Chapter XXV: Appendix (4)

219. _Whérfor_ seems to be accented on the former syllable. MS. B. inserts _you_ after _told_; perhaps it is not wanted. If it is, it had better come before _told_ rather than after it.

222. _I had be_, I should have been. _Deed and dolven_, dead and buried; as in Cursor Mundi, 5494. Chaucer's _dolven and deed_ is odd.

244. _I ne roghte who_, to be read _In' roght-e who_; i. e. I should not care who; see note to Compl. to Pite, 105. _Roghte_ is subjunctive.

247. _His lyve_, during his life.

248. The readings are _here onwarde_, Th. F.; _here onward_, Tn.; _here on warde_, B. I do not think _here onward_ can be meant, nor yet _hereon-ward_; I know of no examples of such meaningless expressions. I read _here on warde_, and explain it: 'I will give him the very best gift that he ever expected (to get) in his life; and (I will give it) here, in his custody, even now, as soon as possible,' &c. _Ward_ = custody, occurs in the dat. _warde_ in William of Palerne, 376--'How that child from here _warde_ was went for evermore.'

250. Here Chaucer again takes a hint from Machault's Dit de la Fontaine, where we find the poet promising the god a hat and a soft bed of gerfalcon's feathers. See Ten Brink, Studien, p. 204.

'Et por ce au dieu qui moult sout (?) et moult vault
Por mielx dormir un chapeau de pavaut
Et un mol lit de plume de gerfaut
Promes et doing.'

See also Our English Home, p. 106.

255. _Reynes_, i. e. Rennes, in Brittany; spelt _Raynes_ in the Paston Letters, ed. Gairdner, iii. 358. Linen is still made there; and by 'clothe of Reynes' some kind of linen, rather than of woollen cloth, is meant. It is here to be used for pillow-cases. It was also used for sheets. 'Your shetes shall be of clothe of _Rayne_'; Squyr of Lowe Degre, l. 842 (in Ritson, Met. Rom. iii. 180). 'A peyre schetes of _Reynes_, with the heued shete [head-sheet] of the same'; Earliest Eng. Wills, ed. Furnivall, p. 4, l. 16. 'A towaile of Raynes'; Babees Book, p. 130, l. 213; and see note on p. 208 of the same. 'It [the head-sheet] was more frequently made of the fine white linen of Reynes'; Our Eng. Home, p. 109. 'Hede-shetes of Rennes' are noticed among the effects of Hen. V; see Rot. Parl. iv. p. 228; footnote on the same page. Skelton mentions rochets 'of fyne Raynes'; Colin Clout, 316. The mention of this feather-bed may have been suggested to Machault by Ovid's line about the couch of Morpheus (Metam. xi. 611)--'Plumeus, unicolor, pullo velamine tectus.'

264. We must delete _quene_; it is only an explanatory gloss.

279. 'To be well able to interpret my dream.'

282. The modern construction is--'The dream of King Pharaoh.' See this idiom explained in my note to the Prioresses Tale, Group F, l. 209. Cf. Gen. xli. 25.

284. As to Macrobius, see note to the Parl. of Foules, 31. And cf. Ho. of Fame, 513-7. We must never forget how frequent are Chaucer's imitations of Le Roman de la Rose. Here, for example, he is thinking of ll. 7-10 of that poem:--

'Ung acteur qui ot non Macrobes....
Ancois escrist la vision
Qui avint au roi Cipion.'

After _Macrobeus_ understand _coude_ (from l. 283), which governs the infin. _arede_ in l. 289.

286. _Métt-e_ occupies the second foot in the line. Koch proposes _him_ for _he_; but it is needless; see Cant. Tales, B 3930. In l. 288, read _fortúned_.

288. This line, found in Thynne only, is perhaps not genuine, but interpolated. Perhaps _Whiche_ is better than _Swiche_.

292. Cf. Rom. de la Rose, 45-47:--

'Avis m'iere qu'il estoit mains....
En Mai estoie, ce songoie.'

And again, cf. ll. 295, &c. with the same, ll. 67-74. See pp. 95, 96.

301. Read _songen_, not _songe_, to avoid the hiatus.

304. Chaucer uses _som_ as a singular in such cases as the present. A clear case occurs in '_Som_ in _his_ bed'; Kn. Tale, 2173. (C. T. A 3031.) Hence _song_ is the sing. verb.

309. _Entunes_, tunes. Cf. _entuned_, pp.; C. T. Prol. 123.

310. _Tewnes_, Tunis; vaguely put for some distant and wealthy town; see ll. 1061-4, below. Its name was probably suggested by the preceding word _entunes_, which required a rime. Gower mentions _Kaire_ (Cairo) just as vaguely:--

'That me were lever her love winne
Than Kaire and al that is therinne'; Conf. Amant, ed. Pauli, ii. 57.

The sense is--'that certainly, even to gain Tunis, I would not have (done other) than heard them sing.' Lange thinks these lines corrupt; but I believe the idiom is correct.

323. As stained glass windows were then rare and expensive, it is worth while observing that these gorgeous windows were not real ones, but only seen in a dream. This passage is imitated in the late poem called the Court of Love, st. 33, where we are told that 'The temple shone with windows al of glasse,' and that in the glass were portrayed the stories of Dido and Annelida. These windows, it may be observed, were equally imaginary.

328. The caesural pause comes after _Ector_, which might allow the intrusion of the word _of_ before _king_. But Mr. Sweet omits _of_, and I follow him. The words _of king_ are again inserted before _Lamedon_ in l. 329, being caught from l. 328 above.

_Lamedon_ is Laomedon, father of King Priam of Troy. _Ector_ is Chaucer's spelling of Hector; Man of Lawes Tale, B 198. He here cites the usual examples of love-stories, such as those of Medea and Jason, and Paris and Helen. _Lavyne_ is Lavinia, the second wife of Æneas; Vergil, Æn. bk. vii; Rom. Rose, 21087; cf. Ho. of Fame, 458. Observe his pronunciation of _Médea_, as in Ho. of Fame, 401; Cant. Ta., B 72.

332. 'There is reason to believe that Chaucer copied these imageries from the romance of _Guigemar_, one of the Lays of Marie de France; in which the walls of a chamber are painted with Venus and the _Art of Love_ from Ovid. Perhaps Chaucer might not look further than the temples of Boccaccio's _Theseid_ for these ornaments'; Warton, Hist. E. Poetry, 1871, iii. 63. Cf. Rom. of the Rose, ll. 139-146; see p. 99.

333. _Bothe text and glose_, i. e. both in the principal panels and in the margin. He likens the walls to the page of a book, in which the _glose_, or commentary, was often written in the margin. Mr. Sweet inserts _with_ before _text_, and changes _And_ into _Of_ in the next line; I do not think the former change is necessary, but I adopt the latter.

