Chapter XVIII: Part 18

In the margin of E. is a Latin note, referring us to 'Mansor Amphorison' 19'; followed by a quotation. The reference is to a treatise called 'Almansoris Propositiones,' which begins with the words:--'Aphorismorum compendiolum, mi Rex, petiisti,' &c. Hence 'Amphorison' 19' is an error for 'Aphorismorum 19.' This treatise is printed in a small volume entitled 'Astrologia Aphoristica Ptolomaei, Hermetis, ... Almansoris, &c.; Ulmae, 1641.' In this edition, the section quoted (at p. 66) is not 19, but 14; and runs thus:--'Cuicunque fuerint in ascendente infortunae, turpem notam in facie patietur.' With 'infortunae,' we must supply 'planetae'; and the object of this quotation is, clearly, to explain l. 619. Still more to the point is a remark in sect. 74 of a treatise printed in the same volume, entitled 'Cl. Ptolomaei Centum Dicta'; where we find--'Quicunque _Martem ascendentem_ habet, omnino cicatricem in facie habebit.'

Immediately after the above, in the margin of E., is a second quotation, with a reference in the words:--'Hec Hermes in libro fiducie; Amphoris^o. 24^o.' Here 'Amphoris_m_o' should be 'Aphorismo.' The quotation occurs in a third treatise, printed in the same volume as the other two already mentioned, with the title 'Hermetis centum Aphorismorum liber.' In this printed edition, the section quoted is not the 24th, but the 25th; and runs thus:--'In natiuitatibus mulierum, cum fuerit ascendens aliqua de domibus Veneris, Marte existente in eis [vel e contrario][28], erit mulier impudica. Idem erit, si Capricornum habuerit [307] in ascendente.' Here 'aliqua ... Veneris' means 'one of the mansions of Venus; her two mansions being Taurus and Libra.' The former is expressly referred to in l. 613, and is therefore intended.

In sect. 28 of the same treatise, we find:--'Cum fuerit interrogatio pro muliere, simpliciter accipe significationem à Venere.' Hence Venus is the planet that ruled over women.

'The woman that is born in this time [i. e. under Taurus] shall be effectuall ... she shall have many husbands and many children; she shall be in her best estate at xvi years, and she shall have a sign in the middest of her body.'--Shepherdes Kalender, ed. 1656, sig. Q 5.

618. The phrase 'la chambre Venus' occurs in Le Rom. de la Rose, 13540.

621. _wis_, surely, certainly: 'for, may God so surely be my,' &c.

624. 'Ne vous chaut s'il est _cors_ ou _lons_'; Rom. de la Rose, 8554.

634. _on the list_, on the ear. Such is the sense of _lust_ in the Ancren Riwle, p. 212, l. 7, where the editor mistakes it. In Sir Ferumbras, l. 1900, mention is made of a man striking another 'on the luste' with his hand. The original sense of A. S. _hlyst_ is the sense of 'hearing'; but the Icel. _hlust_ commonly means 'ear.' Cf. E. _listen_. For _on the list_, Hl. Cm. and Tyrwhitt have _with his fist_; but Tyrwhitt, in his note on the line, inclines to the reading here given, and quotes from Sir T. More's poem entitled 'A Merry Jest of a Serjeant,' the lines:--

'And with his fist
_Upon the lyst_
He gave hym such a blow.'

This juvenile poem is printed at length in the Preface to Todd's edition of Johnson's Dictionary, ed. 1827, i. 64.

640. 'Although he had sworn _to the contrary_'; see a similar use of this phrase in A. 1089; and the note at p. 65.

642. _Romayn gestes_, the 'Roman gests,' in the collection called Gesta Romanorum, or stories of a like character. The reference, however, in this case is to Valerius Maximus, lib. vi. c. 3, as is certified by the note in the margin of E., viz. 'Valerius, lib. vi. fol. 19.' The passage is: 'Horridum C. quoque Sulpicii Galli maritale supercilium. Nam uxorem dimisit, quod eam _capite aperto_ foris versatam cognouerat.'

647. This story is from the same chapter in Valerius. The passage is: 'Jungendus est his P. Sempronius Sophus, qui coniugem repudii nota affecit, nihil aliud quam se ignorante _ludos_ ausam spectare.'

