attention to him; for the same reason, he wore a bell on his tippet, and, in fact, his dress resembled that of the professional fool. Paled or striped hose were sometimes worn for display. 'Buskins he wore of costliest cordwayne, Pinckt upon gold, and paled part per part, I.e. his buskins were adorned with golden dots or eyelets, and regularly intersected with stripes arranged perpendicularly. 1844. Isidis, Isis; Isidis being a form of the genitive case. Chaucer doubtless refers to Herostratus, the wretch who set fire to the temple of Diana at Ephesus, in order to immortalise his name. Why Diana here appears as Isis, and Ephesus as Athens, I cannot explain. Perhaps it was due to a defect of memory; we are apt to forget how very largely medieval authors had to trust to their memories for names and facts. It is almost impossible for us moderns, with our facilities for reference, to imagine what were the difficulties of learned men in the olden time. Perhaps Chaucer was thinking of Ovid's line (ex Ponto, i. 1. 51)—' Uidi ego linigerae numen uiolasse fatentem Isidis.' The story is in Solinus, Polyhistor, cap. xl. § 3. 'See, Erostratus the second Fires again Diana's fane.' Rejected Addresses; Drury's Dirge, st. 5. 1853. Thynne prints-'(Though it be naught) for shreudness'; but this is very forced. MS. B. and Caxton both omit noght, rightly. 1857. 'And, in order to get (some) of the meed of fame.' 1880. An allusion to the old proverb-'As I brew, so must I needs drink'; in Camden's Remains. Gower has it, Conf. Amant. bk. iii, ed. Pauli, ii. 334 :— 'And who so wicked ale breweth, Ful ofte he mot the werse drinke.' 1908. The form bringes, for bringest, though (strictly speaking) a Northern form, is not uncommon in East Midland. It occurs frequently, for example, in Havelok the Dane. But, as there is no other clear example in Chaucer, Koch thinks the passage is corrupt, and proposes to read :— 'Which than be, lo! thise tydinges, That bringe thee hider, and thise thinges That thou wilt here'; &c. 1920. Here that means 'that very.' The description of 'the house of Dædalus' is in Ovid, Met. viii. 159; and the word labyrinthus, used with reference to it, is in Vergil, Æn. v. 588. Chaucer again refers to it in the Leg. of Good Women (Ariadne), 2010; and it is mentioned in his translation of Boethius, bk. iii. pr. 12. 118 (vol. ii. p. 89). And see Gower, Conf. Amant. ed. Pauli, ii. 304. 1926. This somewhat resembles Dante, Inf. iii. 53, which Cary translates: 'Which whirling ran about so rapidly That it no pause obtain'd.' 1928. Oise, a river which flows into the Seine, from the north, not far below Paris. Chaucer says the sound might have been heard from there to Rome. From this vague statement, Warton would wish us to infer that the whole poem was founded on some foreign production now (and probably always) unknown. There is no need to draw any such conclusion. The English were fairly familiar with the north of France in days when a good deal of French soil belonged more or less to the king of England. The Oise, being a northern affluent of the Seine, must have been a well-known river. I think the allusion proves just nothing at all. 1933. This is an excellent and picturesque allusion, but in these days can no longer be appreciated. Compare Barbour's Bruce, xvii. 681: 'The engynour than deliuerly Gert bend the gyne in full gret hy, 1940. Though the authorities read hattes (Th. hutches), I alter this word to hottes without hesitation. We do not make hats with twigs or osiers. Chaucer says that some of the twigs were white, such as men use to make cages with, or panniers (i. e. baskets), or hottes, or dossers. Now Cotgrave explains F. Panier by ‘a Pannier, or Dosser; also, a Pedlers Pack; also, a fashion of trunke made of wicker'; and he explains F. Hotte by 'a Scuttle, Dosser, Basket to carry on the back ; the right hotte is wide at the top, and narrow at the bottom.' Murray kindly refers me to Cursor Mundi, 1. 