NOTES (continued 3)
Reading edition
13. Parentre deux: cp. Bal. xxvii. l. 24, Mir. 1178.
XVI. Cp. Mir. 17089 ff., Conf. Am. v. 6393 ff.
XVII. 2. ‘This the faith pledged with the right hand requires.’ For ‘plevie au destre main’ cp. Bal. xxiii. l. 5.
9. ert, ‘there shall be,’ cp. Mir. 17689. Both future and conditional are used to express command or obligation.
13. This is the traditional character of Gawain ‘the Courteous’:
‘“Art thou not he whom men call light-of-love?” “Ay,” said Gawain, “for women be so light.”’ Tennyson, Pelleas and Ettarre;
XVIII. 22. This Envoy, though it may be taken to have reference to the whole series of balades composing the Traitié, belongs in form to the concluding balade and speaks of it specially, ‘ceste Balade envoie.’ It is addressed to the world generally, ‘Al université de tout le monde,’ and, as was the wont of Englishmen who wrote in French, the author asks pardon for his deficiencies of language.
The Latin lines ‘Quis sit vel qualis’ follow the Traitié, so far as I know, in every existing copy, and must be taken in connexion with it. In all except one of the MSS. these first nine lines are followed, as in the text given, by the short Carmen de variis in amore passionibus beginning ‘Est amor in glosa,’ and this is followed by the eight lines beginning ‘Lex docet auctorum.’ In the Trentham copy, however, the intervening Carmen is omitted and these last eight lines are given as if they formed one piece with the first nine.
‘Quis sit vel qualis,’ &c.
2. mentalis sit amor, &c. I take this to mean, ‘so that there may be such spiritual love (as I have described) in the order’; but it is not very clear, and it must be noted that F punctuates after ‘mentalis.’
3 f. ‘We may fear what is to come by the example of what is past; to-morrow as yesterday the flesh may be lightly stirred.’
Carmen de variis, &c.
With this compare Bal. xlviii., and Rom. de la Rose, 4320 ff.,
‘Amors ce est pais haïneuse, Amors est haïne amoreuse,’ &c.
1. in glosa, ‘by interpretation.’
‘Lex docet auctorum,’ &c.
1. quod iter, &c., ‘that the fleshly pilgrimage is more secure for those who have the bands of wedlock upon them.’
5. quasi regula: apparently comparing marriage to a monastic rule, into which men are gathered for their salvation.
7. Hinc vetus annorum. The comment on this concluding couplet is to be found in the record of the poet’s marriage, in the year 1397-8, to Agnes Groundolf.