i.e. Zephirus and his wife Flora, who is the goddess and lady of flowers, these two make the little flowers grow. See Book of the Duchesse, 402; and the note upon it.

184. 'The daisy, or, otherwise, the eye of day'; see note to l. 43.

186. 'I pray that she may fall fairly,' that she may light upon good fortune. All the MSS. have she; otherwise we might read her, as such is the more usual idiom, in which case it would mean—'that it may befall her fairly.' We have a similar case in the Manciple's Prologue, H 40, where six MSS. have the usual idiom 'foule mot thee falle,' whilst the Ellesmere MS. alone has 'foule mot thou falle.' For a similar variation, cf. l. 277 below with A. 180, i.e. with the corresponding line in the earlier text.

191. 'For, as regards me, neither of them is dearer or more hateful than the other; I am not yet retained on the side of either of them.' The sense with-holden is detained, kept back, hence reserved to one side, committed to a particular view.

195. Thing = werk (A. 79), i.e. poem. Of another tonne, out of quite a different cask. Cf. 'Nay, thou shalt drinken of another tonne Er that I go'; C. T., D 170. Cf. Rom. Rose (French Text), 6838.

196. Swich thing, such a thing as the strife between the Leaf and the Flower. The A-text (l. 80) helps us here, as it reads 'swich stryf.'

203. Herber, an arbour. This difficult word is fully explained in the New E. Dict., s.v. arbour. It is there shewn that the original sense of the M.E. herber or erber was 'a plot of ground covered with grass or turf; a garden-lawn or green.' In the Medulla Grammatices, ab. 1460, we find:—'Viretum, locus pascualis virens, a gres-yerd, or an herber.' Subsequently it meant a herb-garden or flower-garden; a fruit-garden or orchard; trees or shrubs trained on frame-work; and then a bower, or 'shady retreat, of which the sides and roof are formed by trees and shrubs closely planted or intertwined, or of lattice-work covered with climbing shrubs and plants, as ivy, vine, &c.' Dr. Murray remarks that 'the original characteristic of the arbour seems to have been the floor and benches of herbage [as here]; in the modern idea the leafy covering is the prominent feature.'

The present passage was imitated and amplified by the authoress of The Flower and the Leaf, beginning at l. 49:—

So too, in the Assembly of Ladies, st. 7:—

208. Hed, hidden. This rare form occurs again in Will. of Palerne, 688. The usual M.E. forms are hud and hid. Similarly Chaucer uses ken for 'kin' in Book Duch. 438, the usual M.E. forms being kun and kin; and we find ken also in Will. of Palerne, 722. These forms are Southern, and mostly Kentish.

213. The god of love, Cupid; cf. Parl. Foules, 212. Cf. the description in the E. version of the Rom. of the Rose, ll. 890, 1003.

In his hande, i.e. leading by the hand; see l. 241.

A quene, a queen, viz. Alcestis, as we afterwards learn. She is so clothed as to represent a daisy; hence her green dress, golden hair-ornament or caul, and white crown; see l. 218, and note to l. 227.

215. Fret here means a caul of gold wire. They were sometimes set with stones. Cf. Rom. Rose, 1108, and The Flower and the Leaf, 152:—'A riche fret of gold,' &c. See Fairholt, Costume in England.

217. The pause after smale saves the final e from elision. See examples in the Cant. Tales, B 2153, 3281, 3989; &c. We may translate the phrase and I shal nat lye by 'if I am not to lie'; see l. 357, and the note.

221. Oriental, eastern; here, of superior quality. 'The precious stones called by lapidaries oriental ruby, oriental topaz, oriental amethyst, and oriental emerald are red, yellow, violet, and green sapphires, distinguished from the other gems of the same name which have not the prefix oriental, by their greatly superior hardness, and greater specific gravity'; Engl. Cyclopædia, s.v. Adamantine Spar. Cf. P. Plowman, B. 2. 14.

