i. 157) we find:--

'His seconde hawke wexid _gery_, And was with flying wery.'

Dyce, in his note upon the word, quotes two passages from Lydgate's Fall of Princes, B. iii. c. 10. leaf 77, and B. vi. c. 1. leaf 134.

'Howe _gery_ fortune, furyous and wode.'

'And, as a swalowe _geryshe_ of her flyghte, Twene slowe and swyfte, now croked, now upright.'

Two more occur in the same, B. iii. c. 8, and B. iv. c. 8.

'The _gery_ Romayns, stormy and unstable.'

'The _geryshe_ quene, of chere and face double.'

See also in his Siege of Troye, ed. 1555, fol. B 6, back, col. 2; &c.

1539. A writer in Notes and Queries quotes the following Devonshire proverb: 'Fridays in the week are never aleek,' i. e. Fridays are unlike other days.

'Vendredy de la semaine est Le plus beau ou le plus laid'; Recueil des Contes, par A. Jubinal, p. 375.

[73]

1566. Compare Legend of Good Women, 2629:--

'Sin first that day that _shapen was my sherte_, Or by the _fatal sustren_ had my dom.'

So also in Troil. iii. 733.

1593. _I drede noght_, I have no fear, I doubt not.

1594. _outher ... or_ = either ... or.

1609. _To darreyne hir_, to decide the right to her. Spenser is very fond of this word; see F. Q. i. 4. 40; i. 7. 11; ii. 2. 26; iii. i. 20; iv. 4. 26, 5. 24; v. 2. 15; vi. 7. 41. See _deraisnier_ in Godefroy's O. Fr. Dict.

1622. _to borwe._ This expression has the same force as _to wedde_, in pledge. See l. 1218.

1625. The expression 'sooth is seyd' shews that Chaucer is here introducing a quotation. The original passage is the following, from the Roman de la Rose, 8487:--

'Bien savoient cele parole, Qui n'est mençongiere ne fole: Qu'onques Amor et Seignorie Ne s'entrefirent companie, Ne ne demorerent ensemble.'

Again, the expression 'cele parole' shews that Jean de Meun is also here quoting from another, viz. from Ovid, Met. ii. 846:--

'Non bene conueniunt, nec in una sede morantur Maiestas et Amor.'

1626. _his thankes_, willingly, with good-will; cf. l. 2107. Cf. M. E. _myn unthonkes_ = ingratis. 'He faught with them in batayle _their unthankes_'; Hardyng's Chronicle, p. 112.--M.

1638. Cf. Teseide, vii. 106, 119; Statius, Theb. iv. 494-9.

1654. _Foynen_, thrust, push. It is a mistake to explain this, as usual, by 'fence,' as fence (= defence) suggests _parrying_; whereas _foinen_ means to thrust or push, as in attack, not as in defence. It occurs again in l. 2550. Hence it is commonly used of the pushing with spears.

'With speres ferisly [fiercely] they foynede.' Sir Degrevant, 274 (Thornton, Rom. p. 188).

Strutt (Sports and Pastimes, bk. iii. c. 1. § 32) explains that a thrust is more dangerous than a cut, and quotes the old advice, that 'to foyne is better than to smyte.' 'And there kyng Arthur smote syr Mordred vnder the shelde wyth a _foyne_ of his spere thorughoute the body more than a fadom'; Sir T. Malory, Morte Darthur, bk. xxi. c. 4. This was a foine indeed!

1656. Deficient in the first foot. Scan:--In | his fight | ing, &c. The usual insertion of _as_ before _a_ is wholly unauthorised.

1665. _hath seyn biforn_, hath foreseen. Cf. Teseide, vi. 1. [74]

1668. From the Teseide, v. 77. Compare the medieval proverb:--'Hoc facit una dies quod totus denegat annus.' Quoted in Die älteste deutsche Litteratur; by Paul Piper (1884); p. 283.

1676. _ther daweth him no day_, no day dawns upon him.

1678. _hunte_, hunter, huntsman; whence _Hunt_ as a surname. I find this form as late as in Gascoigne's Art of Venerie: 'I am the _Hunte_'; Works, ed. Hazlitt, ii. 306.

1698. Similarly, Adrastus stopped the fight between Tydeus and Polynices; Statius, Theb. i. Lydgate describes this in his Siege of Thebes, pt. ii, and takes occasion to borrow several expressions from this part of the Knightes Tale.

1706. _Ho_, an exclamation made by heralds, to stop the fight. It was also used to enjoin silence. See ll. 2533, 2656; Troil. iv. 1242.

1707. _Up peyne_ is the old phrase; as in '_up peyne_ of emprisonement of 40 days'; Riley's Memorials of London, p. 580.

1736. _it am I._ 'This is the regular construction in early English. In modern English the pronoun _it_ is regarded as the direct nominative, and _I_ as forming part of the predicate.'--M.

1739. 'Therefore I ask my death and my doom.'

1747. _Mars the rede._ Boccaccio uses the same epithet in the opening of his Teseide, i. 3: '_O Marte rubicondo._' _Rede_ refers to the colour of the planet; cf. Anelida, 1.

1761. This line occurs again three times; March. Tale E. 1986; Squieres Tale, F. 479; Legend of Good Women, 503.

1780. _can no divisoun_, knows no distinction.

1781. _after oon_ = after one mode, according to the same rule.

1783. _eyen lighte_, cheerful looks.

1785. See the Romaunt of the Rose, 878-884; vol. i. p. 130.

1799. 'Amare et Sapere vix Deo conceditur.'--Publius Syrus, Sent. 15. Cf. Adv. of Learning, ii. proem. § 15--'It is not granted to man to love and to be wise'; ed. Wright, p. 84. So also in Bacon's 10th Essay. The reading here given is correct. _Fool_ is used with great emphasis; the sense is:--'Who can be a (complete) fool, unless he is in love?' The old printed editions have the same reading. The Harl. MS. alone has _if that_ for _but-if_, giving the sense: 'Who can be fool, if he is in love?' As this is absurd, Mr. Wright _silently_ inserted _not_ after _may_, and is followed by Bell and Morris; but the latter prints _not_ in italics. Observe that the line is deficient in the first foot. Read:--Whó | may bé | a fóol, &c.

1807. _jolitee_, joyfulness--said of course ironically.

1808. _Can ... thank_, acknowledges an obligation, owes thanks.

1814. _a servant_, i. e. a lover. This sense of _servant_, as a term of gallantry, is common in our dramatists.

1815, 1818. Cf. the Teseide, v. 92.

1837. _looth or leef_, displeasing or pleasing.

1838. _pypen in an ivy leef_ is an expression like 'blow the buck's-horn' in A. 3387, meaning to console oneself with any frivolous [75] employment; it occurs again in Troilus, v. 1433. Cf. the expression 'to go and whistle.' Cf. 'farwel the gardiner; he may pipe with an yue-leafe; his fruite is failed'; Test. of Love, bk. iii; ed. 1561, fol. 316. Boys still blow against a leaf, and produce a squeak. Lydgate uses similar expressions:--

'But let his brother blowe in an horn, Where that him list, or pipe in a reede.' Destruction of Thebes, part ii.

Again, in Hazlitt's Proverbs, we find 'To go blow one's flute,' which is taken from an old proverb. In Vox Populi Vox Dei (circa 1547), pr. in Hazlitt's Popular Poetry, iii. 284, are the lines:--

'When thei have any sute, Thei maye goo blowe theire flute, _This goithe the comon brute_.'

The custom is old. Cf. Zenobius, i. 19 (Paroem. Graec. I. p. 6):--

[Greek: aidein pros murrinên; ethos ên ton mê dunamenon en tois sumposiois aisai, daphnês klôna ê murrinês labonta pros touton aidein.]

1850. _fer ne ner_, farther nor nearer, neither more nor less. 'After some little trouble, I have arrived at the conclusion that Chaucer has given us sufficient _data_ for ascertaining both the days of the month and of the week of many of the principal events of the "Knightes Tale." The following scheme will explain many things hitherto unnoticed.

'On Friday, May 4, before 1 A.M., Palamon breaks out of prison. For (l. 1463) it was during the "third night of May, but (l. 1467) a little _after_ midnight." That it was Friday is evident also, from observing that Palamon hides himself at day's approach, whilst Arcite rises "for to doon his observance to May, remembring on the _poynt of his desyr_." To do this best, he would go into the fields at _sunrise_ (l. 1491), during the hour dedicated to _Venus_, i. e. during the hour after sunrise _on a Friday_. If however this seem for a moment doubtful, all doubt is removed by the following lines:--

"Right as the _Friday_, soothly for to telle, Now it shyneth, now it reyneth faste, Right so gan gery _Venus_ overcaste The hertes of hir folk; right as _hir day_ Is gerful, right so chaungeth she array. Selde is the _Friday_ al the wyke ylyke."

'All this is very little to the point unless we suppose Friday to be the day. Or, if the reader have _still_ any doubt about this, let him observe the curious accumulation of evidence which is to follow.

'Palamon and Arcite meet, and a duel is arranged for an early hour on the _day following_. That is, they meet on Saturday, May 5. But, as Saturday is presided over by the inauspicious planet Saturn, it is no wonder that they are both unfortunate enough to have their duel [76] interrupted by Theseus, and to find themselves threatened with death. Still, at the intercession of the queen and Emily, a day of assembly for a tournament is fixed for "_this day fifty wykes_" (l. 1850). Now we must understand "fifty wykes" to be a poetical expression for _a year_. This is not mere supposition, however, but a _certainty_; because the appointed day was in the month of _May_, whereas fifty weeks and no more would land us in _April_. Then "this day fyfty wekes" means "this day year," viz. on May 5. [In fact, Boccaccio has 'un anno intero'; Tes. v. 98.]

'Now, in the year following (supposed not a leap-year), the 5th of May would be _Sunday_. But this we are expressly told in l. 2188. It must be noted, however, that this is not the day of the _tournament_[23], but of the _muster_ for it, as may be gleaned from ll. 1850-1854 and 2096. The eleventh hour "inequal" of Sunday night, or the second hour before sunrise of Monday, is dedicated to _Venus_, as explained by Tyrwhitt (l. 2217); and therefore Palamon then goes to the temple of Venus. The next hour is dedicated to Mercury. The third hour, the first after sunrise on Monday, is dedicated to Luna or Diana, and during this Emily goes to Diana's temple. The fourth after sunrise is dedicated to Mars, and therefore Arcite then goes to the temple of Mars. But the rest of the day is spent merely in jousting and preparations--

"Al that _Monday_ justen they and daunce." (l. 2486.)

The tournament therefore takes place on Tuesday, May 7, on the day of the week presided over by _Mars_, as was very fitting; and this perhaps helps to explain Saturn's exclamation in l. 2669, "Mars hath his wille."'--Walter W. Skeat, in Notes and Queries, Fourth Series, ii. 2, 3; Sept. 12, 1868 (since slightly corrected).

To this was added the observation, that May 5 was on a Saturday in 1386, and on a Sunday in 1387. Ten Brink (Studien, p. 189) thinks it is of no value; but the coincidence is curious.

1866. 'Except that one of you shall be either slain or taken prisoner'; i. e. one of you must be fairly conquered.

1884. _listes_, lists. 'The lists for the tilts and tournaments resembled those, I doubt not, appointed for the ordeal combats, which, according to the rules established by Thomas, duke of Gloucester, uncle to Richard II., were as follows. The king shall find the field to fight in, and the lists shall be made and devised by the constable; and it is to be observed, that the list must be 60 paces long and 40 paces broad, set up in good order, and the ground within hard, stable, and level, without any great stones or other impediments; also, that the lists must be made _with one door to the east, and another to the west_ [see [77] ll. 1893, 4]; and strongly barred about with good bars 7 feet high or more, so that a horse may not be able to leap over them.'--Strutt, Sports and Pastimes; bk. iii. c. 1. § 23.

1889. The various parts of this round theatre are subsequently described. On the North was the turret of Diana, with an oratory; on the East the gate of Venus, with altar and oratory above; on the West the gate of Mars, similarly provided.

1890. _Ful of degrees_, full of steps (placed one above another, as in an amphitheatre). 'But now they have gone a nearer way to the wood, for with wooden galleries in the church that they have, and _stairy degrees of seats_ in them, they make as much room to sit and hear, as a new west end would have done.'--Nash's Red Herring, p. 21. See Shakespeare, Julius Cæsar, ii. 126, and also 2 Kings xx. 9. Cf. 'While she stey up from _gre_ to _gre_.'--Lives of Saints, Roxb. Club, p. 59. Lines 1187-1894 are more or less imitated from the Teseide, vii. 108-110.

1910. Coral is a curious material to use for such a purpose; but we find posts of coral and a palace chiefly formed of coral and metal in Guy of Warwick, ed. Zupitza, 11399-11401.

1913. _don wroght_, caused (to be) made; observe this idiom. Cf. _don yow kept_, E. 1098; _han doon fraught_, B. 171; _haf gert saltit_, Bruce, xviii. 168.

1918-32. See the analysis of this passage in vol. iii. p. 390.

1919. _on the wal_, viz. on the walls _within_ the oratory. The description is loosely imitated from Boccaccio's Teseide, vii. 55-59. It is remarkable that there is a much closer imitation of the same passage in Chaucer's Parl. of Foules, ll. 183-294. Thus at l. 246 of that poem we find:--

'Within the temple, of syghes hote as fyr, I herde a swogh, that gan aboute renne; Which syghes were engendred with desyr, That maden every auter for to brenne Of newe flaume; and wel aspyed I thenne That al the cause of sorwes that they drye Com of the bitter goddesse Ialousye.'

There is yet another description of the temple of Venus in the House of Fame, 119-139, where we have the very line 'Naked fletinge in a see' (cf. l. 1956 below), and a mention of the 'rose garlond' (cf. l. 1961), and of 'Hir dowves and daun Cupido' (cf. ll. 1962-3).

1929. _golde_, a marigold; _Calendula_. '_Goolde_, herbe: Solsequium, quia sequitur solem, elitropium, calendula'; Prompt. Parv. The corn-marigold in the North is called _goulans_, _guilde_, or _goles_, and in the South, _golds_ (Way). Gower says that Leucothea was changed

'Into a floure was named _golde_, Which stant governed of the sonne.' Conf. Am., ed. Pauli, ii. 356.

[78] Yellow is the colour of jealousy; see _Yellowness_ in Nares. In the Rom. de la Rose, 22037, Jealousy is described as wearing a 'chapel de _soussie_,' i. e. a chaplet of marigolds.

1936. _Citheroun_ = Cithaeron, sacred to Venus; as said in the Rom. de la Rose, 15865, q.v.

1940. In the Romaunt of the Rose, _Idleness_ is the _porter_ of the garden in which the rose (Beauty) is kept. In the Parl. of Foules, 261, the porter's name is _Richesse_. Cf. ll. 2, 3 of the Second Nonnes Tale (G. 2, 3).

1941. _of yore agon_, of years gone by. Cf. Ovid, Met. iii. 407.

1953-4. Imitated from Le Roman de la Rose, 16891-2.

1955. The description of Venus here given has some resemblance to that given in cap. v (De Venere) of Albrici Philosophi De Deorum Imaginibus Libellus, in an edition of the Mythographi Latini, Amsterdam, 1681, vol. ii. p. 304. I transcribe as much as is material. 'Pingebatur Venus pulcherrima puella, nuda, et in mari natans; et in manu sua dextra concham marinam tenens atque gestans; rosisque candidis et rubris sertum gerebat in capite ornatum, et columbis circa se volando, comitabatur.... Hinc et Cupido filius suus alatus et caecus assistebat, qui sagitta et arcu, quos tenebat, Apollinem sagittabat.' It is clear that Chaucer had consulted some such description as this; see further in the note to l. 2041.

1958. Cf. 'wawes ... clere as glas'; Boeth. bk. i. met. 7. 4.

1971. _estres_, the inner parts of a building; as also in A. 4295 and Leg. of Good Women, 1715. 'To spere the _estyrs_ of Rome'; Le Bone Florence, 293; in Ritson, Met. Rom. iii. 13. See also Cursor Mundi, 2252.

'For thow knowest better then I Al the _estris_ of this house.' Pardoner and Tapster, 556; pr. with Tale of Beryn (below).

'His sportis [portes?] and his _estris_'; Tale of Beryn, ed. Furnivall, 837. Cf. 'Qu'il set bien de l'ostel les _estres_'; Rom. de la Rose, 12720; and see Rom. of the Rose, 1448 (vol. i. p. 153).

By mistaking the long _s_ for _f_, this word has been misprinted as _eftures_ in the following: 'Pleaseth it yow to see the _eftures_ of this castel?'--Sir Thomas Malory, Mort Arthure, b. xix. c. 7.

1979. _a rumbel and a swough_, a rumbling and a sound of wind.

1982. _Mars armipotente._

'O thou rede Marz armypotente, That in the trende baye hase made thy throne; That God arte of bataile and regent, And rulist all that alone; To whom I profre precious present, To the makande my moone With herte, body and alle myn entente, . . . . . . In worshipe of thy reverence On thyn owen Tewesdaye.' Sowdone of Babyloyne, ll. 939-953.

[79]

The word _armipotent_ is borrowed from Boccaccio's _armipotente_, in the Teseide, vii. 32. Other similar borrowings occur hereabouts, too numerous for mention. Note that this description of the temple of Mars once belonged to the end of the poem of Anelida, which see.

Let the reader take particular notice that the temple here described (ll. 1982-1994) is merely a _painted_ temple, depicted on one of the walls _inside_ the oratory of Mars. The walls of the other temples had paintings similar to those inside the temple of which the outside is here depicted. Chaucer describes the painted temple as if it were real, which is somewhat confusing. Inconsistent additions were made in revision.

1984. _streit_, narrow; 'la stretta entrata'; Tes. vii. 32.

1985. _vese_ is glossed _impetus_ in the Ellesmere MS., and means 'rush' or 'hurrying blast.' It is allied to M.E. _fesen_, to drive, which is Shakespeare's _pheeze_. Copied from 'salit Impetus amens E foribus'; Theb. vii. 47, 48.

1986. _rese_ = to shake, quake. 'Þe eorðe gon _to-rusien_,' 'the earth gan to shake.'--La[gh]amon, l. 15946. _To resye_, to shake, occurs in Ayenbite of Inwyt, pp. 23, 116. Cf. also--'The tre _aresede_ as hit wold falle'; Seven Sages, ed. Weber, l. 915. A.S. _hrysian_.

1987. 'I suppose the _northern light_ is the aurora borealis, but this phenomenon is so rarely mentioned by mediaeval writers, that it may be questioned whether Chaucer meant anything more than the faint and cold illumination received by reflexion through the door of an apartment fronting the north.' (Marsh.) The fact is, however, that Chaucer here copies Statius, Theb. vii. 40-58; see the translation in the note to l. 2017 below. The 'northern light' seems to be an incorrect rendering of 'aduersum Phoebi iubar'; l. 45.

1990. 'E le porte eran d'eterno diamante'; Teseide, vii. 32. Such is the reading given by Warton. However, the ultimate source is the phrase in Statius--'adamante perenni ... fores'; Theb. vii. 68.

1991. _overthwart_, &c., across and along (i. e. from top to bottom). The same phrase occurs in Rich. Coer de Lion, 2649, in Weber, Met. Romances, ii. 104.

1997, 8. Cf. the Teseide, vii. 33:--

'Videvi l' Ire rosse, come fuoco, E le Paure pallide in quel loco.'

But Chaucer follows Statius still more closely. Ll. 1195-2012 answer to Theb. vii. 48-53:--

--'caecumque Nefas, Iraeque rubentes, Exsanguesque Metus, occultisque ensibus astant Insidiae, geminumque tenens Discordia ferrum. Innumeris strepit aula minis; tristissima Virtus Stat medio, laetusque Furor, uultuque cruento Mars armata sedet.'

1999. Cf. Rom. of the Rose, 7419-20. [80]

2001. See Chaucer's Legend of Hypermnestra.

2003. 'Discordia, _contake_'; Glossary in Reliquiae Antiquae, i. 7.

2004. _chirking_ is used of grating and creaking sounds; and sometimes, of the cry of birds. The Lansd. MS. has _schrikeinge_ (shrieking). See House of Fame, iii. 853 (or 1943). In Batman upon Bartholomè, lib. viii. c. 29, the music of the spheres is attributed to the '_cherkyng_ of the mouing of the circles, and of the roundnes of heauen.' In Chaucer's tr. of Boethius, bk. i. met. 6, it is an adj., and translates _stridens_. Cf. D. 1804, I. 605.

2007. This line contains an allusion to the death of Sisera, Judges iv. But Dr. Koch has pointed out (Essays on Chaucer, Chaucer Soc. iv. 371) that we have here some proof that Chaucer may have altered his first draft of the poem without taking sufficient heed to what he was about. The original line may have stood--

'The sleer of _her husband_ saw I there'--

or something of that kind; for the reason that no suicide has ever yet been known to drive a nail into his own head. That a wife might do so to her husband is _Chaucer's own_ statement; for, in the Cant. Tales, D. 765-770, we find--

'Of latter date, of wives hath he red, That somme han slayn hir housbondes in hir bed ... And somme han drive nayles in hir brayn, Whyl that they slepte, and thus they han hem slayn.'

Of course it may be said that l. 2006 is entirely _independent_ of l. 2007, and I have punctuated the text so as to suit this arrangement; but the suggestion is worth notice.

2011. From Tes. vii. 35:--'Videvi ancora l'allegro Furore.'--Kölbing.

2017. _hoppesteres._ Speght explains this word by pilots (_gubernaculum tenentes_); Tyrwhitt, female dancers (Ital. _ballatrice_). Others explain it _hopposteres_ = _opposteres_ = opposing, hostile, so that _schippes hoppesteres_ = _bellatrices carinae_ (Statius). As, however, it is impossible to suppose that even _opposteres_ without the _h_ can ever have been formed from the verb to _oppose_, the most likely solution is that Chaucer mistook the word _bellatrices_ in Statius (vii. 57) or the corresponding Ital. word _bellatrici_ in the Teseide, vii. 37, for _ballatrices_ or _ballatrici_, which might be supposed to mean 'female dancers'; an expression which would exactly correspond to an M. E. form _hoppesteres_, from the A. S. _hoppestre_, a female dancer. Herodias' daughter is mentioned (in the dative case) as _þære lyðran hoppystran_ (better spelt _hoppestran_) in Ælfric's A. S. Homilies, ed. Thorpe, i. 484. Hence _shippes hoppesteres_ simply means 'dancing ships.' Shakespeare likens the English fleet to 'A city on the inconstant billows _dancing_'; Hen. V. iii. prol. 15. Cf. O. F. _baleresse_, a female dancer, in Godefroy's Dict., s. v. _baleor_. In § 55 of Cl. Ptolomaei Centum Dicta, printed at Ulm in 1641, we are told that Mars is hostile to ships when in the zenith or the [81] eleventh house. '_Incendetur_ autem nauis, si ascendens ab aliqua stella fixa quae ex Martis mixtura sit, affligetur.' So that, if a fixed star co-operated with Mars, the ships were burnt.

The following extract from Lewis' translation of Statius' Thebaid, bk. vii., is of some interest:--

'Beneath the fronting height of Æmus stood The fane of Mars, encompass'd by a wood. The mansion, rear'd by more than mortal hands, On columns fram'd of polish'd iron stands; The well-compacted walls are plated o'er With the same metal; just without the door A thousand Furies frown. The dreadful gleam, That issues from the sides, reflects the beam Of adverse Phoebus, and with cheerless light Saddens the day, and starry host of night. Well his attendants suit the dreary place; First frantic Passion, Wrath with redd'ning face, And Mischief blind from forth the threshold start; Within lurks pallid Fear with quiv'ring heart, Discord, a two-edged falchion in her hand, And Treach'ry, striving to conceal the brand.'

2020. _for al_, notwithstanding. Cf. Piers the Plowman, B. xix. 274.

2021. _infortune of Marte._ 'Tyrwhitt thinks that Chaucer might intend to be satirical in these lines; but the introduction of such apparently undignified incidents arose from the confusion already mentioned of the god of war with the planet to which his name was given, and the influence of which was supposed to produce all the disasters here mentioned. The following extract from the Compost of Ptolemeus gives some of the supposed effects of Mars:--"Under Mars is borne theves and robbers that kepe hye wayes, and do hurte to true men, and nyght-walkers, and quarell-pykers, bosters, mockers, and skoffers, and these men of Mars causeth warre and murther, and batayle; they wyll be gladly _smythes_ or workers of yron, lyght-fyngred, and lyers, gret swerers of othes in vengeable wyse, and a great surmyler and crafty. He is red and angry, with blacke heer, and lytell iyen; he shall be a great walker, and a maker of swordes and knyves, and a sheder of mannes blode, and a fornycatour, and a speker of rybawdry ... and good to be a _barboure_ and a blode-letter, and to drawe tethe, and is peryllous of his handes." The following extract is from an old astrological book of the sixteenth century:--"Mars denoteth men with red faces and the skinne redde, the face round, the eyes yellow, horrible to behold, furious men, cruell, desperate, proude, sedicious, souldiers, captaines, _smythes_, colliers, bakers, alcumistes, armourers, furnishers, _butchers_, chirurgions, _barbers_, sargiants, and hangmen, according as they shal be well or evill disposed."'--Wright. So also in Cornelius Agrippa, De Occulta Philosophia, lib. i. c. 22. [82] Chaucer has 'cruel Mars' in The Man of Lawes Tale, B. 301; and cf. note to A. 1087.

2022. From Statius, Theb. vii. 58:--

'Et uacui currus, protritaque curribus ora.'

2029. For the story of Damocles, see Cicero, Tuscul. 5. 61; cf. Horace, Od. iii. 1. 17. And see Chaucer's tr. of Boethius, bk. iii. pr. 5. 17. Most likely Chaucer got it from Boethius or from the Gesta Romanorum, cap. 143, since the _name_ of Damocles is _omitted_.

2037. _sterres_ (Harl.) Elles. &c. have _certres_ (_sertres_); but this strange reading can hardly be other than a mistake for _sterres_, which is proved to be the right word by the parallel passage in The Man of Lawes Tale, B. 194-6.

2041. In the note to l. 1955, I have quoted part of cap. v. of a work by Albricus. In cap. iii. (De Marte) of the same, we have a description of Mars, which should be compared. I quote all that is material. 'Erat enim eius figura tanquam unius hominis furibundi, in curru sedens, armatus lorica, et caeteris armis offensiuis et defensiuis.... Ante illum uero lupus ouem portans pingebatur, quia illud scilicet animal ab antiquis gentibus ipsi Marti specialiter consecratum est. Iste enim _Mauors_ est, id est _mares uorans_, eo quod bellorum deus a gentibus dictus est.' Chaucer seems to have taken the notion of the wolf devouring a man from this singular etymology of _Mauors_.

In cap. vii. (De Diana) of the same, there is a description of 'Diana, quae et Luna, Proserpina, Hecate nuncupatur.' Cf. l. 2313 below.

2045. 'The names of two figures in geomancy, representing two constellations in heaven. Puella signifieth Mars retrogade, and Rubeus Mars direct.'--Note in Speght's Chaucer. It is obvious that this explanation is wrong as regards 'Mars retrograde' and 'Mars direct,' because a constellation cannot represent a single planet. It happens to be also wrong as regards 'constellations in heaven.' But Speght is correct in the main point, viz., that Puella and Rubeus are 'the names of two figures in geomancy.' Geomancy was described, under the title of 'Divination by Spotting,' in The Saturday Review, Feb. 16, 1889. To form geomantic figures, proceed thus. Take a pencil, and hurriedly jot down on a paper a number of dots in a line, without counting them. Do the same three times more. Now count the dots, to see whether they are odd or even. If the dots in a line are _odd_, put down _one_ dot on another small paper, half-way across it. If they are _even_, put down _two_ dots, one towards each side; arranging the results in four rows, one beneath the other.

