House / Legend / Astrolabe

'And hys ymage ful feyre depeynte,

Ryȝt as he were a cors seynt.'

See also P. Plowman, B. v. 539; Morte Arthure, 1164; and (the spurious) Chaucer's Dream, 942.

118. 'To make that soft (or easy) which was formerly hard.' The allusion is humorous enough; viz. to the bonds of matrimony. Here again Chaucer follows Jean de Meun, Rom. de la Rose, 8871:—

'Mariages est maus liens,

Ainsinc m'aïst saint Juliens

Qui pelerins errans herberge,

Et saint Lienart qui defferge

Les prisonniers bien repentans,

Quant les voit à soi démentans';

i.e. 'Marriage is an evil bond—so may St. Julian aid me, who harbours wandering pilgrims; and St. Leonard, who frees from their fetters (lit. un-irons) such prisoners as are very repentant, when he sees them giving themselves the lie (or recalling their word).' The 'prisoners' are married people, who have repented, and would recall their plighted vow.

St. Leonard was the patron-saint of captives, and it was charitably hoped that he would extend his protection to the wretched people who had unadvisedly entered into wedlock, and soon prayed to get out of it again. They would thus exchange the hard bond for the soft condition of freedom. 'St. Julian is the patron of pilgrims; St. Leonard and St. Barbara protect captives'; Brand, Pop. Antiquities, i. 359. And, at p. 363 of the same, Brand quotes from Barnabee Googe:—

'But Leonerd of the prisoners doth the bandes asunder pull,

And breaks the prison-doores and chaines, wherewith his church is full.'

119. The MSS. have slept-e, which is dissyllabic. Read sleep, as in C. T. Prol. 397.

120. Hence the title of one of Lydgate's poems, The Temple of Glass, which is an imitation of the present poem.

130. Cf. the description of Venus' temple (Cant. Tales, A 1918), which is imitated from that in Boccaccio's Teseide.

133. Cf. 'naked fleting in the large see.... And on hir heed, ful semely for to see, A rose garland, fresh and wel smellinge'; Cant. Tales, A 1956.

138. Vulcano, Vulcan; note the Italian forms of these names. Boccaccio's Teseide has Cupido (vii. 54), and Vulcano (vii. 43). His face was brown with working at the forge.

143. A large portion of the rest of this First Book is taken up with a summary of the earlier part of Vergil's Aeneid. We have here a translation of the well-known opening lines:—

'Arma uirumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris

Italiam, fato profugus, Lauinia uenit

Littora.'

155. Made the hors broght, caused the horse to be brought. On this idiom, see the note to Man of Lawes Tale, B 171.

158. Ilioun, Ilium. Ilium is only a poetical name for Troy; but the medieval writers often use it in the restricted sense of the citadel of Troy, where was the temple of Apollo and the palace of Priam. Thus, in the alliterative Troy-book, 11958, ylion certainly has this sense; and Caxton speaks of 'the palays of ylyon'; see Spec. of English, ed. Skeat, p. 94. See also the parallel passage in the Nonne Preestes Tale, B 4546. Still more clearly, in the Leg. Good Women (Dido, 13), Chaucer says, of 'the tour of Ilioun,' that it 'of the citee was the cheef dungeoun.' In l. 163 below, it is called castel.

177. Iulus and Ascanius were one and the same person; see Æn. i. 267. Perhaps Ch. was misled by the wording of Æn. iv. 274. (On the other hand, Brutus was not the same person as Cassius; see Monkes Tale, B 3887). Hence, Koch proposes to read That hight instead of And eek; but we have no authority for this. However, Chaucer has it right in his Legend of Good Women, 941; and in l. 192 below, we find sone, not sones; hence l. 178 may be merely parenthetical.

184. 'So that she was dead, but I know not how.' Vergil does not say how she died.

198. Here Chaucer returns to the first book of the Æneid, which he follows down to l. 255.

219. Ioves, Jove, Jupiter. This curious form occurs again, ll. 586, 597, 630; see note to l. 586. Boccaccio has Giove.

226. Achatee (trisyllabic), Achates, Æn. i. 312; where the abl. form Achate occurs.

239. The story of Dido is told at length in Le Rom. de la Rose, 13378; in The Legend of Good Women; and in Gower, Conf. Amantis, bk. iv., ed. Pauli, ii. 4. Chaucer now passes on to the fourth book of the Æneid, till he comes to l. 268 below.

