'Il est asses _sires du cors_
_Qui a le cuer_ en sa commande.'
1159. For _this_, B. has _thus_. Neither _this_ nor _thus_ seems wanted; I
therefore pay no regard to them.
The squire Dorigen, in the Frankelein's Tale, consoled himself in the same
way (F 947):--
'Of swich matere made he manye layes,
Songes, compleintes, roundels, virelayes.'
1162. _Tubal_; an error for _Jubal_; see Gen. iv. 21. But the error is
Chaucer's own, and is common. See Higden's Polychronicon, lib. iii. c. 11,
ed. Lumby, iii. 202; Higden cites the following from Isidorus, lib. ii. c.
24:--'Quamvis _Tubal_ de stirpe Cayn ante diluvium legatur fuisse musicæ
inventor, ... tamen apud Græcos _Pythagoras_ legitur ex malleorum sonitu et
chordarum extensione musicam reperisse.' In Genesis, it is Jubal who 'was
the father of all such as handle the harp and organ'; and Tubal-cain who
was 'an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron.' The notion of the
discovery of music by the former from the observation of the sounds struck
upon the anvil of the latter is borrowed from the usual fable about
Pythagoras. This fable is also given by Higden, who copies it from
Macrobius. It will be found in the Commentary by Macrobius on the Somnium
Scipionis, lib. ii. c. 1; and is to the effect that Pythagoras, observing
some smiths at work, found that the tones struck upon their anvils varied
according to the weights of the hammers used by them; and, by weighing
these hammers, he discovered the relations to each other of the various
notes in the gamut. The story is open to the objection that the facts are
not so; the sound varies according to variations in the anvil or the thing
struck, not according to the variation in the striking implement. However,
Pythagoras is further said to have made experiments with stretched strings
of varying length; which would have given him right results. See Mrs.
Somerville's Connection of the Physical Sciences, sect. 16 and 17.
1169. _Aurora._ The note in Tyrwhitt's Glossary, s. v. _Aurora_, runs
thus:--'The title of a Latin metrical version of several parts of the Bible
by _Petrus de Riga_, Canon of Rheims, in the twelfth century. Leyser, in
his _Hist. Poet. Med. Ævi_, pp. 692-736, has given large extracts from this
work, and among others the passage which Chaucer seems to have had in his
eye (p. 728):--
'Aure Jubal varios ferramenti notat ictus.
Pondera librat in his. Consona quæque facit.
Hoc inventa modo prius est ars musica, quamvis
Pythagoram dicant hanc docuisse prius.'
Warton speaks of 'Petrus de Riga, canon of Rheims, whose _Aurora_, or the
_History of the Bible allegorised_, in Latin verses ... was never printed
entire.'--Hist. E. Poet. 1871, iii. 136.
1175. A song in six lines; compare the eleven-line song above, at l. 475.
Lines 1175-6 rime with lines 1179-80.
1198. Koch scans: Ánd | bounté | withoút' | mercý ||. This is no better
than the reading in the text.
1200. 'With (tones of) sorrow and by compulsion, yet as though I never
ought to have done so.' Perhaps read _wolde_, wished (to do).
1206. _Dismal._ In this particular passage the phrase _in the dismal_ means
'on an unlucky day,' with reference to an etymology which connected
_dismal_ with the Latin _dies malus_. Though we cannot derive _dismal_
immediately from the Lat. _dies malus_, it is now known that there was an
Anglo-French phrase _dis mal_ (= Lat. _dies mali_, plural); whence the M.
E. phrase _in the dismal_, 'in the evil days,' or (more loosely), 'on an
evil day.' When the exact sense was lost, the suffix _-al_ seemed to be
adjectival, and the word _dismal_ became at last an adjective. The A.F.
form _dismal_, explained as _les mal jours_ (evil days), was discovered by
M. Paul Meyer in a Glasgow MS. (marked Q. 9. 13, fol. 100, back), in a poem
dated 1256; which settles the question. Dr. Chance notes that Chaucer
probably took _dis-mal_ to be derived from O.F. _dis mal_, i. e. 'ten
evils'; see l. 1207.
We can now see the connexion with the next line. The whole sentence means:
'I think it must have been in the evil days (i. e. on an unlucky day), such
as were the days of the ten plagues of Egypt'; and the allusion is clearly
to the so-called _dies Ægyptiaci_, or unlucky days; and _woundes_ is merely
a rather too literal translation of Lat. _plaga_, which we generally
translate by _plague_. In Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum Naturale, lib. xv.
c. 83, we find:--'In quolibet mense sunt duo dies, qui dicuntur
_Ægyptiaci_, quorum unus est a principio mensis, alter a fine.' He goes on
to shew how they are calculated, and says that, in January, the Egyptian
days are the 1st, and the 7th from the end, i. e. the 25th; and he
expressly refers the name _Ægyptiaci_ to the plagues of Egypt, which (as
some said) took place on Egyptian days; for it was asserted that there were
minor plagues besides the ten. See also Brand's Pop. Antiquities, ed.
Ellis, from which I extract the following. Barnabe Googe thus translates
the remarks of Naogeorgus on this subject [of days]:--
'But some of them Egyptian are, and full of jeopardee,
And some again, beside the rest, both good and luckie bee.'
Brand (as above), ii. 45.
'The Christian faith is violated when, so like a pagan and apostate, any
man doth observe those days which are called _Ægyptiaci_,' &c.--Melton's
Astrologaster, p. 56; in Brand, ii. 47. 'If his Journey began unawares _on
the dismal day_, he feares a mischiefe'; Bp. Hall, Characters of Virtues
and Vices; in Brand, ii. 48. 'Alle that take hede to _dysmal dayes_, or use
nyce observaunces in the newe moone,' &c.; Dialogue of Dives and Pauper
(1493); in Brand, i. 9. 'A _dismol_ day'; Tale of Beryn, 650. Compare also
the following:--
'Her _disemale daies_, and her fatal houres';
Lydgate, Storie of Thebes, pt. iii. (ed. 1561, fol. 370).
In the Pistil of Swete Susan (Laing's Anc. Pop. Poetry of Scotland), l.
305, Daniel reproves one of the elders in these terms:--
'Thou hast i-be presedent, the people to steere,
Thou dotest now on thin olde tos, _in the dismale_.'
In Langtoft's Chronicle, l. 477 (in Wright's Polit. Songs, p. 303), John
Baliol is attacked in some derisive verses, which conclude with:--'Rede him
at ride _in the dismale_'; i. e. advise him to ride on an unlucky day. Cf.
The Academy, Nov. 28, 1891, p. 482; &c.
The consequence of 'proposing' on an unlucky day was a refusal; see l.
1243.
1208. A priest who missed words in chanting a service was called an
_overskipper_; see my note to P. Plowman, C. xiv. 123.