Chapter XVII: Part 17

715. Tyrwhitt, in his Glossary, remarks--'_God you see!_ 7751 [D. 2169]; _God him see!_ 4576 [B. 156]. May God keep you, or him, in his sight! In Troilus, ii. 85, it is fuller[27]:--_God you save and see!_' Gower has--'And than I bidde, _God hir see!_' Conf. Amant. bk. iv. (ed. Chalmers, p. 116, col. 2, or ed. Pauli, ii. 96). In Grimm's Teutonic Mythology, ed. Stallybrass, i. 21, we find a similar phrase in O. H. German:--'daz si got iemer schouwe'; Iwain, l. 794. Cf. 'now loke the owre lorde!' P. Plowman, B. i. 207. See also l. 766 below.

727. This is a great improvement upon the Italian Tale, which represents the hermit as _fleeing_ from death. 'Fratelli miei, io fuggo la morte, che mi vien dietro cacciando mi.'

Professor Kittredge, of Harvard University, informs me that ll. 727-733 are imitated from the first Elegy of Maximian, of which ll. 1-4, 223-8 are as follows:--

'Almula cur cessas finem properare senectus?
Cur et in hoc fesso corpore tarda sedes?
Solue, precor, miseram tali de carcere uitam;
Mors est iam requies, uiuere poena mihi....
Hinc est quod baculo incumbens ruitura senectus
Assiduo pigram uerbere pulsat humum.
[288]
Et numerosa mouens certo uestigia passu
Talia rugato creditur ore loqui:
"Suscipe me, genetrix, nati miserere laborum,
Membra uelis gremio fessa fouere tuo."'

Cf. Calderon, Les Tres Justicias en Una; Act ii. sc. 1.

731. _leve moder_, dear mother Earth; see 'genetrix' above.

734. _cheste._ Mr. Jephson (in Bell's edition) is puzzled here. He takes _cheste_ to mean a coffin, which is certainly the sense in the Clerk's Prologue, E. 29. The simple solution is that _cheste_ refers here, not to a coffin, but to the box for holding clothes which, in olden times, almost invariably stood in every bedroom, at the foot of the bed. 'At the foot of the bed there was usually an iron-bound hutch or locker, which served both as a seat, and as a repository for the apparel and wealth of the owner, who, sleeping with his sword by his side, was prepared to protect it against the midnight thief'; Our English Home, p. 101. It was also called a coffer, a hutch, or an ark. The old man is ready, in fact, to exchange his chest, containing all his worldly gear, for a single hair-cloth, to be used as his shroud.

743. In the margin of MSS. E. Hn. and Pt. is the quotation 'Coram canuto capite consurge,' from Levit. xix. 32. Hence we must understand _Agayns_, in l. 743, to mean _before_, or _in presence of_. Cf. B. 3702.

748. _God be with you_ is said, with probability, to have been the original of our modern unmeaning _Good bye!_ _go or ryde_, a general phrase for locomotion; _go_ here means _walk_. Cp. 'ryde or go,' Kn. Tale, A. 1351. Cf. note to l. 866.

771. The readings are:--E. Hn. Cm. _an .viij._; Ln. _a .vij._; Cp. Pt. Hl. _a seuen_. The word _eighte_ is dissyllabic; cf. A. S. _eahta_, Lat. _octo_. _Wel ny an eighte busshels_ = very nearly the quantity of eight bushels. The mention of _florins_ is quite in keeping with the Italian character of the poem. Those coins were so named because originally coined at Florence, the first coinage being in 1252; note in Cary's Dante, Inferno, c. xxx. The expression 'floreyn of florence' occurs in The Book of Quintessence, ed. Furnivall, p. 6. The value of an English florin was 6s. 8d.; see note to Piers Plowman, B. ii. 143. There is an excellent note on _florins_ in Thynne's Animadversions on Speght's Chaucer, ed. Furnivall, p. 45.

781. In allusion to the old proverb--'Lightly come, lightly go.' Cotgrave, s. v. _Fleute_, gives the corresponding French proverb thus:--'Ce qui est venu par la fleute s'en retourne avec le tabourin; that the pipe hath gathered, the tabour scattereth; goods ill gotten are commonly ill spent.' In German--'wie gewonnen, so zerronnen.'

782. _wende_, would have weened, would have supposed. It is the past tense subjunctive.

790. _doon us honge_, lit. cause (men) to hang us; we should now say, cause us to be hanged. 'The Anglo-Saxons nominally punished theft with death, if above 12d. value; but the criminal could redeem [289] his life by a ransom. In the 9th of Henry I. this power of redemption was taken away, 1108. The punishment of theft was very severe in England, till mitigated by Peel's Acts, 9 and 10 Geo. IV. 1829.'--Haydn, s. v. _Theft_.

793. To _draw cuts_ is to draw lots; see Prologue, 835, 838, 845. A number of straws were held by one of the company; the rest drew one apiece, and whoever drew the longest (or the shortest) was the one on whom the lot fell. The fatal straw was the _cut_; cf. Welsh _cwtws_, a lot. In France, the lot fell on him who drew the longest straw; so that their phrase was--'tirer la longue paille.'

797. So in the Italian story--'rechi del pane e del vino,' let him fetch bread and wine.

806-894. Here Chaucer follows the general sense of the Italian story rather closely, but with certain amplifications.

807. _That oon_, the one; _that other_, the other (vulgarly, _the tother_).

819. _conseil_, a secret; as in P. Plowman, B. v. 168. We still say--'to keep one's own counsel.'

838. _rolleth_, revolves; cf. D. 2217, Troil. v. 1313.

844. So the Italian story--'Il Demonio ... mise in cuore a costui,' &c.; the devil put it in his heart; see vol. iii. p. 441.

848. _leve_, leave. 'That he had leave to bring him to sorrow.'

851-878. Of this graphic description there is no trace in the Italian story as we now have it. Cf. Rom. and Juliet, v. 1.

860. _al-so_, as. The sense is--as (I hope) God may save my soul. That our modern _as_ is for _als_, which is short for _also_, from the A. S. _eall-swá_, is now well known. This fact was doubted by Mr. Singer, but Sir F. Madden, in his Reply to Mr. Singer's remarks upon Havelok the Dane, accumulated such a mass of evidence upon the subject as to set the question at rest for ever. It follows that _as_ and _also_ are doublets, or various spellings of the same word.

865. _sterve_, die; A. S. _steorfan_. The cognate German _sterben_ retains the old general sense. See l. 888 below.

866. _goon a paas_, walk at an ordinary foot-pace; so also, _a litel more than paas_, a little faster than at a foot-pace, Prol. 825. Cotgrave has--'Aller le pas, to pace, or go at a foot-pace; to walk fair and softly, or faire and leisurely.' _nat but_, no more than only; cf. North of England _nobbut_. The time meant would be about twenty minutes at most.

