644. _Blue_ was the colour of truth and constancy; hence the expression
'true blue'; cf. Cler. Tale, E. 254. _Green_ (l. 646) signified
_inconstancy_. Lydgate, in his Fall of Princes, fol. _e_ 7, speaking of
Dalilah, says--
'In stede of _blewe_, which stedefast is and clene,
She louyd chaungys of many diuers _grene_.'
'True blue will never stain'; Proverb.
''Twas Presbyterian true blue'; Hudibras, i. i. 191.
Tyrwhitt draws attention to the Balade against Women Unconstant (in vol. i.
p. 409), the burden of which is--
'In stede of _blew_, thus may ye were al _grene_.'
648. _tidifs._ The _tidif_ is mentioned as an inconstant bird in Prol. to
Leg. G. W. l. 154--
'And tho that hadde doon unkindenesse
As dooth the _tydif_, for newfangelnesse,' &c.
Drayton uses _tydy_ as the name of a small bird, Polyolb. xiii. 79; _not_
the wren, which is mentioned five lines above. In a piece called The
Parlament of Byrdes, pr. for A. Kytson, one of the birds is called a
_tytyfer_; see Hazlitt's Early Pop. Poetry, iii. 177. Schmeller gives
_Zitzerl_ as the Bavarian name for a wren; but cf. E. _tit_.
649-650. These lines are transposed in Tyrwhitt's edition. Such a
transposition makes the sense much clearer, beyond doubt. But I am not
convinced that the confused construction in the text is not Chaucer's own.
It is very like his manner. Cf. notes to ll. 376, 401.
667. Observe that _Cambalo_, if not inserted here in the MSS. by error, is
quite a different person from the _Cambalus_ in l. 656 (called _Cambalo_ in
l. 31). He is Canace's _lover_, who is to fight in the lists _against_ her
brothers Cambalo and Algarsif, and win her. Spenser (F. Q. iv. 3)
introduces three brethren as suitors for Canace, who have to fight against
Cambello her brother; this is certainly not what Chaucer intended, nor is
it very satisfactory.
671-672. Some suppose these two lines to be spurious. I believe them to be
genuine; for they occur in MS. E. Hn. Cp. Pt., and others, and are not to
be too lightly rejected. The Lansdowne MS. has _eight_ lines here, which
are certainly spurious. In MS. E., after l. 672, the rest of the page is
_blank_. The lines are quite intelligible, if we add the words _He
entreth_. We then have--'Apollo (the sun) whirls up his chariot so highly
(continues his course in the zodiac) till he enters the [387] mansion of
the god Mercury, the cunning one'; the construction in the last line being
similar to that in l. 209. The sun was described as in Aries, l. 51. By
continuing his _upward_ course, i. e. his _Northward_ course, by which he
approached the zenith daily, he would soon come to the sign Gemini, which
was the mansion of Mercury. It is a truly Chaucerian way of saying that two
months had elapsed. We may conclude that Chaucer just began the Third Part
of this Tale, but never even finished the first sentence. It is worth
noting that these two lines are imitated at the beginning of the (spurious)
poem called The Flower and the Leaf; and in Skelton's Garland of Laurel, l.
1471.