Chaucer's Works, Volume 5 — Notes to the Canterbury Tales

Chapter VIII: Part 8

Text size

3921. _Trumpington._ The modern mill, beside the bridge over the Granta, between the villages of Trumpington and Grantchester, is familiar to all Cambridge men; but this mill and bridge are both comparatively modern, being placed upon an artificial channel. The old 'bridge' is that over the old river-bed, somewhat nearer Trumpington; the 'brook' is this old course of the Granta, which is hereabouts very narrow and circuitous; and the mill stood a quarter of a mile above the bridge, at the spot marked 'Old Mills' on the ordnance-map, though better known as 'Byron's pool,' which is the old mill-pool. The fen mentioned in l. 4065 is probably the field between the Old Mills and the road, which must formerly have been fen-land; though Lingay Fen may be meant, which covers the space between Bourne Brook (flowing into the Granta at the Old Mills) and the Cambridge and Bedford Railway. We like to think that Chaucer saw the spot himself; but he certainly seems to have thought that Trumpington was somewhat further from Cambridge than it really is, as he actually makes the clerks to have been benighted there; and he might easily have learnt some local particulars from his wife's friend, Lady Blaunche de Trumpington, or from Sir Roger himself. In any case, it is interesting to find him thus boldly assigning a known locality to a mill which he had found in a French fabliau.

3927. _Pypen_, play the bag-pipe; see A. 565. The Reeve is clearly trying to make his description suit the Miller in the company, whom it is his express object to tease. Hence he says he could _wrestle well_ (cf. A. 548) and could play the bag-pipe.

_nettes bete_, mend nets; he knew how to net.

3928. _turne coppes_, turn cups, make wooden cups in a turning-lathe; not a very difficult operation. It is curious that Tyrwhitt gave up trying to explain this simple phrase. In Riley's Memorials of London, p. 666, we find that, in 1418, when the English were besieging Rouen, it was enacted that 'the turners should have 4s. for every hundred of 2,500 cups, in all 100s.': so that a wooden cup could be turned at the cost of a halfpenny. [117]

3929. Printed _pavade_ by Tyrwhitt, _pauade_ by Thynne (ed. 1532), but _panade_ in Wright. Levins' Manipulus Vocabulorum (1570) has: 'A PAUADE, _pugio_'; but this is probably copied from Thynne. The exact form is not found in O. F., but Godefroy's O. F. Dict. gives: '_Penart_, _pennart_, _penard_, _panart_, _pannart_, coutelas, espèce de grand couteau à deux tranchants ou taillants, sorte de poignard'; with seven examples, one of which shows that it could be hung at the belt: 'Un grant _pennart_ qu'il avoit pendu a sa sainture.' Ducange gives the Low Lat. form _penardus_, and wrongly connects it with F. _poignard_, from which it is clearly distinct; but he also gives the form _pennatum_ with the sense of 'pruning-knife,' and Torriano gives an Ital. _pennato_ with the same sense. Cf. Lat. _bi-pennis_. It was a two-edged cutlass, worn in addition to his sword; and see below. It is also printed _pauade_ in Lydgate's Siege of Troy, ed. 1555, fol. N 5, back.

3931. _popper_, thruster, i. e. dagger; from the verb _pop_, to thrust in; cf. _poke_. _Ioly_ probably means 'neat' or 'small.' This was the Miller's third weapon of offence, of which he had three sizes, viz. a sword, a cutlass, and a little dagger like a _misericorde_, used for piercing between the joints of armour. No wonder that no one durst touch him 'for peril.' The _poppere_ answers to the _boydekin_ of l. 3960, q.v. And besides these, he carried a knife. 'Poppe, to stryke'; Cathol. Angl. p. 286.

3933. _thwitel_, knife; from A.S. _thw[=i]tan_, to cut; now ill-spelt _whittle_. The portraits of Chaucer show a knife hanging from his breast; accordingly, in Greene's Description of Chaucer, we find this line: 'A whittle by his belt he bare'; see Greene's Works, ed. Dyce, 1883, p. 320. Note that Sheffield was already celebrated for its cutlery; so in the Witch of Edmonton, Act ii. sc. 2, Somerton speaks of 'the new pair of _Sheffield knives_.'

3934. _camuse_ (Hl. _camois_), low and concave; cf. l. 3974 below. F. _camus_, 'flat-nosed'; Cotgrave. Ital. _camuso_, 'one with a flat nose'; Florio. See _Camois_ in the New E. Dict., where it is thus explained: 'Of the nose: low and concave. Of persons: pug-nosed.' To the examples there given, add the following from Holland's tr. of Pliny, i. 229; 'As for the male goats, they are held for the best which are most _camoise_ or snout-nosed.' Hexham's Du. Dict., s. v. _Neuse_, has the curious entry: '_een Camuys ende opwaerts gaende Neuse_ [lit. a camus and upwards-going Nose], Camell-nosed.'

3936. _market-beter_, a frequenter of markets, who swaggered about, and was apt to be quarrelsome and in the way of others. See Wyclif's Works, ed. Matthew, pp. 511, 520; and cf. F. _battre le pavé_, 'aller et venir sans but, sans occupation'; Littré. And cf. E. 'policeman's _beat_.' Cotgrave has: '_Bateur de pavez_, a pavement-beater; ... one that walks much abroad, and riots it wheresoever he walks.' The following passage from the Complaint of the Ploughman (in Wright's Polit. Poems, i. 330) makes it clear-- [118]

'At the wrastling, and at the wake,
And chief chantours at the nale [_ale_];
_Market-beaters_, and medling make,
Hoppen and houten [_hoot_], with heve and hale.'

A synonymous term was _market-dasher_, spelt _market-daschare_ in the Prompt. Parv.; see Way's note.

_atte fulle_, completely, entirely.

3941. _Simkin_, diminutive of _Simond_, which was his real name (ll. 4022, 4127). Altered to _Sim-e-kin_ by Tyrwhitt, for the scansion; but cf. ll. 3945, 3947, 4034, &c. He makes the same alteration in l. 3959, for a like reason, but we may scan it: 'But if | he wold | e be | slayn,' &c. All the MSS. have _Symkyn_, except Hl., which has _Symekyn_ here and in l. 3959. We must either make the form variable, or else treat the word _de-y-nous_ as a trisyllable. _Deynous_ was his regular epithet.

3943. This statement, that the parson of the town was her father, has caused surprise. In Bell's Chaucer, the theory is started that the priest had been a widower before he took orders, which no one can be expected to believe; it is too subtle. It is clear that she was an illegitimate daughter; this is why her father paid money to get her married to a miller, and why she thought ladies ought to spare her (and not avoid her), because it was an honour to have a priest for a father, and because she had learnt so much good-breeding in a nunnery. The case is only too clear; cf. note to l. 3963.

