332. dayes-ye, daisy; A. S. dæges ēage, lit. eye of day (the sun).
333. ‘He was sanguine of complexion.’ The old school of medicine, following Galen, supposed that there were four ‘humours,’ viz. hot, cold, moist, and dry (see l. 420), and four complexions or temperaments of men, viz. the sanguine, the choleric, the phlegmatic, and the melancholy. The man of sanguine complexion abounded in hot and moist humours, as shown in the following description, given in the Oriel MS. 79 (as quoted in my Preface to P. Plowman, B-text, p. xix):—
334. by the morwe, in the morning.
a sop in wyn, wine with pieces of cake or bread in it; see E. 1843. See Brand, Antiq. (ed. Ellis), ii. 137. Later, sop-in-wine was a jocose name for a kind of pink or carnation; id. ii. 91.
In the Anturs of Arthur at the Tarnewathelan, st. 37, we read that
And in MS. Harl. 279, fol. 10, we have the necessary instruction for the making of these sops. ‘Take mylke and boyle it, and thanne tak yolkys of eyroun [ eggs ], ytryid [ separated ] fro the whyte, and hete it, but let it nowt boyle, and stere it wyl tyl it be somwhat thikke; thenne cast therto salt and sugre, and kytte [ cut ] fayre paynemaynnys in round soppys, and caste the soppys theron, and serve it forth for a potage.’—Way, in Promptorium Parvulorum, p. 378. The F. name is soupe au vin. See also Ducange, s. v. Merus.
335. wone, wont, custom; A. S. wuna, ge-wuna.
delyt, delight; the mod. E. word is misspelt; delite would be better.
336. ‘A very son of Epicurus.’ Alluding to the famous Greek philosopher [died bc 270], the author of the Epicurean philosophy, which assumed pleasure to be the highest good. Chaucer here follows Boethius, bk. iii. pr. 2. 54: ‘The whiche delyt only considerede Epicurus, and iuged and establisshed that delyt is the sovereyn good.’ Cf. Troil. iii. 1691, v. 763; also E. 2021.
340. ‘ St. Julian was eminent for providing his votaries with good lodgings and accommodation of all sorts. [See Chambers’ Book of Days, ii. 388.] In the title of his legend, Bodl. MS. 1596, fol. 4, he is called “St. Julian the gode herberjour” (St. Julian the good harbourer).’—Tyrwhitt. His day is Jan. 9. See the Lives of Saints, ed. Horstmann (E. E. T. S.); also Gesta Romanorum, ed. Swan, tale 18; Mrs. Jameson, Sacred and Leg. Art, ii. 393.
341. after oon, according to one invariable standard; ‘up to the mark’; cf. A. 1781, and the note. A description of a Franklin’s feast is given in the Babees Book, ed. Furnivall, p. 170.
342. envyned, stored with wine. ‘Cotgrave has preserved the French word enviné in the same sense.’—Tyrwhitt.
343. bake mete = baked meat; the old past participle of bake was baken or bake, as it was a strong verb. Baked meats = meats baked in coffins (pies). Cf. Hamlet, i. 2. 180.
344. plentevous, plenteous, plentiful; O. F. plentivous, formed by adding - ous to O. F. pleintif, adj. abundant; see Godefroy’s O. F. Dict.
345. The verb snewed may be explained as a metaphor from snowing; in fact, the M. E. snewe, like the Prov. Eng. snie or snive, also signifies to abound, swarm. Camb. MS. reads ‘It snowede in his mouth of mete and drynk.’ Cf. ‘He was with yiftes [presents] all bisnewed ’; Gower, C. A. iii. 51. From A. S. snīwan.
347. After, according to; it depended on what was in season.
348. soper (supee·r), supper; from O. F. infin. soper; cf. F. 1189.
349. mewe. The mewe was the place where the hawks were kept while moulting; it was afterwards applied to the coop wherein fowl were fattened, and lastly to a place of confinement or secrecy.
350. stewe, fish-pond. ‘To insure a supply of fish, stew-ponds were attached to the manors, and few monasteries were without them; the moat around the castle was often converted into a fish-pond, and well stored with luce, carp, or tench.’—Our English Home, p. 65.
breem, bream; luce, pike, from O. F. luce, Low Lat. lucius.
351. Wo was his cook, woeful or sad was his cook. We now only use wo or woe as a substantive. Cf. B. 757, E. 753; and ‘I am woe for ’t’; Tempest, v. 1. 139.
‘Who was woo but Olyvere then?’—Sowdone of Babyloyne, l. 1271. Rob. of Brunne, in his Handlyng Synne, l. 7250, says that a rich man’s cook ‘may no day Greythe hym hys mete to pay.’
but-if, unless.
351, 352. sauce—Poynaunt is like the modern phrase sauce piquante. Cf. B. 4024. ‘Our forefathers were great lovers of “piquant sauce.” They made it of expensive condiments and rare spices.’—Our English Home, p. 62.
353. table dormant, irremoveable table. ‘Previous to the fourteenth century a pair of common wooden trestles and a rough plank was deemed a table sufficient for the great hall. . . . Tables, with a board attached to a frame, were introduced about the time of Chaucer, and, from remaining in the hall, were regarded as indications of a ready hospitality.’—Our English Home, p. 29. Most tables were removeable; such a table was called a bord (board).
355. sessiouns. At the Sessions of the Peace, at the meeting of the Justices of the Peace. Cf. ‘ At Sessions and at Sises we bare the stroke and swaye.’—Higgins’ Mirrour for Magistrates, ed. 1571, p. 2.
356. knight of the shire, the designation given to the representative in parliament of an English county at large, as distinguished from the representatives of such counties and towns as are counties of themselves (Ogilvie). Chaucer was knight of the shire of Kent in 1386.
tym-e here represents the A. S. tīman, pl. of tīma, a time.
357. anlas or anelace. Speght defines this word as a falchion, or wood-knife. It was, however, a short two-edged knife or dagger usually worn at the girdle, broad at the hilt and tapering to a point. See the New Eng. Dictionary; Liber Albus, p. 75; Knight, Pict. Hist. of England, i. 872; Gloss. to Matthew Paris, s. v. anelacius; Riley’s Memorials of London, p. 15. The etymology is unknown; I guess it to be from M. E. an, on, and las, a lace, i.e. ‘on a lace,’ a dagger that hung from a lace attached to the girdle. Cf. A. S. bigyrdel (just below); and ‘hanging on a laas’ in l. 392.
gipser was properly a pouch or budget used in hawking, c., but commonly worn by the merchant, or with any secular attire.—(Way.) It answers to F. gibecière, a pouch; from O. F. gibe, a bunch (Scheler). In Riley’s Memorials of London, p. 398, under the date 1376, there is a mention of ‘purses called gibesers. ’ In the Bury Wills, p. 37, l. 16, under the date 1463, we find—‘My best gypcer with iij. bagges.’ The A. S. name was bigyrdel, from its hanging by the girdle, as said in l. 358; it occurs in the A. S. version of Matt. x. 9; and in P. Plowman, B. viii. 87.
358. Heng (or Heeng ), the past tense of hongen or hangen, to hang. morne milk =morning-milk; as in A. 3236. ‘As white as milke’; Ritson’s Met. Romances, iii. 292.
359. shirreve, the reve of a shire, governor of a county; our modern word sheriff.
countour, O. Fr. comptour, an accountant, a person who audited accounts or received money in charge, c.; ranked with pleaders in Riley’s Memorials of London, p. 58. It occurs in Rob. of Gloucester, l. 11153. In the Book of the Duch. 435, it simply means ‘accountant.’ Perhaps it here means ‘auditor.’ ‘Or stewards, countours, or pleadours’; Plowman’s Tale, pt. iii. st. 13.
360. vavasour, or vavaser, originally a sub-vassal or tenant of a vassal or tenant of the king’s, one who held his lands in fealty. ‘ Vavasor, one that in dignities is next to a Baron’; Cowel. Strutt (Manners and Customs, iii. 14) explains that a vavasour was ‘a tenant by knight’s service, who did not hold immediately of the king in capite, but of some mesne lord, which excluded him from the dignity of baron by tenure.’ Tyrwhitt says ‘it should be understood to mean the whole class of middling landholders.’ See Lacroix, Military Life of Middle Ages, p. 9. Spelt favasour in King Alisaunder, ed. Weber, l. 3827. A. F. uauassur; Laws of Will. I. c. 20. Lit. ‘vassal of vassals’; Low Lat. vassus vassorum.
361. Haberdassher. Haberdashers were of two kinds: haberdashers of small wares—sellers of needles, tapes, buttons, c.; and haberdashers of hats. The stuff called hapertas is mentioned in the Liber Albus, p. 225.
362. Webbe, properly a male weaver; webstere was the female weaver, but there appears to have been some confusion in the use of the suffixes - e and - stere; see Piers Plowman, ed. Skeat, B. v. 215: ‘mi wyf was a webbe. ’ Hence the names Webb and Webster. Cf. A. S. webba, m., a weaver; webbestere, fem. tapicer, upholsterer; F. tapis, carpet.
363. liveree, livery. ‘Under the term “livery” was included whatever was dispensed ( delivered ) by the lord to his officials or domestics annually or at certain seasons, whether money, victuals, or garments. The term chiefly denoted external marks of distinction, such as the roba estivalis and hiemalis, given to the officers and retainers of the court. . . . The Stat. 7 Hen. IV expressly permits the adoption of such distinctive dress by fraternities and “ les gentz de mestere, ” the trades of the cities of the realm, being ordained with good intent; and to this prevalent usage Chaucer alludes when he describes five artificers of various callings, who joined the pilgrimage, clothed all in o lyveré of a solempne and greet fraternité. ’—Way, note to Prompt. Parv., p. 308. We still speak of the Livery Companies.
And they were clothed alle (Elles., c.); Weren with vss eeke clothed (Harl.) The former reading leaves the former clause of the sentence without a verb.
364. fraternitee, guild: see English Gilds, ed. Toulmin Smith, pp. xxx, xxxix, cxxii. Each guild had its own livery; Rock, Church of our Fathers, ii. 412.
365. gere, gear, apparel. apyked, signifies cleaned, trimmed, like Shakespeare’s picked. Cotgrave gives as senses of F. piquer, ‘to quilt,’ and ‘to stiffen a coller.’
366. y-chaped, having chapes (i.e. plates or caps of metal at the point of the sheath or scabbard). Tradesmen and mechanics were prohibited from using knives adorned with silver, gold, or precious stones. So that Chaucer’s pilgrims were of a superior estate, as is indicated in l. 369. Cf. chapeless, Taming of the Shrew, iii. 2. 48.
370. deys, dese, or dais (Fr. deis, from Lat. discum, acc.), is used to denote the raised platform which was always found at the upper end of a hall, on which the high table was placed; originally, it meant the high table itself. In modern French and English, it is used of a canopy or ‘tester’ over a seat of state. Tyrwhitt’s account of the word is confused, as he starts with a false etymology.
yeld-halle, guild-hall. See Gildhall in the Index to E. Gilds, ed. Toulmin Smith.
371. that he can, that he knows; so also as he couthe, as he knew how, in l. 390. This line is deficient in the first foot.
372. shaply, adapted, fit; sometimes comely, of good shape. The mention of alderman should be noted. It was the invariable title given to one who was chosen as the head or principal of a guild (see English Gilds, ed. Toulmin Smith, pp. ciii, 36, 148, 276, 446). All these men belonged to a fraternity or guild, and each of them was a fit man to be chosen as head of it.
373. ‘For they had sufficient property and income’ (to entitle them to undertake such an office).
376. y-clept, called; pp. of clepen; see l. 121.
377. And goon to vigilyes al bifore. ‘It was the manner in times past, upon festival evens, called vigiliæ, for parishioners to meet in their church-houses or church-yards, and there to have a drinking-fit for the time. Here they used to end many quarrels betwixt neighbour and neighbour. Hither came the wives in comely manner, and they which were of the better sort had their mantles carried with them, as well for show as to keep them from cold at table.’—Speght, Gl. to Chaucer.
379. for the nones=for the nonce; this expression, if grammatically written, would be for then once, M. E. for þan anes, for the once, i. e. for the occasion; where the adv. anes (orig. a gen. form) is used as if it were a sb. in the dat. case. Cf. M.E. atte=atten, A. S. æt þām.
381. poudre-marchaunt tart is a sharp (tart) kind of flavouring powder, twice mentioned in Household Ordinances and Receipts (Soc. Antiq. 1790) at pp. 425, 434: ‘Do therto pouder marchant, ’ and ‘do thi flessh therto, and gode herbes and poudre marchaunt, and let hit well stew.’—Notes and Queries, Fourth Series, iii. 180. See Powder in the Glossary to the Babees Book.
‘ Galingale, which Chaucer, pre-eminentest, economioniseth above all junquetries or confectionaries whatsoever.’—Nash’s Lenten Stuff, p. 36, ed. Hindley. Galingale is the root of sweet cyperus. Harman (ed. Strother) notices three varieties: Cyperus rotundus, Galanga major, Galanga minor; Babees Book, ed. Furnivall, pp. 152, 216. See also Marco Polo, ed. Yule, ii. 181; Prompt. Parv., p. 185, note 4; Rogers, Hist. of Agriculture and Prices, i. 629; c. And see Dr. H. Fletcher Hance’s and Mr. Daniel Hanbury’s Papers on this spice in the Linnæan Society’s Journal, 1871.
382. London ale. London ale was famous as early as the time of Henry III., and much higher priced than any other ale; cf. A. 3140.
Wel coude he knowe, he well knew how to distinguish. In fact, we find, in the Manciple’s Prologue (H. 57), that the Cook loved good ale only too well.
384. mortreux or mortrewes. There were two kinds of ‘mortrews,’ ‘mortrewes de chare’ and ‘mortrewes of fysshe.’ The first was a kind of soup in which chickens, fresh pork, crumbs of bread, yolks of eggs, and saffron formed the chief ingredients; the second kind was a soup containing the roe (or milt) and liver of fish, bread, pepper, ale. The ingredients were first stamped or brayed in a mortar, whence it probably derived its name. Lord Bacon (Nat. Hist. i. 48) speaks of ‘a mortresse made with the brawne of capons stamped and strained.’ See Babees Bock, pp. 151, 170, 172; Liber Cure Cocorum, ed. Morris, pp. 9, 19; and the note to P. Plowman, C. xvi. 47. This line, like ll. 371 and 391, is deficient in the first foot.
386. mormal, a cancer or gangrene. Ben Jonson, in imitation of this passage, has described a cook with an ‘old mortmal on his shin’; Sad Shepherd, act ii. sc. 2 Lydgate speaks of ‘Goutes, mormalles, horrible to the sight’; Falls of Princes, bk. vii. c. 10. In Polit. Religious and Love Poems, ed. Furnivall, p. 218, we are told that the sin of Luxury ‘ys a lyther mormale. ’ In Skelton’s Magnificence, l. 1932, Adversity is made to say—‘Some with the marmoll to halte I them make’; and it is remarkable that Palsgrave gives both—‘ Mormall, a sore,’ and ‘ Marmoll, a sore’; the latter being plainly a corrupt form. See also Prompt. Parvulorum, p. 343, note 5. In MS. Oo. i. 20, last leaf, in the Camb. Univ. Library, are notices of remedies ‘Por la maladie que est apele malum mortuum. ’ The MS. says that it comes from melancholy, and shows a broad hard scurf or crust.
