89, 90. sengle, single. oo-fold, one-fold, as distinct from double. See the whimsical praise of 'double' things in Hood's Miss Kilmansegg, in the section entitled 'Her Honeymoon.'

XIV. A BALADE: WARNING MEN, ETC.

6. see at y, see by the outward appearance; cf. C. T., G 964, 1059. This Balade resembles no. XIII. Cf. l. 4 with XIII. 63, 81.

7. et, eateth, eats. This contracted form evidently best suits the scansion. The copy in MS. T. had originally ette, mis-spelt for et, with ettyth written above it, shewing that the old form et was obsolescent. Et (eateth) occurs in P. Plowman, C. vii. 431; and again, in the same, B. xv. 175, the MSS. have eet, eteth, ette, with the same sense. 'The blind eat many flies' is given in Hazlitt's Collection of Proverbs. Skelton has it, Works, ed. Dyce, i. 213; and Hazlitt gives four more references.

9. geson, scarce, rare, seldom found; see note to P. Plowman, B. xiii. 270.

19. Remember to pronounce this is (this's) as this.

25. A common proverb; see note to C. T., G 962.

26. 'But ay fortune hath in hir hony galle'; C. T., B 3537.

29. The proverbial line quoted in T. is here referred to, viz. 'Fallere, flere, nere, tria sunt hec in muliere.' In the margin of the Corpus MS. of the C. T., opposite D 402, is written—'Fallere, flere, nere, dedit Deus in muliere.' See that passage in the Wife's Preamble.

33. sleight; pronounced (sleit), riming with bait; shewing that the gh was by this time a negligible quantity.

36. The reference is to the proverb quoted in the note to C. T., B 2297 (vol. v. p. 208):—

Hence light in l. 37 should be leit, as it means 'lightning'; which explains 'passeth in a throw,' i.e. passes away instantly. We also see that Lydgate's original varied, and must have run thus:—

43. Curiously imitated in the modern song for children:—

XV. THREE SAYINGS.

(A). 2. Honour, i.e. advancement. The Lat. proverb is—'Honores mutant mores'; on which Ray remarks—'As poverty depresseth and debaseth a man's mind, so great place and estate advance and enlarge it, but many times corrupt and puff it up.' outrage, extravagant self-importance.

XVI. LA BELLE DAME.

1-28. The first four stanzas are original; so also are the four at the end. These stanzas have seven lines; the rest have eight.

10. Read called as call'd; Bell-e and Dam-e are dissyllabic.

11. Aleyn; i.e. Alain Chartier, a French poet and prose writer, born in 1386, who died in 1458. He lived at the court of Charles VI and Charles VII, to whom he acted as secretary. Besides La Belle Dame sans Merci, he wrote several poems; in one of these, called Le Livre de Quatre Dames, four ladies bewail the loss of their lovers in the battle of Agincourt. He also wrote some prose pieces, chiefly satirical; his Curial, directed against the vices of the court, was translated by Caxton. Caxton's translation was printed by him in 1484, and reprinted by the Early English Text Society in 1888. The best edition of Chartier's works is that by A. Duchesne (Paris, 1617); a new edition is much wanted.

45. I here quote the original of this stanza, as it settles the right reading of l. 47, where some MSS. have eyen or eyn for pen.

53. The original French is clearer:—

65, 66. forcer, casket; unshet, opened; sperd, fastened, locked up.

103 (footnote). deedly, inanimate, dull, sleepy; an unusual use of the word. Only in Thynne, who seems to be wrong.

105, 106. som, i.e. some male guests. their juges, (apparently) the ladies who ruled them, whom they wooed; cf. l. 137. demure, serious, grave; an early example of the word; cf. XX. 459, XXI. 82.

105. most fresshest, who had most newly arrived; 'Tels y ot qui à l'heure vinrent.'

137. scole-maister, i.e. his mistress who ruled him; cf. her in l. 139.

145. The right reading is shot, as in Thynne and MS. Ff., which are usually better authorities than MSS. F. and H. The original has:—

154, 156. mes, dish or course of meats. entremes, ill-spelt entremass in Barbour's Bruce, xvi. 457; on which my note is: 'it is the O.F. entremes, now spelt entremets, [to mark its connection with F. mettre; but] mets, O.F. mes, is the Lat. missum [accusative of missus], a dish as sent in or served at table (Brachet). An entremes is a delicacy or side-dish (lit. a between-dish)'; and I added a reference to the present passage. It is here used ironically.