3953. _tipet_, not here a cape, but the long pendant from the hood at one time fashionable, which Simkin wound round his head, in order to get it out of the way. See _Tippett_ in Fairholt's Costume in England; Glossary. Cf. notes to A. 233, 682.

3954. So also the Wife of Bath had 'gay scarlet _gytes_'; D. 559. Spelt _gide_ in MS. Ln., and _gyde_ in Blind Harry's _Wallace_, i. 214: 'In-till a _gyde_ of gudly ganand greyne,' where it is used of a gay dress worn by Wallace. It occurs also twice in Golagros and Gawain, used of the gay dress of a woman; see Jamieson. Nares shews that _gite_ is used once by Fairfax, and thrice by Gascoigne. The sense is usually dubious; it may mean 'robe,' or, in some places, 'head-dress.' The _g_ was certainly hard, and the word is of F. origin. Godefroy gives '_guite_, chapeau'; and Roquefort has '_wite_, voile.' The F. Gloss. appended to Ducange gives the word _witart_ as applied to a man, and _witarde_ as applied to a woman. Cf. O. F. _wiart_, which Roquefort explains as a woman's veil, whilst Godefroy explains _guiart_ as a dress or vestment. The form of the word suggests a Teutonic origin; perhaps from O. H. G. _wît_, wide, ample, which would explain its use to denote a veil or a robe indifferently. Ducange suggests a derivation from Lat. _uitta_, which is also possible.

3956. _dame_, lady; see A. 376.

3959. _wold-e_, wished, seems to be dissyllabic; see note to l. 3941. [119]

3960. _boydekin_, dagger, as in B. 3892, q. v. Cf. note to l. 3931.

3962. 'At any rate, they would that their wives should think so.' _Wenden_, pt. pl. subj. of _wenen_.

3963. _smoterlich_, besmutched; cf. _bismotered_ in A. 76. Tyrwhitt says: 'it means, I suppose, smutty, dirty; but the whole passage is obscure.' Rather, it is perfectly clear when the allusion is perceived. The allusion is to the smutch upon her reputation, on account of her illegitimacy. This explains also the use of _somdel_; 'because she was, in some measure, of indifferent reputation, she was always on her dignity, and ready to take offence'; which is true to human nature. Thus the whole context is illuminated at once.

3964. _digne_, full of dignity, and therefore (as Chaucer says, with exquisite satire) like (foul) water in a ditch, which keeps every one at a proper distance. However, the satire is not Chaucer's own, but due to a popular proverbial jest, which occurs again in The Ploughman's Crede, l. 375, where the Dominican friars are thus described:--

'Ther is more pryve pride in Prechours hertes
Than ther lefte [_remained_] in Lucyfer, er he were lowe fallen;
They ben _digne as dich-water_, that dogges in bayteth' [_feed in_].

And, again, in the same, l. 355:--

'For with the princes of pride the Prechours dwellen,
They bene _as digne as the devel_, that droppeth fro hevene.'

Hence _digne_ is proud, repulsive.

3965. 'And full of scorn and reproachful taunting'; like the lady in Lay de Freine, l. 60 (in Weber's Met. Romances, i. 359):--

'A proud dame and an enuious,
Hokerfulliche missegging,
Squeymous and eke scorning;
To ich woman sche hadde envie.'

_Hoker_ is the A. S. _h[=o]cor_, scorn. _Bismare_ is properly of _two_ syllables only (A. S. _bismor_), but is here made into three; MS. Cp. has _bisemare_, and Hl. has _bissemare_, and the spelling _bisemare_ also appears much earlier, in the Ancren Riwle, p. 132, and _bisemære_ in Layamon, i. 140. Owing to a change in the accentuation, the etymology had been long forgotten. See _Bismer_ in the New E. Dict., and see the Glossary.

3966. 'It seemed to her that ladies ought to treat her with consideration,' and not look down upon her; see note to l. 3943.

3977. _The person_, the parson, i. e. her grandfather.

3980. 'And raised difficulties about her marriage.'

3990. The _Soler-halle_ has been guessed to be Clare Hall, merely because that college was of early foundation, and was called a 'hall.' But a happy find by Mr. Riley tells us better, and sets the question at rest. In the First Report of the Historical MSS. Commission, p. 84, Mr. Riley gives several extracts from the Bursar's Books of King's [120] Hall, in which the word _solarium_ repeatedly occurs, shewing that this Hall possessed numerous _solaria_, or sun-chambers, used as dwelling-rooms, apparently by the fellows. They were probably fitted with bay-windows. This leaves little doubt that _Soler-Hall_ was another name for _King's Hall_, founded in 1337 by Edward III, and now merged in Trinity College. It stood on the ground now occupied by the Great Gate, the Chapel, Bowling-green, and Master's Lodge of that celebrated college. On the testimony of Chaucer, we learn that the King's Hall, even in his time, was 'a greet collegge.' Its successor is the largest in England.

In Wright's Hist. of Domestic Manners, pp. 83, 127, 128, it is explained that the early stone-built house usually had a hall on the ground-floor, and a _soler_ above. The latter, being more protected, was better lighted, and was considered a place of greater security. 'In the thirteenth century a proverbial characteristic of an avaricious and inhospitable person, was to shut his hall-door and live in the _soler_.' It was also 'considered as the room of honour for rich lodgers or guests who paid well.' Udall speaks of 'the _solares_, or loftes of my hous'; tr. of Erasmus' Apophthegmes, _Aug. Cæsar_, § 27.

3999. _made fare_, made a to-do (as we now say).

4014. _Strother._ There is now no town of this name in England, but the reference is probably to a place which gave its name to a Northumbrian family. Mr. Gollancz tells me:--'The Strother family, of Northumberland, famous in the fourteenth century, was a branch of the Strothers, of Castle Strother in Glendale, to the west of Wooler. The chief member of this Northumberland branch seems to have been _Alan de Strother_ the younger, who died in 1381. (See Calendarium Inquis. post Mortem, 4 Ric. II, vol. iii. p. 32.) The records contain numerous references to him; e. g. "Aleyn de Struther, conestable de nostre chastel de Rokesburgh," A. D. 1366 (Rymer's Foedera, iii. 784); "Alanum del Strother, vicecomitem de Rokesburgh et vicecomitem Northumbriæ" (id. iii. 919). It is a noteworthy point that this Alan de Strother had a son _John_.' This definite information does away with the old guess, that Strother is a mistake for Langstrothdale Chase almost at the N.W. extremity of the W. Riding of Yorkshire, joining the far end of Wharfdale to Ribblesdale, and even now not very accessible, though it can be reached from Ribblehead station, on the Skipton and Carlisle Railway, or from Horton-in-Ribblesdale.

