Chapter XXIV: Appendix (3)

7578. F. text--'Vous en irez où puis [pit] d'enfer.' And, for _puis_, some MSS. have _cul_; a fact which at once sets aside the argument in Lounsbury's Studies in Chaucer, ii. 119.

7581. 'What? you are anything but welcome.'

7588. _tregetours_, deceivers; cf. _treget_ above, l. 6267.

7605. _bemes_, trumpets; see Ho. Fame, 1240.

7628. _come_, coming; see _cume_ in Stratmann.

7633. 'You would necessarily see him so often.'

7645. 'The blame (lit. the ill will) would be yours.' For the use of _maugre_ as a sb., compare l. 4399.

7664. _Iolyly_, especially; a curious use; F. 'bien.'

7680. 1. 'To shrive folk that are of the highest dignity, as long as the world lasts.' So in the F. text.

7682. I. e. the Mendicant friars had license to shrive in any parish whatever.

7693. 'To read (i. e. give lectures) in divinity'; a privilege reserved for doctors of divinity.

7694. Here G. merely has a wrong half-line:--'And longe haue red'; with which it abruptly ends, the rest of the page being blank, except that _explicit_ is written, lower down, on the same page.

The last four lines in the F. text are:--

'Se vous volés ci confessier,
Et ce pechié sans plus lessier
Sans faire en jamés mencion,
Vous auréz m'asolucion.'

The last of these lines is l. 12564 in Méon's edition. The last line in the whole poem is l. 22052; leaving 9488 lines untranslated, in addition to the gap of 5546 lines of the F. text at the end of Fragment B. Thus the three fragments of the translation make up less than a third of the original.

The fact that Thynne gives the last six lines correctly shews that his print was _not_ made from the Glasgow MS. Indeed, it frequently preserves words which that MS. omits.

* * * * *

NOTES

TO

THE MINOR POEMS.

I. AN A B C.

This poem is a rather free translation of a similar poem by Guillaume de Deguileville, as pointed out in the Preface, p. 60. The original is quoted beneath the English text.

Explanations of the harder words should, in general, be sought for in the Glossarial Index, though a few are discussed in the Notes.

The language of this translation is, for the most part, so simple, that but few passages call for remark. I notice, however, a few points.

Chaucer has not adhered to the complex metre of the original, but uses a stanza of eight lines of five accents in place of de Deguileville's stanza of twelve lines of four accents.

3. Dr. Koch calls attention to the insertion of a second _of_, in most of the MSS., before _sorwe_. Many little words are often thus wrongly inserted into the texts of nearly all the Minor Poems, simply because, when the final _e_ ceased to be sounded, the scribes regarded some lines as imperfect. Here, for example, if _sinne_ be regarded as monosyllabic, a word seems required after it; but when we know that Chaucer regarded it as a dissyllabic word, we at once see that MSS. Gg. and Jo. (which omit this second _of_) are quite correct. We know that _sinne_ is properly a dissyllabic word in Chaucer, because he rimes it with the infinitives _biginne_ (Cant. Ta. C 941) and _winne_ (same, D 1421), and never with such monosyllables as _kin_ or _tin_. This is easily tested by consulting Mr. Cromie's very useful Rime-index to the Canterbury Tales. The above remark is important, on account of its wide application. The needless insertions of little words in many of the 15th-century MSS. are easily detected.

4. Scan the line by reading--Glorióus virgín', of all-e flóur-es flóur. Cf. l. 49.

6. _Debonaire_, gracious lady; used as a sb. Compare the original, l. 11.

8. Answers to l. 6 of the original--'Vaincu m'a mon aversaire.' Perhaps _Venquisht_ is here the right form; similarly, in the Squieres Tale, F 342, the word _vanisshed_ is to be read as _vanísh'd_, with the accent on the second syllable, and elision of e. See Ten Brink, Chaucers Sprache, § 257. Otherwise, read _Venquis-shed m'hath_; cf. _mexcuse_, XVI. 37 (p. 397).

11. _Warne_, reject, refuse to hear. So in P. Plowman, C. xxiii. 12, 'whanne men hym _werneth_' means 'when men refuse to give him what he asks for.'

12. _Free_, liberal, bounteous. So in Shak. Troilus, iv. 5. 100--'His heart and hand both open and both _free_.' It may be remarked, once for all, that readers frequently entirely misunderstand passages in our older authors, merely because they forget what great changes may take place in the sense of words in the course of centuries.

13. _Largesse_, i. e. the personification of liberality; 'thou bestowest perfect happiness.'

14. Cf. original, l. 15--'Quer [_for_] tu es de salu porte.' Scan by reading--Háv'n of refút. But in l. 33, we have _réfut_.

15. _Theves seven_, seven robbers, viz. the seven deadly sins. We could easily guess that this is the meaning, but it is needless; for the original has--'Par sept larrons, pechies mortez,' l. 17; and a note in the Sion Coll. MS. has--'i. seven dedly synnes.' The theme of the Seven Deadly Sins is one of the commonest in our old authors; it is treated of at great length in Chaucer's Persones Tale, and in Piers Plowman.

16. 'Ere my ship go to pieces'; this graphic touch is not in the original.

17. _Yow_, you. In addressing a superior, it was customary to use the words _ye_ and _you_, as a mark of respect; but, in prayer, the words _thou_ and _thee_ were usual. Hence, Chaucer has mixed the two usages in a very remarkable way, and alternates them suddenly. Thus, we have _thee_ in l. 5, _thou_ in l. 6, &c., but _yow_ in l. 17, _thy_ in l. 19, _you_ in l. 24; and so on. We even find the plural verbs _helpen_, l. 104; _Beth_, l. 134; and _ben_, l. 176.

20. _Accioun_, action, is here used in the legal sense; 'my sin and confusion have brought an action (i. e. plead) against me.' It is too close a copy of the original, l. 25--'Contre moy font une accion.'

21. I. e. 'founded upon rigid justice and a sense of the desperate nature of my condition.' Cf. 'Rayson et desperacion Contre moy veulent maintenir'; orig. l. 29. _Maintenir_, to maintain an action, is a legal term. So, in l. 22, _sustene_ means 'sustain the plea.'

24. 'If it were not for the mercy (to be obtained) from you.'

25. Literally--'There is no doubt that thou art not the cause'; meaning, 'Without doubt, thou art the cause.' _Misericorde_ is adopted from the original. According to the usual rule, viz. that the syllable _er_ is usually slurred over in Chaucer when a vowel follows, the word is to be read as _mis'ricord-e_. So also _sov'reyn_, l. 69.