888. In the Italian story--'amendue caddero morti,' both of them fell dead; see vol. iii. p. 442.

889. _Avicen_, Avicenna; mentioned in the Prologue, l. 432. Avicenna, or Ibn-Sina, a celebrated Arabian philosopher and physician, born near Bokhara A.D. 980, died A.D. 1037. His chief work was a treatise on medicine known as the Canon ('Kitâb al-Kânûn fi'l-Tibb,' that is, 'Book of the Canon in Medicine'). This book, alluded to in the next line, is divided into books and sections; and the Arabic word for 'section' is in the Latin version denoted by _fen_, from the Arabic _fann_, a part of any science. Chaucer's expression is not quite [290] correct; he seems to have taken _canon_ in its usual sense of rule, whereas it is really the title of the whole work. It is much as if one were to speak of Dante's work in the terms--'such as Dante never wrote in any Divina Commedia nor in any canto.' Lib. iv. Fen 1 of Avicenna's Canon treats 'De Venenis.'

895. Against this line is written, in MS. E. only, the word 'Auctor'; to shew that the paragraph contained in ll. 895-903 is a reflection by the author.

897. The final _e_ in _glutonye_ is preserved by the caesural pause; but the scansion of the line is more easily seen by supposing it suppressed. Hence in order to scan the line, suppress the final _e_ in _glutonye_, lay the accent on the second _u_ in _luxúrie_, and slur over the final _-ie_ in that word. Thus--

O glút | oný' | luxú | r_ie_ and hás | ardrýë ||

904. _good' men_ is the common phrase of address to hearers in old homilies, answering to the modern 'dear brethren.' The Pardoner, having told his tale (after which Chaucer himself has thrown in a moral reflection), proceeds to improve his opportunity by addressing the audience in his usual professional style; see l. 915.

907. _noble_, a coin worth 6s. 8d., first coined by Edward III. about 1339. See note to P. Plowman, B. iii. 45.

908. So in P. Plowman, B. prol. 75, it is said of the Pardoner that he 'raughte with his ragman [bull] _rynges and broches_.'

910. _Cometh_ is to be pronounced _Com'th_, as in Prol. 839; so also in l. 925 below.

920. _male_, bag; see Prol. 694. Cf. E. _mail-bag_.

935. The first two syllables in _peravénture_ are to be very rapidly pronounced; it is not uncommon to find the spelling _peraunter_, as in P. Plowman, B. xi. 10.

937. _which a_, what sort of a, how great a, what a.

945. _Ye, for a grote_, yea, even for a groat, i. e. 4d.

946. _have_ I, may I have; an imprecation.

947. _so theech_, a colloquialism for _so thee ich_, as I may thrive, as I hope to thrive. The Host proceeds to abuse the Pardoner.

951. This is a reference to the 'Invention of the Cross,' or finding of the true cross by St. Helen, the mother of Constantine; commemorated on May 3. See Chambers, Book of Days, i. 586; Alban Butler, Lives of the Saints.

962. _right ynough_, quite enough; _right_ is an adverb. Cf. l. 960.

* * * * *

[291]

NOTES TO GROUP D.

THE WIFE OF BATH'S PROLOGUE.

There is nothing whatever to connect this Prologue with any preceding Tale. In MS. E. and most others, it follows the Man of Law's Tale, which cannot be right, as that Tale must be followed by the Shipman's Prologue. Curiously enough, that Prologue _does_ follow the Man of Law's Tale in the Harleian MS., but the Wife of Bath's Tale is made to follow next, in place of the Shipman's Tale.

In MS. Pt., and several others, the Wife's Prologue follows the Merchant's Tale; such is the arrangement in edd. 1532 and 1561. This is possible, as the Merchant's Tale ends a Fragment, and the Wife's Prologue begins one; but it is easier to fit the lines at the end of the Merchant's Tale to the Squire's Prologue. In the Royal MS. 18. C. 2, and in MSS. Laud 739 and Barlow 20, there is an attempt to introduce the Wife's Prologue by some spurious lines which are printed in vol. iii. p. 446. I just note that we have a genuine Epilogue to the Merchant's Tale (see E. 2419-2440); which is quite enough to put the above lines out of court.

MS. Ln. has a different arrangement. It gives eight spurious lines at the end of the Squire's Tale, and then four more spurious lines to link them with the Wife's Prologue; see vol. iii. p. 446.

In the Ellesmere MS. there are numerous quotations in the margin, as will be noted in due course. In the Essays on Chaucer, pp. 293, the Rev. W. W. Woollcombe has shewn that the passages which seem to be taken from John of Salisbury are really taken from Jerome, whom John copied, verbally, at some length. I may add, that I came independently to the same conclusion; indeed, it becomes obvious, on investigation, that such was the case. Chaucer's chief sources for this Prologue are: Jerome's Epistle against Jovinian, and Le Roman de la Rose. I quote the former (frequently) from Hieronymi Opus Epistolarum, edited by Erasmus, printed at Basle in 1524.

1. _auctoritee_, authoritative text, quotable statement of a good author. 'Though there were no written statement on the subject, my own experience would enable me to speak of the evils of marriage.' Cf. the [292] character of the Wife in the Prologue, A. 445-476. Lines 1-3 are imitated from Le Rom. de la Rose, 13006-10.

6. So in A. 460, with _she hadde_ for _I have had_; see note to that line.

7. The alternative reading (in the footnote) does not agree with l. 6. MS. E. is quite right here. Probably MS. Cm. would have given us the same reading, but it is here mutilated.

11. In E., a sidenote has:--'In Cana Galilee'; from John, ii. 1.

12-13. In E., a sidenote has:--'Qui enim semel iuit ad nuptias, docuit semel esse nubendum.' This is from Hieronymi lib. i. c. Jovinianum; Epist. (ut supra), t. ii. p. 29. But the edition has _uenit_ for _iuit_, and _semel docuit_.

14-22. This also is from Jerome, as above (p. 28):--'Siquidem et illa in Euangelio Iohannis Samaritana, sextum se maritum habere dicens, arguitur a domino, quod non sit uir eius. Vbi enim numerus maritorum est, ibi uir, qui proprie unus est, esse desiit.' Cf. John, iv. 18.

23-25. In the margin of E. we find:--'Non est uxorum numerus diffinitus.' About 15 lines after the last quotation, we find in Jerome:--'non esse uxorum numerum definitum.' This is immediately preceded (in Jerome) by a quotation from St. Paul (1 Cor. vii. 29), which is also quoted in the margin of E.

28. In the margin of E.--'Crescite et multiplicamini'; Gen. i. 28. The text was suggested by the fact that Jerome quotes it near the beginning of his letter (p. 18). Soon after (p. 19), he quotes Matt. xix. 5, which Chaucer quotes accordingly in l. 31.

