Chapter XX: Part 20

43. _proheme_, proem, introduction. Petrarch's treatise (taken from Boccaccio's Decamerone, Day x. Novel 10) is entitled 'De obedientia ac fide uxoria Mythologia.' It is preceded by a letter to Boccaccio, but this is not here alluded to. What Chaucer means is the first section of the tale itself, which begins thus:--'Est ad Italiae latus occiduum Vesulus, ex Apennini iugis mons unus altissimus.... Padi ortu nobilissimus, qui eius a latere fonte lapsus exiguo orientem contra solem fertur, mirisque mox tumidus incrementis.... Liguriam gurgite uiolentus intersecat; dehinc Aemiliam, atque Flaminiam, Venetiamque discriminans ... in Adriaticum mare descendit.' _Pemond_, Piedmont. _Saluces_, Saluzzo, S. of Turin. _Vesulus_, Monte Viso. See the description of the route from Mont Dauphin to Saluzzo, by the Col de Viso, in Murray's Guide to Switzerland and Piedmont. Cf. Vergil, Aen. x. 708.

51. _To Emelward_, towards Aemilia. Tyrwhitt says--'One of the regions of Italy was called Aemilia, from the _via Aemilia_, which crossed it from Placentia [Piacenza] to Rimini. Placentia stood upon the Po. Pitiscus, Lex. Ant. Rom. in v. _Via Aemilia_. Petrarch's description ... is a little different.' See note above. _Ferrare_, Ferrara, on the Po, not far from its mouth. _Venyse_, rather the Venetian territory than Venice itself.

54. 'It seems to me a thing irrelevant, excepting that he wishes to impart his information.'

56. _this_, contraction for _this is_ (see footnote); common.

THE CLERKES TALE.

57. In many places this story is translated from Petrarch almost word for word; and as Tyrwhitt remarks, it would be endless to cite illustrative passages from the original Latin; see further in vol. iii. p. 453. The first stanza is praised by Professor Lowell, in his Study Windows, p. 208, where he says--'What a sweep of vision is here!' Chaucer is not quite so close a translator here as usual; the passage in Petrarch being--'Inter caetera ad radicem Vesuli, terra Salutiarum, uicis et castellis satis frequens, Marchionum arbitrio nobilium quorundum regitur uirorum.'

82. _leet he slyde_, he allowed to pass unattended to, neglected. So we find 'Let the world _slide_'; Induction to Taming of the Shrew, l. 5; and 'The state of vertue never _slides_'; The Sturdy Rock (in Percy's Reliques). See March's Student's Manual of Eng. Lang. p. 125, where the expression is noted as still current in America. Petrarch has--'alia pene cuncta negligeret.' With ll. 83-140, cf. Shakesp. Sonnets, i-xvii. [344]

86. _flockmele_, in a flock or troop; Pet. has 'cateruatim.' 'Treuly theder came _flockemele_ the multitude of tho blessyd sowlys':--Monk of Evesham, ed. Arber, c. 55; p. 107. Palsgrave's French Dict. has--'Flockmeale, _par troupeaux_'; fol. 440, back. Cf. E. _piece-meal_; we also find _wukemalum_, week by week, Ormulum, 536; _lim-mele_, limb from limb, Layamon, 25618; _hipyllmelum_, by heaps, Wycl. Bible, Wisdom xviii. 25: Koch, Eng. Gramm. ii. 292.

99. 'Although I have no more to do with this matter than others have who are here present.' Observe that the Marquis is addressed as _ye_, not _thou_, the former being a title of respect.

103-105. These three lines are not in the original.

106. We should have expected to find here _us lyketh ye_, i. e. you are pleasing to us; but we really have an instance of a double dative, so that _us lyketh yow_ is equivalent to 'it pleases us with respect to you.' The nominative case is _ye_, the dative and accusative _yow_ or _you_. _Yow leste_, it may please you, in l. 111, is the usual idiom.

107. _and ever han doon_, and (both you and your doings) have ever brought it about. Such is the usual force of _doon_; cf. ll. 253, 1098.

115. Cf. Barbour's Bruce, ed. Skeat, i. 266-8.--M.

118-119. Expanded from--'uolant enim dies rapidi.'

121. _still as stoon_; Latin text, 'tacita.' Cf. F. 171.

129. _we wol chese yow_, we will choose for you.

147. _Ther_, where. This line is Chaucer's own.

157. _Bountee_, goodness. _streen_, race, stock. Petrarch has--'Quicquid in homine boni est, non ab alio quam a Deo est.'

168. _As_, as if. This line, in Petrarch, comes after l. 173. Lines 174, 175 are Chaucer's own.

172. _as ever_, &c., as ever I may thrive, as I hope to thrive.

190-196. Expanded from--'Et ipse nihilominus eam ipsam nuptiarum curam domesticis suis imposuit, edixitque diem.'

197-203. Expanded from--'Fuit haud procul a palatio uillula paucorum atque inopum incolarum.'

211-217. Sometimes Chaucer translates literally, and sometimes he merely paraphrases, as here. Lines 215-217 are all his own.

220. _rype and sad corage_, a mature and staid disposition. Petrarch has--'sed uirilis senilisque animus uirgineo latebat in pectore.'

223. _spinning_; i. e. she spun whilst keeping the sheep; see a picture of St. Geneviève in Mrs. Jameson's Sacred and Legendary Art. Line 224 is Chaucer's.

227. _shredde and seeth_, sliced and sod (or boiled). Lat. 'domum rediens oluscula et dapes fortunae congruas praeparabat, durumque cubiculum sternebat,' &c.

229. _on lofte_, aloft. She kept up her father's life, i. e. sustained him. His death is recorded in l. 1134.

234. For this line the Latin has only the word _transiens_.

237. _in sad wyse_, soberly; Lat. 'senili grauitate.' [345]

242. Here _the people_ means the common people; Lat. '_uulgi_ oculis.' In the next line _he_ is emphatic, meaning that _his_ eyes were quicker to perceive than _theirs_.

253. _hath don make_, hath caused to be made. Lat. 'Ipse interim et anulos aureos et coronas et balteos conquirebat.' Chaucer inserts _asure_, the colour of fidelity; see F. 644, and note. For _balteos_ he substitutes the English phrase _broches and ringes_; cf. P. Plowm. B. prol. 75.

257. Scan--Bý | a maýd | e lýk | to hír | statúrë. ||

259. Here Chaucer apparently omits a sentence, namely:--'Uenerat expectatus dies, et cum nullus sponsae rumor audiretur, admiratio omnium uehementer excreuerat.' But he has, in fact, given us this above, in ll. 246-8.

