'Ludite; eunt anni more fluentis aquae.
Nec quae praeteriit, cursu reuocabitur unda;
Nec, quae praeteriit, hora redire potest.
Utendum est aetate; cito pede labitur aetas.'
25. Seneca wrote a treatise De Breuitate Temporis, but this does not
contain any passage very much resembling the text. I have no doubt that
Chaucer was thinking of a passage which may easily have caught [135] his
eye, as being very near the beginning of the first of Seneca's epistles.
'Quaedam tempora eripiuntur nobis, quaedam subducuntur, quaedam _effluunt.
Turpissima tamen est iactura, quae per negligentiam fit._ Quem mihi dabis,
qui aliquod pretium tempori ponat? qui diem aestimet?... In huius rei unius
fugacis ac lubricae possessionem natura nos misit, ex qua expellit
quicumque uult; et tanta stultitia mortalium est, ut, quae minima et
uilissima sint, _certe reparabilia_, imputari sibi, quum impetrauere,
patiantur; nemo se iudicet quidquam debere, qui tempus accepit, quum
interim _hoc unum est, quod ne gratus quidem potest reddere_'; Epist. I.;
Seneca Lucilio suo.
30. _Malkin_; a proverbial name for a wanton woman; see P. Plowman, C. ii.
181 (B. i. 182), and my note. 'There are more maids than Malkin'; Heywood's
Proverbs.
32. _moulen_, lit. 'become mouldy'; hence, be idle, stagnate, remain
sluggish, rot. See _Mouldy_ in the Appendix to my Etym. Dict. 2nd ed. 1884;
and cf. note to A. 3870.
33. _Man of Lawe._ This is the 'sergeant of the lawe' described in the
Prologue, ll. 309-330. _So have ye blis_, so may you obtain bliss; as you
hope to reach heaven.