33. _bigamye._ 'Bigamy, according to the canonists, consisted not only in marrying two wives at a time, but in marrying two spinsters successively.'--Bell.

_octogamye_, marriage of eight husbands. This queer word is due to Jerome, and affords clear proof of Chaucer's indebtedness. 'Non damno _digamos_, imò nec _trigamos_; et (si dici potest) _octogamos_'; p. 29. Cf. 'A dodecagamic Potter,' in a note to 'And a polygamic Potter,' in Shelley's Prologue to Peter Bell the Third.

35. _here_, hear; a gloss in E. has 'audi.' See 1 Kings, xi. 3.

44. Tyrwhitt says that, after this verse, some MSS. (as Camb. Dd. 4. 24, Ii. 3. 26, and Egerton 2726) have the six lines following:--

'Of whiche I have pyked out the beste
Both of here nether purs and of here cheste.
Diverse scoles maken parfyt clerkes,
And diverse practyk in many sondry werkes
Maken the werkman parfyt sekirly;
Of five husbondes scoleryng am I.'

He adds--'if these lines are not Chaucer's, they are certainly more in his manner than the generality of the imitations of him. Perhaps he wrote them, and afterwards blotted them out. They come in but [293] awkwardly here, and he has used the principal idea in another place:--

For sondry scoles maken sotil clerkes;
Womman of many scoles half a clerk is'; E. 1427.

I beg leave to endorse Tyrwhitt's opinion; the six lines are certainly genuine, and I therefore repeat them, in a better spelling and form.

Of whiche I have y-piked out the beste,
Bothe of hir nether purs and of hir cheste.
Diverse scoles maken parfit clerkes;
Divers praktyk in many sondry werkes
Maketh the werkman parfit sekirly;
Of fyve housbondes scolering am I.

I know of no other example of _scoler-ing_, i. e. young scholar.

46. In the margin of E. is here written--'Si autem non continent, nubant'; from 1 Cor. vii. 9.

47. In the margin of E. is a quotation from Jerome, p. 28; but it is really from the Vulgate, 1 Cor. vii. 39; viz.--'Quod si dormierit uir eius, libera est; cui uult, nubat, tantum in Domino.' Cf. Rom. vii. 3.

51-52. Alluding to 1 Cor. vii. 28, and 1 Cor. vii. 9, here quoted in the margin of E.

54. 'Primus Lamech sanguinarius et homicida, unam carnem in duas diuisit uxores'; Jerome (as above), p. 29, l. 1; partly quoted here in the margin of E. Cf. Gen. iv. 19-23. 'There runs through the whole of this doctrine about bigamy a confusion between marrying twice and having two wives at once.'--Bell. See the allusions to Lamech in F. 550, and Anelida, 150.

55-56. In the margin of E. is:--'Abraham trigamus: Iacob quadrigamus.' Discussed by Jerome, p. 19, near the bottom.

61. 'Ecce, inquit [Iouinianus], Apostolus profitetur de uirginibus Domini se non habere praeceptum; et qui cum autoritate de maritis et uxoribus iusserat, non audet imperare quod Dominus non praecepit.... Frustra enim iubetur, quod in arbitrio eius ponitur cui iussum est'; &c.--Jerome (as above), p. 25.

65. See 1 Cor. vii. 25, here quoted in the margin of E.

69. 'Si uirginitatem Dominus imperasset, uidebatur nuptias condemnare, et hominum auferre seminarium, unde et ipsa uirginitas nascitur'; Jerome, p. 25.

75. Tyrwhitt aptly quotes from Lydgate's Falls of Princes, fol. xxvi:--

'And oft it happeneth, he that hath best ron
Doth not the _spere_ like his desert possede.'

We must conclude that a _dart_ or _spear_ was the prize given (in some games) to the best runner. That _dart_ here means 'prize,' appears from another proof altogether. For in the margin of E. we here find a quotation from Jerome, p. 26, which runs in a fuller form, thus:--'Proponit [Greek: agônothetês] _praemium_, inuitat ad cursum, tenet in manu [294] uirginitatis _brauium_, ... et clamitat, ... qui potest capere, capiat.' The word _brauium_, i. e. prize in a race, is borrowed from the Vulgate, 1 Cor. ix. 24, where the Greek has [Greek: brabeion]. 'Catch who so may,' in l. 76, represents 'qui potest capere, capiat.' Hence _cacche_ here means 'win.'

81. Alluding to 1 Cor. vii. 7, here quoted in E.

84. 'Haec autem dico secundum indulgentiam'; 1 Cor. vii. 6.

87. Alluding to 1 Cor. vii. 1, here quoted in E.

89. _tassemble_, for _to assemble_, to bring together.

Cf. 'qui ignem tetigerit, statim aduritur,' &c.--Jerome, p. 21.

91. Cf. 'Simulque considera, quod aliud donum uirginitatis sit, aliud nuptiarum'; Jerome (as above), ii. 22.

96. _preferre_ is evidently a neuter verb here, meaning 'be preferable to.'

101. _tree_, wood; alluding to 2 Tim. ii. 20.

103. _a propre yifte_, a gift peculiar to him; see 1 Cor. vii. 7, here quoted in E.

105. See Rev. xiv. 1-4, a line or two from which is here quoted in E.

110. _fore_, track, course, footsteps; glossed 'steppes' in MS. E. Some MSS. have the inferior _lore_, shewing that the scribes understood the word no better than the writer of the note in Bell's Chaucer, who says--'Harl. MS. reads _fore_, which is probably a mere clerical error.' Wright, however, correctly retains _fore_. It occurs again in D. 1935, q. v., where Tyrwhitt again alters it to _lore_. Bradley gives ten examples of it, to which I can add another, viz. 'he folowede the _fore_ of an oxe,' Trevisa, ii. 343 (repeated from the example in i. 197, which Bradley cites). A. S. _f[=o]r_, a course, way; from _faran_ (pt. t. _f[=o]r_), to go. Cf. Matt. xix. 21, which is quoted in Cp. and Pt.

115. 'Et cur, inquies, creata sunt genitalia, et sic a conditore sapientissimo fabricati sumus, &c. ... ipsa organa ... sexus differentiam praedicant'; Jerome (as above), p. 42.

117. I give the reading of E., which seems much the best. For _wight_, Cm. has _wyf_. Hn. _has_: And of so p_ar_fit wys a wight y-wroght; which is also good. But Cp. Pt. Ln. _have_: And of so parfyt wise and why y-wrought. Hl. _has_: And in what wise was a wight y-wrought. The last reading is the worst.

128. _ther_, where, wherein. With l. 130, cf. 1 Cor. vii. 3, where the Vulgate has 'Uxori uir debitum reddat.'

135. 'Nunquam ergo cessemus a libidine, ne frustra huiuscemodi membra portemus'; Jerome, p. 42.