334. It had all sorts of scenes from the Romance of the Rose on it. Chaucer again mentions this Romance by name in his Merchant's Tale; C. T., E 2032; and he tells us that he himself translated it; Prol. to Legend, 329. The celebrated Roman de la Rose was begun by Guillaume de Lorris, who wrote ll. 1-4070, and completed about forty years afterwards (in a very different and much more satirical style) by Jean de Meung (or Meun), surnamed (like his father) Clopinel, i. e. the Cripple, who wrote ll. 4071-22074; it was finished about the year 1305. The story is that of a young man who succeeded in plucking a rose in a walled garden, after overcoming extraordinary difficulties; allegorically, it means that he succeeded in obtaining the object of his love. See further above, pp. 16-19.

The E. version is invariably called the Romaunt of the Rose, and we find the title Rommant de la Rose in the original, l. 20082; cf. our _romant-ic_. But Burguy explains that _romant_ is a false form, due to confusion with words rightly ending in _-ant_. The right O. F. form is _romans_, originally an adverb; from the phrase _parler romans_, i. e. loqui Romanice. In the Six-text edition of the Cant. Tales, E 2032, four MSS. have _romance_, one has _romans_, and one _romauns_.

For examples of walls or ceilings being painted with various subjects, see Warton's Hist. of E. Poetry, ed. Hazlitt, ii. 131, 275; iii. 63.

340. The first accent is on _Blew_, not on _bright_. Cf. Rom. de la Rose, 124, 125 (see p. 98, above):--

'Clere et serie et bele estoit
La matinee, et atrempee.'

343. _Ne in_ is to be read as _Nin_; we find it written _nin_ in the Squieres Tale, F 35. See l. 694.

347. _Whether_ is to be read as _Wher_; it is often so spelt.

348. The line, as it stands in the authorities, viz. 'And I herde goyng, bothe vp and doune'--cannot be right. Mr. Sweet omits _bothe_, which throws the accent upon _I_, and reduces _herde_ to _herd_' (unaccented!). To remedy this, I also omit _And_. Perhaps _speke_ (better _speken_) is an infinitive in l. 350, but it may also be the pt. t. plural (A. S. _spræcon_); and it is more convenient to take it so.

352. _Upon lengthe_, after a great length of course, after a long run.

M. Sandras points out some _very_ slight resemblances between this passage and some lines in a French poem in the Collection Mouchet, vol. ii. fol. 106; see the passage cited in Furnivall's Trial Forewords to the Minor Poems, p. 51. Most likely Chaucer wrote independently of this French poem, as even M. Sandras seems inclined to admit.

353. _Embosed_, embossed. This is a technical term, used in various senses, for which see the New Eng. Dict. Here it means 'so far plunged into the thicket'; from O. F. _bos_ (F. _bois_), a wood. In later authors, it came to mean 'driven to extremity, like a hunted animal'; then 'exhausted by running,' and lastly, 'foaming at the mouth,' as a result of exhaustion.

362. A _relay_ was a fresh set of dogs; see _Relay_ in my Etym. Dict.

'When the howndys are set an hert for to mete,
And other hym chasen and folowyn to take,
Then all the _Relais_ thow may vppon hem make.'
Book of St. Alban's, fol. e 8, back.

A _lymere_ was a dog held in a _liam_, _lime_, or leash, to be let loose when required; from O.F. _liem_ (F. _lien_, Lat. _ligamen_), a leash. In the Book of St. Alban's, fol. e 4, we are told that the beasts which should be 'reride with the _lymer_,' i. e. roused and pursued by the dog so called, are 'the hert and the bucke and the boore.'

365. _Oon, ladde_, i. e. one who led. This omission of the relative is common.

368. 'The emperor Octovien' is the emperor seen by Chaucer in his dream. In l. 1314, he is called _this king_, by whom Edward III. is plainly intended. He was 'a favourite character of Carolingian legend, and pleasantly revived under this aspect by the modern romanticist Ludwig Tieck--probably [here] a flattering allegory for the King'; Ward's Life of Chaucer, p. 69. The English romance of Octouian Imperator is to be found in Weber's Metrical Romances, iii. 157; it extends to 1962 lines. He was an emperor of Rome, and married Floraunce, daughter of Dagabers [Dagobert], king of France. The adventures of Floraunce somewhat resemble those of Constance in the Man of Lawes Tale. 'The Romance of the Emperor Octavian' was also edited by Halliwell for the Percy Society, in 1844. The name originally referred to the emperor Augustus.

370. The exclamation 'A goddes halfe' was pronounced like 'A god's half'; see l. 758. See note to l. 544.

374. _Fil to doon_, fell to do, i. e. was fitting to do.

375. _Fot-hoot_, foot-hot, immediately; see my note to Man of Lawes Tale, B 438.

376. _Moot_, notes upon a horn, here used as a plural. See Glossary. 'How shall we blowe whan ye han sen the hert? I shal blowe after one _mote_, ij _motes_ [i. e. 3 motes in all]; and if myn howndes come not hastily to me as I wolde, I shall blowe iiij. _motes_'; Venery de Twety, in Reliquiæ Antiquæ, i. 152.

Cf. a passage in the Chace du Cerf, quoted from the Collection Mouchet, i. 166, in Furnivall's Trial Forewords, p. 51 (though Chaucer probably wrote his account quite independently of it):--

'Et puis si corneras apel
.iij. lons _mots_, pour les chiens avoir.'

379. _Rechased_, headed back. Men were posted at certain places, to keep the hart within certain bounds. See next note.

386. _A forloyn_, a recall (as I suppose; for it was blown when the hounds were all a long way off their object of pursuit). It is thus explained in the Book of St. Alban's, fol. f I:--

'Yit mayster, wolde I fayn thus at yow leere,
What is a _forloyng_, for that is goode to here.
That shall I say the, quod he, the soth at lest.
When thy houndes in the wode sechyn any beest,
And the beest is stoll away owt of the fryth,
Or the houndes that thou hast meten therwith,
And any other houndes before than may with hem mete,
Thees oder houndes are then _forloyned_, I the hete.
For the beste and the houndes arn so fer before,
And the houndes behynde be weer[i]e and soore,
So that they may not at the best cum at ther will,
The houndes before _forloyne_ [distance] hem, and that is the skyll.
They be ay so fere before, to me iff thou will trust;
And thys is the _forloyne_; lere hit, iff thou lust.'

The 'chace of the forloyne' is explained (very obscurely) in the Venery de Twety; see Reliquiæ Antiquæ, i. 152. But the following passage from the same gives some light upon _rechased_: 'Another chace ther is whan a man hath set up archerys and greyhoundes, and the best be founde, and passe out the boundys, and myne houndes after; then shall y blowe on this maner a mote, and aftirward the _rechace_ upon my houndys that be past the boundys.'