27. _Vouched sauf_, vouchsafed. _Tacorde_, to accord; cf. _talyghte_, _tamende_, &c. in the Cant. Tales.

29. Cf. 'S'encore fust l'arc encordé'; orig, l. 47; and 'l'arc de justice,' l. 42. The French expression is probably borrowed (as suggested in Bell's Chaucer) from Ps. vii. 13--'arcum suum tetendit.' Hence the phrase _of Iustice and of yre_ refers to _the bowe_.

30. _First_, at first, before the Incarnation.

36. For examples of the use of _great assize_, or _last assize_, to signify the Last Judgment, see the New E. Dict., s. v. _Assize_.

39. Most MSS. read here--'That but thou er [_or_ or] that day correcte me'; this cannot be right, because it destroys the rime. However, the Bedford MS., instead of _correcte me_, has _Me chastice_; and in MS. C _me chastyse_ is written over an erasure (doubtless of the words _correcte me_). Even thus, the line is imperfect, but is completed by help of the Sion MS., which reads _me weel chastyce_.

40. _Of verrey right_, in strict justice; not quite as in l. 21.

41. Rather close to the original--'Fuiant m'en viens a ta tente Moy mucier pour la tormente Qui ou monde me tempeste,' &c. _Mucier_ means 'to hide,' and _ou_ means 'in the,' F. _au_.

45. _Al have I_, although I have. So in l. 157.

49. MS. Gg. has _Gracyouse_; but the French has _Glorieuse_.

50. _Bitter_; Fr. text 'amere.' The allusion is to the name _Maria_, Gk. [Greek: Maria], [Greek: Mariam], the same as _Miriam_, which is explained to mean 'bitterness,' as being connected with _Marah_, i. e. bitterness; see Exod. xv. 23 (Gesenius). Scan the line by reading: _neíth'r in érth-ë nór_.

55. _But-if_, except, unless (common).

56. _Stink_ is oddly altered to _sinke_ in some editions.

57, 58. Closely copied from the French, ll. 85-87. But the rest of the stanza is nearly all Chaucer's own. Cf. Col. ii. 14.

67. The French means, literally--'For, when any one goes out of his way, thou, out of pity, becomest his guide, in order that he may soon regain his way.'

70. The French means--'And thou bringest him back into the right road.' This Chaucer turns into--'bringest him out of the wrong road'; which is all that is meant by _the crooked strete_.

71. In the ending _-eth_ of the third pers. sing. present, the _e_ is commonly suppressed. Read _lov'th_. So also _com'th_ in l. 99.

73. The French means--'Calendars are illumined, and other books are confirmed (or authenticated), when thy name illumines them.' Chaucer has 'illuminated calendars, in this world, are those that are brightened by thy name.' 'An allusion to the custom of writing the high festivals of the Church in the Calendar with red, or illuminated, letters'; note in Bell's Chaucer. The name of Mary appears several times in old calendars; thus the Purification of Mary is on Feb. 2; the Annunciation, on Mar. 25; the Visitation, on July 2; the Assumption, on Aug. 15; the Nativity, on Sept. 8; the Presentation, on Nov. 21; the Conception, on Dec. 8. Our books of Common Prayer retain all of these except the Assumption and the Presentation. _Kalenderes_ probably has four syllables; and so has _enlumined_. Otherwise, read Kálendér's (Koch).

76. _Him thar_, i. e. it needs not for him to dread, he need not dread. It occurs again in the Cant. Tales, A 4320, D 329, 336, 1365, &c.

80. _Resigne_ goes back to l. 112 of the original, where _resiné_ (= _resigne_) occurs.

81. Here the French (l. 121) has _douceur_; Koch says it is clear that Chaucer's copy had _douleur_; which refers to the _Mater dolorosa_.

86. This line runs badly in the MSS., but is the same in nearly all. Read _both' hav-e_. I should prefer _hav' both-e_, where _bothe_ is dissyllabic; see ll. 63, 122. This runs more evenly. The sense of ll. 84-6 seems to be--'Let not the foe of us all boast that he has, by his wiles (_listes_), unluckily convicted (of guilt) that (soul) which ye both,' &c.

88. Slur over the last syllable of _Continue_, and accent _us_.

89. The French text refers to Exod. iii. 2. Cf. The Prioresses Tale, C. T. Group B, l. 1658.

97. Koch points out that _per-e_ is here dissyllabic; as in the Compleint to His Purse, l. 11. The French has _per_, l. 146. Read--Nóble princésse, &c.

100. _Melodye or glee_; here Koch remarks that Chaucer 'evidently mistook _tirelire_ for _turelure_.' The Fr. _tirelire_ means a money-box, and the sense of l. 150 of the original is--'We have no other place in which to secure what we possess.' See l. 107 of Chaucer's translation below. But Chaucer's mistake was easily made; he was thinking, not of the mod. Fr. _turelure_ (which, after all, does not mean a 'melody,' but the refrain of a song, like the Eng. _tooral looral_) but of the O. F. _tirelire_. This word (as Cotgrave explains) not only meant 'a box having a cleft on the lid for mony to enter it,' but 'also the warble, or song of a lark.' Hence Shakespeare speaks of 'the lark, that _tirra-lyra_ chants,' Wint. Tale, iv. 3. 9.

102. Read _N'advócat noón_. That the M. E. _advocat_ was sometimes accented on the _o_, is proved by the fact that it was sometimes cut down to _vócat_; see P. Plowman, B. ii. 60; C. iii. 61.

109. Cf. Luke, i. 38--'Ecce _ancilla_ Domini.'

110. _Oure bille_, &c., i. e. 'to bring forward (or offer) a petition on our behalf.' For the old expression 'to put up (or forth) a bill,' see my note to P. Plowman, C. v. 45. Compare also Compleynte unto Pite, l. 44 (p. 273).

113. Read _tym-e_. _Tenquere_, for _to enquere_; cf. note to l. 27. Cf. the French _d'enquerre_, l. 169.

116. _To werre_; F. 'pour guerre,' l. 173; i. e. 'by way of attack.' _Us_ may be taken with _wroughte_, i. e. 'wrought for us such a wonder.' _Werre_ is not a verb; the verb is _werreyen_, as in Squi. Ta. l. 10.

119. _Ther_, where, inasmuch as. 'We had no salvation, inasmuch as we did not repent; if we repent, we shall receive it.' But the sentence is awkward. Cf. Mark i. 4; Matt. vii. 7.

122. Pause after _both-e_; the _e_ is not elided.

125. _Mene_, mediator; lit. mean (intermediate) person. So in P. Plowman, B. vii. 196--'And Marie his moder be owre _mene_ bitwene.'

