1657. See Ps. x. 9. sit, short for sitteth.
1661. See 1 Cor. x. 13. over, above, beyond.
1662. For Christ as a ‘knight,’ see P. Plowman, C. xxi. 11; Ancren Riwle, p. 390.
1663. For Somnours, several MSS. have Somnour. MS. Cm. is defective; MS. Dd. supports the reading which I have given. It is immaterial, as thise Somnours includes the particular Somnour who was one of the party.
1676. The words of St. Paul, 2 Cor. xii. 4, have suggested numerous accounts of revelations made to saints regarding heaven and hell. In Bede’s Eccl. History, bk. iii. c. 19, we are told how St. Furseus saw a vision of hell; so also did St. Guthlac, as related in his life, cap. 5. A long vision of purgatory is recounted in the Revelation to the Monk of Evesham, ed. Arber; and another in the account of St. Patrick’s Purgatory, in the Lives of Saints, ed. Horstmann. Long descriptions of hell are common, as in the Cursor Mundi, l. 23195, and Hampole’s Pricke of Conscience, l. 6464. But the particular story to which Chaucer here alludes is, probably, not elsewhere extant.
1688. Possibly Chaucer was thinking of the wings of Lucifer, greater than any sails, as described in Dante’s Inferno, xxxiv. 48; whence also Milton speaks of Satan’s ‘sail-broad vans,’ P. L. ii. 927. A carrik or carrack is a large trading-ship, and we have here the earliest known example of the use of the word in English; see Carrack in the New Eng. Dictionary.
1690–1. Cf. Rom. of the Rose, 7577–8; in vol. i. p. 257.
1695. Line 2119 of the House of Fame is: ‘Twenty thousand in a route’; here we have the same line with the addition of freres. Both lines are cast in the same mould, both being deficient in the first foot. Thus the scansion is: Twen | ty thou | sand, c. In order to conceal this fact, Tyrwhitt reads: ‘ A twenty thousand,’ c., against all authority; but Wright, Bell, Morris, and Gilman all allow the line to stand as Chaucer wrote it, and as it is here given. The black-letter editions do the same. It is a very small matter that all the copies except E. have on for in; as the words are equivalent, I keep in (as in E.), because in is the reading in the Hous of Fame.
For further remarks about this Tale, see vol. iii. p. 452.
It is principally directed against the Frere; see the description of him in the Prologue, A. 208.
1710. Holderness is an extremely flat district; it lies at the S. E. angle of Yorkshire, between Hull, Driffield, Bridlington and Spurn Point; see the Holderness Glossary, E. D. S. 1877. We find that Chaucer makes no attempt here, as in the Reeve’s Tale, to imitate the Yorkshire dialect.
1712. to preche. The friars were popular preachers of the middle ages. They were to live by begging, and were therefore often called the Mendicant Orders; see l. 1912, and the notes to A. 208, 209. The friar of our story was a Carmelite; see note to l. 2116.
1717. trentals. A trental (from Low Lat. trentale, O. F. trentel ) was an office of thirty masses, to be said on so many consecutive days, for the benefit of souls in purgatory. It also meant, as here, the sum paid for the same to the priest or friar. See Wyclif’s Works, ed. Arnold, iii. 299, 374; ed. Matthew (E. E. T. S.) pp. 211, 516; and the poem entitled St. Gregory’s Trental, in Religious, Political, and Love Poems, ed. Furnivall, p. 83.
1722. possessioners. This term seems to have been applied (1) to the regular orders of monks who possessed landed property, and (2) to the beneficed clergy. I think there is here particular reference to the latter, as indicated by the occurrence of preest in l. 1727, curat in 1816, and viker and persone in l. 2008. The friars, on the contrary, were supposed to have no endowments, but to subsist entirely upon alms; they contrived, however, to evade this restriction, and in Pierce the Plowman’s Crede, there is a description of a Dominican convent built with considerable splendour. I take the expression ‘Thanked be god’ in l. 1723 to be a parenthentical remark made by the Somnour who tells the story, as it is hardly consistent with the views of the friars. As to the perpetual jealousies between the friars and the possessioners, see P. Plowman, B. v. 144.
1728. It was usual (as said in note to l. 1717) to sing the thirty masses on thirty consecutive days, as Chaucer here remarks. But the friar says they are better when ‘hastily y-songe’; and it would appear that the friars used occasionally to sing all the thirty masses in one day, and so save a soul from twenty-nine days of purgatory; cf. ll. 1729, 1732. In English Gilds, ed. Toulmin Smith, p. 8, we have an example of this. The wardens are there directed to summon the Minorite Friars to say the dirge, ‘and on the morwe to seie a trent of masses atte same freres.’
In Jack Upland, § 13, we find: ‘Why make ye [freres] men beleeue that your golden trentall sung of you, to take therefore ten shillings, or at least fiue shillings, woll bring souls out of hell, or out of purgatorie?’
1730. oules. The M. E. forms oule, owel, owul, as well as A. S. awul, awel, are various spellings of E. awl, which see in the New Eng. Dict. Hence oules means awls or piercing instruments. In the Life of St. Katherine, l. 2178, the tormentors torture the saint with ‘eawles of irne,’ i.e. iron awls. In Horstmann’s South-English Legendary (E. E. T. S.), St. Blase is tormented with ‘oules kene,’ which tore his flesh as when men comb wool (p. 487, l. 84); hence he became the patron saint of wool-combers. Similar tortures were applied by fiends in the medieval descriptions of hell. See Ancren Riwle, p. 212; St. Brandan, ed. Wright, pp. 22, 48.
1734. qui cum patre. ‘This is part of the formula with which prayers and sermons are still sometimes concluded in the Church of England.’—Bell. In a sermon for Ascension Day, in Morris’s O. E. Homilies, ii. 115, we have at the end an allusion, in English, to Christ, after which follows:—‘qui cum patre et spiritu sancto uiuit et regnat per omnia secula seculorum.’ Such was the usual formula.
1740. The friars often begged in pairs; in this way, each was a check upon the other as regarded the things thus obtained. In Jack Upland, § 23, we find the friars are asked:—‘What betokeneth that ye goe tweine and tweine togither?’ Langland tells us how he met two friars; see P. Plowman, C. xi. 8.
1741. tables, writing tablets. In Horman’s Vulgaria, leaf 81, we read:—‘Tables be made of leues of yuery, boxe, cyprus, and other stouffe, daubed with waxe to wrytte on.’ And again, in the same:—‘Poyntellis of yron, and poyntyllis of syluer, bras, boon, or stoone.’ This is a survival of the use of the Roman waxed tablet and stilus.
1743. Jack Upland (§ 20) asks the friar:—‘Why writest thou hir names in thy tables that yeueth thee mony?’ The usual reason was, that the donors might be prayed for; see l. 1745. Cf. l. 1752.
1745. Ascaunces, as if, as though, as if to promise. In G. 838, q. v., it means ‘you might suppose that,’ or ‘possibly.’ In Troilus, i. 205, it means ‘as if to say’; Boccaccio’s Italian has quasi dicesse. It also occurs in Troilus, i. 292; Lydgate, Fall of Princes, fol. 136 b (Tyrwhitt); Tale of Beryn, 1797; Palladius on Husbandry, vi. 39; Sidney’s Arcadia, ed. 1622, p. 162; and in Gascoigne’s Works, ed. Hazlitt, i. 113, where the marginal note has ‘as who should say.’ See the New Eng. Dictionary, where the etymology is said to be unknown.
I have since found that it is a hybrid compound. The first part of it is E. as, used superflously and tautologically; the latter part of it is the O. F. quanses, ‘as if,’ first given in a dictionary by Godefroy in 1889, with six examples, and three other spellings, viz. qanses, quainses, and queinsi. Godefroy refers us to Romania, xviii. 152, and to Foerster’s edition of Cliges, note to l. 4553. Kilian gives Mid. Du. ‘ quantsuys, quasi’; borrowed from O. French, without any prefix.
1746. Nothing came amiss to the friars. They begged for ‘corn, monee, chese,’ c.; see Wyclif’s Works, ed. Matthew, p. 304. And in Skelton’s Colin Clout, l. 842, we read of the friars:—
1747. Goddes here translated the French expression de Dieu, meaning ‘sent from God.’ Tyrwhitt says that the true meaning of de Dieu ‘is explained by M. de la Monnoye in a note upon the Contes de D. B. Periers, t. ii. p. 107. Belle serrure de Dieu: Expression du petit peuple, qui raporte pieusement tout à Dieu. Rien n’est plus commun dans la bouche des bonnes vieilles, que ces espèces d’Hébraïsmes: Il m’en conte un bel écu de Dieu; Il ne me reste que ce pauvre enfant de Dieu. Donnez-moi une bénite aumône de Dieu. See goddes halfpeny in l. 1749. (The explanation by Speght, and in Cowel’s Interpreter, s. v. kichell, seems to be, as Tyrwhitt says, an invention.)
kechil, a little cake. The form kechell occurs in the Ormulum, l. 8662; answering to the early A. S. coecil, occurring as a gloss to tortum in the Epinal Glossary, 993; different from A. S. cīcel (for cȳcel ), given as cicel in Bosworth’s Dictionary. The cognate M. H. G. word is küechelīn (Schade), O. H. G. chuochelīn, double dimin. from O. H. G. kuocho (G. Kuchen ), a cake; see Kuchen in Kluge. The E. cake is a related word, but with a difference in vowel-gradation.
trip, ‘a morsel.’ ‘Les tripes d’un fagot, the smallest sticks in a faggot’; Cotgrave.
1749. masse-peny, a penny for saying a mass. Jack Upland, § 19, says:—‘Freer, whan thou receiuest a peny for to say a masse, whether sellest thou Gods body for that peny, or thy prayer, or els thy travell?’
1751. ‘ dagon, a slip, or piece. It is found in Chaucer, Berners, and Steevens’ Supp. to Dugdale, ii. ap. 370, applied in each instance to a blanket’; Halliwell. Cf. M. E. dagge, a strip of cloth.
1755. hostes man, servant to the guests at the convent. Hoste seems here to mean ‘guest,’ which is one of the meanings of O. F. hoste (see Cotgrave). This sense is rare in M. E., but it occurs in the Romance of Merlin, ed. Wheatley, iii. 684, last line but one. Because he ‘bare the bag,’ this attendant on the friars was nicknamed Iscariot; cf. John, xii. 6. ‘Thei leden with hem a Scarioth, stolen fro is eldris by thefte, to robbe pore men bi beggynge’; Wyclif’s Works, ed. Matthew, p. 49.
1768. the gode man, the goodman, or master of the house. MS. Hl. has housbond-man, and MSS. Cp. Ln. bonde man; all with the same sense. place, house; cf. note to B. 1910; p. 184.
1770. Deus hic, God be here; ‘the ordinary formula of benediction on entering a house’; Wright.
1775. A fine realistic touch; the friar made himself quite at home.
1778. go walked, gone on a walk. For go walked, as in all the seven MSS., Tyrwhitt substitutes y-walked, suppressing this characteristic idiom. See note to C. 406; p. 272.
1792. glose, gloss, interpretation, as distinguished from the text.
1794. Cf. 2 Cor. iii. 6. In the margin of E., ‘Litera occidit, c.’
1804. Kissing was an ordinary form of salutation.
1810. It was usual, I believe, to use a form of deprecation of this sort in reply to praise. The sense is—‘but I am aware that I have defects, and may God amend them.’
1816. curats, parish clergy; cf. note to l. 1722.
1820. Cf. ‘thou shalt catch men’; Luke, v. 10; ‘fishers of men,’ Matt. iv. 19; Rom. Rose, (E. version), 7492.
1824. ‘For (the sake of the) holy Trinity.’ Seint-e is feminine.
1825. pissemyre, ant. Cf. ‘as angry as a wasp,’ in Heywood’s Proverbs.
1832. Ie vous dy, I tell you. A common phrase; see King Alisaunder, ed. Weber, l. 79; Rom. of the Rose, 7408 (in vol. i. p. 254).
1834. ire (Lat. ira ) is one of the seven deadly sins; hence the friar’s sermon against it, in ll. 2005–2088.
1842. ‘But I hope no animal is ever killed on my account.’ A strong hint that he always expected some special provision to be made for him.
1845. Cf. John, iv. 34; Job, xxiii. 12.
1853. toun, village; or, precincts of this farm-house.
1857. Visions of saints being carried to heaven are not uncommon. Bede relates one, of Saint Earcongota; Eccl. Hist. bk. iii. c. 8.
1859. fermerer, the friar who had charge of the infirmary. Put for enfermerer, from O. Fr. enfermerier (Godefroy). So also fermorie, an infirmary, in P. Pl. B. xiii. 108.
1862. maken hir Iubilee, keep their jubilee; i. e. having served fifty years in the convent, they have obtained certain privileges, one of which was to go about alone; see note to l. 1740. Tyrwhitt refers us to Ducange, s. v. Sempectæ.
1864. trikling, so E. Hn.; Cm. trynkelynge (probably by error); rest trilling. Cf. B. 1864.
1866. ‘Nothing but a thanksgiving would have been appropriate for a child dying in infancy, of whose translation to paradise the friar pretends that he had seen a vision’; Bell.
1872. burel (Pt. Hl. borel ) folk, lay folk, the laity. ‘The term seems to have arisen from the material of their clothing, which was not used by the clergy’; Wright. Cf. borel, in D. 356; borel men, i. e. laymen, in B. 3145; and borel clerkes, lay clerks, learned laymen, in P. Plowman, B. x. 286.
1877. See Luke, xvi. 19, 20.
1880. In the margin of E., ‘Melius est animam saginare quam corpus.’ Jean de Meun, in his Testament, 346, says of misers: ‘Amegrient leurs ames, plus que leurs cors n’engressent.’
1881. See 1 Tim. vi. 8.
1885. See Exod. xxxiv. 28.
1890. See 1 Kings, xix. 8.
1894. See Levit. x. 9.
1906. mendinants, mendicant friars. Tyrwhitt has mendiants, but, in his notes, admits that mendinants is the right reading, as he found the word to be ‘constantly so spelled in the Stat. 12 Rich. II. capp. 7, 8, 9, 10.’ The same spelling occurs repeatedly in P. Plowman; see note to P. Pl. C. xvi. 3. See Mendiener, to beg, in Godefroy’s O. Fr. Dictionary.
1911. ‘The thridde deceyt of thise ordris is that thei passen othere in preyeris, bothe for tyme thei preyen and for multitude of hem’; Wyclif’s Works, ed. Matthew, p. 317.
1915–7. See note to C. 505; p. 278.
1923. See Matt. v. 3. by freres, (1922), concerning friars. Certainly, there is no ‘text’ to this effect; but the friar trusted to find it in a maner glose, in some kind of comment on the text.
1926. An allusion to possessioners; see note to l. 1722.
1929. Iovinian. I think this is the same Jovinian as is mentioned in D. 675; for Chaucer frequently quotes the treatise by Jerome against this heretic. Gibbon, in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ch. 30, refers in a footnote to ‘Jovinian, the enemy of fasts and of celibacy, who was persecuted and insulted by the furious Jerome.’ The other Jovinian was a fabulous Roman emperor, who was awhile deposed, like Nebuchadnezzar, for his pride and luxury, as related in the Gesta Romanorum, cap. 59 (or chapter 23 in the English version).
walkinge as a swan, i. e. with slow and stately gait. Jerome (Contra Iovin. i. 40) calls Jovinian ‘iste formosus monachus, crassus, nitidus, et quasi sponsus semper incedens. ’
1931. ‘All as full of wine as a bottle in the buttery.’
1932. For gret, ed. 1550 has lytle; but, as Tyrwhitt remarks, the expression is ironical.
1933. Davit is put for David, for the rime. MSS. E. Hn. Ln. have Dauit; Cm. dauith; Cp. Hl. dauid; Pt. davyd.
1934. Lo but is the reading of MS. E. But the right reading is probably buf, not but. The readings are; E. but; Hn. Cm. Ln. buf; Cp. buff; Pt. boþ (wrongly); Hl. boef; ed. 1550, bouffe. This gives the line in the following form:—
Lo, ‘buf!’ they seye, ‘ cor meum eructavit !’
Here the interjectional ‘ buf !’ is probably intended to represent the sound of eructation. We find baw ! as an interjection of strong contempt in P. Plowman, C. xiii. 74, xxii. 398.
Ps. xlv (xliv in the Vulgate) begins, in Latin, with the words Cor meum eructauit uerbum bonum; and the Somnour here takes eructauit in the most literal sense.
1935. fore, path, course; such is certainly the right reading, as in D. 110, on which see the note.