260. _undern_ (lit. the intervening or middle period) has two meanings in the Teutonic tongues; (1) mid-forenoon, i. e. originally 9 A. M.; and (2) mid-afternoon, originally 3 P. M. In this passage it is clearly the former that is meant; indeed in l. 981, where it occurs again, the original has 'proximae lucis _hora tertia_,' i. e. 9 A. M. In _this_ passage, the original has _hora prandii_, meaning luncheon-time, which in Chaucer's time would often be 9 A. M.; see note to B. 1396, at p. 171; and cf. Ælfric's Homilies, ed. Thorpe, ii. 77. See note to Piers Pl. B. vi. 147; and see _Undern_ in the Glossary.

But it may be noted here, that the sense of _undern_ is variable. Sometimes it meant the period from 9 to 12, or the middle of that period, i. e. about 10.30 or 11. Sometimes, the period from 3 to 6 P. M., or the middle of it, i. e. about 4.30 or 4. In modern E. dialects, it means about 4 P. M. See B. 4412, D. 875.

260-294. Expanded and improved from the following short passage: 'Hora iam prandii aderat, iamque apparatu ingenti domus tota feruebat. Tum Gualtherus, aduentanti ueluti sponsae obuiam profecturus, domo egreditur, prosequente uirorum et matronarum nobilium caterua. Griseldis omnium quae erga se pararentur ignara, peractis quae agenda domi erant, aquam e longinquo fonte conuectans paternum limen intrabat: ut, expedita curis aliis, ad uisendam domini sui sponsam cum puellis comitibus properaret.'

322. _governeth_, arrange, dispose of. Observe the use of the _plural_ imperative, as a mark of respect. When the marquis addresses Griseldis as _ye_, it is a mark of extreme condescension on his part; the Latin text has _tu_ and _te_.

337-343. Expanded from--'insolito tanti hospitis aduentu stupidam inuenere; quam iis uerbis Gualtherus aggreditur.'

350. _yow avyse_, consider the matter; really a delicate way of expressing refusal. Compare the legal formula _le roy s'avisera_ for expressing the royal refusal to a proposed measure.

364. _For to be deed_, even if I were to be dead, were to die; Lat. 'et si me mori iusseris, quod moleste feram.'

375-376. These characteristic lines are Chaucer's own. So are ll. 382, 383. [346]

381. _corone_, nuptial garland; Lat. 'corona.' See Brand's Pop. Antiq. ed. Ellis, ii. 123.

388. _snow-whyt_; Lat. 'niueo.' Perhaps Spenser took a hint from this; F. Q. i. 1. 4. In the Leg. of Good Women, l. 1198, Chaucer calls a horse _paper-whyt_.

393. Repeated, slightly altered, from l. 341.

409. _thewes_, mental qualities. So also in E. 1542; Gower, Conf. Amant. lib. vii. sect. 1 (ed. Pauli, iii. 85); Spenser, F. Q. i. 9. 3; i. 10. 4; ii. 1. 33, &c. 'The common signification of the word _thews_ in our old writers, is manners, or qualities of mind and disposition.... By _thews_ Shakespeare means unquestionably brawn, nerves, muscular vigour (Jul. Caes. i. 3; 2 Hen. IV, iii. 2; Hamlet, i. 3). And to this sense, and this only, the word has now settled down; the other sense, which was formerly so familiar in our literature, is quite gone out and forgotten. [With respect to _theawe_ = sinew, in Layamon, l. 6361] Sir F. Madden remarks (iii. 471):--"This is the only instance in the poem of the word being applied to bodily qualities, nor has any other passage of an earlier date than the sixteenth century been found in which it is so used." It may be conjectured that it had only been a provincial word in this sense, till Shakespeare adopted it'; Craik's English of Shakespeare; note on Jul. Caesar, i. 3. 81.

412. _embrace_, hold fast; 'omnium animos nexu sibi magni amoris _astrinxerat_.' Compare Tennyson's Lord of Burleigh with ll. 394-413.

413. Nearly identical with Troil. i. 1078.

421. _royally_; alluding to the royal virtues of Griseldis.

429. Not only the context, but the Latin text, justifies the reading _homlinesse_. _Feet_ is fact, i. e. act. The Latin is--'Neque uero solers sponsa muliebria tantum haec _domestica_, sed, ubi res posceret, publica etiam obibat officia.' Lines 432-434 are Chaucer's own.

444. 'Although it would have been liefer to her to have borne a male child'; i. e. she would rather, &c. The Latin has--'quamuis filium maluisset.'

449-462. Expanded from--'Cepit (ut fit) interim Gualtherum, cum iam ablactata esset infantula (mirabilis quaedam quàm laudabilis, [_aliter_, an mirabile quidem magis quam laudabile,] doctiores iudicent) cupiditas satis expertam charae fidem coniugis experiendi altius [_aliter_, ulterius], et iterum atque iterum retentandi.'

452. _tempte_, make trial of, prove; see ll. 1152, 1153 below. _sadnesse_, constancy, equanimity.

483. Note Walter's use of the word _thee_ here, and of _thy_ twice in the next stanza, instead of the usual _ye_. It is a slight, but significant sign of insult, offered under pretence of reporting the opinion of others. In l. 492 we have _your_ again.

504. _thing_, possession. Lat. 'de rebus tuis igitur fac ut libet.'

516. _a furlong wey or two_, the distance of one or two furlongs, a short distance, a little. The line simply means--'a little after.' [347]

525. _stalked him_; marched himself in, as we should say. This use of _him_ is remarkable, but not uncommon.

533-539. Lat. 'Iussus sum hanc infantulam accipere, atque eam--Hîc sermone abrupto, quasi crudele ministerium silentio exprimens, subticuit.' Compare 'Quos ego--'; Vergil, Aen. i. 135.

540-546. Lat. 'Suspecta uiri fama; suspecta facies; suspecta hora; suspecta erat oratio; quibus etsi clare occisum iri dulcem filiam intelligeret, nec lachrymulam tamen ullam, nec suspirium dedit.' Mr. Wright quotes this otherwise, putting _dulce_ for _dulcem_, and stopping at _intelligeret_.

547-567. Chaucer expands the Latin, and transposes some of the matter. Lines 561-563 precede ll. 547-560 in the original, which merely has--'in nutrice quidem, nedum in matre durissimum; sed tranquilla fronte puellulam accipiens aliquantulum respexit & simul exosculans benedixit, ac signum sanctae crucis impressit, porrexitque satelliti.'

570. After _That_ in this line, we ought, in strict grammar, to have _ye burie_ in the next line, instead of the imperative _burieth_. But the phrase is idiomatic, and as all the seven best MSS. agree in this reading, it is best to retain it. Tyrwhitt alters _That but_ to _But if_.

579. _Somwhat_, in some degree. But Petrarch says differently--'_uehementer_ paterna animum pietas mouit.'

582-591. Lat. 'Iussit satelliti obuolutam pannis, cistae iniectam, ac iumento impositam, quiete omni quanta posset diligentia Bononiam deferret ad sororem suam, quae illic comiti de Panico nupta erat,' &c.

586. 'But, under penalty of having his head cut off'; lit. of cutting off his head.