132. Koch thinks that the false reading _it_ in some MSS. arose from a reading _hit_ (= hitteth) as a translation of F. _fiert_, l. 196. Anyway, the reading _is_ seems best. Surely, 'his reckoning hits so hideous' would be a most clumsy expression.

136. _Of pitee_, for pity; the usual idiom. Cf. _of al_, XIII. 19 (p. 391).

140. _Vicaire_, deputed ruler; not in the original. See note to Parliament of Foules, l. 379.

141. _Governeresse_; copied from the French text, l. 214. This rare word occurs, as the last word, in a poem beginning 'Mother of norture, printed in the Aldine Edition of Chaucer's Poems, vi. 275. Chaucer himself uses it again in the Complaint to Pity, l. 80 (p. 275).

144. Compare the expressions _Regina Celi, Veni coronaberis_, 'Heil crowned queene,' and the like; Polit., Religious, and Love Poems, ed. Furnivall, p. 147; Hymns to the Virgin, ed. Furnivall, pp. 1, 4. Suggested by Rev. xii. 1.

146. Koch notes that the reading _depriued_ arose from its substitution for the less familiar form _priued_.

150. The reference is, obviously, to Gen. iii. 18; but thorns here mean sins. Cf. 'Des espines d'iniquite'; F. text, l. 224.

158. Copied from the French, l. 239--'Ou tu a la court m'ajournes.' It means 'fix a day for me to appear at thy court,' cite me to thy court.

159. Not in the original. Chaucer was thinking of the courts of the Common Bench and King's Bench, as mentioned, for example, in Wyclif's Works, ed. Arnold, iii. 215.

161. The word _Xristus_, i. e. _Christus_, is written Xpc (with a mark of contraction) in MSS. C., Gl., Gg., and Xp[=u]s in F. Xpc is copied from the French; but it is very common, being the usual contracted form of the Gk. [Greek: Christos], or, in capital letters, XPICTOC, obtained by taking the two first and the last letters. The old Greek _sigma_ was written C; as above. De Deguileville could think of no French word beginning with X; so he substituted for it the Greek _chi_, which resembled it in form.

163, 164. These lines answer to ll. 243, 247 of the French; 'For me He had His side pierced; for me His blood was shed.' Observe that the word _Christus_ has no verb following it; it is practically an objective case, governed by _thanke_ in l. 168. 'I thank thee because of Christ and for what He has done for me.' In l. 163, the word _suffre_ is understood from the line above, and need not be repeated. Unfortunately, all the scribes _have_ repeated it, to the ruin of the metre; for the line then contains two syllables too many. However, it is better omitted. _Longius_ is trisyllabic, and _herte_ (as in the next line) is dissyllabic. The sense is--'to suffer His passion on the cross, and also (to suffer) that Longius should pierce His heart, and make,' &c. _Pighte_, _made_, are in the subjunctive. The difficulty really resides in the word _that_ in l. 161. If Chaucer had written _eek_ instead of it, the whole could be parsed.

Koch reads '_Dreygh_ eek' for 'And eek,' in l. 163, where 'Dreygh' means 'endured.' But I do not think _Dreygh_ could be used in this connection, with the word _that_ following it.

The story of Longius is very common; hence Chaucer readily introduced an allusion to it, though his original has no hint of it. The name is spelt _Longeus_ in Piers Plowman, C. xxi. 82 (and is also spelt _Longinus_). My note on that passage says--'This story is from the Legenda Aurea, cap. xlvii. Longinus was a blind centurion, who pierced the side of Christ; when drops of the Sacred Blood cured his infirmity. The day of St. Longinus is Mar. 15; see Chambers, Book of Days. The name _Longinus_ is most likely derived from [Greek: lonchê], a lance, the word used in John xix. 34; and the legend was easily developed from St. John's narrative. The name Longinus first appears in the Apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus.' See also the Chester Plays, ed. Wright; Cursor Mundi, p. 962; Coventry Mysteries, ed. Halliwell, p. 334; York Mystery Plays, p. 368; Lamentation of Mary Magdalen, st. 26; &c.

164. _Herte_ is the true M. E. genitive, from the A. S. gen. _heortan_. _Herte blood_ occurs again in the Pardoneres Tale, C 902.

169-171. Close to the French, ll. 253-5; and l. 174 is close to l. 264 of the same. Cf. Heb. xi. 19; Jo. i. 29; Isaiah, liii. 7.

176. This line can best be scanned by taking _That_ as standing _alone_, in the first foot. See note to Compl. to Pite, l. 16. Koch suggests that _our-e_ is dissyllabic; but this would make an unpleasing line; 'That yé | ben fróm | veng'áunce | ay oú | re targe ||.' I hope this was not intended; 'fróm | veng'áun | cë áy | our' would be better.

177. The words of Zechariah (xiii. 1) are usually applied to the blood of Christ, as in Rev. i. 5. Chaucer omits ll. 266-7 of the French.

180. 'That were it not (for) thy tender heart, we should be destroyed.'

181. Koch, following Gg, reads--'Now lady bright, siththe thou canst and wilt.' I prefer 'bright-e, sith'; _brighte_ is a vocative.

184. _To mercy able_, fit to obtain mercy; cf. Cant. Ta. Prol. 167.

II. THE COMPLEYNTE UNTO PITE.

TITLE. In MS. B., the poem is entitled, 'The Complaynte vnto Pyte,' which is right. In MS. Trin., there is a colophon--'Here endeth the exclamacioun of the Deth of Pyte'; see p. 276. In MS. Sh. (in Shirley's handwriting) the poem is introduced with the following words--'And nowe here filowing [_following_] begynnethe a complaint of Pitee, made by Geffray Chaucier the aureat Poete that euer was fonde in oure vulgare to-fore hees [_for_ thees?] dayes.' The first stanza may be considered as forming a Proem; stanzas 2-8, the Story; and the rest, the Bill of Complaint. The title 'A complaint of Pitee' is not necessarily incorrect; for _of_ may be taken in the sense of 'concerning,' precisely as in the case of 'The Vision of Piers the Plowman.' As to the connection of this poem with the Thebaid of Statius, see notes to ll. 57 and 92.

1. I do not follow Ten Brink in putting a comma after _so_. He says: 'That _so_ refers to the verb [_sought_] and not to _yore ago_, is evident from l. 3. Compare the somewhat different l. 93.' I hope it shews no disrespect to a great critic if I say that I am not at all confident that the above criticism is correct; l. 93 rather tells against it. Observe the reading of l. 117 in MS. Sh. (in the footnotes, p. 276).

