author: cp. _Conf. Am. Prol._ 945 ff. and _Vox Clam._ vii. 639 ff. In
both places the argument is the same as here. The quotation is from
Greg. _Hom. in Evang._ ii. 39, ‘Omnis autem creaturae aliquid habet
homo. Habet namque commune esse cum lapidibus, vivere cum arboribus,
sentire cum animalibus, intelligere cum angelis.’ Cp. _Moral._ vi. 16.
26885. _Et en aler._ Similarly in the _Vox Clam._ vii. 641 motion is
made one of the five senses to the exclusion of smelling,
‘Sentit et audit homo, gustat, videt, ambulat.’
26927. _maisq’il le compiere_, ‘that he should abye it’: for this use
of ‘maisqe’ instead of ‘que’ cp. 26112.
26931. Aristotle speaks of animals as microcosms (e. g. _Phys._ viii.
2) and argues from them to the μέγας κόσμος, but of course the quotation
here is at second hand.
26934. Cp. _Vox Clam._ vii. 645 ff., ‘Sic minor est mundus homo, qui
fert singula solus,’ &c.
26955. The rhyme requires ‘mer et fieu’ for ‘fieu et mer.’
26989. Lev. xxvi. 3 ff.
27001 f. With what follows compare _Vox Clam._ ii. 217-348, where the
whole subject is worked out at length with many examples, including
nearly all those which occur in this passage.
27015. _Vox Clam._ ii. 243, ‘Sol stetit in Gabaon iusto Iosue
rogitante,’ &c.
27019. _Vox Clam._ ii. 247 f.
27022. _Vox Clam._ ii. 249 f.
27031. _Vox Clam._ ii. 259 f. The story is in the _Legenda Aurea_: it
is to the effect that in an assembly of prelates Hilarius found himself
elbowed out of all the honourable seats and compelled to sit on the
ground. Upon this the floor rose under him and brought him up to a
level with the rest.
27037. _Vox Clam._ ii. 253 f.
27040. _Vox Clam._ ii. 255 f.
27046 ff. _Vox Clam._ ii. 265-274.
27061. Paul, the first eremite, is said to have been fed daily by a
raven for over sixty years.
27065 ff. _Vox Clam._ ii. 277-280.
27077. _Vox Clam._ ii. 287 f.
27079. _Vox Clam._ ii. 315 f.
27081 ff. _Vox Clam._ ii. 281-284.
27088. _soy vivant_, ‘while he is living.’
27165. That is, ‘he passes by his death into a life of damnation’: the
antithesis ‘vit du mort’ and ‘moert du vie’ is a very strained one.
27367. _De Ire_: cp. 12241.
27372. ‘With no compensating goodness’: ‘refaire’ must mean here ‘to do
in return’ (or in compensation).
27411. _que me renovelle_, ‘which is ever renewed in me’: for
‘renoveller’ in this sense cp. 11364.
27568 f. _vais ... tien_: indicative for subjunctive, ‘tien’ for
‘tiens,’ unless it is meant for imperative.
27662. _ove tout l’enfant_, ‘together with the child’: cp. ll. 4,
12240, &c.
27722. _Tiels jours y ot_, ‘on some days.’
27814 f. ‘He it is whom you will espouse to the virgin,’ i.e. the
bearer of that rod.
27841. _a coustummance_, ‘after the custom’: the MS. has
‘acoustummance,’ but this can hardly stand. The same in 28190.
27867. Cp. _Bal._ xxv., ‘Car qui bien aime ses amours tard oblie.’
27935. _eustes_: apparently 2nd pers. pl. preterite. If so, it is
combined rather boldly with the 2nd pers. sing. in ‘as’ and ‘avras’:
cp. 442.
27942. _Comme cil q’est toutpuissant_: a very common form of expression
in the _Confessio Amantis_, e.g. i. 925, 1640, &c. See also _Bal._ vii.
l. 7, xi. l. 16. It occurs more than once in this narrative portion of
the _Mirour_, e.g. 28248, 28883, 28900.