387. blank-manger, a compound made of capon minced, with rice, milk, sugar, and almonds; see Liber Cure Cocorum, ed. Morris, p. 9. Named from its white colour.
See the essay on Chaucer’s Shipman in Essays on Chaucer, p. 455.
388. woning, dwelling; from A. S. wunian, to dwell.
by weste=westward. A good old expression, which was once very common as late as the sixteenth century.
389. Dartmouth was once a very considerable port; see Essays on Chaucer, p. 456. Compare the account of the Shipman’s Gild at Lynn; E. Gilds, p. 54.
390. rouncy, a common hackney horse, a nag. Cf. Rozinante. ‘ Rocinante —significativo de lo que habia sido cuando fué rocin, antes de lo que ahora era.’ Don Quijote, cap. 1. ‘From Rozin, a drudge-horse, and ante, before.’ Jarvis’s note. The O.F. form is roncin; Low Lat. runcinus. The rouncy was chiefly used for agricultural work; see Essays on Chaucer, p. 494.
as he couthe, as he knew how; but, as a sailor, his knowledge this way was deficient.
391. a goune of jalding, a gown (robe) of coarse cloth. The term falding signifies ‘a kind of frieze or rough-napped cloth,’ which was probably ‘supplied from the North of Europe, and identical with the woollen wrappers of which Hermoldus speaks, “ quos nos appellamus Faldones. ” ’—Way. ‘ Falding was a coarse serge cloth, very rough and durable,’ c.; Essays on Chaucer, p. 438. In MS. O. 5. 4, in Trinity College, Cambridge, occurs the entry—‘Amphibulus, vestis equi villosa, anglice a sclauayn or faldyng ’; cited in Furnivall’s Temporary Preface, p. 99. In 1392, I find a mention of ‘unam tunicam de nigro faldyng lineatam’; Testamenta Eboracensia, i. 173. Hence its colour was sometimes black, and the Shipman’s gown is so coloured in the drawing in the Ellesmere MS.; but see A. 3212. See the whole of Way’s long note in the Prompt. Parvulorum.
392. laas, lace, cord. Seamen still carry their knives slung.
394. the hote somer. ‘Perhaps this is a reference to the summer of the year 1351, which was long remembered as the dry and hot summer.’—Wright. There was another such summer in 1370, much nearer the date of this Prologue. But it may be a mere general expression.
395. a good felawe, a merry companion; as in l. 648.
396–8. ‘Very many a draught of wine had he drawn (stolen away or carried off) from Bordeaux, cask and all, while the chapman (merchant or supercargo to whom the wine belonged) was asleep; for he paid no regard to any conscientious scruples.’
took keep; cf. F. prendre garde.
399. hyer hond, upper hand.
400. ‘He sent them home to wherever they came from by water, ’ i.e. he made them ‘walk the plank,’ as it used to be called; or, in plain English, threw them overboard, to sink or swim. However cruel this may seem now, it was probably a common practice. ‘This battle (the sea-fight off Sluys) was very murderous and horrible. Combats at sea are more destructive and obstinate than upon land’; Froissart’s Chron. bk. i. c. 50. See Minot’s Poems, ed. Hall, p. 16. In Wright’s History of Caricature, p. 204, is an anecdote of the way in which the defeat of the French at Sluys was at last revealed to the king of France, Philippe VI., by the court-jester, who alone dared to communicate the news. ‘Entering the King’s chamber, he continued muttering to himself, but loud enough to be heard—“Those cowardly English! the chicken-hearted English!” “How so, cousin?” the king inquired. “Why,” replied the fool, “because they have not courage enough to jump into the sea, like your French soldiers, who went over headlong from their ships, leaving them to the enemy, who had no inclination to follow them. ” Philippe thus became aware of the full extent of his calamity.’ And see Essays on Chaucer, p. 460.
402. stremes, currents. him bisydes, ever near at hand.
403. herberwe, harbour; see note to l. 765. mone, moon, time of the lunation.
lodemenage, pilotage. A pilot was called a lodesman; see Way’s note in Prompt. Parv. p. 310; Riley’s Memorials of London, p. 655; Chaucer’s Legend of Good Women, 1488. Furnivall’s Temporary Preface, p. 98, gives the Lat. form as lodmannus, whence lodmannagium, pilotage, examples of which are given. Sometimes, lodesman meant any guide or conductor, as in Rob. of Brunne, Handlyng Synne, 9027; Monk of Evesham, ed. Arber, p. 106. M. E. lode is the A. S. lād, a way, a course, the sb. whence the verb to lead is derived. It is itself derived from A. S. līðan, to travel.
404. Cf. Rom. de la Rose, 5394—‘Qui cercheroit jusqu’en Cartage.’
408. Gootland, Gottland, an island in the Baltic Sea.
409. cryke, creek, harbour, port.
410. We find actual mention of a vessel called the Maudelayne belonging to the port of Dartmouth, in the years 1379 and 1386; see Essays on Chaucer, p. 484. See also N. Q. 6 S. xii. 47.
415. astronomye, (really) astrology. See Saunders on Chaucer, p. 111; Warton, Hist. E. Poet. (1840), ii. 202.
415, 416. kepte, watched. The houres are the astrological hours. He carefully watched for a favourable star in the ascendant. ‘A great portion of the medical science of the middle ages depended upon astrological and other superstitious observances.’—Wright. ‘A Phisition must take heede and aduise him of a certaine thing, that fayleth not, nor deceiueth, the which thing Astronomers of Ægypt taught, that by coniunction of the bodye of the Moone with sterres fortunate, commeth dreadful sicknesse to good end: and with contrary Planets falleth the contrary, that is, to euill ende’; c.—Batman upon Bartholomè, lib. viii. c. 29. Precisely the same sort of thing was in vogue much later, viz. in 1578; see Bullein’s Dialogue against the Feuer Pestilence (E. E. T. S.), p. 32.
416. magik naturel. Chaucer alludes to the same practices in the House of Fame, 1259–70 (vol. iii. p. 38):—
417. The ascendent is the point of the zodiacal circle which happens to be ascending above the horizon at a given moment, such as the moment of birth. Upon it depended the drawing out of a man’s horoscope, which represented the aspect of the heavens at some given critical moment. The moment, in the present case, is that for making images. It was believed that images of men and animals could be made of certain substances and at certain times, and could be so treated as to cause good or evil to a patient, by means of magical and planetary influences. See Cornelius Agrippa, De Occulta Philosophia, lib. ii. capp. 35–47. The sense is—‘He knew well how to choose a fortunate ascendant for treating images, to be used as charms to help the patient.’
420. These are the four elementary qualities, hot, cold, dry, moist; Milton, Par. Lost, ii. 898. Diseases were supposed to be caused by an undue excess of some one quality; and the mixture of prevalent qualities in a man’s body determined his complexion or temperament. Thus the sanguine man was thought to be hot and moist; the phlegmatic, cold and moist; the choleric, hot and dry; the melancholy, cold and dry. The whole system rested on the teaching of Galen, and was fundamentally wrong, as it assumed that the ‘elements,’ or ‘simple bodies,’ were four, viz. earth, air, fire, and water. Of these, earth was said to be cold and dry; water, cold and moist; air, hot and moist; and fire, hot and dry. They thus correspond to the four complexions, viz. melancholy, phlegmatic, sanguine, and choleric. Each principal part of the body, as the brain, heart, liver, stomach, c., could be ‘distempered,’ and such distemperance could be either ‘simple’ or ‘compound.’ Thus a simple distemperature of the brain might be ‘an excess of heat’; a compound one, ‘an excess of heat and moisture.’ See the whole system explained in Sir Thos. Elyot’s Castel of Helthe; at the beginning.
422. parfit practisour, perfect practitioner.
424. his bote, his remedy; A. S. bōt, a remedy; E. boot.
426. drogges. MS. Harl. dragges; the rest drogges, drugges, drugs. As to dragges (which is quite a different word), the Promptorium Parvulorum has ‘ dragge, dragetum’; and Cotgrave defines dragée (the French form of the word dragge ) as ‘a kind of digestive powder prescribed unto weak stomachs after meat, and hence any jonkets, comfits, or sweetmeats served in the last course for stomach-closers.’
letuaries, electuaries. ‘ Letuaire, laituarie, s. m., électuaire, sorte de médicament, sirop’; Godefroy.
429–34. Read th’oldë. ‘The authors mentioned here wrote the chief medical text-books of the middle ages. Rufus was a Greek physician of Ephesus, of the age of Trajan; Haly, Serapion, and Avicen (Ebn Sina) were Arabian physicians and astronomers of the eleventh century; Rhasis was a Spanish Arab of the tenth century; and Averroes (Ebn Roschd) was a Moorish scholar who flourished in Morocco in the twelfth century. Johannes Damascenus was also an Arabian physician, but of a much earlier date (probably of the ninth century). Constanti[n]us After, a native of Carthage, and afterwards a monk of Monte Cassino, was one of the founders of the school of Salerno—he lived at the end of the eleventh century. Bernardus Gordonius, professor of medicine at Montpellier, appears to have been Chaucer’s contemporary. John Gatisden was a distinguished physician of Oxford in the earlier half of the fourteenth century. Gilbertyn is supposed by Warton to be the celebrated Gilbertus Anglicus. The names of Hippocrates and Galen were, in the middle ages, always (or nearly always) spelt Ypocras and Galienus.’—Wright. Cf. C. 306. Æsculapius, god of medicine, was fabled to be the son of Apollo. Dioscorides was a Greek physician of the second century. See the long note in Warton, 1871, ii. 368; and the account in Saunders’ Chaucer (1889), p. 115. I may note here, that Haly wrote a commentary on Galen, and is mentioned in Skelton’s Philip Sparowe, l. 505. There were three Serapions; the one here meant was probably John Serapion, in the eleventh century. Averroes wrote a commentary on the works of Aristotle, and died about 1198. Constantinus is the same as ‘the cursed monk Dan Constantyn,’ mentioned in the Marchaunt’s Tale, E. 1810. John Gatisden was a fellow of Merton College, and ‘was court-doctor under Edw. II. He wrote a treatise on medicine called Rosa Anglica ’; J. Jusserand, Eng. Wayfaring Life, (1889), p. 180. Cf. Book of the Duchess, 572. Dante, Inf. iv. 143, mentions ‘Ippocrate, Avicenna, e Gallieno, Averrois,’ c.
See Lounsbury, Studies in Chaucer, ii. 393.
439. ‘In cloth of a blood-red colour and of a blueish-grey.’ Cf. ‘robes de pers, ’ Rom. de la Rose, 9116. In the Testament of Creseide, ed. 1550, st. 36, we find:—
Cf. P. Plowman, B. vi. 271; Hoccleve, de Reg. Princ. p. 26.
440. taffata (or taffety ), a sort of thin silk; E. taffeta.
sendal (or cendal ), a kind of rich thin silk used for lining, very highly esteemed. Thynne says—‘a thynne stuffe lyke sarcenett.’ Palsgrave however has ‘ cendell, thynne lynnen, sendal. ’ See Piers Plowman. B. vi. 11; Marco Polo, ed. Yule (see the index).
441. esy of dispence, moderate in his expenditure.
442. wan in pestilence, acquired during the pestilence. This is an allusion to the great pestilence of the years 1348, 1349; or to the later pestilences in 1362, 1369, and 1376.
443. For =because, seeing that. It was supposed that aurum potabile was a sovereign remedy in some cases. The actual reference is, probably, to Les Remonstrances de Nature, by Jean de Meun, ll. 979, 980, c.; ‘C’est le fin et bon or potable, L’humide radical notable; C’est souveraine medecine’; and the author goes on to refer us to Ecclus. xxxviii. 4—‘The Lord hath created medicines out of the earth; and he that is wise will not abhor them.’ Hence the Doctor would not abhor gold. And further—‘C’est medecine cordiale ’; ib. 1029. To return to aurum potabile: I may observe that it is mentioned in the play called Humour out of Breath, Act i. sc. 1; and there is a footnote to the effect that this was the ‘Universal Medicine of the alchemists, prepared from gold, mercury, c. The full receipt will be found in the Fifth and last Part of the Last Testament of Friar Basilius Valentinus, London, 1670, pp. 371–7.’ See also Thomson’s Hist. of Chemistry, vol. i. p. 164; Burton’s Anat. of Melancholy, pt. 2. sec. 4. mem. 1. subsec. 4.
445. of bisyde, c., from (a place) near Bath, i.e. from a place in its suburbs; for elsewhere she is simply called the Wyf of Bathe.
446. ‘But she was somewhat deaf, and that was her misfortune.’ We should now say—‘and it was a pity.’
447. clooth-making. ‘The West of England, and especially the neighbourhood of Bath, from which the “good wif” came, was celebrated, till a comparatively recent period, as the district of cloth-making. Ypres and Ghent were the great clothing-marts on the Continent.’—Wright. ‘Edward the third brought clothing first into this Island, transporting some families of artificers from Gaunt hither.’—Burton’s Anat. of Mel. p. 51. ‘Cloth of Gaunt’ is mentioned in the Romaunt of the Rose, l. 574 (vol. i. p. 117).
haunt, use, practice; i.e. she was so well skilled (in it).
448. passed, i.e. surpassed.
450. to the offring. In the description of the missal-rites, Rock shews how the bishop (or officiating priest) ‘took from the people’s selves their offerings of bread and wine. . . The men first and then the women, came with their cake and cruse of wine.’ So that, instead of money being collected, as now, the people went up in order with their offerings; and questions of precedence of course arose. The Wife insisted on going up first among the women. See Rock, Church of our Fathers, iii. 2. 33, 149.
453. coverchief ( keverchef, or kerchere, kerché ). The kerchief, or covering for the head, was, until the fourteenth century, almost an indispensable portion of female attire. See B. 837; Leg. of Good Women, l. 2202.
ful fyne of ground, of a very fine texture. See Pierce the Ploughman’s Crede, l. 230, which means ‘it was of fine enough texture to take dye in grain.’
454. ten pound. Of course this is a playful exaggeration; but Tyrwhitt was not justified in altering ten pound into a pound; for a pound-weight, in a head-dress of that period, was a mere nothing, as will be readily understood by observing the huge structures represented in Fairholt’s Costume, figs. 125, 129, 130, 151, which were often further weighted with ornaments of gold. Skelton goes so far as to describe Elinour Rummyng (l. 72)—
Cf. Pierce the Ploughman’s Crede, l. 84, and the note; Stubbes, Anatomy of Abuses, 1585, pp. 63, 70, 72; or ed. Furnivall, pp. 69, 74, 76.
457. streite y-teyd, tightly fastened. See note to l. 174.
moiste, soft—not ‘as hard as old boots.’ So, in H. 60, moysty ale is new ale.
460. chirche-dore. The priest married the couple at the church-porch, and immediately afterwards proceeded to the altar to celebrate mass, at which the newly-married persons communicated. As Todd remarks—‘The custom was, that the parties did not enter the church till that part of the office, where the minister now goes up to the altar [or rather, is directed to go up], and repeats the psalm.’ See Warton, Hist. Eng. Poet. 1871, ii. 366, note 1; Anglia, vi. 106; Rock, Church of our Fathers, iii. pt. 2. 172; Brand’s Antiquities, ed. Ellis, ii. 134. And see D. 6.
461. Withouten = besides. other companye, other lovers. This expression (copied from Le Rom. de la Rose, l. 12985—‘autre companie’) makes it quite certain that the character of the Wife of Bath is copied, in some respects, from that of La Vieille in the Roman de la Rose, as further appears in the Wife’s Prologue.