4. _With-oute dethe_, i. e. without actually dying.

_Shal not_, am not to.

7. _Doth me dye_, makes me die.

9. _Ever in oon_, continually, constantly, always in the same way; cf. Cant. Tales, E 602, 677, F 417.

11. _Me awreke._ 'The _e_ of _me_ is elided'; Ten Brink. He compares also Cant. Ta. Prol. 148; (the correct reading of which is, probably--

'But sorë weep sche if oon of hem were deed';

the _e_ of _sche_ being slurred over before _i_ in _if_). He also refers to the Prioresses Tale (B 1660), where _thalighte_ = _thee alighte_; and to the Second Nonnes Tale (G 32), where _do me endyte_ is to be read as _do mendyte_. Cf. note to A B C, l. 8.

14. The notion of Pity being '_buried in_ a heart' is awkward, and introduces an element of confusion. If Pity could have been buried _out of_ the heart, and thus _separated_ from it, the whole would have been a great deal clearer. This caution is worth paying heed to; for it will really be found, further on, that the language becomes confused in consequence of this very thing. In the very next line, for example, the hearse of Pity appears, and in l. 19 the corpse of Pity; in fact, Pity is never fairly buried out of sight throughout the poem.

15. _Herse_, hearse; cf. l. 36 below. It should be remembered that the old _herse_ was a very different thing from the modern _hearse_. What Chaucer refers to is what we should now call 'a lying in state'; with especial reference to the array of lighted torches which illuminated the bier. See the whole of Way's note in Prompt. Parvulorum, pp. 236, 237, part of which is quoted in my Etym. Dict., s. v. _hearse_. The word _hearse_ (F. _herce_) originally denoted a harrow; next, a frame with spikes for holding lights in a church service; thirdly, a frame for lights at a funeral pageant or 'lying in state'; fourthly, the funeral pageant itself; fifthly, a frame on which a body was laid, and so on. 'Chaucer,' says Way, 'appears to use the term _herse_ to denote the decorated bier, or funeral pageant, and not exclusively the illumination, which was a part thereof; and, towards the sixteenth century, it had such a general signification alone.' In ll. 36-42, Chaucer describes a company of persons who stood round about the hearse. Cf. Brand's Popular Antiquities, ed. Ellis, ii. 236-7; Eng. Gilds, ed. Toulmin Smith, p. 176.

'The _hearse_ was usually a four-square frame of timber, which was hung with black cloth, and garnished with flags and scutcheons and lights'; Strutt, Manners and Customs of the English, iii. 159. See the whole passage, which describes the funeral of Henry VII.

16. In most MSS., _Deed_ stands alone in the first foot. In which case, scan--Deed | as stoon | whyl that | the swogh | me laste. Cf. A B C, l. 176, and the note. However, two MSS. insert _a_, as in the text.

27. Cf. _Deth of Blaunche_, l. 587--'This is my peyne withoute reed'; Ten Brink. See p. 297.

33. Ten Brink reads _ay_ for _ever_, on the ground that _ever_ and _never_, when followed by a consonant, are dissyllabic in Chaucer. But see Book of the Duchesse, l. 73 (p. 279).

34. _Hadde_, dissyllabic; it occasionally is so; mostly when it is used by itself, as here. Cf. Book of the Duch. l. 951 (p. 309).

37. 'Without displaying any sorrow.' He now practically identifies Pity with the fair one in whose heart it was said (in l. 14) to be buried. This fair one was attended by Bounty, Beauty, and all the rest; they are called a _folk_ in l. 48.

41. Insert _and_ after _Estaat_ or _Estat_, for this word has no final _-e_ in Chaucer; see Prol. A 522; Squi. Tale, F 26; &c.

44. 'To have offered to Pity, as a petition'; see note to A B C, 110.

47. 'I kept my complaint quiet,' i. e. withheld it; see l. 54.

50. MS. Sh. is right. The scribe of the original of MSS. Tn. Ff. T. left out _I_ and _these_, and then put in _only_; then another scribe, seeing that a pronoun was wanted, put in _we_, as shewn by MSS. F. B. (Ten Brink). Here, and in l. 52, the _e_ of _alle_ is either very lightly sounded after the cæsural pause, or (more likely) is dropped altogether, as elsewhere.

53. _And been assented_, and (who) are all agreed.

54. _Put up_, put by. Cf. 'to _put up_ that letter'; K. Lear, i. 2. 28: &c.

57. He here addresses his fair one's Pity, whom he personifies, and addresses as a mistress.

By comparison of this passage with l. 92, it becomes clear that Chaucer took his notion of personifying _Pity_ from Statius, who personifies _Pietas_ in his Thebaid, xi. 457-496. I explained this at length in a letter to The Academy, Jan. 7, 1888, p. 9. In the present line, we find a hint of the original; for Statius describes _Pietas_ in the words 'pudibundaque longe Ora reducentem' (l. 493), which expresses her _humility_; whilst the _reverence_ due to her is expressed by _reuerentia_ (l. 467).

59. _Sheweth ... Your servaunt_, Your servant sheweth. _Sheweth_ is the word used in petitions, and _servant_ commonly means 'lover.'

63. Accented _rénoun_, as in the Ho. of Fame, 1406. Cf. l. 86.

64. _Crueltee_, Cruelty, here corresponds to the Fury Tisiphone, who is introduced by Statius (_Theb._ xi. 483) to suppress the peaceful feelings excited by Pietas, who had been created by Jupiter to control the passions even of the gods (l. 465). At the siege of Thebes, Pietas was for once overruled by Tisiphone; and Chaucer complains here that she is again being controlled; see ll. 80, 89-91. Very similar is the character of _Daungere_ or Danger (F. _Dangier_) in the Romaunt of the Rose; in l. 3549 of the English Version (l. 3301 of the original), we find Pity saying--

'Wherefore I pray you, Sir Daungere,
For to mayntene no lenger here
Such cruel werre agayn your man.'

We may also compare Machault's poem entitled Le Dit du Vergier, where we find such lines as--

'Einssi encontre Cruauté
Deffent l'amant douce Pité.'

66. _Under colour_, beneath the outward appearance.

67. 'In order that people should not observe her tyranny.'

70. _Hight_, is (rightly) named. The final _-e_, though required by grammar, is suppressed; the word being conformed to other examples of the third person singular of the _present_ tense, whilst _hight-e_ is commonly used as the _past_ tense. Pity's right name is here said to be 'Beauty, such as belongs to Favour.' The poet is really thinking of his mistress rather than his personified Pity. It is very difficult to keep up the allegory.