166. chase, chose; apparently, a Northern form.

174. apert, as in MS. Ff., is obviously right; pert, as still in use, is due to the loss of the former syllable. prevy nor apert, neither secretly nor openly, i.e. in no way; just as in Ch. C. T., F 531.

176. frounter; answering here, not to O.F. frontier, forehead, but to O.F. frontiere, front rank of an army, line of battle; whence the phrase faire frontiere a, to make an attack upon (Godefroy). So here, the lady's beauty was exactly calculated to make an attack upon a lover's heart. Sir R. Ros has 'a frounter for'; he should rather have written 'a frounter on.' The original has:—'Pour faire au cueur d'amant frontiere'; also garnison in the preceding line.

182. 'Car ioye triste cueur traueille.' Sir R. Ros actually takes triste with ioye instead of with cueur. There are several other instances in which he does not seem to have understood his original. See below.

184. trayle, trellis-work, or lattice-work, intertwined with pliant thick-leaved branches; Godefroy has O.F. 'treille, traille, treillis, treillage'; cf. l. 195. The original has:—'Si m'assis dessoubz une treille.' A note explains dessoubz as derriere.

198. neer, nearer; as in l. 201. sought, attacked (him).

230. 'Et se par honneur et sans blasme Ie suis vostre.' That is, if I am yours, with honour to myself. But the translator transfers the worship, i.e. the honour, to the lady.

259. 'Which promised utterly to deprive me of my trust.'

265. Other or me, me or some one else. But the French is:—'Se moy ou autre vous regarde,' if I or some one else look at you; which is quite a different thing.

269-72. Obscure, and perhaps wrong; the original is:—

282-3.

300. 'It were less harm for one to be sad than two.'

303. Read sory: 'D'ung dolent faire deux joyeulx.'

324. rechace, chasing it back, which gives small sense; and the reading richesse is worse, and will not rime. The French has rachatz = mod. F. rachat, redemption, ransom; which has been misunderstood.

340. 'Preuue ses parolles par oeuure.'

348. their is an error for his (Love's), due to the translator. 'Lors il [Amour] descouure sa fierté.'

351.

357. oon, one; i.e. the same. MS. Ff. has wone, a very early example of the prefixed sound of w, as in modern English. See Zupitza's notes to Guy of Warwick.

393. Something is wrong. The French is:—'La mesure faulx semblant porte'; meaning (I suppose) moderation has a false appearance.

400. As think, i.e. pray think; see As in the Gloss. in vol. vi.

443. 'A constrained reward, and a gift offered by way of thanks, cannot agree'; i.e. are quite different.

449. wanteth, is wanting, is lacking.

468. 'Qui soit donné à autre office.'

469. 'D'assez grant charge se cheuit,' he gets rid of a great responsibility. The translator gives the contrary sense.

506. 'D'en donner à qui les reffuse.'

509. That He, not Who, should begin the line, is certain by comparison with the French:—'Il ne doit pas cuider muser.'

514. me mistook, that I mistook myself, that I made a mistake.

519, 520. prevayl you, benefit you; after, according to.

523-4. after-game, return-match, a second game played by one who has lost the first. I believe l. 524 to mean 'who cannot thoroughly afford to double his stakes.' To set often means to stake. The French is:—

531. it ar, they are. This use of ar with it is due to the pl. sb. fantasyes (i.e. vain fancies) immediately following; other counsayl is equivalent to 'as for any other counsel,' which implies that there are more alternatives than one.

536. 'Who would like to conduct himself,' i.e. to regulate his conduct. 'Qui la veult conduire et ne peult.'

538. Read sute: 'Desespoir le met de sa suite.'

555. 'Ne de l'aprendre n'ay-ie cure.'

559. 'Et le deuoir d'amours payer Qui franc cueur a, prisé et droit.'

566. That is a mere conjunction; the reading Which alters the sense, and gives a false meaning.

583. let, makes as though he knew not; French, 'scet celler.'

594, 595. Hath set; 'Mettroit en mes maulx fin et terme.' Line 595 should begin with Then rather than Yet, as there is no contrast.

605. 'De tous soit celuy deguerpiz.'

608. or anything at al, &c.; 'et le bien fait De sa Dame qui l'a reffait Et ramené de mort a vie'; i.e. and the kindness of his Lady, who has new made him, and brought him back from death to life. The English follows some different reading, and is obscurely expressed.