265. 'Mès ja ne verrés d'aparence Conclurre bonne consequence'; Rom. Rose, 12343.

272. 'It is not all gold that glistens.' A proverb which Chaucer took from Alanus de Insulis; see note to Can. Yem. Tale, G 962.

273. 'For, as sure as I hope to have good use of my head.' Brouke is, practically, in the optative mood. Cf. 'So mote I brouke wel myn eyen tweye'; Cant. Ta., B 4490; so also E 2308. The phrase occurs several times in the Tale of Gamelyn; see note to l. 334 of that poem.

280-3. These four lines occur in Thynne's edition only, but are probably quite genuine. It is easy to see why they dropped out; viz. owing to the repetition of the word finde at the end of ll. 279 and 283. This is a very common cause of such omissions. See note to l. 504.

290. 'He that fully knows the herb may safely lay it to his eye.' So in Cotgrave's Dict., s.v. Herbe, we find; 'L'herbe qu'on cognoist, on la doit lier à son doigt; Prov. Those, or that, which a man knowes best, he must use most.'

305. In the margin of MSS. F. and B. is here written:—'Cauete uos, innocentes mulieres.'

329. I have no hesitation in inserting I after Agilte, as it is absolutely required to complete the sense. Read—Agílt' I yów, &c.

350. 'Fama, malum quo non aliud uelocius ullum,' Æn. iv. 174; quoted in the margin of MSS. F. and B.

351. 'Nichil occultum quod non reueletur'; Matt. x. 26: quoted in the margin of MSS. F. and B.

359. Eft-sones, hereafter again. In the margin of MSS. F. and B. we here find:—'Cras poterunt turpia fieri sicut heri.' By reading fieri turpia, this becomes a pentameter; but it is not in Ovid, nor (I suppose) in classical Latin.

366. I read in for into (as in the MSS.). For similar instances, where the scribes write into for in, see Einenkel, Streifzüge durch die Mittelengl. Syntax, p. 145. Cf. l. 147.

367. In the margin of MSS. F. and B. is an incorrect quotation of Æn. iv. 548-9:—'tu prima furentem His, germana, malis oneras.'

381. Only Th. has the right reading, viz. And nere it to longe to endyte (where longe is an error for long). The expressions And nor hyt were and And nere it were are both ungrammatical. Nere = ne were, were it not.

388. In the margin of F. and B. we find:—'Nota: of many vntrewe louers. Hospita, Demaphoon, tua te R[h]odopeia Phyllis Vltra promissum tempus abesse queror.' These are the first two lines of Epistola ii. in Ovid's Heroides, addressed by Phyllis to Demophoon. All the examples here given are taken from the same work. Epist. iii. is headed Briseis Achilli; Epist. v., Oenone Paridi; Epist. vi., Hypsipyle Iasoni; Epist. xii., Medea Iasoni; Epist. ix., Deianira Herculi; Epist. x., Ariadne Theseo. These names were evidently suggested by the reference above to the same work, l. 379. See the long note to Group B, l. 61, in vol. v.

Demophoon, son of Theseus, was the lover of Phyllis, daughter of king Sithon in Thrace; she was changed into an almond-tree.

392. His terme pace, pass beyond or stay behind his appointed time. He said he would return in a month, but did not do so. See the story in The Legend of Good Women. Gower (ed. Pauli, iii. 361) alludes to her story, in a passage much like the present one; and in Le Rom. de la Rose, 13417, we have the very phrase—'Por le terme qu'il trespassa.'

397. In the margin of F. and B.:—'Ouidius. Quam legis a rapta Briseide litera venit'; Heroid. Ep. iii. 1.

401. In the same:—'Ut [miswritten Vbi] tibi Colc[h]orum memini regina uacaui'; Heroid. Ep. xii. 1. For the accentuation of Medea, cf. Leg. of Good Women, 1629, 1663.