_Three_ of the figures thus formed require our attention; the whole number being sixteen. Fig. 1 results from the dots being odd, even, odd, odd. Fig. 2, from even, odd, even, even. Fig. 3, from odd, odd, even, odd. These (as well as the rest of the sixteen figures) are given in Cornelius Agrippa, De Occulta Philosophia, lib. ii. cap. 48: De Figuris Geomanticis. Each 'Figure' had a 'Name,' belonged to an [83] 'Element,' and possessed a 'Planet' and a Zodiacal 'Sign.' Cornelius Agrippa gives our three 'figures' as below.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Fig. 1 (Puella). Fig. 2 (Rubeus). Fig. 3 (Puer). That is, Fig. 1 is 'Puella,' or 'Mundus facie'; element, water; planet, Venus; sign, Libra.

Fig. 2 is 'Rubeus' or 'Rufus'; element, fire; planet, Mars; sign, Gemini.

Fig. 3 is 'Puer,' or 'Flavus,' or 'Imberbis'; element, fire; planet, Mars; sign, Aries.

Chaucer (or some one else) seems to have confused figures 1 and 3, or Puer with Puella; for Puella was dedicated to Venus. Rubeus is clearly right, as Mars was the red planet (l. 1747). I first explained this, somewhat more fully, in The Academy, March 2, 1889.

2049. From Tes. vii. 38:--'E tal ricetto edificato avea Mulcibero _sottil_ colla sua arte.'--Kölbing, in Engl. Studien, ii. 528.

2056. _Calistopee_ = _Callisto_, a daughter of Lycaon, King of Arcadia, and companion of Diana. See Ovid's Fasti, ii. 153; Gower, Conf. Amantis, ed. Pauli, ii. 336.

2059, 2061. 'Cf. Ovid's Fasti, ii. 153-192; especially 189, 190,

"Signa propinqua micant. Prior est, quam dicimus Arcton, Arctophylax formam terga sequentis habet."

The nymph Callisto was changed into _Arctos_ or the Great Bear; hence "Vrsa Maior" is written in the margin of E. Hn. Cp. Ln. This was sometimes confused with the other Arctos or Lesser Bear, in which was situate the _lodestar_ or Polestar. Chaucer has followed this error. Callisto's son, Arcas, was changed into Arctophylax or Boötes: here again Chaucer says a _sterre_, when he means a whole constellation; as, perhaps, he does in other passages.'--Chaucer's Astrolabe, ed. Skeat (E. E. T. S.), pp. xlviii, xlix.

2062, 2064. _Dane_ = _Daphne_, a girl beloved by Apollo, and changed into a laurel. See Ovid's Metamorph. i. 450; Gower, Conf. Amantis, ed. Pauli, i. 336; Troilus, iii. 726.

2065. _Attheon_ = _Actaeon_. See Ovid's Metamorph. iii. 138.

2070. _Atthalante_ = _Atalanta_. See Ovid's Metamorph. x. 560; and Troilus, v. 1471.

2074. _nat drawen to memorie_ = not draw to memory, not call to mind.

2079. Cf. 'gawdy greene. _subviridis_'; Prompt. Parv. This _gaudè_ has nothing whatever to do with the E. sb. _gaud_, but answers to F. _gaudé_, the pp. of the verb _gauder_, to dye with weld; from the F. sb. _gaude_, weld. As to _weld_, see my note to The Former Age, 17; in [84] vol. i. p. 540. Littré has an excellent example of the word: 'Les bleus teints en indigo doivent être _gaudés_, et ils deviennent _verts_.'

2086. _thou mayst best_, art best able to help, thou hast most power. Lucina was a title both of Juno and Diana; see Vergil, Ecl. iv. 10.

2112. Here _paramours_ is used adverbially, like _paramour_ in l. 1155. From Le Roman de la Rose, 20984:--'Jamès par amors n'ameroit.'

2115. _benedicite_ is here pronounced as a trisyllable, viz. _ben'cite_. It usually _is_ so, though five syllables in l. 1785. Cf. _benste_ in Towneley Myst. p. 85. Cf. 'What, liveth nat thy lady, _benedicite_!' Troil. i. 780. _Benedicite_ is equivalent to 'thank God,' and was used in saying graces. See Babees Book, pp. 382, 386; and Appendix, p. 9.

2125. This line seems to mean that there is nothing new under the sun.

2129. This is the 're Licurgo' of the Teseide, vi. 14; and the Lycurgus of the Thebaid, iv. 386, and of Homer, Il. vi. 130. But the description of him is partly taken from that of another warrior, Tes. vi. 21, 22. It is worth notice that, in Lydgate's Story of Thebes, pt. iii., king Ligurgus or Licurgus (the name is spelt both ways) is introduced, and Lydgate has the following remark concerning him:--

'And the kingdom, but-if bokes lye, Of Ligurgus, called was Trace; And, as I rede _in another place_, He was the same mighty champion To Athenes that cam with Palamon Ayenst his brother (!) that called was Arcite, Y-led in his chare with foure boles whyte, Upon his bed a wreth of gold ful fyn.'

The term _brother_ must refer to l. 1147 above. See further, as to Lycurgus, in the note to Leg. Good Women, 2423, in vol. iii. p. 344.

2134. '_kempe heres_, shaggy, rough hairs. Tyrwhitt and subsequent editors have taken for granted that _kempe_ = _kemped_, combed (an impossible equation); but _kempe_ is rather the reverse of this, and instead of smoothly combed, means bristly, rough, or shaggy. In an Early English poem it is said of Nebuchadnezzar that

"Hol_gh_e (hollow) were his y_gh_en anunder (under) _campe hores_." Early Eng. Alliterative Poems, p. 85, l. 1695.

_Campe hores_ = shaggy hairs (about the eyebrows), and corresponds exactly in form and meaning to _kempe heres_,'--M. See Glossary.

2141. I. e. the nails of the bear were yellow. In Cutts, Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages, p. 345, the bad guess is hazarded that these 'nails' were metal studs. But Chaucer was doubtless thinking of the tiger's skin described in the Thebaid, vi. 722:--

'Tunc genitus Talao uictori tigrin inanem Ire iubet, fuluo quae circumfusa nitebat Margine, et extremes auro mansueuerat _ungues_.'

[85] Lewis translates the last line by:--'The sharpness of the claws was dulled with gold.'

2142. _for-old_, very old. See next note.

2144. _for-blak_ is generally explained as _for blackness_; it means _very black_. Cf. _fordrye_, very dry, in F. 409.

2148. _alaunts_, mastiffs or wolf-hounds. Florio has: '_Alano_, a mastiue dog.' Cotgrave: '_Allan_, a kind of big, strong, thickheaded, and short-snowted dog; the brood where-of came first out of Albania (old Epirus).' Pineda's Span. Dict. gives: '_Alano_, a mastiff dog, particularly a bull dog; also, an _Alan_, one of that nation.' This refers to the tribe of _Alani_, a nation of warlike horsemen, first found in Albania. They afterwards became allies, first of the Huns, and afterwards of the Visi-Goths. It is thus highly probable that _Alaunt_ (in which the _t_ is obviously a later addition) signifies 'an Alanian dog,' which agrees with Cotgrave's explanation. Smith's Classical Dict. derives _Alanus_, said to mean 'mountaineer,' from a Sarmatian word _ala_.

The _alaunt_ is described in the Maister of the Game, c. 16. We there learn they were of all colours, and frequently white with a black spot about the ears.

2152. _Colers of_, having collars of. Some MSS. read _Colerd of_, which I now believe to be right. _Collared_ was an heraldic term, used of greyhounds, &c.; see the New Eng. Dict. This leaves an awkward construction, as _torets_ seems to be governed by _with_. See Launfal, 965, in Ritson, Met. Rom. i. 212. Cf. 'as they (the Jews) were tied up with girdles ... so were they _collared_ about the neck.'--Fuller's Pisgah Sight of Palestine, p. 524, ed. 1869.

_torets_, probably eyes in which rings will turn round, because each eye is a little larger than the thickness of the ring. This appears from Chaucer's Astrolabe, i. 2. 1--'This ring renneth in a maner turet,' i. e. in a kind of eye (vol. iii. p. 178). Warton, in his Hist. E. Poet. ed. 1871, ii. 314, gives several instances. It also meant a small loose ring. Cotgrave gives: '_Touret_, the annulet, or little ring whereby a hawk's lune is fastened unto the jesses.' 'My lityll bagge of blakke ledyr with a cheyne and _toret_ of siluyr'; Bury Wills, ed. Tymms, p. 16. Cf. E. _swivel_-ring.

2156. _Emetrius_ is not mentioned either by Statius or by Boccaccio; cf. Tes. vi. 29, 17, 16, 41.

2158. _diapred_, variegated with flowery or arabesque patterns. See _diaspre_ and _diaspré_ in Godefroy's O. F. Dict.; _diasprus_ and _diasperatus_ in Ducange. In Le Rom. de la Rose, 21205, we find mention of _samis diaprés_, diapered samites.

2160. _cloth of Tars_, 'a kind of silk, said to be the same as in other places is called _Tartarine_ (_tartarinum_), the exact derivation of which appears to be somewhat uncertain.'--Wright. Cf. Piers the Plowman, B. xv. 224, and my note to the same, C. xvii. 299; also _Tartarium_ in Fairholt.

2187. _alle and some_, 'all and singular,' 'one and all.' [86]

2205. See the Teseide, vi. 8; also Our Eng. Home, 22.

2217. _And in hir houre._ 'I cannot better illustrate Chaucer's astrology than by a quotation from the old Kalendrier de Bergiers, edit. 1500, Sign. K. ii. b:--"Qui veult savoir comme bergiers scevent quel planete regne chascune heure du jour et de la nuit, doit savoir la planete du jour qui veult s'enquerir; et la premiere heure temporelle du soleil levant ce jour est pour celluy planete, la seconde heure est pour la planete ensuivant, et la tierce pour l'autre," &c., in the following order: viz. Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sol, Venus, Mercury, Luna. To apply this doctrine to the present case, the first hour of the Sunday, reckoning from sunrise, belonged to the Sun, the planet of the day; the second to Venus, the third to Mercury, &c.; and continuing this method of allotment, we shall find that the twenty-second hour also belonged to the Sun, and the twenty-third to Venus; so that the hour of Venus really was, as Chaucer says, two hours before the sunrise of the following day. Accordingly, we are told in l. 2271, that the third hour after Palamon set out for the temple of Venus, the Sun rose, and Emily began to go to the temple of Diane. It is not said that this was the hour of Diane, or the Moon, but it really was; for, as we have just seen, the twenty-third hour of Sunday belonging to Venus, the twenty-fourth must be given to Mercury, and the first hour of Monday falls in course to the Moon, the presiding planet of that day. After this, Arcite is described as walking to the temple of Mars, l. 2367, in _the nexte houre of Mars_, that is, the _fourth_ hour of the day. It is necessary to take these words together, for _the nexte houre_, singly, would signify the _second_ hour of the day; but that, according to the rule of rotation mentioned above, belonged to Saturn, as the _third_ did to Jupiter. The _fourth_ was _the nexte houre of Mars_ that occurred after the hour last named.'--Tyrwhitt. Thus Emily is two hours later than Palamon, and Arcite is three hours later than Emily.

2221-64. To be compared with the Teseide, vii. 43-49, and vii. 68.

2224. _Adoun_, Adonis. See Ovid, Met. x. 503.

2233-6. Imitated from Le Rom. de la Rose, 21355-65, q. v.

2238. 'I care not to boast of arms (success in arms).'

2239. _Ne I ne axe_, &c., are to be pronounced as _ni naxe_, &c. So in l. 2630 of this tale, _Ne in_ must be pronounced as _nin_.

2252. _wher I ryde or go_, whether I ride or walk.

2253. _fyres bete_, kindle or light fires. _Bete_ also signifies to mend or make up the fire; see l. 2292.

2271. _The thridde hour inequal._ 'In the astrological system, the day, from sunrise to sunset, and the night, from sunset to sunrise, being each divided into twelve hours, it is plain that the hours of the day and night were never equal except just at the equinoxes. The hours attributed to the planets were of this _unequal_ sort. See Kalendrier de Berg. loc. cit., and our author's treatise on the Astrolabe.'--Tyrwhitt.

2275-360. Cf. the Teseide, vii. 71-92.

2286. _a game_, a pleasure. [87]

2288. _at his large_, at liberty (to speak or to be silent).

2290. 'E coronò di quercia cereale'; Tes. vii. 74. _Cerial_ should be _cerrial_, as spelt by Dryden, who speaks of 'chaplets green of _cerrial_ oak'; Flower and Leaf, 230. It is from _cerreus_, adj. of _cerrus_, also ill-spelt _cerris_, as in the botanical name _Quercus cerris_, the Turkey oak. The cup of the acorn is prickly; see Pliny, bk. xvi. c. 6.

2294. _In Stace of Thebes_, in the Thebaid of Statius, where the reader will _not_ find it. Cf. the Teseide, vii. 72.

2303. _aboughte_, atoned for. _Attheon_, Actaeon; Ovid, Met. iii. 230.

2313. _thre formes._ Diana is called _Diva Triformis_;--in heaven, Luna; on earth, Diana and Lucina, and in hell, Proserpina. See note to l. 2041.

2336. Cf. Statius, Theb. viii. 632:--'Omina cernebam, subitusque intercidit ignis.'

2365. _the nexte waye_, the nearest way. Cf. the Teseide, vii. 93.

2368. _walked is_, has walked. See note to l. 2217.

2371-434. Cf. the Teseide, vii. 23-28, 39-41.

2388. For the story, see Ovid, Met. iv. 171-189; and, in particular, cf. Rom. de la Rose, 14064, where Venus is said to be 'prise et _lacie_.'

2395. _lyves creature_, creature alive, living creature.

2397. See Compl. of Anelida, 182; cf. Compl. to his Lady, 52.

2405. _do_, bring it about, cause it to come to pass.

2422-34. From Tes. vii. 39, 40; there are several verbal resemblances here.--Kölbing.

2437. 'As joyful as the bird is of the bright sun.' So in Piers Pl., B. x. 153. It was a common proverb.

2438-41. Cf. the Teseide, vii. 67.

2443. Cf. 'the olde colde Saturnus'; tr. of Boethius, bk. iv. met. 1.

2447-8. From Le Rom. de la Rose, 13022, q. v.

2449. 'Men may outrun old age, but not outwit (surpass its counsel).' Cf. 'Men may the wyse at-renne, but not at-rede.'--Troilus, iv. 1456.

'For of him (the old man) þu migt leren Listes and fele þewes, Þe baldure þu migt ben: Ne for-lere þu his redes, For þe elder mon me mai of-riden Betere þenne of-reden.'

'For of him thou mayest learn Arts and many good habits, The bolder thou mayest be. Despise not thou his counsels, For one may out-ride the old man Better than out-wit.'

The Proverbs of Alfred, ed. Morris, in an Old Eng. Miscellany, p. 136. And see Solomon and Saturn, ed. Kemble, p. 253.

2451. _agayn his kynde._ According to the Compost of Ptolemeus, [88] Saturn was influential in producing strife: 'And the children of the sayd Saturne shall be great jangeleres and chyders ... and they will never forgyve tyll they be revenged of theyr quarell.'--Wright.

2454. _My cours._ The course of the planet _Saturn_. This refers to the orbit of Saturn, supposed to be the largest of all, until Uranus and Neptune were discovered.

2455. _more power._ The Compost of Ptolemeus says of Saturn, 'He is mighty of hymself.... It is more than xxx yere or he may ronne his course.... Whan he doth reygne, there is moche debate.'--Wright.

2460. _groyning_, murmuring, discontent; from F. _grogner_. See Rom. Rose, 7049; Troil. i. 349.

2462. 'Terribilia mala operatur Leo cum malis; auget enim eorum malitiam.'--Hermetis Aphorismorum Liber, § 66.

2469.

'Er fyue [gh]er ben folfult, such famyn schal aryse, þorw flodes and foul weder, fruites schul fayle, And so seiþ Saturne, and sent vs to warne.' P. Plowman, A. vii. 309 (B. vi. 325; C. ix. 347).

2491-525. Cf. the Teseide, vii. 95-99.

2504. _Gigginge_, fitting or providing (the shield) with straps. Godefroy gives O. F. _guige_, _guigue_, a strap for hanging a buckler over the shoulder, a handle of a shield. Cotgrave gives the fem. pl. _guiges_, 'the handles of a target or shield.' In Mrs. Palliser's Historic Devices, p. 277, she describes a monument in St. Edmund's chapel, in Westminster Abbey, on which are three shields, each with 'the _guige_ or belt of Bourchier knots formed of straps.' In the M. E. word _gigginge_, both the _g_'s are hard, as in _gig_ (in the sense of a two-wheeled vehicle).

_Layneres lacinge_, lacing of thongs; see Prompt. Parv., s. v. _Lanere_.

In Sir Bevis, ed. Kölbing, p. 134, we find--

'Sir Beues was ful glad, iwis, Hese _laynerys_ [printed _layuerys_] he took anon, And fastenyd hys hawberk hym upon.'

2507. Shakespeare seems to have observed this passage; cf. Hen. V. Act 4. prol. 12.

2511. Cf. House of Fame, 1239, 1240:--

'Of hem that maken blody soun In trumpe, beme, and clarioun.'

Also Tes. viii. 5:--'D'armi, di corni, nacchere e trombette.'

'The _Nakkárah_ or _Naqárah_ was a great kettle-drum, formed like a brazen cauldron, tapering to the bottom, and covered with buffalo-hide, often 3½ or 4 feet in diameter.... The crusades naturalised the word in some form or other in most European languages, but in our own apparently with a transfer of meaning. Wright defines _naker_ as "a cornet or horn of brass," and Chaucer's use seems to countenance this.'--Marco [89] Polo, ed. Yule, i. 303-4; where more is added. But Wright's explanation is a mere guess, and should be rejected. There is no reason for assigning to the word _naker_ any other sense than 'kettle-drum.' Minot (Songs, iv. 80) is explicit:--

'The princes, that war riche on raw, Gert _nakers_ strike, and trumpes blaw.'

Hence a _naker_ had to be struck, not blown. See also _Naker_ in Halliwell's Dictionary. Boccaccio has the pl. _nacchere_; see above.

2520. _Sparth_, battle-axe; Icel. _sparða_. See Rom. Rose, 5978; Wars of Alexander, ed. Skeat, 1403, 2458; Gawain and Grene Knight, 209; Prompt. Parv. In Trevisa's tr. of Higden, bk. i. ch. 33, we are told that the Norwegians first brought sparths into Ireland. Higden has 'usum securium, qui Anglicè _sparth_ dicitur.'

2537. As to the regulations for tournaments, see Strutt's Sports and Pastimes, bk. iii. c. 1. §§ 16-24; the passages are far too long for quotation. We may, however, compare the following extract, given by Strutt, from MS. Harl. 326. 'All these things donne, thei were embatailed eche ageynste the othir, and the corde drawen before eche partie; and whan the tyme was, the cordes were cutt, and the trumpettes blew up for every man to do his devoir [_duty_]. And for to assertayne the more of the tourney, there was on eche side a stake; and at eche stake two kyngs of armes, with penne, and inke, and paper, to write the names of all them that were yolden, for they shold no more tournay.' And, from MS. Harl. 69, he quotes that--'no one shall bear a sword, pointed knife, mace, or other weapon, except the sword for the tournament.'

2543-93. Cf. the Teseide, vii. 12, 131-2, 12, 14, 100-2, 113-4, 118, 19. In 2544, _shot_ means arrow or crossbow-bolt.

2546. 'Nor short sword having a _biting_ (sharp) point to stab with.'

2565. Cf. Legend of Good Women, 635:--'Up goth the trompe.'

2568. Cf. King Alisaunder, 189, where we are told that a town was similarly decked to receive queen Olimpias with honour. See Weber's note.

2600-24. Cf. the Teseide, viii. 5, 7, 14, 12, &c.

2602. 'In go the spears full firmly into the _rest_,'--i. e. the spears were couched ready for the attack.

'Thai layden here speres in _areeste_, Togeder thai ronnen as fire of thondere, That both here launces to-braste; That they seten, it was grete wonder, So harde it was that they gan threste; Tho drowen thai oute here swordes kene, And smyten togeder by one assente.' The Sowdone of Babyloyne, l. 1166.

'With spere in thyne _arest_'; Rom. of the Rose, 7561. [90]

2614. _he ... he_ = one ... another. See Historical Outlines of English Accidence, p. 282. Cf. the parallel passage in the Legend of Good Women, 642-8.

2615. _feet._ Some MSS. read _foot_. Tyrwhitt proposed to read _foo_, foe, enemy; but see l. 2550.

2624. _wroght ... wo_, done harm to his opponent.

2626. _Galgopheye._ 'This word is variously written _Colaphey_, _Galgaphey_, _Galapey_. There was a town called _Galapha_ in Mauritania Tingitana, upon the river Malva (Cellar. Geog. Ant. v. ii. p. 935), which perhaps may have given name to the vale here meant.'--Tyrwhitt. But doubtless Chaucer was thinking of the Vale of Gargaphie, where Actæon was turned into a stag:--

'Vallis erat, piceis et acutâ densa cupressu, Nomine _Gargaphie_, succinctae sacra Dianae.' Ovid, Met. iii. 155, 156.

2627. Cf. the Teseide, viii. 26.

2634. _Byte_, cleave, cut; cf. the cognate Lat. verb _findere_. See ll. 2546, 2640.

2646. _swerdes lengthe._ Cf.

'And then he bar me sone bi strenkith Out of my sadel my speres lenkith.' Ywaine and Gawin, ll. 421, 2.

2675. _Which a_, what a, how great a.

2676-80. Cf. the Teseide, viii. 131, 124-6.

2683. _al his chere_ may mean 'all his delight, as regarded his heart.' The Harl. MS. does _not_ insert _in_ before _his chere_, as Wright would have us believe.

2684. Elles. reads _furie_, as noted; so in the Teseide, ix. 4. This incident is borrowed from Statius, Theb. vi. 495, where Phoebus sends a hellish monster to frighten some horses in a chariot-race. And see Vergil, Æn. xii. 845.

2686-706. Cf. the _Teseide_, ix. 7, 8, 47, 13, 48, 38, 26.

2689. The following is a very remarkable account of a contemporary occurrence, which took place at the time when a parliament was held at Cambridge, A. D. 1388, as told by Walsingham, ed. Riley, ii. 177:--

'Tempore Parliamenti, cum Dominus Thomas Tryvet cum Rege sublimis equitaret ad Regis hospitium, quod fuit apud Bernewelle [Barnwell], dum nimis urget equum calcaribus, equus cadit, et omnia pene interiora sessoris dirumpit [cf. l. 2691]; protelavit tamen vitam in crastinum.' The _saddle-bow_ or _arsoun_ was the 'name given to two curved pieces of wood or metal, one of which was fixed to the front of the saddle, and another behind, to give the rider greater security in his seat'; New Eng. Dict. s. v. _Arson_. Violent collision against the front saddle-bow produced very serious results. Cf. the Teseide, ix. 8--'E 'l forte arcione gli premette il petto.' [91]

2696. 'Then was he cut out of his armour.' I. e. the laces were cut, to spare the patient trouble. Cf. Statius, Theb. viii. 637-641.

2698. _in memorie_, conscious.

2710. _That ... his_, i. e. whose. So _which ... his_, in Troil. ii. 318.

2711. 'As a remedy _for_ other wounds,' &c.

2712, 3. _charmes ... save._ 'It may be observed that the salves, charms, and pharmacies of herbs were the principal remedies of the physician in the age of Chaucer. _Save_ (_salvia_, the herb sage) was considered one of the most universally efficiently medieval remedies.'--Wright. Hence the proverb of the school of Salerno, 'Cur moriatur homo, dum salvia crescit in horto?'

2722. _nis nat but_ = is only. _aventure_, accident.

2725. _O persone_, one person.

2733. _Gree_, preëminence, superiority; lit. rank, or a step; answering to Lat. _gradus_ (not _gratus_). The phrases _to win the gree_, i. e. to get the first place, and _to bear the gree_, i. e. to keep the first place, are still in common use in Scotland. See note to the Allit. Destruction of Troy, ed. Panton and Donaldson, l. 1353, and Jamieson's Dictionary.

2736. _dayes three._ Wright says the period of three days was the usual duration of a feast among our early forefathers. As far back as the seventh century, when Wilfred consecrated his church at Ripon, he held 'magnum convivium trium dierum et noctium, reges cum omni populo laetificantes.'--Eddius, Vit. S. Wilf. c. 17.

2743. This fine passage is certainly imitated from the account of the death of Atys in Statius, Theb. viii. 637-651. I quote ll. 642-651, in which Atys fixes his last gaze upon his bride Ismene; as to ll. 637-641, see note to l. 2696 above.

'Prima uidet, caramque tremens Iocasta uocabat Ismenen: namque hoc solum moribunda precatur Uox generi, solum hoc gelidis iam nomen inerrat Faucibus: exclamant famulae: tollebat in ora Uirgo manus; tenuit saeuus pudor; attamen ire Cogitur (indulget summum hoc Iocasta iacenti), Ostenditque offertque: quater iam morte sub ipsa Ad nomen uisus, deiectaque fortiter ora Sustulit: illam unam neglecto lumine coeli Adspicit, et uultu non exsatiatur amato.'

2745. 'Also when bloude rotteth in anye member, but it be taken out by skill or kinde, it tourneth into venime'; Batman upon Bartholomè, lib. iv. c. 7. _bouk_, paunch; A. S. _b[=u]c_.

2749. 'The vertue Expulsiue is, which expelleth and putteth away that that is vnconuenient and hurtfull to kinde' [nature]; Batman upon Bartholomè, lib. iii. c. 8.

'This vertue [given by the soul to the body] hath three parts; one is called _naturall_, and is in the lyuer: the other is called _vitall_, or [92] _spiritall_, and hath place in the heart; the third is called _Animal_, and hath place in the brayn'; id. c. 14.

'The vertue that is called _Naturalis_ moueth the humours in the body of a beast by the vaines, and hath a principal place in the liuer'; id. c. 12.

2761. _This al and som_, i. e. _this_ (is) _the al and som_, this is the short and long of it. A common expression; cf. F. 1606; Troil. iv. 1193, 1274. With ll. 2761-2808 compare the Teseide, x. 12, 37, 51, 54, 55, 64, 102-3, 60-3, 111-2.

2800. _overcome._ Tyrwhitt reads _overnome_, overtaken, the pp. of _overnimen_; but none of the seven best MSS. have this reading.

2810. The _real_ reason why Chaucer could not here describe the passage of Arcite's soul to heaven is because he had already copied Boccaccio's description, and had used it with respect to the death of Troilus; see Troil. v. 1807-27 (stanzas 7, 8, 9 from the end).

2815. _ther Mars_, &c., where I hope that Mars will, &c.; may Mars, &c.

2822. _swich sorwe_, so great sorrow. The line is defective in the third foot, which consists of a single (accented) syllable.

2827-46. Cf. the Teseide, xi. 8, 7, 9-11, xii. 6.

2853-962. Cf. the Teseide, xi. 13-16, 30, 31, 35, 38, 40, 37, 18, 26-7, 22-5, 21, 27-9, 30, 40-67.

2863-962. The whole of this description should be compared with the funeral rites at the burial of Archemorus, as described in Statius, Thebaid, bk. vi; which Chaucer probably consulted, as well as the imitation of the same in Boccaccio's Teseide. For example, the 'tree-list' in ll. 2921-3 is not a little remarkable. The first list is in Ovid, Met. x. 90-105; with which cf. Vergil, Æn. vi. 180; Lucan, Pharsalia, iii. 440-445. Then we find it in Statius, vi. 98-106. After which, it reappears in Boccaccio, Teseide, xi. 22; in Chaucer, Parl. of Foules, 176; in the present passage; in Tasso, Gier. Lib. iii. 75; and in Spenser, F.Q. i. 1. 8. There is also a list in Le Roman de la Rose, 1338-1368. Again, we may just compare ll. 2951-2955 with the following lines in Lewis's translation of Statius:--

'Around the pile an hundred horsemen ride, With arms reversed, and compass every side; They faced the left (for so the rites require); Bent with the dust, the flames no more aspire. Thrice, thus disposed, they wheel in circles round The hallow'd corse: their clashing weapons sound. Four times their arms a crash tremendous yield, And female shrieks re-echo through the field.'