387. _Go_, gone. The sense is--'I had gone (away having) walked from my tree.' The idiom is curious. _My tree_, the tree at which I had been posted. Chaucer dreamt that he was one of the men posted to watch which way the hart went, and to keep the bounds.

396. The final _e_ in _fled-de_ is not elided, owing to the pause after it. See note to l. 685.

398. _Wente_, path. Chaucer often rimes words that are pronounced alike, if their meanings be different. See ll. 439, 440; and cf. ll. 627-630. The very same pair of rimes occurs again in the Ho. of Fame, 181, 182; and in Troil. ii. 62, 813; iii. 785, v. 603, 1192.

402. Read--_For both-e Flor-a_, &c. The _-a_ in _Flora_ comes at the cæsural pause; cf. ll. 413, 414. Once more, this is from Le Roman de la Rose, ll. 8449-51:--

'Zephirus et Flora, sa fame,
Qui des flors est déesse et dame,
Cil dui font les floretes nestre.'

Cf. also ll. 5962-5:--

'Les floretes i fait parair,
E _cum estoiles_ flamboier,
Et les herbetes verdoier
_Zephirus_, quant sur mer chevauche.'

405. The first accent is on _For_; not happily.

408. 'To have more flowers than the heaven (has stars, so as even to rival) seven such planets as there are in the sky.' Rather involved, and probably all suggested by the necessity for a rime to _heven_. See l. 824. Moreover, it is copied from Le Roman de la Rose, 8465-8:--

'Qu'il vous fust avis que la terre
Vosist emprendre estrif et guerre
Au ciel d'estre miex estelée,
Tant iert par ses flors revelée.'

410-412. From Le Roman de la Rose, 55-58 (see p. 95, above):--

'La terre ...
Et oblie la poverte
Ou ele a tot l'yver este.'

419. Imitated from Le Roman de la Rose, 1373-1391; in particular:--

'Li ung [_arbre_] fu loing de l'autre assis
Plus de cinq toises, ou de sis,' &c.

Chaucer has treated a _toise_ as if it were equal to two feet; it was really about six. In his own translation of the Romaunt, l. 1393, he translates _toise_ by _fadome_. See p. 151 (above).

429. According to the Book of St. Albans, fol. e 4, the buck was called _a fawne_ in his first year, _a preket_ in the second, _a sowrell_ in the third, _a sowre_ in the fourth, _a bucke of the fyrst hede_ in the fifth, and _a bucke_ (simply) in the sixth year. Also _a roo_ is the female of the _roobucke_.

435. _Argus_ is put for _Algus_, the old French name for the inventor of the Arabic numerals; it occurs in l. 16373 of the Roman de la Rose, which mentions him in company with Euclid and Ptolemy--

'_Algus_, Euclides, Tholomees.'

This name was obviously confused with that of the hundred-eyed Argus.

This name _Algus_ was evolved out of the O.F. _algorisme_, which, as Dr. Murray says, is a French adaptation 'from the Arab. _al-Khow[=a]razm[=i]_, the _native of Khw[=a]razm_ (_Khiva_), surname of the Arab mathematician Abu Ja'far Mohammed Ben Musa, who flourished early in the 9th century, and through the translation of whose work on Algebra, the Arabic numerals became generally known in Europe. Cf. _Euclid_ = plane geometry.' He was truly 'a noble countour,' to whom we all owe a debt of gratitude. That _Algus_ was sometimes called _Argus_, also appears from the Roman de la Rose, ll. 12994, &c., which is clearly the very passage which Chaucer here copies:--

'Se mestre _Argus_ li bien contens
I vosist bien metre ses cures,
E venist _o ses dix figures_,
Par quoi tout certefie et nombre,
Si ne péust-il pas le nombre
Des grans contens certefier,
Tant seust bien monteplier.'

Here _o_ means 'with'; so that Chaucer has copied the very phrase 'with his figures ten.' But still more curiously, Jean de Meun here rimes _nombre_, pres. sing. indic., with _nombre_, sb.; and Chaucer rimes _noumbre_, infin., with _noumbre_, sb. likewise. _Countour_ in l. 435 means 'arithmetician'; in the next line it means an abacus or counting-board, for assisting arithmetical operations.

437. _His figures ten_; the ten Arabic numerals, i. e. from 1 to 9, and the cipher 0.

438. _Al ken_, all kin, i. e. mankind, all men. This substitution of _ken_ for _kin_ (A.S. _cyn_) seems to have been due to the exigencies of rime, as Chaucer uses _kin_ elsewhere. However, Gower has the same form--'And of what _ken_ that she was come'; Conf. Am. b. viii; ed. Pauli, iii. 332. So also in Will. of Palerne, 722--'Miself knowe ich nou[gh]t mi _ken_'; and five times at least in the Ayenbite of Inwyt, as it is a Kentish form. It was, doubtless, a permissible variant.

442. The strong accent on _me_ is very forced.

445. _A man in blak_; John of Gaunt, in mourning for the loss of his wife Blaunche. Imitated by Lydgate, in his Complaint of the Black Knight, l. 130, and by Spenser, in his Daphnaida:--

'I did espie
Where towards me a sory wight did cost
Clad all in black, that mourning did bewray.'

452. _Wel-faring-e_; four syllables.

455. John of Gaunt, born in June, 1340, was 29 years old in 1369. I do not know why a poet is _never to make a mistake_; nor why critics should lay down such a singular law. But if we are to lay the error on the scribes, Mr. Brock's suggestion is excellent. He remarks that _nine and twenty_ was usually written xxviiij.; and if the _v_ were omitted, it would appear as .xxiiij., i. e. _four and twenty_. The existing MSS. write 'foure and twenty' at length; but such is not the usual practice of earlier scribes. It may also be added that .xxiiij. was at that time always read as _four and twenty_, never as _twenty-four_; so that no ambiguity could arise as to the mode of reading it. See Richard the Redeless, iii. 260.

There is a precisely similiar confusion in Cant. Ta. Group B, l. 5, where _eightetethe_ is denoted by 'xviijthe' in the Hengwrt MS., whilst the Harl. MS. omits the _v_, and reads _threttenthe_, and again the Ellesmere MS. inserts an _x_, and gives us _eighte and twentithe_. The presumption is, that Chaucer knew his patron's age, and that we ought to read _nine_ for _four_; but even if he inadvertently wrote _four_, there is no crime in it.

