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

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

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

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

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

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

176. Read endur'th. Mate, exhausted.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

218. That, who: relative to hir above.

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

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

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

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

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

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

260. Namely, especially, in particular.

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

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

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

270. Refers to ll. 211-3 above.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

313. Who that, whosoever. Fast, trustworthy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

342. Here follows the concluding stanza of the Complaint.

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

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

350. This line re-echoes l. 211.

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

VIII. Chaucers Wordes unto Adam.

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

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

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

IX. The Former Age.

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

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

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

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

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

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

2. The former age; Lat. prior etas.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

X. Fortune.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

13. No force of, it does not matter for; i. e. 'thy rigour is of no consequence to him who has the mastery over himself.' From Boethius, bk. ii. pr. 4, l. 98, which Chaucer translates: 'Thanne, yif it so be that thou art mighty over thy-self, that is to seyn, by tranquillitee of thy sowle, than hast thou thing in thy power that thou noldest never lesen, ne Fortune ne may nat beneme it thee.'

17. Socrates is mentioned in Boeth. bk. i. pr. 3, l. 39, but ll. 17-20 are from Le Rom. de la Rose, ll. 5871-4:—

20. Chere, look. Savour, pleasantness, attraction; cf. Squi. Tale, F 404. All the MSS. have this reading; Caxton alters it to favour.

25. This Second Ballad gives us Fortune's response to the defiance of the complainant. In Arch. Seld. B. 10, it is headed—'Fortuna ad paupertatem.' See Boethius, bk. ii. prose 2, where Philosophy says—'Certes, I wolde pleten with thee a fewe thinges, usinge the wordes of Fortune.' Cf. 'nothing is wrecched but whan thou wenest it'; Boeth. ii. pr. 4, l. 79; and see Rom. Rose (E. version, 5467-5564).

28. 'Who possessest thy (true) self (as being quite) beyond my control.' A fine sentiment. Out of, beyond, independent of.

29. Cf. 'thou hast had grace as he that hath used of foreine goodes; thou hast no right to pleyne thee'; Boethius, bk. ii. pr. 2, l. 17.

31. Cf. 'what eek yif my mutabilitee yiveth thee rightful cause of hope to han yit beter thinges?' id. l. 58.

32. Thy beste frend; possibly John of Gaunt, who died in 1399; but see note to l. 73 below. There is a curious resemblance here to Le Rom. de la Rose, 8056-60:—

34. Cf. 'For-why this like Fortune hath departed and uncovered to thee bothe the certein visages and eek the doutous visages of thy felawes... thow hast founden the moste precious kinde of richesses, that is to seyn, thy verray freendes'; Boeth. bk. ii. pr. 8, l. 25.

Cf. Rom. Rose (E. version), l. 5486, and ll. 5547-50. The French version has (ll. 4967, &c.):—

35. Vincent de Beauvais, Speculum Naturale, bk. 19, c. 62, headed De medicinis ex hyæna, cites the following from Hieronymus, Contra Iouinianum [lib. ii. Epist. Basileæ, 1524, ii. 74]:—'Hyænæ fel oculorum claritatem restituit,' the gall of a hyena restores the clearness of one's eyes. So also Pliny, Nat. Hist. bk. xxviii. c. 8. This exactly explains the allusion. Compare the extract from Boethius already quoted above, at the top of p. 543.

38. 'Still thine anchor holds.' From Boethius, bk. ii. pr. 4, l. 40:—whan that thyn ancres cleven faste, that neither wolen suffren the counfort of this tyme present, ne the hope of tyme cominge, to passen ne to faylen.'

39. 'Where Liberality carries the key of my riches.'

43. On, referring to, or, that is binding on.

46. Fortune says:—'I torne the whirlinge wheel with the torning cercle'; Boethius, bk. ii. pr. 2, l. 37.

47. 'My teaching is better, in a higher degree, than your affliction is, in its degree, evil'; i. e. my teaching betters you more than your affliction makes you suffer.

49. In this third Ballad, the stanzas are distributed between the Complainant and Fortune, one being assigned to the former, and two to the latter. The former says:—'I condemn thy teaching; it is (mere) adversity.' M. S. Arch. Seld. B. 10 has the heading 'Paupertas ad Fortunam.'