1937. See James, i. 22.
1938. at a sours, at a soaring, in her rise, in her upward swoop. The same word as source of a river; from F. source, O. F. sorse, the fem. pp. of the verb which arose from Lat. surgere. Most likely, this is the origin of the later souse, v., in the sense ‘to swoop downward’; see Pope, Epilogue to Satires, Dial. ii. 15; Sh. K. John, v. 2. 150; Spenser, F. Q. i. 5. 8. See my note on the House of Fame, l. 544. In the Book of St. Alban’s, fol. d1, back, we find: ‘Iff your hawke nym the fowle a-lofte, ye shall say, she toke it at the mount or at the souce ’; where the r is dropped.
1939. their, for the eir, the air; see footnote.
1943. Seint Yve; see the note to B. 1417 (p. 172), with which this line entirely coincides.
1944. ‘If thou wert not our brother, thou wouldst not fare well’; see l. 1951.
1947. welden, wield, have the full use of.
1963–5. These lines are quoted by the friar as (supposed) ejaculations by Thomas.
1968. In the margin of MS. E., ‘Omnis virtus unita fortior est seipsa dispersa.’ Compare the fable in Æsop about the difficulty of breaking a bundle of sticks; and see Boeth. bk. iii. pr. 11. 37–40.
1973. See Luke, x. 7. In the margin of MS. E., ‘Dignus est operarius mercede, c.’
1980. ‘In the life of Thomas of India.’ For this construction, see note to F. 209. St. Thomas the apostle is often so called, because he is said to have preached in India; and perhaps the tradition is true; see my note on P. Plowman, C. xxii. 165, and especially the remarks in Marco Polo, ed. Yule, ii. 292. Cf. note to E. 1230 (p. 353).
The mention of the ‘building up of churches’ refers to a well-known legend of St. Thomas, who built churches with the money given to him by King Gondoforus for the purpose of building a palace.
‘Churchene he arerde mani on, and preostes he sette there.’
The story is prettily told in Mrs. Jameson’s Sacred and Legendary Art.
Cf. ‘Seyn Tomas of Ynde’; Amis and Amiloun, 758, in Weber, Met. Rom. ii. 401. So also in The Assumption of our Lady, 775; in King Horn, ed. Lumby, p. 96; Political and other Poems, ed. Furnivall, p. 112, l. 19, p. 123, l. 278, p. 139, l. 735.
How intent the friars were on building fine churches and convents for their own use, appears from Wyclif’s Works, ed. Matthew, pp. 5, 14; Pierce the Plowman’s Crede, 191; Jack Upland, § 10, and § 33; Skelton’s Colin Clout, 936; c.
1986. ‘As will be best for thee.’ Tyrwhitt has the for thy; but thy is right. I find in the New E. Dict., s. v. Best, 8 b, a quotation from Sir E. Sandys, Europae Speculum (1637), 247: ‘I have also, to my best, avoyded that rashnesse.’ Cf. ‘for your beste,’ in B. 2427.
1989. ‘Be not as a lion in thy house, nor frantick among thy servants’; Ecclus. iv. 30. In the margin of MS. E. is the Vulgate version (Ecclus. iv. 35):—‘Noli esse sicut leo in domo tua, euertens domesticos tuos, et opprimens subiectos tibi.’
1993. hir, her; so in all the MSS. but Pt., which has yre. Tyrwhitt has wrongly taken ire as the reading, and Wright and Bell follow him, without giving any notice that MS. Hl. reads hir ! But it makes all the difference; hir means ‘thy wife’; cf. ll. 1994–2004, all of which lines are robbed of their meaning by this insidious and uncalled-for alteration. Even ed. 1550 and ed. 1561 have her.
It is easily seen how the error crept in, viz. from confusion with the friar’s sermon against ire; but that does not really begin till we come to l. 2005.
As this passage has been so grossly misunderstood, I annex an outline of the sense intended. ‘Beware of thy wife; she is like the snake in the grass; remember how many men have lost their lives through their wives. But your wife is a meek one; then why strive? No serpent is so venomous as a provoked woman.’ The fact is, that this passage is imitated from Le Roman de la Rose, 16779, c., where the author bids us beware of women, as being like Vergil’s ‘snake in the grass.’ See next note. With ll. 2001–3 cf. Rom. de la Rose, 9832–6.
1995. Cf. ‘latet anguis in herba’; Vergil, Ecl. iii. 95. See F. 512, 513. But Chaucer took this at second-hand, viz. from Le Roman de la Rose, l. 16793; and combined it with another passage from the same, 9832–6, which, in its turn, is copied from Ovid, Ars Amat. ii. 376:—‘Nec breuis ignaro uipera laesa pede Femina quam,’ c.
2002. tret, short for tredeth, treads. Cm. has trat. Cf. hit, hideth, F. 512; rit, rideth, A. 974; c.
2003. Cf. ‘furens quid foemina possit’; Vergil, Æn. v. 6.
2005. Here begins the sermon against ire. See the Persones Tale, I. 533. oon, c., ‘one of the chief of the seven Deadly Sins’; all of which are described in the Persones Tale; see I. 387.
After l. 2004, MS. Hl. has two spurious lines, for which see the footnote. It is probable, however, that they are reminiscences of two genuine lines; for they occur in Le Rom. de la Rose, 16536–8. There are two more such after l. 2012, where the sense of grate is not obvious.
2007. himself, i. e. the sinner. See Pers. Tale, I. 557.
2009. homicyde; see this, in full, in the Pers. Tale, I. 564–579.
2010. ‘Ire comth of pryde’; I. 534.
2017. ‘ Potestat, a chief magistrate’; Halliwell. ‘ Podestà, a potestate, a mayor’; Florio. See Malory, Morte Arth. bk. v. c. 8.
2018. Senek, Seneca. The story is given in Seneca’s De Ira, i. 16, beginning:—‘Cn. Piso fuit memoria nostra, uir a multis uitiis integer, sed prauus,’ c. It ends:—‘Constituti sunt in eodem loco perituri tres, ob unius innocentiam.’ This Piso was a governor of Syria under Tiberius. Precisely the same story is told, of the emperor Heraclius, in the Gesta Romanorum, cap. cxl. Warton gravely describes it in the words—‘The emperor Eraclius reconciles (!) two knights.’
2030–1. Wright says these two lines are not in Tyrwhitt, but he is mistaken. His note was meant to refer to the spurious lines (in MS. Hl.) after l. 2037; the former of which is repeated from l. 2030.
2043. ‘This story is also in Seneca, De Ira, lib. iii. c. 14. It differs a little from one in Herodotus, lib. iii.’ [capp. 34, 35].—Tyrwhitt. Seneca’s story begins:—‘Cambysen regem nimis deditum uino Praexaspes unus ex carissimis monebat.’
2048. Here MS. Hl. inserts two more spurious lines, for the fourth time; see the footnote.
2061. MSS. E. Hn. Cp. Ln. Dd. all insert ful, which is necessary to the rhythm. MSS. Pt. Hl. omit it, and actually read dronk-e (!), with an impossible final e. Tyrwhitt has dranke, omitting ful, and even Wright, Bell, and Morris have dronk-e, with the same omission. Owing to the carelessness of scribes, who often added an idle final e, such forms as dranke, dronke are not very astonishing. But it would be very curious to know how these editors scanned this line.
2075. Placebo. ‘The allusion is to an anthem in the Romish church, from Ps. cxvi. 9, which in the Vulgate [Ps. cxiv. 9] stands thus: Placebo Domino in regione uiuorum. Hence the complacent brother in the Marchant’s Tale is called Placebo. ’—Tyrwhitt. Being used in the office for the dead, this anthem was familiar to every one; and ‘to sing Placebo’ came to mean ‘to be complaisant’; as in Bacon, Essay 20. See Pers. Tale, I. 617; and see my notes to P. Plowman, C. iv. 467 (B. iii. 307), B. xv. 122.
2079. This story is also from Seneca, De Ira, lib. iii. c. 21. Cf. Herodotus, i. 189, 202; v. 52. In these authorities, the river is called the Gyndes; and in Alfred’s translation of Orosius, bk. ii. c. 4, it is the Gandes. ‘Sir John Maundeville (Travels, cap. 5) tells this story of the Euphrates.’—Wright.
2085. he, i. e. Solomon; see Prov. xxii. 24, 25.
2090. as Iust as is a squire, as exact (i. e. upright) as a square. He means that he will deal out exact justice, and not condone the sick man’s anger without appointing him a penance for it. A squire is a measuring-square, or T-square, as explained in my Dictionary; it is used for measuring right angles with exactitude. For the use of the word, see Shak. L. L. L. v. 2. 474; Spenser, F. Q. ii. 1. 58; Minshew’s Dict.; Romaunt of the Rose, 7064; Floris and Blancheflur, ed. Lumby, 325. Cotgrave gives: ‘ A l’esquierre, justly, directly, evenly, straightly; by line and levell, to a haire.’ Godefroy, s. v. esquarre, refers us to the O. F. translation of 1 Kings, v. 17; ‘e que tuz fussent taillie a esquire. ’ Lydgate has: ‘By compas cast, and squared out by squyers ’; Siege of Troye, ed. 1555, fol. F 5, back, col. 1.
2095. ‘Thei [the friars] cryen faste that thei haf more power in confessioun then other curatis; for thei may schryve alle that comen to hem, bot curatis may no ferther then her owne parischens’; Wyclif’s Works, ed. Arnold, iii. 374. Cf. Rom. Rose, 6390–8 (vol. i. 238).
2098. So in I. 1008: ‘but-if it lyke to thee of thyn humilitee.’
2105. ‘The pavements were made of encaustic tiles, and therefore must have been rather expensive.’—Wright. See my note to Pierce the Ploughman’s Crede, l. 194; and Our English Home, p. 20.
2107. ‘For the sake of Him who harried hell’; see note to A. 3512; p. 107.
2116. Elie, Elias, Elijah. Elisee, Eliseus, Elisha. There was great strife among the four orders of friars as to the priority of their order. The Carmelites, who took their name from mount Carmel (see 1 Kings, xviii. 19, 20), actually pretended that their order was founded by the prophet Elijah when he retired to mount Carmel to escape the wrath of Ahab; and by this unsurpassable fiction secured to themselves the credit of priority to the rest. It is therefore clear that the friar of Chaucer’s story was a Carmelite, as no other friar would have alluded to this story. See Wyclif’s Works, ed. Arnold, iii. 353; Pierce the Ploughman’s Crede, 382.
2119. for seinte charitee; a common expression. It occurs in the Tale of Gamelin, 513; with which Chaucer was familiar. Cf. B. 4510.
2126. your brother. This alludes to the letters of fraternity, which friars were accustomed to grant, under the conventual seal, to such laymen as had given them benefactions or were likely to leave them money in their wills. The benefactors received in return a brotherly participation in such spiritual benefits as the friars could confer. Thus, in Jack Upland, §§ 28, 29, we find:—‘Why be ye [friars] so hardie to grant, by letters of fraternitie, to men and women, that they shall have part and merite of all your good deeds, and ye weten neuer whether God be apayed with your deeds because of your sin? . . . What betokeneth that yee haue ordeined that, whan such one as ye haue made your brother or sister, and hath a letter of your seale, that letter mought be brought in your holy chapter, and there be rad, or els yee will not pray for him?’ See Wyclif’s Works, ed. Arnold, iii. 377, 420; ed. Matthew, p. 4. Such lay brethren were usually dressed for burial in a friar’s habit; see Milton, P. L. iii. 479; Rock, Church of our Fathers, i. 487. A benefactor could even thus belong to all the orders of friars at once; cf. P. Plowman, C. x. 343 (B. vii. 192). This gives point to the question in l. 1955 above.
2156. His meynee, i. e. the menials of the sick man.
2159. His companion was in the nearest inn; see l. 1779.
2162. court, the house of the lord of the manor. ‘The larger country-houses consisted generally of an enclosed court, from which circumstance this name was usually given to the manorial residence, and it has been preserved to modern times, as a common term for gentlemen’s seats.’—Wright. Cf. P. Plowman, C. xxiii. 344. It was also called a place; see note to B. 1910; p. 184.
2164. ‘Of ech sich privat seete, by licence of the pope, ben maad, some chapeleyns of houshold, summe chapeleyns of honour,’ c.; Wyclif’s Works, ed. Arnold, iii. 511. ‘Frere, what charity is this, to be confessors of lords and ladies,’ c.; Jack Upland, § 37. And see Wyclif’s Works, ed. Matthew, p. 333; P. Plowman, B. v. 136–142, xx. 341–345.
2185. maister. The hypocrite here declines to be called ‘master,’ though he had allowed the good wife to call him so twice without reproof; see ll. 1800, 1836; and cf. l. 1781. At the same time, he declares that he had gained the title of Master in the schools. As he was the prior or principal of his convent (see ll. 2260, 2265, 2276) he may have been ‘capped,’ or have received the degree of Master of Divinity. ‘Also capped freris, that ben calde maystres of dyvynite, have her chaumber and servise as lordis or kynges. . . . And what cursidenesse in this . . . to gete hym a cappe of maysterdome, by preyer of lordis and grete giftis,’ c.; Wyclif’s Works, ed. Arnold, iii. 376. An LL.D. of Edinburgh is ‘capped,’ or has a doctor’s cap momentarily laid upon his head, when he receives his degree; as I know by experience.
See also Pierce the Ploughman’s Crede, ll. 498, 574.
2187. See Matt. xxiii. 7, 8.
2196. See Matt. v. 13.
2205. ‘How does it seem to me?’ Read think’th.
2209. ‘I consider him to be in a kind of frenzy’; cf. 2240, 2292.
2219. Shewe here means ‘to propose’ or ‘propound.’
2235. See Chaucer’s own explanation of the method of propagation of a sound, in the Hous of Fame, 782–821. He seems to have taken it from Boethius, De Musica, i. 14; see vol. iii. p. 260.
2238. my cherl, i. e. my serf; as being his dependant. It probably implies vassalage.
2244. Cf. A. 100. Although the squire was not above winning ‘a new gown,’ he was probably a young man of (future) equal rank with the lord of the manor. In fact, his scornful boldness proves it.
2247. goune-cloth. ‘In the middle ages, the most common rewards, and even those given by the feudal landholders to their dependants and retainers, were articles of apparel, especially the gown or outward robe. . . . Money was comparatively very scarce in the middle ages; and as the household retainers were lodged and fed, clothing was almost the only article they wanted.’—Wright.
2259. ‘The regular number of monks or friars in a convent had been fixed at twelve, with [i. e. besides] their superior; in imitation, it is said, of the number of twelve apostles and their divine master. The larger religious houses were considered as consisting of a certain number of convents. Thus Thorn, speaking of the abbot of St. Augustine’s at Canterbury, says:—Anno Domini m.c.xlvi, iste Hugo reparavit antiquum numerum monachorum istius monasterii, et erant lx. monachi professi praeter abbatem, hoc est, quinque conuentus in universo.— Decem Scriptores, col. 1807.’—Wright. That is, this house consisted of sixty-one members, the abbot and five convents of twelve each. The smaller (single) convents were also called cells, and the principal, the prior; see A. 172, and note that, in A. 167, the Monk is said, not to be an abbot, but to be fit to be an abbot. The expression ‘ his covent,’ in l. 2261, shews that the friar confessor was the prior or head of his cell.
2279. ‘Yif a frere be a maister, or a riche frere in-mong hise bretheren, he shal be loutid and worshipid more then Cristis lawe techith,’ c.; Wyclif’s Works, ed. Matthew, p. 306.
2281. This implies that the squire, with the rest, had heard the friar preach in church that morning, and had been greatly bored by the sermon.
2289. I supply the word as, which is plainly wanted. MS. Hl. supplies elles, but I believe as to be right. The way in which the second as came to be dropped in this line, is very curious. It arose from misunderstanding the spelling of Ptolemy.
The occurrence of an unpronounceable P at the beginning of Ptolomee made the scribes think something must be omitted. Hence several of them introduced a stroke through the p, which stood as an abbreviation for ‘ro,’ and this turned it into Protholomee, which looked right, but made the second as superfluous. Thus MSS. Cp. Hl. both have ‘p ro tholome,’ with the mark of abbreviation; in MSS. E. Hn. Dd. it is expanded into ‘Protholomee’ at length. We again find the scribes in the same difficulty in D. 324. A still stranger spelling is plotolomee, for which see vol. iii. p. 359, l. 18. Cf. the note on Ptolemy in the same volume, at p. 354.
1. clerk. See the description of him, Prol. A. 285.
3. were newe spoused, who should be (i. e. is) newly wedded; see Rom. de la Rose, (F. version), 1004; in vol. i. p. 136.
6. See Eccles. iii. 1; ‘To every thing there is a season,’ c.
7. as beth, pray be. The word as, nearly equivalent to ‘I pray,’ is sometimes used thus with the imperative mood. Since as is short for al-so, it means literally even so, just so. Cp. as keep, A. 2302; as sende, A. 2317; as doth, F. 458; ‘ as beth not wroth with me,’ Troil. and Cress. v. 145; ‘ as go we seen,’ i. e. pray let us go to see, id. 523; see also A. 3777. See Mätzner, Engl. Gram. ii. 2. 505.