462. as nouthe, as now, i.e. at present. The form nouthe is not uncommon; it occurs in P. Plowman, Allit. Poems, Sir Gawain and the Grene Knight, c. A. S. nū ðā, now then.
465. Boloigne. Cf. ‘I will have you swear by our dear Lady of Boulogne’; Gammer Gurton’s Needle, Act 2, sc. 2. An image of the virgin, at Boulogne, was sought by pilgrims. See Heylin’s Survey of France, p. 163, ed. 1656 (quoted in the above, ed. Hazlitt).
466. In Galice (Galicia), at the shrine of St. James of Compostella, a famous resort of pilgrims in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. As the legend goes, the body of St. James the Apostle was supposed to have been carried in a ship without a rudder to Galicia, and preserved at Compostella. See Piers Plowman, A. iv. 106, 110, and note to B. Prol. 47; also Eng. Gilds, ed. Toulmin Smith, pp. 172, 177.
Coloigne. At Cologne, where the bones of the Three Kings or Wise Men of the East, Gaspar, Melchior and Balthazar, are said to be preserved. See Coryat’s Crudities; Chambers, Book of Days, ii. 751.
467. ‘She knew much about travelling.’
468. Gat-tothed = gat-toothed, meaning gap-toothed, having teeth wide apart or separated from one another. A gat is an opening, and is allied to E. gate. The Friesic gat, Dan., Du., and Icel. gat, and Norweg. gat, all mean a hole, or a gap. Very similar is the use of the Shropshire glat, a gap in a hedge, also a gap in the mouth caused by loss of teeth. Example: ‘Dick, yo’ bin a flirt; I thought yo’ wun ( were ) gwein to marry the cook at the paas’n’s. Aye, but ’er’d gotten too many glats i’ the mouth for me’; Miss Jackson’s Shropshire Wordbook. ‘Famine—the gap-toothed elf’; Golding’s Ovid, b. 8; leaf 105. It occurs again, D. 603. [ Gat-toothed has also been explained as goat-toothed, lascivious, but the word goat appears as goot in Chaucer.] Perhaps the following piece of ‘folk-lore’ will help us out. ‘A young lady the other day, in reply to an observation of mine—“What a lucky girl you are!”—replied; “So they used to say I should be when at school.” “Why?” “Because my teeth were set so far apart; it was a sure sign I should be lucky and travel. ” ’—Notes Queries 1 Ser. vi. 601; cf. the same, 7 Ser. vii. 306. The last quotation shews that the stop after weye at the end of l. 467 should be a mere semicolon; since ll. 467 and 468 are closely connected.
469. amblere, an ambling horse.
470. Y-wimpled, covered with a wimple; see l. 151.
471. targe, target, shield.
472. foot-mantel. Tyrwhitt supposes this to be a sort of riding-petticoat, such as is now used by market-women. It is clearly shewn, as a blue outer skirt, in the drawing in the Ellesmere MS. At a later time it was called a safe-guard (see Nares), and its use was to keep the gown clean. It may be added that, in the Ellesmere MS., the Wife is represented as riding astride. Hence she wanted ‘a pair of spurs.’
474. carpe, prate, discourse; Icel. karpa, to brag. The present sense of carp seems to be due to Lat. carpere.
475. remedyes. An allusion to the title and subject of Ovid’s book, Remedia Amoris.
476. the olde daunce, the old game, or custom. The phrase is borrowed from Le Roman de la Rose, l. 3946—‘Qu’el scet toute la vielle dance’; E. version, l. 4300—‘For she knew al the olde daunce.’ It occurs again; Troil. iii. 695. And in Troil. ii. 1106, we have the phrase loves daunce. Cf. the amorouse daunce, Troil. iv. 1431.
478. Persoun of a toun, the parson or parish priest. Chaucer, in his description of the parson, contrasts the piety and industry of the secular clergy with the wickedness and laziness of the religious orders or monks. See Dryden’s ‘Character of a Good Parson,’ and Goldsmith’s ‘Deserted Village’; also Wyclif, ed. Matthew, p. 179.
482. parisshens, parishioners; in which - er is a later suffix.
485. y-preved, proved (to be). ofte sythes, often-times; from A. S. sī ð, a time.
486. ‘He was very loath to excommunicate those who failed to pay the tithes that were due to him.’ ‘Refusal to pay tithes was punishable with the lesser excommunication’; Bell. Wyclif complains of ‘weiward curatis’ that ‘sclaundren here parischenys many weies by ensaumple of pride, enuye, coueitise and vnresonable vengaunce, so cruely cursynge for tithes’; Works, ed. Matthew, p. 144 (cf. p. 132).
487. yeven, give; A. S. gifan. out of doute, without doubt.
489. offring, the voluntary contributions of his parishioners.
substaunce, income derived from his benefice.
490. suffisaunce, a sufficiency; enough to live on.
492. lafte not, left not, ceased not; from M. E. leven.
493. meschief, mishap, misfortune.
494. ferreste, farthest; superl. of fer, far. muche, great. lyte, small; A. S. lyt, small, little.
497. wroghte, wrought, worked; pt. t. of werchen, to work.
498. The allusion is to Matt. v. 19, as shewn by a parallel passage in P. Plowman, C. xvi. 127.
502. lewed, unlearned, ignorant. Lewed or lewd originally signified the people, laity, as opposed to the clergy; the modern sense of the word is not common in Middle English. Cf. mod. E. lewd, in Acts xvii. 5. See Lewd in Trench, Select Glossary.
503–4. if a preest tak-e keep, if a priest may (i. e. will) but pay heed to it. St. John Chrysostom also saith, ‘It is a great shame for priests, when laymen be found faithfuller and more righteous than they.’—Becon’s Invective against Swearing, p. 336.
507. to hyre. The parson did not leave his parish duties to be performed by a stranger, that he might have leisure to seek a chantry in St. Paul’s. See Piers Plowman, B-text, Prol. l. 83; Hoccleve, De Regimine Principum, ed. Wright, pp. 51, 52; Spenser, Shep. Kalendar (May).
508. And leet, and left (not). We should now say—‘ Nor left.’ So also, in l. 509, And ran = Nor ran. Leet is the pt. t. of leten, to let alone, let go.
509. Here again, së-ynt is used as if it were dissyllabic; see ll. 120, 697.
510. chaunterie, chantry; an endowment for the payment of a priest to sing mass, agreeably to the appointment of the founder. ‘There were thirty-five of these chantries established at St. Paul’s, which were served by fifty-four priests; Dugd. Hist. pref. p. 41.’—Tyrwhitt’s Glossary. On the difference between a gild and a chantry, see the instructive remarks in Eng. Gilds, ed. Toulmin Smith, pp. 205–207, 259.
511. ‘Or to be kept (i. e. remain) in retirement along with some fraternity.’ I do not see how with-holde can mean ‘maintained,’ as it is usually explained. Cf. dwelte in l. 512, and with-holde in G. 345.
514. no mercenarie, no hireling; see John x. 12, where the Vulgate version has mercenarius.
516. despitous, full of despite, or contempt; cf. E. spite.
517. daungerous, not affable, difficult to approach. Cf. Rom. of the Rose, l. 591:—‘Ne of hir answer daungerous ’; where the original has desdaigneuse. digne, full of dignity; hence, repellent. ‘She was as digne as water in a dich,’ A. 3964; because stagnant water keeps people at a distance.
519. fairnesse, i. e. by leading a fair or good life. The Harleian MS. has clennesse, that is, a life of purity.
523. snibben, reprimand; cf. Dan. snibbe, to rebuke, scold; mod. E. snub. In Wyclif’s translation of Matt. xviii. 15, the earlier version has snybbe as a synonym for reprove.
nones; see l. 379, and the note.
525. wayted after, looked for. See line 571.
526. spyced conscience; so also in D. 435. Spiced here seems to signify, says Tyrwhitt, nice, scrupulous; for a reason which is given below. It occurs in the Mad Lover, act iii. sc. 1, by Beaumont and Fletcher. When Cleanthe offers a purse, the priestess says—
‘Under pretence of spiced holinesse.’—Tract dated 1594, ap. Todd’s Illustrations of Gower, p. 380.
The origin of the phrase is French. The name of espices (spices) was given to the fees or dues which were payable (in advance) to judges. A ‘spiced’ judge, who would have a ‘spiced’ conscience, was scrupulous and exact, because he had been prepaid, and was inaccessible to any but large bribes. See Cotgrave, s. v. espices; Littré, s. v. épice; and, in particular, Les Œuvres de Guillaume Coquillart, ed. P. Tarbé, t. i. p. 31, and t. ii. p. 114. (First explained by me in a letter to The Athenaeum, Nov. 26, 1892, p. 741.)
527. ‘But the teaching of Christ and his twelve apostles, that taught he.’
528. Cf. Acts, i. 1; Gower, Conf. Amant. ii. 188.
529. Plowman; not a hind or farm-labourer, but a poor farmer, who himself held the plough; cf. note to P. Plowman, C. viii. 182. was, who was.
530. y-lad, carried, lit. led. Cf. prov. E. lead, to cart (corn).
531. swinker, toiler, workman; see l. 186. Cf. swink, toil, in l. 540.
534. though him gamed or smerte, though it was pleasant or unpleasant to him.
536. dyke, make ditches. delve, dig; A. S. delfan. Chaucer may be referring to P. Plowman, B. v. 552, 553.
541. mere. People of quality would not ride upon a mare.
545. carl, fellow; Icel. karl, cognate with A. S. ceorl, a churl. See A. 3469; also A. 1423–4. This description of the Miller should be compared with that in A. 3925–3940.
547. ‘That well proved (to be true); for everywhere, where he came.’
548. the ram. This was the usual prize at wrestling-matches. Tyrwhitt says—‘Matthew Paris mentions a wrestling match at Westminster, ad 1222, at which a ram was the prize.’ Cf. Sir Topas, B. 1931; Tale of Gamelyn, 172, 280.
549. a thikke knarre, a thickly knotted (fellow), i. e. a muscular fellow. Cf. M. E. knor, Mid. Du. knorre, a knot in wood; and E. gnarled. It is worth notice that, in ll. 549–557, there is no word of French origin, except tuft.
550. of harre, off its hinges, lit. hinge. ‘I horle at the notes, and heve hem al of herre’; Poem on Singing, in Reliq. Antiquae, ii. 292. Gower has out of herre, off its hinges, out of use, out of joint; Conf. Amant. bk. ii. ed. Pauli, i. 259; bk. iii. i. 318. Skelton has:—‘All is out of harre,’ Magnificence, l. 921. From A.S. heorr, a hinge.
553. Todd cites from Lilly’s Midas —‘How, sir, will you be trimmed? Will you have a bread like a spade or a bodkin?’—Illust. of Gower, p. 258.
554. cop, top; A. S. copp, a top; cf. G. Kopj.
557. nose-thirles, lit. nose-holes; mod. E. nostrils.
559. forneys. ‘Why, asks Mr. Earle, should Chaucer so readily fall on the simile of a furnace ? What, in the uses of the time, made it come so ready to hand? The weald of Kent was then, like our “black country” now, a great smelting district, its wood answering to our coal; and Chaucer was Knight of the Shire, or M.P. for Kent.’—Temporary Preface to the Six-text edition of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, p. 99.
560. Ianglere, loud talker.
goliardeys, a ribald jester, one who gained his living by following rich men’s tables, and telling tales and making sport for the guests. Tyrwhitt says, ‘This jovial sect seems to have been so called from Golias, the real or assumed name of a man of wit, towards the end of the twelfth century, who wrote the Apocalypsis Goliæ, and other pieces in burlesque Latin rhymes, some which have been falsely [?] attributed to Walter Map.’ But it would appear that Golias is the sole invention of Walter Map, the probable author of the ‘Golias’ poems. See Morley’s Eng. Writers, 1888, iii. 167, where we read that the Apocalypse of Golias and the confession of Golias ‘have by constant tradition been ascribed to him [Walter Map]; never to any other writer.’ Golias is a medieval spelling of the Goliath of scripture, and occurs in Chaucer, Man of Lawes Tale, B. 934. In several authors of the thirteenth century, quoted by Du Cange, the goliardi are classed with the joculatores et buffones, and it is very likely that the word goliardus was, originally, quite independent of Golias, which was only connected with it by way of jest. The word goliardus seems rather to have meant, originally, ‘glutton,’ and to be connected with gula, the throat; but it was quite a common term, in the thirteenth century, for certain men of some education but of bad repute, who composed or recited satirical parodies and coarse verses and epigrams for the amusement of the rich. See T. Wright’s Introduction to the poems of Walter Map (Camden Soc.); P. Plowman, ed. Skeat, note to B. prol. 139; Wright’s History of Caricature, ch. x; and the account in Godefroy’s O. French Dict., s. v. Goliard.
561. that, i. e. his ‘Iangling,’ his noisy talk.
harlotrye means scurrility; Wyclif (Eph. v. 4) so translates Lat. scurrilitas.
562. ‘Besides the usual payment in money for grinding corn, millers are always allowed what is called “toll,” amounting to 4 lbs. out of every sack of flour.’—Bell. But it can hardly be doubted that, in old times, the toll was wholly in corn, not in money at all. It amounted, in fact, to the twentieth or twenty-fourth part of the corn ground, according to the strength of the water-course; see Strutt, Manners and Customs, ii. 82, and Nares, s. v. Toll-dish. At Berwick, the miller’s share was reckoned as ‘the thirteenth part for grain, and the twenty-fourth part for malt.’ Eng. Gilds, p. 342. When the miller ‘tolled thrice,’ he took thrice the legal allowance. Cf. A. 3939, 3940.
563. a thombe of gold. An explanation of this proverb is given on the authority of Mr. Constable, the Royal Academician, by Mr. Yarrell in his History of British Fishes, who, when speaking of the Bullhead or Miller’s Thumb, explains that a miller’s thumb acquires a peculiar shape by continually feeling samples of corn whilst it is being ground; and that such a thumb is called golden, with reference to the profit that is the reward of the experienced miller’s skill.
‘When millers toll not with a golden thumbe.’
Ray’s Proverbs give us—‘An honest miller has a golden thumb’; ed. 1768, p. 136; taken satirically, this means that there are no honest millers. Brand, in his Pop. Antiquities, ed. Ellis, iii. 387, quotes from an old play—‘Oh the mooter dish, the miller’s Thumbe! ’
The simplest explanation is to take the words just as they stand, i.e. ‘he used to steal corn, and take his toll thrice; yet he had a golden thumb such as all honest millers are said to have.’
565. W. Thorpe, when examined by Arundel, archbishop of Canterbury, in 1407, complains of the pilgrims, saying—‘they will ordain to have with them both men and women that can well sing wanton songs; and some other pilgrims will have with them bagpipes; so that every town that they come through, what with the noise of their singing, and with the sound of their piping, and with the jangling of their Canterbury bells, and with the barking out of dogs after them, they make more noise than if the king came there away, with all his clarions and many other minstrels.’—Arber’s Eng. Garner, vi. 84; Wordsworth, Eccl. Biography, 4th ed. i. 312; Cutts, Scenes and Characters, p. 179.
566. ‘And with its music he conducted us out of London.’
567. Maunciple or manciple, an officer who had the care of purchasing provisions for a college, an inn of court, c. (Still in use.) See A. 3993. A temple is here ‘an inn of court’; besides the Inner and Middle Temple (in London), there was also an Outer Temple; see Timbs, Curiosities of London, p. 461; and the account of the Temple in Stow’s Survey of London.
