Chaucer's Works, Volume 1 — Romaunt of the Rose; Minor Poems

343. Ne in is to be read as Nin; we find it written nin in the Squieres Tale, F 35. See l. 694.

347. Whether is to be read as Wher; it is often so spelt.

348. The line, as it stands in the authorities, viz. 'And I herde goyng, bothe vp and doune'—cannot be right. Mr. Sweet omits bothe, which throws the accent upon I, and reduces herde to herd' (unaccented!). To remedy this, I also omit And. Perhaps speke (better speken) is an infinitive in l. 350, but it may also be the pt. t. plural (A. S. sprǽcon); and it is more convenient to take it so.

352. Upon lengthe, after a great length of course, after a long run.

M. Sandras points out some very slight resemblances between this passage and some lines in a French poem in the Collection Mouchet, vol. ii. fol. 106; see the passage cited in Furnivall's Trial Forewords to the Minor Poems, p. 51. Most likely Chaucer wrote independently of this French poem, as even M. Sandras seems inclined to admit.

353. Embosed, embossed. This is a technical term, used in various senses, for which see the New Eng. Dict. Here it means 'so far plunged into the thicket'; from O. F. bos (F. bois), a wood. In later authors, it came to mean 'driven to extremity, like a hunted animal'; then 'exhausted by running,' and lastly, 'foaming at the mouth,' as a result of exhaustion.

362. A relay was a fresh set of dogs; see Relay in my Etym. Dict.

A lymere was a dog held in a liam, lime, or leash, to be let loose when required; from O.F. liem (F. lien, Lat. ligamen), a leash. In the Book of St. Alban's, fol. e 4, we are told that the beasts which should be 'reride with the lymer,' i. e. roused and pursued by the dog so called, are 'the hert and the bucke and the boore.'

365. Oon, ladde, i. e. one who led. This omission of the relative is common.

368. 'The emperor Octovien' is the emperor seen by Chaucer in his dream. In l. 1314, he is called this king, by whom Edward III. is plainly intended. He was 'a favourite character of Carolingian legend, and pleasantly revived under this aspect by the modern romanticist Ludwig Tieck—probably [here] a flattering allegory for the King'; Ward's Life of Chaucer, p. 69. The English romance of Octouian Imperator is to be found in Weber's Metrical Romances, iii. 157; it extends to 1962 lines. He was an emperor of Rome, and married Floraunce, daughter of Dagabers [Dagobert], king of France. The adventures of Floraunce somewhat resemble those of Constance in the Man of Lawes Tale. 'The Romance of the Emperor Octavian' was also edited by Halliwell for the Percy Society, in 1844. The name originally referred to the emperor Augustus.

370. The exclamation 'A goddes halfe' was pronounced like 'A god's half'; see l. 758. See note to l. 544.

374. Fil to doon, fell to do, i. e. was fitting to do.

375. Fot-hoot, foot-hot, immediately; see my note to Man of Lawes Tale, B 438.

376. Moot, notes upon a horn, here used as a plural. See Glossary. 'How shall we blowe whan ye han sen the hert? I shal blowe after one mote, ij motes [i. e. 3 motes in all]; and if myn howndes come not hastily to me as I wolde, I shall blowe iiij. motes'; Venery de Twety, in Reliquiæ Antiquæ, i. 152.

Cf. a passage in the Chace du Cerf, quoted from the Collection Mouchet, i. 166, in Furnivall's Trial Forewords, p. 51 (though Chaucer probably wrote his account quite independently of it):—

379. Rechased, headed back. Men were posted at certain places, to keep the hart within certain bounds. See next note.

386. A forloyn, a recall (as I suppose; for it was blown when the hounds were all a long way off their object of pursuit). It is thus explained in the Book of St. Alban's, fol. f I:—

The 'chace of the forloyne' is explained (very obscurely) in the Venery de Twety; see Reliquiæ Antiquæ, i. 152. But the following passage from the same gives some light upon rechased: 'Another chace ther is whan a man hath set up archerys and greyhoundes, and the best be founde, and passe out the boundys, and myne houndes after; then shall y blowe on this maner a mote, and aftirward the rechace upon my houndys that be past the boundys.'

