Front matter (continued 15)

379. An interesting allusion, as the story of the false Arcite was of Chaucer's invention; see his Anelida.

380. Demophon; already mentioned above, l. 70.

386. Adon, Adonis; see Troil. iii. 721; C. T., A 2224.

390. chorl, churl; Vulcan; cf. C. T., A 2222, and Compl. of Mars.

393. Ipomenes, Hippomenes, the conqueror of Atalanta in the foot-race; and therefore not 'guerdonles.' He is thinking of Meleager, the unsuccessful lover of the other Atalanta, her of Calydon. Chaucer seems likewise to have confused these stories; see note to Parl. Foules, 286; and cf. C. T., A 2070-2.

412. Cf. Book Duch. 1024, and my note; and Schick, note to T. G. 169.

419. The correction is obvious. The scribes read iupartyng as inpartyng and then made it into two words. Cf. l. 475. Chaucer has juparten, Troil. iv. 1566.

458. 'So variable is thy chance'; cf. C. T., B 125, and the note.

461. blent, blinded. Evidently the right reading, for which MS. S. has blend. This was turned into blynde, destroying the rime.

462. went, weeneth, weens, supposes, guesses; he shoots by guess. Evidently the right word, for which MS. S. has wend. But it was easily misunderstood, and most MSS. have by wenynge, which preserves the sense, but destroys the rime. Cf. let = lets, in l. 464.

480. This line resembles l. 229 of the Temple of Glas.

484. For references to similar lines, see Schick, note to T. G. 60.

488. Parcas, Parcae, the Fates; the form is copied from Troil. v. 3. Lines 486-9 are reminiscences of Troil. iii. 734 and C. T., A 1566.

491. Nature is the deputy of God; see P. F. 379, and note; C. T., C 20.

512. With the following stanzas compare Chaucer's Complaint to his Lady, and An Amorous Complaint.

525. 'Out of your mercy and womanliness, charm my sharp wounds.'

554. A stock line of Lydgate's; it occurs twice in the Temple of Glas, ll. 424, 879.

574. Here the Knight's Complaint ends.

590. 'Parfourned hath the sonne his ark diurne'; C. T., E 1795.

596. Cf. 'among yon rowes rede'; Compl. Mars, 2.

597. deaurat, gilded, of a golden colour; see Deaurate in the New E. Dict.

612. Esperus, Hesperus, the evening-star, the planet Venus. See note to Boeth. bk. i. m. 5. 9.

621. Cf. C. T., A 2383, 2389; and Temple of Glas, 126-8.

627. 'Venus I mene, the wel-willy planete'; Troil. iii. 1257. Cf. gude-willy in Burns.

644. 'For thilke love thou haddest to Adoun'; C. T., A 2224.

647. MS. B. has for very wery, meaning 'because I was very weary,' which is a possible expression; see Schick, note to T. G. 632; but verily seems better, as otherwise the line is cumbersome.

663. Jelousye; cf. Parl. Foules, 252.

IX. JOHN LYDGATE: THE FLOUR OF CURTESYE.

I know of no MS. copy of this piece.

4. Valentine's day is Feb. 14; cf. Parl. Foules, 309-11.

8. larke; cf. the song of the bird in Compl. Mars, 13-21.

20. Cipryde, really the same as Venus, but here distinguished; see Parl. Foules, 277.

38. Apparently accented as 'Aúrorà'; Ch. has Auróra, L. G. W. 774.

49. crampessh at must be crampisshed, i.e. constrained painfully, tortured; see note to Anelida, 171 (vol. i. p. 535).

62. Imitated from Parl. Foules, 379-89.

75. sursanure; a wound healed outwardly only; cf. note to C. T., F 1113.

84. Male-bouche, Evil Tongue, Slander; from the Roman de la Rose. See VIII. 260 above.

96. Boreas, only mentioned by Ch. in his Boethius, bk. i. m. 5. 17, m. 3. 8.

113. somer-sonne; imitated from the Book of the Duch. 821-4.

125. 'To speke of bountè or of gentilles,' &c.; T. G. 287.

140. 'To alle hir werkes virtu is hir gyde'; C. T., B 164.

158. Alluding to the proverb—'He that hews above his head, the chips fall in his eye'; which is a warning to men who attack their betters. See I. i. 9. 20, and the note (p. 462).

190-3. Policene, Polyxena; cf. note to VIII. 367. Helayne, Helen. Dorigene; see Frankleyns Tale, F 815.

195. Cleopatre; see the first legend in the Legend of Good Women. secree, secret, able to keep secrets; a praiseworthy attribute; cf. Parl. of Foules, 395; and Lydgate's Temple of Glas, 294-5:—

It is obvious that the extraordinary word setrone (see the footnote) arose from a desire on the part of the scribe to secure a rime for the name in the next line, which he must have imagined to be An-ti-góne, in three syllables, with a mute final e! This turned secree into secrone, which Thynne probably misread as setrone, since c and t are alike in many MSS. But there are no such words as secrone or setrone; and secree must be restored, because An-ti-go-ne is a word of four syllables. We know whence Lydgate obtained his 'white Antigone'; it was from Troilus, ii. 887, where we find 'fresshe Antigone the whyte.' Antigone was Criseyde's niece, and was so 'secree' that Pandarus considered her to be the most fitting person to accompany Criseyde when she visited Troilus (Troil. ii. 1563), and again when she came to visit Pandarus himself (iii. 597).

197. Hester, Esther; see Book Duch. 987; but especially Legend of Good Women, 250: 'Ester, lay thou thy mekenesse al adoun.' Judith; cf. Cant. Tales, B 939, 2289, 3761, E 1366.

198. Alceste, Alcestis; see L. G. W. 432, 511, 518. Marcia Catoun, Martia, daughter of Cato of Utica; see note to L. G. W. 252 (vol. iii. p. 298).

199. Grisilde; the Griselda of the Clerkes Tale. Again mentioned by Lydgate in the Temple of Glas, 75, 405, and elsewhere; see Schick's note to T.G. l. 75.

200, 201. Ariadne; see L. G. W. 268, 2078, &c. Lucrece, Lucretia; see the same, 1680; especially l. 1691:—'this Lucresse, that starf at Rome toun.'

203. Penelope; see note to L. G. W. 252.

204. Phyllis, Hipsiphilee; both in L. G. W.; 2394, 1368.

206. Canacee; may be either the Canace mentioned in L. G. W. 265, or the heroine of the Squieres Tale; probably the latter. See Schick, note to l. 137 of the Temple of Glas.

209. naught, not. falle, stoop, droop; hence, fail.

211-3. Dido slew herself; see L. G. W. 1351.

214. Medee, Medea; see L. G. W. 1580. But Chaucer does not there relate how Medea committed any 'outrage.' However, he refers to her murder of her children in the Cant. Tales, B 72.

216. 'That, while goodness and beauty are both under her dominion, she makes goodness have always the upper hand.' See l. 218.

221. Read n'offende, offend not. Probably the MS. had nofende, which Thynne turned into ne fende.

229. It is remarkable how often Lydgate describes his hand as 'quaking'; see Schick's note to the Temple of Glas, 947. Chaucer's hand quaked but once; Troil. iv. 14. Cf. note to XXII. 57 (p. 539).

232. suppryse, undertake, endeavour to do. Suppryse is from O.F. sousprendre, for which Godefroy gives the occasional sense 'entreprendre.'

234. lose, praise; out of lose, out of praise, discreditable.

236. Perhaps this means that Chaucer's decease was a very recent event. Schick proposes to date this piece between 1400 and 1402.

242. Chaucer invokes Clio at the beginning of Troilus, bk. ii. (l. 8); and Calliope at the beginning of bk. iii. (l. 45).

251. Cf. Compl. Mars, 13, 14. The metre almost seems to require an accent on the second syllable of Valentyn, with suppressed final e; but a much more pleasing line, though less regular, can be made by distributing the pauses artificially thus: Upón . the dáy of . saint Válen . týne . sínge. The word saint is altogether unemphatic; cf. ll. 4, 100.

257. fetheres ynde, blue feathers; possibly with a reference to blue as being the colour of constancy. Cf. floures inde; VIII. 127.

261. The woodbine is an emblem of constancy, as it clings to its support; cf. XX. 485-7.

X. IN COMMENDATION OF OUR LADY.

4, 5. In l. 4, fere is the Kentish form of 'fire.' In l. 5, Thynne again prints fere, but MS. A. has hyre (not a rime), and MS. Sl. has were, which means 'doubt,' and is the right word.

7. For her, we must read his, as in l. 4. The reference is to Love or Cupid; see VIII. 354, and the note.

12. Cf. 'O wind, O wind, the weder ginneth clere,' &c.; Troil. ii. 2. Observe that Chaucer invokes Cleo (Clio) in his next stanza.

22. We may compare this invocation with Chaucer's ABC, and his introduction to the Second Nonnes Tale; but there is not much resemblance. Observe the free use of alliteration throughout ll. 22-141.

24. 'O pleasant ever-living one' seems to be meant; but it is very obscure. Notice that the excellent Sloane MS. has O lusty lemand (= leming), O pleasant shining one. Perhaps we should read leming for living; cf. l. 25.

27. Cf. 'Haven of refut'; ABC, 14. up to ryve, to arrive at; see rive in Halliwell.

28. The five joys of the Virgin are occasionally alluded to. See the poem on this subject in An Old Eng. Miscellany, ed. Morris, p. 87. The five joys were (1) at the Annunciation; (2) when she bore Christ; (3) when Christ rose from the dead; (4) when she saw Him ascend into heaven; (5) at her own Assumption into heaven.

30. 'And cheering course, for one to complain to for pity.' Very obscure.

52. propyne, give to drink; a usage found in the Vulgate version of Jer. xxv. 15: 'Sume calicem ... et propinabis de illo cunctis gentibus.'

56. Cf. magnificence in Ch. Sec. Nonnes Tale, G 50.

58. put in prescripcioun, i.e. prescribed, recommended.

60. Cf. 'I flee for socour to thy tente'; ABC, 41.

64. itinerárie, a description of the way.

65. bravie, prize, especially in an athletic contest; Lat. brauium, Gk. βραβεῖον, in 1 Cor. ix. 24. See note to C. T., D 75.

66. diourn denárie, daily pay, as of a penny a day; referring to Matt. xx. 2: 'Conventione autem facta cum operariis ex denario diurno.'

68. Laureat crowne, crown of laurel.

69. palestre, a wrestling-match; cf. Troil. v. 304.

70. lake, fine white linen cloth; as in C. T., B 2048.

71. citole, harp; as in C. T., A 1959.

78. 'The wedded turtel, with her herte trewe'; Parl. Foules, 355.

83. Phebus; here used, in an extraordinary manner, of the Holy Spirit, as being the spirit of wisdom; perhaps suggested by the mention of the columbe (or dove) in l. 79.