568. which, whom.
achatours, purchasers; cf. F. acheter, to buy.
570. took by taille, took by tally, took on credit. Cf. Piers Plowman, ed. Wright, vol. i. p. 68, and ed. Skeat (Clarendon Press Series), B. iv. 58:—
The buyer who took by tally had the price scored on a pair of sticks; the seller gave him one of them, and retained the other himself. ‘Lordis . . . taken pore mennus goodis and paien not therfore but white stickis . . . and sumtyme beten hem whanne thei axen here peye’; Wyclif’s Works, ed. Matthew, p. 233 (see note at p. 519).
571. Algate, in every way, always; cf. prov. E. gate, a street.
achat, buying; see l. 568.
572. ay biforn, ever before (others).
574. swich, such; A. S. swylce. lewed, unlearned; as in l. 502. pace, pass, i.e. surpass.
575. heep, heap, i. e. crowd; like G. Haufe.
581. ‘To make him live upon his own income.’
582. ‘Unless he were mad.’ See l. 184.
583. ‘Or live as economically as it pleases him to wish to do.’
584. al a, a whole. Cf. ‘ all a summer’s day’; Milton, P. L. i. 449.
586. hir aller cappe, the caps of them all. Hir aller =eorum omnium. ‘ To sette ’ a man’s ‘ cappe ’ is to overreach him, to cheat him, or to befool him. Cf. A. 3143.
587. Reve. See Prof. Thorold Rogers’ capital sketch of Robert Oldman, the Cuxham bailiff, a serf of the manor (as reeves always were), in his Agriculture and Prices in England, i. 506–510.
592. Y-lyk, like. y-sen-e, visible; see note to l. 134.
593. ‘He knew well how to keep a garner and a bin.’
597. neet, neat, cattle. dayerye, dairy.
598. hors, horses; pl. See note to l. 74. pultrye, poultry.
599. hoolly, wholly; from A.S. hāl, whole.
601. Sin, short for sithen; and sithen, with an added suffix, became sithen-s or sithen-ce, mod. E. since.
602. ‘No one could prove him to be in arrears.’
603. herde, herd, i. e. cow-herd or shep-herd. hyne, hind, farm-labourer.
604. That . . . his, whose; as in A. 2710.
covyne, deceit; lit. a deceitful agreement between two parties to prejudice a third. O. F. covine, a project; from O. F. covenir, Lat. conuenire, to come together, agree.
605. adrad, afraid; from the pp. of A. S. ofdrǣdan, to terrify greatly.
the deeth, the pestilence; see note to l. 442.
606. woning, dwelling-place; see l. 388.
609. astored (Elles. c.); istored (Harl.); furnished with stores.
611. lene, lend; whence E. len-d. of, some of.
613. mister, trade, craft; O. F. mestier (F. métier ), business; Lat. ministerium. ‘Men of all mysteris ’; Barbour’s Bruce, xvii. 542.
614. wel, very. wrighte, wright, workman.
615. stot, probably what we should now call a cob. Prof. J. E. T. Rogers, in his Hist. of Agriculture, i. 36, supposes that a stot was a low-bred undersized stallion. It frequently occurs with the sense of ‘bullock’; see note to P. Plowman, C. xxii. 267.
616. Sir Topas’s horse was ‘dappel-gray,’ which has the same sense as pomely gray, viz. gray dappled with round apple-like spots. ‘Apon a cowrsowre poumle-gray ’; Wyntown, Chron. iv. 217; ‘ pomly-gray ’; Palladius on Husbandry, bk. iv. l. 809; ‘Upon a pomely palfray’; Lybeaus Disconus, 844 (in Ritson’s Metrical Romances). Florio gives Ital. pomellato, ‘pide, daple-graie.’ The word occurs in the French Roman de Troie by Benoît de Sainte-Maure, ed. Joly, 10722:—‘Quant Troylus orent monté Sor un cheval sor pommelé. ’ Cf. G. 559.
Scot. ‘The name given to the horse of the reeve (who lived at Bawdeswell, in Norfolk) is a curious instance of Chaucer’s accuracy; for to this day there is scarcely a farm in Norfolk or Suffolk, in which one of the horses is not called Scot’; Bell’s Chaucer. Cf. G. 1543.
617. pers. Some MSS. read blew. See note on l. 439.
621. Tukked aboute, with his long coat tucked up round him by help of a girdle. In the pictures in the Ellesmere MS., both the reeve and the friar have girdles, and rather long coats; cf. D. 1737. ‘He (i.e. a friar) wore a graie cote well tucked vnder his corded girdle, with a paire of trime white hose’; W. Bullein, A Dialogue against the Feuer (E. E. T. S.), p. 68. See Tuck in Skeat, Etym. Dict.
622. hind-r-este, hindermost; a curious form, combining both the comparative and superlative suffixes. Cf. ov-er-est, l. 290.
623. Somnour, summoner; an officer employed to summon delinquents to appear in ecclesiastical courts; now called an apparitor. ‘The ecclesiastical courts . . . determined all causes matrimonial and testamentary. . . . They had besides to enforce the payment of tithes and church dues, and were charged with disciplinary power for punishment of adultery, fornication, perjury, and other vices which did not come under the common law. The reputation of the summoner is enough to show how abuses pervaded the action of these courts. Prof. Stubbs has summed up the case concerning them in his Constitutional History, iii. 373.’—Wyclif’s Works, ed. Matthew, note at p. 514. For further information as to the summoner’s character, see the Frere’s Tale, D. 1299–1374.
624. cherubinnes face. H. Stephens, Apologie for Herodotus, i. c. 30, quotes the same thought from a French epigram—‘Nos grands docteurs au cherubin visage. ’—T. Observe that cherubin (put for cherubim ) is a plural form. ‘As the pl. was popularly much better known than the singular (e.g. in the Te Deum), the Romanic forms were all fashioned on cherubin, viz. Ital. cherubino, Span. querubin, Port. querubin, cherubin, F. cherubin ’; New English Dictionary. Cherubs were generally painted red, a fact which became proverbial, as here. Cotgrave has: ‘ Rouge comme un cherubin, red-faced, cherubin-faced, having a fierie facies like a Cherubin.’ Mrs. Jameson, in her Sacred and Legendary Art, has unluckily made the cherubim blue, and the seraphim red; the contrary was the accepted rule.
625. sawcefleem or sawsfleem, having a red pimpled face; lit. afflicted with pimples, c., supposed to be caused by too much salt phlegm ( salsum phlegma ) in the constitution. The four humours of the blood, and the four consequent temperaments, are constantly referred to in various ways by early writers—by Chaucer as much as by any. Tyrwhitt quotes from an O. French book on physic (in MS. Bodley 761)—‘Oignement magistrel pur sausefleme et pur chescune manere de roigne, ’ where roigne signifies any scorbutic eruption. ‘So (he adds) in the Thousand Notable Things, B. i. 70—“A sawsfleame or red pimpled face is helped with this medicine following:”—two of the ingredients are quicksilver and brimstone. In another place, B. ii. 20, oyle of tartar is said “to take away cleane all spots, freckles, and filthy wheales. ” ’ He also quotes, in his Glossary, from MS. Bodley 2463—‘unguentum contra salsum flegma, scabiem, c.’ Flewme in the Prompt. Parv. answers to Lat. phlegma. See the long note by J. Addis in N. and Q. 4 S. iv. 64; Babees Book, ed. Furnivall, p. 169, l. 777. ‘The Greke word that he vsed was ἐξανθήματα, that is, little pimples or pushes, soche as, of cholere and salse flegme, budden out in the noses and faces of many persones, and are called the Saphires and Rubies of the Tauerne.’—Udall, tr. of Erasmus’ Apophthegmes, Diogenes, § 6: [ printed false flegme in ed. 1877.] See l. 420.
627. scalled, having the scall or scab, scabby, scurfy. blake, black.
piled, deprived of hair, thin, slight. Cf. E. peel, vb. Palsgrave has—‘ Pylled, as one that wanteth heare’; and ‘ Pylled, scal[l]ed.’
629. litarge, litharge, a name given to white lead.
630. Boras, borax.
ceruce, ceruse, a cosmetic made from white lead; see New E. Dict. oille of tartre, cream of tartar; potassium bitartrate.
632. Cf. ‘Such whelkes [on the head] haue small hoales, out of the which matter commeth. . . . And this euill commeth of vicious and gleymie [viscous] humour, which commeth to the skin of their head, and breedeth therein pimples and whelks. ’—Batman on Bartholomè, lib. 7. c. 3. In the same, lib. 7. c. 67, we read that ‘A sauce flume face is a priuye signe of leprosie.’ Cf. Shak. Hen. V. iii. 6. 108.
635. See Prov. xxxiii. 31. The drinking of strong wine accounts for the Somnour’s appearance. ‘Wyne . . . makith the uisage salce fleumed [misprinted falce flemed ], rede, and fulle of white whelkes ’; Knight de la Tour, p. 116 (perhaps copied from Chaucer).
643. Can clepen Watte, i.e. can call Walter (Wat) by his name; just as parrots are taught to say ‘Poll.’ In Political Songs, ed. Wright, p. 328, an ignorant priest is likened to a jay in a cage, to which is added: ‘Go[o]d Engelish he speketh, ac [ but ] he wot nevere what’; referring to the time when Anglo-French was the mother-tongue of many who became priests.
644. ‘But if any one could test him in any other point.’
646. Questio quid iuris. ‘This kind of question occurs frequently in Ralph de Hengham. After having stated a case, he adds, quid juris, and then proceeds to give an answer to it.’—T. It means—‘the question is, what law (is there)?’ i.e. what is the law on this point?
647. harlot, fellow, usually one of low conduct; but originally merely a young person, without implication of reproach. See D. 1754.
649. ‘For a bribe of a quart of wine, he would allow a boon companion of his to lead a vicious life for a whole year, and entirely excuse him; moreover (on the other hand) he knew very well how to pluck a finch,’ i.e. how to get all the feathers off any inexperienced person whom it was worth his while to cheat. Cf. ‘a pulled hen’ in l. 177. With reference to the treatment of the poor by usurers, c., we read in the Rom. of the Rose, l. 6820, that ‘Withoute scalding they hem pulle, ’ i.e. pluck them. And see Troil. i. 210.
654–7. ‘He would teach his friend in such a case (i.e. if his friend led an evil life) to stand in no awe of the archdeacon’s curse (excommunication), unless he supposed that his soul resided in his purse; for in his purse [not in his soul] he should be punished’ (i.e. by paying a good round sum he could release himself from the archdeacon’s curse). ‘Your purse (said he) is the hell to which the archdeacon really refers when he threatens you.’ See, particularly, Wyclif’s Works, ed. Matthew, pp. 35, 62, 496.
661. assoilling, absolution; from the vb. assoil.
662. war him of, i.e. let him beware of; war is the pres. subj.
significavit, i.e. of a writ de excommunicato capiendo [or excommunication] which usually began, ‘Significavit nobis venerabilis frater,’ c.—T. See Significavit in Cowel or Blount.
663. In daunger, within his jurisdiction, within the reach or control of his office; the true sense of M. E. daunger is ‘control’ or ‘dominion.’ Thus, in the Romaunt of the Rose, l. 1470, we find:—
i.e. whom Love had got into his power. So also in l. 1049 of the same.
664. yonge girles, young people, of either sex. In the Coventry Mysteries, p. 181, there is mention of ‘knave gerlys,’ i.e. male children. And see gerles in the Gloss. to P. Plowman, and the note to the same, C. ii. 29.
665. and was al hir reed, and was wholly their adviser.
666, 667. gerland. A garland for an ale-stake was distinct from a bush. The latter was made of ivy-leaves; and every tavern had an ivy-bush hanging in front as its sign; hence the phrase, ‘Good wine needs no bush,’ c. But the garland, often used in addition to the bush, was made of three equal hoops, at right angles to each other, and decorated with ribands. It was also called a hoop. The sompnour wore only a single hoop or circlet, adorned with large flowers (apparently roses), according to his picture in the Ellesmere MS. Emelye, in the Knightes Tale, is described as gathering white and red flowers to make ‘a sotil gerland’ for her head; A. 1054. ‘Garlands of flowers were often worn on festivals, especially in ecclesiastical processions’; Rock, Church of our Fathers, ii. 72. Some garlands, worn on the head, were made of metal; see Riley, Memorials of London, p. 133.
667. ale-stake, a support for a garland in front of an ale-house. For a picture of an ale-stake with a garland, see Hotten’s Book of Signboards. The position of it was such that it did not stand upright, but projected horizontally from the side of a tavern at some height from the ground, as shewn in Larwood and Hotten’s Book of Signboards. Hence the enactments made, that it should never extend above the roadway for more than seven feet; see Liber Albus, ed. H. T. Riley, 1861, pp. 292, 389. Speght wrongly explained ale-stake as ‘a Maypole,’ and has misled many others, including Chatterton, who thus was led to write the absurd line—‘ Around the ale-stake minstrels sing the song’; Ælla, st. 30. ‘ At the ale-stake’ is correct; see C. 321.
669. As to the character of the Pardoner, see further in the Pardoner’s Prologue, C. 329–462; P. Plowman, B. prol. 68–82; Heywood’s Interlude of the Four Ps, which includes a shameless plagiarism from Chaucer’s Pardoner’s Prologue; and Sir David Lyndesay’s Satire of the Three Estaits, l. 2037. Cf. note to C. 349. See also the Essay on Chaucer’s Pardoner and the Pope’s Pardoners, by Dr. J. Jusserand, in the Essays on Chaucer (Chaucer Society), p. 423; and the Chapter on Pardoners in Jusserand’s English Wayfaring Life. Jusserand shews that Chaucer has not in the least exaggerated; for exaggeration was not possible.
670. Of Rouncival. Of course the Pardoner was an Englishman, so that he could hardly belong to Roncevaux, in Navarre. The reference is clearly to the hospital of the Blessed Mary of Rouncyvalle, in the parish of St. Martin in the Fields, at Charing (London), mentioned in Dugdale’s Monasticon, ii. 443. Stow gives its date of foundation as the 15th year of Edward IV., but this was only a revival of it, after it had been suppressed by Henry V. It was a ‘cell’ to the Priory of Roncevaux in Navarre. See Todd’s Illustrations of Gower, p. 263: and Rouncival in Nares. Cf. note to l. 172.
672. Com hider, love, to me. ‘This, I suppose, was the beginning or the burthen of some known song.’—Tyrwhitt. It is quoted again in l. 763 of the poem called ‘The Pearl,’ in the form—‘Come hyder to me, my lemman swete.’ hider, hither.
The rime of tó me with Róme should be particularly noted, as it enables even the reader who is least skilled in English phonology to perceive that Ro-me was really dissyllabic, and that the final e in such words was really pronounced. Similarly, in Octouian Imperator, ed. Weber, l. 1887, we find seint Ja-mè, riming with frá me (from me). Perhaps the most amusing example of editorial incompetence is seen in the frequent occurrence of the mysterious word byme in Pauli’s edition of Gower; as, e.g. in bk. iii. vol. i. p. 370:—
Of course, by me should have been printed as two words, riming with ti-mè. This is what happens when grammatical facts are ignored. Time is dissyllabic, because it represents the A.S. tīma, which is never reduced to a monosyllable in A.S.
673. bar . . . a stif burdoun, sang the bass. See A. 4165, and N. and Q. 4 S. vi. 117, 255. Cf. Fr. bourdon, the name of a deep organ-stop.