387. Go, gone. The sense is—'I had gone (away having) walked from my tree.' The idiom is curious. My tree, the tree at which I had been posted. Chaucer dreamt that he was one of the men posted to watch which way the hart went, and to keep the bounds.

396. The final e in fled-de is not elided, owing to the pause after it. See note to l. 685.

398. Wente, path. Chaucer often rimes words that are pronounced alike, if their meanings be different. See ll. 439, 440; and cf. ll. 627-630. The very same pair of rimes occurs again in the Ho. of Fame, 181, 182; and in Troil. ii. 62, 813; iii. 785, v. 603, 1192.

402. Read—For both-e Flor-a, &c. The -a in Flora comes at the cæsural pause; cf. ll. 413, 414. Once more, this is from Le Roman de la Rose, ll. 8449-51:—

Cf. also ll. 5962-5:—

405. The first accent is on For; not happily.

408. 'To have more flowers than the heaven (has stars, so as even to rival) seven such planets as there are in the sky.' Rather involved, and probably all suggested by the necessity for a rime to heven. See l. 824. Moreover, it is copied from Le Roman de la Rose, 8465-8:—

410-412. From Le Roman de la Rose, 55-58 (see p. 95, above):—

419. Imitated from Le Roman de la Rose, 1373-1391; in particular:—

Chaucer has treated a toise as if it were equal to two feet; it was really about six. In his own translation of the Romaunt, l. 1393, he translates toise by fadome. See p. 151 (above).

429. According to the Book of St. Albans, fol. e 4, the buck was called a fawne in his first year, a preket in the second, a sowrell in the third, a sowre in the fourth, a bucke of the fyrst hede in the fifth, and a bucke (simply) in the sixth year. Also a roo is the female of the roobucke.

435. Argus is put for Algus, the old French name for the inventor of the Arabic numerals; it occurs in l. 16373 of the Roman de la Rose, which mentions him in company with Euclid and Ptolemy—

This name was obviously confused with that of the hundred-eyed Argus.

This name Algus was evolved out of the O.F. algorisme, which, as Dr. Murray says, is a French adaptation 'from the Arab. al-Khowārazmī, the native of Khwārazm (Khiva), surname of the Arab mathematician Abu Ja'far Mohammed Ben Musa, who flourished early in the 9th century, and through the translation of whose work on Algebra, the Arabic numerals became generally known in Europe. Cf. Euclid = plane geometry.' He was truly 'a noble countour,' to whom we all owe a debt of gratitude. That Algus was sometimes called Argus, also appears from the Roman de la Rose, ll. 12994, &c., which is clearly the very passage which Chaucer here copies:—

Here o means 'with'; so that Chaucer has copied the very phrase 'with his figures ten.' But still more curiously, Jean de Meun here rimes nombre, pres. sing. indic., with nombre, sb.; and Chaucer rimes noumbre, infin., with noumbre, sb. likewise. Countour in l. 435 means 'arithmetician'; in the next line it means an abacus or counting-board, for assisting arithmetical operations.

437. His figures ten; the ten Arabic numerals, i. e. from 1 to 9, and the cipher 0.

438. Al ken, all kin, i. e. mankind, all men. This substitution of ken for kin (A.S. cyn) seems to have been due to the exigencies of rime, as Chaucer uses kin elsewhere. However, Gower has the same form—'And of what ken that she was come'; Conf. Am. b. viii; ed. Pauli, iii. 332. So also in Will. of Palerne, 722—'Miself knowe ich nouȝt mi ken'; and five times at least in the Ayenbite of Inwyt, as it is a Kentish form. It was, doubtless, a permissible variant.

442. The strong accent on me is very forced.

445. A man in blak; John of Gaunt, in mourning for the loss of his wife Blaunche. Imitated by Lydgate, in his Complaint of the Black Knight, l. 130, and by Spenser, in his Daphnaida:—

452. Wel-faring-e; four syllables.

455. John of Gaunt, born in June, 1340, was 29 years old in 1369. I do not know why a poet is never to make a mistake; nor why critics should lay down such a singular law. But if we are to lay the error on the scribes, Mr. Brock's suggestion is excellent. He remarks that nine and twenty was usually written xxviiij.; and if the v were omitted, it would appear as .xxiiij., i. e. four and twenty. The existing MSS. write 'foure and twenty' at length; but such is not the usual practice of earlier scribes. It may also be added that .xxiiij. was at that time always read as four and twenty, never as twenty-four; so that no ambiguity could arise as to the mode of reading it. See Richard the Redeless, iii. 260.

