naturally had birth in warm climates, such as India, where the excessive heat, at stated periods, seemed to bring the ether down in abundant rains, which at once quickened all things; hence the Agni of the Rig-Veda coöperating with the mighty parents, Heaven and Earth, to shed abundant showers.

The thought of Aeschylus and Euripides has been thus expressed (1. 250-3) by Lucretius (96?-55 B. C.):

Postremo pereunt imbres, ubi eos pater æther

In gremium matris terrai præcipitavit;

At nitidæ surgunt fruges ramique virescunt
Arboribus, crescunt ipsæ fetuque gravantur."

And again in a passage (2. 992-4) imitated from Euripides:

Omnibus ille idem pater est, unde alma liquentis

Umoris guttas mater cum terra recepit,

Feta parit nitidas fruges arbustaque læta.

Lucretius (with perhaps his originals) is followed and amplified by Virgil (Georgics 2. 323-333):

Ver adeo frondi nemorum, ver utile silvis,
Vere tument terræ, et genitalia semina poscunt.
Tum pater omnipotens fecundis imbribus Aether
Conjugis in gremium lætæ descendit, et omnis
Magnus alit, magno commixtus corpore, fetus.
Avia tum resonant avibus virgulta canoris,
Et Venerem certis repetunt armenta diebus;
Parturit almus ager, Zephyrique tepentibus auris
Laxant arva sinus; superat tener omnibus umor;

Inque novos soles audent se gramina [var. germina] tuto
Credere.R

'Munro renders: Lastly rains die, when Father Ether has tumbled them into the lap of Mother Earth; but then goodly crops spring up, and boughs are green with leaves upon the trees, trees themselves grow, and are laden with fruit.'

Frag. 836. This is also translated in prose by Vitruvius, at the beginning of his Eighth Book.

All have that same Father, by whom Mother Earth, the giver of increase, when she has taken in from him liquid drops of moisture, conceives and bears goodly crops and joyous trees.'

Thus rendered by Lonsdale and Lee: 'The spring it is that ministers to the leafage of the groves, and to the forests themselves as well; in spring the land heaves with fruitfulness, and requires the procreative seed. The Heaven, the Almighty Father, comes down in fertilizing showers into the

Columella (fl. ca. 50 A. D.) has the following lines (10 204-210):

Maximus ipse deum posito jam fulmine fallax
Acrisioneos veteres imitatur amores,

Inque sinus matris violento defluit imbre;

Nec genitrix nati nunc aspernatur amorem,

Sed patitur nexus flammata cupidine tellus.

Hinc maria, hinc montes, hinc totus denique mundus
Ver agit.

Of about Columella's period was probably Petronius, who embodies the same conception (Sat. 127) in a somewhat vaguer form than his predecessors. According to him, roses, violets, and lilies spring up as the result of the union.

The same note is heard as late as the Pervigilium Veneris (ca. 350 A. D?):

Cras erit cum primus æther copulavit nuptias;

Tunc cruore de superno spumeo et ponti globo,

lap of his joyous bride, and in his might, mingling with her mighty frame,
nourishes every product. Then ring the thickets wild with tuneful birds,
and on their days the herds devote themselves to love; the bounteous
field gives birth to life, and, beneath the west-wind's breezes warm, the
meadows unloose their folds, and all with delicate moisture overflow, and
the herbage safely dares to trust itself to meet the new-born suns.'
And thus by Dryden :

The spring adorns the woods, renews the leaves;
The womb of earth the genial seed receives;
For then almighty Jove descends, and pours

Into his buxom bride his fruitful showers;

And, mixing his large limbs with hers, he feeds

Her births with kindly juice, and fosters teeming seeds.
The joyous birds frequent the lonely grove,
And beasts, by nature stung, renew their love.
Then fields the blades of buried corn disclose,
And, while the balmy western spirit blows,
Earth to the breath her bosom dares expose.
With kindly moisture then the plants abound;
The grass securely springs above the ground.
The tender twig shoots upward to the skies,
And on the faith of the new sun relies.

* Columella was at least known to Boccaccio (Hortis, Studj, p. 436), though probably not to Petrarch (Nolhac, Pétrarque et l'Humanisme, 2d ed., 2. 100, note 3).

Cærulas inter catervas, inter et bipedes equos,
Fecit undantem Dionem de maritis imbribus.
Ut pater totum crearet veris annum nubibus,
In sinum maritus imber fluxit almæ conjugis,10
Unde fetus perque pontum perque cælum pergeret,
Perque terras mixtus omnes alere magno corpore."

We have seen above that Aphrodite (Venus) proclaims her active complicity in the process and the result outlined by Aeschylus, and a similar thought is expressed by the fourth line quoted from the Pervigilium Veneris. Nor are these the only passages of a similar purport. Hesiod, describing the birth of Aphrodite, refers to her influence on vegetation (Theog. 194 ff.): 'Then forth stepped an awful, beauteous goddess, and beneath her delicate feet the verdure throve around; her gods and men name Aphrodite, the foam-sprung goddess.' Aud thus Lucretius (1. 7-8):

Tibi suavis dædala tellus

Summittit flores.12

Elsewhere Lucretius says (5. 737-9):

It ver et Venus, et Veneris prænuntius ante
Pennatus graditur, Zephyri vestigia propter
Flora.18

Ovid is no less explicit in his association of the goddess and the season (Fasti 4. 125, 129):

10

Arnobius (ca. 303) accuses (Bk. 5, chaps. 31, 34, 35, 37, 40, 43) the heathen writers whom he is attacking of relating the story about Jupiter and Ceres (cf. Hesiod, Theog. 912), Ceres (Demeter) being of course the Earth under another personification.