Moreover, Statius imitates the whole from Vergil, Æn. xi. 185-196. And Lydgate copies it all from Chaucer in his Sege of Thebes, part 3 (near the end).

2864. _Funeral he myghte al accomplice_ (Elles.); _Funeral he mighte hem all complise_ (Corp., Pet.). The line is defective in the first foot. [93] _Funeral_ is an adjective. Tyrwhitt and Wright insert _Of_ before it, without authority of any kind; see l. 2942.

2874. _White_ gloves were used as mourning at the funeral of an unmarried person; see Brand, Pop. Antiq. ed. Ellis, ii. 283.

2885. 'And surpassing others in weeping came Emily.'

2891. See the description of old English funerals in Rock, Church of our Fathers, ii. 488: 'If the deceased was a knight, his helmet, shield, sword, and coat-armour were each carried by some near kinsman, or by a herald clad in his blazoned tabard'; &c.

2895. Cf. 'deux ars Turquois,' i. e. two Turkish bows; Rom. de la Rose, 913; see vol. i. p. 132.

2903. Compare the mention of 'blake clothes' in l. 2884. When 'master Machyll, altherman, was bered, all the chyrche [was] hangyd with blake and armes [coats-of-arms], and the strett [street] with blake and armes, and the place'; &c.--Machyn's Diary (Camden Soc.) p. 171.

2923. _whippeltree_ (better _wippeltree_) is the cornel-tree or dogwood (_Cornus sanguinea_); the same as the Mid. Low G. _wipel-bom_, the cornel. Cf. '_wepe_, or _weype_, the dog-tree'; Hexham. See N. and Q. 7 S. vi. 434.

2928. _Amadrides_; i. e. _Hamadryades_; see Ovid, Met. i. 192, 193, 690. The idea is taken from Statius, Theb. vi. 110-113.

2943. _men made the fyr_ (Hn., Cm.); _maad was the fire_ (Corp., Pet.).

2953. _loud_ (Elles.); _heih_ (Harl.); _bowe_ (Corp.).

2958. 'Chaucer seems to have confounded the _wake-plays_ of his own time with the funeral games of the antients.'--Tyrwhitt. Cf. Troil. v. 304; and see 'Funeral Entertainments' in Brand's Popular Antiquities.

2962. _in no disioynt_, with no disadvantage. Cf. Verg. Æn. iii. 281.

2967-86. Cf. the _Teseide_, xii. 3-5.

2968. Lounsbury (Studies in Chaucer, i. 345) proposes to put a full stop at the end of this line, after _teres_; and to put _no_ stop at the end of l. 2969.

2991-3. _that faire cheyne of love._ This sentiment is taken from Boethius, lib. ii. met. 8: 'þat þe world with stable feith / varieth acordable chaungynges // þat the contraryos qualite of elementz holden amonge hem self aliaunce perdurable / þat phebus the sonne with his goldene chariet / bryngeth forth the rosene day / þat the mone hath commaundement ouer the nyhtes // whiche nyhtes hesperus the euesterre hat[h] browt // þat þe se gredy to flowen constreyneth with a certeyn ende hise floodes / so þat it is nat l[e]ueful to strechche hise brode termes or bowndes vpon the erthes // þat is to seyn to couere alle the erthe // Al this a-cordaunce of thinges is bownden with looue / þat gouerneth erthe and see and hath also commaundementz to the heuenes / and yif this looue slakede the brydelis / alle thinges þat now louen hem togederes / wolden maken a batayle contynuely and stryuen to fordoon the fasoun of this worlde / the which they now leden in acordable feith by fayre moeuynges // this looue halt to-gideres peoples ioygned with an hooly bond / and knytteth sacrement of [94] maryages of chaste looues // And love enditeth lawes to trewe felawes // O weleful weere mankynde / yif thilke loue þat gouerneth heuene gouerned[e] yowre corages.'--Chaucer's Boethius, ed. Morris, p. 62; cf. also pp. 87, 143. (See the same passage in vol. ii. p. 50; cf. pp. 73, 122.) And cf. the Teseide, ix. 51; Homer, II. viii. 19. Also Rom. de la Rose, 16988:--

'La bele chaéne dorée Qui les quatre elemens enlace.'

2994. What follows is taken from Boethius, lib. iv. pr. 6: 'þe engendrynge of alle þinges, quod she, and alle þe progressiouns of muuable nature, and alle þat moeueþ in any manere, takiþ hys causes, hys ordre, and hys formes, of þe stablenesse of þe deuyne þou[gh]t; [and thilke deuyne thowht] þat is yset and put in þe toure, þat is to seyne in þe hey[gh]t of þe simplicite of god, stablisiþ many manere gyses to þinges þat ben to don.'--Chaucer's Boethius, ed. Morris, p. 134. (See the same passage in vol. ii. p. 115).

3005. Chaucer again is indebted to Boethius, lib. iii. pr. 10, for what follows: 'For al þing þat is cleped inperfit, is proued inperfit by þe amenusynge of perfeccioun, or of þing þat is perfit; and her-of comeþ it, þat in euery þing general, yif þat þat men seen any þing þat is inperfit, certys in þilke general þer mot ben somme þing þat is perfit. For yif so be þat perfeccioun is don awey, men may nat þinke nor seye fro whennes þilke þing is þat is cleped inperfit. For þe nature of þinges ne token nat her bygynnyng of þinges amenused and inperfit; but it procediþ of þingus þat ben al hool and absolut, and descendeþ so doune into outerest þinges and into þingus empty and wiþoute fruyt; but, as I haue shewed a litel her-byforne, þat yif þer be a blisfulnesse þat be frele and vein and inperfit, þer may no man doute þat þer nys som blisfulnesse þat is sad, stedfast, and perfit.'--Chaucer (as above), p. 89. (See the same passage in vol. ii. pp. 74, 75.)

3013. 'And thilke same ordre neweth ayein alle thinges growyng and fallyng adoune by semblables progressiouns of seedes and of sexes.'--Chaucer's Boethius, ed. Morris, p. 137. (See the same passage in vol. ii. p. 117; i. e. in bk. iv. pr. 6. l. 103).

3016. _seen at ye_, see at a glance. Gower, ed. Pauli, i. 33, has:--'The thing so open is at theye,' i. e. is so open at the eye, is so obvious. 'Now is the tyme _sen at eye_,' i. e. clearly seen; Coventry Myst. p. 122.

3017-68. Cf. the Teseide, xii. 7-10, 6, 11, 13, 9, 12-17, 19.

3042. So in Troilus, iv. 1586: 'Thus maketh vertu of necessite'; and in Squire's Tale, pt. ii. l. 247 (Group F, l. 593): 'That I made vertu of necessite.' It is from Le Roman de la Rose, 14217:--

'S'il ne fait de necessité Vertu.'

So in Matt. Paris, ed. Luard, i. 20. Cf. Horace, Carm. i. 24:--

'Durum! sed leuius fit patientia Quidquid corrigere est nefas.'

[95]

3068. Cf.

'The time renneth toward right fast, Joy cometh after whan the sorrow is past.' Hawes' Pastime of Pleasure, ed. Wright, p. 148.

3089. _oghte to passen right_, should surpass mere equity or justice.

3094-102. Cf. the Teseide, xii. 69, 72, 83.

3105. Cf. Book of the Duchesse, 1287-97.

THE MILLER'S PROLOGUE.

The Miller's name is _Robin_ (l. 3129).

3110. The reading _companye_ (as in old editions and Tyrwhitt) in place of _route_ makes the line too long.

3115. I. e. the bag is unbuckled, the budget is opened; as when a packman displays his wares. See Group I, l. 26.

3119. _To quyte with_, to requite the Knight with, for his excellent Tale. This position of _with_, next its verb, is the almost invariable M. E. idiom. Cf. F. 471, 641, C. 345; Notes to P. Pl., C. i. 133, &c.

3120. 'Very drunk, and all pale'; cf. A. 4150, H. 30.

3124. I. e. in a loud, commanding voice, such as that of Pilate in the Mystery Plays. In the Chester Plays, Pilate is of rather a meek disposition; but in the York Plays, pp. 270, 307, 320, he is represented as boastful and tyrannical, as is evidently here intended. The expression seems to have been proverbial. Palsgrave has: 'In a pylates voyce, _a haulte voyx_'; p. 837. Udall, tr. of Erasmus' Apophthegms (repr. 1877), last page, has--'speaking out of measure loude and high, and altogether in _Pilates voice_.'

3125. _by armes_, i. e. by the arms of Christ; see note to C. 651.

3129. 'My dear brother'; a common form; cf. 3848, below, and 1136, above.

3131. _thriftily_, i. e. profitably, to a useful purpose; cf. B. 1165.

3134. _a devel wey_, in the devil's name; see Skelton, ed. Dyce, ii. 287; originally, in the way to the devil, with all ill luck. Compare--

'Hundred, chapitle, court, and shire, Al hit goth _a devel way_' [to the bad]. Polit. Songs, ed. Wright, Camd. Soc. p. 254.

See note to l. 3713 below.

3140. _Wyte it_, lay the blame for it upon. _of Southwerk_, i. e. of the Tabard inn.

3143. 'Made a fool of the wright,' i. e. of the carpenter; cf. A. 586, 614; also A. 3911, and the note.

3145. The Reeve interferes, because he was a carpenter himself (A. 614). 'Let alone your ignorant drunken ribaldry.'

3152. A reference to a proverbial expression which is given in Rob. of Brunne's Handlyng Synne, 1892:--

'Men sey, ther a man ys gelous, That "ther ys a kokewolde at hous."'

[96]

Compare also Le Roman de la Rose, 9167-9171, which expresses a similar opinion.

3155-6. Tyrwhitt omits these two lines in his text, but admits, in his Notes, that they should have been inserted. The former of the two lines is repeated from l. 277 of the original (but rejected) Prologue to the Legend of Good Women. _but-if thou madde_, unless thou art going mad.

3161. _oon_, one, i. e. a cuckold; or, possibly, an ox (l. 3159). As an ox was a 'horned' animal, it comes to the same thing, according to the miserable jest so common in our dramatists.

3165. _goddes foyson_, sufficient abundance, i. e. all he wants, all the affection he expects. _there_, in his wife.

3166. A defective line; read--Of | the rém' | nant, &c.

THE MILLERES TALE.

On the Miller's Tale, see _Anglia_, i. 38, ii. 135, vii (appendix), 81; and see the remarks in vol. iii. p. 395.

3188. _gnof_, churl, lit. a thief; a slang word, of Hebrew origin; Heb. _gan[=a]v_, a thief, Exod. xxii. 1. The same as the mod. E. _gonoph_, the epithet applied to Jo in Dickens, Bleak House, ch. xix. Halliwell's Dict. quotes from The Norfolke Furies, 1623--'The country _gnoffes_, Hob, Dick, and Hick, With clubbes and clouted shoon,' &c. Drant, in his tr. of Horace, _Satires_, fol. A i, back (1566), has:--'The chubbyshe _gnof_ that toyles and moyles.' Todd, in his Illustration of Chaucer, p. 260, says--'See A Comment upon the Miller's Tale and the Wife of Bath, 12mo. Lond. 1665, p. 8, [where we find] "A rich _gnofe_; a rich grub, or miserable caitiff, as I render it; which interpretation, to be proper and significant, I gather by the sence of that antient metre:

The caitiff _gnof_ sed to his crue, My meney is many, my incomes but few.

This, as I conceive, explains the author's meaning; which seems no less seconded by that antient English bard:

That _gnof_, that grub, of pesants blude, Had store of goud, yet did no gude."'

The note in Bell's Chaucer, connecting it with _oaf_, is wrong. The carpenter's name was John (l. 3501).

3190. This shews that students used often to live in lodgings, as is so common at Cambridge, where the number of students far exceeds the number of college-rooms.

3192, 3. Chaucer himself knew something of astrology, as shewn by his numerous references to it. The word _conclusions_ in l. 3193 is the technical name for 'propositions' or problems. In his Treatise on the Astrolabe, prologue (l. 9), he says to his son Lowis--'I purpose to teche thee a certein nombre of _conclusions_ apertening to the same [97] instrument.' We here learn that one object of astrology was to answer questions relating to coming weather, as well as with reference to almost every other future event.

3195. _in certein houres._ In astrology, much depended on times; certain times were supposed to be more favourable than others for obtaining solutions of problems. The great book for prognostications of weather was the _Calendrier des Bergiers_, an English version of which was frequently reprinted as The Shepheards Kalendar. The old almanacks also predicted the weather; see Ben Jonson's Every Man Out of his Humour, A. i. sc. 1--'Enter _Sordido_, with an almanack in his hand.'

3199. _hende_, gracious, mild; hence, gentle, courteous; orig. near at hand, hence, useful, serviceable; A. S. _gehende_. Ill spelt _hendy_ in Tyrwhitt. Several passages from this Tale are quoted and illustrated by Warton, Hist. E. Poetry, sect. xvi; which see.

3203. _hostelrye_, lodging. Nicholas had his room to himself; whereas it was usual for two or more students to have a room in common, even in college.

3207. _cetewale_, zedoary; but commonly, though improperly, applied to valerian (_Valeriana pyrenaica_); also spelt _setwall_. Gerarde, in his Herball (ed. 1597, p. 919), says that 'it hath beene had (and is to this day among the poore people of our northerne parts) in such veneration amongst them, that no brothes, pottages, or phisicall meates are woorthe anything, if _setwall_ were not at one end'; &c. See Britten's Plant-Names (E. D. S.). See note to B. 1950.

3208. _Almageste_; Arab. _almajist[=i]_; from _al_, the, and _majist[=i]_, for Gk. [Greek: megistê];, short for [Greek: megistê suntaxis], 'greatest composition,' a name given to the great astronomical treatise of Ptolemy; hence extended to signify, as here, a text-book on astrology. See Hallam, Middle Ages, c. i. 77. Ptolemy's work 'was in thirteen books. He also wrote four books of judicial astrology. He was an Egyptian astrologist, and flourished under Marcus Antoninus.'--Warton. See D. 182, 325, 2289. And see my note to Chaucer's Astrolabe, i. 17; vol. iii. p. 354.

3209. See Chaucer's own treatise on The Astrolabe, which he describes. It was an instrument consisting of several flat circular brass plates, with two revolving pointers, used for taking altitudes, and other astronomical purposes.

_longinge for_, suitable for, belonging to.

3210. _augrim-stones_, counters for calculation. _Augrim_ is _algorism_ (see New Eng. Dict.), or the Arabic system of arithmetic, performed with the Arabic numerals, which became known in Europe from translations of a work on algebra by the Arab mathematician Abu Ja'far Mohammed Ben Musa, surnamed _al-Khow[=a]razm[=i]_, or the native of Khw[=a]razm (Khiva). Chaucer speaks of 'nombres in _augrim_'; Astrolabe, i. 9. 3.

3212. _falding_, a kind of coarse cloth; see note on A. 391.

3216. _Angelus ad virginem._ This hymn occurs in MS. Arundel [98] 248, leaf 154, written about 1260, both in Latin and English, and with musical notes. It is printed, with a facsimile of part of the MS., at p. 695 of the print of MS. Harl. 7334, issued by the Chaucer Society. The first verse of the Latin version runs thus:--

'Angelus ad uirginem subintrans in conclaue, Virginis formidinem demulcens, inquit "Aue! Aue! regina uirginum celi terreque dominum concipies et paries intacta, salutem hominum tu, porta celi facta, medela criminum."'

Hence the subject of the anthem is the Annunciation.

3217. _the kinges note_, the name of some tune or song. There is nothing to identify it with a _chant royal_, described by Warton, Hist. E. Poet. ii. 221, note b. Warton says that 'Chaucer calls the _chant royal_ ... a _kingis note_.' But Chaucer says '_THE kinges note_,' which makes all the difference; it is merely a bad guess. A song entitled 'Kyng villyamis note,' or 'King William's note,' is mentioned in the Complaint of Scotland (1549), ed. Murray, p. 64.

3220. 'According to the money provided by his friends and his own income.'

3223. _eight-e-ten-e_ has four syllables; cf. B. 5. Tyrwhitt read it as of _two_ syllables, and inserted _I gesse_ after _she was_. He duly notes that the words _I gesse_ are 'not in the MSS.'

3226. 'And considered himself to be like.' Tyrwhitt has _belike_, which he probably took to be an adverb; but this is a gross anachronism. The adv. _belike_ is unknown earlier than the year 1533.

3227. _Catoun_, Dionysius Cato; see note to G. 688. But Tyrwhitt notes, that 'the maxim here alluded to is not properly one of Cato's; but I find it (he says) in a kind of Supplement to the Moral Distichs entitled _Facetus_, int. Auctores octo morales, Lugd. 1538, cap. iii.

"Duc tibi prole parem sponsam moresque venustam, Si cum pace velis vitam deducere justam."'

He refers to the catalogue of MSS. in Trin. Coll. Dublin, No. 275 (under _Urbanus_, another name for _Facetus_); and to Bale, Cent. iii. 17, and Fabricius, Bib. Med. Aetatis.

3230. Note _is_, in the singular. 'Crabbed age and youth cannot live together';--_Passionate Pilgrim_.

3235. _ceynt_, girdle; _barred_, adorned with cross stripes. Warton could not understand the word; but a _bar_ is a transverse stripe on a girdle or belt, as in A. 329, which see.

3236-7. _barm-clooth_, lap-cloth, i. e. an apron 'over her loins.' _gore_, a triangular slip, used as an insertion to widen a garment in any particular place. The apron spread out towards the bottom, owing rather, it appears, to inserted 'gores' below than to pleats above. Or the pleats may be called gores here, from their triangular shape. [99] Cf. A. S. _g[=a]ra_, an angular projection of land, as in Kensington _Gore_. '_Gheroni_, the _gores_ or gussets of a smocke or shirt'; Florio's Ital. Dict. See note to B. 1979, and the note to l. 3321 below.

3238. _brouded_, embroidered; cf. B. 3659, Leg. Good Women, 227. _Of_ in l. 3240 means 'with.'

3241. _voluper_, lit. 'enveloper' or 'wrapper'; hence, kerchief, or cap. In l. 4303, it means a night-cap. In Wright's Vocabularies, it translates Lat. _calamandrum_ (568, 28), _inuolutarium_ (590, 28), and _mafora_ (594, 19). In the Prompt. Parv. we find: '_volypere_, kerche, _teristrum_'; and in the Catholicon, '_volyper_, caliend[r]um.' In Baret's Alvearie, h. 596, we find: 'A woman's cap, hood, or bonet, _Calyptra_, _Caliendrum_.' The tapes of this cap were 'of the same suit' as the embroidery of her collar, i. e. were of black silk.

3245. _smale y-pulled_, i. e. partly plucked out, to make them narrow, even, and well-marked.

3247. Tyrwhitt at first had '_for_ to see,' but corrected it to '_on_ to see,' i. e. to look upon. Cf. Leg. Good Women, 2425.

3248. _pere-ionette_, early-ripe pear. Tyrwhitt refers us to a F. _poire jeunette_, or an Ital. _pero giovanetto_, i. e. very young pear-tree; but I believe the explanation is as imaginary as are these terms, which I seek for in vain. I take it that he has been misled by a false etymology from F. _jeune_, Ital. _giovane_, young, whereas the reference is to the early-ripe pear called in O. F. _poire de hastivel_ (F. _hâtiveau_); see _hastivel_ in Godefroy. The corresponding E. term is _gennitings_, applied to apples, but applicable to pears also; and I take the etymology to be from F. _Jean_, John, because such apples and pears ripen about St. John's day (June 24), which is very early. Cotgrave has: '_Hastivel_, a soon-ripe apple, called the St. John's apple.' Littré, s. v. _poire_, has: 'La poire appellée à Paris _de messire Jean_ est celle qu'en Dauphiné et Languedoc l'on nomme _de coulis_.' Lacroix (Manners, &c. during the Middle Ages, p. 116) says that, in the thirteenth century, one of the best esteemed pears was the _hastiveau_, which was 'an early sort, and no doubt the golden pear now called St. Jean.' Finally, we learn from Piers Plowman, C. xiii. 221, that 'pere-Ionettes' were very sweet and very early ripe, and therefore very soon rotten; see my note to that line. The text, accordingly, compares this young and forward beauty to the _newe_ (i. e. fresh-leaved) early-ripe pear-tree; and there is much propriety in the simile. Of course, this explanation is somewhat of a guess; and perhaps I may add another possible etymology, viz. from _jaune_, yellow, with reference to the golden colour of the pear. Cf. _jaulnette_, in Cotgrave, as a name for St. John's wort, and the form _floure-jonettis_ in the King's Quair, st. 47.

3251. 'With silk tassels, and pearls (or pearl-shaped knobs or buttons) made of the metal called _latoun_.' Such is Tyrwhitt's simple explanation. In Riley's Memorials of London, p. 398, we find that a man was accused of having 'silvered 240 buttons of _latone_ ... for [100] purses.' The notes in Warton are doubly misleading, first confusing _latoun_ with _cheklatoun_ (which are unconnected words), and then quoting the expression 'perled cloth of gold,' which is another thing again. As to _latoun_, see note to C. 350, and cf. A. 699, B. 2067, &c.

3254. _popelote_, darling, poppet. Not connected with _papillon_, but with F. _poupée_ and E. _puppet_. Halliwell gives: '_Poplet_, a term of endearment, generally applied to a young girl: _poppet_ is still in common use.' Cotgrave has: '_Popelin_, masc. a little finicall darling.' Godefroy gives: '_poupelet_, m. petit poupon.'

3256. Wright says: 'The gold noble of this period was a very beautiful coin; specimens are engraved in Ruding's Annals of the Coinage. It was coined in the Tower of London [as here said], the place of the principal London mint.' It was worth 6s. 8d., and first coined about 1339. See C. 907, and note.

3258. 'Sitting on a barn.' Repeated in C. 397.

3261. _bragot_, a sweet drink, made of ale and honey fermented together; afterwards, the honey was replaced by sugar and spice. See _Bragget_ in New E. Dict. The full receipt for 'Braket' is given in Strutt, Manners and Customs, iii. 74; it contained 4 gallons of ale to a pint of honey. In 1783, it was made of ale, sugar, and spices, and drunk at Easter; Brand, Pop. Antiq. i. 112. Spelt _bragot_, Palladius on Husbandry, p. 90, l. 812; &c. Of British origin; Welsh _bragawd_; cf. O. Irish _brac_, later _braich_, malt. See also the note on _Bragott_ in the Catholicon, ed. Herrtage.

3262. Cf. 'An appyll-hurde, _pomarium_'; Catholicon Anglicum.

3263-4. These two lines are cited by Dryden with approval, in the Preface to his Fables, as being 'not much behind our present English.' We are amazed to find that Dryden condemns Chaucer's lines as unequal; and coolly remarks that 'equality of numbers ... was either not known, or not always practised in Chaucer's age.' The black-letter editions which Dryden read were, in fact, full of misspelt words; but even in them, he might have found plenty of good lines, if he had not been so prejudiced and (to say the truth) conceited.

3268. _prymerole_, primrose; as in Gower, C. A. iii. 130. _pigges-nye_, pig's eye, a term of endearment; pig's eyes being (as Tyrwhitt notes) remarkably small. Cf. 'Waked with a wench, pretty peat, pretty love, and my sweet pretty _pigsnie_'; Peele, Old Wives' Tale, ed. Dyce (1883), p. 455, col. 1. And see Skelton, ed. Dyce, i. 28, ii. 97, 104. In fact, it is common. Brand, quoting Douce (Illust. of Shak. ii. 151), says that 'Shadwell not only uses the word _pigsney_ in this sense, but also _birdsney_ [bird's eye]; see his Plays, i. 357, iii. 385.' See also _pigsney_ in Todd's Johnson, where one quotation has the form _pigs eie_. _An ye_ became _a nye_; hence the pl. _nyes_, and even _nynon_ (= eyne), as in Halliwell. See note to P. Plowman, C. xx. 306, where _bler-eyed_, i. e. blear-eyed, appears as _bler-nyed_ in the B-text.

3269. _leggen_, to lay. Tyrwhitt has _liggen_, to lie, which is but poor grammar. [101]

3274. _Oseneye_, Oseney, in the suburbs of Oxford, where there was an Abbey of St. Austin's Canons; cf. l. 3666.

3286. _harrow_ (Pt. _harowe_), a cry for help, a cry of distress; O. F. _haro_, _harou_, the same; see Godefroy. Cf. ll. 3825, 4307.

'_Primus Demon._ Oute, haro, out, out! harkyn to this horne'--&c. Towneley Mysteries, Surtees Society, p. 307 (in the Mystery of "_Judicium_.") So in the Coventry Mysteries, we have:--

'_Omnes demones clamant._ Harrow and out! what xal we say?

harrow! we crye, owt! And Alas! Alas, harrow! is þis þ_a_t day?... Alas, harrow! and owt! we crye.' (Play of _Judgment_.)

'My mother was afrayde there had ben theves in her house, and she kryed out _haroll alarome_ (F. elle sescria _harol alarme_)'; Palsgrave, s. v. _crye_, p. 501. See _Haro_ in Littré, _hara_ in Schade. Cf. l. 3825; and the note in Dyce's Skelton, ii. 274.

3291. I. e. St. Thomas of Canterbury.

3299. 'A clerk would have employed his time ill.'

3308. Defective in the first foot; scan: Crist | es, &c. Tyrwhitt inserts _Of_ before _Cristes_, and coolly observes, in his Notes, that it is 'added from conjecture only.' He might have said, that it makes bad grammar. And it is from such manipulated lines as this that the public forms its judgement of Chaucer's verse! Is it _nothing_ that all the authorities begin the line alike?

3316. _shode_, not 'hair,' as in Tyrwhitt, but 'parting of the hair.'

3318. 'It was the fashion to wear shoes with the upper leather cut into a variety of beautiful designs, resembling the tracery of window-heads, through which the bright colour of the green, blue, or scarlet stocking beneath was shewn to great advantage';--Rock, Church of our Fathers, ii. 239, with illustrations at p. 240. _Poules windowes_, windows like those in St. Paul's Cathedral; hence, designs resembling them. Wright conjectures that there may even be a reference to the rose-window of old St. Paul's; and he says that examples of such shoes still exist, in the museum of Mr. C. Roach Smith. Good illustrations of these beautifully cut shoes are given in Fairholt's Costume, pp. 64, 65, who also notes that 'in Dugdale's view of old St. Paul's ... the rose-window in the transept is strictly analogous in design.' The Latin name for such shoes was _calcei fenestrati_, which see in Ducange. Rock also quotes the phrase _corium fenestratum_ from Pope Innocent III. Observe the mention of his scarlet hose in the next line. Cf. note to Rom. of the Rose, 843, in vol. i. p. 423.

3321. _wachet_, a shade of blue. Tyrwhitt wrongly connects it with the town of _Watchet_, in Somersetshire. But it is French. Littré, s. v. _vaciet_, gives: 'Couleur d'hyacinthe ou _vaciet_,' colour of the hyacinth, or _bilberry_ (Lat. _uaccinium_). Roquefort defines _vaciet_ as a shrub which bears a dark fruit fit for dyeing violet; it is applied, he [102] says, both to the fruit and the dye; and he calls it _Vaccinium hysginum_. Phillips says _watchet_ is 'a kind of blew colour.' Todd's Johnson cites from Milton's Hist. of Muscovia, c. 5, '_watchet_ or sky-coloured cloth'; and the line, 'Who stares, in Germany, at _watchet_ eyes,' tr. of Juvenal, Sat. xiii, wrongly attributed to Dryden. See examples in Nares from Browne, Lyly, Drayton, and Taylor: and, in Richardson, from Beaumont and Fletcher, Hackluyt, Spenser, and Ben Jonson. Cotgrave explains F. _pers_ as 'watchet, blunket, skie-coloured,' and _couleur perse_ as 'skie-colour, azure-colour, a blunket, or light blue.' See _Blunket_ in the New E. Dict., and my article in Philolog. Soc. Trans. Nov. 6, 1885, p. 329. Webster has '_watchet_ stockings,' The Malcontent, A. iii. sc. 1. Lydgate has '_watchet_ blewe'; see Warton, Hist. Eng. Poet. (1840), ii. 280.