614. 'A qui l'en puisse recourir'; to whom he could have recourse. But recourir has been read as recovrir, giving no good sense.

627. The reading high is right; 'Que iamais hault honneur ne chiet.'

634. reclaymed, taught to come back; a term in falconry; French, 'bien reclamez.' Opposed to hem to withholde, i.e. to keep themselves from coming back.

635.

651. fol, foolish; F. text, 'fol plaisir.'

667. To have better, to get a better lover. But the sense is wrongly given. In the French, this clause goes with what follows:—'D'auoir mieulx ne vous affiez,' i.e. expect to get nothing better.

667. to have better, to get a better lover.

668. 'Et prenez en gré le reffus.'

673. The original shews that she really refers to Pity, denoted by it in l. 671, not to the Lady herself.

680. 'Et iamais á bout n'en vendrez.'

706. By; French, De; hence By should be Of. Read defame of cruelty, an ill name for cruelty. The mistake is the translator's.

741. Male-bouche, Slander; a name probably taken from the Rom. de la Rose, 2847; called Wikked-Tonge in the English version, 3027.

750. playn, (all equally) flat. 'La terre n'est pas toute unie.'

757. be nought, are naughty, are wicked; as in K. Lear, ii. 4. 136.

788. 'Que si tost mis en obli a.'

814. avantours, boasters; see l. 735. F. text, 'venteus'; cf. 'Vanteux, vaunting'; Cotgrave.

817. Refus, i.e. Denial; personified. 'Reffuz a ses chasteaulx bastiz.'

829. The last four stanzas are original. Note the change from the 8-line to the 7-line stanza.

XVII. THE TESTAMENT OF CRESSEID.

This sequel to Chaucer's 'Troilus,' written by Robert Henryson of Dunfermline, is in the Northern dialect of the Scottish Lowlands. Thynne has not made any special attempt to alter the wording of this piece, but he frequently modifies the spelling; printing so instead of sa (l. 3), whan for quhen (l. 3), right for richt (l. 4), and so on. I follow the Edinburgh edition of 1593. See further in the Introduction.

1. Ane, a; altered by Thynne to a, throughout.

dooly (Th. doly), doleful, sad; from the sb. dool, sorrow.

4-6. Here fervent seems to mean 'stormy' or 'severe,' as it obviously does not mean hot. Discend is used transitively; can discend means 'caused to descend.' This is an earlier example than that from Caxton in the New Eng. Dictionary. Aries clearly means the influence of Aries, and implies that the sun was in that sign, which it entered (at that date) about the 12th of March; see vol. iii. p. 188 (footnote). Lent is 'spring'; and the Old Germanic method is here followed, which divided each of the seasons into three months. In this view, the spring-months were March, April, and May, called, respectively, foreward Lent, midward Lent, and afterward Lent; see A Student's Pastime, p. 190. Hence the phrase in middis of the Lent does not mean precisely in the middle of the spring, but refers to the month of April; indeed, the sun passed out of Aries into Taurus on the 11th of the month. The date indicated is, accordingly, the first week in April, when the sun was still in Aries, and showers of hail, with a stormy north wind, were quite seasonable.

10. sylit under cure, covered up, (as if) under his care. The verb to syle is precisely the mod. E. ceil; which see in the New E. Dict.

12. unto, i.e. over against. The planet Venus, rising in the east, set her face over against the west, where the sun had set.

20. shill, shrill. Shille occurs as a variant of schrille in C. T., B 4585; see schil in Stratmann.

32. douf (spelt doif in the old edition) is the Northern form of 'deaf,' answering to the Icel. daufr; thus a nut without a kernel is called in the South 'a deaf nut,' but in Scotland 'a douf nit'; see Jamieson. For deaf in the senses of 'dull' and 'unproductive,' see the New E. Dict.

39. cut, curtail; illustrated from Lydgate in the New E. Dict.

42. Read lusty, to avoid the repetition of worthy; cf. l. 41. It should have been stated, in the footnotes, that the readings are: E. worthy; Th. lusty.

43. Referring to Troil. bk. v. In l. 92, we are told how Diomede led Criseyde away. Note particularly that, in l. 45, Henryson quotes Chaucer rather closely. Cf. 'For which wel neigh out of my wit I breyde'; Troil. v. 1262. And cf. ll. 47-9 with—'Betwixen hope and drede his herte lay'; Troil. v. 1207.