144. _hoten_, be called; A. S. _h[=a]tan_. The sense is--'Let virgins be as bread made of selected wheaten flour; and let us wives be called barley-bread; nevertheless Jesus refreshed many a man with barley-bread, as St. Mark tells us.' Chaucer makes a slight mistake; it is St. John who speaks of _barley_-loaves; see John vi. 9 (cf. Mark vi. 38). For _hoten_, Tyrwhitt, Wright, Bell, and Morris, all give the mistaken reading _eten_, which misses the whole point of the argument; but [295] Gilman has _hoten_. There is no question as to what the Wife should _eat_, but only as to her condition in life. It is the Wife herself who is compared to something edible.

The comparison is from Jerome (as above), p. 21:--'Velut si quis definiat: Bonum est _triticeo_ pane uesci, et edere _purissimam similam_. Tamen ne quis compulsus fame stercus bubulum: concedo ei, ut uescatur et _hordeo_.'

147. Alluding to 1 Cor. vii. 20, here quoted in E.

151. _daungerous_, difficult of access; cf. l. 514.

155. In the margin of E.--'Qui uxorem habet, et _debitor_ dicitur, et esse in praeputio, et _seruus_ uxoris,' &c. From Jerome (as above), p. 26.

156. Alluding to 1 Cor. vii. 28, here quoted in E.

158. Alluding to 1 Cor. vii. 4, here quoted in E.

161. Alluding to Eph. v. 25, here quoted in E.

167-168. _What_, why. _to-yere_, this year; cf. _to-day_. 'To-yere, _horno_, _hornus_, _hornotinus_'; Catholicon Anglicum. The phrase is still in use in some of our dialects.

170. _another tonne._ This expression is probably due to Le Roman de la Rose, 6839:--

'Jupiter en toute saison
A sor le suel de sa maison,
Ce dit Omers, deus plains tonneaus,' &c.

This again is from Homer's two urns, sources of good and evil (Iliad, xxiv. 527), as quoted by Boethius, bk. ii. pr. 2. See note in vol. ii. p. 428 (l. 53). It is suggested that the Pardoner has been used to a tun of ale, and now he must expect to have a taste of something less pleasant. Cf. l. 177.

One of Gower's French Balades contains the lines:--

'Deux tonealx ad [Cupide] dont il les gentz fait boire;
L'un est assetz plus douls que n'est pyment,
L'autre est amier plus que null arrement.'

180. The saying referred to is written in the margin of Dd., as Tyrwhitt tells us. It runs:--'Qui per alios non corrigitur, alii per ipsum corrigentur.' With regard to its being written in Ptolemy's Almagest, Tyrwhitt quaintly remarks:--'I suspect that the Wife of Bath's copy of Ptolemy was very different from any that I have been able to meet with.' The same remark applies to her second quotation in l. 326 below. I have no doubt that the Wife is simply copying, for convenience, these words in Le Roman de la Rose, 7070:--

'Car nous lisons de Tholomee
Une parole moult honeste
Au comencier de s'Almageste,' &c.

Jean de Meun then cites a passage of quite another kind, but the Wife of Bath did not stick at such a trifle. The Almagest is mentioned again in the same, l. 18772. [296]

As to the above saying, cf. Barbour's Bruce, i. 121, 2; and my notes to the line at pp. 545 and 612 of the same. 'Felix quem faciunt aliena pericula cautum'; cf. Rom. de la Rose, 8041; Robert of Brunne, Handlyng Synne, 8086.

183. _Almageste._ The celebrated astronomer, Claudius Ptolemaeus, who flourished in the second century, wrote, as his chief work, the [Greek: megalê suntaxis tês astronomias]. This work was also called, for brevity, [Greek: megalê], and afterwards [Greek: megistê] (greatest); out of which, by prefixing the Arab. article _al_, the Arabs made _Al-mejisti_, or _Al-magest_.

197. Here _wér-e_ is made dissyllabic. For _The three_, Hl. has _Tuo_; which is clearly wrong.

199. In the margin of E. is written part of the last sentence in Part I. of Jerome's treatise:--'hierophantas quoque Atheniensium usque hodie cicutae sorbitione castrari; et postquam in pontificatum fuerint electi, uiros esse desinere.' Probably quoted to emphasize the sense of _uiros_.

207-210. Imitated from Le Rom. de la Rose, 13478-82.

218. _Dunmowe_, in Essex, N. W. of Chelmsford. Tyrwhitt refers us to Blount's Ancient Tenures, p. 162, and adds:--'This whimsical institution was not peculiar to Dunmow; there was the same in Bretagne. "A l'Abbaie Sainct Melaine, près Rennes, y a, plus de six cens ans sont, un costé de lard encore tous frais et non corrumpu; et neantmoins voué et ordonné aux premiers, qui par an et jour ensemble mariez ont vescut san debat, grondement, et sans s'en repentir."--_Contes d'Eutrap_, t. ii. p. 161.' See P. Plowman, C. xi. 276, and my long note on the subject.

220. _fawe_, fain; a variant form of _fain_, A. S. _fægen_, _fægn_. See Havelok, 2160; Alisaunder, ed. Weber, 1956; &c.

221. Here occurs the first reference to the _Aureolus Liber de Nuptiis_, written by a certain Theophrastus, who is mentioned below (l. 671), and in E. 1310. Jerome gives a long extract from this work in his book against Jovinian (so frequently cited above), and has thus preserved a portion of it; and John of Salisbury transferred the whole extract bodily to his Policraticus. It it clear that Chaucer used the work of Jerome rather than that of John of Salisbury. The extract from Theophrastus occurs not far from the end of the first book of the epistle against Jovinian; and near the beginning of it occur the words--'de foro ueniens quid attulisti?'--Jerome (as above), p. 51. This probably suggested the present line, as it is a question put by a wife to her husband.

226. _and bere hem_, i. e. and wrongly accuse them, or make them believe.

227. Tyrwhitt quotes two corresponding lines from Le Roman de la Rose:--

'Car plus hardiment que nulz homs
Certainement jurent et mentent.'

He refers to l. 19013; but in Méon's edition, these are ll. 18336-7. [297]

229. Cf. Le Rom. de la Rose, 9949:--'Ce ne di-ge pas por les bonnes.'

231. _wys_, cunning. In MSS. E. and Hn. the caesural pause is marked after _wyf_. The line, as it stands, is imperfect, and only to be scanned by making the pause after _wyf_ occupy the space of a syllable. The reading _wys-e_ gets over the difficulty, but is hardly what we should expect; it is remarkable that E. Hn. and Cm. all read _wys_, without a final _e_; cf. _wys_ in A. 68, 785, 851. The only justification of the form _wys-e_ would be to consider it as feminine; and such seems to be the case in Gower, Conf. Am., ed. Pauli, i. 156:--'His doughter _wis-e_ Petronel-le.' _if that she can hir good_, if she knows what is to her advantage.

