The title 'Mercilesse Beaute' is given in the Index to the Pepys MS. As it
is a fitting title, and no other has been suggested, it is best to use it.
I think this Roundel was suggested by one written in French, in the
thirteenth century, by Willamme d'Amiens, and printed in Bartsch,
Chrestomathie de l'ancien Français. It begins--
'Jamais ne serai saous
D'esguarder les vairs ieus dous
Qui m'ont ocis';--
i. e. I shall never be sated with gazing on the gray soft eyes which have
slain me.
1. The MS. has _Yowre two yen_; but the scribe lets us see that this
ill-sounding arrangement of the words is not the author's own; for in
writing the refrain he writes 'Your yen, &c.' But we have further evidence:
for the whole line is quoted in Lydgate's Ballade of our Ladie, printed in
Chaucer's Works, ed. 1550, fol. 347 b, in the form--'Your eyen two wol slee
me sodainly.' The same Ballad contains other imitations of Chaucer's
language. Cf. also Kn. Tale, 260 and 709 (A 1118, 1567).
3. _So woundeth hit ... kene_, so keenly it (your beauty) wounds (me). The
MS. has _wondeth_, which is another M. E. spelling of _woundeth_. Percy
miscopied it _wendeth_, which gives but poor sense; besides, Chaucer would
probably have used the contracted form _went_ as his manner is. In l. 5,
the scribe writes _wound_ (better _wounde_).
4. _And but_, and unless. For _word_ Percy printed _words_, quite
forgetting that the M.E. plural is dissyllabic (_word-es_). The final _d_
has a sort of curl to it, but a comparison with other words shews that it
means nothing; it occurs, for instance, at the end of _wound_ (l. 5), and
_escaped_ (l. 27).
_Wounde_ (MS. _wound_) is dissyllabic in Mid. English, like mod. G.
_Wunde_. See _wunde_ in Stratmann.
6. I give _two_ lines to the first refrain, and _three_ to the second. The
reader may give _three_ lines to both, if he pleases; see note to sect. V,
l. 675. We cannot confine the first refrain to _one_ line only, as there is
no stop at the end of l. 14.