10. A French proverb. ‘Ki en jeu entre jeu consente,’ i. e. approves of; Le Roux de Lincy, Proverbes Français, ii. 85.
18. Heigh style, lofty, learned, somewhat pedantic style; see l. 41.
22. yerde, control, governance; lit. yard, rod; so we say ‘under the rod.’ Cf. B. 1287, and the note at p. 169.
27. Padowe, Padua, in the N. E. of Italy. Petrarch resided at Arqua, two miles from Padua. He died July 18, 1374. See vol. iii. p. 454; vol. i. p. xxv.
33. of poetrye, with his poetry. Of is similarly used in l. 34.
34. Linian; ‘the canonist Giovanni di Lignano, once illustrious, now forgotten, though several works of his remain. He was made Professor of Canon Law at Bologna in 1363, and died at Bologna in 1383’; Morley’s English Writers, v. 339. Tyrwhitt first pointed out the person here alluded to, and says—‘there is some account of him in Panzirolus, de Cl. Leg. Intrepret. l. iii. c. xxv:—Joannes, a Lignano, agri Mediolanensis vico, oriundus, et ob id Lignanus dictus,’ c. One of his works, entitled Tractatus de Bello, is extant in MS. Reg. 13 B. ix [Brit. Mus.]. He composed it at Bologna in the year 1360. He was not however a mere lawyer. Chaucer speaks of him as excelling in philosophy, and so does his epitaph in Panzirolus. The only specimen of his philosophy that I have met with is in MS. Harl. 1006. It is an astrological work, entitled Conclusiones Judicii composite per Domnum Johannem de Lyniano super coronacione Domni Urbani Pape VI. ad 1387,’ c. Lignano is here said to be near Milan, and to have been the lawyer’s birthplace. In l. 38, Chaucer speaks of his death, showing that Chaucer wrote this prologue later than 1383.
43. proheme, proem, introduction. Petrarch’s treatise (taken from Boccaccio’s Decamerone, Day x. Novel 10) is entitled ‘De obedientia ac fide uxoria Mythologia.’ It is preceded by a letter to Boccaccio, but this is not here alluded to. What Chaucer means is the first section of the tale itself, which begins thus:—‘Est ad Italiae latus occiduum Vesulus, ex Apennini iugis mons unus altissimus . . . Padi ortu nobilissimus, qui eius a latere fonte lapsus exiguo orientem contra solem fertur, mirisque mox tumidus incrementis . . . Liguriam gurgite uiolentus intersecat; dehinc Aemiliam, atque Flaminiam, Venetiamque discriminans . . . in Adriaticum mare descendit.’ Pemond, Piedmont. Saluces, Saluzzo, S. of Turin. Vesulus, Monte Viso. See the description of the route from Mont Dauphin to Saluzzo, by the Col de Viso, in Murray’s Guide to Switzerland and Piedmont. Cf. Vergil, Aen. x. 708.
51. To Emelward, towards Aemilia. Tyrwhitt says—‘One of the regions of Italy was called Aemilia, from the via Aemilia, which crossed it from Placentia [Piacenza] to Rimini. Placentia stood upon the Po. Pitiscus, Lex. Ant. Rom. in v. Via Aemilia. Petrarch’s description . . . is a little different.’ See note above. Ferrare, Ferrara, on the Po, not far from its mouth. Venyse, rather the Venetian territory than Venice itself.
54. ‘It seems to me a thing irrelevant, excepting that he wishes to impart his information.’
56. this, contraction for this is (see footnote); common.
57. In many places this story is translated from Petrarch almost word for word; and as Tyrwhitt remarks, it would be endless to cite illustrative passages from the original Latin; see further in vol. iii. p.453. The first stanza is praised by Professor Lowell, in his Study Windows, p. 208, where he says—‘What a sweep of vision is here!’ Chaucer is not quite so close a translator here as usual; the passage in Petrarch being—‘Inter caetera ad radicem Vesuli, terra Salutiarum, uicis et castellis satis frequens, Marchionum arbitrio nobilium quorundum regitur uirorum.’
82. leet he slyde, he allowed to pass unattended to, neglected. So we find ‘Let the world slide ’; Induction to Taming of the Shrew, l. 5; and ‘The state of vertue never slides ’; The Sturdy Rock (in Percy’s Reliques). See March’s Student’s Manual of Eng. Lang. p. 125, where the expression is noted as still current in America. Petrarch has—‘alia pene cuncta negligeret.’ With ll. 83–140, cf. Shakesp. Sonnets, i-xvii.
86. flockmele, in a flock or troop; Pet. has ‘cateruatim.’ ‘Treuly theder came flockemele the multitude of tho blessyd sowlys’:—Monk of Evesham, ed. Arber, c. 55; p. 107. Palsgrave’s French Dict. has—‘Flockmeale, par troupeaux ’; fol. 440, back. Cf. E. piece-meal; we also find wukemalum, week by week, Ormulum, 536; lim-mele, limb from limb, Layamon, 25618; hipyllmelum, by heaps, Wycl. Bible, Wisdom xviii. 25: Koch, Eng. Gramm. ii. 292.
99. ‘Although I have no more to do with this matter than others have who are here present.’ Observe that the Marquis is addressed as ye, not thou, the former being a title of respect.
103–105. These three lines are not in the original.
106. We should have expected to find here us lyketh ye, i. e. you are pleasing to us; but we really have an instance of a double dative, so that us lyketh yow is equivalent to ‘it pleases us with respect to you.’ The nominative case is ye, the dative and accusative yow or you. Yow leste, it may please you, in l. 111, is the usual idiom.
107. and ever han doon, and (both you and your doings) have ever brought it about. Such is the usual force of doon; cf. ll. 253, 1098.
115. Cf. Barbour’s Bruce, ed. Skeat, i. 266–8.—M.
118–119. Expanded from—‘uolant enim dies rapidi.’
121. still as stoon; Latin text, ‘tacita.’ Cf. F. 171.
129. we wol chese yow, we will choose for you.
147. Ther, where. This line is Chaucer’s own.
157. Bountee, goodness. streen, race, stock. Petrarch has—‘Quicquid in homine boni est, non ab alio quam a Deo est.’
168. As, as if. This line, in Petrarch, comes after l. 173. Lines 174, 175 are Chaucer’s own.
172. as ever, c., as ever I may thrive, as I hope to thrive.
190–196. Expanded from—‘Et ipse nihilominus eam ipsam nuptiarum curam domesticis suis imposuit, edixitque diem.’
197–203. Expanded from—‘Fuit haud procul a palatio uillula paucorum atque inopum incolarum.’
211–217. Sometimes Chaucer translates literally, and sometimes he merely paraphrases, as here. Lines 215–217 are all his own.
220. rype and sad corage, a mature and staid disposition. Petrarch has—‘sed uirilis senilisque animus uirgineo latebat in pectore.’
223. spinning; i. e. she spun whilst keeping the sheep; see a picture of St. Geneviève in Mrs. Jameson’s Sacred and Legendary Art. Line 224 is Chaucer’s.
227. shredde and seeth, sliced and sod (or boiled). Lat. ‘domum rediens oluscula et dapes fortunae congruas praeparabat, durumque cubiculum sternebat,’ c.
229. on lofte, aloft. She kept up her father’s life, i. e. sustained him. His death is recorded in l. 1134.
234. For this line the Latin has only the word transiens.
237. in sad wyse, soberly; Lat. ‘senili grauitate.’
242. Here the people means the common people; Lat. ‘ uulgi oculis.’ In the next line he is empathic, meaning that his eyes were quicker to perceive than theirs.
253. hath don make, hath caused to be made. Lat. ‘Ipse interim et anulos aureos et coronas et balteos conquirebat.’ Chaucer inserts asure, the colour of fidelity; see F. 644, and note. For balteos he substitutes the English phrase broches and ringes; cf. P. Plowm. B. prol. 75.
257. Scan—Bý | a maýd | e lýk | to hír | statúrë.∥
259. Here Chaucer apparently omits a sentence, namely:—‘Uenerat expectatus dies, et cum nullus sponsae rumor audiretur, admiratio omnium uehementer excreuerat.’ But he has, in fact, given us this above, in ll. 246–8.
260. undern (lit. the intervening or middle period) has two meanings in the Teutonic tongues; (1) mid-forenoon, i. e. originally 9 a.m.; and (2) mid-afternoon, originally 3 p.m. In this passage it is clearly the former that is meant; indeed in l. 981, where it occurs again, the original has ‘proximae lucis hora tertia, ’ i.e. 9 a.m. In this passage, the original has hora prandii, meaning luncheon-time, which in Chaucer’s time would often be 9 a.m.; see note to B. 1396, at p. 171; and cf. Ælfric’s Homilies, ed. Thorpe, ii. 77. See note to Piers Pl. B. vi. 147; and see Undern in the Glossary.
But it may be noted here, that the sense of undern is variable. Sometimes it meant the period from 9 to 12, or the middle of that period, i.e. about 10.30 or 11. Sometimes, the period from 3 to 6 p.m., or the middle of it, i.e. about 4.30 or 4. In modern E. dialects, it means about 4 p.m. See B. 4412, D. 875.
260–294. Expanded and improved from the following short passage: ‘Hora iam prandii aderat, iamque apparatu ingenti domus tota feruebat. Tum Gualtherus, aduentanti ueluti sponsae obuiam profecturus, domo egreditur, prosequente uirorum et matronarum nobilium caterua. Griseldis omnium quae erga se pararentur ignara, peractis quae agenda domi erant, aquam e longinquo fonte conuectans paternum limen intrabat: ut, expedita curis aliis, ad uisendam domini sui sponsam cum puellis comitibus properaret.’
322. governeth, arrange, dispose of. Observe the use of the plural imperative, as a mark of respect. When the marquis addresses Griseldis as ye, it is a mark of extreme condescension on his part; the Latin text has tu and te.
337–343. Expanded from—‘insolito tanti hospitis aduentu stupidam inuenere; quam iis uerbis Gualtherus aggreditur.’
350. yow avyse, consider the matter; really a delicate way of expressing refusal. Compare the legal formula le roy s’avisera for expressing the royal refusal to a proposed measure.
364. For to be deed, even if I were to be dead, were to die; Lat. ‘et si me mori iusseris, quod moleste feram.’
375–376. These characteristic lines are Chaucer’s own. So are ll. 382, 383.
381. corone, nuptial garland; Lat. ‘corona.’ See Brand’s Pop. Antiq. ed. Ellis, ii. 123.
388. snow-whyt; Lat. ‘niueo.’ Perhaps Spenser took a hint from this; F. Q. i. 1. 4. In the Leg. of Good Women, l. 1198, Chaucer calls a horse paper-whyt.
393. Repeated, slightly altered, from l. 341.
409. thewes, mental qualities. So also in E. 1542; Gower, Conf. Amant. lib. vii. sect. 1 (ed. Pauli, iii. 85); Spenser, F. Q. i. 9. 3; i. 10. 4; ii. 1. 33, c. ‘The common signification of the word thews in our old writers, is manners, or qualities of mind and disposition . . . By thews Shakespeare means unquestionably brawn, nerves, muscular vigour (Jul. Caes. i. 3; 2 Hen. IV, iii. 2; Hamlet, i. 3). And to this sense, and this only, the word has now settled down; the other sense, which was formerly so familiar in our literature, is quite gone out and forgotten. [With respect to theawe =sinew, in Layamon, l. 6361] Sir F. Madden remarks (iii. 471):—“This is the only instance in the poem of the word being applied to bodily qualities, nor has any other passage of an earlier date than the sixteenth century been found in which it is so used.” It may be conjectured that it had only been a provincial word in this sense, till Shakespeare adopted it’; Craik’s English of Shakespeare; note on Jul. Caesar, i. 3. 81.
412. embrace, hold fast; ‘omnium animos nexu sibi magni amoris astrinxerat. ’ Compare Tennyson’s Lord of Burleigh with ll. 394–413.
413. Nearly identical with Troil. i. 1078.
421. royally; alluding to the royal virtues of Griseldis.
429. Not only the context, but the Latin text, justifies the reading homlinesse. Feet is fact, i. e. act. The Latin is—‘Neque uero solers sponsa muliebria tantum haec domestica, sed, ubi res posceret, publica etiam obibat officia.’ Lines 432–434 are Chaucer’s own.
444. ‘Although it would have been liefer to her to have borne a male child’; i. e. she would rather, c. The Latin has—‘quamuis filium maluisset.’
449–462. Expanded from—‘Cepit (ut fit) interim Gualtherum, cum iam ablactata esset infantula (mirabilis quaedam quàm laudabilis, [ aliter, an mirabile quidem magis quam laudabile,] doctiores iudicent) cupiditas satis expertam charae fidem coniugis experiendi altius [ aliter, ulterius], et iterum atque iterum retentandi.’
452. tempte, make trial of, prove; see ll. 1152, 1153 below. sadnesse, constancy, equanimity.
483. Note Walter’s use of the word thee here, and of thy twice in the next stanza, instead of the usual ye. It is a slight, but significant sign of insult, offered under pretence of reporting the opinion of others. In l. 492 we have your again.
504. thing, possession. Lat. ‘de rebus tuis igitur fac ut libet.’
516. a furlong wey or two, the distance of one or two furlongs, a short distance, a little. The line simply means—‘a little after.
525. stalked him; marched himself in, as we should say. This use of him is remarkable, but not uncommon.
533–539. Lat. ‘Iussus sum hanc infantulam accipere, atque eam—Hîc sermone abrupto, quasi crudele ministerium silentio exprimens, subticuit.’ Compare ‘Quos ego—’; Vergil, Aen. i. 135.
540–546. Lat. ‘Suspecta uiri fama; suspecta facies; suspecta hora; suspecta erat oratio; quibus etsi clare occisum iri dulcem filiam intelligeret, nec lachrymulam tamen ullam, nec suspirium dedit.’ Mr. Wright quotes this otherwise, putting dulce for dulcem, and stopping at intelligeret.
547–567. Chaucer expands the Latin, and transposes some of the matter. Lines 561–563 precede ll. 547–560 in the original, which merely has—‘in nutrice quidem, nedum in matre durissimum; sed tranquilla fronte puellulam accipiens aliquantulum respexit simul exosculans benedixit, ac signum sanctae crucis impressit, porrexitque satelliti.’
570. After That in this line, we ought, in strict grammar, to have ye burie in the next line, instead of the imperative burieth. But the phrase is idiomatic, and as all the seven best MSS. agree in this reading, it is best to retain it. Tyrwhitt alters That but to But if.
579. Somwhat, in some degree. But Petrarch says differently—‘ uehementer paterna animum pietas mouit.’
582–591. Lat. ‘Iussit satelliti obuolutam pannis, cistae iniectam, ac iumento impositam, quiete omni quanta posset diligentia Bononiam deferret ad sororem suam, quae illic comiti de Panico nupta erat,’ c.
586. ‘But, under penalty of having his head cut off’; lit. of cutting off his head.
589. Boloigne, Bologna, E. by S. from Modena, and a long way from Saluzzo. Panik answers to the de Panico in note to l. 582; Boccaccio has Panago. I observe in the map the river Panaro flowing between Modena and Bologna; perhaps there is some connexion between the names. Tyrwhitt has Pavie (Pavia) in his text, but corrects it in the notes.
602. in oon, in one and the same state: ever in oon, always alike, continually; so also in l. 677. Cf. Kn. Ta. 913 (A. 1771).
607. This must mean—‘no accidental sign of any calamity.’
612. A knave child, a male child, boy; as in Barbour’s Bruce, xiii. 693; English Gilds, ed. T. Smith, p. 30.
615. merië; three syllables; cf. A. 1386, B. 4156. Ll. 621–623 are Chaucer’s own.
625. sikly berth, hardly bear, dislike. Lat. ‘populum aegre ferre, ’ c.
643. Lat. ‘ne te inopinus et subitus dolor turbet.’
645–651. Expanded from—‘Dixi (ait) et repeto, nihil possum seu uelle, seu nolle, nisi quae tu; neque uero in ijs filiis quicquam habeo, praeter laborem.’
663. plesancë, three syllables; stabl ’, one syllable.
666. ‘The pain of death is not to be compared to the pleasure of your love.’ Lat. ‘nec mors ipsa nostro fuerit par amori.’ Cf. ll. 817, 1091.
687. ever lenger, c., i. e. ever the longer (he thinks of it) the more he wonders. In the more, the word the is for A. S. þ ý.
700. And he; cf. And ye, l. 105.
701–707. Expanded from—‘sed sunt qui, ubi semel inceperint, non desinant; immo incumbant, haereantque proposito.’
704. a stake; cf. Macb. v. 7. 1; Jul. Caesar, iv. 1. 48.
714. more penible, more painstaking; Lat. ‘obsequentior.’