223. For which, by means of which, whereby.

227. In the Rom. of the Rose the 'god of love' is said to be clothed 'not in silk, but all in flowers'; his garment was all covered with flowers, intermingled with rose-leaves; and he had a chaplet of red roses upon his head. See the E. version, l. 890. In l. 228, fret means merely 'ornament' or 'border' of embroidery, whereas in l. 215 it is used in the sense of a caul or net worn on the head. The A-text (160) has garlond, and adds that lilies were stuck about among the rose-leaves. Moreover, a 'rose-leaf' here means a petal, or it would not be described as red. Greves is properly 'groves or bushes,' but must here mean sprays or small boughs.

231. For hevinesse, to save him from the heaviness and weight of gold. The peculiar use of for in the sense of 'against,' or 'to prevent,' should be noticed. See the note to Sir Thopas, B 2052.

242. Corouned is pronounced as Coróun'd.

—A. 179. Notice this mention of Alcestis in the A-text. This is altered in the later version, so that the poet does not know who the queen is till l. 511, though she actually announces herself in l. 432. See note to l. 255 (B.) below.

249. Absolon, Absalom; remarkable for the beauty of his hair; see 2 Sam. xiv. 26. Cf. 'Absalom o ses treces soves'; Rom. de la Rose, 14074. I have little doubt that the general idea of this Ballade is taken from one quoted from MS. du Roi, à Paris (fonds de Saint-Victor, no. 275, fol. 45, recto, col. 2), by M. Michel, in his edition of Tristan, i. lxxxviii. It begins as follows:—

The refrain being, as before, 'Con est ma très doulce dame d'onnour.'

250. Ester, Esther; cited as an example of 'debonairte' in the Book of the Duch. 986; see also C. T., E 1371, 1744 (Merch. Tale); and the Tale of Melibeus, B 2291.

251. Ionathas, Jonathan; remarkable for his 'friendliness' towards David; 1 Sam. xix. 2.

252. Penalopee, Penelope, wife of Ulysses; see the note to Book of the Duch. 1081; and Ovid, Her. i. Marcia Catoun, formerly said to be Marcia, wife of M. Cato Uticensis [not Cato the Censor, as Bell says]. Bell notes that 'her complaisance, apparently, in consenting to be lent to Cato's friend, Hortensius, is the ground of her praise in this place.' Gilman refers us to Clough's tr. of Plutarch, iv. 394, where the story is given. This, however, is not the right solution. Prof. Lounsbury (Studies in Chaucer, ii. 294) points out that the reference is clearly to Marcia, daughter of the same Cato, because Chaucer got the story from Hieronymus contra Iovinianum (i. 46), where we find:—'Marcia Catonis filia minor, quum quæreretur ab ea, cur post amissum maritum, denuo non nuberet, respondit, non se inuenire uirum, qui se magis vellet quam sua.' A much better example would have been her sister Porcia, the devoted wife of Marcus Brutus (Jul. Cæsar, ii. 1).

254. Isoude, the heroine of the romance of Sir Tristram; see Parl. of Foules, 288 (and the note on the line); also Ho. Fame, 1796. Eleyne, Helen, heroine of the Trojan war.

255. Note how the original refrain of this Balade, beginning 'Alceste is here,' is altered to 'My lady cometh'; in order to prevent the premature mention of Alcestis' name. See note to A. 179 above, following the note to l. 242. Disteyne, bedim; viz. by outshining them.

257. Lavyne, Lavinia, the heroine of the latter part of the Æneid; cf. Book of the Duch. 331; Ho. Fame, 458. Lucresse, Lucretia of Rome, whose 'Legend' is related at length below; l. 1680. Cf. Cant. Tales, F 1405.

258. Polixene, Polyxena, daughter of Priam, who, like Lucretia, bought love too dearly; for she was sacrificed on the tomb of Achilles, according to Ovid, Met. xiii. 448. But according to Guido delle Colonne, whom Chaucer probably regarded as a better authority, she was slain by Pyrrhus. Cf. Book of the Duch. 1071. Note also:—'Alas, your love, I bye hit al to dere'; Anelida, 255.

259. Cleopatre, Cleopatra; whose Legend is the first of the series below: l. 580.

261. Tisbe, Thisbe; whose Legend follows that of Cleopatra; l. 706.

263. Herro, Hero of Sestos, beloved by Leander; see Ovid, Her. xviii, xix. Spelt Erro, Pref. to Man of Law, B 69; whence we learn that the Legend of Hero was intended to be one of the set. Dido; whose Legend occurs below; l. 924. Laudomia, Laodamia, wife of Protesilaus; see Ovid, Her. xiii. Spelt Ladomea, and accented (as here) on the o; Pref. to Man of Law, B 71. And see Cant. Tales, F 1445.

