'N'est donc bien privée tel beste
Qui de foir est toute preste.'
320. _Chaunte-pleure._ Godefroy says that there was a celebrated poem of
the 13th century named _Chantepleure_ or _Pleurechante_; and that it was
addressed to those who sing in this world and will weep in the next. Hence
also the word was particularly used to signify any complaint or lament, or
a chant at the burial-service. One of his quotations is:--'Heu brevis honor
qui vix duravit per diem, sed longus dolor qui usque ad mortem, gallicè _la
chantepleure_'; J. de Aluet, _Serm._, Richel. l. 14961, fol. 195, verso.
And again:--
'Car le juge de vérité
Pugnira nostre iniquité
Par la balance d'équité
Qui où val de la _chantepleure_
Nous boute en grant adversité
Sanz fin à perpétuité,
Et y parsevere et demeure.'
J. de Meung, Le Tresor, l. 1350; ed. Méon.
Tyrwhitt says:--'A sort of proverbial expression for _singing and weeping_
successively [rather, little singing followed by much weeping]. See
Lydgate, Trag. [i. e. Fall of Princes] st. the last; where he says that his
book is 'Lyke _Chantepleure_, now singing now weping.' In MS. Harl. 4333 is
a Ballad which turns upon this expression. It begins: 'Moult vaut mieux
_pleure-chante_ que ne fait _chante-pleure_.' Clearly the last expression
means, that short grief followed by long joy is better than brief joy
followed by long grief. The fitness of the application in the present
instance is obvious.
Another example occurs in Lydgate's Fall of Princes, bk. i. c. 7,
_lenvoy_:--
'It is like to the _chaunte-pleure_,
Beginning with ioy, ending in wretchednes.'
So also in Lydgate's Siege of Troye, bk. ii. c. 11; ed. 1555, Fol. F 6,
back, col. 2.
328. _A furlong-wey_ meant the time during which one can walk a furlong, at
three miles an hour. A _mile-way_ is twenty minutes; a _furlong-wey_ is two
minutes and a half; and the double of it is five minutes. But the strict
sense need not be insisted on here.