589. _Boloigne_, Bologna, E. by S. from Modena, and a long way from Saluzzo. _Panik_ answers to the _de Panico_ in note to l. 582; Boccaccio has _Panago_. I observe in the map the river _Panaro_ flowing between Modena and Bologna; perhaps there is some connexion between the names. Tyrwhitt has _Pavie_ (Pavia) in his text, but corrects it in the notes.

602. _in oon_, in one and the same state: _ever in oon_, always alike, continually; so also in l. 677. Cf. Kn. Ta. 913 (A. 1771).

607. This must mean--'no accidental sign of any calamity.'

612. _A knave child_, a male child, boy; as in Barbour's Bruce, xiii. 693; English Gilds, ed. T. Smith, p. 30.

615. _merië_; three syllables; cf. A. 1386, B. 4156. Ll. 621-623 are Chaucer's own.

625. _sikly berth_, hardly bear, dislike. Lat. 'populum _aegre ferre_,' &c.

643. Lat. 'ne te inopinus et subitus dolor turbet.'

645-651. Expanded from--'Dixi (ait) et repeto, nihil possum seu uelle, seu nolle, nisi quae tu; neque uero in ijs filiis quicquam habeo, praeter laborem.'

663. _plesancë_, three syllables; _stabl'_, one syllable.

666. 'The pain of death is not to be compared to the pleasure of your [348] love.' Lat. 'nec mors ipsa nostro fuerit par amori.' Cf. ll. 817, 1091.

687. _ever lenger_, &c., i. e. ever the longer (he thinks of it) the more he wonders. In _the more_, the word _the_ is for A. S. _þý_.

700. _And he_; cf. _And ye_, l. 105.

701-707. Expanded from--'sed sunt qui, ubi semel inceperint, non desinant; immo incumbant, haereantque proposito.'

704. _a stake_; cf. Macb. v. 7. 1; Jul. Caesar, iv. 1. 48.

714. _more penible_, more painstaking; Lat. 'obsequentior.'

719. 'She made it clear that no wife should of herself, on account of any worldly anxiety, have any will, in practice, different from that of her husband.'

722. _sclaundre_, ill fame, ill report concerning Walter. See l. 730.

738. _message_, a messenger; Lat. '_nuncios_ Romam misit.' So in Old English we find _prisoun_ or _prison_ for prisoner; Piers Pl. B. vii. 30.

772. _anon_, immediately. It was not uncommon in olden times for girls to be married at twelve years of age. The Wife of Bath was first married at that age; see D. 4.

797. Lat. 'magna omnis fortuna seruitus magna est; non mihi licet, quod cuilibet liceret agricolae.'

850. _were_ agrees with the word _clothes_ following; cf. _it ben_, Piers Plowm. B. vi. 56. She did not really bring her husband even the dower of her old clothes, as they had been taken from her. Lines 851-861 are all Chaucer's own, and shew his delicacy of touch.

866. Lat. 'neque omnino alia mihi dos fuit, quam fides et nuditas.'

871. Probably suggested by Job, i. 21. So l. 902 is from Job, iii. 3.

880-882. These lines are Chaucer's own; l. 880 is characteristic of him. The phrase in l. 880 seems to have been proverbial. Cf. 'I walke as werme, withoute wede'; Coventry Mysteries, p. 28. But Chaucer got it from Le Roman de la Rose, 445; see his translation, l. 454; vol. i. p. 112.

888-889. The latter part of l. 888, and l. 889, are Chaucer's own.

903. _lyves_, alive; _a lyves creature_, a creature alive, a living being. _Lyves_ is an adverb, formed like _nedes_, from the genitive case of the substantive. There are other instances of its use.

'Yif I late him _liues_ go'; Havelok, 509.

i. e. if I let him go away _alive_. And again _lyues_ = alive, in Piers Pl. B. xix. 154. Nearly repeated from Troil. iv. 251-2.

910. After this line, Chaucer has omitted the circumstance of Janicola's preserving his daughter's old clothing; 'tunicam eius hispidam, et attritam senio, abditam paruae domus in parte seruauerat.' See l. 913.

911. _Agayns_, towards, so as to meet. _To go agayns_, in M. E., is _to go to meet_. So also _to come agayns_, _to ride agayns_ (or _agayn_). See _Agayn_ in Glossary to Spec. of Eng. (Morris and Skeat); and Barbour's Bruce, xiv. 420. Ll. 915-917 are Chaucer's own. [349]

916. 'For the cloth was poor, and many days older now than on the day of her marriage.'

932. 'Men speak of Job, and particularly of his humility.' Cf. Job, xl. 4, xlii. 1-6.

934. _Namely of men_, especially of _men_, where _men_ is emphatic. The whole of this stanza (932-938) is Chaucer's.

938. _but_, except, unless; _falle_, fallen, happened; _of-newe_, newly, an adverbial expression. It means then, 'unless it has happened very lately.' In other words, 'If there is an example of a man surpassing a woman in humility, it must have happened very lately; for I have never heard of it.'

939. _Pars Sexta._ This indication of a new part comes in a fitting place, and is taken from Tyrwhitt, who may have found it in a MS. But there is no break here in the Latin original, nor in any of the MSS. of Chaucer which I have consulted. _erl of Panik_; Lat. 'Panicius comes.'

940. _more and lesse_, greater or smaller; i. e. everybody. So also in the Frank. Tale, 'riveres _more and lesse_'; F. 1054. So also _moche and lyte_, great and small, Prol. 494; _moste and leste_, greatest and least, A. 2198. Spenser has, F. Q. vi. 6. 12,--

''Gainst all, both bad and good, both most and least.'

941. _alle and some_, i. e. all and one, one and all. See Morris's Eng. Accidence, sect. 218, p. 142.

960. _wommen_; some MSS. have _womman_, as in Tyrwhitt. But MS. E. is right. Petrarch uses the word _foeminas_, not _foeminam_.

965. _yvel biseye_, ill provided; lit. ill beseen. The word _yvel_ is pronounced here almost as a monosyllable (as it were _yv'l_), as is so commonly the case with _ever_; indeed generally, words ending with _el_ and _er_ are often thus clipped. A remarkable instance occurs in the Milleres Tale (A. 3715), where we not only have a similar ending, but the word _ever_ in the same line--

'That trewë love was ever so yvel biset.'

See also _yvel apayed_ in line 1052 below. The converse to _yvel biseye_, is _richely biseye_, richly provided or adorned, in l. 984 below.

981. Lat. 'Proximae lucis hora tertia comes superuenerat'; see note to l. 260.

995-1008. These two stanzas are Chaucer's own, and are so good that they must have been a later addition; Prof. Ten Brink suggests the date 1387 (Eng. Lit. ii. 123, Eng. version). In MS. E. the word _Auctor_ is inserted in the margin, and l. 995 begins with a large capital letter. At the beginning of l. 1009 is a paragraph-mark, shewing where the translation begins again. _unsad_, unsettled. Cf. Shakesp. Cor. i. 1. 186, Jul. Caesar, i. 1. 55; Scott, Lady of the Lake, v. 30.

