as appealing to books against women; but we are bidden to observe that, even there, good women are incidentally mentioned; see A. 284. Even Valerius praises Lucretia and Penelope.

- A. 288. Cf. the long passage in the Franklein's Tale about chaste women; C. T. 11676-11766 (F 1364-1456). It is nearly all taken from Jerome.

A. 305. Epistels rather than epistelle in the singular. The reference is to Ovid's Heroides, which contains twenty-one loveletters. Cf. Chaucer's Introd. to Man of Law, B 55, where he alludes to Ovid's mention of lovers 'in his Epistelles.

- A. 307. Vincent is Vincent of Beauvais, who compiled an encyclopædia of universal knowledge in the 13th century. One portion of this great work, treating of universal history, is called Speculum Historiale, which Chaucer has here turned into Storial Mirour. See Lounsbury's Studies in Chaucer, ii. 375.

338. As Chaucer is pleased to call his poem by the name of 'seintes legende of Cupyde' in the Introd. to Man of Law, B 61, he here turns Venus into a saint, to keep up the analogy between his present undertaking and the Legenda Sanctorum. But John de Meun had previously said much the same thing. In Le Rom. de la Rose, 10863, Cupid is made to swear 'par sainte Venus ma mere.' See the Eng. version, l. 5953. (Perhaps read seynte in Text B.)

343. In accordance with the proverb-'Audi alteram partem.' See A. 325. Cf. Seneca, Medea, 195.

348. 'And even if you were not an omniscient god.'

352. From. the Rom. of the Rose; the E. version has (11. 1050, 1) :—

'Hir court hath many a losengere,
And many a traytour envious.'

Again repeated in Cant. Tales, B 4515-8.

353. Totelere (C. totulour), tattling; properly a sb., meaning 'tattler,' but here used in apposition, and, practically, as an adjective. Tyrwhitt explains it by 'whisperer.' Halliwell quotes 'Be no totiler' from MS. Bibl. Reg. 17 B. xvii. fol. 141. It clearly means a gossiping tattler, or tale-bearer.

The word is scarce, but we find a helpful passage in P. Plowman, B. xx. 297:

'Of alle taletellers and tyterers in ydel.'

Here tyterers means gossipers, or retailers of tittle-tattle; and various readings give the forms titeleris (as printed by Wright) and tutelers (as printed by Crowley). The last form tuteler is clearly identical with Chaucer's totelere, spelt tutelere in MS. Arch. Selden B. 24.

357. 'These are the causes why, if I am not to lie'; &c. See note to 1. 217.

358. Lavender, laundress, washerwoman; (Bell's interpretation of

'gutter' is utter nonsense). See Laundress in my Etym. Dict., where I refer to the present passage. Laundress is formed by adding -ess to launder or laundre, the contracted form of lavender as here used. In Barbour's Bruce, ed. Skeat, xvi. 273, 292, the word for 'washerwoman' is spelt lauender, laynder, and landar. Palsgrave's Eng. and Fr. Dict. gives 'Laundre, that wassheth clothes; lauendiere'; and Cotgrave explains the Fr. lauandiere by the Eng. launderesse. Chaucer's presentation to us of Envy as the person who washes all the dirty linen in the court, is particularly happy. As a matter of fact, he is here quoting Dante, but he has substituted lavender (perhaps in an ill sense, though I do not feel sure of this) for the meretrice of the original. The passage referred to is in the Inferno, xiii. 64 :—

'La meretrice, che mai dall' ospizio

Di Cesare non torse gli occhi putti,
Morte comune, e delle corti vizio,
Infiammò contre me gli animi tutti.'

Cary's translation has :

'The harlot, who ne'er turned her gloating eyes
From Cæsar's household, common vice and pest
Of courts, 'gainst me inflamed the minds of all.'

Gower (C. A. ed. Pauli, i. 263) says:—

'Senec witnesseth openly

How that envie properly

Is of the court the comun wenche.'

Note that parteth in l. 359 means 'departeth.'

361. 'Whoever goes away, at any rate she will not be wanting.' Men come and go, but Envy remains. This is the right sense; but Bell, whom Prof. Corson follows, gives it quite a false twist. He says, 'Whosoever goes, i. e. falls, she will not be in want'; a desperate and unmeaning solution, due to not appreciating the force of the verb to want, which here simply means 'to be absent,' and can be applied to persons as well as to things. 'There wanteth but a mean to fill your song'; Two Gent. of Verona, i. 2. 295; though bride and bridegroom wants,' i. e. are absent, Tam. Shrew, iii. 2. 248: There wanteth now our brother of Gloucester here'; Rich. III. ii. 1. 43.