I suppose that Castle Strother, mentioned above, must have been near Kirknewton, some 5 miles or so to the west of Wooler. The river Glen falls into the Till, which is a tributary of the Tweed. I find mention, in 1358-9, of 'Henry de Strother, of Kirknewton in Glendale'; Brand, Hist. of Newcastle, ii. 414, note. W. Hutchinson, in his View of Northumberland, 1778, i. 260, speaks of 'Kirknewton, one of the manors of the Barony of Wark, the ancient residence of the Strothers, now the property of John Strother Ker, Esq.' [121]

We may here notice some of the characteristics of the speech which Chaucer assigns to these two students from Northumberland.

(_a_) They use _a_ for A. S. _[=a]_, where Chaucer usually has _[=o]_ (long and open). Ex. _na_ (Ch. _no_), _swa_ (_so_), _ham_ (_hoom_), _gas_ (gooth), _fra_ (_fro_), _banes_ (_bones_), _anes_ (_ones_), _waat_ (_woot_), _raa_ (_ro_), _bathe_ (_bothe_), _ga_ (_go_), _twa_, (_two_), _wha_ (_who_). Similarly we find _saule_ for Ch. _soule_, soul, _tald_ for _told_, _halde_ for _holde_, _awen_ for _owen_, own.

(_b_) They use _a_ for A. S. short _a_ before _ng_. Ex. _wanges_, but Ch. also has _wang-tooth_, B. 3234; _sang_ for _song_ (4170), _lange_ for _longe_, _wrang_ for _wrong_.

(_c_) They use (perhaps) _ee_ for _oo_; as in _geen_ for _goon_, gone, 4078; _neen_ for _noon_, none, 4185. This is remarkable, and, in fact, the readings vary, as noted. _Geen_, _neen_ are in MS. E. Note also _pit_ for _put_, 4088.

(_d_) They use the indicative sing. and pl. in _-es_ or _-s_. Ex. 3 pers. sing. _far-es_, _bo-es_, _ga-s_, _wagg-es_, _fall-es_, _fynd-es_, 4130, _bring-es_, _tyd-es_, 4175, _say-s_, 4180. Pl. _werk-es_, 4030. So also is _I_, _I is_, _thou is_, 4089. In l. 4045, we find _are ye_, E.; _ar ye_ (better), Hn.; _ere ye_, Cp. Hl.; _is ye_, Cm. Pt.; _es ye_, Ln. Both _ar_ (_er_) and _is_ (_es_) are found in the present tense plural in Northern works; _we is_ occurs in Barbour's Bruce, iii. 317. It is not 'ungrammatical,' as Tyrwhitt supposes.

(_e_) Other grammatical peculiarities are: _sal_ for _shal_, shall, 4087; _slyk_ for _swiche_, such, 4173; _whilk_ for _whiche_, 4171; _thair_ for _hir_, their, 4172 (which is now the standard use); _hethen_ for _hennes_, hence, 4033; _til_ for _to_ (but Chaucer sometimes uses _til_ himself, chiefly before a vowel); _y-mel_ for _amonges_, 4171; _gif_ for _if_, 4181.

(_f_) Besides the use of the peculiar forms mentioned in (_e_), we find certain words employed which do not occur elsewhere in Chaucer, viz. _boes_ (see note to 4027), _lathe_, barn, _fonne_, fool, _hething_, contempt, _taa_, take. To these Tyrwhitt adds _gar_, reading _Gar us have mete_ in l. 4132, but I can only find _Get us som mete_ in my seven MSS. _Capul_, horse, occurs again in D. 1554, 2150.

I think Mr. Ellis a little underrates the 'marked northernism' of Chaucer's specimens. Certainly _thou is_ is as marked as _I is_; and other certain marks are the pl. indic. in _-es_, as in _werk-es_, 4030, the use of _sal_ for 'shall,' of _boes_ for 'behoves,' of _taa_ for 'take,' of _hethen_ for 'hence,' of _slyk_ for 'such,' the prepositions _fra_ and _y-mel_, and even some of the peculiarities of pronunciation, as _[=a]_ for _[=o]_, _wrang_ for _wrong_.

It is worth enquiring whether Chaucer has made any mistakes, and it is clear that he has made several. Thus _as clerkes sayn_ (4028) should be _as clerkes says_; and _sayth_ should again be _says_ in l. 4210. In l. 4171, _hem_ (them) should be _thaim_. In l. 4180, _y-greved_ should be _greved_; the Northern dialect knows nothing of the prefix _y-_. It also ignores the final _-e_ in definite adjectives; hence _thy fair-e_ (4023), _this short-e_ (4265), and _this lang-e_ (4175) all have a superfluous _-e_. Of course this is what we should expect; the poet merely gives [122] a Northern colouring to his diction to amuse us; he is not trying to teach us Northern grammar. The general effect is excellent, and that is all he was concerned with.

4020. The mill lay a little way off the road on the left (coming from Trumpington); so it was necessary to 'know the way.'

4026. _nede has na peer_, necessity has no equal, or, is above all. More commonly, _Nede ne hath no lawe_, as in P. Plowman, B. xx. 10, or C. xxiii. 10; 'Necessitas non habet legem'; a common proverb.

4027. _boës_, contracted from _behoves_, a form peculiar to Chaucer. In northern poems, the word is invariably a monosyllable, spelt _bos_, or more commonly _bus_; and the pt. t. is likewise a monosyllable, viz. _bud_ or _bood_, short for _behoved_. In Cursor Mundi, l. 9870, we have: 'Of a woman _bos him_ be born; and in l. 10639: 'Than _bus_ this may be clene and bright.' In M. E., it is always used impersonally; _him boes_ or _him bos_ means 'it behoves him,' or 'he must.' See _Bus_ in the New E. Dictionary.

Chaucer here evidently alludes to some such proverb as 'He who has no servant must serve himself,' but I do not know the precise form of it. The expression 'as clerkes sayn' hints that it is a Latin one.

4029. _hope_, expect, fear. Cf. P. Plowman, C. x. 275, and see _Hope_ in Nares, who cites the story of the tanner of Tamworth (from Puttenham's Arte of Poesie, bk. iii. c. 22) who said--'I _hope_ I shall be hanged to-morrow.' Cf. also Thomas of Erceldoun, ed. Murray, l. 78:--

'But-if I speke with yone lady bryghte,
I _hope_ myne herte will bryste in three!'

4030. 'So ache his molar teeth.' _Wark_, to ache, is common in Yorkshire: 'My back _warks_ while I can hardly bide,' my back aches so that I can hardly endure; Mid. Yks. Gloss. (E. D. S.).

