3862. For _humble bed_ Tyrwhitt, Wright, and Bell print _humblehede_, as in
some MSS. But this word is an objectionable hybrid compound, and I think it
remains to be shewn that the word belongs to our language. In the Knightes
Tale, Chaucer has _humblesse_, and in the Persones Tale, _humilitee_. Until
better authority for _humblehede_ can be adduced, I am content with the
reading of the four best MSS., including the Harleian, which Wright
_silently alters_.
3863. _Julius._ For this story Chaucer refers us below to Lucan, Suetonius,
and Valerius; see note to l. 3909. There is also an interesting life of him
by Plutarch. Boccaccio mentions him but incidentally.
3866. _tributárie_; observe the rime with _aduersárie_. _Fortune_ in l.
3868 is a trisyllable; so also in l. 3876.
3870. 'Against Pompey, thy father-in-law.' Rather, 'son-in-law'; for Caesar
gave Pompey his daughter Julia in marriage.
3875. _puttest_; to be read as _putt'st_; and _thórient_ as in l. 3883.
3878. _Pompeius._ Boccaccio gives his life at length, as an example of
misfortune; De Casibus Virorum, lib. vi. cap. 9. He was killed Sept. 29,
B.C. 48, soon after the battle of Pharsalia in Thessaly (l. 3869).
3881. _him_, for himself; but in the next line it means 'to him.'--M.
3885. Chaucer refers to this triumph in the Man of Lawes Tale, B. 400; but
see the note. Cf. Shak. Henry V, v. prol. 28. [245]
3887. Chaucer is not alone in making Brutus and Cassius into _one_ person;
see note to l. 3892.
3891. _cast_, contrived, appointed; pp., after _hath_.
3892. _boydekins_, lit. bodkins, but with the signification of daggers. It
is meant to translate the Lat. _pugio_, a poniard. In Barbour's Bruce, i.
545, Caesar is said to have been slain with a weapon which in one edition
is called _punsoun_, in another a _botkin_, and in the Edinburgh MS. a
_pusoune_, perhaps an error for _punsoune_, since Halliwell's Dictionary
gives the form _punchion_. Hamlet uses _bodkin_ for a dagger; Act iii. sc.
1. l. 76. In the margin of Stowe's Chronicle, ed. 1614, it is said that
Caesar was slain with _bodkins_; Nares' Glossary. Nares also quotes--'The
chief woorker of this murder was _Brutus Cassius_, with 260 of the senate,
all having _bodkins_ in their sleeves'; Serp. of Division, prefixed to
Gorboduc, 1590.
3906. _lay on deying_, lay a-dying. In l. 3907, _deed_ = mortally wounded.
3909. _recomende_, commit. He means that he commits the full telling of the
story to Lucan, &c. In other words, he refers the reader to those authors.
Cf. Lounsbury, Studies in Chaucer, ii. 254, 274.
Lucan (born A.D. 39, died A.D. 65) was the author of the Pharsalia, an
incomplete poem in ten books, narrating the struggle between Pompey and
Caesar. There is an English translation of it by Rowe.
Suetonius Tranquillus (born about A.D. 70) wrote several works, the
principal of which is The Lives of the Twelve Caesars.
Valerius. There were two authors of this name, (1) Valerius Flaccus, author
of a poem on the Argonautic expedition, and (2) Valerius Maximus, author of
De Factis Dictisque Memorabilibus Libri ix. Mr. Jephson says that Valerius
Flaccus is meant here, I know not why. Surely the reference is to Valerius
Maximus, who at least tells some anecdotes of Caesar; lib. iv. c. 5; lib.
vii. cap. 6.
3911. _word and ende_, beginning and end; a substitution for the older
formula _ord and ende_. Tyrwhitt notes that the suggested emendation of
_ord_ for _word_ was proposed by Dr. Hickes, in his Anglo-Saxon Grammar, p.
70. Hickes would make the same emendation in Troil. and Cres. v. 1669;
'And of this broche he tolde him _ord and ende_,'
where the editions have _word_. He also cites the expression _ord and ende_
from Cædmon; see Thorpe's edition, p. 225, l. 30. We also find _from orde
[=o]ð ende_ = from beginning to end, in the poem of Elene (Vercelli MS.),
ed. Grein, l. 590. _Orde and ende_ occurs also at a later period, in the
Ormulum, l. 6775; and still later, in Floriz and Blancheflur, l. 47, ed.
Lumby, in the phrase,
'_Ord and ende_ he haþ him told
Hu blauncheflur was þarinne isold.'
Tyrwhitt argues that the true spelling of the phrase had already become
[246] corrupted in Chaucer's time, and such seems to have been the fact, as
all the MSS. have _word_. See Zupitza's note to Guy of Warwick, l. 7927,
where more examples are given; and cf. my note to Troil. ii. 1495. _Ord and
ende_ explains our modern _odds and ends_; see Garnett's Essays, p. 37.
Moreover, it is not uncommon to find a _w_ prefixed to a word where it is
not required etymologically, especially before the vowel _o_. The examples
_wocks_, oaks, _won_, one, _wodur_, other, _wostus_, oast-house, _woth_,
oath, _wots_, oats, _wolde_, old, are all given in Halliwell's Prov.
Dictionary.