999. 'Ever full of tittle-tattle, which would be dear enough at a halfpenny.' See n. to l. 1200. _Iane_, a small coin of Genoa (Janua); see Rime of Sir Thopas, B. 1925. The first stanza (995-1001) is supposed [350] to be uttered by the sober and discreet part of the population; see l. 1002.

1031. _lyketh thee_, pleases thee. The marquis addresses her as _thou_, because all suppose her to be a menial.

1039. _mo_, lit. more; but also used in the sense of _others_, or, as here, _another_. The modern phrase would be, 'as you did _somebody else_.' The extreme delicacy of the hint is admirable. This use of _mo_ is common in Chaucer; see the Glossary. So also, in Specimens of English, ed. Morris and Skeat, we have, at p. 47, l. 51--

'Y sike for vnsete;
Ant mourne ase men doþ _mo_';

i. e. I sigh for unrest, and mourn as _other_ men do. And on the next page, p. 48, l. 22, we have

'Mody meneþ so doþ _mo_,
Ichot ycham on of þo';

i. e. 'The moody moan as _others_ do; I wot I am one of them.' In l. 240 of How the Good Wife taught her Daughter, pr. with Barbour's Bruce, ed. Skeat, we find--'And slanderit folk vald euir haue _ma_,' i. e. would ever have _others like themselves_. Somewhat similar is the expression _oþer mo_, where we should now say _others as well_; Piers Plowman, C. v. 10, xxii. 54. A somewhat similar use of _mo_ occurs in Tudor English. 'It fortuned Diogenes to ... make one among the _moo_ at a dyner.'--Udall, tr. of Erasmus' Apophthegmes (1564), bk. i. § 91. So also:--'that he also, emong the _mo_ [i. e. the rest] might haue his pleasure'; id. bk. ii. § 13. Tyrwhitt's suggestion that Chaucer has licentiously turned _me_ into _mo_ for the mere sake of getting a rime, in which he has hitherto been followed by nearly every editor, is only to be repudiated. It may well have been with the very purpose of guarding against this error that, in the Ellesmere and Hengwrt MSS., the original Latin text is here quoted in the margin--'unum bona fide te precor ac moneo: ne hanc illis aculeis agites, quibus _alteram_ agitasti.' Chaucer, who throughout surpasses his original in delicacy of treatment, did not permit himself to be outdone here; and Boccaccio also has the word _altra_. The use of _me_ would have been a _direct_ charge of unkindness, spoiling the whole story. See l. 1045 and l. 449.

1049. _gan his herte dresse_, addressed his heart, i. e. prepared it, schooled it. The M. E. _dresse_ is our modern _direct_; both being from Lat. _dirigere_.

1053. Here we may once more note the use of the word _thy_, the more so as it is used with a quite different tone. We sometimes find it used, as here, _between equals_, as a term of _endearment_; it is, accordingly, very significant. See l. 1056.

1066. _that other_, the other, the boy.

1071. _non_, any, either. The use of it is due to the preceding _nat_.

1079. Professor Morley, in his English Writers, v. 342, aptly remarks here--'And when Chaucer has told all, and dwelt with an [351] exquisite pathos of natural emotion all his own upon the patient mother's piteous and tender kissing of her recovered children--for there is nothing in Boccaccio, and but half a sentence in Petrarch, answering to these four beautiful stanzas (1079-1106)--he rounds all, as Petrarch had done, with simple sense, which gives religious meaning to the tale, then closes with a lighter strain of satire which protects Griselda herself from the mocker.'

1098. 'Hath caused you (to be) kept.' For the same idiom, see Kn. Tale, A. 1913; Man of Law's Tale, B. 171, and the note. Cf. 'Wher I have beforn ordeyned and _do mad_ [caused to be made] my tombe.' Royal Wills, ed. Nichols, p. 278.

1133. _His wyves fader_, i. e. Janicola. This circumstance should have been mentioned _before_ l. 1128, as in the original.

1140. For _of_ (Ellesmere MS.) the other MSS. read _in_.

1141. _auctour_, author, i. e. Petrarch, whom Chaucer follows down to l. 1162. Ll. 1138-1141 are Chaucer's own, and may be compared with his poem on the Golden Age (vol. i. 380).

1144. _importable_, intolerable; Lat.--'huius uxoris patientiam, quae mihi _uix imitabilis_ uidetur.' Of course ll. 1147-8 are Chaucer's.

1151. 'Receive all with submission.' Fr. _en gré_, gratefully, in good part. _sent_, sendeth; present tense, as in Piers Plowman, C. xxii. 434. The past tense is _sente_, which would not rime.

1152. 'For it is very reasonable that He should prove (or test) that which He created.'

1153. _boghte_, (hath) redeemed. See St. James, i. 13.

1162. Here Petrarch ends his narrative, and here, beyond all doubt, Chaucer's translation originally ended also. From this point to the end is the work of a later period, and in his best manner, though _unsuited to the coy Clerk_. He easily links on his addition by the simple expression _lordinges, herkneth_; and in l. 1170, he alludes to the _Wife of Bath_, of whom probably he had never thought when first translating the story.

We can thus understand the stanza in the footnote, on p. 424. It is genuine, but was rejected at the time of adding ll. 1163-1212. It was afterwards expanded into The Monkes Prologue, with the substitution of the patient Prudence for the patient Griselda; see B. 3083-6.

1177. Here the metre changes; the stanzas are of six lines; and all six stanzas are linked together. There are but three rimes throughout; _-ence_ in the first and third lines of every stanza, _-aille_ in the second, fourth, and sixth, (requiring _eighteen_ rimes in all), and _-inde_ in the fifth line. It is a fine example even from a metrical point of view alone.

1188. _Chichevache_, for _chiche vache_, i. e. lean cow. The allusion is to an old fable, of French origin, which describes a monstrous cow named _Chiche Vache_ as feeding entirely upon patient wives, and being very lean in consequence of the scarcity of her diet. A later form of the fable adds a second beast, named _Bicorne_ (two-horned), who, by adopting the wiser course of feeding upon patient husbands, was [352] always fat and in good case. Mr. Wright says--'M. Achille Jubinal, in the notes to his _Mystères inédits du xv Siècle_, tom. i. p. 390, has printed a French poetical description of _Chichevache_ from a MS. of the fourteenth century. In the French miracle of St. Geneviève, of the fifteenth century (Jubinal, ib. p. 281), a man says satirically to the saint,

"Gardez vous de la _chicheface_,
El vous mordra s'el vous encontre,
Vous n'amendez point sa besoigne."'

