Here raduore is clearly an error for radeuore or radevore, as the scansion shews. Urry's Glossary gives the following explanation: 'Ras in French means any stuff [it means serge or satin], as Ras de Chalons, Ras de Gennes; Ras de Vore or Vaur may be a stuff made at such a place.' On which Tyrwhitt remarks-'There is a town in Languedoc called La Vaur; but I know not that it was ever famous for tapestry.' Cotgrave gives: 'Ras, serge'; also 'Ras de Milain, the finest kind of bare serge, or a silke serge.' Littré cites ras de Châlons from Scarron, Virg. iv.; also 'bas de soye, raz de Millan et d'estame.' Ras, in fact, is the same as the Tudor-English word rash. The loss of the s in ras de Vore is regular, because s drops before d in AngloFrench, though it is preserved in ras when used alone. I find, on consulting the English Cyclopædia, that La Vaur, in the department of Tarn, produces silk and serge to this day; so that Urry is certainly right. The whole account in ll. 2350-72 is expanded from five lines in the Latin text, 576-580:

'Stamina barbarica suspendit candida tela:
purpureasque notas filis intexuit albis'; &c.

Observe that, in l. 2360, the stuff is called 'a stamin!
2359. By that, by the time that.

2360. A stamin large, a large piece of stamine. Stamin or stamine is usually explained as a kind of woollen cloth. Cotgrave gives : 'Estamine, the stuffe tamine.' Godefroy gives both estamin, masc. and estamine, fem. explained by ' tissu léger de laine ou de coton.' Palsgrave has :-'Stamell, fyne worstede, estamine'; and—' Stamyne, estamine.' The Prompt. Parv. has :- Stamyn, clothe, stamina. Stamin was used as a material for shirts, and was worn by way of penance; Fosbrooke explains it as 'a shirt made of woollen and linen, used instead of a penitentiary hair-shirt.' 'Stamin habbe whoso wule,' whoso will may have a stamin; Ancren Riwle, p. 418. Chaucer uses it thus near the end of the Persones Tale (I 1052); 'Also in weringe of heyres or of stamin or of haubergeons on hir naked flesh for Cristes sake, and swiche manere penances.'

MSS. C. T. A. have stamyn, which seems the better form; the rest (like the printed editions) have stames, which may be an error for stamel, O. F. estamel, used in the same sense as O. F. estamine. Else it may answer to O. F. estame, 'laine peignée, tricot de laine' in Godefroy. The fact that Ovid's word is stamina is in favour of the spelling stamin. (Bell remarks that 'the printed copies read flames, which is nonsense.' He seems to have misread stames (with long s) as flames. The editions of 1532, 1550, and 1561 certainly have stames.) 2373-82. Abridged from Met. vi. 581-605. Ovid mentions the triennial festival to Bacchus.

2379. Compleint is a much better reading than the constreynte of the old editions.

2383. No charge, of no consequence; Squi. Ta., F 359.

2383-93. All Chaucer's own. The last line is characteristic: 'unless it happens to be the case that he cannot get another,' i. e. a new love. For non other, old editions have another!

2385. Here deserved is the usual Chaucerian form of the pt. tense. Prof. Lounsbury (Studies in Chaucer, i. 403) calls this a false form. But cf. wyped, lipsed (in -ed, not -ede); Prol. to C. T., 133, 264.

VIII. THE LEGEND OF PHYLLIS.

Gower tells the same story in his Confessio Amantis, bk. iv. (ed. Pauli, ii. 26); and it is likely that he and Chaucer derived it from the same source, whatever that may have been. A portion of the latter part, from 1. 2496, is taken from Ovid, Heroides, Ep. ii. And see note to 1. 2423.

2395. An allusion to Matt. vii. 16, and to Legend VI, above.

2398. Demophon, usually Demophoön, son of Theseus and Phædra, who, on his return from Troy, gained the love of Phyllis, daughter of Sithon, king of Thrace. Observe that Gower says that Demophoön was on his way towards Troy.

2400. Unless it were.'

2401. Observe that grac-e is dissyllabic, as in l. 2433.

2403. Now I turn to the effect (the pith) of what I have to say.' 2413. Him seems to stand alone in the first foot; for were, in this phrase, is usually monosyllabic; cf. Mancip. Prol., H 23. occurs as a dissyllable, in which case the line is normal. -er in lever is dwelt on.

2416. And his rudder was broken by a wave.'

But it also Or else the

2420. For wood, as (if) mad, 'like mad.' For is not a prefix, but a separate word; as shewn by 'for pure wood,' Rom. Rose, 276; and see Ho. Fame, 1747. Posseth, pusheth, tosseth. Bech observes that Il. 2411-21 are from Vergil, Æn. i. 85-90, 102, 142.

