees of Aries (degrees 20 to 30) were called _the face of Venus_. Chaucer uses this astrological term _face_ elsewhere with reference to the _first_ ten degrees of Aries, which was 'the face of Mars' (see my note to Squieres Tale, F 47). Hence another possible reading is _Fro Venus facë mighte_, &c.

In any case, I think we are quite sufficiently near to Chaucer's meaning; especially as he is, after all, only speaking in allegory, and there is no need to strain his words to suit rigid astronomical calculations.

I only give this as a guess, for what it is worth; I should not care to defend it.

150. _Remembreth me_, comes to my memory; the nom. case being the preceding part of the sentence. _Me_, by the way, refers to the extraordinary bird who is made responsible for the whole poem, with the sole exception of lines 13 and 14, and half of l. 15. The bird tells us he will say and sing the Complaint of Mars, and afterwards take his leave.

155. We now come to the part of the poem which exhibits great metrical skill. In order to shew the riming more clearly, I have 'set back' the 3rd, 6th, and 7th lines of each stanza. Each stanza exhibits the order of rimes _a a b a a b b c c_; i. e. the first rime belongs to lines 1, 2, 4, 5; the second rime to lines 3, 6, 7; and the last rime to lines 8 and 9. The first stanza forms an Introduction or Proem. The rest form five Terns, or sets of three stanzas, as has been already said. Each Tern has its own subject, quite separate from the rest.

The first line can only be scanned by reading _The ordre_ as _Th'ordr'_ (monosyllable).

164. The first Tern expresses his Devotion to his love's service. I gave my love, he says, to her for ever; She is the very source of all beauty; and now I will never leave her, but will die in her service.

170. That is--who ever approaches her, but obtains from her no favour, loses all joy in love, and only feels its bitterness.

176. _Men_, people; _men hit selle_ = it is sold. This parenthetical ejaculation is an echo to that in l. 168.

185. _Hette_, promised (incorrectly). The M.E. _haten_, to promise, is a complicated verb; see the excellent examples in Mätzner's Dictionary, and in Grein's A. S. Dict., s. v. _hátan_. It had two past tenses; the first _heet_, a strong form, meaning 'promised, commanded,' answering to A.S. _héht_ and Goth. _haihait_; and the second _hette_, _hatte_, a weak form, meaning 'I was named,' answering to A. S. _hátte_ (used both as a present and a past tense without change of form) and to the Goth. present passive _haitada_. Chaucer has here used the intransitive weak past tense with the sense of the transitive strong one; just as he uses _lernen_ with the sense of 'teach.' The confusion was easy and common.

190. _But grace be_, unless favour be shewn me. _See_, shall see; present as future.

191. Tern 2. Shall I complain to my lady? Not so; for she is in distress herself. Lovers may be as true as new metal, and yet suffer. To return: my lady is in distress, and I ought to mourn for her, even though I knew no other sorrow.

197. 'But if _she_ were safe, it would not matter about _me_.'

205. 'They might readily leave their head as a pledge,' i. e. might devote themselves to death.

206. _Horowe_, foul, unclean, filthy, scandalous; pl. of _horow_, an adj. formed from the A.S. sb. _horu_ (gen. _horwes_). filth; cf. A.S. _horweht_, filthy, from the same stem _horw-_. The M.E. adj. also takes the form _hori_, _hory_, from A.S. _horig_, an adj. formed from the closely related A.S. sb. _horh_, _horg_, filth. As the M.E. adj. is not common, I give some examples (from Mätzner). 'Hit nis bote a _hori_ felle,' it is only a dirty skin; Early Eng. Poems, ed. Furnivall, p. 19, l. 13. 'Thy saule ... thorugh fulthe of synne Sone is mad wel _hory_ wythinne,' thy soul, by filth of sin, is soon made very foul within; Reliquiæ Antiquæ, ii. 243. 'Eny uncleene, whos touchynge is _hoory_,' any unclean person, whose touch is defiling; Wyclif, Levit. xxii. 5. 'Still used in Devon, pronounced _horry_'; Halliwell.

218. Tern 3. Why did the Creator institute love? The bliss of lovers is so unstable, that in every case lovers have more woes than the moon has changes. Many a fish is mad after the bait; but when he is hooked, he finds his penance, even though the line should break.

219. _Love other companye_, love or companionship.

229. Read _putt'th_; as a monosyllable.

245. Tern 4. The brooch of Thebes had this property, that every one who saw it desired to possess it; when he possessed it, he was haunted with constant dread; and when he lost it, he had a double sorrow in thinking that it was gone. This was due, however, not to the brooch itself, but to the cunning of the maker, who had contrived that all who possessed it should suffer. In the same way, my lady was as the brooch; yet it was not she who caused me wo, but it was He who endowed her with beauty.

The story referred to occurs in the account of the war between Eteocles and Polynices for the possession of Thebes, as related in the Thebaïd of Statius.

In the second book of that poem, the story relates the marriage of Polynices and Tydeus to the two daughters of Adrastus, king of Argos. The marriage ceremony was marred by inauspicious omens, which was attributed to the fact that Argia, who was wedded to Polynices, wore at the wedding a magic bracelet (here called a brooch) which had belonged to Harmonia, _a daughter of Mars and Venus_, and wife of Cadmus. This ornament had been made by Vulcan, in order to bring an evil fate upon Harmonia, to whom it was first given, and upon all women who coveted it or wore it. See the whole story in Statius, Thebais, ii. 265; or in Lewis's translation of Statius, ii. 313.

246. It must be remembered that great and magical virtues were attributed to precious stones and gems. See further in the note to Ho. of Fame, l. 1352.

259. _Enfortuned hit so_, endued it with such virtues. 'He that wrought it' was Vulcan; see note to l. 245.

262. _Covetour_, the one who coveted it. _Nyce_, foolish.

270. 'For my death I blame Him, and my own folly for being so ambitious.'

272. Tern 5. I appeal for sympathy, first to the knights who say that I, Mars, am their patron; secondly, to the ladies who should compassionate Venus their empress; lastly, to all lovers who should sympathise with Venus, who was always so ready to aid them.

273. _Of my divisioun_, born under my influence. The same word is used in the same way in Kn. Tale, 1166 (A 2024). Of course Mars was the special patron of martial knights.

280. 'That ye lament for my sorrow.'

293. _Compleyneth hir_, lament for her.

298. 'Therefore display, on her behalf, some kindly feeling.'

The Complaint of Venus which formerly used to be printed as a part of this poem, is really a distinct piece. See Sect. XVIII.

V. THE PARLEMENT OF FOULES.

TITLE. Gg. _has_ Here begynyth the p_ar_lement of Foulys; Harl. _has_ The Parlament of Foules; Tn. _has_ The Parlement of Briddis; Trin. _has_ Here foloweth the parlement of Byrdes reducyd to loue, &c. We also find, at the end of the poem, such notes as these: Gg. Explicit parliamentum Auium in die sancti Valentini tentum secundum Galfridum Chaucer; Ff. Explicit parliamentum Auium; Tn. Explicit tractatus de Congregacione volucrum die Sancti Valentini; and in MS. Arch. Seld. B. 24--Here endis the parliament of foulis Quod Galfride Chaucere.

1. Part of the first aphorism of Hippocrates is--[Greek: Ho bios brachus, hê de technê makrê]. This is often quoted in the Latin form--Ars longa, uita brevis. Longfellow, in his Psalm of Life, well renders it by--'Art is long, but life is fleeting.'

2. Several MSS. transpose _hard_ and _sharp_; it is of small consequence.

3. _Slit_, the contracted form of _slideth_, i. e. passes away; cf. 'it _slit_ awey so faste,' Can. Yeom. Tale; C. T., Group G, l. 682. The false reading _flit_ arose from mistaking a long _s_ for _f_.

4. _By_, with respect to. In l. 7, _wher_ = whether.

8. Evidently this disclaimer is a pretended one; the preceding stanza and ll. 13, 14 contradict it. So does l. 160. In this stanza we have an early example of Chaucer's humour, of which there are several instances below, as e. g. in ll. 567-570, 589, 599, 610, &c. Cf. Troilus, i. 15, where Chaucer again says he is no lover himself, but only serves Love's servants.

15. Cf. Prol. to Legend of Good Women, 29-39.

22. _Men_ is here a weakened form of _man_, and is used as a singular sb., with the same force as the F. _on_ or the G. _man_. Hence the vb. _seith_ is in the singular. This construction is extremely common in Middle English. In ll. 23 and 25 _com'th_ is monosyllabic.

31. _Tullius_, i. e. M. Tullius Cicero, who wrote a piece entitled Somnium Scipionis, which originally formed part of the sixth book of the De Republica. Warton (Hist. Eng. Poetry, ed. Hazlitt. iii. 65) remarks:--'Had this composition descended to posterity among Tully's six books _De Republica_, to the last of which it originally belonged, perhaps it would have been overlooked and neglected. But being preserved and illustrated with a prolix commentary by Macrobius, it quickly attracted the attention of readers who were fond of the marvellous, and with whom Macrobius was a more admired classic than Tully. It was printed [at Venice] subjoined to Tully's _Offices_, in [1470]. It was translated into Greek by Maximus Planudes, and is frequently [i. e. four times] quoted by Chaucer.... Nor is it improbable that not only the form, but the first idea, of Dante's _Inferno_ was suggested by this apologue.' The other allusions to it in Chaucer are in the Nonnes Prestes Tale, B 4314; Book of the Duchesse, 284; Ho. of Fame, 514. See also l. 111 below, where _Macrobie_ is expressly mentioned. In the E. version of the Romance of the Rose, l. 7, he is called _Macrobes_.

Aurelius Theodosius Macrobius, about A.D. 400, not only preserved for us Cicero's Somnium Scipionis, but wrote a long commentary on it in two books, and a work called Saturnalia in seven books. The commentary is not very helpful, and discusses collateral questions rather than the dream itself.

32. Chaucer's MS. copy was, it appears, divided into seven chapters. A printed copy now before me is divided into nine chapters. As given in an edition of Macrobius printed in 1670, it is undivided. The treatise speaks, as Chaucer says, of heaven, hell, and earth, and men's souls. It recalls the tale of Er, in Plato's Republic, bk. x.

35. _The grete_, the substance. Accordingly, in the next seven stanzas, we have a fair summary of the general contents of the Somnium Scipionis. I quote below such passages as approach most closely to Chaucer's text.

36. _Scipioun_, i. e. P. Cornelius Scipio Æmilianus Africanus Minor, the hero of the third Punic War. He went to Africa in B.C. 150 to meet Masinissa, King of Numidia, who had received many favours from Scipio Africanus Major in return for his fidelity to the Romans. Hence Masinissa received the younger Africanus joyfully, and so much was said about the elder Africanus that the younger one dreamt about him after the protracted conversation was over, and all had retired to rest. The younger Africanus was the grandson, by adoption, of the elder.

'Cum in Africam venissem, ... nihil mihi potius fuit, quam ut Masinissam convenirem ... Ad quem ut veni, complexus me senex collacrymavit ... multisque verbis ... habitis, ille nobis consumptus est dies ... me ... somnus complexus est ... mihi ... Africanus se ostendit'; &c.

43. 'Ostendebat autem Carthaginem de excelso, et pleno stellarum ... loco ... tu eris unus, in quo nitatur civitatis salus, &c.... Omnibus qui patriam conservârint, adiuverint, auxerint, certum esse in cælo definitum locum, ubi beati ævo sempiterno fruantur.'

50. 'Quæsivi tamen, viveretne ipse et Paullus pater et alii, quos nos exstinctos arbitraremur. Immo vero, inquit, ii vivunt ... vestra vero, quæ dicitur vita, mors est ... corpore laxati ilium incolunt locum, quem vides. Erat autem is splendissimo candore inter flammas circus elucens, quem vos, ut a Graiis accepistis, _orbem lacteum_ nuncupatis.'

56. _Galaxye_, milky way; see note to Ho. Fame, 936.

57. 'Stellarum autem globi terræ magnitudinem facile vincebant. Iam ipsa terra ita mihi parva visa est, &c.... Novem tibi orbibus, vel potius globis, connexa sunt omnia ... Hic, inquam, quis est, qui complet aures meas, tantus et tam dulcis sonus? ... impulsu et motu ipsorum orbium conficitur.'

59. The 'nine spheres' are the spheres of the seven planets (Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn), that of the fixed stars, and the _primum mobile_; see notes to the Treatise on the Astrolabe, part 1, § 17, in vol. iii.

61. This is an allusion to the so-called 'harmony of the spheres.' Chaucer makes a mistake in attributing this harmony to _all_ of the nine spheres. Cicero plainly excludes the _primum mobile_, and says that, of the remaining eight spheres, two sound alike, so that there are but _seven_ tones made by their revolution. 'Ille autem _octo_ cursus, in quibus _eadem vis est duorum, septem_ efficiunt distinctos intervallis sonos.' He proceeds to notice the peculiar excellence of the number _seven_. By the two that sounded alike, the spheres of Saturn and the fixed stars must be meant; in fact, it is usual to ignore the sphere of fixed stars, and consider only those of the seven planets. Macrobius, in his Commentary, lib. ii. c. 4, quite misses this point, and clumsily gives the same note to Venus and Mercury. Each planetary sphere, in its revolution, gives out a different note of the gamut, so that all the notes of the gamut are sounded; and the result is, that the 'music of the spheres' cannot be heard at all, just as the dwellers by the cataract on the Nile fail to hear the sound of its fall. 'Hoc sonitu oppletæ aures hominum obsurduerunt; nec est ullus hebetior sonus in vobis; sicut ubi Nilus ad illa, quæ Catadupa [Greek: katadoupoi] nominantur, præcipitat ex altissimis montibus, ea gens, quæ illum locum accolit, _propter magnitudinem sonitus_, sensu audiendi caret.' Macrobius tries to explain it all in his Commentary, lib. ii. c. 1-4. The fable arose from a supposed necessary connection between the number of the planets and the number of musical notes in the scale. It breaks down when we know that the number of the planets is _more_ than seven. Moreover, modern astronomy has exploded the singular notion of revolving hollow concentric spheres, to the surface of which each planet was immoveably nailed. These 'spheres' have disappeared, and their music with them, except in poetry.

Shakespeare so extends the old fable as to give a voice to every star. See Merch. of Venice, v. 60:--

'There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st, But in his motion like an angel sings,' &c.

The notion of the music of the spheres was attributed to Pythagoras. It is denied by Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum Naturale, lib. xv. c. 32--Falsa opinio de concentu cæli. Vincent puts the old idea clearly--'Feruntur septem planetæ, et hi septem orbes (vt dicitur) cum dulcissima harmonia mouentur, ac suauissimi concentus eorum circumitione efficiuntur. Qui sonus ad aures nostras ideo non peruenit, quia vltra ærem fit':--a sufficient reason. He attributes the notion to the Pythagoreans and the Jews, and notes the use of the phrase 'concentum cæli' in Job xxxviii. 37, where our version has 'the bottles of heaven,' which the Revised Version retains. Cf. also--'Cum me laudarent simul astra matutina'; Job xxxviii. 7.

Near the end of Chaucer's Troilus, v. 1811, we have the singular passage:--

'And ther he saugh with ful avysement The erratik sterres, herkening armonye With sounes fulle of hevenish melodye'; &c.

This passage, by the way, is a translation from Boccaccio, Teseide, xi. 1. Cf. Rom. de la Rose, 17151-5.

See also Longfellow's poem on the Occultation of Orion, where the poet (heretically but sensibly) gives the _lowest_ note to Saturn, and the _highest_ to the Moon; whereas Macrobius says the contrary; lib. ii. c. 4.

A. Neckam (De Naturis Rerum, lib. i. c. 15) seems to say that the sound of an eighth sphere is required to make up the octave.

64. 'Sentio, inquit, te sedem etiam nunc hominum ac domum contemplari: quæ si tibi parva, ut est, ita videtur, hæc cælestia semper spectato; illa humana contemnito.... Cum autem ad idem, unde semel profecta sunt, cuncta astra redierint, eandemque totius anni descriptionem longis intervallis retulerint, tum ille vere vertens _annus_ appellari potest.... Sermo autem omnis ille ... obruitur hominum interitu, et oblivione posteritatis exstinguitur.'

The great or mundane year, according to Macrobius, Comment, lib. 2. c. 11, contained 15,000 common years. In the Roman de la Rose, l. 17,018, Jeun de Meun makes it 36,000 years long; and in the Complaint of Scotland, ed. Murray, p. 33, it is said, on the authority of Socrates, to extend to 37,000 years. It is not worth discussion.

71. 'Ego vero, inquam, o Africane, siquidem bene mentis de patria quasi limes ad cæli aditum patet,' &c. 'Et ille, Tu vero enitere, et sic habeto, non esse te mortalem, sed corpus hoc.... Hanc [naturam] tu exerce in optimis rebus; sunt autem optimæ curæ de salute patriæ: quibus agitatus et exercitatus animus velocius in hanc sedem et domum suam pervolabit.'

78. 'Nam eorum animi, qui se corporis voluptatibus dediderunt,... corporibus elapsi circum terram ipsam volutantur; nec hunc in locum, nisi multis exagitati sæculis, revertuntur.' We have here the idea of purgatory; compare Vergil, Æn. vi.

80. _Whirle aboute_, copied from _volutantur_ in Cicero; see last note. It is remarkable that Dante has copied the same passage, and has the word _voltando_; Inf. v. 31-8. Cf. 'blown with restless violence round about The pendent world'; Meas. for Meas. iii. 1. 125; and 'The sport of winds'; Milton, P.L. iii. 493.

85. Imitated from Dante, Inf. ii. 1-3 (with which cf. Æneid, ix. 224). Cary's translation has--

'Now was the day departing, and the air, Imbrowned with shadows, from their toils released All animals on earth.'

90. 'I had what I did not want,' i. e. care and heaviness. 'And I had not what I wanted,' i. e. my desires. Not a personal reference, but borrowed from Boethius, bk. iii. pr. 3; see vol. ii. p. 57, l. 24. Moreover, the same idea is repeated, but in clearer language, in the Complaint to his Lady, ll. 47-49 (p. 361); and again, in the Complaint to Pity, ll. 99-104 (p. 276).

99. Chaucer discusses dreams elsewhere; see Ho. of Fame, 1-52; Nonne Prestes Tale, 76-336; Troil. v. 358. Macrobius, Comment. in Somn. Scipionis, lib. i. c. 3, distinguishes five kinds of dreams, giving the name [Greek: enupnion] to the kind of which Chaucer here speaks. 'Est enim [Greek: enupnion] quotiens oppressi animi corporisve sive fortunæ, qualis vigilantem fatigaverat, talem se ingerit dormienti: animi, _si amator deliciis suis aut fruentem se videat_ aut carentem: ... corporis, si ... esuriens cibum aut _potum sitiens_ desiderare, quærere, vel etiam _invenisse videatur_,' &c. But the real original of this stanza (as shewn by Prof. Lounsbury) is to be found in Claudian, In Sextum Consulatum Honorii Augusti Præfatio, ll. 3-10.

'Venator defessa toro cum membra reponit, Mens tamen ad silvas et sua lustra redit. Iudicibus lites, aurigæ somnia currus, Vanaque nocturnis meta cavetur equis. Furto gaudet amans; permutat navita merces; Et vigil elapsas quærit avarus opes. Blandaque largitur frustra sitientibus ægris Irriguus gelido pocula fonte sopor.'

Cf. Vincent of Beauvais, lib. xxvi. c. 62 and c. 63; Batman upon Bartholome, lib. vi. c. 27, ed. 1582, fol. 84. And see the famous passage in Romeo and Juliet, i. 4. 53; especially ll. 70-88. The Roman de la Rose begins with remarks concerning dreams; and again, at l. 18564, there is a second passage on the same subject, with a reference to Scipio, and a remark about dreaming of things that occupy the mind (l. 18601).

109. Compare Dante, Inf. i. 83; which Gary translates--

'May it avail me, that I long with zeal Have sought thy volume, and with love immense Have conn'd it o'er. My master thou, and guide!'

111. 'Of which Macrobius recked (thought) not a little.' In fact, Macrobius concludes his commentary with the words--'Vere igitur pronunciandum est nihil hoc opere perfectius, quo universa philosophiæ continetur integritas.'

113. _Cithérea_, Cytherea, i. e. Venus; see Kn. Tale, 1357 (A 2215).

114. In the Roman de la Rose, 15980, Venus speaks of her bow (F. _arc_) and her firebrand or torch (_brandon_). Cf. Merch. Tale, E 1777.

117. 'As surely as I saw thee in the north-north-west.' He here refers to the planet Venus. As this planet is never more than 47° from the sun, the sun must have been visible to the north of the west point at sunset; i. e. the poem must have been written in the summer-time. The same seems to be indicated by l. 21 (_the longe day_), and still more clearly by ll. 85-88; Chaucer would hardly have gone to bed at sunset in the winter-time. It is true that he dreams about Saint Valentine's day, but that is quite another matter. Curiously enough, the landscape seen in his dream is quite a summer landscape; see ll. 172, 184-210.

120. _African_, Africanus; as above.

122. _Grene stone_, mossy or moss-covered stone; an expression copied by Lydgate, Complaint of the Black Knight, l. 42.

Prof. Hales, in the Gent. Magazine, April, 1882, has an interesting article on 'Chaucer at Woodstock.' He shews that there was a park there, surrounded by a stone wall; and that Edward III. often resided at Woodstock, where the Black Prince was born. It is possible that Chaucer was thinking of Woodstock when writing the present passage. See the account of Woodstock Palace in Abbeys, Castles, &c. by J. Timbs; vol. ii. But Dr. Köppel has shewn (Anglia, xiv. 234) that Chaucer here partly follows Boccaccio's poem, Amorosa Visione, ii. 1-35, where we find 'un muro antico.' So also the Roman de la Rose has an allusion to Scipio's dream, and the following lines (129-131, p. 99, above):--

'Quant j'oi ung poi avant alé Si vi ung _vergier_ grant et lé, Tot clos d'ung _haut mur_ bataillié;' &c.

123. _Y-wroght-e_; the final _-e_ here denotes the plural form.

125. _On eyther halfe_, on either side; to right and left.

127. Imitated from Dante, Inf. iii. 1; Cary's translation has--

'Through me you pass into the city of woe:... Such characters in colour dim, I mark'd Over a portal's lofty arch inscribed.'

See also l. 134. The gate is the entrance into Love, which is to some a blessing, and to some a curse; see ll. 158, 159. Thus _men gon_ is, practically, equivalent to 'some men go'; and so in l. 134. The idea is utterly different from that of the _two_ gates in Vergil, Æn. vi. 893. The successful lover finds 'the well of Favour,' l. 129. The unsuccessful one encounters the deadly wounds caused by the spear (or dart) guided to his heart by Disdain and Power-to-harm (Daunger); for him, the opened garden bears no fruit, and the alluring stream leads him only to a fatal weir, wherein imprisoned fish are left lying dry.

Cf. 'As why this fish, and nought that, comth to were'; Troil. iii. 35.

140. 'Avoiding it is the only remedy.' This is only another form of a proverb which also occurs as 'Well fights he who well flies.' See Proverbs of Hending (in Spec. of English), l. 77; Owl and Nightingale, l. 176. Sir T. Wiat has--'The first eschue is remedy alone'; Spec. of Eng. Part III. p. 235. Probably from the Roman de la Rose, l. 16818--'Sol foïr en est medicine.' (O.F. _foir_ = Lat. _fugere_.)

141. The alluring message (ll. 127-133) was written in gold; the forbidding one (ll. 134-140) in black; see Anglia, xiv. 235.

142. _A stounde_, for a while (rightly); the reading _astonied_ is to be rejected. The attitude is one of deliberation.

143. _That oon_, the one, the latter. In l. 145, it means the former.

148. An adamant was, originally, a diamond; then the name was transferred to the loadstone; lastly, the diamond was credited with the properties of the loadstone. Hence we find, at the end of ch. 14 of Mandeville's Travels, this remarkable experiment:--'Men taken the Ademand, that is the Schipmannes Ston, that drawethe the Nedle to him, and men leyn the Dyamand upon the Ademand, and leyn the Nedle before the Ademand; and yif the Dyamand be good and vertuous, the Ademand drawethe not the Nedle to him, whils the Dyamand is there present.' Cf. A. Neckam, De Naturis Rerum, lib. ii. c. 98, where the story is told of an iron statue of Mahomet, which, being surrounded by adamants (_lapides adamantini_), hangs suspended in the air. The modern simile is that of a donkey between two bundles of hay. For _adamaunt_, see Rom. of the Rose, 1182 (p. 142).

156. _Errour_, doubt; see l. 146 above.

158. 'This writing is not at all meant to apply to thee.'

159. _Servant_ was, so to speak, the old technical term for a lover; cf. _serveth_, Kn. Tale, 2220, 2228 (A 3078, 3086); and _servant_ in the same, 956 (A 1814); and in Two Gent, of Verona, ii. 1. 106, 114, 140, &c.

163. I. e. 'at any rate you can come and look on.'

169. Imitated from Dante, Inf. iii. 19. Cary has--

'And when his hand he had stretch'd forth To mine, with pleasant looks, whence I was cheer'd, Into that secret place he led me on.'

171. Cf. 'So Iolyf, nor so wel bigo'; Rom. Rose, 693.

176. Imitated by Spenser, F. Q. i. 1. 8, 9. Chaucer's list of trees was suggested by a passage in the Teseide, xi. 22-24; but he extended his list by help of one in the Roman de la Rose, 1338-1368; especially ll. 1363-8, as follows (see p. 151, above)--

'Et d'_oliviers_ et de _cipres_, Dont il n'a gaires ici pres; _Ormes_ y ot branchus et gros, Et avec ce charmes et fos, Codres droites, _trembles_ et _chesnes_, Erables haus, _sapins_ et _fresnes_.'

Here _ormes_ are elms; _charmes_, horn-beams; _fos_, beeches; _codres_, hasels; _trembles_, aspens; _chesnes_, oaks; _erables_, maples; _sapins_, firs; _fresnes_, ashes. Hence this list contains seven kinds of trees out of Chaucer's thirteen. See also the list of 21 trees in Kn. Tale, A 2921. Spenser has--

'The builder oake, sole king of forrests all.'

This tree-list is, in fact, a great curiosity. It was started by Ovid, Metam. x. 90; after whom, it appears in Seneca, Oedipus, 532; in Lucan, Phars. iii. 440; in Statius, Thebaid, vi. 98; and in Claudian, De Raptu Proserpinae, ii. 107. Statius was followed by Boccaccio, Tes. xi. 22-24; Rom. de la Rose, 1361; Chaucer (twice); Tasso, Gier. Lib. iii. 73; and Spenser. Cf. Vergil, Æn. vi. 179.

I here quote several notes from Bell's Chaucer, marked 'Bell.'

'The reader will observe the life and spirit which the personification of the several trees gives to this catalogue. It is common in French, even in prose; as, for instance, the weeping willow is _le saule pleureur_, the weeper willow. The oak is called _builder_, because no other wood was used in building in this country in the middle ages, as may be seen in our old churches and farm-houses, in which the stairs are often made of solid blocks of the finest oak.'--Bell.

177. 'The elm is called _piler_, perhaps because it is planted as a pillar of support to the vine [cf. Spenser's 'vine-prop elme']; and _cofre unto careyne_ because coffins for carrion or corpses were [and are] usually made of elm.'--Bell. In fact, Ovid has 'amictae uitibus ulmi,' Met. x. 100; Claudian has 'pampinus induit ulmos'; and Boccaccio--'E _l'olmo_, che di viti s'innamora'; Tes. xi. 24.

178. _Piper_, suitable for pipes or horns. 'The box, being a hard, fine-grained wood, was used for making pipes or horns, as in the Nonne Prestes Tale, B 4588--"Of bras they broghten bemes [trumpets] and of box."'--Bell. Boxwood is still used for flutes and flageolets.

_Holm to whippes lasshe_; 'the holm used for making handles for whip-lashes.'--Bell. Spenser calls it 'The carver holm,' i. e. the holm suitable for carving. It is the holly (A. S. _holegn_), not the holm-oak.