A poem by Lydgate on _Bycorne and Chichevache_ is printed in Mr. Halliwell's Minor Poems of Dan John Lydgate, p. 129 (Percy Society); see Morley's English Writers, vi. 107, and his Shorter English Poems, p. 55. In his Étude sur G. Chaucer, p. 221, M. Sandras refers us, for information about _Chicheface_, lit. 'thin face' or 'ugly face' (of which _Chiche vache_ was a perversion), to the Histoire Littéraire de France, vol. xxiii. Dr. Murray refers us to Montaiglon, _Poésie franç. 15^e et 16^e siècles_ (1855), ii. 191. The passage in Chaucer means, 'Beware of being too patient, lest Chichevache swallow you down.'

1189. _Folweth Ekko_, imitate Echo, who _always replies_.

1196. The forms _chamail_, _kamail_, a camel, occur in the A. F. Romance of King Horn, ed. Brede and Stengel, l. 4177. For the M. E. _camayl_, see Rich. Cuer de Lion, 2323; Cursor Mundi, 3304 (Trin. MS.).

1200. 'Always talk (or rattle) on, like a mill' (that is always going round and making a noise). 'Janglinge is whan men speken to muche biforn folk, and _clappen as a mille_, and taken no kepe what they seye'; Ch. Persones Tale, De Superbia (I. 406). Palsgrave's French Dict. has--'I clappe, I make a noyse as the clapper of a mill, _Ie clacque_.'

'Thou art as fulle of clappe, as is a mille.'
Hoccleve, de Regimine Principum, ed. Wright, p. 7.

Cf. 'As fast as millwheels strike'; Tempest, i. 2. 281.

1204. _aventaille_, the lower half of the moveable part of a helmet which admitted air; called by Spenser the _ventail_, F. Q. iv. 6. 19; v. 8. 12; and by Shakespeare the _beaver_, Hamlet, i. 2. 230. It is explained, in Douce's Illustrations of Shakespeare, that the moveable part of the helmet in front was made in two parts, which turned on hinges at the sides of the head. The upper part is the _visor_, to admit of vision, the lower the _ventail_, to admit of breathing. Both parts could be removed from the face, but only by lifting them _upwards_, and throwing them _back_. If the _visor_ alone were lifted, only the upper part of the face was exposed; but if the _ventail_ were lifted, the visor also went with it, and the whole of the face was seen. Compare Fairfax's Tasso, vii. 7:--

'But sweet Erminia comforted their fear,
Her _ventail_ up, her visage _open laid_.'

So also in Hamlet. With reference to the present passage, Mr. Jephson says that _and eek his aventaille_ is a perfect example of bathos. I fail to see why; the weapon that pierced a _ventail_ would pass into the [353] head, and inflict a death-wound. The passage is playful, but not silly.

1206. _couche_, cower. Hence the phrase--'to play couch-quail'; see Skelton, ed. Dyce, ii. 348.

1211. 'As light as a leaf on a linden-tree' was an old proverb. See Piers Pl. B. i. 154.

THE MARCHAUNTES PROLOGUE.

1213. _Weping and wayling_; an expression caught from l. 1212, and linking this Prologue to the foregoing Tale. Yet in fourteen MSS. the Merchant's Tale is separated from the Clerk's; Trial Forewords, by F. J. Furnivall (Chaucer Soc.), p. 28.

1221-2. _What_, why. _at al_, in every respect; like Lat. _omnino_.

1227. This theme is enlarged upon in Lenvoy de Chaucer à Bukton, a late minor poem (vol. i. 398).

1230. _Seint Thomas._ Whenever this Apostle is mentioned, he is nearly always said to be _of India_, to distinguish him, it may be, from Saint Thomas of Canterbury. See D. 1980, and the note. Some account of the shrine of St. Thomas, of the manner of his death, and of miracles wrought by him, is given in Marco Polo, bk. iii. ch. 18. Colonel Yule tells us that the body of St. Thomas lay at Mailapúr, a suburb of Madras. The legend of St. Thomas's preaching in India is of very high antiquity. St. Jerome speaks of the Divine Word being everywhere present in His fulness 'cum Thomâ in India, cum Petro Romae,' &c.; Sci. Hieronomi Epist. lix., ad Marcellam. Gregory of Tours (A. D. 544-595) speaks of the place _in India_ where the body of St. Thomas lay before it was transported to Edessa in the year 394. See the whole of Colonel Yule's long note upon the subject; and the account of Saint Thomas in Mrs. Jameson's Sacred and Legendary Art.

THE MARCHANTES TALE.

For remarks on the sources of this Tale, see vol. iii. p. 458. The modern version by Pope may be compared, though it was a juvenile performance. Cf. Lydgate, Minor Poems, p. 28.

This Tale frequently adopts passages from the Tale of Melibeus, which was doubtless written several years before it. See also the article by Dr. Köppel in Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen, vol. 86, p. 39.

1246. _Pavye_, Pavia. I suppose that Chaucer had no special reason for locating the tale in Lombardy.

1248-52. For _sixty_, some MSS. have _lx._; the scribes of MSS. Hl. and Ln. wrongly have _fourty_, which looks as if they took _lx._ to mean _xl._ I see no point in turning the former _sixty_ (in 1248) into _fourty_, as Wright does, on the pretence that the first twenty years of his life did not count. Sixty was considered a great age (l. 1401). [354]

1251. _seculeer_, secular; as distinguished from the monks and friars. Chaucer probably speaks ironically, meaning that these holy orders were as bad as the rest. See l. 1322.

1267-1392. The whole of this passage presents the arguments that prevailed with January; as shewn by the words _For which_ (i. e. wherefore) in l. 1393. That is to say, Chaucer here purposely keeps reasons _against_ marriage out of sight, reserving them for ll. 1521-1565, 1659-1681. Hence the opinion in l. 1269, that a man should marry when old, is not Chaucer's opinion at all.

1270. 'The fruit of his treasure,' i. e. purchased with his own wealth. A queer reason, and not Chaucer's. Cf. l. 1276.

1277. _sit wel_, is very fit. Palsgrave has: 'It sytteth, it becometh, _il siet_.'

1284. For _blisful_, MS. Hl. wrongly has _busily_.

1294. _Theofraste_, Theophrastus. The allusion is to the Liber Aureolus Theophrasti de Nuptiis, partly preserved by St. Jerome, who quotes a long extract from it in his tractate Contra Iovinianum, lib. i. John of Salisbury quotes the same passage, almost word for word, in his Polycraticus, lib. viii. c. 11. The point discussed is:--'an uir sapiens ducat uxorem.' Amongst other things, he has a passage answering to ll. 1296-1304 below. 'Quod si propter dispensationem domus ... ducuntur uxores: multo melius seruus fidelis dispensat, obediens auctoritati domini, et dispensationi eius obtemperans quàm uxor.... Assidere autem aegrotanti magis possunt amici et uernulae beneficiis obligati, quàm illa quae nobis imputat lachrymas suas, et haereditatis spe uendit illuuiem.' Cf. Lounsbury, Studies, ii. 366.