71. '_Heritage_, of course, stands in the gen. case'; Ten Brink.

76. _Wanten_, are lacking, are missing, are not found in, fall short. 'If you, Pity, are missing from Bounty and Beauty.' There are several similar examples of this use of _want_ in Shakespeare; e.g. 'there _wants_ no junkets at the feast'; Tam. Shrew, iii. 2. 250.

78. This _Bille_, or Petition, may be divided into three sets of 'terns,' or groups of three stanzas. I mark this by inserting a paragraph-mark (¶ ) at the beginning of each tern. They are marked off by the rimes; the first tern ends with _seyne_, l. 77; the next with the riming word _peyne_, l. 98; and again with _peyne_, l. 119.

83. _Perilous_ is here accented on the _i_.

87. Ten Brink omits _wel_, with most of the MSS.; but the _e_ in _wite_ seems to be suppressed, as in Book of the Duch. 112. It will hardly bear a strong accent. Mr. Sweet retains _wel_, as I do.

91. Pronounce the third word as _despeir'd_. 'Compare 1 Kings x. 24: And all the earth _sought to_ Solomon'; Ten Brink.

92. _Herenus_ has not hitherto been explained. It occurs in four MSS., Tn. F. B. Ff.; a fifth (T.) has 'herem_us_'; the Longleat MS. has 'heremus' or 'herenius'; Sh. substitutes 'vertuouse,' and MS. Harl. 7578 has 'Vertoues'; but it is highly improbable that _vertuouse_ is original, for no one would ever have altered it so unintelligibly. Ten Brink and Mr. Sweet adopt this reading _vertuousë_, which they make four syllables, as being a vocative case; and of course this is an easy way of _evading_ the difficulty. Dr. Furnivall once suggested _hevenus_, which I presume is meant for 'heaven's'; but this word could not possibly be accented as _hevénus_. The strange forms which proper names assume in Chaucer are notorious; and the fact is, that _Herenus_ is a mere error for _Herines_ or _Herynes_. _Herynes_ (accented on _y_), occurs in St. 4 of Bk. iv of Troilus and Criscide, and is used as the plural of _Erinnys_, being applied to the three Furies:--'O ye _Herynes_, nightes doughtren thre.' Pity may be said to be the _queen_ of the Furies, in the sense that pity (or mercy) can alone control the vindictiveness of vengeance. Shakespeare tells us that mercy 'is mightiest in the mightiest,' and is 'above this sceptred sway'; Merch. Ven. iv. 1. 188.

Chaucer probably found this name precisely where he found his personification of Pity, viz. in Statius, who has the sing. _Erinnys_ (Theb. xi. 383), and the pl. _Erinnyas_ (345). Cf. Æneid, ii. 337, 573.

In a poem called The Remedy of Love, in Chaucer's Works, ed. 1561, fol. 322, back, the twelfth stanza begins with--'Come hither, thou Hermes, and ye furies all,' &c., where it is plain that 'thou Hermes' is a substitution for 'Herines.'

95. The sense is--'the longer I love and dread you, the more I do so.' If we read _ever_ instead of _ay_, then the _e_ in _the_ must be suppressed. 'In _ever lenger the moore, never the moore, never the lesse_, Chaucer not unfrequently drops the _e_ in _the_, pronouncing _lengerth_, _neverth_'; cf. Clerkes Tale, E 687; Man of Lawes Tale, B 982; Ten Brink.

96. Most MSS. read _so sore_, giving no sense. Ten Brink has--'For sooth to seyne, I bere the hevy soore'; following MS. Sh. It is simpler to correct _so_ to _the_, as suggested by Harl. 7578, which has--'For soith [_error for_ sothly] for to saye I bere the sore.'

101. _Set_, short for _setteth_, like _bit_ for _biddeth_, Cant. Tales, Prol. 187, &c. Ten Brink quotes from the Sompnoures Tale (D 1982)--'With which the devel _set_ your herte a-fyre,' where _set_ = sets, present tense.

105. Ten Brink inserts _ne_, though it is not in the MSS. His note is: '_Ne_ is a necessary complement to _but_ = "only," as _but_ properly means "except"; and a collation of the best MSS. of the Cant. Tales shows that Chaucer never omitted the negative in this case. (The same observation was made already by Prof. Child in his excellent paper on the language of Chaucer and Gower; see Ellis, _Early Eng. Pronunciation_, p. 374.) _Me ne_ forms but one syllable, pronounced _meen_ [i. e. as mod. E. _main_]. In the same manner _I ne_ = _iin_ [pron. as mod. E. _een_] occurs, Cant. Tales, Prol. 764 (from MS. Harl. 7334)--

"I _ne_ saugh this yeer so mery a companye";

and in the Man of Lawes Tale (Group B, 1139)--

"_I ne_ seye but for this ende this sentence."

Compare Middle High German _in_ (= _ich ne_), e.g. _in kan dir nicht_, Walter v. d. Vogelweide, ed. Lachmann, 101. 33. In early French and Provençal _me_, _te_, _se_, &c., when preceded by a vowel, often became _m_, _t_, _s_, &c.; in Italian we have _cen_ for _ce ne_, &c.' Cf. _They n' wer-e_ in The Former Age, l. 5; and Book of the Duch. 244 (note).

110. See Anelida, 182; and the note.

119. Observe that this last line is a repetition of l. 2.

III. THE BOOK OF THE DUCHESSE.

I may remark here that the metre is sometimes difficult to follow; chiefly owing to the fact that the line sometimes begins with an accented syllable, just as, in Milton's L'Allegro, we meet with lines like 'Zéphyr, with Aurora playing.' The accented syllables are sometimes indistinctly marked, and hence arises a difficulty in immediately detecting the right flow of a line. A clear instance of a line beginning with an accented syllable is seen in l. 23--'Slép', and thús meláncolýë.'

1. The opening lines of this poem were subsequently copied (in 1384) by Froissart, in his Paradis d'Amour--

'Je sui de moi en grant merveille
Comment je vifs, quant tant je veille,
Et on ne porrait en veillant
Trouver de moi plus travaillant:
Car bien sacies que pour veiller
Me viennent souvent travailler
Pensees et melancolies,' etc.
Furnivall; Trial Forewords, p. 51.