87. Here Thynne prints dyametre, but the Sloane MS. corrects him.

88. Fewe feres, few companions; i.e. few equals.

92, 93. loupe; cf. F. loupe, an excrescence, fleshy kernel, knot in wood, lens, knob. It was also a term in jewellery. Littré has: 'pierre précieuse que la nature n'a pas achevée. Loupe de saphir, loupe de rubis, certaines parties imparfaites et grossières qui se trouvent quelquefois dans ces pierres.' Hence it is not a very happy epithet, but Lydgate must have meant it in a good sense, as expressing the densest portion of a jewel; hence his 'stable (i.e. firm) as the loupe.' Similarly he explains ewage as being 'fresshest of visage,' i.e. clearest in appearance. Ewage was a term applied to a jacinth of the colour of sea-water; see New E. Dict. and P. Plowman, B. ii. 14; but it is here described as blue, and must therefore refer to a stone of the colour of water in a lake.

98. Read hértè for the scansion; but it is a bad line. It runs:—And hém . recéyvest . wíth . hértè . ful tréwe.

99. gladded, gladdened; referring to the Annunciation.

102. obumbred, spread like a shadow; 'uirtus Altissimi obumbrabit tibi'; Luke, i. 35. This explains to thee, which answers to tibi.

106. This stanza refers to Christ rather than to Mary; see l. 112. But Mary is referred to as the ground on which He built (l. 111).

107. Cf. Isaiah, xi. 1; Jerem. xxiii. 5.

110. corn, grain; 'suscitabo Dauid germen iustum'; Jer. xxiii. 5. Cf. 'ex semine Dauid uenit Christus; John, vii. 42.

111. ground; the ground upon which it pleased Him to build. Referring to Mary.

113. vytre, glass; Lat. uitreum. The Virgin was often likened to glass; sun-rays pass through it, and leave it pure.

114. Tytan, sun; curiously applied. Christ seems to be meant; see l. 116. But thy in l. 115 again refers to Mary. Hence, in l. 114 (as in 116) we should read his for thy.

118. Sunamyte, Shunammite; Lat. Sunamitis, 2 Kings, iv. 25. She was an emblem of the Virgin, because her son was raised from the dead.

119. Mesure, moderate, assuage. Margaryte, pearl; as an epithet of the Virgin.

121. punical pome, pomegranate; Pliny has Punicum malum in this sense; Nat. Hist. xiii. 19.

122. bouk and boon, body and bone; see Bouk in the New E. Dict.

123. agnelet, little lamb; not in the New E. Dict., because this stanza is now first printed.

126. habounde, abundant; of this adj. the New E. Dict, gives two examples.

128. Cockle, shell; referring to the shell in which the pearl was supposed to be generated by dew. See note to I. ii. 12. 47, p. 475.

129. 'O bush unbrent'; C. T., B 1658; see the note, fyrles, set on fire without any fire (i.e. without visible cause).

132. Referring to Gideon's fleece; Judges, vi. 39.

133. Referring to Aaron's rod that budded; Heb. ix. 4.

134. misty, mystic; cf. 'mysty, misticus,' in Prompt. Parv.

arke, ark; the ark of the covenant.

probatik; certainly the right reading (as in MS. Sl.), instead of probatyf or probatyfe, as in A. and Thynne. The reference is to the O.F. phrase piscine probatique, which Godefroy explains as being a cistern of water, near Solomon's temple, in which the sheep were washed before being sacrificed. The phrase was borrowed immediately from the Vulgate version of John v. 2: 'Est autem Ierosolymis probatica piscina, quae cognominatur hebraice Bethsaida'; i.e. the reference is to the well-known pool of Bethesda. The Greek has: ἐπὶ τῇ προβατικῇ κολυμβήθρα. The etymology is obvious, from Gk. πρόβατον, a sheep. We may translate the phrase by 'sheep-cleansing pool.' Cotgrave explains it very well; he has: 'piscine probatique, a pond for the washing of the sheep that were, by the Law, to be sacrificed.'

135. Aurora, dawn; mentioned in Ch. L. G. W. 774. Cf. 'al the orient laugheth'; C. T., A 1494. And cf. 'Th'olyve of pees'; Parl. Foules, 181.

136. 'Column, with its base, which bears up (or supports) out of the abysmal depth.'

137. 'Why could I not be skilful?'

140. I make up this line as best I can; the readings are all bad.

Note that, at this point, the MS. copies come to an end, and so does the alliteration. Poem no. XI is joined on to no. X in Thynne without any break, but is obviously a different piece, addressed to an earthly mistress.

XI. TO MY SOVERAIN LADY.

1. Imitated from C. T., B 778: 'I ne have noon English digne,' &c. Cf. l. 41. And see the Introduction.

8. 'For if I could sing what I feel in love, I would (gladly do so).'

14. 'I have all my trust in thee.' The scansion is got by grouping the syllables thus: J'áy . en vóus . tóute . má . fiáunce. It is a line of the Lydgate type, in which the first syllable in the normal line, and the first syllable after the cæsura, are alike dropped.

17. thou knette, mayst thou knit; the subj. or optative mood.

21. This quotation is most interesting, being taken from the first line in 'Merciless Beauty'; Ch. Minor Poems; no. XI. Cf. l. 54.

23. it is; pronounced either as it's or 't is. The latter sounds better.

26. The substitution of ginne for beginne much improves the line.

on esperaunce, in hope.

44. in o degree, (being) always in one state.

49. 'Weep for me, if a lover pleases you.'

56. 'So much it grieves to be away from my lady.'

59. 'Now my heart has what it wished for.'

64. were, should be, ought to be (subjunctive).

68. go love, go and love, learn to love. wher, whether.

77. and also, including. The 'fair' Rosamond is mentioned in P. Plowman, B. xii. 48; which shews that her name was proverbial.

98. 'Embrace me closely with a joyful heart.'

100. 'The ardent hope that pricks my heart, is dead; the hope—to gain the love of her whom I desire.'

103. 'And I know well that it is not my fault; (the fault of me) who sing for you, as I may, by way of lament at your departure.' O.F. sai, I know, is a correct form.

107. sad, fixed, resolute, firm, constant.

XII. BALLAD OF GOOD COUNSEL.

7. Cf. Prov. xvii. 20: 'He that hath a perverse tongue falleth into mischief.'

15. equipolent, equal in power; used by Hoccleve (New E. Dict.).

16. peregal, the same as paregal, fully equal; Troil. v. 840.

22. I follow the order of stanzas in MS. H. (Harl. 2251), which is more complete than any other copy, as it alone contains ll. 71-7. Th. and Ff. transpose this stanza and the next one.

23. amorous is evidently used as a term of disparagement, i.e. 'wanton.'

33. this is; pronounced as this, as often elsewhere.

40. deslavee, loose, unchaste; see Gloss. to Chaucer.

45. Accent dévourour on the first syllable.

60. dissolucioun, dissolute behaviour.

71-7. In Harl. 2251 only. In l. 71, read is; the MS. has in.

73. The missing word is obviously mene, i.e. middling; missed because the similar word men happened to follow it.

78. prudent seems here to be used in a bad sense; cf. mod. E. 'knowing.'

86. In the course of ll. 86-103, Lydgate contrives to mention all the Nine Worthies except Godfrey of Bouillon; i.e. he mentions David, Joshua, Judas Maccabaeus, Hector, Julius Caesar, Alexander, Charles (Charlemagne), and King Arthur. His other examples are Solomon, Troilus, Tullius Cicero, Seneca, and Cato; all well known.

96. Thynne has—'With al Alisaundres.' The word al is needless, and probably due to repeating the first syllable of Alisaundre.

107. We now come to examples of famous women. Hestre is Esther, and Griseldes, the Grisildis of Chaucer's Clerkes Tale. Others are Judith (in the Apocrypha), Polyxena, Penelope, Helen, Medea, Marcia the daughter of Marcus Cato Uticensis (see note to Legend of Good Women, 252), and Alcestis. They are all taken from Chaucer; Esther, Polyxena, Penelope, Helen, 'Marcia Catoun,' are all mentioned in the 'Balade' in Legend of Good Women, Prologue, B-text, 249-69; and Alcestis is the heroine of the same Prologue. The Legend contains the story of Medea at length; and Judith is celebrated in the Monkes Tale. See the similar list in IX. 190-210.

110. For Policenes, Ff. has Penilops (!); but Penelope is mentioned in l. 113. Policenes is right; see IX. 190.

115. For Eleynes, the printed editions have the astonishing reading Holynesse, a strange perversion of Heleynes.

121. kerve, cut; suggested by Chaucer's use of forkerveth in the Manciple's Tale, H 340. This is tolerably certain, as in l. 129 he again refers to the same Tale, H 332-4.

130. Chaucer does not mention Cato; he merely says—'Thus lerne children whan that they ben yonge.' Both Chaucer and Lydgate had no doubt been taught some of the sayings of Dionysius Cato in their youth; for see Troil. iii. 293-4. This particular precept occurs in the third distich in Cato's first book; i.e. almost at the very beginning. See note to C. T., H 332 (vol. v. p. 443).

XIII. BEWARE OF DOUBLENESS.

This piece is gently ironical throughout, as, for example, in ll. 15, 23, 31, 39, 47, &c.

30. abit, abideth, abides, remains, is constant.

32 (footnote). The remark in the margin—'Per antifrasim'—simply means that the text is ironical.

48. tache, defect; this is Shakespeare's touch, in the same sense; Troilus and Cressida, iii. 3. 175.

51. sliper, slippery; A.S. slipor; as in XVI. 262. Cf. HF. 2154, and the note.

55. 'Who can (so) guide their sail as to row their boat with craft.' Not clearly put. Is there a reference to Wade's boat? Cf. C. T., E 1424, and the note. The irony seems here to be dropped, as in ll. 71, 79.

75. sys and sink, six and five, a winning throw at hazard; see C. T., B 124, and the note. avaunce, get profit, make gain.

77, 78. Here sette seems to mean 'lay a stake upon,' in the game of hazard; when, if the player throws double aces (ambes as), he loses; see the note on C. T., B 124 as above; and see Ambs-Ace in the New E. Dict. It is amusing to find that Stowe so wholly misunderstood the text as to print lombes, as (see footnote on p. 293); for lombes means 'lambs'!

83. innocence is, I suppose, to be taken ironically; but the constancy of Rosamond and Cleopatra is appealed to as being real. For the ballad of 'Fair Rosamond,' see Percy's Reliques of Ancient Poetry.

89, 90. sengle, single. oo-fold, one-fold, as distinct from double. See the whimsical praise of 'double' things in Hood's Miss Kilmansegg, in the section entitled 'Her Honeymoon.'

XIV. A BALADE: WARNING MEN, ETC.

6. see at y, see by the outward appearance; cf. C. T., G 964, 1059. This Balade resembles no. XIII. Cf. l. 4 with XIII. 63, 81.