179. _The sayling firr_; this 'alludes to the ship's masts and spars being made of fir.'--Bell. 'Apta fretis abies'; Claudian, De Raptu Proserpinae, ii. 107. Spenser substitutes for it 'The sailing pine.' _The cipres_; 'tumulos tectura cupressus,' in Claudian.

180. _The sheter ew._ 'The material of our [ancient] national weapon, the bow, was yew. It is said that the old yews which are found in country churchyards were planted in order to supply the yeomanry with bows.'--Bell. Spenser has--'The eugh, obedient to the benders will.'

'_The asp_ is the aspen, or black poplar, of which shafts or arrows were made.'--Bell. Spenser has--'The aspine good for staves'; and 'The birch for shaftes.' See Ascham's Toxophilus, ed. Arber, p. 126.

181. The olive is the emblem of peace; and the palm, of victory. Boccaccio has--'e d'ogni vincitore Premio la palma'; Tes. xi. 24; from Ovid--'uictoris praemia palmae'; Met. x. 102.

182. 'The laurel (used) for divination,' or 'to divine with.' 'Venturi praescia laurus'; Claudian, de Raptu Proserpinae, ii. 109. It was 'sacred to Apollo; and its branches were the decoration of poets, and of the flamens. The leaves, when eaten, were said to impart the power of prophesying; Tibull. 2. 5. 63; Juvenal, 7. 19.'--Lewis and Short's Lat. Dict., s.v. _laurus_.

183. In a note to Cant. Tales, l. 1920, Tyrwhitt says--'Chaucer has [here] taken very little from Boccace, as he had already inserted a very close imitation of this part of the Teseide in his Assemblee of Foules, from verse 183 to verse 287.' In fact, eleven stanzas (183-259) correspond to Boccaccio's Teseide, Canto vii. st. 51-60; the next three stanzas (260-280) to the same, st. 63-66; and the next two (281-294) to the same, st. 61, 62. See the whole extract from Boccaccio, given and translated in the Introduction; see p. 68, above.

On the other hand, this passage in Chaucer is imitated in the Kingis Quair, st. 31-33, 152, 153; and ll. 680-9 are imitated in the same, st. 34.

The phrase 'blosmy bowes' occurs again in Troilus, ii. 821.

185. 'There where is always sufficient sweetness.'

214. According to Boccaccio, the name of Cupid's daughter was Voluttade (Pleasure). In the Roman de la Rose, ll. 913, 927 (Eng. version, 923, 939), Cupid has two bows and ten arrows.

216. Read: 'aft'r ás they shúld-e.' So Koch. Or read 'couch'd.'

217. See Ovid, Metam. i. 468-471.

218. This company answer to Boccaccio's Grace, Adornment, Affability, Courtesy, Arts (plural), Vain Delight, and Gentleness. Instead of Craft, Boccaccio speaks of 'the Arts that have power to make others perforce do folly, in their aspect much disfigured.' Hypocritical Cajolery seems to be intended. Cf. 'Charmes and Force'; Kn. Tale, 1069 (A 1927).

225. Ed. 1561 has _with a nice atire_, but wrongly; for compare Boccaccio. Cf. Kn. Tale, 1067-9 (A 1925-7).

226. Cf. 'Jest and youthful Jollity'; L'Allegro, 26.

228. _Messagerye_ and _Mede_ represents the sending of messages and giving of bribes. For this sense of _Mede_, see P. Plowman, C. iv. (or B. iii.). The _other three_ are Audacity (too forward Boldness), Glozings (Flatteries), and Pimps; all of bad reputation, and therefore not named. Boccaccio's words are--'il folle Ardire Con Lusinghe e Ruffiani.'

231. _Bras_, brass. Boccaccio has _rame_, i. e. copper, the metal which symbolised Venus; see Can. Yeom. Tale, G 829. In fact, this temple is the very temple of Venus which Chaucer again describes in the Knightes Tale, ll. 1060-1108 (A 1918); which see.

234. _Faire_, beautiful by nature; _gay_, adorned by art.

236. _Office_, duty; viz. to dance round.

237. These are the _dowves flikeringe_ in Kn. Tale, 1104 (A 1962).

243. _Sonde_, sand. 'Her [Patience's] chief virtue is quiet endurance in the most insecure and unhopeful circumstances'; Bell.

245. Answering to Boccaccio's 'Promesse ad arte,' i. e. 'artful Promises.'

246. Cf. Kn. Tale, 1062-1066, 1070 (A 1920-4, 1928).

255. 'The allusion is to the adventure of Priapus, related by Ovid in the Fasti, lib. i. 415'; Bell. The ass, by braying, put Priapus to confusion.

261. But in Kn. Tale, 1082 (A 1940), the porter of Venus is Idleness, as in the Rom. de la Rose, 636 (E. version, 643, at p. 120, above).

267. _Gilte_; cf. Leg. of Good Women, 230, 249, 1315.

272. _Valence_, explained by Urry as Valentia in Spain. But perhaps it may refer to Valence, near Lyons, in France; as Lyons is especially famous for the manufacture of silks, and there is a considerable trade in silks at Valence also. Probably 'thin silk' is here meant. Boccaccio merely speaks of 'texture so thin,' or, in the original 'Testa, tanto _sottil_,' which accounts for Chaucer's 'subtil.' Coles's Dict. (1684) gives: '_Valence,-tia_, a town in Spain, France, and Milan.' In the Unton Inventories, for the years 1596 and 1620, ed. J. G. Nichols, I find: 'one covering for a fielde bedde of green and _valens_,' p. 4; 'one standinge bedsteed with black velvett testern, black _vallance_ fringed and laced,' p. 21; 'one standinge bed with yellow damaske testern and _vallence_,' p. 21; '_vallance_ frindged and laced,' p. 22; 'one bedsteed and testern, and _valance_ of black velvett,' p. 22; 'one bedsteed ... with _vallance_ imbroydered with ash couler,' p. 23; 'one bedsteed, with ... _vallance_ of silke,' p. 29. It is the mod. E. _valance_, and became a general term for part of the hangings of a bed; Shakespeare has 'Valance of Venice gold,' spelt _Vallens_ in old editions, Tam. Shrew, ii. 1. 356. Spenser imitates this passage, F. Q. ii. 12.77.

275. Compare the well-known proverb--'sine Cerere et Libero friget Venus'; Terence, Eun. 2. 3. 4.

277. Read _Cipryde_, not _Cupide_; for in l. 279 we have _hir_ twice, once in the sense of 'their,' but secondly in the sense of 'her.' Boccaccio also here speaks of Venus, and refers to the apple which she won from Paris. _Cipride_ is regularly formed from the accus. of _Cypris_ (gen. _Cypridis_), an epithet of Venus due to her worship in Cyprus. Chaucer found the genitive _Cypridis_ in Alanus de Planctu Naturæ (ed. Wright, p. 438); see note to l. 298. Cf. 'He curseth Ceres, Bacus, and _Cipryde_'; Troilus, v. 208.

281. The best way of scansion is perhaps to read _despyt-e_ with final _e_, preserved by cæsura, and to pronounce _Diane_ as _Dián'_. So in Kn. Tale, 1193 (A 2051), which runs parallel with it.

282. 'Trophies of the conquest of Venus'; Bell.

283. _Maydens_; of these Callisto was one (so says Boccaccio); and this is Chaucer's _Calixte_ (l. 286), and his _Calístopee_ in the Kn. Tale, l. 1198 (A 2056). She was the daughter of the Arcadian king Lycaon, and mother of Arcas by Jupiter; changed by Juno, on account of jealousy, into a she-bear, and then raised to the heavens by Jupiter in the form of the constellation Helice or Ursa Major; see Ovid, Fasti, ii. 156; Metamorph. ii. 401; &c. (Lewis and Short).

286. _Athalaunte_, Atalanta. There were two of this name; the one here meant (see Boccaccio) was the one who was conquered in a foot-race by the lover who married her; see Ovid, Metam. x. 565. The other, who was beloved by Meleager, and hunted the Calydonian boar, is the one mentioned in the Kn. Tale, A 2070; see Ovid, Metam. viii. 318. It is clear that Chaucer thought, at the time, that they were one and the same.

287. _I wante_, I lack; i. e. I do not know. Boccaccio here mentions the mother of Parthenopæus, whose name Chaucer did not know. She was _the other_ Atalanta, the wife of Meleager; and Boccaccio did not name her, because he says 'that other proud one,' meaning the other proud one of the same name. See the story in Dryden; tr. of Ovid's Metamorphoses, bk. viii. Cf. Troilus, v. 1473.

288. Boccaccio only mentions 'the spouse of Ninus,' i. e. Semiramis, the great queen of Assyria, Thisbe and Pyramus, 'Hercules in the lap of Iole,' and Byblis. The rest Chaucer has added. Compare his lists in Prol. to Leg. of Good Women, 250, and in Cant. Tales, Group B, 63; see the note. See the Legend for the stories of Dido, Thisbe and Pyramus, and Cleopatra. Paris, Achilles, Troilus, and Helen are all mentioned in his Troilus; and Hercules in Cant. Ta., B 3285.

_Candace_ is mentioned again at p. 410, above, l. 16. There was a Candace, queen of Meroë, mentioned by Pliny, vi. 29; and there is the Candace in the Acts of the Apostles, viii. 27. But the Candace of fiction was an Indian queen, who contrived to get into her power no less a person than the world's conqueror, Alexander the Great. See King Alisaunder, ed. Weber, l. 7646, and the Wars of Alexander, ed. Skeat, l. 5314. It is probable that Candace was sometimes confused with the Canace of Ovid's Heroides, Epist. xi. (wholly translated by Dryden). In fact, we have sufficient proof of this confusion; for one MS. reads _Candace_ in the Legend of Good Women, 265, where five other MSS. have _Canace_ or _Canacee_. _Biblis_ is Byblis, who fell in love with Caunus, and, being repulsed, was changed into a fountain; Ovid, Metam. ix. 452.

_Tristram_ and _Isoude_ are the Tristran (or Tristan) and Ysolde (or Ysolt) of French medieval romance; cf. Ho. Fame, 1796, and Balade to Rosemounde, l. 20. Gower, in his Conf. Amantis, bk. 8 (ed. Pauli, iii. 359) includes Tristram and Bele Isolde in his long list of lovers, and gives an outline of the story in the same, bk. 6 (iii. 17). Ysolde was the wife of King Mark of Cornwall, and the mistress of her nephew Sir Tristram, of whom she became passionately enamoured from having drunk a philter by mistake; see Wheeler, Noted Names of Fiction, s. v. _Isolde_. The Romance of Sir Tristram was edited by Sir W. Scott, and has been re-edited by Kölbing, and by G. P. McNeill (for the Scottish Text Society). The name _Ysoude_ constantly misprinted _Ysonde_, even by the editors. Chaucer mentions her again; see Leg. G. Women, 254; Ho. of Fame, 1796.

292. _Silla_, Scylla; daughter of Nisus, of Megara, who, for love of Minos, cut off her father's hair, upon which his life depended, and was transformed in consequence into the bird Ciris; see Ovid, Metam. viii. 8. Another Scylla was changed by Circe into a sea-monster; Ovid, Metam. xiv. 52. Their stories shew that the former is meant; see Leg. of Good Women, 1910, and the note.

_Moder of Romulus_, Ilia (also called Rhæa Silvia), daughter of Numitor, dedicated to Vesta, and buried alive for breaking her vows; see Livy, bk. 1; Verg. Æn. i. 274.

The quotation from Boccaccio ends here.

296. _Of spak_, spake of; see l. 174.

298. This _quene_ is the goddess Nature (l. 303). We now come to a part of the poem where Chaucer makes considerable use of the work which he mentions in l. 316, viz. the Planctus Naturæ (Complaint of Nature) by Alanus de Insulis, or Alein Delille, a poet and divine of the 12th century. This work is printed in vol. ii. of T. Wright's edition of the Anglo-Latin Satirical Poets (Record Series), which also contains the poem called Anticlaudianus, by the same author. The description of the goddess is given at great length (pp. 431-456), and at last she declares her name to be _Natura_ (p. 456). This long description of Nature and of her vesture is a very singular one; indeed, all the fowls of the air are supposed to be depicted upon her wonderful garments (p. 437). Chaucer substitutes a brief description of his own, and represents the birds as real live ones, gathering around her; which is much more sensible. For the extracts from Alanus, see the Introduction, p. 74. As Prof. Morley says (Eng. Writers, v. 162)--'Alain describes Nature's changing robe as being in one of its forms so ethereal that it is like air, and the pictures on it seem to the eye a Council of Animals (_Animalium Concilium_). Upon which, beginning, as Chaucer does, with the Eagle and the Falcon, Alain proceeds with a long list of the birds painted on her transparent robe, that surround Nature as in a council, and attaches to each bird the most remarkable point in its character.' Professor Hales, in The Academy, Nov. 19, 1881, quoted the passages from Alanus which are here more or less imitated, and drew attention to the remarkable passage in Spenser's F. Q. bk. vii. c. 7. st. 5-10, where that poet quotes and copies Chaucer. Dunbar imitates Chaucer in his Thrissill and Rois, and describes Dame Nature as surrounded by beasts, birds, and flowers; see stanzas 10, 11, 18, 26, 27 of that poem.

The phrase 'Nature la déesse' occurs in Le Roman de la Rose, l. 16480.

309. Birds were supposed to choose their mates on St. Valentine's day (Feb. 14); and lovers thought they must follow their example, and then 'choose their loves.' Mr. Douce thinks the custom of choosing valentines was a survival from the Roman feast of the Lupercalia. See the articles in Brand, Pop. Antiq. i. 53; Chambers, Book of Days, i. 255; Alban Butler, Lives of Saints, Feb. 14; &c. The custom is alluded to by Lydgate, Shakespeare, Herrick, Pepys, and Gay; and in the Paston Letters, ed. Gairdner, iii. 169, is a letter written in Feb. 1477, where we find: 'And, cosyn, uppon Fryday is Sent Volentynes Day, and every brydde chesyth hym a make.' See also the Cuckoo and Nyghtingale, l. 80.

316. _Aleyn_, Alanus de Insulis; _Pleynt of Kynde_, Complaint of Nature, Lat. Planctus Naturæ; see note to l. 298. Chaucer refers us to Aleyn's description on account of its unmerciful length; it was hopeless to attempt even an epitome of it. Lydgate copies this passage; see Political, Religious and Love Poems, ed. Furnivall, p. 45, l. 17; or his Minor Poems, ed. Halliwell, p. 47.

323. _Foules of ravyne_, birds of prey. Chaucer's division of birds into birds of prey, birds that eat worms and insects, water-fowl, and birds that eat seeds, can hardly be his own. In Vincent of Beauvais, lib. xvi. c. 14, Aristotle is cited as to the food of birds:--'quædam comedunt _carnem_, quædam _grana_, quædam utrumque; ... quædam vero comedunt _vermes_, vt passer.... Vivunt et _ex fructu_ quædam aues, vt palumbi, et turtures. Quædam viuunt in ripis _aquarum lacuum_, et cibantur ex eis.'

330. _Royal_; because he is often called the king of birds, as in Dunbar's Thrissill and Rois, st. 18. Vincent of Beauvais, Spec. Nat., lib. xvi. c. 32, quotes from Iorath (_sic_):--'Aquila est auis magna _regalis_.' And Philip de Thaun, Bestiary, 991 (in Wright's Pop. Treatises, p. 109) says:--'Egle est rei de oisel.... En Latine raisun _clerveant_ le apellum, Ke le solail verat quant il plus cler serat.'

331. See the last note, where we learn that the eagle is called in Latin 'clear-seeing,' because 'he will look at the sun when it will be brightest.' This is explained at once by the remarkable etymology given by Isidore (cited by Vincent, as above), viz.:--'_Aqu_-ila ab _ac_umine oculorum vocata est.'

332. Pliny, Nat. Hist. bk. x. c. 3, enumerates six kinds of eagles, which Chaucer leaves us to find out; viz. Melænaetos, Pygargus, Morphnos, which Homer (Il. xxiv. 316) calls _perknos_, Percnopterus, Gnesios (the true or royal eagle), and Haliæetos (osprey). This explains the allusion in l. 333.

334. _Tyraunt._ This epithet was probably suggested by the original text in Alanus, viz.--'Illic ancipiter [accipiter], civitatis præfectus aeriæ, violenta _tyrannide_ a subditis redditus exposcebat.' Sir Thopas had a 'grey goshauk'; C. T., Group B, 1928.

337. See note on the _faucon peregrin_, Squi. Tale, 420 (F 428). 'Beautifully described as "distreining" the king's hand with its foot, because carried by persons of the highest rank'; Bell. Read, 'with 's feet.'

339. _Merlion_, merlin. 'The merlin is the smallest of the long-winged hawks, and was generally carried by ladies'; Bell.

342. From Alanus (see p. 74):--'Illic olor, sui funeris præco, mellitæ citherizationis organo vitæ prophetabat apocopam.' The same idea is mentioned by Vincent of Beauvais, Spec. Nat. lib. xvi. c. 50; Pliny says he believes the story to be false, Nat. Hist. lib. x. c. 23. See Compl. of Anelida, l. 346. 'The wild swan's death-hymn'; Tennyson, The Dying Swan. Cf. Ovid, Heroid. vii. 2.

343. From Alanus:--'Illic bubo, propheta miseriæ, psalmodias funereæ lamentationis præcinebat.' So in the Rom. de la Rose, 5999:--

'Li chahuan ... Prophetes de male aventure, Hideus messagier de dolor.'

Cf. Vergil, Æn. iv. 462; Ovid, Metam. v. 550, whence Chaucer's allusion in Troilus, v. 319; Shakespeare, Mid. Nt. D. v. 385.

344. _Geaunt_, giant. Alanus has:--'grus ... in _giganteæ_ quantitatis evadebat excessum.' Vincent (lib. xvi. c. 91) quotes from Isidore:--'Grues nomen de propria voce sumpserunt, tali enim sono susurrant.'

345. 'The chough, who is a thief.' From Alanus, who has:--'Illic monedula, _latrocinio_ laudabili reculas thesaurizans, innatæ avaritiæ argumenta monstrabat.' 'It was an old belief in Cornwall, according to Camden (Britannia, tr. by Holland, 1610, p. 189) that the chough was an incendiary, "and thievish besides; for oftentimes it secretly conveieth fire-sticks, setting their houses a-fire, and as closely filcheth and hideth little pieces of money."'--Prov. Names of Brit. Birds, by C. Swainson, p. 75. So also in Pliny, lib. x. c. 29, choughs are called thieves. Vincent of Beauvais quotes one of Isidore's delicious etymologies:--'Monedula dicitur quasi _mone-tula_, quæ cum aurum inuenit aufert et occultat'; i. e. from _monetam tollere_. 'The Jackdaw tribe is notoriously given to pilfering'; Stanley, Hist. of Birds, ed. 1880, p. 203.

_Iangling_, talkative; so Alanus:--'Illic pica... curam _logices_ perennabat insomnem.' So in Vincent--'pica loquax'--'pica garrula,' &c.; and in Pliny, lib. x. c. 42.

346. _Scorning_, 'applied to the jay, probably, because it follows and seems to mock at the owl, whenever the latter is so unfortunate as to be caught abroad in the daylight; for this reason, a trap for jays is always baited with a live owl'; Bell.

'The _heron_ will stand for hours in the shallow water watching for eels'; Bell. Vincent quotes from Isidore:--'Ciconeæ ... serpentium hostes.' So also A. Neckam, De Naturis Rerum, lib. i. c. 64:--'Ranarum et locustarum et serpentum hostis est.'

347. _Trecherye_, trickery, deceit. 'During the season of incubation, the cock-bird tries to draw pursuers from the nest by wheeling round them, crying and screaming, to divert their attention ... while the female sits close on the nest till disturbed, when she runs off, feigning lameness, or flaps about near the ground, as if she had a broken wing; cf. Com. Errors, iv. 2. 27; Much Ado, iii. 1. 24;' Prov. Names of Brit. Birds, by C. Swainson, p. 185. And cf. 'to seem the _lapwing_ and to jest, Tongue far from heart'; Meas. for Meas. i. 4. 32.

348. _Stare_, starling. As the starling can speak, there is probably 'an allusion to some popular story like the Manciple's Tale, in which a talking starling betrays a secret'; Bell. The same story is in Ovid, Metam. bk. ii. 535; and in Gower, Conf. Amant. bk. iii. 'Germanicus and Drusus had one _stare_, and sundry nightingales, taught to parle Greeke and Latine'; Holland's Pliny, bk. x. c. 42. In the Seven Sages, ed. Weber, p. 86, the bird who 'bewrays counsel' is a magpie.

349. _Coward kyte._ See Squi. Tale, F 624; and note. 'Miluus ... fugatur a niso, quamuis in triplo sit maior illo'; Vincent of Beauvais, lib. xvi. c. 108. 'A kite is ... a coward, and fearefull among great birds'; Batman on Bartholomè, lib. xii. c. 26.

350. Alanus has:--'Illic gallus, tanquam vulgaris astrologus, suæ vocis _horologio_ horarum loquebatur discrimina.' Cf. Nonne Prestes Tale, B 4044. We also see whence Chaucer derived his epithet of the cock--'common astrologer'--in Troilus, iii. 1415. Tusser, in his Husbandry, ed. Payne, § 74, says the cock crows--'At midnight, at three, and an hower ere day.' Hence the expressions 'first cock' in K. Lear, iii. 4. 121, and 'second cock' in Macbeth, ii. 3. 27.

351. The sparrow was sacred to Venus, from its amatory disposition (Meas. for Meas. iii. 2. 185). In the well-known song from Lyly's Alexander and Campaspe, Cupid 'stakes his quiver, bow, and arrows, His Mother's _doves_, and team of _sparrows_; 'Songs from the Dramatists, ed. R. Bell, p. 50.

352. Cf. Holland's Pliny, bk. x. c. 29--'The nightingale ... chaunteth continually, namely, at that time as the trees begin to put out their leaues thicke.'

353. 'Nocet autem apibus sola inter animalia carnem habentia et carnem comedentia'; Vincent of Beauvais, De hyrundine; Spec. Nat. lib. xvi. c. 17. 'Culicum et muscarum et apecularum infestatrix'; A. Neckam, De Naturis Rerum (De Hirundine), lib. i. c. 52. 'Swallowes make foule worke among them,' &c.; Holland's Pliny, bk. xi. c. 18. Cf. Vergil, Georg. iv. 15; and Tennyson, The Poet's Song, l. 9.

_Flyes_, i. e. bees. This, the right reading (see footnote), occurs in two MSS. only; the scribes altered it to _foules_ or _briddes_!

355. Alanus has:--'Illic turtur, suo viduata consorte, amorem epilogare dedignans, in altero bigamiæ refutabat solatia.' 'Etiam vulgo est notum turturem et amoris veri prærogativa nobilitari et castitatis titulis donari'; A. Neckam, i. 59. Cf. An Old Eng. Miscellany, ed. Morris, p. 22.

356. 'In many medieval paintings, the feathers of angels' wings are represented as those of peacocks'; Bell. Cf. Dunbar, ed. Small, 174. 14: 'Qhois angell fedderis as the pacok schone.'

357. Perhaps Chaucer mixed up the description of the pheasant in Alanus with that of the 'gallus silvestris, privatioris galli _deridens_ desidiam,' which occurs almost immediately below. Vincent (lib. xvi. c. 72) says:--'Fasianus est gallus syluaticus.' Or he may allude to the fact, vouched for in Stanley's Hist. of Birds, ed. 1880, p. 279, that the Pheasant will breed with the common Hen.

358. 'The Goose likewise is very vigilant and watchfull: witnesse the Capitoll of Rome, which by the means of Geese was defended and saued'; Holland's Pliny, bk. x. c. 22.

'There is no noise at all Of waking dog, nor gaggling goose more _waker_ then the hound.' Golding, tr. of Ovid's Metam. bk. xi. fol. 139, back.

_Unkinde_, unnatural; because of its behaviour to the hedge-sparrow; K. Lear, i. 4. 235.

359. _Delicasye_, wantonness. 'Auis est luxuriosa nimium, bibitque vinum'; Vincent (quoting from Liber de Naturis Rerum), lib. xvi. c. 135, De Psittaco; and again (quoting from Physiologus)--'cum vino inebriatur.' So in Holland's Pliny, bk. x. c. 42--'She loueth wine well, and when shee hath drunk freely, is very pleasant, plaifull, and wanton.'

360. 'The farmers' wives find the drake or mallard the greatest enemy of their young ducks, whole broods of which he will destroy unless removed.'--Bell. Chaucer perhaps follows the Liber de Naturis Rerum, as quoted in Vincent, lib. xvi. c. 27 (De Anate):--'Mares aliquando cum plures fuerint simul, tanta libidinis insania feruntur, vt foeminam solam ... occidant.'

361. From A. Neckam, Liber de Naturis Rerum (ed. Wright, lib. i. c. 64); cited in Vincent, lib. xvi. c. 48. The story is, that a male stork, having discovered that the female was unfaithful to him, went away; and presently returning with a great many other storks, the avengers tore the criminal to pieces. Another very different story may also be cited. 'The stork is the Embleme of a grateful Man. In which respect Ælian writeth of a storke, which bred on the house of one who had a very beautiful wife, which in her husband's absence used to commit adultry with one of her base servants: which the storke observing, in gratitude to him who freely gave him house-roome, flying in the villaines face, strucke out both his eyes.'--Guillim, Display of Heraldry, sect. iii. c. 19.

In Thynne's Animadversions on Speght's Chaucer, ed. Furnivall, p. 68 (Chau. Soc.), we find:--'for Aristotle sayethe, and Bartholomeus de proprietatibus rerum, li. 12. c. 8, with manye other auctors, that yf the storke by any meanes perceve that his female hath brooked spousehedde, he will no moore dwell with her, but strykethe and so cruelly beateth her, that he will not surcease vntill he hathe killed her yf he maye, to wreake and reuenge that adulterye.' Cf. Batman vppon Bartholome, ed. 1582, leaf 181, col. 2; Stanley, Hist, of Birds, 6th ed. p. 322; and story no. 82 in Swan's translation of the Gesta Romanorum. Many other references are given in Oesterley's notes to the Gesta; and see the Exempla of Jacques de Vitry, ed. Crane (Folklore Soc.), 1890, p. 230. Cf. Skelton's Phyllyp Sparowe, 469-477.

362. 'The voracity of the cormorant has become so proverbial, that a greedy and voracious eater is often compared to this bird'; Swainson, Prov. Names of British Birds, p. 143. See Rich. II, ii. 1. 38.

363. _Wys_; because it could predict; it was therefore consecrated to Apollo; see Lewis and Short, s. v. _corvus_. _Care_, anxiety; hence, ill luck. 'In folk-lore the crow always appears as a bird of the worst and most sinister character, representing either death, or night, or winter'; Prov. Names of British Birds, by C. Swainson, p. 84; which see.

Chaucer here mistranslates Vergil precisely as Batman does (l. xii. c. 9). 'Nunc plena cornix pluuiam uocat improba uoce'; Georg. i. 388. 'That is to vnderstande, Nowe the Crowe calleth rayne _with an eleinge voyce_'; Batman vppon Bartholome, as above.

364. _Olde._ I do not understand this epithet; it is usually the crow who is credited with a long life. _Frosty_; i. e. that is seen in England in the winter-time; called in Shropshire the _snow-bird_; Swainson's Prov. Names of Brit. Birds, p. 6. The explanation of the phrase 'farewell feldefare,' occurring in Troil. iii. 861 and in Rom. Rose, 5510, and marked by Tyrwhitt as not understood, is easy enough. It simply means--'good bye, and we are well rid of you'; when the fieldfare goes, the warm weather comes.

371. _Formel_, perhaps 'regular' or 'suitable' companion; as F. _formel_ answers to Lat. _formalis_. Tyrwhitt's Gloss. says: '_formel_ is put for the _female_ of any fowl, more especially for a female eagle (ll. 445, 535 below).' It has, however, no connection with _female_ (as he seems to suppose), but answers rather, in sense, to _make_, i. e. match, fit companion. Godefroy cites the expression 'faucon _formel_' from L'Aviculaire des Oiseaux de proie (MS. Lyon 697, fol. 221 _a_). He explains it by 'qui a d'amples formes,' meaning (as I suppose) simply 'large'; which does not seem to be right; though the _tercel_ or male hawk was so called because he was a third less than the female. Ducange gives _formelus_, and thinks it means 'well trained.'