675, 676. wex, wax. heng, hung. stryke of flex, hank of flax.
677. By ounces, in small portions or thin clusters.
679. colpons, portions; the same word as mod. E. coupon.
680. for Iolitee, for greater comfort. He thought it pleasanter to wear only a cap (l. 683). wered, wore; see l. 75. Cf. G. 571, and the note.
682. the newe Iet, the new fashion, which is described in ll. 680–683.
‘ Newe Iette, guise nouelle’; Palsgrave.
683. Dischevele, with his hair hanging loose.
685. vernicle, a small copy of the ‘vernicle’ at Rome. Vernicle is ‘a diminutive of Veronike (Veronica), a copy in miniature of the picture of Christ, which is supposed to have been miraculously imprinted upon a handkerchief preserved in the church of St. Peter at Rome. . . It was usual for persons returning from pilgrimages to bring with them certain tokens of the several places which they had visited; and therefore the Pardoner, who is just arrived from Rome, is represented with a vernicle sowed on his cappe. ’—Tyrwhitt. See the description of a pilgrim in Piers Plowman, ed. Skeat, B. v. 530, and the note. The legend was invented to explain the name. First the name of Bernice, taken from the Acts, was assigned to the woman who was cured by Christ of an issue of blood. Next, Bernice, otherwise Veronica, was (wrongly) explained as meaning vera icon (i. e. true likeness), which was assigned as the name of a handkerchief on which the features of Christ were miraculously impressed. Copies of this portrait were called Veronicae or Veroniculae, in English vernicles, and were obtainable by pilgrims to Rome. There was also a later St. Veronica, who died in 1497, after Chaucer’s time, and whose day is Jan. 13.
See Legends of the Holy Rood, ed. Morris, pp. 170, 171; Mrs. Jameson’s Sacred and Legendary Art, ii. 269; Lady Eastlake’s History of our Lord, i. 41; Rock, Church of our Fathers, iii. pt. i. p. 438; and the picture of the vernicle in Chambers, Book of Days, i. 101.
687. Bret-ful of pardon, brim-full (top-full, full to the top) of indulgences. Cf. Swed. bräddfull, brimful; from brädd, a brim. See A. 2164; Ho. of Fame, 2123.
692. fro Berwik, from Berwick to Ware (in Hertfordshire), from North to South of England. See the similar phrase—‘From Barwick to Dover, three hundred miles over’—in Pegge’s Kenticisms (E.D.S.), p. 70.
694. male, bag; cf. E. mail -bag.
pilwebeer, pillow-case. Cf. Low. G. büren, a case (for a pillow), Icel. ver, Dan. vaar, a cover for a pillow. The form pillow-bear occurs as a Cheshire word as late as 1782; N. and Q. 6 S. xii. 217.
696. gobet, a small portion; O. F. gobet, a morsel; gober, to devour.
698. hente, caught hold of; from A. S. hentan, to seize.
699. ‘A cross made of latoun, set full of (probably counterfeit) precious stones.’ Latoun was a mixed metal, of the same colour as, and closely resembling, the modern metal called pinchbeck, from the name of the inventor. It was chiefly composed of copper and zinc. See further in the note to C. 350; and cf. F. 1245.
701. Cf. Wyclif’s Works, ed. Matthew, p. 154; and the note to C. 349.
702. up-on lond, in the country. Country people used to be called uplondish men. Jack Upland is the name of a satire against the friars.
705, 706. Iapes, deceits, tricks. his apes, his dupes; cf. A. 3389.
710. alder-best, best of all; alder is a later form of aller, from A.S. ealra, of all, gen. pl. of eal, all. See ll. 586, 823.
712. affyle, file down, make smooth. Cf. ‘affile His tunge’; Gower, C. A. i. 296; ‘gan newe his tunge affyle,’ Troil. ii. 1681; ‘his tongue [is] filed ’; Love’s Labour’s Lost, v. i. 12. So also Spenser, F. Q. i. 1. 35; iii. 2. 12; Skelton, Colin Clout, 852.
716. Thestat, tharray = the estate, the array: the coalescence of the article with the noun is very common in Middle English.
719. highte, was named; cf. A. S. hātan, (1) to call, (2) to be called, to be named (with a passive sense).
721. ‘How we conducted ourselves that same night.’
726. ‘That ye ascribe it not to my ill-breeding.’ narette, for ne arette. From O.F. aretter, to ascribe, impute; from Lat. ad and reputare; see Aret in the New E. Dict. Also spelt arate, with the sense ‘to chide’; whence mod. E. to rate. So here the poet implies—‘do not rate me for my ill-breeding.’ The argument here used is derived from Le Roman de la Rose, 15361–96.
727. pleynly speke (Elles. c.); speke al pleyn (Harl.).
731. shal telle, has to tell. after, according to, just like.
734. Al speke he, although he speak. See al have I, l. 744.
738. ‘He is bound to say one word as much as another.’
741, 742. This saying of Plato is taken from Boethius, De Consolatione, bk. iii. pr. 12, which Chaucer translates: ‘Thou hast lerned by the sentence of Plato, that nedes the wordes moten be cosines to the thinges of which they speken’; see vol. ii. p. 90, l. 151. In Le Roman de la Rose, 7131, Jean de Meun says that Plato tells us, speech was given us to express our wishes and thoughts, and proceeds to argue that men ought to use coarse language. Chaucer was thinking of this singular argument. We also find in Le Roman (l. 15392) an exactly parallel passage, which means in English, ‘the saying ought to resemble the deed; for the words, being neighbours to the things, ought to be cousins to their deeds.’ In the original French, these passages stand thus:—
So also in the Manciple’s Tale, H. 208.
744. ‘Although I have not,’ c. Cf. l. 734.
747. Our hoste. It has been remarked that from this character Shakespeare’s ‘mine host of the Garter’ in the Merry Wives of Windsor is obviously derived.
752. The duty of the ‘marshal of the hall’ was to place every one according to his rank at public festivals, and to preserve order. See Babees Book, p. 310. Cf. Spenser, F. Q. v. 9. 23; Gower, Conf. Amant. iii. 299. Even Milton speaks of a ‘ marshall’d feast’; P. L. ix. 37.
753. stepe, bright; see note to l. 201.
754. Chepe, i. e. Cheapside, in London.
760. maad our rekeninges, i. e. paid our scores.
764. I saught nat (Elles. c.); I ne saugh (Harl.). To scan the line, read I n’ saugh, dropping the e in ne. The insertion of ne is essential to the sense, viz. ‘I have not seen.’
765. herberwe, inn, lit. harbour. The F. auberge is from the O.H.G. form of the same word.
770. ‘May the blessed martyr duly reward you!’
772. shapen yow, intend; cf. l. 809. talen, to tell tales.
777. yow lyketh alle, it pleases you all; yow is in the dat. case, as in the mod. E. ‘if you please.’ See note to l. 37.
783. ‘Hold up your hands’; to signify assent.
785. to make it wys, to make it a matter of wisdom or deliberation; so also made it strange, made it a matter of difficulty, A. 3980.
791. ‘To shorten your way with.’ In M. E., the prep. with always comes next the verb in phrases of this character. Most MSS. read our for your here, but this is rather premature. The host introduces his proposal to accompany the pilgrims by the use of our in l. 799, and we in l. 801; the proposal itself comes in l. 803.
792. As to the number of the tales, see vol. iii. pp. 374, 384.
798. ‘Tales best suited to instruct and amuse.’
799. our aller cost, the expense of us all; here our = A. S. ūre, of us; see ll. 710, 823.
808. mo, more; A. S. mā. In M. E., mo generally means ‘more in number,’ whilst more means ‘larger,’ from A. S. māra. Cf. l. 849.
810. and our othes swore, and we swore our oaths; see next line.
817. In heigh and lowe. ‘Lat. In, or de alto et basso, Fr. de haut en bas, were expressions of entire submission on one side, and sovereignty on the other.’—Tyrwhitt. Cotgrave (s. v. Bas ) has:—‘ Taillables haut et bas, taxable at the will and pleasure of their lord.’ It here means—‘under all circumstances.’
819. fet, fetched; from A. S. fetian, to fetch, pp. fetod.
822. day. It is the morning of the 17th of April. See note to l. 1.
823. our aller cok, cock of us all, i. e. cock to awake us all. our aller = A. S. ūre ealra, both in gen. pl.
825. riden, rode; pt. t. pl., as in l. 856. The i is short.
pas, a foot-pace. Cf. A. 2897; C. 866; G. 575; Troil. ii. 627.
826. St. Thomas a Waterings was a place for watering horses, at a brook beside the second mile-stone on the road to St. Thomas’s shrine, i.e. to Canterbury. It was a place anciently used for executions in the county of Surrey, as Tyburn was in that of Middlesex. See Nares, s. v. Waterings.
828. if yow leste, if it may please you. The verb listen made liste in the past tense; but Chaucer changes the verb to the form lesten, pt. t. leste, probably for the sake of the rime. See ll. 750 and 102. In the Knightes Tale, A. 1052, as hir liste rimes with upriste.
The true explanation is, that the A. S. y had the sound of mod. G. ü. In Mid. Eng., this was variably treated, usually becoming either i or u; so that, e.g., the A. S. pyt (a pit) became M. E. pit or put, the former of which has survived. But, in Kentish, the form was pet; and it is remarkable that Chaucer sometimes deliberately adopts Kentish forms, as here, for the sake of the rime. A striking example is seen in fulfelle for fulfille, in Troil. iii. 510, to rime with telle. He usually has fulfille, as below, in A. 1318, 2478.
829. Ye woot, ye know. Really false grammar, as the pl. of woot (originally a past tense) is properly witen, just as the pl. of rood is riden in l. 825. As woot was used as a present tense, its original form was forgotten. ‘Ye know your agreement, and I recall it to your memory.’ See l. 33.
830. ‘If even-song and matins agree’; i.e. if you still say now what you said last night.
832. ‘As ever may I be able to drink’; i.e. As surely as I ever hope to be able, c. Cf. B. 4490, c.
833. be, may be (subjunctive mood).
835. draweth cut, draw lots; see C. 793–804. The Gloss. to Allan Ramsay’s poems, ed. 1721, has—‘ cutts, lots. These cuts are usually made of straws unequally cut, which one hides between his finger and thumb, whilst another draws his fate’; but the verb to cut is unallied. See Brand, Pop. Antiq., iii. 337. The one who drew the shortest (or else the longest) straw was the one who drew the lot. Cf. ‘ Sors, a kut, or a lotte’; Reliquiae Antiquae, i. 7. ‘After supper, we drew cuttes for a score of apricoks, the longest cut stil to draw an apricoke’; Marston, Induction to The Malcontent.
ferrer twinne, depart further. Here ferrer is the comp. of fer, far. Twinnen is to separate, part in twain; hence, to depart.
844. sort, lot, destiny; O. F. sort; cf. E. sort.
847. as was resoun, as was reasonable or right.
848. forward, agreement, as in l. 33. compositioun has almost exactly the same sense, but is of French origin.
853. shal biginne, have to begin.
854. What; used interjectionally, like the modern E. ‘why!’
a, in. Here a is for an, a form of on; the A. S. on is constantly used with the sense of ‘in.’
856. riden, rode; pt. pl. See l. 825.
For general remarks on this tale, see vol. iii. p. 389.
It is only possible to give here a mere general idea of the way in which the Knightes Tale is related to the Teseide of Boccaccio. The following table gives a sketch of it, but includes many lines wherein Chaucer is quite original. The references to the Knightes Tale are to the lines of group A (as in the text); those to the Teseide are to the books and stanzas.
| Kn. Tale. | Teseide. |
| 865–883 | I. and II. |
| 893–1027 | II. 2-5, 25–95. |
| 1030–1274 | III. 1-11, 14–20, 47, 51–54, 75. |
| 1361–1448 | IV. 26–29, 59. |
| 1451–1479 | V. 1-3, 24–27, 33. |
| 1545–1565 | IV. 13, 14, 31, 85, 84, 17, 82. |
| 1638–1641 | VII. 106, 119. |
| 1668–1739 | V. 77–91. |
| 1812–1860 | V. 92–98. |
| 1887–2022 | VII. 108–110, 50–64, 29–37. |
| 2102–2206 | VI. 71, 14–22, 65–70, 8. |
| 2222–2593 | VII. 43–49, 68–93, 23–41, 67, 95–99, 7-13, 131, 132, 14, 100–102, 113–118, 19. |
| 2600–2683 | VIII. 2-131. |
| 2684–2734 | IX. 4-61. |
| 2735–2739 | XII. 80, 83. |
| 2743–2808 | X. 12–112. |
| 2809–2962 | XI. 1-67. |
| 2967–3102 | XII. 3-19, 69–83. |
The MSS. quote a line and a half from Statius, Thebaid, xii. 519, 520, because Chaucer is referring to that passage in his introductory lines to this tale; see particularly ll. 866, 869, 870.
There is yet another reason for quoting this scrap of Latin, viz. that it is also quoted in the Poem of Anelida and Arcite, at l. 22, where the ‘Story’ of that poem begins; and ll. 22–25 of Anelida give a fairly close translation of it. From this and other indications, it appears that Chaucer first of all imitated Boccaccio’s Teseide (more or less closely) in the poem which he himself calls ‘Palamon and Arcite,’ of which but scanty traces exist in the original form; and this poem was in 7-line stanzas. He afterwards recast the whole, at the same time changing the metre; and the result was the Knightes Tale, as we here have it. Thus the Knightes Tale is not derived immediately from Boccaccio or from Statius, but through the medium of an older poem of Chaucer’s own composition. Fragments of the same poem were used by the author in other compositions; and the result is, that the Teseide of Boccaccio is the source of (1) sixteen stanzas in the Parliament of Foules; (2) of part of the first ten stanzas in Anelida; (3) of three stanzas near the end of Troilus (Tes. xi. 1-3); as well as of the original Palamon and Arcite and of the Knightes Tale.
Hence it is that ll. 859–874 and ll. 964–981 should be compared with Chaucer’s Anelida, ll. 22–46, as printed in vol. i. p. 366. Lines 882 and 972 are borrowed from that poem with but slight alteration.
859. The lines from Statius, Theb. xii. 519–22, to which reference is made in the heading, relate to the return of Theseus to Athens after his conquest of Hippolyta, and are as follows:—
860. Theseus, the great legendary hero of Attica, is the subject of Boccaccio’s poem named after him the Teseide. He is also the hero of the Legend of Ariadne, as told in Chaucer’s Legend of Good Women. After deserting Ariadne, he succeeded his father Aegeus as king of Athens, and conducted an expedition against the Amazons, from which he returned in triumph, having carried off their queen Antiope, here named Hippolyta.
861. governour. It should be observed that Chaucer continually accents words of Anglo-French origin in the original manner, viz. on the last or on the penultimate syllable. Thus we have here governóur and conqueróur; in l. 865, chivalrý-e; in l. 869, contrée; in l. 876, manére, c. The most remarkable examples are when the words end in - oun (ll. 893, 935).
864. cóntree is here accented on the first syllable; in l. 869, on the last. This is a good example of the unsettled state of the accents of such words in Chaucer’s time, which afforded him an opportunity of licence, which he freely uses. In fact, cóntree shows the English, and contrée, the French accent.
865. chivalrye, knightly exploits. In i. 878, chivalrye means ‘knights’; mod. E. chivalry. So also in l. 982.
