'Car cil a moult poi de savoir
Qui seus cuide sa fame avoir.'
1582. Cf. Boeth. bk. v. met. 4. 8; Troil. i. 365; Ayenb. of Inwyt, p. 158.
1584. E. Hn. have _se ful many_, but the rest omit _ful_. Scan the [359]
line by reading _many a_ in one foot, and making _figúr-e_ trisyllabic, as
in B. 3412, E. 16.
1592. _voys_, fame, general approval.
1609. Read _inpossíbl'_, and _wer-e_. _were_, would be.
1640-1. The seven deadly sinnes, for which see the Persones Tale. 'The
popular medieval treatises on the seven sins arrange the minor
transgressions connected with each as _branches_ of the primary
tree.'--Wright. And each of the _branches_ have _twigs_, as Chaucer himself
says; see I. 389. Cf. my note to P. Plowman, C. viii. 70.
1665. _forbed-e_, may (God) forbid. _sente_, subj., could send.
1682. This line is incomplete in all the seven MSS. There is a pause at the
caesura, so that the word _for_ occupies the whole of the third foot.
Tyrwhitt conceals this fact by inserting _but_ before _thinne_. Cf. D.
1647, and the note.
1684-7. These four parenthetical lines interrupt the story rather
awkwardly. They obviously belong to the narrator, the Marchant, as it is
out of the question that Justinus had heard of the Wife of Bath. Perhaps it
is an oversight.
If we take these lines in this way, it is necessary to read _we have_ in l.
1686, as in Hn. The other MSS. and editions read _ye have_. I explain
'which we have on honde' as meaning, 'which we are now discussing.'
Moreover, the reading _we_ is exactly appropriate after the reading _us_ of
l. 1684, where it is difficult to see how _us_ can refer to any but the
Canterbury pilgrims.
1693. _Maius_ is a masculine form, because the name of the month is so; see
l. 1748.
1702. _sacrement_, i. e. of marriage; see l. 1319. The couple also used to
'receive the sacrament,' i. e. the eucharist, in the modern sense.
1704. Referring to the prayers in the marriage service, which mention Isaac
and Rebecca, and Abraham and Sarah.
1709-52. Quoted by Warton, Hist. E. Poetry, ed. 1871, ii. 354.
1716. _Orpheus_, the celebrated minstrel, whose story is in Ovid, Met. x.
1-85; xi. 1-66. Mentioned again in the Book of the Duchesse, 569; House of
Fame, 1203; Troil. iv. 791. For the minstrelsy at the feast, cf. F. 78.
_Amphioun_, Amphion, king of Thebes, who helped to build Thebes by the
magic of his music; Hyginus, Fab. 6 and 7; cf. Ovid, Met. vi. 221, 271,
402; xv. 427. Already mentioned in connexion with Thebes in A. 1546. (The
_i_ is shortened.)
1719. Cf. 'Ther herde I trumpe Ioab also'; Ho. of Fame, 1245. 'Joab blew a
trumpet,' 2 Sam. ii. 28; xviii. 16; xx. 22.
1720. _Theodomas_; also mentioned in the above passage, Ho. of Fame, 1246.
As he blew a trumpet at Thebes, when the city was in fear (or danger), he
is clearly to be identified with the Thiodamas mentioned in the Thebaid of
Statius. He succeeded Amphiaraus as augur, and furiously excited the
besiegers to attack Thebes. His invocation was succeeded by a great sound
of trumpets (Theb. viii. [360] 343), but Statius does not expressly say
that he blew a trumpet himself.
1723. _Venus_; cf. F. 272-274.
1727. _fyrbrond_, fire-brand, torch; which she carried as appropriate to
the marriage procession. This attribute of Venus is found in Le Roman de la
Rose, l. 3434:--
'Ele tint ung brandon flamant
En sa main destre, dont la flame
A eschauffee mainte dame.'
Observe that l. 2250 of the Legend of Good Women runs thus:--'N'Ymenëus,
that god of wedding is.' This agrees with line 1730 except as regards the
prefixed _Ne_. The 'fire-brand' reappears in l. 1777 below.
1731. _his lyf_, i. e. during his life, in all his life.