48. Quhill, till. The reading Esperus in E. is comic enough. Even Thynne has misread esperans, and has turned it into esperous. There can be little doubt that esperans here means 'hope,' as it is opposed to wanhope in the line above. The word was known to Henryson, as we find, in st. 8 of his Garment of Gude Ladyis: 'Hir slevis suld be of esperance, To keip hir fra dispair.' Cf. l. 49.

50. behest, promise; because she had promised to return to Troy within ten days; Troil. iv. 1595.

65. this narratioun, i.e. the sequel of the story, which he is about to tell. He does not tell us whence he derived it, but intimates that it is a fiction; I suppose he invented it himself.

74. lybel of répudy, Lat. 'libellum repudii,' as in Matt. xix. 7.

77. 'And, as some say, into the common court'; i.e. she became a courtesan.

78. A-per-se, i.e. the first letter of the alphabet, standing alone. A letter that was also a word in itself, as A, or I, or O, was called 'per se,' because it could stand alone. Of these, the A-per-se was a type of excellence. One of Dunbar's Poems (ed. Small, i. 276) begins:—'London, thou art of townes A-per-se.'

79. fortunait, the sport of fortune; oddly used, as it implies that she was 'an unfortunate.' Cf. l. 89.

94. but, without; and Thynne actually prints without in place of it.

97. quhair, where her father Calchas (was). He was living among the Greeks; Troil. i. 80, 87.

106. In the medieval legend, Calchas was not a priest of Venus, but of Apollo, as Chaucer notes; see Troil. i. 66-70. So also in Lydgate, Siege of Troy, bk. ii. c. 17. Henryson probably altered this intentionally, because it enabled him to represent Criseyde as reproaching her father's god; see ll. 124, 134.

129. outwaill, outcast; one who is chosen out and rejected; from the verb wail, wale, to choose. There seems to be no other example of the word, though Jamieson gives 'outwailins, leavings, things of little value.'

140. forlane can hardly mean 'left alone.' If so, it would be a word invented for the occasion, and improperly formed from lane, which is itself a docked form of alane. In all other passages forlane or forlain is the pp. of forliggen; and the sense of 'defiled' is quite applicable. And further, it rimes with slane, which means 'slain.'

143. 'And, as it seemed, she heard, where she lay,' &c.

147. The seven planets; which, in the order of the magnitude of their orbits, are Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury, and the Moon. And to this order the author carefully adheres throughout ll. 151-263.

155. fronsit, wrinkled; frounse is the mod. E. flounce, which formerly meant 'a pleat'; see frounce, frouncen in Stratmann, and the Gloss. to Chaucer. Misprinted frosnit in E.

'His complexion was like lead.' Lead was Saturn's metal; see C. T., G 828, and the note.

164. That gyte is the correct reading, is obvious from ll. 178, 260, where Thynne has preserved it. It is a Chaucerian word; see the Glossary in vol. vi. It seems to mean 'mantle.' The Edinburgh printer altered it to gyis, which is too general a term, at least in l. 260.

182. 'To ward off from us the wrath of his father (Saturn).'

198. Compare Ch. C. T., F 1031—'god and governour Of every plaunte, herbe, tree, and flour.'

205. Alluding to Phaethon's misguidance of the chariot of the sun; 'And that his faders cart amis he dryve'; Troil. v. 665. Laing prints unricht; but omits to say that E. has upricht.

211. soyr, sorrel-coloured, reddish-brown; see Sorrel in my Etym. Dict.

212-6. The names of the four horses are curiously corrupted from the names given in Ovid, Met. ii. 153, viz. Eöus, Æthon, Pyröeis, and Phlegon. As Eous means 'belonging to the dawn,' we may consider the words into the Orient, i.e. in the East, as explanatory of the name Eoy; 'called Eoy, (which signifies) in the East.' As to the name of the last horse, it was obviously meant to take the form Philegoney, in order to rime with sey (sea), and I have therefore restored this form. The two authorities, E. and Th., give it in the amazing form Philologie (Philologee), which can only mean 'philology'!

231. lauch and weip are infinitives, but appear to be meant for past tenses. If so, the former should be leuch; weip may answer to the strong pt. t. weep in Chaucer (A.S. wēop).

246. He seems to be thinking of Chaucer's Doctor of Phisyk; cf. Ch. Prol. A 425-6, 439.

254. 'The last of all (in order), and swiftest in her orbit.'