There is a precisely similiar confusion in Cant. Ta. Group B, l. 5, where eightetethe is denoted by 'xviijthe' in the Hengwrt MS., whilst the Harl. MS. omits the v, and reads threttenthe, and again the Ellesmere MS. inserts an x, and gives us eighte and twentithe. The presumption is, that Chaucer knew his patron's age, and that we ought to read nine for four; but even if he inadvertently wrote four, there is no crime in it.

475. The knight's lay falls into two stanzas, one of five, and one of six lines, as marked. In order to make them more alike, Thynne inserted an additional line—And thus in sorowe lefte me alone—after l. 479. This additional line is numbered 480 in the editions; so I omit l. 480 in the numbering. The line is probably spurious. It is not grammatical; grammar would require that has (not is, as in l. 479) should be understood before the pp. left; or if we take left-e as a past tense, then the line will not scan. But it is also unmetrical, as the arrangement of lines should be the same as in ll. 481-6, if the two stanzas are to be made alike. Chaucer says the lay consisted of 'ten verses or twelve' in l. 463, which is a sufficiently close description of a lay of eleven lines. Had he said twelve without any mention of ten, the case would have been different.

479. Lange proposes: 'Is deed, and is fro me agoon.' F. Tn. Th. agree as to the reading given; I see nothing against it.

481. If we must needs complete the line, we must read 'Allas! o deth!' inserting o; or 'Allas! the deth,' inserting the. The latter is proposed by Ten Brink, Sprache, &c. § 346.

490. Pure, very; cf. 'pure fettres,' Kn. Tale, A 1279. And see l. 583, below.

491. Cf. 'Why does my blood thus muster to my heart?' Meas. for Meas. ii. 4. 20.

501. The MSS. have seet, sat, a false form for sat (A.S. sæt); due to the plural form seet-e or sēt-e (A.S. sǽt-on). We certainly find seet for sat in the Kn. Tale, A 2075. Read sete, as the pt. t. subj. (A.S. sǣte); and fete as dative pl. form, as in Cant. Ta. B 1104.

510. Made, i. e. they made; idiomatic.

521. Ne I, nor I; to be read N'I; cf. note to l. 343.

526. 'Yes; the amends is (are) easily made.'

532. Me acqueynte = m'acqueynt-e, acquaint myself.

544. By our Lord, to be read as by'r Lord. Cf. by'r lakin, Temp. iii. 3. 1. So again, in ll. 651, 690, 1042.

547. Me thinketh (= me think'th), it seems to me.

550. Wis, certainly: 'As certainly (as I hope that) God may help me.' So in Nonne Prestes Tale, 587 (B 4598); and cf. Kn. Tale, 1928 (B 2786); Squ. Ta. F 469, &c. And see l. 683, below.

556. Paraventure, pronounced as Paraunter; Thynne so has it.

Compare this passage with the long dialogue between Troilus and Pandarus, in the latter part of the first book of Troilus.

568. Alluding to Ovid's Remedia Amoris. Accent remédies on the second syllable.

569. The story of Orpheus is in Ovid's Metamorphoses, bk. x. The allusion is to the harp of Orpheus, at the sound of which the tortured had rest. Cf. Ho. of Fame, 1202:—

570. Cf. Ho. of Fame, 919; Rom. Rose, 21633. Dædalus represents the mechanician. No mechanical contrivances can help the mourner.

572. Cf.

Hippocrates and Galen are meant; see note to Cant. Tales, C 306.

579. Y-worthe, (who am) become; pp. of worthen.

582. 'For all good fortune and I are foes,' lit. angry (with each other). Hence wroth-e is a plural form.

589. S and C were so constantly interchanged before e that Sesiphus could be written Cesiphus; and C and T were so often mistaken that Cesiphus easily became Tesiphus, the form in the Tanner MS. Further, initial T was sometimes replaced by Th; and this would give the Thesiphus of MS. F.