264. Phyllis; whose Legend occurs at l. 2394.

265. Canace, daughter of Æolus, beloved by Macareus; see Ovid, Her. xi. See Pref. to Man of Law, B 78; whence we learn that Chaucer had no intention of including her Legend in the set, but expressly rejected it. Chere, sad countenance.

266. Ysiphile, Hypsipyle; whose Legend occurs at l. 1368.

268. Ypermistre, Hypermnestra; whose Legend occurs at l. 2562.

Adriane, Ariadne; whose Legend occurs at l. 1886.

For further remarks, see my long note to the Man of Law's Tale, B 61.

270. Bell remarks that the above beautiful Balade has been often imitated; and cites a poem by Surrey with the title 'A Praise of his Love, wherein he reproveth them that compare their ladies with his,' and beginning—'Geue place, ye louers, here before That spent your bostes and bragges in vaine.' See Tottell's Miscellany, ed. Arber, p. 20. Another such poem occurs in the same collection, at p. 163; beginning—'Geue place, you Ladies, and begon'; this, it appears, was written by John Heywood; Warton, Hist. E. Poet. (1840), iii. 56 (note). With respect to Surrey's verses, Warton (Hist. E. P. 1840, iii. 33) remarks that 'the leading compliment, which has been used by later writers, is in the spirit of Italian fiction.' But it is probable that we here see Surrey's original before us. Among the beautiful songs on this theme, we should not neglect 'You meaner beauties of the night,' by Sir Henry Wotton. Cf. ll. 274, 275 below.

271. By, with respect to. My lady is the queen Alcestis, whose name Chaucer is supposed not to know as yet. See l. 432.

277. See note to l. 186 above.

278. Nadde = ne hadde. 'For, had not the comfort of her presence existed.' We should now say, 'Had it not been for the comfort.' Cf. Spec. Eng. Literature, pt. iii. note to § xv (b). l. 96.

295. For the nones, for the once, for this special occasion. See the note to Chaucer's Prologue, l. 379. The phrase was first explained, carefully and fully, by Price, in a note to Warton's Hist. Eng. Poet. ed. 1840, ii. 74, 75.

298. 'That bears away the prize from us all in external beauty or figure.' Our alder, of us all; where our = A.S. úre, gen. pl. of the first personal pronoun, and alder is a more emphatic form of aller (A.S. ealra), gen. pl. of all. See Chaucer's Prol. 586, 710, 799, 823. Hence alderliefest, dearest of all, in 2 Hen. VI. i. 1. 28; probably borrowed from alderlevest in Chaucer's Troilus, v. 576 (in vol. ii.). Prof. Corson cites altherbeste, best of all, from Gower, C. A. ed. Pauli, i. 106; althermest, most of all, from the same, i. 147; althertrewest, id. i. 176; altherwerst, id. i. 53. In Chaucer's Minor Poems the reader will find our alder, of us all, ABC, 84; also alderbeste, Book Duch. 246; alderfaireste, id. 1050; and aldernext, Parl. Foules, 244.

300. A-compas enviroun, in a circle, all round about.

304. By and by, one after another, in order; see the New E. Dict.

307. Furlong-wey, lit. two minutes and a-half; or the time of walking a furlong, at 3 miles an hour. See Anelida, 328; Ho. Fame, 2064.

314. Hit am I, it is I; the usual M.E. idiom. See Kn. Tale, A 1736; Man of Law's Tale, B 1109, and note. Him neer, nearer to him: neer is the comparative of neh or nigh; cf. l. 316.