719. ‘She made it clear that no wife should of herself, on account of any worldly anxiety, have any will, in practice, different from that of her husband.’
722. sclaundre, ill fame, ill report concerning Walter. See l. 730.
738. message, a messenger; Lat. ‘ nuncios Romam misit.’ So in Old English we find prisoun or prison for prisoner; Piers Pl. B. vii. 30.
772. anon, immediately. It was not uncommon in olden times for girls to be married at twelve years of age. The Wife of Bath was first married at that age; see D. 4.
797. Lat. ‘magna omnis fortuna seruitus magna est; non mihi licet, quod cuilibet liceret agricolae.’
850. were agrees with the word clothes following; cf. it ben, Piers Plowm. B. vi. 56. She did not really bring her husband even the dower of her old clothes, as they had been taken from her. Lines 851–861 are all Chaucer’s own, and shew his delicacy of touch.
866. Lat. ‘neque omnino alia mihi dos fuit, quam fides et nuditas.’
871. Probably suggested by Job, i. 21. So l. 902 is from Job, iii. 3.
880–882. These lines are Chaucer’s own; l. 880 is characteristic of him. The phrase in l. 880 seems to have been proverbial. Cf. ‘I walke as werme, withoute wede’; Coventry Mysteries, p. 28. But Chaucer got it from Le Roman de la Rose, 445; see his translation, l. 454; vol. i. p. 112.
888–889. The latter part of l. 888, and l. 889, are Chaucer’s own.
903. lyves, alive; a lyves creature, a creature alive, a living being. Lyves is an adverb, formed like nedes, from the genitive case of the substantive. There are other instances of its use.
‘Yif I late him liues go’; Havelok, 509.
i. e. if I let him go away alive. And again lyues =alive, in Piers Pl. B. xix. 154. Nearly repeated from Troil. iv. 251–2.
910. After this line, Chaucer has omitted the circumstance of Janicola’s preserving his daughter’s old clothing; ‘tunicam eius hispidam, et attritam senio, abditam paruae domus in parte seruauerat.’ See l. 913.
911. Agayns, towards, so as to meet. To go agayns, in M. E., is to go to meet. So also to come agayns, to ride agayns (or agayn ). See Agayn in Glossary to Spec. of Eng. (Morris and Skeat); and Barbour’s Bruce, xiv. 420. Ll. 915–917 are Chaucer’s own.
916. ‘For the cloth was poor, and many days older now than on the day of her marriage.’
932. ‘Men speak of Job, and particularly of his humility.’ Cf. Job, xl. 4, xlii. 1-6.
934. Namely of men, especially of men, where men is emphatic. The whole of this stanza (932–938) is Chaucer’s.
938. but, except, unless; falle, fallen, happened; of-newe, newly, an adverbial expression. It means then, ‘unless it has happened very lately.’ In other words, ‘If there is an example of a man surpassing a woman in humility, it must have happened very lately; for I have never heard of it.’
939. Pars Sexta. This indication of a new part comes in a fitting place, and is taken from Tyrwhitt, who may have found it in a MS. But there is no break here in the Latin original, nor in any of the MSS. of Chaucer which I have consulted. erl of Panik; Lat. ‘Panicius comes.’
940. more and lesse, greater or smaller; i. e. everybody. So also in the Frank. Tale, ‘riveres more and lesse ’; F. 1054. So also moche and lyte, great and small, Prol. 494; moste and leste, greatest and least, A. 2198. Spenser has, F. Q. vi. 6. 12,—
‘’Gainst all, both bad and good, both most and least.’
941. alle and some, i. e. all and one, one and all. See Morris’s Eng. Accidence, sect. 218, p. 142.
960. wommen; some MSS. have womman, as in Tyrwhitt. But MS. E. is right. Petrarch uses the word foeminas, not foeminam.
965. yvel biseye, ill provided; lit. ill beseen. The word yvel is pronounced here almost as a monosyllable (as it were yv’l ), as is so commonly the case with ever; indeed generally, words ending with el and er are often thus clipped. A remarkable instance occurs in the Milleres Tale (A. 3715), where we not only have a similar ending, but the word ever in the same line—
‘That trewë love was ever so yvel biset.’
See also yvel apayed in line 1052 below. The converse to yvel biseye, is richely biseye, richly provided or adorned, in l. 984 below.
981. Lat. ‘Proximae lucis hora tertia comes superuenerat’; see note to l. 260.
995–1008. These two stanzas are Chaucer’s own, and are so good that they must have been a later addition; Prof. Ten Brink suggests the date 1387 (Eng. Lit. ii. 123, Eng. version). In MS. E. the word Auctor is inserted in the margin, and l. 995 begins with a large capital letter. At the beginning of l. 1009 is a paragraph-mark, shewing where the translation begins again. unsad, unsettled. Cf. Shakesp. Cor. i. 1. 186, Jul. Caesar, i. 1. 55; Scott, Lady of the Lake, v. 30.
999. ‘Ever full of tittle-tattle, which would be dear enough at a half-penny.’ See n. to l. 1200. Iane, a small coin of Genoa (Janua); see Rime of Sir Thopas, B. 1925. The first stanza (995–1001) is supposed to be uttered by the sober and discreet part of the population; see l. 1002.
1031. lyketh thee, pleases thee. The marquis addresses her as thou, because all suppose her to be a menial.
1039. mo, lit. more; but also used in the sense of others, or, as here, another. The modern phrase would be, ‘as you did somebody else. ’ The extreme delicacy of the hint is admirable. This use of mo is common in Chaucer; see the Glossary. So also, in Specimens of English, ed. Morris and Skeat, we have, at p. 47, l. 51—
i. e. I sigh for unrest, and mourn as other men do. And on the next page, p. 48, l. 22, we have
i. e. ‘The moody moan as others do; I wot I am one of them.’ In l. 240 of How the Good Wife taught her Daughter, pr. with Barbour’s Bruce, ed. Skeat, we find—‘And slanderit folk vald euir haue ma, ’ i. e. would ever have others like themselves. Somewhat similar is the expression oþer mo, where we should now say others as well; Piers Plowman, C. v. 10, xxii. 54. A somewhat similar use of mo occurs in Tudor English. ‘It fortuned Diogenes to . . make one among the moo at a dyner.’—Udall, tr. of Erasmus’ Apophthegmes (1564), bk. i. § 91. So also:—‘that he also, emong the mo [i. e. the rest] might haue his pleasure’; id. bk. ii. § 13. Tyrwhitt’s suggestion that Chaucer has licentiously turned me into mo for the mere sake of getting a rime, in which he has hitherto been followed by nearly every editor, is only to be repudiated. It may well have been with the very purpose of guarding against this error that, in the Ellesmere and Hengwrt MSS., the original Latin text is here quoted in the margin—‘unum bona fide te precor ac moneo: ne hanc illis aculeis agites, quibus alteram agitasti.’ Chaucer, who throughout surpasses his original in delicacy of treatment, did not permit himself to be outdone here; and Boccaccio also has the word altra. The use of me would have been a direct charge of unkindness, spoiling the whole story. See l. 1045 and l. 449.
1049. gan his herte dresse, addressed his heart, i. e. prepared it, schooled it. The M. E. dresse is our modern direct; both being from Lat. dirigere.
1053. Here we may once more note the use of the word thy, the more so as it is used with a quite different tone. We sometimes find it used, as here, between equals, as a term of endearment; it is, accordingly, very significant. See l. 1056.
1066. that other, the other, the boy.
1071. non, any, either. The use of it is due to the preceding nat.
1079. Professor Morley, in his English Writers, v. 342, aptly remarks here—‘And when Chaucer has told all, and dwelt with an exquisite pathos of natural emotion all his own upon the patient mother’s piteous and tender kissing of her recovered children—for there is nothing in Boccaccio, and but half a sentence in Petrarch, answering to these four beautiful stanzas (1079–1106)—he rounds all, as Petrarch had done, with simple sense, which gives religious meaning to the tale, then closes with a lighter strain of satire which protects Griselda herself from the mocker.’
1098. ‘Hath caused you (to be) kept.’ For the same idiom, see Kn. Tale, A. 1913; Man of Law’s Tale, B. 171, and the note. Cf. ‘Wher I have beforn ordeyned and do mad [caused to be made] my tombe.’ Royal Wills, ed. Nichols, p. 278.
1133. His wyves fader, i. e. Janicola. This circumstance should have been mentioned before l. 1128, as in the original.
1140. For of (Ellesmere MS.) the other MSS. read in.
1141. auctour, author, i. e. Petrarch, whom Chaucer follows down to l. 1162. Ll. 1138–1141 are Chaucer’s own, and may be compared with his poem on the Golden Age (vol. i. 380).
1144. importable, intolerable; Lat.—‘huius uxoris patientiam, quae mihi uix imitabilis uidetur.’ Of course ll. 1147–8 are Chaucer’s.
1151. ‘Receive all with submission.’ Fr. en gré, gratefully, in good part. sent, sendeth; present tense, as in Piers Plowman, C. xxii. 434. The past tense is sente, which would not rime.
1152. ‘For it is very reasonable that He should prove (or test) that which He created.’
1153. boghte, (hath) redeemed. See St. James, i. 13.
1162. Here Petrarch ends his narrative, and here, beyond all doubt, Chaucer’s translation originally ended also. From this point to the end is the work of a later period, and in his best manner, though unsuited to the coy Clerk. He easily links on his addition by the simple expression lordinges, herkneth; and in l. 1170, he alludes to the Wife of Bath, of whom probably he had never thought when first translating the story.
We can thus understand the stanza in the footnote, on p. 424. It is genuine, but was rejected at the time of adding ll. 1163–1212. It was afterwards expanded into The Monkes Prologue, with the substitution of the patient Prudence for the patient Griselda; see B. 3083–6.
1177. Here the metre changes; the stanzas are of six lines; and all six stanzas are linked together. There are but three rimes throughout; - ence in the first and third lines of every stanza, - aille in the second, fourth, and sixth, (requiring eighteen rimes in all), and - inde in the fifth line. It is a fine example even from a metrical point of view alone.
1188. Chichevache, for chiche vache, i. e. lean cow. The allusion is to an old fable, of French origin, which describes a monstrous cow named Chiche Vache as feeding entirely upon patient wives, and being very lean in consequence of the scarcity of her diet. A later form of the fable adds a second beast, named Bicorne (two-horned), who, by adopting the wiser course of feeding upon patient husbands, was always fat and in good case. Mr. Wright says—‘M. Achille Jubinal, in the notes to his Mystères inédits du xv Siècle, tom. i. p. 390, has printed a French poetical description of Chichevache from a MS. of the fourteenth century. In the French miracle of St. Geneviève, of the fifteenth century (Jubinal, ib. p. 281), a man says satirically to the saint,
A poem by Lydgate on Bycorne and Chichevache is printed in Mr. Halliwell’s Minor Poems of Dan John Lydgate, p. 129 (Percy Society); see Morley’s English Writers, vi. 107, and his Shorter English Poems, p. 55. In his Étude sur G. Chaucer, p. 221, M. Sandras refers us, for information about Chicheface, lit. ‘thin face’ or ‘ugly face’ (of which Chiche vache was a perversion), to the Histoire Littéraire de France, vol. xxiii. Dr. Murray refers us to Montaiglon, Poésie franç. 15 e et 16 e siècles (1855), ii. 191. The passage in Chaucer means, ‘Beware of being too patient, lest Chichevache swallow you down.’
1189. Folweth Ekko, imitate Echo, who always replies.
1196. The forms chamail, kamail, a camel, occur in the A.F. Romance of King Horn, ed. Brede and Stengel, l. 4177. For the M.E. camayl, see Rich. Cuer de Lion, 2323; Cursor Mundi, 3304 (Trin. MS.).
1200. ‘Always talk (or rattle) on, like a mill’ (that is always going round and making a noise). ‘Janglinge is whan men speken to muche biforn folk, and clappen as a mille, and taken no kepe what they seye’; Ch. Persones Tale, De Superbia (I. 406). Palsgrave’s French Dict. has—‘I clappe, I make a noyse as the clapper of a mill, Ie clacque. ’
‘Thou art as fulle of clappe, as is a mille.’
Cf. ‘As fast as millwheels strike’; Tempest, i. 2. 281.
1204. aventaille, the lower half of the moveable part of a helmet which admitted air; called by Spenser the ventail, F. Q. iv. 6. 19; v. 8. 12; and by Shakespeare the beaver, Hamlet, i. 2. 230. It is explained, in Douce’s Illustrations of Shakespeare, that the moveable part of the helmet in front was made in two parts, which turned on hinges at the sides of the head. The upper part is the visor, to admit of vision, the lower the ventail, to admit of breathing. Both parts could be removed from the face, but only by lifting them upwards, and throwing them back. If the visor alone were lifted, only the upper part of the face was exposed; but if the ventail were lifted, the visor also went with it, and the whole of the face was seen. Compare Fairfax’s Tasso, vii. 7:—
So also in Hamlet. With reference to the present passage, Mr. Jephson says that and eek his aventaille is a perfect example of bathos. I fail to see why; the weapon that pierced a ventail would pass into the head, and inflict a death-wound. The passage is playful, but not silly.
1206. couche, cower. Hence the phrase—‘to play couch-quail’; see Skelton, ed. Dyce, ii. 348.
1211. ‘As light as a leaf on a linden-tree’ was an old proverb. See Piers Pl. B. i. 154.
1213. Weping and wayling; an expression caught from l. 1212, and linking this Prologue to the foregoing Tale. Yet in fourteen MSS. the Merchant’s Tale is separated from the Clerk’s; Trial Forewords, by F. J. Furnivall (Chaucer Soc.), p. 28.
1221–2. What, why. at al, in every respect; like Lat. omnino.
1227. This theme is enlarged upon in Lenvoy de Chaucer à Bukton, a late minor poem (vol. i. 398).
1230. Seint Thomas. Whenever this Apostle is mentioned, he is nearly always said to be of India, to distinguish him, it may be, from Saint Thomas of Canterbury. See D. 1980, and the note. Some account of the shrine of St. Thomas, of the manner of his death, and of miracles wrought by him, is given in Marco Polo, bk. iii. ch. 18. Colonel Yule tells us that the body of St. Thomas lay at Mailapúr, a suburb of Madras. The legend of St. Thomas’s preaching in India is of very high antiquity. St. Jerome speaks of the Divine Word being everywhere present in His fulness ‘cum Thomâ in India, cum Petro Romae,’ c.; Sci. Hieronomi Epist. lix., ad Marcellam. Gregory of Tours ( ad 544–595) speaks of the place in India where the body of St. Thomas lay before it was transported to Edessa in the year 394. See the whole of Colonel Yule’s long note upon the subject; and the account of Saint Thomas in Mrs. Jameson’s Sacred and Legendary Art.
For remarks on the sources of this Tale, see vol. iii. p. 458. The modern version by Pope may be compared, though it was a juvenile performance. Cf. Lydgate, Minor Poems, p. 28.
This Tale frequently adopts passages from the Tale of Melibeus, which was doubtless written several years before it. See also the article by Dr. Köppel in Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen, vol. 86, p. 39.
1246. Pavye, Pavia. I suppose that Chaucer had no special reason for locating the tale in Lombardy.
1248–52. For sixty, some MSS. have lx.; the scribes of MSS. Hl. and Ln. wrongly have fourty, which looks as if they took lx. to mean xl. I see no point in turning the former sixty (in 1248) into fourty, as Wright does, on the pretence that the first twenty years of his life did not count. Sixty was considered a great age (l. 1401).
1251. seculeer, secular; as distinguished from the monks and friars. Chaucer probably speaks ironically, meaning that these holy orders were as bad as the rest. See l. 1322.
1267–1392. The whole of this passage presents the arguments that prevailed with January; as shewn by the words For which (i. e. wherefore) in l. 1393. That is to say, Chaucer here purposely keeps reasons against marriage out of sight, reserving them for ll. 1521–1565, 1659–1681. Hence the opinion in l. 1269, that a man should marry when old, is not Chaucer’s opinion at all.
1270. ‘The fruit of his treasure,’ i. e. purchased with his own wealth. A queer reason, and not Chaucer’s. Cf. l. 1276.
1277. sit wel, is very fit. Palsgrave has: ‘It sytteth, it becometh, il siet. ’
1284. For blisful, MS. Hl. wrongly has busily.
1294. Theofraste, Theophrastus. The allusion is to the Liber Aureolus Theophrasti de Nuptiis, partly preserved by St. Jerome, who quotes a long extract from it in his tractate Contra Iovinianum, lib. i. John of Salisbury quotes the same passage, almost word for word, in his Polycraticus, lib. viii. c. 11. The point discussed is:—‘an uir sapiens ducat uxorem.’ Amongst other things, he has a passage answering to ll. 1296–1304 below. ‘Quod si propter dispensationem domus . . . ducuntur uxores: multo melius seruus fidelis dispensat, obediens auctoritati domini, et dispensationi eius obtemperans quàm uxor . . . Assidere autem aegrotanti magis possunt amici et uernulae beneficiis obligati, quàm illa quae nobis imputat lachrymas suas, et haereditatis spe uendit illuuiem.’ Cf. Lounsbury, Studies, ii. 366.