Sesiphus, i. e. Sisyphus, is of course intended; it was in the author's mind in connection with the story of Orpheus just above; see note to l. 569. In the Roman de la Rose, we have the usual allusions to Yxion (l. 19479), Tentalus, i. e. Tantalus (l. 19482), Ticius, i. e. Tityus (l. 19506), and Sisifus (l. 19499).

But whilst I thus hold that Chaucer probably wrote Sesiphus, I have no doubt that he really meant Tityus, as is shewn by the expression lyth, i. e. lies extended. See Troil. i. 786, where Bell's edition has Siciphus, but the Campsall MS. has Ticyus; whilst in ed. 1532 we find Tesiphus.

599. With this string of contrarieties compare the Eng. version of the Roman de la Rose, 4706-4753. See p. 212, above.

614. Abaved, confounded, disconcerted. See Glossary.

618. Imitated from the Roman de la Rose, from l. 6644 onwards—

Jean de Meun goes on to say that Charles of Anjou killed Manfred, king of Sicily, in the first battle with him [A.D. 1266]—

He next speaks of Conradin, whose death was likewise caused by Charles in 1268, so that these two (Manfred and Conradin) lost all their pieces at chess—

And further, of the inventor of chess (l. 6715)—

He talks of the queen being taken (at chess), l. 6735—

He cannot recount all Fortune's tricks (l. 6879)—

629. Cf. 'whited sepulchres'; Matt. xxiii. 27; Rom. de la Rose, 8946.

630. The MSS. and Thynne have floures, flourys. This gives no sense; we must therefore read flour is. For a similar rime see that of nones, noon is, in the Prologue, 523, 524. Strictly, grammar requires ben rather than is; but when two nominatives express much the same sense, the singular verb may be used, as in Lenvoy to Bukton, 6. The sense is—'her chief glory and her prime vigour is (i. e. consists in) lying.'

634. The parallel passage is one in the Remède de Fortune, by G. de Machault:—

See Furnivall's Trial Forewords, p. 47; and compare the remarkable and elaborate description of Fortune in the Anticlaudian of Alanus de Insulis (Distinctio 8, cap. I), in Wright's Anglo-Latin Satirists, vol. ii. pp. 399, 400.

636. Chaucer seems to have rewritten the whole passage at a later period:—

Compare also Man of Lawes Tale, B 361, 404. 'The scorpiun is ones cunnes wurm thet haueth neb, ase me seith, sumdel iliche ase wummon, and is neddre bihinden; maketh feir semblaunt and fiketh mit te heaued, and stingeth mid te teile'; Ancren Riwle, p. 206. Vincent of Beauvais, in his Speculum Naturale, bk. xx. c. 160, quotes from the Liber de Naturis Rerum—'Scorpio blandum et quasi virgineum dicitur vultum habere, sed habet in cauda nodosa venenatum aculeum, quo pungit et inficit proximantem.'

642. A translated line; see note to l. 634.

651. Read—Trow'st thou? by'r lord; see note to l. 544.

653. Draught is a move at chess; see ll. 682, 685. Thus in Caxton's Game of the Chesse—'the alphyn [bishop] goeth in vj. draughtes al the tablier [board] rounde about.' So in The Tale of Beryn, 1779, 1812. It translates the F. trait; see note to l. 618 (second quotation).

654. 'Fers, the piece at chess next to the king, which we and other European nations call the queen; though very improperly, as Hyde has observed. Pherz, or Pherzan, which is the Persian name for the same piece, signifies the King's Chief Counsellor, or General—Hist. Shahilud. [shahi-ludii, chess-play], pp. 88, 89.'—Tyrwhitt's Glossary. Chaucer follows Rom. Rose, where the word appears as fierge, l. 6688, and fierche, l. 6735; see note to l. 618 above. (For another use of fers, see note to l. 723 below.) Godefroy gives the O. F. spellings fierce, fierche, fierge, firge, and quotes two lines, which give the O. F. names of all the pieces at chess:—

Caxton calls them kyng, quene, alphyn, knyght, rook, pawn. Richardson's Pers. Dict. p. 1080, gives the Pers. name of the queen as farzī or farzīn, and explains farsīn by 'the queen at chess, a learned man'; compare Tyrwhitt's remark above. In fact, the orig. Skt. name for this piece was mantrí, i. e. the adviser or counsellor. He also gives the Pers. farz, learned; farz or firz, the queen at chess. I suppose it is a mere chance that the somewhat similar Arab. faras means 'a horse, and the knight at chess'; Richardson (as above). Oddly enough, the latter word has also some connection with Chaucer, as it is the Arabic name of the 'wedge' of an astrolabe; see Chaucer's Astrolabe, Part i. § 14 (footnote), in vol. iii.