1305-6. These two lines occur in E. Cm., and are doubtless correct. The MSS. vary considerably; see Six-Text, Pref. p. 70.

Hn.--And if thow take a wyf _she wole destroye_
_Thy good substance, and thy body annoye_.

N.B. The words in italics are added in a later hand.

Hl.--And if that thou take a wif be war
Of oon peril which declare I ne dar.

Neither of these lines will scan. MSS. Harl. 7335 and Bodley 686 nearly agree with this, but read _be wel y-war_ for _be war_.

Arch. Seld.--And if thow take a wiff in thin age oolde
Ful lightly maist thow be a cokewoolde.

Pt.--And if thou take a wif that to the is vntrewe
Ful ofte tyme it shal the r[e]we.

So also MS. Harl. 1758, Laud 600 and 739, Lichfield, &c. The black-letter editions of 1550 and 1561 have a much better version of the same, for they omit _that_ and _is_ in the former (too long) line, and insert _sore_ before _rewe_ in the latter (too short) one.

Dd.--And if thow take a wyf of heye lynage
She shal be hauteyn and of gret costage.

[355] So also (according to Tyrwhitt) the Haistwell MS. and MS. Royal 17. D. xv; and, according to Furnivall, MS. Chr. Ch. C. 6.

In six MSS., according to Tyrwhitt, they are omitted; and on this account he omits them, on the plea that they 'form the opening of a new argument,... and consequently would have been cancelled, if he [Chaucer] had lived to publish his work.' But the sense is quite complete in the form in which I give them, from the two best MSS.

1311. Against this line is written, in the margin of MS. E.--'Uxor est diligenda quia donum Dei est: Iesus filius Sirac: domus et diuicie dantur a parentibus, a Domino autem proprie uxor bona uel prudens.' But the reference is wrong; the quotation is not from Ecclesiasticus (or Jesus the son of Sirach), but from Prov. xix. 14. The Vulgate has _uxor prudens_, omitting _bona uel_. The _whole_ quotation is from Albertano of Brescia's Liber de Amore Dei (Köppel).

1315. Compare B. 1199, and I. 1068.

1318. This parenthetical line is Chaucer's very own.

1319. 'Sacramentum hoc magnum est'; Eph. v. 32. Marriage, in the Romish Church, is one of the seven sacraments.

1323-35. All from Albertano of Brescia's Liber de Amore Dei (Köppel).

1326. Hl. has _body-naked_; but all the rest (like the old editions) have _bely-naked_, which is the usual expression; see examples in Halliwell.

1328. In the margin of E.--'Faciamus ei adiutorium,' &c. From Gen. ii. 18, 24.

1335-6. From Le Roman de la Rose, 16640-4.

1337. _Seint-e_ is feminine; _ben'cite_ is trisyllabic.

1358-61. Of course these lines are genuine; they occur in nearly every MS. but E. and Trin. Coll. R. 3. 3. The scribe of E. slipped from _reed_ in 1357 to _rede_ in 1362; a common mistake. Dr. Furnivall objects that _wyse_ in 1359 is made to rime with _wyse_ in 1360, and _rede_ in 1361 with _rede_ in 1362; the riming words being used _in the same sense_. This is not the case. The first _wyse_ is plural; the second is singular, and used generally. The first _rede_ means 'advise'; the second, 'read.' To leave them out would give a rime of _reed_ (monosyllable) with _rede_ (dissyllable).

1362. The examples of Rebecca, Judith, Abigail, and Esther are quoted, in the same order and in similar terms, in the Tale of Melibeus; see B. 2288-2291, and the Notes.

1373, 4. _Mardochee_, Mordecai; in the Vulgate, Mardochaeus. _Assuere_, Ahasuerus; in the Vulgate, Assuerus; see l. 1745.

1376. In the margin of MS. Hn. is written:--'Seneca: sicut nichil est superius benigna coniuge, ita nichil est crudelius infesta muliere.' This is from Albertano of Brescia, Lib. Consolationis, cap. v. (p. 18). Sundby gives the reference, not to Seneca, but to Fulgentius, Mythologiarum, L. i. c. 27.

1377. _bit_, biddeth, bids. The passage referred to is in Dionysius [356] Cato, lib. iii. dist. 25, and is given in the margin of MSS. E. Hn. and Dd.,

Uxoris linguam, si frugi est, ferre memento.

Quoted, at second-hand, from Albertano (Köppel).

1380. In the margin of MS. E.--'Bona mulier fidelis custos est, et bona domus.' From Albertano, as above.

1381-2. 'Ubi non est mulier, ingemiscit _egens_'; Ecclus. xxxvi. 27. Albertano quotes this, but alters _egens_ to _eger_; hence Chaucer has 'the syke man'; see Köppel's article, p. 42.

1384. See Eph. v. 25, 28, 29, 31.

1385. _thou lovest_, thou wilt love; the present for the future; in the second instance. There is no real difficulty here, though Tyrwhitt makes one, and alters the text to _love thou_.

1401. 'On the brink of my grave.' Cf. Ps. xxx. 3, 9; &c.

1407-16. 'Uxorem accipias potius puellam quam uiduam'; from Albertano. See Köppel's article, p. 42.

1412. _mo_, more in number; T. has _more_ (badly).

1418. 'I like fish when old, preferring a full grown pike to a pikerel; and I like flesh young, preferring veal to beef.'

1424. _Wades boot_, Wade's boat. Wade was a famous hero of antiquity, to whom Chaucer again alludes in Troil. iii. 614. In the Traveller's Song, l. 22, we find:--'Witta w[=e]old Sw[=æ]fum, Wada Hælsingum,' i. e. Witta ruled over the Swabians, Wada over the Hælsings.' Wade is again mentioned in the alliterative Morte Arthure, l. 964. In a translation of Guido delle Colonne, in MS. Laud K. 76, in the Bodleian library, the romance of Wade is mentioned in conjunction with those of Havelok and Horn, both of which are well known; see the whole passage, as cited in Warton, Hist. E. Poetry, in a note to Section III. In Sir Beves of Hamtoun, ed. Kölbing, 2605, we have an allusion to his fight with a fire-drake or fiery dragon. And in Sir T. Malory's Morte Arthur, bk. vii. c. 9, we find:--'were thou as wyghte as euer was Wade or Launcelot.' Speght knew the story, but has not recorded it; his note is:--'Concerning Wade and his bote called Guingelot, as also his straunge exploits in the same, because the matter is long and fabulous, I pass it over.' On which Tyrwhitt remarks--'_Tantamne rem tam negligenter?_ Mr. Speght probably did not foresee, that posterity would be as much obliged to him for a little of this _fabulous matter_ concerning _Wade_ and his _bote_, as for the gravest of his annotations.' Tyrwhitt also refers us, for a mention of Wade, to Camden's Britannia, 907, and to Charlton's History of Whitby, p. 40. M. Michel endeavoured to collect the particulars concerning Wade, and published them in a brochure, entitled _Wade: Lettre à M. Henri Ternaux-Compans, &c. sur une Tradition Angloise du Moyen Age_; Paris, 1837; 8vo. But it does not tell us much more that is helpful, except in furnishing a reference to the Wilkina Saga, capp. 18-20.

