ii. 7:--'Malus custos diuturnitatis est metus, contraque beniuolentia

fidelis uel ad perpetuitatem.... Nulla uis imperii tanta est, quae premente metu possit esse diuturna.'

2384. From Prov. xxxi. 4, where the Vulgate has: 'Noli regibus, o Lamuel, noli regibus dare uinum; quia nullum secretum est ubi regnat ebrietas.' Cf. C. 561 (and note), 585, 587.

2386. _Cassidorie_, Cassiodorus, who wrote in the time of Theoderic the Great, king of the Ostrogoths (A.D. 475-526). The quotation is from his Variarum lib. x. epist. 18:--'quia laesionis instar est occulte consulere, et aliud uelle monstrare.' In the Latin text, cap. xxiii, the heading of the chapter is:--'De Vitando consilium illorum, qui secreto aliud consulunt, et palam aliud se uelle ostendunt.' Chaucer's rendering is far from being a happy one.

2387. Cf. Prov. xii. 5; but note that the Lat. text has:--'Malus homo a se nunquam bonum consilium refert'; which resembles Publilius Syrus, Sent. 354:--'Malus bonum ad se nunquam consilium refert.'

2388. From Ps. i. 1.

2391. _Tullius._ The reference is to Cicero's De Officiis, ii. 5, as quoted in the 'Latin text':--'quid in unaquaque re uerum sincerumque sit, quid consentaneum cuique rei sit, quid consequens, ex quibus [211] quaeque gignantur, quae cuiusque rei caussa sit.' This is expanded in the English, down to l. 2400.

2405. For _distreyneth_, MS. Hl. has the corrupt reading _destroyeth_. The reading is settled by the lines in Chaucer's Proverbs (see the Minor Poems, vol. i. p. 407):--

'Who-so mochel wol embrace Litel therof he shal _distreyne_.'

The Lat. text has: 'Qui nimis capit parum stringit'; the Fr. text has: 'Qui trop embrasse, pou estraint.'

2406. _Catoun_, Dionysius Cato; Distich. iii. 15:--

'Quod potes, id tentato; operis ne pondere pressus Succumbat labor, et frustra tentata relinquas.'

2408. The Lat. text has:--'Ait enim Petrus Alfunsus, Si dicere metuas unde poeniteas, semper est melius _non_ quam _sic_.' From his Disciplina Clericalis, vi. 12.

2411. _Defenden_, forbid, i. e. advise one not to do. This passage is really a quotation from Cicero, De Officiis, i. 9:--'Bene praecipiunt qui uetant quidquid agere, quod dubites aequum sit an iniquum.'

2413. The Lat. text has:--'Nunc superest uidere, quando consilium uel promissum mutari possit uel debeat.' This shews that the reading _counseil_, as in Hl., is correct.

2415. Lat. text:--'Quae de nouo emergunt, nouo indigent consilio, ut leges dicunt.'

2416. Lat. text:--'Inde et Seneca dixit, Consilium tuum si audierit hostis, consilii dispositionem permutes.' But no such sentence has been discovered in Seneca.

2419. Lat. text:--'Generaliter enim nouimus, Turpes stipulationes nullius esse momenti, ut leges dicunt,' for which Sundby refers us to the Digesta, xlv. 1. 26.

2421. 'Malum est consilium, quod mutari non potest': Publilius Syrus, Sent. 362.

2431. _First and forward_; so in l. 2684. We now say 'first and foremost.'

2436. See above, ll. 2311-2325; vol. iv. p. 208.

2438. _Anientissed_, annulled, annihilated, done away with. In Rom. iv. 14, where Wycliffe's earlier text has _anentyschid_, the later text has _distried_. The Prompt. Parv. has: 'Anyyntyschyn, or enyntyschyn, _Exinanio_.' From O. F. _anientiss_-, pres. pt. stem of _anientir_, to bring to nothing, variant of _anienter_, a verb formed from prep. _a_, to, and O. F. _nient_ (Ital. _niente_, mod. F. _néant_), nothing. The form _nient_ answers to Lat. *_ne-entem_ or *_nec-entem_, from _ne_, _nec_, not, and _entem_, acc. of _ens_, being. See the New E. Dict. Cf. _anyente_ in P. Plowman, C. xx. 267, xxi. 389. _As yow oghte_, as it behoved you; Hl. _as ye oughte_. Both phrases occur.

2439. _Talent_; Fr. text, 'ta voulonte'; i. e. your desire, wish. '_Talent_, [212] ... will, desire, lust, appetite, an earnest humour unto'; Cotgrave. Cf. C. 540, and l. 2441 below.

2444. This paragraph is omitted in MS. Hl.

2447. _Hochepot_; Hl. _hochepoche_, whence E. _hodgepodge_. From F. _hochepot_, 'a hotch-pot, or gallimaufrey, a confused mingle-mangle of divers things jumbled or put together'; Cotgrave. This again is from the M. Du. _hutspot_, with the same sense; from _hutsen_, to shake, and _pot_. See _Hotchpot_ in my Etym. Dict. _Ther been ye condescended_, and to that opinion ye have submitted.

2449. _Reward_, regard; for _reward_ is merely an older spelling of 'regard.' So in Parl. of Foules, 426; Leg. of Good Women, 375, 399, 1622.

2454. Lat. text:--'Humanum enim est peccare, diabolicum uero perseuerare.' Sundby refers us to St. Chrysostom, Adhortatio ad Theodorum lapsum, I. 14 (Opera, Paris, 1718, fol.; i. 26); where we find (in the Lat. version):--'Nam peccare quidem, humanum est; at in peccatis perseuerare, id non humanum est, sed omnino satanicum.' It is also quoted by Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum Historiale, lib. xvii. c. 45.

2459. Lat. text:--'ad illorum officium spectat omnibus prodesse et nulli nocere.' This (says Sundby) is quoted from the Decretals of Gregory IX., lib. i. tit. 37. cap. 3.

2467. Cf. Lat. text:--'scilicet, Contraria contrariis curantur.'

2473. Fr. text:--'Or veez, dist Prudence, comment un chascun croist legierement ce qu'il veut et desire!'--Mr.

2479. _For good_, &c., 'namely, in the sense that good,' &c.

2482. See Rom. xii. 17; cf. 1 Thess. v. 15; 1 Cor. iv. 12. The Lat. text quotes part of verses 17-21 of Rom. xii. But it is clear that Chaucer has altered the wording, and was thinking of 1 Pet. iii. 9.

2485. After _wyse folk_, Cp. inserts 'and olde folk,' and Ln. 'and the olde folke.' The Fr. text has: 'les advocas, les sages, et les anciens.' Ed. 1532 also inserts 'and olde folke'; and perhaps it should be inserted.

2487. _Warnestore_, to supply with defensive materials, to garrison, protect; see 2521, 2523, 2525 below. 'And wel thei were _warnestured_ of vitailes inow'; Will, of Palerne, 1121. We also find a sb. of the same form. 'In eche stude hii sette ther strong _warnesture_ and god'; Rob. of Glouc. 2075 (ed. Hearne, p. 94). 'The Sarazins kept it [a castle] that tym for ther chefe _warnistour_'; Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, ed. Hearne, p. 180. 'I will remayn quhill this _warnstor_ be gane'; Wallace, bk. ix. l. 1200, where ed. 1648 has 'till all the stuffe be gone.' Correctly _warnisture_; a derivative of O. F. _warnir_, _garnir_, to supply (E. _garnish_). Godefroy gives O. F.'_garnesture_, _garnisture_, _garniture_, _warnesture_, s. f. provisions, ressource; authentication; garnison, forteresse'; with eight examples. Cf. E. _garrison_ (M. E. _garnison_), _garment_ (M. E. _garnement_), and _garniture_. The last of these is, in fact, nothing but the O. F. _warnisture_ in a more modern [213] form. Hence we obtain the sense by consulting Cotgrave, who gives: '_Garniture_, garniture, garnishment, furniture; provision, munition, store, necessary implements.' It also appears that the word is properly a substantive, with the spelling _warnisture_; it became _warnistore_ or _warnestore_ by confusion with O. F. _estor_, a store; and, as the word _store_ was easily made into a verb, it was easy to treat _warnestore_ in the same way. It is a sb. in Rob. of Gloucester, as shewn above, but appears as a verb in Will. of Palerne. MS. Hl. has _warmstore_ (with _m_ for _ni_); and the same error is in the editions of Wright, Bell, and Morris. Ed. 1532 has _warnstore_.

2494. From Ps. cxxvii. 1 (cxxvi. 1, Vulgate).

2496. From Dionysius Cato, lib. iv. dist. 14:--'Auxilium a nobis petito, si forte laboras; Nec quisquam melior medicus quam fidus amicus.'

2499. _Piers Alfonce_, Petrus Alfonsi, in his Disciplina Clericalis, xviii. 10:--'Ne aggrediaris uiam cum aliquo nisi prius eum cognoueris; si quisquam ignotus tibi in uia associauerit, iterque tuum inuestigauerit, dic te uelle longius ire quam disposueris; et si detulerit lanceam, uade ad dextram; si ensem, ad sinistram.'

2505. The repetition of _that_ before _ye_, following the former _that_ before _for_, is due to a striving after greater clearness. It is not at all uncommon, especially in cases where the two _thats_ are farther apart. Cf. the use of _he_ and _him_ in l. 2508.

_Lete the keping_, neglect the protection; A. S. _l[=æ]tan_.

2507. 'Beatus homo qui semper est pauidus; qui uero mentis est durae, corruet in malum'; Prov. xxviii. 14. Hence the quotation-mark follows _bityde_.

2509. _Counterwayte embusshements_, 'be on the watch against lyings in ambush.' '_Contregaitier_, v. act. épier, guetter de son côté'; refl. se garder, se mettre en garde'; Godefroy. Three examples are given of the active use, and four of the reflexive use. _Espiaille_, companies of spies; it occurs again in the sense of 'a set of spies' in D. 1323. Mätzner well remarks that _espiaille_ does not mean 'spying' or 'watching,' as usually explained, but is a _collective_ sb., like O. F. _rascaille_, _poraille_, _pedaille_. Godefroy, in his O. F. Dict., makes the same mistake, though his own example is against him. He has: '_Espiaille_, s. f. action d'épier: Nous avons ja noveles par nos _espiailles_'; i. e. by means of our spies (not of our spyings). This quotation is from an A. F. proclamation made in London, July 26, 1347.

2510. _Senek_, Seneca; but, as before, the reference is really to the Sentences of Publilius Syrus. Of these the Lat. text quotes no less than four, viz. Nos. 542, 607, 380, and 116 (ed. Dietrich); as follows:--

'Qui omnes insidias timet, in nullas incidet.' 'Semper metuendo sapiens euitat malum.' 'Non cito perit ruina, qui ruinam timet.' 'Caret periculo, qui etiam [cum est] tutus cauet.'

[214]

2514. _Senek_; this again is from Publilius Syrus, Sent. 255:--'Inimicum, quamuis humilem, docti est metuere.'

2515. The Lat. and Fr. texts both give the reference, correctly, to Ovid's Remedia Amoris; see l. 421:--

'Parva necat morsu spatiosum uipera taurum; A cane non magno saepe tenetur aper.'

Chaucer has here interpolated the reference to 'the thorn pricking the king' between his translations of these two lines. The interpolation occurs neither in the French nor in the Latin text.

_Wesele_, weasel. The origin of this queer mistake is easily perceived. The Fr. text has: 'La petite _vivre_ occist le grant torel.' Here _vivre_ represents Lat. _uipera_, a viper (cf. E. _wivern_); but Ch. has construed it as if it represented Lat. _uiuerra_, a ferret.

2518. _The book._ The quotation is from Seneca, Epist. 111. § 3:--'Quidam fallere docuerunt, dum falli timent.' (_For_ Quidam _read_ Nam multi). Tyrwhitt's text is here imperfect, and he says he has patched it up as he best could; but the MSS. (except Cp. and Ln.) give a correct text.

2520. Lat. text:--'Cum irrisore consortium non habeas; loquelae eius assiduitatem quasi toxica fugias.' From Albertano of Brescia, who here quotes from his own work, De Arte Eloquendi, p. cviii.; according to Sundby.

2521. _Warnestore_, protect; see note to 2487 above, and see 2523.

2523. _Swiche as han_, 'such as castles and other kinds of edifices have.'

_Artelleries_, missile weapons; cf. 1 Sam xx. 40, 1 Macc. vi. 51 (A. V.). 'Artillarie now a dayes is taken for ii. thinges: Gunnes and Bowes'; Ascham, Toxophilus, ed. Arber, p. 65. In Chaucer's time it referred to bows, crossbows, and engines for casting stones. Cotgrave explains F. _artillier_ as 'one that maketh both bowes and arrowes.'

2525-6. Owing to the repetition of the words _grete edifices_, one of the early scribes (whom others followed) passed from one to the other, thus omitting the words 'apperteneth som tyme to pryde and eek men make heighe toures and grete edifices.' But MSS. Cp. and Ln. supply all but the last three words 'and grete edifices,' and as we know that 'grete edifices' must recur, they really supply all but the sole word 'and,' which the sense absolutely requires. Curiously enough, these very MSS. omit the rest of clause 2525, so that none of the MSS. are perfect, but the text is easily pieced together. It is further verified by the Lat. text, which has:--'Munitio turrium et aliorum altorum aedificiorum ad superbiam plerumque pertinet ... praeterea turres cum magno labore et infinitis expensis fiunt; et etiam cum factae fuerint, nihil ualent, nisi cum auxilio prudentium et fidelium amicorum et cum magnis expensis defendantur.' The F. text supplies the gap with--'appartiennent aucune fois a orgueil: apres on fait les tours et les grans edifices.'--MS. Reg. 19 C. vii. leaf 133, back. Hence there is no doubt as to the reading. [215]

All former editions are here defective, and supply the gap with the single word _is_, which is found in ed. 1532.

2526. _With gret costages_, at great expense: Fr. text, 'a grans despens.'

_Stree_, straw; MS. Hl. has the spelling _straw_. We find the phrase again in the Book of the Duch. 671; also 'ne roghte of hem a _stree_,' id. 887; 'acounted _nat a stree_,' id. 1237; 'ne counted _nat three strees_,' id. 718.

2530. Lat. text:--'unum est inexpugnabile munimentum, amor ciuium.' Not from Cicero; but from Seneca, De Clementia, i. 19. 5.

2534. 'In omnibus autem negotiis, prius quam aggrediare, adhibenda est praeparatio diligens'; Cicero, De Officiis, i. 21.

2537. Lat. text:--'Longa praeparatio belli celerem uictoriam facit.' But the source is unknown; it does not seem to be in Cicero. Mätzner quotes a similar saying from Publilius Syrus, Sent. 125:--'Diu apparandum est bellum, ut uincas celerius.'

2538. 'Munitio quippe tunc efficitur praeualida, si diuturna fuerit excogitatione roborata'; Cassiodorus, Variarum lib. i. epist. 17.

2545. _Tullius._ This refers to what has already preceded in 2391-2400, the passage referred to being one from Cicero's De Officiis, ii. 5, where we are bidden to consider several points, viz. (1) 'quid in quaque re uerum sincerumque sit; (2) quid consentaneum cuique rei sit; (3) quid consequens; (4) ex quo quidque gignatur; (5) quae cuiusque rei caussa sit.' All these five points are taken below in due order; viz. (1) in 2546; (2) in 2550; (3) in 2577; (4) in 2580; and (5) in 2583.

2546. _Trouthe_; referring to _uerum_ in clause (1) in the last note.

2550. _Consentinge_; i. e. _consentaneum_ in clause (2) in note to 2545. Cf. 2571. MS. Hl. has here the false reading _couetyng_, but in l. 2571 it has _consentynge_.

2551. Lat. text:--'qui et quot et quales.' Thus _whiche_ means 'of what sort.' The words _and whiche been they_, omitted in MS. E. only, are thus seen to be necessary; cf. l. 2552, where the phrase is repeated.

2558. _Cosins germayns_; Lat. 'consanguineos germanos.' _Neigh kinrede_, relations near of kin; cf. 'nis but a fer kinrede' in 2565.

2561. _Reward_, regard, care; as above, in 2449; (see the note).

2565. _Litel sib_, slightly related; _ny sib_, closely related. Cf. 'ne on his mæges láfe þe swa _néah sib_ wære,' nor with the relict of his kinsman who was so near of kin; Laws of King Cnut, § vii; in Thorpe's Ancient Laws, i. 364.

2570. _As the lawe_; Sundby refers to Justinian's Codex, VIII. iv. 1.

2573. _That nay_; Fr. text--'que non.'

2577. _Consequent_; i. e. 'consequens' in clause (3), note to 2545.

2580. _Engendringe_; i. e. 'ex quo quidque gignatur' in clause (4), note to 2545.

2582. Mätzner says this is corrupt; but it is quite right, though obscure. The sense is--'and, out of the taking of vengeance in return for that, would arise another vengeance'; &c. _Engendre_ is here taken [216] in the sense of 'be engendred' or 'breed'; see the New E. Dict. The Fr. text is clearer: 'de la vengence _se engendrera_ autre vengence.'

2583. _Causes_; i. e. 'caussa' in clause (5), note to 2545.

2585. The Lat. text omits _Oriens_, which seems to be here used as synonymous with _longinqua_. 'Caussa igitur iniuriae tibi illatae duplex fuit _efficiens_, scilicet _remotissima_ et _proxima_.'

2588. 'Occasio uero illius caussae, quae dicitur _caussa accidentalis_, fuit odium,' &c. So below, the Lat. text has _caussa materialis_, _caussa formalis_, and _caussa finalis_.

2591. _It letted nat_, it tarried not; Lat. text, 'nec per eos remansit.' This intransitive use of _letten_ is awkward and rare. It occurs again in P. Plowman, C. ii. 204, xx. 76, 331.

2594. _Book of Decrees_; Sundby refers us to the Decretum Gratiani; P. ii, Caussa 1, Qu. 1. c. 25:--'uix bono peraguntur exitu, quae malo sunt inchoata principio.'

2596. _Thapostle_, the apostle Paul. The Lat. text refers expressly to the First Epistle to the Corinthians, meaning 1 Cor. iv. 5; but Chaucer has accommodated it to Rom. xi. 33.

2600. The Lat. text informs us that _Melibeus_ signifies _mel bibens_. For similar curiosities of derivation, see note to G. 87. There was a town called Meliboea ([Greek: Meliboia]) on the E. coast of Thessaly.

2605. From Ovid, Amor. i. 8. 104:--'Impia sub dulci melle uenena latent.'

2606. From Prov. xxv. 16.

2611. _The three enemys_, i. e. the flesh, the devil and the world. The entrance of these into man through the five senses is the theme of numerous homilies. See especially Sawles Warde, in O. Eng. Homilies, ed. Morris, First Series, p. 245; and the Ayenbite of Inwyt, ed. Morris, p. 263.

2614. _Deedly sinnes_, the Seven Deadly Sins; see the Persones Tale. _Fyve wittes_, five senses; cf. P. Plowman, C. ii. 15, xvi. 257.

2615. _Wold_, willed; pp. of _willen_. F. text--'a voulu.' See 2190 above; Leg. of Good Women, 1209; Compl. of Venus, 11; P. Plowman, B. xv. 258; Malory's Morte Arthure, bk. xviii. c. 15--'[he] myghte haue slayne vs and he had _wold_'; and again, in c. 19--'I myght haue ben maryed and I had _wolde_.' Gower has--'if that he had _wold_'; Conf. Amantis, ii. 9.

2618. _Falle_, befall, come to pass; F. text--'advenir.'

2620. _Were_, would be; F. text--'ce seroit moult grant dommage.'

2623-4. The missing portion is easily supplied. The French text (MS. Reg. 19 C. vii, leaf 136) has:--'Et a ce respont Dame Prudence, Certes, dist elle, Ie t'octroye que de vengence vient molt de maulx et de biens; mais vengence n'appartient pas a vn chascun, fors seulement aux iuges et a ceulx qui ont la iuridicion sur les malfaitteurs.' Here 'mais vengence' should rather be 'mais faire vengence,' as in MS. Reg. 19 C. xi. leaf 59, back, and in the printed edition. It is [217] clear that the omission of this passage is due to the repetition of _trespassours_ at the end of 2622 and 2624.

2627. Lat. text--'nam, ut ait Seneca, Bonis nocet, qui malis parcit.' This corresponds to--'Bonis necesse est noceat, qui parcit malis'; Pseudo-Seneca, De Moribus, Sent. 114; see Publilius Syrus, ed. Dietrich, p. 90. The Fr. text has:--'Cellui nuit [_al._ nuist] aux bons, qui espargne les mauvais.' Chaucer's translation is so entirely at fault, that I think his MS. must have been corrupt; he has taken _nuist aux_ as _maistre_, and then could make but little of _espargne_, which he makes to mean 'proveth,' i. e. tests, tries the quality of; perhaps his MS. had turned _espargne_ (or _esparne_) into _esprouve_. MSS. Cp. Pt. Ln. turn it into _reproveth_; this makes better sense, but contradicts the original still more.

2628. 'Quoniam excessus tunc sunt in formidine, cùm creduntur iudicibus displicere'; Cassiodorus, Variarum lib. i. epist. 4.

2629. Lat. text:--'Et alibi dixit, Iudex, qui dubitat ulcisci, multos improbos facit'; slightly altered from Publ. Syrus, Sent. 526:--'Qui ulcisci dubitat, inprobos plures facit.'

2630. From Rom. xiii. 4. For _spere_, as in all the copies, Chaucer should have written _swerd_. The Fr. text has _glaive_; Lat. _gladium_.

2632. _Ye shul retourne or have your recours to the Iuge_; explanatory of the F. text--'tu recourras au iuge.'

2633. _As the lawe axeth and requyreth_; explanatory of the Fr. text--'selon droit.' For this use of _axeth_ (= requires), cf. P. Plowman, C. i. 21, ii. 34.

2635. _Many a strong pas_; Fr. text--'moult de fors pas.' MS. Hl. has:--'many a strayt passage.'

2638. Not from Seneca, but (as in other places where Seneca is mentioned) from Publilius Syrus, Sent. 320 (ed. Dietrich):--'Male geritur, quicquid geritur fortunae fide.'

2640. Again from Publilius Syrus, Sent. 189 (ed. Dietrich):--'Fortuna uitrea est; tum quum splendet frangitur.'

2642. _Seur_ (E. _sure_) and _siker_ are mere variants of the same word; the former is O. F. _seur_, from Lat. acc. _sec[=u]rum_; the latter is from Lat. _séc[)u]rus_, with a different accentuation and a shortening of the second vowel. We also have a third form, viz. _secure_.

2645. Again from Publ. Syrus, Sent. 173:--'Fortuna nimium quem fouet, stultum facit.'

2650. From Rom. xii. 19; cf. Deut. xxxii. 35, Ps. xciv. 1.

2653. From Publ. Syrus, Sent. 645:--'Veterem ferendo iniuriam inuites nouam.'

2655. _Holden over lowe_, esteemed too low, too lightly.

2656. From Publ. Syrus, Sent. 487:--'Patiendo multa [_al._ inulta] eueniunt [_al._ ueniunt] quae nequeas pati.' _Mowe suffre_, be able to endure. For _mowe_, Wright wrongly prints _nowe_; MS. Hl. has _mowe_, correctly. [218]

2663. From Caecilii Balbi Sententiae, ed. Friedrich, 1870, no. 162:--'Qui non corripit peccantem gnatum, peccare imperat.'

2664. 'And the judges and sovereign lords might, each in his own land, so largely tolerate wicked men and evil-doers,' &c. Lat. text:--'si multa maleficia patiuntur fieri.'

2667. _Let us now putte_, let us suppose; Fr. text--'posons.' A more usual phrase is 'putte cas,' put the case; cf. note to 2681.

2668. _As now_, at present; see 2670.

2671. From Seneca, De Ira, ii. 34, § 1:--'Cum pare contendere, anceps est; cum superiore, furiosum; cum inferiore, sordidum.'

2675. From Prov. xx. 3.

2678. From Publilius Syrus, Sent. 483:--'Potenti irasci sibi periclum est quaerere.'

2679. From Dion. Cato, Dist. iv. 39:--

'Cede locum laesus Fortunae, cede potenti; Laedere qui potuit, aliquando prodesse ualebit.'

2681. _Yet sette I caas_, but I will suppose; Fr. text--'posons,' as in 2667 above.

2684. _First and foreward_; Fr. text--'premierement.' See note to 2431 above.

2685. _The poete_; Fr. text, 'le poete.' Not in the Latin text, and the source of the quotation is unknown. Cf. Luke, xxiii. 41.

2687. _Seint Gregorie._ Not in the Lat. text; source unknown.

2692. From 1 Pet. ii. 21.

2700. Referring to 2 Cor. iv. 17.

2702. From Prov. xix. 11, where the Vulgate has:--'Doctrina uiri per patientiam noscitur.'

2703. From Prov. xiv. 29, where the Vulgate has:--'Qui patiens est multa gubernatur prudentia.'

2704. From Prov. xv. 18.

2705. From Prov. xvi. 32.

2707. From James, i. 4:--'Patientia autem opus perfectum habet.'

2713. _Corage_, desire, inclination; cf. E. 1254.

2715. The Fr. text is fuller: 'et si ie fais un grant exces, car on dit que exces n'est corrige que par exces, c'est a dire que oultrage ne se corrige fors que par oultrage.'--Mr. Perhaps part of the clause has been accidentally omitted, owing to repetition of 'exces.'

2718. 'Quid enim discrepat a peccante, qui se per excessum nititur uindicare?'--Cassiodorus, Variarum lib. i. epist. 30.

2721. Lat. text:--'ait enim Seneca, Nunquam scelus scelere uindicandum.' Not from Seneca; Sundby refers us to Martinus Dumiensis, De Moribus, S. 139.

2723. _Withouten intervalle ... delay_; the Fr. text merely has 'sans intervalle.' Chaucer explains the word _intervalle_.

2729. 'Qui impatiens est sustinebit damnum'; Prov. xix. 19.

2730. _Of that that_, in a matter that. [219]

2731. Lat. text (p. 95):--'Culpa est immiscere se rei ad se non pertinenti.' Sundby refers us to the Digesta, l. xvii. 36.

2732. From Prov. xxvi. 17.

2733. _Outherwhyle_, sometimes, occasionally; cf. 2857. So in Ch. tr. of Boethius, bk. iii. pr. 12. 119 (vol. ii. p. 89); P. Plowman, C. vi. 50, vii. 160, xxii. 103, &c.

2740. From Ecclesiastes, x. 19:--'pecuniae oboediunt omnia.'

2741. All the copies have _power_; but, as Mätzner remarks, we should read _poverte_; the Fr. text has _povrete_.

2743. _Richesses ben goode_; the Lat. text here quotes 1 Tim. iv. 4.

2744. 'Homo sine pecunia est quasi corpus sine anima' is written on a fly-leaf of a MS.; see my Pref. to P. Plowman, C-text, p. xx.

2746. All the MSS. have _Pamphilles_ instead of _Pamphilus_. The allusion is to Pamphilus Maurilianus, who wrote a poem, well-known in the fourteenth century, entitled _Liber de Amore_, which is extant in MSS. (e.g. in MS. Bodley 3703) and has been frequently printed. Tyrwhitt cites the lines here alluded to from the Bodley MS.

'Dummodo sit diues cuiusdam nata bubulci, Eligit e mille, quem libet, illa uirum.'

Sundby quotes the same (with _ipsa_ for _illa_) from the Paris edition of 1510, fol. a iiii, recto. Chaucer again refers to Pamphilus in F. 1110, on which see the note.

2748. This quotation is not in the Latin text, and is certainly not from Pamphilus; but closely follows Ovid's lines in his Tristia, i. 9. 5:--

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

See notes to B. 120 and B. 3436.

2751. Neither is this from Pamphilus, but from some author quoted by Petrus Alfonsi, Discip. Cler. vi. 4, who says:--'ait quidam uersificator, Clarificant [_al._ Glorificant] gazae priuatos nobilitate.'

2752. We know, from the Lat. text, that there is here an allusion to Horace, Epist. i. 6. 37:--

'Et genus et formam regina pecunia donat.'

2754. The Lat. text has _mater criminum_, and the Fr. text, _mere des crimes_. It is clear that Chaucer has misread _ruines_ for _crimes_, or his MS. was corrupt; and he has attempted an explanation by subjoining a gloss of his own--'that is to seyn ... overthrowinge or fallinge doun.' The reference is to Cassiodorus, Variarum lib. ix. epist. 13:--'Ut dum _mater criminum_ necessitas tollitur, peccandi ambitus auferatur.'

2756. 'Est una de aduersitatibus huius saeculi grauioribus libero homini, quod necessitate cogitur, ut sibi subueniat, requirere inimicum'; Petrus Alfonsi, Disciplina Clericalis, iv. 4.

2758. Lat. text:--'O miserabilis mendicantis conditio! Nam, si petit, pudore confunditur; et si non petit, egestate consumitur; sed ut [220] mendicet necessitate compellitur'; Innocentius III (Papa), De Contemptu Mundi, lib. i. c. 16. See note to B. 99, at p. 142.

2761. 'Melius est enim mori quam indigere'; Ecclus. xl. 29; cf. A. V., Ecclus. xl. 28. See note to B. 114, at p. 142.

2762. 'Melior est mors quam uita amara'; Ecclus. xxx. 17. The Fr. text has:--'Mieulx vault la mort amere que telle vie'; where, as in Chaucer, the adjective is shifted.

2765. _How ye shul have yow_, how you ought to behave yourself. In fact, _behave_ is merely a compound of _be-_ and _have_.

2766. _Sokingly_, gradually. In the Prompt. Parv. we find 'Esyly, or _sokyngly_, Sensim, paulatim.' And compare the following:--'Domitius Corbulo vsed muche to saie, that a mannes enemies in battaill are to be ouercomed (_sic_) with a carpenters squaring-axe, that is to saie, _sokingly_, one pece after another. A common axe cutteth through at the first choppe; a squaring-axe, by a little and a little, werketh the same effecte.'--Udall, tr. of Erasmus' Apophthegmes, Julius Caesar, § 32.

2768. From Prov. xxviii. 20.

2769. From Prov. xiii. 11.

2773. Not in the Latin text.

2775. 'Detrahere igitur alteri aliquid, et hominem hominis incommodo suum augere commodum, magis est contra naturam, quam mors, quam paupertas, quam dolor, quam cetera, quae possunt aut corpori accidere aut rebus externis'; Cicero, De Officiis, iii. 5.

2779. 'For idleness teacheth much evil'; Ecclus. xxxiii. 27.

2780. From Prov. xxviii. 19; cf. xii. 11.

2783. Cf. Prov. xx. 4.

2784. From Dionysius Cato, Distich. i. 2:--

'Plus uigila semper, nec somno deditus esto; Nam diuturna quies uitiis alimenta ministrat.'

2785. Quoted again in G. 6, 7; see note to G. 7.

2789. _Fool-large_, foolishly liberal; Fr. text, 'fol larges.' Cf. 2810.

2790. _Chincherye_, miserliness, parsimony; from the adj. _chinche_, which occurs in 2793. _Chinche_, parsimonious, miserly, is the nasalised form of _chiche_; see Havelok, 1763, 2941; and see _Chinch_ in the New E. Dictionary. To the examples there given add:--'A Chinche, _tenax_: Chinchery, _tenacitas_'; Catholicon Anglicum.

'But such an other _chinche_ as he Men wisten nought in all the londe.' Gower, Conf. Amant. ii. 288.

2792. From Dionysius Cato, Distich. iv. 16:--

'Utere quaesitis opibus; fuge nomen auari; Quo tibi diuitias, si semper pauper abundas?'

2795. From Dionysius Cato, Distich. iii. 22:--

'Utere quaesitis, sed ne uidearis abuti; Qui sua consumunt, quum deest, aliena sequuntur.'

[221]

2796. _Folily_, foolishly. We find M. E. _folliche_, both adj. and adv., and _follichely_, _folily_ as adv. It is spelt _folily_ in Wycliffe, Num. xii. 11, and in the Troy-book, 573; also _folili_, Will. of Palerne, 4596; _folyly_, Rom. of the Rose, 5942 (see the footnote).

2800. _Weeldinge_ (so in E., other MSS. _weldinge_), wielding, i. e. power.

2802. Not in the Latin text.

2807. Compare Prov. xxvii. 20.

2811. 'Quamobrem nec ita claudenda est res familiaris, ut eam benignitas aperire non possit; nec ita reseranda, ut pateat omnibus'; Cicero, De Officiis, ii. 15.

2818. See Prov. xv. 16; xvi. 8.

2820. _The prophete_, i. e. David; see Ps. xxxvii. 16.

2824. See 2 Cor. i. 12.

2825. 'Riches are good unto him that hath no sin'; Ecclus. xiii. 24.

2828. From Prov. xxii. 1.

2829. The reference seems to be to Prov. xxv. 10 in the Vulgate version (not in the A. V.):--'Gratia et amicitia liberant; quas tibi serua, ne exprobrabilis fias.'

2832. The reference is clearly to the following:--'Est enim indigni [_al._ digni] animi signum, famae diligere commodum'; Cassiodorus, Variarum lib. i. epist. 4. This is quoted by Albertano (p. 120), with the reading _ingenui_ for _indigni_; hence Chaucer's 'gentil.' Mätzner refers us to the same, lib. v. epist. 12:--'quia pulchrum est commodum famae.'

2833. 'Duae res sunt conscientia et fama. Conscientia tibi, fama proximo tuo'; Augustini Opera, ed. Caillou, Paris, 1842, tom. xxi. p. 347.--Mr.

2837. Fr. text:--'il est cruel et villain.'--Mr.

2841. Lat. text:--'nam dixit quidam philosophus, Nemo in guerra constitutus satis diues esse potest. Quantumcunque enim sit homo diues, oportet illum, si in guerra diu perseuerauerit, aut diuitias aut guerram perdere, aut forte utrumque simul et personam.'--p. 102.

2843. See Ecclesiastes, v. 11.

2851. 'With the God of heaven it is all one, to deliver with a great multitude, or a small company: For the victory of battle standeth not in the multitude of an host; but strength cometh from heaven.' 1 Macc. iii. 18, 19.

2854. The gap is easily detected and filled up by comparison with the Fr. text, which Mätzner cites from Le Menagier de Paris, i. 226, thus:--'pour ce ... que nul n'est certain s'il est digne que Dieu lui doint victoire _ne plus que il est certain se il est digne de l'amour de Dieu_ ou non.' We must also compare the text from Solomon, viz. Ecclesiastes, ix. 1, as it stands in the Vulgate version.

2857. _Outher-whyle_, sometimes; see note to 2733.

2858. _The seconde book of Kinges_, i. e. Liber secundus Regum, now called 'the second book of Samuel.' The reference is to 2 Sam. xi. 25, [222] where the Vulgate has: 'uarius enim euentus est belli; nunc hunc et nunc illum consumit gladius.' The A. V. varies.

2860. _In as muchel_; Fr. text:--'tant comme il puet bonnement.' This accounts for _goodly_, i. e. meetly, fitly, creditably. Cotgrave has: '_Bonnement_, well, fitly, aptly, handsomely, conveniently, orderly, to the purpose.'