655. When a chess-player, by an oversight, loses his queen for nothing, he may, in general, as well as give up the game. Beryn was 'in hevy plyghte,' when he only lost a rook for nothing; Tale of Beryn, 1812.

660. The word the before mid must of course be omitted. The lines are to be scanned thus:—

The rime is a feminine one. Lines 660 and 661 are copied from the Rom. Rose; see note to l. 618, above. To be checkmated by an 'errant' pawn in the very middle of the board is a most ignominious way of losing the game. Cf. check-mate in Troil. ii. 754.

663. Athalus; see note to l. 618, above. Jean de Meun follows John of Salisbury (bishop of Chartres, died 1180) in attributing the invention of chess to Attalus. 'Attalus Asiaticus, si Gentilium creditur historiis, hanc ludendi lasciuiam dicitur inuenisse ab exercitio numerorum, paululum deflexa materia;' Joan. Saresburiensis Policraticus, lib. i. c. 5. Warton (Hist. E. Poet. 1871, iii. 91) says the person meant is Attalus Philometor, king of Pergamus; who is mentioned by Pliny, Nat. Hist. xviii. 3, xxviii. 2. It is needless to explain here how chess was developed out of the old Indian game for four persons called chaturanga, i. e. consisting of four members or parts (Benfey's Skt. Dict. p. 6). I must refer the reader to Forbes's History of Chess, or the article on Chess in the English Cyclopædia. See also the E. version of the Gesta Romanorum, ed. Herrtage, p. 70; A. Neckam, De Naturis Rerum, ed. Wright, p. 324; and Sir F. Madden's article in the Archæologia, xxiv. 203.

666. Ieupardyes, hazards, critical positions, problems; see note on Cant. Tales, Group G, 743.

667. Pithagores, put for Pythagoras; for the rime. Pythagoras of Samos, born about B.C. 570, considered that all things were founded upon numerical relations; various discoveries in mathematics, music, and astronomy, were attributed to him.

682. 'I would have made the same move'; i. e. had I had the power, I would have taken her fers from her, just as she took mine.

684. She, i. e. Fortune; so in Thynne. The MSS. have He, i. e. God, which can hardly be meant.

685. The cæsural pause preserves e in draughte from elision. It rimes with caughte (l. 682). Similar examples of 'hiatus' are not common: Ten Brink (Sprache, § 270) instances Cant. Tales, Group C, 599, 772 (Pard. Tale).

694. Ne in is to be read as nin (twice); see note to l. 343.

700. 'There lies in reckoning (i. e. is debited to me in the account), as regards sorrow, for no amount at all.' In his account with Sorrow he is owed nothing, having received payment in full. There is no real difficulty here.

705. 'I have nothing'; for (1) Sorrow has paid in full, and so owes me nothing; (2) I have no gladness left; (3) I have lost my true wealth; (4) and I have no pleasure.

708. 'What is past is not yet to come.'

709. Tantale, Tantalus. He has already referred to Sisyphus; see note to l. 589. In the Roman de la Rose, we find Yxion, l. 19479; Tentalus, l. 19482; and Sisifus, l. 19499; as I have already remarked.

717. Again from the Rom. de la Rose, l. 5869—

Chaucer's three strees (i. e. straws) is Jean de Meun's prune.