379. _Vicaire_, deputy. This term is taken from Alanus, De Planctu Naturæ, as above, where it occurs at least _thrice_. Thus, at p. 469 of Wright's edition, Nature says:--'Me igitur tanquam sui [Dei] _vicariam_'; at p. 511--'Natura, Dei gratia mundanæ civitatis _vicaria procuratrix_'; and at p. 516, Nature is addressed as--'O supracælestis Principis fidelis _vicaria_!' M. Sandras supposes that Chaucer took the term from the Rom. de la Rose, but it is more likely that Chaucer and Jean de Meun alike took it from Alanus.

'Cis Diex meismes, par sa grace,... Tant m'ennora, tant me tint chiere, Qu'il m'establi sa chamberiere ... Por chamberiere! certes vaire, Por connestable, et por _vicaire_', &c. Rom. de la Rose, 16970, &c.

Here Nature is supposed to be the speaker. Chaucer again uses _vicaire_ of Nature, Phis. Tale, D 20, which see; and he applies it to the Virgin Mary in his A B C, l. 140. See also Lydgate, Compl. of Black Knight, l. 491.

380. That l. 379 is copied from Alanus is clear from the fact that ll. 380-1 are from the same source. At p. 451 of Wright's edition, we find Nature speaking of the concordant discord of the four elements--'quatuor elementorum concors discordia'--which unites the buildings of the palace of this world--'mundialis regiæ structuras conciliat.' Similarly, she says, the four humours are united in the human body: 'quæ qualitates inter elementa mediatrices conveniunt, hæ eædem inter quatuor humores pacis sanciunt firmitatem'; &c.

Compare also Boethius, bk. iii. met. 9. 13, in Chaucer's translation. 'Thou bindest the elements by noumbres proporcionables, that the colde thinges mowen acorden with the hote thinges, and the drye thinges with the moiste thinges; that the fyr, that is purest, ne flee nat over hye, ne that the hevinesse ne drawe nat adoun over-lowe the erthes that ben plounged in the wateres. Thou knittest togider the mene sowle of treble kinde, moeving alle thinges'; &c.

'Et froit, et chaut, et sec, et moiste'; Rom. Rose, 17163.

'For hot, cold, moist, and dry, four champions fierce, Strive here for mastery.' Milton, P. L. ii. 898.

386. _Seynt_, &c.; i. e. _on_ St. Valentine's day; as in l. 322.

388. 'Ye come to choose your mates, and (then) to flee (on) your way.'

411. It appears that Chaucer and others frequently crush the two words _this is_ into the time of one word only (something like the modern _it's_ for _it is_). Hence I scan the line thus:--

This 's oúr | uság' | alwéy, | &c.

So again, in the Knight's Tale, 233 (A 1091):--

We mót | endúr' | it thís 's | the shórt | and pleýn.

And again, in the same, 885 (A 1743):--

And seíd | e thís 's | a shórt | conclú | sioun.

And frequently elsewhere. In the present case, both _this_ and _is_ are unaccented, which is much harsher than when _this_ bears an accent.

I find that Ten Brink has also noted this peculiarity, in his Chaucers Sprache, § 271. He observes that, in C. T. Group E, 56, the Ellesmere and Hengwrt MSS. actually substitute _this_ for _this is_; see footnote; and hence note that the correct reading is--'But this his tale, which,' &c. See _This_ in Schmidt, Shak. Lexicon. Cf. l. 620.

413. _Com_, came. The _o_ is long; A.S. _cóm_, Goth. _kwam_.

417. 'I choose the formel to be my sovereign lady, not my mate.'

421. 'Beseeching her _for_ mercy,' &c.

435. Read _lov'th_; monosyllabic, as frequently.

464. 'Ye see what little leisure we have here.'

471. Read _possíbl'_, just as in French.

476. _Som_; quite indefinite. 'Than _another_ man.'

482. _Hir-ës_, hers; dissyllabic. _Whether_ = _whe'r_. Cf. l. 7.

485. 'The dispute is here called a _plee_, or plea, or pleading; and in the next stanza the terms of law, adopted into the Courts of Love, are still more pointedly applied'; Bell.

499. _Hye_, loudly. _Kek kek_ represents the goose's _cackle_; and _quek_ is mod. E. _quack_.

504. _For_, on behalf of; see next line.

507. _For comune spede_, for the common benefit.

508. 'For it is a great charity to set us free.'

510. 'If it be _your_ wish for any one to speak, it would be as good for him to be silent; it were better to be silent than to talk as you do.' That is, the cuckoo only wants to listen to those who will talk nonsense. A mild rebuke. The turtle explains (l. 514) that it is better to be silent than to meddle with things which one does not understand.

518. Lit. 'A duty assumed without direction often gives offence.' A proverb which appears in other forms. In the Canon's Yeoman's Tale, G 1066, it takes the form--'Profred servyse stinketh'; see note on the line. _Uncommitted_ is not delegated, not entrusted to one. Cotgrave has: '_Commis_, assigned, appointed, delegated.'

524. _I Iuge_, I decide. _Folk_, kind of birds; see note to l. 323.

545. _Oure_, ours; it is the business of us who are the chosen spokesmen. The _Iuge_ is Nature.

556. _Goler_ in the Fairfax MS. is doubtless merely miswritten for _golee_, as in Ff.; Caxton turns it into _golye_, to keep it dissyllabic; the reading _gole_ (in O. and Gg.) also = _golee_. Godefroy has: '_Golee_, _goulee_, _goullee_, _gulee_, _geulee_, s. f. cri, parole'; and gives several examples. Cotgrave has: '_Goulée_, f. a throatfull, or mouthful of, &c.' One of Godefroy's examples gives the phrase--'Et si dirai ge ma _goulee_,' and so I shall say my say. Chaucer uses the word sarcastically: _his large golee_ = his tedious gabble. Allied to E. _gullett_, _gully_.

564. _Which a reson_, what sort of a reason.

568. Cf. Cant. Tales, 5851, 5852 (D 269, 270). Lydgate copies this line in his Hors, Shepe, and Goos, l. 155.

572. 'To have held thy peace, than (to have) shewed.'

574. A common proverb. In the Rom. de la Rose, l. 4750 (E. version, l. 5265), it appears as: 'Nus fox ne scet sa langue taire,' i. e. No fool knows how to hold his tongue. In the Proverbs of Hendyng, it is: 'Sottes bolt is sone shote,' l. 85. In later English, 'A fool's bolt is soon shot'; cf. Henry V, iii. 7. 132, and As You Like It, v. 4. 67. Kemble quotes from MS. Harl. fol. 4--'Ut dicunt multi, cito transit lancea stulti.'

578. _The sothe sadde_, the sober truth.

595. Another proverb. We now say--'There's as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it'; or, 'as ever was caught.'

599. See Chaucer's tr. of Boethius, bk. iv. pr. 4. l. 132.

603. 'Pushed himself forward in the crowd.'

610. Said sarcastically--'Yes! when the glutton has filled his paunch sufficiently, the rest of us are sure to be satisfied!'

Compare the following. 'Certain persones ... saiyng that Demades had now given over to bee sache an haine [niggardly wretch] as he had been in tymes past--"Yea, marie, quoth Demosthenes, for now ye see him full paunched, as lyons are." For Demades was covetous and gredie of money, and indeed the lyons are more gentle when their bealyes are well filled.'--Udall, tr. of Apothegmes of Erasmus; Anecdotes of Demosthenes. The merlin then addresses the cuckoo directly.

612. _Heysugge_, hedge-sparrow; see note to l. 358.

613. Read _rewtheles_ (_reufulles_ in Gg); cf. Cant. Ta., B 863; and see p. 361, l. 31. _Rewtheles_ became _reufulles_, and then _rewful_.

614. 'Live thou unmated, thou destruction (destroyer) of worms.'

615. 'For it is no matter as to the lack of thy kind,' i. e. it would not matter, even if the result was the loss of your entire race.

616. 'Go! and remain ignorant for ever.'

620, 1. Cf. note to l. 411. Read _th'eleccioun_; i. e. the choice.

623. _Cheest_, chooseth; spelt _chyest_, Ayenbite of Inwyt, p. 126; spelt _chest_ (with long _e_) in Shoreham's Poems, ed. Wright, p. 109, where it rimes with _lest_ = _leseth_, i. e. loseth; A. S. _císt_, Deut. xxviii. 9.

626. Accent _favour_ on the second syllable; as in C. T., Group B, 3881 (Monkes Tale). So (perhaps) _colóur-ed_ in l. 443.

630. 'I have no other (i. e. no wrongful) regard to any rank,' I am no respecter of persons.

633. 'I would counsel you to take'; two infinitives.

640. 'Under your rod,' subject to your correction. So in the Schipmannes Tale, C. T. 13027 (B 1287).

641. The first accent is on _As_.

653. _Manér-e_ is trisyllabic; and _of_ is understood after it.

657. _For tarying_, to prevent tarrying; see note to C. T. Group B, 2052.

664, 5. 'Whatever may happen afterwards, this intervening course is ready prepared for all of you.'

670. They embraced each other with their wings and by intertwining their necks.

675. Gower, Conf. Amant, bk. i. (ed. Pauli, i. 134) speaks of 'Roundel, balade, and virelay.' Johnson, following the Dict. de Trevoux, gives a fair definition of the roundel; but I prefer to translate that given by Littré, s. v. _rondeau_. '1. A short poem, also called _triolet_, in which the first line or lines recur in the middle and at the end of the piece. Such poems, by Froissart and Charles d'Orleans, are still extant. 2. Another short poem peculiar to French poetry, composed of thirteen lines broken by a pause after the fifth and eighth lines, eight having one rime and five another. The first word or words are repeated after the eighth line and after the last, without forming part of the verse; it will readily be seen that this _rondeau_ is a modification of the foregoing; instead of repeating the whole line, only the first words are repeated, often with a different sense.' The word is here used in the _former_ sense; and the remark in Morley's Eng. Writers (v. 271), that the Roundel consists of thirteen lines, eight having one rime, and five another, is not to the point here, as it relates to the later French _rondeau_ only. An examination of Old French roundels shews us that Littré's definition of the _triolet_ is quite correct, and is purposely left somewhat indefinite; but we can apply a somewhat more exact description to the form of the roundel as used by Machault, Deschamps, and Chaucer.

The form adopted by these authors is the following. First come three lines, rimed _abb_; next two more, rimed _ab_, and then the first refrain; then three more lines, rimed _abb_, followed by the second refrain. Now the first refrain consists of either one, or two, or three lines, being the first line of the poem, or the first two, or the first three; and the second refrain likewise consists of either one, or two, or three lines, being the same lines as before, but not necessarily the same number of them. Thus the whole poem consists of eight unlike lines, three on one rime, and five on another, with refrains of from two to six lines. Sometimes one of the refrains is actually omitted, but this may be the scribe's fault. However, the least possible number of lines is thus reduced to nine; and the greatest number is fourteen. For example, Deschamps (ed. Tarbé) has roundels of nine lines--second refrain omitted--(p. 125); of ten lines (p. 36); of eleven lines (p. 38); of twelve lines (p. 3); and of fourteen lines (pp. 39, 43). But the prettiest example is that by Machault (ed. Tarbé, p. 52), which has thirteen lines, the first refrain being of _two_, and the second of _three_ lines. And, as thirteen lines came to be considered as the normal length, I here follow this as a model, both here and in 'Merciless Beaute'; merely warning the reader that he may make either of his refrains of a different length, if he pleases.

There is a slight art in writing a roundel, viz. in distributing the pauses. There _must_ be a full stop at the end of the third and fifth lines; but the skilful poet takes care that complete sense can be made by the first line taken alone, and also by the first _two_ lines taken alone. Chaucer has done this.

Todd, in his Illustrations of Chaucer, p. 372, gives a capital example of a roundel by Occleve; this is of _full_ length, both refrains being of three lines, so that the whole poem is of fourteen lines. This is quite sufficient to shew that the definition of a roundel in Johnson's Dictionary (which is copied from the Dict. de Trevoux, and relates to the latter _rondeau_ of _thirteen_ lines) is quite useless as applied to roundels written in Middle English.

677. _The note_, i. e. the tune. Chaucer adapts his words to a known French tune. The words _Qui bien aime, a tard[290] oublie_ (he who loves well is slow to forget) probably refer to this tune; though it is not quite clear to me how lines of five accents (normally) go to a tune beginning with a line of four accents. In Furnivall's Trial Forewords, p. 55, we find:--'Of the _rondeau_ of which the first line is cited in the Fairfax MS., &c., M. Sandras found the music and the words in a MS. of Machault in the National Library, no. 7612, leaf 187. The verses form the opening lines of one of two pieces entitled _Le Lay de plour_:--

'Qui bieu aime, a tart oublie, Et cuers, qui oublie a tart, Ressemble le feu qui art,' &c.

M. Sandras also says (Étude, p. 72) that Eustache Deschamps composed, on this burden slightly modified, a pretty ballad, inedited till M. Sandras printed it at p. 287 of his Étude; and that, a long time before Machault, Moniot de Paris began, by this same line, a hymn to the Virgin that one can read in the Arsenal Library at Paris, in the copy of a Vatican MS., B. L. no. 63, fol. 283:--

'Ki bien aime a tart oublie; Mais ne le puis oublier La douce vierge Marie.'

In MS. Gg. 4. 27 (Cambridge), there is a poem in 15 8-line stanzas. The latter half of st. 14 ends with:--'_Qui bien ayme, tard oublye._'

In fact, the phrase seems to have been a common proverb; see Le Roux de Lincy, ii. 383, 496. It occurs again in Tristan, ed. Michel, ii. 123, l. 700; in Gower, Balade 25 (ed. Stengel, p. 10); in MS. Digby 53, fol. 15, back; MS. Corp. Chr. Camb. 450, p. 258, &c.

683. See note above, to l. 309.

693. This last stanza is imitated at the end of the Court of Love, and of Dunbar's Thrissill and Rois.

VI. A COMPLEINT TO HIS LADY.

In the two MSS., this poem is written as if it were a continuation of the Compleint unto Pity. The printed edition of 1651 has this heading--'These verses next folowing were compiled by Geffray Chauser, and in the writen copies foloweth at the ende of the complainte of petee.' This implies that Stowe had seen more than one MS. containing these lines.

However, the poem has nothing to do with the Complaint of Pity; for which reason the lines are here numbered separately, and the title 'A Compleint to his Lady' is supplied, for want of a better.

The poem is so badly spelt in Shirley's MS. (Harl. 78) as quite to obscure its diction, which is that of the fourteenth century. I have therefore re-spelt it throughout, so as to shew the right pronunciation. The Phillipps MS. is merely a copy of the other, but preserves the last stanza.

The printed copy resembles Shirley's MS. so closely, that both seem to have been derived from a common source. But there is a strange and unaccountable variation in l. 100. The MS. here has--'For I am sette on yowe in suche manere'; whilst ed. 1561 has--'For I am set so hy vpon your whele.' The latter reading does not suit the right order of the rimes; but it points to a lost MS.

The poem evidently consists of several fragments, all upon the same subject, of hopeless, but true love.

It should be compared with the Complaint of Pity, the first forty lines of the Book of the Duchess, the Parliament of Foules (ll. 416-441), and the Complaint of Anelida. Indeed, the last of these is more or less founded upon it, and some of the expressions (including one complete line) occur there again.

1. MSS. _nightes_. This will not scan, nor does it make good sense. Read _night_; cf. l. 8, and Book of the Duchess, l. 22.

3. Cf. Compl. Pite, 81--'Allas! what herte may hit longe endure?'

7. _Desespaired_, full of despair. This, and not _dispaired_ (as in ed. 1561), is the right form. Cf. _desespeir_, in Troil. i. 605.

8, 9. Cf. Anelida, 333, 334.

14, 15. I repeat this line, because we require a rime to _fulfille_, l. 17; whilst at the same time l. 14 evidently ends a stanza.

16. I omit _that_, and insert _eek_, in order to make sense.

17. I supply _he_, meaning _Love_. Love is masculine in l. 42, precisely as in the Parl. of Foules, l. 5.

19. I alter _and yit_ to _and fro_, to make sense; the verb to _arace_ absolutely requires _from_ or _fro_; see Clerkes Tale, E 1103, and particularly l. 18 of sect. XXI, where we find the very phrase 'fro your herte arace.' Cf. Troilus, v. 954.

24. I supply this line from Compl. Mars, 189, to rime with l. 22.

If Fragments II and III were ever joined together, we must suppose that at least _five_ lines have been lost, as I have already shewn in the note to Dr. Furnivall's Trial Forewords, p. 96.

Thus, after l. 23, ending in _asterte_, we should require lines ending in _-ye_, _-erse_, _-ye_, _-erse_, and _-ede_ respectively, to fill the gap. However, I have kept fragments II and III apart, and it is then sufficient to supply _three_ lines. Lines 25 and 26 are from the Compl. of Pite, 22, 17, and from Anelida, 307.

32. I suspect some corruption; MS. Sh. has _The wyse eknytte_, Ph. has _The wise I-knyt_, and ed. 1561 has _The Wise, eknit_. As it stands, it means--'Her surname moreover is the Fair Ruthless one, (or) the Wise one, united with Good Fortune.' Fair Ruthless is a translation of the French phrase _La Belle Dame sans Merci_, which occurs as the title of a poem once attributed to Chaucer. The Wise one, &c., means that she is wise and fortunate, and will not impair her good fortune by bestowing any thought upon her lover. Shirley often writes _e_ for initial _y-_.

35. Almost identical with Anelida, 222--'More then myself, an hundred thousand sythe.'

36. Obviously corrupt; neither sound nor sense is good. Read:--'Than al this worldes richest (_or_ riche) creature.' _Creature_ may mean 'created thing.' Or scan by reading _world's richéss'_.

39. Cf. Kn. Tale, l. 380 (A 1238)--'Wel hath Fortune y-turned thee the dys.'

41. _My swete fo._ So in Anelida, l. 272; and cf. l. 64 below.

42, 43. Cf. Parl. of Foules, ll. 439, 440.

44. Ed. 1561 also reads _In_. Perhaps the original reading was _Inwith_. Moreover, the copies omit _eek_ in l. 45, which I supply.

47-49. This remarkable statement re-appears twice elsewhere; see Parl. Foules, 90, 91, and note; and Compl. of Pite, ll. 99-104.

50. Repeated in Anelida, 237.

51, 52. Cf. Anelida, 181, 182; Compl. Pite, 110; Parl. Foules, 7.

55. Cf. Anelida, 214--'That turned is to quaking al my daunce.'

56. Here a line is missing, as again at l. 59. This appears from the form of the stanza, in which the rimes are arranged in the order _a a b a a b c d d c_. I supply the lines from Anelida, 181, 182.

63. Cf. the use of _y-whet_ in Anelida, 212.

64, 65. Cf. Anelida, 272--'My swete fo, why do ye so for shame?'

73. For _leest_, ed. 1561 has _best_!

79. The MSS. have--'What so I wist that were to youre hyenesse'; where _youre hyenesse_ is absurdly repeated from l. 76. Ed. 1561 has the same error. It is obvious that the right final word is _distresse_, to be preceded by _yow_ or _your_; of which I prefer _yow_.

83. Ch. uses both _wille_ and _wil_; the latter is, e. g., in Cant. Ta. A 1104. We must here read _wil_.

86. _shal_, i. e. shall be. See also XXII. ll. 78, 87.

88. _leveth wel_, believe me wholly. MS. Ph. and ed. 1561 wrongly have _loveth_.

98. I read _nil_, as being simpler. The MSS. have _ne wil_, which would be read--'That I n'wil ay'; which comes to much the same thing.

100. _set_, fixed, bound. Ed. 1561 has--'For I am set so hy vpon your whele,' which disturbs the rimes.

102. MS. Sh. _beon euer als trewe_; ed. 1561 has--_bene euer as trewe_.

103. MS. Sh. 'As any man can er may on lyue'; ed. 1561 and MS. Ph. have--'As any man can or maye on liue.' It is clear that a final word has been dropped, because the scribe thought the line ought to rime with _fyve_ (l. 98). The dropped word is clearly _here_, which rimes with _manere_ in the Miller's Prologue, and elsewhere. After _here_ was dropped, _man_ was awkwardly inserted, to fill up the line. Ch. employs _here_ at the end of a line more than thirty times; cf. Kn. Tale, A 1260, 1670, 1711, 1819, &c.

107, 108. Cf. Anelida, 247, 248.

123. Cf. Anelida, 216. MS. Ph. alone preserves ll. 124-133.

124. _My lyf and deeth_ seems to be in the vocative case. Otherwise, _my_ is an error for _in_.

125. For _hoolly I_ perhaps we should read _I hoolly_.

126. The rime _by me, tyme_, is Chaucerian; see Cant. Ta. G 1204.

130. This resembles Cant. Tales, F 974 and A 2392.

133. _trouble_, troubled. A like use occurs in Boethius, bk. i. met. 7, l. 2. _Drope_, _hope_, rime in Troil. i. 939, and Gower, C. A., ii. 286.

VII. ANELIDA AND ARCITE.

This Poem consists of several distinct portions. It begins with a Proem, of three stanzas, followed by a part of the story, in twenty-seven stanzas, all in seven-line stanzas. Next follows the Complaint of Anelida, skilfully and artificially constructed; it consists of a Proem in a single stanza of nine lines; next, what may be called a Strophe, in six stanzas, of which the first four consist of nine lines, the fifth consists of sixteen lines (with only two rimes), and the sixth, of nine lines (with internal rimes). Next follows what may be called an Antistrophe, in six stanzas arranged precisely as before; wound up by a single concluding stanza corresponding to the Proem at the beginning of the Complaint. After this, the story begins again; but the poet had only written _one_ stanza when he suddenly broke off, and left the poem unfinished; see note to l. 357.

The name of Arcite naturally reminds us of the Knightes Tale; but the 'false Arcite' of the present poem has nothing beyond the name in common with the 'true Arcite' of the Tale. However, there are other connecting links, to be pointed out in their due places, which tend to shew that this poem was written _before_ the Knightes Tale, and was never finished; it is also probable that Chaucer actually wrote an earlier draught of the Knightes Tale, with the title of Palamon and Arcite, which he afterwards partially rejected; for he mentions 'The Love of Palamon and Arcite' in the prologue to the Legend of Good Women as if it were an independent work. However this may be, it is clear that, in constructing or rewriting the Knightes Tale, he did not lose sight of 'Anelida,' for he has used some of the lines over again; moreover, it is not a little remarkable that the very lines from Statius which are quoted at the beginning of the fourth stanza of Anelida are also quoted, in some of the MSS., at the beginning of the Knightes Tale.

But this is not all. For Dr. Koch has pointed out the close agreement between the opening stanzas of this poem, and those of Boccaccio's Teseide, which is the very work from which Palamon and Arcite was, of course, derived, as it is the chief source of the Knightes Tale also. Besides this, there are several stanzas from the Teseide in the Parliament of Foules; and even three near the end of Troilus, viz. the seventh, eighth, and ninth from the end of the last book. Hence we should be inclined to suppose that Chaucer originally translated the Teseide rather closely, substituting a seven-line stanza for the _ottava rima_ of the original; this formed the original Palamon and Arcite, a poem which he probably never finished (as his manner was). Not wishing, however, to abandon it altogether, he probably used some of the lines in this present poem, and introduced others into his Parliament of Foules. At a later period, he rewrote, in a complete form, the whole story in his own fashion, which has come down to us as The Knightes Tale. Whatever the right explanation may be, we are at any rate certain that the Teseide is the source of (1) sixteen stanzas in the Parliament of Foules; (2) of part of the first ten stanzas in the present poem; (3) of the original Palamon and Arcite; (4) of the Knightes Tale; and (5) of three stanzas near the end of Troilus, bk. v. 1807-27 (Tes. xi. 1-3).

1. In comparing the first three stanzas with the Teseide, we must reverse the order of the stanzas in the latter poem. Stanza 1 of Anelida answers to st. 3 of the Italian; stanza 2, to st. 2; and stanza 3 to st. 1. The first two lines of lib. 1. st. 3 (of the Italian) are:--

'_Siate presenti_, O _Marte rubicondo_, Nelle tue _arme_ rigido e _feroce_.'

I. e. _Be present_, O _Mars the red_, strong and _fierce_ in thy _arms_ (battle-array). For the words _Be present_, see l. 6.

2. _Trace_, Thrace. Cf. Kn. Tale, 1114-6 (A 1972-4). Chaucer was here thinking of Statius, Theb. lib. vii. 40, who describes the temple of Mars on Mount Hæmus, in Thrace, which had a frosty climate. In bk. ii, l. 719, Pallas is invoked as being superior to Bellona. Chaucer seems to confuse them; so does Boccaccio, in his De Genealogia Deorum.

6, 7. Partly imitated from Tes. i. 3:--

'E sostenete la mano e la voce Di me, che intendo i vostri effecti dire.'

8-10. Imitated from Tes. i. 2:--

'Chè m' è venuta voglia con _pietosa_ Rima di scriver _una storia antica_, Tanto negli anni riposta e nascosa, Che _latino_ autor non par ne dica, Per quel ch' io senta, in libro alcuna cosa.'

Thus it appears that, when speaking of his finding an old story in Latin, he is actually translating from an Italian poem which treats of a story not found in Latin! That is, his words give no indication whatever of the source of his poem; but are merely used in a purely conventional manner. His 'old story' is really that of the siege of Thebes; and his _Latin_ is the Thebais of Statius. And neither of them speaks of Anelida!

15. Read _fávourábl'_. Imitated from Tes. i. 1:--

'O _sorelle_ Castalie, che nel monte _Elicona contente_ dimorate D' intorno al sacro gorgoneo fonte, Sottesso _l' ombra delle frondi amate_ _Da Febo_, delle quali ancor la fronte I' spero ornarmi sol che 'l concediate Gli santi orecchi a' miei prieghi porgete, E quegli udite come voi volete.'

_Polymnia_, Polyhymnia, also spelt Polymnia, Gk. [Greek: Polumnia] one of the nine Muses. Chaucer invokes the muse Clio in Troil. bk. ii, and Calliope in bk. iii. Cf. Ho. of Fame, 520-2. _Parnaso_, Parnassus, a mountain in Phocis sacred to Apollo and the Muses, at whose foot was Delphi and the Castalian spring. _Elicon_, mount Helicon in Boeotia; Chaucer seems to have been thinking rather of the Castalian spring, as he uses the prep. _by_, and supposes _Elicon_ to be near _Parnaso_. See the Italian, as quoted above; and note that, in the Ho. of Fame, 522, he says that Helicon is a _well_.

A similar confusion occurs in Troilus, iii. 1809:--

'Ye sustren nyne eek, that by Elicone In hil Parnaso listen for tabyde.'

17. _Cirrea_, Cirra. Chaucer was thinking of the adj. _Cirræus_. Cirra was an ancient town near Delphi, under Parnassus. Dante mentions _Cirra_, Parad. i. 36; and _Parnaso_ just above, l. 16. Perhaps Chaucer took it from him.

20. A common simile. So Spenser, F. Q. i. 12. 1, 42; and at the end of the Thebaid and the Teseide both.

21. _Stace_, Statius; i. e. the Thebaid; whence some of the next stanzas are more or less borrowed. Chaucer epitomises the general contents of the Thebaid in his Troilus; v. 1484, &c.

_Corinne_, not Corinna (as some have thought, for she has nothing to do with the matter), but Corinnus. Corinnus was a disciple of Palamedes, and is said to have written an account of the Trojan War, and of the war of the Trojan king Dardanus against the Paphlagonians, in the Dorian dialect. Suidas asserts that Homer made some use of his writings. See Zedler, Universal Lexicon; and Biog. Universelle. How Chaucer met with this name, is not known. Possibly, however, Chaucer was thinking of _Colonna_, i. e. Guido di Colonna, author of the medieval Bellum Trojanum. But this does not help us, and it is at least as likely that the name _Corinne_ was merely introduced by way of flourish; for no source has been discovered for the latter part of the poem, which may have been entirely of his own invention. For Palamedes, see Lydgate's Troy-book, bk. v. c. 36.