2861. _Salomon_; rather Jesus son of Sirach. 'He that loveth danger shall perish therein'; Ecclus. iii. 26.

2863. _The werre ... nothing_, 'war does not please you at all.'

2866. _Seint Iame_ is a curious error for _Senek_, Seneca. For the Fr. text has:--'Seneque dit en ses escrips,' according to Mätzner; and MS. Reg. 19 C. xi (leaf 63, col. 2) has 'Seneques.' There has clearly been confusion between _Seneques_ and _Seint iaques_. Hence the use of the pl. _epistles_ is correct. The reference is to Seneca, Epist. 94, § 46; but Seneca, after all, is merely quoting Sallust:--'Nam concordia paruae res crescunt, discordia maximae dilabuntur'; Sallust, Jugurtha, 10.

2870. From Matt. v. 9.

2872. _Brige_, strife, contention; F. _brigue_, Low Lat. _briga._ '_Brigue_, s. f. ... debate, contention, altercation, litigious wrangling about any matter'; Cotgrave. See _Brigue_ in the New E. Dict.

2876. Here Hl. has _pryde_ and _despysing_ for _homlinesse_ and _dispreysinge_, thus spoiling the sense. The allusion is to our common saying--Familiarity breeds contempt.

2879. _Syen_, saw; Cm. seyen; Ln. sawe; Cp. saugh.

2881. Lat. text (p. 107):--'scriptum est enim, Semper ab aliis dissensio incipiat, a te autem reconciliatio.' From Martinus Dumiensis, De Moribus, Sent. 49.

2882. _The prophete_, i. e. David; Ps. xxxiv. 14.

2883. The words 'as muchel as in thee is' are an addition, due to the Fr. text:--'tant comme tu pourras.'--Mr.

2884. The use of _to_ after _pursue_ is unusual; Mätzner compares _biseke to_, in 2940 below and 2306 above.

2886. From Prov. xxviii. 14.

2891. Fr. text:--'Pour ce dit le philosophe, que les troubles ne sont pas bien cler voyans.' Cf. the Fr. proverb:--'À l'oeil malade la lumière nuit, an eie distempered cannot brook the light; sick thoughts cannot indure the truth'; Cotgrave.

2895. From Prov. xxviii. 23.

2897. This quotation is merely an expansion of the former part of Eccles. vii. 3, viz. 'sorrow is better than laughter'; the latter part of the same verse appears in 2900, immediately below.

2901. _I shal not conne answere_, I shall not be able to answer; Fr. text:--'ie ne sauroie respondre.'--Mr.

2909. From Prov. xvi. 7.

2915. Fr. text:--'ie met tout mon fait en vostre disposition.'--Mr. [223]

2925. Referring to Ps. xx. 4 (Vulgate)--'in benedictionibus dulcedinis'; A. V.--'with the blessings of goodness,' Ps. xxi. 3.

2930. From Ecclus. vi. 5:--'Verbum dulce multiplicat amicos, et mitigat inimicos.' The A. V. omits the latter clause, having only:--'Sweet language will multiply friends.'

2931. Fr. text:--'nous mettons nostre fait en vostre bonne voulente.'--Mr.

2936. _Hise amendes_, i. e. amends to him. For _hise_ or _his_, Cp. Ln. have _him_, which is a more usual construction. Cf. 'What shall be _thy amends_ For thy neglect of truth?' Shak., Sonnet 101. 'If I have wronged thee, seek _thy mends_ at the law'; Greene, Looking-Glass for London, ed. Dyce, 1883, p. 122.

2940. _Biseke to_; so in 2306; see note to 2884.

2945. From Ecclus. xxxiii. 18, 19:--'Hear me, O ye great men of the people, and hearken with your ears, ye rulers of the congregation: Give not thy son and wife, thy brother and friend, power over thee while thou livest.'

2965. Not from Seneca, but from Martinus Dumiensis, De Moribus, S. 94 (Sundby). The Lat. text has:--'ubi est confessio, ibi est remissio.'

2967. Neither is this from Seneca, but from the same source as before. Lat. text has:--'Proximum ad innocentiam locum tenet uerecundia peccati et confessio.'

2973. Lat. text:--'Nihil enim tam naturale est, quam aliquid dissolui eo genere, quo colligatum est.' From the Digesta, lib. xvii. 35.

2984. Lat. text:--'Semper audiui dici, Quod bene potes facere, noli differre.' Fr. text:--'Le bien que tu peus faire au matin, n'attens pas le soir ne l'endemain.'

2986. _Messages_, messengers; Cp. _messagers_; Hl. _messageres_. See B. 144, 333. In 2992, 2995, we have the form _messagers_.

2997. _Borwes_, sureties; as in P. Plowman, C. v. 85. In 3018 it seems to mean 'pledges' rather than 'sureties.'

3028. _A coveitous name_, a reputation for covetousness.

3030. From 1 Tim. vi. 10. See C. 334.

3032. Lat. text (p. 120):--'Scriptum est enim, Mallem perdidisse quam turpiter accepisse.' This is from Publilius Syrus, Sent. 479:--

'Perdidisse ad assem mallem, quam accepisse turpiter.'

3036. Also from P. Syrus, Sent. 293:--

'Laus noua nisi oritur, etiam uetus amittitur.'

3040. For 'it is writen,' the Fr. text has 'le droit dit.' This indicates the source. The Lat. text has:--'priuilegium meretur amittere, qui concessa sibi abutitur potestate.' This Sundby traces to the Decretalia Gregorii IX., iii. 31. 18.

3042. _Which I trowe ... do_; Lat. 'quod non concedo.'

3045. _Ye moste ... curteisly_; Lat. 'remissius imperare oportet.' [224]

3047. Lat. text:--'Remissius imperanti melius paretur'; from Seneca, De Clementia, i. 24. 1.

3049. 'Ait enim Seneca'; the Lat. text then quotes from Publilius Syrus, Sent. 64:--'Bis uincit, qui se uincit in uictoria.'

3050. Lat. text:--'Nihil est laudabilius, nihil magno et praeclaro uiro dignius, placabilitate atque clementia.' From Cicero, De Officiis, i. 25. 88.

3054. _Of mercy_, i. e. on account of your mercy.

3056. 'Male uincit iam quem poenitet uictoriae'; Publilius Syrus, Sent. 366. Attributed to Seneca in the Latin text.

3059. From James, ii. 13.

3066. _Unconninge_, ignorance; cf. Ayenbite of Inwyt, p. 131; Prick of Conscience, l. 169.

3067. _Misborn_, borne amiss, misconducted. See Life of Beket, l. 1248.

THE MONK'S PROLOGUE.

3079. The tale of _Melibee_ (as told above) is about a certain Melibeus and his wife Prudence, who had a daughter called Sophie. One day, while Melibeus is absent, three of his enemies break into his house, beat his wife, and wound his daughter. On returning, he takes counsel as to what must be done. He is for planning a method of revenge, but his wife advises him to forgive the injuries, and in the end her counsels prevail.

3082. _corpus Madrian_, body of Madrian: which has been interpreted in two ways. Urry guessed it to refer to St. Materne, bishop of Treves, variously commemorated on the 14th, 19th, or 25th of September, the days of his translations being July 18 and October 23. Mr. Steevens suggested, in a note printed in Tyrwhitt's Glossary, that the 'precious body' was that of St. Mathurin, priest and confessor, commemorated on Nov. 1 or Nov. 9. The latter is more likely, since in his story in the Golden Legende, edit. 1527, leaf 151 back, the expressions 'the precious body' and 'the holy body' occur, and the story explains that his body would not stay in the earth till it was carried back to France, where he had given directions that it should be buried.

3083. 'Rather than have a barrel of ale, would I that my dear good wife had heard this story.' Cf. _morsel breed_, B. 3624.

_lief_ is not a proper name, as has been suggested, I believe, by some one ignorant of early English idiom. Cf. 'Dear my lord,' Jul. Caesar, ii. 1. 255; and other instances in Abbott's Shakesp. Grammar, sect. 13.

3101. 'Who is willing (_or_ who suffers himself) to be overborne by everybody.'

3108. _neighëbor_, three syllables; _thannè_, two syllables.

3112. Observe the curious use of _seith_ for _misseith_.

3114. _Monk._ See him described in the Prologue, A. 165.

3116. _Rouchester._ The MSS. have _Rouchester_, (Hl. _Rowchestre_), [225] shewing that _Lo_ stands alone in the first foot of the line. Tyrwhitt changed _stant_ into _stondeth_, but all our seven MSS. have _stant_.

According to the arrangement of the tales in Tyrwhitt's edition, the pilgrims reach Rochester _after_ coming to Sittingborne (mentioned in the Wife of Bath's Prologue), though the latter is some eleven miles nearer Canterbury. The present arrangement of the Groups remedies this. See note to B. 1165, at p. 165.

3117. _Ryd forth_, ride forward, draw near us.

3119. _Wher_, whether. _dan_, for Dominus, a title of respect commonly used in addressing monks. But Chaucer even uses it of Arcite, in the Knightes Tale, and of Cupid, Ho. Fame, 137.

3120. The monk's name was _Piers_. See B. 3982, and the note.

3124. Cf. 'He was not pale as a for-pyned goost'; Prol. A. 205. Jean de Meun says, in his Testament, l. 1073, that the friars have good pastures (il ont bonnes pastures).

3127. _as to my doom_, in my judgment.

3130. Scan the line--Bút a góvernoúr wylý and wýs. The Petworth MS. inserts 'boþ' before 'wyly': but this requires the very unlikely accentuation 'govérnour' and an emphasis on a. The line would scan better if we might insert _art_, or _lyk_, after _But_, but there is no authority for this.

3132. Read--_A wél-faríng persónë_, after which comes the pause, as marked in E. and Hn.

3139. The monk's _semi-cope_, which seems to have been an ample one, is mentioned in the Prologue, A. 262. In Jack Upland, § 4, a friar is asked what is signified by his 'wide cope.'

3142. 'Shaven very high on his crown'; alluding to the tonsure.

3144. _the corn_, i. e. the chief part or share.

3145. _borel men_, lay-men. _Borel_ means 'rude, unlearned, ignorant,' and seems to have arisen from a peculiar use of _borel_ or _burel_, sb., a coarse cloth; so that its original sense, as an adj., was 'in coarse clothing,' or 'rudely clad.' See _borrel_ and _burel_ in the New Eng. Dictionary.

_shrimpes_, diminutive or poor creatures.

3146. _wrecched impes_, poor grafts, weakly shoots. Cf. A. S. _impian_, to graft, _imp_, a graft; borrowed from Low Lat. _impotus_, a graft, from Gk. [Greek: emphutos], engrafted.

3152. _lussheburghes_, light coins. In P. Plowman, B. xv. 342, we are told that 'in Lussheborwes is a lyther alay (bad alloy), and yet loketh he lyke a sterlynge.' They were spurious coins imported into England from Luxembourg, whence the name. See Liber Albus, ed. Riley, 1841, p. 495; and Blount's Nomolexicon. Luxembourg is called _Lusscheburghe_ in the Allit. Morte Arthure, l. 2388. The importation of this false money was frequently forbidden, viz. in 1347, 1348, and 1351.

3157. _souneth into_, tends to, is consistent with; see Prol. A. 307, and Sq. Ta., F. 517. The following extracts from Palsgrave's French Dictionary are to the point. 'I sownde, I appartayne or belong, _Ie tens_. [226] Thys thyng sowndeth to a good purpose, _Ceste chose tent a bonne fin_.' Also, 'I sownde, as a tale or a report sowndeth to ones honesty or dyshonesty, _Ie redonde_. I promise you that this matter sowndeth moche to your dishonoure, _Ie vous promets que ceste matyere redonde fort a votre deshonneur_.'

3160. _Seint Edward._ There are two of the name, viz. Edward, king and martyr, commemorated on March 16, 18, or 19, and the second King Edward, best known as Edward the Confessor, commemorated on Jan. 5. In Piers the Plowman, B. xv. 217, we have--

'Edmonde and Edwarde · eyther were kynges, And seyntes ysette · tyl charite hem folwed.'

But Edward the Confessor is certainly meant; and there is a remarkable story about him that he was 'warned of hys death certain dayes before hee dyed, by a ring that was brought to him by certain pilgrims coming from Hierusalem, which ring hee hadde secretly given to a poore man that askyd hys charitie in the name of God and sainte Johan the Evangelist.' See Mr. Wright's description of Ludlow Church, where are some remains of a stained glass window representing this story, in the eastern wall of the chapel of St. John. See also Chambers, Book of Days, i. 53, 54, where we read--'The sculptures upon the frieze of the present shrine (in Westminster Abbey) represent _fourteen scenes in the life_ of Edward the Confessor.... He was canonized by Pope Alexander about a century after his death.... He was esteemed the _patron-saint of England_ until superseded in the thirteenth century by St. George.' These fourteen scenes are fully described in Brayley's Hist. of Westminster Abbey, in an account which is chiefly taken from a life of St. Edward written by Ailred of Rievaulx in 1163. Three 'Lives of Edward the Confessor' were edited, for the Master of the Rolls, by Mr. Luard in 1858. See Morley's Eng. Writers, 1888, ii. 375.

3162. _celle_, cell. The monk calls it _his_ cell because he was 'the keper' of it; Prol. 172.

3163. _Tragédie_; the final _ie_ might be slurred over before _is_, in which case we might read _for to_ for _to_ (see footnote); but it is needless. The definition of 'tragedy' here given is repeated from Chaucer's own translation of Boethius, which contains the remark--'_Glose._ Tragedie is to seyn, a ditee [_ditty_] of a prosperitee for a tyme, that endeth in wrecchednesse'; bk. ii. pr. 2. 51. This remark is Chaucer's _own_, as the word _Glose_ marks his addition to, or _gloss_ upon, his original. His remark refers to a passage in Boethius immediately preceding, viz. 'Quid _tragoediarum_ clamor aliud deflet, nisi indiscreto ictu fortunam felicia regna uertentem?' De Consolatione Philosophiae, lib. ii. prosa 2. See also the last stanza of 'Cresus' in the Monkes Tale (vol. i. p. 268).

3169. _exametron_, hexameter. Chaucer is speaking of Latin, not of English verse; and refers to the common Latin hexameter used in heroic verse; he would especially be thinking of the Thebaid of Statius, [227] the Metamorphoseon Liber of Ovid, the Aeneid of Vergil, and Lucan's Pharsalia. This we could easily have guessed, but Chaucer has himself told us what was in his thoughts. For near the conclusion of his Troilus and Criseyde, which he calls a _tragedie_, he says--

'And kis the steppes wheras thou seest pace _Virgile_, _Ovyde_, Omer, _Lucan_, and _Stace_.'

Lucan is expressly cited in B. 401, 3909.

3170. _In prose._ For example, Boccaccio's De Casibus Virorum and De Claris Mulieribus contain 'tragedies' in Latin prose. Cf. ll. 3655, 3910.

3171. _in metre._ For example, the tragedies of Seneca are in various metres, chiefly iambic. See also note to l. 3285.

3177. _After hir ages_, according to their periods; in chronological order. The probable allusion is to Boccaccio's De Casibus Virorum, which begins with Adam and Nimrod, and keeps tolerably to the right order. For further remarks on this, shewing how Chaucer altered the order of these Tragedies in the course of revision, see vol. iii. p. 428.

THE MONKES TALE.

For some account of this Tale, see vol. iii. p. 427.

3181. _Tragédie_; accented on the second syllable, and riming with _remédie_; cf. B. 3163. Very near the end of Troilus and Criseyde, we find Chaucer riming it with _comédie_. That poem he also calls a tragedie (v. 1786)--

'Go, litel book, go, litel myn _tragédie_,' &c.

3183. _fillen_, fell. _nas no_, for _ne was no_, a double negative. Cf. Ch. tr. of Boethius--'the olde age of tyme passed, and eek of present tyme now, is ful of ensaumples how that kinges ben chaunged in-to wrecchednesse out of hir welefulnesse'; bk. iii. pr. 5. 3.

3186. The Harl. MS. has--'Ther may no man the cours of hir whiel holde,' which Mr. Wright prefers. But the reading of the Six-text is well enough here; for in the preceding line Chaucer is speaking of Fortune under the image of a person fleeing away, to which he adds, that no one can _stay her course_. Fortune is also sometimes represented as stationary, and holding an ever-turning wheel, as in the Book of the Duchesse, 643; but that is another picture.

3188. _Be war by_, take warning from.

LUCIFER.

3189. _Lucifer_, a Latin name signifying _light-bringer_, and properly applied to the morning-star. In Isaiah xiv. 12 the Vulgate has--'Quomodo cecidisti de caelo, _Lucifer_, qui mane oriebaris? corruisti in terram, qui uulnerabas gentes?' &c. St. Jerome, Tertullian, St. Gregory, and [228] other fathers, supposed this passage to apply to the fall of Satan. It became a favourite topic for writers both in prose and verse, and the allusions to it are innumerable. See note to Piers the Plowman, B. i. 105 (Clar. Press Series). Gower begins his eighth book of the Confessio Amantis with the examples of Lucifer and Adam.

Sandras, in his Étude sur Chaucer, p. 248, quotes some French lines from a 'Volucraire,' which closely agree with this first stanza. But it is a common theme.

3192. _sinne_, the sin of _pride_, as in all the accounts; probably from 1 Tim. iii. 6. Thus Gower, Conf. Amant. lib. i. (ed. Pauli, i. 153):--

'For Lucifer, with them that felle, Bar _pride_ with him into helle. Ther was pride of to grete cost, Whan he for pride hath heven lost.'

3195. _artow_, art thou. _Sathanas_, Satan. The Hebrew _sâtân_ means simply an _adversary_, as in 1 Sam. xxix. 4; 2 Sam. xix. 22; &c. A remarkable application of it to the evil spirit is in Luke x. 18. Milton also indentifies Lucifer with Satan; Par. Lost, vii. 131; x. 425; but they are sometimes distinguished, and made the names of two different spirits. See, for example, Piers Plowman, B. xviii. 270-283.

3196. Read _misérie_, after which follows the metrical pause.

ADAM.

3197. Boccaccio's De Casibus Virorum Illustrium begins with a chapter 'De Adam et Eua.' It contains the passage--'Et ex agro, qui postea _Damascenus_,... ductus in Paradisum deliciarum.' Lydgate, in his Fall of Princes (fol. a 5), has--

'Of slyme of the erthe, in _damascene_ the feelde, God made theym aboue eche creature.'

The notion of the creation of Adam in a field whereupon afterwards stood Damascus, occurs in Peter Comestor's Historia Scholastica, where we find (ed. 1526, fol. vii)--'Quasi quereret aliquis, Remansit homo in loco vbi factus est, in agro scilicet damasceno? Non. Vbi ergo translatus est? In paradisum.' See also Maundeville's Travels, cap. xv; Genesis and Exodus, ed. Morris, l. 207; and note in Mätzner's Altenglische Sprachproben, ii. 185.

3199. Cf. 'Formatus est homo ... de spurcissimo spermate'; Innocent III., De Miseria Conditionis Humanae, i. 1 (Köppel).

3200. So Boccaccio--'O caeca rerum cupiditas! Hii, _quibus rerum omnium_, dante Deo, _erat imperium_,' &c. Cf. Gen. i. 29; ii. 16.

SAMPSON.

3205. The story of Sampson is also in Boccaccio, lib. i. c. 17 (not 19, as Tyrwhitt says). But Chaucer seems mostly to have followed [229] the account in Judges, xiii-xvi. The word _annunciat_, referring to the announcement of Samson's birth by the angel (Judges xiii. 3), may have been suggested by Boccaccio, whose account begins--'_Praenunciante_ per angelum Deo, ex Manue Israhelita quodam et pulcherrima eius vxore Sanson progenitus est.' _thangel_ in l. 3206=_the angel_.

3207. _consecrat_, consecrated. A good example of the use of the ending _-at_; cf. _situate_ for _situated_.--M. Shakespeare has _consecrate_; Com. of. Err. ii. 2. 134.

3208. _whyl he mighte see_, as long as he preserved his eyesight.

3210. _To speke of strengthe_, with regard to strength; _to speke of_ is a kind of preposition.--M. Cf. Milton's Samson Agonistes, 126-150.

3211. _wyves_. Samson told the secret of his riddle to his wife, Judges xiv. 17; and of his strength to Delilah, id. xvi. 17.

3215. _al to-rente_, completely rent in twain. The prefix _to-_ has two powers in Old English. Sometimes it is the preposition _to_ in composition, as in _towards_, or M. E. _to-flight_ (G. _zuflucht_), a refuge. But more commonly it is a prefix signifying _in twain_, spelt _zer-_ in German, and _dis-_ in Moeso-Gothic and Latin. Thus _to-rente_ = rent in twain; _to-brast_ = burst in twain, &c. The intensive adverb _al_, utterly, was used not merely (as is commonly supposed) before verbs beginning with _to-_, but in other cases also. Thus, in William of Palerne, l. 872, we find--'He was _al a-wondred_,' where _al_ precedes the intensive prefix _a-_ = A. S. _of_. Again, in the same poem, l. 661, we have--'_al bi-weped_ for wo,' where _al_ now precedes the prefix _bi-_. In Barbour's Bruce, ed. Skeat, x. 596, is the expression--

'For, hapnyt ony to slyde or fall, He suld be soyne _to-fruschit al_.'

Where _al to-fruschit_ means utterly broken in pieces. Perhaps the clearest example of the complete separability of _al_ from _to_ is seen in l. 3884 of William of Palerne;--

'_Al to-tare_ his atir · þat he _to-tere_ mi[gh]t';

i. e. he entirely tore apart his attire, as much of it as he could tear apart. But at a later period of English, when the prefix _to-_ was less understood, a new and mistaken notion arose of regarding _al to_ as a separable prefix, with the sense of _all to pieces_. I have observed no instance of this use earlier than the reign of Henry VIII. Thus Surrey, Sonnet 9, has '_al-to_ shaken' for shaken to pieces. Latimer has--'they love and _al-to_ love (i. e. entirely love) him'; Serm. p. 289. For other examples, see _Al-to_ in the Bible Word-book; and my notes in Notes and Queries, 3 Ser. xii. 464, 535; also _All_, § C. 15, in the New E. Dict.

3220. Samson's wife was given to a friend; Judges, xiv. 20. She was afterwards burnt by her own people; Judges, xv. 6.

3224. _on every tayl_; one brand being fastened to the tails of two foxes; Judg. xv. 4.

3225. _cornes._ The Vulgate has _segetes_ and _fruges_; also _utneas_ for [230] _vynes_, and _oliueta_ for _oliveres_. The plural form _cornes_ is not uncommon in Early English. Cf. 'Quen thair _corns_ war in don,' i. e. when their harvests were gathered in; Spec. of Eng. pt. ii. ed. Morris and Skeat, p. 70, l. 39. And again, 'alle men-sleeris and brenneris of houses and cornes [misprinted _corves_] ben cursed opynly in parische chirches'; Wyclif's Works, ed. Arnold, iii. 329.

3234. _wang-toth_, molar tooth. This expression is taken from the Vulgate, which has--'Aperuit itaque Dominus _molarem dentem_ in maxilla asini'; where the A. V. has only--'an hollow place that was in the jaw'; Judg. xv. 19.

3236. _Judicum_, i. e. Liber Judicum, the Book of Judges. Cf. note to B. 93, at p. 141.

3237. _Gazan_, a corruption of Gazam, the acc. case, in Judg. xvi. 1, Vulgate version.

3244. _ne hadde been_, there would not have been. Since _hadde_ is here the subjunctive mood, it is dissyllabic. Read--_worldë n' haddë_.

3245. _sicer_, from the Lat. _sicera_, Greek [Greek: sikera], strong drink, is the word which we now spell _cider_; see Wyclif's Works, ed. Arnold, i. 363, note. It is used here because found in the Vulgate version of Judges xiii. 7; 'caue ne uinum bibas, nec _siceram_.' I slightly amend the spelling of the MSS., which have _ciser_, _siser_, _sythir_, _cyder_. Wyclif has _sither_, _cyther_, _sidir_, _sydur_.

3249. _twenty winter_, twenty years; Judg. xvi. 31. The English used to reckon formerly by _winters_ instead of _years_; as may be seen in a great many passages in the A. S. Chronicle.

3253. _Dalida_; from Gk. [Greek: Dalida], in the Septuagint. The Vulgate has _Dalila_; but Chaucer (or his scribes) naturally adopted a form which seemed to have a nearer resemblance to an accusative case, such being, at that time, the usual practice; cf. _Briseide_ (from _Briseida_), _Criseyde_ and _Anelida_. Lydgate also uses the form _Dalida_.

3259. _in this array_, in this (defenceless) condition.

3264. _querne_, hand-mill. The Vulgate has--'et clausum in carcere molere fecerunt'; Judg. xvi. 21. But Boccaccio says--'ad _molas manuarias_ coegere.' The word occurs in the House of Fame, 1798; and in Wyclif's Bible, Exod. xi. 5; Mat. xxiv. 41. In the Ayenbite of Inwyt, ed. Morris, p. 181, the story of Samson is alluded to, and it is said of him that he 'uil [_fell_] into þe honden of his yuo [_foes_], þet him deden grinde _ate querne_ ssamuolliche,' i. e. who made him grind at the mill shamefully (in a shameful manner). Lydgate copies Chaucer rather closely, in his Fall of Princes, fol. e 7:--

'And of despite, after as I fynde, At their _quernes_ made hym for to grinde.'

3269. _Thende_, the end. _Caytif_ means (1) a captive, (2) a wretch. It is therefore used here very justly.

3274. _two pilers_, better than the reading _the pilers_ of MS. E.; because _two_ are expressly mentioned; Judg. xvi. 29. [231]

3282. So Boccaccio--'Sic aduersa credulitas, sic amantis pietas, sic mulieris egit inclyta fides. Vt quem non poterant homines, non uincula, non ferrum uincere, a mulieribus latrunculis uinceretur.' Lydgate has the expressions--

'Beware by Sampson your counseyll well to kepe, Though [_misprinted_ That] Dalida compleyne, crye, and wepe';

and again:--

'Suffre no nightworm within your counseyll crepe, Though Dalida compleyne, crye, and wepe.'

HERCULES.

3285. There is little about Hercules in Boccaccio; but Chaucer's favourite author, Ovid, has his story in the Metamorphoses, book ix, and Heroides, epist. 9. Tyrwhitt, however, has shewn that Chaucer more immediately copies a passage in Boethius, de Cons. Phil. lib. iv. met. 7, which is as follows:--

'Herculem duri celebrant labores; Ille Centauros domuit superbos; Abstulit saeuo spolium leoni; Fixit et certis uolucres sagittis; Poma cernenti rapuit draconi, Aureo laeuam grauior metallo; Cerberum traxit triplici catena. Victor immitem posuisse fertur Pabulum saeuis dominum quadrigis. Hydra combusto periit ueneno; Fronte turpatus Achelous amnis Ora demersit pudibunda ripis. Strauit Antaeum Libycis arenis, Cacus Euandri satiauit iras, Quosque pressurus foret altus orbis Setiger spumis humeros notauit. Ultimus caelum labor irreflexo Sustulit collo, pretiumque rursus Ultimi caelum meruit laboris.'

But it is still more interesting to see Chaucer's own version of this passage, which is as follows (ed. Morris, p. 147; cf. vol. ii. p. 125):--

'Hercules is celebrable for his harde trauaile; he dawntede þe proude Centauris, half hors, half man; and he rafte þe despoylynge fro þe cruel lyoun; þat is to seyne, he slou[gh] þe lyoun and rafte hym hys skyn. He smot þe birds þat hy[gh]ten arpijs in þe palude of lyrne wiþ certeyne arwes. He rauyssede applis fro þe wakyng dragoun, & hys hand was þe more heuy for þe goldene metal. He drou[gh] Cerberus þe hound of helle by his treble cheyne; he, ouer-comer, as it is seid, haþ put an vnmeke lorde fodre to his cruel hors; þis is to sein, þat [232] hercules slou[gh] diomedes and made his hors to etyn hym. And he, hercules, slou[gh] Idra þe serpent & brende þe venym; and achelaus þe flode, defoulede in his forhede, dreinte his shamefast visage in his strondes; þis is to seyn, þat achelaus couþe transfigure hymself into dyuerse lykenesse, & as he fau[gh]t wiþ ercules, at þe laste he turnide hym in-to a bole [_bull_]; and hercules brak of oon of hys hornes, & achelaus for shame hidde hym in hys ryuer. And he, hercules, caste adoun Antheus þe geaunt in þe strondes of libye; & kacus apaisede þe wraþþes of euander; þis is to sein, þat hercules slou[gh] þe monstre kacus & apaisede wiþ þat deeþ þe wraþþe of euander. And þe bristlede boor markede wiþ scomes [_scums_, _foam_] þe sholdres of hercules, þe whiche sholdres þe heye cercle of heuene sholde þreste [_was to rest upon_]. And þe laste of his labours was, þat he sustenede þe heuene upon his nekke unbowed; & he deseruede eftsones þe heuene, to ben þe pris of his laste trauayle.'

And in his House of Fame, book iii. (l. 1413), he mentions--

'Alexander, and Hercules, That with a sherte his lyf lees.'

3288. Hercules' first labour was the slaying of the Nemean lion, whose skin he often afterwards wore.

3289. _Centauros_; this is _the very form_ used by Boethius, else we might have expected _Centaurus_ or _Centaures_. After the destruction of the Erymanthian boar, Hercules slew Pholus the centaur; and (by accident) Chiron. His slaughter of the centaur Nessus ultimately brought about his own death; cf. l. 3318.

3290. _Arpies_, harpies. The sixth labour was the destruction of the Stymphalian birds, who ate human flesh.

3291. The eleventh labour was the fetching of the golden apples, guarded by the dragon Ladon, from the garden of the Hesperides.

3292. The twelfth labour was the bringing of Cerberus from the lower world.

3293. _Busirus._ Here Chaucer has confused two stories. One is, that Busiris, a king of Egypt, used to sacrifice all foreigners who came to Egypt, till the arrival of Hercules, who slew him. The other is 'the eighth labour,' when Hercules killed Diomedes, a king in Thrace, who fed his mares with human flesh, till Hercules slew him and gave his body to be eaten by the mares, as Chaucer _himself_ says in his translation. The confusion was easy, because the story of Busiris is mentioned elsewhere by Boethius, bk. ii. pr. 6, in a passage which Chaucer thus translates (see vol. ii. p. 43):--'I have herd told of Busirides, þat was wont to sleen his gestes [_guests_] þat herberweden [_lodged_] in his hous; and he was sleyn him-self of Ercules þat was his gest.' Lydgate tells the story of Busiris correctly.

3295. _serpent_, i. e. the Lernean hydra, whom Chaucer, in the passage from Boethius, calls 'Idra [_or_ Ydra] the serpent.'

3296. _Achelois_, seems to be used here as a genitive form from [233] a nominative _Achelo_; in his translation of Boethius we find _Achelous_ and _Achelaus_. The spelling of names by old authors is often vague. The line means--he broke one of the two horns of Achelous. The river-god Achelous, in his fight with Hercules, took the form of a bull, whereupon the hero broke off one of his horns.

3297. The adventures with Cacus and Antaeus are well known.

3299. The fourth labour was the destruction of the Erymanthian boar.

3300. _longe_, for a long time; in the margin of MS. Camb. Univ. Lib. Dd. 4. 24, is written the gloss _diu_.

3307. The allusion is to the 'pillars' of Hercules. The expression 'both ends of the world' refers to the extreme points of the continents of Europe and Africa, _world_ standing here for _continent_. The story is that Hercules erected two pillars, Calpe and Abyla, on the two sides of the Strait of Gibraltar. The words 'seith Trophee' seem to refer to an author named Trophaeus. In Lydgate's prologue to his Fall of Princes, st. 41, he says of Chaucer that--

'In youth he made a translacion Of a boke whiche called is _Trophe_ In Lumbarde tonge, as men may rede and se; And in our vulgar, long er that he deyde, Gave it the name of Troylus and Creseyde.'

This seems to say that _Trophe_ was the Italian name of a Book (or otherwise, the name of a book in Italian), whence Chaucer drew his story of Troilus. But the notion must be due to some mistake, since that work was taken from the 'Filostrato' of Boccaccio. The only trace of the name of _Trophaeus_ as an author is in a marginal note--possibly Chaucer's own--which appears in both the Ellesmere and Hengwrt MSS., viz. 'Ille vates Chaldeorum Tropheus.' See, however, vol. ii. p. lv, where I shew that, in _this_ passage at any rate, _Trophee_ really refers to Guido delle Colonne, who treats of the deeds of Hercules in the first book of his Historia Troiana, and makes particular mention of the famous columns (as to which Ovid and Boethius are alike silent).

3311. _thise clerkes_, meaning probably Ovid and Boccaccio. See Ovid's Heroides, epist. ix., entitled Deianira Herculi, and Metamorph. lib. ix.; Boccaccio, De Casibus Virorum Illustrium, lib. i. cap. xviii., and De Mulieribus Claris, cap. xxii. See also the Trachineae of Sophocles, which Chaucer of course never read.

3315. _wered_, worn; so in A. 75, and B. 3320, _wered_ is the form of the past tense. Instances of verbs with weak preterites in Chaucer, but strong ones in modern English, are rare indeed; but there are several instances of the contrary, e.g. _wep_, _slep_, _wesh_, _wex_, now _wept_, _slept_, _washed_, _waxed_. _Wore_ is due to analogy with _bore_; cf. _could_ for _coud_.

3317. Both Ovid and Boccaccio represent Deianira as ignorant of the fatal effects which the shirt would produce. See Ovid, Metam. [234] ix. 133. Had Chaucer written later, he might have included Gower among the clerks, as the latter gives the story of Hercules and Deianira in his Conf. Amantis, lib. ii. (ed. Pauli, i. 236), following Ovid. Thus he says--

'With wepend eye and woful herte She tok out thilke vnhappy sherte, _As she that wende wel to do_.'

3326. For long upbraidings of Fortune, see The Boke of the Duchesse, 617; Rom. Rose, 5407; Boethius, bk. i. met. 5; &c.

NABUGODONOSOR.

3335. _Nabugodonosor_; generally spelt _Nabuchodonosor_ in copies of the Vulgate, of which this other spelling is a mere variation. Gower has the same spelling as Chaucer, and relates the story near the end of book i. of the Conf. Amantis (ed. Pauli, i. 136). Both no doubt took it directly from Daniel i-iv.

3338. _The vessel_ is here an imitation of the French idiom; F. _vaisselle_ means _the plate_, as Mr. Jephson well observes. Cf. l. 3494.

3349. In the word _statue_ the second syllable is rapidly slurred over, like that in _glorie_ in l. 3340. See the same effect in the Kn. Tale, ll. 117, 1097 (A. 975, 1955).

3356. _tweye_, two; a strange error for _three_, whose names are familiar; viz. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

BALTHASAR.

3373. _Balthasar_; so spelt by Boccaccio, who relates the story very briefly, De Cas. Virorum Illust., lib. ii. cap. 19. So also, by Peter Comestor, in his Historia Scholastica; and by Gower, Conf. Amant., lib. v (ed. Pauli, ii. 365). The Vulgate generally has _Baltassar_; Daniel, cap. v.