232. 'Will make him believe that the chough is mad.' In the New E. Dict., s. v. _Chough_, Dr. Murray shews that the various readings _cou_, _cowe_, _kowe_, &c. tend to prove that _cow_ in this passage may well mean 'chough' or 'jackdaw' rather than 'cow.' This solves the difficulty; for the allusion is clearly to one of the commonest of medieval stories, told of various talking birds, originally of a parrot.

Very briefly, the story runs thus. A jealous husband, leaving his wife, sets his parrot to watch her. On his return, the bird reports her misconduct. But the wife avers that the parrot lies, and tries to prove it by an ingenious stratagem. The husband believes his frail wife's plot, and promptly wrings the bird's neck for telling stories, under the impression that it has gone mad.

I formerly explained this in The Academy, April 5, 1890, p. 239. In the no. for April 19, p. 269, Mr. Clouston referred me to his paper on 'The Tell-tale Bird' printed in the Chaucer Society's Originals and Analogues, p. 439, with reference to the Manciple's Tale, which relates a similar story. See the account of the Manciple's Tale in vol. iii. p. 501. It is the story of the Husband and the Parrot, in the Arabian Nights' Entertainment.

This line of Chaucer's seems to have attracted attention, though there is nothing to shew how it was understood. Thus, in Roy's _Rede me and be nott Wrothe_, ed. Arber, p. 80, we find:--

'Because they canne flatter and lye,
Makynge beleve _the cowe is wode_.'

In Awdelay's Fraternyte of Vacabondes (E. E. T. S.), p. 14, we find: 'Gyle Hather is he, that wyll stand by his Maister when he is at dinner, and byd him beware that he eate no raw meate, because he would eate it himself. This is a pickthanke knaue, that would make his Maister beleue that _the Cowe is woode_.' Palsgrave, in his French Dictionary, p. 421, has:--'I am borne in hande of a thyng; _On me faict a croyre_. He wolde beare me in hande the kowe is woode; _il me veult fayre a croyre de blanc que ce soit noyr_.' The spelling _coe_ for 'jackdaw' occurs in Skelton's Phyllyp Sparowe, l. 468. See also Hoccleve's Works, ed. Furnivall, p. 217, where 'Magge, the good kowe' is [298] an obvious error for 'Magge the wode kowe,' since 'Magge' is a name for a _mag_-pie. This I also explained in The Academy, April 1, 1893, p. 285.

233. 'And she will take witness, of her own maid, of her (the maid's) assent (to her truth).' This is part of the proof of the correctness of the interpretation of the preceding line. For, in most of the versions of the tale above referred to, the lady is aided and abetted by a maid who is in her confidence.

235. Here Chaucer takes several hints from the book of Theophrastus as quoted by Jerome; see note to l. 221. Thus (in Jerome, as above, p. 51) we find:--'Deinde per noctes totas garrulae conquestiones:--Illa ornatior procedit in publicum; haec honoratior ab omnibus: ego in conuentu feminarum misella despicior. Cur aspiciebas uicinam? Quid cum ancillula loquebaris?' It is continued at l. 243; cf. 'Non amicum habere possumus, non sodalem.' Next, at l. 248; cf. 'Pauperem alere difficile est, diuitem ferre tormentum.' Next, at l. 253; cf. 'Pulchra cito adamatur.... Difficile custoditur quod plures amant.' Jean de Meun also quotes from Theophrastus plentifully, mentioning him by name in Le Rom. de la Rose, l. 8599; see the whole passage. '_Caynard_, obsolete, adapted from F. _cagnard_, sluggard (according to Littré, from Ital. _cagna_, bitch, fem. of _cane_, dog). A lazy fellow, a sluggard; a term of reproach. (1303) Rob. of Brunne, Handlyng Synne, l. 8300: A _kaynarde_ ande an olde folte [misprinted folle]. (About 1310) in Wright's Lyric Poems, xxxix. 110 (1842): This croked _caynard_, sore he is a-dred.'--New Eng. Dict. (where the present passage is also quoted).

246. See A. 1261, and the note. Wright here adds two more examples. He says--'In the satirical poem of Doctor Double-ale, [in Hazlitt's Early Pop. Poetry, iii. 308], we have the lines:--

Then seke another house,
This is not worth a louse;
_As dronken as a mouse_.

Among the Letters relating to the Suppression of Monasteries (Camden Soc.), p. 133, there is one from a monk of Pershore, who says that his brother monks of that house "drynk an bowll after collacyon tell ten or xii. of the clock, and cum to mattens _as dronck as mys_."'

248. See note to l. 235 above; so again, for l. 253, cf. Le Rom. de la Rose, 8617-8638.

255. Cf. Ovid, Heroid. xvi. 288:--

'Lis est cum forma magna pudicitiae.'

257. Probably Chaucer was thinking of a passage in Theophrastus, following soon after that quoted in the note to l. 235. 'Alius forma, alius ingenio, alius facetiis, alius liberalitate sollicitat.' But Theophrastus is referring to the accomplishments of the wooers rather than of the women wooed. Cf. Le Rom. de la Rose, ll. 8629-36--'S'ele est bele,' &c. [299]

263. Clearly from Le Rom. de la Rose, l. 8637--

'Car tor de toutes pars assise
Envis eschape d'estre prise.'

265. Immediately after, we have--

'S'ele rest lede, el vuet à tous plaire;
... vuet tous ceus qui la voient.'

269. See in Hazlitt's Proverbs: 'Joan's as good as my lady in the dark.'

271. 'It is a hard matter to control a thing that no one would willingly keep.' Simply translated from Theophrastus (see note to l. 235), who has--'Molestum est possidere, quod nemo habere dignetur.'

272. _helde_, a variant form of _holde_, hold, keep; from A. S. _healdan_. As Chaucer usually has _holde_ (see D. 1144), _helde_ is probably used for the sake of the rime. Note that it is the _only_ example of a rime in _-elde_ in the whole of the Canterbury Tales; indeed, the only other example is in Troil. ii. 337-8. We find the same rime in King Horn, l. 911:--

'Mi rengne thu schalt welde,
And to spuse helde
Reynild mi doghter.'

275. Again from Theophrastus (near the beginning):--'Non est ergo uxor ducenda sapienti. Primum enim impediri studia philosophiae,' &c.

277. _welked_, withered; see C. 738, and Stratmann.

278. Chaucer quotes this, as from Solomon, in the Pers. Tale, I. 631, and explains it there more fully; and again, in the Tale of Melibeus, B. 2276. An Anglo-French poet named Herman wrote a poem 'on the three words, smoke, rain, and woman, which, according to Solomon, drive a man from his house; and it appears from the poem that it was composed at the suggestion of Alexander, bishop of Lincoln, who died in 1147.'--T. Wright, Biographia Brit. Literaria, Anglo-Norman Period, p. 333. See also my note to P. Plowman, C. xx. 297, quoted in the note to B. 2276 above, at p. 207.

