iii. 400, we read that 'now ben mony thousand of freris in Englond'; and,

at p. 511, that they were, 'as who seith, withoute noumbre.' In P. Plowman, C. xxiii. 269, Conscience accuses the friars of waxing 'oute of numbre,' and reminds them that 'Hevene haveth evene numbre, and helle is withoute numbre.'

869. The occurrence here of _three consecutive lines_ (869-871) in which the first foot is deficient, consisting only of a single accented syllable, is worth notice. The way in which Tyrwhitt 'amends' these lines is most surprising. He inserts _and_ five times, and his first line defies scansion, though I suppose he made _hall's_ a monosyllable, and _kichen-es_ trisyllabic, whereas it plainly has but two syllables. Here is his result.

'Blissing halles, chambres, kichenes, _and_ boures, Citees _and_ burghes, castles highe _and_ toures, Thropes _and_ bernes, shepenes, _and_ dairies, This maketh that ther ben no faeries.'

Note that he actually seems to have read _dairies_ and _faeries_ as [315] riming _dissyllabic_ words! In which case the last of these four lines would have but _four_ accents! But the rime merely concerns the two _final_ syllables of those quadrisyllabic words. The riming of the two _former_ syllables is unessential, and for the purpose of rime, accidental and otiose.

MS. Pt. admits _and_ before _boures_; and MS. Hl. admits _and_ before _toures_ and _dairies_ (which does not alter the character of the lines). With these exceptions, all the seven MSS. omit all the five _and's_ inserted by Tyrwhitt; and, in fact, they are all of them superfluous.

For the benefit of those who are but little acquainted with this peculiarity of Middle English metre, I cite _four consecutive lines_ of a similar character from Lydgate's Siege of Thebes, ll. 1239-1242:--

'Drogh | the brydyl from his horses hede, Let | hym goon, and took no maner hede, Thorgh | the gardyn that enclosed was, Hym | to pasture on the grene gras.'

There are plenty more of the same kind in the same poem; e. g. 1068, 1081, 1082, 1089, 1103, 1107, 1116, 1120, 1122, 1123, 1140, 1141, 1151, &c., &c., all printed in Specimens of English from 1394-1579, ed. Skeat, pp. 28-34. For similar lines in Hoccleve, see the same, p. 16, st. 604, l. 6; st. 605, l. 2; p. 20, st. 622, l. 2; p. 21, st. 624, l. 4.

871. _Thropes_ = _thorpes_, villages; see E. 199.

_shipnes_, stables, or cow-houses; see A. 2000. '_Shippen_, _Shuppen_, a cow-house'; E. D. S. Gloss. B. 1. '_Shippen_, an ox-house'; id. B. 6. '_Shuppen_, a cow-house'; id. B. 7; '_Shippen_, a cow-house'; id. B. 15.

875. _undermeles_, for _undern-meles_, undern-times. For the time of _undern_, see note to E. 260. _Meel_ (pl. _meles_) is the A. S. _m[=æ]l_, a time. The time referred to, _in this particular instance_, seems to be the middle of the afternoon; or simply 'afternoons,' as opposed to 'mornings.' For this sense, cf. 'Undermele, _Postmeridies_,' in the Prompt. Parv. Nares, s. v. _under-meal_, gives other instances; but he fails to realise the changeable sense of the word; and is quite wrong in saying (s. v. _undertime_) that the last-named word is unconnected with _undern_. He also wrongly dissociates _undern_ from _arndern_ and _orndern_.

876. 'All religious persons were bound, if possible, to recite the divine office ... at the proper hour, in the choir; but secular priests, not living in common, and friars, being by their rule obliged to walk about within their limitation, to beg their maintenance, were allowed to say it privately,... as they walked.'--Bell. Cf. B. 1281.

880. _incubus._ Milton (P. R. ii. 152) speaks of Belial as being, after Asmodai, 'the fleshliest incubus.' Mr. Jerram's note on the line says: 'Some of the ejected angels were believed not to have fallen into hell, but to have remained in the middle of the region of air (P. R. ii. 117), where in various shapes they tempt men to sin. It was said that they hoped to counteract the effects of Christ's coming by engendering with some virgin a semi-demon, who should be a power of evil. In this way Merlin, and even Luther, were reported to have been [316] begotten.' See the Romance of Merlin, ed. Wheatley, ch. i. pp. 9, 10; and the poem of Merlin in the Percy Folio MS.