3379. _and ther he lay_; cf. l. 3275 above.

3384. The word _tho_ is supplied for the metre. The scribes have considered _vesselles_ (_sic_) as a trisyllable; but see ll. 3391, 3416, 3418.

3388. _Of_, for. Cf. 'thank God _of_ al,' i. e. for all; in Chaucer's Balade of Truth.--M. See note in vol. i. pp. 552-3.

3422. Tyrwhitt has _trusteth_, in the plural, but _thou_ is used throughout. Elsewhere Chaucer also has '_on_ whom we _truste_,' Prol. A. 501; '_truste on_ fortune,' B. 3326; cf. 'syker _on_ to trosten,' P. Pl. Crede, l. 350.

3427. _Dárius_, so accented. _degree_, rank, position.

3429-36. I have no doubt that this stanza was a later addition.

3436. _proverbe._ The allusion is, in the first place, to Boethius, de Cons. Phil., bk. iii. pr. 5--'Sed quem felicitas amicum fecit, infortunium [235] faciet inimicum'; which Chaucer translates--'Certes, swiche folk as weleful fortune maketh freendes, contrarious fortune maketh hem enemys'; see vol. ii. p. 63. Cf. Prov. xix. 4--'Wealth maketh many friends; but the poor is separated from his neighbour,' &c. So also--'If thou be brought low, he [i. e. thy friend] will be against thee, and will hide himself from thy face'; Ecclus. vi. 12. In Hazlitt's Collection of English Proverbs, p. 235, we find--

'In time of prosperity, friends will be plenty; In time of adversity, not one among twenty.'

See also note to l. 120 above; and, not to multiply instances, note st. 19 of Goldsmith's Hermit:--

'And what is friendship but a name, A charm that lulls to sleep; _A shade that follows wealth or fame_, And leaves the wretch to weep?'

ZENOBIA.

3437. _Cenobia._ The story of Zenobia is told by Trebellius Pollio, who flourished under Constantine, in cap. xxix. of his work entitled Triginta Tyranni; but Chaucer no doubt followed later accounts, one of which was clearly that given by Boccaccio in his De Mulieribus Claris, cap. xcviii. Boccaccio relates her story again in his De Casibus Virorum, lib. viii. c. 6; in an edition of which, printed in 1544, I find references to the biography of Aurelian by Flavius Vopiscus, to the history of Orosius, lib. vii. cap. 23, and to Baptista Fulgosius, lib. iv. cap. 3. See, in particular, chap. xi. of Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, where the story of Zenobia is given at length. Palmyra is described by Pliny, Nat. Hist. lib. v. cap. 21. Zenobia's ambition tempted her to endeavour to make herself a Queen of the East, instead of remaining merely Queen of Palmyra; but she was defeated by the Roman emperor Aurelian, A.D. 273, and carried to Rome, where she graced his triumph, A.D. 274. She survived this reverse of fortune for some years.

_Palimerie._ Such is the spelling in the best MSS.; but MS. Hl. reads--'of Palmire the queene.' It is remarkable that MS. Trin. Coll. Cam. R. 3. 19 has the reading--'Cenobia, of _Belmary_ quene,' which suggests confusion with _Belmarie_, in the Prol. A. 57; but see the note to that line. It occupied the site of the ancient Tadmor, or 'city of palmtrees,' in an oasis of the Great Syrian desert. It has been in ruins since about A.D. 1400.

3441. In the second _ne in_, the _e_ is slurred over; cf. _nin_, Sq. Ta., F. 35.

3442. _Perse._ This (like l. 3438) is Chaucer's mistake. Boccaccio says expressly that she was of the race of the Ptolemies of Egypt; but further [236] on he remarks--'Sic cum _Persis_ et Armenis principibus, vt illos urbanitate et facetia superaret.' This may account for the confusion.

3446. Boccaccio says (de Mul. Clar.)--'Dicunt autem hanc a pueritia sua spretis omnino muliebribus _officiis_, cum iam corpusculum eduxisset in robur, syluas & nemora incoluisse plurimum, & accinctam pharetra, ceruis caprisque cursu atque sagittis fuisse infestam. Inde cum in acriores deuenisset uires, ursus amplecti ausam, pardos, leonesque insequi, obuios expectare, capere & occidere, ac in praedam trahere.' This accounts for the word _office_, and may shew how closely Chaucer has followed his original.

3496. _lafte not_, forbore not; see A. 492.

3497. She was acquainted with Egyptian literature, and studied Greek under the philosopher Longinus, author of a celebrated treatise on 'The Sublime.'

3502. _housbonde._ Her husband was Odenathus, or Odenatus, the ruler of Palmyra, upon whom the emperor Gallienus had bestowed the title of Augustus. He was murdered by some of his relations, and some have even insinuated that Zenobia consented to the crime. Most scribes spell the name _Onedake_, by metathesis for _Odenake_ (_Odenate_), like the spelling _Adriane_ for _Ariadne_.

3507. _doon hem flee_, cause them (her and her husband) to flee.

3510. Sapor I. reigned over Persia A.D. 240-273. He defeated the emperor Valerian, whom he kept in captivity for the rest of his life. After conquering Syria and taking Caesarea, he was defeated by Odenatus and Zenobia, who founded a new empire at Palmyra. See Gibbon, Decline, &c., chap. x.

3511. _proces_, succession of events. _fil_, fell, befell.

3512. _title_, pronounced nearly as _title_ in French, the _e_ being elided before _had_.

3515. _Petrark._ Tyrwhitt suggests that perhaps Boccaccio's book had fallen into Chaucer's hands under the name of Petrarch. We may, however, suppose that Chaucer had read the account in a borrowed book, and did not certainly know whether Petrarch or Boccaccio was the author. Instances of similar mistakes are common enough in Early English. Modern readers are apt to forget that, in the olden times, much information had to be carried in the memory, and there was seldom much facility for verification or for a second perusal of a story.

3519. _cruelly._ The Harl. MS. has the poor reading _trewely_, miswritten for _crewely_.

3525. Claudius II., emperor of Rome, A.D. 268-270. He succeeded Gallienus, as Chaucer says, and was succeeded by Aurelian.

3535. Boccaccio calls them _Heremianus_ and _Timolaus_, so that _Hermanno_ (as in the MSS.) should probably be _Heremanno_. Professor Robertson Smith tells me that the right names are _Herennianus_ and _Timoleon_. The line cannot well be scanned as it stands.

3550. _char_, chariot. Boccaccio describes this 'currum, quem sibi ex auro gemmisque praeciocissimum Zenobia fabricari fecerat.' [237]

3556. _charged_, heavily laden. She was so laden with chains of massive gold, and covered with pearls and gems, that she could scarcely support the weight; so says Boccaccio. Gibbon says the same.

3562. _vitremyte._ I have no doubt this reading (as in Tyrwhitt) is correct. All the six MSS. in the Six-text agree in it. The old printed editions have _were autremyte_, a mere corruption of _were a u[i]tremyte_; and the Harl. MS. has _wyntermyte_, which I take to be an attempt to make sense of a part of the word, just as we have turned _écrevisse_ into _cray-fish_. What the word means, is another question; it is perhaps the greatest 'crux' in Chaucer. As the word occurs nowhere else, the solution I offer is a mere guess. I suppose it to be a coined word, formed on the Latin _vitream mitram_, expressing, literally, a glass head-dress, in complete contrast to a strong helmet. My reasons for supposing this are as follows.

(1) With regard to _mitra_. In Low-Latin, its commonest meaning is a woman's head-dress. But it was especially and widely used as a term of mockery, both in Latin, Italian, Spanish, and French. The _mitra_ was the cap which criminals were made to wear as a sign of degradation; see Carpenter's Supp. to Ducange, s. v. _Mitra_; Vocabulario degli Accad. della Crusca, s. v. _Mitera_; and any large Spanish Dict. s. v. _Mitra_. Even Cotgrave has--'_Mitré_, mitred; hooded with a _miter_, wearing a _miter_; set on a pillory or scaffold, with a _miter_ of paper on his head.' The chief difficulty in this derivation is the loss of the _r_, but Godefroy has a quotation (s. v. _mite_, 2), which would suit the sense--'_mites_ de toile costonnees, et par dessus ung grand chappel de fer ou de cuir bouilli.'

(2) With regard to _vitream_. This may refer to a proverb, probably rather English than foreign, to which I have never yet seen a reference. But its existence is clear. To give a man 'a glazen hood' meant, in Old English, to mock, delude, cajole. It appears in Piers the Plowman, B. xx. 171, where a story is told of a man who, fearing to die, consulted the physicians, and gave them large sums of money, for which they gave him in return 'a glasen houve,' i. e. a _hood of glass_, a thing that was no defence at all. Still clearer is the allusion to the same proverb _in Chaucer_ himself, in a passage explained by no previous editor, in Troil. and Cres. v. 469, where Fortune is said to have an intention of deluding Troilus; or, as the poet says,

'Fortune his _howve_ entended bet _to glase_,'

i. e. literally, Fortune intended _to glaze his hood_ still better for him, i. e. to make a still greater fool of him. In the Aldine edition, _howue_ is printed _howen_ in this passage, but _howue_ occurs elsewhere; Tyrwhitt has _hove_, a common variation of _howue_. If this note is unsatisfactory, I may yet claim to have explained in it at least _one_ long-standing difficulty; viz. this line in Troilus. Tyrwhitt long ago explained that, in Chaucer, the phrases _to set a man's hood_, and _to set a man's cap_, have a like meaning, viz. to delude him. Chaucer uses _verre_ for glass [238] in another passage of a similar character, viz. in Troil. and Cres. ii. 867, where we read--

'And forthy, who that hath an hede of _verre_, Fro cast of stones war him in the werre.'

3564. _a distaf._ This is from Boccaccio's _other_ account, in the De Casibus Virorum. 'Haec nuper imperatoribus admiranda, nunc uenit miseranda plebeis. Haec nunc galeata concionari militibus assueta, nunc uelata cogitur muliercularum audire fabellas. Haec nuper Orienti praesidens sceptra gestabat, nunc Romae subiacens, colum, sicut ceterae, baiulat.' Zenobia survived her disgrace for some years, living at Rome as a private person on a small estate which was granted to her, and which, says Trebellius Pollio, 'hodie _Zenobia_ dicitur.'

PETER, KING OF SPAIN.

3565. See vol. iii. p. 429, for the _order_ in which the parts of the Monk's Tale are arranged. I follow here the arrangement in the Harleian MS. Peter, king of Castile, born in 1334, is generally known as Pedro the Cruel. He reigned over Castile and Leon from 1350 to 1362, and his conduct was marked by numerous acts of unprincipled atrocity. After a destructive civil war, he fell into the hands of his brother, Don Enrique (Henry). A personal struggle took place between the brothers, in the course of which Enrique stabbed Pedro to the heart; March 23, 1369. See the ballad by Sir Walter Scott, entitled the Death of Don Pedro, in Lockhart's Spanish Ballads, commencing--

'Henry and Don Pedro clasping Hold in straining arms each other; Tugging hard and closely grasping, Brother proves his strength with brother.'

It is remarkable that Pedro was very popular with his own party, despite his crimes, and Chaucer takes his part because our Black Prince fought on the side of Pedro against Enrique at the battle of Najera, April 3, 1367; and because John of Gaunt married Constance, daughter of Pedro, about Michaelmas, 1371.

3573. See the description of Du Gueschlin's arms as given below. The 'field' was argent, and the black eagle appears as if _caught_ by a rod covered with birdlime, because the bend dexter across the shield seems to restrain him from flying away. The first three lines of the stanza refer to Bertrand Du Gueschlin, who 'brew,' i. e. contrived Pedro's murder, viz. by luring him to Enrique's tent. But the last three lines refer to another knight who, according to Chaucer, took a still more active part in the matter, being a _worker_ in it. This second person was a certain Sir Oliver Mauny, whose name Chaucer conceals under the synonym of _wicked nest_, standing for O. Fr. _mau ni_, where [239] _mau_ is O. Fr. for _mal_, bad or wicked, and _ni_ is O. Fr. for _nid_, Lat. _nidus_, a nest. Observe too, that Chaucer uses the word _need_, not _deed_. There may be an excellent reason for this; for, in the course of the struggle between the brothers, Enrique was at first thrown, 'when (says Lockhart) one of Henry's followers, seizing Don Pedro by the leg, turned him over, and his master, thus at length gaining the upper hand, instantly stabbed the king to the heart. Froissart calls this man the Vicomte de Roquebetyn, and others the Bastard of Anisse.' I have no doubt that Chaucer means to tell us that the helper in Enrique's _need_ was no other than Mauny. He goes on to say that this Mauny was not like Charles the Great's Oliver, an honourable peer, but an Oliver of Armorica, a man like Charles's Ganelon, the well-known traitor, of whom Chaucer elsewhere says (Book of the Duchess, l. 1121)--

'Or the false Genelon, He that purchased the treson Of Rowland and of Olivere.'

This passage has long been a puzzle, but was first cleared up in an excellent letter by Mr. Furnivall in Notes and Queries, which I here subjoin; I may give myself the credit, however, of identifying 'wicked nest' with O. Fr. _mau ni_.

'The first two lines [of the stanza] describe the arms of Bertrand du Guesclin, which were, a black double-headed eagle displayed on a silver shield, with a red band across the whole, from left to right [in heraldic language, a bend dexter, gules]--"the lymrod coloured as the glede" or live coal--as may be seen in Anselme's _Histoire Généalogique de France_, and a MS. _Généalogies de France_ in the British Museum. Next, if we turn to Mr. D. F. Jamison's excellent _Life and Times of Bertrand du Guesclin_, we not only find on its cover Bertrand's arms as above described, but also at vol. ii. pp. 92-4, an account of the plot and murder to which Chaucer alludes, and an identification of his traitorous or "Genylon" Oliver, with Sir Oliver de Mauny of Brittany (or Armorica), Bertrand's cousin [or, according to Froissart, cap. 245, his nephew].

'After the battle of Monteil, on March 14, 1369, Pedro was besieged in the castle of Monteil near the borders of La Mancha, by his brother Enrique; who was helped by Du Guesclin and many French knights. Finding escape impossible, Pedro sent Men Rodriguez secretly to Du Guesclin with an offer of many towns and 200,000 gold doubloons if he would desert Enrique and reinstate Pedro. Du Guesclin refused the offer, and "the next day related to his friends and kinsmen in the camp, and _especially to his cousin, Sir Oliver de Mauny_, what had taken place." He asked them if he should tell Enrique; they all said yes: so he told the king. Thereupon Enrique promised Bertrand the same reward that Pedro had offered him, but asked him also to assure Men Rodriguez of Pedro's safety if he would come to his (Du Guesclin's) lodge. Relying on Bertrand's assurance, Pedro came to him on [240] March 23; Enrique entered the lodge directly afterwards, and after a struggle, stabbed Pedro, and seized his kingdom.

'We see then that Chaucer was justified in asserting that Du Guesclin and Sir Oliver Mauny "brew this cursednesse"; and his assertion has some historical importance; for as his patron and friend, John of Gaunt, married one of Pedro's daughters [named Constance] as his second wife [Michaelmas, 1371], Chaucer almost certainly had the account of Pedro's death from his daughter, or one of her attendants, and is thus a witness for the truth of the narrative of the Spanish chronicler Ayala, given above, against the French writers, Froissart, Cuvelier, &c., who make the Bégue de Villaines the man who inveigled Pedro. This connexion of Chaucer with John of Gaunt and his second wife must excuse the poet in our eyes for calling so bad a king as Pedro the Cruel "worthy" and "the glorie of Spayne, whom Fortune heeld so hy in magestee."

'In the Corpus MS. these knights are called in a side-note Bertheu_n_ Clayky_n_ (which was one of the many curious ways in which Du Guesclin's name was spelt) and Olyu_er_ Mawny; in MS. Harl. 1758 they are called Barthilmewe Claykeynne and Olyuer Mawyn; and in MS. Lansdowne 851 they are called Betelmewe Claykyn and Oliuer Mawnye. Mauni or Mauny was a well-known Armorican or Breton family. Chaucer's epithet of "Genilon" for Oliver de Mauny is specially happy, because Genelon was the Breton knight who betrayed to their death the great Roland and the flower of Charlemagne's knights to the Moors at Roncesvalles. Charles's or Charlemagne's great paladin, Oliver, is too well known to need more than a bare mention.'--F. J. Furnivall, in Notes and Queries, 4th Series, viii. 449.

PETER, KING OF CYPRUS.

3581. In a note to Chaucer's Prologue, A. 51, Tyrwhitt says--'Alexandria in Egypt was won, and immediately afterwards abandoned, in 1365, by Pierre de Lusignan, king of Cyprus. The same Prince, soon after his accession to the throne in 1352, had taken Satalie, the antient Attalia; and in another expedition about 1367 he made himself master of the town of Layas in Armenia. Compare 11 Mémoire sur les Ouvrages de Guillaume de Machaut, Acad. des Ins. tom. xx. pp. 426, 432, 439; and Mémoire sur la Vie de Philippe de Maizières, tom. xvii. p. 493.' He was assassinated in 1369. Cf. note to A. 51.

BARNABO OF LOMBARDY.

3589. 'Bernabo Visconti, duke of Milan, was deposed by his nephew and thrown into prison, where he died in 1385.'--Tyrwhitt. This date of Dec. 18, 1385 is that of the _latest circumstance_ incidentally referred to in the Canterbury Tales. Chaucer had been sent to treat with Visconti [241] in 1378, so that he knew him personally. See Froissart, bk. ii. ch. 158; Engl. Cyclopaedia, s. v. _Visconti_; Furnivall's Trial Forewords, p. 109. And see vol. i. p. xxxii.

UGOLINO OF PISA.

3597. 'Chaucer himself has referred us to Dante for the original of this tragedy: see Inferno, canto xxxiii.'--Tyrwhitt. An account of Count Ugolino is given in a note to Cary's Dante, from Villani, lib. vii. capp. 120-127. This account is different from Dante's, and represents him as very treacherous. He made himself master of Pisa in July 1288, but in the following March was seized by the Pisans, who threw him, with his two sons, and two of his grandsons, into a prison, where they perished of hunger in a few days. Chaucer says _three sons_, the eldest being five years of age. Dante says _four sons_.

3606. _Roger_; i. e. the Archbishop Ruggieri degli Ubaldini, who was Ugolino's enemy.

3616. This line is imperfect at the caesura; accent _but_. Tyrwhitt actually turns _herde_ into _hered_, to make it dissyllabic; but such an 'emendation' is not legitimate. The Harl. MS. has--'He herd it wel, but he _saugh_ it nought'; where Mr. Jephson inserts _ne_ before _saugh_ without any comment. Perhaps read--he [ne] spak.

'The hour drew near When they were wont to bring us food; the mind Of each misgave him through his dream, and I Heard, at its outlet underneath, lock'd up The horrible tower: whence, _uttering not a word_, I look'd upon the visage of my sons. I wept not: so all stone I felt within. They wept: and one, my little Anselm, cried, "Thou lookest so! Father, what ails thee?"' &c. Cary's Dante.

3621. Dante does not mention the ages; but he says that the son named Gaddo died on the fourth day, and the other three on the fifth and sixth days. Observe that Chaucer's tender lines, ll. 3623-8, are _his own_.

3624. _Morsel breed_, morsel of bread; cf. _barel ale_ for barrel of ale, B. 3083.--M.

3636. 'I may lay the blame of all my woe upon thy false wheel.' Cf. B. 3860.

3640. _two_; there were now but two survivors, the youngest, according to Chaucer, being dead.

'They, who thought I did it through desire of feeding, rose O' the sudden, and cried, "Father, we should grieve Far less, if thou wouldst eat of us: thou gavest These weeds of miserable flesh we wear, And do thou strip them off from us again."' Cary's Dante.

[242]

3651. _Dant_; i. e. Dante Alighieri, the great poet of Italy, born in 1265, died Sept. 14, 1321. Chaucer mentions him again in his House of Fame, book i., as the author of the Inferno, in the Prologue to the Legend of Good Women, l. 360, and in the Wyf of Bathes Tale, D. 1126.

NERO.

3655. _Swetonius_; this refers to the Lives of the Twelve Caesars by Suetonius; but it would be a mistake to suppose that Chaucer has followed his account very closely. Our poet seems to have had a habit of mentioning authorities whom he did not _immediately_ follow, by which he seems to have meant no more than that they were good authorities upon the subject. Here, for instance, he merely means that we can find in Suetonius a good account of Nero, which will give us all minor details. But in reality he draws the story more immediately from other sources, especially from Boccaccio, De Casibus Virorum, lib. vii. cap. 4, from the Roman de la Rose, and from Boethius, de Cons. Philos. lib. ii. met. 6, and lib. iii. met. 4. The English Romaunt of the Rose does not contain the passage about Nero, but it is interesting to refer to Chaucer's translation of Boethius. Vincent of Beauvais has an account of Nero, in his Speculum Historiale, lib. ix. capp. 1-7, in which he chiefly follows Suetonius. See also Orosius, lib. vii. 7, and Eutropius, lib. vii.

3657. _South_; the MSS. have _North_, but it is fair to make the correction, as Chaucer certainly knew the sense of _Septemtrioun_, and the expression is merely borrowed from the Roman de la Rose, ed. Méon, l. 6271, where we read,

'Cis desloiaus, que ge ci di; Et d'Orient et de _Midi_, D'Occident, de Septentrion Tint il la juridicion.'

And, in his Boethius, after saying that Nero ruled from East to West, he adds--'And eke þis Nero gouernede by Ceptre alle þe peoples þat ben vndir þe colde sterres þat hy[gh]ten þe seuene triones; þis is to seyn, he gouernede alle þe poeples þat ben vndir þe parties of þe norþe. And eke Nero gouerned alle þe poeples þat þe violent wynde Nothus scorchiþ, and bakiþ þe brennynge sandes by his drie hete; þat is to seyne, alle þe poeples in þe _souþe_'; ed. Morris, p. 55 (cf. vol. ii. p. 45).

3663. From Suetonius; cf. Lounsbury, Studies in Chaucer, ii. 285.

3665. This is from Suetonius, who says--'Piscatus est rete aurato, purpura coccoque funibus nexis'; cap. xxx. So also Orosius, vii. 7; Eutropius, vii. 9.

3669. This passage follows Boethius, bk. ii. met. 6, very closely, as is evident by comparing it with Chaucer's translation (see vol. ii. p. 44). 'He leet brenne the citee of Rome, and made sleen the senatoures. And he, cruel, whylom slew his brother. And he was maked [243] moist with the blood of his moder; that is to seyn, he leet sleen and slitten the body of his moder, to seen wher he was conceived; and he loked on every halve upon her colde dede body; ne no tere ne wette his face; but he was so hard-herted that he mighte ben domesman, or Iuge, of hir dede beautee.... Allas, it is a grevous fortune, as ofte as wikked swerd is ioigned to cruel venim; that is to seyn, venimous crueltee to lordshippe.' Thus Chaucer himself explains _domesman_ (l. 3680) by _Iuge_, i. e. judge. In the same line _ded-è_ is dissyllabic.

3685. _a maister_; i. e. Seneca, mentioned below by name. In the year 65, Nero, wishing to be rid of his old master, sent him an order to destroy himself. Seneca opened a vein, but the blood would not flow freely; whereupon, to expedite its flow, he entered into a warm bath, and thence was taken into a vapour stove, where he was suffocated. 'Nero constreynede Senek, his familier and his mayster, to chesen on what deeth he wolde deyen'; Chaucer's Boethius, lib. iii. pr. 5. 34 (vol. ii. 63).

3692. 'It was long before tyranny or any other vice durst attack him'; literally, 'durst let dogs loose against him.' To _uncouple_ is to release dogs from the leash that fastened them together; see P. Pl. B. pr. 206. Compare--

'At the _uncoupling_ of his houndes.' Book of the Duchesse, l. 377.

'The laund on which they fought, th' appointed place In which th' _uncoupled_ hounds began the chace.' Dryden; Palamon and Arcite, bk. ii. l. 845.

3720. 'Where he expected to find some who would aid him.' Suetonius says--'ipse cum paucis hospitia singulorum adiit. Verum clausis omnium foribus, respondente nullo, in cubiculum rediit,' &c.; cap. xlvii. He afterwards escaped to the villa of his freedman Phaon, four miles from Rome, where he at length gave himself a mortal wound in the extremity of his despair. Cf. Rom. de la Rose, 6459-76.

3736. _girden of_, to strike off; cf. '_gurdeth_ of gyles hed,' P. Pl. B. ii. 201. A _gird_ is also a sharp striking taunt or quip.--M.

HOLOFERNES.

3746. _Oloferne._ The story of Holofernes is to be found in the apocryphal book of Judith.

3750. _For lesinge_, for fear of losing, lest men should lose.

3752. 'He had decreed to destroy all the gods of the land, that all nations should worship Nabuchodonosor only,' &c.; Judith, iii. 8.

3756. _Eliachim._ Tyrwhitt remarks that the name of the high priest was Joacim; Judith, iv. 6. But this is merely the form of the name in our English version. The Vulgate version has the equivalent form _Eliachim_; cf. 2 Chron. xxxvi. 4.

3761. _upright_, i. e. on his back, with his face upwards. See Knightes Tale, l. 1150 (A. 2008), and the note to A. 4194. [244]

ANTIOCHUS.

3765. Antiochus Epiphanes, King of Syria (B.C. 175-164). Paraphrased from 2 Maccabees, ix. 7, 28, 10, 8, 7, 3-7, 9-12, 28.

ALEXANDER.

3821. There is a whole cycle of Alexander romances, in Latin, French, and English, so that his story is common enough. There is a good life of him by Plutarch, but in Chaucer's time the principal authority for an account of him was Quintus Curtius. See Ten Brink, Hist. Eng. Lit., bk. ii. sect. 8.

3826. 'They were glad to send to him (to sue) for peace.'

3843. _write_, should write, pt. subj.; hence the change of vowel from indic. _wroot_.--M. The _i_ is short.

3845. 'So Alexander reigned twelve years, and then died'; 1 Mac. i. 7. _Machabee_, i. e. the first book of the Maccabees.

3850. Quintus Curtius says that Alexander was poisoned by Antipater; and this account is adopted in the romances. Cf. Barbour's Bruce, i. 533.

3851. 'Fortune hath turned thy _six_ (the highest and most fortunate throw at dice) into an _ace_ (the lowest).' Cf. note to B. 124.

3860. 'Which two (fortune and poison) I accuse of all this woe.'

JULIUS CAESAR.

3862. For _humble bed_ Tyrwhitt, Wright, and Bell print _humblehede_, as in some MSS. But this word is an objectionable hybrid compound, and I think it remains to be shewn that the word belongs to our language. In the Knightes Tale, Chaucer has _humblesse_, and in the Persones Tale, _humilitee_. Until better authority for _humblehede_ can be adduced, I am content with the reading of the four best MSS., including the Harleian, which Wright _silently alters_.

3863. _Julius._ For this story Chaucer refers us below to Lucan, Suetonius, and Valerius; see note to l. 3909. There is also an interesting life of him by Plutarch. Boccaccio mentions him but incidentally.

3866. _tributárie_; observe the rime with _aduersárie_. _Fortune_ in l. 3868 is a trisyllable; so also in l. 3876.

3870. 'Against Pompey, thy father-in-law.' Rather, 'son-in-law'; for Caesar gave Pompey his daughter Julia in marriage.

3875. _puttest_; to be read as _putt'st_; and _thórient_ as in l. 3883.

3878. _Pompeius._ Boccaccio gives his life at length, as an example of misfortune; De Casibus Virorum, lib. vi. cap. 9. He was killed Sept. 29, B.C. 48, soon after the battle of Pharsalia in Thessaly (l. 3869).

3881. _him_, for himself; but in the next line it means 'to him.'--M.

3885. Chaucer refers to this triumph in the Man of Lawes Tale, B. 400; but see the note. Cf. Shak. Henry V, v. prol. 28. [245]

3887. Chaucer is not alone in making Brutus and Cassius into _one_ person; see note to l. 3892.

3891. _cast_, contrived, appointed; pp., after _hath_.

3892. _boydekins_, lit. bodkins, but with the signification of daggers. It is meant to translate the Lat. _pugio_, a poniard. In Barbour's Bruce, i. 545, Caesar is said to have been slain with a weapon which in one edition is called _punsoun_, in another a _botkin_, and in the Edinburgh MS. a _pusoune_, perhaps an error for _punsoune_, since Halliwell's Dictionary gives the form _punchion_. Hamlet uses _bodkin_ for a dagger; Act iii. sc. 1. l. 76. In the margin of Stowe's Chronicle, ed. 1614, it is said that Caesar was slain with _bodkins_; Nares' Glossary. Nares also quotes--'The chief woorker of this murder was _Brutus Cassius_, with 260 of the senate, all having _bodkins_ in their sleeves'; Serp. of Division, prefixed to Gorboduc, 1590.

3906. _lay on deying_, lay a-dying. In l. 3907, _deed_ = mortally wounded.

3909. _recomende_, commit. He means that he commits the full telling of the story to Lucan, &c. In other words, he refers the reader to those authors. Cf. Lounsbury, Studies in Chaucer, ii. 254, 274.

Lucan (born A.D. 39, died A.D. 65) was the author of the Pharsalia, an incomplete poem in ten books, narrating the struggle between Pompey and Caesar. There is an English translation of it by Rowe.

Suetonius Tranquillus (born about A.D. 70) wrote several works, the principal of which is The Lives of the Twelve Caesars.

Valerius. There were two authors of this name, (1) Valerius Flaccus, author of a poem on the Argonautic expedition, and (2) Valerius Maximus, author of De Factis Dictisque Memorabilibus Libri ix. Mr. Jephson says that Valerius Flaccus is meant here, I know not why. Surely the reference is to Valerius Maximus, who at least tells some anecdotes of Caesar; lib. iv. c. 5; lib. vii. cap. 6.

3911. _word and ende_, beginning and end; a substitution for the older formula _ord and ende_. Tyrwhitt notes that the suggested emendation of _ord_ for _word_ was proposed by Dr. Hickes, in his Anglo-Saxon Grammar, p. 70. Hickes would make the same emendation in Troil. and Cres. v. 1669;

'And of this broche he tolde him _ord and ende_,'

where the editions have _word_. He also cites the expression _ord and ende_ from Cædmon; see Thorpe's edition, p. 225, l. 30. We also find _from orde [=o]ð ende_ = from beginning to end, in the poem of Elene (Vercelli MS.), ed. Grein, l. 590. _Orde and ende_ occurs also at a later period, in the Ormulum, l. 6775; and still later, in Floriz and Blancheflur, l. 47, ed. Lumby, in the phrase,

'_Ord and ende_ he haþ him told Hu blauncheflur was þarinne isold.'

Tyrwhitt argues that the true spelling of the phrase had already become [246] corrupted in Chaucer's time, and such seems to have been the fact, as all the MSS. have _word_. See Zupitza's note to Guy of Warwick, l. 7927, where more examples are given; and cf. my note to Troil. ii. 1495. _Ord and ende_ explains our modern _odds and ends_; see Garnett's Essays, p. 37. Moreover, it is not uncommon to find a _w_ prefixed to a word where it is not required etymologically, especially before the vowel _o_. The examples _wocks_, oaks, _won_, one, _wodur_, other, _wostus_, oast-house, _woth_, oath, _wots_, oats, _wolde_, old, are all given in Halliwell's Prov. Dictionary.

CROESUS.

3917. _Cresus_; king of Lydia, B.C. 560-546, defeated by Cyrus at Sardis. Cyrus spared his life, and Croesus actually survived his benefactor. Chaucer, however, brings him to an untimely end. The story of Croesus is in Boccaccio, De Casibus Virorum, lib. iii. cap. 20. See also Herodotus, lib. 1; Plutarch's life of Solon, &c. But Boccaccio represents Croesus as surviving his disgraces. Tyrwhitt says that the story seems to have been taken from the Roman de la Rose, ll. 6312-6571 (ed. Méon); where the English Romaunt of the Rose is defective. In Chaucer's translation of Boethius, bk. ii. pr. 2, see vol. ii. p. 28, we find this sentence: 'Wistest thou not how Cresus, the king of Lydiens, of whiche king Cyrus was ful sore agast a litel biforn, that this rewliche [_pitiable_] Cresus was caught of [_by_] Cyrus, and lad to the fyr to ben brent; but that a rayn descendede doun fro hevene, that rescowede him?' In the House of Fame, bk. i. ll. 104-6, we have an allusion to the 'avision' [_vision_, dream] of

'Cresus, that was king of Lyde, That high upon a gebet dyde.'

See also Nonne Pr. Ta. l. 318 (B. 4328). The tragic version of the fate of Croesus is given by Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum Historiale, iii. 17; and I give an extract, as it seems to be the account which is followed in the Roman de la Rose. It must be premised that Vincent makes Croesus to have been taken prisoner by Cyrus _three times_.

'Alii historiographi narrant, quod in secunda captione, iussit eum Cyrus rogo superponi et assari, et subito tanta pluuia facta est, vt eius immensitate ignis extingueretur, vnde occasionem repperit euadendi. Cumque postea hoc sibi prospere euenisse gloriaretur, et opum copia nimium se iactaret, dictum est ei a Solone quodam sapientissimo, non debere quemquam in diuitiis et prosperitate gloriari. Eadem nocte uidit in somnis quod Jupiter eum aqua perfunderet, et sol extergeret. Quod cum filiae suae mane indicasset, illa (vt res se habebat) prudenter absoluit, dicens: quod cruci esset affigendus et aqua perfundendus et sole siccandus. Quod ita demum contigit, nam postea a Cyro crucifixus est.' Compare the few following lines from the Roman de la Rose, with ll. 3917-22, 3934-8, 3941, and l. 3948:-- [247]

'Qui refu roi de toute Lyde; Puis li mist-l'en où col la bride, Et fu por ardre au feu livrés, Quant par pluie fu délivrés, Qui le grant feu fist tout estraindre:... Jupiter, ce dist, le lavoit, Et Phebus la _toaille_ avoit, Et se penoit de l'essuier.... Bien le dist _Phanie_ sa fille, Qui tant estoit saige et soutille,... L'arbre par le gibet vous glose,' &c.

3951. The passage here following is repeated from the Monkes Prologue, and copied, as has been said, from Boethius, bk. ii. pr. 2. It is to be particularly noted that the passage quoted from Boethius in the note to B. 3917 almost immediately precedes the passage quoted in the note to B. 3163.

3956. See note to B. 3972 below.

THE NONNE PRESTES PROLOGUE.

3957. _the knight._ See the description of him, Prol. A. 43.

3961. _for me_, for myself, for my part. Cp. the phrase 'as for me.'--M.

3970. 'By the bell of Saint Paul's church (in London).'

3972. The host alludes to the concluding lines of the Monkes Tale, l. 3956, then repeats the words _no remedie_ from l. 3183, and cites the word _biwaille_ from l. 3952. Compare all these passages.

3982. _Piers._ We must suppose that the host had by this time learnt the monk's name. In B. 3120 above, he did not know it.