1305–6. These two lines occur in E. Cm., and are doubtless correct.
The MSS. vary considerably; see Six-Text, Pref. p. 70.
N.B. The words in italics are added in a later hand.
Neither of these lines will scan. MSS. Harl. 7335 and Bodley 686 nearly agree with this, but read be wel y-war for be war.
So also MS. Harl. 1758, Laud 600 and 739, Lichfield, c. The black-letter editions of 1550 and 1561 have a much better version of the same, for they omit that and is in the former (too long) line, and insert sore before rewe in the latter (too short) one.
So also (according to Tyrwhitt) the Haistwell MS. and MS. Royal 17. D. xv; and, according to Furnivall, MS. Chr. Ch. C. 6.
In six MSS., according to Tyrwhitt, they are omitted; and on this account he omits them, on the plea that they ‘form the opening of a new argument, . . and consequently would have been cancelled, if he [Chaucer] had lived to publish his work.’ But the sense is quite complete in the form in which I give them, from the two best MSS.
1311. Against this line is written, in the margin of MS. E.—‘Uxor est diligenda quia donum Dei est: Iesus filius Sirac: domus et diuicie dantur a parentibus, a Domino autem proprie uxor bona uel prudens.’ But the reference is wrong; the quotation is not from Ecclesiasticus (or Jesus the son of Sirach), but from Prov. xix. 14. The Vulgate has uxor prudens, omitting bona uel. The whole quotation is from Albertano of Brescia’s Liber de Amore Dei (Köppel).
1315. Compare B. 1199, and I. 1068.
1318. This parenthetical line is Chaucer’s very own.
1319. ‘Sacramentum hoc magnum est’; Eph. v. 32. Marriage, in the Romish Church, is one of the seven sacraments.
1323–35. All from Albertano of Brescia’s Liber de Amore Dei (Köppel).
1326. Hl. has body-naked; but all the rest (like the old editions) have bely-naked, which is the usual expression; see examples in Halliwell.
1328. In the margin of E.—‘Faciamus ei adiutorium,’ c. From Gen. ii. 18, 24.
1335–6. From Le Roman de la Rose, 16640–4.
1337. Seint-e is feminine; ben’cite is trisyllabic.
1358–61. Of course these lines are genuine; they occur in nearly every MS. but E. and Trin. Coll. R. 3. 3. The scribe of E. slipped from reed in 1357 to rede in 1362; a common mistake. Dr. Furnivall objects that wyse in 1359 is made to rime with wyse in 1360, and rede in 1361 with rede in 1362; the riming words being used in the same sense. This is not the case. The first wyse is plural; the second is singular, and used generally. The first rede means ‘advise’; the second, ‘read.’ To leave them out would give a rime of reed (monosyllable) with rede (dissyllable).
1362. The examples of Rebecca, Judith, Abigail, and Esther are quoted, in the same order and in similar terms, in the Tale of Melibeus; see B. 2288–2291, and the Notes.
1373, 4. Mardochee, Mordecai; in the Vulgate, Mardochaeus. Assuere, Ahasuerus; in the Vulgate, Assuerus; see l. 1745.
1376. In the margin of MS. Hn. is written:—‘Seneca: sicut nichil est suberbus benigna coniuge, ita nichil est crudelius infesta muliere.’ This is from Albertano of Brescia, Lib. Consolationis, cap. v. (p. 18). Sundby gives the reference, not to Seneca, but to Fulgentius, Mythologiarum, L. i. c. 27.
1377. bit, biddeth, bids. The passage referred to is in Dionysius Cato, lib. iii. dist. 25, and is given in the margin of MSS. E. Hn. and Dd.,
Uxoris linguam, si frugi est, ferre memento.
Quoted, at second-hand, from Albertano (Köppel).
1380. In the margin of MS. E.—‘Bona mulier fidelis custos est, et bona domus.’ From Albertano, as above.
1381–2. ‘Ubi non est mulier, ingemiscit egens ’; Ecclus. xxxvi. 27. Albertano quotes this, but alters egens to eger; hence Chaucer has ‘the syke man’; see Köppel’s article, p. 42.
1384. See Eph. v. 25, 28, 29, 31.
1385. thou lovest, thou wilt love; the present for the future; in the second instance. There is no real difficulty here, though Tyrwhitt makes one, and alters the text to love thou.
1401. ‘On the brink of my grave.’ Cf. Ps. xxx. 3, 9; c.
1407–16. ‘Uxorem accipias potius puellam quam uiduam’; from Albertano. See Köppel’s article, p. 42.
1412. mo, more in number; T. has more (badly).
1418. ‘I like fish when old, preferring a full grown pike to a pikerel; and I like flesh young, preferring veal to beef.’
1424. Wades boot, Wade’s boat. Wade was a famous hero of antiquity, to whom Chaucer again alludes in Troil. iii. 614. In the Traveller’s Song, l. 22, we find:—‘Witta wēold Swǣfum, Wada Hælsingum,’ i. e. Witta ruled over the Swabians, Wada over the Hælsings.’ Wade is again mentioned in the alliterative Morte Arthure, l. 964. In a translation of Guido delle Colonne, in MS. Laud K. 76, in the Bodleian library, the romance of Wade is mentioned in conjunction with those of Havelok and Horn, both of which are well known; see the whole passage, as cited in Warton, Hist. E. Poetry, in a note to Section III. In Sir Beves of Hamtoun, ed. Kölbing, 2605, we have an allusion to his fight with a fire-drake or fiery dragon. And in Sir T. Malory’s Morte Arthur, bk. vii. c. 9, we find:—‘were thou as wyghte as euer was Wade or Launcelot.’ Speght knew the story, but has not recorded it; his note is:—‘Concerning Wade and his bote called Guingelot, as also his straunge exploits in the same, because the matter is long and fabulous, I pass it over.’ On which Tyrwhitt remarks—‘ Tantamne rem tam negligenter? Mr. Speght probably did not foresee, that posterity would be as much obliged to him for a little of this fabulous matter concerning Wade and his bote, as for the gravest of his annotations.’ Tyrwhitt also refers us, for a mention of Wade, to Camden’s Britannia, 907, and to Charlton’s History of Whitby, p. 40. M. Michel endeavoured to collect the particulars concerning Wade, and published them in a brochure, entitled Wade: Lettre à M. Henri Ternaux-Compans, c. sur une Tradition Angloise du Moyen Age; Paris, 1837; 8vo. But it does not tell us much more that is helpful, except in furnishing a reference to the Wilkina Saga, capp. 18–20.
After all, the most light is given us by the following sentence in the Corpus Poeticum Boreale, ed. Vigfusson and Powell, i. 168, with reference to the Lay of Weyland. ‘Weyland is trapped by Nidad, king of the Niars, hamstrung, and forced to work for him in his forge on the isle of Seastead in lake Wolfmere. He contrives to slay his tyrant’s sons, beguile his daughter [named Bodwild], and by the aid of a pair of wings which he has fashioned to soar away from his prison-house, rejoicing in his revenge. . . . That the King’s daughter had a son by Weyland, the famous Wade (the memory of whose magic boat Wingelock lingered in N. England till the Reformation), we know from Wilkina Saga.’
I entirely differ from M. Michel’s extraordinary conclusion about the boat—‘Nous avons quelques raisons de croire que ce bateau n’étoit pas d’une course aussi rapide: en effet, dans l’Edda il est dit qu’Odin avoit un valet et une servante nommés Ganglate et Ganglæt, mots qu’on dit signifier marchant lentement. ’ Of course Ganglati and Ganglöt (as they should be written) mean ‘slow-goer,’ but this has nothing to do with Guingelot, which is merely a French spelling of some such form as Wingelok. It is obvious that the sole use of a magic boat is to transport its possessor from place to place in a few minutes, like the magic wings of Wade’s own father. This is all we need to know, to see the point of the allusion. Old widows, says Chaucer in effect, know too much of the craft of Wade’s boat; they can fly from place to place in a minute, and, if charged with any misdemeanour, will swear they were a mile away from the place at the time alleged. Mr. Pickwick, on the other hand, being only a man, failed to set up the plea of an alibi, and suffered accordingly.
1425. broken harm. This is one of the phrases which Tyrwhitt includes in his list as being ‘not understood’; nor is it easy. But if we take it in connexion with the context, I think it can be explained. Harm is ‘mischief, injury’; broken is ‘fragmentary,’ as in ‘broken meat,’ and the like; so that broken harm refers to slight disconnected acts of mischief, or what we should now call ‘petty annoyances,’ or ‘small worries.’ Thus the sense is that ‘widows know so much about ways of creating small annoyances, that I should never live in peace with one.’ Taken all together, ll. 1424–6 simply imply that ‘old widows are so full of tricks for deceiving me, and can inflict at pleasure such small but constant annoyances, that I,’ c.
1447. Take him, let him take; see the Exhortation in the Marriage-Service in the Book of Common Prayer; cf. Pers. Tale, I. 939, 940, 861.
1469. Cf. F. 202.
1474. disputisoun, disputation. Many MSS. have disputacioun, which is too long. The form, as Tyrwhitt remarks, is quite correct; see B. 4428, F. 890. Spelt desputeson in Gower, Conf. Amant. i. 90. See disputoison in Godefroy, with the variants in - aison, -eison, -eson, -ison. Compare orison with oration.
1476. Placebo. This name has reference to his complaisant disposition; see note to D. 2075. So, in the Ayenbite of Inwyt, ed. Morris, p. 60, we have: ‘The verthe zenne is, thet huanne hi alle zingeth Placebo, thet is to zigge: “mi lhord zayth zoth, my lhord doth wel”; and wendeth to guode al thet the guodeman deth other zayth, by hit guod, by hit kuead.’
1485. This quotation is not from Solomon, but from Jesus son of Sirach; see Ecclus. xxxii. 19:—‘Do nothing without advice, and when thou hast once done, repent not.’ Chaucer follows the Vulgate version; see note to B. 2193, where the quotation recurs.
1516. ‘Your heart hangs on a jolly pin,’ i. e. is in a merry state. A pin was a name for a wooden peg; and to hang on a pin was to be hung up conspicuously. Palsgrave, p. 844, has: ‘Upon a mery pynne, de hayt; as, il a le cueur de hayt ’; cf. ‘ Hait, liveliness, . . . cheerfulness’ in Cotgrave. Halliwell gives: ‘ on the pin, on the qui vive. ’ Later, the phrase became in a merry pin, i. e. in a good humour; but this is thought to refer to the pins or pegs in a ‘peg-tankard’; see Pin in Nares. Cowper, in his John Gilpin, has ‘in merry pin.’
1523. See Seneca, De Beneficiis, capp. 14–16; Lounsbury, Studies, ii. 270. However, it is really taken from Map’s Epistola Valerii, c. 9: ‘Philosophicum est: Videto cui des. Ethica est: Videto cui te des.’—Anglia, xiii. 183. Cf. P. Plowman, B. vii. 74, and the note.
1535. chydester, the feminine form of chyder, which is the form used in MSS. Pt. and Hl. I can find no other example; but, in the Romaunt of the Rose, ll. 150, 4266, we find chideresse.
1536. mannish wood, with masculine manners, and mad; virago-like. Certainly the right reading, and found in E. Hn. Cm. Unluckily, Tyrwhitt and others have adopted the nonsensical reading of Pt. and Hl., viz. a man is wood ! Cp. Ln. have of maneres wood, which is better, but is clearly a mere substitution for the original mannish. For mannish, masculine, we have Chaucer’s own authority; see B. 782, and the note.
1538. ‘A metaphor from horses, meaning, No woman is without faults, just as there is no horse which will trot perfectly sound in all respects.’—Bell. From Albertano of Brescia, Liber de Amore Dei: ‘Nulla tam bona uxor, in qua non inuenias quod queraris.’—Köppel.
1553. ‘I know best where my shoe pinches me.’ This story has been already alluded to; see D. 492, and the note.
1558. Tyrwhitt has:—‘By him that made water, fire, erthe, and aire.’ This will not scan, and the word fire is introduced merely to please the editor, being found in none of the seven MSS., nor in the old editions. When Chaucer wishes to mention all the four elements, he does so; see A. 1246, 2992.
1560–1. From Le Rom. de la Rose, 14055–6:—
1582. Cf. Boeth. bk. v. met. 4. 8; Troil. i. 365; Ayenb. of Inwyt, p. 158.
1584. E. Hn. have se ful many, but the rest omit ful. Scan the line by reading many a in one foot, and making figúr-e trisyllabic, as in B. 3412, E. 16.
1592. voys, fame, general approval.
1609. Read inpossibl ’, and wer-e. were, would be.
1640–1. The seven deadly sinnes, for which see the Persones Tale. ‘The popular medieval treatises on the seven sins arrange the minor transgressions connected with each as branches of the primary tree.’—Wright. And each of the branches have twigs, as Chaucer himself says; see I. 389. Cf. my note to P. Plowman, C. viii. 70.
1665. forbed-e, may (God) forbid. sente, subj., could send.
1682. This line is incomplete in all the seven MSS. There is a pause at the caesura, so that the word for occupies the whole of the third foot. Tyrwhitt conceals this fact by inserting but before thinne. Cf. D. 1647, and the note.
1684–7. These four parenthetical lines interrupt the story rather awkwardly. They obviously belong to the narrator, the Marchant, as it is out of the question that Justinus had heard of the Wife of Bath. Perhaps it is an oversight.
If we take these lines in this way, it is necessary to read we have in l. 1686, as in Hn. The other MSS. and editions read ye have. I explain ‘which we have on honde’ as meaning, ‘which we are now discussing.’ Moreover, the reading we is exactly appropriate after the reading us of l. 1684, where it is difficult to see how us can refer to any but the Canterbury pilgrims.
1693. Maius is a masculine form, because the name of the month is so; see l. 1748.
1702. sacrement, i.e. of marriage; see l. 1319. The couple also used to ‘receive the sacrament,’ i. e. the eucharist, in the modern sense.
1704. Referring to the prayers in the marriage service, which mention Isaac and Rebecca, and Abraham and Sarah.
1709–52. Quoted by Warton, Hist. E. Poetry, ed. 1871, ii. 354.
1716. Orpheus, the celebrated minstrel, whose story is in Ovid, Met. x. 1-85; xi. 1-66. Mentioned again in the Book of the Duchesse, 569; House of Fame, 1203; Troil. iv. 791. For the minstrelsy at the feast, cf. F. 78.
Amphioun, Amphion, king of Thebes, who helped to build Thebes by the magic of his music; Hyginus, Fab. 6 and 7; cf. Ovid, Met. vi. 221, 271, 402; xv. 427. Already mentioned in connexion with Thebes in A. 1546. (The i is shortened.)
1719. Cf. ‘Ther herde I trumpe Ioab also’; Ho. of Fame, 1245. ‘Joab blew a trumpet,’ 2 Sam. ii. 28; xviii. 16; xx. 22.
1720. Theodomas; also mentioned in the above passage, Ho. of Fame, 1246. As he blew a trumpet at Thebes, when the city was in fear (or danger), he is clearly to be identified with the Thiodamas mentioned in the Thebaid of Statius. He succeeded Amphiaraus as augur, and furiously excited the besiegers to attack Thebes. His invocation was succeeded by a great sound of trumpets (Theb. viii. 343), but Statius does not expressly say that he blew a trumpet himself.
1723. Venus; cf. F. 272–274.
1727. fyrbrond, fire-brand, torch; which she carried as appropriate to the marriage procession. This attribute of Venus is found in Le Roman de la Rose, l. 3434:—
Observe that l. 2250 of the Legend of Good Women runs thus:—‘N’ Ymenëus, that god of wedding is.’ This agrees with line 1730 except as regards the prefixed Ne. The ‘fire-brand’ reappears in l. 1777 below.
1731. his lyf, i. e. during his life, in all his life.
1732. Marcian. Chaucer is still thinking of his own House of Fame (cf. notes to ll. 1719, 1720), where he had already mentioned Marcian, at l. 985. Martianus Minneus Felix Capella, a native of Carthage, was a writer of the fifth century, and wrote the Nuptials of Philology and Mercury, De Nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii. This consists of two books, immediately followed by seven books on the Seven Sciences; see Warton’s Hist. E. Poetry, ed. 1871, iii. 77; Smith’s Classical Dictionary, s. v. Capella; Lydgate’s Temple of Glass, l. 130.
1734. hir; cf. ‘he, Theofraste,’ in l. 1294; also ll. 1368, 1373. For him (as in E. Cm.), MSS. Hn. Hl. have he (badly).