27949. There may be some doubt here as to the arrangement of the
inverted commas; but it seems best to take the whole of this stanza
as direct report, in which case ‘Il’ in 27950 refers to ‘God.’ The
sentence below is a little disordered, as is often the case with our
author: ‘He showed thee a special sign six months since in thy cousin
Elizabeth, who was barren, but God,’ &c. Cp. 17996, _Conf. Am._ vi.
1603 ff., and many other passages.
28091. Probably Ps. cxxxviii. 6.
28110. _Maisque_, here apparently ‘moreover’: cp. 28276.
28112. _te lie_, ‘binds thee (in swaddling bands).’
28115 f. That is, all these characters, daughter, wife, nurse, mother,
sister, &c., were summed up in one woman: ‘forsqe’ here means ‘only,’
the negative being omitted, much as we say ‘but’ in English.
28139. Luke ii. 14, from the text ‘et in terra pax hominibus bonae
voluntatis.’
28160. _y venoit_, ‘there came,’ a kind of impersonal expression.
28183. _estoit finis_, ‘was brought to an end.’
28190. _a coustumance_: cp. 27841.
28205. Luke ii. 29 ff.
28247. _qu’il serroit desfait_, &c., ‘planned that he might be
destroyed.’
28310. _fiere_, ‘strange.’
28349. ‘By agreement between thee and them.’
28358. _fecis_, for ‘fesis,’ 2nd sing. pret.
28383. That is ‘A Nazareth a ton parenté.’
28394. _Maisque_, ‘except that,’ cp. 1920.
28395. _Archideclin_: a corruption from ‘architriclinus,’ used in the
Latin version of John ii. to represent the Greek ἀρχιτρίκλινος, ‘master
of the feast,’ and commonly supposed to be the name of the entertainer:
cp. 28762.
28409. _fesoiont a loer_, ‘were fit to be praised’: cp. 28506, and see
note on 1883.
28414 ff. ‘But above all he showed great joy in your lineage, each in
his degree,’ that is in keeping company with those of the Virgin’s
family: but it might mean ‘he caused great joy to be felt by those of
your lineage.’
28475. _de son affere_, ‘for his part,’ one of those rather meaningless
phrases, such as ‘endroit de soy,’ ‘en son degré,’ ‘au droit devis,’
with which our author fills up lines on occasion.
28502. _se pourvoit_, ‘considers with himself’: cp. 14973.
28547. _toute pleine_: rather a more unscrupulous disregard than usual
of gender and number for the sake of metre and rhyme.
28762. _Centurio_, taken as a proper name: cp. 28395.
28790. _pour estovoir_, ‘for their need,’ i.e. to accomplish that which
had to be done.
28813. For the form of expression cp. 22744 and _Trait._ xiv. l. 15: it
is common also in the _Confessio Amantis._
28847. _la sentence_, ‘the sentence’ in a judicial sense, i.e. the
judgment executed by the spear.
28914. _compassioun_, used especially of the sufferings of the Virgin
during the passion of Christ.
28919. _ta meditacioun_, ‘meditation upon thee,’ if the text is right,
but I am disposed to suggest ‘ta mediacioun.’
28941 f. These two lines are written over an erasure and perhaps in a
different hand: cp. 4109, 4116.
29078. _Pour ... avoir_, see note on 6328.
29178. _n’en doubte mie._ The author shows here an unexpectedly clear
perception of the difference between Gospel history and unauthorized
legend.
29222. _Qe nous devons_, ‘in order that we may,’ so below, ‘Ainçois
q’om doit par tout conter,’ ‘but that we may tell it everywhere.’ For
this use of ‘devoir’ see note on 1193.
29264. _t’encline_, ‘bows to thee’: the verb is intransitive and the
pronoun dative.
29390. The word ‘pensée’ counts as three syllables in this line,
whereas usually the termination ‘-ée’ in Anglo-Norman verse of this
period is equivalent to ‘-é’; cp. 29415. Perhaps we should read
‘penseie;’ see Introduction p. xx.
29411 f. ‘Well fitting was the love which he had for thee, through
whom,’ &c.
29421. _de son halt estage_: cp. _Conf. Am._ iv. 2977,
‘This Yris, fro the hihe stage
Which undertake hath the message,’ &c.
29585. _la disme joye_, ‘the tenth part of the joy.’
29604. _tu vendretz_: see note on 442.