22. The verses from Statius, preserved in the MSS., are the three lines following; from Thebais, xii. 519:--

'Jamque domos patrias Scythicæ post aspera gentis Prælia laurigero subeuntem Thesea curru, Lætifici plausus missusque ad sidera vulgi,' &c.

The first line and half the second appear also in the MSS. of the Canterbury Tales, at the head of the Knightes Tale, which commences, so to speak, at the same point (l. 765 in Lewis's translation of the Thebaid). Comparing these lines of Statius with the lines in Chaucer, we at once see how he came by the word _aspre_ and the expression _With laurer crouned_. The whole of this stanza (ll. 22-28) is expanded from the three lines here quoted.

23. _Cithe_, Scythia; see last note. See Kn. Tale, 9 (A 867).

24. Cf. Kn. Tale, 169, 121 (A 1027, 979).

25. _Contre-houses_, houses of his country, homes (used of Theseus and his army). It exactly reproduces the Lat. _domos patrias_. See Kn. Tale, 11 (A 869).

29-35. Chaucer merely takes the general idea from Statius, and expands it in his own way. Lewis's translation of Statius has:--

'To swell the pomp, before the chief are borne The spoils and trophies from the vanquish'd torn;'

but the Lat. text has--

'Ante ducem spolia et _duri Mauortis imago_, Uirginei currus, cumulataque fercula cristis.'

And, just below, is a brief mention of Hippolyta, who had been wedded to Theseus.

30, 1. Cf. Kn. Tale, 117, 118 (A 975). See note above.

36, 7. Cf. Kn. Tale, 23, 24 (A 881, 2); observe the order of words.

38. Repeated in Kn. Tale, 114 (A 972); changing _With_ to _And_.

_Emelye_ is not mentioned in Statius. She is the _Emilia_ of the Teseide; see lib. ii. st. 22 of that poem.

43-6. Cf. Kn. Tale, 14, 15, 169 (A 872-3, 1027).

47. Here we are told that the story is really to begin. Chaucer now returns from Statius (whom he has nearly done with) to the Teseide, and the next three stanzas, ll. 50-70, are more or less imitated from that poem, lib. ii. st. 10-12.

50-6. Boccaccio is giving a sort of summary of the result of the war described in the Thebaid. His words are:--

'Fra tanto Marte i popoli lernei Con furioso corso avie commossi Sopro i Tebani, e miseri trofei Donati avea de' Principi percossi Più volte già, e de' greci plebei Ritenuti tal volta, e tal riscossi Con asta sanguinosa fieramente, Trista avea fatta l' una e l' altra gente.'

57-63. Imitated from Tes. ii. 11:--

'Perciò che dopo Anfiarao, Tideo Stato era ucciso, e 'l buon Ippomedone, E similmente il bel Partenopeo, E più Teban, de' qua' non fo menzione, Dinanzi e dopo al fiero Capaneo, E dietro a tutti in doloroso agone, Eteocle e Polinice, ed ispedito Il solo Adrastro ad Argo era fuggito.'

See also Troilus, v. 1499-1510.

57. _Amphiorax_; so in Troilus, ii. 105, v. 1500; Cant. Tales, 6323 (D 741); and in Lydgate's Siege of Thebes. Amphiaraus is meant; he accompanied Polynices, and was swallowed up by the earth during the siege of Thebes; Statius, Thebais, lib. vii. (at the end); Dante, Inf. xx. 34. Tydeus and Polynices married the two daughters of Adrastus. The heroic acts of Tydeus are recorded in the Thebaid. See Lydgate, Siege of Thebes; or the extract from it in my Specimens of English.

58. _Ipomedon_, Hippomedon; one of the seven chiefs who engaged in the war against Thebes. _Parthonopee_, Parthenopæus, son of Meleager and Atalanta; another of the seven chiefs. For the account of their deaths, see the Thebaid, lib. ix.

59. _Campaneus_; spelt _Cappaneus_, _Capaneus_ in Kn. Tale, 74 (A 932); Troil. v. 1504. Thynne, in his Animadversions on Speght's Chaucer (ed. Furnivall, p. 43), defends the spelling _Campaneus_ on the ground that it was the usual medieval spelling; and refers us to Gower and Lydgate. In Pauli's edition of Gower, i. 108, it is _Capaneus_. Lydgate has _Campaneus_; Siege of Thebes, pt. iii. near the beginning. Capaneus is the right Latin form; he was one of the seven chiefs, and was struck with lightning by Jupiter whilst scaling the walls of Thebes; Statius, Theb. lib. x (at the end). Cf. Dante, Inf. xiv. 63. As to the form _Campaneus_, cf. Ital. _Campidoglio_ with Lat. _Capitolium_.

60. 'The Theban wretches, the two brothers;' i. e. Eteocles and Polynices, who caused the war. Cf. Troil. v. 1507.

61. _Adrastus_, king of Argos, who assisted his son-in-law Polynices, and survived the war; Theb. lib. xi. 441.

63. 'That no man knew of any remedy for his (own) misery.' _Care_, anxiety, misery. At this line Chaucer begins upon st. 12 of the second book of the Teseide, which runs thus:--

'Onde il misero gente era rimaso Vôto[291] di gente, e pien d'ogni dolore; Ma a picciol tempo da Creonte invaso Fu, che di quello si fe' re e signore, Con tristo augurio, in doloroso caso Recò insieme il regno suo e l'onore, Per fiera crudeltà da lui usata, Mai da null'altro davanti pensata.

Cf. Knightes Tale, 80-4 (A 938).

71. From this point onward, Chaucer's work is, as far as we know at present, original. He seems to be intending to draw a portrait of a queen of Armenia who is neglected by her lover, in distinct contrast to Emilia, sister of the queen of Scythia, who had a pair of lovers devoted to her service.

72. _Ermony_, Armenia; the usual M. E. form.

78. _Of twenty yeer of elde_, of twenty years of age; so in MSS. F., Tn., and Harl. 372. See note to l. 80.

80. _Behelde_; so in MSS. Harl., F.; and Harl. 372 has _beheelde_. I should hesitate to accept this form instead of the usual _beholde_, but for its occurrence in Gower, Conf. Amant., ed. Pauli, iii. 147:--

'The wine can make a creple sterte And a deliver man unwelde; It maketh a blind man to _behelde_.

So also in the Moral Ode, l. 288, the Trinity MS. has the infin. _behealde_, and the Lambeth MS. has _bihelde_. It appears to be a Southern form, adopted here for the rime, like _ken_ for _kin_ in Book of the Duch. 438.

There is further authority; for we actually find _helde_ for _holde_ in five MSS. out of seven, riming with _welde_ (_wolde_); C. T., Group D, l. 272.

82. Penelope and Lucretia are favourite examples of constancy; see C. T., Group B, 63, 75; Book Duch. 1081-2; Leg. Good Women, 252, 257. Read Penélop', not Pénelóp', as in B. D. 1081.

84. _Amended._ Compare what is said of Zenobia; C. T., B 3444.

85. I have supplied _Arcite_, which the MSS. strangely omit. It is necessary to _name_ him here, to introduce him; and the line is else too short. Chaucer frequently shifts the accent upon this name, so that there is nothing wrong about either _Arcíte_ here, or _Árcite_ in l. 92. See Kn. Tale, 173, 344, 361, &c. on the one hand; and lines 1297, 1885 on the other. And see l. 140 below.

91. Read _trust_, the contracted form of _trusteth_.

98. 'As, indeed, it is needless for men to learn such craftiness.'

105. A proverbial expression; see Squi. Tale, F 537. The character of Arcite is precisely that of the false tercelet in Part II. of the Squieres Tale; and Anelida is like the falcon in the same. Both here and in the Squieres Tale we find the allusions to Lamech, and to blue as the colour of constancy; see notes to ll. 146, 150, 161-9 below.

119. Cf. Squi. Tale, F 569.

128. 'That all his will, it seemed to her,' &c. A common idiom. Koch would omit _hit_, for the sake of the metre; but it makes no difference at all, the _e_ in _thoghte_ being elided.

141. _New-fangelnesse_; see p. 409, l. 1, and Squi. Tale, F 610.

145. _In her hewe_, in her colours: he wore the colours which she affected. This was a common method of shewing devotion to a lady.

146. Observe the satire in this line. Arcite is supposed to have worn _white_, _red_, or _green_; but he did not wear _blue_, for that was the colour of _constancy_. Cf. Squi. Tale, F 644, and the note; and see l. 330 below; also p. 409, l. 7.

150. Cf. Squi. Tale, F 550. I have elsewhere drawn attention to the resemblance between this poem and the Squieres Tale, in my note to l. 548 of that Tale. Cf. also Cant. Tales, 5636 (D 54). The reference is to Gen. iv. 19--'And Lamech took unto him two wives.' In l. 154, Chaucer curiously confounds him with Jabal, Lamech's _son_, who was 'the father of such as dwell in tents'; Gen. iv. 20.

155. _Arcít-e_; trisyllabic, as frequently in Kn. Tale.

157. 'Like a wicked horse, which generally shrieks when it bites'; Bell. This explanation is clearly wrong. The line is repeated, with the slight change of _pleyne_ to _whyne_, in C. T. 5968 (D 386). To _pleyne_ or to _whyne_ means to utter a plaintive cry, or to whinny; and the sense is--'Like a horse, (of doubtful temper), which can either bite or whinny (as if wanting a caress).'

161. _Theef_, false wretch; cf. Squi. Tale, F 537.

162. Cf. Squi. Tale, F 462, 632.

166. Cf. Squi. Tale, F 448.

169. Cf. Squi. Tale, F 412, 417, 430, 631.

171. _Al crampissheth_, she draws all together, contracts convulsively; formed from _cramp_. I know of but four other examples of the use of this word.

In Lydgate's Flour of Curtesie, st. 7, printed in Chaucer's Works, ed. 1561, fol. 248, we have the lines:--

'I gan complayne min inwarde deedly smert That aye so sore _crampeshe at_ min herte.'

As this gives no sense, it is clear that _crampeshe at_ is an error for _crampisheth_ or _crampished_, which Lydgate probably adopted from the present passage.

Again, in Lydgate's Life of St. Edmund, in MS. Harl. 2278, fol. 101 (ed. Horstmann, p. 430, l. 930), are the lines:--

'By pouert spoiled, which made hem sore smerte, Which, as they thouhte, _craumpysshed_ at here herte.'

Skelton has _encraumpysshed_, Garland of Laurell, 16; and Dyce's note gives an example of _craumpishing_ from Lydgate's Wars of Troy, bk. iv. c. 33, sig. Xv. col. 4, ed. 1555.

Once more, Lydgate, in his Fall of Princes, bk. i. c. 9 (pr. by Wayland, leaf 18, col. 2), has the line--

'Deth _crampishing_ into their hert gan crepe.'

175. In Kn. Tale, 1950 (A 2808), it is Arcite who says '_mercy!_'

176. Read _endur'th_. Mate, exhausted.

177. Read _n'hath_. _Sustene_, support herself; cf. C. T. 11173 (F 861).

178. _Forth_ is here equivalent to 'continues'; _is_ or _dwelleth_ is understood. Read _languísshing_.

180. _Grene_, fresh; probably with a reference to _green_ as being the colour of inconstancy.

182. Nearly repeated in Kn. Tale, 1539 (A 2397); cf. Comp. unto Pity, 110. Cf. Compl. to his Lady, 52.

183. If _up_ is to be retained before _so_, change _holdeth_ into _halt_. 'His new lady reins him in by the bridle so tightly (harnessed as he is) at the end of the shaft (of her car), that he fears every word like an arrow.' The image is that of a horse, tightly fastened to the ends of the shafts of a car, and then so hardly reined in that he fears every word of the driver; he expects a cut with the whip, and he cannot get away.

193. _Fee or shipe_, fee or reward. The scarce word _shipe_ being misunderstood, many MSS. give corrupt readings. But it occurs in the Persones Tale, Group I, 568, where Chaucer explains it by 'hyre'; and in the Ayenbite of Inwit, p. 33. It is the A. S. _scipe_. '_Stipendium_, scipe'; Wright's Vocabularies, 114. 34.

194. _Sent_, short for _sendeth_; cf. _serveth_ above. Cf. Book of Duch. 1024.

202. _Also_, as; 'as may God save me.'

206. _Hir ne gat no geyn_, she obtained for herself no advantage.

211. The metre now becomes extremely artificial. The first stanza is introductory. Its nine lines are rimed _a a b a a b b a b_, with only two rimes. I set back lines 3, 6, 7, 9, to show the arrangement more clearly. The next four stanzas are in the same metre. The construction is obscure, but is cleared up by l. 350, which is its echo, and again by ll. 270-1. _Swerd_ is the nom. case, and _thirleth_ is its verb; 'the sword of sorrow, whetted with false complaisance, so pierces my heart, (now) bare of bliss and black in hue, with the (keen) point of (tender) recollection.' Chaucer's 'with ... remembrance' is precisely Dante's 'Per la puntura della rimembranza'; Purg. xii. 20.

214. Cf. The Compleint to his Lady, 1. 55.

215. _Awhaped_, amazed, stupified. To the examples in the New E. Dict. add--'Sole by himself, _awhaped_ and amate'; Compl. of the Black Knight, 168.

216. Cf. the Compleint to his Lady, l. 123.

218. _That_, who: relative to _hir_ above.

220. Observe how the stanza, which I here number as 1, is echoed by the stanza below, ll. 281-289; and so of the rest.

222. Nearly repeated in the Compl. to his Lady, l. 35.

237. Repeated from the Compl. to his Lady, l. 50.

241. _Founde_, seek after; A. S. _fundian_. For _founde_, all the MSS. have _be founde_, but the _be_ is merely copied in from _be more_ in l. 240. If we retain _be_, then _befounde_ must be a compound verb, with the same sense as before; but there is no known example of this verb, though the related strong verb _befinden_ is not uncommon. But see l. 47 above. With l. 242 cf. Rom. Rose, 966 (p. 134).

247. Cf. Compl. to his Lady, ll. 107, 108.

256-71. This stanza is in the same metre as that marked 5 below, ll. 317-332. It is very complex, consisting of 16 lines of varying length. The lines which I have set back have but _four_ accents; the rest have _five_. The rimes in the first eight lines are arranged in the order _a a a b a a a b_; in the last eight lines this order is precisely reversed, giving _b b b a b b b a_; so that the whole forms a _virelay_.

260. _Namely_, especially, in particular.

262. 'Offended you, as surely as (I hope that) He who knows everything may free my soul from woe.'

265. This refers to ll. 113-5 above.

267. Read _sav-e_, _mek-e_; or the line will be too short.

270. Refers to ll. 211-3 above.

272. This stanza answers to that marked 6 below, ll. 333-341. It is the most complex of all, as the lines contain internal rimes. The lines are of the normal length, and arranged with the end-rimes _a a b a a b b a b_, as in the stanzas marked 1 to 4 above. Every line has an internal rime, viz. at the second and fourth accents. In ll. 274, 280, this internal rime is a feminine one, which leaves but _one_ syllable (viz. _nay_, _may_) to complete these lines.

The expression 'swete fo' occurs again in the Compleint to his Lady, l. 41 (cf. ll. 64, 65); also in Troil. v. 228.

279. 'And then shall this, which is now wrong, (turn) into a jest; and all (shall be) forgiven, whilst I may live.'

281. The stanza here marked 1 answers to the stanza so marked above; and so of the rest. The metre has already been explained.

286. 'There are no other fresh intermediate ways.'

299. 'And must I pray (to you), and so cast aside womanhood?' It is not for the woman to sue to the man. Compare l. 332.

301. _N[=e]d-e_, with long close _e_, rimes with _b[=e]de_, _m[=e]de_, _h[=e]de_.

302. 'And if I lament as to what life I lead.'

306. 'Your demeanour may be said to flower, but it bears no seed.' There is much promise, but no performance.

309. _Holde_, keep back. The spelling _Averyll_ (or _Auerill_) occurs in MS. Harl. 7333, MS. Addit. 16165, and MSS. T. and P. It is much better than the _Aprill_ or _Aprille_ in the rest. I would also read _Averill_ or _Aperil_ in Troil. i. 156.

313. _Who that_, whosoever. _Fast_, trustworthy.

315. _Tame_, properly tamed. From Rom. Rose, 9945:--

'N'est donc bien privée tel beste Qui de foir est toute preste.'

320. _Chaunte-pleure._ Godefroy says that there was a celebrated poem of the 13th century named _Chantepleure_ or _Pleurechante_; and that it was addressed to those who sing in this world and will weep in the next. Hence also the word was particularly used to signify any complaint or lament, or a chant at the burial-service. One of his quotations is:--'Heu brevis honor qui vix duravit per diem, sed longus dolor qui usque ad mortem, gallicè _la chantepleure_'; J. de Aluet, _Serm._, Richel. l. 14961, fol. 195, verso. And again:--

'Car le juge de vérité Pugnira nostre iniquité Par la balance d'équité Qui où val de la _chantepleure_ Nous boute en grant adversité Sanz fin à perpétuité, Et y parsevere et demeure.' J. de Meung, Le Tresor, l. 1350; ed. Méon.

Tyrwhitt says:--'A sort of proverbial expression for _singing and weeping_ successively [rather, little singing followed by much weeping]. See Lydgate, Trag. [i. e. Fall of Princes] st. the last; where he says that his book is 'Lyke _Chantepleure_, now singing now weping.' In MS. Harl. 4333 is a Ballad which turns upon this expression. It begins: 'Moult vaut mieux _pleure-chante_ que ne fait _chante-pleure_.' Clearly the last expression means, that short grief followed by long joy is better than brief joy followed by long grief. The fitness of the application in the present instance is obvious.

Another example occurs in Lydgate's Fall of Princes, bk. i. c. 7, _lenvoy_:--

'It is like to the _chaunte-pleure_, Beginning with ioy, ending in wretchednes.'

So also in Lydgate's Siege of Troye, bk. ii. c. 11; ed. 1555, Fol. F 6, back, col. 2.

328. _A furlong-wey_ meant the time during which one can walk a furlong, at three miles an hour. A _mile-way_ is twenty minutes; a _furlong-wey_ is two minutes and a half; and the double of it is five minutes. But the strict sense need not be insisted on here.

330. _Asure_, true blue; the colour of _constancy_; see l. 332.

'Her habyte was of manyfolde colours, Watchet-_blewe_, of fayned _stedfastnesse_, Her golde allayed like son in watry showres, Meynt with _grene_, for _chaunge and doublenesse_.' Lydgate's Fall of Princes, bk. vi. c. 1. st. 7.

So in Troil. iii. 885--'bereth him this _blewe_ ring.' And see Sect. XXI. l. 7 (p. 409), and the note.

332. 'And to pray to me for mercy.' Cf. ll. 299, 300.

338. _They_, i. e. your ruth and your truth.

341. 'My wit cannot reach, it is so weak.'

342. Here follows the concluding stanza of the Complaint.

344. Read--_For I shal ne'er_ (or _nev'r_) _eft pútten_.

346. See note to Parl. of Foules, 342.

350. This line re-echoes l. 211.

357. The reason why the Poem ends here is sufficiently obvious. Here must have followed the description of the temple of Mars, _written in seven-line stanzas_. But it was all _rewritten_ in a new metre, and is preserved to us, for all time, in the famous passage in the Knightes Tale; ll. 1109-1192 (A 1967).

VIII. CHAUCERS WORDES UNTO ADAM.

Only extant in MS. T., written by Shirley, and in Stowe's edition of 1561. Dr. Koch says--'It seems that Stowe has taken his text from Shirley, with a few modifications in spelling, and altered Shirley's _Scriveyn_ into _scrivener_, apparently because that word was out of use in his time. _Scriveyn_ is O. Fr. _escrivain_, F. _écrivain_. Lines 3 and 4 are too long [in MS. T. and Stowe], but _long_ and _more_ are unnecessary for the sense, wherfore I have omitted them.' Dr. Sweet omits _long_, but retains _more_, though it sadly clogs the line. Again, in l. 2, we find _for to_, where _for_ is superfluous.

2. _Boece_, Chaucer's translation of Boethius. _Troilus_, Chaucer's poem of Troilus and Creseyde; in 5 books, all in seven-line stanzas. See vol. II.

3. 'Thou oughtest to have an attack of the scab under thy locks, unless thou write exactly in accordance with my composition.'

IX. THE FORMER AGE.

'The former Age' is a title taken from l. 2 of the poem. In MS. Hh., at the end, are the words--'Finit Etas prima: Chaucers.'

Both MSS. are poor, and omit a whole line (l. 56), which has to be supplied by conjecture; as we have no other authority. The spelling requires more emendation than usual.

The poem is partly a verse translation of Boethius, De Consolatione Philosophiæ, lib. ii. met. 5. We possess a prose translation by Chaucer of the entire work (see vol. II. p. 40). This therefore contains the same passage in prose; and the prose translation is, of course, a much closer rendering of the original. Indeed there is nothing in the original which corresponds to the last four stanzas of the present poem, excepting a hint for l. 62.

The work of Boethius, in Latin, consists of five books. Each book contains several sections, written in prose and verse alternately. Hence it is usual to refer to bk. ii. prose 5 (liber ii. prosa 5); bk. ii. metre 5 (liber ii. metrum 5); and the like. These divisions are very useful in finding one's place.

Chaucer was also indebted to Ovid, Metam. i. 89-112, for part of this description of the Golden Age; of which see Dryden's fine translation. See also Le Roman de la Rose, ll. 8395-8492: and compare the Complaint of Scotland, ed. Murray, p. 144; and Dante, Purg. xxii. 148. For further remarks, see the Introduction.

1. 'Decaearchus ... refert sub Saturno, id est, in aureo saeculo, cum omnia humus funderet, nullum comedisse carnes: sed uniuersos uixisse frugibus et pomis, quae sponte terra gignebat'; Hieron. c. Iouin. lib. ii.

2. _The former age_; Lat. prior etas.

3. _Payed of_, satisfied with; Lat. contenta.

4. _By usage_, ordinarily; i. e. without being tilled.

5. _Forpampred_, exceedingly pampered; Lat. perdita. _With outrage_, beyond all measure.

6. _Quern_, a hand-mill for grinding corn. _Melle_, mill.

7. Dr. Sweet reads _hawes, mast_ instead of _mast, hawes_. This sounds better, but is not necessary. _Haw-es_ is dissyllabic. _Pounage_, mod. E. _pannage_, mast, or food given to swine in the woods; see the Glossary. Better spelt _pannage_ or _paunage_ (Manwood has _pawnage_), as cited in Blount's Nomolexicon. Koch wrongly refers us to O.F. _poün_, _poön_, a sickle (Burguy), but mast and haws were never reaped. Cf. Dante, Purg. xxii. 149.

11. 'Which they rubbed in their hands, and ate of sparingly.' _Gnodded_ is the pt. t. of _gnodden_ or _gnudden_, to rub, examples of which are scarce. See Ancren Riwle, pp. 238, 260 (footnotes), and _gnide_ in Halliwell's Dictionary. But the right reading is obviously _gniden_ or _gnide_ (with short _i_), the pt. t. pl. of the strong verb _gniden_, to rub. This restores the melody of the line. In the Ancren Riwle, p. 260, there is a reference to Luke vi. 1, saying that Jesus' disciples '_gniden_ the cornes ut bitweonen hore honden'; where another MS. has _gnuddeden_. The Northern form _gnade_ (2 p. sing.) occurs in the O.E. Psalter, Ps. lxxxviii. 45. Dr. Sweet reads _gnodde_, but the pt. t. of _gnodden_ was _gnodded_. _Nat half_, not half of the crop; some was wasted.

16. 'No one as yet ground spices in a mortar, to put into _clarrè_ or galantine-sauce.' As to _clarre_, see Knightes Tale, 613 (A 1471); R. Rose, 6027; and the Babees Book, ed. Furnivall, p. 204, and Index.

In the Liber Cure Cocorum, ed. Morris, p. 30, is the following recipe for _Galentyne_:--

'Take crust of brede and grynde hit smalle, Take powder of galingale, and temper with-alle; Powder of gyngere and salt also; Tempre hit with venegur er þou more do; Draw[gh]e hit þurughe a streynour þenne, And messe hit forth before good menne.'

'_Galendyne_ is a sauce for any kind of roast Fowl, made of Grated Bread, beaten Cinnamon and Ginger, Sugar, Claret-wine, and Vinegar, made as thick as Grewell'; Randell Holme, bk. iii. ch. iii. p. 82, col. 2 (quoted in Babees Book, ed. Furnivall, p. 216). Roquefort gives O.F. _galatine_, _galantine_, _galentine_, explained by 'gelée, daube, sauce, ragoût fort épicé; en bas Latin, _galatina_.' Beyond doubt, Chaucer found the word in the Roman de la Rose, l. 21823--'En friture et en _galentine_.' See _Galantine_ in Littré, and see note to Sect. XII. l. 17. Cf. Rom. de la Rose, 8418:--

'Et de l'iaue simple bevoient Sans querre piment ne clare,' &c.

17. 'No dyer knew anything about madder, weld, or woad.' All three are plants used in dyeing. Madder is _Rubia tinctoria_, the roots of which yield a dye. I once fancied _weld_ was an error for _welled_ (i. e. flowed out); and Dr. Sweet explains _welde_ by 'strong.' Both of these fancies are erroneous. _Weld_ is the _Reseda Luteola_ of Linnæus, and grows wild in waste places; I have seen it growing near Beachey Head. It is better known as Dyer's Rocket. In Johns' Flowers of the Field, we duly find--'_Reseda Luteola_, Dyer's Rocket, weed, or Weld.' Also called Ash of Jerusalem, Dyer's Weed, &c.; see Eng. Plant-names, by Britten and Holland. It appears in mod. G. as _Wau_ (Du. _wouw_), older spelling _Waude_. Its antiquity as a Teut. word is vouched for by the derivatives in the Romance languages, such as Span. _gualda_, Port. _gualde_, F. _gaude_; see _Gualda_ in Diez. _Weld_ is a totally distinct word from _woad_, but most dictionaries confound them. Florio, most impartially, coins a new form by mixing the two words together (after the fashion adopted in Alice through the Looking-glass). He gives us Ital. _gualdo_, 'a weede to die yellow with, called _woald_.' The true _woad_ is the _Isatis tinctoria_, used for dyeing blue before indigo was known; the name is sometimes given to _Genista tinctoria_, but the dye from this is of a yellow colour. Pliny mentions the dye from madder (Nat. Hist. xix. 3); and says the British women used _glastum_, i. e. woad (xxii. 1).

18. _Flees_, fleece; Lat. 'uellera.'

20. 'No one had yet learnt how to distinguish false coins from true ones.'

27-9. Cf. Ovid, Metam. i. 138-140.

30. _Ri-ver-es_; three syllables. Dr. Sweet suggests putting _after_ in place of _first_.

33. 'These tyrants did not gladly venture into battle to win a wilderness or a few bushes where poverty (alone) dwells--as Diogenes says--or where victuals are so scarce and poor that only mast or apples are found there; but, wherever there are money-bags,' &c. This is taken either from Jerome, in his Epistle against Jovinian, lib. ii. (Epist. Basil. 1524, ii. 73), or from John of Salisbury's Policraticus, lib. viii. c. 6. Jerome has: 'Diogenes _tyrannos_ et subuersiones urbium, bellaque uel hostilia, uel ciuilia, non pro simplici uictu holerum pomorumque, sed pro carnibus et epularum deliciis asserit excitari.' John of Salisbury copies this, with _subuersores_ for _subuersiones_, which seems better. Gower relates how Diogenes reproved Alexander for his lust of conquest; Conf. Amantis, ed. Pauli, i. 322.

41. This stanza seems more or less imitated from Le Rom. de la Rose, 8437:--

'Et quant par nuit dormir voloient, En leu de coites [_quilts_] aportoient En lor casiaus monceaus de gerbes, De foilles, ou de mousse, ou d'erbes;.... Sor tex couches cum ge devise, Sans rapine et sans convoitise, S'entr'acoloient et baisoient.... Les simples gens asséurées, De toutes cures escurées.'