1745. Assuer, Ahasuerus, as in l. 1374. There is a special reference here to the banquet at which Esther obtained her request; see Esther, v. 6. See further in Warton, Hist. E. Poetry, ed. 1871, i. 288, iii. 142.
1754. For other allusions to Paris and Eleyne, see Parl. of Foules, 290, 291; Book of the Duch. 331.
1783. The word ‘Auctor’ in the margin of MS. E. signifies that ll. 1783–1794 form a reflection on the subject by the author, who here personates the Marchant. There are similar passages further on, viz. ll. 1866–1874, 2057–2068, 2107–2115, and 2125–2131.
1784. bedeth, proffers; cf. G. 1065. From Boeth. bk. iii. pr. 5. 50.
1785. false hoomly hewe, O false domestic servant! Cp. Pt. Ln. have the reading holy, which doubtless arose, as Wright points out, from missing the mark of abbreviation in the form ‘hōly,’ i. e. ho m ly. ‘Tyrwhitt, however,’ he adds, ‘adopts this reading, mistakes the meaning of the word hewe, adds of, which is found in none of the MSS.; and in his text it stands false of holy hewe, which he supposes to signify false of holy colour. Conjectural emendations are always dangerous.’ Yet Wright silently adopts such emendations over and over again; cf. l. 1812 below. Cf. hoomly fo in ll. 1792, 1794.
1786. ‘Like the sly and treacherous snake in the bosom.’ This refers to the fable in Phaedrus, lib. iv. fab. 18. But Chaucer probably took it from the Gesta Romanorum, ch. clxxiv. For numerous references, see the Exempla of Jacques de Vitry, ed. Crane, 1890, p. 201.
1790. Here the monosyllabic pp. born takes a final e in the definite form, as noticed by Prof. Child; see Ellis, E. E. Pronunc. p. 350, § 32. Cf. her dreint-e lord, Gower, C. A., ii. 105; and see B. 69.
1793. From Boethius, lib. iii. pr. 5:—‘Quae uero pestis efficacior ad nocendum, quàm familiaris inimicus?’ See vol. ii. p. 63.
1795. his ark diurne, the daily arc of his apparent motion. See Chaucer on the Astrolabe, pt. ii. § 7:—‘To knowe the arch of the day ’; or, as in l. 7 of the same:—‘tak ther thyn ark of the day. ’
1797. On thorisonte, upon the horizon; i. e. the time was come for the sun to descend below it.
that latitude; because the apparent motion of the sun depends upon the latitude as well as upon the day of the year; cf. the Treatise on the Astrolabe, pt. ii. § 13.
1799. hemisperie, the hemisphere above the horizon; see the Treatise on the Astrolabe, pt. i. § 18.
1807. ipocras, the usual medieval spelling of Hippocrates; but the name is here given to a prepared drink. Halliwell (s. v. Hippocras ) defines it as ‘a beverage composed of wine, with spices and sugar, strained through a cloth. It is said to have taken its name from Hippocrates’ sleeve, the term [which] apothecaries gave to a strainer.’ Long and elaborate recipes for it exist, and may be found in the Babees Book, ed. Furnivall, pp. 125 and 267; and in Halliwell’s Dictionary, s. v. ipocras. The shortest is that in Arnold’s Chronicle:—‘Take a quarte of red wyne, an ounce of synamon, and halfe an unce of gynger; a quarter of an ounce of greynes [i. e. cardamoms], and longe peper, and half a pounde of suger; and brose [bruise] all this, and than put them in a bage of wullen clothe, made therefore [i. e. for the purpose], with the wyne; and lete it hange over a vessel, tyll the wyne be rune thorowe.’ All the recipes insist upon the straining, and some direct the use of as many as six straining-bags. See Our English Home, p. 83.
clarree, clarified wine; see note to A. 1471.
vernage, a sweet wine, sometimes red, but more often white; ‘grown in Tuscany, and other parts of Italy, and [it] derived its name from the thick-skinned grape, vernaccia (corresponding with the vinaciola of the ancients), that was used in the preparation of it. The wine known as vernaccia in Tuscany was always of a white or golden colour. See Bacci, Nat. Vinor. Hist., pp. 20, 62.’—Henderson, Hist. of Ancient and Modern Wines, 1824; quoted in the Babees Book, ed. Furn vall, p. 203. Florio’s Ital. Dict. gives:—‘ Vernaccia, a kinde of strong wine like malmesie or muskadine, or bastard wine.’ Chaucer speaks of it again, in conjunction with malvesye; see B. 1261. For other notices of it, see Babees Book, pp. 125, 267, and the Glossary; Halliwell, s. v. Piment; Gower, C. A., iii. 8; Squyer of Lowe Degree, l. 754. The derivation, sometimes given, of vernage from Verona, is clearly wrong.
1810. dan, i. e. Dominus, a common title; see note to B. 3119.
Constantine. ‘Dan Constantine, according to Fabricius, Bibl. Med. Æt. t. i. p. 423, ed. Pat. 4to., wrote about the year 1080. His works, including the treatise mentioned in the text, were printed at Basil, 1536, fol.’—T. He has been mentioned before; see A. 433; and cf. Warton, Hist. E. Poetry, ed. 1871, ii. 368.
1812. nas no-thing eschu, was not at all remiss, or shy. Cm. Ln. read was; the rest nas; but the sense is the same. Tyrwhitt reads— he wolde nothing eschue. Wright says: ‘the Harl. MS. reads nas, which seems not to furnish so good a grammatical construction’; accordingly, he reads— he wold nothing eschieu. Morris likewise reads wolde; and Bell reads wold. But the editors are all wrong; for the verb eschew-e will not rime with coitu, and it is clear that they did not know that eschu is here an adjective ! Yet it occurs again in the Pers. Tale, Group I, 971; and I subjoin three more examples.
‘She is escheue [ read eschu] of bothe two.’
‘Yit gooses dounge eschew is. ’
In this passage it rimes with mew-es, pl. sb.
‘Her taste is eke eschewe. ’—id. bk. iv. l. 586.
Godefroy gives the O. F. adj. eschif, eskif, ‘animé de sentiments hostiles, défavorables, mauvais, mécontent, de mauvaise volonté, rétif.’ Amongst his examples, we find the spellings eskius, eschius, eskieus, esqueus, eskieu, esquieu, esehieu; where the - s is a case-ending. The O. F. adj. is derived from the adj. which appears as M. H. G. schiech, cognate with E. shy. Chaucer’s eschu is, accordingly, just as good an adjective as the mod. E. shy.
1817. travers, curtain, drawn across to form a screen; as in Troil. iii. 674. Ill spelt trauas in the Prompt. Parv., but explained by transversum, which is the Low Latin form. See Way’s note; he quotes—“i. trauers du satin vermaille,” so that they were sometimes made of crimson satin. In the Kingis Quair, st. 90, we find the form trauerse; in st. 82 it is spelt travesse, and is there applied to a screen which happened to be nearly transparent, as was not the case in our text. See vol. ii. pp. 478, 506.
1819. A note in Bell’s Chaucer gives a translation of the form of blessing the nuptial bed to be found in old service-books.
1825. houndfish, dog-fish. I suppose this is the spotted dog-fish, Scyllium catulus, or Scyllium canicula. Randle Holme has: ‘ Dog fish, or Sea dog fish. It is by the Dutch termed a Flackhund and a Hundfisch; the skin is hard and redish, beset with hard and sharp scales, sharp, and rough and black; the Belly is more white and softer.’ Bk. ii. ch. xiv. See Gloss. to the Babees Book; Lydgate, Minor Poems, p. 201.
1840. In the Pers. Tale, Chaucer says just the contrary; see I. 859.
1849. shaketh. Cf. ‘The slake skin trembleth upon myn empted body’; Ch. tr. of Boethius, bk. i. met. 1. 12.
1862. From Le Rom. de la Rose, 19931–2.
1879. a penner. ‘The penner was a case containing the pens, ink, and other apparatus of writing, which the clerk carried about with him, as the Eastern students do at the present day. As such articles belonged only to clergy and scholars, we understand why the squire Damyan was obliged to borrow one for his use. An early vocabulary entitled Nominale mentions, among the Nomina rerum pertinentium clerico, ‘Hoc pennare, a pener. ’—Wright. See Wright-Wülcker, Vocab. 682. 15; also 601. 34.
1881. compleynt. See specimens in Chaucer’s Compleints of Mars, of Venus, and of Anelida; also the Compleint to his Lady. And cf. F. 943–948.
1883. heng, i. e. which hung; the relative is omitted.
1887. two of Taur, the second degree of Taurus. Tyrwhitt unluckily altered two to ten, on the plea that ‘the time given ( four days complete, l. 1893) is not sufficient for the moon to pass from the second degree of Taurus into Cancer.’ And he then proceeds to shew this, taking the mean daily motion of the moon as being 13 degrees, 10 minutes, and 35 seconds. But, as Mr. Brae has shewn, in his edition of Chaucer’s Astrolabe, p. 93, footnote, it is a mistake to reckon here the moon’s mean motion; we must rather consider her actual motion. The question is simply, can the moon move from the 2nd degree of Taurus to the 1st of Cancer (through 59 degrees) in four days? Mr. Brae says decidedly, that examples of such motion are to be seen ‘in every almanac.’
E.g. in the Nautical Almanac, in June, 1886, the moon’s longitude at noon was 30° 22′ on the 9th, and 90° 17′ on the 13th; i. e. the moon was in the first of Taurus on the former day, and in the first of Cancer on the latter day, at the same hour; which gives (very nearly) a degree more of change of longitude than we here require. The MSS. all have two or tuo, and they are quite right. The motion of the moon is so variable that the mean motion affords no safe guide.
1887–8. The i in gliden, biden (as in M. E. riden, E. ridden ) is short.
1921. At-after, immediately after; a compound preposition; see F. 302.
1924. a gentil man, a man of rank, as squires usually were, although in service, and therefore a hewe (1785). Cf. l. 1907, and note to D. 2243.
1932. This proceeding was quite in accordance with ancient custom. See the tale of Eglamore, in the Percy Folio MS., st. 11; and the Ballad of Sir Cauline, st. 9.
1943–4. Misarranged and corrupt in MS. Hl.
1962. precious, over-nice, scrupulous, prim; as in D. 148.
1966. evensong. Only Cp. Ln. have euesong. Perhaps even was pronounced as e’en (een); cf. yest’re’en, Hallowe’en. But eve for even is very common.
1971. For Was, only Hn. Hl. have As. The latter seems to afford an easier construction, and is adopted by the editors. But we are bound to take the reading Was, as in most MSS., and explain it. I take it thus:—‘Whether it were . . that the heavens stood in such a condition, that it was a fortunate time.’ This is quite exact, though one dependent clause on the top of another is not felicitous. The reference is, of course, to the old astrological belief about fortunate positions of the planets; cf. A. 417. See Boeth. bk. iv. pr. 6. 62–71.
1986. Chaucer’s favourite line; see note to F. 479.
1991. lete, allowed; A. S. læten. MS. Harl. omits him.
2002. visit-è; trisyllabic. See the footnote.
2013. lowe means ‘tractable, docile, obedient’; cf. note to D. 1369. ‘And after that he had with lacke of vitailles brought those pratlers as lowe as dogge to the bowe ’; Udall, tr. of Erasmus’ Apophthegmes; Antigonus, § 27. This shews how the dogs were tamed.
2018. lady, lady’s. See note to A. 88.
2021. ‘Alluding to the Epicurean philosophy.’—Bell. See A. 335–8.
2026. honestly, honourably, worthily; cf. l. 2028.
2032. he, viz. Guillaume de Lorris. There were two authors of Le Roman de la Rose, but the reference is here to the earlier portion of it; see ll. 130–146, 480–512, 645–688 of the English version, where the description of the garden occurs; and for the description of the well mentioned in l. 2036, see ll. 1462–1634 of the same.
2034. ‘Hortorum decus et tutela Priapus’; Ovid, Fast. i. 415.
2038. Pluto. In his Introductory Discourse, Tyrwhitt remarks:—‘The machinery of the Fairies, which Chaucer has used so happily, was probably added by himself; and indeed, I cannot help thinking that his Pluto and Proserpine were the true progenitors of Oberon and Titania . . . . This observation is not meant to extend further than the King and Queen of Faery; in whose characters I think it is plain that Shakespeare, in imitation of Chaucer, has dignified our Gothic Elves with the manners and language of the classical Gods and Goddesses. In the rest of his Faery system, Shakespeare seems to have followed the popular superstition of his own time.’
This remark is important; I doubt if the influence of Chaucer upon Shakespeare in this matter has been sufficiently recognised. In both works, the Fairy king and queen have a dispute in hand, which is settled by the assistance of mortals.
Not only here, but in the Hous of Fame, 1509–1511, Chaucer refers us to Claudian as his authority for Pluto and Proserpine; see note to l. 2232 below.
2046. The insertion of smal is necessary; the rime wiket, cliket, being a feminine one.
cliket, (1) a latch, (2) a latch-key; here used in the latter sense. In Shropshire, the word is used of a particular kind of fastening for a gate, which Miss Jackson thus describes. ‘An iron link is attached to the gate by means of a staple; this link is terminated by a short hasp-like bolt. On the gate-post is an iron plate, having in it a kind of key-hole, into which the before-mentioned bolt fits, much after the manner of the fastening of a trunk, thus securing the gate.’
2058. scorpion, scorpion; see notes to B. 360, 404; cf. H. 271, and see Chaucer’s description of the scorpion in the Book of the Duchesse, ll. 636–641. Vincent of Beauvais, in his Speculum Naturale, bk. xx. c. 160, quotes from the Liber de Naturis Rerum—‘Scorpio blandum et quasi virgineum dicitur vultum habere, sed habet in cauda nodosa venenatum aculeum, quo pungit et inficit proximantem.’ And see Boeth. bk. ii. pr. 1. 10–14; Ayenb. of Inwyt, p. 62, l. 13.
2080. Soul, sole; cf. the law-phrase femme sole. See P. de Thaun, Bestiary, 1250; Morris, O. E. Misc. p. 22; Ayenb. of Inwyt, p. 226.
2093. Damian, here to be read as Dam-yan, nearly in two syllables. Benignely, favourably; altered by Tyrwhitt to brenningly, without authority; pronounced benign-e-ly, in four syllables.
2107. ‘What might it avail thee if thou couldst see to the very horizon?’
2109. ‘For it is just as good to be deceived when blind.’
2111. See note to A. 1390.
2115. Cf. ‘Of sufferance cometh ease’; in Heywood’s Proverbs.
2117. To scan the line, we must read warm-e, and émprentèd. Emprented hath would run much better. The scribes who wrote warm probably pronounced the last word as clikét; but the rime is feminine. And see l. 2121, 2123.
2125. The reference is to the story of Pyramus in Ovid, Met. iv. 55; especially (in l. 2126) to the line—‘Quid non sentit amor?’
2127. he, i. e. the lover; used generally. This line answers to l. 742 of the Legend of Good Women:—‘But what is that, that love can nat espye’; where love means a lover.
2133. This has to be taken in connexion with ll. 2222–4 below, in which the date is said to be a little before June 12; see note to the line. Consequently, the ‘eight days’ mentioned in l. 2132 must be the first eight days of June. Again, if we refer to l. 2049, we see that January used to go to the garden ‘in the summer season,’ which would seem to be intended to begin with June. Accordingly, the month of June is here expressed, in a mere parenthesis, by the phrase ‘ere the month of July.’ Hence the sense really is—‘ere that eight days (of the summer season) were passed, (of the month) before that of July.’ And the whole passage merely means—‘before the 8th of June was over,’ or simply, ‘on June 8.’ This date precisely agrees with that given, by quite a different method, in ll. 2222–4.
As the month meant is here certainly that of June, as shewn by Mr. Brae in 1851 (see his edition of Chaucer’s Astrolabe, pp. 67, 83), Mr. Brae proposed to read Juin for Juil. But this was because he followed Tyrwhitt’s text, which has of for er, and therefore reads—
And it is the fact, that, with the reading of, we also should have to accept the reading Juin. But we must set against this the fact that no MS. (at least of any authority) reads either Juin or of ! Tyrwhitt has made this alteration silently, and Wright and Bell have silently adopted it. Morris also makes the alteration, but prints of in italics to shew that it is not the reading of his MS. These silent conjectural emendations are very troublesome, as they are copied by one editor after another without any enquiry as to the sense of the context.
The Harl. MS., supposed to be followed by Wright, actually has a stop before ‘er’; the reading being—‘were passid . er the moneth of Iuyl bifille.’ The reading bifille (might befal) is probably due to taking Iuyl as the nominative to this verb, whereas bifil is meant to be impersonal, with the sense—‘it happened.’