7. et, eateth, eats. This contracted form evidently best suits the scansion. The copy in MS. T. had originally ette, mis-spelt for et, with ettyth written above it, shewing that the old form et was obsolescent. Et (eateth) occurs in P. Plowman, C. vii. 431; and again, in the same, B. xv. 175, the MSS. have eet, eteth, ette, with the same sense. 'The blind eat many flies' is given in Hazlitt's Collection of Proverbs. Skelton has it, Works, ed. Dyce, i. 213; and Hazlitt gives four more references.

9. geson, scarce, rare, seldom found; see note to P. Plowman, B. xiii. 270.

19. Remember to pronounce this is (this's) as this.

25. A common proverb; see note to C. T., G 962.

26. 'But ay fortune hath in hir hony galle'; C. T., B 3537.

29. The proverbial line quoted in T. is here referred to, viz. 'Fallere, flere, nere, tria sunt hec in muliere.' In the margin of the Corpus MS. of the C. T., opposite D 402, is written—'Fallere, flere, nere, dedit Deus in muliere.' See that passage in the Wife's Preamble.

33. sleight; pronounced (sleit), riming with bait; shewing that the gh was by this time a negligible quantity.

36. The reference is to the proverb quoted in the note to C. T., B 2297 (vol. v. p. 208):—

Hence light in l. 37 should be leit, as it means 'lightning'; which explains 'passeth in a throw,' i.e. passes away instantly. We also see that Lydgate's original varied, and must have run thus:—

43. Curiously imitated in the modern song for children:—

XV. THREE SAYINGS.

(A). 2. Honour, i.e. advancement. The Lat. proverb is—'Honores mutant mores'; on which Ray remarks—'As poverty depresseth and debaseth a man's mind, so great place and estate advance and enlarge it, but many times corrupt and puff it up.' outrage, extravagant self-importance.

XVI. LA BELLE DAME.

1-28. The first four stanzas are original; so also are the four at the end. These stanzas have seven lines; the rest have eight.

10. Read called as call'd; Bell-e and Dam-e are dissyllabic.

11. Aleyn; i.e. Alain Chartier, a French poet and prose writer, born in 1386, who died in 1458. He lived at the court of Charles VI and Charles VII, to whom he acted as secretary. Besides La Belle Dame sans Merci, he wrote several poems; in one of these, called Le Livre de Quatre Dames, four ladies bewail the loss of their lovers in the battle of Agincourt. He also wrote some prose pieces, chiefly satirical; his Curial, directed against the vices of the court, was translated by Caxton. Caxton's translation was printed by him in 1484, and reprinted by the Early English Text Society in 1888. The best edition of Chartier's works is that by A. Duchesne (Paris, 1617); a new edition is much wanted.

45. I here quote the original of this stanza, as it settles the right reading of l. 47, where some MSS. have eyen or eyn for pen.

53. The original French is clearer:—

65, 66. forcer, casket; unshet, opened; sperd, fastened, locked up.

103 (footnote). deedly, inanimate, dull, sleepy; an unusual use of the word. Only in Thynne, who seems to be wrong.

105, 106. som, i.e. some male guests. their juges, (apparently) the ladies who ruled them, whom they wooed; cf. l. 137. demure, serious, grave; an early example of the word; cf. XX. 459, XXI. 82.

105. most fresshest, who had most newly arrived; 'Tels y ot qui à l'heure vinrent.'

137. scole-maister, i.e. his mistress who ruled him; cf. her in l. 139.

145. The right reading is shot, as in Thynne and MS. Ff., which are usually better authorities than MSS. F. and H. The original has:—

154, 156. mes, dish or course of meats. entremes, ill-spelt entremass in Barbour's Bruce, xvi. 457; on which my note is: 'it is the O.F. entremes, now spelt entremets, [to mark its connection with F. mettre; but] mets, O.F. mes, is the Lat. missum [accusative of missus], a dish as sent in or served at table (Brachet). An entremes is a delicacy or side-dish (lit. a between-dish)'; and I added a reference to the present passage. It is here used ironically.

166. chase, chose; apparently, a Northern form.

174. apert, as in MS. Ff., is obviously right; pert, as still in use, is due to the loss of the former syllable. prevy nor apert, neither secretly nor openly, i.e. in no way; just as in Ch. C. T., F 531.

176. frounter; answering here, not to O.F. frontier, forehead, but to O.F. frontiere, front rank of an army, line of battle; whence the phrase faire frontiere a, to make an attack upon (Godefroy). So here, the lady's beauty was exactly calculated to make an attack upon a lover's heart. Sir R. Ros has 'a frounter for'; he should rather have written 'a frounter on.' The original has:—'Pour faire au cueur d'amant frontiere'; also garnison in the preceding line.

182. 'Car ioye triste cueur traueille.' Sir R. Ros actually takes triste with ioye instead of with cueur. There are several other instances in which he does not seem to have understood his original. See below.

184. trayle, trellis-work, or lattice-work, intertwined with pliant thick-leaved branches; Godefroy has O.F. 'treille, traille, treillis, treillage'; cf. l. 195. The original has:—'Si m'assis dessoubz une treille.' A note explains dessoubz as derriere.

198. neer, nearer; as in l. 201. sought, attacked (him).

230. 'Et se par honneur et sans blasme Ie suis vostre.' That is, if I am yours, with honour to myself. But the translator transfers the worship, i.e. the honour, to the lady.

259. 'Which promised utterly to deprive me of my trust.'

265. Other or me, me or some one else. But the French is:—'Se moy ou autre vous regarde,' if I or some one else look at you; which is quite a different thing.

269-72. Obscure, and perhaps wrong; the original is:—

282-3.

300. 'It were less harm for one to be sad than two.'

303. Read sory: 'D'ung dolent faire deux joyeulx.'

324. rechace, chasing it back, which gives small sense; and the reading richesse is worse, and will not rime. The French has rachatz = mod. F. rachat, redemption, ransom; which has been misunderstood.

340. 'Preuue ses parolles par oeuure.'

348. their is an error for his (Love's), due to the translator. 'Lors il [Amour] descouure sa fierté.'

351.

357. oon, one; i.e. the same. MS. Ff. has wone, a very early example of the prefixed sound of w, as in modern English. See Zupitza's notes to Guy of Warwick.

393. Something is wrong. The French is:—'La mesure faulx semblant porte'; meaning (I suppose) moderation has a false appearance.

400. As think, i.e. pray think; see As in the Gloss. in vol. vi.

443. 'A constrained reward, and a gift offered by way of thanks, cannot agree'; i.e. are quite different.

449. wanteth, is wanting, is lacking.

468. 'Qui soit donné à autre office.'

469. 'D'assez grant charge se cheuit,' he gets rid of a great responsibility. The translator gives the contrary sense.

506. 'D'en donner à qui les reffuse.'

509. That He, not Who, should begin the line, is certain by comparison with the French:—'Il ne doit pas cuider muser.'

514. me mistook, that I mistook myself, that I made a mistake.

519, 520. prevayl you, benefit you; after, according to.

523-4. after-game, return-match, a second game played by one who has lost the first. I believe l. 524 to mean 'who cannot thoroughly afford to double his stakes.' To set often means to stake. The French is:—

531. it ar, they are. This use of ar with it is due to the pl. sb. fantasyes (i.e. vain fancies) immediately following; other counsayl is equivalent to 'as for any other counsel,' which implies that there are more alternatives than one.

536. 'Who would like to conduct himself,' i.e. to regulate his conduct. 'Qui la veult conduire et ne peult.'

538. Read sute: 'Desespoir le met de sa suite.'

555. 'Ne de l'aprendre n'ay-ie cure.'

559. 'Et le deuoir d'amours payer Qui franc cueur a, prisé et droit.'

566. That is a mere conjunction; the reading Which alters the sense, and gives a false meaning.

583. let, makes as though he knew not; French, 'scet celler.'

594, 595. Hath set; 'Mettroit en mes maulx fin et terme.' Line 595 should begin with Then rather than Yet, as there is no contrast.

605. 'De tous soit celuy deguerpiz.'

608. or anything at al, &c.; 'et le bien fait De sa Dame qui l'a reffait Et ramené de mort a vie'; i.e. and the kindness of his Lady, who has new made him, and brought him back from death to life. The English follows some different reading, and is obscurely expressed.

614. 'A qui l'en puisse recourir'; to whom he could have recourse. But recourir has been read as recovrir, giving no good sense.

627. The reading high is right; 'Que iamais hault honneur ne chiet.'

634. reclaymed, taught to come back; a term in falconry; French, 'bien reclamez.' Opposed to hem to withholde, i.e. to keep themselves from coming back.

635.

651. fol, foolish; F. text, 'fol plaisir.'

667. To have better, to get a better lover. But the sense is wrongly given. In the French, this clause goes with what follows:—'D'auoir mieulx ne vous affiez,' i.e. expect to get nothing better.

667. to have better, to get a better lover.

668. 'Et prenez en gré le reffus.'

673. The original shews that she really refers to Pity, denoted by it in l. 671, not to the Lady herself.

680. 'Et iamais á bout n'en vendrez.'

706. By; French, De; hence By should be Of. Read defame of cruelty, an ill name for cruelty. The mistake is the translator's.

741. Male-bouche, Slander; a name probably taken from the Rom. de la Rose, 2847; called Wikked-Tonge in the English version, 3027.

750. playn, (all equally) flat. 'La terre n'est pas toute unie.'

757. be nought, are naughty, are wicked; as in K. Lear, ii. 4. 136.

788. 'Que si tost mis en obli a.'

814. avantours, boasters; see l. 735. F. text, 'venteus'; cf. 'Vanteux, vaunting'; Cotgrave.

817. Refus, i.e. Denial; personified. 'Reffuz a ses chasteaulx bastiz.'

829. The last four stanzas are original. Note the change from the 8-line to the 7-line stanza.

XVII. THE TESTAMENT OF CRESSEID.

This sequel to Chaucer's 'Troilus,' written by Robert Henryson of Dunfermline, is in the Northern dialect of the Scottish Lowlands. Thynne has not made any special attempt to alter the wording of this piece, but he frequently modifies the spelling; printing so instead of sa (l. 3), whan for quhen (l. 3), right for richt (l. 4), and so on. I follow the Edinburgh edition of 1593. See further in the Introduction.

1. Ane, a; altered by Thynne to a, throughout.

dooly (Th. doly), doleful, sad; from the sb. dool, sorrow.

4-6. Here fervent seems to mean 'stormy' or 'severe,' as it obviously does not mean hot. Discend is used transitively; can discend means 'caused to descend.' This is an earlier example than that from Caxton in the New Eng. Dictionary. Aries clearly means the influence of Aries, and implies that the sun was in that sign, which it entered (at that date) about the 12th of March; see vol. iii. p. 188 (footnote). Lent is 'spring'; and the Old Germanic method is here followed, which divided each of the seasons into three months. In this view, the spring-months were March, April, and May, called, respectively, foreward Lent, midward Lent, and afterward Lent; see A Student's Pastime, p. 190. Hence the phrase in middis of the Lent does not mean precisely in the middle of the spring, but refers to the month of April; indeed, the sun passed out of Aries into Taurus on the 11th of the month. The date indicated is, accordingly, the first week in April, when the sun was still in Aries, and showers of hail, with a stormy north wind, were quite seasonable.