47. 'Their hearts were all united, without the gall (of envy).' Curiously enough, Chaucer has here made an oversight. He ends the line with _galles_, riming with _halles_ and _walles_; whereas the line should end with a word riming to _shete_, as, e.g. 'Hir hertes knewen nat to counterfete.'

49. Here again cf. Rom. de la Rose, 8483:--

'N'encor n'avoit fet roi ne prince Meffais qui l'autrui tolt et pince. Trestuit pareil estre soloient, Ne riens propre avoir ne voloient.

55, 6. 'Humility and peace, (and) good faith (who is) the empress (of all), filled the earth full of ancient courtesy.' Line 56 I have supplied; Dr. Koch supplies the line--'Yit hadden in this worlde the maistrie.' Either of these suggestions fills up the sense intended.

57. Jupiter is mentioned in Ovid's Metamorphoses immediately after the description of the golden, silver, brazen, and iron ages. At l. 568 of the same book begins the story of the love of Jupiter for Io.

59. _Nembrot_, Nimrod; so that _his toures hye_ refers to the tower of Babel. In Gen. x, xi, the sole connection of Nimrod with Babel is in ch. x. 10--'And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel.' But the usual medieval account is that he built the tower. Thus, in the Cursor Mundi, l. 2223:--

'Nembrot than said on this wise, ... "I rede we bigin a laboure, And do we wel and make a toure,"' &c.

So also in Sir D. Lyndsay, Buke of the Monarché, bk. ii. l. 1625.

62-4. These last lines are partly imitated from Boethius; lines 33-61 are independent of him.

X. FORTUNE.

This poem consists of _three_ Ballads and an Envoy. Each Ballad contains three stanzas of eight lines, with the rimes _a b a b b c b c_, and the rimes of the second and third stanzas are precisely the same as those of the first. Thus the rime _a_ recurs six times, the rime _b_ twelve times, and the rime _c_ likewise six times. Moreover, each stanza ends with the same line, recurring as a refrain. Hence the metrical difficulties are very great, and afford a convincing proof of Chaucer's skill. The Envoy is of seven lines, rimed _a b a b b a b_.

The three ballads are called, collectively, Balades de visage sanz peinture, a title which is correctly given in MS. I., with the unlucky exception that _visage_ has been turned into _vilage_. This curious blunder occurs in all the MSS. and old editions, and evidently arose from mistaking a long _s_ for an _l_. _Vilage_, of course, makes no sense; and we are enabled to correct it by help of Chaucer's translation of Boethius, bk. ii. pr. 1; l. 39. 'Right swich was she [Fortune] whan she flatered thee, and deceived thee with unleveful lykinges of fals welefulnesse. Thou hast now knowen and ataynt the doutous or double _visage_ of thilke blinde goddesse _Fortune_. She, that yit _covereth_ hir and _wimpleth_ hir to other folk, hath shewed hir everydel to thee.' Or the Ballads may refer to the unmasking of false friends: '_Fortune_ hath departed and uncovered to thee bothe the _certein visages_ and eek the doutous _visages_ of thy felawes'; id. bk. ii. pr. 8; l. 25. The whole poem is more or less founded on the descriptions of Fortune in Boethius; and we thus see that the visage meant is the _face of Fortune_, or else the _face of a supposed friend_, which is clearly revealed to the man of experience, in the day of adversity, without any covering or wimpling, and even without any painting or false colouring.

In MS. T. we are told that 'here filoweþe [_followeth_] a balade made by Chaucier of þe louer and of Dame Fortune.' In MS. A. we are told that 'here foloweþe nowe a compleynte of þe Pleintyff agenst fortune translated oute of Frenshe into Englisshe by þat famous Rethorissyen Geffrey Chaucier.' This hint, that it is translated out of French, can scarcely be right, unless Shirley (whose note this is) means that it partially resembles passages in Le Roman de la Rose; for Chaucer's work seems to contain some reminiscences of that poem as well as of the treatise of Boethius, though of course Le Roman is indebted to Boethius also.

_Le Pleintif_ is the complainant, the man who brings a charge against Fortune, or rather, who exclaims against her as false, and defies her power. The first Ballad, then, consists of this complaint and defiance.

The close connection between this poem and Boethius is shewn by the fact that (like the preceding poem called The Former Age) it occurs in an excellent MS. of Chaucer's translation of Boethius, viz. MS. I. (Ii. 3. 21, in the Cambridge University Library). I may also remark here, that there is a somewhat similar dialogue between Nobilitas and Fortuna in the Anticlaudianus of Alanus de Insulis, lib. viii. c. 2; see Anglo-Latin Satirists, ed. T. Wright, ii. 401.

In Morley's English Writers, ii. 283, is the following description. 'The argument of the _first_ part [or Ballad] is: I have learnt by adversity to know who are my true friends; and he can defy Fortune who is master of himself. The argument of the _next_ part [second Ballad], that Fortune speaks, is: Man makes his own wretchedness. What may come you know not; you were born under my rule of change; your anchor holds. Of the _third_ part of the poem [third Ballad], in which the Poet and Fortune each speak, the sum of the argument is, that what blind men call fortune is the righteous will of God. Heaven is firm, this world is mutable. The piece closes with Fortune's call upon the Princes to relieve this man of his pain, or pray his best friend "of his noblesse" that he may attain to some better estate.'

The real foundation of these three Ballads is (1) Boethius, bk. ii. proses 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, and met. 1; and (2) a long passage in Le Roman de la Rose, ll. 4853-4994 (Eng. version, 5403-5584). More particular references are given below.

1. The beginning somewhat resembles Boethius, bk. ii. met. 1, l, 5;--'She, cruel Fortune, casteth adoun kinges that whylom weren y-drad; and she, deceivable, enhaunseth up the humble chere of him that is discomfited.' Cf. Rom. Rose (E. version), ll. 5479-83.

2. The latter part of this line is badly given in the MSS. The readings are: F. now pouerte and now riche honour (_much too long_); I. now poeer_e_ and now honour; A. T. nowe poure and nowe honour; H. now poore and now honour. But the reading _poure_, _poer_, _pore_, i. e. poor, hardly serves, as a sb. is required. _Pouerte_ seems to be the right word, but this requires us to omit the former _now_. _Pouerte_ can be pronounced _povért'_; accented on the second syllable, and with the final _e_ elided. For this pronunciation, see Prol. to Man of Lawes Tale, Group B, l. 99. Precisely because this pronunciation was not understood, the scribes did not know what to do. They inserted _now_ before _pouerte_ (which they thought was _póverte_); and then, as the line was too long, cut it down to _poure_, _poore_, to the detriment of the sense. I would therefore rather read--'As wele or wo, poverte and now honour,' with the pronunciation noted above.

7. In the Introduction to the Persones Tale (Group I, 248), we find: 'wel may that man, that no good werke ne dooth, singe thilke newe Frenshe song, _Iay tout perdu mon temps et mon labour_.' In like manner, in the present case, this line of 'a new French song' is governed by the verb _singen_ in l. 6; cf. Sect. XXII. l. 24. The sense is--'the lack of Fortune's favour shall never (though I die) make me sing--"I have wholly lost my time and my labour."' In other words, 'I will not own myself defeated.'

9. With this stanza cf. Rom. de la Rose (E. version), 5551-2, 5671-78, 5579-81:--

'For Infortune makith anoon To knowe thy freendis fro thy foon... A wys man seide, as we may seen, Is no man wrecched, but he it wene,... For he suffrith in pacience... Richesse riche ne makith nought Him that on tresour set his thought; For richesse stont in _suffisaunce_;' &c.

13. _No force of_, it does not matter for; i. e. 'thy rigour is of no consequence to him who has the mastery over himself.' From Boethius, bk. ii. pr. 4, l. 98, which Chaucer translates: 'Thanne, yif it so be that thou art mighty over thy-self, that is to seyn, by tranquillitee of thy sowle, than hast thou thing in thy power that thou noldest never lesen, ne Fortune ne may nat beneme it thee.'

17. Socrates is mentioned in Boeth. bk. i. pr. 3, l. 39, but ll. 17-20 are from Le Rom. de la Rose, ll. 5871-4:--

'A Socrates seras semblables, Qui tant fu fers et tant estables, Qu'il n'ert liés en prospérités, Ne tristes en aversités.'

20. _Chere_, look. _Savour_, pleasantness, attraction; cf. Squi. Tale, F 404. All the MSS. have this reading; Caxton alters it to _favour_.

25. This Second Ballad gives us Fortune's response to the defiance of the complainant. In Arch. Seld. B. 10, it is headed--'Fortuna ad paupertatem.' See Boethius, bk. ii. prose 2, where Philosophy says--'Certes, I wolde _pleten_ with thee a fewe thinges, _usinge the wordes of Fortune_.' Cf. 'nothing is wrecched but whan thou wenest it'; Boeth. ii. pr. 4, l. 79; and see Rom. Rose (E. version, 5467-5564).

28. 'Who possessest thy (true) self (as being quite) beyond my control.' A fine sentiment. _Out of_, beyond, independent of.

29. Cf. 'thou hast had grace as he that hath used of foreine goodes; thou hast no right to pleyne thee'; Boethius, bk. ii. pr. 2, l. 17.

31. Cf. 'what eek yif my mutabilitee yiveth thee rightful cause of hope to han yit beter thinges?' id. l. 58.

32. _Thy beste frend_; possibly John of Gaunt, who died in 1399; but see note to l. 73 below. There is a curious resemblance here to Le Rom. de la Rose, 8056-60:--

'Et sachies, compains, que sitost Comme _Fortune_ m'ot ça mis, _Je perdi trestous mes amis_, _Fors ung_, ce croi ge vraiement, Qui m'est remès tant solement.'

34. Cf. 'For-why this like Fortune hath departed and uncovered to thee bothe the certein visages and eek the doutous visages of thy felawes... thow hast founden the moste precious kinde of richesses, that is to seyn, thy verray freendes'; Boeth. bk. ii. pr. 8, l. 25.

Cf. Rom. Rose (E. version), l. 5486, and ll. 5547-50. The French version has (ll. 4967, &c.):--

'Si lor fait par son mescheoir Tretout si clerement veoir, Que lor fait lor amis trover, Et par experiment prover Qu'il valent miex que nul avoir Qu'il poïssent où monde avoir.'

35. Vincent de Beauvais, Speculum Naturale, bk. 19, c. 62, headed De medicinis ex hyæna, cites the following from Hieronymus, Contra Iouinianum [lib. ii. Epist. Basileæ, 1524, ii. 74]:--'Hyænæ fel oculorum claritatem restituit,' the gall of a hyena restores the clearness of one's eyes. So also Pliny, Nat. Hist. bk. xxviii. c. 8. This exactly explains the allusion. Compare the extract from Boethius already quoted above, at the top of p. 543.

38. 'Still thine anchor holds.' From Boethius, bk. ii. pr. 4, l. 40:--whan that thyn ancres cleven faste, that neither wolen suffren the counfort of this tyme present, ne the hope of tyme cominge, to passen ne to faylen.'

39. 'Where Liberality carries the key of my riches.'

43. _On_, referring to, or, that is binding on.

46. Fortune says:--'I torne the whirlinge wheel with the torning cercle'; Boethius, bk. ii. pr. 2, l. 37.

47. 'My teaching is better, in a higher degree, than your affliction is, in its degree, evil'; i. e. my teaching betters you more than your affliction makes you suffer.

49. In this third Ballad, the stanzas are distributed between the Complainant and Fortune, one being assigned to the former, and two to the latter. The former says:--'I condemn thy teaching; it is (mere) adversity.' M. S. Arch. Seld. B. 10 has the heading 'Paupertas ad Fortunam.'

50. _My frend_, i. e. my true friend. In l. 51, _thy frendes_ means 'the friends I owed to thee,' my false friends. From Boethius, bk. ii. pr. 8, l. 23:--'this aspre and horrible Fortune hath discovered to thee the thoughtes of thy trewe freendes;... Whan she departed awey fro thee, she took awey _hir_ freendes and lafte thee _thyne_ freendes.'

51. _I thanke hit thee_, I owe thanks to thee for it. But very likely _hit_ has been inserted to fill up, and the right reading is, probably, _I thank-e thee_; as Koch suggests.

52. _On presse_, in a throng, in company, all together.

53. 'Their niggardliness, in keeping their riches to themselves, foreshews that thou wilt attack their stronghold; just as an unnatural appetite precedes illness.'

56. Cf. Rom. de la Rose, 19179:--

'Ceste ruile est si généraus, Qu'el ne puet defaillir vers aus.'

57. Here Fortune replies. This stanza is nearly made up of extracts from Boethius, bk. ii. pr. 2, transposed and rearranged. For the sake of comparison, I give the nearest equivalents, transposing them to suit the order here adopted.

'That maketh thee now inpacient ayeins me.... I norisshede thee with my richesses.... Now it lyketh me to with-drawen my hand ... shal I than only ben defended to usen my right?... The see hath eek his right to ben somtyme calme ... and somtyme to ben horrible with wawes.... Certes, it is leveful to the hevene to make clere dayes.... The yeer hath eek leve ... to confounden hem [_the flowers_] somtyme with reynes ... shal it [_men's covetousness_] binde me to ben stedefast?'

Compare also the defence of Fortune by Pandarus, in Troilus, bk. i. 841-854.

65. Above this stanza (ll. 65-72) all the MSS. insert a new heading, such as 'Le pleintif,' or 'Le pleintif encountre Fortune,' or 'The pleyntyff ageinst Fortune,' or 'Paupertas ad Fortunam.' But they are all wrong, for it is quite certain that this stanza belongs to Fortune. Otherwise, it makes no sense. Secondly, we know this by the original (in Boethius). And thirdly, Fortune cannot well have the 'envoy' unless she has the stanza preceding it. Dr. Morris, in his edition, rightly omits the heading; and so in Bell's edition.

66. Compare:--'For purviaunce is thilke divyne reson that is establisshed in the soverein prince of thinges; the whiche purviaunce disponeth alle thinges'; Boeth. bk. iv. pr. 6, l. 42.

68. _Ye blinde bestes_, addressed to men; evidently by _Fortune_, not by the _Pleintif_. Compare the words _forth_, _beste_, in the Balade on Truth, Sect. XIII. l. 18.

71. Here we have formal proof that the speaker is Fortune; for this is copied from Boethius, bk. ii. pr. 3, l. 60--'natheles the laste day of a mannes lyf is a manere deeth to Fortune.' Hence _thy_ refers to _man_, and _myn_ refers to _Fortune_; and the sense is--'Thy last day (O man) is the end of my interest (in thee)'; or 'dealings (with thee).' The word _interesse_, though scarce, is right. It occurs in Lydgate's Minor Poems, ed. Halliwell, p. 210; and in Spenser, F. Q. vii. 6. 33:--

'That not the worth of any living wight May challenge ought in Heaven's _interesse_.'

And in Todd's Johnson:--'I thought, says his Majesty [K. Charles I.] I might happily have satisfied all _interesses_'; Lord Halifax's Miscell. p. 144. The sb. also occurs as Ital. _interesse_; thus Florio's Ital. Dict. (1598) has:--'_Interesse_, _Interesso_, the interest or profite of money for lone. Also, what toucheth or concerneth a mans state or reputation.' And Minsheu's Spanish Dict. (1623) has:--'_Interes_, or _Interesse_, interest, profite, auaile.' The E. vb. to _interess_ was once common, and occurs in K. Lear, i. 1. 87 (unless Dr. Schmidt is right in condemning the reading of that line).

73. _Princes._ Who these princes were, it is hard to say; according to l. 76 (found in MS. I. only), there were _three_ of them. If the reference is to the Dukes of Lancaster, York, and Gloucester, then the 'beste frend' must be the king himself. Cf. l. 33.

75, 76. 'And I (Fortune) will requite you for your trouble (undertaken) at my request, whether there be three of you, or two of you (that heed my words).' Line 76 occurs in MS. I. _only_, yet it is difficult to reject it, as it is not a likely sort of line to be thrust in, unless this were done, in revision, by the author himself. Moreover, we should expect the Envoy to form a stanza with the usual seven lines, so common in Chaucer, though the rime-arrangement differs.

77. 'And, unless it pleases you to relieve him of his pain (yourselves), pray his best friend, for the honour of his nobility, that he may attain to some better estate.'

The assigning of this petition to _Fortune_ is a happy expedient. The poet thus escapes making a direct appeal in his own person.

XI. MERCILESS BEAUTY.

The title 'Mercilesse Beaute' is given in the Index to the Pepys MS. As it is a fitting title, and no other has been suggested, it is best to use it.

I think this Roundel was suggested by one written in French, in the thirteenth century, by Willamme d'Amiens, and printed in Bartsch, Chrestomathie de l'ancien Français. It begins--

'Jamais ne serai saous D'esguarder les vairs ieus dous Qui m'ont ocis';--

i. e. I shall never be sated with gazing on the gray soft eyes which have slain me.

1. The MS. has _Yowre two yen_; but the scribe lets us see that this ill-sounding arrangement of the words is not the author's own; for in writing the refrain he writes 'Your yen, &c.' But we have further evidence: for the whole line is quoted in Lydgate's Ballade of our Ladie, printed in Chaucer's Works, ed. 1550, fol. 347 b, in the form--'Your eyen two wol slee me sodainly.' The same Ballad contains other imitations of Chaucer's language. Cf. also Kn. Tale, 260 and 709 (A 1118, 1567).

3. _So woundeth hit ... kene_, so keenly it (your beauty) wounds (me). The MS. has _wondeth_, which is another M. E. spelling of _woundeth_. Percy miscopied it _wendeth_, which gives but poor sense; besides, Chaucer would probably have used the contracted form _went_ as his manner is. In l. 5, the scribe writes _wound_ (better _wounde_).

4. _And but_, and unless. For _word_ Percy printed _words_, quite forgetting that the M.E. plural is dissyllabic (_word-es_). The final _d_ has a sort of curl to it, but a comparison with other words shews that it means nothing; it occurs, for instance, at the end of _wound_ (l. 5), and _escaped_ (l. 27).

_Wounde_ (MS. _wound_) is dissyllabic in Mid. English, like mod. G. _Wunde_. See _wunde_ in Stratmann.

6. I give _two_ lines to the first refrain, and _three_ to the second. The reader may give _three_ lines to both, if he pleases; see note to sect. V, l. 675. We cannot confine the first refrain to _one_ line only, as there is no stop at the end of l. 14.

8. _Trouth-e_ is dissyllabic; see _treouthe_ in Stratmann.

15. _Ne availeth_; with elided e. MS. nauailleth; Percy prints _n'availeth_.

16. _Halt_, i. e. holdeth; see Book of Duch. 621.

17. MS. _han ye me_, correctly; Percy omits _me_, and so spoils both sense and metre.

27. Lovers should be _lean_; see Romaunt of the Rose (E. version), 2684. The F. version has (l. 2561):--

'Car bien saches qu'Amors ne lesse Sor fins amans color ne gresse.'

28. MS neu_er_e; Percy prints _nere_; but the syllables _in his_ occupy the time of _one_ syllable. I suspect that the correct reading is _thenke ben_; _to_ is not wanted, and _thenke_ is better with a final _e_, though it is sometimes dropped in the pres. indicative. Percy prints _thinke_, but the MS. has _thenk_; cf. AS. _þencan_. With l. 29 cf. Troil. v. 363.

31. _I do no fors_, I don't care; as in Cant. Ta. 6816 (D 1234).

XII. TO ROSEMOUNDE.

This graceful Balade is a happy specimen of Chaucer's skill in riming. The metre is precisely that of 'Fortune,' resembling that of the Monkes Tale with the addition of a refrain; only the same rimes are used throughout. The formula is _a b a b b c b c_.

2. 'As far as the map of the world extends.' _Mappemounde_ is the F. _mappemonde_, Lat. _mappa mundi_; it is used also by Gower, Conf. Amant. iii. 102.

9. _tyne_, a large tub; O. F. _tine_. The whole phrase occurs in the Chevalier au Cigne, as given in Bartsch, Chrest. Française, 350. 23:--'Le jour i ot plore de larmes plaine tine.' Cotgrave has:--'_Tine_, a Stand, open Tub, or Soe, most in use during the time of vintage, and holding _about four or five pailfuls_, and commonly borne, by a Stang, between two.' We picture to ourselves the brawny porters, staggering beneath the '_stang_,' on which is slung the 'tine' containing the 'four or five pailfuls' of the poet's tears.

10. The poet, in all his despair, is sustained and refreshed by regarding the lady's beauty.

11. _seemly_, excellent, pleasing; this is evidently meant by the _semy_ of the MS.

_smal_, fine in tone, delicate; perhaps treble. A good example occurs in the Flower and the Leaf, 180:--

'With voices sweet entuned, and so _smalle_, That it me thoughte the swetest melodye,' &c.

Cf. 'his vois gentil and _smal_'; Cant. Tales, A 3360. The reading _fynall_ (put for _finall_) is due to mistaking the long s for _f_, and _m_ for _in_.

_out-twyne_, twist out, force out; an unusual word.

17. 'Never was pike so involved in galantine-sauce as I am completely involved in love.' This is a humorous allusion to a manner of serving up pikes which is well illustrated in the Fifteenth-Century Cookery-books, ed. Austin, p. 101, where a recipe for 'pike in Galentyne' directs that the cook should 'cast the sauce _under him and aboue him, that he be al y-hidde in the sauce_.' At p. 108 of the same we are told that the way to make 'sauce galentyne' is to steep crusts of brown bread in vinegar, adding powdered cinnamon till it is brown; after which the vinegar is to be strained twice or thrice through a strainer, and some pepper and salt is to be added. Thus 'sauce galentine' was a seasoned pickle. See further in the note to 1. 16 of Sect. IX.

20. 'True Tristram the second.' For _Tristram_, see note to Sect. V. 1. 290. Tristram was a famous example of 'truth' or constancy, as his love was inspired by having drunk a magical love-potion, from the effects of which he never recovered. The MS. has _Tristam_.

21. _refreyd_, cooled down; lit. 'refrigerated.' This rare word occurs twice in Troilus; see bk. ii. 1343, v. 507; cf. Pers. Ta. I 341. Dr. Murray tells me that no writer but Chaucer is known to have used this form of the word, though Caxton has _refroid_, from continental French, whereas _refreid_ is from Anglo-French.

_afounde_, sink, be submerged. See O. F. _afonder_, to plunge under water, also, to sink, in Godefroy; and _affonder_ in Cotgrave. Chaucer found this rare word in Le Roman de la Rose, 19914. (I once thought it was the pp. of _afinden_, and meant 'nor be explored'; but it is better to take it as infin. after _may not_). See _Afounder_ in the New E. Dict.

XIII. TRUTH.

The Titles are: Gg. Balade de bone conseyl; Lansd. 699, La bon Counseil de le Auttour; Caxton, The good counceyl of Chawcer; Harl. Moral balade of Chaucyre. Shirley calls it--Balade that Chaucier made on his deeth-bedde; a note that has been frequently repeated, and is probably no better than a bad guess.

1. Koch considers that the source of the poem is a passage in Boethius, lib. iii. met. II, at the beginning, but the resemblance is very slight. It contains no more than a mere hint for it. However, part of st. 3 is certainly from the same, bk. i. pr. 5, as will appear; see note to 1. 17.

The former passage in Boethius is thus translated by Chaucer: 'Who-so that seketh sooth by a deep thoght, and coveiteth nat to ben deceived by no mis-weyes, lat him rollen and trenden [_revolve_] withinne himself the light of his inward sighte; and lat him gadere ayein, enclyninge in-to a compas, the longe moevinges of his thoughtes; and lat him techen his corage that he hath enclosed and hid in his tresors, al that he compaseth or seketh fro with-oute.' See also bk. ii. pr. 5 of the same, which seems to me more like the present poem than is the above passage.

2. Koch reads _thing_ for _good_, as in some MSS. He explains the line:--'Devote thyself entirely to one thing, even if it is not very important in itself (instead of hunting after a phantom).' This I cannot accept; it certainly means nothing of the kind. Dr. Sweet has the reading: _Suffise thin owene thing_, &c., which is the reading of _one_ MS. only, but it gives the right idea. The line would then mean: 'let your own property, though small, suffice for your wants.' I think we are bound to follow the MSS. generally; of these, _two_ have _Suffice unto thi thing_; _seven_ have _Suffice unto thy good_; _one_ has _Suffice unto thi lyuynge_ (where _lyuynge_ is a gloss upon _good_); and F. has the capital reading _Suffice the_ (= _thee_) _thy good_. It seems best to follow the majority, especially as they allow _suffice_ to be followed by a vowel, thus eliding the final e. The sense is simply: 'Be content with thy property, though it be small'; and the next line gives the reason why--'for hoarding only causes hatred, and ambition creates insecurity; the crowd is full of envy, and wealth blinds one in every respect.' _Suffice unto thy good_ is much the same as the proverb--'cut your coat according to your cloth.' Chaucer elsewhere has _worldly suffisaunce_ for 'wealth'; Cler. Tale, E 759. Of course this use of _suffice unto_ (be content with) is peculiar; but I do not see why it is not legitimate. The use of _Savour_ in l. 5 below is at least as extraordinary.

Cf. Chaucer's tr. of Boethius, bk. ii. pr. 5, l. 54:--'And if thou wolt fulfille thy nede after that it suffiseth to nature, than is it no nede that thou seke after the superfluitee of fortune.'

3. Cf. 'for avarice maketh alwey mokereres [_hoarders_] to ben hated'; Boeth. ii. pr. 5, l. 11.

5. _Savour_, taste with relish, have an appetite for. 'Have a relish for no more than it may behove you (to taste).'

6. Most MSS. read _Werk_ or _Do_; only two have _Reule_, which Dr. Sweet adopts. Any one of these three readings makes sense. 'Thou who canst advise others, work well thyself,' or 'act well thyself,' or 'rule thyself.' To quote from Hamlet, i. 3. 47:--

'Do not, as some ungracious pastors do, Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven; Whiles, like a puff'd and reckless libertine, Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads, And recks not his own rede.'

It is like the Jewish proverb--'Physician, heal thyself.'

7. _Trouthe shal delivere_, truth shall give deliverance. 'The truth shall make you free,' Lat. 'ueritas liberabit uos'; John viii. 32. This is a general truth, and there is no need for the insertion of _thee_ after _shal_, as in the inferior MSS., in consequence of the gradual loss of the final _e_ in _trouthe_, which in Chaucer is properly dissyllabic. The scribes who turned _trouthe_ into _trouthe thee_ forgot that this makes up _trou-thè thee_.

8. _Tempest thee noght_, do not violently trouble or harass thyself, do not be in a state of agitation. Agitation will not redress everything that is crooked. So also:--'_Tempest_ thee nat thus with al thy fortune'; Boeth. bk. ii. pr. 4, l. 50. Chaucer (as Koch says) obtained this curious verb from the third line of section F (l. 63 of the whole poem) of the French poem from which he translated his A B C. This section begins (see p. 263 above):--

'Fuiant m'en viens a ta tente Moy mucier pour la tormente Qui ou monde me _tempeste_';

i. e. I come fleeing to thy tent, to hide myself from the storm which harasses me in the world. Goldsmith speaks of a mind being 'tempested up'; Cit. of the World, let. 47.

9. 'Trusting to the vicissitudes of fortune.' There are several references to the wheel of Fortune in Boethius. Thus in bk. ii. pr. 2 of Chaucer's translation:--'I torne the whirlinge wheel with the torning cercle,' quoted above, in the note to X. 46.

10. 'Much repose consists in abstinence from fussiness.'

11. 'To spurn against an awl,' i. e. against a prick, is the English equivalent of the Gk. phrase which our bibles render by 'to kick against the pricks,' Acts ix. 5. Wyclif has 'to kike ayens the pricke.'

In MS. Cotton, Otho A. xviii, we find the reading _a nall_, the _n_ being transferred from _an_ to the sb. Tusser has _nall_ for 'awl' in his Husbandry, § 17, st. 4, l. 3. This MS., by the way, has been burnt, but a copy of it (too much corrected) is given in Todd's Illustrations of Chaucer, p. 131.