3984. 'Were it not for the ringing of your bells'; lit. were there not a clinking of your bells (all the while). 'Anciently no person seems to have been gallantly equipped on horseback, unless the horse's bridle or some other part of the furniture was stuck full of small bells. Vincent of Beauvais, who wrote about 1264, censures this piece of pride in the knights-templars; Hist. Spec. lib. xxx. c. 85'; &c.--Warton, Hist. Eng. Poetry (ed. Hazlitt), ii. 160; i. 264. See also note to Prol. A. 170.

3990. 'Ubi auditus non est, non effundas sermonem'; Ecclus. xxxii. 6. (Vulgate); the A. V. is different. See above, B. 2237. The common proverb, 'Keep your breath to cool your broth,' nearly expresses what Chaucer here intends.

3993. _substance_ is explained by Tyrwhitt to mean 'the material part of a thing.' Chaucer's meaning seems not very different from Shakespeare's in Love's La. Lost, v. 2. 871--

'A jest's prosperity lies in the ear Of him that hears it; never in the tongue Of him that makes it.'

[248]

3995. 'For the propriety of this remark, see note to Prol. A. 166'; Tyrwhitt.

4000. _Sir_; 'The title of _Sir_ was usually given, by courtesy, to priests, both secular and regular'; Tyrwhitt. Tyrwhitt also remarks that, 'in the principal modern languages, John, or its equivalent, is a name of contempt or at least of slight. So the Italians use _Gianni_, from whence _Zani_ [Eng. _zany_]; the Spaniards _Juan_, as _Bobo Juan_, a foolish John; the French _Jean_, with various additions.' The reason (which Tyrwhitt failed to see) is simply that _John_ is one of the commonest of common names. For example, twenty-three popes took that name; and cf. our phrase _John_ Bull, which answers to the French _Jean_ Crapaud, and the Russian _Ivan_ Ivanovitch, 'the embodiment of the peculiarities of the Russian people'; Wheeler's Noted Names of Fiction. Ivan Ivanovitch would be John Johnson in English and Evan Evans in Welsh. Hence _sir John_ became the usual contemptuous name for a priest; see abundant examples in the Index to the Parker Society's publications.

4004. _serve_ has two syllables; hence _rek_, in the Harl. MS., is perhaps better than _rekke_ of the other MSS. _A bene_, the value of a bean; in the Milleres Tale _a kers_ (i. e. a blade of grass) occurs in a similar manner (A. 3756); which has been corrupted into 'not caring a _curse_'!

4006. _Ye_, yea, is a mild form of assent; _yis_ is a stronger form, generally followed, as here, by some form of asseveration. See note to B. 1900 above.

4008. _attamed_, commenced, begun. The Lat. _attaminare_ and Low Lat. _intaminare_ are equivalent to _contaminare_, to contaminate, soil, spoil. From Low Lat. _intaminare_ comes F. _entamer_, to cut into, attack, enter upon, begin. From _attaminare_ comes the M. E. _attame_ or _atame_, with a similar sense. The metaphor is taken from the notion of cutting into a joint of meat or of broaching or opening a cask. This is well shewn by the use of the word in P. Plowman, B. xvii. 68, where it is said of the Good Samaritan in the parable that he 'breyde to his boteles, and bothe he _atamede_,' i. e. he went hastily to his bottles, and broached or opened them both. So here, the priest broached, opened, or began his tale.

THE NONNE PREESTES TALE.

We may compare Dryden's modernised version of this tale, entitled 'The Cock and the Fox.' See further in vol. iii. pp. 431-3.

4011. _stape._ Lansd. MS. reads _stoupe_, as if it signified bent, _stooped_; but _stoop_ is a _weak_ verb. _Stape_ or _stope_ is the past participle of the strong verb _stapen_, to step, advance. _Stape in age_ = advanced in years. Roger Ascham has almost the same phrase: 'And [Varro] beyng depe _stept in age_, by negligence some wordes do scape and fall from him in those bookes as be not worth the taking up,' &c.--The Schoolmaster, ed. Mayor, p. 189; ed. Arber, p. 152. [249]

4018-9. _by housbondrye_, by economy; _fond hir-self_, 'found herself,' provided for herself.

4022. _Ful sooty was hir bour, and eek hir halle._ The widow's house consisted of only two apartments, designated by the terms bower and hall. Whilst the widow and her 'daughters two' slept in the bower, Chanticleer and his seven wives roosted on a perch in the hall, and the swine disposed themselves on the floor. The smoke of the fire had to find its way through the crevices of the roof. See Our English Home, pp. 139, 140. Cf. Virgil, Ecl. vii. 50--'assidua postes fuligine nigri.' Also--

'At his beds feete feeden his stalled teme, His swine beneath, his _pullen ore the beame_.' Hall's Satires, bk. v. sat. 1; v. 1. p. 56, ed. 1599.

4025. _No deyntee_ (Elles. &c.); _Noon deynteth_ (Harl.).

4029. _hertes suffisaunce_, a satisfied or contented mind, literally heart's satisfaction. Cf. our phrase 'to your heart's content.'

4032. _wyn ... whyt nor reed._ The white wine was sometimes called 'the wine of Osey' (Alsace); the red wine of Gascony, sometimes called 'Mountrose,' was deemed a liquor for a lord. See Our English Home, p. 83; Piers Pl. prol. l. 228.

4035. _Seynd bacoun_, singed or broiled bacon. _an ey or tweye_, an egg or two.

4036. _deye._ The _daia_ (from the Icel. _deigja_) is mentioned in Domesday among assistants in husbandry; and the term is again found in 2nd Stat. 25 Edward III (A.D. 1351). In Stat. 37 Edward III (A.D. 1363), the _deye_ is mentioned among others of a certain rank, not having goods or chattels of 40s. value. The _deye_ was usually a female, whose duty was to make butter and cheese, attend to the calves and poultry, and other odds and ends of the farm. The _dairy_ (in some parts of England, as in Shropshire, called a _dey_-house) was the department assigned to her. See Prompt. Parv., p. 116.

4039. In Caxton's translation of Reynard the Fox, the cock's name is _Chantecleer_. In the original, it is _Canticleer_; from his clear voice in singing. In the same, Reynard's second son is _Rosseel_; see l. 4524.

4041. _merier_, sweeter, pleasanter. In Todd's Illustrations of Chaucer, p. 284, there is a long passage illustrative of _mery_ in the sense of 'pleasant.' Cf. l. 4156. _orgon_ is put for _orgons_ or _organs_. It is plain from _gon_ in the next line, that Chaucer meant to use this word as a plural from the Lat. _organa_. _Organ_ was used until lately only in the plural, like _bellows_, _gallows_, &c. 'Which is either sung or said or on the _organs_ played.'--Becon's Acts of Christ, p. 534. It was sometimes called _a pair of organs_. See note to P. Plowman, C. xxi. 7.

4044. Cf. Parl. of Foules, 350:--

'The cok, that orloge is of thorpes lyte.'

[250]

_Orloge_ (of an abbey) occurs in Religious Pieces, ed. Perry, p. 56; and see Stratmann.

4045. 'The cock knew _each_ ascension of the equinoctial, and crew at each; that is, he crew every hour, as 15° of the equinoctial make an hour. Chaucer adds [l. 4044] that he knew the hour better than the abbey-clock. This tells us, clearly, that we are to reckon clock-hours, and not the unequal hours of the solar or 'artificial' day. Hence the prime, mentioned in l. 4387, was at a clock-hour, at 6, 7, 8, or 9, suppose. The day meant is May 3, because the sun [l. 4384] had passed the 21st degree of Taurus (see fig. 1 of Astrolabe).... The date, May 3, is playfully denoted by saying [l. 4379] that March was complete, and also (since March began) thirty-two days more had passed. The words "since March began" are parenthetical; and we are, in fact, told that the whole of March, the whole of April, and two days of May were done with. March was then considered the first month in the year, though the year began with the 25th, not with the 1st; and Chaucer alludes to the idea that the Creation itself took place in March. The day, then, was May 3, with the sun past 21 degrees of Taurus. The hour must be had from the sun's altitude, rightly said (l. 4389) to be _Fourty degrees and oon_. I use a globe, and find that the sun would attain the altitude 41° nearly at 9 o'clock. It follows that prime in l. 4387 signifies the end of the first quarter of the day, reckoned from 6 A.M. to 6 P.M.'--Skeat's Astrolabe, (E.E.T.S.), p. lxi. This rough test, by means of a globe, is perhaps sufficient; but Mr. Brae proved it to be right by calculation. Taking the sun's altitude at 41½°, he 'had the satisfaction to find a resulting hour, for prime, of 9 o'clock A.M. _almost to the minute_.' It is interesting to find that Thynne explains this passage very well in his Animadversions on Speght's Chaucer; ed. Furnivall, p. 62, note 1.

The notion that the Creation took place on the 18th of March is alluded to in the Hexameron of St. Basil (see the A. S. version, ed. Norman, p. 8, note _j_), and in Ælfric's Homilies, ed. Thorpe, i. 100.

4047. Fifteen degrees of the equinoctial = an exact hour. See note to l. 4045 above. Skelton imitates this passage in his Phillyp Sparowe, l. 495.

4050. _And batailed._ Lansd. MS. reads _Enbateled_, indented like a battlement, embattled. _Batailed_ has the same sense.

4051. _as the Ieet_, like the jet. Beads used for the repetition of prayers were frequently formed of _jet_. See note to Prol. A. 159.

4060. _damoysele Pertelote._ Cf. our 'Dame Partlet.'

'I'll be as faithful to thee As Chaunticleer to Madame Partelot.' The Ancient Drama, iii. p. 158.

In Le Roman de Renart, the hen is called _Pinte_ or _Pintain_.

4064. _in hold_; in possession. Cf. 'He hath my heart _in holde_'; Greene's George a Greene, ed. Dyce, p. 256. [251]

4065. _loken in every lith_, locked in every limb.

4069. _my lief is faren in londe_, my beloved is gone away. Probably the refrain of a popular song of the time.

4079. _herte dere._ This expression corresponds to 'dear heart,' or 'deary heart,' which still survives in some parts of the country.

4083. _take it nat agrief_ = _take it not in grief_, i. e. take it not amiss, be not offended.

4084. _me mette_, I dreamed; literally _it dreamed to me_.

4086. _my swevene recche_ (or _rede_) _aright_, bring my dream to a good issue; literally 'interpret my dream favourably.'

4090. _Was lyk._ The relative _that_ is often omitted by Chaucer before a relative clause, as, again, in l. 4365.

4098. _Avoy_ (Elles.); _Away_ (Harl.). From O. F. _avoi_, interj. fie! It occurs in Le Roman de la Rose, 7284, 16634.

4113. See the Chapter on Dreams in Brand's Pop. Antiquities.

4114. _fume_, the effects arising from gluttony and drunkenness. 'Anxious black melancholy _fumes_.'--Burton's Anat. of Mel. p. 438, ed. 1845. 'All vapours arising out of the stomach,' especially those caused by gluttony and drunkenness. 'For when the head is heated it scorcheth the blood, and from thence proceed melancholy _fumes_ that trouble the mind.'--Ibid. p. 269.

4118. _rede colera_ ... red cholera caused by too much bile and _blood_ (sometimes called _red humour_). Burton speaks of a kind of melancholy of which the signs are these--'the veins of their eyes red, as well as their faces.' The following quotation explains the matter. 'Ther be foure humours, Bloud, Fleame, Cholar, and Melancholy.... First, working heate turneth what is colde and moyst into the kind of Fleme, and then what is hot and moyst, into the kinde of Bloud; and then what is hot and drye into the kinde of Cholera; and then what is colde and drye into the kinde of Melancholia.... By meddling of other humours, Bloud chaungeth kinde and colour: for by meddling of _Cholar_, it seemeth _red_, and by Melancholy it seemeth _black_, and by Fleame it seemeth watrie, and fomie.'--Batman upon Bartholomè, lib. iv. c. 6. So also--'in bloud it needeth that there be _red Cholera_'; lib. iv. c. 10; &c.

The following explains the belief as to dreams caused by _cholera_. Men in which red _Cholera_ is excesssive 'dreame of fire, and of lyghtening, and of dreadful burning of the ayre'; Batman upon Bartholomè, lib. iv. c. 10. Those in which _Melancholia_ is excessive dream 'dredfull darke dreames, and very ill to see'; id. c. 11. And again: 'He that is Sanguine hath glad and liking dreames, the melancholious dremeth of sorrow, the Cholarike, of _firy_ things, and the Flematike, of Raine, Snow,' &c.; id. lib. vi. c. 27.

4123. _the humour of malencolye._ 'The name (melancholy) is imposed from the matter, and disease denominated from the material cause, as Bruel observes, [Greek: melancholia] _quasi_ [Greek: melainacholê], from black choler.' Fracastorius, in his second book of Intellect, calls those melancholy [252] 'whom abundance of that same depraved humour of black choler hath so misaffected, that they become mad thence, and dote in most things or in all, belonging to election, will, or other manifest operations of the understanding.'--Burton's Anat. of Melancholy, p. 108, ed. 1805.

4128. 'That cause many a man in sleep to be very distressed.'

4130. _Catoun._ Dionysius Cato, de Moribus, l. ii. dist. 32: _somnia ne cures_. 'I observe by the way, that this distich is quoted by John of Salisbury, Polycrat. l. ii. c. 16, as a precept _viri sapientis_. In another place, l. vii. c. 9, he introduces his quotation of the first verse of dist. 20 (l. iii.) in this manner:--"_Ait vel Cato vel alius_, nam autor incertus est."'--Tyrwhitt. Cf. note to G. 688.

4131. _do no fors of_ = take no notice of, pay no heed to. Skelton, i. 118, has 'makyth so lytyll fors,' i. e. cares so little for.

4153. 'Wormwood, _centaury_, pennyroyal, are likewise magnified and much prescribed, especially in hypochondrian melancholy, daily to be used, sod in whey. And because the spleen and blood are often misaffected in melancholy, I may not omit endive, succory, dandelion, _fumitory_, &c., which cleanse the blood.'--Burton's Anat. of Mel. pp. 432, 433. See also p. 438, ed. 1845. '_Centauria_ abateth wombe-ache, and cleereth sight, and vnstoppeth the splene and the reines'; Batman upon Bartholomè, lib. xvii. c. 47. '_Fumus terre_ [fumitory] cleanseth and purgeth Melancholia, fleme, and cholera'; id. lib. xvii. c. 69. 'Medicinal herbs were grown in every garden, and were dried or made into decoctions, and kept for use'; Wright, Domestic Manners, p. 279.

4154. _ellebor._ Two kinds of hellebore are mentioned by old writers; 'white hellebore, called sneezing powder, a strong purger upward' (Burton's Anat. of Mel. pt. 2. § 4. m. 2. subsec. 1.), and '_black hellebore_, that most renowned plant, and famous purger of melancholy.'--Ibid. subsec. 2.

4155. _catapuce_, caper-spurge, _Euphorbia Lathyris_. _gaytres_ (or _gaytrys_) _beryis_, probably the berries of the buck-thorn, _Rhamnus catharticus_; which (according to Rietz) is still called, in Swedish dialects, the _getbärs-trä_ (goat-berries tree) or _getappel_ (goat-apple). I take _gaytre_ to stand for _gayt-tre_, i. e. goat-tree; a Northern form, from Icel. _geit_ (gen. _geitar_), a goat. The A. S. _g[=a]te-tr[=e]ow_, goat-tree, is probably the same tree, though the prov. Eng. _gaiter-tree_, _gatten-tree_, or _gatteridge-tree_ is usually applied to the _Cornus sanguinea_ or cornel-tree, the fruits of which 'are sometimes mistaken for those of the buck-thorn, but do not possess the active properties of that plant'; Eng. Cyclop., s. v. _Cornus_. The context shews that the buck-thorn is meant. Langham says of the buck-thorn, that 'the beries do purge downwards mightily flegme and choller'; Garden of Health, 1633, p. 99 (New E. Dict., s. v. _Buckthorn_). This is why Chanticleer was recommended to eat them.

4156. _erbe yve_, herb ive or herb ivy, usually identified with the ground-pine, _Ajuga chamæpitys_. _mery_, pleasant, used ironically; as the leaves are extremely nauseous. [253]

4160. _graunt mercy_, great thanks; this in later authors is corrupted into _grammercy_ or _gramercy_.

4166. _so mote I thee_, as I may thrive (or prosper). _Mote_ = A. S. _m[=o]t-e_, first p. s. pr. subj.

4174. _Oon of the gretteste auctours._ 'Cicero, De Divin. l. i. c. 27, relates this and the following story, but in a different order, and with so many other differences, that one might be led to suspect that he was here quoted at second-hand, if it were not usual with Chaucer, in these stories of familiar life, to throw in a number of natural circumstances, not to be found in his original authors.'--Tyrwhitt. Warton thinks that Chaucer took it rather from Valerius Maximus, who has the same story; i. 7. He has, however, overlooked the statement in l. 4254, which decides for Cicero. I here quote the whole of the former story, as given by Valerius. 'Duo familiares Arcades iter una facientes, Megaram venerunt; quorum alter ad hospitem se contulit, alter in tabernam meritoriam devertit. Is, qui in hospitio venit, vidit in somnis comitem suam orantem, ut sibi cauponis insidiis circumvento subveniret: posse enim celeri ejus accursu se imminenti periculo subtrahi. Quo viso excitatus, prosiluit, tabernamque, in qua is diversabatur, petere conatus est. Pestifero deinde fato ejus humanissimum propositum tanquam supervacuum damnavit, et lectum ac somnum repetiit. Tunc idem ei saucius oblatus obsecravit, ut qui auxilium vitae suae ferre neglexisset, neci saltem ultionem non negaret. Corpus enim suum à caupone trucidatum, tum maxime plaustro ad portam ferri stercore coöpertum. Tam constantibus familiaris precibus compulsus, protinus ad portam cucurrit, et plaustrum, quod in quiete demonstratum erat, comprehendit, cauponemque ad capitale supplicium perduxit.' Valerii Maximi, lib. i. c. 7 (De Somniis). Cf. Cicero, De Divinatione, i. 27.

4194. _oxes_; written _oxe_ in Hl. Cp. Ln; where _oxe_ corresponds to the older English gen. _oxan_, of an ox--_oxe_ standing for _oxen_ (as in Oxenford, see note on l. 285 of Prologue). Thus _oxes_ and _oxe_ are equivalent.

4200. _took of this no keep_, took no heed to this, paid no attention to it.

4211. _sooth to sayn_, to say (tell) the truth.

4232. _gapinge._ The phrase _gaping upright_ occurs elsewhere (see Knightes Tale, A. 2008), and signifies lying flat on the back with the mouth open. Cf. 'Dede he sate uprighte,' i. e. he lay on his back dead. The Sowdone of Babyloyne, l. 530.

4235. _Harrow_, a cry of distress; a cry for help. 'Harrow! alas! I swelt here as I go.'--The Ordinary; see vol. iii. p. 150, of the Ancient Drama. See F. _haro_ in Godefroy and Littré; and note to A. 3286.

4237. _outsterte_ (Elles., &c.); _upsterte_ (Hn., Harl.)

4242. A common proverb. Skelton, ed. Dyce, i. 50, has 'I drede mordre wolde come oute.'

4274. _And preyde him his viáge for to lette_, And prayed him to abandon his journey. [254]

4275. _to abyde_, to stay where he was.

4279. _my thinges_, my business-matters.

4300. 'Kenelm succeeded his father Kenulph on the throne of the Mercians in 821 [Haydn, Book of Dates, says 819] at the age of seven years, and was murdered by order of his aunt, Quenedreda. He was subsequently made a saint, and his legend will be found in Capgrave, or in the Golden Legend.'--Wright.

St. Kenelm's day is Dec. 13. Alban Butler, in his Lives of the Saints, says:--[Kenulph] 'dying in 819, left his son Kenelm, a child only seven years old [see l. 4307] heir to his crown, under the tutelage of his sister Quindride. This ambitious woman committed his person to the care of one Ascobert, whom she had hired to make away with him. The wicked minister decoyed the innocent child into an unfrequented wood, cut off his head, and buried him under a thorn-tree. His corpse is said to have been discovered by a heavenly ray of light which shone over the place, and by the following inscription:--

In Clent cow-pasture, under a thorn, Of head bereft, lies Kenelm, king born.'

Milton tells the story in his History of Britain, bk. iv. ed. 1695, p. 218, and refers us to Matthew of Westminster. He adds that the 'inscription' was inside a note, which was miraculously dropped by a dove on the altar at Rome. Our great poet's verson of it is:--

'Low in a Mead of Kine, under a thorn, Of Head bereft, li'th poor _Kenelm_ King-born.'

Clent is near the boundary between Staffordshire and Worcestershire.

Neither of these accounts mentions Kenelm's dream, but it is given in his Life, as printed in Early Eng. Poems, ed. Furnivall (Phil. Soc. 1862), p. 51, and in Caxton's Golden Legend. St. Kenelm dreamt that he saw a noble tree with waxlights upon it, and that he climbed to the top of it; whereupon one of his best friends cut it down, and he was turned into a little bird, and flew up to heaven. The little bird denoted his soul, and the flight to heaven his death.

4307. _For traisoun_, i. e. for fear of treason.

4314. _Cipioun._ The Somnium Scipionis of Cicero, as annotated by Macrobius, was a favourite work during the middle ages. See note to l. 31 of the Parl. of Foules.

4328. See the Monkes Tale, B. 3917, and the note, p. 246.

4331. _Lo heer Andromacha._ Andromache's dream is not to be found in Homer. It is mentioned in chapter xxiv. of Dares Phrygius, the authority for the history of the Trojan war most popular in the middle ages. See the Troy-book, ed. Panton and Donaldson (E.E.T.S.), l. 8425; or Lydgate's Siege of Troye, c. 27.

4341. _as for conclusioun_, in conclusion.

4344. _telle ... no store_, set no store by them; reckon them of no value; count them as useless.

4346. _never a del_, never a whit, not in the slightest degree. [255]

4350. This line is repeated from the Compleynt of Mars, l. 61.

4353-6. 'By way of quiet retaliation for Partlet's sarcasm, he cites a Latin proverbial saying, in l. 344, 'Mulier est hominis confusio,' which he turns into a pretended compliment by the false translation in ll. 345, 346.'--Marsh. Tyrwhitt quotes it from Vincent of Beauvais, Spec. Hist. x. 71. Chaucer has already referred to this saying above; see p. 207, l. 2296. 'A woman, as saith the philosofre [i. e. Vincent], is the confusion of man, insaciable, &c.'; Dialogue of Creatures, cap. cxxi. 'Est damnum dulce mulier, confusio sponsi'; Adolphi Fabulae, x. 567; pr. in Leyser, Hist. Poet. Med. Aevi, p. 2031. Cf. note to D. 1195.

4365. _lay_, for _that lay_. Chaucer omits the relative, as is frequently done in Middle English poetry; see note to l. 4090.

4377. According to Beda, the creation took place at the vernal equinox; see Morley, Eng. Writers, 1888, ii. 146. Cf. note to l. 4045.

4384. See note on l. 4045 above.

4395. Cf. Man of Lawes Tale, B. 421, and note. See Prov. xiv. 13.

4398. In the margin of MSS. E. and Hn. is written 'Petrus Comestor,' who is probably here referred to.

4402. See the Squieres Tale, F. 287, and the note.

4405. _col-fox_; explained by Bailey as a 'coal-black fox'; and he seems to have caught the right idea. _Col-_ here represents M. E. _col_, coal; and the reference is to the _brant-fox_, which is explained in the New E. Dict. as borrowed from the G. _brand-fuchs_, 'the German name of a variety of the fox, chiefly distinguished by a greater admixture of black in its fur; according to Grimm, it has black feet, ears, and tail.' Chaucer expressly refers to the black-tipped tail and ears in l. 4094 above. Mr. Bradley cites the G. _kohlfuchs_ and Du. _koolvos_, similarly formed; but the ordinary dictionaries do not give these names. The old explanation of _col-fox_ as meaning 'deceitful fox' is difficult to establish, and is now unnecessary.

4412. _undern_; see note to E. 260.

4417. _Scariot_, i. e. Judas Iscariot. _Genilon_; the traitor who caused the defeat of Charlemagne, and the death of Roland; see Book of the Duchesse, 1121, and the note in vol. i. p. 491.

4418. See Vergil, Æn. ii. 259.

4430. _bulte it to the bren_, sift the matter; cf. the phrase _to boult the bran_. See the argument in Troilus, iv. 967; cf. Milton, P. L. ii. 560.

4432. _Boece_, i. e. Boethius. See note to Kn. Tale, A. 1163.

_Bradwardyn._ Thomas Bradwardine was Proctor in the University of Oxford in the year 1325, and afterwards became Divinity Professor and Chancellor of the University. His chief work is 'On the Cause of God' (_De Causâ Dei_). See Morley's English Writers, iv. 61.

4446. _colde_, baneful, fatal. The proverb is Icelandic; 'köld eru opt kvenna-ráð,' cold (fatal) are oft women's counsels; Icel. Dict. s. v. _kaldr_. It occurs early, in The Proverbs of Alfred, ed. Morris, Text 1, l. 336:--'Cold red is quene red.' Cf. B. 2286, and the note. [256]

4450-6. Imitated from Le Roman de la Rose, 15397-437.

4461. _Phisiologus._ 'He alludes to a book in Latin metre, entitled Physiologus de Naturis xii. Animalium, by one Theobaldus, whose age is not known. The chapter _De Sirenis_ begins thus:--

Sirenae sunt monstra maris resonantia magnis Vocibus, et modulis cantus formantia multis, Ad quas incaute veniunt saepissime nautae, Quae faciunt sompnum nimia dulcedine vocum.'--Tyrwhitt.

See The Bestiary, in Dr. Morris's Old English Miscellany, pp. 18, 207; Philip de Thaun, Le Bestiaire, l. 664; Babees Book, pp. 233, 237; Mätzner's Sprachproben, i. 55; Gower, C.A. i. 58; and cf. Rom. Rose, Eng. Version, 680 (in vol. i. p. 122).

4467. In Douglas's Virgil, prol. to Book xi. st. 15, we have--

'Becum thow cowart, craudoun recryand, And by consent _cry cok_, thi deid is dycht';

i. e. if thou turn coward, (and) a recreant craven, and consent to cry _cok_, thy death is imminent. In a note on this passage, Ruddiman says--'_Cok_ is the sound which cocks utter when they are beaten.' But it is probable that this is only a guess, and that Douglas is merely quoting Chaucer. To cry _cok! cok!_ refers rather to the utterance of rapid cries of alarm, as fowls cry when scared. Brand (Pop. Antiq., ed. Ellis, ii. 58) copies Ruddiman's explanation of the above passage.

4484. Boethius wrote a treatise De Musica, quoted by Chaucer in the Hous of Fame; see my note to l. 788 of that poem (vol. iii. p. 260).

4490. 'As I hope to retain the use of my two eyes.' So Havelok, l. 2545:--

'So mote ich brouke mi Rith eie!'

And l. 1743:--'So mote ich brouke finger or to.'

And l. 311:--'So brouke i euere mi blake swire!'

_swire_ = neck. See also _Brouke_ in the Glossary to Gamelyn.

4502. _daun Burnel the Asse._ 'The story alluded to is in a poem of Nigellus Wireker, entitled Burnellus seu Speculum Stultorum, written in the time of Richard I. In the Chester Whitsun Playes, _Burnell_ is used as a nickname for an ass. The original word was probably _brunell_, from its _brown_ colour; as the _fox_ below is called _Russel_, from his _red_ colour.'--Tyrwhitt. The Latin story is printed in The Anglo-Latin Satirists of the Twelfth Century, ed. T. Wright, i. 55; see also Wright's Biographia Britannica Literaria, Anglo-Norman Period, p. 356. There is an amusing translation of it in Lowland Scotch, printed as 'The Unicornis Tale' in Small's edition of Laing's Select Remains of Scotch Poetry, ed. 1885, p. 285. It tells how a certain young Gundulfus broke a cock's leg by throwing a stone at him. On the morning of the day when Gundulfus was to be ordained and to receive a benefice, the cock took his revenge by not crowing till much later [257] than usual; and so Gundulfus was too late for the ceremony, and lost his benefice. Cf. Warton, Hist. E. P., ed. 1871, ii. 352; Lounsbury, Studies in Chaucer, ii. 338. As to the name _Russel_, see note to l. 4039.

4516. See Rom. of the Rose (E. version), 1050. MS. E. alone reads _courtes_; Hn. Cm. Cp. Pt. have _court_; Ln. _courte_; Hl. _hous_.

4519. _Ecclesiaste_; not Ecclesiastes, but Ecclesiasticus, xii. 10, 11, 16. Cf. Tale of Melibeus, B. 2368.

4525. Tyrwhitt cites the O. F. form _gargate_, i. e. (throat), from the Roman de Rou. Several examples of it are given by Godefroy.

4537. _O Gaufred._ 'He alludes to a passage in the Nova Poetria of Geoffrey de Vinsauf, published not long after the death of Richard I. In this work the author has not only given instructions for composing in the different styles of poetry, but also examples. His specimen of the plaintive style begins thus:--

'Neustria, sub clypeo regis defensa Ricardi, Indefensa modo, gestu testare dolorem; Exundent oculi lacrimas; exterminet ora Pallor; connodet digitos tortura; cruentet Interiora dolor, et verberet aethera clamor; Tota peris ex morte sua. Mors non fuit eius, Sed tua, non una, sed publica mortis origo. _O Veneris lacrimosa_ dies! O sydus amarum! Illa dies tua nox fuit, et Venus illa venenum. Illa dedit vulnus,' &c.

These lines are sufficient to show the object and the propriety of Chaucer's ridicule. The whole poem is printed in Leyser's Hist. Poet. Med. Ævi, pp. 862-978.'--Tyrwhitt. See a description of the poem, with numerous quotations, in Wright's Biographia Britannica Literaria, Anglo-Norman Period, p. 400; cf. Lounsbury, Studies, ii. 341.

4538. Richard I. died on April 6, 1199, on Tuesday; but he received his wound on Friday, March 26.

4540. _Why ne hadde I_ = O that I had.

4547. _streite swerd_ = drawn (naked) sword. Cf. Aeneid, ii. 333, 334:--

'Stat _ferri acies_ mucrone corusco _Stricta_, parata neci.'

4548. See Aeneid, ii. 550-553.

4553. _Hasdrubal_; not Hannibal's brother, but the King of Carthage when the Romans burnt it, B.C. 146. Hasdrubal slew himself; and his wife and her two sons burnt themselves in despair; see Orosius, iv. 13. 3, or Ælfred's translation, ed. Sweet, p. 212. Lydgate has the story in his Fall of Princes, bk. v. capp. 12 and 27.

4573. See note to Ho. Fame, 1277 (in vol. iii. p. 273). '_Colle_ furit'; Morley, Eng. Writers, 1889, iv. 179.

4584. Walsingham relates how, in 1381, Jakke Straw and his men killed many Flemings 'cum clamore consueto.' He also speaks of the noise made by the rebels as 'clamor horrendissimus.' See _Jakke_ in [258] Tyrwhitt's Glossary. So also, in Riley's Memorials of London, p. 450, it is said, with respect to the same event--'In the Vintry was a very great massacre of Flemings.'

4590. _houped._ See Piers Plowman, B. vi. 174; '_houped_ after Hunger, that herde hym,' &c.

4616. Repeated in D. 1062.

4633. 'Mes retiengnent le grain et jettent hors la paille'; Test. de Jean de Meun, 2168.

4635. _my Lord._ A side-note in MS. E. explains this to refer to the Archbishop of Canterbury; doubtless William Courtenay, archbishop from 1381 to 1396. Cf. note to l. 4584, which shews that this Tale is later than 1381; and it was probably earlier than 1396. Note that _good men_ is practically a compound, as in l. 4630. Hence read _good_, not _g[=o]d-e_.

EPILOGUE TO THE NONNE PREESTES TALE.

4641. Repeated from B. 3135.

4643. _Thee wer-e nede_, there would be need for thee.

4649. _brasil_, a wood used for dyeing of a _bright red_ colour; hence the allusion. It is mentioned as being used for dyeing leather in Riley's Memorials of London, p. 364. '_Brazil-wood_; this name is now applied in trade to the dye-wood imported from Pernambuco, which is derived from certain species of _Cæsalpinia_ indigenous there. But it originally applied to a dye-wood of the same genus which was imported from India, and which is now known in trade as _Sappan_. The history of the word is very curious. For when the name was applied to the newly discovered region in S. America, probably, as Barros alleges, because it produced a dye-wood similar in character to the _brazil_ of the East, the trade-name gradually became appropriated to the S. American product, and was taken away from that of the E. Indies. See some further remarks in Marco Polo, ed. Yule, 2nd ed. ii. 368-370.

'This is alluded to also by Camo[e]s (Lusiad, x. 140). Burton's translation has:--

"But here, where earth spreads wider, ye shall claim Realms by the _ruddy dye-wood_ made renowned; These of the 'Sacred Cross' shall win the name, By your first navy shall that world be found."

'The medieval forms of _brazil_ were many; in Italian, it is generally _verzi_, _verzino_, or the like.'--Yule, Hobson-Jobson, p. 86.

Again--'_Sappan_, the wood of _Cæsalpinia sappan_; the _baqqam_ of the Arabs, and the Brazil-wood of medieval commerce. The tree appears to be indigenous in Malabar, the Deccan, and the Malay peninsula.'--id. p. 600. And in Yule's edition of Marco Polo, ii. 315, he tells us that 'it is extensively used by native dyers, chiefly for common and cheap [259] cloths, and for fine mats. The dye is precipitated dark-brown with iron, and red with alum.'

Cf. Way's note on the word in the Prompt. Parv. p. 47.

Florio explains Ital. _verzino_ as 'brazell woode, or fernanbucke [Pernambuco] to dye red withall.'

The etymology is disputed, but I think _brasil_ and Ital. _verzino_ are alike due to the Pers. _wars_, saffron; cf. Arab. _war[=i]s_, dyed with saffron or _wars_.

_greyn of Portingale._ _Greyn_, mod. E. _grain_, is the term applied to the dye produced by the coccus insect, often termed, in commerce and the arts, _kermes_; see Marsh, Lectures on the E. Language, Lect. III. The colour thus produced was 'fast,' i. e. would not wash out; hence the phrase to _engrain_, or to _dye in grain_, meaning to dye of a fast colour. Various tones of red were thus produced, one of which was _crimson_, and another _carmine_, both forms being derivatives of _kermes_. _Of Portingale_ means 'imported from Portugal.' In the Libell of English Policy, cap. ii. (l. 132), it is said that, among 'the commoditees of _Portingale_' are:--'oyl, wyn, osey [Alsace wine], wex, and _graine_.'

4652. _to another_, to another of the pilgrims. This is so absurdly indefinite that it can hardly be genuine. Ll. 4637-4649 are in Chaucer's most characteristic manner, and are obviously genuine; but there, I suspect, we must stop, viz. at the word _Portingale_. The next three lines form a mere stop-gap, and are either spurious, or were jotted down temporarily, to await the time of revision. The former is more probable.