723. By the ferses twelve I understand all the pieces except the king, which could not be taken. The guess in Bell's Chaucer says 'all the pieces except the pawns'; but as a player only has seven pieces beside the pawns and king, we must then say that the knight exaggerates. My own reckoning is thus: pawns, eight; queen, bishop, rook, knight, four; total, twelve. The fact that each player has two of three of these, viz. of the bishop, rook, and knight, arose from the conversion of chaturaṅga, in which each of four persons had a king, bishop, knight, rook [to keep to modern names] and four pawns, into chess, in which each of two persons had two kings (afterwards king and queen), two bishops, knights, and rooks, and eight pawns. The bishop, knight, and rook, were thus duplicated, and so count but one apiece, which makes three (sorts of) pieces; and the queen is a fourth, for the king cannot be taken. The case of the pawns was different, for each pawn had an individuality of its own, no two being made alike (except in inferior sets). Caxton's Game of the Chesse shews this clearly; he describes each of the eight pawns separately, and gives a different figure to each. According to him, the pawns were (beginning from the King's Rook's Pawn) the Labourer, Smyth, Clerke (or Notary), Marchaunt, Physicien, Tauerner, Garde, and Ribauld. They denoted 'all sorts and conditions of men'; and this is why our common saying of 'tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, gentleman, apothecary, ploughboy, thief' enumerates eight conditions^[288].

As the word fers originally meant counsellor or monitor of the king, it could be applied to any of the pieces. There was a special reason for its application to each of the pawns; for a pawn, on arriving at its last square, could not be exchanged (as now) for any piece at pleasure, but only for a queen, i. e. the fers par excellence. For, as Caxton says again, 'he [the pawn] may not goo on neyther side till he hath been in the fardest ligne of theschequer, & that he hath taken the nature of the draughtes of the quene, & than he is a fiers, and than may he goo on al sides cornerwyse fro poynt to poynt onely as the quene'; &c.

726. These stock examples all come together in the Rom. de la Rose; viz. Jason and Medee, at l. 13433; Philis and Demophon, at l. 13415; 'Dido, roine de Cartage,' at l. 13379. The story of Echo and Narcissus is told fully, in an earlier passage (see ll. 1469-1545 of the English version, at p. 154); also that of 'Dalida' and 'Sanson' in a later passage, at l. 16879. See also the Legends of Dido, Medea, and Phillis in the Legend of Good Women; and the story of Sampson in the Monkes Tale, B 3205:—

779. M. Sandras points out the resemblance to a passage in G. de Machault's Remède de Fortune:—

The rime of table and able settles the point. Mr. Brock points out a parallel passage in Boethius, which Chaucer thus translates:—'the soule hadde ben naked of it-self, as a mirour or a clene parchemin.... Right as we ben wont som tyme by a swifte pointel to ficchen lettres emprented in the smothenesse or in the pleinnesse of the table of wex, or in parchemin that ne hath no figure ne note in it'; bk. v. met. 4. But I doubt if Chaucer knew much of Boethius in 1369; and in the present passage he clearly refers to a prepared white surface, not to a tablet of wax. 'Youth and white paper take any impression'; Ray's Proverbs.

791. An allusion to the old proverb which is given in Hending in the form—'Whose yong lerneth, olt [old] he ne leseth'; Hending's Prov. l. 45. Kemble gives the medieval Latin—'Quod puer adsuescit, leviter dimittere nescit'; Gartner, Dicteria, p. 24 b. Cf. Horace, Epist. i. 2. 69; also Rom. de la Rose, 13094.

799. John of Gaunt married Blaunche at the age of nineteen.

805. Imitated from Machault's Dit du Vergier and Fontaine Amoureuse.

These are, no doubt, the lines to which Tyrwhitt refers in his remarks on the present passage in a note to the last paragraph of the Persones Tale. Observe also how closely the fifth line of the latter passage answers to l. 812.

823. Is, which is; as usual. I propose this reading. That of the MSS. is very bad, viz. 'Than any other planete in heven.'

824. 'The seven stars' generally mean the planets; but, as the sun and moon and planets have just been mentioned, the reference may be to the well-known seven stars in Ursa Major commonly called Charles's Wain. In later English, the seven stars sometimes mean the Pleiades; see Pleiade in Cotgrave's French Dictionary, and G. Douglas, ed. Small, i. 69. 23, iii. 147. 15. The phrase is, in fact, ambiguous; see note to P. Plowman, C. xviii. 98.

