3855. For _laughen_, Tyrwhitt has _laughed_, and in l. 3858 has the
extraordinary form _lought_, but he corrects the former of these in his
[113] Notes. The verb was originally strong; see examples in Stratmann, s.
v. _hlahhen_.
3857. Repeated, nearly, in F. 202; see note.
3864. _so theek_, for _so thee ik_, so may I thrive, as I hope to thrive.
The Reve came from Norfolk, and Chaucer makes him use the Northern _ik_ for
_I_ in this expression, and again in l. 3867 (in the phrase _ik am_), and
in l. 3888 (in the phrase _ik have_), but not elsewhere; whence it would
seem that _ik_ for _I_ was then dying out in Norfolk; it has now died out
even in the North. Both the Host and the Canon's Yeoman use the Southern
form _so theech_; see C. 947, G. 929. Cf. _so the ik_, P. Pl., B. v. 228.
3865. To _blear_ (lit. to dim) _one's eye_ was to delude, hoodwink, or
cheat a man. So also _blered is thyn yë_, H. 252.
3868. _gras-time_, the time when a horse feeds himself in the fields. _My
fodder is now forage_, my food is now such as is provided for me; I am like
a horse in winter, whose food is hay in a stable. Thynne animadverts upon
this passage (Animadversions, p. 39), and says that _forage_ means 'such
harde and olde prouisione as ys made for horses and cattle in winter.' He
remarks, justly, that _forage_ is but loosely used in Sir Thopas, B. 1973.
3869. I take this to mean--'my old years write (mark upon me) this white
head,' i. e. turn me grey.
3870. 'My heart is as old (lit. mouldy) as my hairs are.' _Mouled_ is the
old pp. out of which we have made the mod. E. _mould-y_, adding _-y_ by
confusion with the adj. formed from _mould_, the ground. It is fully
explained in the Addenda to my Etym. Dict. 2nd ed. p. 818; and the verb
_moulen_, to grow mouldy, occurs in B. 32.
3871. 'Unless I grow like a medlar, which gets worse all the while, till it
be quite rotten, when laid up in a heap of rubbish or straw.'
3876. _hoppen_, dance; alluding to Luke vii. 32, where Wyclif has: 'we han
sungun to you with pipis, and ye han not daunsid.'
3877. _nayl_, a hindrance; like a nail that holds a box from being opened,
or that catches a man's clothes, and holds him back.
3878. 'E quegli che contro alla mia età parlando vanno, mostra mal che
conoscano che, perchè il porro abbia il capo blanco, che la coda sia
verde'; and, as for those that go speaking about my age, it shews that they
ill understand how, although the leek has a white head, its tail (or blade)
is green; Boccaccio, Decamerone; introduction to the Fourth Day. So also in
Northward Ho, by Dekker and Webster, Act iv. sc. 1: 'garlic has a white
head and a green stalk'; where Dyce remarks that it occurs again in The
Honest Lawyer, 1616, sig. G 2. Cf. P. Plowman, B. xiii. 352.
3878-82. Compare Alanus de Insulis, Parabolae, cap. I (in Leyser's
collection, p. 1067):--
'Extincti cineres, si ponas sulphura, uiuent;
Sic uetus apposita mente calescit amor.'
[114]
3882. For _olde_, T. has _cold_, I cannot guess why: smouldering ashes are
more likely to be hot. _Old ashes_ mean ashes left after a fire has died
down, in which, if raked together, fire can be long preserved. 'Still, in
our old ashes, is fire collected.' See the parallel passage in Troilus, ii.
538.
In Soliman and Persida (Dodsley's Old Plays, ed. Hazlitt, v. 339) we
find:--
'as the fire
That lay, with honour's hand raked up in ashes,
Revives again to flames.'
We are reminded of line 92 in Gray's Elegy:--'Ev'n in our ashes live their
wonted fires'; but Gray himself tells us that he was thinking, not of
Chaucer, but of Sonnet 169 (170) of Petrarch:--
'Ch'i veggio nel pensier, dolce mio fuoco,
Fredda una lingua e due begli occhi chiusi,
Rimaner doppo noi pien di faville'--
i. e. which (love-songs) I see in thought, O my sweet flame, when (my) one
tongue is cold, and (your) two fine eyes are closed, remaining after us,
full of sparkles.
_y-reke_, raked or heaped together, collected. Not explained by Wright or
Morris; Tyrwhitt explains it by 'smoking,' and takes it to be a _present_
participle, which is impossible. It is the pt. t. of the scarce strong verb
_reken_, pt. t. _rak_, pp. _y-reken_, _y-reke_, of which the primary notion
was to 'gather together.' It occurs, just once, in Gothic, in the
translation of Romans, xii. 20: 'haurja funins _rikis_ ana haubith is,'
i. e. coals of fire shalt thou heap together on his head. It is the very
verb from which the sb. _rake_ is derived. See _Rake_ in my Etym. Dict.,
and the G. _Rechen_ in Kluge. The notion is taken from the heaping together
of smouldering ashes to preserve the fire within. Lydgate copies this image
in his Siege of Troye, ed. 1555, fol. B 4:--
'But inward brent of hate and of enuy
The hoote fyre, and yet there was no smeke [smoke],
So couertly the malyce was _yreke_.'