475. The knight's lay falls into two stanzas, one of five, and one of six lines, as marked. In order to make them more alike, Thynne inserted an additional line--And thus in sorowe lefte me alone--after l. 479. This additional line is numbered 480 in the editions; so I omit l. 480 in the numbering. The line is probably spurious. It is not grammatical; grammar would require that _has_ (not _is_, as in l. 479) should be understood before the pp. _left_; or if we take _left-e_ as a past tense, then the line will not scan. But it is also unmetrical, as the arrangement of lines should be the same as in ll. 481-6, if the two stanzas are to be made alike. Chaucer says the lay consisted of 'ten verses or twelve' in l. 463, which is a sufficiently close description of a lay of eleven lines. Had he said _twelve_ without any mention of _ten_, the case would have been different.

479. Lange proposes: 'Is deed, and is fro me agoon.' F. Tn. Th. agree as to the reading given; I see nothing against it.

481. If we must needs complete the line, we must read 'Allas! o deth!' inserting _o_; or 'Allas! the deth,' inserting _the_. The latter is proposed by Ten Brink, Sprache, &c. § 346.

490. _Pure_, very; cf. 'pure fettres,' Kn. Tale, A 1279. And see l. 583, below.

491. Cf. 'Why does my blood thus muster to my heart?' Meas. for Meas. ii. 4. 20.

501. The MSS. have _seet_, sat, a false form for _sat_ (A.S. _sæt_); due to the plural form _seet-e_ or _s[=e]t-e_ (A.S. _sæt-on_). We certainly find _seet_ for _sat_ in the Kn. Tale, A 2075. Read _sete_, as the pt. t. subj. (A.S. _s[=æ]te_); and _fete_ as dative pl. form, as in Cant. Ta. B 1104.

510. _Made_, i. e. they made; idiomatic.

521. _Ne I_, nor I; to be read _N'I_; cf. note to l. 343.

526. 'Yes; the amends is (are) easily made.'

532. _Me acqueynte_ = _m'acqueynt-e_, acquaint myself.

544. _By our Lord_, to be read as _by'r Lord_. Cf. _by'r lakin_, Temp. iii. 3. 1. So again, in ll. 651, 690, 1042.

547. _Me thinketh_ (= _me think'th_), it seems to me.

550. _Wis_, certainly: 'As certainly (as I hope that) God may help me.' So in Nonne Prestes Tale, 587 (B 4598); and cf. Kn. Tale, 1928 (B 2786); Squ. Ta. F 469, &c. And see l. 683, below.

556. _Paraventure_, pronounced as _Paraunter_; Thynne so has it.

Compare this passage with the long dialogue between Troilus and Pandarus, in the latter part of the first book of Troilus.

568. Alluding to Ovid's Remedia Amoris. Accent _remédies_ on the second syllable.

569. The story of Orpheus is in Ovid's Metamorphoses, bk. x. The allusion is to the harp of Orpheus, at the sound of which the tortured had rest. Cf. Ho. of Fame, 1202:--

'To tyre on Titius growing hart the gredy Grype forbeares:
The shunning water Tantalus endeuereth not to drink;
And Danaus daughters ceast to fil their tubs that haue no brink.
Ixions wheel stood still: and downe sate Sisyphus vpon
His rolling stone.'--GOLDING'S Ovid, fol. 120.

570. Cf. Ho. of Fame, 919; Rom. Rose, 21633. Dædalus represents the mechanician. No mechanical contrivances can help the mourner.

572. Cf.

'Par Hipocras, ne Galien,
Tant fussent bon phisicien.'
Roman de la Rose, 16161.

Hippocrates and Galen are meant; see note to Cant. Tales, C 306.

579. _Y-worthe_, (who am) become; pp. of _worthen_.

582. 'For all good fortune and I are foes,' lit. angry (with each other). Hence _wroth-e_ is a plural form.

589. _S_ and _C_ were so constantly interchanged before _e_ that _Sesiphus_ could be written _Cesiphus_; and _C_ and _T_ were so often mistaken that _Cesiphus_ easily became _Tesiphus_, the form in the Tanner MS. Further, initial _T_ was sometimes replaced by _Th_; and this would give the _Thesiphus_ of MS. F.

_Sesiphus_, i. e. Sisyphus, is of course intended; it was in the author's mind in connection with the story of Orpheus just above; see note to l. 569. In the Roman de la Rose, we have the usual allusions to _Yxion_ (l. 19479), _Tentalus_, i. e. Tantalus (l. 19482), _Ticius_, i. e. Tityus (l. 19506), and _Sisifus_ (l. 19499).

But whilst I thus hold that Chaucer probably wrote _Sesiphus_, I have no doubt that he really meant _Tityus_, as is shewn by the expression _lyth_, i. e. lies extended. See Troil. i. 786, where Bell's edition has _Siciphus_, but the Campsall MS. has _Ticyus_; whilst in ed. 1532 we find _Tesiphus_.

599. With this string of contrarieties compare the Eng. version of the Roman de la Rose, 4706-4753. See p. 212, above.

614. _Abaved_, confounded, disconcerted. See Glossary.

618. Imitated from the Roman de la Rose, from l. 6644 onwards--

'Vez cum fortune le servi ...
N'est ce donc chose bien provable
Que sa roë n'est pas tenable?' ...

Jean de Meun goes on to say that Charles of Anjou killed Manfred, king of Sicily, in the first battle with him [A.D. 1266]--

'En la premeraine bataille
L'assailli por li desconfire,
_Eschec_ et _mat_ li ala dire
Desus son destrier auferrant,
Du trait d'un paonnet errant
Ou milieu de son eschiquier.'

He next speaks of Conradin, whose death was likewise caused by Charles in 1268, so that these two (Manfred and Conradin) lost all their pieces at chess--

'Cil dui, comme folz garçonnés,
Roz et fierges et paonnés,
Et chevaliers as gieus perdirent,
Et hors de l'eschiquier saillirent.'

And further, of the inventor of chess (l. 6715)--

'Car ainsinc le dist Athalus
Qui des eschez controva l'us,
Quant il traitoit d'arismetique.'

He talks of the queen being taken (at chess), l. 6735--

'Car la fierche avoit este prise
Au gieu de la premiere assise.'

He cannot recount all Fortune's tricks (l. 6879)--

'De fortune la semilleuse
Et de sa roë perilleuse
Tous les tors conter ne porroie.'

629. Cf. 'whited sepulchres'; Matt. xxiii. 27; Rom. de la Rose, 8946.

630. The MSS. and Thynne have _floures_, _flourys_. This gives no sense; we must therefore read _flour is_. For a similar rime see that of _nones_, _noon is_, in the Prologue, 523, 524. Strictly, grammar requires _ben_ rather than _is_; but when two nominatives express much the same sense, the singular verb may be used, as in Lenvoy to Bukton, 6. The sense is--'her chief glory and her prime vigour is (i. e. consists in) lying.'