4032. _ham_, i. e. _h[=a]m_, _haam_, home.

4033. _hethen_, hence, is very characteristic of a Northern dialect; it occurs in Hampole, Havelok, Morris's Allit. Poems, Gawain, Robert of Brunne, the Ormulum, &c.; see examples in Mätzner.

4037. One clerk wants to watch above, and the other below, to prevent cheating. This incident is not in the French fabliaux. On the other hand, it occurs in the Jest of the Mylner of Abyngton, which is plainly copied from Chaucer.

4049. _blere hir yë_, blear their eyes, cheat them, as in l. 3865.

4055. 'The fable of the Wolf and the Mare is found in the Latin Esopean collections, and in the early French poem of _Renard le Contrefait_, from whence it appears to have been taken into the English _Reynard the Fox_'; Wright. Tyrwhitt observes that the same story is told of a mule in Cento Novelle Antiche, no. 91. See Caxton's Reynard, ch. 27, ed. Arber, p. 62, where the wolf wants to buy a mare's foal, who said that the price of the foal was written on her hinder foot; 'yf ye conne rede and be a clerk, ye may come see and rede it.' And when [123] the wolf said, 'late me rede it,' the mare gave him so violent a kick that 'a man shold wel haue ryden a myle er he aroos.' The Fox, who had brought it all about, hypocritically condoles with the Wolf, and observes--'Now I here wel it is true that I long syth haue redde and herde, that _the beste clerkes ben not the wysest men_.'

For the story in Le Roman du Renard Contrefait, see Poètes de Champagne, Reims, 1851, p. 156. For further information, see Caxton's Fables of Æsop, ed. Jacobs, lib. v. fab. 10; vol. i. 254, 255; vol. ii. 157, 179. La Fontaine has a similar fable of the Fox, the Wolf, and the Horse. In Croxall's Æsop, it is told of the Horse, who tells the Lion, who is acting as physician, that he has a thorn in his foot. See further references in the Exempla of Jacques de Vitry, ed. Crane, pp. 147, 197.

4061. _levesel_, an arbour or shelter formed of branches or foliage. _Lev-e_ is the stem of _leef_, A. S. _l[=e]af_, a leaf; and _-sel_ is the same as the A. S. _sæl_, _sele_, a hall, dwelling, Swed. _sal_, Icel. _salr_, G. _Saal_. The A. S. _sæl_ occurs also in composition, as _burg-sæl_, _folc-sæl_, _horn-sæl_, and _sele_ is still commoner; Grein gives twenty-three compounds with the latter, as _gæst-sele_, guest-hall, _hr[=o]f-sele_, roofed-hall, &c. In Icel. we have _lauf-hús_, leaf-house, but we find the very word we require in Swed. _löfsal_, 'a hut built of green boughs,' Widegren; Dan. _lövsals-fest_, feast of tabernacles. The word occurs again in the Persones Tale, l. 411, where it means a leafy arbour such as may still be seen to form the porch of a public-house. The word is scarce; but see the following:--

'Alle but Syr Gauan, graythest of alle,
Was left with Dame Graynour, _vndur the greues_ [groves] _grene_.
By a lauryel ho [she] lay, vndur a _lefe-sale_
Of box and of barberè, byggyt ful bene.'
Anturs of Arthur, st. 6; in Three Met. Romances, ed. Robson, p. 3.

The editor prints it as _lefe sale_, and explains it by 'leafy hall,' but it is a compound word; the adjective would be _lefy_ or _leuy_. In this case the arbour was 'built' of box and barberry.

'All his devocioun and holynesse
At the taverne is, as for the most dele,
To Bacus syne, and to the _leef-sele_
His youthe hym haleth,' &c.
Hoccleve, De Regim. Principum, p. 22.

Again, in Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, iii. 448, the arbour formed by Jonah's gourd is called a _lefsel_.

4066. Lydgate has 'through thinne and thikke'; Siege of Troy, fol. Cc. 6, back.

4078. _geen_, goon; so in MS. E., which again has _neen_, none, 4185. The usual Northern form is _gan_ (= _gaan_), as in Hl.; Hn. Ln. have _gane_. But we also find _gayn_, as in Wallace, iv. 102; Bruce, ii. 80. [124] The forms _geen_, _neen_, are so remarkable that they are likely to be the original ones.

4086. 'I am very swift of foot, God knows, (even) as is a roe; by God's heart, he shall not escape us both; why hadst thou not put the horse in the barn?' 'Light as a rae' [roe]; Tournament of Tottenham, st. 15.

4088. _capul_, a horse, occurs again, in D. 2150. _lathe_, a barn, is still in use in some parts of Yorkshire, but chiefly in local designations, being otherwise obsolescent; see the Cleveland and Whitby Glossaries. 'The northern man writing to his neighbour may say, "My _lathe_ standeth neer the _kirkegarth_," for My barne standeth neere the churchyard:' Coote's Eng. Schoolemaster, 1632 (Nares). Ray gives: '_Lathe_, a barn' in 1691; and we again find '_Leath_, a barn' in 1781 (E. D. S. Gloss. B. 1); and '_Leath_, _Laith_, a barn' in 1811 (E. D. S. Gloss. B. 7); in all cases as a Northern word.

4096. 'Trim his beard,' i. e. cheat him; and so again in D. 361. See Chaucer's Hous of Fame, 689, and my note upon it.

'Myght I thaym have spyde,
I had _made thaym a berd_.'
Towneley Mysteries, p. 144.

4101. _Iossa_, 'down here'; a cry of direction. Composed of O. F. _jos_, _jus_, down; and _ça_, here. Bartsch gives an example of _jos_ in his Chrestomathie, 1875, col 8: 'tuit li felun cadegren _jos_,' all the felons fell down; and Cotgrave has: '_Jus_, downe, or to the ground.' Godefroy gives: _ça jus_, here below, down here. It is clearly a direction given by one clerk to the other, and was probably a common cry in driving horses.

_warderere_, i. e. _warde arere_, 'look out behind!' Another similar cry. MS. Cm. has: _ware the rere_, mind the rear, which is a sort of gloss upon it.

4110. _hething_, contempt. See numerous examples in Mätzner, s. v. _hæthing_, ii. 396. Cf. 'Bothe in _hething_ and in _scorn_'; Sir Amadace, l. 17, in Robson's _Three Met. Romances_, p. 27. 'Him thoght _scorn_ and gret _hething_'; Seven Sages, ed. Weber, l. 91.

4112. The first foot is 'trochaic.'

4115. _in his hond_, in his possession, in his hold.

4126. 'Or enlarge it by argument'; prove by logic that it is the size you wish it to be.