Chaucer frequently makes words like _have_ (l. 1), _live_ (l. 2), especially in the present indicative, mere monosyllables. As examples of the fully sounded final _e_, we may notice the dative _light-e_ (l. 1), the dative (or adverbial) _night-e_ (l. 2), the infinitive _slep-e_ (3), the adverb _ylich-e_ (9), the dative _mind-e_ (15), &c. On the other hand, _hav-e_ is dissyllabic in l. 24. The _e_ is elided before a following vowel in _defaute_ (5), _trouthe_ (6), _falle_ (13), _wite_ (16), &c. We may also notice that _com'th_ is a monosyllable (7), whereas _trewely_ (33) has three syllables, though in l. 35 it makes but two. It is clear that Chaucer chose to make _some_ words of variable length; and he does this to a much greater extent in the present poem and in the House of Fame than in more finished productions, such as the Canterbury Tales. But it must be observed, on the other hand, that the number of these variable words is _limited_; in a far larger number of words, the number of syllables never varies at all, except by regular elision before a vowel.

14. The reading _For sorwful ymaginacioun_ (in F., Tn., Th.) cannot be right. Lange proposes to omit _For_, which hardly helps us. It is clearly _sorwful_ that is wrong. I propose to replace it by _sory_. Koch remarks that _sorwful_ has only two syllables (l. 85); but the line only admits of one, or of one and a very light syllable.

15. Observe how frequently, in this poem and in the House of Fame, Chaucer concludes a sentence with the _former_ of two lines of a couplet. Other examples occur at ll. 29, 43, 51, 59, 67, 75, 79, 87, 89; i. e. at least ten times in the course of the first hundred lines. The same arrangement occasionally occurs in the existing translation of the Romaunt of the Rose, but with such less frequency as, in itself, to form a presumption against Chaucer's having written the whole of it.

Similar examples in Milton, though he was an admirer of Chaucer, are remarkably rare; compare, however, Comus, 97, 101, 127, 133, 137. The metrical effect of this pause is very good.

23. The texts read _this_. Ten Brink suggests _thus_ (Ch. Sprache, § 320); which I adopt.

31. _What me is_, what is the matter with me. _Me_ is here in the dative case. This throws some light on the common use of _me_ in Shakespeare in such cases as 'Heat _me_ these irons hot,' K. John, iv. 1. 1; &c.

31-96. These lines are omitted in the Tanner MS. 346; also in MS. Bodley 638 (which even omits ll. 24-30). In the Fairfax MS. they are added in a much later hand. Consequently, Thynne's edition is here our only satisfactory authority; though the late copy in the Fairfax MS. is worth consulting.

32. _Aske_, may ask; subjunctive mood.

33. _Trewely_ is here three syllables, which is the normal form; cf. Prologue, 761; Kn. Ta. A 1267. In l. 35, the second _e_ is hardly sounded.

36. We must here read 'hold-e,' _without_ elision of final _e_, which is preserved by the cæsura.

37. 'The most obvious interpretation of these lines seems to be that they contain the confession of a hopeless passion, which has lasted for eight years--a confession which certainly seems to come more appropriately and more naturally from an unmarried than a married man. 'For eight years,'--he says--'I have loved, and loved in vain--and yet my cure is never the nearer. There is but one physician that can heal me--but all that is ended and done with. Let us pass on into fresh fields; what cannot be obtained must needs be left'; Ward, Life of Chaucer, p. 53. Dr. Furnivall supposes that the relentless fair one was the one to whom his Complaint unto Pite was addressed; and chronology would require that Chaucer fell in love with her in 1361. There is no proof that Chaucer was married before 1374, though he may have been married not long after his first passion was 'done.'

43. 'It is good to regard our first subject'; and therefore to return to it. This first subject was his sleeplessness.

45. _Til now late_ follows _I sat upryght_, as regards construction. The reading _Now of late_, in some printed editions, is no better.

48. This 'Romaunce' turns out to have been a copy of Ovid's Metamorphoses, a book of which Chaucer was so fond that he calls it his 'own book'; Ho. of Fame, 712. Probably he really had a copy of his own, as he constantly quotes it. Private libraries were very small indeed.

49. _Dryve away_, pass away; the usual phrase. Cf. 'And dryuen forth the longe day'; P. Plowman, B. prol. 224.

56. 'As long as men should love the law of nature,' i. e. should continue to be swayed by the natural promptings of passion; in other words, for ever. Certainly, Ovid's book has lasted well. In l. 57, _such thinges_ means 'such love-stories.'

62. 'Alcyone, or Halcyone: A daughter of Æolus and Enarete or Ægiale. She was married to Ceyx, and lived so happy with him, that they were presumptuous enough to call each other Zeus and Hera, for which Zeus metamorphosed them into birds, _alku[=o]n_ (a king-fisher) and _k[=e][=u]ks_ (a greedy sea-bird, Liddell and Scott; a kind of sea-gull; Apollod. i. 7. § 3, &c.; Hygin. Fab. 65). Hyginus relates that Ceyx perished in a shipwreck, that Alcyone for grief threw herself into the sea, and that the gods, out of compassion, changed the two into birds. It was fabled that, during the seven days before, and as many after the shortest day of the year, while the bird _alku[=o]n_ was breeding, there always prevailed calms at sea. An embellished form of the story is given by Ovid, Met. xi. 410, &c.; compare Virgil, Georg. i. 399.'--Smith's Dictionary. Hence the expression 'halcyon days'; see Holland's Pliny, b. x. c. 32, quoted in my Etym. Dict. s. v. _Halcyon_.

M. Sandras asserts that the history of Ceyx and Alcyone is borrowed from the Dit de la Fontaine Amoureuse, by Machault, whereas it is evident that Chaucer took care to consult his favourite Ovid, though he _also_ copied several expressions from Machault's poem. Consult Max Lange, as well as Furnivall's Trial Forewords to Chaucer's Minor Poems, p. 43. Surely, Chaucer himself may be permitted to know; his description of the book, viz. in ll. 57-59, applies to Ovid, rather than to Machault's Poems. But the fact is that we have further evidence; Chaucer himself, elsewhere, plainly _names_ Ovid as his authority. See Cant. Tales, Group B, l. 53 (as printed in vol. v.), where he says--

'For he [Chaucer] hath told of loveres up and doun
Mo than _Ovyde_ made of mencioun
In his Epistelles, that been ful olde.
What sholde I tellen hem, sin they ben tolde?
In youthe he made of _Ceys and Alcion_;' &c.

It is true that Chaucer here mentions Ovid's Heroides rather than the Metamorphoses; but that is only because he goes on to speak of _other_ stories, which he took from the Heroides; see the whole context. It is plain that he wishes us to know that he took the present story chiefly from Ovid; yet there are some expressions which he owes to Machault, as will be shown below. It is worth notice, that the whole story is also in Gower's Confessio Amantis, bk. iv. (ed. Pauli, ii. 100); where it is plainly copied from Ovid throughout.

