231. _wys_, cunning. In MSS. E. and Hn. the caesural pause is marked after
_wyf_. The line, as it stands, is imperfect, and only to be scanned by
making the pause after _wyf_ occupy the space of a syllable. The reading
_wys-e_ gets over the difficulty, but is hardly what we should expect; it
is remarkable that E. Hn. and Cm. all read _wys_, without a final _e_; cf.
_wys_ in A. 68, 785, 851. The only justification of the form _wys-e_ would
be to consider it as feminine; and such seems to be the case in Gower,
Conf. Am., ed. Pauli, i. 156:--'His doughter _wis-e_ Petronel-le.' _if that
she can hir good_, if she knows what is to her advantage.
232. 'Will make him believe that the chough is mad.' In the New E. Dict.,
s. v. _Chough_, Dr. Murray shews that the various readings _cou_, _cowe_,
_kowe_, &c. tend to prove that _cow_ in this passage may well mean 'chough'
or 'jackdaw' rather than 'cow.' This solves the difficulty; for the
allusion is clearly to one of the commonest of medieval stories, told of
various talking birds, originally of a parrot.
Very briefly, the story runs thus. A jealous husband, leaving his wife,
sets his parrot to watch her. On his return, the bird reports her
misconduct. But the wife avers that the parrot lies, and tries to prove it
by an ingenious stratagem. The husband believes his frail wife's plot, and
promptly wrings the bird's neck for telling stories, under the impression
that it has gone mad.
I formerly explained this in The Academy, April 5, 1890, p. 239. In the no.
for April 19, p. 269, Mr. Clouston referred me to his paper on 'The
Tell-tale Bird' printed in the Chaucer Society's Originals and Analogues,
p. 439, with reference to the Manciple's Tale, which relates a similar
story. See the account of the Manciple's Tale in vol. iii. p. 501. It is
the story of the Husband and the Parrot, in the Arabian Nights'
Entertainment.
This line of Chaucer's seems to have attracted attention, though there is
nothing to shew how it was understood. Thus, in Roy's _Rede me and be nott
Wrothe_, ed. Arber, p. 80, we find:--
'Because they canne flatter and lye,
Makynge beleve _the cowe is wode_.'
In Awdelay's Fraternyte of Vacabondes (E. E. T. S.), p. 14, we find: 'Gyle
Hather is he, that wyll stand by his Maister when he is at dinner, and byd
him beware that he eate no raw meate, because he would eate it himself.
This is a pickthanke knaue, that would make his Maister beleue that _the
Cowe is woode_.' Palsgrave, in his French Dictionary, p. 421, has:--'I am
borne in hande of a thyng; _On me faict a croyre_. He wolde beare me in
hande the kowe is woode; _il me veult fayre a croyre de blanc que ce soit
noyr_.' The spelling _coe_ for 'jackdaw' occurs in Skelton's Phyllyp
Sparowe, l. 468. See also Hoccleve's Works, ed. Furnivall, p. 217, where
'Magge, the good kowe' is [298] an obvious error for 'Magge the wode kowe,'
since 'Magge' is a name for a _mag_-pie. This I also explained in The
Academy, April 1, 1893, p. 285.
233. 'And she will take witness, of her own maid, of her (the maid's)
assent (to her truth).' This is part of the proof of the correctness of the
interpretation of the preceding line. For, in most of the versions of the
tale above referred to, the lady is aided and abetted by a maid who is in
her confidence.
235. Here Chaucer takes several hints from the book of Theophrastus as
quoted by Jerome; see note to l. 221. Thus (in Jerome, as above, p. 51) we
find:--'Deinde per noctes totas garrulae conquestiones:--Illa ornatior
procedit in publicum; haec honoratior ab omnibus: ego in conuentu feminarum
misella despicior. Cur aspiciebas uicinam? Quid cum ancillula loquebaris?'
It is continued at l. 243; cf. 'Non amicum habere possumus, non sodalem.'
Next, at l. 248; cf. 'Pauperem alere difficile est, diuitem ferre
tormentum.' Next, at l. 253; cf. 'Pulchra cito adamatur.... Difficile
custoditur quod plures amant.' Jean de Meun also quotes from Theophrastus
plentifully, mentioning him by name in Le Rom. de la Rose, l. 8599; see the
whole passage. '_Caynard_, obsolete, adapted from F. _cagnard_, sluggard
(according to Littré, from Ital. _cagna_, bitch, fem. of _cane_, dog). A
lazy fellow, a sluggard; a term of reproach. (1303) Rob. of Brunne,
Handlyng Synne, l. 8300: A _kaynarde_ ande an olde folte [misprinted
folle]. (About 1310) in Wright's Lyric Poems, xxxix. 110 (1842): This
croked _caynard_, sore he is a-dred.'--New Eng. Dict. (where the present
passage is also quoted).
246. See A. 1261, and the note. Wright here adds two more examples. He
says--'In the satirical poem of Doctor Double-ale, [in Hazlitt's Early Pop.
Poetry, iii. 308], we have the lines:--
Then seke another house,
This is not worth a louse;
_As dronken as a mouse_.
Among the Letters relating to the Suppression of Monasteries (Camden Soc.),
p. 133, there is one from a monk of Pershore, who says that his brother
monks of that house "drynk an bowll after collacyon tell ten or xii. of the
clock, and cum to mattens _as dronck as mys_."'
248. See note to l. 235 above; so again, for l. 253, cf. Le Rom. de la
Rose, 8617-8638.