318. Dante has 'che noi siam vermi'; Purg. x. 124.

323. Servaunt in Chaucer frequently means 'lover'; such is necessarily the case here.

329. Chaucer here certainly seems to imply that he translated the whole of the Romance of the Rose, or at any rate that part of it which is especially directed against women. The existing English version consists of three fragments, apparently by different authors, and I see little reason for connecting more than fragment A (ll. 1-1705) with Chaucer. None of the fragments contain such passages as the God of Love would most have objected to; but we find some of them practically reproduced in the Prologue to the Wyf of Bathes Tale. We also find numerous imitations of passages from that poem scattered up and down throughout Chaucer's works; and it is remarkable that such passages usually lie outside the contents of the English fragments. Where they do not, Chaucer frequently varies from the English version of the Romance. Thus where Chaucer (Book Duch. 419) has:—

the Eng. version of the Rom. of the Rose (1391) has:—

We may here note the variation between ten foot or twelve and five fadom or six; the original has cinq toises, ou de sis. Other passages in the Book of the Duchesse which resemble the existing E. version of the Rom. of the Rose are these. (1) Book Duch. 424; cf. R. R. 1396. (2) Book Duch. 291; cf. R. R. 49. (3) Book Duch. 410; cf. R. R. 59. (4) Book Duch. 283; R. R. 7. (5) Book Duch. 340; R. R. 130. (6) Book Duch. 1152; R. R. 2084.

For a fuller discussion of this question, see the Pref. to Ch. Minor Poems, in vol. i. p. 1.

—A. 260. Paramours seems to be an adverb here, meaning 'with a lover's affection.' So in the Kn. Tale, A 1155:—

And again, in A 2112:—

So also in Troilus, v. 158, 332, and in Barbour's Bruce, xiii. 485—'he lufit his [Ross's] sistir paramouris.' Tyrwhitt quotes from Froissart, bk. i. c. 196—'Il aima adonc par amours, et depuis espousa, Madame Ysabelle de Juiliers.'

The following phrase 'too hard and hot' merely intensifies the sense of paramours.

332. Criseyde. The allusion is to Chaucer's long poem entitled Troilus and Criseyde (or Creseyde). The A-text is more outspoken here, as it alludes to the inconstancy of the heroine in direct terms.

—A. 280. Valerie, Valerius; see note to A. 281 below.

Titus; Titus Livius; see l. 1683, and the note. Claudian; Claudius Claudianus, who wrote, amongst other things, a poem De Raptu Proserpinae, to which Chaucer refers; see Ho. Fame, 449, 1509. He flourished about A.D. 400.

—A. 281. Ierome; Hieronymus, usually known as St. Jerome, a celebrated father of the Latin Church; died Sept. 30, 420. In the Wyf of Bathes Prologue (C. T. 6251, Group D, l. 669) we find:—

In Tyrwhitt's Introductory discourse, he says of this Prologue—'The greatest part must have been of Chaucer's own invention, though one may plainly see he had been reading the popular invectives against marriage and women in general; such as, the Roman de la Rose; Valerius ad Rufinum de non ducenda uxore; and particularly Hieronymus contra Iovinianum.' He adds, in a note—'The holy Father, by way of recommending celibacy, has exerted all his learning and eloquence (and he certainly was not deficient in either) to collect together and aggravate whatever he could find to the prejudice of the female sex. Among other things he has inserted his own translation (probably) of a long extract from what he calls "Liber aureolus Theophrasti de nuptiis."

'Next to him in order of time was the treatise entitled Epistola Valerii ad Rufinum de non ducenda uxore (MS. Reg. 12 D. iii.). It has been printed, for the similarity of its contents, I suppose, among the works of St. Jerome, though it is evidently of a much later date.... To these two books Jean de Meun has been obliged for some of the severest strokes in his [part of the] Roman de la Rose; and Chaucer has transfused the quintessence of all the three works, upon the subject of Matrimony, into his Wife of Bathes Prologue and Merchant's Tale.'

Tyrwhitt further observes that the Epistola Valerii was written, according to Tanner, by Walter Map; of this there appears to be no doubt. Lounsbury (Studies, ii. 276) takes Valerie to mean Valerius Maximus, which is here improbable.

It is, at first, not very clear why the God of Love is here represented as appealing to books against women; but we are bidden to observe that, even there, good women are incidentally mentioned; see A. 284. Even Valerius praises Lucretia and Penelope.

—A. 288. Cf. the long passage in the Franklein's Tale about chaste women; C. T. 11676-11766 (F 1364-1456). It is nearly all taken from Jerome.

