For general remarks on this poem, see p. 64, above.
By consulting ll. 13 and 14, we see that the whole of this poem is supposed
to be uttered by a bird on the 14th of February, before sunrise. Lines 1-28
form the proem; the rest give the story of Mars and Venus, followed by the
Complaint of Mars at l. 155. The first 22 stanzas are in the ordinary
7-line stanza. The Complaint is very artificial, consisting of an
Introductory Stanza, and five Terns, or sets of three stanzas, making
sixteen stanzas of nine lines each, or 144 lines. Thus the whole poem has
298 lines.
Each tern is occupied with a distinct subject, which I indicate by
headings, viz. Devotion to his Love; Description of a Lady in an anxiety of
fear and woe; the Instability of Happiness; the story of the Brooch of
Thebes; and An Appeal for Sympathy. A correct appreciation of these various
'movements' of the Complaint makes the poem much more intelligible.
1. _Foules._ The false reading _lovers_ was caught from l. 5 below. But the
poem opens with a call from a bird to all other birds, bidding them rejoice
at the return of Saint Valentine's day. There is an obvious allusion in
this line to the common proverb--'As fain as fowl of a fair morrow,' which
is quoted in the Kn. Tale, 1579 (A 2437), in P. Plowman, B. x. 153, and is
again alluded to in the Can. Yeom. Tale, G 1342. In l. 3, the bird
addresses the _flowers_, and finally, in l. 5, the _lovers_.
2. Venus, the planet, supposed to appear as a morning-star, as it sometimes
does. See note to Boethius, bk. i. met. 5. l. 9.
_Rowes_, streaks or rays of light, lit. rows. In the Complaint of the Black
Knight, l. 596, Lydgate uses the word of the streaks of light at
eventide--'And while the twilight and the _rowes_ rede Of Phebus light,'
&c. Also in Lydgate's Troy-Book, bk. i. c. 6, ed. 1555, fol. E 1, quoted by
Warton, Hist. E. Poetry, 1871, iii. 84:--'Whan that the _rowes_ and the
rayes rede Estward to us full early gonnen sprede.' Hence the verb _rowen_,
to dawn; P. Plowm. C. ii. 114, xxi. 28; see my Notes to P. Plowman.
Tyrwhitt's Glossary ignores the word.