634. The parallel passage is one in the Remède de Fortune, by G. de Machault:--

'_D'un oeil rit, de l'autre lerme_;
C'est l'orgueilleuse humilité,
_C'est l'envieuse charité_ [l. 642] ...
La peinture d'une vipère
Qu'est mortable;
En riens à li ne se compère.'

See Furnivall's Trial Forewords, p. 47; and compare the remarkable and elaborate description of Fortune in the Anticlaudian of Alanus de Insulis (Distinctio 8, cap. I), in Wright's Anglo-Latin Satirists, vol. ii. pp. 399, 400.

636. Chaucer seems to have rewritten the whole passage at a later period:--

'O sodeyn hap, o thou fortune instable,
Lyk to the scorpioun so deceivable,
That flaterest with thyn heed when thou wolt stinge;
Thy tayl is deeth, thurgh thyn enveniminge.
O brotil Ioye, o swete venim queynte,
O monstre, that so subtilly canst peynte
Thy giftes under hewe of stedfastnesse,
That thou deceyvest bothe more and lesse,' &c.
Cant. Tales, 9931 (E 2057).

Compare also Man of Lawes Tale, B 361, 404. 'The scorpiun is ones cunnes wurm thet haueth neb, ase me seith, sumdel iliche ase wummon, and is neddre bihinden; maketh feir semblaunt and fiketh mit te heaued, and stingeth mid te teile'; Ancren Riwle, p. 206. 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.'

642. A translated line; see note to l. 634.

651. Read--_Trow'st thou? by'r lord_; see note to l. 544.

653. _Draught_ is a move at chess; see ll. 682, 685. Thus in Caxton's Game of the Chesse--'the alphyn [bishop] goeth in vj. _draughtes_ al the tablier [board] rounde about.' So in The Tale of Beryn, 1779, 1812. It translates the F. _trait_; see note to l. 618 (second quotation).

654. '_Fers_, the piece at chess next to the king, which we and other European nations call the _queen_; though very improperly, as Hyde has observed. _Pherz_, or _Pherzan_, which is the Persian name for the same piece, signifies the King's _Chief Counsellor_, or _General_--Hist. Shahilud. [_shahi-ludii_, chess-play], pp. 88, 89.'--Tyrwhitt's Glossary. Chaucer follows Rom. Rose, where the word appears as _fierge_, l. 6688, and _fierche_, l. 6735; see note to l. 618 above. (For another use of _fers_, see note to l. 723 below.) Godefroy gives the O. F. spellings _fierce_, _fierche_, _fierge_, _firge_, and quotes two lines, which give the O. F. names of all the pieces at chess:--

'Roy, roc, chevalier, et alphin,
Fierge, et peon.'--

Caxton calls them _kyng_, _quene_, _alphyn_, _knyght_, _rook_, _pawn_. Richardson's Pers. Dict. p. 1080, gives the Pers. name of the queen as _farz[=i]_ or _farz[=i]n_, and explains _fars[=i]n_ by 'the queen at chess, a learned man'; compare Tyrwhitt's remark above. In fact, the orig. Skt. name for this piece was _mantrí_, i. e. the adviser or counsellor. He also gives the Pers. _farz_, learned; _farz_ or _firz_, the queen at chess. I suppose it is a mere chance that the somewhat similar Arab. _faras_ means 'a horse, and the knight at chess'; Richardson (as above). Oddly enough, the _latter_ word has also some connection with Chaucer, as it is the Arabic name of the 'wedge' of an astrolabe; see Chaucer's Astrolabe, Part i. § 14 (footnote), in vol. iii.

655. When a chess-player, by an oversight, loses his queen for nothing, he may, in general, as well as give up the game. Beryn was 'in hevy plyghte,' when he only lost a rook for nothing; Tale of Beryn, 1812.

660. The word _the_ before _mid_ must of course be omitted. The lines are to be scanned thus:--

'Therwith | fortun | e seid | e chek | here
And mate | in mid | pointe of | the chek | kere.'

The rime is a feminine one. Lines 660 and 661 are copied from the Rom. Rose; see note to l. 618, above. To be checkmated by an 'errant' pawn in the very middle of the board is a most ignominious way of losing the game. Cf. _check-mate_ in Troil. ii. 754.

663. _Athalus_; see note to l. 618, above. Jean de Meun follows John of Salisbury (bishop of Chartres, died 1180) in attributing the invention of chess to Attalus. 'Attalus Asiaticus, si Gentilium creditur historiis, hanc ludendi lasciuiam dicitur inuenisse ab exercitio numerorum, paululum deflexa materia;' Joan. Saresburiensis Policraticus, lib. i. c. 5. Warton (Hist. E. Poet. 1871, iii. 91) says the person meant is Attalus Philometor, king of Pergamus; who is mentioned by Pliny, Nat. Hist. xviii. 3, xxviii. 2. It is needless to explain here how chess was developed out of the old Indian game for four persons called _chaturanga_, i. e. consisting of four members or parts (Benfey's Skt. Dict. p. 6). I must refer the reader to Forbes's History of Chess, or the article on _Chess_ in the English Cyclopædia. See also the E. version of the Gesta Romanorum, ed. Herrtage, p. 70; A. Neckam, De Naturis Rerum, ed. Wright, p. 324; and Sir F. Madden's article in the Archæologia, xxiv. 203.

666. _Ieupardyes_, hazards, critical positions, problems; see note on Cant. Tales, Group G, 743.

667. _Pithagores_, put for Pythagoras; for the rime. Pythagoras of Samos, born about B.C. 570, considered that all things were founded upon numerical relations; various discoveries in mathematics, music, and astronomy, were attributed to him.

682. 'I would have made the same move'; i. e. had I had the power, I would have taken her _fers_ from her, just as she took mine.

684. _She_, i. e. Fortune; so in Thynne. The MSS. have _He_, i. e. God, which can hardly be meant.

685. The cæsural pause preserves _e_ in _draughte_ from elision. It rimes with _caughte_ (l. 682). Similar examples of 'hiatus' are not common: Ten Brink (Sprache, § 270) instances Cant. Tales, Group C, 599, 772 (Pard. Tale).

694. _Ne in_ is to be read as _nin_ (twice); see note to l. 343.

700. 'There lies in reckoning (i. e. is debited to me in the account), as regards sorrow, for no amount at all.' In his account with Sorrow he is owed nothing, having received payment in full. There is no real difficulty here.

705. 'I have nothing'; for (1) Sorrow has paid in full, and so owes me nothing; (2) I have no gladness left; (3) I have lost my true wealth; (4) and I have no pleasure.

708. 'What is past is not yet to come.'