50. My frend, i. e. my true friend. In l. 51, thy frendes means 'the friends I owed to thee,' my false friends. From Boethius, bk. ii. pr. 8, l. 23:—'this aspre and horrible Fortune hath discovered to thee the thoughtes of thy trewe freendes;... Whan she departed awey fro thee, she took awey hir freendes and lafte thee thyne freendes.'

51. I thanke hit thee, I owe thanks to thee for it. But very likely hit has been inserted to fill up, and the right reading is, probably, I thank-e thee; as Koch suggests.

52. On presse, in a throng, in company, all together.

53. 'Their niggardliness, in keeping their riches to themselves, foreshews that thou wilt attack their stronghold; just as an unnatural appetite precedes illness.'

56. Cf. Rom. de la Rose, 19179:—

57. Here Fortune replies. This stanza is nearly made up of extracts from Boethius, bk. ii. pr. 2, transposed and rearranged. For the sake of comparison, I give the nearest equivalents, transposing them to suit the order here adopted.

'That maketh thee now inpacient ayeins me.... I norisshede thee with my richesses.... Now it lyketh me to with-drawen my hand ... shal I than only ben defended to usen my right?... The see hath eek his right to ben somtyme calme ... and somtyme to ben horrible with wawes.... Certes, it is leveful to the hevene to make clere dayes.... The yeer hath eek leve ... to confounden hem [the flowers] somtyme with reynes ... shal it [men's covetousness] binde me to ben stedefast?'

Compare also the defence of Fortune by Pandarus, in Troilus, bk. i. 841-854.

65. Above this stanza (ll. 65-72) all the MSS. insert a new heading, such as 'Le pleintif,' or 'Le pleintif encountre Fortune,' or 'The pleyntyff ageinst Fortune,' or 'Paupertas ad Fortunam.' But they are all wrong, for it is quite certain that this stanza belongs to Fortune. Otherwise, it makes no sense. Secondly, we know this by the original (in Boethius). And thirdly, Fortune cannot well have the 'envoy' unless she has the stanza preceding it. Dr. Morris, in his edition, rightly omits the heading; and so in Bell's edition.

66. Compare:—'For purviaunce is thilke divyne reson that is establisshed in the soverein prince of thinges; the whiche purviaunce disponeth alle thinges'; Boeth. bk. iv. pr. 6, l. 42.

68. Ye blinde bestes, addressed to men; evidently by Fortune, not by the Pleintif. Compare the words forth, beste, in the Balade on Truth, Sect. XIII. l. 18.

71. Here we have formal proof that the speaker is Fortune; for this is copied from Boethius, bk. ii. pr. 3, l. 60—'natheles the laste day of a mannes lyf is a manere deeth to Fortune.' Hence thy refers to man, and myn refers to Fortune; and the sense is—'Thy last day (O man) is the end of my interest (in thee)'; or 'dealings (with thee).' The word interesse, though scarce, is right. It occurs in Lydgate's Minor Poems, ed. Halliwell, p. 210; and in Spenser, F. Q. vii. 6. 33:—

And in Todd's Johnson:—'I thought, says his Majesty [K. Charles I.] I might happily have satisfied all interesses'; Lord Halifax's Miscell. p. 144. The sb. also occurs as Ital. interesse; thus Florio's Ital. Dict. (1598) has:—'Interesse, Interesso, the interest or profite of money for lone. Also, what toucheth or concerneth a mans state or reputation.' And Minsheu's Spanish Dict. (1623) has:—'Interes, or Interesse, interest, profite, auaile.' The E. vb. to interess was once common, and occurs in K. Lear, i. 1. 87 (unless Dr. Schmidt is right in condemning the reading of that line).

73. Princes. Who these princes were, it is hard to say; according to l. 76 (found in MS. I. only), there were three of them. If the reference is to the Dukes of Lancaster, York, and Gloucester, then the 'beste frend' must be the king himself. Cf. l. 33.

75, 76. 'And I (Fortune) will requite you for your trouble (undertaken) at my request, whether there be three of you, or two of you (that heed my words).' Line 76 occurs in MS. I. only, yet it is difficult to reject it, as it is not a likely sort of line to be thrust in, unless this were done, in revision, by the author himself. Moreover, we should expect the Envoy to form a stanza with the usual seven lines, so common in Chaucer, though the rime-arrangement differs.