831. Referring to Christ and His twelve apostles.

835-7. Resembles Le Roman de la Rose, 1689-91 (see p. 164)—

840. Koch proposes to omit maner, and read—'No counseyl, but at hir loke.' It is more likely that counseyl has slipped in, as a gloss upon reed, and was afterwards substituted for it.

849. Carole, dance round, accompanying the dance with a song. The word occurs in the Rom. de la Rose several times; thus at l. 747, we have:—

Cf. Chaucer's version, ll. 759, 810; also 744. Dante uses the pl. carole (Parad. xxiv. 16) to express swift circular movements; and Cary quotes a comment upon it to the effect that 'carolæ dicuntur tripudium quoddam quod fit saliendo, ut Napolitani faciunt et dicunt.' He also quotes the expression 'grans danses et grans karolles' from Froissart, ed. 1559, vol. i. cap. 219. That it meant singing as well as dancing appears from the Rom. de la Rose, l. 731.

858. Chaucer gives Virginia golden hair; Doct. Tale, C 38. Compare the whole description of the maiden in the E. version of the Rom. of the Rose, ll. 539-561 (p. 116, above).

861. Of good mochel, of an excellent size; mochel = size, occurs in P. Plowman, B. xvi. 182. Scan the line—

894. 'In reasonable cases, that involve responsibility.'

908. Somewhat similar are ll. 9-18 of the Doctoures Tale.

916. Scan by reading—They n' shóld' hav' foúnd-e, &c.

917. A wikked signe, a sign, or mark, of wickedness.

919. Imitated from Machault's Remède de Fortune (see Trial Forewords, p. 48):—

Line 922 is taken from this word for word.

927-8. 'Nor that scorned less, nor that could better heal,' &c.

943. Canel-boon, collar-bone; lit. channel-bone, i. e. bone with a channel behind it. See Three Metrical Romances (Camden Soc.), p. 19; Gloss. to Babees Book, ed. Furnivall; and the Percy Folio MS., i. 387. I put and for or; the sense requires a conjunction.

948. Here Whyte, representing the lady's name, is plainly a translation of Blaunche. The insertion of whyte in l. 905, in the existing authorities, is surely a blunder, and I therefore have omitted it. It anticipates the climax of the description, besides ruining the scansion of the line.

950. There is here some resemblance to some lines in G. Machault's Remède de Fortune (see Trial Forewords, p. 49):—

957. For hippes, Bell prints lippes; a comic reading.

958. This reading means—'I knew in her no other defect'; which, as no defect has been mentioned, seems inconsistent. Perhaps we should read no maner lak, i. e. no 'sort of defect in her (to cause) that all her limbs should not be proportionate.'

964. A common illustration. See Rom. de la Rose, 7448; Alexander and Dindimus, ll. 233-5. Duke Francesco Maria had, for one of his badges, a lighted candle by which others are lighted; with the motto Non degener addam, i. e. I will give without loss; see Mrs. Palliser's Historic Devices, p. 263. And cf. Cant. Ta. D 333-5.

973. The accents seem to fall on She and have, the e in wold-e being elided. Otherwise, read: She wóld-e háv' be.

982. Liddell and Scott explain Gk. φοίνιξ as 'the fabulous Egyptian bird phœnix, first in Hesiod, Fragment 50. 4; then in Herodotus, ii. 73.' Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum Naturale, bk. 16. c. 74, refers us to Isidore, Ambrosius (lib. 5), Solinus, Pliny (lib. 10), and Liber de Naturis Rerum; see Solinus, Polyhistor. c. 33. 11; A. Neckam, De Naturis Rerum, c. 34. Philip de Thaun describes it in his Bestiaire, l. 1089; see Popular Treatises on Science, ed. Wright, p. 113. 'The Phœnix of Arabia passes all others. Howbeit, I cannot tell what to make of him; and first of all, whether it be a tale or no, that there is neuer but one of them in all the world, and the same not commonly seen'; Holland, tr. of Pliny, bk. 10. c. 2.

Scan: Th' soléyn | feníx | of A | rabye ||. Cf. 'Com la fenix souleine est au sejour En Arabie': Gower, Balade 35.

987. Chaucer refers to Esther again; e.g. in his Merchant's Tale (E 1371, 1744); Leg. of G. Women, prol. 250; and in the Tale of Melibee (B 2291).