866. regne of Femenye, the kingdom (Lat. regnum ) of the Amazons. Femenye is from Lat. femina, a woman. Cf. Statius, Theb. xii. 578. ‘Amazonia, womens land, is a Country, parte in Asia and parte in Europa, and is nigh Albania; and hath that name of Amazonia of women that were the wives of the men that were called Goths, the which men went out of the nether Scithia, as Isidore seith, li. 9.’—Batman upon Bartholomè, lib. xv. c. 12. Cf. Higden’s Polychronicon, lib. i. cap. xviii; and Gower, Conf. Amant., ii. 73:—
867. Scithea, Scythia. Cf. Scythicae in the quotation from Statius in note to l. 859.
868. Ipolita, Shakespeare’s Hippolyta, in Mids. Night’s Dream. The name is in Statius, Theb. xii. 534, spelt Hippolyte.
880. In this line, Athenes seems to mean ‘Athenians,’ though elsewhere it means ‘Athens.’ Athénès is trisyllabic.
884. tempest. As there is no mention of a tempest in Boccaccio, Tyrwhitt proposed to alter the reading to temple, as there is some mention of Theseus offering in the temple of Pallas. But it is very unlikely that this would be alluded to by the mere word temple; and we must accept the reading tempest, as in all the seven MSS. and in the old editions.
I think the solution is to be found by referring to Statius. Chaucer seems to have remembered that a tempest is there described (Theb. xii. 650–5), but to have forgotten that it is merely introduced by way of simile. In fact, when Theseus determines to attack Creon (see l. 960), the advance of his host is likened by Statius to the effect of a tempest. The lines are:—
885. as now, at present, at this time. Cf. the M.E. adverbs as-swithe, as-sone, immediately. From the Rom. de la Rose, 21479:—
889. I wol nat letten eek noon of this route, I desire not to hinder eke (also) none of all this company. Wol = desire; cf. ‘I will have mercy,’ c.
890. aboute, i. e. in his turn, one after the other; corresponding to the sense ‘in rotation, in succession,’ given in the New English Dictionary. This sense of the word in this passage was pointed out by Dr. Kölbing in Engl. Studien, ii. 531. He instanced a similar use of the word in the Ormulum, l. 550, where the sense is—‘and ay, whensoever that flock of priests, being twenty-four in number, had all served once about in the temple.’
901. crëature is here a word of three syllables. In l. 1106 it has four syllables.
903. nolde, would not: the A. S. nolde is the pt. t. of nyllan, equivalent to ne willan, not to wish; cf. Lat. noluit, from nolle.
stenten, stop. ‘It stinted, and said aye.’—Romeo and Juliet, i. 3. 48.
908. that thus, i. e. ye that thus.
911. clothed thus (Elles.); clad thus al (Harl.).
912. alle is to be pronounced al-lè. Tyrwhitt inserts than, then, after alle, against the authority of the best MSS. and of the old editions.
Statius (Theb. xii. 545) calls this lady Capaneia coniux; see l. 932, below. He says all the ladies were from Argos, and their husbands were kings.
913. a deedly chere, a deathly countenance or look.
918. we biseken, we beseech, ask for. For such double forms as beseken and besechen, cf. mod. Eng. dike and ditch, kirk and chirch, sack and satchel, stick and stitch. In the Early Eng. period the harder forms with k were very frequently employed by Northern writers, who preferred them to the palatalised Southern forms (perhaps influenced by Anglo-French) with ch. Cf. M. E. brig and rigg with bridge and ridge.
926. This line means ‘that ensureth no estate to be (always) good.’ Suggested by Boethius; see bk. ii. pr. 2. ll. 37–41 (vol. ii. p. 27).
928. Clemence, Clemency, Pity. Suggested by ‘il tempio . . . di Clemenza,’ Tes. ii. 17; which again is from ‘mitis posuit Clementia sedem,’ Theb. xii. 482.
932. Capaneus, one of the seven heroes who besieged Thebes: struck dead by lightning as he was scaling the walls of the city, because he had defied Zeus; Theb. x. 927. See note to l. 912, above.
937. The celebrated siege of ‘The Seven against Thebes’; Capaneus being one of the seven kings.
941. for despyt, out of vexation; mod. E. ‘for spite.’
942. To do the dede bodyes vileinye, to treat the dead bodies shamefully.
948. withouten more respyt, without longer delay.
949. They fillen gruf, they fell flat with the face to the ground. In M. E. we find the phrase to fall grovelinges or to fall groveling. See Gruflynge and Ogrufe in the Catholicon Anglicum, and the editor’s notes, pp. 166, 259.
954. Himthoughte, it seemed to him; cf. methinks, it seems to me. In M. E. the verbs like, list, seem, rue (pity), are used impersonally, and take the dative case of the pronoun. Cf. the modern expression ‘if you please’=if it be pleasing to you.
955. mat, dejected. ‘Ententyfly, not feynt, wery ne mate. ’—Hardyng, p. 129.—M.
960. ferforthly, i. e. far-forth-like, to such an extent.
965. abood, delay, awaiting, abiding.
966. His baner he desplayeth, i. e. he summons his troops to assemble for military service.
968. No neer, no nearer. Accent Athén-es on the second syllable; but in l. 973 it is accented on the first.
970. lay, lodged for the night.
975. státue, the image, as depicted on the banner.
977. feeldes, field, is an heraldic term for the ground upon which the various charges, as they are called, are emblazoned. Some of this description was suggested by the Thebais, lib. xii. 665, c.; but the resemblance is very slight.
978. penoun, pennon. y-bete, beaten; the gold being hammered out into a thin foil in the shape of the Minotaur; see Marco Polo, ed. Yule, i. 344. But, in the Thebais, the Minotaur is upon Theseus’ shield.
988. In pleyn bataille, in open or fair fight.
993. obséquies (Elles., c.); exéquies (Harl.); accented on the second syllable.
1004. as him leste, as it pleased him.
1005. tas, heap, collection. Some MSS. read cas ( caas ), which might=downfall, ruin, Lat. casus; but, as c and t are constantly confused, this reading is really due to a mere blunder. Gower speaks of gathering ‘a tasse ’ of sticks; Conf. Amant. bk. v. ed. Pauli, ii. 293. Palsgrave has—‘On a heape, en vng tas ’; p. 840. Hexham’s Dutch Dict. (1658) has—‘ een Tas, a Shock, a Pile, or a Heape.’ Chaucer found the word in Le Roman de la Rose, 14870: ‘ung tas de paille,’ a heap of straw.
1006. harneys. ‘And arma be not taken onely for the instruments of al maner of crafts, but also for harneys and weapon; also standards and banners, and sometimes battels.’—Bossewell’s Armorie, p. 1, ed. 1597. Cf. l. 1613.
1010. Thurgh-girt, pierced through. This line is taken from Troilus, iv. 627: ‘Thourgh-girt with many a wyd and blody wounde.’
1011. liggyng by and by, lying near together, as in A. 4143; the usual old sense being ‘in succession,’ or ‘in order’; see examples in the New Eng. Dict., p. 1233, col. 3. In later English, by and by signifies presently, immediately, as ‘the end is not by and by. ’
1012. in oon armes, in one (kind of) arms or armour, shewing that they belonged to the same house. Chaucer adapts ancient history to medieval time throughout his works.
1015. Nat fully quike, not wholly alive.
1016. by hir cote-armures, by their coat-armour, by the devices on the vest worn above the armour covering the breast. The cote-armure, as explained in my note to Barbour’s Bruce, xiii. 183, was ‘of no use as a defence, being made of a flimsy material; but was worn over the true armour of defence, and charged with armorial bearings’; see Ho. Fame, 1326. Cf. l. 1012. by hir gere, by their gear, i. e. equipments.
1018. they. Tyrwhitt (who relied too much on the black-letter editions) reads tho, those; but the seven best MSS. have they.
1023. Tathenes, to Athens (Harl. MS., which reads for to for to ). Cf. tallegge, l. 3000 (foot-note).
1024. he nolde no raunsoun, he would accept of no ransom.
1029. Terme of his lyf, the remainder of his life. Cf. ‘The end and term of natural philosophy.’—Bacon’s Advancement of Learning, Bk. ii. p. 129, ed. Aldis Wright.
1035. Cf. Leg. of Good Women, 2425, 2426.
1038. stroof hir hewe, strove her hue; i.e. her complexion contested the superiority with the rose’s colour.
1039. I noot, I know not; noot=ne woot.
1047. May. ‘Against Maie, every parishe, towne, and village, assembled themselves together, bothe men, women, and children, olde and yonge, even all indifferently, and either going all together or devidyng themselves into companies, they goe, some to the woodes and groves, some to the hills and mountaines, some to one place, some to another, where they spend all the night in pastimes; in the morninge they return, bringing with them birche, bowes and branches of trees, to deck their assemblies withalle.’—Stubbes, Anatomy of Abuses, ed. 1585, leaf 94 (ed. Furnivall, p. 149). See also Strutt, Manners and Customs, iii. 177. Cf. Midsummer Night’s Dream, i. 1. 167:—
‘To do observance to a morn of May.’
See also l. 1500, and the note.
1049. Hir yelow heer was broyded, her yellow hair was braided. Yellow hair was esteemed a beauty; see Seven Sages, 477, ed. Weber; King Alisaunder, 207; and the instances in Burton, Anat. of Melancholy, pt. 3. sec. 2. mem. 2. subsec. 2. Boccaccio has here—‘Co’ biondi crini avvolti alla sua testa’; Tes. iii. 10.
1051. the sonne upriste, the sun’s uprising; the - e in sonne represents the old genitive inflexion. Upriste is here the dat. of the sb. uprist. It occurs also in Gower, Conf. Amantis, bk. i. ed. Pauli, i. 116.
1052. as hir liste, as it pleased her.
1053. party, partly; Fr. en partie.
1054. sotil gerland, a subtle garland; subtle has here the exact force of the Lat. subtilis, finely woven.
1055. Cf. ‘Con angelica voce’; Tes. iii. 10: and Troil. ii. 826.
1060. evene-Ioynant, joining, or adjoining.
1061. Ther as this Emelye hadde hir pleyinge, i. e. where she was amusing herself.
1063. In the Teseide (iii. 11) it is Arcite who first sees Emily.
1074. by aventure or cas, by adventure or hap.
1076. sparre, a square wooden bolt; the bars, which were of iron, were as thick as they must have been if wooden. See l. 990.
1078. bleynte, the past tense of blenche or blenke (to blench), to start, draw back suddenly. Cf. dreynte, pt. t. of drenchen. ‘Tutto stordito, Gridò, Omè!’ Tes. iii. 17.
1087. Som wikke aspect. Cf. ‘wykked planete, as Saturne or Mars,’ Astrolabe, ii. 4. 22; notes in Wright’s edition, ll. 2453, 2457; and Piers the Plowman, B. vi. 327; and see Leg. of Good Women, 2590–7. Add to these the description of Saturn: ‘Significat in quartanis, lepra, scabie, in mania, carcere, submersione, c. Est infortuna.’—Johannis Hispalensis, Isagoge in Astrologiam, cap. xv. See A. 1328, 2469.
1089. al-though, c., although we had sworn to the contrary. Cf. ‘And can nought flee, if I had it sworn ’; Lydgate, Dance of Machabre (The Sergeaunt). Also—‘he may himselfe not sustene Upon his feet, though he had it sworne ’; Lydgate, Siege of Thebes (The Sphinx), pt. i.
1091. the short and pleyn, the brief and manifest statement of the case. Pronounce this is as this; as frequently elsewhere; see l. 1743, E. 56, F. 889.
1100. Cf. ‘That cause is of my torment and my sorwe’: Troil. v. 654.
1101. Cf. ‘But whether goddesse or womman, y-wis, She be, I noot’; Troil. i. 425.
wher, a very common form for whether.
1105. Yow (used reflexively), yourself.
1106. wrecche, wretched, is a word of two syllables, like wikke, wicked, where the d is a later and unnecessary addition.
1108. shapen, shaped, determined. ‘ Shapes our ends.’—Shakespeare, Hamlet, v. 2. 10. Cf. l. 1225.
1120. ‘And except I have her pity and her favour.’
1121. atte leeste weye, at the least. Cf. leastwise=at the leastwise: ‘ at leastwise ’; Bacon’s Advancement of Learning, ed. Wright, p. 146, l. 23. See English Bible (Preface of ‘The Translators to the Reader’).
1122. ‘I am not but (no better than) dead, there is no more to say.’ Chaucer uses ne—but much in the same way as the Fr. ne—que. Cf. North English ‘I’m nobbut clemmed’=I am almost dead of hunger.
1126. by my fey, by my faith, in good faith.
1127. me list ful yvele pleye, it pleaseth me very badly to play.
1128. This debate is an imitation of the longer debate (in the Teseide), where Palamon and Arcite meet in the grove; cf. l. 1580 below.
1129. It nere=it were not, it would not be.
1132. ‘It was a common practice in the middle ages for persons to take formal oaths of fraternity and friendship; and a breach of the oath was considered something worse than perjury. This incident enters into the plots of some of the medieval romances. A curious example will be found in the Romance of Athelston; Reliquiæ Antiquæ, ii. 85.’—Wright. A note in Bell’s Chaucer reminds us that instances occur also in the old heroic times; as in the cases of Theseus and Peirithous, Achilles and Patroclus, Pylades and Orestes, Nysus and Euryalus. See Sworn Brothers in Nares’ Glossary; Rom. of the Rose, 2884.
1133. ‘That never, even though it cost us a miserable death, a death by torture.’ So in Troilus, i. 674: ‘That certayn, for to deyen in the peyne.’ Also in the E. version of The Romaunt of the Rose, 3326.
1134. ‘Till that death shall part us two.’ Cf. the ingenious alteration in the Marriage Service, where the phrase ‘till death us depart’ was altered into ‘do part’ in 1661.
1136. cas, case. It properly means event, hap. See l. 1074.
my leve brother, my dear brother.
1141. out of doute, without doubt, doubtless.
1147. to my counseil, to my adviser. See l. 1161.
1151. I dar wel seyn, I dare maintain.
1153. Thou shalt be. Chaucer occasionally uses shall in the sense of owe, so that the true sense of I shall is I owe (Lat. debeo ); it expresses a strong obligation. So here it is not so much the sign of a future tense as a separate verb, and the sense is ‘Thou art sure to be false sooner than I am.’
1155. par amour, with love, in the way of love. To love par amour is an old phrase for to love excessively. Cf. Bruce, xiii. 485; and see A. 2112, below; Troil. v. 158, 332.
1158. affeccioun of holinesse, a sacred affection, or aspiration after.
1162. I pose, I put the case, I will suppose.
1163. ‘Knowest thou not well the old writer’s saying?’ The olde clerk is Boethius, from whose book, De Consolatione Philosophiae, Chaucer has borrowed largely in many places. The passage alluded to is in lib. iii. met. 12:—
Chaucer’s translation (vol. ii. p. 92, l. 37) has—‘But what is he that may yive a lawe to loveres? Love is a gretter lawe . . . than any lawe that men may yeven.’ And see Troil. iv. 618.
1167. and swich decree, and (all) such ordinances.
1168. in ech degree, in every rank of life.