4127. _Cutberd_, St. Cuthbert, bishop of Lindisfarne, died in 686. Being a Northumberland man, John swears by a Northumberland saint.

4130. Evidently a proverb: 'a man must take (one) of two things, either such as he finds or such as he brings'; i. e. must put up with what he can get.

4134. Another proverb. Repeated in D. 415, with _lure_ for _tulle_. From the Policraticus of John of Salisbury, liv. v. c. 10: 'Veteri [125] celebratur proverbio: Quia vacuae manus temeraria petitio est.' MS. Cm. has the rimes _folle_, _tolle_. For _tulle_, a commoner spelling is _tille_, to draw, hence to allure, entice. Hence E. _till_ (for money), orig. meaning a 'drawer'; and the _tiller_ of a rudder, by which it is drawn aside. See _tullen_ in Stratmann, and _tollen_ in Boeth. bk. ii. pr. 7. 11 (in vol. ii. p. 45).

4140. _chalons_, blankets. The same word as mod. E. _shalloon_, 'a slight woollen stuff'; Ogilvie's Dict. 'The blanket was sometimes made of a texture originally imported from Chalons in France, but afterwards extensively manufactured in England by the Chaloners'; Our Eng. Home, p. 108. 'Qwyltes ne _chalouns_'; Eng. Gilds, ed. Toulmin Smith, p. 350.

4152. _quakke_, asthma, or difficulty of breathing that causes a croaking noise. Halliwell gives: '_Quack_, to be noisy, _West_. The term is applied to any croaking noise.' Also: '_Quackle_, to choke, or suffocate, _East_.' _Pose_, a cold in the head; A. S. _gepos_.

4155. '_To wet one's whistle_' is still in use for to drink deeply. '_I wete my whystell_, as good drinkers do'; Palsgrave, p. 780. In Walton's Complete Angler, Part i. ch. 5, we find: 'Let's drink the other cup to _wet our whistles_.'

4172. _wilde fyr_, erysipelas (to torment them); see Halliwell. Cf. E. 2252. The entry--'_Erysipela_ (_sic_), wilde fyr' occurs in Ælfric's Vocabulary. So in Le Rom. de la Rose:--'que Mal-Feu l'arde'; 7438, 8319.

4174. _flour_, choice, best of a thing; _il ending_, evil death, bad end. 'They shall have the best (i. e. here, the worst) of a bad end.' Rather a wish than a prophecy.

4181. Sidenote in MS. Hl.--'Qui in vno grauatur in alio debet releuari.' A Law Maxim.

4194. _upright_, upon her back. 'To slepe on the backe, _vpryght_, is vtterly to be abhorred'; Babees Book, ed. Furnivall, p. 245. Palsgrave, s. v. _Throwe_, has: 'I throwe a man _on his backe_ or _upright_, so that his face is upwarde, _Ie renuerse_.' And see Nares. Cf. 'Now dounward groffe [on your belly], and now _upright_'; Rom. Rose, 2561. _Bolt-upright_ occurs in l. 4266; where _bolt_ is 'like a bolt,' hence 'straight,' or exactly. See _Bolt_, adv., in the New E. Dictionary. And compare B. 1506.

4208. _daf_, fool; from E. _daf-t_. _cokenay_, a milk-sop, poor creature. The orig. sense of _coken-ay_ is 'cocks' egg,' from a singular piece of folk-lore which credited cocks with laying such eggs as happen to be imperfect. 'The small yolkless eggs which hens sometimes lay are called "cocks' eggs," generally in the firm persuasion that the name states a fact'; Shropshire Folklore, by C. S. Burne, p. 229. The idea is old, and may be found gravely stated as a fact in Bartolomæus De Proprietatibus Rerum (14th century). See _Cockney_ in the New E. Dictionary.

4210. _Unhardy is unsely_, the cowardly man has no luck. 'Audentes [126] fortuna iuuat'; Vergil, Aen. x. 284. So also our 'Nothing venture, nothing have,' and 'Faint heart never won fair lady'; which see in Hazlitt's Proverbs. For _seel_, luck, see l. 4239. See Troil. iv. 602, and the note.

4220. Pronounce _ben'cite_ in three syllables; as usual.

4233. _The thridde cok_; apparently, between 5 and 6 A.M.; see note to line 3675 above. It was near dawn; see l. 4249.

4236. _Malin_, another form of _Malkin_, which is a pet-name for _Matilda_. See my note to P. Plowman, C. ii. 181, where my statement that _Malkin_ occurs in the present passage refers to Tyrwhitt's edition, which substitutes _Malkin_ for the _Malin_ or _Malyn_ of the MSS. and of ed. 1532. Cf. B. 30.

'_Malyn_, tersorium,' Cath. Anglicum; i. e. _Malin_, like _Malkin_, also meant a dishclout. _Malin_ has now become _Molly_.

4244. _cake._ In Wright's Glossaries, ed. Wülker, col. 788, l. 36, we find, '_Hic panis subverucius_, a meleres cake'; on which Wright remarks: 'Perhaps this name alludes to the common report that the miller always stole the flour from his customers to make his cakes, which were baked on the sly.'

4253. _toty_, in the seven MSS.; _totty_ in ed. 1532. It means 'dizzy, reeling'; and Halliwell, s. v. _Totty_, quotes from MS. Rawl. C. 86: 'So _toty_ was the brayn of his hede.' Cf. 'And some also so _toty_ in theyr heade'; Lydgate, Siege of Troy, ed. 1555, fol. L 1, back. Spenser has the word twice, as _tottie_ or _totty_, and evidently copied it from this very passage, which he read in a black-letter edition; see his Shep. Kal., _February_, 55, and F. Q. vii. 7. 39. Cf. E. _totter_.

4257. _a twenty devel way_, with extremely ill-luck. See note to l. 3713.

4264. Compare B. 1417.

4272. _linage_; her grandfather was a priest; see note to l. 3943.

4278. _poke_, bag; cf. the proverb, 'To buy a pig in a poke.'

'Than on the grounde together rounde
With many a sadde stroke
They roule and rumble, they turne and tumble,
_As pygges do in a poke_.'
Sir T. More, A Merrie Iest, &c. (1510).

This juvenile poem by Sir T. More is printed in Hazlitt's Popular Poetry, iii. 128, and in the Preface to Todd's Johnson.

4286. _Bromeholm._ A piece of what was supposed to be the true cross was brought from the East by an English priest to Norfolk in 1223, and immediately became famous as an object of pilgrimage. It is called the 'Rode [rood] of Bromeholme' in P. Plowman, B. v. 231; see my note to that line.