881. Tyrwhitt and others adopt the reading _no dishonour_, as in the old black-letter editions; and MS. Cm. has the reading _non_. At first sight, this looks right, but a little reflection will incline us rather to adopt the reading of nearly all the MSS., as given in the present text. For to say that the friar was an incubus, and yet did women no dishonour, is contradictory. The meaning is, possibly, that the friar brought upon women dishonour, and nothing more; whereas the incubus never failed to cause conception. Lounsbury (Studies in Chaucer, i. 257) adopts the reading here given, but interprets it thus:--'The dishonour of a woman is, in the eyes of the Wife of Bath, to be reckoned not as a crime, but as a peccadillo.' (See the whole passage.) The subject will hardly bear further discussion; but it is impossible to ignore the repeated charges of immorality brought against the friars by Wyclif and others. Wyclif says--'thei slen wommen that withstonden hem in this synne'; Works, ed. Matthew, p. 6.

884. _fro river_, i. e. he was returning from hawking at the river-side. See B. 1927, and the note.

887. _maugree hir heed_, lit. 'in spite of her head,' i. e. in spite of all she could do, without her consent. Cf. A. 1169, 2618; also I. 974, where we find:--'if the womman, _maugree hir heed_, hath been afforced.' Mätzner remarks that, in some cases, we find a part of the head referred to, instead of the whole head. Hence the expressions: _maugre his nose_, Rob. of Gloucester, 2090 (p. 94, ed. Hearne); _maugree thyne yen_, Ch. C. T., D. 315; _maugree hir eyen two_, id., A. 1796; _maugree my chekes_, Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, C. 54; _m. here chekis_, P. Plowman, B. iv. 50; &c.

909. _lere_, learn; as in B. 181, 630, C. 325, 578, &c. But the right sense is 'teach.' See l. 921.

_twelf-month_, &c. 'There seems to have been some mysterious importance attached to this particular time of grace,' &c.--Bell. I think not. The solution is simply, that it takes an extra day to make the date agree. If we fix any date, as Nov. 21, 1890, the space of a year afterwards only brings us to Nov. 20, 1891; if we want to keep to the _same day_ of the month, we must make the space include 'a year and a day.' This is what any one would naturally do; and that is all. Cf. A. 1850, and the note. '_Year and Day_, is a time that determines a right in many cases;... So is the _Year and Day_ given in case of Appeal, in case of Descent after Entry or Claim,' &c.; Cowell, Intrepreter of Words and Terms. See l. 916 below; and cf. _Eight days_, i. e. a week, in the New Eng. Dictionary.

922. _cost_, coast, i. e. region; as in 1 Sam. v. 6; Matt. viii. 34, &c.

924. The scansion is--Two cré-a-túr-es áccordínge in-fére.

925. Cf. Gower, Conf. Amant. i. 92:--

'To som woman it is plesaunce That to another is grevaunce'; &c.

[317]

929-30. Cf. Rom. de la Rose, 9977-94. For _y-plesed_, Tyrwhitt and Wright read _y-preised_, contrary to the seven best MSS.; which gives an imperfect rime. _preysed_ rimes with _reysed_ (D. 706).

940. _galle_, sore place. '_Galle_, soore yn man or beeste'; Prompt. Parv. 'Let the _galled_ jade wince'; Hamlet, iii. 2. 253.

_clawe_ means 'to scratch'; and to _clawe upon the galle_ is to scratch or rub a sore. This may be taken in two ways; hence the difficulty about the reading in l. 941, where E. Cm. have _kike_, i. e. kick, whilst Hn. Hl. have _like_, and Cp. Pt. Ln. have _loke or he seith us soth_. The last of these three variations gives no sense, and is certainly wrong; but either of the other readings will serve. I take them in order.

(1) _kike_, kick. Here the sense is:--'if any one scratch us on a sore place (and so hurt us), we shall kick, because he tells us the truth (too plainly).' This goes well with the context, as it answers to the _repreve us of our vyce_ in l. 937.

(2) _like_, like (it), be pleased. Here the sense is:--'if any one stroke us on a sore place (and so soothe the itching), we shall be pleased, because he tells us the truth (or what we think to be the truth).' But I feel inclined to reject this reading, because it gives so forced a sense to the words--_for he seith us sooth_. There is, however, no difficulty about the use of _claw_ in the sense of 'to rub lightly, so as to soothe irritation'; for which see examples in the New English Dictionary. It is particularly used in the phrase _to claw_ one's _back_, i. e. to soothe, flatter; but the word _galle_ suggests a place where friction would rather hurt than soothe.

I leave it to the reader to settle this nice question.

949. _rake-stele_, the handle of a rake. The word _stele_ is still in use provincially. '_Stale_, any stick, or handle, such as the stick of a mop or a fork'; _South Warwickshire_; E. D. S. Gl. C. 6. '_Stale_ [stae·ul], s. handle; as, _mop-stale_, _pick-stale_, _broom-stale_'; Elworthy's West Somerset Words. And see _Steal_ in Ray's Glossary; _Stele_ in Nares; _Steale_ in Halliwell; &c. Cf. A. 3785; P. Plowman, C. xxii. 279. Golding translates Ovid's _hastile_ (Metam. vii. 676) by 'Iaueling-_steale_.' The _e_ is 'open'; cf. A. S. _stela_; hence the rime with _hele_ (A. S. _helan_) is perfect.