1172. And eek it is, c., ‘and moreover it is not likely that ever in all thy life thou wilt stand in her favour.’
1177. This fable, in this particular form, is not in any of the usual collections; but it is, practically, the same as that called ‘The Lion, the Tiger, and the Fox’ in Croxall’s Æsop. Sometimes it is ‘the Lion, the Bear, and the Fox’; the Fox subtracts the prey for which the others fight. It is no. 247 in Halm’s edition of the ‘Fabulae Æsopicae,’ Lips., Teubner, 1852, with the moral:—ὁ μυ̑θος δηλοι̑, ὅτι ἄλλων κοπιώντων ἄλλοι κερδαίνουσιν. In La Fontaine’s Fables, it appears as Les Voleurs et l’Âne. Thynne coolly altered kyte to cur, and then had to insert so after were to fill up the line.
1186. everich of us, each of us, every one of us.
1189. to theffect, to the result, or end.
1196. From the Legend of Good Women, 2282.
1200. in helle. An allusion to Theseus accompanying Pirithous in his expedition to carry off Proserpina, daughter of Aidoneus, king of the Molossians, when both were taken prisoner, and Pirithous torn in pieces by the dog Cerberus. At least, such is the story in Plutarch; see Shakespeare’s Plutarch, ed. Skeat, p. 289. Chaucer found the mention of Pirithous’ visit to Athens in Boccaccio’s Teseide, iii. 47–51. The rest he found in Le Roman de la Rose, 8186—
1201. Observe the expression to wryte, which shews that this story was not originally meant to be told. (Anglia, viii. 453.)
1212. Most MSS. read or stounde, i. e. or at any hour. MS. Dd. has o stound, one moment, any short interval of time.
‘The storme sesed within a stounde.’
On this slight authority, Tyrwhitt altered the reading, and is followed by Wright and Bell, though MS. Hl. really has or like the rest, and the black-letter editions have the same.
1218. his nekke lyth to wedde, his neck is in jeopardy; lit. lies in pledge or in pawn.
1222. To sleen himself he wayteth prively, he watches for an opportunity to slay himself unperceived.
1223. This line, slightly altered, occurs also in the Legend of Good Women, 658.
1225. Now is me shape, now I am destined; literally, now is it shapen (or appointed) for me.
1247. It was supposed that all things were made of the four elements mentioned in l. 1246. ‘Does not our life consist of the four elements?’—Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, ii. 3. 10.
1255. Cf. P. Plowman, C. xiii. 236.
1257. ‘And another man would fain (get) out of his prison.’
1259. matere; in the matter of thinking to excel God’s providence.
1260. ‘We never know what thing it is that we pray for here below.’ See Romans viii. 26.
1261. dronke is as a mous. This phrase seems to have given way to ‘drunk as a rat.’ ‘Thus satte they swilling and carousyng, one to another, till they were both as dronke as rattes. ’—Stubbes, Anatomie of Abuses; ed. Furnivall, p. 113.
Cf. ‘When that he is dronke as a dreynt mous ’; Ritson, Ancient Songs, i. 70 (Man in the Moon, l. 31). ‘And I will pledge Tom Tosspot, till I be drunk as a mouse-a ’; Old Plays, ed. Hazlitt, iii. 339. See also Skelton, Colin Clout, 803; and D. 246.
1262. This is from Boethius, De Consolatione, lib. iii. pr. 2: ‘But I retorne ayein to the studies of men, of whiche men the corage alwey reherseth and seketh the sovereyn good, al be it so that it be with a derked memorie; but he not by whiche path, right as a dronken man not nat by whiche path he may retorne him to his hous. ’—Chaucer’s Translation of Boethius; vol. ii. p. 54, l. 57.
1264. slider, slippery; as in the Legend of Good Women, l. 648. Cf. the gloss—‘ Lubricum, slidere’; Reliquiae Antiquae, i. 7.
1279. pure fettres, the very fetters. ‘So in the Duchesse, l. 583, the pure deeth. The Greeks used καθαρός in the same sense.’—Tyrwhitt.
1283. at thy large, at large. Cf. l. 2288.
1302. ‘White like box-wood, or ashen-gray’; cf. l. 1364. Cf. ‘And pale as box she wex’; Legend of Good Women, l. 866. Also ‘asshen pale and dede’; Troil. ii. 539.
1308. Copied in Lydgate’s Horse, Sheep, and Goose, 124:—‘But here this schepe, rukkyng in his folde.’ ‘ Rukkun, or cowre down’; Prompt. Parv. In B. 4416, MSS. Cp. Pt. Ln. have rouking in place of lurking.
1317. to letten of his wille, to refrain from his will (or lusts).
1333. Cf. the phrase ‘paurosa gelosia’; Tes. v. 2.
1344. upon his heed, on pain of losing his head. ‘Froissart has sur sa teste, sur la teste, and sur peine de la teste. ’—T.
1347. this question. ‘An implied allusion to the medieval courts of love, in which questions of this kind were seriously discussed.’—Wright.
1366. making his mone, making his complaint or moan.
1372. ‘In his changing mood, for all the world, he conducted himself not merely like one suffering from the lover’s disease of Eros, but rather (his disease was) like mania engendered of melancholy humour.’ This is one of the numerous allusions to the four humours, viz. the choleric, phlegmatic, sanguine, and melancholic. An excess of the latter was supposed to produce ‘melancholy madness.’ gere, flighty manner, changeableness; ‘Siche wilde gerys hade he mo’; Thornton Romances, Sir Percival, l. 1353. See note to l. 1536.
1376. in his celle fantastyk. Tyrwhitt reads Beforne his hed in his celle fantastike. Elles. has Biforn his owene celle fantastik. ‘The division of the brain into cells, according to the different sensitive faculties, is very ancient, and is found depicted in medieval manuscripts. The fantastic cell ( fantasia ) was in front of the head.’—Wright. Hence Biforen means ‘in the front part of his head.’
‘Madnesse is infection of the formost cel of the head, with priuation of imagination, lyke as melancholye is the infection of the middle cell of the head, with priuation of reason, as Constant. saith in libro de Melancolia. Melancolia (saith he) is an infection that hath mastry of the soule, the which commeth of dread and of sorrow. And these passions be diuerse after the diuersity of the hurt of their workings; for by madnesse that is called Mania, principally the imagination is hurt; and in the other reson is hurted.’—Batman upon Bartholomè, lib. vii. c. 6. Vincent of Beauvais, bk. xxviii. c. 41, cites a similar statement from the Liber de Anatomia, which begins:—‘Cerebrum itaque tribus cellulis est distinctum. Duae namque meringes cerebri faciunt tres plicaturas inter se denexas, in quibus tres sunt cellulae: phantastica scilicet ab anteriori parte capitis, in qua sedem habet imaginatio.’ So in Batman upon Bartholomè, lib. v. c. 3:—‘The Braine . . . is diuided in three celles or dens . . . In the formost cell . . . imagination is conformed and made; in the middle, reason; in the hindermost, recordation and minde’ [memory]. Cf. also Burton, Anat. of Melancholy, pt. 2. sec. 3. mem. 1. subsec. 2.
1385–8. Probably from Claudian, De Raptu Proserpinae, i. 77:—
See Lounsbury, Studies, ii. 382.
1390. Argus, Argus of the hundred eyes, whom Mercury charmed to sleep before slaying him. Ovid, Met. i. 714.
1401. Cf. ‘Hir face . . . Was al ychaunged in another kinde’; Troil. iv. 864.
1405. bar him lowe, conducted himself as one of low estate. Cf. E. 2013.
1409. Cf. ‘in maniera di pover valletto’; Tes. iv. 22.
1428. In the Teseide, iv. 3, he takes the name of Penteo. Philostrato is the name of another work by Boccaccio, answering to Chaucer’s Troilus. The Greek ϕιλόστρατος means, literally, ‘army-lover’; but it is to be noted that Boccaccio did not so understand it. He actually connected it with the Lat. stratus, and explained it to mean ‘vanquished or prostrated with love’; and this is how the name is here used.
1444. slyly, prudently, wisely. The M. E. sleigh, sly =wise, knowing: and sleight =wisdom, knowledge. (For change of meaning compare cunning, originally knowledge; craft, originally power; art, c.)
1463. The third night is followed by the fourth day; so Palamon and Arcite meet on the 4th of May (l. 1574), which was a Friday (l. 1534); the first hour of which was dedicated to Venus (l. 1536) and to lovers’ vows (l. 1501). The 4th of May was a Friday in 1386.
1471. clarree. ‘The French term claré seems simply to have denoted a clear transparent wine, but in its most usual sense a compounded drink of wine with honey and spices, so delicious as to be comparable to the nectar of the gods. In Sloane MS. 2584, f. 173, the following directions are found for making clarré: —“Take a galoun of honi, and skome (skim) it wel, and loke whanne it is isoden (boiled), that ther be a galoun; thanne take viii galouns of red wyn, than take a pound of pouder canel (cinnamon), and half a pounde of pouder gynger, and a quarter of a pounde of pouder peper, and medle (mix) alle these thynges togeder and (with) the wyn; and do hym in a clene barelle, and stoppe it fast, and rolle it wel ofte sithes, as men don verious, iii dayes.” ’—Way; note to Prompt. Parv., p. 79. ‘The Craft to make Clarre’ is also given in Arnold’s Chronicle of London; and see the Gloss. to the Babees Book. See Rom. of the Rose, 5971.
1472. Burton mentions ‘opium Thebaicum,’ which produced stupefaction; Anat. Met. pt. 3. sec. 2. mem. 6. subsec. 2. The words ‘Opium Thebaicum’ are written in the margin in MSS. E. and Hn.
1477. nedes-cost, for needes coste, by the force of necessity. It seems to be equivalent to M.E. needes-wyse, of necessity. Alre-coste (Icelandic alls-kostar, in all respects) signifies ‘in every wise.’ It occurs in Old English Homilies (ed. Morris), part i. p. 21: ‘We ne maȝen alre-coste halden Crist(es) bibode,’ we are not able in every wise to keep Christ’s behests. The right reading in Leg. Good Women, 2697, is:—
‘And nedes cost this thing mot have an ende.’
1494. A beautiful line; but copied from Dante, Purg. i. 20—‘Faceva tutto rider l’oriente.’
1500. See note to l. 1047, where the parallel line from Shakespeare is quoted. And cf. Troil. ii. 112—‘And lat us don to May som observaunce.’ See the interesting article on May-day Customs in Brand’s Popular Antiquities (where the quotation from Stubbes will be found); also Chambers, Book of Days, i. 577, where numerous passages relating to May are cited from old poems. An early passage relative to the 1st of May occurs in the Orologium Sapientiae, printed in Anglia, x. 387:—‘And thanne is the custome of dyuerse contrees that yonge folke gone on the nyghte or erely on the morow to Medowes and woddes, and there they kutten downe bowes that haue fayre grene leves, and arayen hem with flowres; and after they setten hem byfore the dores where they trowe to haue amykes [friends?] in her lovers, in token of frendschip and trewe loue.’ And see May-day in Nares.
1502. From the Legend of Good Women, 1204.
1508. Were it = if it were only.
1509. So in Troilus, ii. 920:—
‘Ful loude sang ayein the mone shene.’
1522. ‘Veld haueð hege, and wude haueð heare,’ i.e. ‘Field hath eye, and wood hath ear.’
‘Campus habet lumen, et habet nemus auris acumen.’
This old proverb, with Latin version, occurs in MS. Trin. Coll. Cam. O. 2. 45, and is quoted by Mr. T. Wright in his Essays on England in the Middle Ages, vol. i. p. 168. Cf. Cotgrave’s F. Dict. s. v. Oeillet.
‘Das Feld hat Augen, der Wald hat Ohren’; Ida von Düringsfeld, Sprichwörter, vol. i. no. 453.
1524. at unset stevene, at a meeting not previously fixed upon, an unexpected meeting or appointment. This was a proverbial saying, as is evident from the way in which it is quoted in Sir Eglamour, 1282 (Thornton Romances, p. 174):—
‘Thei setten steuen, ’ they made an appointment; Knight de la Tour-Landry, ch. iii. And see below, The Cokes Tale:
‘And ther they setten steven for to mete’; A. 4383.
1531. hir queynte geres, their strange behaviours.
1532. Now in the top (i. e. elevated, in high spirits), now down in the briars (i. e. depressed, in low spirits).
1533. boket in a welle. Cf. Shakespeare’s Richard II., iv. 1. 184. ‘Like so many buckets in a well; as one riseth another falleth, one’s empty, another’s full.’—Burton’s Anat. of Mel. p. 33.
1536. gery, changeable; so also gerful in l. 1538. Observe also the sb. gere, a changeable mood, in ll. 1372, 1531, and Book of the Duchesse, 1257. This very scarce word deserves illustration. Mätzner’s Dictionary gives us some examples.
‘Her gery Iaces,’ their changeful ribands; Richard Redeless, iii. 130.
‘Now gerysshe, glad and anoon aftir wrothe.’
‘In gerysshe Marche’; id. 243. ‘ Gerysshe, wylde or lyght-headed’; Palsgrave’s Dict., p. 313. In Skelton’s poem of Ware the Hauke (ed. Dyce, i. 157) we find:—
Dyce, in his note upon the word, quotes two passages from Lydgate’s Fall of Princes, B. iii. c. 10. leaf 77, and B. vi. c. 1. leaf 134.
Two more occur in the same, B. iii. c. 8, and B. iv. c. 8.
See also in his Siege of Troye, ed. 1555, fol. B 6, back, col. 2; c.
1539. A writer in Notes and Queries quotes the following Devonshire proverb: ‘Fridays in the week are never aleek,’ i. e. Fridays are unlike other days.
1566. Compare Legend of Good Women, 2629:—
So also in Troil. iii. 733.
1593. I drede noght, I have no fear, I doubt not.
1594. outher . . . or = either . . . or.
1609. To darreyne hir, to decide the right to her. Spenser is very fond of this word; see F. Q. i. 4. 40; i. 7. 11; ii. 2. 26; iii. i. 20; iv. 4. 26, 5. 24; v. 2. 15; vi. 7. 41. See deraisnier in Godefroy’s O. Fr. Dict.
1622. to borwe. This expression has the same force as to wedde, in pledge. See l. 1218.
1625. The expression ‘sooth is seyd’ shews that Chaucer is here introducing a quotation. The original passage is the following, from the Roman de la Rose, 8487:—
Again, the expression ‘cele parole’ shews that Jean de Meun is also here quoting from another, viz. from Ovid, Met. ii. 846:—
1626. his thankes, willingly, with good-will; cf. l. 2107. Cf. M. E. myn unthonkes = ingratis. ‘He faught with them in batayle their unthankes ’; Hardyng’s Chronicle, p. 112.—M.
1638. Cf. Teseide, vii. 106, 119; Statius, Theb. iv. 494–9.
1654. Foynen, thrust, push. It is a mistake to explain this, as usual, by ‘fence,’ as fence (= defence) suggests parrying; whereas foinen means to thrust or push, as in attack, not as in defence. It occurs again in l. 2550. Hence it is commonly used of the pushing with spears.
Strutt (Sports and Pastimes, bk. iii. c. 1. § 32) explains that a thrust is more dangerous than a cut, and quotes the old advice, that ‘to foyne is better than to smyte.’ ‘And there kyng Arthur smote syr Mordred vnder the shelde wyth a foyne of his spere thorughoute the body more than a fadom’; Sir T. Malory, Morte Darthur, bk. xxi. c. 4. This was a foine indeed!
1656. Deficient in the foot. Scan:—In | his fight | ing, c. The usual insertion of as before a is wholly unauthorised.
1665. hath seyn biforn, hath foreseen. Cf. Teseide, vi. 1.