997. Cf. Vergil, Æn. i. 630: 'Haud ignara mali.'

1021. In balaunce, i. e. in a state of suspense. F. en balance; Rom. de la Rose, 13871, 16770.

1024. This sending of lovers on expeditions, by way of proving them, was in accordance with the manners of the time. Gower explains the whole matter, in his Conf. Amant, lib. 4 (ed. Pauli, ii. 56):—

Chaucer's Knight (in the Prologue) sought for renown in Pruce, Alisaundre, and Turkye.

There is a similar passage in Le Rom. de la Rose, 18499-18526. The first part of Machault's Dit du Lion (doubtless the Book of the Lion of which Chaucer's translation is now lost) is likewise taken up with the account of lovers who undertook feats, in order that the news of their deeds might reach their ladies. Among the places to which they used to go are mentioned Alexandres, Alemaigne, Osteriche, Behaigne, Honguerie, Danemarche, Prusse, Poulaine, Cracoe, Tartarie, &c. Some even went 'jusqu'à l'Arbre sec, Ou li oisel pendent au bec.' This alludes to the famous Arbre sec or Dry Tree, to reach which was a feat indeed; see Yule's edition of Marco Polo, i. 119; Maundeville, ed. Halliwell, p. 68; Mätzner, Sprachproben, ii. 185.

As a specimen of the modes of expression then prevalent, Warton draws attention to a passage in Froissart, c. 81, where Sir Walter Manny prefaces a gallant charge upon the enemy with the words—'May I never be embraced by my mistress and dear friend, if I enter castle or fortress before I have unhorsed one of these gallopers.'

1028. Go hoodles, travel without even the protection of a hood; by way of bravado. Warton, Hist. Eng. Poet. § 18 (ed. Hazlitt, iii. 4), says of a society called the Fraternity of the Penitents of Love—'Their object was to prove the excess of their love, by shewing with an invincible fortitude and consistency of conduct ... that they could bear extremes of heat and cold.... It was a crime to wear fur on a day of the most piercing cold; or to appear with a hood, cloak, gloves or muff.' See the long account of this in the Knight de la Tour Landry, ed. Wright, p. 169; and cf. The Squyer of Low Degree, 171-200.

What is meant by the drye se (dry sea) is disputed; but it matters little, for the general idea is clear. Mr. Brae, in the Appendix to his edition of Chaucer's Astrolabe (p. 101), has a long note on the present passage. Relying on the above quotation from Warton, he supposes hoodless to have reference to a practice of going unprotected in winter, and says that 'dry sea' may refer to any frozen sea. But it may equally refer to going unprotected in summer, in which case he offers us an alternative suggestion, that 'any arid sandy desert might be metaphorically called a dry sea.' The latter is almost a sufficient explanation; but if we must be particular, Mr. Brae has yet more to tell us. He says that, at p. 1044 (Basle edition) of Sebastian Munster's Cosmographie, there is a description of a large lake which was dry in summer. 'It is said that there is a lake near the city of Labac, adjoining the plain of Zircknitz [Czirknitz], which in winter-time becomes of great extent.... But in summer the water drains away, the fish expire, the bed of the lake is ploughed up, corn grows to maturity, and, after the harvest is over, the waters return, &c. The Augspourg merchants have assured me of this, and it has been since confirmed to me by Vergier, the bishop of Cappodistria' [Capo d'Istria]. The lake still exists, and is no fable. It is the variable lake of Czirknitz, which sometimes covers sixty-three square miles, and is sometimes dry. It is situate in the province of Krain, or Carniola; Labac is the modern Laybach or Laibach, N.E. of Trieste. See the articles Krain, Czirknitz in the Engl. Cyclopædia, and the account of the lake in The Student, Sept. 1869.

That Chaucer really referred to this very lake becomes almost certain, if we are to accept Mr. Brae's explanation of the next line. See the next note.

1029. Carrenare. Mr. Brae suggests that the reference is to the 'gulf of the Carnaro or Quarnaro in the Adriatic,' to which Dante alludes in the Inferno, ix. 113, as being noted for its perils. Cary's translation runs thus:—