29636. Probably we should read _que_ for _qui_: ‘(I pray) that thou
wouldest send.’
29746. _de sa covine_, ‘by his purpose.’
29769. _pourloignasse_: pret. subj. for past conditional, cp. 29778.
29784. _Ussont moustré_, ‘they ought to show,’ used for conditional in
the sense referred to in the note on l. 1688.
29798. ‘Witness thy Gospels,’ i.e. ‘the witness is that of thy Gospels.’
29821. _le livre_: cp. 27475 ff., where it is implied that the author
follows a Latin book.
29869. _me donne_, ‘tells me.’
29878 ff. ‘But in order that it may perchance please thee, I set all my
business, as best I may, to do honour to thy person.’ I have separated
‘Maisque,’ because that seems necessary for the sense. The author hopes
that, though his Lady has the crown of heaven, yet she may be pleased
by his humble endeavours to do her honour on earth.
29890. _t’en fais continuer_, ‘thou dost continue in the work,’ a
reflexive use of ‘continuer’ with ‘faire’ as auxiliary.
DEDICATION OF BALADES
I. 7. ‘He who trusts in God,’ &c. ‘Qe’ is used for ‘Qui.’
15. _Vostre oratour._ The poet means no doubt to speak of himself as
one who is bound to pray for the king. At the same time it is to be
noticed that ‘Orator regius’ was at the beginning of the sixteenth
century an official title, borne by Skelton in the reign of Henry VIII,
and perhaps nearly equivalent to the later ‘Poet-laureate.’ Skelton
was ‘laureatus’ of the Universities, that is he had taken a degree in
rhetoric and poetry at Oxford, and apparently something equivalent at
Cambridge.
16. The pronunciation of the name ‘Gower’ as a dissyllable with the
accent on the termination, which is required here and in the Envoy to
the _Traitié_, is the same as that which we have in the _Confessio
Amantis_ viii. 2908, where it rhymes with ‘-er.’
23. _perfit_: so written in full in the MS. and correctly given by the
Roxburghe editor. Dr. Stengel gives ‘parfit’ on the assumption that
there is a contraction. That is not so here, but in many cases of this
kind he is right.
24. _sentence_: so in MS. (not with a capital as in the Roxb. ed.). The
same remark applies to ‘valour’ in ii. l. 33, ‘s’est’ in _Bal._ vii. l.
18, ‘lettre’ xviii. l. 24, xx. l. 25, xxii. l. 27, ‘lors’ xxxvi. l. 3,
‘se,’ xxxvi. l. 10, ‘helas’ xliii. l. 6, ‘vous’ xlix. l. 23.
O RECOLENDE, &c.
8. After this line probably one has dropped out, for when this piece
appears (in a somewhat different form) among the Latin poems of the All
Souls’ and Glasgow MSS. we have
‘Rex confirmatus, licet vndique magnificatus,
Sub Cristo gratus viuas tamen immaculatus,’
and ‘licet’ seems to require some such addition.
The quotation ‘Nichil proficiet’ is from Ps. lxxxix. (_Vulg._
lxxxviii.) 23, and the other from Ps. xli. (_Vulg._ xl.) 2.
II. This balade has been printed hitherto as if it consisted of four
stanzas only, but in the MS., which is here damaged, there is not only
space for another, but the initials of its lines still remain.
20. _vendra_: the reading ‘voudra’ is a mistake due to the Roxb.
edition.
26. For the conjectural ending of the line cp. _Mirour_ 26423.
BALADES
TITLE.--This is partly lost by the damage to the leaf of the MS., which
has been mentioned above. The fragments of the latter part seem to
indicate that the whole series of balades was expressly written by the
author for the entertainment of the court of Henry IV: cp. D. ii. l.
27 f. The end of it perhaps ran thus, ‘ad fait, dont les nobles de la
Court se puissent duement desporter,’ or something to that effect.
I. All that remains of the first stanza is the endings of the first
three lines, and more than half of the second stanza is also lost.
16. _Moun._ Forms such as this, e.g. ‘soun,’ ‘doun,’ ‘noun,’ ‘bounté,’
and the ‘-oun’ terminations in xxi. and elsewhere, usually appear with
‘o̅n̅’ in the MS. Note however that ‘noun’ is written fully in xxi. ll.