402. In the margin of F. and B.:—'Gratulor Oechaliam'; Heroid. Ep. ix. 1; but Oechaliam is miswritten yotholia.

407. In F. and B. is quoted the first line of Ovid, Heroid. x. 1. Adriane, Ariadne; just as in Leg. Good Wom. 2171, &c., and in C. T., Group B, l. 67. Gower has Adriagne.

409. 'For, whether he had laughed, or whether he had frowned'; i.e. in any case. Cf. l. 98.

416. Yle, isle of Naxos; see notes to Leg. Good Wom. 2163, and C. T., Group B, l. 68 (in vol. v.).

426. Telles is a Northern and West-Midland form, as in Book Duch. 73. Cf. falles, id. 257. A similar admixture of forms occurs in Havelok, Will. of Palerne, and other M.E. poems.

434. Go, gone, set out; correctly used. Chaucer passes on to Æneid, bk. v. The tempest is that mentioned in Æn. v. 10; the steersman is Palinurus, who fell overboard; Æn. v. 860.

439. See Æn. bk. vi. The isle intended is Crete, Æn. vi. 14, 23; which was not at all near (or 'besyde') Cumæ, but a long way from it. Æneas then descends to hell, where he sees Anchises (vi. 679); Palinurus (337); Dido (450); Deiphobus, son of Priam (495); and the tormented souls (580).

449. Claudian, Claudius Claudianus, who wrote De raptu Proserpinae about A.D. 400. Daunte is Dante, with reference to his Inferno, ii. 13-27, and Paradiso, xv. 25-27.

482. This waste space corresponds to Dante's 'gran diserto,' Inf. i. 64; or, still better, to his 'landa' (Inf. xiv. 8), which was too sterile to support plants. So again, l. 486 corresponds to Dante's 'arena arida e spessa,' which has reference to the desert of Libya; Inf. xiv. 13.

487. 'As fine [said of the sand] as one may see still lying.' Jephson says yet must be a mistake, and would read yt. But it makes perfect sense. Cx. Th. read at eye (put for at yë) instead of yet lye, which is perhaps better. At yë means 'as presented to the sight'; see Kn. Ta., A 3016.

498. Kenne, discern. The offing at sea has been called the kenning; and see Kenning in Halliwell.

500. More, greater. Imitated from Dante, Purgat. ix. 19, which Cary translates thus:—

'Then, in a vision, did I seem to view

A golden-feather'd eagle in the sky,

With open wings, and hovering for descent.'

504-7. The omission of these lines in F. and B. is simply due to the scribe slipping from bright in l. 503 to brighte in l. 507. Cf. note to l. 280.

BOOK II.

511. Listeth, pleases, is pleased; the alteration (in MS. F.) to listeneth is clearly wrong, and due to confusion with herkneth above. (I do not think listeth is the imp. pl. here.)

514. Isaye, Isaiah; actually altered, in various editions, to I saye, as if it meant 'I say.' The reference is to 'the vision of Isaiah'; Isa. i. 1; vi. 1. Scipioun, Scipio; see note to Parl. Foules, 31, and cf. Book of the Duch. 284.

515. Nabugodonosor, Nebuchadnezzar. The same spelling occurs in the Monkes Tale (Group B, 3335), and is a mere variant of the form Nabuchodonosor in the Vulgate version, Dan. i-iv. Gower has the same spelling; Conf. Amant. bk. i., near the end.

516. Pharo; spelt Pharao in the Vulgate, Gen. xli. 1-7. See Book of the Duchesse, 280-3.

Turnus; alluding to his vision of Iris, the messenger of Juno; Æneid ix. 6. Elcanor; this name somewhat resembles Elkanah (in the Vulgate, Elcana), 1 Sam. i. 1; but I do not know where to find any account of his vision, nor do I at all understand who is meant. The name Alcanor occurs in Vergil, but does not help us.

518. Cipris, Venus, goddess of Cyprus; called Cipryde in Parl. Foules, 277. Dante has Ciprigna; Par. viii. 2.

519. Favour, favourer, helper, aid; not used in the ordinary sense of Lat. fauor, but as if it were formed from O.F. faver, Lat. fauere, to be favourable to. Godefroy gives an example of the O.F. verb faver in this sense.