2138–2148. This passage is almost entirely composed of fragments of Solomon’s Song. We may compare ll. 2138–2140 with ch. ii. vv. 10, 11, 12; l. 2141 with ch. i. v. 15; l. 2142 with ch. iv. v. 10; l. 2143 with ch. iv. vv. 12, 16; ll. 2144, 2145 with ch. iv. vv. 9, 10; l. 2146 with ch. iv. v. 7.
2194. The first foot is defective (in all seven MSS.). To fill out the line, Tyrwhitt inserts owen before lord; a ‘correction’ which Wright and Bell silently adopt. There is no hint as to the source of this owen. Thynne’s edition (as frequently elsewhere) agrees with the seven MSS.
2200. This drowning in a sack is quite oriental. Cf. ‘There yawns the sack, and yonder rolls the sea’; Byron, The Corsair, iii. 8.
2202. wenche. For this word, cf. H. 220, and Ho. of Fame, 206.
2222. in Geminis, in the sign of Gemini. We are also told that he was near his ‘declination of Cancer,’ i. e. his maximum northern declination, which he obtains when entering Cancer, at the summer solstice. In Chaucer’s time, the sun entered Cancer about June 12, and therefore just before that day was in Gemini. Taking this statement in conjunction with the ‘eight days’ of the summer season mentioned in l. 2132, we may feel sure that the date meant is June 8, just four days before the sun left Gemini, and attained his maximum declination. See my edition of Chaucer’s Astrolabe (E.E.T.S.), p. lv., which requires partial correction, as shewn in the note to l. 2132 above.
2224. The ‘exaltation’ of a planet was the sign in which it was (quite arbitrarily) supposed to exercise its greatest power. The exaltation of Jupiter was Cancer, as Chaucer correctly says.
2227. This notion of identifying Pluto with the king of Fairyland occurs again in the Romance of Sir Orpheo; see Ritson, Met. Rom. ii. 259. Sir Orpheo is the Greek Orpheus, who redeemed Eurydice from ‘the kyng of fayrè,’ i. e. from Pluto. See the remarks on this poem in Warton, Hist. E. Poet. ed. 1871, i. 31, 32.
The construction of this sentence is awkward. Lines 2231–3 are parenthetical; Pluto is in apposition with This king in l. 2234, and agrees with the verb sette in the same.
2229–30. Tyrwhitt prints these lines differently, thus:—
This reading is from MS. Harl. 7335; and T. adds—‘In some other MSS. Ethna, by a manifest error of the copyist, has been changed into Proserpina [as in Cp. Pt. Ln.]. The passage being thus made nonsense, other transcribers left out the [second] line, and substituted in its stead—
Eche after other, right as any lyne.’
But it would appear that the line just quoted, which Tyrwhitt pronounces to be a substitution, is really the original reading, and we must not hastily reject it. It is found in E. Cm. and Hl., whilst in Hn. the line has been erased or omitted, and then filled in (in a spurious form) by a later hand.
Wright and Bell have followed Tyrwhitt’s lead, and altered the passage accordingly. Morris silently changes the preserpine of the Harl. MS. to Preserpina, and gives the next line in the objectionable form—‘Whiche that he ravysched out of Cecilia ’ (Sicily).
It seems very much better to restore the original reading, especially when we notice that Próserpýne (not Prosérpiná) is the undoubted reading in the House of Fame, 1511, and that quen-e is constantly dissyllabic (see B. 161, 1671, G. 1089). In l. 2264, we again have Próserpýn. ’ The old black-letter editions are not of much value; still they give line 2230 as in my text, except that they wrongly change any into a.
2232. Claudian; Claudius Claudianus, at the close of the fourth century, wrote an epic poem in three books De raptu Proserpinae, which he left unfinished, besides several other works. He is mentioned again in the Ho. of Fame, 449, 1509. The story of Proserpine is also in Ovid, Fasti, iv. 427; and in Gower, C. A., ii. 170.
2240. The line is plainly imperfect, both in sense and rhythm, yet is the same in all seven MSS. and in ed. 1550. They agree in reading:—
Ten hundred thousand telle(n) I can.
Tyrwhitt reads:—
Ten hundred thousand stories tell I can.
He does not tell us where he found the word stories. Wright and Bell silently adopt stories; Morris inserts it between square brackets. It occurs, however, in a parallel line, F. 1412, as well as in a similar passage in the Leg. of Good Women, Prol. A. 274.
2247. From Eccles. vii. 28. Cf. B. 2247, where Chaucer quotes the same passage.
2250. I. e. the author of Ecclesiasticus. This book contains both praise and dispraise of women; see Ecclus. xxiii. 22–26; xxv. 17–26; xxvi. 1-3, 7-16, 22–27; xxxvi. 21–24; xl. 19, 23; xlii. 9-14. The dispraise predominates.
2252. wilde fyr; see A. 4172, and the note.
2264. ‘So you shall, if you so wish.’
2265. ‘I swear by the soul of my mother’s sire’; i. e. by Saturn (Ovid, Fasti, vi. 285). The wisdom of Saturn is referred to in A. 2444. Tyrwhitt altered sires into Ceres, for which I find no authority. Wright notes that Hl. has sires, and Ln. sire; and adds—‘Ceres is of course the word intended.’ I see no evidence for it; and I do not admit that an editor should alter all that he fails to understand.
2273. visage, pronounced (vizaa·j), the e being elided. We still say ‘to face a thing out.’ ‘Suffolk doth not flatter, face, or feign’; 1 Hen. VI. v. 3. 142; and see Com. Errors, iii. 1. 6; Tam. Shrew, ii. 291; Tw. Nt. iv. 2. 201; c.
2279–2281. Repeated from B. 2266, 7; so also ll. 2286–2290 is taken from B. 2268, 9.
2283. Cf. The Second Nonnes Tale, G. 512.
2284. Here ‘the Romayn gestes’ simply means Roman history. The Gesta Romanorum also contains a story of a devoted wife, in ch. vi; the story of Lucretia, ch. cxxxv; and of the faithful wife of Guido, ch. clxxii. But there are other stories of a very different character.
2300. Referring to 1 Kings, xi. 12.
2304. ye, i. e. ye men. So in all the seven MSS. Tyrwhitt alters it to—That he of women wrote. But why? Cf. D. 688–696.
2308. ‘As ever I desire to keep my tresses whole.’ See Brouke in the Glossary.
2310. ‘That would wish (to do) us a disgrace.’
2321–2. Cf. Rom. de la Rose, 10131–2:—
See also above, B. 1559, 1957.
2335. plyt, condition. ‘An allusion to the well-known vulgar error about the longings of pregnant women.’—Bell.
2355. By confusion with l. 2357, MS. Harl. alters agayn his sighte to his sight agayn, and then misses ll. 2356, 7.
2365. From Ovid; see B. 2167, and the note.
2367. store, bold, rude, audacious, impudent; lit. ‘great.’ A. S. stōr, great; Icel. stórr, great, rough, strong, proud. Stronge must here have a similar sense:—‘O bold rude lady.’ Strong-e and stor-e both have final e, as being vocatives.
2410. ‘He who misapprehends comes to a false conclusion.’
2420. swich a wyf, such a wife as that described in the Merchant’s Tale.
2422. bees, bees. Elsewhere, the pl. is been; see B. 4582, F. 204.
2431. in conseil, in (secret) counsel, between ourselves. For this use of conseil, see C. 819, and the note; also G. 145, 192.
2435. The phrase cause why is now considered vulgar; it is common in London. Caus-e is dissyllabic.
2436. of somme, by some, by some one. So of whom =by whom; in the next line. He says, he need not say by whom it would be told; for women are sure to utter such things, as is expressly said in D. 950. This alludes, of course, to the ladies in the company, and, in particular, to the Wife of Bath, who was not the person to keep such things to herself. outen, to utter; a rare word; it occurs again in G. 834, and in D. 521. Also in The Tale of Beryn, 2408.
1. There is nothing to link this tale with the preceding one; hence it begins a new Group. In many MSS. (including E.) it follows the preceding Epilogue without any break. In other MSS. it follows the Man of Law’s Tale; but that is the wrong place for it. See note to B. 1165; also vol. iii. p. 462.
2. An allusion to Prol. l. 97, unless (which is quite as probable) the passage in the Prologue was written afterwards.
9. Sarray, Sarai. This place has been identified, past all doubt, by Colonel Yule in his edition of Marco Polo’s Travels, vol. i. p. 5, and vol. ii. p. 424. The modern name is Tzarev, near Sarepta. Sarepta is easily found on any good map of Russia by following the course of the Volga from its mouth upwards. At first this backward course runs N.W. till we have crossed the province of Astrakhan, when it makes a sudden bend, at Sarepta and Tsaritzin. Tsarev is now a place of no importance, but the ancient Sarai was so well known, that the Caspian Sea was sometimes named from it; thus it is called ‘the sea of Sarain’ in Marco Polo, ed. Yule, ii. 424; ‘the sea of Sarra’ in the Catalan map of 1375; and Mare Seruanicum, or the Sea of Shirwan, by Vincent of Beauvais. Thynne, in his Animadversions on Speight’s Chaucer, speaks to the same effect, and says of ‘Sara’ that it is ‘a place yet well knowen, and bordering vppon the lake Mare Caspium.’ Sarai was the place where Batu Khan, the grandson of Gengis Khan, held his court. Batu, with his Mongolian followers known as the Golden Horde, had established an empire in Kaptchak, or Kibzak, now S.E. Russia, about ad 1224. The Golden Horde further invaded Russia, and made Alexander Newski grand-duke of it, ad 1252. (See Golden Horde in Haydn’s Dictionary of Dates.)
Chaucer has here confused two accounts. There were two celebrated Khans, both grandsons of Gengis Khan, who were ruling about the same time. Batu Khan held his court at Sarai, and ruled over the S.E. of Russia; but the Great Khan, named Kublai, held his court at Cambaluc, the modern Pekin, in a still more magnificent manner. And it is easy to see that, although Chaucer names Sarai, his description really applies to Cambaluc. See vol. iii. pp. 471–2.
10. Russye, Russia; invaded by the Golden Horde, as just explained. The end of the Tartar influence in Russia was in the year 1481, when Svenigorod, general of Ivan III., defeated them at the battle of Bielawisch. In the following year Ivan assumed the title of czar.
12. Cambinskan; so in all seven MSS. (Six-text and Harleian), except that in the Ellesmere MS. it more resembles Cambyuskan. Yet Tyrwhitt prints Cambuscan, probably in deference to Milton, who, however, certainly accents the word wrongly, viz. on the second syllable; Il Penseroso, l. 110. Thynne, in his Animadversions on Speight’s Chaucer, speaking of the year 1240, says—‘whiche must be in the tyme of the fyrst Tartariane emperor called Caius canne, beinge, I suppose, he whome Chaucer namethe Cambiuscan, for so ys [it in] the written copies, such affynytye is there betwene those two names.’ Now, although the celebrated Gengis Khan died probably in 1227, the allusion to the ‘fyrst Tartariane emperor’ is clear; so that Thynne makes the forms Cambius, Caius (perhaps miswritten for Cāius, i. e. Ca m ius) and Gengis all equivalent. But this is the very result for which Colonel Yule has found authority, as explained in vol. iii. p. 471; to which the reader is referred. It is there explained that Chaucer has again confused two accounts; for, whilst he names Gengis Khan (the first ‘Grand Khan’), his description really applies to Kublai Khan, his grandson, the celebrated ‘Grand Khan’ described by Marco Polo.
18. lay, religious profession or belief. ‘King Darie swor by his lay ’: King Alisaunder, ed. Weber, l. 1325. From A. F. lei, law. See lei in Stratmann.
20. This line scans ill as it stands in most MSS. Tyrwhitt and Wright insert and, which gives two accented ‘ands’—
And pí | tous ánd | just ánd | alwéy | ylíche.
The Hengwrt MS. has—
Pietous and lust, and euere-moore yliche,
which, otherwise spelt, becomes—
Pitous and Iust, and ever-more y-liche—
and this is the reading which I have adopted in the text. However, I have since observed that Chaucer twice makes pi-e-tous trisyllabic, viz. in Troil. iii. 1444, v. 451; and the Hengwrt MS. has the same spelling here. The common reading, with this alteration, becomes quite right. That is, we may read—
And piëtous and Iust, alwey y-liche.
22. centre; often used in the sense of a fulcrum or pivot, or point of extreme stability. Cf. Milton, Par. Reg. iv. 533—
The old astronomy supposed the centre of the earth to be the fixed centre of the universe.
30. Tyrwhitt inserts sone after eldeste; fortunately, it is not in the MSS. Whiche is a dissyllable, the e denoting the plural form. The words th’ eldest ’ form but two syllables, the e ’s being elided; but we may fairly preserve the e in highte (cf. l. 33) from elision, for the greater emphasis, by a short pause; and we then have a perfect line—
Of which | e th’ el | dest’ high | te—Al | garsyf.
31. Cambalo. I have no doubt that this name was suggested by the Cambaluc of Marco Polo. See vol. iii. p. 472.
39. longing for, belonging to. Cf. longen, Kn. Ta. 1420 (A. 2278).
44. I deme, I suppose. This looks as if Chaucer had read some account of a festival made by the Grand Khan on one of his birthdays, from which he inferred that he always held such a feast every year; as, indeed, was the case. See vol. iii. p. 473.
45. He leet don cryen, he caused (men) to have the feast cried. The use of both leet and don is remarkable; cf. E. 523. He gave his orders to his officers, and they took care that the proclamation was made.
47. It is not clear why Chaucer hit upon this day in particular. Kublai’s birthday was in September, but perhaps Chaucer noted that the White Feast was on New Year’s day, which he took to mean the vernal equinox, or some day near it. The day, however, is well defined. The ‘last Idus’ is the very day of the Ides, i. e. March 15. The sun entered Aries, according to Chaucer (Treatise on the Astrolabe, ii. 1. 4) on March 12, at the vernal equinox; and, as a degree answers to a day very nearly, would be in the first degree of Aries on the 12th, in the second on the 13th, in the third on the 14th, in the fourth on the 15th, and in the fifth (or at the end of the fourth ) on the 16th, as Chaucer most expressly says below; see note to l. 386. The sign Aries was said, in astrology, to be the exaltation of the Sun, or that sign in which the Sun had most influence for good or ill. In particular, the 19th degree of Aries, for some mysterious reason, was selected as the Sun’s exaltation, when most exactly reckoned. Chaucer says, then, that the Sun was in the sign of Aries, in the fourth degree of that sign, and therefore nigh (and approaching to) the 19th degree, or his special degree of exaltation. Besides this, the poet says the sun was in the ‘face’ of Mars, and in the mansion of Mars; for ‘ his mansioun’ in l. 50 means Mars’s mansion. This is exactly in accordance with the astrology of the period. Each sign, such as Aries, was said to contain 30 degrees, or 3 faces; a face being 10 degrees. The first face of Aries (degrees 1-10) was called the face of Mars, the second (11–20) the face of the Sun, the third (21–30) that of Venus. Hence the sun, being in the fourth degree, was in Mars’s face. Again, every planet had its (so-called) mansion or house; whence Aries was called the mansion of Mars, Taurus that of Venus, Gemini that of Mercury, c. See Chaucer’s Astrolabe, in vol. iii. p. lxxviii; or Johannis Hispalensis Isagoge in Astrologiam, which gives all the technical terms.
50. Martes is a genitive from the nom. Mart. or Marte (A. 2021), which is itself formed, as usual, from the Latin acc. Martem.
51. In the old astrology, different qualities are ascribed to the different signs. Thus Aries is described as choleric and fiery in MS. Trin. Coll. Cam. R. 15. 18, tract 3, p. 11. So, too, Tyrwhitt quotes from the Calendrier des Bergers that Aries is ‘chault et sec,’ i. e. hot and dry.
53. agayn, against, opposite to. So also in Kn. Ta. 651 (A. 1509).
54. What for; cf. Mod. Eng. what with. See Kn. Tale, 595 (A. 1453).
59. deys, raised platform, as at English feasts. But this is in Marco Polo too; see vol. iii. p. 473. Cf. Kn. Tale, l. 1342 (A. 2200); and note to Prol. l. 370.
63. In a similar indirect manner, Chaucer describes feasts, c. elsewhere: see Kn. Ta. 1339 (A. 2197); Man of Lawes Tale, B. 701–707. And Spenser imitates him; F. Q. i. 12. 14; v. 3. 3.
67. sewes, seasoned broths. ‘ Sewes and potages’; Babees Book, ed. Furnivall, p. 151, l. 523; cf. p. 149, l. 509.