This Epilogue is only found in three MSS.; (see footnote, p. 289). In Dd., Group G follows, beginning with the Second Nun's Tale. In the other two MSS., Group H follows, i. e. the Manciple's Tale; nevertheless, MS. Addit. absurdly puts _the Nunne_, in place of _another_. The net result is, that, at this place, the gap is _complete_; with no hint as to what Tale should follow.

It is worthy of note that this Epilogue is preserved in Thynne and the old black-letter editions, in which it is followed immediately by the Manciple's Prologue. This arrangement is obviously wrong, because that Prologue is not introduced by the Host (as said in l. 4652).

In l. 4650, Thynne has _But_ for _Now_; and his last line runs--'Sayd to a nother man, as ye shal here.' I adopt his reading of _to_ for _unto_ (as in the MSS.).

* * * * *

[260]

NOTES TO GROUP C.

THE PHISICIENS TALE.

For remarks on the spurious Prologues to this Tale, see vol. iii. p. 434. For further remarks on the Tale, see the same, p. 435, where its original is printed in full.

1. The story is told by Livy, lib. iii.; and, of course, his narrative is the source of all the rest. But Tyrwhitt well remarks, in a note to l. 12074 (i. e. C. 140):--'In the Discourse, &c., I forgot to mention the Roman de la Rose as one of the sources of this tale; though, upon examination, I find that our author has drawn more from thence, than from either Gower or Livy.' It is absurd to argue, as in Bell's Chaucer, that our poet must necessarily have known Livy 'in the original,' and then to draw the conclusion that we must look to Livy only as the true source of the Tale. For it is perfectly obvious that Tyrwhitt is right as regards the Roman de la Rose; and the belief that Chaucer may have read the tale 'in the original' does not alter _the fact_ that he trusted much more to the French text. In this very first line, he is merely quoting Le Roman, ll. 5617, 8:--

'Qui fu fille Virginius, _Si cum dist Titus Livius_.'

The story in the French text occupies 70 lines (5613-5682, ed. Méon); the chief points of resemblance are noted below.

Gower has the same story, Conf. Amant. iii. 264-270; but I see no reason why Chaucer should be considered as indebted to him. It is, however, clear that, if Chaucer and Gower be here compared, the latter suffers considerably by the comparison.

Gower gives the names of Icilius, to whom Virginia was betrothed, and of Marcus Claudius. But Chaucer omits the name Marcus, and ignores the existence of Icilius. The French text does the same.

11. This is the 'noble goddesse Nature' mentioned in the Parl. of Foules, ll. 368, 379. Cf. note to l. 16.

14. _Pigmalion_, Pygmalion; alluding to Ovid, Met. x. 247, where it is said of him:--

'Interea niueum mira feliciter arte Sculpit ebur, formamque dedit, qua femina nasci Nulla potest; operisque sui concepit amorem.'

[261]

In the margin of E. Hn. is the note--'Quere in Methamorphosios'; which supplies the reference; but cf. note to l. 16 below, shewing that Chaucer also had in his mind Le Roman de la Rose, l. 16379. So also the author of the Pearl, l. 750; see Morris, Allit. Poems.

16. In the margin of E. Hn. we find the note:--'Apelles fecit mirabile opus in tumulo Darii; vide in Alexandri libro .1.º [Hn. _has_ .6.º]; de Zanze in libro Tullii.' This note is doubtless the poet's own; see further, as to Apelles, in the note to D. 498.

_Zanzis_, Zeuxis. The corruption of the name was easy, owing to the confusion in MSS. between _n_ and _u_.[26] In the note above, we are referred to Tullius, i. e. Cicero. Dr. Reid kindly tells me that Zeuxis is mentioned, with Apelles, in Cicero's De Oratore, iii. § 26, and Brutus, § 70; also, with other artists, in Academia, ii. § 146; De Finibus, ii. § 115; and alone, in De Inventione, ii. § 52, where a long story is told of him. Cf. note to Troil. iv. 414.

However, the fact is that Chaucer really derived his knowledge of Zeuxis from Le Roman de la Rose (ed. Méon, l. 16387); for comparison with the context of that line shews numerous points of resemblance to the present passage in our author. Jean de Meun is there speaking of Nature, and of the inability of artists to vie with her, which is precisely Chaucer's argument here. The passage is too long for quotation, but I may cite such lines as these:--

'Ne _Pymalion_ entaillier' (l. 16379),

'voire _Apelles_ Que ge moult bon paintre appelles, Biautés de li james descrive Ne porroit,' &c. (l. 16381).

'_Zeuxis_ neis par son biau paindre Ne porroit a tel forme ataindre,' &c. (l. 16387).

Si cum _Tules_ le nous remembre Ou livre _de sa retorique_'; (l. 16398).

Here the reference is to the passage in De Oratore, iii. § 26.

'Mes ci ne péust-il riens faire _Zeuxis_, tant séust bien portraire, Ne colorer sa portraiture, Tant est de grant biauté _Nature_.' (l. 16401).

A little further on, Nature is made to say (l. 16970):--

'Cis Diex méismes, par sa grace,... Tant m'ennora, tant me tint chere, Qu'il m'establi sa chamberiere ... Por chamberiere! certes vaire, Por connestable, et por _vicaire_.'

[262]

20. See just above; and cf. Parl. of Foules, 379--'Nature, the _vicaire_ of thalmighty lord.'

32-4. Cf. Le Rom. de la Rose, 16443-6.

35. From this line to l. 120, Chaucer has it all his own way. This fine passage is not in Le Roman, nor in Gower.

37. I. e. she had golden hair; cf. Troil. iv. 736, v. 8.

49. Perhaps Chaucer found the wisdom of Pallas in Vergil, Aen. v. 704.--

'Tum senior Nautes, unum Tritonia Pallas Quem docuit, multaque insignem reddidit arte.'

50. _fácound_, eloquence; cf. _facóunde_ in Parl. Foules, 558.

54. _Souninge in_, conducing to; see A. 307, B. 3157, and notes.

58. _Bacus_, Bacchus, i. e. wine; see next note.

59. _youthe_, youth; such is the reading in MSS. E. Hn., and edd. 1532 and 1561. MS. Cm. has lost a leaf; the rest have _thought_, which gives no sense. It is clear that the reading _thought_ arose from misreading the _y_ of _youthe_ as _þ_ (_th_). How easily this may be done appears from Wright's remark, that the Lansdowne MS. has _youthe_, whilst, in fact, it has _þouht_.

Tyrwhitt objects to the reading _youthe_, and proposes _slouthe_, wholly without authority. But _youthe_, meaning 'youthful vigour,' is right enough; I see no objection to it at all. Rather, it is simply taken from Ovid, Ars Amat. i. 243:--

'Illic saepe _animos iuuenum_ rapuere puellae; _Et Venus in uinis, ignis in igne fuit_.'

Only a few lines above (l. 232), _Bacchus_ occurs, and there is a reference to _wine_, throughout the context. Cf. the Romaunt of the Rose, l. 4925:--

'For _Youthe_ set man in al folye ... In leccherye and in outrage.'

Cf. note to l. 65.

60. Alluding to a proverbial phrase, occurring in Horace, Sat. ii. 3. 321, viz. 'oleum adde camino'; and elsewhere.

65. This probably refers to the same passage in Ovid as is mentioned in the note to l. 59. For we there find (l. 229):--

'Dant etiam positis aditum conuiuia mensis; Est aliquid, praeter uina, quod inde petas ... Vina parant animos, faciuntque caloribus aptos'; &c.

79. See A. 476, and the note. Chaucer is here thinking of the same passage in Le Roman de la Rose. I quote a few lines (3930-46):--

'Une vielle, que Diex honnisse! Avoit o li por li guetier, Qui ne fesoit autre mestier [263] Fors espier tant solement Qu'il ne se maine folement.... Bel-Acueil se taist et escoute Por la vielle que il redoute, Et n'est si hardis qu'il se moeve, Que la vielle en li n'aperçoeve Aucune fole contenance, Qu'el scet toute la vielle dance.'

See the English version in vol. i. p. 205, ll. 4285-4300.

82. See the footnote for another reading. The line there given may also be genuine. It is deficient in the first foot.

85. This is like our proverb:--'Set a thief to catch [_or_ take] a thief.' An old poacher makes a good gamekeeper.

98. Cf. Prov. xiii. 24; P. Plowman, B. v. 41.

101. See a similar proverb in P. Plowman, C. x. 265, and my note on the line. The Latin lines quoted in P. Plowman are from Alanus de Insulis, Liber Parabolarum, cap. i. 31; they are printed in Leyser, Hist. Poet. Med. Aevi, 1721, p. 1066, in the following form:--

'Sub molli pastore capit lanam lupus, et grex Incustoditus dilaceratur eo.'

117. _The doctour_, i. e. the teacher; viz. St. Augustine. (There is here no reference whatever to the 'Doctor' or 'Phisicien' who is supposed to tell the tale.) In the margin of MSS. E. Hn. is written 'Augustinus'; and the matter is put beyond doubt by a passage in the Persones Tale, l. 484:--'and, after the word of seint Augustin, it [Envye] is sorwe of other mannes wele, and Ioye of othere mennes harm.' See note to l. 484.

The same idea is exactly reproduced in P. Plowman, B. v. 112, 113. Cf. 'Inuidus alterius macrescit rebus opimis'; Horace, Epist. i. 2. 57.

135. From Le Roman, l. 5620-3; see vol. iii. p. 436.

140. _cherl_, dependant. It is remarkable that, throughout the story, MSS. E. Hn. and Cm. have _cherl_, but the rest have _clerk_. In ll. 140, 142, 153, 164, the Camb. MS. is deficient; but it at once gives the reading _cherl_ in l. 191, and subsequently.

Either reading might serve; in Le Roman, l. 5614, the dependant is called 'son serjant'; and in l. 5623, he is called 'Li _ribaus_,' i. e. the ribald, which Chaucer Englishes by _cherl_. But when we come to C. 289, the MSS. gives us the choice of 'fals _cherl_' and 'cursed _theef_'; very few have _clerk_ (like MS. Sloane 1685). Cf. vol. iii. p. 437.

153, 154. The 'churl's' name was Marcus Claudius, and the 'judge' was 'Appius Claudius.' Chaucer simply follows Jean de Meun, who calls the judge _Apius_; and speaks of the churl as '_Claudius_ li chalangieres' in l. 5675. [264]

165. Cf. Le Roman, l. 5623-7; see vol. iii. p. 436.

168-9. From Le Roman, 5636-8, as above.

174. The first foot is defective; read--Thou | shalt have | al, &c. _al right_, complete justice. MS. Cm. has _alle_.

184. Cf. Le Roman, l. 5628-33.

203. From Le Roman, 5648-54.

207-253. The whole of this fine passage appears to be original. There is no hint of it in Le Roman de la Rose, except as regards l. 225, where Le Roman (l. 5659) has:--'Car il par amors, sans haïne.' We may compare the farewell speech of Virginius to his daughter in Webster's play of Appius and Virginia, Act iv. sc. 1.

240. _Iepte_, Jephtha; in the Vulgate, _Jephte_. See Judges, xi. 37, 38. MSS. E. Hn. have in the margin--'fuit illo tempore Jephte Galaandes' [_error for_ Galaadites]. This reference by Virginia to the book of Judges is rather startling; but such things are common enough in old authors, especially in our dramatists.

255. Here Chaucer returns to Le Roman, 5660-82. The rendering is pretty close down to l. 276.

280. _Agryse of_, shudder at; 'nor in what kind of way the worm of conscience may shudder because of (the man's) wicked life'; cf. 'of pitee gan agryse,' B. 614. When _agryse_ is used with _of_, it is commonly passive, not intransitive; see examples in Mätzner and in the New E. Dictionary. Cf. _been afered_, i. e. be scared, in l. 284.

'Vermis conscientiae tripliciter lacerabit'; Innocent III., De Contemptu Mundi, l. iii. c. 2.

286. Cf. Pers. Tale, I. 93:--'repentant folk, that stinte for to sinne, and forlete [give up] sinne er that sinne forlete hem.'

WORDS OF THE HOST.

In the Six-text Edition, pref. col. 58, Dr. Furnivall calls attention to the curious variations in this passage, in the MSS., especially in ll. 289-292, and in 297-300; as well as in ll. 487, 488 in the Pardoneres Tale. I note these variations below, in their due places.

287. _wood_, mad, frantic, furious; esp. applied to the transient madness of anger. See Kn. Tale, A. 1301, 1329, 1578; also Mids. Nt. Dr. ii. 1. 192. Cf. G. _wüthend_, raging.

288. _Harrow!_ also spelt _haro_; a cry of astonishment; see A. 3286, 3825, B. 4235, &c. '_Haro_, the ancient Norman hue and cry; the exclamation of a person to procure assistance when his person or property was in danger. To cry out _haro_ on any one, to denounce his evil doings'; Halliwell. Spenser has it, F. Q. ii. 6. 43; see _Harrow_ in Nares, and the note above, to A. 3286.

On the oaths used by the Host, see note to l. 651 below.

289. _fals cherl_ is the reading in E. Hn., and is evidently right; see [265] note to l. 140 above. It is supported by several MSS., among which are Harl. 7335, Addit. 25718, Addit. 5140, Sloane 1686, Barlow 20, Hatton 1, Camb. Univ. Lib. Dd. 4. 24 and Mm. 2. 5, and Trin. Coll. Cam. R. 3. 3. A few have _fals clerk_, viz. Sloane 1685, Arch. Seld. B. 14, Rawl. Poet. 149, Bodley 414. Harl. 7333 has _a fals thef, Acursid Iustise_; out of which numerous MSS. have developed the reading _a cursed theef, a fals Iustice_, which rolls the two Claudii into one. It is clearly wrong, but appears in good MSS., viz. in Cp. Pt. Ln. Hl. See vol. iii. pp. 437-8, and the note to l. 291 below.

290. _shamful._ MSS. Ln. Hl. turn this into _schendful_, i. e. ignominious, which does not at all alter the sense. It is a matter of small moment, but I may note that of the twenty-five MSS. examined by Dr. Furnivall, only the two above-named MSS. adopt this variation.

291, 292. Here MSS. Cp. Ln. Hl., as noted in the footnote, have two totally different lines; and this curious variation divides the MSS. (at least in the present passage) into two sets. In the _first_ of these we find E. Hn. Harl. 7335, Addit. 25718, Addit. 5140, Sloane 1685 and 1686, Barlow 20, Arch. Seld. B. 14, Rawl. Poet. 149, Hatton 1, Bodley 414, Camb. Dd. 4. 24, and Mm. 2. 5, Trin. Coll. Cam. R. 3. 3. In the _second_ set we find Cp. Ln. Hl., Harl. 1758, Royal 18. C. 2, Laud 739, Camb. Ii. 3. 26, Royal 17. D. 15, and Harl. 7333.

There is no doubt as to the correct reading; for the 'false cherl' and 'false justice' were two different persons, and it was only because they had been inadvertently rolled into one (see note to l. 289) that it became possible to speak of '_his_ body,' '_his_ bones,' and '_him_.' Hence the lines are rightly given in the text which I have adopted.

There is a slight difficulty, however, in the rime, which should be noted. We see that the _t_ in _advocats_ was silent, and that the word was pronounced (ad·vokaa·s), riming with _allas_ (alaa·s), where the raised dot denotes the accent. That this was so, is indicated by the following spellings:--Pt. _aduocas_, and so also in Harl. 7335, Addit. 5140, Bodl. 414; Rawl. Poet. 149 has _advocas_; whilst Sloane 1685, Sloane 1686, and Camb. Mm. 2. 5 have _aduocase_, and Barlow 20, _advocase_. MS. Trin. Coll. R. 3. 3 has _aduocasse_. The testimony of ten MSS. may suffice; but it is worth noting that the F. pl. _aduocas_ occurs in Le Roman de la Rose, 5107.

293. 'Alas! she (Virginia) bought her beauty too dear'; she paid too high a price; it cost her her life.

297-300. These four lines are genuine; but several MSS., including E. Hn. Pt., omit the former pair (297-8), whilst several others omit the latter pair. Ed. 1532 contains both pairs, but alters l. 299.

299. _bothe yiftes_, both (kinds of) gifts; i. e. gifts of fortune, such as wealth, and of nature, such as beauty. Compare Dr. Johnson's poem on the Vanity of Human Wishes, imitated from the tenth satire of Juvenal.

303. _is no fors_, it is no matter. _It_ must be supplied, for the sense. [266] Sometimes Chaucer omits _it is_, and simply writes _no fors_, as in E. 1092, 2430. We also find _I do no fors_, I care not, D. 1234; and _They yeve no fors_, they care not, Romaunt of the Rose, 4826. Palsgrave has--'I gyue no force, I care nat for a thing, _Il ne men chault_.'

306. _Ypocras_ is the usual spelling, in English MSS., of _Hippocrates_; see Prologue A. 431. So also in the Book of the Duchess, 571, 572:--

'Ne hele me may physicien, Noght Ypocras, ne Galien.'

In the present passage it does not signify the physician himself, but a beverage named after him. 'It was composed of wine, with spices and sugar, strained through a cloth. It is said to have taken its name from _Hippocrates' sleeve_, the term apothecaries gave to a strainer'; Halliwell's Dict. s. v. _Hippocras_. In the same work, s. v. _Ipocras_, are several receipts for making it, the simplest being one copied from Arnold's Chronicle:--'Take a quart of red wyne, an ounce of synamon, and half an unce of gynger; a quarter of an ounce of greynes, and long peper, and halfe a pounde of sugar; and brose all this, and than put them in a bage of wullen clothe, made therefore, with the wyne; and lete it hange over a vessel, tyll the wyne be rune thorowe.' Halliwell adds that--'Ipocras seems to have been a great favourite with our ancestors, being served up at every entertainment, public or private. It generally made a part of the last course, and was taken immediately after dinner, with wafers or some other light biscuits'; &c. See Pegge's Form of Cury, p. 161; Babees Book, ed. Furnivall, pp. 125-128, 267, 378; Skelton, ed. Dyce, ii. 285; and Nares's Glossary, s. v. _Hippocras_.

_Galianes._ In like manner this word (hitherto unexplained as far as I am aware) must signify drinks named after Galen, whose name is spelt _Galien_ (in Latin, _Galienus_) not only in Chaucer, but in other authors. See the quotation above from the Book of the Duchess. Speght guessed the word to mean 'Galen's works.'

310. _lyk a prelat_, like a dignitary of the church, like a bishop or abbot. Mr. Jephson, in Bell's edition, suggests that the Doctor was in holy orders, and that this is why we are told in the Prologue, l. 438, that 'his studie was but litel on the bible.' I see no reason for this guess, which is quite unsupported. Chaucer does not say he _is_ a prelate, but that he is _like_ one; because he had been highly educated, as a member of a 'learned profession' should be.

_Ronyan_ is here of three syllables and rimes with _man_; in l. 320 it is of two syllables, and rimes with _anon_. It looks as if the Host and Pardoner were not very clear about the saint's name, only knowing him to swear by. In Pilkington's Works (Parker Society), we find a mention of 'St. Tronian's fast,' p. 80; and again, of 'St. Rinian's fast,' p. 551, in a passage which is a repetition of the former. The forms _Ronyan_ and _Rinian_ are evidently corruptions of _Ronan_, a saint whose [267] name is well known to readers of 'St. Ronan's Well.' Of St. Ronan scarcely anything is known. The fullest account that can easily be found is the following:--

'Ronan, B. and C. Feb. 7.--Beyond the mere mention of his commemoration as S. Ronan, bishop at Kilmaronen, in Levenax, in the body of the Breviary of Aberdeen, there is nothing said about this saint.... Camerarius (p. 86) makes this Ronanus the same as he who is mentioned by Beda (Hist. Ecc. lib. iii. c. 25). This Ronan died in A. D. 778. The Ulster annals give at [A. D.] 737 (736)--"Mors Ronain Abbatis Cinngaraid." Ængus places this saint at the 9th of February,' &c.; Kalendars of Scottish Saints, by Bp. A. P. Forbes, 1872, p. 441. Kilmaronen is Kilmaronock, in the county and parish of Dumbarton. There are traces of St. Ronan in about seven place-names in Scotland, according to the same authority. Under the date of Feb. 7 (February vol. ii. 3 B), the Acta Sanctorum has a few lines about St. Ronan, who, according to some, flourished under King Malduin, A. D. 664-684; or, according to others, about 603. The notice concludes with the remark--'Maiorem lucem desideramus.' Beda says that 'Ronan, a Scot by nation, but instructed in ecclesiastical truth either in France or Italy,' was mixed up in the controversy which arose about the keeping of Easter, and was 'a most zealous defender of the true Easter.' This controversy took place about A. D. 652, which does not agree with the date above.

311. Tyrwhitt thinks that Shakespeare remembered this expression of Chaucer, when he describes the Host of the Garter as frequently repeating the phrase 'said I well': Merry Wives of Windsor, i. 3. 11; ii. 1. 226; ii. 3. 93, 99.

_in terme_, in learned terms; cf. Prol. A. 323.

312. _erme_, to grieve. For the explanation of unusual _words_, the Glossary should, in general, be consulted; the Notes are intended, for the most part, to explain only phrases and allusions, and to give illustrations of the _use_ of words. Such illustrations are, moreover, often omitted when they can easily be found by consulting such a work as Stratmann's Old English Dictionary. In the present case, for example, Stratmann gives twelve instances of the use of _earm_ or _arm_ as an adjective, meaning wretched; four examples of _ermlic_, miserable; seven of _earming_, a miserable creature; and five of _earmthe_, misery. These twenty-eight additional examples shew that the word was formerly well understood. We may further note that a later instance of _ermen_ or _erme_, to grieve, occurs in Caxton's translation of Reynard the Fox, A. D. 1481; see Arber's reprint, p. 48, l. 5: 'Thenne departed he fro the kynge so heuyly that many of them _ermed_,' i. e. then departed he from the king so sorrowfully that many of them mourned, or were greatly grieved.

313. _cardiacle_, pain about the heart, spasm of the heart; more correctly, _cardiake_, as the _l_ is excrescent. See _Cardiacle_ and _Cardiac_ in the New E. Dictionary. In Batman upon Bartholomè, lib. vii. c. 32, [268] we have a description of 'Heart-quaking and the disease Cardiacle.' We thus learn that 'there is a double manner of Cardiacle,' called 'Diaforetica' and 'Tremens.' Of the latter, 'sometime _melancholy is the cause_'; and the remedies are various 'confortatives.' This is why the host wanted some 'triacle' or some ale, or something to cheer him up.

314. The Host's form of oath is amusingly ignorant; he is confusing the two oaths 'by corpus Domini' and 'by Christes bones,' and evidently regards _corpus_ as a genitive case. Tyrwhitt alters the phrase to 'By corpus domini,' which wholly spoils the humour of it.

_triacle_, a restorative remedy; see Man of Lawes Tale, B. 479.

315. _moyste_, new. The word retains the sense of the Lat. _musteus_ and _mustus_. In Group H. 60, we find _moysty ale_ spoken of as differing from _old ale_. But the most peculiar use of the word is in the Prologue, A. 457, where the Wyf of Bath's shoes are described as being _moyste and newe_.

_corny_, strong of the corn or malt; cf. l. 456. Skelton calls it 'newe ale in cornys'; Magnificence, 782; or 'in cornes,' Elynour Rummyng, 378. Baret's Alvearie, s. v. _Ale_, has: 'new ale in cornes, ceruisia cum recrementis.' It would seem that ale was thought the better for having dregs of malt in it.

318. _bel amy_, good friend; a common form of address in old French. We also find _biaus douz amis_, sweet good friend; as in--

'Charlot, Charlot, _biaus doux amis_'; Rutebuef; La Disputoison de Charlot et du Barbier, l. 57.

_Belamy_ occurs in an Early Eng. Life of St. Cecilia, MS. Ashmole 43, l. 161; and six other examples are given in the New Eng. Dictionary. Similar forms are _beau filtz_, dear son, Piers Plowman, B. vii. 162; _beau pere_, good father; _beau sire_, good sir. Cf. _beldame_.

321. _ale-stake_, inn-sign. Speght interprets this by 'may-pole.' He was probably thinking of the _ale-pole_, such as was sometimes set up before an inn as a sign; see the picture of one in Larwood and Hotten's History of Signboards, Plate II. But the _ale-stakes_ of the fourteenth century were differently placed; instead of being perpendicular, they projected horizontally from the inn, just like the bar which supports a painted sign at the present day. At the end of the ale-stake a large garland was commonly suspended, as mentioned by Chaucer himself (Prol. 667), or sometimes a bunch of ivy, box, or evergreen, called a 'bush'; whence the proverb 'good wine needs no _bush_,' i. e. nothing to indicate where it is sold; see Hist. Signboards, pp. 2, 4, 6, 233. The clearest information about ale-stakes is obtained from a notice of them in the Liber Albus, ed. Riley, where an ordinance of the time of Richard II. is printed, the translation of which runs as follows: 'Also, it was ordained that whereas the _ale-stakes_, projecting in front of the taverns in Chepe and elsewhere in the said city, extend too far over the king's highways, to the impeding of riders and others, and, by reason of their excessive weight, to the great deterioration of the houses to which they [269] are fixed,... it was ordained,... that no one in future should have a stake _bearing either his sign or leaves_ [i. e. a bush] extending or lying over the king's highway, _of greater length than 7 feet at most_,' &c. And, at p. 292 of the same work, note 2, Mr. Riley rightly defines an _ale-stake_ to be 'the pole projecting from the house, and supporting a bunch of leaves.'

The word _ale-stake_ occurs in Chatterton's poem of Ælla, stanza 30, where it is used in a manner which shews that the supposed 'Rowley' did not know what it was like. See my note on this; Essay on the Rowley Poems, p. xix; and cf. note to A. 667.

322. _of a cake_; we should now say, a bit of bread; the modern sense of 'cake' is a little misleading. The old cakes were mostly made of dough, whence the proverb 'my cake is dough,' i. e. is not properly baked; Taming of the Shrew, v. 1. 145. Shakespeare also speaks of 'cakes and ale,' Tw. Nt. ii. 3. 124. The picture of the 'Simnel Cakes' in Chambers' Book of Days, i. 336, illustrates Chaucer's use of the word in the Prologue, l. 668.

324. The Pardoner was so ready to tell some 'mirth or japes' that the more decent folks in the company try to repress him. It is a curious comment on the popular estimate of his character. He has, moreover, to refresh himself, and to think awhile before he can recollect 'some honest (i. e. decent) thing.'

327, 328. The Harleian MS. has--

'But in the cuppe wil I me bethinke Upon some honest tale, whil I drinke.'

THE PARDONERES PROLOGUE.

Title. The Latin text is copied from l. 334 below; it appears in the Ellesmere and Hengwrt MSS. The A. V. has--'the love of money is the root of all evil'; 1 Tim. vi. 10. It is well worth notice that the novel by Morlinus, quoted in vol. iii. p. 442, as a source of the Pardoner's Tale, contains the expression--'radice malorum cupiditate affecti.'

336. _bulles_, bulls from the pope, whom he here calls his 'liege lord'; see Prol. A. 687, and Piers the Plowman, B. Prol. 69. See also Wyclif's Works, ed. Arnold, iii. 308.

_alle and somme_, one and all. Cf. Clerkes Tale, E. 941, and the note.

337. _patente_; defined by Webster as 'an official document, conferring a right or privilege on some person or party'; &c. It was so called because 'patent' or open to public inspection. 'When indulgences came to be sold, the pope made them part of his ordinary revenue; and, according to the usual way in those, and even in much later times, of farming the revenue, he let them out usually to the Dominican friars'; Massingberd, Hist. Eng. Reformation, p. 126.

345. 'To colour my devotion with.' For _saffron_, MS. Harl. reads _savore_. Tyrwhitt rightly prefers the reading _saffron_, as 'more [270] expressive, and less likely to have been a gloss.' And he adds--'Saffron was used to give colour as well as flavour.' For example, in the Babees Book, ed. Furnivall, p. 275, we read of 'capons that ben coloured with saffron.' And in Winter's Tale, iv. 3. 48, the Clown says--'I must have saffron to colour the warden-pies.' Cf. Sir Thopas, B. 1920. As to the position of _with_, cf. Sq. Ta., F. 471, 641.

346. According to Tyrwhitt, this line is, in some MSS. (including Camb. Dd. 4. 24. and Addit. 5140), replaced by three, viz.--

'In euery village and in euery toun, This is my terme, and shal, and euer was, _Radix malorum est cupiditas_.'

Here _terme_ is an error for _teme_, a variant of _theme_; so that the last two lines merely repeat ll. 333-4.

347. _cristal stones_, evidently hollow pieces of crystal in which relics were kept; so in the Prologue, A. 700, we have--

'And in a _glas_ he hadde pigges bones.'

348. _cloutes_, rags, bits of cloth. 'The origin of the veneration for relics may be traced to Acts, xix. 12. Hence _clouts_, or _cloths_, are among the Pardoner's stock'; note in Bell's edition.

349. _Reliks._ In the Prologue, we read that he had the Virgin Mary's veil and a piece of the sail of St. Peter's ship. Below, we have mention of the shoulder-bone of a holy Jew's sheep, and of a miraculous mitten. See Heywood's impudent plagiarism from this passage in his description of a Pardoner, as printed in the note to l. 701 of Dr. Morris's edition of Chaucer's Prologue. See also a curious list of relics in Chambers' Book of Days, i. 587; and compare the humorous descriptions of the pardoner and his wares in Sir David Lyndesay's Satyre of the Three Estates, ll. 2037-2121. Chaucer probably here took several hints from Boccaccio's Decamerone, Day 6, Nov. 10, wherein Frate Cipolla produces many very remarkable relics to the public gaze. See also the list of relics in Political, Religious, and Love Poems, ed. Furnivall (E. E. T. S.), pp. xxxii, 126-9.

350. _latoun._ The word _latten_ is still in use in Devon and the North of England for plate tin, but as Halliwell remarks, that is not the sense of _latoun_ in our older writers. It was a kind of mixed metal, somewhat resembling brass both in its nature and colour, but still more like pinchbeck. It was used for helmets (Rime of Sir Thopas, B. 2067), lavers (P. Pl. Crede, 196), spoons (Nares), sepulchral memorials (Way in Prompt. Parv.), and other articles. Todd, in his Illustrations of Chaucer, p. 350, remarks that the escutcheons on the tomb of the Black Prince are of _laton_ over-gilt, in accordance with the Prince's instructions; see Nichols's Royal Wills, p. 67. He adds--'In our old Church Inventories a _cross of laton_ frequently occurs.' See Prol. A. 699, and the note. I here copy the description of this metal given in Batman upon Bartholomè; lib. xvi. c. 5. '_Of Laton._ [271] Laton is called _Auricalcum_, and hath that name, for, though it be brasse or copper, yet it shineth as gold without, as _Isidore_ saith; for brasse is _calco_ in Greeke. Also _laton_ is hard as brasse or copper; for by medling of copper, of tinne, and of auripigment [orpiment] and with other mettal, it is brought in the fire to the colour of gold, as _Isidore_ saith. Also it hath colour and likenesse of gold, but not the value.'

351. The expression 'holy Jew' is remarkable, as the usual feeling in the middle ages was to regard all Jews with abhorrence. It is suggested, in a note to Bell's edition, that it 'must be understood of some Jew before the Incarnation.' Perhaps the Pardoner wished it to be understood that the sheep was once the property of Jacob; this would help to give force to l. 365. Cp. Gen. xxx.

The best comment on the virtues of a sheep's shoulder-bone is afforded by a passage in the Persones Tale (De Ira), I. 602, where we find--'Sweringe sodeynly withoute avysement is eek a sinne. But lat us go now to thilke horrible swering of adiuracioun and coniuracioun, as doon thise false enchauntours or nigromanciens in bacins ful of water, or in a bright swerd, in a cercle, or in a fyr, or in a _shulder-boon of a sheep_'; &c. Cf. also a curious passage in Trevisa's tr. of Higden's Polychronicon, lib. i. cap. 60, which shews that it was known among the Flemings who had settled in the west of Wales. He tells us that, by help of a bone of a wether's right shoulder, from which the flesh had been boiled (not roasted) away, they could tell what was being done in far countries, 'tokens of pees and of werre, the staat of the reeme, sleynge of men, and spousebreche.' Selden, in his notes to song 5 of Drayton's Polyolbion, gives a curious instance of such divination, taken from Giraldus, Itin. i. cap. 11; and a writer in the Retrospective Review, Feb. 1854, p. 109, says it is 'similar to one described by Wm. de Rubruquis as practised among the Tartars.' And see _spade-bone_ in Nares. Cf. Notes and Queries, 1 S. ii. 20.

In Part I. of the Records of the Folk-lore Society is an article by Mr. Thoms on the subject of divination by means of the shoulder-bone of a sheep. He shews that it was still practised in the Scottish Highlands down to the beginning of the present century, and that it is known in Greece. He further cites some passages concerning it from some scarce books; and ends by saying--'let me refer any reader desirous of knowing more of this wide-spread form of divination to Sir H. Ellis's edition of Brand's Popular Antiquities, iii. 179, ed. 1842, and to much curious information respecting _Spatulamancia_, as it is called by Hartlieb, and an analogous species of divination _ex anserino sterno_, to Grimm's Deutsche Mythologie, 2nd ed. p. 1067.'

355. The sense is--'which any snake has bitten or stung.' The reference is to the poisonous effects of the bite of an adder or venomous snake. The word _worm_ is used by Shakespeare to describe the asp whose bite was fatal to Cleopatra; and it is sometimes used to describe a dragon of the largest size. In Icelandic, the term 'miðgarðsormr,' [272] lit. worm of the middle-earth, signifies a great sea-serpent encompassing the entire world.

363. _Fastinge._ This word is spelt with a final _e_ in all seven MSS.; and as it is emphatic and followed by a slight pause, perhaps the final _e_ should be pronounced. Cp. A. S. _fæstende_, the older form of the present participle. Otherwise, the first foot consists of but one syllable.

366. For _heleth_, MS. Hl. has _kelith_, i. e. cooleth.

379. The final _e_ in _sinne_ must not be elided; it is preserved by the caesura. Besides, _e_ is only elided before _h_ in the case of certain words.

387. _assoile_, absolve. In Michelet's Life of Luther, tr. by W. Hazlitt, chap. ii, there is a very similar passage concerning Tetzel, the Dominican friar, whose shameless sale of indulgences roused Luther to his famous denunciations of the practice. Tetzel 'went about from town to town, with great display, pomp, and expense, hawking the commodity [i. e. the indulgences] in the churches, in the public streets, in taverns and ale-houses. He paid over to his employers as little as possible, pocketing the balance, as was subsequently proved against him. The faith of the buyers diminishing, it became necessary to exaggerate to the fullest extent the merit of the specific.... The intrepid Tetzel stretched his rhetoric to the very uttermost bounds of amplification. Daringly piling one lie upon another, he set forth, in reckless display, the long list of evils which this panacea could cure. He did not content himself with enumerating known sins; he set his foul imagination to work, and invented crimes, infamous atrocities, strange, unheard of, unthought of; and when he saw his auditors stand aghast at each horrible suggestion, he would calmly repeat the burden of his song:--Well, all this is expiated the moment your money chinks in the pope's chest.' This was in the year 1517.