77. 'And, unless it pleases you to relieve him of his pain (yourselves), pray his best friend, for the honour of his nobility, that he may attain to some better estate.'

The assigning of this petition to Fortune is a happy expedient. The poet thus escapes making a direct appeal in his own person.

XI. Merciless Beauty.

The title 'Mercilesse Beaute' is given in the Index to the Pepys MS. As it is a fitting title, and no other has been suggested, it is best to use it.

I think this Roundel was suggested by one written in French, in the thirteenth century, by Willamme d'Amiens, and printed in Bartsch, Chrestomathie de l'ancien Français. It begins—

i. e. I shall never be sated with gazing on the gray soft eyes which have slain me.

1. The MS. has Yowre two yen; but the scribe lets us see that this ill-sounding arrangement of the words is not the author's own; for in writing the refrain he writes 'Your yen, &c.' But we have further evidence: for the whole line is quoted in Lydgate's Ballade of our Ladie, printed in Chaucer's Works, ed. 1550, fol. 347 b, in the form—'Your eyen two wol slee me sodainly.' The same Ballad contains other imitations of Chaucer's language. Cf. also Kn. Tale, 260 and 709 (A 1118, 1567).

3. So woundeth hit ... kene, so keenly it (your beauty) wounds (me). The MS. has wondeth, which is another M. E. spelling of woundeth. Percy miscopied it wendeth, which gives but poor sense; besides, Chaucer would probably have used the contracted form went as his manner is. In l. 5, the scribe writes wound (better wounde).

4. And but, and unless. For word Percy printed words, quite forgetting that the M.E. plural is dissyllabic (word-es). The final d has a sort of curl to it, but a comparison with other words shews that it means nothing; it occurs, for instance, at the end of wound (l. 5), and escaped (l. 27).

Wounde (MS. wound) is dissyllabic in Mid. English, like mod. G. Wunde. See wunde in Stratmann.

6. I give two lines to the first refrain, and three to the second. The reader may give three lines to both, if he pleases; see note to sect. V, l. 675. We cannot confine the first refrain to one line only, as there is no stop at the end of l. 14.

8. Trouth-e is dissyllabic; see treouthe in Stratmann.

15. Ne availeth; with elided e. MS. nauailleth; Percy prints n'availeth.

16. Halt, i. e. holdeth; see Book of Duch. 621.

17. MS. han ye me, correctly; Percy omits me, and so spoils both sense and metre.

27. Lovers should be lean; see Romaunt of the Rose (E. version), 2684. The F. version has (l. 2561):—

28. MS neuere; Percy prints nere; but the syllables in his occupy the time of one syllable. I suspect that the correct reading is thenke ben; to is not wanted, and thenke is better with a final e, though it is sometimes dropped in the pres. indicative. Percy prints thinke, but the MS. has thenk; cf. AS. þencan. With l. 29 cf. Troil. v. 363.

31. I do no fors, I don't care; as in Cant. Ta. 6816 (D 1234).

XII. To Rosemounde.

This graceful Balade is a happy specimen of Chaucer's skill in riming. The metre is precisely that of 'Fortune,' resembling that of the Monkes Tale with the addition of a refrain; only the same rimes are used throughout. The formula is a b a b b c b c.

2. 'As far as the map of the world extends.' Mappemounde is the F. mappemonde, Lat. mappa mundi; it is used also by Gower, Conf. Amant. iii. 102.

9. tyne, a large tub; O. F. tine. The whole phrase occurs in the Chevalier au Cigne, as given in Bartsch, Chrest. Française, 350. 23:—'Le jour i ot plore de larmes plaine tine.' Cotgrave has:—'Tine, a Stand, open Tub, or Soe, most in use during the time of vintage, and holding about four or five pailfuls, and commonly borne, by a Stang, between two.' We picture to ourselves the brawny porters, staggering beneath the 'stang,' on which is slung the 'tine' containing the 'four or five pailfuls' of the poet's tears.

10. The poet, in all his despair, is sustained and refreshed by regarding the lady's beauty.

11. seemly, excellent, pleasing; this is evidently meant by the semy of the MS.

smal, fine in tone, delicate; perhaps treble. A good example occurs in the Flower and the Leaf, 180:—