5524:— 'Apon per neckes sal þai bere Hott wit stan and wit morter.' Dr. He also tells me that in Caxton's Golden Legend (1483), fol. cix. col. 2, is the sentence-' And bare on hys sholdres vij. hottis or baskettis fulle of erthe.' In a Glossary of North of England Words, printed as Gloss. B. 1, by the Eng. Dial. Society, I find: Hots, s. pl. a sort of panniers to carry turf or slate in '; and Halliwell gives it as a Cumberland word. Dickenson's Cumberland Glossary has: Muck-hots, panniers for conveying manure on horseback.' Brockett's Gloss. of Northern Words has: Hot, a sort of square basket, formerly used for taking manure into fields of steep ascent; the bottom opened by two wooden pins to let out the contents.' Thus the existence of the word in English is fully proved; and the fitness of it is evident. 1943. 'Al ful of chirking was that sory place'; Kn. Tale, A 2004. 1946. Again from Ovid, Met. xii. 44-47. 1970. Read-Of estáts and éek of regióuns.' The e in estat was very light; hence mod. E. state. 1975. Mis is here an adjective, meaning 'bad' or 'wrong'; cf. 'But to correcten that is mis I mente'; Can. Yeom. Tale, G 999. 1980. Although the timber,' &c. 6 1982. As long as it pleases Chance, who is the mother of news, just as the sea (is mother) of wells and springs.' 1997. Paráventure; also spelt paraunter, shewing how rapidly the third syllable could be slurred over. 2000. Peter! by St Peter; see note to l. 1034. 2004. Cunne ginne, know how to begin. (Gin, a contrivance, is monosyllabic). 2009. I substitute the dissyllabic swich-e for the monosyllabic these, to preserve the melody. 2011. To drive away thy heaviness with.' 2017. MS. F. has frot, which has no meaning, but may but a misspelling of froit, which is another form of fruit. As Koch says, we must read The fruit, remembering that Chaucer uses fruit in the peculiar sense of 'upshot' or 'result.' 'And for it is no fruit but los of tyme'; Squi. Ta., F 74. 'The fruyt of this matere is that I telle'; Man of Lawes Ta., B 411. In the present case, it would be used in a double sense; (1) of result, (2) of a fruit that withers and is ready to burst open. As to the spelling froit, we find froyte in the Petworth MS. in the latter of the above quotations, where other MSS. have fruyt or fruite. The swote (Cx. Th.) means 'the sweetness.' 2019. That, in this line, goes back to Sith that in l. 2007. 2021. I suppress in after yaf, because it is not wanted for the sense, and spoils the metre. 2034-40. Suggested by Dante, Inf. iii. 55-57, just as ll. 1924-6 above are by the two preceding lines in Dante; see note to l. 1926. Cary has: 'and following came Such a long train of spirits, I should ne'er Have thought that death so many had despoil'd.' In l. 2038, left means 'left alive.' 2044. I substitute ech for euerych (in Caxton). The two MSS. (F. and B.) have merely Rouned in others ere, which is of course defective. 2048. I here follow B. (except that it wrongly omits lo). 2059. Wondermost; superl. of wonder, which is very common as an adjective. 2076. As the reading of the MSS. is obviously wrong (the word mouth being repeated three times), whilst the reading of the printed editions (Wente every tydyng) cannot be right on account of the scansion, I put word for the first of the three mouths. This gives the right sense, and probably Chaucer actually wrote it. 2089. Again from Ovid, Met. xii. 54, 55. A sad soth-sawe, a sober truth. 2099. With the nones, on the condition; see Leg. of Good Women, 1540; and the note. So also in the Tale of Gamelyn, 206. 2101. See Kn. Tale, 273, 274 (A 1131). 2105. Beside, without; without asking his leave. 2119. Cf. Cant. Tales, D 1695—'Twenty thousand freres on a route,' where Tyrwhitt prints A twenty. But the MSS. (at least the seven best ones) all omit the A. Just as the present line wants its first syllable, and is to be scanned-'Twenty thousand ín a roúte'; so the line in the Cant. Tales wants its first syllable, and is to be scannedTwenty thousand fréres ón a roúte. For having called attention to this fact, my name (misspelt) obtained a mention in Lowell's My Study Windows, in his (otherwise excellent) article on Chaucer. 