57. In many places this story is translated from Petrarch almost word for
word; and as Tyrwhitt remarks, it would be endless to cite illustrative
passages from the original Latin; see further in vol. iii. p. 453. The
first stanza is praised by Professor Lowell, in his Study Windows, p. 208,
where he says--'What a sweep of vision is here!' Chaucer is not quite so
close a translator here as usual; the passage in Petrarch being--'Inter
caetera ad radicem Vesuli, terra Salutiarum, uicis et castellis satis
frequens, Marchionum arbitrio nobilium quorundum regitur uirorum.'
82. _leet he slyde_, he allowed to pass unattended to, neglected. So we
find 'Let the world _slide_'; Induction to Taming of the Shrew, l. 5; and
'The state of vertue never _slides_'; The Sturdy Rock (in Percy's
Reliques). See March's Student's Manual of Eng. Lang. p. 125, where the
expression is noted as still current in America. Petrarch has--'alia pene
cuncta negligeret.' With ll. 83-140, cf. Shakesp. Sonnets, i-xvii. [344]
86. _flockmele_, in a flock or troop; Pet. has 'cateruatim.' 'Treuly theder
came _flockemele_ the multitude of tho blessyd sowlys':--Monk of Evesham,
ed. Arber, c. 55; p. 107. Palsgrave's French Dict. has--'Flockmeale, _par
troupeaux_'; fol. 440, back. Cf. E. _piece-meal_; we also find _wukemalum_,
week by week, Ormulum, 536; _lim-mele_, limb from limb, Layamon, 25618;
_hipyllmelum_, by heaps, Wycl. Bible, Wisdom xviii. 25: Koch, Eng. Gramm.
ii. 292.
99. 'Although I have no more to do with this matter than others have who
are here present.' Observe that the Marquis is addressed as _ye_, not
_thou_, the former being a title of respect.
103-105. These three lines are not in the original.
106. We should have expected to find here _us lyketh ye_, i. e. you are
pleasing to us; but we really have an instance of a double dative, so that
_us lyketh yow_ is equivalent to 'it pleases us with respect to you.' The
nominative case is _ye_, the dative and accusative _yow_ or _you_. _Yow
leste_, it may please you, in l. 111, is the usual idiom.
107. _and ever han doon_, and (both you and your doings) have ever brought
it about. Such is the usual force of _doon_; cf. ll. 253, 1098.