3322. _poyntes_, tagged laces, as in Shakespeare. MS. Hl. has here a totally different line, involving the word _gores_ (cf. l. 3237 above), viz. 'Schapen with goores in the newe get,' i. e. in the new fashion.

3329. Tyrwhitt says:--'The school of Oxford seems to have been in much the same estimation for its dancing, as that of Stratford for its French'; see l. 125. He probably meant this satirically; but it may mean the very opposite, or something nearly so. The Stratford-at-Bow French was excellent of its kind, but unlike that of France (see note to l. 125); and probably the Oxford dancing was, likewise, of no mean quality after its kind, having twenty 'maneres.'

3331. _rubible_; also _ribible_ (4396). Cf. 'where was his fedylle [fiddle] or hys _ribible_'; Knight de la Tour, cap. 117. See _Ribibe_, _Ribible_ in Halliwell; The Squire of Low Degree (in Ritson), l. 1071; Warton, Hist. Eng. Poetry, ii. 194. Also called a _rebeck_, as in Milton. A two-stringed musical instrument, played with a bow, of Moorish origin; Arab. _rab[=a]b_. '_Hec vitula_, a rybybe'; Wright's Gloss. 738. 19.

3332. _quinible._ Not a musical instrument, as Tyrwhitt supposed, but a kind of voice. It is not singing consecutive fifths upon a plain song, as Mr. Chappell once thought (Pop. Music of the Olden Time, i. 34); but, as afterwards explained by him in Notes and Queries, 4 S. vi. 117, it refers to a very high voice. The _quinible_ was an octave higher than the _treble_; the _quatreble_ was an octave higher than the mean. The _mean_ was intermediate between the _plain-song_ or _tenor_ (so called from its _holding on_ the notes) and the _treble_. It means 'at the extreme pitch of the voice.' Skelton miswrites it _quibyble_.

3333. _giterne_, a kind of guitar. 'The gittern and the kit the wand'ring fiddlers like'; Drayton, Polyolbion, song 4. See note to P. Pl. C. xvi. 208; Prompt. Parv. p. 196.

3337. _squaymous_, squeamish, particular. Tyrwhitt says--'I know not how to make this sense agree with what follows' (l. 3807). But it is easy to understand that he was, ordinarily, squeamish, retentive; exceptionally, far otherwise. In the Knight de la Tour, cap. cxiv, p. 155, there is a story of a lady who waited on her old husband, and nursed him under most trying conditions; 'and unnethe there might [103] haue be founde a woman but atte sum tyme she wolde haue lothed her, or ellys to haue be right _scoymous_ ta haue do the seruice as thes good lady serued her husbonde contynuelly.' In a version of the Te Deum, composed about 1400, we read--'Thou were not _skoymus_ of the maidens wombe'; Maskell, Monumenta Ritualia, ii. 14[24]. Cf. '_squaymose_, verecundus,' Catholicon; '_skeymowse_, or _sweymows_ or _queymows_, abhominativus'; Prompt. Parv. Spelt _squmous_ (badly), Court of Love, l. 332; and _sqymouse_ in Morris's reprint of it. See _Desdaigneux_ in Cotgrave. 'To be _squamish_, or nice, _delicias facere_'; Baret's Alvearie. 'They that be subiect to Saturne ... be not _skoymous_ of foule and stinking clothing'; Batman on Bartholomè, lib. 8. c. 23. In Weber's Metrical Romances, i. 359, we find:

'Than was the leuedi of the hous A proude dame and an envieous, Hokerfulliche missegging, _Squeymous_ and eke scorning.' Lay le Freine, ll. 59-62.

These examples quite establish the sense. The derivation is from the rare A. F. _escoymous_, which occurs in P. Meyer's ed. of Nicole Bozon (Soc. des Anc. Textes Français), p. 158:--'si il poy mange e beyt poy, lors est gageous ou _escoymous_,' if he eats and drinks little, then is he delicate or nice. Robert of Brunne has the spelling _esquaymous_; Handlyng Synne, l. 7249.

3338. _dangerous_, sparing; see the Glossary.

3340. Cutts (Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages, p. 219) seems to think that the clerk went _about the parish_ with his censer, as he sometimes certainly went about with holy water. Warton, on the other hand, says that 'on holidays it was his business to carry the censer _about the church_, and he takes this opportunity of casting unlawful glances on the handsomest ladies of the parish.' Warton is clearly right here, for there is an allusion to the ladies coming forward with the usual offering (l. 3350); cf. note to A. 450. And see Persones Tale, l. 407.

3354. _for paramours_, for love's sake: a redundant expression, since _par_ means 'for.' Cf. n. to l. 1155, at p. 67.

3358. _shot-windowe._ Brockett's Northern Glossary gives: '_Shot-window_, a projecting window, common in old houses'; but this may have been copied from Horne Tooke, who seems to have guessed at, and misunderstood, the passage, below, in Gawain Douglas. In the new edition of Jamieson, Mr. Donaldson defines _Schot_ as 'a window set on hinges and opening like a shutter,' and explains that, 'in the West of Scotland, a projecting window is called an _out-shot window_, whereas a _shot-window_ or _shot_ is one that can be opened or shut like [104] a door or shutter by turning on its hinges.' It is material to the story that the window here mentioned should be readily opened and shut. The passage in G. Douglas's tr. of Virgil, prol. to bk. vii, evidently refers to a window of this character, as the poet first says:--

'Ane _schot-wyndo_ vnschet a lytill on char,'

i. e. I unshut the shot-window, and left it a little ajar; and he goes on to say that the weather was so cold that he soon shut it again--

'The _schot_ I clossit, and drew inwart in hy.'

See also ll. 3695, 6 below. In the next line, _upon_ merely means 'in' or 'formed in.'

It is curious that, in Bell's Chaucer, a quotation is given from the Ballad of _Clerk Saunders_ (Border Minstrelsy, vol. ii.) to shew that _shot-window_ cannot mean '_shut_ window.' But it does not prove that it cannot mean 'hinge-shutting window,' as I have shewn the right sense to be.

'Then she has ta'en a crystal wand, And she has stroken her troth thereon; She has given it him out at the _shot-window_, With mony a sad sigh and heavy groan.'

3361. Tyrwhitt absurdly says that ll. 3361, 3362 should be broken into four short verses, and that _ladý_ (sic) rimes with _be_! In Bell's edition, they are printed in small type! They are just ordinary lines; and _be_ (pronounced nearly as modern _bay_) certainly never rimed with _lády_--nor yet with _la-dý_--in Chaucer's time, when the final _y_ was sounded like the modern _ee_ in _meet_, and would rather have rimed with a word like _my_. It is a mere whim.

3375. _menes_, intermediate people, go-betweens; see _Mene_, sb., in Gloss. to P. Plowman, with numerous references. _Brocage_ is the employment of a 'broker' or agent, and so means much the same. See _Brokage_ in New E. Dict., and _Brocage_ in Gloss. to P. Plowman.

3377. _brokkinge_, with quick regular interruptions, quavering, in a 'broken' manner. See _Brock_ in New E. Dict.

3379. _wafres_, wafers. 'They (F. _gaufres_) are usually sold at fairs, and are made of a kind of batter poured into an iron instrument, which shuts up like a pair of snuffers. It is then thrust into the fire, and when it is with-drawn and opened, the _gaufre_, or wafer, is taken out and eaten "piping hote out of the glede," as here described.'--Note in Bell's Chaucer.

3380. _mede_, reward, money; distinct from _meeth_, mead, in l. 3378. The sense of _mede_ is very amply illustrated in P. Plowman. L. 3380 intimates that, as she lived in a town, she could spend money at any time.

3382. A side-note, in several MSS., says: 'Unde Ouidius: Ictibus agrestis.' But the quotation is not from Ovid.

3384. The parish-clerks often took part in the Mystery Plays. The part of Herod was an important one; cf. Hamlet, iii. 2. 15. [105]

3387. 'I presume this was a service that generally went unrewarded.'--Wright. It was like 'piping in an ivy-leaf'; see A. 1838.

3389. _ape_, dupe; as in A. 706.

3392. Gower has the like, ed. Pauli, i. 343:--

'An olde sawe is: who that is sligh, In place w[h]ere he may be nigh, He maketh the ferre leve loth Of love; and thus ful ofte it goth.'

Hending, among his Proverbs, has--'Fer from eye, fer from herte,' answering to the mod. E. 'out of sight, out of mind.' Kemble cites: 'Quod raro cernit oculi lux, cor cito spernit,' from MS. Trin. Coll., fol. 365. Also 'Qui procul est oculis, procul est a lumine cordis,' from Gartner, Dict. 8 b.

3427. _deyde_, should die; subjunctive mood.

3430. _that ... him_ is equivalent to _whom_. Cf. A. 2710.

3445. _kyked_, stared, gazed; see l. 3841. Cf. Scotch _keek_, to peep, pry; Burns has it in his Twa Dogs, l. 58.

3449. The carpenter naturally invokes St. Frideswide, as there was a priory of St. Frideswide at Oxford, the church of which has become the present cathedral. The shrine of St. Frideswide is still to be seen, though in a fragmentary state, at the east end of the cathedral, on its former site near the original chancel-arches and wall of her early stone church. In this line, _seint-e_ has the fem. suffix.

3451. _astromye_ is obviously intentional, as it fills up the line, and is repeated six lines below. The carpenter was not strong in technical terms. In like manner, he talks of 'Nowelis flood'; see note to l. 3818. The reading _astronomy_ just spoils both lines, and loses the jest.

3456. 'That knows nothing at all except his Creed.'

3457. This story is told of Thales by Plato, in his Theaetetus; it also occurs, says Tyrwhitt, in the Cento Novelle Antiche, no. 36. It has often been repeated, and may now be found in James's edition of Æsop, 1852, Fable 170.

3469. Nearly repeated from A. 545.

3479. 'I defend thee with the sign of the cross from elves and living creatures.' At the same time, the carpenter would make the sign over him. _Wightes_ does not mean 'witches,' as Tyrwhitt thought, but 'creatures.' Cf. l. 3484.

3480. _night-spel_, night-spell, a charm said at night to keep off evil spirits. The carpenter says it five times, viz. towards the four corners of the house and on the threshold. The charm is contained in lines 3483-6, and is partly intentional nonsense, as such charms often were. See several unintelligible examples in Cockayne's Leechdoms, iii. 286. The object of saying it four times towards the four corners of the house was to invoke the four evangelists, just as in the child's hymn still current, which is, in fact, a charm:-- [106]

'Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, Bless the bed that I lie on; Four angels round my bed,' &c.

Lines 3483-4 are clear, viz. 'May Jesus Christ and St. Benedict bless this house from every wicked creature.' As this is a reproduction of a popular saying, it is not necessary that the lines should scan; still, they run correctly, if we pronounce _seynt_ as _se-ynt_, as elsewhere (note to A. 509), and if we take both to be defective at the beginning. The last two lines are mere scraps of older charms. It is just possible that _for nightes verye_[25] represents an A. S. _for nihte werigum_, 'against the evil spirits of night'; against whom 'the white Paternoster' is to be said. The reading _white_ is perfectly correct. There really was a prayer so called. See Notes and Queries, 1 Ser. xi. 206, 313; whence we learn that the charm above quoted, beginning 'Matthew, Mark,' &c., resembles one in the _Patenôtre Blanche_, to be found in the (apocryphal) Enchiridion Leonis Papae (Romae, MDCLX), where occurs:--'Petite Patenôtre Blanche, que Dieu fit, que Dieu dit, que Dieu mit en Paradis. Au soir m'allant coucher, je trouvis trois anges à mon lit, couchès, un aux pieds, deux au chevet'; &c. Here is a charm that mentions it, quoted in Notes and Queries, 1 Ser. viii. 613:--

'White Paternoster, Saint Peter's brother, What hast thou i' th' t'one hand? White Booke leaves. What hast i' th' t'other hand? Heven-Yate Keyes. Open Heaven-Yates, and steike [shut] Hell-Yates. And let every crysome-child creepe to its owne mother. White Paternoster! Amen.'

The mention of St. Peter's brother is remarkable. It is a substitution for the older 'Saint Peter's sister' here mentioned. Again, St. Peter's sister is a substitution for St. Peter's daughter, who is a well-known saint, usually called St. Petronilla, or, in English, Saint Parnell, once a very common female name, and subsequently a surname. Her day is May 31, and she was said to cure the quartan ague; see Brand, Pop. Antiq., ed. Ellis, i. 363. A curious passage in the Ancren Riwle, p. 47, gives directions for crossing oneself at night, and particularly mentions the use of four crosses on 'four halves,' or in the original, 'vour creoices a uour halue'; with the remark 'Crux fugat omne malum,' &c. For 'Rural Charms,' see the chapter in Brand's Popular Antiquities, vol. iii.; and see the charm against rats in Political and Love Poems, ed. Furnivall, p. 23. I may add that, in Kemble's Solomon and Saturn, p. 136, is an A. S. poem, in which the Paternoster is _personified_, and destroys evil spirits. In Longfellow's Golden Legend, § II., Lucifer is made to say a _Black_ Paternoster.

3507. 'That, if you betray me, you shall go mad (as a punishment).' [107]

3509. _labbe_, chatterbox, talkative person. In P. Plowm. C. xiii. 39, we find the phrase 'ne _labbe_ it out,' i. e. do not chatter about it, do not utter it foolishly. In the Romans of Partenay, ed. Skeat, 3751, we find: 'a _labbyng_ tonge'; and Chaucer has elsewhere: 'a _labbing_ shrewe,' E. 2428. Sewel's Du. Dict. (1754) gives: '_labben_, or _labbekakken_, to blab, chat'; also '_labbekak_, a tattling gossip, a common blab'; and '_labbery_, chat, idle talk.'

3512. _him_, i. e. Christ. The story of the Harrowing (or despoiling) of Hell by Christ is derived from the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus, and is a favourite and common subject in our older authors. It describes the descent of Christ into hell, after His crucifixion, in order to release the souls of the patriarchs, whom He takes with Him to paradise. It is given at length in P. Plowman, Text C. Pass. xxi; and was usually introduced into the mystery plays; see the Coventry Mysteries, the York Plays, &c. See also Cursor Mundi, 17,863; Ayenbite of Inwyt, p. 12; &c.

3516. 'On Monday next, at the end of the first quarter of the night,' i. e. about 9 P.M. Cf. ll. 3554, 3645.

3530. See Ecclesiasticus, xxxii. 24 [Eng. version, 19]; this was not said by 'Solomon,' but by Jesus, son of Sirach. It is quoted again in the Tale of Melibeus; B. 2193.

3539. 'The trouble endured by Noah and his company.' _Noë_ is the form in the Latin Vulgate version. The allusion is to the intentionally comic scene introduced into the mystery plays, as, e. g. in the Chester Plays, the Towneley Plays, and the York Plays, in which Noah and his sons (_felawshipe_) have much ado to induce Noah's wife to enter the ark; and, in the course of the scene, she gives Noah a sound box on the ear.

3548. _kimelin_, a large shallow tub; especially one used for brewing; see Prompt. Parv. p. 274; and _Kimnell_ in Miss Jackson's Shropshire Glossary.

3554. _pryme_, i. e. about 9 A.M. See note to F. 73.

3565. This shows that the hall was open to the roof, with cross-beams, and that the stable was attached to it, between it and the garden.

3590. _sinne_, i. e. venial sin; see I. 859, 904, 920.

3598. Evidently a common proverb.

3616. It is obvious that the first foot is defective.

3624. _His owne hand_, with his own hand. Tyrwhitt points out the same idiom in Gower, ed. Pauli, ii. 83:--

'The craft Minerve of wolle fond And made cloth _her owne hond_.'

And again, id. ii. 310:--

'Thing which he said _his owne mouth_.'

3625. _ronges_, rungs, rounds, steps; _stalkes_, upright pieces. To [108] climb by the rungs and the stalks means to employ the hands as well as the feet. A rung was also called a _stayre_ (stair); and _stalke_ is the diminutive of _stele_, a handle, which was another name for the upright part of a ladder. In Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, C. 513, the author complains that some people cannot tell the difference between a _stele_ and a _stayre_; and, in fact, the Glossary does not point it out. In the Ancren Riwle, p. 354, we find mention of the two ladder-_stales_ that are upright to the heaven, between which _stales_ the _tinds_ (or rungs) are fastened. This makes the sense perfectly clear.

3637. _a furlong-way_, a few minutes; exactly, two minutes and a half, at the rate of three miles an hour.

3638. 'Now say a Paternoster, and keep silence.' Accordingly, the carpenter 'says his devotion.' '_Clom!_' is a word imposing silence, like 'mum!' So in the Ayenbite of Inwyt, p. 266, we find: 'Yef ye me wylleth y-here, habbeth amang you _clom_ and reste'; i. e. if you wish to hear me, keep among you silence and rest.

3645. _corfew-tyme_, probably 8 P.M. The original time for ringing the curfew-bell, as a signal for putting out fires and lights, was eight o'clock. The custom has been kept up in some places till the present day; the hour for it is sometimes 8 P.M., and sometimes 9 P.M. In olden times, mention is usually made of the former of these hours; see Brand, Pop. Antiq. ii. 220; Prompt. Parv. p. 110. People invariably went to bed very early; see l. 3633.

3655. The service of _lauds_ followed that of _nocturns_; the latter originally began at midnight, but usually somewhat later. The time indicated seems to have been just before daybreak. 'These nocturns should begin at such a time as to be ended just as morning's twilight broke, so that the next of her services, the _lauds_, or _matutinae laudes_, might come on immediately after.'--Rock, Church of our Fathers, iii. 2. 6. From l. 3731, we learn, however, that the night was still 'as dark as pitch.' Perhaps the time was between two and three o'clock, as Wright suggests.

3668. _the grange_, lit. granary; but the term was applied to a farm-house and granary on an estate belonging to a feudal manor or (as here) to a religious house. As the estate often lay at some distance from the abbey, it might be necessary for the carpenter, who went to cut down trees, to stay at the grange for the night. Cf. note to P. Pl. C. xx. 71; and Prompt. Parv. (s. v. _grawnge_).

3675. _at cockkes crowe_; cf. l. 3687. The expression in l. 3674 must refer to Monday: the 'cock-crow' refers to Tuesday morning, when it was still pitch-dark (l. 3731). The time denoted by the 'first cock-crow' is very vague; see the Chapter on Cock-crowing in Brand's Pop. Antiquities. The 'second cock-crow' seems to be about 3 A.M., as in Romeo and Juliet, iv. 4. 4; and the 'first cock-crow,' shortly after midnight, as in K. Lear, iii. 4. 121, 1 Hen. IV. ii. 1. 20. An early mention of the first cock occurs in Ypomedon, 783, in Weber's Met. Romances, ii. 309:--'And at the fryst cokke roos he.' The clearest [109] statement is in Tusser's Husbandrie, sect. 74 (E. D. S. p. 165), where he says that cocks crow 'At midnight, at three, and an hower ere day,' which he afterwards explains by 'past five.'

3682. On 'itching omens,' see Miss Burne's _Shropshire Folk-Lore_, p. 269. 'If your right hand itches, you will receive money; ... if your nose itches, you will be kissed, cursed, or vexed.'

3684. Cf. 'If [in a dream] you see many loaves, it portends joy'; A. S. Leechdoms, iii. 215.

3689. _at point-devys_, with all exactness, precisely, very neatly; cf. As You Like It, iii. 2. 401. O. F. _devis_, 'ordre, beauté; _a devis_, _par devis_, en bel ordre, d'une manière bien ordonnée, à gré, à souhait'; Godefroy. See F. 560; Rom. of the Rose, 1215.

3690. _greyn_, evidently some sweet or aromatic seed or spice; apparently cardamoms, otherwise called _grains of Paradise_ (New E. Dict.) '_Greynys_, spyce, _Granum Paradisi_'; Prompt. Parv.; see Way's note. Cf. Rom. of the Rose, 1369, and the note (vol. i. p. 428).

3692. _trewe-love_, (probably) a leaf of herb-paris; in the efficacy of which he had some superstitious belief. _True-love_ is sometimes used as an abbreviation of _true-love knot_, as in the last stanza of the Court of Love; and such is the case here. True-love knots were of various shapes; see pictures of four such in Ogilvie's Dictionary. Some had four loops, which gave rise to the name _true-love_ as applied to herb-paris. Gerarde's Herball, 1597, p. 328, thus describes herb-paris (_Paris quadrifolia_):--At the top of the stalk 'come foorth fower leaves directly set one against another, in manner of a Burgonnion crosse or a true love knot; for which cause among the auncients it hath beene called herbe _Truelove_.' It is still called _True Love's Knot_ in Cumberland.

3700. Note the rime of _tó me_ with _cinam-ó-me_.

3708. _Iakke_, Jack, here an epithet of a fool, like _Iankin_ (B. 1172); and see note to B. 4000. Cf. E. _zany_.

3709. 'It wilt not be (a case of) come-kiss-me.' Chaucer has _ba_, to kiss, D. 433; and _come-ba-me_, i. e. come kiss me, is here used as a phrase; so that the line simply means 'you certainly will not get a kiss!' Observe the rime with _bla-me_. _Bas_ also meant to kiss, and Skelton uses the words together (ed. Dyce, i. 22):--

'With _ba, ba, ba_, and _bas, bas, bas_, She cheryshed hym, both cheke and chyn';

i. e. with repeated kisses on cheek and chin. So again (i. 127) we find: '_bas me_, buttyng, praty Cys!' And so again (ii. 6): '_bas me_, swete Parrot, _bas me_, swete, swete!' Further illustration is afforded by Burton's Anat. of Melancholy, pt. 3. sec. 2. mem. 4. subsec. 1: 'Yea, many times, this love will make old men and women ... dance, _come-kiss-me-now_, mask, and mum.' This complete explanation of an old _crux_ was first given by Mr. Ellis, in 1870, in his Early Eng. [110] Pronunciation, p. 715, who notes that the reading _com ba me_ is fairly well supported; see his Critical Note. Several MSS. turn it into _compame_, which is clearly due to the influence of the familiar word _companye_, which repeatedly ends a line in Chaucer. Mr. Ellis well remarks--'_Com ba me!_ was probably the name of a song, like ... the modern "Kiss me quick, and go, my love." It is also probable that Absolon's speech contained allusions to it, and that it was very well known at the time.'

The curious part of the story is that, in 1889, I adopted the same reading independently, and for precisely similar reasons. But Mr. Ellis was before me, by nineteen years. See l. 3716 below.

The following MSS. (says Mr. Ellis) read _combame_; viz. Harl. 7335--Camb. Univ. Library, Ii. 3. 26--Trin. Coll. Camb. R. 3. 3--Rawl. MS. Poet. 141. Bodl. 414 has _cum bame_; whilst Rawl. Misc. 1133 and Laud 739 have _come ba me_.

3713. Lit. 'in the way to twenty devils'; hence, in the name of twenty devils. 'In the twenty deuyll way, _Au nom du grant diable_'; Palsgrave (1852), p. 838. See ll. 3134, 4257.

3721-2. These two lines are in E. only; Tyrwhitt omits them. But the old black-letter editions retain them.

3723. He knelt down, because the window was so low (3696).

3725. Cf. 'For who-so kissing may attayne'; Rom. Rose, 3677; and Ovid, Ars Amatoria, i. 669.

3726. _thyn ore_, thy favour, thy grace; the words 'grant me' being understood. It is not uncommon.

'Syr Lybeaus durstede [thirsted] sore, And seyde, Maugys, _thyn ore_, To drynke lette me go.' Ritson, Met. Romances, ii. 57.

'I haue siked moni syk, lemmon, _for thin ore_'; Böddeker's Altengl. Dichtungen, p. 174.

See Specimens of E. Eng., Part I; Glossary to Havelok; &c.

3728. _com of_, i. e. be quick; like _Have do_, have done! We now say 'come on!' But strictly, _come on_ means 'begin,' and _come off_ means 'make an end.'

3751. 'If it be not so that, rather than possess all this town, I would like to be avenged.'

3770. _viritoot_ must be accepted as the reading; the reading _verytrot_ in MS. Hl. gives a false rime, as the _oo_ in _woot_ is long. The meaning is unknown; but the context requires the sense of 'upon the move,' or 'astir.' My guess is that _viri-_ is from F. _virer_, to turn (cf. E. _virelay_), and that _toot_ represents O. F. _tot_ (L. _totum_, F. _tout_), all; so that _viritoot_ may mean 'turn-all.' Cotgrave gives _virevoulte_, 'a veere, whirle a round gamball, friske, or turne,' like the Portuguese _viravolta_. The form _verytrot_ (very trot) is clearly due to an attempt to make sense. MS. Cam. has _merytot_, possibly with reference to M. E. _merytoter_, a swing [111] (Catholicon); which is derived from _mery_, merry, and _toteren_, to totter, oscillate. In the North of England, a swing is still called a _merry-trotter_ (corruption of _merry-totter_), as noted by Halliwell, who remarks that 'the _meritot_ is mentioned by Chaucer,' which is not the fact. Both these 'glosses' give the notion of movement, as this is obviously the general sense implied. Whatever the reading may be, we can see the sense, viz. 'some gay girl (euphemism for light woman) has brought you thus so early astir'; and Gervase accordingly goes on to say, 'you know what I mean.'

Ed. 1561 has _berytote_, a misprint for _verytote_.

3771. Here as elsewhere, _së-ynt_ is dissyllabic; several MSS. have _seinte_, but this can hardly be right. For _Note_, MSS. Pt. Hl. have _Noet_, meaning _St. Neot_, whose day is Oct. 28, and whose name remains in St. Neot's, in Cornwall, and St. Neot's, in Huntingdonshire. He died about 877; see Wright's Biogr. Brit. Litt., A. S. Period, p. 381. The spelling _Note_ is remarkable, as the mod. E. name (pronounced as _Neet_, riming with _feet_) suggests the A. S. form _N[=e]ot_, and M. E. _Neet_.

3774. A proverbial phrase. Tyrwhitt quotes from Froissart, v. iv. p. 92, ed. 1574; 'Il aura en bref temps autres estoupes en sa quenoille.' To 'have tow on one's distaff' is to have a task in hand. 'Towe on my dystaf have I for to spynne'; Hoccleve, De Regimine Principum, p. 45.

3777. _As lene_, pray lend; see note to E. 7.

3782. MS. Hl. has _fo_, which is silently altered to _fote_ by Bell and Wright. Tyrwhitt also has _fote_, which he found in the black-letter editions. The reading _foo_ is probably quite right, and is an intentional substitution for _foot_. It is notorious that oaths were constantly made unmeaning, to avoid a too open profanity. In Chaucer, we have _cokkes bones_, H. 9, I. 29, and _Corpus bones_, C. 314. Another corruption of a like oath is _'s foot_, Shak. Troil. ii. 3. 6, which is docked at the other end. It is poor work altering MSS. so as to destroy evidence. _Cristes foo_ might mean 'the devil'; but this is unlikely.

3785. _stele_, handle; i. e. by the cold end, which served as a handle. See note to D. 949. _st[=e]le_, i. e. steel, would give a false rime.

3811. Tyrwhitt inserted _al_ before _aboute_ in his text, but withdrew it in his notes. The A. S. has _hand-br[=æ]d_, but the M. E. _hand-e-brede_ had at least three syllables, if not four. This is shewn by MS. spellings and by the metre, and still more clearly by Wyclif's Bible, which has: 'a spanne, that is, an _handibreede_,' Ezek. xl. 5 (later version). It may have been formed by analogy with M. E. _handiwerk_ (A. S. _hand-geweorc_) and _handewrit_ (A. S. _hand-gewrit_). But the form is _handbrede_ in Palladius on Husbandry, p. 80, l. 536.

