278. Chaucer quotes this, as from Solomon, in the Pers. Tale, I. 631, and
explains it there more fully; and again, in the Tale of Melibeus, B. 2276.
An Anglo-French poet named Herman wrote a poem 'on the three words, smoke,
rain, and woman, which, according to Solomon, drive a man from his house;
and it appears from the poem that it was composed at the suggestion of
Alexander, bishop of Lincoln, who died in 1147.'--T. Wright, Biographia
Brit. Literaria, Anglo-Norman Period, p. 333. See also my note to P.
Plowman, C. xx. 297, quoted in the note to B. 2276 above, at p. 207.
282. This again is from Theophrastus (see note to l. 235):--'Si iracunda,
si fatua, si deformis, si superba, si foetida; quodcunque uitii est, post
nuptias discimus.'
285. Immediately after the last quotation there follows:--'Equus, asinus,
bos, canis, et uilissima mancipia, uestes quoque et lebetes, sedile lignum,
calix et urceolus fictilis probantur prius, et sic emuntur: sola uxor non
ostenditur, ne ante displiceat, quàm ducatur.'
293. Next follows:--'Attendenda semper eius est facies, et pulchritudo
laudanda.... Vocanda "domina," celebrandus natalis eius, ... honoranda
nutrix eius, et gerula, seruus, patrimus, et alumnus,' &c. Cf. Le Rom. de
la Rose, 13914.
303-306. Next follows:--'et formosus assecla, et procurator calamistratus,
et in longam securamque libidinem exectus spado: sub quibus nominibus
adulteri delitescunt.'
Chaucer has merely taken the general idea, and given it a form peculiarly
adapted to his sketch. That he really _was_ thinking of this [300] passage
is clear from the fact that, in the margin of E., appears this note--'Et
procurator calamistratus.'