10. sylit under cure, covered up, (as if) under his care. The verb to syle is precisely the mod. E. ceil; which see in the New E. Dict.

12. unto, i.e. over against. The planet Venus, rising in the east, set her face over against the west, where the sun had set.

20. shill, shrill. Shille occurs as a variant of schrille in C. T., B 4585; see schil in Stratmann.

32. douf (spelt doif in the old edition) is the Northern form of 'deaf,' answering to the Icel. daufr; thus a nut without a kernel is called in the South 'a deaf nut,' but in Scotland 'a douf nit'; see Jamieson. For deaf in the senses of 'dull' and 'unproductive,' see the New E. Dict.

39. cut, curtail; illustrated from Lydgate in the New E. Dict.

42. Read lusty, to avoid the repetition of worthy; cf. l. 41. It should have been stated, in the footnotes, that the readings are: E. worthy; Th. lusty.

43. Referring to Troil. bk. v. In l. 92, we are told how Diomede led Criseyde away. Note particularly that, in l. 45, Henryson quotes Chaucer rather closely. Cf. 'For which wel neigh out of my wit I breyde'; Troil. v. 1262. And cf. ll. 47-9 with—'Betwixen hope and drede his herte lay'; Troil. v. 1207.

48. Quhill, till. The reading Esperus in E. is comic enough. Even Thynne has misread esperans, and has turned it into esperous. There can be little doubt that esperans here means 'hope,' as it is opposed to wanhope in the line above. The word was known to Henryson, as we find, in st. 8 of his Garment of Gude Ladyis: 'Hir slevis suld be of esperance, To keip hir fra dispair.' Cf. l. 49.

50. behest, promise; because she had promised to return to Troy within ten days; Troil. iv. 1595.

65. this narratioun, i.e. the sequel of the story, which he is about to tell. He does not tell us whence he derived it, but intimates that it is a fiction; I suppose he invented it himself.

74. lybel of répudy, Lat. 'libellum repudii,' as in Matt. xix. 7.

77. 'And, as some say, into the common court'; i.e. she became a courtesan.

78. A-per-se, i.e. the first letter of the alphabet, standing alone. A letter that was also a word in itself, as A, or I, or O, was called 'per se,' because it could stand alone. Of these, the A-per-se was a type of excellence. One of Dunbar's Poems (ed. Small, i. 276) begins:—'London, thou art of townes A-per-se.'

79. fortunait, the sport of fortune; oddly used, as it implies that she was 'an unfortunate.' Cf. l. 89.

94. but, without; and Thynne actually prints without in place of it.

97. quhair, where her father Calchas (was). He was living among the Greeks; Troil. i. 80, 87.

106. In the medieval legend, Calchas was not a priest of Venus, but of Apollo, as Chaucer notes; see Troil. i. 66-70. So also in Lydgate, Siege of Troy, bk. ii. c. 17. Henryson probably altered this intentionally, because it enabled him to represent Criseyde as reproaching her father's god; see ll. 124, 134.

129. outwaill, outcast; one who is chosen out and rejected; from the verb wail, wale, to choose. There seems to be no other example of the word, though Jamieson gives 'outwailins, leavings, things of little value.'

140. forlane can hardly mean 'left alone.' If so, it would be a word invented for the occasion, and improperly formed from lane, which is itself a docked form of alane. In all other passages forlane or forlain is the pp. of forliggen; and the sense of 'defiled' is quite applicable. And further, it rimes with slane, which means 'slain.'

143. 'And, as it seemed, she heard, where she lay,' &c.

147. The seven planets; which, in the order of the magnitude of their orbits, are Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury, and the Moon. And to this order the author carefully adheres throughout ll. 151-263.

155. fronsit, wrinkled; frounse is the mod. E. flounce, which formerly meant 'a pleat'; see frounce, frouncen in Stratmann, and the Gloss. to Chaucer. Misprinted frosnit in E.

'His complexion was like lead.' Lead was Saturn's metal; see C. T., G 828, and the note.

164. That gyte is the correct reading, is obvious from ll. 178, 260, where Thynne has preserved it. It is a Chaucerian word; see the Glossary in vol. vi. It seems to mean 'mantle.' The Edinburgh printer altered it to gyis, which is too general a term, at least in l. 260.

182. 'To ward off from us the wrath of his father (Saturn).'

198. Compare Ch. C. T., F 1031—'god and governour Of every plaunte, herbe, tree, and flour.'

205. Alluding to Phaethon's misguidance of the chariot of the sun; 'And that his faders cart amis he dryve'; Troil. v. 665. Laing prints unricht; but omits to say that E. has upricht.

211. soyr, sorrel-coloured, reddish-brown; see Sorrel in my Etym. Dict.

212-6. The names of the four horses are curiously corrupted from the names given in Ovid, Met. ii. 153, viz. Eöus, Æthon, Pyröeis, and Phlegon. As Eous means 'belonging to the dawn,' we may consider the words into the Orient, i.e. in the East, as explanatory of the name Eoy; 'called Eoy, (which signifies) in the East.' As to the name of the last horse, it was obviously meant to take the form Philegoney, in order to rime with sey (sea), and I have therefore restored this form. The two authorities, E. and Th., give it in the amazing form Philologie (Philologee), which can only mean 'philology'!

231. lauch and weip are infinitives, but appear to be meant for past tenses. If so, the former should be leuch; weip may answer to the strong pt. t. weep in Chaucer (A.S. wēop).

246. He seems to be thinking of Chaucer's Doctor of Phisyk; cf. Ch. Prol. A 425-6, 439.

254. 'The last of all (in order), and swiftest in her orbit.'

256. Thynne has tapere = to appear; this passage is curiously cited, in Richardson's Dictionary, in illustration of the sb. taper!

261. churl, man; this is Chaucer's cherl, in Troil. i. 1024. See the note to that line.

263. na nar, no nearer; the moon's orbit, being the least, was the most remote from the outer heaven that enclosed the primum mobile.

273. shew, shewed; but it is false grammar, for the verb to shew (or show) was weak. Formed by analogy with blew, grew, knew; cf. rew, mew, sew, old strong preterites of row, mow, and sow.

290. As Henryson usually refrains from the addition of a syllable at the cæsura, we should probably read injure, not injury; see Troil. iii. 1018.

297, 298. hyest, i.e. Saturn; lawest (lowest), i.e. Cynthia.

299. modify, determine, specify; not here used in the modern sense.

318. Heat and moisture characterised the sanguine temperament (see vol. v. p. 33); coldness and dryness characterised the melancholy temperament (see P. Plowman, B-text, p. xix). Cf. l. 316.

343. 'With cup and clapper, like a leper.' It was usual for lepers to carry a cup (for their own use), and a clapper or clap-dish, which was used in order to give warning of their approach, and also as a receptacle for alms, to prevent actual contact; cf. l. 479 below. Compare the following:—

See further under Clapper in the New Eng. Dict.

lazarous is formed as an adj. in -ous from the sb. lazar, a leper; see l. 531.

350. wa, woful; 'God knows if she was woful enough.'

382. The accent on the second syllable of hospital was not uncommon; hence its frequent contraction to spittal or spittel-house; for which see l. 391 below.

386. Read bevar or bever (Th. has beuer); the reading bawar in E. gives no sense. I see no connection with Lowl. Sc. bevar, 'one who is worn out with age,' according to Jamieson, who merely guesses at the sense, as being perhaps allied to bavard, which he also explains as 'worn out'; although, if from the F. bavard, it rather means talkative, babbling, or idle. I believe that bevar hat simply means 'beaver hat,' formerly used by women as well as by men. Even Dickens alludes to 'farmer's wives in beaver bonnets,' in Martin Chuzzlewit, ch. 5. No doubt a beaver hat was, when new, an expensive luxury, as worn by Chaucer's 'Merchant' (Prol. l. 272); but they wore well and long, and were doubtless gladly used by beggars when cast off by their original owners.

407. The metre, in ll. 407-69, is borrowed from Chaucer's Anelida.

410. blaiknit, is not a derivative of M.E. blak, black, but of M.E. blāk, bleik, bleak, pallid, cheerless. It is here used in the sense of 'rendered cheerless'; and bair means 'bare' or 'barren.' See blākien in Stratmann.

413. 'Thy bale is in the growth,' or is sprouting. See Braird, the first shoots of corn or grass, in the New E. Dict., where two more examples of this phrase are cited from Henryson.

417. 'With goodly bed, and convenient embroidered bench-covers.' Burelie (mod. E. burly, prov. E. bowerly) answers to an A.S. form būr-līc, i.e. suitable for a lady's bower. This explains why it was appropriately used as an epithet for a bed. Cf. 'Quhair ane burely bed was wrocht in that wane'; Rauf Coilyear, 264. Hence 'a burly knight' was one suitable for a lady's bower, and therefore handsome, strong, well-grown, large; and by a degradation of meaning, huge, corpulent. The changes in sense are curious and instructive. In the New E. Dict., the etymology is not given. For bene, see bain in the New E. Dict.; and for bankouris, see banker.

421. saipheroun sals, saffron sauce. Saffron and salt were often used together in medieval cookery; see Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery Books, ed. Austin (E. E. T. S.). The Glossary to that book gives the spellings safroun, saferon, saferoun, and sapheron.

423. This is a very early mention of lawn. It is also mentioned in st. 10 of Lydgate's 'London Lickpeny.'

429. walk, wake. The history of this spelling is not quite clear; but the l was, in any case, mute; another spelling is wauk. I suspect that it originated in the misunderstanding of a symbol. The scribe, who wished to write wakk, used a symbol resembling lk, where the l was really the first k, indicated by its down-stroke only. For example, the word rokke was (apparently) written rolke. See my article on Ghost-words; Phil. Soc. Trans. 1885, p. 369.

tak the dew, gather May-dew. The old custom of bathing the face with fresh dew on the 1st of May is referred to in Brand's Popular Antiquities. He gives an example as late as 1791. See Pepys' Diary, May 28, 1667, May 11, 1669; where we find that any day in May was then considered suitable for this health-giving operation.

433. I take on every grane to mean 'in every particular'; cf. 'a grain of sense.' We may also note the Fr. teindre en graine, to dye in grain, to dye of a fast colour; and we occasionally find grain in the sense of 'tint.' Godefroy cites 'ung couvertoer d'une graigne vermeille'; and 'une manche vermeille, ne sçay se c'est graine ou autre taincture.' Grane also means 'groan,' and 'groin,' and 'fork of a tree'; but none of these senses suit.

438. 'Take this leper-lodge in place of thy stately bower.'

450. In l. 407, we have sop of sorrow, i.e. sop, or sup, of sorrow. So here sowpit in syte, sopped, or drenched, in sorrow; an expression which Jamieson illustrates from Holland's Houlate, i. 4, and Douglas's Vergil, prologue to Book viii, l. 5.