1668. From the Teseide, v. 77. Compare the medieval proverb:—‘Hoc facit una dies quod totus denegat annus.’ Quoted in Die älteste deutsche Litteratur; by Paul Piper (1884); p. 283.
1676. ther daweth him no day, no day dawns upon him.
1678. hunte, hunter, huntsman; whence Hunt as a surname. I find this form as late as in Gascoigne’s Art of Venerie: ‘I am the Hunte ’; Works, ed. Hazlitt, ii. 306.
1698. Similarly, Adrastus stopped the fight between Tydeus and Polynices; Statius, Theb. i. Lydgate describes this in his Siege of Thebes, pt. ii, and takes occasion to borrow several expressions from this part of the Knightes Tale.
1706. Ho, an exclamation made by heralds, to stop the fight. It was also used to enjoin silence. See ll. 2533, 2656; Troil. iv. 1242.
1707. Up peyne is the old phrase; as in ‘ up peyne of emprisonement of 40 days’; Riley’s Memorials of London, p. 580.
1736. it am I. ‘This is the regular construction in early English. In modern English the pronoun it is regarded as the direct nominative, and I as forming part of the predicate.’—M.
1739. ‘Therefore I ask my death and my doom.’
1747. Mars the rede. Boccaccio uses the same epithet in the opening of his Teseide, i. 3: ‘ O Marte rubicondo. ’ Rede refers to the colour of the planet; cf. Anelida, 1.
1761. This line occurs again three times; March. Tale E. 1986; Squieres Tale, F. 479; Legend of Good Women, 503.
1780. can no divisoun, knows no distinction.
1781. after oon = after one mode, according to the same rule.
1783. eyen lighte, cheerful looks.
1785. See the Romaunt of the Rose, 878–884; vol. i. p. 130.
1799. ‘Amare et Sapere vix Deo conceditur.’—Publius Syrus, Sent. 15. Cf. Adv. of Learning, ii. proem. § 15—‘It is not granted to man to love and to be wise’; ed. Wright, p. 84. So also in Bacon’s 10th Essay. The reading here given is correct. Fool is used with great emphasis; the sense is:—‘Who can be a (complete) fool, unless he is in love?’ The old printed editions have the same reading. The Harl. MS. alone has if that for but-if, giving the sense: ‘Who can be fool, if he is in love?’ As this is absurd, Mr. Wright silently inserted not after may, and is followed by Bell and Morris; but the latter prints not in italics. Observe that the line is deficient in the first foot. Read:—Whó | may bé | a fóol, c.
1807. jolitee, joyfulness—said of course ironically.
1808. Can . . . thank, acknowledges an obligation, owes thanks.
1814. a servant, i. e. a lover. This sense of servant, as a term of gallantry, is common in our dramatists.
1815, 1818. Cf. the Teseide, v. 92.
1837. looth or leef, displeasing or pleasing.
1838. pypen in an ivy leef is an expression like ‘blow the buck’s-horn’ in A. 3387, meaning to console oneself with any frivolous employment; it occurs again in Troilus, v. 1433. Cf. the expression ‘to go and whistle.’ Cf. ‘farwel the gardiner; he may pipe with an yue-leafe; his fruite is failed’; Test. of Love, bk. iii; ed. 1561, fol. 316. Boys still blow against a leaf, and produce a squeak. Lydgate uses similar expressions:—
Again, in Hazlitt’s Proverbs, we find ‘To go blow one’s flute,’ which is taken from an old proverb. In Vox Populi Vox Dei (circa 1547), pr. in Hazlitt’s Popular Poetry, iii. 284, are the lines:—
The custom is old. Cf. Zenobius, i. 19 (Paroem. Graec. I. p. 6):—
ᾄδειν πρὸς μυρρίνην· ἔθος ἠ̑ν τὸν μὴ δυνάμενον ἐν τοι̑ς συμποσίοις ᾀ̑σαι, δύϕνης κλω̑να ἠ̑ μυρρίνης λαβόντα πρὸς του̑τον ᾄδειν.
1850. fer ne ner, farther nor nearer, neither more nor less. ‘After some little trouble, I have arrived at the conclusion that Chaucer has given us sufficient data for ascertaining both the days of the month and of the week of many of the principal events of the “Knightes Tale.” The following scheme will explain many things hitherto unnoticed.
‘On Friday, May 4, before 1 a. m., Palamon breaks out of prison. For (l. 1463) it was during the “third night of May, but (l. 1467) a little after midnight.” That it was Friday is evident also, from observing that Palamon hides himself at day’s approach, whilst Arcite rises “for to doon his observance to May, remembring on the poynt of his desyr. ” To do this best, he would go into the fields at sunrise (l. 1491), during the hour dedicated to Venus, i. e. during the hour after sunrise on a Friday. If however this seem for a moment doubtful, all doubt is removed by the following lines:—
‘All this is very little to the point unless we suppose Friday to be the day. Or, if the reader have still any doubt about this, let him observe the curious accumulation of evidence which is to follow.
‘Palamon and Arcite meet, and a duel is arranged for an early hour on the day following. That is, they meet on Saturday, May 5. But, as Saturday is presided over by the inauspicious planet Saturn, it is no wonder that they are both unfortunate enough to have their duel interrupted by Theseus, and to find themselves threatened with death. Still, at the intercession of the queen and Emily, a day of assembly for a tournament is fixed for “ this day fifty wykes ” (l. 1850). Now we must understand “fifty wykes” to be a poetical expression for a year. This is not mere supposition, however, but a certainty; because the appointed day was in the month of May, whereas fifty weeks and no more would land us in April. Then “this day fyfty wekes” means “this day year,” viz. on May 5. [In fact, Boccaccio has ‘un anno intero’; Tes. v. 98.]
‘Now, in the year following (supposed not a leap-year), the 5th of May would be Sunday. But this we are expressly told in l. 2188. It must be noted, however, that this is not the day of the tournament 1 , but of the muster for it, as may be gleaned from ll. 1850–1854 and 2096. The eleventh hour “inequal” of Sunday night, or the second hour before sunrise of Monday, is dedicated to Venus, as explained by Tyrwhitt (l. 2217); and therefore Palamon then goes to the temple of Venus. The next hour is dedicated to Mercury. The third hour, the first after sunrise on Monday, is dedicated to Luna or Diana, and during this Emily goes to Diana’s temple. The fourth after sunrise is dedicated to Mars, and therefore Arcite then goes to the temple of Mars. But the rest of the day is spent merely in jousting and preparations—
“Al that Monday justen they and daunce.” (l. 2486.)
The tournament therefore takes place on Tuesday, May 7, on the day of the week presided over by Mars, as was very fitting; and this perhaps helps to explain Saturn’s exclamation in l. 2669, “Mars hath his wille.” ’—Walter W. Skeat, in Notes and Queries, Fourth Series, ii. 2, 3; Sept. 12, 1868 (since slightly corrected).
To this was added the observation, that May 5 was on a Saturday in 1386, and on a Sunday in 1387. Ten Brink (Studien, p. 189) thinks it is of no value; but the coincidence is curious.
1866. ‘Except that one of you shall be either slain or taken prisoner’; i. e. one of you must be fairly conquered.
1884. listes, lists. ‘The lists for the tilts and tournaments resembled those, I doubt not, appointed for the ordeal combats, which, according to the rules established by Thomas, duke of Gloucester, uncle to Richard II., were as follows. The king shall find the field to fight in, and the lists shall be made and devised by the constable; and it is to be observed, that the list must be 60 paces long and 40 paces broad, set up in good order, and the ground within hard, stable, and level, without any great stones or other impediments; also, that the lists must be made with one door to the east, and another to the west [see ll. 1893, 4]; and strongly barred about with good bars 7 feet high or more, so that a horse may not be able to leap over them.’—Strutt, Sports and Pastimes; bk. iii. c. 1. § 23.
1889. The various parts of this round theatre are subsequently described. On the North was the turret of Diana, with an oratory; on the East the gate of Venus, with altar and oratory above; on the West the gate of Mars, similarly provided.
1890. Ful of degrees, full of steps (placed one above another, as in an amphitheatre). ‘But now they have gone a nearer way to the wood, for with wooden galleries in the church that they have, and stairy degrees of seats in them, they make as much room to sit and hear, as a new west end would have done.’—Nash’s Red Herring, p. 21. See Shakespeare, Julius Cæsar, ii. 126, and also 2 Kings xx. 9. Cf. ‘While she stey up from gre to gre. ’—Lives of Saints, Roxb. Club, p. 59. Lines 1187–1894 are more or less imitated from the Teseide, vii. 108–110.
1910. Coral is a curious material to use for such a purpose; but we find posts of coral and a palace chiefly formed of coral and metal in Guy of Warwick, ed. Zupitza, 11399–11401.
1913. don wroght, caused (to be) made; observe this idiom. Cf. don yow kept, E. 1098; han doon fraught, B. 171; haf gert saltit, Bruce, xviii. 168.
1918–32. See the analysis of this passage in vol. iii. p. 390.
1919. on the wal, viz. on the walls within the oratory. The description is loosely imitated from Boccaccio’s Teseide, vii. 55–59. It is remarkable that there is a much closer imitation of the same passage in Chaucer’s Parl. of Foules, ll. 183–294. Thus at l. 246 of that poem we find:—
There is yet another description of the temple of Venus in the House of Fame, 119–139, where we have the very line ‘Naked fletinge in a see’ (cf. l. 1956 below), and a mention of the ‘rose garlond’ (cf. l. 1961), and of ‘Hir dowves and daun Cupido’ (cf. ll. 1962–3).
1929. golde, a marigold; Calendula. ‘ Goolde, herbe: Solsequium, quia sequitur solem, elitropium, calendula’; Prompt. Parv. The cornmarigold in the North is called goulans, guilde, or goles, and in the South, golds (Way). Gower says that Leucothea was changed
Yellow is the colour of jealousy; see Yellowness in Nares. In the Rom. de la Rose, 22037, Jealousy is described as wearing a ‘chapel de soussie, ’ i. e. a chaplet of marigolds.
1936. Citheroun =Cithaeron, sacred to Venus; as said in the Rom. de la Rose, 15865, q. v.
1940. In the Romaunt of the Rose, Idleness is the porter of the garden in which the rose (Beauty) is kept. In the Parl. of Foules, 261, the porter’s name is Richesse. Cf. ll. 2, 3 of the Second Nonnes Tale (G. 2, 3).
1941. of yore agon, of years gone by. Cf. Ovid, Met. iii. 407.
1953–4. Imitated from Le Roman de la Rose, 16891–2.
1955. The description of Venus here given has some resemblance to that given in cap. v (De Venere) of Albrici Philosophi De Deorum Imaginibus Libellus, in an edition of the Mythographi Latini, Amsterdam, 1681, vol. ii. p. 304. I transcribe as much as is material. ‘Pingebatur Venus pulcherrima puella, nuda, et in mari natans; et in manu sua dextra concham marinam tenens atque gestans; rosisque candidis et rubris sertum gerebat in capite ornatum, et columbis circa se volando, comitabatur. . . . Hinc et Cupido filius suus alatus et caecus assistebat, qui sagitta et arcu, quos tenebat, Apollinem sagittabat.’ It is clear that Chaucer had consulted some such description as this; see further in the note to l. 2041.
1958. Cf. ‘wawes . . clere as glas’; Boeth. bk. i. met. 7. 4.
1971. estres, the inner parts of a building; as also in A. 4295 and Leg. of Good Women, 1715. ‘To spere the estyrs of Rome’; Le Bone Florence, 293; in Ritson, Met. Rom. iii. 13. See also Cursor Mundi, 2252.
‘His sportis [portes?] and his estris ’; Tale of Beryn, ed. Furnivall, 837. Cf. ‘Qu’il set bien de l’ostel les estres ’; Rom. de la Rose, 12720; and see Rom. of the Rose, 1448 (vol. i. p. 153).
By mistaking the long s (ſ) for f, this word has been misprinted as eftures in the following: ‘Pleaseth it yow to see the eftures of this castel?’—Sir Thomas Malory, Mort Arthure, b. xix. c. 7.
1979. a rumbel and a swough, a rumbling and a sound of wind.
1982. Mars armipotente.
The word armipotent is borrowed from Boccaccio’s armipotente, in the Teseide, vii. 32. Other similar borrowings occur hereabouts, too numerous for mention. Note that this description of the temple of Mars once belonged to the end of the poem of Anelida, which see.
Let the reader take particular notice that the temple here described (ll. 1982–1994) is merely a painted temple, depicted on one of the walls inside the oratory of Mars. The walls of the other temples had paintings similar to those inside the temple of which the outside is here depicted. Chaucer describes the painted temple as if it were real, which is somewhat confusing. Inconsistent additions were made in revision.
1984. streit, narrow; ‘la stretta entrata’; Tes. vii. 32.
1985. vese is glossed impetus in the Ellesmere MS., and means ‘rush’ or ‘hurrying blast.’ It is allied to M.E. fesen, to drive, which is Shakespeare’s pheeze. Copied from ‘salit Impetus amens E foribus’; Theb. vii. 47, 48.
1986. rese =to shake, quake. ‘Þe eorðe gon to-rusien, ’ ‘the earth gan to shake.’—Laȝamon, l. 15946. To resye, to shake, occurs in Ayenbite of Inwyt, pp. 23, 116. Cf. also—‘The tre aresede as hit wold falle’; Seven Sages, ed. Weber, l. 915. A. S. hrysian.
1987. ‘I suppose the northern light is the aurora borealis, but this phenomenon is so rarely mentioned by mediaeval writers, that it may be questioned whether Chaucer meant anything more than the faint and cold illumination received by reflexion through the door of an apartment fronting the north.’ (Marsh.) The fact is, however, that Chaucer here copies Statius, Theb. vii. 40–58; see the translation in the note to l. 2017 below. The ‘northern light’ seems to be an incorrect rendering of ‘aduersum Phoebi iubar’; l. 45.
1990. ‘E le porte eran d’eterno diamante’; Teseide, vii. 32. Such is the reading given by Warton. However, the ultimate source is the phrase in Statius—‘adamante perenni . . . fores’; Theb. vii. 68.
1991. overthwart, c., across and along (i.e. from top to bottom). The same phrase occurs in Rich. Coer de Lion, 2649, in Weber, Met. Romances, ii. 104.
1997, 8. Cf. the Teseide, vii. 33:—
But Chaucer follows Statius still more closely. Ll. 1195–2012 answer to Theb. vii. 48–53:—
1999. Cf. Rom. of the Rose, 7419–20.
2001. See Chaucer’s Legend of Hypermnestra.
2003. ‘Discordia, contake ’; Glossary in Reliquiae Antiquac, i. 7.
2004. chirking is used of grating and creaking sounds; and sometimes, of the cry of birds. The Lansd. MS. has schrikeinge (shrieking). See House of Fame, iii. 853 (or 1943). In Batman upon Bartholomè, lib. viii. c. 29, the music of the spheres is attributed to the ‘ cherkyng of the mouing of the circles, and of the roundnes of heauen.’ In Chaucer’s tr. of Boethius, bk. i. met. 6, it is an adj., and translates stridens. Cf. D. 1804, I. 605.
2007. This line contains an allusion to the death of Sisera, Judges iv. But Dr. Koch has pointed out (Essays on Chaucer, Chaucer Soc. iv. 371) that we have here some proof that Chaucer may have altered his first draft of the poem without taking sufficient heed to what he was about. The original line may have stood—