521. Parnaso; the spelling is imitated from the Ital. Parnaso, i.e. Parnassus, in Dante, Par. i. 16. So also Elicon is Dante's Elicona, i.e. Helicon, Purg. xxix. 40. But the passage in Dante which Chaucer here especially imitates is that in Inf. ii. 7-9:—

'O Muse, o alto ingegno, or m' aiutate;

O mente, che scrivesti ciò ch' io vidi,

Qui si parrà la tua nobilitate.'

'O Muses! O high genius, now vouchsafe

Your aid. O mind, that all I saw hast kept

Safe in a written record, here thy worth

And eminent endowments come to proof.'

Hence ye in l. 520 answers to Dante's Muse, the Muses; and Thought in l. 523 answers to Dante's mente, Cf. also Parad. xviii. 82-87. And see the parallel passage in Anelida, 15-19.

The reason why Chaucer took Helicon to be a well rather than a mountain is because Dante's allusion to it is dubiously worded; see Purg. xxix. 40.

528. Engyn is accented on the latter syllable, as in Troil. ii. 565, iii. 274.

'Poi mi parea che, più rotata un poco,

Terribil come fulgor discendesse,

E me rapisse suso infino al foco.'

'A little wheeling in his aëry tour,

Terrible as the lightning, rushed he down,

And snatch'd me upward even to the fire.'

But Chaucer follows still more closely, and verbally, a passage in Machault's Jugement du Roi de Navarre, ed. Tarbé, 1849, p. 72, which has the words—

'la foudre

Que mainte ville mist en poudre';

i.e. literally, 'the foudre (thunder-bolt) which reduces many a town to powder.' Machault nearly repeats this; ed. Tarbé, p. 97.

Curiously enough, almost the same words occur in Boethius, bk. i. met. 4, where Chaucer's translation has:—'ne þe wey of thonder-leyt, that is wont to smyten heye toures.' It hence appears that Chaucer copies Machault, and Machault translates Boethius. There are some curious M.E. verses on the effects of thunder in Popular Treatises on Science, ed. Wright, p. 136.

Foudre represents the Lat. fulgur. One of the queer etymologies of medieval times is, that fulgur is derived a feriendo; Vincent of Beauvais, Spec. Nat. iv. 59. It was held to be quite sufficient that both fulgur and ferire begin with f.

537. Brende, was set on fire; cf. l. 163. The idea is that of a falling thunderbolt, which seems to have been conceived of as being a material mass, set on fire by the rapidity of its passage through the air; thus confusing the flash of lightning with the fall of a meteoric stone. See Mr. Aldis Wright's note on thunder-stone, Jul. Cæs. i. 3. 49.

543. Hente, caught. We find a similar use of the word in an old translation of Map's Apocalypsis Goliæ, printed in Morley's Shorter Eng. Poems, p. 13:—

'And by and by I fell into a sudden trance,

And all along the air was marvellously hent.'

544. Sours, sudden ascent, a springing aloft. It is well illustrated by a passage in the Somp. Tale (D 1938):—

'Therfor, right as an hauk up, at a sours,

Up springeth into their, right so prayeres

Of charitable and chaste bisy freres

Maken hir sours to Goddes eres two.'

It is precisely the same word as M.E. sours, mod. E. source, i.e. rise, spring (of a river). Etymologically, it is the feminine of O.F. sors, pp. of sordre, to rise (Lat. surgere). At a later period, the r was dropped, and the word was strangely confused in sound with the verb souse, to pickle. Moreover, the original sense of 'sudden ascent' was confused with that of 'sudden descent,' for which the correct term was (I suppose) swoop. Hence the old verb to souse, in the sense 'to swoop down,' or 'to pounce upon,' or 'to strike,' as in Shak. K. John, v. 2. 150; Spenser, F. Q. i. 5. 8; iii. 4. 16; iv. 3. 19. 25; iv. 4. 30; iv 5. 36; iv. 7. 9. The sense of 'downward swoop' is particularly clear in Spenser, F. Q. ii. 11. 36:—

'Eft fierce retourning, as a faulcon fayre,

That once hath failed of her souse full neare,

Remounts againe into the open ayre,

And unto better fortune doth her-selfe prepayre.'

Such is the simple solution of the etymology of Mod. E. souse, as used by Pope (Epilogue to Satires, Dial. ii. 15)—'Spread thy broad wing, and souse on all the kind.'