463. This expression is imitated from Chaucer's Boethius, bk. iii. pr. 6. 3—'O glorie, glorie, thou art nothing elles but a greet sweller of eres!' See note to I. ii. 8. 68 (p. 472).

480. leir (Th. lerne); surely miscopied from l. 479. Read live.

490. lipper seems to be used collectively; so also in l. 494.

492. shuik coppis, shook their cups; it implies that they waved them aloft, to attract attention. They also used their clappers.

501. ply, plight. I know of no other example of ply in this sense; but ply (usually, a fold) and plight (incorrect spelling of M.E. plyte) are closely related; the former represents Lat. plicitum, the latter, Lat. plicita; from plicare, to fold (whence E. ply, verb, to bend).

541. 'With many a sorrowful cry and cold or sad (cry of) O hone!' Here cald = sad; and Ochane is the Irish and Scotch cry of O hone! or Och hone! See O hone in the Century Dict., s.v. O.

543. will of wane, lit. wild of weening, at a loss what to do. See Gloss. to Barbour's Bruce, s.v. Will.

550. 'And climbed so high upon the fickle wheel' (of Fortune). Cf. Troil. iv. 6, 11.

567. 'For they (women) are as constant as a weathercock in the wind.' Cf. 'unsad ... and chaunging as a vane'; Ch. C. T., E 995.

588. wellis, streams, rills; as in Book Duch. 160.

589. broche and belt; Criseyde gave Diomede the brooch she had received from Troilus; see Troil. v. 1661, 1669, 1688. The belt is Henryson's addition.

600. 'His heart was ready to burst.'

XVIII. THE CUCKOO AND THE NIGHTINGALE.

In this piece, the final -e is much used as forming a distinct syllable; indeed, more freely than in Chaucer.

1, 2. Quoted from the Knightes Tale, A 1785-6.

4. The word of is inserted in Th., Ff. and S., and seems to be right; but as hy-e should be two syllables, perhaps the words And of were rapidly pronounced, in the time of a single syllable. Or omit And.

11-5. The lines of this stanza are wrongly arranged in Thynne, and in every printed edition except the present one; i.e. the lines 12 and 13 are transposed. But as the rime-formula is aabba, it is easy to see that suffyse, devyse, agryse rime together on the one hand, and nyce, vyce, on the other. The pronunciation suffice is comparatively modern; in Chaucer, the suffix -yse was pronounced with a voiced s, i.e. as z. Note the rimes devyse, suffyse in the Book of the Duch. 901-2; suffyse, wyse, devyse, in the C. T., B 3648-9; &c. The MSS. Ff., F., and B. all give the right arrangement.

18. whom him lyketh, him whom it pleases him (to gladden or sadden).

20, 23. May; cf. Troil. ii. 50-63; Rom. Rose, 51-2, 74-6, 85-6; Legend of Good Women, 108; C. T., A 1500-2.

36. of feling, from experience. Spek-e is dissyllabic.

39. hoot, hot, i.e. hopeful; cold, full of despair; acces, feverish attack, as in Troil. ii. 1315, 1543, 1578.

41. fevers whyte, feverish attacks (of love) that turn men pale; the same as blaunche fevere in Troil. i. 916; see note to that line.

48. a comune tale, a common saying. As a fact, one would expect to hear the cuckoo first. Prof. Newton, in his Dict. of Birds, says of the cuckoo, that it 'crosses the Mediterranean from its winter-quarters in Africa at the end of March or beginning of April. Its arrival is at once proclaimed by the peculiar ... cry of the cock.' Of the nightingale he says—'if the appearance of truth is to be regarded, it is dangerous to introduce a nightingale as singing in England before the 15th of April or after the 15th of June.'

As the change of style makes a difference of 12 days, this 15th of April corresponds to the 3rd of April in the time of Chaucer. It is remarkable that Hazlitt, in his Proverbs, p. 305, gives the following:—'On the third of April, comes in the cuckoo and the nightingale'; which may once have been correct as regards the latter. Hazlitt also says that, in Sussex, the 14th of April is supposed to be 'first cuckoo-day'; whereas it would better apply to the nightingale. And again, another proverb says (p. 380)—'The nightingale and the cuckoo sing both in one month.' It is clear that, whatever the facts may be, our ancestors had a notion that these birds arrived nearly at the same time, and attached some importance, by way of augury, to the possibility of hearing the nightingale first. They must frequently have been disappointed. See Milton's sonnet, as quoted in the Introduction.

54. of, during; exactly as in l. 42.

62. Read inne, the adverbial form; for the sake of the grammar and scansion. See Inne in the Gloss. in vol. vi. p. 135. been gives a false rime to gren-e and sen-e; shewing that grene and sene are here monosyllabic (really green and seen), instead of being dissyllabic, as in Chaucer. Sene is the adj., meaning visible, not the pp., which then took the form seyn.

70. For began, which is singular, substitute the pl. form begonne. to don hir houres, to sing their matins, &c.; referring to the canonical hours of church-service. Bell has the reading to don honoures, for which there is no early authority. Morris unluckily adopts the meaningless reading found in MSS. F. and B.

71. 'They knew that service all by rote,' i.e. by heart. Bell actually explains rote as a hurdy-gurdy; as to which see Rote (in senses 2 and 3) in the Gloss. in vol. vi. p. 218.

80. Feverere seems to have been pronounced Fev'rer'. Surely it must be right. Yet all the MSS. (except T.) actually have Marche (written Mars in Ff.), followed by upon, not on. Even Th. and T. have upon, not on; but it ruins the scansion, unless we adopt the reading March. It looks as if the author really did write Marche!

82, 85. ron, mon, for ran, man, are peculiar. As such forms occur in Myrc and Audelay (both Shropshire authors) and in Robert of Gloucester, they are perfectly consistent with the supposition that they are due to Clanvowe's connection with Herefordshire.

87. swow, swoon; cf. Book Duch. 215.

90. As brid is a monosyllable (cf. ll. 212, 260, 270, 271), it is necessary to make lew-ed-e a trisyllable; as also in l. 103. But it becomes lew'de in ll. 50, 94. Chaucer has lew-ëd, P. F. 616, &c.

105. him; the cuckoo is male, but the nightingale, by way of contrast, is supposed to be female.

118. playn, simple, having simple notes; cf. 'the plain-song cuckoo,' Mids. Nt. Dr. iii. 1. 134.

119. crakel, 'trill or quaver in singing; used in contempt'; New E. Dict.

124. I seems to be strongly accented. It is a pity that there is no authority for inserting For before it. Otherwise, read I hav-ë.

In Old French, oci oci, represented the cry of the nightingale; Godefroy gives examples from Raoul de Houdenc, Froissart, and Deschamps. Moreover, oci was also the imperative of the O.F. verb ocire, to kill; with which it is here intentionally confused. Accordingly, the nightingale retorts that oci means 'kill! kill!' with reference to the enemies of love.

135. grede, exclaim, cry out. Not used by Chaucer, though found in most dialects of Middle-English. Clanvowe may have heard it in Herefordshire, as it occurs in Langland, Layamon, Robert of Gloucester, and in the Coventry Mysteries, and must have been known in the west. But it was once a very common word. From A.S. grǣdan.

137. to-drawe, drawn asunder; cf. Havelok, 2001; Will. of Palerne, 1564.

140. yok, yoke; cf. Ch. C. T., E 113, 1285.

142. unthryve, become unsuccessful, meet with ill luck. A very rare word; but it also occurs in the Cursor Mundi (Fairfax MS.), l. 9450, where it is said of Adam that 'his wyf made him to unthryve.'

146. The first syllable of the line is deficient. Accent What strongly. Cf. 153-8 below.

151. The sentiment that love teaches all goodness, is common at this time; see Schick's note to Lydgate's Temple of Glas, l. 450.

152. The true reading is doubtful.

153-8. Here the author produces a considerable metrical effect, by beginning all of these lines with a strong accent. There are three such consecutive lines in the Wyf of Bathes Tale, D 869-71. Cf. ll. 161, 232, 242, 252, 261, 265, 268, 270, 278.

180. Bell and Morris read haire, without authority, and Bell explains it by 'he may full soon have the hair (!) which belongs to age, scil., grey hair, said to be produced by anxiety.' But the M.E. form of 'hair' is heer, which will not give a true rime; and the word heyr represents the mod. E. heir. As the h was not sounded, it is also written eir (as in MS. T.) and air (as in MS. S.). The sense is—'For he who gets a little bliss of love may very soon find that his heir has come of age, unless he is always devoted to it.' This is a mild joke, signifying that he will soon find himself insecure, like one whose heir or successor has come of age, and whose inheritance is threatened. On the other hand, 'to have one's hair of age' is wholly without sense. Compare the next note.

185. 'And then you shall be called as I am.' I. e. your loved one will forsake you, and you will be called a cuckold. This remark is founded on the fact that the O.F. coucou or cocu had the double sense of cuckoo and cuckold. See cocu in Littré. This explains l. 186.

201-5. Bell, by an oversight, omits this stanza.

203. This reading (from the best MS., viz. Ff.) is much the best. The sense is—'And whom he hits he knows not, or whom he misses'; because he is blind.

216-25. All the early printed editions crush these two stanzas into one, by omitting ll. 217-9, and 224-5, and altering thoughte me (l. 223) to me aloon. This is much inferior to the text.

237. leve, believe; yet all the authorities but S. have the reading loue! Cf. l. 238.

243. dayesye, daisy. Cf. Legend of Good Women, 182-7, 201-2, 211.

266. Ye witen is the right reading; turned into ye knowe in F. and B. The old printed editions actually read The cuckowe!

267. A syllable seems lacking after I; such lines are common in Lydgate. The reading y-chid would render the line complete; or we may read hav-ë, as perhaps in l. 124.

275. An obvious allusion to Chaucer's Parlement of Foules, in which he gives 'the royal egle' the first place (l. 330).

284. The quene; queen Joan of Navarre, second wife of Henry IV, who received the manor of Woodstock as part of her dower.

285. lay, lea; not a common word in M.E. poetry, though occurring in P. Plowman. The parliament of birds required a large open space.

289. Terme: during the whole term of my life; cf. C. T., G 1479.

XIX. ENVOY TO ALISON.

1. lewde book, unlearned book. It is not known to what book this refers. It has nothing to do with the preceding poem. My guess, in vol. i. p. 40, that this piece might be Hoccleve's, is quite untenable. His pieces are all known, and the metrical form is of later date. See the next note.

11. Too long; perhaps servant should be struck out. So in l. 13 we could spare the word als. But ll. 17, 18, 19, 20, are all of an unconscionable length.

22-7. I believe I was the first to detect the obvious acrostic on the name of Alison; see vol. i. p. 40. The sense of ll. 25-6 (which are forced and poor) is—'I beseech (you) of your grace, let your writing (in reply) alleviate the sighs which I pour out in silence.'