—A. 305. Epistels rather than epistelle in the singular. The reference is to Ovid's Heroides, which contains twenty-one love-letters. Cf. Chaucer's Introd. to Man of Law, B 55, where he alludes to Ovid's mention of lovers 'in his Epistelles.'

—A. 307. Vincent is Vincent of Beauvais, who compiled an encyclopædia of universal knowledge in the 13th century. One portion of this great work, treating of universal history, is called Speculum Historiale, which Chaucer has here turned into Storial Mirour. See Lounsbury's Studies in Chaucer, ii. 375.

338. As Chaucer is pleased to call his poem by the name of 'seintes legende of Cupyde' in the Introd. to Man of Law, B 61, he here turns Venus into a saint, to keep up the analogy between his present undertaking and the Legenda Sanctorum. But John de Meun had previously said much the same thing. In Le Rom. de la Rose, 10863, Cupid is made to swear 'par sainte Venus ma mere.' See the Eng. version, l. 5953. (Perhaps read seynte in Text B.)

343. In accordance with the proverb—'Audi alteram partem.' See A. 325. Cf. Seneca, Medea, 195.

348. 'And even if you were not an omniscient god.'

352. From the Rom. of the Rose; the E. version has (ll. 1050, 1):—

Again repeated in Cant. Tales, B 4515-8.

353. Totelere (C. totulour), tattling; properly a sb., meaning 'tattler,' but here used in apposition, and, practically, as an adjective. Tyrwhitt explains it by 'whisperer.' Halliwell quotes 'Be no totiler' from MS. Bibl. Reg. 17 B. xvii. fol. 141. It clearly means a gossiping tattler, or tale-bearer.

The word is scarce, but we find a helpful passage in P. Plowman, B. xx. 297:—

Here tyterers means gossipers, or retailers of tittle-tattle; and various readings give the forms titeleris (as printed by Wright) and tutelers (as printed by Crowley). The last form tuteler is clearly identical with Chaucer's totelere, spelt tutelere in MS. Arch. Selden B. 24.

357. 'These are the causes why, if I am not to lie'; &c. See note to l. 217.

358. Lavender, laundress, washerwoman; (Bell's interpretation of 'gutter' is utter nonsense). See Laundress in my Etym. Dict., where I refer to the present passage. Laundress is formed by adding -ess to launder or laundre, the contracted form of lavender as here used. In Barbour's Bruce, ed. Skeat, xvi. 273, 292, the word for 'washerwoman' is spelt lauender, laynder, and landar. Palsgrave's Eng. and Fr. Dict. gives—'Laundre, that wassheth clothes; lauendiere'; and Cotgrave explains the Fr. lauandiere by the Eng. launderesse. Chaucer's presentation to us of Envy as the person who washes all the dirty linen in the court, is particularly happy. As a matter of fact, he is here quoting Dante, but he has substituted lavender (perhaps in an ill sense, though I do not feel sure of this) for the meretrice of the original. The passage referred to is in the Inferno, xiii. 64:—

Cary's translation has:—

Gower (C. A. ed. Pauli, i. 263) says:—

Note that parteth in l. 359 means 'departeth.'

361. 'Whoever goes away, at any rate she will not be wanting.' Men come and go, but Envy remains. This is the right sense; but Bell, whom Prof. Corson follows, gives it quite a false twist. He says, 'Whosoever goes, i.e. falls, she will not be in want'; a desperate and unmeaning solution, due to not appreciating the force of the verb to want, which here simply means 'to be absent,' and can be applied to persons as well as to things. 'There wanteth but a mean to fill your song'; Two Gent. of Verona, i. 2. 295; 'though bride and bridegroom wants,' i.e. are absent, Tam. Shrew, iii. 2. 248: 'There wanteth now our brother of Gloucester here'; Rich. III. ii. 1. 43.

364. 'But only because he is accustomed to write poems.'

366. 'Or it was enjoined him by some patron to compose those two poems (the Romaunce of the Rose and Troilus; see A. 344); and he did not dare to refuse.'