3818. _Nowelis flood_ is the mistake of the illiterate carpenter for _Noes flood_; see it again in l. 3834, where he is laughed at for having used the expression in his previous talks with the clerk and his wife. It is on a par with his _astromye_ (note to l. 3451). He was less familiar with the _Noe_ of the Bible than with the _Nowel_ of the [112] carol-singers at Christmas; see F. 1255. The editors carefully 'correct' the poet. In l. 3834, _Nowélis_ helps the scansion, whilst _Noes_ spoils the line, which has to be 'amended.' The readings are: E. Hn. _as in the text_; Cm. Pt. Ln. the Nowels flood; Pt. the Noes flood; Hl. He was agast and feerd of Noes flood. Tyrwhitt actually reads; He was agast-e so of Noes flood; regardless of the fact that _agast_ has no final _-e_. The carpenter's mistake is the more pardonable when we notice that _Noë_ was sometimes used, instead of _Noël_, to mean 'Christmas.' For an example, see the Poètes de Champagne, Reims, 1851, p. 146.

3821. This singular expression is from the French. Tyrwhitt cites:--

'Ainc tant come il mist a descendre, Ne trouva point de pain a vendre,'

i. e. he found no bread to sell in his descent. His reference is to the Fabliaux, t. ii. p. 282; Wright refers, for the same, to the fabliau of Aloul, in Barbazan, l. 591. I suppose the sense is, 'he never stopped, as if to transact business.'

3822. E. Hn. celle; _rest_ selle. The word _celle_ might mean 'chamber.' There was an approach to the roof, which they had reached by help of a ladder; and the three tubs were hung among the balks which formed the roof of the principal sitting-room below. But it is difficult to see how the word _celle_ could be applied to the chief room in the house. Tyrwhitt explains _selle_ as 'door-sill or threshold'; but we must bear in mind that the _usual_ M. E. form of _sill_ was either _sille_ or _sulle_, from A. S. _syll_. The spelling with _s_ proves nothing, since Chaucer undoubtedly means 'cell' in A. 1376, where Cm. Hl. have _selle_, and in B. 3162, where three MSS. (Cp. Pt. Ln.) all read _selle_ again. Why the carpenter should have arrived at the door-sill, I do not know.

Nevertheless, upon further thoughts, I accept Tyrwhitt's view, with some modification. We find that Chaucer actually uses Kentish forms (with _e_ for A. S. _y_) elsewhere, for the sake of a rime. A clear case is that of _fulfelle_, in Troil. iii. 510. This justifies the dat. form _selle_ (A. S. _sylle_). But we must take _selle_ to mean 'flooring' or 'boarding,' and _floor_ to mean the ground beneath it; just as we find, in Widegren's Swedish Dictionary, that _syll_ means 'the timber next the ground.' I would therefore read _selle_, with the sense of 'flooring'; and I explain _floor_ by 'flat earth.' In the allit. Morte Arthure, 3249, _flores_ signifies 'plains.' In Gawayn and the Grene Knyght, 55, _sille_ means 'floor.'

3841. Observe the form _cape_, as a variant of _gape_, both here and in l. 3444 (see footnotes); and in Troil. v. 1133.

THE REVE'S PROLOGUE.

3855. For _laughen_, Tyrwhitt has _laughed_, and in l. 3858 has the extraordinary form _lought_, but he corrects the former of these in his [113] Notes. The verb was originally strong; see examples in Stratmann, s. v. _hlahhen_.

3857. Repeated, nearly, in F. 202; see note.

3864. _so theek_, for _so thee ik_, so may I thrive, as I hope to thrive. The Reve came from Norfolk, and Chaucer makes him use the Northern _ik_ for _I_ in this expression, and again in l. 3867 (in the phrase _ik am_), and in l. 3888 (in the phrase _ik have_), but not elsewhere; whence it would seem that _ik_ for _I_ was then dying out in Norfolk; it has now died out even in the North. Both the Host and the Canon's Yeoman use the Southern form _so theech_; see C. 947, G. 929. Cf. _so the ik_, P. Pl., B. v. 228.

3865. To _blear_ (lit. to dim) _one's eye_ was to delude, hoodwink, or cheat a man. So also _blered is thyn yë_, H. 252.

3868. _gras-time_, the time when a horse feeds himself in the fields. _My fodder is now forage_, my food is now such as is provided for me; I am like a horse in winter, whose food is hay in a stable. Thynne animadverts upon this passage (Animadversions, p. 39), and says that _forage_ means 'such harde and olde prouisione as ys made for horses and cattle in winter.' He remarks, justly, that _forage_ is but loosely used in Sir Thopas, B. 1973.

3869. I take this to mean--'my old years write (mark upon me) this white head,' i. e. turn me grey.

3870. 'My heart is as old (lit. mouldy) as my hairs are.' _Mouled_ is the old pp. out of which we have made the mod. E. _mould-y_, adding _-y_ by confusion with the adj. formed from _mould_, the ground. It is fully explained in the Addenda to my Etym. Dict. 2nd ed. p. 818; and the verb _moulen_, to grow mouldy, occurs in B. 32.

3871. 'Unless I grow like a medlar, which gets worse all the while, till it be quite rotten, when laid up in a heap of rubbish or straw.'

3876. _hoppen_, dance; alluding to Luke vii. 32, where Wyclif has: 'we han sungun to you with pipis, and ye han not daunsid.'

3877. _nayl_, a hindrance; like a nail that holds a box from being opened, or that catches a man's clothes, and holds him back.

3878. 'E quegli che contro alla mia età parlando vanno, mostra mal che conoscano che, perchè il porro abbia il capo blanco, che la coda sia verde'; and, as for those that go speaking about my age, it shews that they ill understand how, although the leek has a white head, its tail (or blade) is green; Boccaccio, Decamerone; introduction to the Fourth Day. So also in Northward Ho, by Dekker and Webster, Act iv. sc. 1: 'garlic has a white head and a green stalk'; where Dyce remarks that it occurs again in The Honest Lawyer, 1616, sig. G 2. Cf. P. Plowman, B. xiii. 352.

3878-82. Compare Alanus de Insulis, Parabolae, cap. I (in Leyser's collection, p. 1067):--

'Extincti cineres, si ponas sulphura, uiuent; Sic uetus apposita mente calescit amor.'

[114]

3882. For _olde_, T. has _cold_, I cannot guess why: smouldering ashes are more likely to be hot. _Old ashes_ mean ashes left after a fire has died down, in which, if raked together, fire can be long preserved. 'Still, in our old ashes, is fire collected.' See the parallel passage in Troilus, ii. 538.

In Soliman and Persida (Dodsley's Old Plays, ed. Hazlitt, v. 339) we find:--

'as the fire That lay, with honour's hand raked up in ashes, Revives again to flames.'

We are reminded of line 92 in Gray's Elegy:--'Ev'n in our ashes live their wonted fires'; but Gray himself tells us that he was thinking, not of Chaucer, but of Sonnet 169 (170) of Petrarch:--

'Ch'i veggio nel pensier, dolce mio fuoco, Fredda una lingua e due begli occhi chiusi, Rimaner doppo noi pien di faville'--

i. e. which (love-songs) I see in thought, O my sweet flame, when (my) one tongue is cold, and (your) two fine eyes are closed, remaining after us, full of sparkles.

_y-reke_, raked or heaped together, collected. Not explained by Wright or Morris; Tyrwhitt explains it by 'smoking,' and takes it to be a _present_ participle, which is impossible. It is the pt. t. of the scarce strong verb _reken_, pt. t. _rak_, pp. _y-reken_, _y-reke_, of which the primary notion was to 'gather together.' It occurs, just once, in Gothic, in the translation of Romans, xii. 20: 'haurja funins _rikis_ ana haubith is,' i. e. coals of fire shalt thou heap together on his head. It is the very verb from which the sb. _rake_ is derived. See _Rake_ in my Etym. Dict., and the G. _Rechen_ in Kluge. The notion is taken from the heaping together of smouldering ashes to preserve the fire within. Lydgate copies this image in his Siege of Troye, ed. 1555, fol. B 4:--

'But inward brent of hate and of enuy The hoote fyre, and yet there was no smeke [smoke], So couertly the malyce was _yreke_.'

3895. _chimbe._ 'The prominency of the staves beyond the head of the barrel. The imagery is very exact and beautiful'; Tyrwhitt. '_Chime_ (pronounced _choim_), sb. a stave of a cask, barrel, &c.'; Leicestershire Glossary (E. D. S.) Urry gives '_Chimbe_, the Rim of a Cooper's Vessel on the outside of the Head. The ends of the Staves from the Grooves outward are called the _Chimes_.' Hexham's Du. Dict. has: '_Kimen_, _Kimmen_, the Brimmes of a tubb or a barrill.' Sewel's Du. Dict. has: '_Kim_, the brim of a barrel.' The Bremen _Kimm_ signifies not only the rim of a barrel, but the edge of the horizon; cf. Dan. _Kiming_, _Kimming_, the horizon. See further in New E. Dict. [115]

3901-2. _what amounteth_, to what amounts. _What shul_, why must.

3904. Tyrwhitt refers us to _Ex sutore medicus_, Phædrus, lib. i. fab. 14; and to _ex sutore nauclerus_, alluded to by Pynson the printer, at the end of his edition of Littleton's Tenures, 1525 (Ames, p. 488).

3906. _Depeford_ (lit. deep ford), Deptford; just beyond which is _Grenewich_, Greenwich. Thus the pilgrims had not advanced very far, considering that the Knight and Miller had both told a tale. They had made an early start, and it was now 'half-way prime.' 'Deptford,' says Dr. Furnivall, 'is 3 miles down the road [or a little more, it depends upon whence we reckon]; and, as only the Reeve's Tale and the incomplete Cook's Tale follow in Group A, we must suppose that Chaucer meant to insert here [at the end of Group A] the Tales of some, at least, of the Five City-Mechanics and the Ploughman ... in order to bring his party to their first night's resting-place, Dartford, 15 miles from London'; Temp. Preface, p. 19. 'The deep ford,' I may remark, must have been the one through the Ravensbourn. Deptford and Greenwich (where, probably, Chaucer was then residing) lay off the Old Kent Road, on the left; hence the host points them out.

_half-way prime._ That is, half-past seven o'clock; taking _prime_ to mean the first quarter of the day, or the period from 6 to 9 A.M. It was also used to denote the _end_ of that period, or 9 A.M., as in B. 4387, where the meaning is certain. In my Preface to Chaucer's Astrolabe, (E. E. T. S.), I said: 'What _prime_ means in all cases, I do not pretend to say. It is a most difficult word, and I think was used loosely. It might mean the beginning or end of a period, and the period might be an hour, or a quarter of a day. I think it was to obviate ambiguity that the end of the period was sometimes expressed by _high prime_, or _passed prime_, or _prime large_; we also find such expressions as _half prime_, _halfway prime_, or _not fully prime_, which indicate a somewhat long period. For further remarks, see Mr. Brae's Essay on Chaucer's Prime, in his edition of the Astrolabe, p. 90. I add some references for the word _prime_, which may be useful. We find _prime_ in Kn. Ta. 1331 (A. 2189); Mill. Ta. 368 (A. 3554); March. Ta. 613 (E. 1857); Pard. Ta. 200 (C. 662); Ship. Ta. 206 (B. 1396); Squi. Ta. 65 (F. 73); _fully prime_, Sir Topas, 114 (B. 2015); _halfway prime_, Reve's Prol. 52 (A. 3906); _passed prime_, Ship. Ta. 88 (B. 1278), Fre. Ta. 178 (D. 1476); _prime large_, Squi. Ta. ii. 14 (F. 360). See also _prime_ in Troilus, ii. 992, v. 15; _passed prime_, ii. 1095 (in the same); _an houre after the prime_, ii. 1557.' Cf. notes to F. 73, &c.

3911. _somdel_, in some degree. _sette his howve_, the same as _set his cappe_, i. e. make him look foolish; see notes to A. 586, 3143. To come behind a man, and alter the look of his head-gear, was no doubt a common trick; now that caps are moveable, the perennial joy of the street-boy is to run off with another boy's cap. [116]

3912. 'For it is allowable to repel (shove off) force by force.' The Ellesmere MS. has here the sidenote--'vim vi repellere.'

3919. _stalke_, (here) a bit of stick; Lat. _festuca_. _balke_, a beam; Lat. _trabs_. See the Vulgate version of Matt. vii. 3.

THE REVES TALE.

The origin of this Tale was a French Fabliau, like one that was first pointed out by Mr. T. Wright, and printed in his Anecdota Literaria, p. 15. Another similar one is printed in Méon's edition of Barbazan's Fabliaux, iii. 239 (Paris, 1808). Both were reprinted for the Chaucer Society, in Originals and Analogues, &c., p. 87. See further in vol. iii. p. 397.

3921. _Trumpington._ The modern mill, beside the bridge over the Granta, between the villages of Trumpington and Grantchester, is familiar to all Cambridge men; but this mill and bridge are both comparatively modern, being placed upon an artificial channel. The old 'bridge' is that over the old river-bed, somewhat nearer Trumpington; the 'brook' is this old course of the Granta, which is hereabouts very narrow and circuitous; and the mill stood a quarter of a mile above the bridge, at the spot marked 'Old Mills' on the ordnance-map, though better known as 'Byron's pool,' which is the old mill-pool. The fen mentioned in l. 4065 is probably the field between the Old Mills and the road, which must formerly have been fen-land; though Lingay Fen may be meant, which covers the space between Bourne Brook (flowing into the Granta at the Old Mills) and the Cambridge and Bedford Railway. We like to think that Chaucer saw the spot himself; but he certainly seems to have thought that Trumpington was somewhat further from Cambridge than it really is, as he actually makes the clerks to have been benighted there; and he might easily have learnt some local particulars from his wife's friend, Lady Blaunche de Trumpington, or from Sir Roger himself. In any case, it is interesting to find him thus boldly assigning a known locality to a mill which he had found in a French fabliau.

3927. _Pypen_, play the bag-pipe; see A. 565. The Reeve is clearly trying to make his description suit the Miller in the company, whom it is his express object to tease. Hence he says he could _wrestle well_ (cf. A. 548) and could play the bag-pipe.

_nettes bete_, mend nets; he knew how to net.

3928. _turne coppes_, turn cups, make wooden cups in a turning-lathe; not a very difficult operation. It is curious that Tyrwhitt gave up trying to explain this simple phrase. In Riley's Memorials of London, p. 666, we find that, in 1418, when the English were besieging Rouen, it was enacted that 'the turners should have 4s. for every hundred of 2,500 cups, in all 100s.': so that a wooden cup could be turned at the cost of a halfpenny. [117]

3929. Printed _pavade_ by Tyrwhitt, _pauade_ by Thynne (ed. 1532), but _panade_ in Wright. Levins' Manipulus Vocabulorum (1570) has: 'A PAUADE, _pugio_'; but this is probably copied from Thynne. The exact form is not found in O. F., but Godefroy's O. F. Dict. gives: '_Penart_, _pennart_, _penard_, _panart_, _pannart_, coutelas, espèce de grand couteau à deux tranchants ou taillants, sorte de poignard'; with seven examples, one of which shows that it could be hung at the belt: 'Un grant _pennart_ qu'il avoit pendu a sa sainture.' Ducange gives the Low Lat. form _penardus_, and wrongly connects it with F. _poignard_, from which it is clearly distinct; but he also gives the form _pennatum_ with the sense of 'pruning-knife,' and Torriano gives an Ital. _pennato_ with the same sense. Cf. Lat. _bi-pennis_. It was a two-edged cutlass, worn in addition to his sword; and see below. It is also printed _pauade_ in Lydgate's Siege of Troy, ed. 1555, fol. N 5, back.

3931. _popper_, thruster, i. e. dagger; from the verb _pop_, to thrust in; cf. _poke_. _Ioly_ probably means 'neat' or 'small.' This was the Miller's third weapon of offence, of which he had three sizes, viz. a sword, a cutlass, and a little dagger like a _misericorde_, used for piercing between the joints of armour. No wonder that no one durst touch him 'for peril.' The _poppere_ answers to the _boydekin_ of l. 3960, q.v. And besides these, he carried a knife. 'Poppe, to stryke'; Cathol. Angl. p. 286.

3933. _thwitel_, knife; from A.S. _thw[=i]tan_, to cut; now ill-spelt _whittle_. The portraits of Chaucer show a knife hanging from his breast; accordingly, in Greene's Description of Chaucer, we find this line: 'A whittle by his belt he bare'; see Greene's Works, ed. Dyce, 1883, p. 320. Note that Sheffield was already celebrated for its cutlery; so in the Witch of Edmonton, Act ii. sc. 2, Somerton speaks of 'the new pair of _Sheffield knives_.'

3934. _camuse_ (Hl. _camois_), low and concave; cf. l. 3974 below. F. _camus_, 'flat-nosed'; Cotgrave. Ital. _camuso_, 'one with a flat nose'; Florio. See _Camois_ in the New E. Dict., where it is thus explained: 'Of the nose: low and concave. Of persons: pug-nosed.' To the examples there given, add the following from Holland's tr. of Pliny, i. 229; 'As for the male goats, they are held for the best which are most _camoise_ or snout-nosed.' Hexham's Du. Dict., s. v. _Neuse_, has the curious entry: '_een Camuys ende opwaerts gaende Neuse_ [lit. a camus and upwards-going Nose], Camell-nosed.'

3936. _market-beter_, a frequenter of markets, who swaggered about, and was apt to be quarrelsome and in the way of others. See Wyclif's Works, ed. Matthew, pp. 511, 520; and cf. F. _battre le pavé_, 'aller et venir sans but, sans occupation'; Littré. And cf. E. 'policeman's _beat_.' Cotgrave has: '_Bateur de pavez_, a pavement-beater; ... one that walks much abroad, and riots it wheresoever he walks.' The following passage from the Complaint of the Ploughman (in Wright's Polit. Poems, i. 330) makes it clear-- [118]

'At the wrastling, and at the wake, And chief chantours at the nale [_ale_]; _Market-beaters_, and medling make, Hoppen and houten [_hoot_], with heve and hale.'

A synonymous term was _market-dasher_, spelt _market-daschare_ in the Prompt. Parv.; see Way's note.

_atte fulle_, completely, entirely.

3941. _Simkin_, diminutive of _Simond_, which was his real name (ll. 4022, 4127). Altered to _Sim-e-kin_ by Tyrwhitt, for the scansion; but cf. ll. 3945, 3947, 4034, &c. He makes the same alteration in l. 3959, for a like reason, but we may scan it: 'But if | he wold | e be | slayn,' &c. All the MSS. have _Symkyn_, except Hl., which has _Symekyn_ here and in l. 3959. We must either make the form variable, or else treat the word _de-y-nous_ as a trisyllable. _Deynous_ was his regular epithet.

3943. This statement, that the parson of the town was her father, has caused surprise. In Bell's Chaucer, the theory is started that the priest had been a widower before he took orders, which no one can be expected to believe; it is too subtle. It is clear that she was an illegitimate daughter; this is why her father paid money to get her married to a miller, and why she thought ladies ought to spare her (and not avoid her), because it was an honour to have a priest for a father, and because she had learnt so much good-breeding in a nunnery. The case is only too clear; cf. note to l. 3963.

3953. _tipet_, not here a cape, but the long pendant from the hood at one time fashionable, which Simkin wound round his head, in order to get it out of the way. See _Tippett_ in Fairholt's Costume in England; Glossary. Cf. notes to A. 233, 682.

3954. So also the Wife of Bath had 'gay scarlet _gytes_'; D. 559. Spelt _gide_ in MS. Ln., and _gyde_ in Blind Harry's _Wallace_, i. 214: 'In-till a _gyde_ of gudly ganand greyne,' where it is used of a gay dress worn by Wallace. It occurs also twice in Golagros and Gawain, used of the gay dress of a woman; see Jamieson. Nares shews that _gite_ is used once by Fairfax, and thrice by Gascoigne. The sense is usually dubious; it may mean 'robe,' or, in some places, 'head-dress.' The _g_ was certainly hard, and the word is of F. origin. Godefroy gives '_guite_, chapeau'; and Roquefort has '_wite_, voile.' The F. Gloss. appended to Ducange gives the word _witart_ as applied to a man, and _witarde_ as applied to a woman. Cf. O. F. _wiart_, which Roquefort explains as a woman's veil, whilst Godefroy explains _guiart_ as a dress or vestment. The form of the word suggests a Teutonic origin; perhaps from O. H. G. _wît_, wide, ample, which would explain its use to denote a veil or a robe indifferently. Ducange suggests a derivation from Lat. _uitta_, which is also possible.

3956. _dame_, lady; see A. 376.

3959. _wold-e_, wished, seems to be dissyllabic; see note to l. 3941. [119]

3960. _boydekin_, dagger, as in B. 3892, q. v. Cf. note to l. 3931.

3962. 'At any rate, they would that their wives should think so.' _Wenden_, pt. pl. subj. of _wenen_.

3963. _smoterlich_, besmutched; cf. _bismotered_ in A. 76. Tyrwhitt says: 'it means, I suppose, smutty, dirty; but the whole passage is obscure.' Rather, it is perfectly clear when the allusion is perceived. The allusion is to the smutch upon her reputation, on account of her illegitimacy. This explains also the use of _somdel_; 'because she was, in some measure, of indifferent reputation, she was always on her dignity, and ready to take offence'; which is true to human nature. Thus the whole context is illuminated at once.

3964. _digne_, full of dignity, and therefore (as Chaucer says, with exquisite satire) like (foul) water in a ditch, which keeps every one at a proper distance. However, the satire is not Chaucer's own, but due to a popular proverbial jest, which occurs again in The Ploughman's Crede, l. 375, where the Dominican friars are thus described:--

'Ther is more pryve pride in Prechours hertes Than ther lefte [_remained_] in Lucyfer, er he were lowe fallen; They ben _digne as dich-water_, that dogges in bayteth' [_feed in_].

And, again, in the same, l. 355:--

'For with the princes of pride the Prechours dwellen, They bene _as digne as the devel_, that droppeth fro hevene.'

Hence _digne_ is proud, repulsive.

3965. 'And full of scorn and reproachful taunting'; like the lady in Lay de Freine, l. 60 (in Weber's Met. Romances, i. 359):--

'A proud dame and an enuious, Hokerfulliche missegging, Squeymous and eke scorning; To ich woman sche hadde envie.'

_Hoker_ is the A. S. _h[=o]cor_, scorn. _Bismare_ is properly of _two_ syllables only (A. S. _bismor_), but is here made into three; MS. Cp. has _bisemare_, and Hl. has _bissemare_, and the spelling _bisemare_ also appears much earlier, in the Ancren Riwle, p. 132, and _bisemære_ in Layamon, i. 140. Owing to a change in the accentuation, the etymology had been long forgotten. See _Bismer_ in the New E. Dict., and see the Glossary.

3966. 'It seemed to her that ladies ought to treat her with consideration,' and not look down upon her; see note to l. 3943.

3977. _The person_, the parson, i. e. her grandfather.

3980. 'And raised difficulties about her marriage.'

3990. The _Soler-halle_ has been guessed to be Clare Hall, merely because that college was of early foundation, and was called a 'hall.' But a happy find by Mr. Riley tells us better, and sets the question at rest. In the First Report of the Historical MSS. Commission, p. 84, Mr. Riley gives several extracts from the Bursar's Books of King's [120] Hall, in which the word _solarium_ repeatedly occurs, shewing that this Hall possessed numerous _solaria_, or sun-chambers, used as dwelling-rooms, apparently by the fellows. They were probably fitted with bay-windows. This leaves little doubt that _Soler-Hall_ was another name for _King's Hall_, founded in 1337 by Edward III, and now merged in Trinity College. It stood on the ground now occupied by the Great Gate, the Chapel, Bowling-green, and Master's Lodge of that celebrated college. On the testimony of Chaucer, we learn that the King's Hall, even in his time, was 'a greet collegge.' Its successor is the largest in England.

In Wright's Hist. of Domestic Manners, pp. 83, 127, 128, it is explained that the early stone-built house usually had a hall on the ground-floor, and a _soler_ above. The latter, being more protected, was better lighted, and was considered a place of greater security. 'In the thirteenth century a proverbial characteristic of an avaricious and inhospitable person, was to shut his hall-door and live in the _soler_.' It was also 'considered as the room of honour for rich lodgers or guests who paid well.' Udall speaks of 'the _solares_, or loftes of my hous'; tr. of Erasmus' Apophthegmes, _Aug. Cæsar_, § 27.

3999. _made fare_, made a to-do (as we now say).

4014. _Strother._ There is now no town of this name in England, but the reference is probably to a place which gave its name to a Northumbrian family. Mr. Gollancz tells me:--'The Strother family, of Northumberland, famous in the fourteenth century, was a branch of the Strothers, of Castle Strother in Glendale, to the west of Wooler. The chief member of this Northumberland branch seems to have been _Alan de Strother_ the younger, who died in 1381. (See Calendarium Inquis. post Mortem, 4 Ric. II, vol. iii. p. 32.) The records contain numerous references to him; e. g. "Aleyn de Struther, conestable de nostre chastel de Rokesburgh," A. D. 1366 (Rymer's Foedera, iii. 784); "Alanum del Strother, vicecomitem de Rokesburgh et vicecomitem Northumbriæ" (id. iii. 919). It is a noteworthy point that this Alan de Strother had a son _John_.' This definite information does away with the old guess, that Strother is a mistake for Langstrothdale Chase almost at the N.W. extremity of the W. Riding of Yorkshire, joining the far end of Wharfdale to Ribblesdale, and even now not very accessible, though it can be reached from Ribblehead station, on the Skipton and Carlisle Railway, or from Horton-in-Ribblesdale.

I suppose that Castle Strother, mentioned above, must have been near Kirknewton, some 5 miles or so to the west of Wooler. The river Glen falls into the Till, which is a tributary of the Tweed. I find mention, in 1358-9, of 'Henry de Strother, of Kirknewton in Glendale'; Brand, Hist. of Newcastle, ii. 414, note. W. Hutchinson, in his View of Northumberland, 1778, i. 260, speaks of 'Kirknewton, one of the manors of the Barony of Wark, the ancient residence of the Strothers, now the property of John Strother Ker, Esq.' [121]

We may here notice some of the characteristics of the speech which Chaucer assigns to these two students from Northumberland.

(_a_) They use _a_ for A. S. _[=a]_, where Chaucer usually has _[=o]_ (long and open). Ex. _na_ (Ch. _no_), _swa_ (_so_), _ham_ (_hoom_), _gas_ (gooth), _fra_ (_fro_), _banes_ (_bones_), _anes_ (_ones_), _waat_ (_woot_), _raa_ (_ro_), _bathe_ (_bothe_), _ga_ (_go_), _twa_, (_two_), _wha_ (_who_). Similarly we find _saule_ for Ch. _soule_, soul, _tald_ for _told_, _halde_ for _holde_, _awen_ for _owen_, own.

(_b_) They use _a_ for A. S. short _a_ before _ng_. Ex. _wanges_, but Ch. also has _wang-tooth_, B. 3234; _sang_ for _song_ (4170), _lange_ for _longe_, _wrang_ for _wrong_.

(_c_) They use (perhaps) _ee_ for _oo_; as in _geen_ for _goon_, gone, 4078; _neen_ for _noon_, none, 4185. This is remarkable, and, in fact, the readings vary, as noted. _Geen_, _neen_ are in MS. E. Note also _pit_ for _put_, 4088.

(_d_) They use the indicative sing. and pl. in _-es_ or _-s_. Ex. 3 pers. sing. _far-es_, _bo-es_, _ga-s_, _wagg-es_, _fall-es_, _fynd-es_, 4130, _bring-es_, _tyd-es_, 4175, _say-s_, 4180. Pl. _werk-es_, 4030. So also is _I_, _I is_, _thou is_, 4089. In l. 4045, we find _are ye_, E.; _ar ye_ (better), Hn.; _ere ye_, Cp. Hl.; _is ye_, Cm. Pt.; _es ye_, Ln. Both _ar_ (_er_) and _is_ (_es_) are found in the present tense plural in Northern works; _we is_ occurs in Barbour's Bruce, iii. 317. It is not 'ungrammatical,' as Tyrwhitt supposes.