256. Thynne has tapere = to appear; this passage is curiously cited, in Richardson's Dictionary, in illustration of the sb. taper!

261. churl, man; this is Chaucer's cherl, in Troil. i. 1024. See the note to that line.

263. na nar, no nearer; the moon's orbit, being the least, was the most remote from the outer heaven that enclosed the primum mobile.

273. shew, shewed; but it is false grammar, for the verb to shew (or show) was weak. Formed by analogy with blew, grew, knew; cf. rew, mew, sew, old strong preterites of row, mow, and sow.

290. As Henryson usually refrains from the addition of a syllable at the cæsura, we should probably read injure, not injury; see Troil. iii. 1018.

297, 298. hyest, i.e. Saturn; lawest (lowest), i.e. Cynthia.

299. modify, determine, specify; not here used in the modern sense.

318. Heat and moisture characterised the sanguine temperament (see vol. v. p. 33); coldness and dryness characterised the melancholy temperament (see P. Plowman, B-text, p. xix). Cf. l. 316.

343. 'With cup and clapper, like a leper.' It was usual for lepers to carry a cup (for their own use), and a clapper or clap-dish, which was used in order to give warning of their approach, and also as a receptacle for alms, to prevent actual contact; cf. l. 479 below. Compare the following:—

See further under Clapper in the New Eng. Dict.

lazarous is formed as an adj. in -ous from the sb. lazar, a leper; see l. 531.

350. wa, woful; 'God knows if she was woful enough.'

382. The accent on the second syllable of hospital was not uncommon; hence its frequent contraction to spittal or spittel-house; for which see l. 391 below.

386. Read bevar or bever (Th. has beuer); the reading bawar in E. gives no sense. I see no connection with Lowl. Sc. bevar, 'one who is worn out with age,' according to Jamieson, who merely guesses at the sense, as being perhaps allied to bavard, which he also explains as 'worn out'; although, if from the F. bavard, it rather means talkative, babbling, or idle. I believe that bevar hat simply means 'beaver hat,' formerly used by women as well as by men. Even Dickens alludes to 'farmer's wives in beaver bonnets,' in Martin Chuzzlewit, ch. 5. No doubt a beaver hat was, when new, an expensive luxury, as worn by Chaucer's 'Merchant' (Prol. l. 272); but they wore well and long, and were doubtless gladly used by beggars when cast off by their original owners.

407. The metre, in ll. 407-69, is borrowed from Chaucer's Anelida.

410. blaiknit, is not a derivative of M.E. blak, black, but of M.E. blāk, bleik, bleak, pallid, cheerless. It is here used in the sense of 'rendered cheerless'; and bair means 'bare' or 'barren.' See blākien in Stratmann.

413. 'Thy bale is in the growth,' or is sprouting. See Braird, the first shoots of corn or grass, in the New E. Dict., where two more examples of this phrase are cited from Henryson.

417. 'With goodly bed, and convenient embroidered bench-covers.' Burelie (mod. E. burly, prov. E. bowerly) answers to an A.S. form būr-līc, i.e. suitable for a lady's bower. This explains why it was appropriately used as an epithet for a bed. Cf. 'Quhair ane burely bed was wrocht in that wane'; Rauf Coilyear, 264. Hence 'a burly knight' was one suitable for a lady's bower, and therefore handsome, strong, well-grown, large; and by a degradation of meaning, huge, corpulent. The changes in sense are curious and instructive. In the New E. Dict., the etymology is not given. For bene, see bain in the New E. Dict.; and for bankouris, see banker.

421. saipheroun sals, saffron sauce. Saffron and salt were often used together in medieval cookery; see Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery Books, ed. Austin (E. E. T. S.). The Glossary to that book gives the spellings safroun, saferon, saferoun, and sapheron.

423. This is a very early mention of lawn. It is also mentioned in st. 10 of Lydgate's 'London Lickpeny.'

429. walk, wake. The history of this spelling is not quite clear; but the l was, in any case, mute; another spelling is wauk. I suspect that it originated in the misunderstanding of a symbol. The scribe, who wished to write wakk, used a symbol resembling lk, where the l was really the first k, indicated by its down-stroke only. For example, the word rokke was (apparently) written rolke. See my article on Ghost-words; Phil. Soc. Trans. 1885, p. 369.

tak the dew, gather May-dew. The old custom of bathing the face with fresh dew on the 1st of May is referred to in Brand's Popular Antiquities. He gives an example as late as 1791. See Pepys' Diary, May 28, 1667, May 11, 1669; where we find that any day in May was then considered suitable for this health-giving operation.