1732. _Marcian._ Chaucer is still thinking of his own House of Fame (cf.
notes to ll. 1719, 1720), where he had already mentioned Marcian, at l.
985. Martianus Minneus Felix Capella, a native of Carthage, was a writer of
the fifth century, and wrote the Nuptials of Philology and Mercury, _De
Nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii_. This consists of two books, immediately
followed by seven books on the Seven Sciences; see Warton's Hist. E.
Poetry, ed. 1871, iii. 77; Smith's Classical Dictionary, s. v. _Capella_;
Lydgate's Temple of Glass, l. 130.
1734. _hir_; cf. 'he, Theofraste,' in l. 1294; also ll. 1368, 1373. For
_him_ (as in E. Cm.), MSS. Hn. Hl. have _he_ (badly).
1745. _Assuer_, Ahasuerus, as in l. 1374. There is a special reference here
to the banquet at which Esther obtained her request; see Esther, v. 6. See
further in Warton, Hist. E. Poetry, ed. 1871, i. 288, iii. 142.
1754. For other allusions to Paris and Eleyne, see Parl. of Foules, 290,
291; Book of the Duch. 331.
1783. The word 'Auctor' in the margin of MS. E. signifies that ll.
1783-1794 form a reflection on the subject by the author, who here
personates the Marchant. There are similar passages further on, viz. ll.
1866-1874, 2057-2068, 2107-2115, and 2125-2131.
1784. _bedeth_, proffers; cf. G. 1065. From Boeth. bk. iii. pr. 5. 50.
1785. _false hoomly hewe_, O false domestic servant! Cp. Pt. Ln. have the
reading _holy_, which doubtless arose, as Wright points out, from missing
the mark of abbreviation in the form 'h[=o]ly,' i. e. ho_m_ly. 'Tyrwhitt,
however,' he adds, 'adopts this reading, mistakes the meaning of the word
_hewe_, adds _of_, which is found in none of the MSS.; and in his text it
stands _false of holy hewe_, which he supposes to signify false of holy
colour. Conjectural emendations are always dangerous.' Yet Wright _silently
adopts_ such emendations over and over again; cf. l. 1812 below. Cf.
_hoomly fo_ in ll. 1792, 1794.
1786. 'Like the sly and treacherous snake in the bosom.' This refers to the
fable in Phaedrus, lib. iv. fab. 18. But Chaucer probably [361] took it
from the Gesta Romanorum, ch. clxxiv. For numerous references, see the
Exempla of Jacques de Vitry, ed. Crane, 1890, p. 201.
1790. Here the monosyllabic pp. _born_ takes a final _e_ in the definite
form, as noticed by Prof. Child; see Ellis, E. E. Pronunc. p. 350, § 32.
Cf. _her dreint-e lord_, Gower, C. A., ii. 105; and see B. 69.
1793. From Boethius, lib. iii. pr. 5:--'Quae uero pestis efficacior ad
nocendum, quàm familiaris inimicus?' See vol. ii. p. 63.
1795. _his ark diurne_, the daily arc of his apparent motion. See Chaucer
on the Astrolabe, pt. ii. § 7:--'To knowe the _arch of the day_'; or, as in
l. 7 of the same:--'tak ther thyn _ark of the day_.'
1797. _On thorisonte_, upon the horizon; i. e. the time was come for the
sun to descend _below_ it.
_that latitude_; because the apparent motion of the sun depends upon the
latitude as well as upon the day of the year; cf. the Treatise on the
Astrolabe, pt. ii. § 13.
1799. _hemisperie_, the hemisphere above the horizon; see the Treatise on
the Astrolabe, pt. i. § 18.