390. _An hundred mark._ A mark was worth about 13s. 4d., and 100 marks about £66 13s. 4d. In order to make allowance for the difference in the value of money in that age, we must at least multiply by ten; or we may say in round numbers, that the Pardoner made at least £700 a year. We may contrast this with Chaucer's own pension of 20 marks, granted him in 1367, and afterwards increased till, in the very last year of his life, he received in all, according to Sir Harris Nicolas, as much as £61 13s. 4d. Even then his income did not quite attain to the 100 marks which the Pardoner gained so easily.

397. _dowve_, a pigeon; lit. a dove. See a similar line in the Milleres Tale, A. 3258.

402. _namely_, especially, in particular; cf. Kn. Ta. 410 (A. 1068).

406. _blakeberied._ The line means--'Though their souls go a-blackberrying'; i. e. wander wherever they like. This is a well-known _crux_, which all the editors have given up as unintelligible. I have been so fortunate as to obtain the complete solution of it, which was printed in Notes and Queries, 4 S. x. 222, xii. 45, and again in my preface to the C-text of Piers the Plowman, p. lxxxvii. The simple explanation is that, by a grammatical construction which was [273] probably due (as will be shewn) to an error, the verb _go_ could be combined with what was _apparently_ a past participle, in such a manner as to give the participle the force of a verbal substantive. In other words, instead of saying 'he goes a-hunting,' our forefathers sometimes said 'he goes a-hunted.' The examples of this use are at least seven. The clearest is in Piers Plowman, C. ix. 138, where we read of 'folk that gon a-begged,' i. e. folk that go a-begging. In Chaucer, we not only have 'goon a-begged,' Frank. Tale, F. 1580, and the instance in the present passage, but yet a third example in the Wyf of Bath's Tale, Group D. 354, where we have 'goon a-caterwawed,' with the sense of 'to go a-caterwauling'; and it is a fortunate circumstance that in two of these cases the idiomatic forms occur at the end of a line, so that the rime has preserved them from being tampered with. Gower (Conf. Amant. bk. i. ed. Chalmers, pp. 32, 33, or ed. Pauli, i. 110) speaks of a king of Hungary riding out 'in the month of May,' adding--

'This king with noble purueiance Hath for him-selfe his chare [_car_] arayed, Wherein he wolde ryde _amayed_,' &c.

that is, wherein he wished to ride _a-Maying_. Again (in bk. v, ed. Chalmers, p. 124, col. 2, or ed. Pauli, ii. 132) we read of a drunken priest losing his way:--

'This prest was dronke, and _goth a-strayed_';

i. e. he goes a-straying, or goes astray.

The explanation of this construction I take to be this; the _-ed_ was not really a sign of the past participle, but a corruption of the ending _-eth_ (A. S._-að_) which is sometimes found at the end of a verbal substantive. Hence it is that, in the passage from Piers Plowman above quoted, one of the best and earliest MSS. actually reads 'folk that gon a-beggeth.' And again, in another passage (P. Pl., C. ix. 246) is the phrase 'gon abrybeth,' or, in some MSS., 'gon abrybed,' i. e. go a-bribing or go a-thieving, since Mid. Eng. _briben_ often means to rob. This form is clearly an imitation of the form _a-hunteth_ in the old phrase _gon a-hunteth_ or _riden an honteth_, used by Robert of Gloucester (Specimens of English, ed. Morris and Skeat, p. 14, l. 387):--

'As he _rod an honteth_, and par-auntre [h]is hors spurnde.'

Now this _honteth_ is the dat. case of a substantive, viz. of the A. S. _huntað_ or _huntoð_. This substantive would easily be mistaken for a part of a verb, and, particularly, for the past participle of a verb; just as many people at this day are quite unable to distinguish between the true verbal substantive and the present participle in _-ing_. This mistake once established, the ending _-ed_ would be freely used after the verbs _go_ or _ride_. In D. 1778, we even find _go walked_, without a.

The result is that the present phrase, hitherto so puzzling, is a mere variation of 'gon a blake-berying,' i. e. 'go a-gathering blackberries,' a humorous expression for 'wander wherever they please.' A not very [274] dissimilar expression occurs in the proverbial saying--'his wits are gone a-wool-gathering.'

The Pardoner says, in effect, 'I promise them full absolution; however, when they die and are buried, it matters little to me in what direction their souls go.'

407. Tyrwhitt aptly adduces a parallel passage from the Romaunt of the Rose, l. 5763 (or l. 5129 in the French)--

'For oft good predicacioun Cometh of evel entencioun.'

'Some indeed preach Christ even of envy and strife'; Phil. i. 15.

413. In Piers Plowman (B-text), v. 87, it is said of Envy that--

'Eche a worde that he warpe · was of an addres tonge.'

Cf. Rom. iii. 13; Ps. cxl. 3.

440. _for I teche_, because I teach, by my teaching.

441. _Wilful pouerte_ signifies voluntary poverty. This is well illustrated by the following lines concerning Christ in Piers Plowman, B. xx. 48, 49:--

'Syth he that wroughte al the worlde · was _wilfullich_ nedy, Ne neuer non so nedy · ne pouerer deyde.'

Several examples occur in Richardson's Dictionary in which _wilfully_ has the sense of _willingly_ or _voluntarily_. Thus--'If they _wylfully_ would renounce the sayd place and put them in his grace, he wolde vtterlye pardon theyr trespace'; Fabyan's Chronicle, c. 114. It even means _gladly_; thus in Wyclif's Bible, Acts xxi. 17, we find, 'britherin resseyuyden vs _wilfulli_.' Speaking of palmers, Speght says--'The _pilgrim_ travelled at his own charge, the _palmer_ professed wilful poverty.'

The word _wilful_ still means _willing_ in Warwickshire; see Eng. Dialect Soc. Gloss. C. 6.

445. The context seems to imply that some of the apostles made baskets. So in Piers Plowman, B. xv. 285, we read of St. Paul--

'Poule, after his prechyng · _panyers_ he made.'

Yet in Acts xviii. 3 we only read that he wrought as a tent-maker. However, it was St. Paul who set the example of labouring with his hands; and, in imitation of him, we find an early example of basket-making by St. Arsenius, 'who, before he turned hermit, had been the tutor of the emperors Arcadius and Honorius,' and who is represented in a fresco in the Campo Santo at Pisa, by Pietro Laurati, as 'weaving baskets of palm-leaves'; whilst beside him another hermit is cutting wooden spoons, and another is fishing. See Mrs. Jameson's Sacred and Legendary Art, 3rd ed. ii. 757.

Note that _baskettes_ is trisyllabic, as in Palladius on Husbandry, bk. xii. l. 307.

448. The best description of the house-to-house system of begging, as adopted by the mendicant friars, is near the beginning of the [275] Sompnour's Tale, D. 1738. They went in pairs to the farm-houses, begging a bushel of wheat, or malt, or rye, or a piece of cheese or brawn, or bacon or beef, or even a piece of an old blanket. Nothing seems to have come amiss to them.

450. See Prologue, A. 255; and cf. the description of the poor widow at the beginning of the Nonne Prestes Tale, B. 4011.

THE PARDONERES TALE.

For some account of the source of this Tale, see vol. iii. p. 439. The account which I here quote as the 'Italian' text is that contained in Novella lxxxii of the Libro di Novelle.

Observe also the quotations from Pope Innocent given in vol. iii. pp. 444, 445. To which may be added, that Chaucer here frequently quotes from his Persones Tale, which must have been written previously. Compare ll. 475, 482, 504, 529, 558, 590, 631-650, with I. 591, 836, 819, 820, 822, 793, 587-593.

463. In laying the scene in Flanders, Chaucer probably followed an original which is now lost. Andrew Borde, in his amusing Introduction of Knowledge, ch. viii, says:--'Flaunders is a plentyfull countre of fyshe & fleshe & wyld fowle. Ther shal a man be clenly serued at his table, & well ordred and vsed for meate & drynke & lodgyng. The countre is playn, & somwhat sandy. The people be gentyl, but the men be great drynkers; and many of the women be vertuous and wel dysposyd.' He describes the Fleming as saying--

'I am a Fleming, what for all that, Although I wyll be dronken other whyles as a rat? "Buttermouth Flemyng" men doth me call,' &c.

464. _haunteden_, followed after; cf. note to l. 547. The same expression occurs in The Tale of Beryn, a spurious (but not ill-told) addition to the Canterbury Tales:--

'_Foly, I haunted it ever_, ther myght no man me let'; l. 2319.

473. _grisly_, terrible, enough to make one shudder. It is exactly the right word. The mention of these oaths reminds us of the admission of my Uncle Toby in Sterne's Tristram Shandy, ch. xi, that 'our armies swore terribly _in Flanders_.'

474. _to-tere_, tear in pieces, dismember. Cf. _to-rente_ in B. 3215; see note on p. 229. Chaucer elsewhere says--'For Cristes sake ne swereth nat so sinfully, in _dismembringe_ of Crist, by soule, herte, bones, and body; for certes it semeth, that ye thinke that the cursede Iewes ne dismembred nat ynough the preciouse persone of Crist, but ye dismembre him more'; Persones Tale (_De Ira_), I. 591. And see ll. 629-659 below.

'And than Seint Johan seid--"These [who are thus tormented in [276] hell] ben thei that sweren bi Goddes membris, as bi his nayles and other his membris, and thei thus dismembrid God in horrible swerynge bi his limmes"'; Vision of Wm. Staunton (A. D. 1409), quoted in Wright's St. Patrick's Purgatory, p. 146. In the Plowman's Tale (Chaucer, ed. 1561, fol. xci) we have--

'And Cristes membres al to-tere On roode as he were newe yrent.'

Barclay, in his Ship of Fools (ed. Jamieson, i. 97), says--

'Some sweryth armes, naylys, herte, and body, Terynge our Lord worse than the Jowes hym arayed.'

And again (ii. 130) he complains of swearers who crucify Christ afresh, swearing by 'his holy membres,' by his 'blode,' by 'his face, his herte, or by his croune of thorne,' &c. See also the Ayenbite of Inwyt, p. 64; Political, &c., Poems, ed. Furnivall, p. 193; Wyclif's Works, ed. Matthew, pp. 60, 278, 499. Todd, in his Illustrations of Chaucer, p. 264, quotes (from an old MS.) the old second commandment in the following form:--

'II. Thi goddes name and b[e]autte Thou shalt not take for wel nor wo; Dismembre hym not that on rode-tre For the was mad boyth blak and blo.'

477. _tombesteres_, female dancers. 'Sir Perdicas, whom that kinge Alysandre made to been his heire in Grece, was of no ki_n_ges blod; his dame [_mother_] was a to_m_bystere'; Testament of Love, Book ii. ed. 1561, fol. ccxcvi b.

_Tombestere_ is the feminine form; the A. S. spelling would be _tumbestre_; the masc. form is the A. S. _tumbere_, which is glossed by _saltator_, i. e. a dancer; the verb is _tumbian_, to dance, used of Herodias' daughter in the A. S. version of Mark, vi. 22. The medieval idea of _tumbling_ was, that the lady stood on her hands with her heels in the air; see Strutt, Sports, &c. bk. iii. c. 5.

On the feminine termination _-ster_ (formerly _-estre_, or _-stre_) see the remarks in Marsh's Lectures on the English Language, printed in (the so-called) Smith's Student's Manual of the English Language, ed. 1862, pp. 207, 208, with an additional note at p. 217. Marsh's remarks are, in this case, less clear than usual. He shews that the termination was not always used as a feminine, and that, in fact, its force was early lost. It is, however, merely a question of chronology. That the termination was _originally_ feminine in Anglo-Saxon, is sufficiently proved by the A. S. version of the Gospels. There we find the word _witega_ frequently used in the sense of _prophet_; but, in one instance, where it is necessary to express the _feminine_, we find this accomplished by the use of this very termination. 'And anna waes _witegystre_ (another MS. _witegestre_)'; i. e. and Anna was a _prophetess_, Luke, ii. 36. Similar instances might easily be multiplied; see Dr. Morris's Hist. Outlines of Eng. Accidence, pp. 89, 90. Thus, _wasshestren_ (pl.) is used as the [277] translation of _lotrices_; Old Eng. Homilies, ed. Morris, ii. 57. But it is also true that, in the fourteenth century, the feminine force of this termination was becoming very weak, so that, whilst in P. Plowman, B. v. 306, we find 'Beton the _brewestere_' applied to a female brewer, we cannot thence certainly conclude that 'brewestere' was always feminine at that period. On the other hand, we may point to one word, _spinster_, which has remained feminine to this very day.

Dr. Morris remarks that _tombestere_ is a hybrid word; in which I believe that he has been misled by the spelling. It is a pure native word, from the A. S. _tumbian_, but the scribes have turned it from _tumbestere_ into _tombestere_, by confusion with the French _tomber_. Yet even the Fr. _tomber_ was once spelt _tumber_ (Burguy, Roquefort), being, in fact, a word of Germanic origin. An acrobat can still be called a _tumbler_: we find 'rope-dancers and _tumblers_' in Locke, Conduct of the Understanding, § 4. Indeed, the Cambridge MS. has here the true spelling _tumbesteris_, whilst the Corpus, Petworth, and Lansdowne MSS. have the variations _tomblisteres_ and _tomblesters_. The A. S. masc. form _tumbere_ occurs in Ælfric's Vocabulary.

As to the _source_ of the suffix _-ster_, it is really a compound suffix, due to composition of the Aryan suffixes _-es_ and _-ter-_; cf. Lat. _mag-is-ter_, _min-is-ter_, _poet-as-ter_. The feminine use is peculiar to Anglo-Saxon and to some other Teutonic languages.

478. _fruytesteres_, female sellers of fruit; see note to last line.

479. _wafereres_, sellers of confectionery, confectioners. The feminine form _wafrestre_ occurs in Piers Plowman, v. 641. From Beaumont and Fletcher we learn that 'wafer-women' were often employed in amorous embassies, as stated in Nares' Glossary, q. v.

483. _holy writ._ In the margin of the MSS. E. Hn. Cp. Pt. and Hl. is the note--'Nolite inebriari vino, in quo est luxuria,' quoted from the Vulgate version of Eph. v. 18. See vol. iii. p. 444.

487. Cp. Ln. have here two additional spurious lines. Cp. reads--

'So drunke he was, he nyste what he wrought, _And therfore sore repente him oughte_. Heroudes, who-so wole the stories seche, _Ther may ye lerne and by ensample teche_.'

Of the second line, Dr. Furnivall remarks--'Besides being a line of only 4 measures, it is foolish--how could Lot in the grave repent him? Both lines [those in italics] interrupt the flow of the story, and weaken the instances brought forward.' He adds--'None of our best MSS. have these spurious lines.'

They evidently arose from the stupidity of some scribe, who did not understand that _soghte_ is here the pt. t. subj., meaning 'were to seek.' He therefore 'corrected' Chaucer's grammar by writing _wol_ for _wel_ and _seche_ for _soghte_; and he then had to make up two more lines to hide the alteration.

488. 'Herod, (as may be seen by any one) who would consult the [278] "stories" carefully.' The Harleian MS. has the inferior reading _story_; but the reference is particular, not vague. Peter Comestor (died A. D. 1198) was the author of an Historia Scholastica, on which account he was called 'the maister of stories,' or 'clerk of the stories,' as explained in my note to Piers Plowman, B. vii. 73. The use of the plural is due to the fact that the whole Historia Scholastica, which is a sort of epitome of the Bible, with notes and additions, is divided into sections, each of which is _also_ called 'Historia.' The account of Herod occurs, of course, in the section entitled Historia Evangelica, cap. lxxii; De decollatione ioannis. Cf. Matt. xiv; Mark vi. And see vol. iii. p. 444.

492. _Senek_, Seneca. The reference appears to be, as pointed out by Tyrwhitt, to Seneca's Letters; Epist. lxxxiii: 'Extende in plures dies illum ebrii habitum: numquid de furore dubitabis? nunc quoque non est minor, sed brevior.'

496. 'Except that madness, when it has come upon a man of evil nature, lasts longer than does a fit of drunkenness.' See _Shrew_ in Trench, Select Glossary.

499. 'First cause of our misfortune'; alluding to the Fall of Adam. See l. 505.

501. _boght us agayn_, redeemed us; a translation of the Latin _redemit_. Hence we find Christ called, in Middle English, the _A[gh]enbyer_. 'See now how dere he [Christ] boughte man, that he made after his owne ymage, and how dere he _a[gh]enboght_ us, for the grete love that he hadde to us'; Sir J. Maundeville, Prologue to his Voiage (Specimens of Eng. 1298-1393, p. 165). See l. 766 below.

504. Cf. Pers. Tale, I. 819.

505. Here, in the margin of MS. E. Hn. Cp. Pt. Hl., is a quotation from 'Hieronymus contra Jovinianum' (i. e. from St. Jerome): 'Quamdiu ieiunauit Adam, in Paradiso fuit; comedit et eiectus est; eiectus, statim duxit uxorem.' See Hieron. contra Jov. lib. ii. c. 15; ed. Migne, ii. 305.

510. _defended_, forbidden. Even Milton has it; see P. Lost, xi. 86. See also l. 590 below.

512. 'O gluttony! it would much behove us to complain of thee!' See vol. iii. pp. 444, 445. The quotation 'Noli auidus' (iii. 445) is from the close of Ecclus. xxxvii.

517. Here Chaucer is thinking of a passage in Jerome, which also occurs in John of Salisbury's Policraticus, lib. viii. c. 6. In such cases, Chaucer consulted Jerome himself, rather than his copyist, as might be shewn. I therefore quote from the former.

'Propter breuem gulae uoluptatem, terrae lustrantur et maria: et ut mulsum uinum preciosusque cibus fauces nostras transeat, totius uitae opera desudamus.'--Hieronymus, contra Iouinianum, lib. ii.; in Epist. Hieron. Basil. 1524, t. ii. p. 76.

At the same time, he had an eye to the passage in Pope Innocent, quoted in vol. iii. p. 445. 'The shorte throte' answers to 'Tam breuis est,' &c. [279]

522. In the margin of MSS. E. and Hn. is written the quotation--'Esca ventri, et venter escis. Deus autem et hunc et illam destruet.' For _illam_, the usual reading of the Vulgate is _has_; see 1 Cor. vi. 13.

526. _whyte and rede_, white wine and red wine; see note to Piers Plowman, B. prol. 228, and the note to B. 4032 above, p. 249.

527. Again from Jerome (see note to l. 517). 'Qualis [est] ista refectio post ieiunium, cum pridianis epulis distendimur, et _guttur_ nostrum meditatorium efficitur _latrinarum_.'--Hieron. c. Iouin. lib. ii.; in Epist. Hieron. Basil. 1524, t. ii. p. 78.

529. In the margin of MSS. E. and Hn. is written--'Ad Philipenses, capitulo tertio.' See Phil. iii. 18. Cf. Pers. Tale, I. 820.

534. See the quotation in vol. iii. p. 445.

537. 'How great toil and expense (it is) to provide for thee!' Chaucer is here addressing man's appetite for delicacies. Cf. _fond_, Non. Pr. Tale, B. 4019.

538. See the quotation in vol. iii. p. 445.

There is a somewhat similar passage in John of Salisbury, as follows:--

'Multiplicantur fercula, cibi alii aliis farciuntur, condiuntur haec illis, et in iniuriam naturae, innatum relinquere, et alienum coguntur afferre saporem. Conficiuntur et salsamenta.... Coquorum solicitudo fervet arte multiplici,' &c.--Joh. Salisburiensis, Policraticus, lib. viii. c. 6.

539. There is here an allusion to the famous disputes in scholastic philosophy between the Realists and Nominalists. To attempt any explanation of their language is to become lost in subtleties of distinction. It would seem however that the Realists maintained that everything possesses a _substance_, which is inherent in itself, and distinct from the _accidents_ or outward phenomena which the thing presents. According to them, the form, smell, taste, colour, of anything are merely _accidents_, and might be changed without affecting the _substance_ itself. See the excellent article on _Substance_ in the Engl. Cyclopaedia; also that on _Nominalists_. Cf. Wyclif's Works, ed. Matthew, p. 526.

According to Chaucer, then, or rather, according to Pope Innocent III., (of all people), the cooks who toil to satisfy man's appetite change the nature of the things cooked so effectually as to confound _substance_ with _accident_. Translated into plain language, it means that those who partook of the meats so prepared, could not, by means of their taste and smell, form any precise idea as to what they were eating. The art is not lost. Cf. Troil. iv. 1505.

547. _haunteth_, practises, indulges in; cf. l. 464. In the margin of MSS. E. and Hn. is written--'Qui autem in deliciis est, viuens mortuus est.' This is a quotation from the Vulgate version of 1 Tim. v. 6, but with _Qui_ for _quae_, and _mortuus_ for _mortua_.

549. In the margin of MSS. E. and Hn. is written--'Luxuriosa res vinum, et contumeliosa ebrietas.' The Vulgate version of Prov. xx. 1 [280] agrees with this nearly, but has _tumultuosa_ for _contumeliosa_. This is of course the text to which Chaucer refers. And see note to the parallel passage at B. 771-7. The variant _contumeliosa_ occurs in the text as quoted by St. Jerome, Contra Jovinianum, lib. ii. 10 (Köppel).

554. He means that the drunkard's stertorous breathing seems to repeat the sound of the word _Sampsoún_. The word was probably chosen for the sake of its nasal sounds, to imitate a sort of grunt. Perhaps we should here pronounce the _m_ and _n_ as in French, but with exaggerated emphasis. So also in l. 572.

555. See note to the Monkes Tale, B. 3245. In Judges, xiii. 4, 7, the command to drink no wine is addressed, not to Samson, but to his mother. Of Samson himself it is said that he was 'a Nazarite,' which implies the same thing; see Numbers, vi. 3, 5.

558. _sepulture_, burial; see Pers. Tale, I. 822.

561. In Chaucer's Tale of Melibeus (B. 2383) we find--'Thou shalt also eschewe the conseiling of folk that been dronkelewe; for they ne can no conseil hyde; for Salomon seith, Ther is no privetee ther-as regneth dronkenesse'; and see B. 776. The allusion is to Prov. xxxi. 4: 'Noli regibus, O Lamuel, noli regibus dare uinum; quia nullum secretum est ubi regnat ebrietas.' This last clause is quite different from that in our own version; which furnishes, perhaps, a reason why the allusion here intended has not been perceived by previous editors.

563. _namely_, especially. Tyrwhitt's note is as follows: 'According to the geographers, Lepe was not far from Cadiz. This wine, of whatever sort it may have been, was probably much stronger than the Gascon wines, usually drunk in England. La Rochelle and Bordeaux (l. 571), the two chief ports of Gascony, were both, in Chaucer's time, part of the English dominions.

'Spanish wines might also be more alluring upon account of their great rarity. Among the Orders of the Royal Household, in 1604, is the following (MS. Harl. 293, fol. 162): "And whereas, in tymes past, Spanish wines, called Sacke, were little or noe whit used in our courte, and that in later years, though not of ordinary allowance, it was thought convenient that noblemen ... might have a boule or glas, &c. We understanding that it is now used as common drinke ... reduce the allowance to xii. gallons a day for the court,"' &c. Several regulations to be observed by London vintners are mentioned in the Liber Albus, ed. Riley, pp. 614-618. Amongst them is--'Item, that white wine of Gascoigne, of la Rochele, of Spain, or other place, shall not be put in cellars with Rhenish wines.' See also note to l. 565.

564. _To selle_, for sale; the true gerund, of which _to_ is, in Anglo-Saxon, the sign. So also 'this house _to let_' is the correct old idiom, needing no such alteration as some would make. Cf. Morris, Hist. Outlines of Eng. Accidence, sect. 290, subsect. 4. Fish Street leads out of Lower Thames Street, close to the North end of London Bridge. The Harleian MS. alone reads _Fleet Street_, which is certainly wrong. [281] Considering that Thames Street is especially mentioned as a street for vintners (Liber Albus, p. 614), and that Chaucer's own father was a Thames Street vintner, there can be little doubt about this matter. The poet is here speaking from his own knowledge; a consideration which gives the present passage a peculiar interest. _Chepe_ is Cheapside.

565. This is a fine touch. The poet here tells us that some of this strong Spanish wine used to find its way mysteriously into other wines; not (he ironically suggests) because the vintners ever mixed their wines, but because the vines of Spain notoriously grew so close to those of Gascony that it was not possible to keep them apart! _Crepeth subtilly_ = finds its way mysteriously. Observe the humour in the word _growing_, which expresses that the mixture of wines must be due to the proximity of the vines producing them in the vineyards, not to any accidental proximity of the casks containing them in the vintners' cellars. In fact, the different kinds of wine were to be kept in different cellars, as the Regulations in the Liber Albus (pp. 615-618) shew. 'Item, that no Taverner shall put Rhenish wine and White wine in a cellar together.' 'Item, that new wines shall not be put in cellars with old wines.' 'Item, that White wine of Gascoigne, of la Rochele, of Spain, or other place shall not be put in cellars with Rhenish wines.' 'Item, that white wine shall not be sold for Rhenish wine.' 'Item, that no one shall expose for sale wines counterfeit or mixed, made by himself or by another, under pain of being set upon the pillory.' But pillories have vanished, and all such laws are obsolete.

570. 'He is in Spain'; i. e. he is, as it were, transported thither. He imagines he has never left Cheapside, yet is far from knowing where he is, as we should say.

571. 'Not at Rochelle,' where the wines are weak.

579. 'The death of Attila took place in 453. The commonly received account is that given by Jornandes, that he died by the bursting of a blood-vessel on the night of his marriage with a beautiful maiden, whom he added to his many other wives; some, with a natural suspicion, impute it to the hand of his bride. Priscus observes, that no one ever subdued so many countries in so short a time.... Jornandes, De Rebus Geticis, and Priscus, Excerpta de Legationibus, furnish the best existing materials for the history of Attila. For modern compilations, see Buat, Histoire des Peuples de l'Europe; De Guignes, Hist. des Huns; and Gibbon, capp. xxxiv and xxxv'; English Cyclopaedia. And see Amédée Thierry, Histoire d'Attila.

Mr. Jephson (in Bell's Chaucer) quotes the account of Attila's death given by Paulus Diaconus, Gest. Rom. lib. xv: 'Qui reuersus ad proprias sedes, supra plures quas habebat uxores, valde decoram, indicto nomine, sibi in matrimonium iunxit. Ob cuius nuptias profusa conuiuia exercens, dum tantum uini quantum nunquam antea insimul bibisset, cum supinus quiesceret, eruptione sanguinis, qui ei de naribus solitus erat effluere, suffocatus et extinctus est.'

The older account in Jornandes, De Rebus Geticis, § 82, is of more [282] interest. 'Qui [Attila], ut Priscus historicus refert, extinctionis suae tempore puellam, Ildico nomine, decoram valde, sibi in matrimonium post innumerabiles uxores, vt mos est gentis illius, socians: eiusque in nuptiis magna hilaritate resolutus, vino somnoque grauatus, resupinus iacebat; redundansque sanguis, qui ei solitè de naribus effluebat, dum consuetis meatibus impeditur, itinere ferali faucibus illapsus eum extinxit.'

585. _Lamuel_, i. e. King Lemuel, mentioned in Prov. xxxi. 1, q. v.; not to be confused, says Chaucer, with Samuel. The allusion is to Prov. xxxi. 4, 5; and not (as Mr. Wright suggests) to Prov. xxiii. In fact, in the margin of MSS. E. and Hn. is written 'Noli uinum dare,' words found in Prov. xxxi. 4. See note to l. 561.

590. Compare Pers. Tale, I. 793.

591. _Hasard_, gambling. In the margin of MSS. E. and Hn. is written--'Policratici libro primo; Mendaciorum et periuriarum mater est Alea.' This shews that the line is a quotation from lib. i. [cap. 5] of the Polycraticus of John of Salisbury, bishop of Chartres, who died in 1180. See some account of this work in Prof. Morley's Eng. Writers, iii. 180. 'In the first book, John treats of temptations and duties and of vanities, such as hunting, _dice_, music, mimes and minstrelsy, magic and soothsaying, prognostication by dreams and astrology.' See also the account of gaming, considered as a branch of Avarice in the Ayenbyte of Inwyt, ed. Morris, pp. 45, 46.

595. Cf. 'Nonne satis improbata est cuiusque artis exercitatio, qua quanto quisque doctior, tanto nequior? Aleator quidem omnis hic est.'--Joh. Sarisb. Polycrat. i. 5.

603. _Stilbon._ It should rather be _Chilon_. Tyrwhitt remarks--'John of Salisbury, from whom our author probably took this story and the following, calls him _Chilon_; Polycrat. lib. i. c. 5. "Chilon Lacedaemonius, iungendae societatis causa missus Corinthum, duces et seniores populi ludentes inuenit in alea. Infecto itaque negotio reuersus est [dicens se nolle gloriam Spartanorum, quorum uirtus constructo Byzantio clarescebat, hac maculare infamia, ut dicerentur cum aleatoribus contraxisse societatem]." Accordingly, in ver. 12539 [l. 605], MS. C. 1 [i. e. MS. Camb. Univ. Lib. Dd. 4. 24] reads very rightly _Lacedomye_ instead of _Calidone_, the common reading [of the old editions]. Our author has used before _Lacedomie_ for _Lacedaemon_, v. 11692 [Frank. Tale, F. 1380].'

In the Petw. MS., the name _Stilbon_ is explained as meaning _Mercurius_. So, in Liddell and Scott's Gk. Lexicon, we have '[Greek: stilbôn, -ontos, ho] _the planet Mercury_, Arist. Mund. 2. 9; cf. Cic. Nat. D. 2. 20.' The original sense of the word was 'shining,' from the verb [Greek: stilbein], to glitter.

Chaucer has given the wrong name. He was familiar with the name _Stilbon_ (for Mercury), as it occurs (1) in the Epistola Valerii ad Rufinum, c. 27; (2) in the work of Martianus referred to in E. 1732; and (3) in the Anticlaudian, Distinctio quarta, c. 6. Cf. D. 671; E. 1732; Ho. Fame, 986; Notes and Queries, 8th S. iv. 175. [283]

608. The first foot has but one syllable, viz. _Pley_. _atte_, for _at the_. Tyrwhitt oddly remarks here, that '_atte_ has frequently been corrupted into _at the_,' viz. in the old editions. Of course _atte_ is rather, etymologically, a corruption of _at the_; Tyrwhitt probably means that the editors might as well have let the form _atte_ stand. If so, he is quite right; for, though etymologically a corruption, it was a recognised form in the fourteenth century.

621. This story immediately follows the one quoted from John of Salisbury in the note to l. 603. After 'societatem,' he proceeds:--'Regi quoque Demetrio, in opprobrium puerilis leuitatis, tali aurei a rege Parthorum dati sunt.' What Demetrius this was, we are not told; perhaps it may have been Demetrius Nicator, king of Syria, who was defeated and taken prisoner by the Parthians 138 B. C., and detained in captivity by them for ten years. This, however, is but a guess. Compare the story told of our own king, in Shakespeare's Henry V, Act i. sc. 2.

628. _To dryve the day awey_, to pass the time. The same phrase occurs in Piers Plowman, B. prol. 224, where it is said of the labourers who tilled the soil that they 'dryuen forth the longe day with _Dieu vous saue, Dame emme_,' i. e. amuse themselves with singing idle songs.

633. In the margin of MSS. E. Hn. and Pt. is the quotation 'Nolite omnino iurare,' with a reference (in Hn. only) to Matt. v. The Vulgate version of Matt. v. 34 is--'Ego autem dico uobis, non iurare omnino, neque per caelum, quia thronus Dei est.'

635. In the margin of MSS. E. Hn. Pt. is written--'Ieremie quarto Iurabis in veritate, in Iudicio, et Iusticia'; see Jer. iv. 2.

There are several points of resemblance between the present passage and one in the Persones Tale (_De Ira_), I. 588-594, part of which has been already quoted in the note to l. 474. So also Wyclif: '[gh]it no man schulde swere, nouther for life ne dethe, no but with these thre condiciones, that is, in treuthe, in dome, and in rightwisenes, as God sais by the prophet Ieremye'; Works, ed. Arnold, iii. 483. Hence one of the 'olde bokes' mentioned in l. 630 is the Treatise by Frère Lorens from which the Persones Tale is largely taken.

639. _the firste table_, i. e. the commandments that teach us our duty towards God; those in the second table teach us our duty to our neighbour.

641. _seconde heste_, second commandment. Formerly, the first two commandments were considered as one; the third commandment was therefore the second, as here. The tenth commandment was divided into two parts, to make up the number. See Wyclif's treatise on 'The ten Comaundements'; Works, ed. Arnold, iii. 82. Thus Wyclif says--'The secounde maner maundement of God perteyneth to the Sone. Thow schalt not take the name of thi Lord God in veyn, neþþer in word, neiþer in lyvynge.' So also in Hampole's Prose Treatises, ed. Perry, p. 10; Religious Pieces in Prose and Verse, ed. Perry (E. E. T. S.), pp. 5, 25. See note to l. 474; and cf. Pers. Tale, I. 588. [284]

643. _rather_, sooner; because this commandment precedes those which relate to murder, &c.

646. 'They that understand his commandments know this,' &c.

649. Wyclif says--'For it is written in Ecclesiasticus, the thre and twenti chapitre, there he seith this: A man much sweringe schal be fulfilled with wickidnesse, and veniaunce schal not go away fro his hous'; Works, iii. 84. Chaucer here quotes the same text; see Ecclus. xxiii. 11. And he quotes it once more, in I. 593.

651. So Wyclif, iii. 483--'hit is not leeful to swere by creaturis, ne by Goddys bonys, sydus, naylus, ne armus, or by ony membre of Cristis body, as þe moste dele of men usen.'

Tyrwhitt says--'_his nayles_, i. e. with which he was nailed to the cross. Sir J. Maundeville, c. vii--"And thereby in the walle is the place where the 4 Nayles of our Lord weren hidd; for he had 2 in his hondes, and 2 in his feet: and one of theise the Emperoure of Constantynoble made a brydille to his hors, to bere him in bataylle; and thorgh vertue thereof he overcame his enemies," &c. He had said before, c. ii., that "on of the nayles that Crist was naylled with on the cross" was "at Constantynoble; and on in France, in the kinges chapelle."'

Mr. Wright adds, what is doubtless true, that these nails 'were objects of superstition in the middle ages.' Nevertheless, I am by no means satisfied that these comments are to the point. I strongly suspect that swearers did not stop to think, nor were they at all particular as to the sense in which the words might be used. Here, for example, _nails_ are mentioned between _heart_ and _blood_; in the quotation from Wyclif which begins this note, we find mention of 'bones, sides, nails, and arms,' followed by 'any member of Christ's body.' Still more express is the phrase used by William Staunton (see note to l. 474 above) that 'God's members' include 'his nails.' On the other hand, in Lewis's Life of Pecock, p. 155 [or p. 107, ed. 1820], is a citation from a MS. to the effect that, in the year 1420, many men died in England 'emittendo sanguinem per iuncturas et per secessum, scilicet in illis partibus corporis per quas horribiliter iurare consueuerunt, scilicet, per oculos Christi, per faciem Christi, per latera Christi, per sanguinem Christi, per cor Christi preciosum, per _clauos_ Christi in suis manibus et pedibus.' See _'Snails_ in Nares' Glossary. A long essay might be written upon the oaths found in our old authors, but the subject is, I think, a most repulsive one.