433. I take on every grane to mean 'in every particular'; cf. 'a grain of sense.' We may also note the Fr. teindre en graine, to dye in grain, to dye of a fast colour; and we occasionally find grain in the sense of 'tint.' Godefroy cites 'ung couvertoer d'une graigne vermeille'; and 'une manche vermeille, ne sçay se c'est graine ou autre taincture.' Grane also means 'groan,' and 'groin,' and 'fork of a tree'; but none of these senses suit.

438. 'Take this leper-lodge in place of thy stately bower.'

450. In l. 407, we have sop of sorrow, i.e. sop, or sup, of sorrow. So here sowpit in syte, sopped, or drenched, in sorrow; an expression which Jamieson illustrates from Holland's Houlate, i. 4, and Douglas's Vergil, prologue to Book viii, l. 5.

463. This expression is imitated from Chaucer's Boethius, bk. iii. pr. 6. 3—'O glorie, glorie, thou art nothing elles but a greet sweller of eres!' See note to I. ii. 8. 68 (p. 472).

480. leir (Th. lerne); surely miscopied from l. 479. Read live.

490. lipper seems to be used collectively; so also in l. 494.

492. shuik coppis, shook their cups; it implies that they waved them aloft, to attract attention. They also used their clappers.

501. ply, plight. I know of no other example of ply in this sense; but ply (usually, a fold) and plight (incorrect spelling of M.E. plyte) are closely related; the former represents Lat. plicitum, the latter, Lat. plicita; from plicare, to fold (whence E. ply, verb, to bend).

541. 'With many a sorrowful cry and cold or sad (cry of) O hone!' Here cald = sad; and Ochane is the Irish and Scotch cry of O hone! or Och hone! See O hone in the Century Dict., s.v. O.

543. will of wane, lit. wild of weening, at a loss what to do. See Gloss. to Barbour's Bruce, s.v. Will.

550. 'And climbed so high upon the fickle wheel' (of Fortune). Cf. Troil. iv. 6, 11.

567. 'For they (women) are as constant as a weathercock in the wind.' Cf. 'unsad ... and chaunging as a vane'; Ch. C. T., E 995.

588. wellis, streams, rills; as in Book Duch. 160.

589. broche and belt; Criseyde gave Diomede the brooch she had received from Troilus; see Troil. v. 1661, 1669, 1688. The belt is Henryson's addition.

600. 'His heart was ready to burst.'

XVIII. THE CUCKOO AND THE NIGHTINGALE.

In this piece, the final -e is much used as forming a distinct syllable; indeed, more freely than in Chaucer.

1, 2. Quoted from the Knightes Tale, A 1785-6.

4. The word of is inserted in Th., Ff. and S., and seems to be right; but as hy-e should be two syllables, perhaps the words And of were rapidly pronounced, in the time of a single syllable. Or omit And.

11-5. The lines of this stanza are wrongly arranged in Thynne, and in every printed edition except the present one; i.e. the lines 12 and 13 are transposed. But as the rime-formula is aabba, it is easy to see that suffyse, devyse, agryse rime together on the one hand, and nyce, vyce, on the other. The pronunciation suffice is comparatively modern; in Chaucer, the suffix -yse was pronounced with a voiced s, i.e. as z. Note the rimes devyse, suffyse in the Book of the Duch. 901-2; suffyse, wyse, devyse, in the C. T., B 3648-9; &c. The MSS. Ff., F., and B. all give the right arrangement.

18. whom him lyketh, him whom it pleases him (to gladden or sadden).

20, 23. May; cf. Troil. ii. 50-63; Rom. Rose, 51-2, 74-6, 85-6; Legend of Good Women, 108; C. T., A 1500-2.

36. of feling, from experience. Spek-e is dissyllabic.

39. hoot, hot, i.e. hopeful; cold, full of despair; acces, feverish attack, as in Troil. ii. 1315, 1543, 1578.

41. fevers whyte, feverish attacks (of love) that turn men pale; the same as blaunche fevere in Troil. i. 916; see note to that line.

48. a comune tale, a common saying. As a fact, one would expect to hear the cuckoo first. Prof. Newton, in his Dict. of Birds, says of the cuckoo, that it 'crosses the Mediterranean from its winter-quarters in Africa at the end of March or beginning of April. Its arrival is at once proclaimed by the peculiar ... cry of the cock.' Of the nightingale he says—'if the appearance of truth is to be regarded, it is dangerous to introduce a nightingale as singing in England before the 15th of April or after the 15th of June.'