1807. _ipocras_, the usual medieval spelling of Hippocrates; but the name
is here given to a prepared drink. Halliwell (s. v. _Hippocras_) defines it
as 'a beverage composed of wine, with spices and sugar, strained through a
cloth. It is said to have taken its name from _Hippocrates' sleeve_, the
term [which] apothecaries gave to a strainer.' Long and elaborate recipes
for it exist, and may be found in the Babees Book, ed. Furnivall, pp. 125
and 267; and in Halliwell's Dictionary, s. v. _ipocras_. The shortest is
that in Arnold's Chronicle:--'Take a quarte of red wyne, an ounce of
synamon, and halfe an unce of gynger; a quarter of an ounce of greynes
[i. e. cardamoms], and longe peper, and half a pounde of suger; and brose
[bruise] all this, and than put them in a bage of wullen clothe, made
therefore [i. e. for the purpose], with the wyne; and lete it hange over a
vessel, tyll the wyne be rune thorowe.' All the recipes insist upon the
straining, and some direct the use of as many as six straining-bags. See
Our English Home, p. 83.
_clarree_, clarified wine; see note to A. 1471.
_vernage_, a sweet wine, sometimes red, but more often white; 'grown in
Tuscany, and other parts of Italy, and [it] derived its name from the
thick-skinned grape, _vernaccia_ (corresponding with the _vinaciola_ of the
ancients), that was used in the preparation of it. The wine known as
_vernaccia_ in Tuscany was always of a white or golden colour. See Bacci,
Nat. Vinor. Hist., pp. 20, 62.'--Henderson, Hist. of Ancient and Modern
Wines, 1824; quoted in the Babees Book, ed. Furnivall, p. 203. Florio's
Ital. Dict. gives:--'_Vernaccia_, a kinde of strong wine like malmesie or
muskadine, or bastard wine.' Chaucer speaks of it again, in conjunction
with _malvesye_; see B. 1261. For other notices of it, see Babees Book, pp.
125, 267, and the Glossary; Halliwell, s. v. _Piment_; Gower, C. A., iii.
8; Squyer of Lowe Degree, l. 754. The derivation, sometimes given, of
_vernage_ from _Verona_, is clearly wrong. [362]
1810. _dan_, i. e. _Dominus_, a common title; see note to B. 3119.
_Constantine._ 'Dan Constantine, according to Fabricius, Bibl. Med. Æt. t.
i. p. 423, ed. Pat. 4to., wrote about the year 1080. His works, including
the treatise mentioned in the text, were printed at Basil, 1536, fol.'--T.
He has been mentioned before; see A. 433; and cf. Warton, Hist. E. Poetry,
ed. 1871, ii. 368.
1812. _nas no-thing eschu_, was not at all remiss, or _shy_. Cm. Ln. read
_was_; the rest _nas_; but the sense is the same. Tyrwhitt reads--_he wolde
nothing eschue_. Wright says: 'the Harl. MS. reads _nas_, which seems not
to furnish so good a grammatical construction'; accordingly, he reads--_he
wold nothing eschieu_. Morris likewise reads _wolde_; and Bell reads
_wold_. But the editors are all wrong; for the verb _eschew-e_ will not
rime with _coitu_, and it is clear that they did not know that _eschu_ is
here _an adjective_! Yet it occurs again in the Pers. Tale, Group I, 971;
and I subjoin three more examples.
'She is escheue [_read_ eschu] of bothe two.'
Gower, Conf. Amant. ii. 286.
'Yit gooses dounge _eschew is_.'
Palladius on Husbandry, bk. i. l. 528.
In this passage it rimes with _mew-es_, pl. sb.
'Her taste is eke _eschewe_.'--id. bk. iv. l. 586.
Godefroy gives the O. F. adj. _eschif_, _eskif_, 'animé de sentiments
hostiles, défavorables, mauvais, mécontent, de mauvaise volonté, rétif.'
Amongst his examples, we find the spellings _eskius_, _eschius_, _eskieus_,
_esqueus_, _eskieu_, _esquieu_, _esehieu_; where the _-s_ is a case-ending.
The O. F. adj. is derived from the adj. which appears as M. H. G.
_schiech_, cognate with E. _shy_. Chaucer's _eschu_ is, accordingly, just
as good an adjective as the mod. E. _shy_.
1817. _travers_, curtain, drawn across to form a screen; as in Troil. iii.
674. Ill spelt _trauas_ in the Prompt. Parv., but explained by
_transversum_, which is the Low Latin form. See Way's note; he quotes--"i.
trauers du satin vermaille," so that they were sometimes made of crimson
satin. In the Kingis Quair, st. 90, we find the form _trauerse_; in st. 82
it is spelt _travesse_, and is there applied to a screen which happened to
be nearly transparent, as was not the case in our text. See vol. ii. pp.