950. 'Car fame ne puet riens celer'; Rom. de la Rose, 19420. See also the same, 16549-70.

952. _Ovyde_; see Metamorph. xi. 174-193. But Chaucer seems to have purposely altered the story, since Ovid attributes the betrayal of the secret to Midas' _barber_, not his _wife_; and again, Ovid says that the barber dug a hole, and whispered it into the pit. Chaucer's version is an improved one. Cf. Troil. iii. 1389.

961. Cf. Rom. de la Rose, 16724-32.

968. Dryden is plainer, and less polite:--'But she must burst or blab.' Cf. Rom. de la Rose, 16568-9.

972. _bitore_, bittern; _bumbleth_, makes a bellowing noise, which is also expressed by _bumping_ or _booming_. Note that MS. Cm. has [318] _bumbith_. Owing to the loud booming note of the male bittern, it is called in A. S. _r[=a]re-dumle_ or _r[=a]re-dumbla_, from _r[=a]rian_, to roar; see Wright's Glossaries. In provincial English, it is called a _butter-bump_, or a _bumble_; or, from its frequenting moist places, a _bog-bumper_, a _bog-drum_, or a _bull o' the bog_; see Swainson's Provincial Names of British Birds, E. D. S., p. 146. It was formerly thought that the cry was produced by the bird plunging its bill into mud and then blowing, as in the present passage; others thought that it put its bill into a reed, a view taken by Dryden, as he here has the line:--'And, as a bittern _bumps within a reed_.' Sir T. Browne, in his Vulgar Errors, bk. iii. c. 27, controverts these notions, and attributes the note to the conformation of the bird's organs of voice. 'The same contradiction of the common notion is given, from personal experience, by the Rev. S. Fovargue, in his New Catalogue of Vulgar Errors, pp. 19-21'; note to Sir T. Browne, ed. S. Wilkin. The same editor further refers us to papers by Dr. Latham and Mr. Yarrell in the Linnaean Transactions, vols. iv, xv, and xvi. See Prof. Newton's Dict. of Birds.

981. There is not much 'remnant' of the tale; Ovid adds that some reeds grew out of the pit, which, when breathed upon by the South wind, uttered the words which had been buried.

992. This reminds us of Chaucer's own vision of Alcestis and her nineteen attendant ladies in the Prologue to the Legend of Good Women.

997. Cf. Gower, Conf. Amantis, i. 93:--

'In a forest, there under a tree He sigh where sat a creature, A lothly womannish figure, That, for to speke of flesshe and boon, So foul yet sigh he never noon.'

Also, in the Marriage of Sir Gawaine, st. 15:--

'And, as he rode over a more, Hee see a lady where she sate Betwixt an oake and a greene hollen [holly]; She was cladd in red scarlett.... Her nose was crooked and turnd outward, Her mouth stood foule a-wry; A worse formed lady than shee was Neuer man saw with his eye.'

1004. _can_, know; but the form is singular, to agree with _folk_. Cf. the proverb--'older and wiser'--in Hazlitt's Collection; and see A. 2448.

1018. _wereth on_, wears upon (her), has on; cf. l. 559 above.

_calle_, caul; a close-fitting netted cap or head-dress, often richly ornamented; see Fairholt, Costume in England, s. v. _Caul_.

1021. _pistell_, (1) an epistle, as in E. 1154; hence (2), a short lesson, as here. [319]

1024. _holde his day_, kept his time, come back at the specified time. _hight_, promised.

1028. 'Queen Guenever is here represented sitting as judge in a Court of Love, similar to those in fashion in later ages.... Fontenelle (in the third volume of his works, Paris, 1742) has given a description of one of the fantastic suits tried in these courts.... The best source of information on these strange follies is a book entitled _Erotica, seu Amatoria, Andreæ Capellarii Regis_, &c., written about A.D. 1170, and published at Dorpmund in 1610.'--Bell.

1038. Cf. Gower, Conf. Amantis, i. 96:--

'That alle women levest wolde Be soverein of mannes love,' &c.

So also in the Marriage of Sir Gawaine, st. 28:--

--'a woman will have her will, And this is all her cheef desire.'

1069. The scansion is--'Shold' ev'r | so foul | e dis | pará | ged be.'

1074. It is curious to note how Chaucer seems to have felt that romance-writers were constrained to describe feasts, a duty which he usually evades. Cf. A. 2197, B. 419, 1120, E. 1710, F. 278. In fact, the original business of the minstrel was to praise his lord's bounty, especially on grand occasions.