371. As thogh that, as he would have done if.

372. And had, i.e. and had composed it all himself.

374. 'The allusion is to the several successful adventurers, like the Visconti, who in the 13th and 14th centuries succeeded in seizing upon the governments of Milan, and other free cities of Lombardy'; Bell. See the article Visconti in the Eng. Cyclopædia; we are there referred to Verri, Storia di Milano, and to Muratori, Annali d' Italia. Cf. Dante, Inf. xxviii. 74, 81; and see Chaucer's reference to 'Barnabo Viscounte' in the Monkes Tale, B 3589.

375. Reward at, regard to. Reward and regard are etymologically identical. Observe the accent on the former syllable. Cf. l. 399.

378. Fermour, a farmer of taxes; who is naturally exacting and oppressive.

380. Before is supply hit, which, as in l. 379, refers to a suppliant culprit. His own vassals are a lord's treasures, to be cherished, not oppressed.

381. Bech refers us to Seneca, De Clementia, lib. i. c. 3, § 3; c. 5, § 4. Or perhaps Aristotle is meant, whose supposed advice to Alexander is fully given in Gower's Confessio Amantis, bk. vii. See particularly the passage in Pauli's edition, iii. 176:—

There is a similar long and tedious passage in Lancelot of the Laik, ed. Skeat, ll. 1463-1998. Gower calls Aristotle 'the philosophre'; C. A. iii. 86. We may also compare Hoccleve, De Regimine Principum, ed. Wright, pp. 102-3, translated from Ægidius, De Reg. Princ., lib. i. pars 1, cap. xiv; where the reference to Aristotle is:—'Propter quod V. Ethicorum scribitur, quod principatus uirum ostendit.'

384. Al, although. 'Although he will preserve their rank for his lords.' Note that his lordes is in the dative case. It was probably from not observing this that Thynne's edition and the Pepys MS. have needlessly inserted the word in before hir. Cf. A. 370.

387. Half-goddes, demi-gods. Cf. 'the demi-god Authority'; Meas. for Meas. i. 2. 124.

391. So, in his Epitaph on Inigo Jones, Ben Jonson says:—'The Libyan lion hunts no butterflies'; which he took from Martial, Epig. xii. 61. 6. And see Pliny, Nat. Hist. viii. 16.

397. Areste. Bell seems to suggest the sense of 'restraint,' and Prof. Corson, following him, suggests 'self-command'; but such a sense does not exactly appear in Murray's Dictionary. Nevertheless, 'self-restraint' suits not only this passage, but also the passage cited from the Harleian MS. in the foot-note to the Somnour's Tale, D 2048, in vol. iv. p. 381.

399. Here, as in l. 375, reward means 'regard,' and is accented on the e.

400. Maystrie, masterly act; no maystrie, an easy matter.

405. This is not altogether a metaphorical expression. We remember something very like it at the siege of Calais in 1347, when, according to Froissart, Edward III. sent for the six inhabitants of Calais, who were to present themselves 'with bare heads and feet, with ropes round their necks'; see Froissart, tr. by Johnes, bk. i. c. 145.

415. In the earlier text (A 403), the word He stands alone in the first foot, which is less pleasing.

417. See Introd. to the Minor Poems (in vol. i.) for a discussion of some of the poems here mentioned. He here mentions, first of all, three of his lesser poems, in the order of their length; viz. the Hous of Fame, the Deeth of Blaunche, and the Parlement of Foules.

420. The 'Palamoun and Arcyte' here referred to was no doubt a translation of Boccaccio's Teseide, or of selections from it, in seven-line stanzas. Though not preserved to us in its entirety, several fragments of it remain. These are to be found (1) in sixteen stanzas of the Parl. of Foules (ll. 183-294), translated from the Teseide, bk. vii. st. 51-66; (2) in part of the first ten stanzas of Anelida, from the same, bk. i. st. 1-3, and bk. ii. st. 10-12; (3) in three stanzas near the end of Troilus (viz. st. 7, 8, and 9 from the end), from the same, xi. 1-3; and (4) in a re-written form, in what is now known as the Knightes Tale. See Notes to Anelida, in vol. i. pp. 529, 530.