After all, the most light is given us by the following sentence in the [357] Corpus Poeticum Boreale, ed. Vigfusson and Powell, i. 168, with reference to the Lay of Weyland. 'Weyland is trapped by Nidad, king of the Niars, hamstrung, and forced to work for him in his forge on the isle of Seastead in lake Wolfmere. He contrives to slay his tyrant's sons, beguile his daughter [named Bodwild], and by the aid of a pair of wings which he has fashioned to soar away from his prison-house, rejoicing in his revenge.... That the King's daughter had a son by Weyland, _the famous Wade_ (the memory of whose magic boat _Wingelock_ lingered in N. England till the Reformation), we know from Wilkina Saga.'

I entirely differ from M. Michel's extraordinary conclusion about the boat--'Nous avons quelques raisons de croire que ce bateau n'étoit pas d'une course aussi rapide: en effet, dans l'Edda il est dit qu'Odin avoit un valet et une servante nommés _Ganglate_ et _Gangloet_, mots qu'on dit signifier _marchant lentement_.' Of course _Ganglati_ and _Ganglöt_ (as they should be written) mean 'slow-goer,' but this has nothing to do with _Guingelot_, which is merely a French spelling of some such form as _Wingelok_. It is obvious that the sole use of a magic boat is to transport its possessor from place to place in a few minutes, like the magic wings of Wade's own father. This is all we need to know, to see the point of the allusion. Old widows, says Chaucer in effect, know too much of the craft of Wade's boat; they can fly from place to place in a minute, and, if charged with any misdemeanour, will swear they were a mile away from the place at the time alleged. Mr. Pickwick, on the other hand, being only a man, failed to set up the plea of an _alibi_, and suffered accordingly.

1425. _broken harm._ This is one of the phrases which Tyrwhitt includes in his list as being 'not understood'; nor is it easy. But if we take it in connexion with the context, I think it can be explained. _Harm_ is 'mischief, injury'; broken is 'fragmentary,' as in 'broken meat,' and the like; so that _broken harm_ refers to slight disconnected acts of mischief, or what we should now call 'petty annoyances,' or 'small worries.' Thus the sense is that 'widows know so much about ways of creating small annoyances, that I should never live in peace with one.' Taken all together, ll. 1424-6 simply imply that 'old widows are so full of tricks for deceiving me, and can inflict at pleasure such small but constant annoyances, that I,' &c.

1447. _Take him_, let him take; see the Exhortation in the Marriage-Service in the Book of Common Prayer; cf. Pers. Tale, I. 939, 940, 861.

1469. Cf. F. 202.

1474. _disputisoun_, disputation. Many MSS. have _disputacioun_, which is too long. The form, as Tyrwhitt remarks, is quite correct; see B. 4428, F. 890. Spelt _desputeson_ in Gower, Conf. Amant. i. 90. See _disputoison_ in Godefroy, with the variants in _-aison_, _-eison_, _-eson_, _-ison_. Compare _orison_ with _oration_.

1476. _Placebo._ This name has reference to his complaisant disposition; see note to D. 2075. So, in the Ayenbite of Inwyt, ed. [358] Morris, p. 60, we have: 'The verthe zenne is, thet huanne hi alle zingeth Placebo, thet is to zigge: "mi lhord zayth zoth, my lhord doth wel"; and wendeth to guode al thet the guodeman deth other zayth, by hit guod, by hit kuead.'

1485. This quotation is not from Solomon, but from Jesus son of Sirach; see Ecclus. xxxii. 19:--'Do nothing without advice, and when thou hast once done, repent not.' Chaucer follows the Vulgate version; see note to B. 2193, where the quotation recurs.

1516. 'Your heart hangs on a jolly pin,' i. e. is in a merry state. A _pin_ was a name for a wooden peg; and _to hang on a pin_ was to be hung up conspicuously. Palsgrave, p. 844, has: 'Upon a mery pynne, _de hayt_; as, _il a le cueur de hayt_'; cf. '_Hait_, liveliness, ... cheerfulness' in Cotgrave. Halliwell gives: '_on the pin_, on the _qui vive_.' Later, the phrase became _in a merry pin_, i. e. in a good humour; but this is thought to refer to the pins or pegs in a 'peg-tankard'; see _Pin_ in Nares. Cowper, in his John Gilpin, has 'in merry pin.'

1523. See Seneca, De Beneficiis, capp. 14-16; Lounsbury, Studies, ii. 270. However, it is _really_ taken from Map's Epistola Valerii, c. 9: 'Philosophicum est: Videto cui des. Ethica est: Videto cui te des.'--Anglia, xiii. 183. Cf. P. Plowman, B. vii. 74, and the note.

1535. _chydester_, the feminine form of _chyder_, which is the form used in MSS. Pt. and Hl. I can find no other example; but, in the Romaunt of the Rose, ll. 150, 4266, we find _chideresse_.

1536. _mannish wood_, with masculine manners, and mad; virago-like. Certainly the right reading, and found in E. Hn. Cm. Unluckily, Tyrwhitt and others have adopted the nonsensical reading of Pt. and Hl., viz. _a man is wood_! Cp. Ln. have _of maneres wood_, which is better, but is clearly a mere substitution for the original _mannish_. For _mannish_, masculine, we have Chaucer's own authority; see B. 782, and the note.

1538. 'A metaphor from horses, meaning, No woman is without faults, just as there is no horse which will trot perfectly sound in all respects.'--Bell. From Albertano of Brescia, Liber de Amore Dei: 'Nulla tam bona uxor, in qua non inuenias quod queraris.'--Köppel.

1553. 'I know best where my shoe pinches me.' This story has been already alluded to; see D. 492, and the note.

1558. Tyrwhitt has:--'By him that made water, _fire_, erthe, and aire.' This will not scan, and the word _fire_ is introduced merely to please the editor, being found in none of the seven MSS., nor in the old editions. When Chaucer wishes to mention _all_ the four elements, he does so; see A. 1246, 2992.

1560-1. From Le Rom. de la Rose, 14055-6:--

'Car cil a moult poi de savoir
Qui seus cuide sa fame avoir.'

1582. Cf. Boeth. bk. v. met. 4. 8; Troil. i. 365; Ayenb. of Inwyt, p. 158.

1584. E. Hn. have _se ful many_, but the rest omit _ful_. Scan the [359] line by reading _many a_ in one foot, and making _figúr-e_ trisyllabic, as in B. 3412, E. 16.

1592. _voys_, fame, general approval.