As the change of style makes a difference of 12 days, this 15th of April corresponds to the 3rd of April in the time of Chaucer. It is remarkable that Hazlitt, in his Proverbs, p. 305, gives the following:—'On the third of April, comes in the cuckoo and the nightingale'; which may once have been correct as regards the latter. Hazlitt also says that, in Sussex, the 14th of April is supposed to be 'first cuckoo-day'; whereas it would better apply to the nightingale. And again, another proverb says (p. 380)—'The nightingale and the cuckoo sing both in one month.' It is clear that, whatever the facts may be, our ancestors had a notion that these birds arrived nearly at the same time, and attached some importance, by way of augury, to the possibility of hearing the nightingale first. They must frequently have been disappointed. See Milton's sonnet, as quoted in the Introduction.

54. of, during; exactly as in l. 42.

62. Read inne, the adverbial form; for the sake of the grammar and scansion. See Inne in the Gloss. in vol. vi. p. 135. been gives a false rime to gren-e and sen-e; shewing that grene and sene are here monosyllabic (really green and seen), instead of being dissyllabic, as in Chaucer. Sene is the adj., meaning visible, not the pp., which then took the form seyn.

70. For began, which is singular, substitute the pl. form begonne. to don hir houres, to sing their matins, &c.; referring to the canonical hours of church-service. Bell has the reading to don honoures, for which there is no early authority. Morris unluckily adopts the meaningless reading found in MSS. F. and B.

71. 'They knew that service all by rote,' i.e. by heart. Bell actually explains rote as a hurdy-gurdy; as to which see Rote (in senses 2 and 3) in the Gloss. in vol. vi. p. 218.

80. Feverere seems to have been pronounced Fev'rer'. Surely it must be right. Yet all the MSS. (except T.) actually have Marche (written Mars in Ff.), followed by upon, not on. Even Th. and T. have upon, not on; but it ruins the scansion, unless we adopt the reading March. It looks as if the author really did write Marche!

82, 85. ron, mon, for ran, man, are peculiar. As such forms occur in Myrc and Audelay (both Shropshire authors) and in Robert of Gloucester, they are perfectly consistent with the supposition that they are due to Clanvowe's connection with Herefordshire.

87. swow, swoon; cf. Book Duch. 215.

90. As brid is a monosyllable (cf. ll. 212, 260, 270, 271), it is necessary to make lew-ed-e a trisyllable; as also in l. 103. But it becomes lew'de in ll. 50, 94. Chaucer has lew-ëd, P. F. 616, &c.

105. him; the cuckoo is male, but the nightingale, by way of contrast, is supposed to be female.

118. playn, simple, having simple notes; cf. 'the plain-song cuckoo,' Mids. Nt. Dr. iii. 1. 134.

119. crakel, 'trill or quaver in singing; used in contempt'; New E. Dict.

124. I seems to be strongly accented. It is a pity that there is no authority for inserting For before it. Otherwise, read I hav-ë.

In Old French, oci oci, represented the cry of the nightingale; Godefroy gives examples from Raoul de Houdenc, Froissart, and Deschamps. Moreover, oci was also the imperative of the O.F. verb ocire, to kill; with which it is here intentionally confused. Accordingly, the nightingale retorts that oci means 'kill! kill!' with reference to the enemies of love.

135. grede, exclaim, cry out. Not used by Chaucer, though found in most dialects of Middle-English. Clanvowe may have heard it in Herefordshire, as it occurs in Langland, Layamon, Robert of Gloucester, and in the Coventry Mysteries, and must have been known in the west. But it was once a very common word. From A.S. grǣdan.

137. to-drawe, drawn asunder; cf. Havelok, 2001; Will. of Palerne, 1564.

140. yok, yoke; cf. Ch. C. T., E 113, 1285.

142. unthryve, become unsuccessful, meet with ill luck. A very rare word; but it also occurs in the Cursor Mundi (Fairfax MS.), l. 9450, where it is said of Adam that 'his wyf made him to unthryve.'

146. The first syllable of the line is deficient. Accent What strongly. Cf. 153-8 below.

151. The sentiment that love teaches all goodness, is common at this time; see Schick's note to Lydgate's Temple of Glas, l. 450.