652. Here Tyrwhitt notes--'The Abbey of Hailes, in Glocestershire, was founded by Richard, king of the Romans, brother to Henry III. This precious relick, which was afterwards called "the blood of Hailes," was brought out of Germany by the son of Richard, Edmund, who bestowed a third part of it upon his father's Abbey of Hailes, and some time after gave the other two parts to an Abbey of his own foundation at Ashrug near Berkhamsted.--Hollinshed, vol. ii. p. 275.' The Legend says that the holy blood was obtained by Titus from Joseph of Arimathea. Titus put it in the temple of Peace, in Rome. [285] Thence Charlemagne took half of it to Germany, where Edmund found it, as said above. The Legend is printed in Horstmann's Altenglische Legenden, p. 275. 'A vial was shewn at Hales in Glocestershire, as containing a portion of our blessed Saviour's blood, which suffered itself to be seen by no person in a state of mortal sin, but became visible when the penitent, by his offerings, had obtained forgiveness. It was now discovered that this was performed by keeping blood, which was renewed every week, in a vial, one side of which was thick and opaque, the other transparent, and turning it by a secret hand as the case required. A trick of the same kind, more skilfully executed, is still annually performed at Naples.'--Southey, Book of the Church, ch. xii. He refers to Fuller, b. vi. Hist. of Abbeys, p. 323; Burnet, i. 323, ed. 1681. See also the word _Hales_ in the Index to the works published by the Parker Society; Pilgrimages to Walsingham and Canterbury (by Erasmus), ed. J. G. Nichols, 2nd ed. 1875, p. 88; Dodsley's Old Plays, ed. Hazlitt, i. 339, where a long account is given, with a reference to Hearne's ed. of Benedictus Abbas, ii. 751; and Skelton's Garland of Laurel, l. 1461, on which see Dyce's note.

653. 'My chance is seven; yours is five and three.' This is an allusion to the particular game called _hazard_, not to a mere comparison of throws to see which is highest. A certain throw (here _seven_) is called the caster's _chance_. This can only be understood by an acquaintance with the rules of the game. See the article _Hazard_ in Supplement to Eng. Cyclopaedia, or in Hoyle's Games. See the note to B. 124; and see the Monkes Tale, B. 3851. Compare--'Not unlyke the use of foule gamesters, who having lost the maine by [i. e. according to] true iudgement, thinke to face it out with a false oath'; Lyly's Euphues and his England, ed. Arber, p. 289.

656. In the Towneley Mysteries, p. 241, when the soldiers dice for Christ's garments, one says--

'I was falsly begyled withe thise _byched bones_, Ther cursyd thay be.'

The readings are:--E. Cp. _bicched_; Ln. _becched_; Hl. _bicched_; Hn. Cm. _bicche_; Pt. and old edd. _thilk_, _thilke_ (wrongly). Besides which, Tyrwhitt cites _bichet_, MS. Harl. 7335; _becched_, Camb. Univ. Lib. Dd. 4. 24; and, from other MSS., _bicched_, _bicchid_, _bitched_, _bicche_. The general consensus of the MSS. and the quotation from the Towneley Mysteries establish the reading given in the text beyond all doubt. Yet Tyrwhitt reads _bicchel_, for which he adduces no authority beyond the following. '_Bickel_, as explained by Kilian, is _talus_, ovillus et lusorius; and _bickelen_, talis ludere. See also Had. Junii Nomencl. n. 213. Our dice indeed are the ancient _tesserae_ ([Greek: kuboi]) not _tali_ ([Greek: astragaloi]); but, both being games of hazard, the implements of one might be easily attributed to the other. It should seem from Junius, loc. cit., that the Germans had preserved the custom of playing with the natural bones, [286] as they have different names for a game with _tali ovilli_, and another with _tali bubuli_.'

I find in the Tauchnitz Dutch Dictionary--'_Bikkel_, cockal. _Bikkelen_, to play at cockals.' Here _cockal_ is the old name for a game with four hucklebones (Halliwell), and is further made to mean the hucklebone itself. But there is nothing to connect _bicched_ with Du. _bickel_, and the sense is very different. From the article on _Bicched_ in the New Eng. Dict., it appears that the sense is 'cursed, execrable,' and is an epithet applied to other things besides dice. It is evidently an opprobrious word, and seems to be derived from the sb. _bitch_, opprobriously used. There is even a quotation in which the verb _bitch_ means to bungle or spoil a business. We may explain it by 'cursed bones.'

662. _pryme_, about nine o'clock; see notes to A. 3906, B. 2015. Here it means the canonical hour for prayer so called, to announce which bells were rung.

664. A hand-bell was carried before a corpse at a funeral by the sexton. See Rock, Church of Our Fathers, ii. 471; Grindal's Works, p. 136; Myre's Instructions for Parish Priests, l. 1964.

666. _That oon of them_, the one of them; the old phrase for 'one of them.' _knave_, boy.

667. _Go bet_, lit. go better, i. e. go quicker; a term of encouragement to dogs in the chase. So in the Legend of Good Women, 1213 (Dido, l. 290), we have--

'The herd of hertes founden is anoon, With "hey! _go bet_! prik thou! lat goon, lat goon!"'

In Skelton's Elynour Rummyng, l. 332, we have--'And bad Elynour _go bet_.' Halliwell says--'_Go bet_, an old hunting cry, often introduced in a more general sense. See Songs and Carols, xv; Shak. Soc. Pap. i. 58; Chaucer, C. T. 12601 [the present passage]; Dido, 288 [290]; Tyrwhitt's notes, p. 278; Ritson's Anc. Pop. Poetry, p. 46. The phrase is mentioned by [Juliana] Berners in the Boke of St. Alban's, and seems nearly equivalent to _go along_.' It is strange that no editor has perceived the _exact_ sense of this very simple phrase. Cf. 'Keep _bet_ our good,' i. e. take better care of my property; Shipmannes Tale, B. 1622.

679. _this pestilence_, during this plague. Alluding to the Great Plagues that took place in the reign of Edward III. There were four such, viz. in 1348-9, 1361-2, 1369, and 1375-6. As Chaucer probably had the story from an Italian source, the allusion must be to the first and worst of these, the effects of which spread nearly all over Europe, and which was severely felt at Florence, as we learn from the description left by Boccaccio. See my note to Piers Plowman, B. v. 13.

684. _my dame_, my mother; as in H. 317; Piers Plowman, B. v. 37.

695. _avow_, vow; to _make avow_ is the old phrase for _to vow_. Tyrwhitt alters it to _a vow_, quite unnecessarily; and the same alteration has been made by editors in other books, owing to want of familiarity [287] with old MSS. It is true that the form _vow_ does occur, as, e. g. in P. Plowm. B. prol. 71; but it is no less certain that _avow_ occurs also, and was the older form; since we have _oon auow_ (B. 334), and the phrase 'I make myn _avou_,' P. Plowman, A. v. 218; where no editorial sophistication can evade giving the right spelling. Equally clear is the spelling in the Prompt. Parv.--'_Avowe_, Votum. _Awowyn_, or _to make awowe_, Voveo.' And Mr. Way says--'_Auowe_, veu; Palsgrave. This word occurs in R. de Brunne, Wiclif, and Chaucer. The phrase "performed his auowe" occurs in the Legenda Aurea, fol. 47.' Those who are familiar with MSS. know that a prefixed _a_ is often written apart from the word; thus the word now spelt _accord_ is often written 'a corde'; and so on. Hence, even when the word is really _one_ word, it is still often written 'a uow,' and is naturally printed _a vow_ in two words, where no such result was intended. Tyrwhitt himself prints _min avow_ in the Knightes Tale, A. 2237, and again _this avow_ in the same, A. 2414; where no error is possible. See more on this word in my note to l. 1 of Chevy Chase, in Spec. of Eng. 1394-1579. I have there said that the form _vow_ does not occur in early writers; I should rather have said, it is by no means the _usual_ form.

698. _brother_, i. e. sworn friend; see Kn. Tale, A. 1131, 1147. In l. 704, _yboren brother_ means brother by birth.

709. _to-rente_, tare in pieces, dismembered. See note to l. 474 above.

713. This 'old man' answers to the _romito_ or hermit of the Italian text. Note _an old_ (indefinite), as compared with _this oldë_ (definite) in l. 714.

715. Tyrwhitt, in his Glossary, remarks--'_God you see!_ 7751 [D. 2169]; _God him see!_ 4576 [B. 156]. May God keep you, or him, in his sight! In Troilus, ii. 85, it is fuller[27]:--_God you save and see!_' Gower has--'And than I bidde, _God hir see!_' Conf. Amant. bk. iv. (ed. Chalmers, p. 116, col. 2, or ed. Pauli, ii. 96). In Grimm's Teutonic Mythology, ed. Stallybrass, i. 21, we find a similar phrase in O. H. German:--'daz si got iemer schouwe'; Iwain, l. 794. Cf. 'now loke the owre lorde!' P. Plowman, B. i. 207. See also l. 766 below.

727. This is a great improvement upon the Italian Tale, which represents the hermit as _fleeing_ from death. 'Fratelli miei, io fuggo la morte, che mi vien dietro cacciando mi.'

Professor Kittredge, of Harvard University, informs me that ll. 727-733 are imitated from the first Elegy of Maximian, of which ll. 1-4, 223-8 are as follows:--

'Almula cur cessas finem properare senectus? Cur et in hoc fesso corpore tarda sedes? Solue, precor, miseram tali de carcere uitam; Mors est iam requies, uiuere poena mihi.... Hinc est quod baculo incumbens ruitura senectus Assiduo pigram uerbere pulsat humum. [288] Et numerosa mouens certo uestigia passu Talia rugato creditur ore loqui: "Suscipe me, genetrix, nati miserere laborum, Membra uelis gremio fessa fouere tuo."'

Cf. Calderon, Les Tres Justicias en Una; Act ii. sc. 1.

731. _leve moder_, dear mother Earth; see 'genetrix' above.

734. _cheste._ Mr. Jephson (in Bell's edition) is puzzled here. He takes _cheste_ to mean a coffin, which is certainly the sense in the Clerk's Prologue, E. 29. The simple solution is that _cheste_ refers here, not to a coffin, but to the box for holding clothes which, in olden times, almost invariably stood in every bedroom, at the foot of the bed. 'At the foot of the bed there was usually an iron-bound hutch or locker, which served both as a seat, and as a repository for the apparel and wealth of the owner, who, sleeping with his sword by his side, was prepared to protect it against the midnight thief'; Our English Home, p. 101. It was also called a coffer, a hutch, or an ark. The old man is ready, in fact, to exchange his chest, containing all his worldly gear, for a single hair-cloth, to be used as his shroud.

743. In the margin of MSS. E. Hn. and Pt. is the quotation 'Coram canuto capite consurge,' from Levit. xix. 32. Hence we must understand _Agayns_, in l. 743, to mean _before_, or _in presence of_. Cf. B. 3702.

748. _God be with you_ is said, with probability, to have been the original of our modern unmeaning _Good bye!_ _go or ryde_, a general phrase for locomotion; _go_ here means _walk_. Cp. 'ryde or go,' Kn. Tale, A. 1351. Cf. note to l. 866.

771. The readings are:--E. Hn. Cm. _an .viij._; Ln. _a .vij._; Cp. Pt. Hl. _a seuen_. The word _eighte_ is dissyllabic; cf. A. S. _eahta_, Lat. _octo_. _Wel ny an eighte busshels_ = very nearly the quantity of eight bushels. The mention of _florins_ is quite in keeping with the Italian character of the poem. Those coins were so named because originally coined at Florence, the first coinage being in 1252; note in Cary's Dante, Inferno, c. xxx. The expression 'floreyn of florence' occurs in The Book of Quintessence, ed. Furnivall, p. 6. The value of an English florin was 6s. 8d.; see note to Piers Plowman, B. ii. 143. There is an excellent note on _florins_ in Thynne's Animadversions on Speght's Chaucer, ed. Furnivall, p. 45.

781. In allusion to the old proverb--'Lightly come, lightly go.' Cotgrave, s. v. _Fleute_, gives the corresponding French proverb thus:--'Ce qui est venu par la fleute s'en retourne avec le tabourin; that the pipe hath gathered, the tabour scattereth; goods ill gotten are commonly ill spent.' In German--'wie gewonnen, so zerronnen.'

782. _wende_, would have weened, would have supposed. It is the past tense subjunctive.

790. _doon us honge_, lit. cause (men) to hang us; we should now say, cause us to be hanged. 'The Anglo-Saxons nominally punished theft with death, if above 12d. value; but the criminal could redeem [289] his life by a ransom. In the 9th of Henry I. this power of redemption was taken away, 1108. The punishment of theft was very severe in England, till mitigated by Peel's Acts, 9 and 10 Geo. IV. 1829.'--Haydn, s. v. _Theft_.

793. To _draw cuts_ is to draw lots; see Prologue, 835, 838, 845. A number of straws were held by one of the company; the rest drew one apiece, and whoever drew the longest (or the shortest) was the one on whom the lot fell. The fatal straw was the _cut_; cf. Welsh _cwtws_, a lot. In France, the lot fell on him who drew the longest straw; so that their phrase was--'tirer la longue paille.'

797. So in the Italian story--'rechi del pane e del vino,' let him fetch bread and wine.

806-894. Here Chaucer follows the general sense of the Italian story rather closely, but with certain amplifications.

807. _That oon_, the one; _that other_, the other (vulgarly, _the tother_).

819. _conseil_, a secret; as in P. Plowman, B. v. 168. We still say--'to keep one's own counsel.'

838. _rolleth_, revolves; cf. D. 2217, Troil. v. 1313.

844. So the Italian story--'Il Demonio ... mise in cuore a costui,' &c.; the devil put it in his heart; see vol. iii. p. 441.

848. _leve_, leave. 'That he had leave to bring him to sorrow.'

851-878. Of this graphic description there is no trace in the Italian story as we now have it. Cf. Rom. and Juliet, v. 1.

860. _al-so_, as. The sense is--as (I hope) God may save my soul. That our modern _as_ is for _als_, which is short for _also_, from the A. S. _eall-swá_, is now well known. This fact was doubted by Mr. Singer, but Sir F. Madden, in his Reply to Mr. Singer's remarks upon Havelok the Dane, accumulated such a mass of evidence upon the subject as to set the question at rest for ever. It follows that _as_ and _also_ are doublets, or various spellings of the same word.

865. _sterve_, die; A. S. _steorfan_. The cognate German _sterben_ retains the old general sense. See l. 888 below.

866. _goon a paas_, walk at an ordinary foot-pace; so also, _a litel more than paas_, a little faster than at a foot-pace, Prol. 825. Cotgrave has--'Aller le pas, to pace, or go at a foot-pace; to walk fair and softly, or faire and leisurely.' _nat but_, no more than only; cf. North of England _nobbut_. The time meant would be about twenty minutes at most.

888. In the Italian story--'amendue caddero morti,' both of them fell dead; see vol. iii. p. 442.

889. _Avicen_, Avicenna; mentioned in the Prologue, l. 432. Avicenna, or Ibn-Sina, a celebrated Arabian philosopher and physician, born near Bokhara A.D. 980, died A.D. 1037. His chief work was a treatise on medicine known as the Canon ('Kitâb al-Kânûn fi'l-Tibb,' that is, 'Book of the Canon in Medicine'). This book, alluded to in the next line, is divided into books and sections; and the Arabic word for 'section' is in the Latin version denoted by _fen_, from the Arabic _fann_, a part of any science. Chaucer's expression is not quite [290] correct; he seems to have taken _canon_ in its usual sense of rule, whereas it is really the title of the whole work. It is much as if one were to speak of Dante's work in the terms--'such as Dante never wrote in any Divina Commedia nor in any canto.' Lib. iv. Fen 1 of Avicenna's Canon treats 'De Venenis.'

895. Against this line is written, in MS. E. only, the word 'Auctor'; to shew that the paragraph contained in ll. 895-903 is a reflection by the author.

897. The final _e_ in _glutonye_ is preserved by the caesural pause; but the scansion of the line is more easily seen by supposing it suppressed. Hence in order to scan the line, suppress the final _e_ in _glutonye_, lay the accent on the second _u_ in _luxúrie_, and slur over the final _-ie_ in that word. Thus--

O glút | oný' | luxú | r_ie_ and hás | ardrýë ||

904. _good' men_ is the common phrase of address to hearers in old homilies, answering to the modern 'dear brethren.' The Pardoner, having told his tale (after which Chaucer himself has thrown in a moral reflection), proceeds to improve his opportunity by addressing the audience in his usual professional style; see l. 915.

907. _noble_, a coin worth 6s. 8d., first coined by Edward III. about 1339. See note to P. Plowman, B. iii. 45.

908. So in P. Plowman, B. prol. 75, it is said of the Pardoner that he 'raughte with his ragman [bull] _rynges and broches_.'

910. _Cometh_ is to be pronounced _Com'th_, as in Prol. 839; so also in l. 925 below.

920. _male_, bag; see Prol. 694. Cf. E. _mail-bag_.

935. The first two syllables in _peravénture_ are to be very rapidly pronounced; it is not uncommon to find the spelling _peraunter_, as in P. Plowman, B. xi. 10.

937. _which a_, what sort of a, how great a, what a.

945. _Ye, for a grote_, yea, even for a groat, i. e. 4d.

946. _have_ I, may I have; an imprecation.

947. _so theech_, a colloquialism for _so thee ich_, as I may thrive, as I hope to thrive. The Host proceeds to abuse the Pardoner.

951. This is a reference to the 'Invention of the Cross,' or finding of the true cross by St. Helen, the mother of Constantine; commemorated on May 3. See Chambers, Book of Days, i. 586; Alban Butler, Lives of the Saints.

962. _right ynough_, quite enough; _right_ is an adverb. Cf. l. 960.

* * * * *

[291]

NOTES TO GROUP D.

THE WIFE OF BATH'S PROLOGUE.

There is nothing whatever to connect this Prologue with any preceding Tale. In MS. E. and most others, it follows the Man of Law's Tale, which cannot be right, as that Tale must be followed by the Shipman's Prologue. Curiously enough, that Prologue _does_ follow the Man of Law's Tale in the Harleian MS., but the Wife of Bath's Tale is made to follow next, in place of the Shipman's Tale.

In MS. Pt., and several others, the Wife's Prologue follows the Merchant's Tale; such is the arrangement in edd. 1532 and 1561. This is possible, as the Merchant's Tale ends a Fragment, and the Wife's Prologue begins one; but it is easier to fit the lines at the end of the Merchant's Tale to the Squire's Prologue. In the Royal MS. 18. C. 2, and in MSS. Laud 739 and Barlow 20, there is an attempt to introduce the Wife's Prologue by some spurious lines which are printed in vol. iii. p. 446. I just note that we have a genuine Epilogue to the Merchant's Tale (see E. 2419-2440); which is quite enough to put the above lines out of court.

MS. Ln. has a different arrangement. It gives eight spurious lines at the end of the Squire's Tale, and then four more spurious lines to link them with the Wife's Prologue; see vol. iii. p. 446.

In the Ellesmere MS. there are numerous quotations in the margin, as will be noted in due course. In the Essays on Chaucer, pp. 293, the Rev. W. W. Woollcombe has shewn that the passages which seem to be taken from John of Salisbury are really taken from Jerome, whom John copied, verbally, at some length. I may add, that I came independently to the same conclusion; indeed, it becomes obvious, on investigation, that such was the case. Chaucer's chief sources for this Prologue are: Jerome's Epistle against Jovinian, and Le Roman de la Rose. I quote the former (frequently) from Hieronymi Opus Epistolarum, edited by Erasmus, printed at Basle in 1524.

1. _auctoritee_, authoritative text, quotable statement of a good author. 'Though there were no written statement on the subject, my own experience would enable me to speak of the evils of marriage.' Cf. the [292] character of the Wife in the Prologue, A. 445-476. Lines 1-3 are imitated from Le Rom. de la Rose, 13006-10.

6. So in A. 460, with _she hadde_ for _I have had_; see note to that line.

7. The alternative reading (in the footnote) does not agree with l. 6. MS. E. is quite right here. Probably MS. Cm. would have given us the same reading, but it is here mutilated.

11. In E., a sidenote has:--'In Cana Galilee'; from John, ii. 1.

12-13. In E., a sidenote has:--'Qui enim semel iuit ad nuptias, docuit semel esse nubendum.' This is from Hieronymi lib. i. c. Jovinianum; Epist. (ut supra), t. ii. p. 29. But the edition has _uenit_ for _iuit_, and _semel docuit_.

14-22. This also is from Jerome, as above (p. 28):--'Siquidem et illa in Euangelio Iohannis Samaritana, sextum se maritum habere dicens, arguitur a domino, quod non sit uir eius. Vbi enim numerus maritorum est, ibi uir, qui proprie unus est, esse desiit.' Cf. John, iv. 18.

23-25. In the margin of E. we find:--'Non est uxorum numerus diffinitus.' About 15 lines after the last quotation, we find in Jerome:--'non esse uxorum numerum definitum.' This is immediately preceded (in Jerome) by a quotation from St. Paul (1 Cor. vii. 29), which is also quoted in the margin of E.

28. In the margin of E.--'Crescite et multiplicamini'; Gen. i. 28. The text was suggested by the fact that Jerome quotes it near the beginning of his letter (p. 18). Soon after (p. 19), he quotes Matt. xix. 5, which Chaucer quotes accordingly in l. 31.

33. _bigamye._ 'Bigamy, according to the canonists, consisted not only in marrying two wives at a time, but in marrying two spinsters successively.'--Bell.

_octogamye_, marriage of eight husbands. This queer word is due to Jerome, and affords clear proof of Chaucer's indebtedness. 'Non damno _digamos_, imò nec _trigamos_; et (si dici potest) _octogamos_'; p. 29. Cf. 'A dodecagamic Potter,' in a note to 'And a polygamic Potter,' in Shelley's Prologue to Peter Bell the Third.

35. _here_, hear; a gloss in E. has 'audi.' See 1 Kings, xi. 3.

44. Tyrwhitt says that, after this verse, some MSS. (as Camb. Dd. 4. 24, Ii. 3. 26, and Egerton 2726) have the six lines following:--

'Of whiche I have pyked out the beste Both of here nether purs and of here cheste. Diverse scoles maken parfyt clerkes, And diverse practyk in many sondry werkes Maken the werkman parfyt sekirly; Of five husbondes scoleryng am I.'

He adds--'if these lines are not Chaucer's, they are certainly more in his manner than the generality of the imitations of him. Perhaps he wrote them, and afterwards blotted them out. They come in but [293] awkwardly here, and he has used the principal idea in another place:--

For sondry scoles maken sotil clerkes; Womman of many scoles half a clerk is'; E. 1427.

I beg leave to endorse Tyrwhitt's opinion; the six lines are certainly genuine, and I therefore repeat them, in a better spelling and form.

Of whiche I have y-piked out the beste, Bothe of hir nether purs and of hir cheste. Diverse scoles maken parfit clerkes; Divers praktyk in many sondry werkes Maketh the werkman parfit sekirly; Of fyve housbondes scolering am I.

I know of no other example of _scoler-ing_, i. e. young scholar.

46. In the margin of E. is here written--'Si autem non continent, nubant'; from 1 Cor. vii. 9.

47. In the margin of E. is a quotation from Jerome, p. 28; but it is really from the Vulgate, 1 Cor. vii. 39; viz.--'Quod si dormierit uir eius, libera est; cui uult, nubat, tantum in Domino.' Cf. Rom. vii. 3.

51-52. Alluding to 1 Cor. vii. 28, and 1 Cor. vii. 9, here quoted in the margin of E.

54. 'Primus Lamech sanguinarius et homicida, unam carnem in duas diuisit uxores'; Jerome (as above), p. 29, l. 1; partly quoted here in the margin of E. Cf. Gen. iv. 19-23. 'There runs through the whole of this doctrine about bigamy a confusion between marrying twice and having two wives at once.'--Bell. See the allusions to Lamech in F. 550, and Anelida, 150.

55-56. In the margin of E. is:--'Abraham trigamus: Iacob quadrigamus.' Discussed by Jerome, p. 19, near the bottom.

61. 'Ecce, inquit [Iouinianus], Apostolus profitetur de uirginibus Domini se non habere praeceptum; et qui cum autoritate de maritis et uxoribus iusserat, non audet imperare quod Dominus non praecepit.... Frustra enim iubetur, quod in arbitrio eius ponitur cui iussum est'; &c.--Jerome (as above), p. 25.

65. See 1 Cor. vii. 25, here quoted in the margin of E.

69. 'Si uirginitatem Dominus imperasset, uidebatur nuptias condemnare, et hominum auferre seminarium, unde et ipsa uirginitas nascitur'; Jerome, p. 25.

75. Tyrwhitt aptly quotes from Lydgate's Falls of Princes, fol. xxvi:--

'And oft it happeneth, he that hath best ron Doth not the _spere_ like his desert possede.'

We must conclude that a _dart_ or _spear_ was the prize given (in some games) to the best runner. That _dart_ here means 'prize,' appears from another proof altogether. For in the margin of E. we here find a quotation from Jerome, p. 26, which runs in a fuller form, thus:--'Proponit [Greek: agônothetês] _praemium_, inuitat ad cursum, tenet in manu [294] uirginitatis _brauium_, ... et clamitat, ... qui potest capere, capiat.' The word _brauium_, i. e. prize in a race, is borrowed from the Vulgate, 1 Cor. ix. 24, where the Greek has [Greek: brabeion]. 'Catch who so may,' in l. 76, represents 'qui potest capere, capiat.' Hence _cacche_ here means 'win.'

81. Alluding to 1 Cor. vii. 7, here quoted in E.

84. 'Haec autem dico secundum indulgentiam'; 1 Cor. vii. 6.

87. Alluding to 1 Cor. vii. 1, here quoted in E.

89. _tassemble_, for _to assemble_, to bring together.

Cf. 'qui ignem tetigerit, statim aduritur,' &c.--Jerome, p. 21.

91. Cf. 'Simulque considera, quod aliud donum uirginitatis sit, aliud nuptiarum'; Jerome (as above), ii. 22.

96. _preferre_ is evidently a neuter verb here, meaning 'be preferable to.'

101. _tree_, wood; alluding to 2 Tim. ii. 20.

103. _a propre yifte_, a gift peculiar to him; see 1 Cor. vii. 7, here quoted in E.

105. See Rev. xiv. 1-4, a line or two from which is here quoted in E.

110. _fore_, track, course, footsteps; glossed 'steppes' in MS. E. Some MSS. have the inferior _lore_, shewing that the scribes understood the word no better than the writer of the note in Bell's Chaucer, who says--'Harl. MS. reads _fore_, which is probably a mere clerical error.' Wright, however, correctly retains _fore_. It occurs again in D. 1935, q. v., where Tyrwhitt again alters it to _lore_. Bradley gives ten examples of it, to which I can add another, viz. 'he folowede the _fore_ of an oxe,' Trevisa, ii. 343 (repeated from the example in i. 197, which Bradley cites). A. S. _f[=o]r_, a course, way; from _faran_ (pt. t. _f[=o]r_), to go. Cf. Matt. xix. 21, which is quoted in Cp. and Pt.

115. 'Et cur, inquies, creata sunt genitalia, et sic a conditore sapientissimo fabricati sumus, &c. ... ipsa organa ... sexus differentiam praedicant'; Jerome (as above), p. 42.

117. I give the reading of E., which seems much the best. For _wight_, Cm. has _wyf_. Hn. _has_: And of so p_ar_fit wys a wight y-wroght; which is also good. But Cp. Pt. Ln. _have_: And of so parfyt wise and why y-wrought. Hl. _has_: And in what wise was a wight y-wrought. The last reading is the worst.

128. _ther_, where, wherein. With l. 130, cf. 1 Cor. vii. 3, where the Vulgate has 'Uxori uir debitum reddat.'

135. 'Nunquam ergo cessemus a libidine, ne frustra huiuscemodi membra portemus'; Jerome, p. 42.

144. _hoten_, be called; A. S. _h[=a]tan_. The sense is--'Let virgins be as bread made of selected wheaten flour; and let us wives be called barley-bread; nevertheless Jesus refreshed many a man with barley-bread, as St. Mark tells us.' Chaucer makes a slight mistake; it is St. John who speaks of _barley_-loaves; see John vi. 9 (cf. Mark vi. 38). For _hoten_, Tyrwhitt, Wright, Bell, and Morris, all give the mistaken reading _eten_, which misses the whole point of the argument; but [295] Gilman has _hoten_. There is no question as to what the Wife should _eat_, but only as to her condition in life. It is the Wife herself who is compared to something edible.

The comparison is from Jerome (as above), p. 21:--'Velut si quis definiat: Bonum est _triticeo_ pane uesci, et edere _purissimam similam_. Tamen ne quis compulsus fame stercus bubulum: concedo ei, ut uescatur et _hordeo_.'

147. Alluding to 1 Cor. vii. 20, here quoted in E.

151. _daungerous_, difficult of access; cf. l. 514.

155. In the margin of E.--'Qui uxorem habet, et _debitor_ dicitur, et esse in praeputio, et _seruus_ uxoris,' &c. From Jerome (as above), p. 26.

156. Alluding to 1 Cor. vii. 28, here quoted in E.

158. Alluding to 1 Cor. vii. 4, here quoted in E.

161. Alluding to Eph. v. 25, here quoted in E.

167-168. _What_, why. _to-yere_, this year; cf. _to-day_. 'To-yere, _horno_, _hornus_, _hornotinus_'; Catholicon Anglicum. The phrase is still in use in some of our dialects.

170. _another tonne._ This expression is probably due to Le Roman de la Rose, 6839:--

'Jupiter en toute saison A sor le suel de sa maison, Ce dit Omers, deus plains tonneaus,' &c.

This again is from Homer's two urns, sources of good and evil (Iliad, xxiv. 527), as quoted by Boethius, bk. ii. pr. 2. See note in vol. ii. p. 428 (l. 53). It is suggested that the Pardoner has been used to a tun of ale, and now he must expect to have a taste of something less pleasant. Cf. l. 177.

One of Gower's French Balades contains the lines:--

'Deux tonealx ad [Cupide] dont il les gentz fait boire; L'un est assetz plus douls que n'est pyment, L'autre est amier plus que null arrement.'

180. The saying referred to is written in the margin of Dd., as Tyrwhitt tells us. It runs:--'Qui per alios non corrigitur, alii per ipsum corrigentur.' With regard to its being written in Ptolemy's Almagest, Tyrwhitt quaintly remarks:--'I suspect that the Wife of Bath's copy of Ptolemy was very different from any that I have been able to meet with.' The same remark applies to her second quotation in l. 326 below. I have no doubt that the Wife is simply copying, for convenience, these words in Le Roman de la Rose, 7070:--

'Car nous lisons de Tholomee Une parole moult honeste Au comencier de s'Almageste,' &c.

Jean de Meun then cites a passage of quite another kind, but the Wife of Bath did not stick at such a trifle. The Almagest is mentioned again in the same, l. 18772. [296]

As to the above saying, cf. Barbour's Bruce, i. 121, 2; and my notes to the line at pp. 545 and 612 of the same. 'Felix quem faciunt aliena pericula cautum'; cf. Rom. de la Rose, 8041; Robert of Brunne, Handlyng Synne, 8086.

183. _Almageste._ The celebrated astronomer, Claudius Ptolemaeus, who flourished in the second century, wrote, as his chief work, the [Greek: megalê suntaxis tês astronomias]. This work was also called, for brevity, [Greek: megalê], and afterwards [Greek: megistê] (greatest); out of which, by prefixing the Arab. article _al_, the Arabs made _Al-mejisti_, or _Al-magest_.

197. Here _wér-e_ is made dissyllabic. For _The three_, Hl. has _Tuo_; which is clearly wrong.

199. In the margin of E. is written part of the last sentence in Part I. of Jerome's treatise:--'hierophantas quoque Atheniensium usque hodie cicutae sorbitione castrari; et postquam in pontificatum fuerint electi, uiros esse desinere.' Probably quoted to emphasize the sense of _uiros_.

207-210. Imitated from Le Rom. de la Rose, 13478-82.

218. _Dunmowe_, in Essex, N. W. of Chelmsford. Tyrwhitt refers us to Blount's Ancient Tenures, p. 162, and adds:--'This whimsical institution was not peculiar to Dunmow; there was the same in Bretagne. "A l'Abbaie Sainct Melaine, près Rennes, y a, plus de six cens ans sont, un costé de lard encore tous frais et non corrumpu; et neantmoins voué et ordonné aux premiers, qui par an et jour ensemble mariez ont vescut san debat, grondement, et sans s'en repentir."--_Contes d'Eutrap_, t. ii. p. 161.' See P. Plowman, C. xi. 276, and my long note on the subject.

220. _fawe_, fain; a variant form of _fain_, A. S. _fægen_, _fægn_. See Havelok, 2160; Alisaunder, ed. Weber, 1956; &c.

221. Here occurs the first reference to the _Aureolus Liber de Nuptiis_, written by a certain Theophrastus, who is mentioned below (l. 671), and in E. 1310. Jerome gives a long extract from this work in his book against Jovinian (so frequently cited above), and has thus preserved a portion of it; and John of Salisbury transferred the whole extract bodily to his Policraticus. It it clear that Chaucer used the work of Jerome rather than that of John of Salisbury. The extract from Theophrastus occurs not far from the end of the first book of the epistle against Jovinian; and near the beginning of it occur the words--'de foro ueniens quid attulisti?'--Jerome (as above), p. 51. This probably suggested the present line, as it is a question put by a wife to her husband.

226. _and bere hem_, i. e. and wrongly accuse them, or make them believe.

227. Tyrwhitt quotes two corresponding lines from Le Roman de la Rose:--

'Car plus hardiment que nulz homs Certainement jurent et mentent.'

He refers to l. 19013; but in Méon's edition, these are ll. 18336-7. [297]

229. Cf. Le Rom. de la Rose, 9949:--'Ce ne di-ge pas por les bonnes.'

231. _wys_, cunning. In MSS. E. and Hn. the caesural pause is marked after _wyf_. The line, as it stands, is imperfect, and only to be scanned by making the pause after _wyf_ occupy the space of a syllable. The reading _wys-e_ gets over the difficulty, but is hardly what we should expect; it is remarkable that E. Hn. and Cm. all read _wys_, without a final _e_; cf. _wys_ in A. 68, 785, 851. The only justification of the form _wys-e_ would be to consider it as feminine; and such seems to be the case in Gower, Conf. Am., ed. Pauli, i. 156:--'His doughter _wis-e_ Petronel-le.' _if that she can hir good_, if she knows what is to her advantage.

232. 'Will make him believe that the chough is mad.' In the New E. Dict., s. v. _Chough_, Dr. Murray shews that the various readings _cou_, _cowe_, _kowe_, &c. tend to prove that _cow_ in this passage may well mean 'chough' or 'jackdaw' rather than 'cow.' This solves the difficulty; for the allusion is clearly to one of the commonest of medieval stories, told of various talking birds, originally of a parrot.