(_e_) Other grammatical peculiarities are: _sal_ for _shal_, shall, 4087; _slyk_ for _swiche_, such, 4173; _whilk_ for _whiche_, 4171; _thair_ for _hir_, their, 4172 (which is now the standard use); _hethen_ for _hennes_, hence, 4033; _til_ for _to_ (but Chaucer sometimes uses _til_ himself, chiefly before a vowel); _y-mel_ for _amonges_, 4171; _gif_ for _if_, 4181.

(_f_) Besides the use of the peculiar forms mentioned in (_e_), we find certain words employed which do not occur elsewhere in Chaucer, viz. _boes_ (see note to 4027), _lathe_, barn, _fonne_, fool, _hething_, contempt, _taa_, take. To these Tyrwhitt adds _gar_, reading _Gar us have mete_ in l. 4132, but I can only find _Get us som mete_ in my seven MSS. _Capul_, horse, occurs again in D. 1554, 2150.

I think Mr. Ellis a little underrates the 'marked northernism' of Chaucer's specimens. Certainly _thou is_ is as marked as _I is_; and other certain marks are the pl. indic. in _-es_, as in _werk-es_, 4030, the use of _sal_ for 'shall,' of _boes_ for 'behoves,' of _taa_ for 'take,' of _hethen_ for 'hence,' of _slyk_ for 'such,' the prepositions _fra_ and _y-mel_, and even some of the peculiarities of pronunciation, as _[=a]_ for _[=o]_, _wrang_ for _wrong_.

It is worth enquiring whether Chaucer has made any mistakes, and it is clear that he has made several. Thus _as clerkes sayn_ (4028) should be _as clerkes says_; and _sayth_ should again be _says_ in l. 4210. In l. 4171, _hem_ (them) should be _thaim_. In l. 4180, _y-greved_ should be _greved_; the Northern dialect knows nothing of the prefix _y-_. It also ignores the final _-e_ in definite adjectives; hence _thy fair-e_ (4023), _this short-e_ (4265), and _this lang-e_ (4175) all have a superfluous _-e_. Of course this is what we should expect; the poet merely gives [122] a Northern colouring to his diction to amuse us; he is not trying to teach us Northern grammar. The general effect is excellent, and that is all he was concerned with.

4020. The mill lay a little way off the road on the left (coming from Trumpington); so it was necessary to 'know the way.'

4026. _nede has na peer_, necessity has no equal, or, is above all. More commonly, _Nede ne hath no lawe_, as in P. Plowman, B. xx. 10, or C. xxiii. 10; 'Necessitas non habet legem'; a common proverb.

4027. _boës_, contracted from _behoves_, a form peculiar to Chaucer. In northern poems, the word is invariably a monosyllable, spelt _bos_, or more commonly _bus_; and the pt. t. is likewise a monosyllable, viz. _bud_ or _bood_, short for _behoved_. In Cursor Mundi, l. 9870, we have: 'Of a woman _bos him_ be born; and in l. 10639: 'Than _bus_ this may be clene and bright.' In M. E., it is always used impersonally; _him boes_ or _him bos_ means 'it behoves him,' or 'he must.' See _Bus_ in the New E. Dictionary.

Chaucer here evidently alludes to some such proverb as 'He who has no servant must serve himself,' but I do not know the precise form of it. The expression 'as clerkes sayn' hints that it is a Latin one.

4029. _hope_, expect, fear. Cf. P. Plowman, C. x. 275, and see _Hope_ in Nares, who cites the story of the tanner of Tamworth (from Puttenham's Arte of Poesie, bk. iii. c. 22) who said--'I _hope_ I shall be hanged to-morrow.' Cf. also Thomas of Erceldoun, ed. Murray, l. 78:--

'But-if I speke with yone lady bryghte, I _hope_ myne herte will bryste in three!'

4030. 'So ache his molar teeth.' _Wark_, to ache, is common in Yorkshire: 'My back _warks_ while I can hardly bide,' my back aches so that I can hardly endure; Mid. Yks. Gloss. (E. D. S.).

4032. _ham_, i. e. _h[=a]m_, _haam_, home.

4033. _hethen_, hence, is very characteristic of a Northern dialect; it occurs in Hampole, Havelok, Morris's Allit. Poems, Gawain, Robert of Brunne, the Ormulum, &c.; see examples in Mätzner.

4037. One clerk wants to watch above, and the other below, to prevent cheating. This incident is not in the French fabliaux. On the other hand, it occurs in the Jest of the Mylner of Abyngton, which is plainly copied from Chaucer.

4049. _blere hir yë_, blear their eyes, cheat them, as in l. 3865.

4055. 'The fable of the Wolf and the Mare is found in the Latin Esopean collections, and in the early French poem of _Renard le Contrefait_, from whence it appears to have been taken into the English _Reynard the Fox_'; Wright. Tyrwhitt observes that the same story is told of a mule in Cento Novelle Antiche, no. 91. See Caxton's Reynard, ch. 27, ed. Arber, p. 62, where the wolf wants to buy a mare's foal, who said that the price of the foal was written on her hinder foot; 'yf ye conne rede and be a clerk, ye may come see and rede it.' And when [123] the wolf said, 'late me rede it,' the mare gave him so violent a kick that 'a man shold wel haue ryden a myle er he aroos.' The Fox, who had brought it all about, hypocritically condoles with the Wolf, and observes--'Now I here wel it is true that I long syth haue redde and herde, that _the beste clerkes ben not the wysest men_.'

For the story in Le Roman du Renard Contrefait, see Poètes de Champagne, Reims, 1851, p. 156. For further information, see Caxton's Fables of Æsop, ed. Jacobs, lib. v. fab. 10; vol. i. 254, 255; vol. ii. 157, 179. La Fontaine has a similar fable of the Fox, the Wolf, and the Horse. In Croxall's Æsop, it is told of the Horse, who tells the Lion, who is acting as physician, that he has a thorn in his foot. See further references in the Exempla of Jacques de Vitry, ed. Crane, pp. 147, 197.

4061. _levesel_, an arbour or shelter formed of branches or foliage. _Lev-e_ is the stem of _leef_, A. S. _l[=e]af_, a leaf; and _-sel_ is the same as the A. S. _sæl_, _sele_, a hall, dwelling, Swed. _sal_, Icel. _salr_, G. _Saal_. The A. S. _sæl_ occurs also in composition, as _burg-sæl_, _folc-sæl_, _horn-sæl_, and _sele_ is still commoner; Grein gives twenty-three compounds with the latter, as _gæst-sele_, guest-hall, _hr[=o]f-sele_, roofed-hall, &c. In Icel. we have _lauf-hús_, leaf-house, but we find the very word we require in Swed. _löfsal_, 'a hut built of green boughs,' Widegren; Dan. _lövsals-fest_, feast of tabernacles. The word occurs again in the Persones Tale, l. 411, where it means a leafy arbour such as may still be seen to form the porch of a public-house. The word is scarce; but see the following:--

'Alle but Syr Gauan, graythest of alle, Was left with Dame Graynour, _vndur the greues_ [groves] _grene_. By a lauryel ho [she] lay, vndur a _lefe-sale_ Of box and of barberè, byggyt ful bene.' Anturs of Arthur, st. 6; in Three Met. Romances, ed. Robson, p. 3.

The editor prints it as _lefe sale_, and explains it by 'leafy hall,' but it is a compound word; the adjective would be _lefy_ or _leuy_. In this case the arbour was 'built' of box and barberry.

'All his devocioun and holynesse At the taverne is, as for the most dele, To Bacus syne, and to the _leef-sele_ His youthe hym haleth,' &c. Hoccleve, De Regim. Principum, p. 22.

Again, in Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, iii. 448, the arbour formed by Jonah's gourd is called a _lefsel_.

4066. Lydgate has 'through thinne and thikke'; Siege of Troy, fol. Cc. 6, back.

4078. _geen_, goon; so in MS. E., which again has _neen_, none, 4185. The usual Northern form is _gan_ (= _gaan_), as in Hl.; Hn. Ln. have _gane_. But we also find _gayn_, as in Wallace, iv. 102; Bruce, ii. 80. [124] The forms _geen_, _neen_, are so remarkable that they are likely to be the original ones.

4086. 'I am very swift of foot, God knows, (even) as is a roe; by God's heart, he shall not escape us both; why hadst thou not put the horse in the barn?' 'Light as a rae' [roe]; Tournament of Tottenham, st. 15.

4088. _capul_, a horse, occurs again, in D. 2150. _lathe_, a barn, is still in use in some parts of Yorkshire, but chiefly in local designations, being otherwise obsolescent; see the Cleveland and Whitby Glossaries. 'The northern man writing to his neighbour may say, "My _lathe_ standeth neer the _kirkegarth_," for My barne standeth neere the churchyard:' Coote's Eng. Schoolemaster, 1632 (Nares). Ray gives: '_Lathe_, a barn' in 1691; and we again find '_Leath_, a barn' in 1781 (E. D. S. Gloss. B. 1); and '_Leath_, _Laith_, a barn' in 1811 (E. D. S. Gloss. B. 7); in all cases as a Northern word.

4096. 'Trim his beard,' i. e. cheat him; and so again in D. 361. See Chaucer's Hous of Fame, 689, and my note upon it.

'Myght I thaym have spyde, I had _made thaym a berd_.' Towneley Mysteries, p. 144.

4101. _Iossa_, 'down here'; a cry of direction. Composed of O. F. _jos_, _jus_, down; and _ça_, here. Bartsch gives an example of _jos_ in his Chrestomathie, 1875, col 8: 'tuit li felun cadegren _jos_,' all the felons fell down; and Cotgrave has: '_Jus_, downe, or to the ground.' Godefroy gives: _ça jus_, here below, down here. It is clearly a direction given by one clerk to the other, and was probably a common cry in driving horses.

_warderere_, i. e. _warde arere_, 'look out behind!' Another similar cry. MS. Cm. has: _ware the rere_, mind the rear, which is a sort of gloss upon it.

4110. _hething_, contempt. See numerous examples in Mätzner, s. v. _hæthing_, ii. 396. Cf. 'Bothe in _hething_ and in _scorn_'; Sir Amadace, l. 17, in Robson's _Three Met. Romances_, p. 27. 'Him thoght _scorn_ and gret _hething_'; Seven Sages, ed. Weber, l. 91.

4112. The first foot is 'trochaic.'

4115. _in his hond_, in his possession, in his hold.

4126. 'Or enlarge it by argument'; prove by logic that it is the size you wish it to be.

4127. _Cutberd_, St. Cuthbert, bishop of Lindisfarne, died in 686. Being a Northumberland man, John swears by a Northumberland saint.

4130. Evidently a proverb: 'a man must take (one) of two things, either such as he finds or such as he brings'; i. e. must put up with what he can get.

4134. Another proverb. Repeated in D. 415, with _lure_ for _tulle_. From the Policraticus of John of Salisbury, liv. v. c. 10: 'Veteri [125] celebratur proverbio: Quia vacuae manus temeraria petitio est.' MS. Cm. has the rimes _folle_, _tolle_. For _tulle_, a commoner spelling is _tille_, to draw, hence to allure, entice. Hence E. _till_ (for money), orig. meaning a 'drawer'; and the _tiller_ of a rudder, by which it is drawn aside. See _tullen_ in Stratmann, and _tollen_ in Boeth. bk. ii. pr. 7. 11 (in vol. ii. p. 45).

4140. _chalons_, blankets. The same word as mod. E. _shalloon_, 'a slight woollen stuff'; Ogilvie's Dict. 'The blanket was sometimes made of a texture originally imported from Chalons in France, but afterwards extensively manufactured in England by the Chaloners'; Our Eng. Home, p. 108. 'Qwyltes ne _chalouns_'; Eng. Gilds, ed. Toulmin Smith, p. 350.

4152. _quakke_, asthma, or difficulty of breathing that causes a croaking noise. Halliwell gives: '_Quack_, to be noisy, _West_. The term is applied to any croaking noise.' Also: '_Quackle_, to choke, or suffocate, _East_.' _Pose_, a cold in the head; A. S. _gepos_.

4155. '_To wet one's whistle_' is still in use for to drink deeply. '_I wete my whystell_, as good drinkers do'; Palsgrave, p. 780. In Walton's Complete Angler, Part i. ch. 5, we find: 'Let's drink the other cup to _wet our whistles_.'

4172. _wilde fyr_, erysipelas (to torment them); see Halliwell. Cf. E. 2252. The entry--'_Erysipela_ (_sic_), wilde fyr' occurs in Ælfric's Vocabulary. So in Le Rom. de la Rose:--'que Mal-Feu l'arde'; 7438, 8319.

4174. _flour_, choice, best of a thing; _il ending_, evil death, bad end. 'They shall have the best (i. e. here, the worst) of a bad end.' Rather a wish than a prophecy.

4181. Sidenote in MS. Hl.--'Qui in vno grauatur in alio debet releuari.' A Law Maxim.

4194. _upright_, upon her back. 'To slepe on the backe, _vpryght_, is vtterly to be abhorred'; Babees Book, ed. Furnivall, p. 245. Palsgrave, s. v. _Throwe_, has: 'I throwe a man _on his backe_ or _upright_, so that his face is upwarde, _Ie renuerse_.' And see Nares. Cf. 'Now dounward groffe [on your belly], and now _upright_'; Rom. Rose, 2561. _Bolt-upright_ occurs in l. 4266; where _bolt_ is 'like a bolt,' hence 'straight,' or exactly. See _Bolt_, adv., in the New E. Dictionary. And compare B. 1506.

4208. _daf_, fool; from E. _daf-t_. _cokenay_, a milk-sop, poor creature. The orig. sense of _coken-ay_ is 'cocks' egg,' from a singular piece of folk-lore which credited cocks with laying such eggs as happen to be imperfect. 'The small yolkless eggs which hens sometimes lay are called "cocks' eggs," generally in the firm persuasion that the name states a fact'; Shropshire Folklore, by C. S. Burne, p. 229. The idea is old, and may be found gravely stated as a fact in Bartolomæus De Proprietatibus Rerum (14th century). See _Cockney_ in the New E. Dictionary.

4210. _Unhardy is unsely_, the cowardly man has no luck. 'Audentes [126] fortuna iuuat'; Vergil, Aen. x. 284. So also our 'Nothing venture, nothing have,' and 'Faint heart never won fair lady'; which see in Hazlitt's Proverbs. For _seel_, luck, see l. 4239. See Troil. iv. 602, and the note.

4220. Pronounce _ben'cite_ in three syllables; as usual.

4233. _The thridde cok_; apparently, between 5 and 6 A.M.; see note to line 3675 above. It was near dawn; see l. 4249.

4236. _Malin_, another form of _Malkin_, which is a pet-name for _Matilda_. See my note to P. Plowman, C. ii. 181, where my statement that _Malkin_ occurs in the present passage refers to Tyrwhitt's edition, which substitutes _Malkin_ for the _Malin_ or _Malyn_ of the MSS. and of ed. 1532. Cf. B. 30.

'_Malyn_, tersorium,' Cath. Anglicum; i. e. _Malin_, like _Malkin_, also meant a dishclout. _Malin_ has now become _Molly_.

4244. _cake._ In Wright's Glossaries, ed. Wülker, col. 788, l. 36, we find, '_Hic panis subverucius_, a meleres cake'; on which Wright remarks: 'Perhaps this name alludes to the common report that the miller always stole the flour from his customers to make his cakes, which were baked on the sly.'

4253. _toty_, in the seven MSS.; _totty_ in ed. 1532. It means 'dizzy, reeling'; and Halliwell, s. v. _Totty_, quotes from MS. Rawl. C. 86: 'So _toty_ was the brayn of his hede.' Cf. 'And some also so _toty_ in theyr heade'; Lydgate, Siege of Troy, ed. 1555, fol. L 1, back. Spenser has the word twice, as _tottie_ or _totty_, and evidently copied it from this very passage, which he read in a black-letter edition; see his Shep. Kal., _February_, 55, and F. Q. vii. 7. 39. Cf. E. _totter_.

4257. _a twenty devel way_, with extremely ill-luck. See note to l. 3713.

4264. Compare B. 1417.

4272. _linage_; her grandfather was a priest; see note to l. 3943.

4278. _poke_, bag; cf. the proverb, 'To buy a pig in a poke.'

'Than on the grounde together rounde With many a sadde stroke They roule and rumble, they turne and tumble, _As pygges do in a poke_.' Sir T. More, A Merrie Iest, &c. (1510).

This juvenile poem by Sir T. More is printed in Hazlitt's Popular Poetry, iii. 128, and in the Preface to Todd's Johnson.

4286. _Bromeholm._ A piece of what was supposed to be the true cross was brought from the East by an English priest to Norfolk in 1223, and immediately became famous as an object of pilgrimage. It is called the 'Rode [rood] of Bromeholme' in P. Plowman, B. v. 231; see my note to that line.

4287. The full form is quoted in the note to Scott's Marmion, can. ii. st. 13:--'In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum; a vinculis enim mortis redemisti me, Domine veritatis, Amen.' In [127] Ratis Raving, &c., ed. Lumby, p. 8, l. 263, the form ends with 'spiritum meum, domine, deus veritatis.' In Reliquiae Antiquae, i. 235, the following translation of the Latin form is given:--

'Loverd Godd, in hondes thine I bequethe soule mine; Thu me boctest with thi deadd, Loverd Godd of sothfastheedd.'

It here occurs in company with the Creed, the Paternoster, and the Ave Maria; so that it was one of the very common religious formulae which were familiar, even in the Latin form, to people of no education. They frequently knew the words of these forms, without knowing more than the general sense. _In manus tuas_, &c., was even recited by criminals before being hung; see Skelton's Works, ed. Dyce, i. 5, 292, ii. 268. The words are mostly taken from the Vulgate version of Luke, xxiii. 46.

4290. _oon_, one, some one; not common at this date.

4295. Cf. Roman de la Rose, 12720:--'Qui set bien de l'ostel les _estres_,' i. e. who knows well the inner parts of the hostel. See note to A. 1971 above.

4302. _volupeer_, nightcap; see note to A. 3241.

4307. _harrow_, a cry for help; see note to A. 3286.

4320. _Him thar_, lit. 'it needs him,' i. e. he need, he must. For _thar_, ed. 1532 has _dare_, which Tyrwhitt rightly corrects to _thar_, which occurs again in D. 329, 336, 1365, and H. 352. It is common enough in early authors; the full form is _tharf_, as in Owl and Nightingale, 803 (or 180), Moral Ode (Jesus MS.), 44; spelt _tharrf_, Ormulum, 12886; _therf_, Ancren Riwle, p. 192; _darf_, Floris and Blancheflur, 315; _derf_, O. Eng. Homilies, ed. Morris, i. 187, l. 31; _dar_, Octovian, 1337; &c. The pt. t. is _thurfte_, _thurte_, _thorte_; see _tharf_ and _thurfen_ in Stratmann, and cf. A. S. _thearf_, pt. t. _thurfte_. For _wene_, the correct reading, Tyrwhitt substitutes _winne_, against all authority, because he could make no sense of _wene_. It is odd that he should have missed the sense so completely. _Wene_ is to imagine, think, also to expect; and the line means 'he must not expect good who does evil.' The very word is preserved by Ray, in his Proverbs, 3rd ed., 1737, p. 288:--'He that evil does, never good _weines_.' Hazlitt quotes a proverb to a like effect: 'He that does what he should not, shall feel what he would not.' Cf. 'Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap'; Gal. vi. 7.

4321. A common proverb; cf. Ps. vii. 16, ix. 15.

'For often he that will beguile Is guiled with the same guile, And thus the guiler is beguiled.' Gower, Conf. Amant (bk. vi), iii. 47.

'Begyled is the gyler thanne'; Rom. Rose, 5759.

See further in my note to P. Plowman, C. xxxi. 166, and Kemble's Solomon and Saturn, p. 63. Le Rom. de la Rose, 7381, has:--'Qui les deceveors deçoivent.' [128]

I can add another example from Caxton's Fables of Æsop, lib. ii. fab. 12 (The Fox and the Stork):--'And therfore he that begyleth other is oftyme begyled hymself.'

THE COOK'S PROLOGUE.

4329. _herbergage_, lodging; alluding to l. 4123.

4331. Not from Solomon, but from Ecclesiasticus, xi. 31: 'Non omnem hominem inducas in domum tuum; multae enim sunt insidiae dolosi.' In the E. version, it is verse 29.

4336. _Hogge_, Hodge, for _Roger_ (l. 4353). _Ware_, in Hertfordshire.

4346. _laten blood_, let blood, i. e. removed gravy from. It refers to a meat-pie, baked with gravy in it; as it was not sold the day it was made, the gravy was removed to make it keep longer; and so the pie was eaten at last, when far from being new.

4347. The meaning of 'a Jack of Dover' has been much disputed, but it probably meant a pie that had been cooked more than once. Some have thought it meant a sole (probably a fried sole), as 'Dover soles' are still celebrated; but this is only a guess, and seems to be wrong. Sir T. More, Works, p. 675 E, speaks of a '_Jak of Paris_, an evil pye twyse baken'; which is probably the same thing. Roquefort's _French Dict._ has:--

'_Jaquet_, _Jaket_, impudent, menteur. C'est sans doute de ce mot que les pâtissiers ont pris leur mot d'argot _jaques_, pour signifier qu'une pièce de volaille, de viande ou de pâtisserie cuite au four, est vieille ou dure.'

See Hazlitt's Proverbs, p. 20; and Hazlitt's Shakespeare Jest-books, ii. 366. Hence, in a secondary sense, _Jack of Dover_ meant an old story, or hashed up anecdote. Ray says:--'This he [T. Fuller] makes parallel to _Crambe bis cocta_, and applicable to such as grate the ears of their auditors with ungrateful tautologies of what is worthless in itself; tolerable as once uttered in the notion of novelty, but abominable if repeated.' This may explain the fact that an old jest-book was printed with the title _A Jack of Dover_ in 1604, and again in 1615. The E. word _jack_ has indeed numerous senses.

4350. The insinuation is that stray flies were mixed up with the parsley served up with the Cook's geese. Tyrwhitt quotes from MS. Harl. 279--'Take _percely_,' &c. in a receipt for stuffing a goose; so that parsley was sometimes used for this purpose. It was also used for stuffing chickens; see Liber Cure Cocorum, ed. Morris, p. 22.

4357. 'A true jest is an evil jest.' Hazlitt, in his Collection of Proverbs, gives, 'True jest is no jest,' and quotes 'Sooth bourd is no bourd' from Heywood, and from Harington's Brief Apologie of Poetrie, 1591. Kelly's Scotch Proverbs includes: 'A sooth bourd is nae bourd.' Tyrwhitt alters the second _play_ to _spel_, as being a Flemish word, but he only found it in two MSS. (Askew 1 and 2), and nothing is gained [129] by it. The fact is, that there is nothing Flemish about the proverb except the word _quad_, though there may have been an equivalent proverb in that language. We must take Chaucer's remark to mean that 'Sooth play is what a Fleming would call _quaad_ play'; which is then quite correct. For just as Flemish does not use the English words _sooth_ and _play_, so English seldom uses the Flemish form _quaad_, equivalent to the Dutch _kwaad_, evil, bad, spelt _quade_ in Hexham's Du. Dict. (1658). Cf. also O. Friesic _kwad_, _quad_, East Friesic _kwâd_ (still in common use). The Mid. Eng. form is not _quad_, but (properly) _qu[=e]d_ or _queed_; see examples in Stratmann, s. v. _cwêd_. In P. Plowman, B. xiv. 189, _the qued_ means the Evil One, the devil. _Queed_ occurs as a sb. as late as in Skelton, ed. Dyce, i. 168. We find, however, the rare M. E. form _quad_ in Gower, ed. Pauli, ii. 246, and in the Story of Genesis and Exodus, ed. Morris, 536; and in another passage of the Cant. Tales, viz. B. 1628. The oldest English examples seem to be those in the Blickling Glosses, viz. 'of cweade arærende, _de stercore erigens_'; and 'cwed _uel_ meox, _stercus_.' There is no difficulty about the etymology; the corresponding O. H. G. word is _qu[=a]t_, whence G. _Koth_ or _Kot_, excrement; and the root appears in the Skt. _gu_ or _g[=u]_, to void excrement; see _Kot_ in Kluge.

4358. This is interesting, as giving us the Host's name. _Herry_ is the mod. E. _Harry_, with the usual change from _er_ to _ar_, as in M. E. _derk_, dark, &c. It is the same as the F. _Herri_ (not uncommon in O. F.), made from F. _Henri_ by assimilation of _nr_ to _rr_.

The name seems to have been taken from that of a real person. In the Subsidy Rolls, 4 Rich. II. (1380-1), for Southwark, occurs the entry--'Henri' Bayliff, Ostyler, Xpian [Christian] ux[or] eius ... ij s.' In the parliament held at Westminster, in 50 Edw. III. (1376-7), Henry Bailly was one of the representatives for that borough; and again, in the parliament at Gloucester, 2 Rich. II., the name occurs. See Notes and Queries, 2 S. iii. 228.

THE COKES TALE.

4368. 'Brown as a berry.' So in A. 207.

4377. 'There were sometimes Justs in Cheapside; Hollingshead, vol. ii. p. 348. But perhaps any procession may be meant.'--Tyrwhitt. 'Cheapside was the grand scene of city festivals and processions.'--Wright.

4379. T. has _And til_, but his note says that _And_ was inserted by himself. Wright reads, 'And tyl he hadde'; but _And_ is not in the Harleian MS. Observe that Wright insists very much on the fact that he reproduces this MS. 'with literal accuracy,' though he allows himself, according to his own account, to make silent alterations due to collation with the Lansdowne MS. But the word _And_ is not to be found in any of the seven MSS., and this is only _one_ example of the numerous cases in which he has _silently_ altered his text without any [130] MS. authority at all. His text, in fact, is full of treacherous pitfalls; and Bell's edition is quite as bad, though that likewise pretends to be accurate.

The easiest way of scanning the line is to ignore the elision of the final _e_ in _had-de_, which is preserved, as often, by the cæsural pause.

4383. _sette steven_, made an appointment; see A. 1524.

4394. 'Though he (the master) may have,' &c.

4396. 'Though he (the apprentice) may know how to play,' &c. Opposed to l. 4394. The sense is--'The master pays for the revelling of the apprentice, though he takes no part in such revel; and conversely, the apprentice may gain skill in minstrelsy, but takes no part in paying for it; for, in his case, his rioting is convertible with theft.' The master pays, but plays not; the other pays not, but plays.

4397. 'Revelling and honesty, in the case of one of low degree (who has no money), are continually wrath with (i. e. opposed to) each other.'

4402. 'And sometimes carried off to Newgate, with revel (such as he might be supposed to approve of).' The point of the allusion lies in the fact that, when disorderly persons were carried to prison, they were preceded _by minstrels_, in order to call public attention to their disgrace. This is clearly shewn in the Liber Albus, pp. 459, 460, (p. 396 of the E. translation). E. g. 'Item, if any person shall be impeached of adultery, and be thereof lawfully attainted, let him be _taken unto Newgate_, and from thence, _with minstrelsy_, through Chepe, to the Tun on Cornhulle [Cornhill], there to remain at the will of the mayor and alderman.'

4404. _paper._ The allusion is not clear; perhaps it means that he was referring to his account-book, and found it unsatisfactory.

4406. In Hazlitt's Proverbs we find; 'The rotten apple injures its neighbour.' Cf. G. 964.

In the Ayenbite of Inwyt, p. 205, we are bidden to avoid bad company, because a rotten apple rots the sound ones, if left among them.

In Ida von Düringsfeld's Sprichwörter, 1872-5, no. 354, is:--'Ein fauler Apfel steckt den andern an. Pomum compunctum cito corrumpit sibi iunctum.'

4413. _his leve_, his leave to go, his dismissal, his _congé_.

4414. _or leve_, or leave it, i. e. or desist from it.

