2111. See note to A. 1390.
2115. Cf. 'Of sufferance cometh ease'; in Heywood's Proverbs.
2117. To scan the line, we must read _warm-e_, and _émprentèd_. _Emprented
hath_ would run much better. The scribes who wrote _warm_ probably
pronounced the last word as _clikét_; but the rime is feminine. And see l.
2121, 2123.
2125. The reference is to the story of Pyramus in Ovid, Met. iv. 55;
especially (in l. 2126) to the line--'Quid non sentit amor?'
2127. _he_, i. e. the lover; used generally. This line answers to l. 742 of
the Legend of Good Women:--'But what is that, that _love_ can nat espye';
where _love_ means a lover.
2133. This has to be taken in connexion with ll. 2222-4 below, in which the
date is said to be _a little before June 12_; see note to the line.
Consequently, the 'eight days' mentioned in l. 2132 must be _the first
eight days of June_. Again, if we refer to l. 2049, we see that January
used to go to the garden 'in the summer season,' which would seem to be
intended to begin with June. Accordingly, the month of June is here
expressed, in a mere parenthesis, by the phrase 'ere the month of July.'
Hence the sense really is--'ere that eight days (of the summer season) were
passed, (of the month) before that of July.' And the whole passage merely
means--'before the 8th of June was over,' or simply, 'on June 8.' This date
precisely agrees with that given, by quite a different method, in ll.
2222-4.
As the month meant is here certainly that of _June_, as shewn by Mr. Brae
in 1851 (see his edition of Chaucer's Astrolabe, pp. 67, 83), Mr. Brae
proposed to read _Juin_ for _Juil_. But this was because he followed
Tyrwhitt's text, which has _of_ for _er_, and therefore reads-- [366]
'er that daies eighte
Were passed _of_ the month of Juil, befill,' &c.
And it is the fact, that, with the reading _of_, we also should have to
accept the reading _Juin_. But we must set against this the fact that no
MS. (at least of any authority) reads either _Juin_ or _of_! Tyrwhitt has
made this alteration _silently_, and Wright and Bell have _silently_
adopted it. Morris also makes the alteration, but prints _of_ in italics to
shew that it is not the reading of his MS. These _silent_ conjectural
emendations are very troublesome, as they are copied by one editor after
another without any enquiry as to the sense of the context.
The Harl. MS., supposed to be followed by Wright, actually has _a stop_
before 'er'; the reading being--'were passid . er the moneth of Iuyl
bifille.' The reading _bifille_ (might befal) is probably due to taking
_Iuyl_ as the nominative to this verb, whereas _bifil_ is meant to be
impersonal, with the sense--'it happened.'
2138-2148. This passage is almost entirely composed of fragments of
Solomon's Song. We may compare ll. 2138-2140 with ch. ii. vv. 10, 11, 12;
l. 2141 with ch. i. v. 15; l. 2142 with ch. iv. v. 10; l. 2143 with ch. iv.
vv. 12, 16; ll. 2144, 2145 with ch. iv. vv. 9, 10; l. 2146 with ch. iv. v.
7.
2194. The first foot is defective (in all seven MSS.). To fill out the
line, Tyrwhitt inserts _owen_ before _lord_; a 'correction' which Wright
and Bell _silently_ adopt. There is no hint as to the source of this
_owen_. Thynne's edition (as frequently elsewhere) agrees with the seven
MSS.
2200. This drowning in a sack is quite oriental. Cf. 'There yawns the sack,
and yonder rolls the sea'; Byron, The Corsair, iii. 8.
2202. _wenche._ For this word, cf. H. 220, and Ho. of Fame, 206.
2222. _in Geminis_, in the sign of Gemini. We are also told that he was
near his 'declination of Cancer,' i. e. his _maximum_ northern declination,
which he obtains when entering Cancer, at the summer solstice. In Chaucer's
time, the sun entered Cancer about June 12, and therefore just before that
day was in Gemini. Taking this statement in conjunction with the 'eight
days' of the summer season mentioned in l. 2132, we may feel sure that the
date meant is June 8, just four days before the sun left Gemini, and
attained his maximum declination. See my edition of Chaucer's Astrolabe (E.
E. T. S.), p. lv., which requires partial correction, as shewn in the note
to l. 2132 above.
2224. The 'exaltation' of a planet was the sign in which it was (quite
arbitrarily) supposed to exercise its greatest power. The exaltation of
Jupiter was Cancer, as Chaucer correctly says.
2227. This notion of identifying Pluto with the king of Fairyland occurs
again in the Romance of Sir Orpheo; see Ritson, Met. Rom. ii. 259. Sir
Orpheo is the Greek Orpheus, who redeemed Eurydice from 'the kyng of
fayrè,' i. e. from Pluto. See the remarks on this poem in Warton, Hist. E.
Poet. ed. 1871, i. 31, 32.
The construction of this sentence is awkward. Lines 2231-3 are [367]
parenthetical; _Pluto_ is in apposition with _This king_ in l. 2234, and
agrees with the verb _sette_ in the same.