2422. Chorus; so in Thynne's edition; the MSS. have Thorus (except T., which has Thora). Both Chorus and Thorus are unknown as sea-divinities; but I think I can guess Chaucer's authority, viz. Verg. Æn. v. 823-5:

'Et senior Glauci chorus, Inousque Palaemon,

Tritonesque citi, Phorcique exercitus omnis.

Laeua tenent Thetis et Melite, Panopeaque uirgo.'

Here we find Thetis, chorus, Triton; whilst and they alle' answers to exercitus omnis. (So also Bech.) Chorus is used for Caurus, the north-east wind, in Chaucer's Boethius, bk. iv. met. 5. 17; but this is not the purpose.

2423. Lond, i.e. Thrace. Phyllis, as said above, was the daughter of Sithon, king of Thrace; but both Chaucer and Gower make her father's name to be 'Ligurgus,' i. e. Lycurgus. This substitution may

have been suggested by Ovid, Her. ii. 111-' quae tibi subieci latissima regna Lycurgi.' He is the same as the Lycurgus in Statius, Theb. iv. 386; in Ovid, Met. iv. 22, and in Homer, vi. 130; and was king of the Edoni, a people of Thrace. This accounts also for the introduction into the Knight's Tale of 'Ligurge himself, the grete king of Thrace'; 1. 1271 (A 2129). Prof. Lounsbury (Studies in Chaucer, ii. 232) has usefully pointed out that the immediate authority for making Lycurgus the father of Phyllis was Boccaccio's De Genealogia Deorum, lib. xi. c. 25, headed-‘De Phyllidi Lycurgi filia.'

2425. On to sene, to look upon; cf. the parallel line, Kn. Ta., 177 (A 1035).

2427. Is y-wonne, is arrived. Cf. Æn. i. 173.

2434. Chevisaunce, borrowing; properly an agreement for borrowing money. See C. T. 13259, 13277, 13321 (B 1519, 1537, 1581); P. Plowman, B. 5. 249, and the note; and the Gloss. to Spenser.

2438. Rodopeya, the country near Rhodope, which was a mountainrange of Thrace, now a part of the Hamus range. See l. 2498.

2448. As Reynard the fox doth, so (doth) the fox's son.' The line is incomplete, but the sense is clear. Reynard, which with us is a duplicate for fox, while in the French renard has quite excluded the older volpils, was originally not the name of a kind, but the proper name of the fox-hero, the vulpine Ulysses, in that famous beast-epic of the middle ages, Reineke Fuchs; the immense popularity of which we gather from many evidences, from none more clearly than this. Chanticleer is in like manner the name of the cock, and Bruin of the bear in the same poem.'-Trench, Eng. Past and Present. Reynard is from M. H. G. ragin-hart, strong in counsel; from ragin, counsel, and hart, strong.

2454. Agroted, surfeited, cloyed. A rare word; used also by Lydgate. See the New E. Dict.

2456. This is a hint that Chaucer was already getting tired of his task.

2477. In a month. So in Ovid; see l. 2503.

2485. With a corde, i. e. by hanging. Cf. Ovid, Her. ii. 141 :—

'Colla quoque, infidis quae se nectenda lacertis
praebuerant, laqueis implicuisse libet.'

2493. Hir soules, their souls; of Theseus and Demophoön.

2495. Although it be but a small part of the whole letter.' In fact, Chaucer gives us 11. 1-8 of Ovid's second Epistle (in the Heroides); and, from 1. 2518 onward, sentences made up from 11. 26, 27, 43, 44, 4952, 63-68, 73-78, and 134-137 of the same.

2496. Compare these lines with Ovid, Her. ii. 1-8:

'Hospita, Demophoon, tua te Rhodopeia Phyllis
ultra promissum tempus abesse queror.
Cornua quum Lunae pleno semel orbe coissent,
litoribus nostris ancora pacta tua est.

Luna quater latuit, toto quater orbe recrevit,

nec uehit Actæas Sithonis unda rates.

Tempora si numeres, bene quae numeramus amantes,
non uenit ante suum nostra querela diem.'

Hostess-e is trisyllabic; MS. C. has-'Ostess-e thyn.'

2502. Highte, promised. But Chaucer seems to have mistaken the sense of Ovid's fourth line (in the note to l. 2496).

2508. 'Sithonis unda'; see note to l. 2496. Here Sithonis is an adj. (gen. Sithonidis), and means 'Sithonian,' i. e. Thracian; because Sithon or Sitho, her father, was king of Thrace. I substitute Sitho for the MS. spellings.