557. Cf. Dante, Inf. ii. 122:—'Perchè tanta viltà nel core allette?' Also Purg. ix. 46:—'Non aver tema.'

562. 'One that I could name.' This personal allusion can hardly refer to any one but Chaucer's wife. The familiar tone recalls him to himself; yet the eagle's voice sounded kindly, whereas the poet sadly tells us that his wife's voice sounded far otherwise: 'So was it never wont to be.' See Ward's Chaucer, pp. 84, 85; and cf. l. 2015 below. Perhaps Chaucer disliked to hear the word 'Awak!'

573. It would appear that, in Chaucer, sëynt is sometimes dissyllabic; but it may be better here to use the feminine form seynt-e, as in l. 1066. Observe the rime of Márie with cárie.

586. Ioves, Jove, Jupiter; cf. l. 597. This remarkable form occurs again in Troil. ii. 1607, where we find the expression 'Ioves lat him never thryve'; and again in Troil. iii. 3—'O Ioves doughter dere'; and in Troil. iii. 15, where Ioves is in the accusative case. The form is that of an O.F. nominative; cf. Charles, Jacques, Jules.

Stellifye, make into a constellation; 'whether will Jupiter turn me into a constellation.' This alludes, of course, to the numerous cases in which it was supposed that such heroes as Hercules and Perseus, or such heroines as Andromeda and Callisto were changed into constellations: see Kn. Tale, A 2058. Cf. 'No wonder is thogh Iove hir stellifye'; Leg. Good Women, prol. 525. Skelton uses the word (Garland of Laurell, 963); and it is given in Palsgrave.

588. Perhaps imitated from Dante, Inf. ii. 32, where Dante says that he is neither Æneas nor Paul. Chaucer here refers to various men who were borne up to heaven, viz. Enoch (Gen. v. 24), Elijah (2 Kings ii. 11), Romulus, and Ganymede. Romulus was carried up to heaven by Mars; Ovid, Metam. xiv. 824; Fasti, ii. 475-512. Ganymede was carried up to heaven by Jupiter in the form of an eagle; cf. Vergil, Æn. i. 28, and see Ovid, Metam. x. 160, where Ovid adds:

'qui nunc quoque pocula miscet,

Invitaque Iovi nectar Iunone ministrat.'

In the passage in Dante (Purg. ix. 19-30), already alluded to above (note to l. 534), there is a reference to Ganymede (l. 23).

592. Boteler, butler. No burlesque is here intended. 'The idea of Ganymede being butler to the gods appears ludicrous to us, who are accustomed to see the office performed by menial servants. But it was not so in the middle ages. Young gentlemen of high rank carved the dishes and poured out the wine at the tables of the nobility, and grace in the performance of these duties was highly prized. One of the oldest of our noble families derives its surname from the fact that its founder was butler to the king'; Bell. So also, the royal name of Stuart is merely steward.

618. I supply goddesse, to complete the line. Cf. 'In worship of Venús, goddésse of love'; Kn. Tale, A 1904; and again, 'goddésse,' id. A 1101, 2.

621. The necessity for correcting lytel to lyte is obvious from the rime, since lyte is rimes with dytees. Chaucer seems to make lyte dissyllabic; it rimes with Arcite, Kn. Ta., A 1334, 2627; and with hermyte in l. 659 below. In the present case, the e is elided—lyt'is. For similar rimes, cf. nones, noon is, C. T. Prol. 523; beryis, mery is, Non. Pr. Ta., B 4155; swevenis, swevene is, id. B 4111.

623. In a note to Cant. Ta. 17354 (I 43), Tyrwhitt says that perhaps cadence means 'a species of poetical composition distinct from riming verses.' But it is difficult to shew that Chaucer ever composed anything of the kind, unless it can be said that his translation of Boethius or his Tale of Melibeus is in a sort of rhythmical prose. It seems to me just possible that by rime may here be meant the ordinary riming of two lines together, as in the Book of the Duchess and the House of Fame, whilst by cadence may be meant lines disposed in stanzas, as in the Parliament of Foules. There is nothing to shew that Chaucer had, at this period, employed the 'heroic verse' of the Legend of Good Women. However, we find the following quotation from Jullien in Littré's Dictionary, s.v. Cadence:—'Dans la prose, dans les vers, la cadence n'est pas autre chose que le rhythme ou le nombre: seulement on y joint ordinairement l'idée d'une certaine douceur dans le style, d'un certain art dans l'arrangement des phrases ou dans le choix des mots que le rhythme proprement dit ne suppose pas du tout.' This is somewhat oracular, as it is difficult to see why rhythm should not mean much the same thing.