709. _Tantale_, Tantalus. He has already referred to _Sisyphus_; see note to l. 589. In the Roman de la Rose, we find _Yxion_, l. 19479; _Tentalus_, l. 19482; and _Sisifus_, l. 19499; as I have already remarked.

717. Again from the Rom. de la Rose, l. 5869--

'Et ne priseras une prune
Toute la roë de fortune.
A _Socrates_ seras semblables,
Qui tant fu fers et tant estables,
Qu'il n'ert liés en prospérités,
Ne tristes en aversités.'

Chaucer's _three strees_ (i. e. straws) is Jean de Meun's _prune_.

723. By _the ferses twelve_ I understand all the pieces except the king, which could not be taken. The guess in Bell's Chaucer says 'all the pieces except the pawns'; but as a player only has _seven_ pieces beside the pawns and king, we must then say that the knight exaggerates. My own reckoning is thus: pawns, _eight_; queen, bishop, rook, knight, _four_; total, _twelve_. The fact that each player has _two_ of three of these, viz. of the _bishop_, _rook_, and _knight_, arose from the conversion of _chatura[.n]ga_, in which each of four persons had a king, bishop, knight, rook [to keep to modern names] and four pawns, into chess, in which each of two persons had two kings (afterwards king and queen), two bishops, knights, and rooks, and eight pawns. The bishop, knight, and rook, were thus duplicated, and so count but one apiece, which makes _three_ (sorts of) pieces; and the queen is a _fourth_, for the king cannot be taken. The case of the pawns was different, for each pawn had an individuality of its own, no two being made alike (except in inferior sets). Caxton's Game of the Chesse shews this clearly; he describes each of the eight pawns separately, and gives a different figure to each. According to him, the pawns were (beginning from the King's Rook's Pawn) the Labourer, Smyth, Clerke (or Notary), Marchaunt, Physicien, Tauerner, Garde, and Ribauld. They denoted 'all sorts and conditions of men'; and this is why our common saying of 'tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, gentleman, apothecary, ploughboy, thief' enumerates _eight_ conditions[288].

As the word _fers_ originally meant counsellor or monitor of the king, it could be applied to any of the pieces. There was a special reason for its application to each of the pawns; for a pawn, on arriving at its last square, could not be exchanged (as now) for any piece at pleasure, but only for a queen, i. e. the fers _par excellence_. For, as Caxton says again, 'he [the pawn] may not goo on neyther side till he hath been in the fardest ligne of theschequer, & that he hath taken the nature of the draughtes of the quene, & than he is a _fiers_, and than may he goo on al sides cornerwyse fro poynt to poynt onely as the quene'; &c.

726. These stock examples all come together in the Rom. de la Rose; viz. _Jason_ and _Medee_, at l. 13433; _Philis_ and _Demophon_, at l. 13415; '_Dido_, roine de Cartage,' at l. 13379. The story of Echo and Narcissus is told fully, in an earlier passage (see ll. 1469-1545 of the English version, at p. 154); also that of 'Dalida' and 'Sanson' in a later passage, at l. 16879. See also the Legends of Dido, Medea, and Phillis in the Legend of Good Women; and the story of Sampson in the Monkes Tale, B 3205:--

'Ne Narcissus, the faire,' &c.; Kn. Tale, 1083 (A 1941).

'And dye he moste, he seyde, as dide Ekko
For Narcisus'; C. T. 11263 (Frank. Tale, F 951).

779. M. Sandras points out the resemblance to a passage in G. de Machault's Remède de Fortune:--

'Car le droit estat d'innocence
Ressemblent (?) proprement la table
_Blanche_, polie, _qui est able_
_A recevoir_, sans nul contraire,
Ce qu'on y veut peindre ou portraire.'

The rime of _table_ and _able_ settles the point. Mr. Brock points out a parallel passage in Boethius, which Chaucer thus translates:--'the soule hadde ben naked of it-self, as a mirour or a clene parchemin.... Right as we ben wont som tyme by a swifte pointel to ficchen lettres emprented in the smothenesse or in the pleinnesse of the table of wex, or in parchemin that ne hath no figure ne note in it'; bk. v. met. 4. But I doubt if Chaucer knew much of Boethius in 1369; and in the present passage he clearly refers to a prepared white surface, not to a tablet of wax. 'Youth and white paper take any impression'; Ray's Proverbs.

791. An allusion to the old proverb which is given in Hending in the form--'Whose yong lerneth, olt [old] he ne leseth'; Hending's Prov. l. 45. Kemble gives the medieval Latin--'Quod puer adsuescit, leviter dimittere nescit'; Gartner, Dicteria, p. 24 b. Cf. Horace, Epist. i. 2. 69; also Rom. de la Rose, 13094.

799. John of Gaunt married Blaunche at the age of nineteen.

805. Imitated from Machault's Dit du Vergier and Fontaine Amoureuse.

'Car il m'est vis que je veoie,
Au joli prael ou j'estoie,
La plus tres belle compaignie
Qu'oncques fust veue ne oïe:'
Dit du Vergier, ed. Tarbé, p. 14.

'Tant qu'il avint, qu'en une compagnie
Où il avait mainte dame jolie
Juene, gentil, joïeuse et envoisie
_Vis_, par Fortune,
(Qui de mentir à tous est trop commune),
_Entre les autres l'une_
Qui, tout aussi _com li solaus la lune_
_Veint de clarté,_
_Avait-elle les autres sormonté_
_De pris, d'onneur, de grace, de biauté;' &c._
Fontaine Amoureuse (in Trial Forewords, p. 47).

These are, no doubt, the lines to which Tyrwhitt refers in his remarks on the present passage in a note to the last paragraph of the Persones Tale. Observe also how closely the fifth line of the latter passage answers to l. 812.

823. _Is_, which is; as usual. I propose this reading. That of the MSS. is very bad, viz. 'Than any other planete in heven.'

824. 'The seven stars' generally mean the planets; but, as the sun and moon and planets have just been mentioned, the reference may be to the well-known seven stars in Ursa Major commonly called Charles's Wain. In later English, the _seven stars_ sometimes mean the Pleiades; see _Pleiade_ in Cotgrave's French Dictionary, and G. Douglas, ed. Small, i. 69. 23, iii. 147. 15. The phrase is, in fact, ambiguous; see note to P. Plowman, C. xviii. 98.

831. Referring to Christ and His twelve apostles.

835-7. Resembles Le Roman de la Rose, 1689-91 (see p. 164)--

'Li Diex d'Amors, qui, l'arc tendu,
Avoit toute jor atendu
A moi porsivre et espier.'

840. Koch proposes to omit _maner_, and read--'No counseyl, but at hir loke.' It is more likely that _counseyl_ has slipped in, as a gloss upon _reed_, and was afterwards substituted for it.

