87. Ten Brink omits _wel_, with most of the MSS.; but the _e_ in _wite_
seems to be suppressed, as in Book of the Duch. 112. It will hardly bear a
strong accent. Mr. Sweet retains _wel_, as I do.
91. Pronounce the third word as _despeir'd_. 'Compare 1 Kings x. 24: And
all the earth _sought to_ Solomon'; Ten Brink.
92. _Herenus_ has not hitherto been explained. It occurs in four MSS., Tn.
F. B. Ff.; a fifth (T.) has 'herem_us_'; the Longleat MS. has 'heremus' or
'herenius'; Sh. substitutes 'vertuouse,' and MS. Harl. 7578 has 'Vertoues';
but it is highly improbable that _vertuouse_ is original, for no one would
ever have altered it so unintelligibly. Ten Brink and Mr. Sweet adopt this
reading _vertuousë_, which they make four syllables, as being a vocative
case; and of course this is an easy way of _evading_ the difficulty. Dr.
Furnivall once suggested _hevenus_, which I presume is meant for
'heaven's'; but this word could not possibly be accented as _hevénus_. The
strange forms which proper names assume in Chaucer are notorious; and the
fact is, that _Herenus_ is a mere error for _Herines_ or _Herynes_.
_Herynes_ (accented on _y_), occurs in St. 4 of Bk. iv of Troilus and
Criscide, and is used as the plural of _Erinnys_, being applied to the
three Furies:--'O ye _Herynes_, nightes doughtren thre.' Pity may be said
to be the _queen_ of the Furies, in the sense that pity (or mercy) can
alone control the vindictiveness of vengeance. Shakespeare tells us that
mercy 'is mightiest in the mightiest,' and is 'above this sceptred sway';
Merch. Ven. iv. 1. 188.
Chaucer probably found this name precisely where he found his
personification of Pity, viz. in Statius, who has the sing. _Erinnys_
(Theb. xi. 383), and the pl. _Erinnyas_ (345). Cf. Æneid, ii. 337, 573.
In a poem called The Remedy of Love, in Chaucer's Works, ed. 1561, fol.
322, back, the twelfth stanza begins with--'Come hither, thou Hermes, and
ye furies all,' &c., where it is plain that 'thou Hermes' is a substitution
for 'Herines.'
95. The sense is--'the longer I love and dread you, the more I do so.' If
we read _ever_ instead of _ay_, then the _e_ in _the_ must be suppressed.
'In _ever lenger the moore, never the moore, never the lesse_, Chaucer not
unfrequently drops the _e_ in _the_, pronouncing _lengerth_, _neverth_';
cf. Clerkes Tale, E 687; Man of Lawes Tale, B 982; Ten Brink.
96. Most MSS. read _so sore_, giving no sense. Ten Brink has--'For sooth to
seyne, I bere the hevy soore'; following MS. Sh. It is simpler to correct
_so_ to _the_, as suggested by Harl. 7578, which has--'For soith [_error
for_ sothly] for to saye I bere the sore.'
101. _Set_, short for _setteth_, like _bit_ for _biddeth_, Cant. Tales,
Prol. 187, &c. Ten Brink quotes from the Sompnoures Tale (D 1982)--'With
which the devel _set_ your herte a-fyre,' where _set_ = sets, present
tense.
105. Ten Brink inserts _ne_, though it is not in the MSS. His note is:
'_Ne_ is a necessary complement to _but_ = "only," as _but_ properly means
"except"; and a collation of the best MSS. of the Cant. Tales shows that
Chaucer never omitted the negative in this case. (The same observation was
made already by Prof. Child in his excellent paper on the language of
Chaucer and Gower; see Ellis, _Early Eng. Pronunciation_, p. 374.) _Me ne_
forms but one syllable, pronounced _meen_ [i. e. as mod. E. _main_]. In the
same manner _I ne_ = _iin_ [pron. as mod. E. _een_] occurs, Cant. Tales,
Prol. 764 (from MS. Harl. 7334)--
"I _ne_ saugh this yeer so mery a companye";
and in the Man of Lawes Tale (Group B, 1139)--
"_I ne_ seye but for this ende this sentence."
Compare Middle High German _in_ (= _ich ne_), e.g. _in kan dir nicht_,
Walter v. d. Vogelweide, ed. Lachmann, 101. 33. In early French and
Provençal _me_, _te_, _se_, &c., when preceded by a vowel, often became
_m_, _t_, _s_, &c.; in Italian we have _cen_ for _ce ne_, &c.' Cf. _They n'
wer-e_ in The Former Age, l. 5; and Book of the Duch. 244 (note).