Kublai's birthday was in September, but perhaps Chaucer noted that the White Feast was on New Year's day, which he took to mean the vernal equinox, or some day near it. The day, however, is well defined. The 'last Idus' is the very day of the Ides, i. e. March 15. The sun entered Aries according to Chaucer (Treatise on the Astrolabe, ii. 1. 4), on the 12th of March, at the vernal equinox; and, as a degree answers to a day very nearly, would be in the first degree of Aries on the 12th, in the second on the 13th, in the third on the 14th, in the fourth on the 15th, and in the fifth (or at the end of the fourth) on the 16th, as Chaucer most expressly says below; see note to 1. 386. The sign Aries was said, in astrology, to be the exaltation of the Sun, or that sign in which the Sun had most influence for good or ill. In particular, the 19th degree of Aries, for some mysterious reason, was selected as the Sun's exaltation, when most exactly reckoned. Chaucer says, then, that the Sun was in the sign of Aries, in the fourth degree of that sign, and therefore nigh to (and approaching) the 19th degree, or his special degree of exaltation. Besides this, the poet says the sun was in the 'face' of Mars, and in the mansion of Mars; for ‘his mansion' in I. 50 means Mar's mansion. This is exactly in accordance with the astrology of the period. Each sign, such as Aries, was said to contain 30 degrees, or 3 faces; a face being 10 degrees. The first face of Aries (degrees 1– 10) was called the face of Mars, the second (11-20) the face of the Sun, the third (21-30) that of Venus. Hence the sun, being in the fourth degree, was in Mars's face. Again, every planet had its (so-called) mansion or house; whence Aries was called the mansion of Mars, Taurus that of Venus, Gemini that of Mercury, &c. See Chaucer's Astrolabe, ed. Skeat, pref. pp. lvi, lxvi; or Johannis Hispalensis Isagoge in Astrologiam, which gives all the technical terms.

50. Martes is a genitive formed from the nom. Marte (Kn. Ta. 1163), which is itself formed, as usual, from the Latin acc. Martem.

51. In the old astrology, different qualities are ascribed to the different signs. Thus Aries is described as choleric and fiery in MS. Trin. Coll. Cam. R. 15. 18, tract. 3, p. II. So too, Tyrwhitt quotes from the Calendrier des Bergers that Aries is chault et sec,' i. e. hot and dry.

53. Agayn, against, opposite to; in return for the sunshine, as it were. So also in Kn. Ta. 651.

See Kn. Tale, 595.

54. What for; cf. Mod. Eng. what with. 59. Deys, raised platform, as at English feasts. But this is in Marco Polo too; see the Preface. Cf. Kn. Tale, 1. 1342; and note to Prol.

1. 370.

63. In a similar indirect manner, Chaucer describes feasts, &c., elsewhere: see Kn. Ta. 1339-1348; Man of Lawes Tale (Clar. Press), 701-707. And Spenser imitates him ; F. Q. i. 12. 14; v. 3. 3.

Agayn in Glossary to Spec. of Eng. (Morris and Skeat). Ll. 915-917 are Chaucer's own.

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

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 eight MSS. of Chaucer which I have consulted. Erl of Panik; Lat. 'Panicius comes.' 940. More and lesse, greater and smaller; i.e. everybody. So also in the Frank. Tale, riueres more and lesse'; Cant. Ta. 11366. So also moche and lite, great and small, Prol. 494; moste and leste, greatest and least, Kn. Ta. 1340. 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. Fuel biseye, ill provided; lit. ill beseen. The word yuel is pronounced here almost as a monosyllable (as it were yv'l), as is so com. monly the case with euer; indeed generally, words ending with el and er are often thus clipped. A remarkable instance occurs in the Milleres Tale (Six-text, A. 3715), where we not only have a similar ending, but the word euer in the same line

That trewe loue was euer so yuel biset.'

See also yuel apayed in line 1052 below. The converse to yuel biseye, is richely biseye, richly provided or adorned, in 1. 984 below.

981. Lat. 'Proximae lucis hora tertia comes superuenerat'; see note to 1. 260.

995-1008. These two stanzas are Chaucer's own, and are so good that they may have been a later addition. In MS. E. the word Auctor

is inserted in the margin, and 1. 995 begins with a large capital letter. At the beginning of 1. 1009 is a paragraph-mark, shewing where the translation begins again. Vnsad, unsettled. Cf. Shakesp. Cor. i. 1. 186, Jul. Cæsar, i. 1. 55; Scott, Lady of the Lake, v. 30.

999. 'Ever full of tittle-tattle, which would be dear enough at a halfpenny.' Iane, a small coin of Genoa (Janua); see Rime of Sir Thopas,

1925. The first stanza (995–1001) is supposed to be uttered by the sober and discreet part of the population; see 1. 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 not common, but there are a few examples of it. Thus, in Specimens of English, ed. Morris and Skeat, we have, at p. 47, 1. 51—

Y sike for vnsete;

Ant mourne ase men dop mo';

i. e. 'I sigh for unrest, and mourn as other men do.' And on the next page, p. 48, 1. 22, we have

'Mody menep so dop mo,

Ichot ycham on of po';

i.e. The moody moan as others do; I wot I am one of them.' And again-Slanderit folk vald euir haue ma,' i.e. slandered folks always want others to be like themselves; Appendix to Barbour's Bruce, ed. Skeat, p. 533, 1. 240. Somewhat similar is the expression oper mo, where we should now say others as well; Piers Plowman, C. v. 10, xxii. 54, Barbour's Bruce, v. 152. 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 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 1. 1045 and 1. 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 1. 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, ii. 324, aptly remarks here-' And when Chaucer has told all, and dwelt with an exquisite pathos of natural emotion all his own upon the patient mother's piteous

and tender kissing of her beloved 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, 1055; Man of Law's Tale, 171.

This circumstance should have

1133. His wyues fader, i.e. Janicola. 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 1. 1162. Ll. 1138-1141 are Chaucer's own, and may be compared with his poem on the Golden Age; see Chaucer's Boethius, ed. Morris, pp. 50, 180. 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, a dissyllable, which would not rime.

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

1153. Boughte, (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 1. 1170, he alludes to the Wife of Bath, of whom probably he had never thought when first translating the story.

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 -ynde in the fifth line. It is a fine example even from a metrical point of view alone.

1188. Chicheuache for chiche vache, i.e. lean cow. The allusion is to an old fable, apparently 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 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, ii. 426, and his Shorter English Poems, p. 55. The passage in Chaucer means, 'Beware of being too patient, lest Chichevache swallow you down.'

1189. Folweth Ekko, imitate Echo, who always replies.

I 200. Always talk (or rattle) on, like a mill' (that is always going round and making a noise). Jangling is whan man speketh to moche before folk, and clappeth as a mille, and taketh no kepe what he seith'; Ch. Persones Tale, De Superbia. Palsgrave's French Dict. has I clappe, I make a noyse as the clapper of a mill, Ie clacque.' Cf. As fast as millwheels strike'; Tempest. i. 2. 281.

1204. Auentaille, 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. 7But 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 auentaille is a perfect example of bathos. I fail to see why; the weapon that pierced a ventail would pass into the head, and inflict a death-wound. The passage is playful, but not silly.

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

NOTES TO THE MARCHAUNTES PROLOGUE.

1213. Weping and wayling; an expression caught from 1. 1212, and linking this prologue to the foregoing tale. Yet in 14 MSS. the Merchant's Tale is separated from the Clerk's; Trial Forewords, by F. J. Furnivall (Chaucer Soc.), p. 28.

1221, 1222. What, why. At al, in every respect; like Lat. omnino.