849. _Carole_, dance round, accompanying the dance with a song. The word occurs in the Rom. de la Rose several times; thus at l. 747, we have:--

'Lors veissies _carole_ aler,
Et gens mignotement baler.' (See p. 125, above.)

Cf. Chaucer's version, ll. 759, 810; also 744. Dante uses the pl. _carole_ (Parad. xxiv. 16) to express swift circular movements; and Cary quotes a comment upon it to the effect that '_carolæ_ dicuntur tripudium quoddam quod fit saliendo, ut Napolitani faciunt et dicunt.' He also quotes the expression 'grans danses et grans _karolles_' from Froissart, ed. 1559, vol. i. cap. 219. That it meant singing as well as dancing appears from the Rom. de la Rose, l. 731.

858. Chaucer gives Virginia golden hair; Doct. Tale, C 38. Compare the whole description of the maiden in the E. version of the Rom. of the Rose, ll. 539-561 (p. 116, above).

861. _Of good mochel_, of an excellent size; _mochel_ = size, occurs in P. Plowman, B. xvi. 182. Scan the line--

'Simpl' of | good moch | el noght | to wyde.'

894. 'In reasonable cases, that involve responsibility.'

908. Somewhat similar are ll. 9-18 of the Doctoures Tale.

916. Scan by reading--They n' shóld' hav' foúnd-e, &c.

917. _A wikked signe_, a sign, or mark, of wickedness.

919. Imitated from Machault's Remède de Fortune (see Trial Forewords, p. 48):--

'_Et sa gracieuse parole_,
Qui n'estoit diverse ne folle,
Etrange, _ne mal ordenée_,
Hautaine, mès bien affrenèe,
Cueillie à point et de saison,
_Fondée sur toute raison_,
Tant plaisant et _douce à oïr_,
Que chascun faisoit resjoir'; &c.

Line 922 is taken from this word for word.

927-8. 'Nor that scorned less, nor that could better heal,' &c.

943. _Canel-boon_, collar-bone; lit. channel-bone, i. e. bone with a channel behind it. See Three Metrical Romances (Camden Soc.), p. 19; Gloss. to Babees Book, ed. Furnivall; and the Percy Folio MS., i. 387. I put _and_ for _or_; the sense requires a conjunction.

948. Here _Whyte_, representing the lady's name, is plainly a translation of _Blaunche_. The insertion of _whyte_ in l. 905, in the existing authorities, is surely a blunder, and I therefore have omitted it. It anticipates the climax of the description, besides ruining the scansion of the line.

950. There is here some resemblance to some lines in G. Machault's Remède de Fortune (see Trial Forewords, p. 49):--

--'ma Dame, qui est clamée
De tous, sur toutes belle et bonne,
_Chascun por droit ce nom li donne_.'

957. For _hippes_, Bell prints _lippes_; a comic reading.

958. This reading means--'I knew in her no other defect'; which, as _no_ defect has been mentioned, seems inconsistent. Perhaps we should read _no maner lak_, i. e. no 'sort of defect in her (to cause) that all her limbs should not be proportionate.'

964. A common illustration. See Rom. de la Rose, 7448; Alexander and Dindimus, ll. 233-5. Duke Francesco Maria had, for one of his badges, a lighted candle by which others are lighted; with the motto _Non degener addam_, i. e. I will give without loss; see Mrs. Palliser's Historic Devices, p. 263. And cf. Cant. Ta. D 333-5.

973. The accents seem to fall on _She_ and _have_, the _e_ in _wold-e_ being elided. Otherwise, read: She wóld-e háv' be.

982. Liddell and Scott explain Gk. [Greek: phoinix] as 'the fabulous Egyptian bird phoenix, first in Hesiod, Fragment 50. 4; then in Herodotus, ii. 73.' Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum Naturale, bk. 16. c. 74, refers us to Isidore, Ambrosius (lib. 5), Solinus, Pliny (lib. 10), and Liber de Naturis Rerum; see Solinus, Polyhistor. c. 33. 11; A. Neckam, De Naturis Rerum, c. 34. Philip de Thaun describes it in his Bestiaire, l. 1089; see Popular Treatises on Science, ed. Wright, p. 113. 'The Phoenix of Arabia passes all others. Howbeit, I cannot tell what to make of him; and first of all, whether it be a tale or no, that there is neuer but one of them in all the world, and the same not commonly seen'; Holland, tr. of Pliny, bk. 10. c. 2.

'Tous jors est-il ung seul _Fenis_'; &c.
Rom. de la Rose, 16179.

'Una est, quæ reparet, seque ipsa reseminet, ales;
Assyrii phoenica uocant.'--Ovid, Met. xv. 392.

Scan: Th' soléyn | feníx | of A | rabye ||. Cf. 'Com la fenix souleine est au sejour En Arabie': Gower, Balade 35.

987. Chaucer refers to Esther again; e.g. in his Merchant's Tale (E 1371, 1744); Leg. of G. Women, prol. 250; and in the Tale of Melibee (B 2291).

997. Cf. Vergil, Æn. i. 630: 'Haud ignara mali.'

1021. _In balaunce_, i. e. in a state of suspense. F. _en balance_; Rom. de la Rose, 13871, 16770.

1024. This sending of lovers on expeditions, by way of proving them, was in accordance with the manners of the time. Gower explains the whole matter, in his Conf. Amant, lib. 4 (ed. Pauli, ii. 56):--

'Forthy who secheth loves grace,
Where that these worthy women are,
He may nought than him-selve spare
Upon his travail for to serve,
Wherof that he may thank deserve,...
So that by londe and ek by ship
He mot travaile for worship
And make many hastif rodes,
Somtime in _Pruse_, somtime in Rodes,
And somtime into _Tartarie_,
So that these heralds on him crie
"Vailant! vailant! lo, where he goth!"' &c.

Chaucer's Knight (in the Prologue) sought for renown in _Pruce_, _Alisaundre_, and _Turkye_.

There is a similar passage in Le Rom. de la Rose, 18499-18526. The first part of Machault's Dit du Lion (doubtless the Book of the Lion of which Chaucer's translation is now lost) is likewise taken up with the account of lovers who undertook feats, in order that the news of their deeds might reach their ladies. Among the places to which they used to go are mentioned _Alexandres_, Alemaigne, Osteriche, Behaigne, Honguerie, Danemarche, _Prusse_, Poulaine, Cracoe, _Tartarie_, &c. Some even went 'jusqu'à l'Arbre sec, Ou li oisel pendent au bec.' This alludes to the famous _Arbre sec_ or Dry Tree, to reach which was a feat indeed; see Yule's edition of Marco Polo, i. 119; Maundeville, ed. Halliwell, p. 68; Mätzner, Sprachproben, ii. 185.