XX. THE FLOWER AND THE LEAF.

I give numerous references below to 'A. L.', i.e. the Assembly of Ladies, printed at p. 380. The two poems have much in common.

1-2. Imitated from C. T., F 671; see note in vol. v. p. 386.

3. Bole, Bull, Taurus. The sun then entered Taurus about the middle of April; hence the allusion to April showers in l. 4. Compare the opening lines of Chaucer's Prologue. But we learn, from l. 437, that it was already May. Hence the sun had really run half its course in Taurus. certeinly; used at the end of the line, as in A. L. 85.

10. very good; this adverbial use of very is noticeable; cf. ll. 35, 315, 409, and A. L. 479. I believe Chaucer never uses very to qualify an adjective. It occurs, however, in Lydgate.

20. Cf. 'more at hertes ese'; A. L. 672.

25. Cf. 'at springing of the day'; A. L. 218.

26. Cf. 'That ye wold help me on with myn aray'; A. L. 241.

27-8. This rime of passe with was occurs again below (114-6); and in A. L. 436-8.

30. Chaucer has hew-ë, new-ë; but here hew, new rime with the pt. t. grew. So, in A. L. 65-8, hew, new rime with the pt. t. knew.

31-2. Copied from the Book of the Duch. 419-20:—

35. 'The young leaves of the oak, when they first burst from the bud, are of a red, cinereous colour'; Bell.

37. Cf. 'this proces for to here'; A. L. 27. And again, 'pitous for to here; A. L. 718.

39-42. This seems to be a direct allusion to the Cuckoo and the Nightingale, ll. 52-4:—

43-5. From the Book of the Duch. 398-401:—

Cf. A. L. 47; 'into a strait passage,' and the context.

47. parde; a petty oath (being in French), such as a female writer might use; so in A. L. 753.

49, 50. For the herber and benches, see A. L. 48-9; also L. G. W. 203-4. For the phrase wel y-wrought, see A. L. 165.

53. Bell and Morris read wool, which is obviously right; but neither of them mention the fact that both Speght's editions have wel; and there is no other authority! Clearly, Speght's MS. had wol, which he misread as wel.

56. eglantere, eglantine, sweet-briar. Entered under eglatere in the New E. Dict., though the earlier quotations, in 1387 and 1459, have eglentere. I find no authority for the form eglatere except Speght's misprint in this line, which he corrects in l. 80 below. Tennyson's eglatere (Dirge, 23) is clearly borrowed from this very line.

58. by mesure; a tag which reappears in A. L. 81.

59. by and by; another tag, for which see A. L. 87, 717.

60. I you ensure; yet another tag; see l. 457, and A. L. 52, 199, 495, 517.

62. The final e in peyn-e is suppressed; so in A. L. 359, 416.

68. Cf. 'And as they sought hem-self thus to and fro'; A. L. 43.

75. Here espyed rimes with syde, wyde; in A. L. 193, it rimes with asyde and gyde.

89. The goldfinch is afterwards opposed to the nightingale. Hence he replaces the cuckoo in the poem of the Cuckoo and Nightingale. Just as the Cuckoo and Nightingale represent the faithless and the constant, so the goldfinch and the nightingale are attached, respectively, to the bright Flower and the long-lasting Leaf. This is explicitly said below; see ll. 439, 444.

98. in this wyse; appears also at the end of a line in A. L. 589; cf. in her gyse, A. L. 603; in ful pitous wyse, A. L. 584; in no maner wyse, A. L. 605.

99, 100. These lines correspond to the Cuckoo and Nightingale, 98-100.

113. inly greet, extremely great; cf. inly fair, A. L. 515.

115. 'Ye wold it thinke a very paradyse'; A. L. 168.

118. Better I set me doun, as in A. L. 77.

121. 'Withouten sleep, withouten mete or drinke'; L. G. W. 177 (note the context).

134. Here begins the description of the adherents of the Leaf, extending to l. 322, including the Nine Worthies, ll. 239-94. The reader must carefully bear in mind that the followers of the Leaf are clad in white (not in green, as we should now expect), though the nine Worthies are crowned with green laurel, and all the company gather under a huge Laurel-tree (l. 304). On the other hand the followers of the Flower, shortly described in ll. 323-50, are clad in green, though wearing chaplets of white and red flowers; for green was formerly an emblem of inconstancy.

137. Cf. 'to say you very right'; A. L. 750.

144. oon and oon, every one of them. This phrase is rare in Chaucer; it seems only to occur once, in C. T., A 679; but see A. L. 368, 543, 710.

146. purfil occurs in A. L. 87, in the same line with by and by; and in A. L. 522-4, we find colour, sleves, and purfyl close together.

148. Cf. 'With grete perles, ful fyne and orient'; A. L. 528. For diamonds, see A. L. 530.

150. Borrowed from Chaucer, Parl. Foules, 287: 'of whiche the name I wante.' Hence wante, i.e. lack, is the right reading. The rime is imperfect.

155. The missing word is not branches, as suggested by Sir H. Nicolas, nor floures, as suggested by Morris, but leves; as the company of the Leaf is being described; cf. l. 259. The epithets fresh and grene are very suitable. The leaves were of laurel, woodbine, and agnus-castus.

160. For were read ware; see ll. 267, 329, 335, 340; the sense is wore. Chaucer's form is wered, as the verb was originally weak; Gower and Lydgate also use the form wered. The present is perhaps one of the earliest examples of the strong form of this preterite.

agnus-castus; 'from Gk. ἄγνος, the name of the tree, confused with ἀγνός, chaste, whence the second word Lat. castus, chaste. A tree, species of Vitex (V. Agnus Castus), once believed to be a preservative of chastity, called also Chaste-tree and Abraham's Balm'; New E. Dict. The same Dict. quotes from Trevisa: 'The herbe agnus-castus is alwaye grene, and the flowre therof is namly callyd Agnus Castus, for wyth smelle and vse it makyth men chaste as a lombe.'

163. For But Morris reads And, which is simpler.

164. oon, one. She was the goddess Diana (see l. 472), or the Lady of the Leaf.

171. Cf. 'That to beholde it was a greet plesaunce'; A. L. 59.

172. Cf. 'though it were for a king'; A. L. 158.

177-8. Speght has Suse le foyle de vert moy in l. 177, and Seen et mon joly cuer en dormy in l. 178. I see little good in guessing what it ought to be; so I leave it alone, merely correcting Suse and foyle to Sus and foyl; as the O.F. foil was masculine.

Bell alters de vert to devers, and for Seen puts Son; and supplies est after cuer; but it all gives no sense when it is done. We should have to read Sus le foyl devers moy sied, et mon joli cuer est endormi; sit down upon the foliage before me, and my merry heart has gone to sleep. Which can hardly be right. The Assembly of Ladies has the same peculiarity, of presenting unintelligible scraps of French to the bewildered reader.

180. smal, high, treble; chiefly valuable for explaining the same word in Chaucer's Balade to Rosemounde.

188-9. A parallel passage occurs in A. L. 384-5.

201. the large wones, the spacious dwellings; cf. Ch. C. T., D 2105.

202. Speght has Pretir, an obvious error for Prester. The authoress may easily have obtained her knowledge of Prester John from a MS. of Mandeville's Travels; see cap. 27 of that work. And see Yule's edition of Marco Polo. He was, according to Mandeville, one of the greatest potentates of Asia, next to the Great Khan.

209. cereal; borrowed from Chaucer:—'A coroune of a grene ook cerial'; C. T., A 2290. And Chaucer took it from Boccaccio; see note in vol. v. p. 87.

210. trumpets, i.e. trumpeters; as several times in Shakespeare. Cf. l. 213.

212. tartarium, thin silk from Tartary. Fully explained in my note to P. Plowman, C. xvii. 299 (B. xv. 163), and in the Glossary to the same. bete, lit. beaten; hence, adorned with beaten gold; see note to C. T., A 978 (vol. v. p. 64). were, (all of which) were; hence the plural.

213. Read bere, as in l. 223; A.S. bǣron, pt. t. pl.

220. kinges of armes, kings-at-arms; who presided over colleges of heralds. Sir David Lyndsay was Lord Lion king-at-arms.

224. Cf. 'Set with saphyrs'; A. L. 480.

233. vel-u-et is trisyllabic; as in The Black Knight, 80.

234. 'And certainly, they had nothing to learn as to how they should place the armour upon them.'

238. in sute, in their master's livery.

240. The celebrated Nine Worthies; see notes to IV. 281, XII. 86.

243. Cf. 'and furred wel with gray'; A. L. 305.

252. henshmen, youths mounted on horseback, who attended their lords. See numerous quotations for this word in A Student's Pastime, §§ 264, 272, 415-8. Each of them is called a child, l. 259.

253. For every on, it is absolutely necessary to read the first upon; for the sense. Each of the nine worthies had three henchmen; of these three, the first bore his helmet, the second his shield, and the third his spear.

257. Bell and Morris alter nekke to bakke; but wrongly. The shields were carried by help of a strap which passed round the neck and over the shoulders; called in Old French a guige. The convenience of this arrangement is obvious. See note to C. T., A 2504 (vol. v. p. 88).

272. In Lydgate's Temple of Glas, 508, we are told that hawthorn-leaves do not fade; see ll. 551-3 below.

274. Read hors, not horses; hors is the true plural; see l. 293.

275. Cf. 'trompes, that ... blowen blody sounes'; C. T., A 2511-2.

286-7. 'That to beholde it was a greet plesaunce'; A. L. 59. And again—'I you ensure'; A. L. 52.

289. I. e. the Nine Worthies; see ll. 240, 249.

293. The reading ninth (as in Speght) is an absurd error for nine; yet no one has hitherto corrected it. How could the ninth man alight from their horses? The 'remnant' were the twenty-seven henchmen and the other knights.

295. Cf. 'See how they come togider, twain and twain'; A. L. 350.

302. Cf. 'Ful womanly she gave me,' &c.; A. L. 196.

305. 'Laden with leaves, with boughs of great breadth.'

323. Here begins the description of the company of the Flower. They were clad in green.

330. Cf. 'Her gown was wel embrouded'; A. L. 85.

348. bargaret, a pastoral; a rustic song and dance; O.F. bergerete, from berger, a shepherd. Godefroy notes that they were in special vogue at Easter.

350. We have here the refrain of a popular French pastoral. Warton suggests it may have been Froissart's; but the refrain of Froissart's Ballade de la Marguerite happens to be different: 'Sur toutes flours j'aime la margherite'; see Spec. of O. French, ed. Toynbee, p. 302. In fact, Warton proceeds to remark, that 'it was common in France to give the title of Marguerites to studied panegyrics and flowery compositions of every kind.' It is quite impossible to say if a special compliment is intended; most likely, the authoress thought of nothing of the kind. She again mentions margarettes in A. L. 57.

351. in-fere, together; very common at the end of a line, as in ll. 384, 450; A. L. 407, 469, 546, 602, 719.