282. This again is from Theophrastus (see note to l. 235):--'Si iracunda, si fatua, si deformis, si superba, si foetida; quodcunque uitii est, post nuptias discimus.'

285. Immediately after the last quotation there follows:--'Equus, asinus, bos, canis, et uilissima mancipia, uestes quoque et lebetes, sedile lignum, calix et urceolus fictilis probantur prius, et sic emuntur: sola uxor non ostenditur, ne ante displiceat, quàm ducatur.'

293. Next follows:--'Attendenda semper eius est facies, et pulchritudo laudanda.... Vocanda "domina," celebrandus natalis eius, ... honoranda nutrix eius, et gerula, seruus, patrimus, et alumnus,' &c. Cf. Le Rom. de la Rose, 13914.

303-306. Next follows:--'et formosus assecla, et procurator calamistratus, et in longam securamque libidinem exectus spado: sub quibus nominibus adulteri delitescunt.'

Chaucer has merely taken the general idea, and given it a form peculiarly adapted to his sketch. That he really _was_ thinking of this [300] passage is clear from the fact that, in the margin of E., appears this note--'Et procurator calamistratus.'

311. _of our dame_, of the mistress, i. e. of myself.

312. _Seint Iame_, St. James; see A. 466, and the note.

320. _Alis_, Alice; A. F. _Alice_, _Alys_, _Aleyse_; Lat. _Alicia_. Skelton rimes _Ales_ with _tales_; Elinour Rummyng, 351-2.

322. _at our large_, free, at large; we now drop _our_. Cf. A. 1283.

325. See notes to ll. 180, 183. We need not search in Ptolemy for this saying.

327. _who hath the world in honde_, i. e. who has abundant wealth. Cf. l. 330. The sense of the proverb is, that the wisest man is he who is contented, who cares nothing that others are much richer than himself. Cf. 1 Tim. vi. 6, 8; and the proverb--'Content is all.' In the margin of E. is written the Latin form of the saying:--'Inter omnes altior existit, qui non curat in cuius manu sit mundus.'

333. _werne_, forbid, refuse. The idea is from Le Roman de la Rose, l. 7447:--

'Moult est fox qui tel chose esperne,
C'est la chandele en la lanterne;
Qui mil en i alumeroit,
Ja mains de feu n'i troveroit.
Chascun set la similitude,' &c.

It was quite a proverbial phrase, as the last line shews. It occurs, for example, in Alexander and Dindimus, ed. Skeat, l. 233, and in the original Latin text of the same. Duke Francesco Maria della Rovere used the device of 'a lighted candle, by which others are lighted, with the motto _Non degener addam_'; i. e. I will add without loss.--Mrs. Palliser, Historic Devices, p. 263. Cicero (De Officiis, i. 16) quotes three lines from Ennius containing the same idea.

342. From 1 Tim. ii. 9, here quoted in the margin of E.

350. _his_, its. The pronoun is here neuter, and is the same in all the MSS. Tyrwhitt altered it to _hire_ (her), but needlessly. But in l. 352, the sex of the cat is defined. As to the singed cat, 'that, as they say, does not like to roam,' see The Exempla of Jacques de Vitry, ed. Crane, (Folk Lore Soc.), 1890, pp. 219, 241.

354. _goon a-caterwawed_, go a-caterwauling. I explain the suffix _-ed_ as put for _-eth_, A. S. _-að_, as in _on huntað_, a-hunting; where _-að_ is a substantival suffix. I have given several examples of this curious substitution in the note to C. 406, q. v. Cotgrave has: '_Aller à gars_, to hunt after lads; (a wench) to go a caterwawling.' And see _Caterwaul_ in the New Eng. Dict.

357. Clearly from Le Rom. de la Rose, 14583:--

'Nus ne puet metre en fame garde,
S'ele meisme ne se garde:
Se c'iert _Argus_ qui la gardast,
Qui de ses cent yex l'esgardast, ...
[301]
N'i vaudroit sa garde mès riens:
Fox est qui se garde tel mesriens.'

As to Argus, see Ovid, Met. i. 625.

362. Here Chaucer again quotes largely from Hieronymus c. Iouinianum, lib. ii.; in Epist. (Basil. 1524), ii. 36, 37. Many of the passages are cited from the Vulgate, but they are all found in this treatise of Jerome's, which furnishes the real key. Jerome says:--'Per tria mouetur terra, quartum autem non potest ferre; si seruus regnet, et stultus si saturetur panibus, et _odiosa uxor_ (see l. 366) si habeat bonum uirum, et ancilla si eiciat dominam suam. Ecce et hic inter malorum magnitudinem uxor ponitur'; p. 37. Really quoted from Prov. xxx. 21-23.

371. Again from Jerome, p. 37: 'Infernus, et amor mulieris, et terra quae non satiatur aqua, et ignis non dicit "satis est."' Really from Prov. xxx. 16, where the A. V. has 'the grave' instead of 'hell.' Note that Jerome here has _amor mulieris_, though the Vulgate has _os uuluae_. The passage is quoted in E., with _dicent_ for _dicit_.

373. _wylde fyr_, wild fire; i. e. fiercely burning fire, probably with reference to lighted naphtha or the like. Chaucer again uses the term in the Pers. Tale, I. 445. Greek fire was of a like character. In the Romance of Rich. Coer de Lion, l. 2627, we find:--

'King Richard, oute of hys galye,
Caste _wylde-fyr_ into the skye,
And _fyr Gregeys_ into the see,
And al on fyr wer[en] the[y] ...
The see brent all off _fyr Gregeys_.'

Thus the Greek fire, at any rate, was not quenched by the sea. See La Chimie an moyen âge, par M. Berthelot, p. 100.

376. From Jerome (p. 36):--'Sicut in ligno uermis, ita perdit uirum suum uxor malefica.' Quoted in the margin of E., with _perdet_ for _perdit_. Cf. 'Sicut ... uermis ligno,' Prov. xxv. 20 (Vulgate); not in the A. V.

378. Jerome has (p. 39):--'Nemo enim melius scire potest quid sit uxor uel mulier, illo qui passus est.' (Quoted in E.)

386. _byte and whyne_, i. e. both bite (when in a bad temper) and whine or whinny as if wanting a caress (when in a good one). It is made clearer by the parallel line in Anelida, l. 157, on which see my note in vol. i. p. 535.

389. Cf. our proverb--'first come, first served.' Hazlitt quotes the medieval Lat. proverb--'Ante molam primus qui venit, non molat imus.' And Mr. Wright quotes the French proverb of the fifteenth century--'Qui premier vient au moulin premier doit mouldre.' Cotgrave, s. v. _Mouldre_, has the same; with _arrive_ for _vient_, and _le premier_ for _premier_.