4287. The full form is quoted in the note to Scott's Marmion, can. ii. st. 13:--'In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum; a vinculis enim mortis redemisti me, Domine veritatis, Amen.' In [127] Ratis Raving, &c., ed. Lumby, p. 8, l. 263, the form ends with 'spiritum meum, domine, deus veritatis.' In Reliquiae Antiquae, i. 235, the following translation of the Latin form is given:--

'Loverd Godd, in hondes thine I bequethe soule mine;
Thu me boctest with thi deadd, Loverd Godd of sothfastheedd.'

It here occurs in company with the Creed, the Paternoster, and the Ave Maria; so that it was one of the very common religious formulae which were familiar, even in the Latin form, to people of no education. They frequently knew the words of these forms, without knowing more than the general sense. _In manus tuas_, &c., was even recited by criminals before being hung; see Skelton's Works, ed. Dyce, i. 5, 292, ii. 268. The words are mostly taken from the Vulgate version of Luke, xxiii. 46.

4290. _oon_, one, some one; not common at this date.

4295. Cf. Roman de la Rose, 12720:--'Qui set bien de l'ostel les _estres_,' i. e. who knows well the inner parts of the hostel. See note to A. 1971 above.

4302. _volupeer_, nightcap; see note to A. 3241.

4307. _harrow_, a cry for help; see note to A. 3286.

4320. _Him thar_, lit. 'it needs him,' i. e. he need, he must. For _thar_, ed. 1532 has _dare_, which Tyrwhitt rightly corrects to _thar_, which occurs again in D. 329, 336, 1365, and H. 352. It is common enough in early authors; the full form is _tharf_, as in Owl and Nightingale, 803 (or 180), Moral Ode (Jesus MS.), 44; spelt _tharrf_, Ormulum, 12886; _therf_, Ancren Riwle, p. 192; _darf_, Floris and Blancheflur, 315; _derf_, O. Eng. Homilies, ed. Morris, i. 187, l. 31; _dar_, Octovian, 1337; &c. The pt. t. is _thurfte_, _thurte_, _thorte_; see _tharf_ and _thurfen_ in Stratmann, and cf. A. S. _thearf_, pt. t. _thurfte_. For _wene_, the correct reading, Tyrwhitt substitutes _winne_, against all authority, because he could make no sense of _wene_. It is odd that he should have missed the sense so completely. _Wene_ is to imagine, think, also to expect; and the line means 'he must not expect good who does evil.' The very word is preserved by Ray, in his Proverbs, 3rd ed., 1737, p. 288:--'He that evil does, never good _weines_.' Hazlitt quotes a proverb to a like effect: 'He that does what he should not, shall feel what he would not.' Cf. 'Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap'; Gal. vi. 7.

4321. A common proverb; cf. Ps. vii. 16, ix. 15.

'For often he that will beguile
Is guiled with the same guile,
And thus the guiler is beguiled.'
Gower, Conf. Amant (bk. vi), iii. 47.

'Begyled is the gyler thanne'; Rom. Rose, 5759.

See further in my note to P. Plowman, C. xxxi. 166, and Kemble's Solomon and Saturn, p. 63. Le Rom. de la Rose, 7381, has:--'Qui les deceveors deçoivent.' [128]

I can add another example from Caxton's Fables of Æsop, lib. ii. fab. 12 (The Fox and the Stork):--'And therfore he that begyleth other is oftyme begyled hymself.'

THE COOK'S PROLOGUE.

4329. _herbergage_, lodging; alluding to l. 4123.

4331. Not from Solomon, but from Ecclesiasticus, xi. 31: 'Non omnem hominem inducas in domum tuum; multae enim sunt insidiae dolosi.' In the E. version, it is verse 29.

4336. _Hogge_, Hodge, for _Roger_ (l. 4353). _Ware_, in Hertfordshire.

4346. _laten blood_, let blood, i. e. removed gravy from. It refers to a meat-pie, baked with gravy in it; as it was not sold the day it was made, the gravy was removed to make it keep longer; and so the pie was eaten at last, when far from being new.

4347. The meaning of 'a Jack of Dover' has been much disputed, but it probably meant a pie that had been cooked more than once. Some have thought it meant a sole (probably a fried sole), as 'Dover soles' are still celebrated; but this is only a guess, and seems to be wrong. Sir T. More, Works, p. 675 E, speaks of a '_Jak of Paris_, an evil pye twyse baken'; which is probably the same thing. Roquefort's _French Dict._ has:--

'_Jaquet_, _Jaket_, impudent, menteur. C'est sans doute de ce mot que les pâtissiers ont pris leur mot d'argot _jaques_, pour signifier qu'une pièce de volaille, de viande ou de pâtisserie cuite au four, est vieille ou dure.'

See Hazlitt's Proverbs, p. 20; and Hazlitt's Shakespeare Jest-books, ii. 366. Hence, in a secondary sense, _Jack of Dover_ meant an old story, or hashed up anecdote. Ray says:--'This he [T. Fuller] makes parallel to _Crambe bis cocta_, and applicable to such as grate the ears of their auditors with ungrateful tautologies of what is worthless in itself; tolerable as once uttered in the notion of novelty, but abominable if repeated.' This may explain the fact that an old jest-book was printed with the title _A Jack of Dover_ in 1604, and again in 1615. The E. word _jack_ has indeed numerous senses.

4350. The insinuation is that stray flies were mixed up with the parsley served up with the Cook's geese. Tyrwhitt quotes from MS. Harl. 279--'Take _percely_,' &c. in a receipt for stuffing a goose; so that parsley was sometimes used for this purpose. It was also used for stuffing chickens; see Liber Cure Cocorum, ed. Morris, p. 22.

4357. 'A true jest is an evil jest.' Hazlitt, in his Collection of Proverbs, gives, 'True jest is no jest,' and quotes 'Sooth bourd is no bourd' from Heywood, and from Harington's Brief Apologie of Poetrie, 1591. Kelly's Scotch Proverbs includes: 'A sooth bourd is nae bourd.' Tyrwhitt alters the second _play_ to _spel_, as being a Flemish word, but he only found it in two MSS. (Askew 1 and 2), and nothing is gained [129] by it. The fact is, that there is nothing Flemish about the proverb except the word _quad_, though there may have been an equivalent proverb in that language. We must take Chaucer's remark to mean that 'Sooth play is what a Fleming would call _quaad_ play'; which is then quite correct. For just as Flemish does not use the English words _sooth_ and _play_, so English seldom uses the Flemish form _quaad_, equivalent to the Dutch _kwaad_, evil, bad, spelt _quade_ in Hexham's Du. Dict. (1658). Cf. also O. Friesic _kwad_, _quad_, East Friesic _kwâd_ (still in common use). The Mid. Eng. form is not _quad_, but (properly) _qu[=e]d_ or _queed_; see examples in Stratmann, s. v. _cwêd_. In P. Plowman, B. xiv. 189, _the qued_ means the Evil One, the devil. _Queed_ occurs as a sb. as late as in Skelton, ed. Dyce, i. 168. We find, however, the rare M. E. form _quad_ in Gower, ed. Pauli, ii. 246, and in the Story of Genesis and Exodus, ed. Morris, 536; and in another passage of the Cant. Tales, viz. B. 1628. The oldest English examples seem to be those in the Blickling Glosses, viz. 'of cweade arærende, _de stercore erigens_'; and 'cwed _uel_ meox, _stercus_.' There is no difficulty about the etymology; the corresponding O. H. G. word is _qu[=a]t_, whence G. _Koth_ or _Kot_, excrement; and the root appears in the Skt. _gu_ or _g[=u]_, to void excrement; see _Kot_ in Kluge.