"Thus rendered by Mackail: "To-morrow will be the day when the primal Ether joined wedlock; then from the moisture overhead and the orbed sea-foam, amid green multitudes and finned horses, sprang Dione [Aphrodite], wave-born under nuptial showers.

'To quicken the whole year from the clouds of spring, the bridegroomshower has flowed into the lap of his fair bride, that so, mingling with the vast frame, he might pass through sea and through sky and through all the lands, to nourish their offspring.'

12 'For thee earth, manifold in works, puts forth sweet-smelling flowers.' "'Spring and Venus go their way, and the winged harbinger of Venus steps on before; and close on Zephyr's footprints Mother Flora.' Cf. Botticelli's Primavera.

Nec Veneri tempus quam ver erat aptius nullum.

Et formosa Venus formoso tempore digna est."

Of the spring months, it was April that was especially associated with Aphrodite; in fact, one of the two ancient etymologies for 'April' related it to the name of the goddess (Macrobius, Sat.15 1. 12. 8): 'Secundum mensem nominavit Aprilem, ut quidam putant cum adspiratione quasi Aphrilem, a spuma quam Græci appòv vocant, unde orta Venus creditur.'16

Moreover, Horace explicitly calls (Od. 4. 11. 15) April 'the month of sea-born Venus.'1

In the light of the preceding, it may be worth while to regard attentively the opening lines of Chaucer's Prologue:

Whan that Aprille with his shoures sote

The droghte of Marche hath perced to the rote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne,
And smale fowles maken melodye,
That slepen al the night with open ye,
(So priketh hem nature in hir corages).

18

14'And no season was there more becoming for Venus than the spring. . . And the lovely Venus is deserving of the lovely season.' Cf. Horace, Od. 1. 4. 1 ff.; Preller, Griech. Myth., 2d ed., pp. 270-1; Spenser, Amor. 70. I.

Chaucer is not usually credited with knowing the Saturnalia, but it is certain that Petrarch was familiar with it (Nolhac, Pétrarque et l'Humanisme, 2d ed., 1. 157), and there seems no reason why Chaucer may not have been. Cf. p. 12, note 24.

"He [Romulus] called the second month April, or, as some suppose, Aphril (with the aspirate), from foam, which the Greeks called aphros, and from which Venus is believed to have sprung.'

"Cf. Preller, as above; Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encyclopädie 1. 2768-9; Shakespeare, Ant. and Cleop. 3. 2. 43.

"As throwing light upon the detailed interpretation, I append the translation by Hertzberg (Chaucer's Canterbury-Geschichten, p. 67):

Wenn, von Aprillenregen mild durchdrungen,

Der Staub des März recht gründlich ist bezwungen,

Und so von Säften jede Ader schwillt,

Dass aus dem Boden Blum' an Blume quillt;

If this be compared with the extract from the Georgics, it will be seen that not only are individual Chaucerian words and phrases accounted for-shoures, Zephirus, tendre croppes (reading germina, in the sense of 'sprigs, sprouts, buds'), yonge sonne, smale fowles-but that the general thought of the whole eleven lines, with the exception of 8, 10, and 11, is to be found in the Virgilian passage.

Certain individual points remain to be considered. These will now be taken up in order.

Aprille (1). The month, regarded as masculine,19 takes the place of Aether (Jupiter),20 which would have been less intelligible or appealing to Chaucer's English readers. April, we have seen, suggests Venus; cf. the Venerem of Georg. I. 329.

shoures sote. This corresponds to Virgil's fecundis imbribus (325). Showers and rain are assigned to April in T. and C. 4. 751; A. and A. 309. One suspects sote of having been. employed partly for the sake of the rhyme (rhymed in Squire's Tale 389; L. G. W. 2612, with rote; cf. swote, Rom. Rose 1661; L. G. W. 1077; Miller's Tale 19; Parl. Fowls 274); on the other hand, see swote dewes, R. R. 60 (where the original has only rousée), and note the fact that sote (swote) is often employed in the middle of the line. It is several times used in

19

Wenn Zephyr dann mit seinem süssen Hauch
In Wald und Haide jeden zarten Strauch
Durchwehet; wenn der Strahl der jungen Sonnen
Zur Hälfte schon dem Widder ist entronnen;
Wenn lust'ge Melodie das Vöglein macht,
Das offnen Auges schläft die ganze Nacht
-So stachelt die Natur es in der Brust.

May is regarded as feminine in T. and C. 2. 50:
In May, that moder is of monthes glade.

On the other hand, it is masculine, like April, in Franklin's Tale 179-180:
Which May had peynted with his softe shoures

This gardin ful of leves and of floures.

20 Perhaps Juppiter (Joves) most nearly illustrates the conception outlined above, in such passages as T. and C. 3. 15 ff. (based upon the Filostrato of Boccaccio; see Oxford Chaucer 2. 474-5) and Monk's Tale 762.