421. 'Though the story is little known.' Tyrwhitt remarks that these words 'seem to imply that it [Chaucer's original version of Palamon and Arcite] had not made itself very popular.' Unfortunately, Tyrwhitt, who so very seldom goes astray, has here misled nearly all who have consulted him. Chaucer is not referring to his own version of the story, nor even to Boccaccio's version, but to the old story itself; and he is merely repeating Boccaccio's own remark, when (in the Teseide, i. 2) he speaks of it as

And, in truth, the story must have been known but to very few, till Boccaccio rescued it from oblivion. This is all that is meant; and there is no difficulty. Note further that Chaucer refers to the very same passage in another poem; see note to Anelida, l. 8.

423. A Balade is, properly, a poem in three stanzas, in which each stanza ends with the same line, called the refrain. There is also usually a fourth stanza, called Lenvoy, or the Envoy, which is sometimes shorter than the other three. Most of Chaucer's Balades have probably perished, as only a few are now known. These are: Fortune, consisting of 3 Balades, each in 8-line stanzas, followed by a single Envoy; Truth, a Balade with Envoy, in 7-line stanzas; Gentilesse, without Envoy; Lak of Stedfastnesse, with Envoy; (probably) A Balade against women unconstaunt, without Envoy; The Complaint of Venus, consisting of 3 Balades, with a general Envoy; The Compleint to his Purse, with Envoy of five lines only; To Rosemounde, without Envoy; and the Balade included in the present poem, at ll. 249-269 above.

A Roundel is a poem of from nine to fourteen lines, in which only eight lines are different from each other, the rest being repetitions of lines that have already occurred. See this fully explained in the note to l. 675 of the Parl. of Foules. The one certain example is the Roundel included in the Parl. of Foules, beginning at l. 680. There is also a beautiful example of a Triple Roundel, which I have included in the Minor Poems, with the title of Merciless Beauty. No doubt Chaucer wrote many more, but they are lost.

A Virelay is a poem in an unusual metre, of which examples are very rare. Only one entire poem of this character has been conjecturally assigned to Chaucer, but it is written in later English, and cannot possibly be his. It is not a true Virelay (in the French sense), and first appeared in the edition of 1561; see vol. i. p. 33. In this poem, lines 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7 all rime together; and l. 4 rimes with l. 8. Then comes the 'veer' or 'turn,' which requires that, in the next stanza, lines 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15 shall rime with lines 4 and 8, as, in fact, they do; but lines 12 and 16 introduce a new rime, as they should not do. We find, however, two fair examples of the Virelay in the poem of Anelida, viz. in lines 256-271 and 317-332. In the former of these, the rime in -ee (-e) appears in lines 256-8 and 260-2, and the rime in -yte ends lines 259 and 263; whereas, conversely, the rime in -yte ends lines 264-6 and 268-270, whilst lines 267 and 271 repeat the rime in -ee. Similarly, ll. 317-332 exhibit veering rimes in -eye and -ure.

In Hoccleve's Poems, ed. Furnivall (Early Eng. Text Soc., Extra Series, 1892), there are several clever and intricate examples of the Virelay. Thus, in Balade IV, at p. 39, there are five stanzas, but only three rimes, viz. in -al, -ee, and -ay. The formula of rimes, for the first and third stanzas, is a b a b b c b c; for the second and fourth stanzas, c b c b b a b a; and for the fifth stanza, a c a c c b c b. See also the same, pp. 41, 47, 49, 58, 59, 61, 62. Beyond all doubt, Hoccleve copied the forms of Chaucer's lost virelays.

424. Holynesse, holy employment, religious composition. This is, clearly, an intentional substitution for the besinesse, i.e. 'laborious employment,' in the A-text, l. 412.

425. Chaucer made an excellent prose translation of Boethius de Consolatione Philosophiæ, a Latin treatise much admired in the middle ages, and still worthy of admiration. For further remarks, see vol. iii.

—A. 414. This is the only notice we possess of a work by Chaucer which is no longer extant. We gather from it that he made a translation of the Latin prose treatise by Pope Innocent III., entitled De Miseria Conditionis Humanæ, a gloomy enumeration of human woes without a single alleviating touch of hope, fiercely and unrelentingly set forth. It is probable that it was written in 7-line stanzas; for portions of it appear to be preserved in the Prologue to the Man of Lawes Tale, B 99-126, and in other stanzas of the same (B 421-7, 771-7, 925-931, 1135-8).