12. An allusion to the fable in Æsop about the earthern and brazen pots being dashed together. An earthen pot would have still less chance of escape if dashed against a wall. In MS. T., the word _crocke_ is glossed by 'water-potte.'

13. 'Thou that subduest the deeds of another, subdue thyself.'

15. Cf. 'it behoveth thee to suffren with evene wille in pacience al that is don ... in this world'; Boeth. bk. ii. pr. I, l. 66.

16. _Axeth_, requires; i. e. will surely cause.

17. When Boethius complains of being exiled, Philosophy directs him to a heavenly home. 'Yif thou remembre of what contree thou art born, it nis nat governed by emperours ... but oo lord and oo king, and that is god'; bk. i. pr. 5, l. II. This is copied (as being taken from 'Boece') in Le Roman de la Rose, l. 5049 (Eng. version, l. 5659).

18. The word _beste_ probably refers to the passage in Boethius where wicked men are likened to various animals, as when the extortioner is a wolf, a noisy abusive man is a hound, a treacherous man is a fox, &c.; bk. iv. pr. 3. The story of Ulysses and Circe follows; bk. iv. met. 3.

19. 'Recognise heaven as thy true country.' _Lok up_, gaze upwards to heaven. Cf. the expression 'thy contree' at the end of bk. iv. pr. I of his translation of Boethius. There is also a special reference here to Boeth. bk. v. met. 5, where it is said that quadrupeds look _down_, but man is upright; 'this figure amonesteth thee, that axest the hevene with thy righte visage'; l. 14. See Ovid, Met. i. 85.

But, man, as thou wittlees were, Thou lokist euere dounwarde as a beest.' Polit, and Love Poems, ed. Furnivall, p. 185, l. 273.

_Thank god of al_, thank God for all things. In like manner, in the Lamentation of Mary Magdalen, st. 53, we find: 'I thanke God _of_ al, if I nowe dye.' Mätzner (Gram. ii. 2. 307) quotes from the Towneley Mysteries, p. 128:--'Mekyll thanke _of_ youre good wille'; and again (Gram. ii. 1. 238) from King Alisaunder, l. 7576:--'And thankid him _of_ his socour.' Henrysoun, in his Abbay Walk, l. 8, has:--'Obey, and thank thy God of al'; but he is probably copying this very passage. Cf. also--'of help I him praye'; Lydgate, London Lyckpeny, st. 6; 'beseech you of your pardon'; Oth. iii. 3. 212. In Lydgate's Minor Poems, ed. Halliwell, p. 225, is a poem in which every stanza ends with 'thonk God of alle.' Cf. Cant. Tales, B 1113.

'Lyft wp thyne Ene [_not_ orne], and thank thi god of al.' Ratis Raving, ed. Lumby, p. 10.

20. _Hold the hye wey_, keep to the high road. Instead of _Hold the hye wey_, some MSS. have _Weyve thy lust_, i. e. put aside thy desire, give up thine own will.

22. This last stanza forms an Envoy. It exists in _one_ copy only (MS. Addit. 10340); but there is no reason at all for considering it spurious. _Vache_, cow; with reference to the 'beast in the stall' in l. 18. This animal was probably chosen as being less offensive than those mentioned by Boethius, viz. the wolf, hound, fox, lion, hart, ass, and sow. Possibly, also, there is a reference to the story of Nebuchadnezzar, as related by Chaucer in the Monkes Tale; Group B, 3361.

XIV. GENTILESSE.

For remarks upon Scogan's quotation of this Ballad in full, see the Introduction.

The titles are: Harl. Moral balade of Chaucier; T. Balade by Chaucier.

Caxton's text is unusually good, and is often superior to that in the existing MSS.

The general idea of the poem is that Christ was the true pattern of 'gentleness' or gentility, i. e. of noble behaviour. Cf. Dekker's noble line, in which he speaks of Christ as 'The first true gentleman that ever breathed.'

But the finest poetical essay upon this subject is that by Chaucer himself, in the Wife of Bath's Tale; C. T. 6691-6758 (D 1109); which see. And cf. Tale of Melibeus, B 2831-2.

Another passage on this subject occurs in the Eng. version of the Romance of the Rose, ll. 2188-2202, which, curiously enough, is in neither Michel's nor Méon's edition of the French Poem (in which l. 2184 of the E. version is immediately succeeded by l. 2203 of the same). Again, in Le Roman de la Rose, ll. 6603-6616, there is a definition of _Gentillesce_; but this passage is not in the Eng. version.

The original passage, to which both Chaucer and Jean de Meun were indebted, is one in Boethius, bk. iii. pr. 6; which Chaucer thus translates:--'For yif the name of gentilesse be referred to renoun and cleernesse of linage, than is gentil name but a foreine thing, that is to seyn, to hem that glorifyen hem of hir linage. For it semeth that gentilesse be a maner preysinge that comth of deserte of ancestres ... yif thou ne have no gentilesse of thy-self--that is to seyn, preyse that comth of thy deserte--foreine gentilesse ne maketh thee nat gentil.' And again, just below, in metre 6:--'On allone is fader of thinges.... Thanne comen alle mortal folk of noble sede; why noisen ye or bosten of youre eldres?' But we must not overlook a long passage near the end of Le Roman de la Rose, ll. 18807-19096, which Chaucer certainly also consulted. I quote some of these lines below.

1. With this first stanza compare R. Rose, 18881:--

'Quiconques tent à gentillece D'orguel se gart et de parece; Aille as armes, ou à l'estuide, Et de vilenie se vuide; Humble cuer ait, cortois et gent En tretous leus, vers toute gent.'

Two MSS., both written out by Shirley, and MS. Harl. 7333, all read:--'The first fader, and foundour (_or_ fynder) of gentylesse.' This is wrong, and probably due to the dropping of the final _e_ in the definite adjective _firste_. We must keep the phrase _firste stok_, because it is expressly repeated in l. 8.

The first line means--'With regard to, _or_ As to the first stock (or source), who was the father of _gentilesse_.' The substantives _stok_ and _fader_ have _no verb_ to them, but are mentioned as being the _subject_ of the sentence.

3. The former _his_ refers to _fader_, but the latter to _man_.

4. _Sewe,_ follow. In a Ballad by King James the First of Scotland, printed at p. 54 of my edition of the Kingis Quair, the first five lines are a fairly close imitation of the opening lines of the present poem, and prove that King James followed a MS. which had the reading _sewe_.

'Sen throu vertew encressis dignite, And vertew flour and rut [_root_] is of noblay, Of ony weill or quhat estat thou be, His steppis _sew_, and dreid thee non effray: Exil al vice, and folow trewth alway.'

Observe how his first, third, and fourth lines answer to Chaucer's fifth, second, and fourth lines respectively.

5. 'Dignitees apertienen ... to vertu'; Boeth. iii. pr. 4, l. 25.

7. _Al were he_, albeit he may wear; i. e. although he may be a bishop, king, or emperor.

8. _This firste stok_, i. e. Christ. In l. 12, _his heir_ means mankind in general.

Compare Le Rom. de la Rose, 18819:--

'Noblece vient de bon corage, Car gentillece de lignage N'est pas gentillece qui vaille, Por quoi bonté de cuer i faille, Por quoi doit estre en li parans [_apparent_] La proece de ses parens Qui la gentillece conquistrent Par les travaux que grans i mistrent. Et quant du siecle trespasserent, Toutes lor vertus emporterent, Et lessierent as hoirs l'avoir; Que plus ne porent d'aus avoir. L'avoir ont, plus riens n'i a lor, Ne gentillece, ne valor, Se tant ne font que gentil soient Par sens ou par vertu qu'il aient.'

And cf. Dante, Purg. vii. 121-3, to which Ch. refers in his Wife of Bath's Tale (D 1128).

15. _Vyc-e_ is dissyllabic; hence two MSS. turn it into _Vices_, and one even has _Vicesse_!

With this stanza compare part of the French quotation above, and compare Rom. Rose, 19064, &c.:--

'Mes il sunt mauvais, vilain nastre, Et d'autrui noblece se vantent; Il ne dient pas voir, ains mentent, Et le non [_name_] de gentillece emblent, Quant lor bons parens ne resemblent;' &c.

16. In MS. A. is this side-note, in a later hand:--

'Nam genus et proauos et quæ non fecimus ipsi Vix ea nostra voco.'

20. This is a difficult line to obtain from the MSS. It is necessary to keep _heir_ in the singular, because of _he_ in l. 21. In MS. A., _maþe_ clearly stands for _makeþe_, i. e. _maketh_, as in nearly all the MSS. This gives us--That maketh his heir him that wol [_or_ can] him queme. The change from _his heir him_ to the more natural order _him his heir_ is such a gain to the metre that it is worth while to make it.

XV. LAK OF STEDFASTNESSE.

In MS. Harl. 7333 is the following note, probably correct:--'This balade made Geffrey Chauuciers the Laureall Poete of Albion, and sent it to his souerain lorde kynge Rycharde the secounde, thane being in his Castell of Windesore.' In MS. T. is the heading:--'Balade Royal made by oure laureal poete of Albyon in hees laste yeeres'; and above l. 22 is:--'Lenvoye to Kyng Richard.' In MS. F. it is simply headed 'Balade.' For another allusion to King Richard at Windsor, see note to Lenvoy to Scogan, l. 43.

The general idea is taken from Boethius, bk. ii. met. 8, which Chaucer thus translates:--'That the world with stable feith varieth acordable chaunginges, that the contrarious qualitee of elements holden among hem-self aliaunce perdurable, ... al this acordaunce of thinges is bounden with love, that governeth erthe and see, and hath also commaundements to the hevenes. And yif this love slakede the brydeles, alle thinges that now loven hem to-gederes wolden maken a bataile continuely, and stryven to fordoon the fasoun of this worlde, the whiche they now leden in acordable feith by faire moevinges.... O weleful were mankinde, yif thilke love that governeth hevene governed youre corages!'

4. _Word and deed_; or read _Word and werk_, as in Harl. 7333 and T.

5. _Lyk_, alike; or read _oon_, one, as in Harl. and T. _Up so doun_ is the old phrase, and common. Modern English has 'improved' it into _upside down_, where _side_ has to mean 'top.'

10. _Unable_, not able, wanting in ability or strength.

21. Here the Bannatyne MS. inserts a spurious _fourth_ stanza. It runs thus:--

'Falsheid, that sowld bene abhominable, Now is regeing, but reformatioun, Quha now gifis lergly ar maist dissavable, For vycis are the grund of sustentatioun; All wit is turnit to cavillatioun, Lawtie expellit, and al gentilnes, That all is loist for laik of steidfastnes.'

This is very poor stuff.

24, 25. _Suffre ... don_, suffer (to be) done; correct as being an old idiom. See my note to the Clerkes Tale, E 1098.

28. For _wed_, two MSS. have _drive_; a reading which one is glad to reject. It would be difficult to think of a more unfitting word.

XVI. LENVOY A SCOGAN.

There are but three MSS., all much alike. As to Scogan, see the Introduction. MSS. F. and P. have the heading--'Lenvoy de Chaucer a Scogan'; Gg. has--'Litera directa de Scogon per G. C.'

1, 2. These two lines are quite Dantesque. Cf. Purg. i. 47, 76; Inf. iii. 8:--'Son le leggi ... cosi rotte'; 'gli editti eterni ... guasti'; 'io eterno duro.'

3. The 'seven bright gods' are the seven planets. The allusion is to some great floods of rain that had fallen. Chaucer says it is because the heavenly influences are no longer controlled; the seven planets are allowed to weep upon the earth. The year was probably 1393, with respect to which we find in Stowe's Annales, ed. 1605, p. 495:--'In September, lightnings and thunders, in many places of England did much hurt, but esp[e]cially in Cambridge-shire the same brent houses and corne near to Tolleworke, and in the Towne it brent terribly. Such abundance of water fell in October, that at Bury in Suffolke the church was full of water, and at Newmarket it bare downe walles of houses, so that men and women hardly escaped drowning.' Note the mention of Michaelmas in l. 19, shewing that the poem was written towards the close of the year.

7. _Errour_; among the senses given by Cotgrave for F. _erreur_ we find 'ignorance, false opinion.' Owing to his ignorance, Chaucer is almost dead for fear; i. e. he wants to know the reason for it all.

9. _Fifte cercle_, fifth circle or sphere of the planets, reckoning from without; see note to Mars, l. 29. This fifth sphere is that of _Venus_.

14. _This deluge of pestilence_, this late pestilential flood. There were several great pestilences in the fourteenth century, notably in 1348-9, 1361-2, 1369, and 1375-6; cf. note to IV. 96. Chaucer seems to imply that the bad weather may cause another plague.

15. _Goddes_, goddess, Venus; here spoken of as the goddess of _love_.

16. _Rakelnesse_, rashness. The MSS. have _rekelnesse_, _reklesnesse_, _reckelesnesse_; the first is nearly right. _Rakelnesse_ is Chaucer's word, Cant. Tales, 17232 (H 283); five lines above, Phoebus blames his _rakel hond_, because he had slain his wife.

17. _Forbode is_; rather a forced rime to _goddes_; see p. 488 (note).

21. _Erst_, before. I accept Chaucer's clear evidence that his friend Scogan (probably Henry Scogan) was not the same person as the John (or Thomas) Scogan to whom various silly jests were afterwards attributed.

22. _To record_, by way of witness. _Record_, as Koch remarks, is here a sb., riming with _lord_; not the gerund _record-e_.

27. _Of our figure_, of our (portly) shape; see l. 31.

28. _Him_, i. e. Cupid. The Pepys MS. has _hem_, them, i. e. the arrows. Koch reads _hem_, and remarks that it makes the best sense. But it comes to much the same thing. Cf. Parl. of Foules, 217, where some of Cupid's arrows are said to slay, and some to wound. It was the spear of Achilles that could both wound and cure; see Squi. Tale, F 240, and the note. Perhaps, in some cases, the arrow of Cupid may be supposed to cure likewise; but it is simpler to ascribe the cure to Cupid himself. Observe the use of _he_ in ll. 24 and 26, and of _his_ in ll. 25 and 26. Thynne has _hym_.

29. _I drede of_, I fear for thy misfortune.

30. _Wreche_, vengeance; distinct from _wrecche_.

31. 'Gray-headed and round of shape'; i. e. like ourselves. Cf. what Chaucer says of his own shape; C. T. Group B, 1890.

35. 'See, the old gray-haired man is pleased to rime and amuse himself.' For _ryme_ (as in the three MSS.), the old editions have _renne_. This would mean, 'See, the old gray horse is pleased to run about and play.' And possibly this is right; for the O. F. _grisel_ properly means a gray horse, as shewn in Godefroy's O. F. Dict.

36. _Mexcuse_, for _me excuse_, excuse myself. Cf. _mawreke_, Compleint to Pite, 11.

43. For _stremes_, Gg. has _wellis_; but the whole expression _stremes heed_ is equivalent to _well_, and we have _which streme_ in l. 45 (Koch).

In the MSS., the words _stremes heed_ are explained by _Windesore_ (Windsor), and _ende of whiche streme_ in l. 45 by _Grenewich_ (Greenwich); explanations which are probably correct. Thus the _stream_ is the Thames; Chaucer was living, in a solitary way, at Greenwich, whilst Scogan was with the court at Windsor, much nearer to the source of favour.

47. _Tullius._ Perhaps, says Koch, there is an allusion to Cicero's Epist. vi. ad Cæcinam. For myself, I think he alludes to his De Amicitia; see note to Rom. Rose, 5286.

XVII. LENVOY A BUKTON.

1. _Bukton._ Most old editions have the queer reading:--'My mayster. &c. whan of Christ our kyng.' Tyrwhitt was the first to correct this, and added:--'It has always been printed at the end of the _Book of the Duchesse_, with an &c. in the first line instead of the name of _Bukton_; and in Mr. Urry's edition the following most unaccountable note is prefixed to it--"This seems an Envoy to the Duke of _Lancaster_ after his loss of _Blanch_." From the reference to the _Wife of Bathe_, l. 29, I should suppose this to have been one of our author's later compositions, and I find that there was a _Peter de Buketon_, the King's Escheator for the County of York, in 1397 (Pat. 20 R. II. p. 2, m. 3, ap. Rymer) to whom this poem, from the familiar style of it, is much more likely to have been addressed than to the Duke of Lancaster.' Julian Notary's edition is the only one that retains Bukton's name.

_My maister Bukton_ is in the vocative case.

2. 'What is truth?' See John xviii. 38.

5. _Highte_, promised; by confusion with _heet_ (A.S. _h[=e]ht_).

8. _Eft_, again, a second time. This seems to assert that Chaucer was at this time a widower. Cf. C. T. 9103 (E 1227).

9. 'Mariage est maus liens,' marriage is an evil tie; Rom. de la Rose, 8871. And again, with respect to marriage--'Quel forsenerie [_witlessness_] te maine A cest torment, a ceste paine?' R. Rose, 8783; with much more to the same effect. Cf. Cant. Tales, Marchauntes Prologue (throughout); and Barbour's Bruce, i. 267.

18. Cf. 1 Cor. vii. 9, 28. And see Wife of Bath's Prol. D 154-160.

23. 'That it would be more pleasant for you to be taken prisoner in Friesland.' This seems to point to a period when such a mishap was not uncommon. In fact, some Englishmen were present in an expedition against Friesland which took place in the autumn of 1396. See the whole account in Froissart, Chron. bk. iv. cc. 77, 78. He tells us that the Frieslanders would not ransom the prisoners taken by their enemies; consequently, they could not exchange prisoners, and at last they put their prisoners to death. Thus the peculiar peril of being taken prisoner in Friesland is fully explained.

25. _Proverbes_, set of proverbs. Koch remarks--'_Proverbes_ is rather curious, referring to a singular, but seems to be right, as _proverbe_ would lose its last syllable, standing before a vowel.' Perhaps we should read _or proverbe_.

27. This answers to the modern proverb--'Let well alone.'

28. I. e. learn to know when you are well off. 'Half a loaf is better than no bread.' 'Better sit still than rise and fall' (Heywood). 'Better some of a pudding than none of pie' (Ray). In the Fairfax MS., the following rimed proverb is quoted at the end of the poem:--

'Better is to suffre, and fortune abyde, Than[292] hastely to clymbe, and sodeynly to slyde.'

The same occurs (says Hazlitt) at the end of Caxton's edition of Lydgate's Stans Puer ad Mensam; but does not belong to that poem.

29. The reference is to the Wife of Bathes Prologue, which curiously enough, is again referred to by Chaucer in the Marchauntes Tale, C. T. 9559 (E 1685). This reference shews that the present poem was written quite late in life, as the whole tone of it shews; and the same remark applies to the Marchauntes Tale also. We may suspect that Chaucer was rather proud of his Prologue to the Wife of Bathes Tale. Unquestionably, he took a great deal of pains about it.

XVIII. COMPLEYNT OF VENUS.

This poem has frequently been printed as if it formed a part of The Compleynt of Mars; but it is a separate poem, and belongs to a later period.

The Compleynt of Mars is an original poem; but the present poem is a translation, being partly adapted, and partly translated from three Balades by Sir Otes de Graunson (l. 82). The original Balades have been lately recovered by Dr. Piaget, and are printed below the text. See the Introduction.

It consists of three Ballads and an Envoy, and bears a strong resemblance, in metrical form, to the poem on Fortune, each Ballad having three stanzas of eight lines each, with a refrain. It differs from 'Fortune' only in the arrangement of the rimes, which occur in the order _a b a b b c c b_, instead of (as in Fortune) in the order _a b a b b c b c_. One rime (in _-aunce_) occurs in the second Ballad as well as in the first; but this is quite an accidental detail, of no importance. It must be remembered that the metre was not chosen by Chaucer, but by Graunson. The Envoy, which alone is original, consists of ten lines, rimed _a a b a a b b a a b_. This arrangement is very unusual. See further in the note to l. 82.

In the MSS. T. and A. we have notes of some importance, written by Shirley. T. has:--'The Compleynt of Venus. And filowing begynnethe a balade translated out of frenshe in-to englisshe by Chaucier, Geffrey; the frenshe made sir Otes de Grauntsome, knight Savosyen.' A. has:--'Here begynnethe a balade made by that worthy Knight of Savoye in frenshe, calde sir Otes Graunson; translated by Chauciers.' At the end of the copy in T. is:--'Hit is sayde that Graunsome made this last balade for Venus, resembled to my lady of york; aunswering the complaynt of Mars.' We certainly find that Chaucer has materially altered the first of the three Balades; so perhaps he wished to please his patron. But the title (probably _not_ Chaucer's) is a bad one. See the Introduction. Cf. note to l. 73.

1. We must suppose Venus, i. e. the lady, to be the speaker. Hence the subject of the first Ballad is the worthiness of the lover of Venus, in another word, of _Mars_; indeed, in Julian Notary's edition, the poem is headed 'The Compleint of Venus for Mars.' But Mars is merely to be taken as a general type of true knighthood.

I have written the general subject of each Ballad at the head of each, merely for convenience. The subjects are:--(1) The Lover's worthiness; (2) Disquietude caused by Jealousy; (3) Satisfaction in Constancy. We thus have three movements, expressive of Admiration, Passing Doubt, and Reassurance.

The lady here expresses, when in a pensive mood, the comfort she finds in the feeling that her lover is worthy; for every one praises his excellence.

9. This portrait of a worthy knight should be placed side by side with that of a worthy lady, viz. Constance. See Man of Law's Tale, B 162-8.

11. _Wold_, willed. The later E. _would_ is dead, as a past participle, and only survives as a past tense. It is scarce even in Middle English, but occurs in P. Plowman, B. xv. 258--'if God hadde _wolde_ [better _wold_] hym-selue.' See also Leg. Good Women, 1209, and note.

22. _Aventure_, luck; in this case, good luck.

23. Here is certainly a false rime; Chaucer nowhere else rimes _-oure_ with _-ure_. But the conditions under which the poem was written were quite exceptional (see note to l. 79); so that this is no proof that the poem is spurious. There is a false rime in Sir Topas, Group B, l. 2092 (see my note).

25. In this second Ballad or Movement, an element of disturbance is introduced; jealous suspicions arise, but are put aside. Like the third Ballad, it is addressed to Love, which occurs, in the vocative case, in ll. 25, 49, and 57.

The lady says it is but suitable that lovers should have to pay dearly for 'the noble thing,' i. e. for the valuable treasure of having a worthy lover. They pay for it by various feelings and expressions of disquietude.

26. _Men_, one; the impersonal pronoun; quite as applicable to a woman as to a man. Cf. F. _on_.

31. The French text shews that we must read _Pleyne_, not _Pleye_; besides, it makes better sense. This correction is due to Mr. Paget Toynbee; see his Specimens of Old French, p. 492.

33. 'May Jealousy be hanged, for she is so inquisitive that she would like to know everything. She suspects everything, however innocent.' Such is the general sense.

37. The final _e_ in _lov-e_ is sounded, being preserved from elision by the cæsura. The sense is--'so dearly is love purchased in (return for) what he gives; he often gives inordinately, but bestows more sorrow than pleasure.'

46. _Nouncerteyn_, uncertainty; as in Troilus, i. 337. A parallel formation to _nounpower_, impotence, which occurs in Chaucer's tr. of Boethius, bk. iii. pr. 5, l. 14.

49. In this third Ballad, Venus says she is glad to continue in her love, and contemns jealousy. She is thankful for her good fortune, and will never repent her choice.

50. _Lace_, snare, entanglement. Chaucer speaks of the _lace of love_, and the _lace of Venus_; Kn. Tale, 959, 1093 (A 1817, 1951).

52. _To lete of_, to leave off, desist.

56. All the MSS. read _never_; yet I believe it should be _nat_ (not).

62. 'Let the jealous (i. e. Jealousy) put it to the test, (and so prove) that I will never, for any woe, change my mind.'

69. _Wey_, highroad. _Wente_, footpath.

70. The reading _ye_, for _I_, is out of the question; for _herte_ is addressed as _thou_. So in l. 66, we must needs read _thee_, not _you_.

73. _Princess._ As the MSS. vary between _Princesse_ and _Princes_, it is difficult to know whether the Envoy is addressed to a _princess_ or to _princes_. It is true that Fortune seems to be addressed to three princes collectively, but this is unusual, and due to the peculiar form of that Envoy, which is supposed to be spoken by _Fortune_, not by the author. Moreover, the MSS. of Fortune have only the readings _Princes_ and _Princis_; not one of them has _Princesse_.

The present case seems different. Chaucer would naturally address his Envoy, in the usual manner, to a single person. The use of _your_ and _ye_ is merely the complimentary way of addressing a person of rank. The singular number seems implied by the use of the word _benignitee_; 'receive this complaint, addressed to your benignity in accordance with my small skill.' _Your benignity_ seems to be used here much as we say _your grace_, _your highness_, _your majesty_. The plural would (if this be so) be _your benignitees_; cf. Troil. v. 1859. There is no hint at all of the plural number.

But if the right reading be _princess_, we see that Shirley's statement (see p. 560, l. 6) should rather have referred to Chaucer, who may have produced this adaptation at the request of 'my lady of York.' Princesses are usually scarce, but 'my lady of York' had the best of claims to the title, as she was daughter to no less a person than Pedro, king of Spain. She died in 1394 (Dugdale's Baronage, ii. 154; Stowe's Annales, 1605, p. 496); and this Envoy may have been written in 1393.

76. _Eld_, old age. See a similar allusion in Lenvoy to Scogan, 35, 38.

79. _Penaunce_, great trouble. The great trouble was caused, not by Chaucer's having any difficulty in finding rimes (witness his other Ballads), but in having to find rimes, to translate somewhat closely, and yet to adapt the poem in a way acceptable to the 'princess,' all at once. See further in the Introduction.

Chaucer's translation of the A B C should be compared; for there, in every stanza, he begins by translating rather closely, but ends by deviating widely from the original in many instances, merely because he wanted to find rimes to words which he had already selected.

Moreover, the difficulty was much increased by the great number of lines ending with the same rime. There are but 8 different endings in the 72 lines of the poem, viz. 6 lines ending in _-ure_, _-able_, _-yse_, and _-ay_, and 12 in _-aunce_, _-esse_, _-ing_, and _-ente_. In the Envoy, Chaucer purposely limits himself to 2 endings, viz. _-ee_ and _-aunce_, as a proof of his skill.

81. _Curiositee_, i. e. intricacy of metre. The line is too long. I would read _To folwe in word the curiositee_; and thus get rid of the puzzling phrase _word by word_, which looks like a gloss.

82. _Graunson._ He is here called the flower of the poets of France. He was, accordingly, not an Englishman. According to Shirley, he was a knight of Savoy, which is correct. Sir Oto de Graunson received an annuity of £126 13s. 4d. from Richard II., in November, 1393, for services rendered; see the mention of him in the Patent Rolls, 17 Rich. II., p. 1, no. 339, sixth skin; printed in Furnivall's Trial Forewords, p. 123. It is there expressly said that his sovereign _seigneur_ was the Count of Savoy, but he had taken an oath of allegiance to the king of England. The same Graunson received a payment from Richard in 1372, and at other times. See the article by Dr. Piaget referred to in the Introduction.

XIX. THE COMPLEINT TO HIS EMPTY PURSE.

The date of the Envoy to this Poem can be determined almost to a day. Henry IV. was received as king by the parliament, Sept. 30, 1399. Chaucer received his answer, in the shape of an additional grant of forty marks yearly, on Oct. 3 of the same year. Consequently, the date of the Envoy is Sept. 30 or Oct. 1 or 2 in that year. It is obvious that the poem itself had been written (perhaps some time) beforehand; see note to l. 17. As far as we know, the Envoy is Chaucer's last work.

A somewhat similar complaint was addressed to the French king John II. by G. de Machault in 1351-6; but it is in short rimed lines; see his works, ed. Tarbé, p. 78. But the real model which Chaucer had in view was, in my opinion, the Ballade by Eustache Deschamps, written in 1381, and printed in Tarbé's edition, at p. 55.