637. 'And describest everything that relates to them.' (Here hir = their), with reference to lovers.

639-40. 'Although thou mayst accompany those whom he is not pleased to assist.' Nearly repeated in Troilus, i. 517, 518.

652. In a note upon the concluding passage of the Cant. Tales, Tyrwhitt says of the House of Fame:—'Chaucer mentions this among his works in the Leg. Good Women, verse 417. He wrote it while he was Comptroller of the Custom of Wools, &c. (see Bk. ii. l. 144-8 [the present passage]), and consequently after the year 1374.' See Ward's Chaucer, pp. 76, 77, with its happy reference to Charles Lamb and his 'works'; and compare a similar passage in the Prol. to Legend of Good Women, 30-6.

—'and I, thy guide,

Will lead thee hence through an eternal space.'

678. Long y-served, faithfully served for a long time, i.e. after a long period of devotion; alluding to the word servant in the sense of lover.

681. Alluding to sudden fallings in love, especially 'at first sight.' Such take place at haphazard; as if a blind man should accidentally frighten a hare, without in the least intending it. We find in Hazlitt's collection of Proverbs—'The hare starts when a man least expects it'; p. 373.

682. Iolytee and fare, happiness and good speed. The very same words are employed, but ironically, by Theseus in the Knight's Tale, A 1807, 1809. The hare also accompanies them; id. A 1810.

683. 'As long as they find love to be as true as steel.' Cf. Troilus, iv. 325:—'God leve that ye finde ay love of steel.'

689. 'And more beards made in two hours,' &c. 'Yet can a miller make a clerkes berd'; (Reves Tale), C. T., A 4096. 'Yet coude I make his berd'; C. T., D 361. Tyrwhitt's note on the former passage is: 'make a clerkes berd,' i.e. cheat him. Faire la barbe is to shave, or trim the beard; but Chaucer translates the phrase literally, at least when he uses it in its metaphorical sense. Boccace has the same metaphor, Decamerone, viii. 10. Speaking of some exorbitant cheats, he says that they applied themselves 'non a radere, ma a scorticare huomini' [not to shave men, but to scarify them]; and a little lower—'si a soavemente la barbiera saputo menare il rasoio' [so agreeably did the she-barber know how to handle the razor]. Barbiera has a second and a bad sense; see Florio's Dictionary.

'Myght I thaym have spyde,

I had made thaym a berd.'

Towneley Mysteries, p. 144.

692. Holding in hond means keeping in hand, attaching to oneself by feigned favours; just as to bear in hand used to mean to make one believe a thing; see my note to Man of Lawes Tale, B 620.

695. Lovedayes, appointed days of reconciliation; see note in vol. v. to Chaucer's Prol. 258, and my note to P. Plowman, B. iii. 157. 'What, quod she, maked I not a louedaie bitwene God and mankind, and chese a maide to be nompere [umpire], to put the quarell at ende?' Test. of Love, bk. i. ed. 1561, fol. 287.

696. Cordes, chords. Apparently short for acordes, i.e. musical chords, as Willert suggests. It is rather a forced simile, like cornes in l. 698.

712. Thyn owne book, i.e. the book you are so fond of, viz. Ovid's Metamorphoses, which Chaucer quotes so continually. Libraries in those days were very small (Cant. Ta. Prol. 294); but we may be almost certain that Chaucer had a copy of the Metamorphoses of his own. The reference here is to Ovid's description of the House of Fame, Metam. xii. 39-63. See Golding's translation of this passage in the Introduction.

730. This passage is founded on one in Boethius; cf. Chaucer's translation, bk. iii. pr. 11, ll. 98-110. Imitated also in Le Rom. de la Rose, 16963-9. Cf. Dante, Par. i. 109, which Cary thus translates:—