369. withouten fail; this tag recurs in A. L. 567, 646, in the form withouten any fail; and, unaltered, in A. L. 188, 537.

373. Those in white, the party of the Leaf.

379. oon, one of those in green; this was queen Flora; see l. 534.

403. Bell thinks this corrupt. I think it means, that, before engaging with them in jousts in a friendly manner, they procured some logs of wood and thoroughly dried them. Hence To make hir justës = in order to joust with them afterwards.

410. 'Quickly anointing the sick, wherever they went.'

417. for any thing, in any case, whatever might happen; cf. C. T., A 276, and the note (vol. v. p. 30).

427. 'For nothing was lacking that ought to belong to him.'

450. Here the story ends, and the telling of the moral begins.

457. The meeting with a 'fair lady' was convenient, as she wanted information. In the Assembly of Ladies, this simple device is resorted to repeatedly; see ll. 79, 191, 260, 400.

459. We find ful demure at the end of A. L. 82.

462, 467. My doughter; this assumes that the author was a female; so in ll. 500, 547; and in A. L. throughout.

475. Referring to l. 173; so l. 477 refers to l. 160; l. 479, to l. 158.

493. some maner way, some kind of way; cf. what maner way, A. L. 234.

502. Refers to ll. 240, 249. With l. 510, cf. C. T., A 1027.

512. Speght prints bowes for boughes; but the meaning is certain, as the reference is to ll. 270-1. Bows are not made of laurel; yet Dryden fell into the trap, and actually wrote as follows:—

This is probably the only instance, even in poetry, of knights being armed with bows and arrows.

515. For the knights of Arthur's round table, see Malory's Morte Arthure.

516. Douseperes; les douze pers, the twelve peers of Charlemagne, including Roland, Oliver, Ogier the Dane, Otuel, Ferumbras, the traitor Ganelon, and others. The names vary.

520. in hir tyme, formerly, in their day; shewing that the institution of the Knights of the Garter on April 23, 1349, by Edward III, was anything but a recent event.

530. I. e. 'Witness him of Rome, who was the founder of knighthood.' Alluding to Julius Cæsar, to whom was decreed by the senate the right of wearing a laurel-crown; Dryden mentions him by name.

550. Cf. 'De mieulx en mieulx'; Temple of Glas, 310.

551-6. Apparently imitated from The Temple of Glas, 503-16.

567. Cf. 'We thanked her in our most humble wyse'; A. L. 729.

580. Male-Bouche, Slander; borrowed from the Rom. de la Rose. See note above, to VIII. 260.

589. Cf. 'to put it in wryting'; A. L. 664; 'she put it in wryting'; A. L. 629.

590. I. e. in the hope that it will be patronised.

591. Cf. 'As for this book'; A. L. (last stanza).

592. 'How darest thou thrust thyself among the throng?' i.e. enter into contest. Cf. 'In suych materys to putte mysylff in prees'; Lydgate, Secrees of Philosophers, ed. Steele, l. 555.

XXI. THE ASSEMBLY OF LADIES.

For numerous references to this poem, see Notes to the preceding poem.

Though apparently written by the authoress of the Flower and the Leaf, it is of later date, and much less use is made of the final e. That the author was a woman, is asserted in ll. 7, 18, 259, 284, 370, 379-85, 407, 450, 625.

17. the mase. They amused themselves by trying to find a way into a maze, similar to that at Hampton Court. Cf. l. 32.

29. Ll. 1-28 are introductory. The story of the dream now begins, but is likewise preceded by an introduction, down to l. 77.

34. The word went is repeated; the second time, it is an error for wend, weened. 'Some went (really) inwards, and imagined that they had gone outwards.' Which shews that the maze was well constructed. So, in l. 36, those who thought they were far behind, found themselves as far forward as the best of them.

42. That is, they cheated the deviser of the maze, by stepping over the rail put to strengthen the hedge. That was because they lost their temper.

44. The authoress got ahead of the rest; although sorely tired, she had gained a great advantage, and found the last narrow passage which led straight to the arbour in the centre. This was provided with benches (doubtless of turf, Flower and Leaf, l. 51) and well enclosed, having stone walls and a paved floor with a fountain in the middle of it.

54. There were stairs leading downwards, with a 'turning-wheel.' I do not think that turning-wheel here means a turn-stile, or what was formerly called a turn-pike. It simply means that the stair-case was of spiral form. Jamieson tells us that, in Lowland Scotch, the term turn-pike was applied (1) to the winding stair of a castle, and (2) to any set of stairs of spiral form; and quotes from Arnot to shew that a spiral stair-case was called a turnpike stair, whereas a straight one was called a scale stair. The pot of marjoram may have been placed on a support rising from the newel.

It may be noted that arbours, which varied greatly in size and construction, were often set upon a small 'mount' or mound; in which case it would be easy to make a small spiral stair-case in the centre. In the present case, it could hardly have been very large, as it occupied a space in the centre of a maze. For further illustration, see A History of Gardening in England, by the Hon. Alicia Amherst, pp. 33, 52, 78, 116, 118, 314.

60. 'And how they (the daisies) were accompanied with other flowers besides, viz. forget-me-nots and remember-mes; and the poor pansies were not ousted from the place.'

61. Ne-m'oublie-mies; from O.F. ne m'oublie-mie, a forget-me-not. Littré, s.v. ne m'oubliez pas, quotes, from Charles d'Orléans, 'Des fleurs de ne m'oubliez mie'; and again, from a later source, 'Un diamant taillé en fleur de ne m'oblie mie.' The recovery of this true reading (by the help of MS. A.) is very interesting; as all the editions, who follow Thynne, are hopelessly wrong. Thynne, misreading the word, printed Ne momblysnesse; whence arose the following extraordinary entry in Bailey's Dictionary:—'Momblishness, talk, muttering; Old Word.' This ghost-word is carefully preserved in the Century Dictionary in the form:—'Momblishness, muttering talk; Bailey (1731).'

sovenez doubtless corresponds to the name remember-me, given in Yorkshire and Scotland to the Veronica chamædrys, more commonly called the germander speedwell, and in some counties forget-me-not. But we should rather, in this passage, take forget-me-not (above) to refer, as is most usual, to the Myosotis; as Littré also explains it. Here Thynne was once more at a loss, and printed the word as souenesse, which was 'improved' by Stowe into sonenesse. Hence another ghost-word, recorded by Bailey in the entry:—'Sonenesse, noise.' Cf. l. 86.

62. pensees, pansies; alluding, of course, to the Viola tricolor. The spelling is correct, as it represents the O.F. pensee, thought; and it seems to have been named, as Littré remarks, in a similar way to the forget-me-not, and (I may add) to the remember-me.

68. stremes, jets of water; there was a little fountain in the middle.

73. The authoress had to wait till the other ladies also arrived in the centre of the maze. Cf. note to l. 736.

82. sad, settled, staid. demure, sober; lit. mature.

83. blewe, blue; which was the colour of constancy; see note to C. T., F 644 (vol. v. p. 386). For the lady's name was Perseverance. It is convenient to enumerate here the officers who are mentioned. They are: Perseveraunce, usher (91); Diligence (133, 198, 728); Countenance, porter (177, 277, 295); Discretion, purveyour (263); Acquaintance, herbergeour (269); Largesse, steward (318); Belchere, marshall (322); Remembrance, chamberlain (336); Avyseness, or Advisedness, secretary (343); and Attemperance, chancellor (508). The chief Lady is Loyalty (98), dwelling in the mansion of Pleasant Regard (170).

87. Here word means 'motto.' I here collect the French mottoes mentioned, viz. Bien et loyalement (88); Tant que je puis (208); A moi que je voy (308); Plus ne purroy (364); A endurer (489). Afterwards, four ladies are introduced, with the mottoes Sans que jamais (583); Une sanz chaungier (590); Oncques puis lever (598); and Entierment vostre (616). These ladies afterwards present petitions, on which were written, respectively, the phrases Cest sanz dire (627); En dieu est (645); Soyez en sure (666); and Bien moneste (675). The words, or mottoes, were embroidered on the sleeves of the ladies (119). See Lydgate's Temple of Glas, 308-10.

224. They said a pater-noster for the benefit of St. Julian, because he was the patron-saint of wayfarers. 'Of this saynt Julyen somme saye that this is he that pylgryms and wey-faryng men calle and requyre for good herberowe, by-cause our lord was lodgyd in his hows'; Caxton's Golden Legend. The story occurs in the Gesta Romanorum, c. xviii., and in the Aurea Legenda. The following extract from an old translation of Boccaccio, Decam. Day 2. Nov. 2, explains the point of the allusion. 'Nevertheless, at all times, when I am thus in journey, in the morning before I depart my chamber, I say a pater-noster and an Ave-Maria for the souls of the father and mother of St. Julian; and after that, I pray God and St. Julian to send me a good lodging at night'; &c. Dunlop, in his Hist. of Fiction, discussing this Novella, says: 'This saint was originally a knight, and, as was prophecied to him by a stag, he had the singular hap to kill his father and mother by mistake. As an atonement for his carelessness, he afterwards founded a sumptuous hospital for the accommodation of travellers, who, in return for their entertainment, were required to repeat pater-nosters for the souls of his unfortunate parents.'

241. Because she was to change her dress, and put on blue; see ll. 258-9, 313-4, 413.

457. The reference is to the Legend of Good Women, which contains the story of Phyllis, Thisbe, and 'Cleopataras.' Cf. l. 465.

463. Hawes, probably the same name as Havise, which occurs in the old story of Fulke Fitzwarine. But it is remarkable that MS. A. has the reading:—'That other sydë was, how Enclusene'; and this looks like an error for Melusene, variant of Melusine. This would agree with the next line, which means 'was untruly deceived in her bath.' The story of Melusine is given in the Romance of Partenay. She was a fairy who married Raymound, son of the Earl of Forest, on the understanding that he was never to watch what she did on a Saturday. This he at last attempts to do, and discovers, through a hole in the door, that she was in a bath, and that her lower half was changed into a serpent. He tries to keep the knowledge of the secret, but one day, in a fit of anger, calls her a serpent. She reproaches him, and vanishes from his sight. See the Romans of Partenay, ed. Skeat (E.E.T.S.).

465. From Chaucer's poem of Anelida and the false Arcite; vol. i. p. 365; for her Complaint, see the same, p. 373.

471. umple (MS. T. vmpylle), smooth gauze; from O.F. omple, smooth, used as an epithet of cloth, satin, or other stuff (Godefroy). Here evidently applied to something of a very thin texture, as gauze; see l. 473.

477. stages, steps. The chair or throne was set on a platform accessible by five steps, which were made of cassidony. Cotgrave explains O.F. cassidonie as meaning not only chalcedony, but also a kind of marble; and this latter sense may be here intended.

488. Her word, her motto; her must refer to the great lady (l. 501) to whom the throne belonged.

499. tapet, a hanging cloth (Halliwell); here a portion of the hangings that could be lifted up, to give entrance.