This Ballade is of a similar character, having three stanzas of eight lines each, with a somewhat similar refrain, viz. 'Mais de paier n'y sçay voie ne tour,' i. e. but how to pay I know therein no way nor method. It was written on a similar occasion, viz. after the death of Charles V. of France, and the accession of Charles VI., who had promised Deschamps a pension, but had not paid it. Hence the opening lines:--

'Dieux absoille le bon Roy trespassé! Et Dieux consault cellui qui est en vie! Il me donna rente le temps passé A mon vivant; laquelle je n'ay mie.'

The Envoy has but six lines, though the stanzas have eight; similarly, Chaucer's Envoy has but five lines (rimed _a a b b a_), though the stanzas have seven. Chaucer's Envoy is in a _very_ unusual metre, which was copied by the author of the Cuckoo and the Nightingale.

The Title, in MS. F. is--'The Complaynt of Chaucer to his Purse.' In Caxton's print, it is--'The compleint of Chaucer vnto his empty purse.' In MS. P.--'La Compleint de Chaucer a sa Bourse voide.' MS. Harl. has--'A supplicacion to Kyng Richard by chaucier.' The last of these, written by Shirley, is curious. If not a mere mistake, it seems to imply that the Complaint was first prepared before king Richard was deposed, though, by means of the Envoy, it was addressed to his successor. However, this copy of Shirley's gives the Envoy; so it may have been a mere mistake. Line 23 is decisive; see note below.

I remark here, for completeness' sake, that this poem has sometimes been ascribed to Hoccleve; but, apparently, without any reason.

4. Koch remarks, that the Additional MS. 22139, which alone has _That_, is here superior to the rest; and he may be right. Still, the reading _For_ is quite intelligible.

8. _This day._ This hints at impatience; the poet did not contemplate having long to wait. But we must take it in connexion with l. 17; see note to that line.

10. _Colour_; with reference to golden coins. So also in the Phisiciens Tale (C. T. 11971, or C 37), the golden colour of Virginia's hair is expressed by--

'And Phebus dyed hath hir tresses grete Lyk to the stremes of his burned hete.'

11. Four MSS., as well as the printed copies, read _That of yelownesse_, &c.; and this may very well be right. If so, the scansion is:--That of yél | ownés | se hád | de név | er pere. MS. Harl. 2251 has _That of yowre Ielownesse_, but the _yowre_ is merely copied in from l. 10.

12. _Stere_, rudder; see Man of Lawes Tale, B 448, 833.

17. _Out of this toune._ This seems to mean--'help me to retire from London to some cheaper place.' At any rate, _toune_ seems to refer to some large town, where prices were high. From the tone of this line, and that of l. 8, I should conclude that the poem was written on some occasion of special temporary difficulty, irrespectively of general poverty; and that the _Envoy_ was hastily added afterwards, without revision of the poem itself. (I find that Ten Brink says the same.) Compare Thackeray's Carmen Lilliense.

19. 'That is, I am as bare of money as the tonsure of a friar is of hair'; Bell.

22. _Brutes Albioun_, the Albion of Brutus. _Albion_ is the old name for England or Britain in the histories which follow Geoffrey of Monmouth and profess to give the ancient history of Britain before the coming of the Romans. See Layamon's Brut, l. 1243; Higden's Polychronicon, bk. i. c. 39; Fabyan's Chronicle, ed. Ellis, pp. 1, 2, 7. According to the same accounts, Albion was first reigned over by Brutus, in English spelling _Brute_, a descendant of Æneas of Troy, who arrived in Albion (says Fabyan) in the eighteenth year of Eli, judge of Israel. Layamon's poem is a translation from a poem by Wace, entitled Brut; and Wace borrowed from Geoffrey of Monmouth. See _Brute_ (2) in the New E. Dict.

23. This line makes it certain that the king meant is Henry IV.; and indeed, the title _conquerour_ in l. 21 proves the same thing sufficiently. 'In Henry IV's proclamation to the people of England he founds his title on _conquest_, _hereditary right_, and _election_; and from this inconsistent and absurd document Chaucer no doubt took his cue'; Bell.

XX. PROVERBS.

The titles in the MSS. are: Ad. Prouerbe; F. Proverbe of Chaucer; Ha. Prouerbe of Chaucers.

Each proverb takes the form of a question or objection, in two lines, followed by an answer in two lines more.

There is a fair copy of them (but not well spelt) in the black-letter edition of 1561, fol. cccxl. They there appear without the addition of fourteen unconnected lines (not by Chaucer) which have been recklessly appended to them in modern editions. The title in ed. 1561 is--'A Prouerbe agaynst couitise and negligence.'

For the metre, compare the Envoy to a Ballad by Deschamps, ed. Tarbé, pp. 23, 24.

7. At the head of a Ballad by Deschamps, ed. Tarbé, i. 132, is the French proverb--'Qui trop embrasse, mal étreint.' Cotgrave, s.v. _embrasser_, has: _Trop embrasser, et peu estraigner_, to meddle with more business then he can wield; to have too many irons in the fire; to lose all by coveting all.'

But the most interesting point is the use of this proverb by Chaucer elsewhere, viz. in the Tale of Melibeus, Group B, 2405--'For the proverbe seith, he that to muche embraceth, distreyneth litel.' It is also quoted by Lydgate, in his description of the Merchant in the Dance of Machabre.

7. _Embrace_ must be read as _embrac'_, for the rime. Similarly, Chaucer puts _gras_ for _grac-e_ in Sir Thopas (Group B, l. 2021).

XXI. BALADE AGAINST WOMEN UNCONSTANT.

5. _In a place_, in one place. In the New E. Dictionary, the following is quoted from Caxton's print of _Geoffroi de la Tour_, leaf 4, back:--'They satte att dyner in _a_ hall and the quene in another.'

7. From Machault, ed. Tarbé, p. 56 (see p. 88 above):--'Qu'en lieu de bleu, Damë, vous vestez vert'; on which M. Tarbé has the following note:--'_Bleu._ Couleur exprimant la sincérité, la pureté, la constance; le _vert_, au contraire, exprimait les nouvelles amours, le changement, l'infidélité; au lieu de bleu se vêtir de vert, c'était avouer que l'on changeait d'ami.' Blue was the colour of constancy, and green of inconstancy; see Notes to Anelida, l. 330; and my note to the Squire's Tale, F 644.

In a poem called Le Remède de Fortune, Machault explains that _pers_, i. e. _blue_, means loyalty; _red_, ardent love; _black_, grief; _white_, joy; _green_, fickleness; _yellow_, falsehood.

8. Cf. James i. 23, 24; and see The Marchantes Tale (Group E, ll. 1582-5).

9. _It_, i. e. the transient image; relative to the word _thing_, which is implied in _no-thing_ in l. 8.

10. Read _far'th_, _ber'th_; as usual in Chaucer. So _turn'th_ in l. 12.

12. Cf. 'chaunging as a vane'; Clerkes Tale, E 996.

13. _Sene_, evident; A.S. _ge-séne_, _ge-sýne_, adj., evident, quite distinct from the pp. of the verb, which appears in Chaucer as _seen_ or _yseen_. Other examples of the use of this adjective occur in _ysene_, C. T. Prol. 592; C. T. 11308 (Frank. Tale, F 996); _sene_, Compl. of Pite, 112; Merciless Beauty, 10.

15. _Brotelnesse_, fickleness. Cf. 'On _brotel_ ground they bilde, and _brotelnesse_ They finde, whan they wene _sikernesse_,' with precisely the same rime, Merch. Tale, 35 (E 1279).

16. _Dalýda_, Delilah. It is _Dálida_ in the Monkes Tale, Group B, 3253; but see Book of the Duchesse, 738.

_Creseide_, the heroine of Chaucer's Troilus.

_Candáce_, hardly for _Canace_; see note to Parl. of Foules, 288. Rather, it is the queen Candace who tricked Alexander; see Wars of Alexander, ed. Skeat, p. 264; Gower, Conf. Amant, ii. 180.

18. _Tache_, defect; cf. P. Plowman, B. ix. 146. This is the word which best expresses the sense of _touch_ (which Schmidt explains by _trait_) in the famous passage--'One _touch_ of nature makes the whole world kin'; Shak. Troil. iii. 3. 175. I do not assert that _touch_ is an error for _tache_, though even that is likely; but I say that the context shews that it is used in just the sense of _tache_. The same context also entirely condemns the forced sense of the passage, as commonly misapplied. It is somewhat curious that _touchwood_ is corrupted from a different _tache_, which had the sense of dried fuel or tinder.

_Arace_, eradicate; precisely as in VI. 20, q. v.

19. Compare the modern proverb--'She has two strings to her bow.'

20. _Al light for somer_; this phrase begins l. 15 of the Canon's Yeoman's Prologue, Group G, 568; and the phrase _wot what I mene_ occurs again in C. T., Group B, 93. This allusion to the wearing of light summer garments seems here to imply wantonness or fickleness. Canacee in the Squi. Tale was arrayed lightly (F 389, 390); but she was taking a walk in her own park, attended by her ladies. Skelton has, 'he wente so all for somer lyghte'; Bowge of Courte, 355; and again, in Philip Sparowe, 719, he tells us that Pandarus won nothing by his help of Troilus but 'lyght-for-somer grene.' It would seem that green was a favourite colour for summer garments.

XXII. AN AMOROUS COMPLEINT (COMPLEINT DAMOURS).

There are three MS. copies of this poem, viz. in MSS. F., B., and Harl. 7333. See remarks upon these in the Introduction, p. 89.

1. In Troil. iv. 516, the parallel line is--'Of me, that am the wofulleste wight'; where _wofullest-e_ has four syllables. Chaucer constantly employs _sorwe_ or _sorw_ so as to occupy the time of a monosyllable; hence the right reading in this case is _sorw'fullest-e_, with final _-e_. See also Troil. ii. 450--'So as she was the ferfulleste wight.' And 'Bicomen is the sorwefulleste man'; Cant. Tales, E 2098.

3. _Recoverer_, recovery, cure; answering to O.F. _recovrier_, sb. succour, aid, cure, recovery; see examples in La Langue et la Littérature Française, by Bartsch and Horning, 1887. Gower uses _recoverir_ in a like sense; ed. Pauli, i. 265. In Specimens of English, ed. Morris and Skeat, pt. ii. p. 156, l. 394, _recouerer_ may likewise mean 'succour'; and the whole line may mean, 'they each of them cried for succour (to be obtained) from the Creator.'

6. Cf. Sect. VI. l. 53:--'So litel rewthe hath she upon my peyne.'

7. Cf. Sect. VI. l. 33:--'That, for I love hir, sleeth me giltelees.' So also Frank. Ta. F 1322:--'Er ye me sleen bycause that I yow love.'

12. _Spitous_, hateful. The word in Chaucer is usually _despitous_; see Prol. 516, Cant. Ta. A 1596, D 761, Troil. ii. 435, v. 199; but _spitously_ occurs in the Cant. Tales, D 223. Trevisa translates _ignominiosa seruitute_ by 'in a _dispitous_ bondage'; Higden's Polychron. v. 87. The sense is--'You have banished me to that hateful island whence no man may escape alive.' The allusion is to the isle of Naxos, here used as a synonym for a state of hopeless despair. It was the island in which Ariadne was left, when deserted by Theseus; and Chaucer alludes to it at least thrice in a similar way: see C. T. Group B, 68, Ho. of Fame, 416, Legend of Good Women, 2163.

14. _This have I_, such is my reward. _For_, because.

16. Another reading is--'If that it were a thing possible to do.' In that case, we must read _possíbl'_, with the accent on _i_.

17. Cf. Sect. VI. l. 94:--'For ye be oon the worthiest on-lyve.'

19. Cf. Sect. VI. l. 93:--'I am so litel worthy.'

24, 25. Cf. X. 7, and the note (p. 544).

28. Perhaps corrupt; it seems to mean--'All these things caused me, in that (very state of despair), to love you dearly.'

31. The insertion of _to_ is justified by the parallel line--'And I my deeth to yow wol al forgive'; VI. 119.

36, 37. Perhaps read--'And sithen I am of my sorwe the cause, And sithen I have this,' &c.; as in MSS. F. and B.

43. Perhaps read--'So that, algates, she is verray rote'; as in F. B.

45. Cf. C. T. 11287 (F 975):--'For with a word ye may me sleen or save.'

52. _As to my dome_, in my judgment, as in V. 480; and see Troil. iv. 386, 387.

54. Cf. 'whyl the world may dure'; V, 616.

55. _Bihynde_, in the rear, far away; cf. VI. 5.

57. The idea is the same as in the Compl. of Mars, ll. 264-270.

62. See l. 10 above.

70, 71. Cf. C. T. 11625 (F 1313)--'And lothest wer of al this world displese.'

72. Compare the description of Dorigen, C. T. 11255-66 (F 943-54). We have similar expressions in Troil. iii. 1501:--'As wisly verray God my soule save'; and in Legend of Good Women, 1806:--'As wisly Iupiter my soule save.' And see XXIII. 4.

76. Chaucer has both _pleyne unto_ and _pleyne on_; see C. T., Cler. Tale, Group E, 97; and Pard. Tale, Group C, 512.

77. Cf. Troil. iii. 1183, and v. 1344:--'Foryeve it me, myn owne swete herte.'

79. Cf. Troil. iii. 141--'And I to ben your verray humble trewe.'

81. 'Sun of the bright and clear star'; i. e. source of light to the planet Venus. The 'star' can hardly be other than this bright planet, which was supposed to be auspicious to lovers. Cf. Troil. v. 638:--'O sterre, of which I lost have al the light.' Observe that MSS. F. and B. read _over_ for _of_; this will not scan, but it suggests the sense intended.

82. _In oon_, in one state, ever constant; C. T., E 602. Cf. also Troil. iii. 143:--'And ever-mo desire _freshly newe_ To serven.'

83. So in Troil. iii. 1512:--'For I am thyn, by god and by my trouthe'; cf. Troil. iii. 120.

85. See Parl. of Foules, 309, 310, whence I supply the word _ther_. These lines in the Parl. of Foules may have been borrowed from the present passage, i. e. if the 'Amorous Compleint' is the older poem of the two, as is probable. In any case, the connexion is obvious. Cf. also Parl. Foules, 386.

87. Cf. Parl. Foules, 419:--'Whos I am al, and ever wol her serve.'

_Shal_, shall be; as in l. 78 above, and in Troil. iii. 103; cf. Kn. Tale, 286 (A 1144), and note to VI. 86.

90, 91. Cf. Kn. Tale, 285, 286 (A 1143, 1144); Parl. Foules, 419, 420. All three passages are much alike.

XXIII. A BALADE OF COMPLEYNT.

1. Cf. Troil. iii. 104:--'And thogh I dar ne can unto yow pleyne.'

4. See note to XXII. 72, and l. 8 below.

13, 14. Cf. VI. 110, 111.

16. _Dyt-e,_ ditty (dissyllabic); see Ho. of Fame, 622. It here rimes with _despyte_ and _plyte_. In the Cant. Tales the usual forms are _despyt_ and _plyt-e_ respectively, but _despyt-e_ may here be taken as a dative case.

20. _Hertes lady_; see VI. 60. _Dere_ is the best reading, being thus commonly used by Chaucer as a vocative. If we retain the MS. reading _here_, we must insert a comma after _lady_, and explain _I yow beseche ... here_ by 'I beseech you to hear.'

*** For Errata and Addenda, see p. lxiv.

* * * * *

NOTES.

[1] See Rot. Claus. 3 Edw. I., and Kirkpatrick's History of Religious Orders in Norwich, pp. 109, 113. (The Athenæum, Nov. 25, 1876; p. 688.)

[2] Rolls of Parliament, i. 234, 448.

[3] For authorities, see Riley's Memorials of London, pp. xxxiii, xxxiv.

[4] See The Athenæum, Nov. 19, 1893, p. 704.

[5] Life-Records of Chaucer (Chaucer Soc.), p. 128; The Athenæum, Jan. 29, 1881, p.165. From membrane 17 of the Fine Roll, 4 Edw. II.; Parliamentary Writs, vol. ii. pt. 2. p. 30.

[6] The same, p. 126; from mem. 13 of the Coram Rege Roll of Hilary, 19 Edw. II. (1326).

[7] Riley, Mem. London, p. xxxiii.

[8] From Richard Chaucer's will (below); see p. xiv.

[9] Inferred from law-proceedings (below); and cf. note 5, above. Thomas Stace was appointed collector of customs on wine at Ipswich in 1310; Parl. Writs, vol. ii. pt. 2.

[10] Thomas Heyroun, by his will dated April 7, 1349, and proved in the Hustings Court of the City of London, appointed his brother [i. e. his half-brother], John Chaucer, as his executor. In July of the same year, John Chaucer, by the description of 'citizen and vintner, executor of the will of my brother Thomas Heyroun,' executed a deed relating to some lands. See Morris's Chaucer, i. 93, or Nicolas, Life of Chaucer, Note A; from the Records of the Hustings Court, 23 Edw. III.

[11] In December, 1324, Richard and Mary Chaucer declared that they had 'remained in full and peaceful possession of the said wardship [of John Chaucer] for a long while, namely, _for one year_.' See Life-Records (as in note 5), p. 126.

[12] Riley, Mem. London, p. xxxiii.

[13] Placitorum Abbreviatio, temp. Ric. I.--Edw. II., 1811; p. 354, col. 2; The Athenæum, Jan. 29, 1881, p. 165.

[14] I. e. Laurence, the man of Geoffrey Stace.

[15] They did not really succeed in this; it was disproved.

[16] As they were trying to make out a case, it is clear that John Chaucer was still _just under twelve_ on Dec. 3, 1324, when they abducted him.

[17] Rolls of Parliament, ii. 14. Mr. Rye prints 'nulson' in place of 'unkore.'

[18] See the Calendar of Wills in the Hustings Court, by R.R. Sharpe, vol. i. p. 591.

[19] Here Sir H. Nicolas inserts '13th of July,' which I do not understand. His own Chronology of History correctly tells us that the day of St. Thomas the Martyr is Dec. 29, which in 1349 fell on Tuesday. The Monday after it was Jan. 4, 1350; the 23rd year of Edw. III. ended Jan. 24, 1350.

[20] Hustings Roll, Guildhall; see The Athenæum, Dec. 13, 1873, p. 772; The Academy, Oct. 13, 1877, p. 364. The joint names of John and Agnes Chaucer occur in 1354, and later, in 1363 and 1366.

[21] See below, under the date 1381; and The Athenæum, Nov. 29, 1873, p. 698; Dec. 13, 1873, p. 772.

[22] Timbs, Curiosities of London, p. 815.

[23] See a document printed in full in The Academy, Oct. 13, 1877, p. 364.

[24] Rymer's Foedera, vol. ii. pt. iv. p. 23.

[25] Original Writs of Privy Seal in the Rolls House (Nicolas).

[26] Riley; Memorials of London, p. xxxiii.

[27] See The Athenæum, Dec. 13, 1873, p. 772; Nov. 19, 1892, p. 704; and The Academy, Oct. 13, 1877, p. 364. Perhaps his father's death enabled Chaucer to marry; he was married in 1366, or earlier.

[28] 'Bartholomeus atte chapel, ciuis et vinitarius Londinie, et Agnes, uxor eius, ac uxor quondam Johannis Chaucer, nuper ciuis et vinitarii dicte ciuitatis.'--Communicated to The Academy (as in note 27) by W. D. Selby.

[29] It is needless to multiply instances. Dante speaks of 35 years as being 'the middle of life's journey'; and Jean de Meun (Le Testament, ed. Méon, iv. 9) says that a man flourishes till he is 30 or 40 years old; after which he does nothing but languish (ne fait que langorir).

[30] Life-Records of Chaucer, p. 97 (Chaucer Soc.); Fortnightly Review, Aug. 15, 1866.

[31] Johnes, tr. of Froissart, bk. i. c. 206.

[32] The same, c. 207.

[33] Certainly not Retiers, near Rennes, in Brittany, more than 200 miles on the other side of Paris, as suggested by Sir H. Nicolas. Froissart mentions 'Rhetel' expressly. 'Detachments from the [English] army scoured the country.... Some of them went over the whole country of Rhetel;' bk. i. c. 208.

[34] The Athenæum, Nov. 22, 1873; p. 663. From the Wardrobe Book, 63/9, in the Record Office.

[35] He was lodging at Guillon, in Burgundy, from Ash-Wednesday (Feb. 18) until Mid-lent (March 12); Fr. bk. i. c. 210.

[36] This is well worth notice; it shews that it took several days to travel to Canterbury, even for a king who was anxious to return to his own land. In Froissart, bk. iv. c. 118, is an account of two knights who stopped at the same places. See Temp. Preface to the Cant. Tales, by F. J. Furnivall, p. 129.

[37] Johnes, tr. of Froissart, bk. i. c. 213.

[38] Johnes, tr. of Froissart, bk. i. c. 213. The Wyf of Bathe (see Cant. Tales, Prol. 465) once went on a pilgrimage to Boulogne. Chaucer probably did the same, viz. in the last week of October, 1360.

[39] Exchequer, Q. R. Wardrobe Accounts, 39/10; Life-Records, p. xvii.

[40] Rot. Pat. 40 Edw. III. p. 2, membrane 30. The title 'domicella camerae' implies that she was married; N. and Q., 8 S., iii. 355.

[41] Issue Rolls of the Exchequer, Mich., 42 Edw. III.; Nicolas, Note DD.

[42] This exception is incorrect. In the Issue Roll of Thomas de Brantingham, (for 1370), p. 359, it is noted that Philippa Chaucer received 10 marks (i. e. for the whole year), on Nov. 7, 1370.

[43] Here Nicolas inserts 'like herself'; this assumes her identity with 'Philippe Chausy,' which seems to be right; see p. xxi.

[44] Issue Rolls of the Exchequer; Roll for Easter, 10 Ric. II.; Issue Roll, Mich., 44 Edw. III.; ed. Devon, 1835; p. 359.

[45] Writ of Privy Seal, dated March 10, 43 Edw. III., 1369. It mentions Philippa Chaucer, 'damoiselle,' and Philippa Pykart, 'veilleresse.' See Nicolas, life of Chaucer, Note EE.

[46] The Athenæum, Nov. 22, 1873; p. 663.

[47] Register of John of Gaunt, vol. i. fol. 159_b_; Notes and Queries, 7 Ser., v. 289; Trial-Forewords, p. 129.

[48] The same, vol. i. fol. 195_b_; N. and Q., 7 S., v. 289.

[49] The same, fol. 90; N. and Q. (as above).

[50] Issue Roll, Easter, 50 Edw. III.; N. and Q. (as in note 48).

[51] Register of John of Gaunt, vol. ii. foll. 33_b_, 49, 61; Nicolas, Note DD.

[52] Issue Roll, Mich., 8 Ric II., Sept. 20.

[53] Rymer's Foedera, new ed.; vol. iii. p. 829. (G.)

[54] Issue Rolls of the Exchequer; Michaelmas, 42 Edw. III. (1367); Easter, 42 Edw. III. (1368); see Nicolas, Notes B and C. On Nov. 6, 1367, it is expressly noted that he received his pension himself (per manus proprias).

[55] Issue Rolls; Michaelmas, 43 Edw. III. (Nicolas.)

[56] Rymer's Foedera; vol. iii. p. 845. The names of many of those who accompanied the Duke are printed in the same volume, pp. 842-4; but the name of Chaucer is not among them.

[57] The Athenæum, Nov. 29, 1873; p. 698. Exch. L. T. R. Wardrobe, 43 Edw. III. Box A. no. 8. (Ch. Soc., Trial-Forewords, p. 129).

[58] Exch. Q. R. Wardrobe, 64/3; leaf 16, back. See The Athenæum, Nov. 22, 1873, p. 663. A similar entry occurs in 1372; and again in 1373.

[59] Exch. Q. R. Wardrobe, 40/9. (Ch. Soc., Trial-Forewords, p. 129).

[60] Rot. Pat. 44 Edw. III. p. 2. m. 20. (G.)

[61] Issue Rolls of Thomas de Brantingham, 44 Edw. III., ed. F. Devon, 1835; p. 289.

[62] The same; p. 19.

[63] Issue Rolls, 45-47 Edw. III.

[64] The Athenæum, Nov. 22, 1873; p. 663.

[65] Rot. Franc. 46 Edw. III. m. 8. (G.) See Rymer's Foedera, new edition, vol. iii. p. 964.

[66] Issue Roll, Michaelmas, 47 Edw. III., 1373. See Nicolas, Note D. In this document Chaucer is called 'armiger.'

[67] Issue Roll, Michaelmas, 48 Edw. III., 1374. See Nicolas, Note E. The Foreign Accounts, 47 Edw. III. roll 3, include Chaucer's accounts for this journey from Dec. 1, 1372, to May 23, 1373.

[68] The same.

[69] Much of Sir H. Nicolas's argument against this reasonable supposition is founded on the assertion that Chaucer was 'not acquainted with Italian'; which is now known to be the reverse of the truth. He even urges that not a single Italian word occurs in Chaucer's writings, whereas it would have been absurd for him to use words which his readers could not understand. Nevertheless, we find mention of a '_ducat_ in Venyse'; Ho. Fame, 1348.

[70] Rot. Pat., 48 Edw. III., p. i. m. 20. (G.) See Rymer's Foedera, new ed. vol. iii. p. 1001.

[71] Writ of Privy Seal (in French); 18 Apr. 1 Ric. II. (1378); see Nicolas, Note K.

[72] Memorials of London, ed. Riley, p. 377. See § 26 below, p. xxxviii.

[73] Rot. Pat., 48 Edw. III., p. 1. m. 7, in Turri Londinensi; see Foedera, new ed. vol. iii. p. 1004. (G.)

[74] Rot. Pat., 49 Edw. III., p. 2. m. 8.

[75] Calendarium Inquisitionum post Mortem, 46 Edw. III. no. 58.

[76] Rot. Claus., 1 Ric. II., m. 45. (G.) The petition, in French, is printed in full in Liber Custumarum, ed. Riley, ii. 466.

[77] Rot. Pat. 49 Edw. III., p. 2. m. 4. (G.) Calend. Inquis. post Mortem, 49 Edw. III., part 2, no. 40. A solidate of land is supposed to be a quantity of land (Blount suggests 12 acres) yielding 1s. of yearly rent. _Sole_ means 'a pond'; see Pegge's Kenticisms. Soles is the name of a manor in Bonnington, not far from Chillenden, about half-way between Canterbury and Deal.

[78] Issue Roll, Mich., 50 Edw. III.

[79] Receiver's Accounts in the Office of the Duchy of Lancaster, from Mich. 1376 to Mich. 1377; see Nicolas, Note F.

[80] Rot. Pat., 50 Edw. III., p. i. m. 5. (G.)

[81] Issue Roll, Mich., 51 Edw. III.; see Nicolas, Note G.

[82] Rot. Franc., 51 Edw. III., m. 7. (G.)

[83] Issue Roll, Mich., 51 Edw. III.; see Nicolas, Note H.

[84] Issue Roll, Easter, 51 Edw. III.; Nicolas, Note I; Trial-Forewords, p. 131.

[85] Rymer's Foedera, new ed., vol. iii. p. 1073 (in French).

[86] The same, p. 1076 (in French).

[87] Rot. Franc., 51 Edw III., m. 5. (G.)

[88] Issue Roll, Easter, 51 Edw. III. 'Galfrido Chaucer armigero regis misso in nuncium in secretis negociis domini Regis versus partes Francie.' See Nicolas, Note I.

[89] In 1377, Easter fell on March 29, Ash Wednesday on Feb. 11, and Shrove Tuesday on Feb. 10.

[90] Wardrobe Accounts of 50 and 51 Edw. III. (Nicolas).

[91] The same.

[92] Rymer's Foedera, vol. vii. p. 184.

[93] Fine Roll, 1 Ric. II., pt. 2. m. 11; Athenæum, May 26, 1888, p. 661.

[94] This appears from the Patent of May 1, 1388, by which Chaucer's pensions were assigned to John Scalby; see Rot. Pat., 11 Ric. II., pt. 2. m. 1.

[95] Rot. Pat., 11 Ric. II., pt. 2. m. 1 (as in the last note); Writ of Privy Seal (in French), Apr. 18, 1 Ric. II. (see Nicolas, Note K); Issue Roll, Easter, 1 Ric. II. (May 14; see Nicolas, Note L).

[96] Issue Roll, Easter, 1 Ric. II., (as above).