25, 27.
17. _voldroit_: a common use of the conditional in our author, cp.
_Mir._ l. 25. Here it is answered by the future ‘averai.’ The meaning
seems to be ‘If God should put an end to my happiness and to my life
at once, my faith being unbroken, I should be content; but meanwhile I
remain true to thee always, whatever may befall.’
II. 4. _q’il s’esjoiera._ The Roxb. editor gave by mistake ‘qils’ for
‘qil,’ out of which Dr. Stengel produces ‘qil ssesjoiera,’ with the
remark ‘Verdoppelung anlautender Consonanten nach vocalischem Auslaut
auch sonst häufig.’ The passages to which he refers in support of this
curious statement are ix. l. 13, where the Roxb. edition has ‘tanquil
lest’ by pure mistake for ‘tanquil sest,’ and ix. l. 31, where he has
chosen to make ‘un ssi’ out of ‘uns si.’ This shows the danger of
constructing a theory without ascertaining the facts.
9. _come._ Dr. Stengel is not right in proposing to read ‘com’ for
‘come’ and ‘ou’ for ‘ove,’ wherever the words occur. These words
regularly count as monosyllables for the metre, but the author much
more commonly wrote them with the final ‘-e.’ Occasionally we have
‘com’ in the _Balades_ (twice for instance in this stanza), and once
in the _Mirour_ we have ‘ou’ for ‘ove’ (l. 8376). Similarly ‘povere,’
‘yvere,’ are regularly dissyllables by slurring of the medial ‘e,’
and are occasionally written ‘povre,’ ‘yvre.’ On the other hand ‘ore’
is sometimes a dissyllable, as _Bal._ xxviii. 1, and sometimes a
monosyllable, as _Mir._ 37, 1775, &c., and some words such as ‘averai,’
‘overaigne,’ ‘yveresce,’ vary between the longer and the shorter form.
12. _com_: so in MS., wrongly ‘come’ in Roxb. edition, which also has
‘viveet’ wrongly for ‘vive et’ of the MS.
23. _Et pensetz, dame._ An additional weak syllable is occasionally
found at the caesura in this metre: cp. xix. l. 20, xxiii. l. 14, xxv.
l. 8, &c., xxxiii. l. 10, xxxviii. l. 23, xliv. l. 8, xlvi. l. 15,
_Trait._ ii. l. 5, &c. In every case the additional syllable is at
a break after the second foot (epic caesura). It may be a question,
however, whether ‘dame’ should not be taken as a monosyllable in some
cases: see Introd. p. xxx.
III. 1. _celle_, used for the definite article: see note on _Mir._ 301.
_peigne_: this form of spelling does not indicate any difference in
pronunciation, for the rhymes ‘pleine,’ ‘meine,’ are used to correspond
with it in the next stanza. It is intended to produce visible
conformity with the verb ‘compleigne,’ to which it rhymes, and so in
l. 15 we have ‘halteigne’ pairing with ‘atteigne.’ The verbal ending
‘eigne’ rhymes regularly with ‘eine’ both in the French and English of
our author, and the ‘g’ often falls out of the spelling.
10. _Milfoitz_: one word in the MS.; so ‘millfoitz’ ix. l. 10.
IIII. 3. _s’ad fait unir_, ‘has united itself’: see note on _Mir._ 1135.
4. _As toutz jours mais_: cp. _Mir._ 2856.
11. _sufficaunce_: endings of this kind represent the MS. ‘-a̅n̅ce,’
cp. note on i. l. 16.
16. _la_: so in the MS. The Roxb. ed. gives ‘sa’ by mistake.
IIII*. The number is repeated by inadvertence, so that the whole
series consists really of fifty-one balades, apart from the religious
dedication at the end and the Envoy.
4. _Por toi cherir_: see note on _Mir._ 6328. The address in the second
person singular is unusual in the _Balades_ and hardly occurs except
here and in the contemptuously hostile pieces, xli-xliii.
11. _dont_, answering to ‘auci’: see note on _Mir._ 217.
17. _tes_: see Glossary under ‘ton’: cp. ‘vos amis,’ ix. l. 5.