392. _hir lyve_, i. e. during their (whole) life. With ll. 393-6, cf. Le Rom. de la Rose, 14032-42. [302]

399. _colour_, pretext; as in Acts, xxvii. 30.

401. In the margin of Cp. and Ln. is the medieval line: 'Fallere, flere, nere, dedit Deus in muliere.' Pt. has the same, with _statuit_ for _dedit_.

406. _grucching_, grumbling; mod. E. _grudge_. Hl. has _chidyng_.

407. Suggested by the complaint of a jealous man to his wife, in Le Roman de la Rose, 9129:--

'Car quant ge vous voil embracier
Por besier et por solacier,' &c.

414. 'Everything has its price.'

415. This proverb has occurred before; see A. 4134. Lydgate quotes it in st. 2 of a poem with the burden--'Lyk thyn audience, so utter thy langage'; see Polit., Relig., and Love Poems, ed. Furnivall, p. 25, l. 15. John of Salisbury says:--'Veteri celebratur prouerbio: quia uacuae manus temeraria petitio est'; Policraticus, lib. v. c. 10.

418. Cf. l. 417. Bacon was considered as a common food for rustics. Cf. 'bacon-fed knaves'; 1 Hen. IV. ii. 2. 88. It is not worth while to discuss the matter further.

430. _conclusioun_, purpose, aim, object.

432. _Wilkin_ was evidently, like _Malle_ or _Malkin_, a name for a pet lamb or sheep; see B. 4021. In this line (if _mekely_ be trisyllabic, and _lok'th_ monosyllabic), the word _our-e_ is dissyllabic, which is not common in Chaucer.

433. _ba_, kiss; see note to A. 3709.

435. _spyced conscience_, scrupulous conscience; see note to A. 526.

446. _Peter_, by St. Peter; cf. Hous of Fame, 1034, 2000; also G. 665, and the note; and B. 1404. _I shrewe you_, I beshrew you.

460. This story is from Valerius Maximus; Pliny tells it of one _Mecenius_. In the margin of E., the reference is exactly given, viz. to 'Valerius, lib. 6. cap. 3,' which is quite right. I quote the passage: 'Egnatii autem Metelli longe minori de caussa; qui uxorem, quod vinum bibisset, fuste percussam interemit. Idque factum non accusatore tantum, sed etiam reprehensore caruit; unoquoque existimante, optimo illam exemplo violatae sobrietatis poenas pependisse.'--Valerii Maximi lib. vi. c. 3. Cf. Pliny, xiv. 13; Tertullian, Apologeticus, 6. Chaucer twice quotes again the _same_ chapter; see notes to ll. 642, 647.

464. _moste I thinke_, I must (needs) think. For _moste_, Cm. has _muste_, Ln. _must_. So also _moste_ = must, in l. 478.

467. From Le Roman de la Rose, 13656:--

'Car puis que fame est enyvree
Il n'a point en li de deffense.'

Cf. Ovid, Art. Amat. iii. 765; &c.

469. Cf. Le Roman de la Rose, 13136:--

'Par Diex! si me plest-il encores:
Quant ge m'i sui bien porpensée,
Moult me délite en ma pensée,
[303]
Et me resbaudissent li membre,
Quant de mon bon tens me remembre,
Et de la jolivete vie
Dont mes cuers a si grant envie.'

And again, just above, l. 13128:--

'Més riens n'i vaut le regreter;
Qui est alé, ne puet venir,' &c.

These lines form part of the speech of _La Vieille_, on whom the Wife of Bath is certainly modelled; cf. note to A. 461.

483. _Ioce_, in Latin _Judocus_, a Breton saint, whose day is Dec. 13, and who died in A. D. 669. Alban Butler says that his hermitage became a famous monastery, which stood in the diocese of Amiens, and was called St. Josse-sur-mer. This part of France became familiar to many Englishmen in the course of the wars of Edward III. See, however, Le Testament de Jean de Meung, 461-4, which I take to mean:--'When dame Katherine sees the proof of _Sir Joce_, who cares not a prune for his wife's love, she is so fearful that her own husband will do her a like harm, that she often makes for him a staff of a similar bit of wood'; F. 'Si li refait sovent d'autel fust une croce.' It is obvious that Chaucer has copied this in l. 484, and that he here found his rime to _croce_.

484. 'I made a stick for him of the same wood'; i. e. I retaliated by rousing his jealousy; compare the last note. _Croce_, a staff, O. F. _croce_, F. _crosse_; see _Croche_ in the New E. Dictionary. Cf. Prompt. Parv., p. 103, note 5; and my note to P. Plowm. C. xi. 92.

487. In Hazlitt's Proverbs is given--'To fry in his own grease,' from Heywood; it is explained to mean 'to be very passionate,' but means rather 'to torment oneself.' He also quotes, from Heywood:--

'She fryeth in hir owne grease, but as for my parte,
If she be angry, beshrew her angry harte.'

See also Rich. Coer de Lion, 4409; Lydgate's Temple of Glas, ed. Schick, pp. 14, 94.

492. The story is given by Jerome, in the treatise so often quoted above. 'Legimus quendam apud Romanos nobilem, cum eum amici arguerent quare uxorem formosam et castam et diuitem repudiasset, protendisse pedem, et dixisse eis: Et hic soccus quem cernitis, uidetur uobis nouus et elegans, sed nemo scit praeter me ubi me premat.'--Hieron. c. Iouinianum, lib. i.: Epist. ii. 52 (Basil. 1524). John of Salisbury has the same story, almost in the same words, but gives the name of the noble Roman, viz. P. Cn. Graecinus. See his Policraticus, lib. v. c. 10. Chaucer alludes to it again below, in E. 1553.

495. She went thrice to Jerusalem; see A. 463.

496. 'Across the arch which usually divides the chancel from the nave in English churches was stretched a _beam_, on which was placed a _rood_, i. e. a figure of our Lord on the cross.'--Bell.

498. In the margin of E. is the note:--'Appelles fecit mirabile opus [304] in tumulo Darij: vnde in Alexandro, libro sexto.' There is a similar sidenote at C. 16; see note to that line. This tomb of Darius is due to fiction. The description of it occurs (as said) in the sixth book of the Alexandreid, a vast poem in Latin, by one Philippe Gualtier de Chatillon, a native of Lille and a canon of Tournay, who flourished about A. D. 1200. According to this poet, the tomb was the work of a Jewish artist named Apelles. See Lounsbury, Studies in Chaucer, ii. 353-5, and G. Douglas, ed. Small, i. 134.

503. There is a parallel passage in Le Rom. de la Rose, 14678-99.

514. _daungerous_, sparing, not free; cf. l. 151.