3895. _chimbe._ 'The prominency of the staves beyond the head of the
barrel. The imagery is very exact and beautiful'; Tyrwhitt. '_Chime_
(pronounced _choim_), sb. a stave of a cask, barrel, &c.'; Leicestershire
Glossary (E. D. S.) Urry gives '_Chimbe_, the Rim of a Cooper's Vessel on
the outside of the Head. The ends of the Staves from the Grooves outward
are called the _Chimes_.' Hexham's Du. Dict. has: '_Kimen_, _Kimmen_, the
Brimmes of a tubb or a barrill.' Sewel's Du. Dict. has: '_Kim_, the brim of
a barrel.' The Bremen _Kimm_ signifies not only the rim of a barrel, but
the edge of the horizon; cf. Dan. _Kiming_, _Kimming_, the horizon. See
further in New E. Dict. [115]
3901-2. _what amounteth_, to what amounts. _What shul_, why must.
3904. Tyrwhitt refers us to _Ex sutore medicus_, Phædrus, lib. i. fab. 14;
and to _ex sutore nauclerus_, alluded to by Pynson the printer, at the end
of his edition of Littleton's Tenures, 1525 (Ames, p. 488).
3906. _Depeford_ (lit. deep ford), Deptford; just beyond which is
_Grenewich_, Greenwich. Thus the pilgrims had not advanced very far,
considering that the Knight and Miller had both told a tale. They had made
an early start, and it was now 'half-way prime.' 'Deptford,' says Dr.
Furnivall, 'is 3 miles down the road [or a little more, it depends upon
whence we reckon]; and, as only the Reeve's Tale and the incomplete Cook's
Tale follow in Group A, we must suppose that Chaucer meant to insert here
[at the end of Group A] the Tales of some, at least, of the Five
City-Mechanics and the Ploughman ... in order to bring his party to their
first night's resting-place, Dartford, 15 miles from London'; Temp.
Preface, p. 19. 'The deep ford,' I may remark, must have been the one
through the Ravensbourn. Deptford and Greenwich (where, probably, Chaucer
was then residing) lay off the Old Kent Road, on the left; hence the host
points them out.
_half-way prime._ That is, half-past seven o'clock; taking _prime_ to mean
the first quarter of the day, or the period from 6 to 9 A.M. It was also
used to denote the _end_ of that period, or 9 A.M., as in B. 4387, where
the meaning is certain. In my Preface to Chaucer's Astrolabe, (E. E. T.
S.), I said: 'What _prime_ means in all cases, I do not pretend to say. It
is a most difficult word, and I think was used loosely. It might mean the
beginning or end of a period, and the period might be an hour, or a quarter
of a day. I think it was to obviate ambiguity that the end of the period
was sometimes expressed by _high prime_, or _passed prime_, or _prime
large_; we also find such expressions as _half prime_, _halfway prime_, or
_not fully prime_, which indicate a somewhat long period. For further
remarks, see Mr. Brae's Essay on Chaucer's Prime, in his edition of the
Astrolabe, p. 90. I add some references for the word _prime_, which may be
useful. We find _prime_ in Kn. Ta. 1331 (A. 2189); Mill. Ta. 368 (A. 3554);
March. Ta. 613 (E. 1857); Pard. Ta. 200 (C. 662); Ship. Ta. 206 (B. 1396);
Squi. Ta. 65 (F. 73); _fully prime_, Sir Topas, 114 (B. 2015); _halfway
prime_, Reve's Prol. 52 (A. 3906); _passed prime_, Ship. Ta. 88 (B. 1278),
Fre. Ta. 178 (D. 1476); _prime large_, Squi. Ta. ii. 14 (F. 360). See also
_prime_ in Troilus, ii. 992, v. 15; _passed prime_, ii. 1095 (in the same);
_an houre after the prime_, ii. 1557.' Cf. notes to F. 73, &c.
3911. _somdel_, in some degree. _sette his howve_, the same as _set his
cappe_, i. e. make him look foolish; see notes to A. 586, 3143. To come
behind a man, and alter the look of his head-gear, was no doubt a common
trick; now that caps are moveable, the perennial joy of the street-boy is
to run off with another boy's cap. [116]
3912. 'For it is allowable to repel (shove off) force by force.' The
Ellesmere MS. has here the sidenote--'vim vi repellere.'
3919. _stalke_, (here) a bit of stick; Lat. _festuca_. _balke_, a beam;
Lat. _trabs_. See the Vulgate version of Matt. vii. 3.