2518. See note to 1. 2495 for references.

2521. For, because: 'quid feci, nisi non sapienter amaui?'

2529. May occupies the first foot of the line.

2534. She prays that the glory of having betrayed her will be the greatest glory he will ever attain to. 'Di faciant, laudis summa sit ista tuae!' (66).

2551. Mote ye, may ye. 'Ad tua me fluctus proiectam littora portent'; (135).

2556. And knew, i. e. and she knew.

2558. Read-'Such sórw' hath shé,' &c. Bell altered the second she in this line to he, without authority, and unnecessarily. The word besette does not mean 'served' or 'treated,' as those who keep this reading have to assert, but 'bestowed' or 'gave up,' and her means 'herself.' The sense is therefore—' Such sorrow hath she, because she so disposed of herself.' See Beset in the New E. Dict. § 7. Caxton has: Orgarus thought his doughter shol wel be maryed, and wel beset upon hym'; Chron. Eng. cxii.

2561. Trusteth, imp. pl. As in love, in the matter of love. This playful line is in the same spirit as l. 2393 above.

IX. THE LEGEND OF HYPERMNESTRA.

The story is told in Ovid, Her. xiv. But Chaucer has taken some of the details from Boccaccio, De Genealogia Deorum, lib. ii. c. 22. Cf. Hyginus, Fab. 168. See the Introduction.

2563. Danao, Danaus. Danaus and Ægyptus were twin brothers. Ægyptus had 50 sons, and Danaus 50 daughters. Danaus had reason to fear his nephews, and fled with his daughters to Argos. Thither he was followed by the sons of Ægyptus, who demanded his daughters in marriage, and promised faithful alliance. Danaus distributed his daughters amongst them, but to each of them gave a dagger, with which they were to kill their husbands on the bridal night. They all did so, except Hypermnestra, who saved her husband Lynceus. Thus

the attempt of Danaus failed, and he was slain by Lynceus, in accordance with the destiny predicted for him.

It must be particularly noted that Chaucer makes Ægyptus and Danaus change places. According to him, Ægyptus was the father of the daughters, and consequently attempted the life of Lynceus; whilst Danaus was the father of the sons, and therefore of Lynceus.

2569. Lino; by which perverted name Lynceus is meant ; Boccaccio has' Lino seu Linceo' (dat. case).

2570. Egiste represents Boccaccio's Ægistus, i. e. Ægyptus. 2574. And caused (men) to call her,' i. e. had her named.

2575. Ypermistra, i. e. Hypermestra, a corrupter form of Hypermnestra; see the account in the Introduction. Note that the first syllable Y- forms the first foot in the line.

2576. Of her nativitee, by her horoscope; see 1. 2584.

2577. Thewes, qualities. Craik has a long note on this word in his edition of Julius Cæsar. It merely comes to this, that thew must have meant strength or some excellent bodily quality in the first instance, and some excellent mental quality afterwards. Nevertheless it is remarkable that (with one exception in Layamon, 6361) the usual old sense is the latter; and the usual modern sense (notably in Jul. Cæs. i. 3. 81, 2 Hen. IV. iii. 2. 276) is the former. The A.S. form is péaw. Craik's notion that this word was confused with A.S. þéoh, the thigh, is entirely out of the question, and gives no help.

2580. Wirdes, Fates; Lat. Parcæ; Gk. Moiræ. Corson shews that G. Douglas translates the Lat. fata by werdes in Æn. i. 18, and Parca by werd sisteris in the same, iii. 379. He also quotes from Holinshed's Hist. of Scotland-'the weird sisters, that is, as ye would say, the goddesses of destinie'; reproduced by Shakespeare in Macb. iv. 1. 136.

2582. The scansion suggests that Pitous-e, sad-de, are treated like French adjectives, the final e denoting the feminine gender. This is natural in the case of pitous-e, fem. of pitous, just as we have dispitous-e, Book of the Duch. 624; but the distinction is not often made in M. E. Sweet's A. S. grammar gives til-u as an occasional fem. form of the nom. of the indef. adjective; so that sæd-u might have been used. Wys-e is likewise dissyllabic, though the A. S. form was wis even in the feminine. But the definite forms of the M. E. adj. were sad-de, wys-e; and there may have been consequent confusion. In fact, Prof. Child gives a list of adjectives of this kind, being monosyllabic in A.S., but dissyllabic in Chaucer. He includes wise, but not sad, his examples being taken from the Canterbury Tales only, and thence only in clear cases. Dispitous-e occurs as a vocative case, in Troil. ii. 435.

2584. Here comes in the old belief in astrology. Venus, Jupiter, Mars, and Saturn, as here mentioned, are not the gods, but the planets; and each planet had (it was thought) its peculiar influence, which was stronger or weaker according to its position in the heavens at the time