364. 'But only because he is accustomed to write poems.'

366. 'Or it was enjoined him by some patron to compose those two poems (the Romaunce of the Rose and Troilus; see A. 344); and he did not dare to refuse.'

371. As thogh that, as he would have done if.

372. And had, i. e. and had composed it all himself.

374. 'The allusion is to the several successful adventurers, like the Visconti, who in the 13th and 14th centuries succeeded in seizing upon

the governments of Milan, and other free cities of Lombardy'; Bell. See the article Visconti in the Eng. Cyclopædia; we are there referred to Verri, Storia di Milano, and to Muratori, Annali d'Italia. Cf. Dante, Inf. xxviii. 74, 81; and see Chaucer's reference to 'Barnabo Viscounte' in the Monkes Tale, B 3589.

375. Reward at, regard to. Reward and regard are etymologically dentical. Observe the accent on the former syllable. Cf. 1. 399.

378. Fermour, a farmer of taxes; who is naturally exacting and oppressive.

380. Before is supply hit, which, as in l. 379, refers to a suppliant culprit. His own vassals are a lord's treasures, to be cherished, not oppressed.

381. Bech refers us to Seneca, De Clementia, lib. i. c. 3, § 3; c. 5, § 4. Or perhaps Aristotle is meant, whose supposed advice to Alexander is fully given in Gower's Confessio Amantis, bk. vii. See particularly the passage in Pauli's edition, iii. 176:—

'What is a king in his legeaunce,

Wher that ther is no law in londe?'

There is a similar long and tedious passage in Lancelot of the Laik, ed. Skeat, ll. 1463-1998. Gower calls Aristotle'the philosophre'; C. A. iii. 86. We may also compare Hoccleve, De Regimine Principum, ed. Wright, pp. 102-3, translated from Ægidius, De Reg. Princ., lib. i. pars I, cap. xiv; where the reference to Aristotle is :-'Propter quod V. Ethicorum scribitur, quod principatus uirum ostendit.'

384. Al, although. Although he will preserve their rank for his lords.' Note that his lordes is in the dative case. It was probably from not observing this that Thynne's edition and the Pepys MS. have needlessly inserted the word in before hir. Cf. A. 370.

387. Half-goddes, demi-gods. Cf. 'the demi-god Authority'; Meas. for Meas. i. 2. 124.

391. So, in his Epitaph on Inigo Jones, Ben Jonson says:-'The Libyan lion hunts no butterflies'; which he took from Martial, Epig. xii. 61. 6. And see Pliny, Nat. Hist. viii. 16.

397. Areste. Bell seems to suggest the sense of 'restraint,' and Prof. Corson, following him, suggests 'self-command'; but such a sense does not exactly appear in Murray's Dictionary. Nevertheless, 'selfrestraint' suits not only this passage, but also the passage cited from the Harleian MS. in the foot-note to the Somnour's Tale, D 2048, in vol. iv. p. 381.

399. Here, as in 1. 375, reward means 'regard,' and is accented on the e.

We re

400. Maystrie, masterly act; no maystrie, an easy matter. 405. This is not altogether a metaphorical expression. member something very like it at the siege of Calais in 1347, when. according to Froissart, Edward III. sent for the six inhabitants of Calais, who were to present themselves 'with bare heads and feet,

with ropes round their necks'; see Froissart, tr. by Johnes, bk. i.

C. 145.

415. In the earlier text (A 403), the word He stands alone in the first foot, which is less pleasing.

417. See Introd. to the Minor Poems (in vol. i.) for a discussion of some of the poems here mentioned. He here mentions, first of all, three of his lesser poems, in the order of their length; viz. the Hous of Fame, the Deeth of Blaunche, and the Parlement of Foules.

420. The 'Palamoun and Arcyte' here referred to was no doubt a translation of Boccaccio's Teseide, or of selections from it, in seven-line stanzas. Though not preserved to us in its entirety, several fragments of it remain. These are to be found (1) in sixteen stanzas of the Parl. of Foules (11. 183-294), translated from the Teseide, bk. vii. st. 51-66; (2) in part of the first ten stanzas of Anelida, from the same, bk. i. st. 1-3, and bk. ii. st. 10-12; (3) in three stanzas near the end of Troilus (viz. st. 7, 8, and 9 from the end), from the same, xi. 1-3; and (4) in a re-written form, in what is now known as the Knightes Tale. See Notes to Anelida, in vol. i. pp. 529, 530.