22. The MS. has ‘De,’ as Dr. Stengel has rightly conjectured.
V. 19. _a tant_: cp. vi. l. 16 and _Mir._ 23953.
Margin: _d’amont jesqes enci_, ‘from the beginning up to this point:
‘d’amour’ is a mistake of the Roxb. editor.
VI. 6 f. _par quoi_, &c., ‘wherefore mine eye hath desire, to the end
that I may see again your presence,’ i.e. desires to see, &c.
VII. 6. _l’estre_, ‘habitation,’ i.e. place of abode. ‘I desire your
country as my dwelling-place.’
7. _Come cil qui_: cp. xi. l. 16, and see note on _Mir._ 27942.
9. Cp. _Mir._ 5822.
24. _Qe jeo n’ai plus_, &c., a variation of the form of expression used
in xviii. l. 8 f. and common in our author: see _Mir._ 18589. Usually
the ‘plus’ of the second clause answers to some such word as ‘tiel’ in
the first.
VIII. 17. _retenue_, ‘engagement’ to follow or serve: cp. xv. l. 14.
IX. 6. The ‘trescentier’ of the Roxb. edition is a mistake.
16. _en voie_: see ‘envoie’ in Glossary.
24. _sicom jeo songeroie_: conditional for subjunctive: cp. _Mir._ 25.
36. _demorir_, ‘remain.’ Dr. Stengel wrongly alters to ‘de morir,’
which is nonsense.
37. _poestis_: cp. _Mir._ 1222.
41. _au droit devis_: see note on _Mir._ 83.
X. 2. The reading ‘jour’ for ‘jeo’ in this line is simply a mistake of
the Roxb. editor.
5. _Maisqu’il vous pleust_, ‘provided that it might please you,’ pret.
subj.: ‘maisque’ in this sense is used either with indicative or
subjunctive, cp. xi. l. 8, xxiii. l. 10, &c.
7. _Q’avoir porrai_, ‘so that I may have’: cp. _Mir._ 364.
13. _s’allie_, ‘binds itself (to you).’
XI. 5. _pour sercher le monde_: cp. xxi. l. 18, and _Mir._ 25240.
23. _perestes._ The reading ‘par estes’ is a mistake; the MS. has
‘pestes,’ which might be either _perestes_ or _parestes_, but _perest_
occurs written out fully in _Mir._ 1760, 2546.
_dangerouse_, ‘reluctant to love’: see note on xii. l. 8.
XII. 1. Perhaps the author wrote ‘Ma,’ but the scribe (or rather the
illuminator) gives ‘La.’
_Chalandre_: cp. _Mir._ 10707 ff.
8. _Danger._ This name represents in the love-jargon of the day
those elements which are unfavourable to the lover’s acceptance by
his mistress, partly no doubt external obstacles, but chiefly those
feelings in the lady’s own mind which tend towards prudence or prompt
to disdain. In the _Roman de la Rose_, which was the most influential
example of this kind of allegory, Danger is the chief guardian of the
rose-bush. He has for his helpers Malebouche, who spreads unfavourable
reports of the lover, with Honte and Paour, who represent the feelings
excited in the lady’s mind leading her to resist his advances. Of
these helpers the most valiant is Honte, daughter of Raison and
Mesfait. These all are the adversaries of the Lover and of Bel-Acueil
his friend and helper. See _Rom. de la Rose_ ll. 2837 ff. Elsewhere the
word ‘dangier’ is used for the scornfulness in love of Narcissus, _Rom.
de la Rose_ 1498,
‘Du grant orguel et du dangier
Que Narcisus li ot mené.’
or of the difficulties made by a mistress,
‘Or puet o s’amie gesir,
Qu’el n’en fait ne dangier ne plainte.’
_Rom. de la Rose_ 21446 f.
Here the author says ‘Danger turns his eyes away,’ that is, the lady’s
feelings of disdain or reluctance deprive him of her favour, and in l.
19 he entreats her to remove ‘danger’ from her regard. This idea is
illustrated further by the expressions in xxvi. l. 26,
‘Ne sai si vo danger le voet despire;’
and xxxvii. l. 20,
‘Vostre danger tantost m’ad deslaié:’
where ‘danger’ clearly stands for the lady’s aversion to the lover’s
suit: see also xxiii. l. 10, xxx. l. 15 ff., and _Conf. Am._ iv.