4415. _for_, because, since. _louke_, an accomplice who entices the dupe into the thief's company, a decoyer of victims. Not 'a receiver to a thief,' as Tyrwhitt guessed, but his assistant in thieving, one who helped him (as Chaucer says) to suck others by stealing or borrowing. It answers to an A. S. _*l[=u]ca_ (not found), formed with the agential suffix _-a_ from _l[=u]can_, lit. to pull, pluck, root up weeds, hence (probably) to draw, entice. The corresponding E. Friesic _l[=u]kan_ or _lukan_ means not only to pull, pluck, but also to milk or suck (see Koolman). The Low G. _luken_ means not only to pull up weeds, but [131] also to suck down, or to take a long pull in drinking; hence O. F. _louchier_, _loukier_, to swallow. From the A. S. _l[=u]can_, to pluck up, comes the common prov. E. _louk_, _lowk_, _look_, to pluck up weeds; see Ray, Whitby Glossary, &c.

4417. _brybe_, to purloin; not to bribe in the modern sense; see the New E. Dict.

4422. Here the Tale suddenly breaks off; so it was probably never finished.

*** See Notes to Gamelin at the end of the Notes to the Tales.

* * * * *

[132]

NOTES TO GROUP B.

INTRODUCTION TO THE MAN OF LAWES TALE.

1. If, as Mr. Furnivall supposes, the time of the telling of the Canterbury Tales be taken to be longer than one day, we may suppose the Man of Lawes Tale to begin the stories told on the _second_ morning of the journey, April 18. Otherwise, we must suppose all the stories in Group A to precede it, which is not impossible, if we suppose the pilgrims to have started early in the morning.

_Hoste._ This is one of the words which are sometimes dissyllabic, and sometimes monosyllabic; it is here a dissyllable, as in l. 39. See note to line 1883 below.

_sey_, i. e. saw. The forms of 'saw' vary in the MSS. In this line we find _saugh_, _sauh_, _segh_, _sauhe_, _sawh_, none of which are Chaucer's own, but due to the scribes. The true form is determined by the rime, as in the Clerkes Tale, E. 667, where most of the MSS. have _say_. A still better spelling is _sey_, which may be found in the House of Fame, 1151, where it rimes with _lay_. The A. S. form is _s[=e]ah_.

2. _The ark_, &c. In Chaucer's Treatise on the Astrolabe, pt. ii. ch. 7 (vol. iii. 194), is the proposition headed--'to knowe the arch of the day, that some folk callen the day artificial, from the sonne arysing til hit go to reste.' Thus, while the 'day natural' is twenty-four hours, the 'day artificial' is the time during which the sun is above the horizon. The 'arc' of this day merely means the extent or duration of it, as reckoned along the circular rim of an astrolabe; or, when measured along the horizon (as here), it means the arc extending from the point of sunrise to that of sunset. _ronne_, run, performed, completed.

3. _The fourthe part._ The true explanation of this passage, which Tyrwhitt failed to discover, is due to Mr. A. E. Brae, who first published it in May, 1851, and reprinted it at p. 68 of his edition of Chaucer's Treatise on the Astrolabe. His conclusions were based upon actual calculation, and will be mentioned in due order. In re-editing the 'Astrolabe,' I took the opportunity of roughly checking his calculations by other methods, and am satisfied that he is quite correct, and that the day meant is not the 28th of April, as in the Ellesmere MS., nor the 13th of April, as in the Harleian MS., but the 18th, as in the Hengwrt [133] MS. and most others. It is easily seen that _xviii_ may be corrupted into _xxviii_ by prefixing _x_, or into _xiii_ by the omission of _v_; this may account for the variations.

The key to the whole matter is given by a passage in Chaucer's 'Astrolabe,' pt. ii. ch. 29, where it is clear that Chaucer (who, however, merely translates from Messahala) actually confuses the hour-angle with the azimuthal arc; that is, he considered it correct to find the hour of the day by noting _the point of the horizon_ over which the sun appears to stand, and supposing this point to advance, with a _uniform_, not a _variable_, motion. The host's method of proceeding was this. Wanting to know the hour, he observed how far the sun had moved southward along the horizon since it rose, and saw that it had gone more than half-way from the point of sunrise to the exact southern point. Now the 18th of April in Chaucer's time answers to the 26th of April at present. On April 26, 1874, the sun rose at 4h. 43m., and set at 7h. 12m., giving a day of about 14h. 30m., the fourth part of which is at 8h. 20m., or, with sufficient exactness, at _half-past eight_. This would leave a whole hour and a half to signify Chaucer's 'half an houre and more,' shewing that further explanation is still necessary. The fact is, however, that the host reckoned, as has been said, in another way, viz. by observing the sun's position _with reference to the horizon_. On April 18 the sun was in the 6th degree of Taurus at that date, as we again learn from Chaucer's treatise. Set this 6th degree of Taurus on the East horizon on a globe, and it is found to be 22 degrees to the North of the East point, or 112 degrees from the South. The half of this is at 56 degrees from the South; and the sun would seem to stand above this 56th degree, as may be seen even upon a globe, at about a quarter past nine; but Mr. Brae has made the calculation, and shews that it was at _twenty minutes past nine_. This makes Chaucer's 'half an houre and more' to stand for _half an hour and ten minutes_; an extremely neat result. But this we can check again by help of the host's _other_ observation. He _also_ took note, that the lengths of a shadow and its object were equal, whence the sun's altitude must have been 45 degrees. Even a globe will shew that the sun's altitude, when in the 6th degree of Taurus, and at 10 o'clock in the morning, is somewhere about 45 or 46 degrees. But Mr. Brae has calculated it exactly, and his result is, that the sun attained its altitude of 45 degrees at _two minutes to ten_ exactly. This is even a closer approximation than we might expect, and leaves no doubt about the right date being the _eighteenth_ of April. For fuller particulars, see Chaucer on the Astrolabe, ed. Brae, p. 69; and ed. Skeat (E.E.T.S.), preface, p. 1.

5. _eightetethe_, eighteenth. Mr. Wright prints _eightetene_, with the remark that 'this is the reading in which the MSS. seem mostly to agree.' This is right in substance, but not critically exact. No such word as _eightetene_ appears here in the MSS., which denote the number by an abbreviation, as stated in the footnote. The Hengwrt MS. has _xviijthe_, and the Old English for _eighteenth_ must have have been [134] _eightetethe_, the ordinal, not the cardinal number. This form is easily inferred from the numerous examples in which _-teenth_ is represented by _-tethe_; see _feowertethe_, _fiftethe_, &c. in Stratmann's Old English Dictionary; we find the very form _eightetethe_ in Rob. of Glouc., ed. Wright, 6490; and _eighteteothe_ in St. Swithin, l. 5, as printed in Poems and Lives of Saints, ed. Furnivall, 1858, p. 43. _Eighte_ is of two syllables, from A. S. _eahta_, cognate with Lat. _octo_. _Eightetethe_ has four syllables; see A. 3223, and the note.

8. _as in lengthe_, with respect to its length.

13. The astrolabe which Chaucer gave to his little son Lewis was adapted for the latitude of Oxford. If, as is likely, the poet-astronomer checked his statements in this passage by a reference to it, he would neglect the difference in latitude between Oxford and the Canterbury road. In fact, it is less than a quarter of a degree, and not worth considering in the present case.

14. _gan conclude_, did conclude, concluded. _Gan_ is often used thus as an auxiliary verb.

15. _plighte_, plucked; cf. _shrighte_, shrieked, in Kn. A. 2817.--M.

16. _Lordinges_, sirs. This form of address is exceedingly common in Early English poetry. Cf. the first line in the Tale of Sir Thopas.

18. _seint Iohn._ See the Squire's Tale, F. 596.

19. _Leseth_, lose ye; note the form of the imperative plural in _-eth_; cf. l. 37. _As ferforth as ye may_, as far as lies in your power.

20. _wasteth_, consumeth; cf. _wastour_, a wasteful person, in P. Plowm. B. vi. 154.--M. Hl. has _passeth_, i. e. passes away; several MSS. insert _it_ before _wasteth_, but it is not required by the metre, since the _e_ in _time_ is here fully sounded; cf. A. S. _t[=i]ma_. Compare--

'The tyme, that passeth night and day, And rest[e]lees travayleth ay, And _steleth_ from us so prively, . . . . . . _As water that doun runneth ay,_ _But never drope returne may_,' &c. Romaunt of the Rose, l. 369.

See also Clerkes Tale, E. 118.

21. _what._ We now say--what with. It means, 'partly owing to.'

22. _wakinge_; strictly, it means _watching_; but here, _in our wakinge_ = whilst we are awake.

23. Cf. Ovid, Art. Amat. iii. 62-65:--

'Ludite; eunt anni more fluentis aquae. Nec quae praeteriit, cursu reuocabitur unda; Nec, quae praeteriit, hora redire potest. Utendum est aetate; cito pede labitur aetas.'

25. Seneca wrote a treatise De Breuitate Temporis, but this does not contain any passage very much resembling the text. I have no doubt that Chaucer was thinking of a passage which may easily have caught [135] his eye, as being very near the beginning of the first of Seneca's epistles. 'Quaedam tempora eripiuntur nobis, quaedam subducuntur, quaedam _effluunt. Turpissima tamen est iactura, quae per negligentiam fit._ Quem mihi dabis, qui aliquod pretium tempori ponat? qui diem aestimet?... In huius rei unius fugacis ac lubricae possessionem natura nos misit, ex qua expellit quicumque uult; et tanta stultitia mortalium est, ut, quae minima et uilissima sint, _certe reparabilia_, imputari sibi, quum impetrauere, patiantur; nemo se iudicet quidquam debere, qui tempus accepit, quum interim _hoc unum est, quod ne gratus quidem potest reddere_'; Epist. I.; Seneca Lucilio suo.

30. _Malkin_; a proverbial name for a wanton woman; see P. Plowman, C. ii. 181 (B. i. 182), and my note. 'There are more maids than Malkin'; Heywood's Proverbs.

32. _moulen_, lit. 'become mouldy'; hence, be idle, stagnate, remain sluggish, rot. See _Mouldy_ in the Appendix to my Etym. Dict. 2nd ed. 1884; and cf. note to A. 3870.

33. _Man of Lawe._ This is the 'sergeant of the lawe' described in the Prologue, ll. 309-330. _So have ye blis_, so may you obtain bliss; as you hope to reach heaven.

34. _as forward is_, as is the agreement. See Prologue, A. 33, 829.

35. _been submitted_, have agreed. This illustrates the common usage of expressing a perfect by the verb _to be_ and the past part. of an _intransitive_ verb. Cf. _is went_, in B. 1730.--M.

36. _at my Iugement_, at my decree; ready to do as I bid you. See Prologue, A. 818 and 833.

37. _Acquiteth yow_, acquit yourself, viz. by redeeming your promise. _holdeth your biheste_, keep your promise. _Acquit_ means to absolve or free oneself from a debt, obligation, charge, &c.; or to free oneself from the claims of duty, by fulfilling it.

38. _devoir_, duty; see Knightes Tale, A. 2598.

_atte leste_, at the least. _Atte_ or _atten_ is common in Old English for _at the_ or _at then_; the latter is a later form of A. S. _æt þ[=a]m_, where _then_ (= _þ[=a]m_) is the dative case of the article. But for the explanation of peculiar forms and words, the Glossarial Index should be consulted.

39. For _ich_, Tyrwhitt reads _jeo_ = _je_, though found in none of our seven MSS. This makes the whole phrase French--_de par dieux jeo assente_. Mr. Jephson suggests that this is a clever hit of Chaucer's, because he makes the Man of Lawe talk in French, with which, as a lawyer, he was very familiar. However, we find elsewhere--

'Quod Troilus, "_depardieux I assente_";'--

and again--

'"_Depardieux_," quod she, "god leve al be wel";' Troilus and Cres. ii. 1058 and 1212;

and in the Freres Tale, D. 1395--

'"_Depardieux_," quod this yeman, "dere brother."'

[136]

It is much more to the point to observe that the Man of Lawe talks about _law_ in l. 43. Cotgrave, in his French Dictionary, under _par_, gives--'_De par Dieu soit_, a [i. e. in] God's name be it. _De par moy_, by my means. _De par le roy_, by the king's appointment.' _De par_ is a corruption of O.Fr. _de part_, on the part or side of; so that _de par le roy_ means literally, 'as for the king,' i. e. 'in the king's name.' Similarly, _de par Dieu_ is 'in God's name.' See Burguy, Grammaire de la Langue D'oil, ii. 359. The form _dieux_ is a _nominative_, from the Latin _deus_; thus exhibiting an exception to the almost universal law in French, that the modern F. substantives answer to the _accusative_ cases of Latin substantives, as _fleur_ to _florem_, &c. Other exceptions may be found in some proper names, as _Charles_, _Jacques_, from _Carolus_, _Jacobus_, and in _fils_, from _filius_.

41. In the Morality entitled Everyman, in Hazlitt's Old Eng. Plays, i. 137, is the proverb--'Yet promise is debt.' Mr. Hazlitt wrongly considers that as the earliest instance of the phrase.--M. Cf. Hoccleve, De Regim. Principum, p. 64:--'And of a trewe man _beheest is dette_.'

_holde fayn_, &c.; gladly perform all my promise.

43. _man ... another_ = one ... another. The Cambridge MS. is right.--M. 'For whatever law a man imposes on others, he should in justice consider as binding on himself.' This is obviously a _quotation_, as appears from l. 45. The expression referred to was probably proverbial. An English proverb says--'They that make the laws must not break them'; a Spanish one--'El que ley establece, guardarla debe,' he who makes a law ought to keep it; and a Latin one--'Patere legem quam ipse tulisti,' abide by the law which you made yourself. The idea is expanded in the following passage from Claudian's Panegyric on the 4th consulship of Honorius, carm. viii., l. 296.--

'In commune iubes si quid censesue tenendum, Primus iussa subi; tunc obseruantior aequi Fit populus, nec ferre negat cum uiderit ipsum Auctorem parere sibi.'

45. _text_, quotation from an author, precept, saying. _Thus wol our text_, i. e. such is what the expression implies.

47. _But._ This reading is given by Tyrwhitt, from MS. Dd. 4. 24 in the Cambridge University Library and two other MSS. All our seven MSS. read _That_; but this would require the word _Nath_ (hath not) instead of _Hath_, in l. 49. Chaucer talks about his writings in a similar strain in A. 746, 1460; and at a still earlier period, in his House of Fame, 620, where Jupiter's eagle says to him:--

'And nevertheles hast set thy wit, Although that in thy hede ful lyte is, To make bokes, songes, dytees, In ryme, or elles in cadence, As thou best canst, in reverence Of Love, and of his servants eke'; &c.

[137]

_can but lewedly on metres_, is but slightly skilled in metre. _Can_ = _knows_ here; in the line above it is the ordinary auxiliary verb.

54. Ovid is mentioned for two reasons; because he has so many love-stories, and because Chaucer himself borrowed several of his own from Ovid.

_made of mencioun_; we should now say--'made mention of.'

55. _Epistelles_, Epistles. (T. prints _Epistolis_, the Lat. form, without authority. The word has here four syllables.) The book referred to is Ovid's Heroides, which contains twenty-one love-letters. See note to l. 61.

56. _What_, why, on what account? cf. Prologue, A. 184.

57. 'The story of Ceyx and Alcyone is related in the introduction to the poem which was for some time called "The Dreme of Chaucer," but which, in the MSS. Fairfax 16 and Bodl. 638, is more properly entitled, "The Boke of the Duchesse."'--Tyrwhitt. Chaucer took it from Ovid's Metamorphoses, bk. xi. 'Ceyx and Alcyone' was once, probably, an independent poem; see vol. i. p. 63.

59. _Thise_ is a monosyllable; the final _e_ probably denotes that _s_ was 'voiced,' and perhaps the _i_ was long, pronounced (dhiiz).

59, 60. For _eek_, _seek_, read _eke_, _seke_. Here _sek-e_ is in the infinitive mood. The form _ek-e_ is not etymological, as the A.S. _[=e]ac_ was a monosyllable; but, as _-e_ frequently denoted an _adverbial_ suffix, it was easily added. Hence, in M.E., both _eek_ and _ek-e_ occur; and Chaucer uses either form at pleasure, _ek-e_ being more usual. For examples of _eek_, see E. 1349, G. 794.

61. _the seintes legende of Cupyde_; better known now as The Legend of Good Women. Tyrwhitt says--'According to Lydgate (Prologue to Boccace), the number [of good women] was to have been _nineteen_; and perhaps the Legend itself affords some ground for this notion; see l. 283, and Court of Love, l. 108. But this number was never completed, and the last story, of Hypermnestra, is seemingly unfinished.... In this passage the Man of Lawe omits two ladies, viz. Cleopatra and Philomela, whose histories are in the Legend; and he enumerates eight others, of whom there are no histories in the Legend as we have it at present. Are we to suppose, that they have been lost?' The Legend contains the nine stories following: 1. Cleopatra; 2. Thisbe; 3. Dido; 4. Hypsipyle and Medea; 5. Lucretia; 6. Ariadne; 7. Philomela; 8. Phyllis; 9. Hypermnestra. Of these, Chaucer here mentions, as Tyrwhitt points out, all but two, Cleopatra and Philomela. Before discussing the matter further, let me note that in medieval times, proper names took strange shapes, and the reader must not suppose that the writing of _Adriane_ for _Ariadne_, for example, is peculiar to Chaucer. The meaning of the other names is as follows:--_Lucresse_, Lucretia; _Babilan Tisbee_, Thisbe of Babylon; _Enee_, Æneas; _Dianire_, Deianira; _Hermion_, Hermione; _Adriane_, Ariadne; _Isiphilee_, Hypsipyle; _Leander_, _Erro_, Leander and Hero; _Eleyne_, Helena; _Brixseyde_, [138] Briseis (acc. Briseïda); _Ladomea_, Laodamia; _Ypermistra_, Hypermnestra; _Alceste_, Alcestis.

Returning to the question of Chaucer's plan for his Legend of Good Women, we may easily conclude what his intention was, though it was never carried out. He intended to write stories concerning nineteen women who were celebrated for being martyrs of love, and to conclude the series by an additional story concerning queen Alcestis, whom he regarded as the best of all the good women. Now, though he does not expressly say who these women were, he has left us two lists, both incomplete, in which he mentions some of them; and by combining these, and taking into consideration the stories which he actually wrote, we can make out the whole intended series very nearly. One of the lists is the one given here; the other is in a Ballad which is introduced into the Prologue to the Legend. The key to the incompleteness of the present list, certainly the later written of the two, is that the poet chiefly mentions _here_ such names as are _also_ to be found in Ovid's Heroides; cf. l. 55. Putting all the information together, it is sufficiently clear that Chaucer's intended scheme must have been very nearly as follows, the number of women (if we include Alcestis) being twenty.

1. Cleopatra. 2. Thisbe. 3. Dido. 4. and 5. Hypsipyle and Medea. 6. Lucretia. 7. Ariadne. 8. Philomela. 9. Phyllis. 10. Hypermnestra (unfinished). _After which_, 11. Penelope. 12. Briseis. 13. Hermione. 14. Deianira. 15. Laodamia. 16. Helen. 17. Hero. 18. Polyxena (see the Ballad). 19. _either_ Lavinia (see the Ballad), _or_ Oenone (mentioned in Ovid, and in the House of Fame). 20. Alcestis.

Since the list of stories in Ovid's Heroides is the best guide to the whole passage, it is here subjoined.

In this list, the numbers refer to the letters as numbered in Ovid; the italics shew the stories which Chaucer actually wrote; the asterisk points out such of the remaining stories as he happens to mention in the present enumeration; and the dagger points out the ladies mentioned in his Prologue to the Legend of Good Women.

1. Penelope Ulixi.*+ 2. _Phyllis Demophoonti._*+ 3. Briseis Achilli.* 4. Phaedra Hippolyto. 5. Oenone Paridi. 6. _Hypsipyle Iasoni_;*+ 12. _Medea Iasoni_.* 7. _Dido Aeneae._*+ 8. Hermione Orestae.* 9. Deianira Herculi.* 10. _Ariadne Theseo._*+ 11. Canace Macareo*+ (_expressly rejected_). 13. Laodamia Protesilao.*+ 14. _Hypermnestra Lynceo._*+ 15. Sappho Phaoni. [139] 16. Paris Helenae; 17. Helena Paridi.*+ 18. Leander Heroni; 19. Hero Leandro.*+ 20. Acontius Cydippae; 21. Cydippe Acontio.

Chaucer's method, I fear, was to plan more than he cared to finish. He did so with his Canterbury Tales, and again with his Treatise on the Astrolabe; and he left the Squire's Tale half-told. According to his own account (Prologue to Legend of Good Women, l. 481) he never intended to write his Legend _all at once_, but only 'yeer by yere.' Such proposals are dangerous, and commonly end in incompleteness. To Tyrwhitt's question--'are we to suppose that they [i. e. the legends of Penelope and others] have been lost?' the obvious answer is, that they were never written.

Chaucer alludes to Ovid's Epistles again in his House of Fame, bk. i., where he mentions the stories of Phyllis, Briseis, _Oenone_ (not mentioned _here_), Hypsipyle, Medea, Deianira, Ariadne, and Dido; the last being told at some length. Again, in the Book of the Duchesse, he alludes to Medea, Phyllis, and Dido (ll. 726-734); to Penelope and Lucretia (l. 1081); and to Helen (l. 331). As for the stories in the Legend which are not in Ovid's Heroides, we find that of Thisbe in Ovid's Metamorphoses, bk. iv; that of Philomela in the same, bk. vi; whilst those of Cleopatra and Lucretia are in Boccaccio's book De Claris Mulieribus, from which he imitated the title 'Legend _of Good Women_,' and derived also the story of Zenobia, as told in the Monkes Tale. However, Chaucer also consulted other sources, such as Ovid's Fasti (ii. 721) and Livy for Lucretia, &c. See my Introduction to the Legend in vol. iii. pp. xxv., xxxvii.

With regard to the title 'seintes legend of Cupide,' which in modern English would be 'Cupid's Saints' Legend,' or 'the Legend of Cupid's Saints,' Mr. Jephson remarks--'This name is one example of the way in which Chaucer entered into the spirit of the heathen pantheism, as a real form of religion. He considers these persons, who suffered for love, to have been saints and martyrs for Cupid, just as Peter and Paul and Cyprian were martyrs for Christ.'

63. Gower also tells the story of Tarquin and Lucrece, which he took, says Professor Morley (English Writers, iv. 230), from the Gesta Romanorum, which again had it from Augustine's De Civitate Dei.

_Babilan_, Babylonian; elsewhere Chaucer has _Babiloine_ = Babylon, riming with _Macedoine_; Book of the Duchesse, l. 1061.

64. _swerd_, sword; put here for death by the sword. See Virgil's Aeneid, iv. 646; and Chaucer's Legend of Good Women, 1351.

65. _tree_, put here, most likely, for death by hanging; cf. last line. In Chaucer's Legend, 2485, we find--

'She was her owne deeth right _with a corde_.'

The word may also be taken literally, since Phyllis was metamorphosed after her death into a tree; Gower says she became a nut-tree, and [140] derives _filbert_ from Phyllis; Conf. Amant. bk. iv. Lydgate writes _filbert_ instead of Phyllis; Complaint of Black Knight, l. 68.

66. _The pleinte of Dianire_, the complaint of Deianira, referring to Ovid's letter 'Deianira Herculi'; so also that of _Hermion_ refers to the letter entitled 'Hermione Orestae'; that of _Adriane_, to the 'Ariadne Theseo'; and that of _Isiphilee_, to the 'Hypsipyle Iasoni.'

68. _bareyne yle_, barren island; of which I can find no correct explanation by a previous editor. It refers to Ariadne, mentioned in the previous line. The expression is taken from Ariadne's letter to Theseus, in Ovid's Heroides, Ep. x. 59, where we find 'uacat insula cultu'; and just below--

'Omne latus terrae cingit mare; nauita nusquam, Nulla per ambiguas puppis itura uias.'

Or, without referring to Ovid at all, the allusion might easily have been explained by observing Chaucer's Legend of Ariadne, l. 2163, where the island is described as solitary and desolate. It is said to have been the isle of Naxos.

69. Scan--The dreynt | e Lé | andér |. Here the pp. _dreynt_ is used adjectivally, and takes the final _e_ in the definite form. So in the Book of the Duchesse, 195, it is best to read _the dreynte_; and in the House of Fame, 1783, we must read _the sweynte_.

75. _Alceste._ The story of Alcestis--'that turned was into a dayesie'--is sketched by Chaucer in his Prologue to the Legend, l. 511, &c. No doubt he intended to include her amongst the Good Women, as the very queen of them all.

78. _Canacee_; not the Canace of the Squieres Tale, whom Chaucer describes as so kind and good as well as beautiful, but Ovid's Canace. The story is told by Gower, Confess. Amantis, book iii. It is difficult to resist the conclusion that Chaucer is here making a direct attack upon Gower, his former friend; probably because Gower had, in some places, imitated the earlier edition of Chaucer's Man of Lawes Tale. This difficult question is fully discussed in vol. iii. pp. 413-7.

81. 'Or else the story of Apollonius of Tyre.' The form _Tyro_ represents the Lat. ablative in 'Apollonius de Tyro.' This story, like that of Canacee (note to l. 78), is told by Gower, Conf. Amant. bk. viii., ed. Pauli, iii. 284; and here again Chaucer seems to reflect upon Gower. The story occurs in the Gesta Romanorum, in which it appears as Tale cliii., being the longest story in the whole collection. It is remarkable as being the only really romantic story extant in an Anglo-Saxon version; see Thorpe's edition of it, London, 1834. It is therefore much older than 1190, the earliest date assigned by Warton. Compare the play of Pericles, Prince of Tyre.

89. _if that I may_, as far as lies in my power (to do as I please); a common expletive phrase, of no great force.

90. _of_, as to, with regard to. _doon_, accomplish it.

92. _Pierides_; Tyrwhitt rightly says--'He rather means, I think, the [141] daughters of Pierus, that contended with the Muses, and were changed into pies; Ovid, Metam. bk. v.' Yet the expression is not wrong; it signifies--'I do not wish to be likened to those _would-be_ Muses, the Pierides'; in other words, I do not set myself up as worthy to be considered a poet.

93. _Metamorphoseos._ It was common to cite books thus, by a title in the _genitive case_, since the word _Liber_ was understood. There is, however, a slight error in this substitution of the singular for the plural; the true title being P. Ovidii Nasonis Metamorphoseon Libri Quindecim. See the use of _Eneydos_ in the Nonne Prestes Tale, B. 4549; and of _Judicum_ in Monk. Ta. B. 3236.

94. 'But, nevertheless, I care not a bean.' Cf. l. 4004 below.

95. _with hawe bake_, with plain fare, as Dr. Morris explains it; it obviously means something of a humble character, unsuited for a refined taste. This was left unexplained by Tyrwhitt, but we may fairly translate it literally by 'with a baked haw,' i. e. something that could just be eaten by a very hungry person. The expression _I sette nat an hawe_ (= I care not a haw) occurs in the Wyf of Bathes Prologue, D. 659. _Haws_ are mentioned as given to feed hogs in the Vision of Piers Plowman, B. x. 10; but in The Romance of William of Palerne, l. 1811, a lady actually tells her lover that they can live in the woods on _haws_, hips, acorns, and hazel-nuts. There is a somewhat similar passage in the Legend of Good Women, Prol. ll. 73-77. I see no difficulty in this explanation. That proposed by Mr. Jephson--'hark back'--is out of the question; we cannot rime _bak_ with _makë_, nor does it make sense.

_Baken_ was a strong verb in M. E., with the pp. _baken_ or _bake_ (A. S. _bacen_). Dr. Stratmann, apparently by mistake, enters this phrase under _hawe_, adj. dark grey! But he refrains from explaining _bake_.

96. _I speke in prose_, I generally have to speak in prose in the law courts; so that if my tale is prosy as compared with Chaucer's, it is only what you would expect. Dr. Furnivall suggests that perhaps the prose tale of Melibeus was originally meant to be assigned to the Man of Lawe. See further in vol. iii. p. 406.

98. _after_, afterwards, immediately hereafter. Cf. _other_ for _otherwise_ in Old English.--M.

PROLOGUE TO THE MAN OF LAWES TALE.