517. _Wayte_, observe, watch; 'observe what thing it is that we have a difficulty in obtaining.'

521. 'With great demur (or caution) we set forth all we have to sell.' _With daunger_ implies that the seller makes a great difficulty of selling things, i. e. drives a hard bargain, and makes a great favour of it. _Withoute daunger_ means without opposition, or without resistance; Gower, C. A. v. ii. p. 40.

_Outen_, put out, set out or forth, is from A. S. _[=u]tian_, verb, a derivative of _[=u]t_, out. Both here and in G. 834, Tyrwhitt needlessly alters the reading to _uttren_, against all the MSS. The note in Bell's Chaucer says--'Difficulty in making our market makes us bring out all our ware for sale'; which is utterly remote from the true sense, and would be the conduct of a reckless, not of a cautious woman. Compare the next two lines.

522. 'A great throng of buyers makes ware dear (because there is then great demand); and offering things too cheaply makes people think they are of little value (because there is then too ready a supply).' Hence the wise woman is careful not to be in too great a hurry to sell; and such is the meaning of l. 521. It is further implied that, when she gets her expected price, she does not hold out for a higher one.

552. From Le Rom. de la Rose, 9068, which again is from Ovid. 'Spectatum ueniunt, ueniunt spectentur ut ipsae'; Art. Amat. i. 99.

553. 'How could I know where my favour was destined to be bestowed?'

555. From Le Rom. de la Rose, 13726:--

'Sovent voise à la mestre eglise,
Et face visitacions,
A noces, à processions,
A geus, à festes, à karoles,' &c.

556. _vigilies_, festivals held on the eves or vigils of saints' days. See note to A. 377.

557. For _preching_, Cm. has _prechyngis_, and Hl. _prechings_; but all the rest have _preching_, which I therefore retain. _To preching_ means 'to any place where a sermon was being preached'; much as we say 'to church.' But the sermons were often given in the open air. The Wife's object was to go wherever there was a concourse of people, in order to shew her best clothes. Women still go 'to church' for a like [305] reason. Wycliff speaks strongly of the evil of pilgrimages; see his Works, ed. Matthew, p. 279; ed. Arnold, i. 83.

558. 'The miracle-plays were favourite occasions for people to assemble in great numbers.'--Wright. Wright refers to a tale among his Latin Stories, p. 100. See the Sermon against Miracle-Plays, in Reliquiae Antiquae, ii. 42; reprinted in Mätzner's Sprachproben, ii. 224.

559. 'And wore upon (me) my gay scarlet gowns.' The use of _upon_ without a case following it is curious; but see D. 1018, 1382 below.

The word _gyte_ occurs again in A. 3954, where Simkin's wife wears 'a _gyte_ of reed,' i. e. a red gown. Nares shews that it is used thrice by Gascoigne, and once by Fairfax. The sense of 'robe' will suit the passage there quoted. Skelton has _gyte_ in Elynour, l. 68, where the sense of 'robe' or 'dress' is certain. It is clearly the same word as the Lowland Scotch _gyde_, a dress, robe; see note to A. 3954 (p. 118). That the word meant both 'veil' and 'gown' appears from the fact that Roquefort explains the derived O. F. _wiart_ as a veil with which women cover their faces; whilst Godefroy explains its variant form _guiart_ as a dress or vestment.

560. The sense is; 'the worms, moths, and mites never fretted them (i. e. my dresses) one whit; I say it at my peril.' There is no difficulty, and the reading is quite correct. Yet Tyrwhitt altered _peril_ to _paraille_, which he explains by 'apparel,' and Wright actually explains _perel_, in the Harl. MS., in the same way! Such an explanation turns the whole into nonsense, as it could then only mean: 'the worms, &c. never devoured _themselves_ (!) at all upon my apparel.' Tyrwhitt evidently took it to mean 'never _fed_ themselves upon (i. e. with) my apparel'; but it is impossible that _frete hem_ could ever be so interpreted. _Frete_ can only mean 'devoured,' and it requires an accusative case; this accusative is _hem_, which can only refer to the _gytes_ or 'gowns.' And this leaves no other sense for _peril_ except precisely 'peril,' which is of course right. _Upon my peril_ is clearly a phrase, with the same sense as 'at my peril.' The phrase is no recondite one; cf. Rich. III. iv. i. 26, where we find 'on my peril'; and again, 'upon his peril,' in Antony, v. 2. 143; Cymbeline, v. 4. 189.

566. _of my purveyance_, owing to my prudence, or prudent foresight; cf. l. 570. _Purveyance_, _providence_, and _prudence_ are mere variants; from Lat. _prouidentia_.

572. From Le Rom. de la Rose, 13354:--

'Moult a soris povre secors,
Et fait en grant peril sa druge,
Qui n'a c'ung partuis à refuge.
Tout ainsinc est-il de la fame,' &c.

In Kemble's Solomon and Saturn, p. 57, several parallel proverbs are given; e.g.--

'Mus miser est antro qui tantum clauditur uno.' 'Dolente la souris qui ne seit c'un pertuis.'

He refers us to Collins' Dict. of Span. Proverbs, p. 36; MS. Harl. [306] 3362, fol. 40; Grüter, Florilegium Ethico-politicum, p. 32; G. Herbert, Jacula Prudentum, p. 67; MS. Proverbs, Corp. Chr. Cam. no. 450; MS. Harl. 1800, fol. 37 b. The proverb in Herbert is--'The mouse that hath but one hole is quickly taken'; cf. Hazlitt's Proverbs, p. 380.

575. 'I made him believe'; see above. _enchanted_, bewitched, viz. with philtres or love-potions; according to an old belief. See Othello, i. 2. 63-79. Cf. also Le Rom. de la Rose, 13895:--'Si croi que m'aves enchantee'; and the note to D. 747 (p. 311).

581. _Red_ occurs so frequently as an epithet of _gold_, that association of gold with blood was easy enough. See note to B. 2059 (p. 196).

602. _a coltes tooth_, the tooth of a young colt. Cf. 'Young folks [are] most apt to love ... the _colt's_ evil is common to all complexions'; Burton, Anat. of Mel. pt. 3. sec. 2. mem. 2. subsec. 1. 'Your _colt's tooth_ is not cast yet'; Hen. VIII. i. 3. 48. And see A. 3888, E. 1847.

603. _Gat-tothed_; see note to A. 468.

604. 'I bore the impress of the seal of saint Venus.'

609, 610. _Venerien_, influenced by Venus; _Marcien_, influenced by Mars; cf. ll. 611, 612.

613. _ascendent_, the sign in the ascendant (or just rising in the east) at my birth. This sign was Taurus, which was also called 'the mansion of Venus.' When Mars was seen in this sign when ascending, it shewed the influence of Mars on Venus. Cf. the 'Compleint of Mars.'