Ten Brink (Studien, p. 10) points out one very clear indication of Chaucer's having consulted Ovid. In l. 68, he uses the expression _to tellen shortly_, and then proceeds to allude to the shipwreck of Ceyx, which is told in Ovid at great length (Met. xi. 472-572). Of this shipwreck Machault says never a word; he merely says that Ceyx died in the sea.

There is a chapter _De Alcione_ in Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum Naturale, bk. xvi. c. 26; made up from Ambrosius, Aristotle, Pliny (bk. 10), and the Liber de Natura Rerum.

66. Instead of quoting Ovid, I shall quote from Golding's translation of his Metamorphoses, as being more interesting to the English reader. (The whole story is also told by Dryden, whose version is easily accessible.) As the tale is told at great length, I quote only a few of the lines that most closely correspond to Chaucer. Compare--

'But fully bent
He [_Ceyx_] seemed neither for to leaue the iourney which he ment
To take by sea, nor yet to giue Alcyone leaue as tho
Companion of his perlous course by water for to go....
When toward night the wallowing waues began to waxen white,
And eke the heady eastern wind did blow with greater might....
And all the heauen with clouds as blacke as pitch was ouercast,
That neuer night was halfe so darke. There came a flaw [_gust_] at last,
That with his violence brake the Maste, and strake the Sterne away....
Behold, euen full vpon the waue a flake of water blacke
Did breake, and vnderneathe the sea the head of Ceyx stracke.'
fol. 137-9.

See further in the note to l. 136.

67. Koch would read _wolde_ for _wol_; I adopt his suggestion.

76. Alcyone (in the MSS.) was introduced as a gloss.

78. _Come_ (dissyllabic) is meant to be in the pt. t. subjunctive.

80. Of the restoration of this line, I should have had some reason to be proud; but I find that Ten Brink (who seems to miss nothing) has anticipated me; see his Chaucers Sprache, §§ 48, 329. We have here, as our guides, only the edition of Thynne (1532), and the late insertion in MS. Fairfax 16. Both of these read--'Anon her herte began to yerne'; whereas it of course ought to be--'Anon her herte gan to erme.' The substitution of _began_ for _gan_ arose from forgetting that _herte_ (A.S. _heorte_) is dissyllabic in Chaucer, in countless places. The substitution of _yerne_ for _erme_ arose from the fact that the old word _ermen_, to grieve, was supplanted by _earn_, to desire, to grieve, in the sixteenth century, and afterwards by the form _yearn_. This I have already shewn at such length in my note to the Pardoner's Prologue (Cant. Ta. C. 312), in my edition of the Man of Lawes Tale, pp. 39, 142, and yet again in my Etym. Dict., s. v. _Yearn_ (2), that it is needless to repeat it all over again. Chaucer was quite incapable of such a mere assonance as that of _terme_ with _yerne_; in fact, it is precisely the word _terme_ that is rimed with _erme_ in his Pardoner's Prologue. Mr. Cromie's index shews that, in the Cant. Tales, the rime _erme_, _terme_, occurs only once, and there is no third word riming with either. There is, however, a rime of _conferme_ with _ferme_, Troil. ii. 1525, and with _afferme_ in the same, 1588. There is, in Chaucer, no _sixth_ riming word in _-erme_ at all, and none in either _-irme_ or _-yrme_.

Both in the present passage and in the Pardoner's Prologue the verb to _erme_ is used with the same sb., viz. _herte_; which clinches the matter. By way of example, compare 'The bysschop weop for '_ermyng_'; King Alisaunder, ed. Weber, l. 1525.

86, 87. L. 86 is too short. In l. 87 I delete _alas_ after _him_, which makes the line a whole foot too long, and is not required. Koch ingeniously suggests, for l. 86: 'That hadde, alas! this noble wyf.' This transference of _alas_ mends both lines at once.

91. _Wher_, short for _whether_ (very common).

93. _Avowe_ is all one word, though its component parts were often written apart. Thus, in P. Plowman, B. v. 457, we find _And made avowe_, where the other texts have _a-vou_, _a-vowe_; see _Avow_ in the New E. Dict. See my note to Cant. Tales, Group C, 695.

97. Here the gap in the MSS. ceases, and we again have their authority for the text. For _Had_ we should, perhaps, read _Hadde_.

105. Doubtless, we ought to read:--'Ne coude she.'

106. This phrase is not uncommon. 'And on knes she sat adoun'; Lay le Freine, l. 159; in Weber's Met. Romances, i. 363. Cf. 'This Troilus ful sone on knees him sette'; Troilus, iii. 953.

107. _Weep_ (not _wepte_) is Chaucer's word; see Cant. Tales, B 606, 1052, 3852, E 545, F 496, G 371.

120. For _knowe_ (as in F. Tn. Th.) read _knowen_, to avoid hiatus.

126. 'And she, exhausted with weeping and watching.' Gower (Confes. Amantis, ed. Pauli, i. 160) speaks of a ship that is _forstormed and forblowe_, i. e. excessively driven about by storm and wind.

130. Or read: 'That madë her to slepe sone'; without elision of _e_ in _made_ (Koch).

136. _Go bet_, go quickly, hasten, lit. go better, i. e. faster. See note to Group C, 667. Cf. _Go now faste_, l. 152.

_Morpheus_ is dissyllabic, i. e. _Morph'ús_; cf. _Mórph'us_ in l. 167. I here add another illustration from Golding's Ovid, fol. 139:--