'His (Chaucer's) ear would never have tolerated the verses of nine1 syllables with a strong accent on the first, attributed to him by Mr. Skeate and Mr. Morris. Such verses seem to me simply impossible in the pentameter iambic as Chaucer wrote it.' Surely this is assumption, not proof. I have only to say that the examples are rather numerous, and nine-syllable lines are not impossible to a poet with a good ear; for there are twelve consecutive lines of this character in Tennyson's Vision of Sin. It may suffice to quote one of them : 'Pánted hand in hánd with fáces pále.' I will merely add here, that similar lines abound in Lydgate's ' Sege of Thebes,' and that there are 25 clear examples of such lines in the Legend of Good Women, as I shew in my Introduction to that Poem. 2123. Cf. P. Plowman; B. prol. 46-52. Bretful, brim-ful, occurs in P. Pl. C. i. 42; also in Chaucer, Prol. 687; Kn. Tale, 1306 (A 2164). 2130. Lyes; F. lies, E. lees. 'Lie, f. the lees, dregs, grounds'; Cotgrave. 2140. Sooner or later, every sheaf in the barn has to come out to be thrashed. 2152. And cast up their noses on high.' I adopt this reading out of deference to Dr. Koch, who insists upon its correctness. Otherwise, I should prefer the graphic reading in MS. B.— ‘And up the nose and yën caste.' Each man is trying to peer beyond the rest. 2154. ‘And stamp, as a man would stamp on a live eel, to try to secure it.' Already in Plautus, Pseudolus, 2. 4. 56, we have the proverb anguilla est, elabitur, he is an eel, he slips away from you; said of a sly or slippery fellow. In the Rom. de la Rose, 9941, we are told that it is as hard to be sure of a woman's constancy as it is to hold a live eel by the tail. 'To have an eel by the tail' was an old Really ten; for rout-e is dissyllabic. English proverb; see Eel in Nares' Glossary, ed. Halliwell and Wright. 2158. The poem ends here, in the middle of a sentence. It seems as if Chaucer did not quite know how to conclude, and put off finishing the poem till that more convenient season' which never comes. Practically, nothing is lost. The copy printed by Caxton broke off still earlier, viz. at l. 2094. In order to make a sort of ending to it, Caxton added twelve lines of his own, with his name-Caxton-at the side of the first of them; and subjoined a note in prose, as follows: And wyth the noyse of them [t]wo1 I Sodeynly awoke anon tho2 In my ghoost/and had grete wonder Of that [that?] the god of thonder Had lete me knowen / and began to wryte3 Lyke as ye haue herd me endyte Wherfor to studye and rede alway✦ I purpose to doo day by day Thus in dremyng and in game Endeth thys lytyl book of Fame. I fynde nomore of this werke to-fore sayd. For as fer as I can vnderstonde/This noble man Gefferey Chaucer fynysshed at the sayd conclusion of the metyng of lesyng and sothsawe / where as yet they ben chekked and may nat departe / whyche werke as me semeth is craftyly made'; &c. (The rest is in praise of Chaucer). But, although Caxton's copy ended at 1. 2094, lines 2095-2158 appear in the two MSS., and are obviously genuine. Thynne also printed them, and must have found them in the MS. which he followed. After l. 2158, Thynne subjoins Caxton's ending, with an alteration in the first three lines, as unsuitable to follow l. 2158. Hence Thynne prints them as follows:And therwithal I abrayde Out of my slepe halfe a frayde Remembri[n]g wel what I had sene. We thus see that it was never pretended that the lines following 1. 2158 were Chaucer's. They are admittedly Caxton's and Thynne's. Even if we had not been told this, we could easily have detected it by the sudden inferiority in the style. Caxton's second line will not scan at all comfortably; neither will the third, nor the fourth. (The seventh can be improved by altering began to gan). And Thynne's lines are but little better. 1 Misprinted wo; cf. two, l. 2093. From Parl. of Foules, 696. |