Very briefly, the story runs thus. A jealous husband, leaving his wife, sets his parrot to watch her. On his return, the bird reports her misconduct. But the wife avers that the parrot lies, and tries to prove it by an ingenious stratagem. The husband believes his frail wife's plot, and promptly wrings the bird's neck for telling stories, under the impression that it has gone mad.

I formerly explained this in The Academy, April 5, 1890, p. 239. In the no. for April 19, p. 269, Mr. Clouston referred me to his paper on 'The Tell-tale Bird' printed in the Chaucer Society's Originals and Analogues, p. 439, with reference to the Manciple's Tale, which relates a similar story. See the account of the Manciple's Tale in vol. iii. p. 501. It is the story of the Husband and the Parrot, in the Arabian Nights' Entertainment.

This line of Chaucer's seems to have attracted attention, though there is nothing to shew how it was understood. Thus, in Roy's _Rede me and be nott Wrothe_, ed. Arber, p. 80, we find:--

'Because they canne flatter and lye, Makynge beleve _the cowe is wode_.'

In Awdelay's Fraternyte of Vacabondes (E. E. T. S.), p. 14, we find: 'Gyle Hather is he, that wyll stand by his Maister when he is at dinner, and byd him beware that he eate no raw meate, because he would eate it himself. This is a pickthanke knaue, that would make his Maister beleue that _the Cowe is woode_.' Palsgrave, in his French Dictionary, p. 421, has:--'I am borne in hande of a thyng; _On me faict a croyre_. He wolde beare me in hande the kowe is woode; _il me veult fayre a croyre de blanc que ce soit noyr_.' The spelling _coe_ for 'jackdaw' occurs in Skelton's Phyllyp Sparowe, l. 468. See also Hoccleve's Works, ed. Furnivall, p. 217, where 'Magge, the good kowe' is [298] an obvious error for 'Magge the wode kowe,' since 'Magge' is a name for a _mag_-pie. This I also explained in The Academy, April 1, 1893, p. 285.

233. 'And she will take witness, of her own maid, of her (the maid's) assent (to her truth).' This is part of the proof of the correctness of the interpretation of the preceding line. For, in most of the versions of the tale above referred to, the lady is aided and abetted by a maid who is in her confidence.

235. Here Chaucer takes several hints from the book of Theophrastus as quoted by Jerome; see note to l. 221. Thus (in Jerome, as above, p. 51) we find:--'Deinde per noctes totas garrulae conquestiones:--Illa ornatior procedit in publicum; haec honoratior ab omnibus: ego in conuentu feminarum misella despicior. Cur aspiciebas uicinam? Quid cum ancillula loquebaris?' It is continued at l. 243; cf. 'Non amicum habere possumus, non sodalem.' Next, at l. 248; cf. 'Pauperem alere difficile est, diuitem ferre tormentum.' Next, at l. 253; cf. 'Pulchra cito adamatur.... Difficile custoditur quod plures amant.' Jean de Meun also quotes from Theophrastus plentifully, mentioning him by name in Le Rom. de la Rose, l. 8599; see the whole passage. '_Caynard_, obsolete, adapted from F. _cagnard_, sluggard (according to Littré, from Ital. _cagna_, bitch, fem. of _cane_, dog). A lazy fellow, a sluggard; a term of reproach. (1303) Rob. of Brunne, Handlyng Synne, l. 8300: A _kaynarde_ ande an olde folte [misprinted folle]. (About 1310) in Wright's Lyric Poems, xxxix. 110 (1842): This croked _caynard_, sore he is a-dred.'--New Eng. Dict. (where the present passage is also quoted).

246. See A. 1261, and the note. Wright here adds two more examples. He says--'In the satirical poem of Doctor Double-ale, [in Hazlitt's Early Pop. Poetry, iii. 308], we have the lines:--

Then seke another house, This is not worth a louse; _As dronken as a mouse_.

Among the Letters relating to the Suppression of Monasteries (Camden Soc.), p. 133, there is one from a monk of Pershore, who says that his brother monks of that house "drynk an bowll after collacyon tell ten or xii. of the clock, and cum to mattens _as dronck as mys_."'

248. See note to l. 235 above; so again, for l. 253, cf. Le Rom. de la Rose, 8617-8638.

255. Cf. Ovid, Heroid. xvi. 288:--

'Lis est cum forma magna pudicitiae.'

257. Probably Chaucer was thinking of a passage in Theophrastus, following soon after that quoted in the note to l. 235. 'Alius forma, alius ingenio, alius facetiis, alius liberalitate sollicitat.' But Theophrastus is referring to the accomplishments of the wooers rather than of the women wooed. Cf. Le Rom. de la Rose, ll. 8629-36--'S'ele est bele,' &c. [299]

263. Clearly from Le Rom. de la Rose, l. 8637--

'Car tor de toutes pars assise Envis eschape d'estre prise.'

265. Immediately after, we have--

'S'ele rest lede, el vuet à tous plaire; ... vuet tous ceus qui la voient.'

269. See in Hazlitt's Proverbs: 'Joan's as good as my lady in the dark.'

271. 'It is a hard matter to control a thing that no one would willingly keep.' Simply translated from Theophrastus (see note to l. 235), who has--'Molestum est possidere, quod nemo habere dignetur.'

272. _helde_, a variant form of _holde_, hold, keep; from A. S. _healdan_. As Chaucer usually has _holde_ (see D. 1144), _helde_ is probably used for the sake of the rime. Note that it is the _only_ example of a rime in _-elde_ in the whole of the Canterbury Tales; indeed, the only other example is in Troil. ii. 337-8. We find the same rime in King Horn, l. 911:--

'Mi rengne thu schalt welde, And to spuse helde Reynild mi doghter.'

275. Again from Theophrastus (near the beginning):--'Non est ergo uxor ducenda sapienti. Primum enim impediri studia philosophiae,' &c.

277. _welked_, withered; see C. 738, and Stratmann.

278. Chaucer quotes this, as from Solomon, in the Pers. Tale, I. 631, and explains it there more fully; and again, in the Tale of Melibeus, B. 2276. An Anglo-French poet named Herman wrote a poem 'on the three words, smoke, rain, and woman, which, according to Solomon, drive a man from his house; and it appears from the poem that it was composed at the suggestion of Alexander, bishop of Lincoln, who died in 1147.'--T. Wright, Biographia Brit. Literaria, Anglo-Norman Period, p. 333. See also my note to P. Plowman, C. xx. 297, quoted in the note to B. 2276 above, at p. 207.

282. This again is from Theophrastus (see note to l. 235):--'Si iracunda, si fatua, si deformis, si superba, si foetida; quodcunque uitii est, post nuptias discimus.'

285. Immediately after the last quotation there follows:--'Equus, asinus, bos, canis, et uilissima mancipia, uestes quoque et lebetes, sedile lignum, calix et urceolus fictilis probantur prius, et sic emuntur: sola uxor non ostenditur, ne ante displiceat, quàm ducatur.'

293. Next follows:--'Attendenda semper eius est facies, et pulchritudo laudanda.... Vocanda "domina," celebrandus natalis eius, ... honoranda nutrix eius, et gerula, seruus, patrimus, et alumnus,' &c. Cf. Le Rom. de la Rose, 13914.

303-306. Next follows:--'et formosus assecla, et procurator calamistratus, et in longam securamque libidinem exectus spado: sub quibus nominibus adulteri delitescunt.'

Chaucer has merely taken the general idea, and given it a form peculiarly adapted to his sketch. That he really _was_ thinking of this [300] passage is clear from the fact that, in the margin of E., appears this note--'Et procurator calamistratus.'

311. _of our dame_, of the mistress, i. e. of myself.

312. _Seint Iame_, St. James; see A. 466, and the note.

320. _Alis_, Alice; A. F. _Alice_, _Alys_, _Aleyse_; Lat. _Alicia_. Skelton rimes _Ales_ with _tales_; Elinour Rummyng, 351-2.

322. _at our large_, free, at large; we now drop _our_. Cf. A. 1283.

325. See notes to ll. 180, 183. We need not search in Ptolemy for this saying.

327. _who hath the world in honde_, i. e. who has abundant wealth. Cf. l. 330. The sense of the proverb is, that the wisest man is he who is contented, who cares nothing that others are much richer than himself. Cf. 1 Tim. vi. 6, 8; and the proverb--'Content is all.' In the margin of E. is written the Latin form of the saying:--'Inter omnes altior existit, qui non curat in cuius manu sit mundus.'

333. _werne_, forbid, refuse. The idea is from Le Roman de la Rose, l. 7447:--

'Moult est fox qui tel chose esperne, C'est la chandele en la lanterne; Qui mil en i alumeroit, Ja mains de feu n'i troveroit. Chascun set la similitude,' &c.

It was quite a proverbial phrase, as the last line shews. It occurs, for example, in Alexander and Dindimus, ed. Skeat, l. 233, and in the original Latin text of the same. Duke Francesco Maria della Rovere used the device of 'a lighted candle, by which others are lighted, with the motto _Non degener addam_'; i. e. I will add without loss.--Mrs. Palliser, Historic Devices, p. 263. Cicero (De Officiis, i. 16) quotes three lines from Ennius containing the same idea.

342. From 1 Tim. ii. 9, here quoted in the margin of E.

350. _his_, its. The pronoun is here neuter, and is the same in all the MSS. Tyrwhitt altered it to _hire_ (her), but needlessly. But in l. 352, the sex of the cat is defined. As to the singed cat, 'that, as they say, does not like to roam,' see The Exempla of Jacques de Vitry, ed. Crane, (Folk Lore Soc.), 1890, pp. 219, 241.

354. _goon a-caterwawed_, go a-caterwauling. I explain the suffix _-ed_ as put for _-eth_, A. S. _-að_, as in _on huntað_, a-hunting; where _-að_ is a substantival suffix. I have given several examples of this curious substitution in the note to C. 406, q. v. Cotgrave has: '_Aller à gars_, to hunt after lads; (a wench) to go a caterwawling.' And see _Caterwaul_ in the New Eng. Dict.

357. Clearly from Le Rom. de la Rose, 14583:--

'Nus ne puet metre en fame garde, S'ele meisme ne se garde: Se c'iert _Argus_ qui la gardast, Qui de ses cent yex l'esgardast, ... [301] N'i vaudroit sa garde mès riens: Fox est qui se garde tel mesriens.'

As to Argus, see Ovid, Met. i. 625.

362. Here Chaucer again quotes largely from Hieronymus c. Iouinianum, lib. ii.; in Epist. (Basil. 1524), ii. 36, 37. Many of the passages are cited from the Vulgate, but they are all found in this treatise of Jerome's, which furnishes the real key. Jerome says:--'Per tria mouetur terra, quartum autem non potest ferre; si seruus regnet, et stultus si saturetur panibus, et _odiosa uxor_ (see l. 366) si habeat bonum uirum, et ancilla si eiciat dominam suam. Ecce et hic inter malorum magnitudinem uxor ponitur'; p. 37. Really quoted from Prov. xxx. 21-23.

371. Again from Jerome, p. 37: 'Infernus, et amor mulieris, et terra quae non satiatur aqua, et ignis non dicit "satis est."' Really from Prov. xxx. 16, where the A. V. has 'the grave' instead of 'hell.' Note that Jerome here has _amor mulieris_, though the Vulgate has _os uuluae_. The passage is quoted in E., with _dicent_ for _dicit_.

373. _wylde fyr_, wild fire; i. e. fiercely burning fire, probably with reference to lighted naphtha or the like. Chaucer again uses the term in the Pers. Tale, I. 445. Greek fire was of a like character. In the Romance of Rich. Coer de Lion, l. 2627, we find:--

'King Richard, oute of hys galye, Caste _wylde-fyr_ into the skye, And _fyr Gregeys_ into the see, And al on fyr wer[en] the[y] ... The see brent all off _fyr Gregeys_.'

Thus the Greek fire, at any rate, was not quenched by the sea. See La Chimie an moyen âge, par M. Berthelot, p. 100.

376. From Jerome (p. 36):--'Sicut in ligno uermis, ita perdit uirum suum uxor malefica.' Quoted in the margin of E., with _perdet_ for _perdit_. Cf. 'Sicut ... uermis ligno,' Prov. xxv. 20 (Vulgate); not in the A. V.

378. Jerome has (p. 39):--'Nemo enim melius scire potest quid sit uxor uel mulier, illo qui passus est.' (Quoted in E.)

386. _byte and whyne_, i. e. both bite (when in a bad temper) and whine or whinny as if wanting a caress (when in a good one). It is made clearer by the parallel line in Anelida, l. 157, on which see my note in vol. i. p. 535.

389. Cf. our proverb--'first come, first served.' Hazlitt quotes the medieval Lat. proverb--'Ante molam primus qui venit, non molat imus.' And Mr. Wright quotes the French proverb of the fifteenth century--'Qui premier vient au moulin premier doit mouldre.' Cotgrave, s. v. _Mouldre_, has the same; with _arrive_ for _vient_, and _le premier_ for _premier_.

392. _hir lyve_, i. e. during their (whole) life. With ll. 393-6, cf. Le Rom. de la Rose, 14032-42. [302]

399. _colour_, pretext; as in Acts, xxvii. 30.

401. In the margin of Cp. and Ln. is the medieval line: 'Fallere, flere, nere, dedit Deus in muliere.' Pt. has the same, with _statuit_ for _dedit_.

406. _grucching_, grumbling; mod. E. _grudge_. Hl. has _chidyng_.

407. Suggested by the complaint of a jealous man to his wife, in Le Roman de la Rose, 9129:--

'Car quant ge vous voil embracier Por besier et por solacier,' &c.

414. 'Everything has its price.'

415. This proverb has occurred before; see A. 4134. Lydgate quotes it in st. 2 of a poem with the burden--'Lyk thyn audience, so utter thy langage'; see Polit., Relig., and Love Poems, ed. Furnivall, p. 25, l. 15. John of Salisbury says:--'Veteri celebratur prouerbio: quia uacuae manus temeraria petitio est'; Policraticus, lib. v. c. 10.

418. Cf. l. 417. Bacon was considered as a common food for rustics. Cf. 'bacon-fed knaves'; 1 Hen. IV. ii. 2. 88. It is not worth while to discuss the matter further.

430. _conclusioun_, purpose, aim, object.

432. _Wilkin_ was evidently, like _Malle_ or _Malkin_, a name for a pet lamb or sheep; see B. 4021. In this line (if _mekely_ be trisyllabic, and _lok'th_ monosyllabic), the word _our-e_ is dissyllabic, which is not common in Chaucer.

433. _ba_, kiss; see note to A. 3709.

435. _spyced conscience_, scrupulous conscience; see note to A. 526.

446. _Peter_, by St. Peter; cf. Hous of Fame, 1034, 2000; also G. 665, and the note; and B. 1404. _I shrewe you_, I beshrew you.

460. This story is from Valerius Maximus; Pliny tells it of one _Mecenius_. In the margin of E., the reference is exactly given, viz. to 'Valerius, lib. 6. cap. 3,' which is quite right. I quote the passage: 'Egnatii autem Metelli longe minori de caussa; qui uxorem, quod vinum bibisset, fuste percussam interemit. Idque factum non accusatore tantum, sed etiam reprehensore caruit; unoquoque existimante, optimo illam exemplo violatae sobrietatis poenas pependisse.'--Valerii Maximi lib. vi. c. 3. Cf. Pliny, xiv. 13; Tertullian, Apologeticus, 6. Chaucer twice quotes again the _same_ chapter; see notes to ll. 642, 647.

464. _moste I thinke_, I must (needs) think. For _moste_, Cm. has _muste_, Ln. _must_. So also _moste_ = must, in l. 478.

467. From Le Roman de la Rose, 13656:--

'Car puis que fame est enyvree Il n'a point en li de deffense.'

Cf. Ovid, Art. Amat. iii. 765; &c.

469. Cf. Le Roman de la Rose, 13136:--

'Par Diex! si me plest-il encores: Quant ge m'i sui bien porpensée, Moult me délite en ma pensée, [303] Et me resbaudissent li membre, Quant de mon bon tens me remembre, Et de la jolivete vie Dont mes cuers a si grant envie.'

And again, just above, l. 13128:--

'Més riens n'i vaut le regreter; Qui est alé, ne puet venir,' &c.

These lines form part of the speech of _La Vieille_, on whom the Wife of Bath is certainly modelled; cf. note to A. 461.

483. _Ioce_, in Latin _Judocus_, a Breton saint, whose day is Dec. 13, and who died in A. D. 669. Alban Butler says that his hermitage became a famous monastery, which stood in the diocese of Amiens, and was called St. Josse-sur-mer. This part of France became familiar to many Englishmen in the course of the wars of Edward III. See, however, Le Testament de Jean de Meung, 461-4, which I take to mean:--'When dame Katherine sees the proof of _Sir Joce_, who cares not a prune for his wife's love, she is so fearful that her own husband will do her a like harm, that she often makes for him a staff of a similar bit of wood'; F. 'Si li refait sovent d'autel fust une croce.' It is obvious that Chaucer has copied this in l. 484, and that he here found his rime to _croce_.

484. 'I made a stick for him of the same wood'; i. e. I retaliated by rousing his jealousy; compare the last note. _Croce_, a staff, O. F. _croce_, F. _crosse_; see _Croche_ in the New E. Dictionary. Cf. Prompt. Parv., p. 103, note 5; and my note to P. Plowm. C. xi. 92.

487. In Hazlitt's Proverbs is given--'To fry in his own grease,' from Heywood; it is explained to mean 'to be very passionate,' but means rather 'to torment oneself.' He also quotes, from Heywood:--

'She fryeth in hir owne grease, but as for my parte, If she be angry, beshrew her angry harte.'

See also Rich. Coer de Lion, 4409; Lydgate's Temple of Glas, ed. Schick, pp. 14, 94.

492. The story is given by Jerome, in the treatise so often quoted above. 'Legimus quendam apud Romanos nobilem, cum eum amici arguerent quare uxorem formosam et castam et diuitem repudiasset, protendisse pedem, et dixisse eis: Et hic soccus quem cernitis, uidetur uobis nouus et elegans, sed nemo scit praeter me ubi me premat.'--Hieron. c. Iouinianum, lib. i.: Epist. ii. 52 (Basil. 1524). John of Salisbury has the same story, almost in the same words, but gives the name of the noble Roman, viz. P. Cn. Graecinus. See his Policraticus, lib. v. c. 10. Chaucer alludes to it again below, in E. 1553.

495. She went thrice to Jerusalem; see A. 463.

496. 'Across the arch which usually divides the chancel from the nave in English churches was stretched a _beam_, on which was placed a _rood_, i. e. a figure of our Lord on the cross.'--Bell.

498. In the margin of E. is the note:--'Appelles fecit mirabile opus [304] in tumulo Darij: vnde in Alexandro, libro sexto.' There is a similar sidenote at C. 16; see note to that line. This tomb of Darius is due to fiction. The description of it occurs (as said) in the sixth book of the Alexandreid, a vast poem in Latin, by one Philippe Gualtier de Chatillon, a native of Lille and a canon of Tournay, who flourished about A. D. 1200. According to this poet, the tomb was the work of a Jewish artist named Apelles. See Lounsbury, Studies in Chaucer, ii. 353-5, and G. Douglas, ed. Small, i. 134.

503. There is a parallel passage in Le Rom. de la Rose, 14678-99.

514. _daungerous_, sparing, not free; cf. l. 151.

517. _Wayte_, observe, watch; 'observe what thing it is that we have a difficulty in obtaining.'

521. 'With great demur (or caution) we set forth all we have to sell.' _With daunger_ implies that the seller makes a great difficulty of selling things, i. e. drives a hard bargain, and makes a great favour of it. _Withoute daunger_ means without opposition, or without resistance; Gower, C. A. v. ii. p. 40.

_Outen_, put out, set out or forth, is from A. S. _[=u]tian_, verb, a derivative of _[=u]t_, out. Both here and in G. 834, Tyrwhitt needlessly alters the reading to _uttren_, against all the MSS. The note in Bell's Chaucer says--'Difficulty in making our market makes us bring out all our ware for sale'; which is utterly remote from the true sense, and would be the conduct of a reckless, not of a cautious woman. Compare the next two lines.

522. 'A great throng of buyers makes ware dear (because there is then great demand); and offering things too cheaply makes people think they are of little value (because there is then too ready a supply).' Hence the wise woman is careful not to be in too great a hurry to sell; and such is the meaning of l. 521. It is further implied that, when she gets her expected price, she does not hold out for a higher one.

552. From Le Rom. de la Rose, 9068, which again is from Ovid. 'Spectatum ueniunt, ueniunt spectentur ut ipsae'; Art. Amat. i. 99.

553. 'How could I know where my favour was destined to be bestowed?'

555. From Le Rom. de la Rose, 13726:--

'Sovent voise à la mestre eglise, Et face visitacions, A noces, à processions, A geus, à festes, à karoles,' &c.

556. _vigilies_, festivals held on the eves or vigils of saints' days. See note to A. 377.

557. For _preching_, Cm. has _prechyngis_, and Hl. _prechings_; but all the rest have _preching_, which I therefore retain. _To preching_ means 'to any place where a sermon was being preached'; much as we say 'to church.' But the sermons were often given in the open air. The Wife's object was to go wherever there was a concourse of people, in order to shew her best clothes. Women still go 'to church' for a like [305] reason. Wycliff speaks strongly of the evil of pilgrimages; see his Works, ed. Matthew, p. 279; ed. Arnold, i. 83.

558. 'The miracle-plays were favourite occasions for people to assemble in great numbers.'--Wright. Wright refers to a tale among his Latin Stories, p. 100. See the Sermon against Miracle-Plays, in Reliquiae Antiquae, ii. 42; reprinted in Mätzner's Sprachproben, ii. 224.

559. 'And wore upon (me) my gay scarlet gowns.' The use of _upon_ without a case following it is curious; but see D. 1018, 1382 below.

The word _gyte_ occurs again in A. 3954, where Simkin's wife wears 'a _gyte_ of reed,' i. e. a red gown. Nares shews that it is used thrice by Gascoigne, and once by Fairfax. The sense of 'robe' will suit the passage there quoted. Skelton has _gyte_ in Elynour, l. 68, where the sense of 'robe' or 'dress' is certain. It is clearly the same word as the Lowland Scotch _gyde_, a dress, robe; see note to A. 3954 (p. 118). That the word meant both 'veil' and 'gown' appears from the fact that Roquefort explains the derived O. F. _wiart_ as a veil with which women cover their faces; whilst Godefroy explains its variant form _guiart_ as a dress or vestment.

560. The sense is; 'the worms, moths, and mites never fretted them (i. e. my dresses) one whit; I say it at my peril.' There is no difficulty, and the reading is quite correct. Yet Tyrwhitt altered _peril_ to _paraille_, which he explains by 'apparel,' and Wright actually explains _perel_, in the Harl. MS., in the same way! Such an explanation turns the whole into nonsense, as it could then only mean: 'the worms, &c. never devoured _themselves_ (!) at all upon my apparel.' Tyrwhitt evidently took it to mean 'never _fed_ themselves upon (i. e. with) my apparel'; but it is impossible that _frete hem_ could ever be so interpreted. _Frete_ can only mean 'devoured,' and it requires an accusative case; this accusative is _hem_, which can only refer to the _gytes_ or 'gowns.' And this leaves no other sense for _peril_ except precisely 'peril,' which is of course right. _Upon my peril_ is clearly a phrase, with the same sense as 'at my peril.' The phrase is no recondite one; cf. Rich. III. iv. i. 26, where we find 'on my peril'; and again, 'upon his peril,' in Antony, v. 2. 143; Cymbeline, v. 4. 189.

566. _of my purveyance_, owing to my prudence, or prudent foresight; cf. l. 570. _Purveyance_, _providence_, and _prudence_ are mere variants; from Lat. _prouidentia_.

572. From Le Rom. de la Rose, 13354:--

'Moult a soris povre secors, Et fait en grant peril sa druge, Qui n'a c'ung partuis à refuge. Tout ainsinc est-il de la fame,' &c.

In Kemble's Solomon and Saturn, p. 57, several parallel proverbs are given; e.g.--

'Mus miser est antro qui tantum clauditur uno.' 'Dolente la souris qui ne seit c'un pertuis.'

He refers us to Collins' Dict. of Span. Proverbs, p. 36; MS. Harl. [306] 3362, fol. 40; Grüter, Florilegium Ethico-politicum, p. 32; G. Herbert, Jacula Prudentum, p. 67; MS. Proverbs, Corp. Chr. Cam. no. 450; MS. Harl. 1800, fol. 37 b. The proverb in Herbert is--'The mouse that hath but one hole is quickly taken'; cf. Hazlitt's Proverbs, p. 380.

575. 'I made him believe'; see above. _enchanted_, bewitched, viz. with philtres or love-potions; according to an old belief. See Othello, i. 2. 63-79. Cf. also Le Rom. de la Rose, 13895:--'Si croi que m'aves enchantee'; and the note to D. 747 (p. 311).

581. _Red_ occurs so frequently as an epithet of _gold_, that association of gold with blood was easy enough. See note to B. 2059 (p. 196).

602. _a coltes tooth_, the tooth of a young colt. Cf. 'Young folks [are] most apt to love ... the _colt's_ evil is common to all complexions'; Burton, Anat. of Mel. pt. 3. sec. 2. mem. 2. subsec. 1. 'Your _colt's tooth_ is not cast yet'; Hen. VIII. i. 3. 48. And see A. 3888, E. 1847.

603. _Gat-tothed_; see note to A. 468.

604. 'I bore the impress of the seal of saint Venus.'

609, 610. _Venerien_, influenced by Venus; _Marcien_, influenced by Mars; cf. ll. 611, 612.

613. _ascendent_, the sign in the ascendant (or just rising in the east) at my birth. This sign was Taurus, which was also called 'the mansion of Venus.' When Mars was seen in this sign when ascending, it shewed the influence of Mars on Venus. Cf. the 'Compleint of Mars.'

In the margin of E. is a Latin note, referring us to 'Mansor Amphorison' 19'; followed by a quotation. The reference is to a treatise called 'Almansoris Propositiones,' which begins with the words:--'Aphorismorum compendiolum, mi Rex, petiisti,' &c. Hence 'Amphorison' 19' is an error for 'Aphorismorum 19.' This treatise is printed in a small volume entitled 'Astrologia Aphoristica Ptolomaei, Hermetis, ... Almansoris, &c.; Ulmae, 1641.' In this edition, the section quoted (at p. 66) is not 19, but 14; and runs thus:--'Cuicunque fuerint in ascendente infortunae, turpem notam in facie patietur.' With 'infortunae,' we must supply 'planetae'; and the object of this quotation is, clearly, to explain l. 619. Still more to the point is a remark in sect. 74 of a treatise printed in the same volume, entitled 'Cl. Ptolomaei Centum Dicta'; where we find--'Quicunque _Martem ascendentem_ habet, omnino cicatricem in facie habebit.'

Immediately after the above, in the margin of E., is a second quotation, with a reference in the words:--'Hec Hermes in libro fiducie; Amphoris^o. 24^o.' Here 'Amphoris_m_o' should be 'Aphorismo.' The quotation occurs in a third treatise, printed in the same volume as the other two already mentioned, with the title 'Hermetis centum Aphorismorum liber.' In this printed edition, the section quoted is not the 24th, but the 25th; and runs thus:--'In natiuitatibus mulierum, cum fuerit ascendens aliqua de domibus Veneris, Marte existente in eis [vel e contrario][28], erit mulier impudica. Idem erit, si Capricornum habuerit [307] in ascendente.' Here 'aliqua ... Veneris' means 'one of the mansions of Venus; her two mansions being Taurus and Libra.' The former is expressly referred to in l. 613, and is therefore intended.

In sect. 28 of the same treatise, we find:--'Cum fuerit interrogatio pro muliere, simpliciter accipe significationem à Venere.' Hence Venus is the planet that ruled over women.

'The woman that is born in this time [i. e. under Taurus] shall be effectuall ... she shall have many husbands and many children; she shall be in her best estate at xvi years, and she shall have a sign in the middest of her body.'--Shepherdes Kalender, ed. 1656, sig. Q 5.

618. The phrase 'la chambre Venus' occurs in Le Rom. de la Rose, 13540.

621. _wis_, surely, certainly: 'for, may God so surely be my,' &c.

624. 'Ne vous chaut s'il est _cors_ ou _lons_'; Rom. de la Rose, 8554.

634. _on the list_, on the ear. Such is the sense of _lust_ in the Ancren Riwle, p. 212, l. 7, where the editor mistakes it. In Sir Ferumbras, l. 1900, mention is made of a man striking another 'on the luste' with his hand. The original sense of A. S. _hlyst_ is the sense of 'hearing'; but the Icel. _hlust_ commonly means 'ear.' Cf. E. _listen_. For _on the list_, Hl. Cm. and Tyrwhitt have _with his fist_; but Tyrwhitt, in his note on the line, inclines to the reading here given, and quotes from Sir T. More's poem entitled 'A Merry Jest of a Serjeant,' the lines:--

'And with his fist _Upon the lyst_ He gave hym such a blow.'

This juvenile poem is printed at length in the Preface to Todd's edition of Johnson's Dictionary, ed. 1827, i. 64.

640. 'Although he had sworn _to the contrary_'; see a similar use of this phrase in A. 1089; and the note at p. 65.

642. _Romayn gestes_, the 'Roman gests,' in the collection called Gesta Romanorum, or stories of a like character. The reference, however, in this case is to Valerius Maximus, lib. vi. c. 3, as is certified by the note in the margin of E., viz. 'Valerius, lib. vi. fol. 19.' The passage is: 'Horridum C. quoque Sulpicii Galli maritale supercilium. Nam uxorem dimisit, quod eam _capite aperto_ foris versatam cognouerat.'

647. This story is from the same chapter in Valerius. The passage is: 'Jungendus est his P. Sempronius Sophus, qui coniugem repudii nota affecit, nihil aliud quam se ignorante _ludos_ ausam spectare.'

648. _someres game_, summer-game; called _somer-game_ in P. Plowman, B. v. 413; and, in later English, a _summering_; a rural sport at Midsummer. The great day was on Midsummer eve, and the games consisted of athletic sports, followed usually by bonfires. See Brand's Pop. Antiquities; Strutt, Sports and Pastimes, bk. iv. c. 3. § 22; the description of the Cotswold Games in Chambers, Book of Days, i. 714; the word _Summering_ in Nares' Glossary, &c. They were not always respectably conducted. [308]

'Daunces, karols, _somour-games_, Of manye swych come many shames.' Rob. of Brunne, Handl. Synne, l. 4684.

'As the common sorte of vnfaythfull women are wonte to goe forth vnto weddynges and _may-games_'; Paraphr. of Erasmus, 1549; Tim. f. 8. Stubbes is severe upon May-games and Whitsun-games; see his Anatomy of Abuses, ed. Furnivall (Shak. Soc.), p. 149.

651. See Ecclus. xxv. 25:--'Give the water no passage; neither a wicked woman liberty to gad abroad.' The Latin version is here quoted in the margin of E.

655. This is clearly a quotation of some old saying, as shewn by the metre, which here varies, and becomes irregular. There is a slightly different version of it in Reliquiae Antiquae, i. 233:--

'Who that byldeth his howse all of salos, And prikketh a blynde horsse over the falowes, And suffereth his wif to seke many halos, God sende hym the blisse of everlasting galos!'

The proverb implies that these three things are the signs of a foolish man. _Salwes_ are osiers; the osier is commonly called _sally_ in Shropshire, and the same name is given to all kinds of willows. It is not from the Lat. _salix_ directly, but from the native A. S. _sealh_, which is merely cognate with _salix_, not borrowed from it. The three foolish things to do are; to build a house all of osiers, to spur a blind horse over a fallow-field, and to allow a wife to go on a pilgrimage. To go on a pilgrimage is here called 'to seek hallows,' i. e. saints, or saints' shrines; and the expression was a common one; cf. A. 14. 'Gone to seke hallows' occurs in Skelton, i. 426, l. 7, ed. Dyce; and the editor quotes two more examples at p. 337 of vol. ii.

659. 'I do not care the value of a haw for his proverbs.' In l. 660, _nof_ stands for _ne of_; see footnote.

662. 'Si het quicunques l'en chastoie'; Rom. de la Rose, 10012.

669. This book was evidently a MS. containing several choice extracts from various authors; see l. 681.

671. _Valerie._ This refers to a treatise which Mr. Wright attributes to Walter Mapes, entitled Epistola Valerii ad Rufinum, and common in manuscripts; the subject is, _De non ducenda uxore_. See Warton, Hist. E. Poetry, 1840, ii. 188, _note_. 'As to the rest of the contents of this volume, Hieronymus contra Jovinianum, and Tertullian de Pallio are sufficiently known; and so are the letters of Eloisa and Abelard, the Parables of Solomon, and Ovid's Art of Love. I know of no Trotula but one, whose book Curandarum aegritudinum muliebrium, ante, in, et post partum, is printed int. Medicos antiquos, Ven. 1547. What is meant by Crisippus, I cannot guess.'--Tyrwhitt.

_Theofraste_, Theophrastus, i. e. the treatise mentioned above; see note to l. 221. It is frequently quoted above; see notes to ll. 221, 235, 257, 271, 282, 285, 293, 303. He is called _Theofrates_ in Le Roman, l. 8599. [309]

676. _Tertulan_, Tertullian. I do not quite understand why Tyrwhitt (see note to l. 671) singled out his treatise De Pallio, which is a treatise recommending the wearing of the Greek _pallium_ in preference to the Roman _toga_. Quite as much to the present purpose are his treatises De Exhortatione Castitatis, dissuading a friend from marrying a second time; and De Monogamia and De Pudicitia, much to the same purport.

677. _Crisippus_, Chrysippus. There were at least two of this name: (1) the Stoic philosopher, born B.C. 280, died 207, praised by Cicero (Academics) and Horace. Also (2) the physician of Cnidos, in the time of Alexander the Great, frequently mentioned by Pliny. It is highly probable that neither the Wife of Bath nor Chaucer knew much about him. The poet certainly caught the name from Jerome's treatise against Jovinian, near the end of bk. i.; Epist. i. 52. We there find:--'Ridicule _Chrysippus_ ducendam uxorem sapienti praecipit, ne Iouem Gamelium et Genethlium uiolet.'

_Helowys_, Heloise, niece of Fulbert, a canon in the cathedral of Paris, was secretly married to the celebrated Abelard, a proficient in scholastic learning. She afterwards became a nun in the convent of Argenteuil, of which she was, in course of time, elected the prioress. Thence she removed, with her nuns, to the oratory of the Paraclete, near Troyes, where the last twenty years of her life were spent. She died in 1164, and was buried in Abelard's tomb. I have no doubt at all that Chaucer derived his knowledge of her from the short sketch of her life given in Le Roman de la Rose, ll. 8799-8870, where the title of 'abbess' (F. _abéesse_) is conferred upon her. Only a few lines above, we find the name of _Valerius_, who (it is there said, at l. 8727) declared that a modest woman was rarer than a phoenix; and again, at l. 8759, we find: 'Si cum Valerius raconte'; and, at