1081. So in Gower's Conf. Amantis, i. 100:--

'But as _an oule_ fleeth by nighte Out of all other briddes sighte, Right so this knight, on daies brode,' &c.

This line, for a wonder, is unaltered by Dryden in his paraphrase.

1085. _walweth_, rolls from side to side, turns about restlessly; cf. Leg. Good Wom. 1166; Troil. i. 699; Rom. Rose, 2562.

1088. _Fareth_, pronounced as _Far'th_; cf. _tak'th_ in 1072.

1090. _dangerous_, distant, unapproachable; see D. 151.

1109. _Gentilesse._ See my notes (in vol. i. 431, 553) on R. R. 2190, and Gentilesse. Compare Boethius, bk. iii. pr. 6 and met. 6; Roman de la Rose, ed. Méon, 6603-6616, and 18807-19096; and see B. 2831.

1114. Cf. _privee n'apert_ in l. 1136; 'in private and in public.'

1117. _wol we_, desires that we; see 1130 below.

1121. Cf. Balade of Gentilesse, ll. 16, 17.

1128. Cf. Dante, _Purgat._ vii. 121:--

'Rade volte risurge per li rami L'umana probitate: e questo vuole Quei che la dâ, perchè da lui si chiami.'

Cary's translation is:--

'Rarely into the branches of the tree Doth human worth mount up: and so ordains He who bestows it, that as His free gift It may be called.'

[320] Marsh notes that similar sentiments occur in the Canzone prefixed to the fourth Trattato in Dante's Convito.

1135. The general sense is--'if gentle conduct were naturally implanted in a particular family, none of that family could ever behave badly.' Cf. ll. 1150, 1151.

'Were virtue by descent, a noble name Could never villanise his father's fame.' Dryden's paraphrase.

1140. Chaucer's tr. of Boethius, bk. ii. pr. 7. 43, mentions 'the mountaigne that highte _Caucasus_.' This is probably where he got the name from. Cf. Shakespeare's 'frosty _Caucasus_'; Rich. II. i. 3. 295. The whole passage is imitated from another place in Boethius, where Chaucer's translation has:--'Certes, yif that honour of poeple were a natural yift to dignitees, it ne mighte never cesen ... to don his office, right as fyr in every contree ne stinteth nat to eschaufen and to ben hoot'; bk. iii. pr. 4. 44-8. In l. 1139, Dryden merely alters _in_ to _to_.

1142. _lye_, i. e. blaze. 'Hevene _y-leyed_ wose syth,' whoever sees heaven in a blaze; Relig. Antiq. i. 266. The sb. _lye_, a flame, occurs in P. Pl. C. xx. 172. Cf. A. S. _l[=y]g_, _l[=i]g_, flame.

1146-56. Much altered and expanded in Dryden.

1158. Cf. Rom. of the Rose, 2181:--

'For vilany makith vilayn; And by his dedis a cherl is seyn.'

1165. 'Incunabula Tulli Hostilii agreste tugurium cepit: ejusdem adolescentia in pecore pascendo fuit occupata: validior aetas imperium Romanum rexit, et duplicavit: senectus excellentissimis ornamentis decorata in altissimo majestatis fastigio fulsit.'--Valerius Maximus, lib. iii. c. 4 (De Humili Loco Natis). Cf. Livy, i. 22; Dionysius Halicarnasseus, iii; Ælian, xiv. 36.

1168. _Senek_, Seneca. _Boece_, Boethius; see note to 1109.

1184. Ll. 1183-1190 are imitated from the following; 'Honesta, inquit [Epicurus], res est laeta paupertas. Illa uero non est paupertas, si laeta est. Cui enim cum paupertate bene conuenit, diues est. Non qui parum habet, sed qui plus cupit, pauper est.'--Seneca, Epist. ii. § 4. This passage is quoted by John of Salisbury, Policraticus, l. vii. c. 13.

_Othere clerkes_ also includes Epicurus, whose sentiments Seneca here expresses; see Diogenes Laertius, x. 11. MS. E. here quotes the words 'honesta res est laeta paupertas' in the margin, and refers to 'Seneca, in epistola.' It also has:--'Pauper est qui eget, eo quod non habet; sed qui non habet, nec appetit habere, ille diues est; de quo intelligitur id Apocalypsis tertio [Rev. iii. 17]--dicis quia diues sum.' With l. 1187 cf. Rom. de la Rose, 18766:--'Et convoitise fait povrece.'

1191. All the editions adopt the reading _is sinne_, as in all the MSS. except E. and Cm. (the two best); see footnote, p. 354. But surely this is nonsense, and exactly contradicts l. 1183.

1192. In the margin of MS. E. are quoted two lines from Juvenal, [321] Sat.