478, 506.
1819. A note in Bell's Chaucer gives a translation of the form of blessing
the nuptial bed to be found in old service-books.
1825. _houndfish_, dog-fish. I suppose this is the spotted dog-fish,
_Scyllium catulus_, or _Scyllium canicula_. Randle Holme has: '_Dog fish_,
or _Sea dog fish_. It is by the Dutch termed a _Flackhund_ and a
_Hundfisch_; the skin is hard and redish, beset with hard and sharp scales,
sharp, and rough and black; the Belly is more white and softer.' Bk. ii.
ch. xiv. See Gloss. to the Babees Book; Lydgate, Minor Poems, p. 201.
[363] 1840. In the Pers. Tale, Chaucer says just the contrary; see I. 859.
1849. _shaketh._ Cf. 'The slake skin trembleth upon myn empted body'; Ch.
tr. of Boethius, bk. i. met. 1. 12.
1862. From Le Rom. de la Rose, 19931-2.
1879. _a penner._ 'The penner was a case containing the pens, ink, and
other apparatus of writing, which the clerk carried about with him, as the
Eastern students do at the present day. As such articles belonged only to
clergy and scholars, we understand why the squire Damyan was obliged to
borrow one for his use. An early vocabulary entitled _Nominale_ mentions,
among the _Nomina rerum pertinentium clerico_, 'Hoc pennare, _a
pener_.'--Wright. See Wright-Wülcker, Vocab. 682. 15; also 601. 34.
1881. _compleynt._ See specimens in Chaucer's Compleints of Mars, of Venus,
and of Anelida; also the Compleint to his Lady. And cf. F. 943-948.
1883. _heng_, i. e. which hung; the relative is omitted.
1887. _two of Taur_, the second degree of Taurus. Tyrwhitt unluckily
altered _two_ to _ten_, on the plea that 'the time given (_four days
complete_, l. 1893) is not sufficient for the moon to pass from the second
degree of Taurus into Cancer.' And he then proceeds to shew this, taking
the _mean_ daily motion of the moon as being 13 degrees, 10 minutes, and 35
seconds. But, as Mr. Brae has shewn, in his edition of Chaucer's Astrolabe,
p. 93, footnote, it is a mistake to reckon here the moon's _mean_ motion;
we must rather consider her _actual_ motion. The question is simply, can
the moon move from the 2nd degree of Taurus to the 1st of Cancer (through
59 degrees) in four days? Mr. Brae says decidedly, that examples of such
motion are to be seen 'in every almanac.'
E.g. in the Nautical Almanac, in June, 1886, the moon's longitude at noon
was 30° 22' on the 9th, and 90° 17' on the 13th; i. e. the moon was in the
_first_ of Taurus on the former day, and in the _first_ of Cancer on the
latter day, at the same hour; which gives (very nearly) a degree more of
change of longitude than we here require. The MSS. all have _two_ or _tuo_,
and they are quite right. The motion of the moon is so variable that the
mean motion affords no safe guide.
1887-8. The _i_ in _gliden_, _biden_ (as in M. E. _riden_, E. _ridden_) is
short.
1921. _At-after_, immediately after; a compound preposition; see F. 302.
1924. _a gentil man_, a man of rank, as squires usually were, although in
service, and therefore a _hewe_ (1785). Cf. l. 1907, and note to D. 2243.
1932. This proceeding was quite in accordance with ancient custom. See the
tale of Eglamore, in the Percy Folio MS., st. 11; and the Ballad of Sir
Cauline, st. 9.
1943-4. Misarranged and corrupt in MS. Hl.
1962. _precious_, over-nice, scrupulous, prim; as in D. 148.
1966. _evensong._ Only Cp. Ln. have _euesong_. Perhaps _even_ was [364]
pronounced as _e'en_ (een); cf. _yest're'en_, _Hallowe'en_. But _eve_ for
_even_ is very common.