'Alcyone of so great mischaunce not knowing ought as yit,
Did keepe a reckoning of the nights that in the while did flit,
And hasted garments both for him and for her selfe likewise
To weare at his homecomming which she vainely did surmize.
To all the Gods deuoutly she did offer frankincense:
But most aboue them all the Church of Iuno she did sence.
And for her husband (who as then was none) she kneeld before
The Altar, wishing health and soone arriuall at the shore.
And that none other woman might before her be preferd,
Of all her prayers this one peece effectually was herd.
For Iuno could not finde in heart entreated for to bee
For him that was already dead. But to th'intent that shee
From Dame Alcyons deadly hands might keepe her Altars free
She sayd: most faithfull messenger of my commandements, O
Thou Rainebow to the sluggish house of slumber swiftly go,
And bid him send a dreame in shape of Ceyx to his wife
Alcyone, for to shew her plaine the loosing of his life.
Dame Iris takes her pall wherein a thousand colours were,
And bowing like a stringed bow vpon the cloudie sphere,
Immediately descended to the drowzye house of Sleepe,
Whose court the cloudes continually do closely ouerdreepe.
Among the darke Cimmerians is a holow mountaine found
And in the hill a Caue that farre doth run within the ground,
The C[h]amber and the dwelling place where slouthfull sleepe doth couch.
The light of Phoebus golden beames this place can never touch....
No boughs are stird with blasts of winde, no noise of tatling toong
Of man or woman euer yet within that bower roong.
Dumbe quiet dwelleth there. Yet from the rockes foote doth go
The riuer of forgetfulnesse, which runneth trickling so
Upon the litle peeble stones which in the channell ly,
That vnto sleepe a great deale more it doth prouoke thereby....
Amid the Caue of Ebonye a bedsted standeth hie,
And on the same a bed of downe with couering blacke doth lie:
In which the drowzie God of sleepe his lither limbes doth rest.
About him forging sundry shapes as many dreams lie prest
As eares of corne do stand in fields in haruest time, or leaues
Doe grow on trees, or sea to shoore of sandie cinder heaues.
Assoone as Iris came within this house, and with her hand
Had put aside the dazeling dreames that in her way did stand,
The brightnesse of her robe through all the sacret house did shine.
The God of sleepe scarce able for to raise his heauie eine,
A three or foure times at the least did fall againe to rest,
And with his nodding head did knock his chinne against his brest.
At length he waking of himselfe, vpon his elbowe leande.
And though he knew for what she came: he askt her what she meand': &c.

139. The first accent falls on _Sey_; the _e_ in _halfe_ seems to be suppressed.

154. _His wey._ Chaucer substitutes a male messenger for Iris; see ll. 134, 155, 180-2.

155. Imitated from Machault's Dit de la Fontaine:--

'_Que venue est en une grant valee,_
_De deus grans mons entour environnee,_
Et d'un russel qui par my la contree,' &c.

See Ten Brink, Studien, p. 200; Furnivall, Trial Forewords, p. 44.

It is worth notice that the visit of Iris to Somnus is also fully described by Statius, Theb. x. 81-136; but Chaucer does not seem to have copied him.

158, 159. Two bad lines in the MSS. Both can be mended by changing _nought_ into _nothing_, as suggested by Ten Brink, Chaucers Sprache, § 299.

160. See a very similar passage in Spenser, F. Q. i. 1. 39, 40, 41, 42, 43. And cf. Ho. of Fame, 70.

167. _Eclympasteyre._ 'I hold this to be a name of Chaucer's own invention. In Ovid occurs a son of Morpheus who has two different names: "Hunc _Icelon_ superi, mortale _Phobetora_ vulgus Nominat;" _Met._ xi. 640. _Phobetora_ may have been altered into _Pastora_: _Icelonpastora_ (the two names linked together) would give _Eclympasteyre_.'--Ten Brink, Studien, p. 11, as quoted in Furnivall's Trial Forewords, p. 116. At any rate, we may feel sure that _Eclym-_ is precisely Ovid's _Icelon_. And perhaps _Phobetora_ comes nearer to _-pasteyre_ than does _Phantasos_, the name of another son of Morpheus, whom Ovid mentions immediately below. Gower (ed. Pauli, ii. 103) calls them _Ithecus_ and _Panthasas_; and the fact that he here actually turns _Icelon_ into _Ithecus_ is a striking example of the strange corruption of proper names in medieval times. Prof. Hales suggests that _Eclympasteyre_ represents _Icelon plastora_, where _plastora_ is the acc. of Gk. [Greek: plastôr], i. e. moulder or modeller, a suitable epithet for a god of dreams; compare the expressions used by Ovid in ll. 626 and 634 of this passage. _Icelon_ is the acc. of Gk. [Greek: ikelos], or [Greek: eikelos], like, resembling. For my own part, I would rather take the form _plastera_, acc. of [Greek: plastêr], a form actually given by Liddell and Scott, and also nearer to the form in Chaucer. Perhaps Chaucer had seen a MS. of Ovid in which _Icelon_ was explained by _plastora_ or _plastera_, written beside or over it as a gloss, or by way of explanation. This would explain the whole matter. Mr. Fleay thinks the original reading was _Morpheus_, _Ecelon_, _Phantastere_; but this is impossible, because Morpheus had but _one_ heir (l. 168).

Froissart has the word _Enclimpostair_ as the name of a son of the god of sleep, in his poem called Paradis d'Amour. But _as he is merely copying this precise passage_, it does not at all help us.

For the remarks by Prof. Hales, see the Athenæum, 1882, i. 444; for those by Mr. Fleay, see the same, p. 568. Other suggestions have been made, but are not worth recording.

173. To _envye_; to be read as _Tenvý-e_. The phrase is merely an adaptation of the F. _à l'envi_, or of the vb. _envier_. Cotgrave gives: '_à l'envy l'vn de l'autre_, one to despight the other, or in emulation one of the other'; also '_envier_ (au _ieu_), to vie.' Hence E. _vie_; see _Vie_ in my Etym. Dict. It is etymologically connected with Lat. _inuitare_, not with Lat. _inuidia_. See l. 406, below.

175. Read _slepe_, as in ll. 169, 177; A.S. _slæpon_, pt. t. pl.

_Upright_, i. e. on their backs; see The Babees Book, p. 245.

181. _Who is_, i. e. who is it that.

183. _Awaketh_ is here repeated in the plural form.

184. _Oon ye_, one eye. This is from Machault, who has: 'ouvri l'un de ses yeux.' Ovid has the pl. _oculos_.

185. _Cast_ is the pp., as pointed out by Ten Brink, who corrects the line; Chaucers Sprache, § 320.

192. _Abrayd_, and not _abrayde_, is the right form; for it is a strong verb (A. S. _ábregdan_, pt. t. _ábrægd_). So also in the Ho. of Fame, 110 However, _brayde_ (as if weak) also occurs; Ho. of Fame, 1678.

195. _Dreynt-e_ is here used as an adj., with the weak declension in _-e_. So also in Cant. Tales, B 69. Cf. also Ho. of Fame, 1783.

199. _Fet-e_ is dat. pl.; see l. 400, and Cant. Ta., B 1104.

206. The word _look_ must be supplied. MS. B. even omits _herte_; which would give--'But good-e swet-e, [look] that ye'; where _good-e_ and _swet-e_ are vocatives.

213. I adopt Ten Brink's suggestion (Chaucers Sprache, § 300), viz. to change _allas_ into _A_. Lange omits _quod she_; but see l. 215.

218. _My first matere_, my first subject; i. e. sleeplessness, as in l. 43.