99-121. It is important to observe that more than three stanzas of this Prologue are little else than a translation from the treatise by Pope Innocent III. entitled De Contemptu Mundi, sive de Miseria Conditionis Humanae. This was first pointed out by Prof. Lounsbury, of Yale, Newhaven, U.S.A., in the _Nation_, July 4, 1889. He shewed that the lost work by Chaucer (viz. his translation of 'the Wreched Engendring of Mankinde As man may in Pope Innocent y-finde,' mentioned in the Legend of Good Women, Prologue A, l. 414) is not lost altogether, [142] since we find traces of it in the first four stanzas of the present Prologue; in the stanzas of the Man of Lawes Tale which begin, respectively, with lines 421, 771, 925, and 1135; and in some passages in the Pardoner's Prologue; as will be pointed out.

It will be observed that if Chaucer, as is probable, has preserved extracts from this juvenile work of his without much alteration, it must have been originally composed in seven-line stanzas, like his Second Nonnes Tale and Man of Lawes Tale.

I here transcribe the original of the present passage from Innocent's above-named treatise, lib. i. c. 16, marking the places where the stanzas begin.

_De miseria divitis et pauperis._ (99) Pauperes enim premuntur inedia, cruciantur aerumna, fame, siti, frigore, nuditate; vilescunt, tabescunt, spernuntur, et confunduntur. O miserabilis mendicantis conditio; et si petit, pudore confunditur, et si non petit, egestate consumitur, sed ut mendicet, necessitate compellitur. (106) Deum causatur iniquum, quod non recte dividat; proximum criminatur malignum, quod non plene subveniat. Indignatur, murmurat, imprecatur. (113) Adverte super hoc sententiam Sapientis, 'Melius est,' inquit, 'mori quam indigere': 'Etiam proximo suo pauper odiosus erit.' 'Omnes dies pauperis mali'; (120) 'fratres hominis pauperis oderunt eum; insuper et amici procul recesserunt ab eo.'

For further references to the quotations occurring in the above passage, see the notes below, to ll. 114, 118, 120.

99. _poverte_ = _povértë_, with the accent on the second syllable, as it rimes with _herte_; in the Wyf of Bathes Tale, it rimes with _sherte_. Poverty is here personified, and addressed by the Man of Lawe. The whole passage is illustrated by a similar long passage near the end of the Wyf of Bathes Tale, in which the opposite side of the question is considered, and the poet shews what can be said in Poverty's praise. See D. 1177-1206.

101. _Thee_ is a dative, like _me_ in l. 91.--M. See Gen. ii. 15 (A. S. version), where _him þæs ne sceamode_ = they were not ashamed of it; lit. it shamed them not of it.

102. _artow_, art thou; the words being run together: so also _seistow_ = sayest thou, in l. 110.

104. _Maugree thyn heed_, in spite of all you can do; lit. despite thy head; see Knightes Tale, A. 1169, 2618, D. 887.

105. _Or ... or_ = either ... or; an early example of this construction.--M.

108. _neighebour_ is a trisyllable; observe that _e_ in the middle of a word is frequently sounded; cf. l. 115. _wytest_, blamest.

110. 'By my faith, sayest thou, he will have to account for it hereafter, when his tail shall burn in the fire (lit. glowing coal), because he helps not the needy in their necessity.'

114. 'It is better (for thee) to die than be in need.' Tyrwhitt says--'This saying of Solomon is quoted in the Romaunt of the Rose, [143] l. 8573--Mieux vault mourir que pauvres estre'; [l. 8216, ed. Méon.] The quotation is not from Solomon, but from Jesus, son of Sirach; see Ecclus. xl. 28, where the Vulgate has--'Melius est enim mori quam indigere.' Cf. B. 2761.

115. _Thy selve neighebor_, thy very neighbour, even thy next neighbour. See note to l. 108.

118. In Prov. xv. 15, the Vulgate version has--'Omnes dies _pauperis_ mali'; where the A. V. has 'the afflicted.'

119. The reading _to_ makes the line harsh, as the final _e_ in _come_ should be sounded, and therefore needs elision. _in that prikke_, into that point, into that condition; cf. l. 1028.

120. Cf. Prov. xiv. 20--'the poor is hated even of his neighbour'; or, in the Vulgate, 'Etiam proximo suo pauper odiosus erit.' Also Prov. xix. 7--'all the brethren of the poor do hate him; how much more do his friends go far from him'; or, in the Vulgate, 'Fratres hominis pauperis oderunt eum; insuper et amici procul recesserunt ab eo.' So too Ovid, Trist. i. 9. 5:--

'Donec eris felix, multos numerabis amicos, Tempora si fuerint nubila, solus eris.'

Chaucer has the same thought again in his Tale of Melibeus (p. 227, B. 2749)--'and if thy fortune change, that thou wexe povre, farewel freendshipe and felaweshipe!' See also note to B. 3436.

123. _as in this cas_, as relates to this condition or lot in life. In Chaucer, _cas_ often means _chance_, _hap_.

124. _ambes as_, double aces, two aces, in throwing dice. _Ambes_ is Old French for _both_, from Lat. _ambo_. The line in the Monkes Tale--'Thy _sys_ fortune hath turned into _as_' (B. 3851)--helps us out here in some measure, as it proves that a six was reckoned as a good throw, but an ace as a bad one. So in Shakespeare, Mids. Nt. Dream, v. 1. 314, we find _less than an ace_ explained as equivalent to _nothing_. In the next line, _sis cink_ means _a six and a five_, which was often a winning throw. The allusion is probably, however, not to the mere attempt as to which of two players could throw the highest, but to the particular game called _hazard_, in which the word _chance_ (here used) has a special sense. There is a good description of it in the Supplemental volume to the English Cyclopaedia, div. Arts and Sciences. The whole description has to be read, but it may suffice to say here that, when the caster is going to throw, he _calls a main_, or names one of the numbers five, six, seven, eight, or nine; most often, he calls seven. If he then throws either seven or eleven (Chaucer's _sis cink_), he wins; if he throws aces (Chaucer's _ambes as_) or deuce-ace (two and one), or double sixes, he loses. If he throws some other number, that number is called the caster's _chance_, and he goes on playing till either the main or the chance turns up. In the first case he loses, in the second, he wins. If he calls some other number, the winning and losing throws are somewhat varied; but in all cases, the double ace is a losing throw. [144]

Similarly, in The Pardoneres Tale, where _hazard_ is mentioned by name (C. 591), we find, at l. 653--'Seven is my chaunce, and thyn is cinq and treye,' i. e. eight.

In Lydgate's Order of Fools, printed in Queen Elizabeth's Academy, ed. Furnivall, p. 81, one fool is described--

'Whos chaunce gothe nether yn _synke or syse_; With _ambes ase_ encressithe hys dispence.'

And in a ballad printed in Chaucer's Works, ed. 1561, folio 340, back, we have--

'So wel fortuned is their chaunce The dice to turne[n] vppe-so-doune, With _sise and sincke_ they can auaunce.'

The phrase was already used proverbially before Chaucer's time. In the metrical Life of St. Brandan, ed. T. Wright, p. 23, we find, 'hi caste an _ambes as_,' they cast double aces, i. e. they wholly failed. See _Ambs-ace_ in the New E. Dict. Dr. Morris notes that the phrase 'aums ace' occurs in Hazlitt's O. E. Plays, ii. 35, with the editorial remark--'not mentioned elsewhere' (!).

126. _At Cristemasse_, even at Christmas, when the severest weather comes. In olden times, severe cold must have tried the poor even more than it does now.

'Muche myrthe is in may · amonge wilde bestes, And so forth whil somer lasteþ · heore solace dureþ; And muche myrthe amonge riche men is · þat han meoble [_property_] ynow and heele [_health_]. Ac beggers aboute myd-somere · bredlees þei soupe, And [gh]ut is wynter for hem wors · for wet-shood þei gangen, A-furst and a-fyngred [_Athirst and ahungered_] · and foule rebuked Of þese worlde-riche men · þat reuthe hit is to huyre [_hear of it_].' Piers Plowman, C. xvii. 10; B. xiv. 158.

127. _seken_, search through; much like the word _compass_ in the phrase 'ye compass sea and land' in Matth. xxiii. 15.

128. _thestaat_, for _the estaat_, i. e. the estate. This coalescence of the article and substantive is common in Chaucer, when the substantive begins with a vowel; cf. _thoccident_, B. 3864; _thorient_, B. 3871.

129. _fadres_, fathers, originators; by bringing tidings from afar.

130. _debat_, strife. Merchants, being great travellers, were expected to pick up good stories.

131. _were_, should be. _desolat_, destitute. 'The E. E. word is _westi_; 'westi of alle gode theawes,' destitute of all good virtues; O. Eng. Homilies, i. 285.'--M.

132. _Nere_, for _ne were_, were it not. _goon is, &c._, many a year ago, long since. [145]

THE TALE OF THE MAN OF LAWE.

A story, agreeing closely with The Man of Lawes Tale, is found in Book II. of Gower's Confessio Amantis, from which Tyrwhitt supposed that Chaucer borrowed it. But Gower's version seems to be later than Chaucer's, whilst Chaucer and Gower were both alike indebted to the version of the story in French prose (by Nicholas Trivet) in MS. Arundel 56, printed for the Chaucer Society in 1872. In some places Chaucer agrees with this French version rather closely, but he makes variations and additions at pleasure. Cf. vol. iii. p. 409.

The first ninety-eight lines of the preceding Prologue are written in couplets, in order to link the Tale to the others of the series; but there is nothing to show which of the other tales it was intended to follow. Next follows a more special Prologue of thirty-five lines, in five stanzas of seven lines each; so that the first line in the Tale is l. 134 of Group B, the second of the fragments into which the Canterbury Tales are broken up, owing to the incomplete state in which Chaucer left them.

134. _Surrie_, Syria; called _Sarazine_ (Saracen-land) by N. Trivet.

136. _spycerye_, grocery, &c., lit. spicery. The old name for a grocer was a _spicer_; and _spicery_ was a wide term. 'It should be noted that the Ital. _spezerie_ included a vast deal more than ginger and other "things hot i' the mouth." In one of Pegoletti's lists of _spezerie_ we find drugs, dye-stuffs, metals, wax, cotton,' &c.--Note by Col. Yule in his ed. of Marco Polo; on bk. i. c. 1.

143. _Were_ it, whether it were.

144. _message_, messenger, _not_ message; see l. 333, and the note.

145. The final _e_ in _Rome_ is pronounced, as in l. 142; but the words _the ende_ are to be run together, forming but _one_ syllable, _thende_, according to Chaucer's usual practice; cf. note to l. 255. Indeed in ll. 423, 965, it is actually so spelt; just as, in l. 150, we have _thexcellent_, and in l. 151, _themperoures_.

151. _themperoures_, the emperor's. Gower calls him Tiberius Constantine, who was Emperor (not of Rome, but) of the East, A. D. 578, and was succeeded, as in the story, by Maurice, A. D. 582. His capital was Constantinople, whither merchants from Syria could easily repair; but the greater fame of Rome caused the substitution of the Western for the Eastern capital.

156. _God him see_, God protect him. See note to C. 715.

161. _al Europe._ In the margin of MSS. E. Hn. Cp. Pt. Ln. is written the note 'Europa est tercia pars mundi.'

166. _mirour_, mirror. Such French words are frequently accented on the _last_ syllable. Cf. _minístr'_ in l. 168.

171. _han doon fraught_, have caused to be freighted. All the MSS. have _fraught_, not _fraughte_. In the Glossary to Specimens of English, I marked _fraught_ as being the infinitive mood, as Dr. Stratmann [146] supposes, though he notes the lack of the final e. I have now no doubt that _fraught_ is nothing but the past participle, as in William of Palerne, l. 2732--

'And feithliche _fraught_ ful of fine wines,'

which is said of a ship. The use of this past participle after a _perfect_ tense is a most remarkable idiom, but there is no doubt about its occurrence in the Clerkes Tale, Group E. 1098, where we find 'Hath doon yow _kept_,' where Tyrwhitt has altered _kept_ to _kepe_. On the other hand, Tyrwhitt actually notes the occurrence of 'Hath don _wroght_' in Kn. Tale, 1055, (A. 1913), which he calls an irregularity. A better name for it is idiom. I find similar instances of it in another author of the same period,

'Thai strak his hed of, and syne it Thai _haf gert saltit_ in-til a kyt.' Barbour's Bruce, ed. Skeat, xviii. 167.

I. e. they have caused it (to be) salted. And again in the same, bk. viii. l. 13, we have the expression _He gert held_, as if 'he caused to be held'; but it may mean 'he caused to incline.' Compare also the following:--

'And thai sall _let thame trumpit_ ill'; id. xix. 712.

I. e. and they shall consider themselves as evilly deceived.

In the Royal Wills, ed. Nichols, p. 278, we find:--'wher I have beforn ordeyned and _do mad_ [caused to be made] my tombe.'

The infinitive appears to have been _fraughten_, though the earliest certain examples of this form seem to be those in Shakespeare, Cymb. i. 1. 126, Temp. i. 2. 13. The proper form of the pp. was _fraughted_ (as in Marlowe, 2 Tamb. i. 2. 33), but the loss of final _-ed_ in past participles of verbs of which the stem ends in _t_ is common; cf. _set_, _put_, &c. Hence this form _fraught_ as a pp. in the present instance. It is a Scandinavian word, from Swed. _frakta_, Dan. _fragte_. At a later period we find _freight_, the mod. E. form. The vowel-change is due to the fact that there was an intermediate form _fret_, borrowed from the French form _fret_ of the Scandinavian word. This form _fret_ disturbed the vowel-sound, without wholly destroying the recollection of the original guttural _gh_, due to the Swed. _k_. For an example of _fret_, we have only to consult the old black-letter editions of Chaucer printed in 1532 and 1561, which give us the present line in the form--'These marchantes han don _fret_ her ships new.'

185. _ceriously_, 'seriously,' i. e. with great minuteness of detail. Used by Fabyan, who says that 'to reherce _ceryously_' all the conquests of Henry V would fill a volume; Chron., ed. Ellis, p. 589. Skelton, in his Garland of Laurell, l. 581, has: 'And _seryously_ she shewyd me ther denominacyons'; on which Dyce remarks that it means _seriatim_, and gives a clear example. It answers to the Low Latin _seriose_, used in two senses; (1) seriously, gravely; (2) minutely, [147] fully. In the latter case it is perhaps to be referred to the Lat. _series_, not _serius_. A similar word, _cereatly_ (Lat. _seriatim_), is found three times in the Romance of Partenay, ed. Skeat, with the sense of _in due order_; cf. _Ceriatly_ and _Ceryows_ in the New E. Dict.

In N. and Q. 7 S. xii. 183, I shewed that Lydgate has at least _ten_ examples of this use of the word in his Siege of Troye. In one instance it is spelt _seryously_ (with _s_).

190. This refers to the old belief in astrology and the casting of nativities. Cf. Prol. A. 414-418. Observe that ll. 190-203 are not in the original, and were doubtless added in revision. This is why _this sowdan_ in l. 186 is so far separated from the repetition of the same words in l. 204.

197. Tyrwhitt shews that this stanza is imitated closely from some Latin lines, some of which are quoted in the margin of many MSS. of Chaucer. He quotes them at length from the Megacosmos of Bernardus Silvestris, a poet of the twelfth century (extant in MS. Bodley 1265). The lines are as follows, it being premised that those printed in italics are cited in the margin of MSS. E. Hn. Cp. Pt. and Ln.:--

'Praeiacet in stellis series, quam longior aetas Explicet et spatiis temporis ordo suis, _Sceptra Phoronei, fratrum discordia Thebis,_ _Flamma Phaethontis Deucalionis aque_. In stellis Codri paupertas, copia Croesi, Incestus Paridis, Hippolytique pudor. _In stellis Priami species, audacia Turni,_ _Sensus Ulixeus, Herculeusque uigor._ In stellis pugil est Pollux et nauita Typhis, Et Cicero rhetor et geometra Thales. In stellis lepidum dictat Maro, Milo figurat, Fulgurat in Latia nobilitate Nero. Astra notat Persis, Ægyptus parturit artes, Graecia docta legit, praelia Roma gerit.'

See Bernardi Sylvestris Megacosmos, ed. C.S. Barach and J. Wrobel, Innsbruck, 1876, p. 16. The names _Ector_ (Hector), &c., are too well known to require comment. The death of Turnus is told at the end of Vergil's Æneid.

207, 208. Here _have_, forming part of the phrase _mighte have grace_, is unemphatic, whilst _han_ (for _haven_) is emphatic, and signifies possession. See _han_ again in l. 241.

211. Compare Squieres Tale, F. 202, 203, and the note thereon.

224. _Mahoun_, Mahomet. The French version does not mention Mahomet. This is an anachronism on Chaucer's part; the Emperor Tiberius II. died A. D. 582, when Mahomet was but twelve years old.

228. _I prey yow holde_, I pray you to hold. Here _holde_ is the infinitive mood. The imperative plural would be _holdeth_; see _saveth_, next line. [148]

236. _Maumettrye_, idolatry; from the Mid. E. _maumet_, an idol, corrupted from Mahomet. The confusion introduced by using the word _Mahomet_ for an idol may partly account for the anachronism in l. 224. The Mahometans were falsely supposed by our forefathers to be idolaters.

242. _noot_, equivalent to _ne woot_, know not.

248. _gret-è_ forms the fourth foot in the line. If we read _gret_, the line is left imperfect at the cæsura; and we should have to scan it with a medial pause, as thus:--

That thém | peróur || --óf | his grét | noblésse ||

Line 621 below may be read in a similar manner:--

But ná | thelées || --thér | was gréet | moorning ||

253. 'So, when Ethelbert married Bertha, daughter of the Christian King Charibert, she brought with her, to the court of her husband, a Gallican bishop named Leudhard, who was permitted to celebrate mass in the ancient British Church of St. Martin, at Canterbury.'--Note in Bell's Chaucer.

255. _ynowe_, being plural, takes a final _e_; we then read _th'ende_, as explained in note to l. 145. The pl. _ino[gh]he_ occurs in the Ormulum.

263. _alle and some_, collectively and individually; one and all. See Cler. Tale, E. 941, &c.

273-87. Not in the original; perhaps added in revision.

277. The word _alle_, being plural, is dissyllabic. _Thing_ is often a plural form, being an A. S. neuter noun. The words _over_, _ever_, _never_ are, in Chaucer, generally monosyllables, or nearly so; just as _o'er_, _e'er_, _ne'er_ are treated as monosyllables by our poets in general. Hence the scansion is--'Ov'r al | lë thing |,' &c.

289. The word _at_ is inserted from the Cambridge MS.; all the other six MSS. omit it, which makes the passage one of extreme difficulty. Tyrwhitt reads 'Or Ylion brent, or Thebes the citee.' Of course he means _brende_, past tense, not _brent_, the past participle; and his conjecture amounts to inserting _or_ before Thebes. It is better to insert _at_, as in MS. Cm.; see Gilman's edition. The sense is--'When Pyrrhus broke the wall, before Ilium burnt, (nor) at the city of Thebes, nor at Rome,' &c. _Nat_ (l. 290) = _Ne at_, as in Hl. _Ylion_, in medieval romance, meant 'the citadel' of Troy; see my note to l. 936 of the Legend of Good Women. Tyrwhitt well observes that 'Thebes the citee' is a French phrase. He quotes 'dedans Renes _la cite_,' Froissart, v. i. c. 225.

295-315. Not in the original, and clearly a later addition. They include an allusion to Boethius (see next note).

295. In the margin of the Ellesmere MS. is written--'Vnde Ptholomeus, libro i. cap. 8. Primi motus celi duo sunt, quorum vnus est qui mouet totum semper ab Oriente in Occidentem vno modo super orbes, &c. Item aliter vero motus est qui mouet orbem stellarum currencium [149] contra motum primum, videlicet, ab Occidente in Orientem super alios duos polos.' The old astronomy imagined nine spheres revolving round the central stationary earth; of the seven innermost, each carried with it one of the seven planets, viz. the Moon, Venus, Mercury, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn; the eighth sphere, that of the fixed stars, had a slow motion from west to east, round the axis of the zodiac (_super alios duos polos_), to account for the precession of the equinoxes; whilst the ninth or outermost sphere, called the _primum mobile_, or the sphere of first motion, had a diurnal revolution from east to west, carrying everything with it. This exactly corresponds with Chaucer's language. He addresses the outermost sphere or _primum mobile_ (which is the _ninth_ if reckoning from within, but the _first_ from without), and accuses it of carrying with it everything in its irresistible westward motion; a motion contrary to that of the 'natural' motion, viz. that in which the sun advances along the signs of the zodiac. The result was that the evil influence of the planet Mars prevented the marriage. It is clear that Chaucer was thinking of certain passages in Boethius, as will appear from consulting his own translation of Boethius, ed. Morris, pp. 21, 22, 106, and 110. I quote a few lines to shew this:--

'O þou maker of þe whele þat bereþ þe sterres, whiche þat art fastned to þi perdurable chayere, and turnest þe heuene wiþ a rauyssyng _sweighe_, and constreinest þe sterres to suffren þi lawe'; pp. 21, 22.

'þe regioun of þe fire þat eschaufiþ by þe swifte _moeuyng of þe firmament_'; p. 110.

The original is--

'O stelliferi conditor orbis Qui perpetuo nixus solio _Rapidum caelum turbine uersas_, Legemque pati sidera cogis'; Boeth. Cons. Phil. lib. i. met. 5.

'Quique _agili motu_ calet _aetheris_'; id. lib. iv. met. 1.

(See the same passages in vol. ii. pp. 16, 94).

To the original nine spheres, as above, was afterwards added a tenth or crystalline sphere; see the description in the Complaint of Scotland, ed. Murray (E. E. T. S.), pp. 47, 48. For the figure, see fig. 10 on Plate V., in my edition of Chaucer's Astrolabe (in vol. iii.).

Compare also the following passage:--

'The earth, in roundness of a perfect ball, Which as a point but of this mighty all Wise Nature fixed, that permanent doth stay, Wheras the spheres by a _diurnal sway_ Of the first Mover carried are about.' Drayton: The Man in the Moon.

299. _crowding_, pushing. This is still a familiar word in East [150] Anglia. Forby, in his Glossary of the East Anglian Dialect, says--'_Crowd_, v. to push, shove, or press close. To the word, in its _common_ acceptation, _number_ seems necessary. With us, _one_ individual can _crowd_ another.' To _crowd_ a wheelbarrow means to push it. The expression '_crod_ in a barwe,' i. e. wheeled or pushed along in a wheelbarrow, occurs in the Paston Letters, A.D. 1477, ed. Gairdner, iii. 215.

302. A planet is said to ascend directly, when in a direct sign; but tortuously, when in a tortuous sign. The tortuous signs are those which ascend most obliquely to the horizon, viz. the signs from Capricornus to Gemini inclusive. Chaucer tells us this _himself_; see his Treatise on the Astrolabe, part ii. sect. 28, in vol. iii. The most 'tortuous' of these are the two middle ones, Pisces and Aries. Of these two, Aries is called the mansion of Mars, and we may therefore suppose the ascending sign to be Aries, the lord of which (Mars) is said to have fallen 'from his angle into the darkest house.' The words 'angle' and 'house' are used technically. The whole zodiacal circle was divided into twelve equal parts, or 'houses.' Of these, four (beginning from the cardinal points) were termed 'angles,' four others (next following them) 'succedents,' and the rest 'cadents.' It appears that Mars was not then situate in an 'angle,' but in his 'darkest (i. e. darker) house.' Mars had _two_ houses, Aries and Scorpio. The latter is here meant; Aries being the ascendent sign, Scorpio was below the horizon, and beyond the western 'angle.'

Now Scorpio was 'called the house of death, and of trauaile, of harm, and of domage, of strife, of battaile, of guilefulnesse and falsnesse, and of wit'; Batman upon Bartholomè, lib. viii. c. 17. We may represent the position of Mars by the following table, where _East_ represents the _ascending_ sign, _West_ the _descending_ sign; and A., S., and C. stand for 'angle,' 'succedent,' and 'cadent house' respectively.

_East._--Aries. Taurus. Gemini. Cancer. Leo. Virgo. 1. A. 2. S. 3. C. 4. A. 5. S. 6. C.

_West._--Libra. Scorpio. Sagittarius. Capricornus. Aquarius. Pisces. 7. A. 8. S. 9. C. 10. A. 11. S. 12. C.

Again, the 'darkest house' was sometimes considered to be the _eighth_; though authorities varied. This again points to Scorpio.

'Nulla diuisio circuli tam pessima, tamque crudelis in omnibus, quam octaua est.'--Aphorismi Astrologi Ludovici de Rigiis; sect. 35. I may also note here, that in Lydgate's Siege of Troy, ed. 1555, fol. Y 4, there is a long passage on the evil effects of Mars in the 'house' of Scorpio.

305. The meaning of _Atazir_ has long remained undiscovered. But by the kind help of Mr. Bensly, one of the sub-librarians of the Cambridge University Library, I am enabled to explain it. _Atazir_ or _atacir_ is the Spanish spelling of the Arabic _al-tasir_, influence, given at p. 351 of Richardson's Pers. Dict., ed. 1829. It is a noun derived from _asara_, a verb of the second conjugation, meaning to leave a mark [151] on, from the substantive _asar_, a mark; the latter substantive is given at p. 20 of the same work. Its use in astrology is commented upon by Dozy, who gives it in the form _atacir_, in his Glossaire des Mots Espagnols dérivés de l'Arabique, p. 207. It signifies the _influence_ of a star or planet upon other stars, or upon the fortunes of men. In the present case it is clearly used in a bad sense; we may therefore translate it by 'evil influence,' i. e. the influence of Mars in the house of Scorpio. On this common deterioration in the meaning of words, see Trench, Study of Words, p. 52. The word _craft_, for example, is a very similar instance; it originally meant _skill_, and hence, a trade, and we find _star-craft_ used in particular to signify the science of astronomy.

307. 'Thou art in conjunction in an unfavourable position; from the position in which thou wast favourably placed thou art moved away.' This I take to mean that the Moon (as well as Mars) was in Scorpio; hence their conjunction. But Scorpio was called the Moon's _depression_, being the sign in which her influence was least favourable; she was therefore 'not well received,' i. e., not supported by a lucky planet, or by a planet in a lucky position. _weyved_, pushed aside.

312. 'Is there no choice as to when to fix the voyage?' The favourable moment for commencing a voyage was one of the points on which it was considered desirable to have an astrologer's opinion. Travelling, at that time, was a serious matter. Yet this was only one of the many undertakings which required, as was thought, to be begun at a favourable moment. Whole books were written on 'elections,' i. e. favourable times for commencing operations of all kinds. Chaucer was thinking, in particular, of the following passage, which is written in the margins of the Ellesmere and Hengwrt MSS.: 'Omnes concordati sunt quod elecciones sint debiles nisi in diuitibus: habent enim isti, licet debilitentur eorum elecciones, radicem, i. [_id est_] natiuitates eorum, que confortat omnem planetam debilem in itinere.' The sense of which is--'For all are agreed, that "elections" are weak, except in the case of the rich; for these, although their elections be weakened, have a "root" of their own, that is to say, their nativities (_or_ horoscopes); which root strengthens every planet that is of weak influence with respect to a journey.' This is extracted, says Tyrwhitt, from a Liber Electionum by a certain Zael; see MS. Harl. 80; MS. Bodley 1648. This is a very fair example of the jargon to be found in old books on astrology. The old astrologers used to alter their predictions almost at pleasure, by stating that their results depended on several causes, which partly counteracted one another; an arrangement of which the convenience is obvious. Thus, if the aspect of the planets at the time inquired about appeared to be adverse to a journey, it might still be the case (they said) that such evil aspect might be overcome by the fortunate aspect of the inquirer's horoscope; or, conversely, an ill aspect in the horoscope could be counteracted by a fit election of a time for action. A rich man would probably be fitted with a fortunate [152] horoscope, or else why should he buy one? Such horoscope depended on the aspect of the heavens at the time of birth or 'nativity,' and, in particular, upon the 'ascendent' at that time; i. e. upon the planets lying nearest to the point of the zodiac which happened, at that moment, to be _ascending_, i. e. just appearing above the horizon. So Chaucer, in his Treatise on the Astrolabe, pt. ii. § 4, (vol.