Front matter (continued 13)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here ormes are elms; charmes, horn-beams; fos, beeches; codres, hasels; trembles, aspens; chesnes, oaks; erables, maples; sapins, firs; fresnes, ashes. Hence this list contains seven kinds of trees out of Chaucer's thirteen. See also the list of 21 trees in Kn. Tale, A 2921. Spenser has—

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

185. 'There where is always sufficient sweetness.'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

234. Faire, beautiful by nature; gay, adorned by art.

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

237. These are the dowves flikeringe in Kn. Tale, 1104 (A 1962).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

281. The best way of scansion is perhaps to read despyt-e with final e, preserved by cæsura, and to pronounce Diane as Dián'. So in Kn. Tale, 1193 (A 2051), which runs parallel with it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The quotation from Boccaccio ends here.

296. Of spak, spake of; see l. 174.

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

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

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

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

323. Foules of ravyne, birds of prey. Chaucer's division of birds into birds of prey, birds that eat worms and insects, water-fowl, and birds that eat seeds, can hardly be his own. In Vincent of Beauvais, lib. xvi. c. 14, Aristotle is cited as to the food of birds:—'quædam comedunt carnem, quædam grana, quædam utrumque; ... quædam vero comedunt vermes, vt passer.... Vivunt et ex fructu quædam aues, vt palumbi, et turtures. Quædam viuunt in ripis aquarum lacuum, et cibantur ex eis.'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

411. It appears that Chaucer and others frequently crush the two words this is into the time of one word only (something like the modern it's for it is). Hence I scan the line thus:—

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

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

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

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

413. Com, came. The o is long; A.S. cóm, Goth. kwam.

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

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

435. Read lov'th; monosyllabic, as frequently.

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

471. Read possíbl', just as in French.

476. Som; quite indefinite. 'Than another man.'

482. Hir-ës, hers; dissyllabic. Whether = whe'r. Cf. l. 7.

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

499. Hye, loudly. Kek kek represents the goose's cackle; and quek is mod. E. quack.

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

507. For comune spede, for the common benefit.

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

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

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

524. I Iuge, I decide. Folk, kind of birds; see note to l. 323.

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

556. Goler in the Fairfax MS. is doubtless merely miswritten for golee, as in Ff.; Caxton turns it into golye, to keep it dissyllabic; the reading gole (in O. and Gg.) also = golee. Godefroy has: 'Golee, goulee, goullee, gulee, geulee, s. f. cri, parole'; and gives several examples. Cotgrave has: 'Goulée, f. a throatfull, or mouthful of, &c.' One of Godefroy's examples gives the phrase—'Et si dirai ge ma goulee,' and so I shall say my say. Chaucer uses the word sarcastically: his large golee = his tedious gabble. Allied to E. gullett, gully.

564. Which a reson, what sort of a reason.

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

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

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

578. The sothe sadde, the sober truth.

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

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

603. 'Pushed himself forward in the crowd.'

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

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

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

613. Read rewtheles (reufulles in Gg); cf. Cant. Ta., B 863; and see p. 361, l. 31. Rewtheles became reufulles, and then rewful.

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

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

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

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

623. Cheest, chooseth; spelt chyest, Ayenbite of Inwyt, p. 126; spelt chest (with long e) in Shoreham's Poems, ed. Wright, p. 109, where it rimes with lest = leseth, i. e. loseth; A. S. císt, Deut. xxviii. 9.

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

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

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

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

641. The first accent is on As.

653. Manér-e is trisyllabic; and of is understood after it.

657. For tarying, to prevent tarrying; see note to C. T. Group B, 2052.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

683. See note above, to l. 309.

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

VI. A Compleint to his Lady.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

7. Desespaired, full of despair. This, and not dispaired (as in ed. 1561), is the right form. Cf. desespeir, in Troil. i. 605.

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

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

16. I omit that, and insert eek, in order to make sense.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

36. Obviously corrupt; neither sound nor sense is good. Read:—'Than al this worldes richest (or riche) creature.' Creature may mean 'created thing.' Or scan by reading world's richéss'.

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

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

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

44. Ed. 1561 also reads In. Perhaps the original reading was Inwith. Moreover, the copies omit eek in l. 45, which I supply.

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

50. Repeated in Anelida, 237.

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

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

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

63. Cf. the use of y-whet in Anelida, 212.

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

73. For leest, ed. 1561 has best!

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

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

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

88. leveth wel, believe me wholly. MS. Ph. and ed. 1561 wrongly have loveth.

98. I read nil, as being simpler. The MSS. have ne wil, which would be read—'That I n'wil ay'; which comes to much the same thing.