3589. In _Conf. Am._ iii. 1517 ff., and v. 6613 ff., Danger is very
clearly described as the deadly enemy of the lover, always engaged in
frustrating his endeavours by his influence over the lady. Note also
the adjective ‘dangerous’ in the last balade; so ‘dangereus,’ _Rom. de
la Rose_ 479, ‘grudging,’ and ‘dangerous’ in the English translation,
l. 1482, ‘disdainful.’
11. The same complaint is made _Conf. Am._ v. 4490 ff., but the reply
there given (4542) is complete and crushing.
27. _Q’a_: the Roxb. ed. gives ‘Qe’ by mistake for ‘Qa.’
XIII. 1. _muance_, see Glossary. The Roxb. ed. gives ‘nivance,’ but
the MS. reading seems to be rather ‘mvance,’ the ‘v’ being written for
greater distinctness as in ‘remue’ xv. l. 8, &c. Certainly change is
more characteristic of March than snow, and it is the changes of his
fortune of which the lover complains,
‘Ore ai trové, ore ai perdu fiance.’
5. Cp. _Mir._ 948.
8. _al oill_: cp. _Mir._ 5591, ‘al un n’a l’autre’; but we might read
_a l’oill_. For the MS. reading here cp. _Mir._ 5386, where the MS. has
‘al lun ne lautre.’
XIIII. 6. _dont_, answering to ‘si’ above: see note on _Mir._ 217.
17. _asseine_, from ‘assener,’ here meaning ‘strike.’
20. ‘I cannot fail to have the fortune of one (or the other),’ i.e.
death or sickness. The word ‘tant’ in the line above is not answered by
anything and does not seem to mean much.
XV. 1. _creance_: see ‘credentia’ in Ducange. It means a cord for
confining the flight of falcons.
25. ‘All my prayers are to your image at the time when,’ &c.
27. _vostre proie_, ‘your prey,’ i. e. your possession by right of
capture.
XVI. 6 ff. ‘But by feeding on this food of the mind I cannot, though I
seek it up and down, find for myself the path of grace.’ The food he
feeds on is his feeling of hope: for ‘celle sente’ = ‘la sente,’ cp.
iii. 1, and see _Mir._ 301.
26. _Q’es._ The confusion of singular and plural in the second person
is common in our author: see note on _Mir._ 442.
(‘Q’es’ is of course for ‘Qe es,’ ‘qe’ or ‘que’ being quite a regular
form of the relative used as subject by our author. I note this here
because Dr. Stengel’s remarks are misleading.)
28. _maisq’il vous talente_, ‘if only it be pleasing to you.’
XVII. 2. _Salvant l’estat d’amour_: a kind of apology for the idea of
blaming his mistress: cp. xxii. l. 26.
5. _guardon_: so written in full in the MS., cp. xxxiii. l. 6, so that
it is not a case of ‘falsche Auflösung,’ as Dr. Stengel assumes. He is
right enough as regards ‘perlee’ l. 19, and ‘parcer’ xviii. l. 6.
27. ‘I cannot leave off from loving her’: ‘maisque’ here ‘but that,’
cp. xl. l. 7, _Trait._ xiv. l. 10.
XVIII. 11. _Qe jeo ne crie plus_: a favourite form of expression with
our author: cp. vii. l. 24, xxx. l. 13, _Mir._ 18589.
17. _c’est_, for ‘s’est’: cp. _Mir._ 1147.
XIX. 17. _proeu_, the same as ‘prou’ apparently: ‘proen’ can hardly be
right, though the MS. would equally admit that reading.
18. _trieus_: cp. xxxix. l. 15. The usual form in the _Mirour_ is
‘truis.’ The Roxb. ed. has ‘criens’ by mistake.
XX. 1. _Roe_: treated as a monosyllable in the verse here, but
otherwise in _Mir._ 10942.
2. The position of the conjunction ‘mais’ is characteristic of our
author, who frequently treats ‘and’ and ‘but’ in the same way in the
_Confessio Amantis_. Cp. xxxvii. ll. 9, 19, _Mir._ 100, 415, 7739, &c.