421. Though the story is little known.' Tyrwhitt remarks that these words 'seem to imply that it [Chaucer's original version of Palamon and Arcite] had not made itself very popular.' Unfortunately, Tyrwhitt, who so very seldom goes astray, has here misled nearly all who have consulted him. Chaucer is not referring to his own version of the story, nor even to Boccaccio's version, but to the old story itself; and he is merely repeating Boccaccio's own remark, when (in the Teseide, i. 2) he speaks of it as

'—una storia antica,

Tanto negli anni riposta e nascosa,
Che Latino autor non par ne dica,

Per quel ch'io senta, in libro alcuna cosa.'

And, in truth, the story must have been known but to very few, till Boccaccio rescued it from oblivion. This is all that is meant; and there is no difficulty. Note further that Chaucer refers to the very same passage in another poem; see note to Anelida, 1. 8.

423. A Balade is, properly, a poem in three stanzas, in which each stanza ends with the same line, called the refrain. There is also usually a fourth stanza, called Lenvoy, or the Envoy, which is sometimes shorter than the other three. Most of Chaucer's Balades have probably perished, as only a few are now known. These are: Fortune, consisting of 3 Balades, each in 8-line stanzas, followed by a single Envoy; Truth, a Balade with Envoy, in 7-line stanzas; Gentilesse, without Envoy; Lak of Stedfastnesse, with Envoy; (probably) A Balade against women unconstaunt, without Envoy; The Complaint of Venus, consisting of 3 Balades, with a general Envoy; The Compleint to his Purse, with Envoy of five lines only; To Rosemounde, without Envoy; and the Balade included in the present poem, at ll. 249-269 above.

A Roundel is a poem of from nine to fourteen lines, in which only eight lines are different from each other, the rest being repetitions of lines that have already occurred. See this fully explained in the note to 1. 675 of the Parl. of Foules. The one certain example is the Roundel included in the Parl. of Foules, beginning at 1. 680. There is also a beautiful example of a Triple Roundel, which I have included in the Minor Poems, with the title of Merciless Beauty. No doubt Chaucer wrote many more, but they are lost.

A Virelay is a poem in an unusual metre, of which examples are very rare. Only one entire poem of this character has been conjecturally assigned to Chaucer, but it is written in later English, and cannot possibly be his. It is not a true Virelay (in the French sense), and first appeared in the edition of 1561; see vol. i. p. 33. In this poem, lines 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7 all rime together; and 1. 4 rimes with 1. 8. Then comes the 'veer' or 'turn,' which requires that, in the next stanza, lines 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15 shall rime with lines 4 and 8, as, in fact, they do; but lines 12 and 16 introduce a new rime, as they should not do. We find, however, two fair examples of the Virelay in the poem of Anelida, viz. in lines 256-271 and 317-332. In the former of these, the rime in -ee (-e) appears in lines 256-8 and 260-2, and the rime in -yte ends lines 259 and 263; whereas, conversely, the rime in -yte ends lines 264-6 and 268-270, whilst lines 267 and 271 repeat the rime in -ee. Similarly, 11. 317-332 exhibit veering rimes in -eye and -ure.

In Hoccleve's Poems, ed. Furnivall (Early Eng. Text Soc., Extra Series, 1892), there are several clever and intricate examples of the Virelay. Thus, in Balade IV, at p. 39, there are five stanzas, but only three rimes, viz. in -al, -ee, and -ay. The formula of rimes, for the first and third stanzas, is a babbcbc; for the second and fourth stanzas, cbc bb aba; and for the fifth stanza, acaccbcb. See also the same, pp. 41, 47, 49, 58, 59, 61, 62. Beyond all doubt, Hoccleve copied the forms of Chaucer's lost virelays.

424. Holynesse, holy employment, religious composition. This is, clearly, an intentional substitution for the besinesse, i. e. ‘laborious employment,' in the A-text, l. 412.

425. Chaucer made an excellent prose translation of Boethius de Consolatione Philosophiæ, a Latin treatise much admired in the middle ages, and still worthy of admiration. For further remarks, see vol. iii.

-A. 414. This is the only notice we possess of a work by Chaucer which is no longer extant. We gather from it that he made a translation of the Latin prose treatise by Pope Innocent III., entitled De Miseria Conditionis Humanæ, a gloomy enumeration of human woes without a single alleviating touch of hope, fiercely and unrelentingly set forth. It is probable that it was written in 7-line stanzas; for portions of it appear to be preserved in the Prologue to the Man of Lawes Tale, B 99-126, and in other stanzas of the same (B 421-7, 771-7, 925-931, 1135-8).