68. Mr. Wright’s note on the line is—‘It is hardly necessary to observe that swans were formerly eaten at table, and considered among the choicest ornaments of the festive board. Tyrwhitt informs us that at the intronization of Archbp. Nevil, 6 Edward iv, there were “Heronshawes iiijc.” [i. e. 400]; Leland’s Collectanea, vi. 2: and that at another feast in 1530 we read of “16 Heronsews, every one 12 d ”; Peck’s Desiderata Curiosa, ii. 12.’ Heronsew is derived from A. F. heronceau, variant of heroncel. Godefroy gives herouncel, from the Liber Custumarum, i. 304 (14 Edw. II.), and the pl. heroncaulx in an account dated 1330. Cotgrave only has ‘Haironneau, a young heron,’ and ‘Hairon, a heron, herne, herneshaw. ’ Halliwell quotes ‘Ardeola, an hearnesew ’ from Elyot’s Dict. 1559, and the form herunsew from Reliquiae Antiquae, i. 88. Certainly heronsewe is the name of a bird, not of a dish, as some have guessed, by comparing the sewes in l. 67. In fact, the word heronsew (for heron) is still used in Swaledale, Yorkshire. And in Hazlitt’s old Plays (The Disobedient Child), vol. ii. p. 282, we have—
See the quotations in Nares; also Notes and Queries, 1st Ser. iii. 450, 507; iv. 76; vii. 13; Babees Book, ed. Furnivall, p. 152, l. 539. Cf. handsaw, for hernshaw, in Hamlet, ii. 2. Heroncel, or - ceu, or - ceau, is simply the diminutive form; so also, lioncel, or lionçeau, as a diminutive of lion.
70. som mete; viz. ‘horses, dogs, and Pharaoh’s rats.’ See vol. iii. p. 474.
73. pryme; the word prime seems to mean, in Chaucer, the first quarter of the day, reckoned from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.; and more particularly, the end of that period, i. e. 9 a.m. In the Nonne Prestes Tale, B. 4387, the cock crew at prime, or 9 a.m. So here, the Squire says it is 9 o’clock, and he must proceed quickly with his story. The word is used in different senses by different writers.
75. firste, first design or purpose. I believe this reading is right. MS. Harl. has purpos, which will not scan: unless my be omitted, as in Tyrwhitt, though that MS. retains my. MSS. Cp. Ln. insert purpos as well as firste, making the line too long: whilst Hn. Cm. Pt. agree with the text here given, from MS. E.
76. The second syllable in after is rapidly pronounced, and thridde is a dissyllable.
78. thinges, pieces of music. Minstrelsy at feasts was common; cf. Man of Lawes Tale, B. 705; March. Tale, E. 1715.
80. The incident of a man riding into the hall is nothing uncommon. Thus we have, in the Percy Folio MS. ii. 486, the line—
‘The one came ryding into the hall. ’
Warton observes—‘See a fine romantic story of a Comte de Macon who, while revelling in his hall with many knights, is suddenly alarmed by the entrance of a gigantic figure of a black man, mounted on a black steed. This terrible stranger, without receiving any obstruction from guards or gates, rides directly forward to the high table, and, with an imperious tone, orders the count to follow him—Nic. Gillos. Chron. ann. 1120.’ Alexander rode into a hall up to the high table, according to the romance, ed. Weber, l. 1083. See also Warton’s Obs. on the Fairy Queen, p. 202; the Ballad of King Estmere; and Stowe’s Survey of London, p. 387, ed. 1599. In Scott’s Rokeby, Bertram rides into a church.
81. stede of bras, c. See note to l. 209, and vol. iii. pp. 465, 475.
95. Sir Gawain, nephew to king Arthur, according to the British History which goes by the name of Geoffrey of Monmouth, is always upheld as a model of courtesy in the French romances and the English translations of them. He is often contrasted with Sir Kay, who was equally celebrated for churlishness. See the Percy Folio MS.; Sir Gawain, ed. by Sir F. Madden; Sir Gawain and the Grene Knight, ed. by Dr. Morris; the Morte D’Arthur, c. Cf. Rom. Rose, 2205–12.
103. Accordant, according. The change from the Fr. - ant to the common Eng. - ing should be noted.—M.
106. style, stile. Such puns are not common in Chaucer; cf. E. 1148.—M.
116. day naturel. In his Treatise on the Astrolabe, pt. ii. c. 7 (see vol. iii. p. 194), Chaucer explains that the day artificial is the time from sunrise to sunset, which varies; to which he adds—‘but the day natural, that is to seyn 24 houres, is the revolucioun of the equinoxial with as moche partie of the zodiak as the sonne of his propre moevinge passeth in the mene whyle.’ See note to B. 2.
122. the air, pronounced th’air, as usual with Chaucer; see D. 1939.
129. wayted, watched; allnding to the care with which the maker watched for the moment when the stars were in a propitious position, according to the old belief in astrology.
131. seel, seal. Mr. Wright notes that ‘the making and arrangement of seals was one of the important operations of medieval magic, and treatises on this subject are found in MSS.’ He refers to MS. Arundel, no. 295, fol. 265. Solomon’s seal is still commemorated in the name of a flower.
132. mirour. For some account of this, see vol. iii. p. 476, and note to l. 231.
137. over al this, besides all this. Elsewhere over-al is a compound word, meaning everywhere; as in Prol. 216.—M.
150. Compare Tale xv (The Ravens) in the Seven Sages, ed. Weber, about the child who understood the language of all birds.
154. and whom, c., and to whom it will do good, or operate as a remedy; alluding to the virtues attributed to many herbs. So Spenser, F. Q. i. 2. 10—
162. with the platte, with the flat side of it; see l. 164. Cf. Troil. iv. 927.
171. Stant, stands; contracted from standeth; so also in l. 182. Cf. sit for sitteth in l. 179, hit for hideth in l. 512, and note to E. 1151.
184. ‘By means of any machine furnished with a windlass or a pulley.’ The modern windlass looks like a compound of wind and lace, but really stands for windel-as, variant of the form windas here used. The confusion would be facilitated by the fact that there was another form windlas (probably from wind and lace ) with a different meaning, viz. that of a circuitous way or path; see note to Hamlet, ii. 1. 65 (Clar. Press). In the Promptorium Parvulorum, our word is spelt both wyndlas and wyndas; p. 529. The Mid. E. windas may have been derived from the Low-German directly, or more probably from the Old French, which has both guindas and windas. The meaning and derivation are clearly shewn by the Du. windas, which means a winding-axle or capstan, from the sb. as, an axle; so, too, the Icel. vindâss. In Falconer’s Shipwreck, canto 1, note 3, the word windlass is used in the sense of capstan.
190. gauren, gaze, stare. Used again by Chaucer, A. 3827, B. 3559, and in Troil. and Cres. ii. 1157 (vol. ii. p. 225). In the Clerkes Tale (E. 1003), he has gazed. Mr. Wedgwood is perhaps right in considering gaze and gaure (also spelt gare ) as mere variations of the same word. Cf. the adj. garish, i. e. staring, in Milton, Il Pens. 141. For the occasional change of s to r, see my Principles of Eng. Etymology, i. 379.
guaring, i. e. stupor, occurs in Batman upon Bartholomè, lib. vii. c. 7.
193. Lumbardye, Lombardy, formerly celebrated for horses. Tyrwhitt quotes from a patent in Rymer, 2 Edw. II—‘De dextrariis in Lumbardiâ emendis,’ i.e. of horses to be bought in Lombardy.
195. Poileys, Apulian. Apulia was called Poille or Poile in Old French, and even in Middle English; the phrase ‘king of Poile ’ occurs in the Seven Sages (ed. Weber), l. 2019. It was celebrated for its horses. Tyrwhitt quotes from MS. James vi. 142 (Bodleian Library), a passage in which Richard, archbishop of Armagh, in the fourteenth century, has the words—‘nec mulus Hispaniae, nec dextrarius Apuliae, nec repedo Æthiopiae, nec elephantus Asiae, nec camelus Syriae.’ Chaucer ascribes strength and size to the horses of Lombardy, and high breeding to those of Apulia.
200. goon, i.e. move, go about, have motion.
201. of Fairye, of fairy origin, magical. I do not subscribe to Warton’s opinion (Obs. on Faerie Queene, p. 86) that this necessarily means that it was ‘the work of the devil.’ Cf. the same expression in Piers Pl. B. prol. 6.
203. Compare the Latin proverb—‘quot homines, tot sententiae.’ See Hazlitt’s Eng. Proverbs, pp. 340, 437. A good epigram on this proverb is given in Camden’s Remaines concerning Britaine, ed. 1657, sig. Gg.
207. the Pegasee, Pegasus. In the margin of MSS. E. Hn. Hl. is written ‘i. equs Pegaseus,’ meaning ‘id est, equus Pegaseus’; shewing that Chaucer was thinking of the adjective Pegaseus rather than of the sb. Pegasus, the name of the celebrated winged horse of Bellerophon and of the Muses. Cf. Lydgate’s Complaint of the Black Knight, l. 92.
209. ‘Or else it was the horse of the Greek named Sinon.’ This very singular-looking construction is really common in Middle English; yet the scribe of the Harleian MS. actually writes ‘the Grekissch hors Synon,’ which makes Sinon the name of the horse; and this odd blunder is retained in the editions by Wright, Bell, and Morris. The best way of clearing up the difficulty is by nothing similar examples; a few of which are here appended:—
‘The kinges meting Pharao’;
i. e. the dream of King Pharaoh; Book of the Duchesse, l. 282.
‘The erles wif Alein’;
i. e. the wife of earl Alein; Rob. of Gloucester, in Spec. of Eng., ed. Morris and Skeat, p. 11, l. 303.
‘Themperours moder william,’
i. e. the mother of the Emperor named William; Will. of Palerne, l. 5437.
‘Pieres pardon þe plowman’;
i. e. the pardon of Piers the Plowman; P. Pl. B. xix. 182.
‘In Piers berne þe plowman’;
i. e. in the barn of Piers the Plowman; id. xix. 354.
‘For Piers loue þe plowman’;
i. e. for love of Piers the Plowman; id. xx. 76. Chaucer again alludes to Sinon in the House of Fame, i. 152, and in the Legend of Good Women, Dido, 8; which shews that he took that legend partly from Vergil, Aen. ii. 195. But note that Chaucer here compares a horse of brass to the Trojan horse; this is because the latter was also said to have been of brass, not by Vergil, but by Guido delle Colonne; see note to l. 211. This is why Gower, in his Confess. Amant. bk. i., and Caxton, in his Recuyell of the Historyes of Troy, both speak of the Trojan horse as a ‘horse of brass’; see Spec. of English, 1394–1579, ed. Skeat, p. 91, l. 67.
211. olde gestes, old accounts. The account of the taking of Troy most valued in the middle ages was not that by Vergil or Homer, but the Latin prose story written in 1287 by Guido delle Colonne, who obtained a great reputation very cheaply, since he borrowed his work almost entirely from an old French Roman de Troie, written by Benoit de Sainte-Maure. See the preface to The Gest Hystoriale of the Destruction of Troy, ed. Panton and Donaldson (Early English Text Society). And see vol. ii. p. lxi.
219. Iogelours, jugglers. See the quotation from Marco Polo, i. 340, in vol. iii. p. 473; and cf. The Franklin’s Tale, F. 1140–1151, and the notes.
223. comprehende; so in the MSS. But read comprende; see Troil. iii. 1687; and pronounce lew-ed-nes fully.
224. ‘They are very prone to put down things to the worst cause.’
226. maister-tour, principal tower, the donjon or keep-tower. So also maistre strete, principal street, Kn. Ta. 2044 (A. 2902); maister temple, Leg. of Good Women, l. 1016.
230. For slye, MS. Hl. has heigh, an inferior reading. Mr. Marsh observes upon this line—‘This reasoning reminds one of the popular explanation of table-turning and kindred mysteries. Persons who cannot detect the trick . . . ascribe the alleged facts to electricity. . . . Men love to cheat themselves with hard words, and indolence often accepts the name of a phenomenon as a substitute for the reason of it’; Origin and Progress of the English Language, Lect. ix. p. 427.
231. The magic mirror in Rome was said to have been set up there by Vergil, who was at one time reverenced, not as a poet, but as a great enchanter. The story occurs in the Seven Sages, in the Introduction to his edition of which Mr. Wright says, at p. lix., ‘The story of Virgil’s tower, which was called salvatio Romae, holds rather a conspicuous place in the legendary history of the magician. Such a tower is first mentioned, but without the name of Virgil, in a Latin MS. of the eighth century, in a passage published by Docen and republished by Keller, in his introduction to the Sept Sages. Vincent of Beauvais, in the thirteenth century . . . describes Virgil’s tower; and it is the subject of a chapter in the legendary history of Virgilius.’ See also the other version of the Seven Sages edited by Weber, and reprinted in Mätzner’s Sprachproben, i. 254; where the mirror is mentioned. Gower tells the story of this mirror in his Confessio Amantis, bk. v. It occurs also in the Chronicle of Helinand, and in the Otia Imperialia of Gervase of Tilbury; Morley’s Eng. Writers, iv. 225. Warton notes that the same fiction is in Caxton’s Troybook, bk. ii. ch. 22. It also occurs in Higden, Polychronicon, bk. i. c. 24.
232. ‘ Alhazeni et Vitellonis Opticae are extant, printed at Basil, 1572. The first is supposed by his editor to have lived about ad 1100, and the second to ad 1270.’—Tyrwhitt. Hole’s Brief Biographical Dictionary has the notices—‘Alhazel or Alhazen, Arabian Astronomer and Optician; died ad 1038’; and—‘Vitello or Vitellio, Polish Mathematician; floruit circa 1254.’ See also the remarks in Warton (Hist. Eng. Poetry), on the Clerk’s Tale. Alhacen ( sic ) is mentioned in Le Rom. de la Rose, l. 18234. In l. 18376 of the same, we find the very phrase: ‘Par composicions diverses’; and again, in l. 18387: ‘Par les diversités des angles.’ Mirrors are there described at length. R. Scot, in his Discoverie of Witchcraft, bk. xiii. c. 19, declares that ‘the wonderous deuises and miraculous sights and conceipts made and conteined in glasse, doo farre exceed all other.’
233. Aristotle, the famous Grecian philosopher, born bc 384, died 322. writen in hir lyves, wrote in their lifetime. Observe that writen is here the past tense. The pres. pl. is wryten; pt. s. wrat, wrot, or wroot; pt. pl. writen; pp. writen.
238. Thelophus. Telephus, king of Mysia, in opposing the landing of the Greeks in the expedition against Troy, was wounded by the spear of Achilles. But as an oracle declared that the Greeks would require his aid, he was healed by means of the rust taken from the same spear. Chaucer may easily have learnt this story from his favourite Ovid, who says—
And again—
See also Met. xii. 112; xiii. 171; Ex Ponto, ii. 2. 26; Propertius, Eleg. ii. 1. 65 ( or 63). Or he may have taken it from Dante, Inferno, xxxi. 5; or from Hyginus, Fab. 101. Cf. Shak. 2 Hen. VI., v. i. 100.
247. Canaceës; four syllables, as in l. 631.
250. Great skill in magic was attributed in the middle ages to Moses and Solomon, especially by the Arabs. Moses was supposed to have learnt magic from the Egyptians; cf. Acts vii. 22; Exod. vii. 11. See the story of the Fisherman and Genie in the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments, where the genie invokes the name of Solomon.
253. ‘Some said it was a wonderful thing to make glass from fernashes, since glass does not resemble fern-ashes at all.’ Glass contains two principal ingredients, sand and some kind of alkali. For the latter, the calcined ashes of seaweed, called kelp, were sometimes used; or, according to Chaucer, the ashes of ferns. Modern chemistry has developed many greater wonders.
256. ‘But, because men have known it (the art of glass-making) so long, their talking and wonder about it ceases.’ The art is of very high antiquity, having been known even to the Egyptians. so fern, so long ago; Chaucer sometimes rimes words which are spelt exactly alike, but only when their meanings differ. See Prol. l. 17, where seke, to seek, rimes with seke, sick. Other examples are seen in the Kn. Tale, see being repeated in A. 1955–6; caste in A. 2171–2; caas in A. 2357–8; and fare in A. 2435–6. Imperfect rimes like disport, port, Prol. 137, 138, are common; see Prol. 241, 433, 519, 579, 599, 613, 811; Kn. Ta. 379, 381 (A. 1237, 1239), c. For examples of fern compare—
‘Ye, farewel al the snow of ferne yere,’
i. e. good bye to all last year’s snow; Troil. and Cres. v. 1176 (see vol. ii. p. 394). So also fernyere, long ago, in P. Pl. B. v. 440; spelt uernyere, in Ayenbite of Inwyt, ed. Morris, p. 92. Adverbs commonly terminate in - e, but the scribes are right in writing fern here; see A. S. Gospels, Matt. xi. 21, for the forms gefyrn, gefern, meaning long ago. Occleve, in La Male Regle, 196, uses the expression fern ago, i. e. long ago; Poems, ed. Furnivall, p. 31. And in Levins’s Manipulus Vocabulorum, ed. Wheatley, we find—‘Old farne years, anni praeteriti, seculum prius. ’