1971. For _Was_, only Hn. Hl. have _As_. The latter seems to afford an
easier construction, and is adopted by the editors. But we are bound to
take the reading _Was_, as in most MSS., and explain it. I take it
thus:--'Whether it were ... that the heavens stood in such a condition,
that it was a fortunate time.' This is quite exact, though one dependent
clause on the top of another is not felicitous. The reference is, of
course, to the old astrological belief about fortunate positions of the
planets; cf. A. 417. See Boeth. bk. iv. pr. 6, 62-71.
1986. Chaucer's favourite line; see note to F. 479.
1991. _lete_, allowed; A. S. _l[=æ]ten_. MS. Harl. omits _him_.
2002. _visit-è_; trisyllabic. See the footnote.
2013. _lowe_ means 'tractable, docile, obedient'; cf. note to D. 1369. 'And
after that he had with lacke of vitailles brought those pratlers as _lowe
as dogge to the bowe_'; Udall, tr. of Erasmus' Apophthegmes; Antigonus, §
27. This shews how the dogs were tamed.
2018. _lady_, lady's. See note to A. 88.
2021. 'Alluding to the Epicurean philosophy.'--Bell. See A. 335-8.
2026. _honestly_, honourably, worthily; cf. l. 2028.
2032. _he_, viz. Guillaume de Lorris. There were _two_ authors of Le Roman
de la Rose, but the reference is here to the earlier portion of it; see ll.
130-146, 480-512, 645-688 of the English version, where the description of
the garden occurs; and for the description of the well mentioned in l.
2036, see ll. 1462-1634 of the same.
2034. 'Hortorum decus et tutela Priapus'; Ovid, Fast. i. 415.
2038. _Pluto._ In his Introductory Discourse, Tyrwhitt remarks:--'The
machinery of the Fairies, which Chaucer has used so happily, was probably
added by himself; and indeed, I cannot help thinking that his _Pluto_ and
_Proserpine_ were the true progenitors of _Oberon_ and _Titania_.... This
observation is not meant to extend further than _the King and Queen_ of
Faery; in whose characters I think it is plain that Shakespeare, in
imitation of Chaucer, has dignified our Gothic Elves with the manners and
language of the classical Gods and Goddesses. In the rest of his Faery
system, Shakespeare seems to have followed the popular superstition of his
own time.'
This remark is important; I doubt if the influence of Chaucer upon
Shakespeare in this matter has been sufficiently recognised. In both works,
the Fairy king and queen have a dispute in hand, which is settled by the
assistance of mortals.
Not only here, but in the Hous of Fame, 1509-1511, Chaucer refers us to
Claudian as his authority for Pluto and Proserpine; see note to l. 2232
below.
2046. The insertion of _smal_ is necessary; the rime _wiket, cliket_, being
a feminine one.
_cliket_, (1) a latch, (2) a latch-key; here used in the latter sense. In
Shropshire, the word is used of a particular kind of fastening for a gate,
[365] which Miss Jackson thus describes. 'An iron link is attached to the
gate by means of a staple; this link is terminated by a short hasp-like
bolt. On the gate-post is an iron plate, having in it a kind of key-hole,
into which the before-mentioned bolt fits, much after the manner of the
fastening of a trunk, thus securing the gate.'
2058. _scorpion_, scorpion; see notes to B. 360, 404; cf. H. 271, and see
Chaucer's description of the scorpion in the Book of the Duchesse, ll.
636-641. Vincent of Beauvais, in his Speculum Naturale, bk. xx. c. 160,
quotes from the Liber de Naturis Rerum--'Scorpio blandum et quasi virgineum
dicitur vultum habere, sed habet in cauda nodosa venenatum aculeum, quo
pungit et inficit proximantem.' And see Boeth. bk. ii. pr. 1. 10-14; Ayenb.
of Inwyt, p. 62, l. 13.
2080. _Soul_, sole; cf. the law-phrase _femme sole_. See P. de Thaun,
Bestiary, 1250; Morris, O. E. Misc. p. 22; Ayenb. of Inwyt, p. 226.
2093. _Damian_, here to be read as _Dam-yan_, nearly in two syllables.
_Benignely_, favourably; altered by Tyrwhitt to _brenningly_, without
authority; pronounced _benign-e-ly_, in four syllables.