526. After a sort, of one kind, alike. vent, slit in front of a gown. 'Vente, the opening at the neck of the tunic or gown, as worn by both sexes during the Norman period, and which was closed by a brooch'; Gloss. to Fairholt's Costume in England. O.F. fente, a slit, cleft; from Lat. findere. The collar and slit were alike bordered with ermine, covered with large pearls, and sprinkled with diamonds. Cf. also: 'Wyth armynes powdred bordred at the vent'; Hawes, Pastime of Pleasure, ed. Wright, p. 80.

536. balays, a balas-ruby; 'a delicate rose-red variety of the spinel ruby'; New. E. Dict. of entail, lit. 'of cutting,' i.e. carefully cut; the usual phrase; see New E. Dict.

539. a world, worth a world; cf. a world (great quantity) of ladies; Flower and the Leaf, 137.

576-8. Alluding to the proverb: 'first come, first served'; cf. C. T., D 389, and the note (vol. v. p. 301).

581. We find that the 'bills' are petitions made by the four ladies regarding their ill success in love-affairs.

592. I. e. yet not so much as she ought to have been, as she had all the trouble; she refers to the lady herself.

598. Oncques, ever; Lat. unquam. 'I can ever rise' seems at first sight to be meant; but ne must be understood; the true sense is, 'I can never rise'; i.e. never succeed. See the context, ll. 605-9.

645. 'I trust in God'; see l. 655.

675. 'Admonish well'; from O.F. monester, to admonish, warn.

680. Here, and in l. 689, the speaker is the lady of the castle. In l. 682 (as in l. 690), the speaker appears to be the fourth lady; it is none too clear.

689. I hate you, I command you. Hate should rather be written hote; perhaps it was confused with the related pt. t. hatte, was called. The reference to Saint James of Compostella is noteworthy.

693. it, i.e. the bill, or petition; it takes the form of a Complaint.

697-8. And, if. ye wolde, i.e. ye wolde seme, (see l. 696), ye would think so. Seem is still common in Devonshire in the sense of think or suppose; usually pronounced zim.

699. her refers to the lady of the castle; at least, it would appear so from l. 705. Else, it refers to Fortune.

736. the water, water thrown in her face by one of her companions, who had by this time entered the arbour.

752. A headless line; accent the first syllable.

754-5. The Flower and the Leaf has a similar ending (ll. 582-3).

XXII. A GOODLY BALADE.

Obviously Lydgate's. See the Introduction.

1. Moder of norture, model of good breeding. The poem is evidently addressed to a lady named Margaret.

2. flour, daisy (for Margaret); see ll. 22, 23.

4. Al be I, although I am; common in Lydgate.

9. Thing, i.e. anything, everything, whatever thing.

15. Mieulx un, one (is) better; evidently cited from a motto or device. The meaning seems to be: it is better to have but one lover, and you have found one in a heart that will never shrink. In the Temple of Glas, 310, Lydgate uses the motto de mieulx en mieulx.

22-3. 'Daisy (born) of light; you are called the daughter of the sun.' Alluding to the name day's eye, which was also applied by Lydgate to the sun; see note in vol. iii. p. 291 (l. 43). Imitated from Legend of Good Women, 60-4.

29. 'When the day dawns, (repairing) to its natural place (in the east), then your father Phœbus adorns the morrow.'

34. 'Were it not for the comfort in the day-time, when (the sun's) clear eyes make the daisy unclose.' Awkward and involved; cf. Legend of Good Women, 48-50, 64-5.

43. Je vouldray, I should like; purposely left incomplete.

44. casuel, uncertain; see New E. Dict.

48-9. god saith; implying that it is in the Bible. I do not find the words; cf. Prov. xxi. 3; 1 Pet. ii. 20.

50. Cautels, artifices, deceits; a word not used by Chaucer, but found in Lydgate; see New E. Dict.

57. Quaketh my penne, my pen quakes; an expression used once by Chaucer, Troil. iv. 13, but pounced upon by Lydgate, who employs it repeatedly. See more than twenty examples in Schick's note to the Temple of Glas, 947. Cf. IX. 229.

59. Read roseth, grows rosy, grows red, as opposed to welkeneth, withers, fades. We find the pp. rosed twice in Shakespeare; 'a maid yet rosed over,' Henry V, v. 2. 423; and 'thy rosed lips'; Titus And. ii. 4. 24. The emendation seems a safe one, for it restores the sense as well as the rime.

welkeneth should probably be welketh; I find no other example of the verb welkenen, though welwen occurs in a like sense; and welketh suits the rhythm.

60. eft, once again hot. These sudden transitions from cold to heat are common; see Temple of Glas, 356:—'For thoughe I brenne with feruence and with hete.'

64. Lydgate is always deploring his lack of eloquence; cf. notes to Temple of Glas, ed. Schick, ll. 1393, 1400.

69. I can find no such word as jouesse, so I alter it to jonesse, i.e. youth. For the spelling jonesce in the 14th century, see Littré, s.v. jeunesse. The expression have more yet implies that the phrase or motto je serve jonesse is added as a postscript, and that there was some special point in it; but the application of it is now lost to us. Cf. 'Princes of youthe, and flour of gentilesse,' Temple of Glas, 970.

XXIII. GO FORTH, KING.

This poem really consists of twelve precepts, intended to redress twelve abuses. The twelve abuses are given by the Latin lines above, which should be compared throughout. The whole poem is thus easily understood.

The accent is on the first syllable of the line in most of the lines. In l. 3, the word Lord stands alone in the first foot. The lines are somewhat unsteady, quite in Lydgate's usual manner. In l. 6, jug-e is probably dissyllabic. See further in the Introduction.

XXIV. THE COURT OF LOVE.

This late piece abounds with imitations of Lydgate, especially of his Temple of Glas; many of the resemblances are pointed out in Schick's edition of that poem, which I refer to by the contraction 'T. G.'

1. Cf. 'With quaking hert[e] of myn inward drede'; T. G. 978.

'Another feature characteristic of Lydgate is his self-deprec[i]atory vein'; T. G., Introd. p. cxl. We have here an instance of an imitation of it.

6. Cf. 'Save that he wol conveyen his matere'; C. T., E 55.

8. He refers to Cicero's flowers of rhetoric. He may have found the name in Chaucer, P. F. 31. But he probably took the whole idea from a line of Lydgate's:—'Of rethoriques Tullius fond the floures': Minor Poems, p. 87.

9. borne, burnish, adorn; it rimes (as here) with sojorne in Troil. i. 327.

11. Galfrid, Geoffrey de Vinsauf; his 'craft' refers to his treatise on the art of poetry, entitled 'Nova Poetria'; see note to C. T., B 4537 (vol. v. p. 257). [I once thought (see vol. i. p. 43) that Galfrid here means Chaucer himself, as he also is twice called Galfrid in Lydgate's Troy-book. But I find that Dr. Schick thinks otherwise, and the use of the word craft is on his side. At the same time, this renders it impossible for Chaucer to have written 'The Court of Love'; his opinion of his namesake was the reverse of reverential.] With ll. 4-11 compare the opening lines of Benedict Burgh's Poem in Praise of Lydgate, pr. at p. xxxi of Steele's edition of Lydgate's Secrees of Philosophers.

19. Calliope; twice mentioned by Chaucer; also by Lydgate, T. G. 1303. Lydgate's Troy-book opens with an invocation to Mars, followed by one to Calliope:—'Helpe me also, o thou Callyope'; and only four lines above there is a mention of 'Helicon the welle' (see l. 22 below).

22. Elicon, mount Helicon in Bœotia, sacred to Apollo and the Muses; confused by Chaucer and his followers with the fountain Hippocrene; see note in vol. i. p. 531. Hence Lydgate's expression 'Helicon the welle' in the last note and in T. G. 706, and the reference in the text to its dropes.

suger-dropes; Lydgate was fond of sugar; he has 'soote sugred armonye,' Minor Poems, p. 182; and 'sugrid melody,' ib., p. 11. Also 'sugred eloquence'; XII. 200 (p. 288); with which cf. l. 933 below. I have observed several other examples.

24. Melpomene; the muse who presided over tragedy.

28. Cf. 'This simpil tretis for to take in gre'; T. G. 1387. 'Taketh at gre the rudness of my style'; Lydgate, Secrees of Philosophers, 21.

30. metriciens, skilful in metre, poets; a word which has a remarkably late air about it. Richardson gives an example of it from Hall's Chronicle.

36. Compare the following, from T. G. 1379-81.

40. man, servant, one who does her homage; cf. Chaucer, C. T., I 772; La Belle Dame, 244; T. G. 742.

42. Cf. 'So that here-after my ladi may it loke'; T. G. 1392.

45. Cf. 'Ther was enclosed rype and sad corage'; C. T., E 220.

49, 50. Here the mountain of Cithæron, in Bœotia, is confused with the island of Cythera, sacred to Venus, whence her name Cytherea was derived. The mistake arose, of course, from the similarity of the names, and occurs (as said in vol. v. p. 78, note to A 1936), in the Roman de la Rose, where we find:—

Hence Chaucer makes the same confusion, but in a different way. Chaucer preserves the right name of the mountain, in the form Citheroun, which he rimes with mencioun (A 1936) and with Adoun (A 2223); but here we have the form Citharee, riming with see. For all this, the scribe corrects it to Citheron in l. 69, where he has no rime to deal with.

56. Cf. 'the winged god, Mercurie'; C. T., A 1385.

58. The MS. has costes that it drewe; Bell alters this to had to it drew, under the impression that drew is the pp. of draw! So again, in l. 78, he alters saphir ind, which is correct, to saphir of Inde; and in general, alters the text at will without the least hint that he has done so.

78. ind, blue; as in The Black Knight, 127.

80. Baleis Turkeis (MS. Bales turkes). Baleis is a better spelling, answering to F. balais in Littré. It also occurs as balai in O.F.; and the word was probably suggested by the mention of it in Rom. de la Rose, 20125:—'Que saphirs, rubis, ne balai.' Hence also the mention of it in the King's Quhair, st. 46, which see; and in the Assembly of Ladies, 536. Turkeis is the A. F. equivalent of O.F. Turkois, i.e. Turkish, as in C. T., A 2895, on which see the note (vol. v. p. 93).

81. shene, a misspelling of shine, intimating that the author has confused the adj. shene with the verb; or rather, that the poem was written at a time when the word shine could be used as riming to been; since we find similar examples in lines 561, 768. So also we find pretily riming with be in The Flower and the Leaf, 89. The pt. t. shoon occurs in l. 83.

82. Cf. 'As doon the sterres in the frosty night'; C. T., A 268. And again: 'bryght As sterrys in the wyntyr nyght'; Lydgate, Compleint following T. G., l. 548.

86. Cf. Compl. of Mars, 78-84, 104-5; C. T., A 2388 (and note); and T. G. 126-8.

88. Cf. 'Long as a mast,' &c.; C. T., A 3264.