152. The true reading is doubtful.

153-8. Here the author produces a considerable metrical effect, by beginning all of these lines with a strong accent. There are three such consecutive lines in the Wyf of Bathes Tale, D 869-71. Cf. ll. 161, 232, 242, 252, 261, 265, 268, 270, 278.

180. Bell and Morris read haire, without authority, and Bell explains it by 'he may full soon have the hair (!) which belongs to age, scil., grey hair, said to be produced by anxiety.' But the M.E. form of 'hair' is heer, which will not give a true rime; and the word heyr represents the mod. E. heir. As the h was not sounded, it is also written eir (as in MS. T.) and air (as in MS. S.). The sense is—'For he who gets a little bliss of love may very soon find that his heir has come of age, unless he is always devoted to it.' This is a mild joke, signifying that he will soon find himself insecure, like one whose heir or successor has come of age, and whose inheritance is threatened. On the other hand, 'to have one's hair of age' is wholly without sense. Compare the next note.

185. 'And then you shall be called as I am.' I. e. your loved one will forsake you, and you will be called a cuckold. This remark is founded on the fact that the O.F. coucou or cocu had the double sense of cuckoo and cuckold. See cocu in Littré. This explains l. 186.

201-5. Bell, by an oversight, omits this stanza.

203. This reading (from the best MS., viz. Ff.) is much the best. The sense is—'And whom he hits he knows not, or whom he misses'; because he is blind.

216-25. All the early printed editions crush these two stanzas into one, by omitting ll. 217-9, and 224-5, and altering thoughte me (l. 223) to me aloon. This is much inferior to the text.

237. leve, believe; yet all the authorities but S. have the reading loue! Cf. l. 238.

243. dayesye, daisy. Cf. Legend of Good Women, 182-7, 201-2, 211.

266. Ye witen is the right reading; turned into ye knowe in F. and B. The old printed editions actually read The cuckowe!

267. A syllable seems lacking after I; such lines are common in Lydgate. The reading y-chid would render the line complete; or we may read hav-ë, as perhaps in l. 124.

275. An obvious allusion to Chaucer's Parlement of Foules, in which he gives 'the royal egle' the first place (l. 330).

284. The quene; queen Joan of Navarre, second wife of Henry IV, who received the manor of Woodstock as part of her dower.

285. lay, lea; not a common word in M.E. poetry, though occurring in P. Plowman. The parliament of birds required a large open space.

289. Terme: during the whole term of my life; cf. C. T., G 1479.

XIX. ENVOY TO ALISON.

1. lewde book, unlearned book. It is not known to what book this refers. It has nothing to do with the preceding poem. My guess, in vol. i. p. 40, that this piece might be Hoccleve's, is quite untenable. His pieces are all known, and the metrical form is of later date. See the next note.

11. Too long; perhaps servant should be struck out. So in l. 13 we could spare the word als. But ll. 17, 18, 19, 20, are all of an unconscionable length.

22-7. I believe I was the first to detect the obvious acrostic on the name of Alison; see vol. i. p. 40. The sense of ll. 25-6 (which are forced and poor) is—'I beseech (you) of your grace, let your writing (in reply) alleviate the sighs which I pour out in silence.'

XX. THE FLOWER AND THE LEAF.

I give numerous references below to 'A. L.', i.e. the Assembly of Ladies, printed at p. 380. The two poems have much in common.

1-2. Imitated from C. T., F 671; see note in vol. v. p. 386.

3. Bole, Bull, Taurus. The sun then entered Taurus about the middle of April; hence the allusion to April showers in l. 4. Compare the opening lines of Chaucer's Prologue. But we learn, from l. 437, that it was already May. Hence the sun had really run half its course in Taurus. certeinly; used at the end of the line, as in A. L. 85.

10. very good; this adverbial use of very is noticeable; cf. ll. 35, 315, 409, and A. L. 479. I believe Chaucer never uses very to qualify an adjective. It occurs, however, in Lydgate.

20. Cf. 'more at hertes ese'; A. L. 672.

25. Cf. 'at springing of the day'; A. L. 218.

26. Cf. 'That ye wold help me on with myn aray'; A. L. 241.

27-8. This rime of passe with was occurs again below (114-6); and in A. L. 436-8.

30. Chaucer has hew-ë, new-ë; but here hew, new rime with the pt. t. grew. So, in A. L. 65-8, hew, new rime with the pt. t. knew.

31-2. Copied from the Book of the Duch. 419-20:—