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

102. MS. Sh. beon euer als trewe; ed. 1561 has—bene euer as trewe.

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

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

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

124. My lyf and deeth seems to be in the vocative case. Otherwise, my is an error for in.

125. For hoolly I perhaps we should read I hoolly.

126. The rime by me, tyme, is Chaucerian; see Cant. Ta. G 1204.

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

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

VII. Anelida and Arcite.

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

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

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

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

I. e. Be present, O Mars the red, strong and fierce in thy arms (battle-array). For the words Be present, see l. 6.

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

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

8-10. Imitated from Tes. i. 2:—

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

15. Read fávourábl'. Imitated from Tes. i. 1:—

Polymnia, Polyhymnia, also spelt Polymnia, Gk. Πολυμνία one of the nine Muses. Chaucer invokes the muse Clio in Troil. bk. ii, and Calliope in bk. iii. Cf. Ho. of Fame, 520-2. Parnaso, Parnassus, a mountain in Phocis sacred to Apollo and the Muses, at whose foot was Delphi and the Castalian spring. Elicon, mount Helicon in Bœotia; Chaucer seems to have been thinking rather of the Castalian spring, as he uses the prep. by, and supposes Elicon to be near Parnaso. See the Italian, as quoted above; and note that, in the Ho. of Fame, 522, he says that Helicon is a well.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

25. Contre-houses, houses of his country, homes (used of Theseus and his army). It exactly reproduces the Lat. domos patrias. See Kn. Tale, 11 (A 869).

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

but the Lat. text has—

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

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

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

38. Repeated in Kn. Tale, 114 (A 972); changing With to And.

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

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

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

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

57-63. Imitated from Tes. ii. 11:—

See also Troilus, v. 1499-1510.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There is further authority; for we actually find helde for holde in five MSS. out of seven, riming with welde (wolde); C. T., Group D, l. 272.

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

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

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

91. Read trust, the contracted form of trusteth.

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

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

119. Cf. Squi. Tale, F 569.

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

141. New-fangelnesse; see p. 409, l. 1, and Squi. Tale, F 610.

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

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

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

155. Arcít-e; trisyllabic, as frequently in Kn. Tale.

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

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

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

166. Cf. Squi. Tale, F 448.

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

171. Al crampissheth, she draws all together, contracts convulsively; formed from cramp. I know of but four other examples of the use of this word.

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

As this gives no sense, it is clear that crampeshe at is an error for crampisheth or crampished, which Lydgate probably adopted from the present passage.

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

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

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

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

176. Read endur'th. Mate, exhausted.

177. Read n'hath. Sustene, support herself; cf. C. T. 11173 (F 861).

178. Forth is here equivalent to 'continues'; is or dwelleth is understood. Read languísshing.

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

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

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

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

194. Sent, short for sendeth; cf. serveth above. Cf. Book of Duch. 1024.

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

206. Hir ne gat no geyn, she obtained for herself no advantage.

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

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

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

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

218. That, who: relative to hir above.

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

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

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

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

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

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

260. Namely, especially, in particular.

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

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

267. Read sav-e, mek-e; or the line will be too short.

270. Refers to ll. 211-3 above.

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

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

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

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

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

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

301. Nēd-e, with long close e, rimes with bēde, mēde, hēde.

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

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

309. Holde, keep back. The spelling Averyll (or Auerill) occurs in MS. Harl. 7333, MS. Addit. 16165, and MSS. T. and P. It is much better than the Aprill or Aprille in the rest. I would also read Averill or Aperil in Troil. i. 156.

313. Who that, whosoever. Fast, trustworthy.

315. Tame, properly tamed. From Rom. Rose, 9945:—

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

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

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

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

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

330. Asure, true blue; the colour of constancy; see l. 332.

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

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

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

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

342. Here follows the concluding stanza of the Complaint.

344. Read—For I shal ne'er (or nev'r) eft pútten.

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

350. This line re-echoes l. 211.

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

VIII. Chaucers Wordes unto Adam.

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

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

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

IX. The Former Age.

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

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

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

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

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

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

2. The former age; Lat. prior etas.

3. Payed of, satisfied with; Lat. contenta.

4. By usage, ordinarily; i. e. without being tilled.

5. Forpampred, exceedingly pampered; Lat. perdita. With outrage, beyond all measure.

6. Quern, a hand-mill for grinding corn. Melle, mill.

7. Dr. Sweet reads hawes, mast instead of mast, hawes. This sounds better, but is not necessary. Haw-es is dissyllabic. Pounage, mod. E. pannage, mast, or food given to swine in the woods; see the Glossary. Better spelt pannage or paunage (Manwood has pawnage), as cited in Blount's Nomolexicon. Koch wrongly refers us to O.F. poün, poön, a sickle (Burguy), but mast and haws were never reaped. Cf. Dante, Purg. xxii. 149.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

30. Ri-ver-es; three syllables. Dr. Sweet suggests putting after in place of first.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

X. Fortune.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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