[97] Rot. Franc., 1 Ric. II., pt. 2. m. 6.

[98] The same; see Nicolas, Note M.

[99] Issue Roll, Easter, 1 Ric. II.; Trial-Forewords, p. 131; Nicolas, Note L.

[100] Issue Roll, Mich., 2 Ric. II.; see Nicolas, Note N.

[101] Issue Roll, Easter, 2 Ric. II.; see Nicolas, Note O.

[102] Issue Roll, Mich. 3 Ric. II.; see Nicolas, Note P.

[103] The same; Easter, 3 Ric. II.; see the same, Note Q.

[104] The same; 4 Ric. II.; see the same, Note R.

[105] The Athenæum, Nov. 29, 1873, p. 698. From the Close Roll of 3 Ric. II. And see the whole matter discussed at length in Trial-Forewords, pp. 136-144 (Ch. Soc.).

[106] Issue Roll, 4 Ric. II.; see Nicolas, Note R; Devon's Issues of the Exchequer, 1837, p. 315.

[107] Godwin's Life of Chaucer, iv. 284.

[108] Thynne's Animadversions, &c., ed. F. J. Furnivall, p. 12, note 2; cf. The Athenæum, Nov. 29, 1873, p. 698.

[109] Issue Roll, Mich., 5 Ric. II.; see Notes and Queries, 3rd Ser. viii. 367.

[110] Rot. Pat., 5 Ric. II., pt. 2. m. 15. (G.)

[111] For these payments, see Issue Roll, Easter, 5 Ric. II.; in Notes and Queries, 3rd Ser. viii. 367.

[112] Issue Rolls, Easter, 5 and 6 Ric. II.; see N. and Q. (as above).

[113] Issue Roll, Mich., 7 Ric. II.; _ib._ It was usual to make up accounts at Michaelmas; which may explain 'the year late elapsed.'

[114] Issue Roll, Easter, 7 Ric. II.; _ib._

[115] Rot. Claus., 8 Ric. II., m. 30. (G.)

[116] Notes and Queries, 3 S. viii. 368; The Athenæum, Apr. 14, 1888; p. 468.

[117] The Athenæum, Jan. 28, 1888; p. 116.

[118] Rot. Pat., 8 Ric. II., p. 2. m. 31. (G.)

[119] Issue Roll, Easter, 8 Ric. II.; see Notes and Queries, 3rd Ser. viii. 368.

[120] 'Ful ofte tyme he was knight of the shire'; Cant. Ta., A 356. It was usual, but not necessary, for such knights to reside within their county (Nicolas, Note S).

[121] Rot. Claus., 10 Ric. II., m. 16 d.

[122] See Annals of England, Oxford, 1876; p. 206. Sir Nicholas Brembre had been Lord Mayor of London for the three preceding years, 1383-5.

[123] Printed in Godwin's Life of Chaucer; in The Scrope and Grosvenor Roll, ed. Nicolas, i. 178; and in Moxon's Chaucer, p. xiii.

[124] An error for Rethel, near Rheims; see above, footnote 33.

[125] Letter-book in the Guildhall, discovered by Prof. Hales; see The Academy, Dec. 6, 1879, p. 410, and Hales, Folia Litteraria, p. 87. In Riley's Memorials of London, p. 469, is recorded a resolution by the corporation to let no more houses situated over a city-gate.

[126] Rot. Pat., 10 Ric. II., p. 1. m. 5 and m. 9. Perhaps this new Controller was a descendant of the Henry Gisors who was Sheriff of London in 1328.

[127] It was once a fashion to ascribe his misfortunes to the part he was supposed to have taken with respect to a quarrel in 1384 between the court party and the citizens of London regarding John of Northampton, who had been Mayor in 1382. There is no evidence whatever to shew that Chaucer had anything to do with it, beyond an unauthorised and perhaps false interpretation of certain obscure passages in a piece called _The Testament of Love_, which (as is now known) he certainly did not write!

[128] Issue Roll, Easter, 10 Ric. II.

[129] Issue Rolls, Easter, 10 Ric. II.; Mich, and Easter, 11 Ric. II.

[130] Rot. Pat., 11 Ric. II., p. 2. m. 1. (G.) Nicolas remarks that a John Scalby, of Scarborough in Yorkshire, was one of the persons of that town who were excepted from the king's pardon for insurrection in October, 1382; Rot. Parl. vol. iii. p. 136. (Scalby is the name of a village near Scarborough.)

[131] Cf. 'at Eltham or at Shene'; Leg. Good Women, 497; but this passage is of an earlier date.

[132] Rot. Pat., 13 Ric. II., p. 1. m. 30. (G.)

[133] The Athenæum, Jan. 28, 1888; p. 116; Trial-Forewords, p. 133.

[134] Originalia, 13 Ric. II, m. 30; Trial-Forewords, p. 133.

[135] The Athenæum, Feb. 7, 1874; p. 196.

[136] Collinson, Hist, of Somersetshire, iii. 54-74; The Athenæum, Nov. 20, 1886, p. 672; Life-Records (Chaucer Soc.), p. 117.

[137] Rot. Pat., 14 Ric. II., m. 33; Issue Roll, Easter, 13 Ric. II. (G.); Trial-Forewords, p. 133.

[138] The Athenæum, Feb. 7 and 14, 1874, pp. 196, 227; Life-Records (Ch. Soc.), p. 5.

[139] Rot. Pat., 14 Ric. II., p. 2. m. 24: 'quem dilectus serviens noster Galfridus Chaucer clericus operationum nostrarum sub se deputavit'; &c. 'Clericus' is here literal; 'clerk' of the works.

[140] Afterwards Sheriff of London, viz. in 1417-8 (Fabyan).

[141] Archæologia, vol. xxxiv. 45.

[142] Rot. Pat., 15 Ric. II., p. 1, m. 27; see Godwin, Life of Chaucer, iv. 67.

[143] Issue Rolls, Mich. and Easter, 15 Ric. II.; and Easter, 16 Ric. II.

[144] Rot. Pat., 17 Ric. II., pt. 2. m. 35; printed in full in Godwin's Life of Chaucer, and again in Furnivall's Trial-Forewords to the Minor Poems, p. 26.

[145] Issue Roll, Mich., 18 Ric. II.; see Nicolas, Note U.

[146] Issue Rolls, Mich. and Easter, 18 Ric. II., and Mich., 19 Ric. II.; see Nicolas, Notes U, V, and W.

[147] Rot. Claus., 19 Ric. II. m. 8 d.

[148] Issue Roll, Mich., 21 Ric. II. See Nicolas, Note X.

[149] Issue Roll, Mich., 21 Ric. II. See Nicolas, Note X.

[150] The Athenæum, Sept. 13, 1879; p. 338.

[151] Rot. Pat., 21 Ric. II., p. 3. m. 26. (G.)

[152] Issue Roll, Easter, 21 Ric. II. See Nicolas, Note Y.

[153] The Athenæum, Jan. 28, 1888; p. 116.

[154] Rot. Pat., 22 Ric. I., p. 1. m. 8. (G.)

[155] Issue Roll, Mich., 22 Ric. II.; see Nicolas, Note Z.

[156] Rot. Pat., 1 Hen. IV., p. 1. m. 18; and p. 5. m. 12. (G.)

[157] See Issue Roll, Easter, 1 Hen. IV.; in Nicolas, Note BB.

[158] Godwin, Life of Chaucer, iv. 365, where the document is printed; Hist. MSS. Commission, i. 95.

[159] Issue Roll, Mich., 1 Hen IV.; see Nicolas, Note AA.

[160] Issue Roll, Easter, 1 Hen. IV.; see Nicolas, Note BB.

[161] Stowe's Survey of London, ed. Thoms, p. 171; Nicolas, Life of Chaucer.

[162] Rot. Pat., 1 Hen. IV., p. 1. m. 10.

[163] Rot. Pat., 4 Hen. IV., m. 19; Rot. Parl. iv. 178 b.

[164] Rot. Pat., 12 Hen. IV., m. 34.

[165] Rot. Norman., 5 Hen. V., m. 7; ed. 1835, p. 284.

[166] Rot. Parl. vol. iv. p. 35.

[167] Rot. Pat., 12 Hen. IV., m. 7.

[168] It actually begins by quoting two lines from the Knightes Tale, A 1785-6; so it is later than 1386. There is at least one non-Chaucerian rime, viz. at l. 61, where _gren-e_ (dissyllabic in Chaucer) rimes with the pp. _been_. See p. 39 below.

[169] The seal has lately been re-examined by experts, after application to the Record Office by Dr. Furnivall. See Archæologia, xxxiv. 42, where an engraving of the seal is (inexactly) given, and the deed is printed at length.

[170] Collinson, Hist. of Somersetshire, iii. 54-74; Life-Records, p. 117.

[171] MS. in Lincoln College, p. 377, quoted in Chalmers' English Poets, vol. i. p. x; Letter by Prof. Hales to the Athenæum, Mar. 31, 1888; Hales, Folia Litteraria, p. 109; Lounsbury, Studies, i. 108.

[172] So says Nicolas; 'evidently' means that such is the most likely explanation. The O. F. _roe_ (Lat. _rota_) means 'a wheel'; and _roet_ is its diminutive.

[173] She is described as 'the most renowned Lady Katherine de Roelt [error for Roet or Roett] deceased, late Duchess of Lancaster,' and as having had 'divers inheritances in the county of Hainault,' in Rot. Pat., 13 Hen. IV., p. 1. m. 35; see Rymer's Foedera, viii. 704, and the Account of the Swynford family in the Excerpta Historica, p. 158. Nicolas, Note CC.

[174] This seems to be the sole trace of Sir Payne Roet's existence.

[175] The Testament of Love was greatly relied upon by Godwin and others. They thence inferred that Chaucer was mixed up with the dispute as to the appointment of John of Northampton to the mayoralty of London in 1382; that he was imprisoned; that he fled to Zealand; that he was in exile for two years; that, on his return, he was sent to the Tower for three years, and not released till 1389; with more rubbish of the same sort. However, it so happens that Chaucer did not write this piece (see p. 35, note 4). More than this, I have lately discovered that the initial letters of the chapters form an acrostic, which reads thus: MARGARET OF VIRTW, HAVE MERCI ON TSKNVI. The last word may be an anagram for KITSVN, i. e. Kitson; it is certainly not an anagram for Chaucer. See my letter in The Academy, Mar. 11, 1893, p. 222.

[176] Sir H. Nicolas says that some have inferred that Chaucer was living near Oxford in 1391, and refers to Ast. prol. 7, which mentions 'oure orizonte.' We are not justified in drawing such an inference.

[177] Prof. Lounsbury includes H. F. 995, where the poet declines to be taught astronomy (under the most uncomfortable circumstances) because he is 'too old.' Any man of thirty (or less) might have said the same; the passage tells us nothing at all.

[178] Sir H. Nicolas says that, in L. G. W. 189, he alludes to his poem called The Flower and the Leaf. But that poem is not his, though its title was doubtless suggested by the expressions which Chaucer there uses.

[179] Mr. Wright printed his text from MS. Reg. D. vi. Dr. Furnivall gives these passages from MS. Harl. 4866, in his edition of Hoccleve's Minor Poems, p. xxxi. I give a corrected text, due to a collation of these copies, with very slight alterations.

[180] _Or_, and lerned lyte or naught (MS. Harl. 4866).

[181] _So_ Harl.; Reg. Of rethoryk fro vs; to Tullius.

[182] _Both_ MSS. _have_ hyer (= higher); _an obvious error for_ heyr (= heir).

[183] I think not; it is too short. I take it to be a small pen-knife in a sheath; useful for making erasures. So Todd, Illustrations of Chaucer, s. v. _Anelace_; Fairholt, on Costume in England, s. v. _Knives_.

[184] I see no reason for placing this after 1372; surely ll. 36-56 (from Dante) are a later insertion. Observe 'us wrecches' in G. 32, and 'Me wrecche' in G. 58. These parallel lines must (I think) have once been in closer proximity.

[185] It is not very likely that he ever _finished_ his translation, when we consider his frequent habit of leaving his works incomplete, and the enormous length of the French text (22074 lines in Méon's edition).

[186] By the spelling _malady(e)_, I mean that the word must be pronounced _malady_ in the text, whereas the Chaucerian form is _malady-ë_ in four syllables. And so in other cases.

[187] Doubtless the author meant to employ the form _quoynt_ or _coint_; but Chaucer has _queynt_, Cant. Ta. A 2333, G 752.

[188] _Courtepy_ rimes with _sobrely_; Cant. Ta. prol. 289.

[189] As to _awry_ (or _awry-e_?), we have little evidence beyond the present passage.

[190] _Enemy_ rimes with _I_, Cant. Ta. A 1643, _royally_, id. 1793; &c.

[191] As it is the natural instinct of many critics to claim for themselves even small discoveries, I note that this paragraph was written in July, 1891, and that the curious, but not very important fact above announced, was first noticed by me some three months previously.

[192] The calculation is as follows. A quire of 16 pages, at 24 lines a page, contains 384 lines. Three such quires contain about 1152 lines, which, added to 5810 (in A and B), bring us to l. 6962 (say, 6964). In the fourth quire, if A, B, C, &c., be successive pages, these pages contained the lines following. A, 6965-6988; B, 6989-7012; C, 7013-36; D, 7037-60; E, 7061-84; F, 7085-7108; G (25 lines), 7109-33; H (25 lines), 7134-7158; I (25 lines), 7159-7183; K (25 lines), 7184-7208; L, 7209-32; M, 7233-56; N, 7257-80; O, 7281-7304; P, 7305-28; Q, 7329-52.

[193] I have been greatly assisted in this matter by D. Donaldson, Esq., who gave me some beautifully executed photographic copies of three pages of the MS., which I have shewn to many friends, including Mr. Bond and Mr. Thompson at the British Museum.

[194] The allusion to prince Edward, 'son of the lord of Windsor' (see note to l. 1250), is not in all the copies; so it may have been added afterwards. Edward I. was not born till 1239.

[195] Some copies are dated 1814; but I can detect no difference in them, except that the later copies have an additional frontispiece.

[196] The Legend of Good Women is here meant: and 'xxv.' is certainly an error for 'xix.'

[197] Printed _separately_ in the present edition, in vol. iii.

[198] Of course I mean that _dy-e_ is the Chaucerian form; the author of the Lamentation pronounced it differently, viz. as _dy_.

[199] See the excellent treatise by Dr. E. Köppel entitled 'Laurents de Premierfait und John Lydgates Bearbeitungen von Boccaccios De Casibus Virorum Illustrium'; München, 1885.

[200] Not Ovid, but Statius; Lydgate makes a slip here; see note to IV. 245.

[201] In Lydgate's Lyfe of St. Albon, ed. Hortsmann, l. 15, this line appears in the more melodious form--'The golden trumpet of the House of Fame.'

[202] Hoccleve's poem entitled 'Moder of God' is erroneously attributed to Chaucer in two Scottish copies (Arch. Seld. B 24, and Edinb. 18. 2. 8). But it occurs among 16 poems, _all_ by Hoccleve, in a MS. in the collection of the late Sir Thos. Phillipps, as already noted in § 1 above. A few of these poems (_not_ including the 'Moder of God') were printed from this MS. in the edition of some of 'Occleve's Poems' by G. Mason, in 1796.

[203] Printed 'Six couplets'; clearly a slip of the pen.

[204] They are printed in full below, on p. 46.

[205] i. e. the Parliament of Foules.

[206] La Belle Dame sans Merci, a poem translated from the French originally written by 'Maister Aleyn,' chief secretary to the King of France. Certainly not by Chaucer; for Alain Chartier, the author of the original French poem, was only about _four_ years old when Chaucer died. Moreover, it is now known that the author of the English poem was Sir Richard Ros. See p. 35, note 2.

[207] All in Caxton's edition of the Minor Poems, described above, p. 27.

[208] Both in the small quarto volume described above, p. 27.

[209] Speght added _three more_ pieces, but they are also found in ed. 1550 and ed. 1542, at the end of the Table of Contents; see below, p. 45, nos. 66-8.

[210] Jack Upland is _in prose_, and in the form of a succession of questions directed against the friars.

[211] I have often made use of a handy edition with the following titlepage: 'The Poetical Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, with an Essay on his Language and Versification and an Introductory Discourse, together with Notes and a Glossary. By Thomas Tyrwhitt. London, Edward Moxon, Dover Street, 1855.' I cannot but think that this title-page may have misled others, as it for a long time misled myself. As a fact, Tyrwhitt never edited anything beyond the Canterbury Tales, though he has left us some useful notes upon the Minor Poems, and his Glossary covers the whole ground. The Minor Poems in this edition are merely _reprinted_ from the black-letter editions.

[212] Probably copies slightly differ. The book described by me is a copy in my own possession, somewhat torn at the beginning, and imperfect at the end. But the three missing leaves only refer to Lydgate's _Storie of Thebes_.

[213] I print _in italics_ the names of the pieces which I reject as spurious. In the case of _The Romaunt of the Rose_, the first 1705 lines are genuine; but the rest, which is spurious, is more than three-fourths of the whole. See p. 1 above.

[214] I. e. the folios are misnumbered. Piece 8 begins with fol. ccxliiii, which is followed by ccxlvj (_sic_), ccxli (_sic_), ccxli (_repeated_), ccxlii, and ccxliii; which brings us to 'ccxliiii' over again.

[215] Marked Fol. cclxxvj by mistake.

[216] Nos. 28-30 are in no previous edition.

[217] Stowe did not observe that this had occurred already, in the midst of poem no. 33.

[218] Miscalled Fol. cccxxxix. Also, the next folio is called cccxlviij., after which follows cccxlix., and so on.

[219] In the Preface to Morris's Chaucer, p. x, we are told that the editor took his copy of this poem from Thynne's edition of 1532. This is an oversight; for it does not occur there; Stowe's edition is meant.

[220] 'Thomas Occleve mentions it himself, as one of his own compositions, in a _Dialogue_ which follows his _Complaint_, MS. Bodley 1504.'--Tyrwhitt.

[221] See Political, Religious, and Love Poems, ed. Furnivall, p. 52. Cf. _Englische Studien_, x. 206.

[222] I have found the reference. It is Shirley who says so, in a poetical 'introduction'; see MS. Addit. 16165, fol. 3.

[223] It runs thus:--'Quod loue, I shall tel thee, this lesson to learne, myne owne true seruaunte, the noble Philosophicall Poete in Englishe, which euermore hym busieth & trauaileth right sore, my name to encrease, wherefore all that willen me good, owe to doe him worship and reuerence both; truly his better ne his pere, in schole of my rules, coud I neuer finde: He, quod she, in a treatise that he made of my seruaunt Troilus, hath this matter touched, & at the full this question [_of predestination_] assoiled. Certainly his noble saiyngs can I not ame_n_d; in goodness of ge_n_til ma_n_lich spech, without any maner of nicitie of starieres (_sic_) imaginacion, in wit and in good reason of sentence, he passeth al other makers'; ed. 1561. (Read _storieres_, story-writer's.)

[224] Hoccleve appeals to St. Margaret, in his Letter of Cupid, st. 6 from the end. Lydgate wrote 'the Lyfe of St. Margarete.' I have a strong feeling that the poem is one of Lydgate's. Lines 24-26 seem to be imitated from Chaucer's Legend of Good Women, ll. 197-9.

[225] I leave this sentence as I wrote it in 1888; shortly afterwards, the attribution of no. 57 to Chaucer received confirmation from a note in the Phillipps MS. See p. 75.

[226] There is another copy of The Craft of Lovers in MS. Harl. 2251. It is there dated 1459.

[227] _I. e._ Joan of Navarre, who was married to Henry IV in 1403.

[228] A good French _Virelai_ is one by Eustace Deschamps, ed. Tarbé, 1849; i. 25.

[229] See remarks on this poem in _The New English_, by T. L. Kington Oliphant, i. 402.

[230] It is much to be regretted that Prof. Morley, in his new edition of his English Writers, still clings to the notion of 'the Court of Love' being Chaucer's. It is sufficient to say that, after 1385, Chaucer's poems are of a far higher order, especially as regards correctness of idiom and rhythm. Our knowledge of the history of the English language has made some advance of late years, and it is no longer possible to ignore all the results of linguistic criticism.

[231] A great peculiarity of this poem is the astonishing length, of the sentences. Many of them run to fifty lines or more. As to the MS., see Thynne's _Animadversions_, ed. Furnivall, 1875, p. 30. A second MS. is now in the British Museum (Addit. 10303), also written about 1550.

[232] The authoress had an eye for colour, and some knowledge, one would think, of heraldry. There is a tinsel-like glitter about this poem which gives it a flashy attractiveness, in striking contrast to the easy grace of Chaucer's workmanship. In the same way, the authoress of 'The Assembly of Ladies' describes the colours of the dresses of the characters, and, like the authoress of 'The Flower and the Leaf,' quotes occasional scraps of French.

[233] _Plesir_ may be meant, but Chaucer does not use it; he says _plesaunce_.

[234] It is so termed in a table of contents in MS. Trin. Coll. Cam. R. 3. 15, which (as noted on p. 45) contains _all three_ of the pieces here numbered 66, 67, and 68.

[235] The copy of no. XXI. in MS. Fairfax 16 has not been printed. I made a transcript of it myself. There is another unprinted copy in MS. Harl. 7578. I also copied out nos. XII., XXII., XXIII.

[236] Called 'Cm.' in the footnotes to vol. iv.

[237] There are _two_ copies in MS. P.; they may be called P 1 and P 2.

[238] I make but little use of the copies in the second group.

[239] Two copies; may be called T 1 and T 2.

[240] Two copies; F 1 and F 2. The copy in P. is unprinted.

[241] Two copies; P 1 and P 2.

[242] Also a Balade, beginning 'Victorious kyng,' printed in G. Mason's edition of Occleve, 1796; as well as _The Book of Cupid_, which is another name for the _Cuckoo and Nightingale_.

[243] Unless they were composed, as Shirley says, by one Halsham, and adopted by Lydgate as _subjects_ for new poems; see pp. 48, 57.

[244] i. e. in the ballad-measure, or 7-line stanzas.

[245] One page of this, in Shirley's writing, has been reproduced in facsimile for the Chaucer Society.

[246] This page has been reproduced, in facsimile, for the Chaucer Society.

[247] It is also twice attributed to Chaucer in MS. P.

[248] I follow the account in Morley's _English Writers_, 1867, ii. 204; the name is there given as de Guilevile; but M. Paul Meyer writes De Deguilleville.

[249] Morley says 1330; a note in the Camb. MS. Ff. 6. 30 says 1331.

[250] Edited by Mr. W. Aldis Wright for the Roxburghe Club in 1869; see p. 164 of that edition. And see a note in Warton's Hist. Eng. Poetry, ed. Hazlitt, 1871, vol. iii. p. 67.

[251] See Furnivall's Trial Forewords, pp. 13-15, and p. 100, for further information.

[252] The initial _E_ stands for _et_. See next note.

[253] The initial _C_ stands for _cetera_. It was usual to place _&c._ (= _et cetera_) at the end of the alphabet.

[254] Chaucer speaks of writing _compleintes_; Cant. Ta. 11260 (F. 948).

[255] Cf. 'this eight yere'; _Book of the Duchesse_, 37.

[256] 'Philippa Chaucer was a lady of the bedchamber, and therefore married, in 1366'; N. and Q. 7 S. v. 289.

[257] But Ten Brink (_Sprache und Verskunst_, p. 174) dates it about 1370-1372.

[258] 'O ye _Herines_, nightes doughtren three'; _Troilus_, last stanza of the invocation in bk. iv.

[259] Most of the passages which he quotes are not extant in the English version of the Romaunt. Where we can institute a comparison between that version and the Book of the Duchess, the passages are differently worded. Cf. B. Duch. 420, with R. Rose, 1393.

[260] i. e. _y-treted_, treated.

[261] See l. 647. The royal tercel eagle is, then, Richard II; and the formel eagle is Queen Anne; the other two tercel eagles were her other two suitors. See Froissart, bk. ii. c. 86.

[262] Rather, 1382. Ch. could not have _foretold_ a year's delay.

[263] It is quite impossible that the poem can refer, as some say, to the marriage of John of Gaunt in 1359, or even to that of de Coucy in 1364; see Furnivall's Trial Forewords, p. 70. It is plainly much later than the Book of the Duchess, as the internal evidence incontestably shews.

[264] I leave the remarks upon this poem as I first wrote them in 1888. Very soon afterwards, Dr. Furnivall actually _found_ the ascription of the poem to Chaucer in MS. Phillipps 9053. I think this proves that I know how to estimate internal evidence aright. MS. Phillips 9053 also completes the poem, by contributing an additional stanza, which, in MS. Harl. 78, has been torn away.

[265] mix.

[266] fleeces.

[267] hushed, silent.

[268] rewards.

[269] shed.

[270] dug.

[271] lumps.

[272] See Todd, Illustrations of Chaucer, p. 116; and see above, pp. 55, 56.

[273] The critics who brush aside such a statement as this should learn to look at MSS. for themselves. The make-up of this MS. shews that it is essentially a Chaucer-Lydgate MS.; and Merciless Beautee is not Lydgate's. To weigh the evidence of a MS., it must be personally inspected by such as have had some experience.

[274] Middle-English roundels are very scarce. I know of one by Hoccleve, printed by Mason in 1796, and reprinted in Todd's _Illustrations_, p. 372; and there is a poor one by Lydgate, in Halliwell's edition of his Minor Poems, p. 10. Two more (one being by Lydgate) are given in Ritson, _Anc. Songs_, i. 128, 129.

[275] I do _not_ think, as some have guessed, that 'Tregentil Chaucer' means 'Tres gentil Chaucer.' Those who think so had better look at the MS. I see no sense in it; nor do I know why _tres_ should be spelt _tre_.

[276] A similar note was made in MS. Cotton, Otho. A. xviii., now destroyed. Todd printed the poem from this MS. in his Illustrations of Chaucer, p. 131; it belongs to the 'first group.'

[277] high head.

[278] admonishes.

[279] weighed down.

[280] The poem must have been written not many years before 1413, the date of the accession of Henry V. In 1405, the ages of the princes were 17, 16, 15, and 14 respectively. Shirley's title to the poem was evidently written after 1415, as John was not created Duke of Bedford until that year.

[281] See Furnivall's edition of Borde's Introduction of Knowledge, E. E. T. S., 1870. At p. 31 of the Forewords, the editor says there is no evidence for attributing 'Scoggins Iests' to Borde.

[282] Froissart, bk. iv. c. 105 (Johnes' translation).

[283] See Johnes' translation of Froissart, 1839; ii. 612-7.

[284] It would be decent, on the part of such critics as do _not_ examine the MSS., to speak of my opinions in a less contemptuous tone.

[285] Unless, which is more probable, the _Parliament of Foules_ reproduces, nearly, two lines from the present poem.

[286] Perhaps 'tofore' means 'for use in,' or 'to be presented in'; and 'November' was some special occasion.

[287] As, e. g. in the curious satirical ballad 'Against the King of Almaigne,' printed in Percy's Ballads, Series II. Book I, and in Wright's 'Political Songs,' p. 69. Henry was also called Henry of Winchester, from the place of his birth.

[288] The thief is the Ribauld; the ploughboy, the Labourer; the apothecary, the Physicien; the soldier, the Garde; the tailor, the Marchaunt; the tinker, the Smyth. Only two are changed.

[289] Koch instances _góddes_ in the Envoy to Scogan, 15, which he assumes was _góddis_. Not at all; it is like Chaucer's rime of _clérkes_, _derk is_; the _-es_ being unaccented. This could never produce _goddís_, and still less _goddísse_.

[290] In old French, _a tard_ means 'slowly, late'; later French drops _a_, and uses _tard_ only.

[291] _Voto_, 'hollow, voide, empty'; Florio.

[292] The MS. has _And_ for _Than_ (wrongly).

* * * * *

Corrections made to printed text:

P. xi. "belonged to the said Richard and Mary": "Richard" corrected from "Robert".

P. 4. § 7. 5. "_may_, _assay_, 2453" corrected from "453".

P. 499. Note to line 114. "there was no other planet in Gemini" corrected from "Germini".