1609. Read _inpossíbl'_, and _wer-e_. _were_, would be.

1640-1. The seven deadly sinnes, for which see the Persones Tale. 'The popular medieval treatises on the seven sins arrange the minor transgressions connected with each as _branches_ of the primary tree.'--Wright. And each of the _branches_ have _twigs_, as Chaucer himself says; see I. 389. Cf. my note to P. Plowman, C. viii. 70.

1665. _forbed-e_, may (God) forbid. _sente_, subj., could send.

1682. This line is incomplete in all the seven MSS. There is a pause at the caesura, so that the word _for_ occupies the whole of the third foot. Tyrwhitt conceals this fact by inserting _but_ before _thinne_. Cf. D. 1647, and the note.

1684-7. These four parenthetical lines interrupt the story rather awkwardly. They obviously belong to the narrator, the Marchant, as it is out of the question that Justinus had heard of the Wife of Bath. Perhaps it is an oversight.

If we take these lines in this way, it is necessary to read _we have_ in l. 1686, as in Hn. The other MSS. and editions read _ye have_. I explain 'which we have on honde' as meaning, 'which we are now discussing.' Moreover, the reading _we_ is exactly appropriate after the reading _us_ of l. 1684, where it is difficult to see how _us_ can refer to any but the Canterbury pilgrims.

1693. _Maius_ is a masculine form, because the name of the month is so; see l. 1748.

1702. _sacrement_, i. e. of marriage; see l. 1319. The couple also used to 'receive the sacrament,' i. e. the eucharist, in the modern sense.

1704. Referring to the prayers in the marriage service, which mention Isaac and Rebecca, and Abraham and Sarah.

1709-52. Quoted by Warton, Hist. E. Poetry, ed. 1871, ii. 354.

1716. _Orpheus_, the celebrated minstrel, whose story is in Ovid, Met. x. 1-85; xi. 1-66. Mentioned again in the Book of the Duchesse, 569; House of Fame, 1203; Troil. iv. 791. For the minstrelsy at the feast, cf. F. 78.

_Amphioun_, Amphion, king of Thebes, who helped to build Thebes by the magic of his music; Hyginus, Fab. 6 and 7; cf. Ovid, Met. vi. 221, 271, 402; xv. 427. Already mentioned in connexion with Thebes in A. 1546. (The _i_ is shortened.)

1719. Cf. 'Ther herde I trumpe Ioab also'; Ho. of Fame, 1245. 'Joab blew a trumpet,' 2 Sam. ii. 28; xviii. 16; xx. 22.

1720. _Theodomas_; also mentioned in the above passage, Ho. of Fame, 1246. As he blew a trumpet at Thebes, when the city was in fear (or danger), he is clearly to be identified with the Thiodamas mentioned in the Thebaid of Statius. He succeeded Amphiaraus as augur, and furiously excited the besiegers to attack Thebes. His invocation was succeeded by a great sound of trumpets (Theb. viii. [360] 343), but Statius does not expressly say that he blew a trumpet himself.

1723. _Venus_; cf. F. 272-274.

1727. _fyrbrond_, fire-brand, torch; which she carried as appropriate to the marriage procession. This attribute of Venus is found in Le Roman de la Rose, l. 3434:--

'Ele tint ung brandon flamant
En sa main destre, dont la flame
A eschauffee mainte dame.'

Observe that l. 2250 of the Legend of Good Women runs thus:--'N'Ymenëus, that god of wedding is.' This agrees with line 1730 except as regards the prefixed _Ne_. The 'fire-brand' reappears in l. 1777 below.

1731. _his lyf_, i. e. during his life, in all his life.

1732. _Marcian._ Chaucer is still thinking of his own House of Fame (cf. notes to ll. 1719, 1720), where he had already mentioned Marcian, at l. 985. Martianus Minneus Felix Capella, a native of Carthage, was a writer of the fifth century, and wrote the Nuptials of Philology and Mercury, _De Nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii_. This consists of two books, immediately followed by seven books on the Seven Sciences; see Warton's Hist. E. Poetry, ed. 1871, iii. 77; Smith's Classical Dictionary, s. v. _Capella_; Lydgate's Temple of Glass, l. 130.

1734. _hir_; cf. 'he, Theofraste,' in l. 1294; also ll. 1368, 1373. For _him_ (as in E. Cm.), MSS. Hn. Hl. have _he_ (badly).

1745. _Assuer_, Ahasuerus, as in l. 1374. There is a special reference here to the banquet at which Esther obtained her request; see Esther, v. 6. See further in Warton, Hist. E. Poetry, ed. 1871, i. 288, iii. 142.

1754. For other allusions to Paris and Eleyne, see Parl. of Foules, 290, 291; Book of the Duch. 331.

1783. The word 'Auctor' in the margin of MS. E. signifies that ll. 1783-1794 form a reflection on the subject by the author, who here personates the Marchant. There are similar passages further on, viz. ll. 1866-1874, 2057-2068, 2107-2115, and 2125-2131.

1784. _bedeth_, proffers; cf. G. 1065. From Boeth. bk. iii. pr. 5. 50.

1785. _false hoomly hewe_, O false domestic servant! Cp. Pt. Ln. have the reading _holy_, which doubtless arose, as Wright points out, from missing the mark of abbreviation in the form 'h[=o]ly,' i. e. ho_m_ly. 'Tyrwhitt, however,' he adds, 'adopts this reading, mistakes the meaning of the word _hewe_, adds _of_, which is found in none of the MSS.; and in his text it stands _false of holy hewe_, which he supposes to signify false of holy colour. Conjectural emendations are always dangerous.' Yet Wright _silently adopts_ such emendations over and over again; cf. l. 1812 below. Cf. _hoomly fo_ in ll. 1792, 1794.

1786. 'Like the sly and treacherous snake in the bosom.' This refers to the fable in Phaedrus, lib. iv. fab. 18. But Chaucer probably [361] took it from the Gesta Romanorum, ch. clxxiv. For numerous references, see the Exempla of Jacques de Vitry, ed. Crane, 1890, p. 201.

1790. Here the monosyllabic pp. _born_ takes a final _e_ in the definite form, as noticed by Prof. Child; see Ellis, E. E. Pronunc. p. 350, § 32. Cf. _her dreint-e lord_, Gower, C. A., ii. 105; and see B. 69.

1793. From Boethius, lib. iii. pr. 5:--'Quae uero pestis efficacior ad nocendum, quàm familiaris inimicus?' See vol. ii. p. 63.

1795. _his ark diurne_, the daily arc of his apparent motion. See Chaucer on the Astrolabe, pt. ii. § 7:--'To knowe the _arch of the day_'; or, as in l. 7 of the same:--'tak ther thyn _ark of the day_.'

1797. _On thorisonte_, upon the horizon; i. e. the time was come for the sun to descend _below_ it.

_that latitude_; because the apparent motion of the sun depends upon the latitude as well as upon the day of the year; cf. the Treatise on the Astrolabe, pt. ii. § 13.

1799. _hemisperie_, the hemisphere above the horizon; see the Treatise on the Astrolabe, pt. i. § 18.