4358. This is interesting, as giving us the Host's name. _Herry_ is the mod. E. _Harry_, with the usual change from _er_ to _ar_, as in M. E. _derk_, dark, &c. It is the same as the F. _Herri_ (not uncommon in O. F.), made from F. _Henri_ by assimilation of _nr_ to _rr_.

The name seems to have been taken from that of a real person. In the Subsidy Rolls, 4 Rich. II. (1380-1), for Southwark, occurs the entry--'Henri' Bayliff, Ostyler, Xpian [Christian] ux[or] eius ... ij s.' In the parliament held at Westminster, in 50 Edw. III. (1376-7), Henry Bailly was one of the representatives for that borough; and again, in the parliament at Gloucester, 2 Rich. II., the name occurs. See Notes and Queries, 2 S. iii. 228.

THE COKES TALE.

4368. 'Brown as a berry.' So in A. 207.

4377. 'There were sometimes Justs in Cheapside; Hollingshead, vol. ii. p. 348. But perhaps any procession may be meant.'--Tyrwhitt. 'Cheapside was the grand scene of city festivals and processions.'--Wright.

4379. T. has _And til_, but his note says that _And_ was inserted by himself. Wright reads, 'And tyl he hadde'; but _And_ is not in the Harleian MS. Observe that Wright insists very much on the fact that he reproduces this MS. 'with literal accuracy,' though he allows himself, according to his own account, to make silent alterations due to collation with the Lansdowne MS. But the word _And_ is not to be found in any of the seven MSS., and this is only _one_ example of the numerous cases in which he has _silently_ altered his text without any [130] MS. authority at all. His text, in fact, is full of treacherous pitfalls; and Bell's edition is quite as bad, though that likewise pretends to be accurate.

The easiest way of scanning the line is to ignore the elision of the final _e_ in _had-de_, which is preserved, as often, by the cæsural pause.

4383. _sette steven_, made an appointment; see A. 1524.

4394. 'Though he (the master) may have,' &c.

4396. 'Though he (the apprentice) may know how to play,' &c. Opposed to l. 4394. The sense is--'The master pays for the revelling of the apprentice, though he takes no part in such revel; and conversely, the apprentice may gain skill in minstrelsy, but takes no part in paying for it; for, in his case, his rioting is convertible with theft.' The master pays, but plays not; the other pays not, but plays.

4397. 'Revelling and honesty, in the case of one of low degree (who has no money), are continually wrath with (i. e. opposed to) each other.'

4402. 'And sometimes carried off to Newgate, with revel (such as he might be supposed to approve of).' The point of the allusion lies in the fact that, when disorderly persons were carried to prison, they were preceded _by minstrels_, in order to call public attention to their disgrace. This is clearly shewn in the Liber Albus, pp. 459, 460, (p. 396 of the E. translation). E. g. 'Item, if any person shall be impeached of adultery, and be thereof lawfully attainted, let him be _taken unto Newgate_, and from thence, _with minstrelsy_, through Chepe, to the Tun on Cornhulle [Cornhill], there to remain at the will of the mayor and alderman.'

4404. _paper._ The allusion is not clear; perhaps it means that he was referring to his account-book, and found it unsatisfactory.

4406. In Hazlitt's Proverbs we find; 'The rotten apple injures its neighbour.' Cf. G. 964.

In the Ayenbite of Inwyt, p. 205, we are bidden to avoid bad company, because a rotten apple rots the sound ones, if left among them.

In Ida von Düringsfeld's Sprichwörter, 1872-5, no. 354, is:--'Ein fauler Apfel steckt den andern an. Pomum compunctum cito corrumpit sibi iunctum.'

4413. _his leve_, his leave to go, his dismissal, his _congé_.

4414. _or leve_, or leave it, i. e. or desist from it.

4415. _for_, because, since. _louke_, an accomplice who entices the dupe into the thief's company, a decoyer of victims. Not 'a receiver to a thief,' as Tyrwhitt guessed, but his assistant in thieving, one who helped him (as Chaucer says) to suck others by stealing or borrowing. It answers to an A. S. _*l[=u]ca_ (not found), formed with the agential suffix _-a_ from _l[=u]can_, lit. to pull, pluck, root up weeds, hence (probably) to draw, entice. The corresponding E. Friesic _l[=u]kan_ or _lukan_ means not only to pull, pluck, but also to milk or suck (see Koolman). The Low G. _luken_ means not only to pull up weeds, but [131] also to suck down, or to take a long pull in drinking; hence O. F. _louchier_, _loukier_, to swallow. From the A. S. _l[=u]can_, to pluck up, comes the common prov. E. _louk_, _lowk_, _look_, to pluck up weeds; see Ray, Whitby Glossary, &c.

4417. _brybe_, to purloin; not to bribe in the modern sense; see the New E. Dict.

4422. Here the Tale suddenly breaks off; so it was probably never finished.

*** See Notes to Gamelin at the end of the Notes to the Tales.

* * * * *

[132]

NOTES TO GROUP B.

INTRODUCTION TO THE MAN OF LAWES TALE.

1. If, as Mr. Furnivall supposes, the time of the telling of the Canterbury Tales be taken to be longer than one day, we may suppose the Man of Lawes Tale to begin the stories told on the _second_ morning of the journey, April 18. Otherwise, we must suppose all the stories in Group A to precede it, which is not impossible, if we suppose the pilgrims to have started early in the morning.

_Hoste._ This is one of the words which are sometimes dissyllabic, and sometimes monosyllabic; it is here a dissyllable, as in l. 39. See note to line 1883 below.

