80. Of the restoration of this line, I should have had some reason to be
proud; but I find that Ten Brink (who seems to miss nothing) has
anticipated me; see his Chaucers Sprache, §§ 48, 329. We have here, as our
guides, only the edition of Thynne (1532), and the late insertion in MS.
Fairfax 16. Both of these read--'Anon her herte began to yerne'; whereas it
of course ought to be--'Anon her herte gan to erme.' The substitution of
_began_ for _gan_ arose from forgetting that _herte_ (A.S. _heorte_) is
dissyllabic in Chaucer, in countless places. The substitution of _yerne_
for _erme_ arose from the fact that the old word _ermen_, to grieve, was
supplanted by _earn_, to desire, to grieve, in the sixteenth century, and
afterwards by the form _yearn_. This I have already shewn at such length in
my note to the Pardoner's Prologue (Cant. Ta. C. 312), in my edition of the
Man of Lawes Tale, pp. 39, 142, and yet again in my Etym. Dict., s. v.
_Yearn_ (2), that it is needless to repeat it all over again. Chaucer was
quite incapable of such a mere assonance as that of _terme_ with _yerne_;
in fact, it is precisely the word _terme_ that is rimed with _erme_ in his
Pardoner's Prologue. Mr. Cromie's index shews that, in the Cant. Tales, the
rime _erme_, _terme_, occurs only once, and there is no third word riming
with either. There is, however, a rime of _conferme_ with _ferme_, Troil.
ii. 1525, and with _afferme_ in the same, 1588. There is, in Chaucer, no
_sixth_ riming word in _-erme_ at all, and none in either _-irme_ or
_-yrme_.
Both in the present passage and in the Pardoner's Prologue the verb to
_erme_ is used with the same sb., viz. _herte_; which clinches the matter.
By way of example, compare 'The bysschop weop for '_ermyng_'; King
Alisaunder, ed. Weber, l. 1525.
86, 87. L. 86 is too short. In l. 87 I delete _alas_ after _him_, which
makes the line a whole foot too long, and is not required. Koch ingeniously
suggests, for l. 86: 'That hadde, alas! this noble wyf.' This transference
of _alas_ mends both lines at once.