As a specimen of the modes of expression then prevalent, Warton draws attention to a passage in Froissart, c. 81, where Sir Walter Manny prefaces a gallant charge upon the enemy with the words--'May I never be embraced by my mistress and dear friend, if I enter castle or fortress before I have unhorsed one of these gallopers.'

1028. _Go hoodles_, travel without even the protection of a hood; by way of bravado. Warton, Hist. Eng. Poet. § 18 (ed. Hazlitt, iii. 4), says of a society called the Fraternity of the Penitents of Love--'Their object was to prove the excess of their love, by shewing with an invincible fortitude and consistency of conduct ... that they could bear extremes of heat and cold.... It was a crime to wear fur on a day of the most piercing cold; or to appear _with a hood_, cloak, gloves or muff.' See the long account of this in the Knight de la Tour Landry, ed. Wright, p. 169; and cf. The Squyer of Low Degree, 171-200.

What is meant by _the drye se_ (dry sea) is disputed; but it matters little, for the general idea is clear. Mr. Brae, in the Appendix to his edition of Chaucer's Astrolabe (p. 101), has a long note on the present passage. Relying on the above quotation from Warton, he supposes _hoodless_ to have reference to a practice of going unprotected in winter, and says that 'dry sea' may refer to any _frozen_ sea. But it may equally refer to going unprotected in summer, in which case he offers us an alternative suggestion, that 'any arid sandy desert might be metaphorically called a dry sea.' The latter is almost a sufficient explanation; but if we must be particular, Mr. Brae has yet more to tell us. He says that, at p. 1044 (Basle edition) of Sebastian Munster's Cosmographie, there is a description of a large lake which was dry in summer. 'It is said that there is a lake near the city of Labac, adjoining the plain of Zircknitz [Czirknitz], which in winter-time becomes of great extent.... But in summer the water drains away, the fish expire, the bed of the lake is ploughed up, corn grows to maturity, and, after the harvest is over, the waters return, &c. The Augspourg merchants have assured me of this, and it has been since confirmed to me by Vergier, the bishop of Cappodistria' [Capo d'Istria]. The lake still exists, and is no fable. It is the variable lake of _Czirknitz_, which sometimes covers sixty-three square miles, and is sometimes dry. It is situate in the province of Krain, or Carniola; _Labac_ is the modern Laybach or Laibach, N.E. of Trieste. See the articles _Krain_, _Czirknitz_ in the Engl. Cyclopædia, and the account of the lake in The Student, Sept. 1869.

That Chaucer really referred to this very lake becomes almost certain, if we are to accept Mr. Brae's explanation of the next line. See the next note.

1029. _Carrenare._ Mr. Brae suggests that the reference is to the 'gulf of the _Carnaro_ or _Quarnaro_ in the Adriatic,' to which Dante alludes in the Inferno, ix. 113, as being noted for its perils. Cary's translation runs thus:--

'As where Rhone stagnates on the plains of Arles,
Or as at Pola, near _Quarnaro's_ gulf,
That closes Italy and laves her bounds,
The place is all _thick spread with sepulchres_.'

It is called in Black's Atlas the Channel of Quarnerolo, and is the gulf which separates Istria from Croatia. The head of the gulf runs up towards the province of Carniola, and approaches within forty miles (at the outside) of the lake of Czirknitz (see note above). I suppose that _Quarnaro_ may be connected with _Carn-iola_ and the _Carn-ic_ Alps, but popular etymology interpreted it to mean 'charnel-house,' from its evil reputation. This appears from the quotations cited by Mr. Brae; he says that the Abbé Fortis quotes a Paduan writer, Palladio Negro, as saying--'E regione Istriæ, sinu Palatico, quem nautæ _carnarium_ vocitant'; and again, Sebastian Munster, in his Cosmographie, p. 1044 (Basle edition) quotes a description by Vergier, Bishop of Capo d'Istria--'par deça le gouffre enragé lequel on appelle vulgairement _Carnarie_, d'autantque le plus souvent on le voit agité de tempestes horribles; et là s'engloutissent beaucoup de navires et se perdent plusieurs hommes.' In other words, the true name _Quarnaro_ or _Carnaro_ was turned by the sailors into _Carnario_, which means in Italian 'the shambles'; see Florio's Dict., ed. 1598. This _Carnario_ might become _Careynaire_ or _Carenare_ in Chaucer's English, by association with the M.E. _careyne_ or _caroigne_, carrion. This word is used by Chaucer in the Kn. Tale, 1155 (Six-text, A 2013), where the Ellesmere MS. has _careyne_, and the Cambridge and Petworth MSS. have _careyn_.

For myself, I am well satisfied with the above explanation. It is probable, and it suffices; and stories about this _dry sea_ may easily have been spread by Venetian sailors. I may add that Maundeville mentions 'a gravely see' in the land of Prestre John, 'that is alle gravele and sonde, with-outen any drope of watre; and it ebbethe and flowethe in grete wawes, as other sees don': ed. Halliwell, p. 272. This curious passage was pointed out by Prof. Hales, in a letter in the Academy, Jan. 28, 1882, p. 65.

We certainly ought to reject the explanation given with great assurance in the Saturday Review, July, 1870, p. 143, col. 1, that the allusion is to the chain of mountains called the _Carena_ or _Charenal_, a continuation of the Atlas Mountains in Africa. The writer says--'Leonardo Dati (A.D. 1470), speaking of Africa, mentions a chain of mountains in continuation of the Atlas, 300 miles long, "commonly called Charenal." In the fine chart of Africa by Juan de la Coxa (1500), this chain is made to stretch as far as Egypt, and bears the name of Carena. La Salle, who was born in 1398, lays down the same chain, which corresponds, says Santarem (Histoire de la Cosmographie, iii. 456), to the [Greek: Karênê] of Ptolemy. These allusions place it beyond doubt [?] that the _drie see_ of Chaucer was the Great Sahara, the return from whence [_sic_] homewards would be by the chain of the Atlas or [_sic_] Carena.' On the writer's own shewing, the Carena was _not_ the Atlas, but a chain stretching thence towards Egypt; not an obvious way of returning home! Whereas, if the 'dry sea' were the lake of Czirknitz, the obvious way of getting away from it would be to take ship in the neighbouring gulf of Quarnaro. And how could Chaucer come to hear of this remote chain of mountains?

1034. 'But why do I tell you my story?' I. e. let me go on with it, and tell you the result.

1037. Again imitated from Machault's Remède de Fortune:--

'Car c'est mes cuers, c'est ma creance,
C'est _mes desirs_, c'est _m'esperaunce_,
C'est _ma santé_....
C'est _toute ma bonne éürté_,
C'est ce qui me soustient en vie,' &c.

Line 1039 is closely translated. See Furnivall's Trial Forewords, p. 48.