6. So MS. The reading ‘basse’ and the omission of ‘lever’ are mistakes
of the Roxb. ed.
22. _mesna sa leesce_, ‘had his joy’: ‘mener’ (but more commonly
‘demener’) is used with words meaning joy, sorrow, &c., to indicate the
feeling or expression of it, e.g. xxxiii. l. 5.
XXI. 2. _comparisoun_: see note on i. l. 16.
6. _par tant_, ‘therefore’: cp. _Mir._ 119.
15. _veneisoun_, ‘chase,’ hence ‘endeavour.’
18. Dr. Stengel rightly gives ‘Trestout’: nevertheless the MS. has
‘Terstout’ written in full.
20. _Honte et paour_, see note on xii. l. 8.
21. _N’i._ This seems preferable to ‘Ni,’ being equivalent to ‘Ne i’
‘nor there’ (i = y), cp. xxxvii. l. 10. The proper word for ‘nor’ is
‘ne,’ not ‘ni.’
XXIII. 5. _l’_ for ‘le,’ as indirect object, ‘to her’: see Glossary
under le, _pron._
_plevi_: so MS., as Dr. Stengel conjectures: cp. _Trait._ xvii. l. 2.
10. _danger_: see note on xii. l. 8.
13. _lui_, ‘her,’ see Glossary.
15. _auns_: the MS. reading here might be ‘anns,’ as given in Roxb.
ed., but it is quite clearly ‘aun’ in xxxii. l. 1.
XXIIII. 5. _autre, si le noun_: so MS. rightly. It means ‘anything else
except it,’ i.e. his lady’s name, ‘noun’ being the negative: cp. _Mir._
6495 f.,
‘qu jammais parla
Parole, si tresfalse noun,’
and 8853,
‘Certes, si de vo teste noun,
N’ad esté dit d’aucune gent.’
XXV. 8. See note on ii. l. 23.
10. The MS. has ‘Portont’ and in l. 13 ‘sache’: Roxb. ed. ‘Partout’ and
‘sachez.’
11. _Du quoi_: so MS., Roxb. ed. ‘Un quoi,’ which is nonsense.
18. _q’a_: Roxb. ed. ‘qe’ by mistake for ‘qa.’
19. _Et d’autrepart_: Roxb. ‘En dauterpart,’ MS. Et daut_re_part.
XXVI. 4. MS. ‘sil,’ not ‘cil,’ as given in Roxb. ed.
9. ‘If a man gives himself, it is a proof,’ &c. For the form of
expression, which is a favourite one with our author, cp. _Mir._ 1244,
note.
15. _perfit_: cp. _Ded._ ii. 23.
26. _vo danger_: see note on xii. l. 8.
XXVII. 1. The first line is too long, but the mistake may be that of
the author. Similarly in _Mirour_ 3116, 14568, we have lines which are
each a foot too long for the metre. In all cases it would be easy to
correct: here, for example, by reading ‘Ma dame, quant jeo vi vostre
oill riant.’
In xii. l. 22 we have, ‘Douls, vair, riant,’ as a description of eyes.
3. Roxb. ‘Par un,’ Dr. Stengel ‘Par mi,’ MS. ‘P_ar_mi.’
5. _jeo me paie_, ‘I am content.’
24. _Parentre deus_, ‘between the two (alternatives)‘: cp. _Mir._ 1178.
XXIX. 19. _pourcella_, cp. xlii. l. 7, so ‘pourcela,’ _Mir._ 2349, &c.
XXX. 5. _Le Nief_: I suspect this is a mistake of the transcriber for
‘Le vent.’ It is not the ship that imperils his life but the storm, and
‘Le’ for ‘La’ is rather suspicious here.
8. _Uluxes_: the usual form of spelling in our author’s works, both
French and English.
13. Cp. xviii. l. 9.
15. _Danger_: see note on xii. l. 8. Here the double meaning of the
word is played upon, danger in the ordinary sense and ‘danger’ as
representing the forces opposed to the lover.
XXXII. This alone of the present series of balades has no envoy.
15. Roxb. ed. omits ‘se,’ and accordingly Dr. Stengel turns ‘qa’ into
‘que ia,’ to restore the metre.
20. _retenue_, ‘service,’ referring to ‘servant’ just above.