_sey_, i. e. saw. The forms of 'saw' vary in the MSS. In this line we find _saugh_, _sauh_, _segh_, _sauhe_, _sawh_, none of which are Chaucer's own, but due to the scribes. The true form is determined by the rime, as in the Clerkes Tale, E. 667, where most of the MSS. have _say_. A still better spelling is _sey_, which may be found in the House of Fame, 1151, where it rimes with _lay_. The A. S. form is _s[=e]ah_.

2. _The ark_, &c. In Chaucer's Treatise on the Astrolabe, pt. ii. ch. 7 (vol. iii. 194), is the proposition headed--'to knowe the arch of the day, that some folk callen the day artificial, from the sonne arysing til hit go to reste.' Thus, while the 'day natural' is twenty-four hours, the 'day artificial' is the time during which the sun is above the horizon. The 'arc' of this day merely means the extent or duration of it, as reckoned along the circular rim of an astrolabe; or, when measured along the horizon (as here), it means the arc extending from the point of sunrise to that of sunset. _ronne_, run, performed, completed.

3. _The fourthe part._ The true explanation of this passage, which Tyrwhitt failed to discover, is due to Mr. A. E. Brae, who first published it in May, 1851, and reprinted it at p. 68 of his edition of Chaucer's Treatise on the Astrolabe. His conclusions were based upon actual calculation, and will be mentioned in due order. In re-editing the 'Astrolabe,' I took the opportunity of roughly checking his calculations by other methods, and am satisfied that he is quite correct, and that the day meant is not the 28th of April, as in the Ellesmere MS., nor the 13th of April, as in the Harleian MS., but the 18th, as in the Hengwrt [133] MS. and most others. It is easily seen that _xviii_ may be corrupted into _xxviii_ by prefixing _x_, or into _xiii_ by the omission of _v_; this may account for the variations.

The key to the whole matter is given by a passage in Chaucer's 'Astrolabe,' pt. ii. ch. 29, where it is clear that Chaucer (who, however, merely translates from Messahala) actually confuses the hour-angle with the azimuthal arc; that is, he considered it correct to find the hour of the day by noting _the point of the horizon_ over which the sun appears to stand, and supposing this point to advance, with a _uniform_, not a _variable_, motion. The host's method of proceeding was this. Wanting to know the hour, he observed how far the sun had moved southward along the horizon since it rose, and saw that it had gone more than half-way from the point of sunrise to the exact southern point. Now the 18th of April in Chaucer's time answers to the 26th of April at present. On April 26, 1874, the sun rose at 4h. 43m., and set at 7h. 12m., giving a day of about 14h. 30m., the fourth part of which is at 8h. 20m., or, with sufficient exactness, at _half-past eight_. This would leave a whole hour and a half to signify Chaucer's 'half an houre and more,' shewing that further explanation is still necessary. The fact is, however, that the host reckoned, as has been said, in another way, viz. by observing the sun's position _with reference to the horizon_. On April 18 the sun was in the 6th degree of Taurus at that date, as we again learn from Chaucer's treatise. Set this 6th degree of Taurus on the East horizon on a globe, and it is found to be 22 degrees to the North of the East point, or 112 degrees from the South. The half of this is at 56 degrees from the South; and the sun would seem to stand above this 56th degree, as may be seen even upon a globe, at about a quarter past nine; but Mr. Brae has made the calculation, and shews that it was at _twenty minutes past nine_. This makes Chaucer's 'half an houre and more' to stand for _half an hour and ten minutes_; an extremely neat result. But this we can check again by help of the host's _other_ observation. He _also_ took note, that the lengths of a shadow and its object were equal, whence the sun's altitude must have been 45 degrees. Even a globe will shew that the sun's altitude, when in the 6th degree of Taurus, and at 10 o'clock in the morning, is somewhere about 45 or 46 degrees. But Mr. Brae has calculated it exactly, and his result is, that the sun attained its altitude of 45 degrees at _two minutes to ten_ exactly. This is even a closer approximation than we might expect, and leaves no doubt about the right date being the _eighteenth_ of April. For fuller particulars, see Chaucer on the Astrolabe, ed. Brae, p. 69; and ed. Skeat (E.E.T.S.), preface, p. 1.

5. _eightetethe_, eighteenth. Mr. Wright prints _eightetene_, with the remark that 'this is the reading in which the MSS. seem mostly to agree.' This is right in substance, but not critically exact. No such word as _eightetene_ appears here in the MSS., which denote the number by an abbreviation, as stated in the footnote. The Hengwrt MS. has _xviijthe_, and the Old English for _eighteenth_ must have have been [134] _eightetethe_, the ordinal, not the cardinal number. This form is easily inferred from the numerous examples in which _-teenth_ is represented by _-tethe_; see _feowertethe_, _fiftethe_, &c. in Stratmann's Old English Dictionary; we find the very form _eightetethe_ in Rob. of Glouc., ed. Wright, 6490; and _eighteteothe_ in St. Swithin, l. 5, as printed in Poems and Lives of Saints, ed. Furnivall, 1858, p. 43. _Eighte_ is of two syllables, from A. S. _eahta_, cognate with Lat. _octo_. _Eightetethe_ has four syllables; see A. 3223, and the note.

8. _as in lengthe_, with respect to its length.

13. The astrolabe which Chaucer gave to his little son Lewis was adapted for the latitude of Oxford. If, as is likely, the poet-astronomer checked his statements in this passage by a reference to it, he would neglect the difference in latitude between Oxford and the Canterbury road. In fact, it is less than a quarter of a degree, and not worth considering in the present case.

14. _gan conclude_, did conclude, concluded. _Gan_ is often used thus as an auxiliary verb.

15. _plighte_, plucked; cf. _shrighte_, shrieked, in Kn. A. 2817.--M.

16. _Lordinges_, sirs. This form of address is exceedingly common in Early English poetry. Cf. the first line in the Tale of Sir Thopas.

18. _seint Iohn._ See the Squire's Tale, F. 596.

19. _Leseth_, lose ye; note the form of the imperative plural in _-eth_; cf. l. 37. _As ferforth as ye may_, as far as lies in your power.

20. _wasteth_, consumeth; cf. _wastour_, a wasteful person, in P. Plowm. B. vi. 154.--M. Hl. has _passeth_, i. e. passes away; several MSS. insert _it_ before _wasteth_, but it is not required by the metre, since the _e_ in _time_ is here fully sounded; cf. A. S. _t[=i]ma_. Compare--

'The tyme, that passeth night and day,
And rest[e]lees travayleth ay,
And _steleth_ from us so prively,
. . . . . .
_As water that doun runneth ay,_
_But never drope returne may_,' &c.
Romaunt of the Rose, l. 369.

Comments

Chaucer's Works, Volume 5 — Notes to the Canterbury TalesChapter VIII: Part 8

0%37 min left in chapter