648. _someres game_, summer-game; called _somer-game_ in P. Plowman, B. v. 413; and, in later English, a _summering_; a rural sport at Midsummer. The great day was on Midsummer eve, and the games consisted of athletic sports, followed usually by bonfires. See Brand's Pop. Antiquities; Strutt, Sports and Pastimes, bk. iv. c. 3. § 22; the description of the Cotswold Games in Chambers, Book of Days, i. 714; the word _Summering_ in Nares' Glossary, &c. They were not always respectably conducted. [308]

'Daunces, karols, _somour-games_,
Of manye swych come many shames.'
Rob. of Brunne, Handl. Synne, l. 4684.

'As the common sorte of vnfaythfull women are wonte to goe forth vnto weddynges and _may-games_'; Paraphr. of Erasmus, 1549; Tim. f. 8. Stubbes is severe upon May-games and Whitsun-games; see his Anatomy of Abuses, ed. Furnivall (Shak. Soc.), p. 149.

651. See Ecclus. xxv. 25:--'Give the water no passage; neither a wicked woman liberty to gad abroad.' The Latin version is here quoted in the margin of E.

655. This is clearly a quotation of some old saying, as shewn by the metre, which here varies, and becomes irregular. There is a slightly different version of it in Reliquiae Antiquae, i. 233:--

'Who that byldeth his howse all of salos,
And prikketh a blynde horsse over the falowes,
And suffereth his wif to seke many halos,
God sende hym the blisse of everlasting galos!'

The proverb implies that these three things are the signs of a foolish man. _Salwes_ are osiers; the osier is commonly called _sally_ in Shropshire, and the same name is given to all kinds of willows. It is not from the Lat. _salix_ directly, but from the native A. S. _sealh_, which is merely cognate with _salix_, not borrowed from it. The three foolish things to do are; to build a house all of osiers, to spur a blind horse over a fallow-field, and to allow a wife to go on a pilgrimage. To go on a pilgrimage is here called 'to seek hallows,' i. e. saints, or saints' shrines; and the expression was a common one; cf. A. 14. 'Gone to seke hallows' occurs in Skelton, i. 426, l. 7, ed. Dyce; and the editor quotes two more examples at p. 337 of vol. ii.

659. 'I do not care the value of a haw for his proverbs.' In l. 660, _nof_ stands for _ne of_; see footnote.

662. 'Si het quicunques l'en chastoie'; Rom. de la Rose, 10012.

669. This book was evidently a MS. containing several choice extracts from various authors; see l. 681.

671. _Valerie._ This refers to a treatise which Mr. Wright attributes to Walter Mapes, entitled Epistola Valerii ad Rufinum, and common in manuscripts; the subject is, _De non ducenda uxore_. See Warton, Hist. E. Poetry, 1840, ii. 188, _note_. 'As to the rest of the contents of this volume, Hieronymus contra Jovinianum, and Tertullian de Pallio are sufficiently known; and so are the letters of Eloisa and Abelard, the Parables of Solomon, and Ovid's Art of Love. I know of no Trotula but one, whose book Curandarum aegritudinum muliebrium, ante, in, et post partum, is printed int. Medicos antiquos, Ven. 1547. What is meant by Crisippus, I cannot guess.'--Tyrwhitt.

_Theofraste_, Theophrastus, i. e. the treatise mentioned above; see note to l. 221. It is frequently quoted above; see notes to ll. 221, 235, 257, 271, 282, 285, 293, 303. He is called _Theofrates_ in Le Roman, l. 8599. [309]

676. _Tertulan_, Tertullian. I do not quite understand why Tyrwhitt (see note to l. 671) singled out his treatise De Pallio, which is a treatise recommending the wearing of the Greek _pallium_ in preference to the Roman _toga_. Quite as much to the present purpose are his treatises De Exhortatione Castitatis, dissuading a friend from marrying a second time; and De Monogamia and De Pudicitia, much to the same purport.

677. _Crisippus_, Chrysippus. There were at least two of this name: (1) the Stoic philosopher, born B.C. 280, died 207, praised by Cicero (Academics) and Horace. Also (2) the physician of Cnidos, in the time of Alexander the Great, frequently mentioned by Pliny. It is highly probable that neither the Wife of Bath nor Chaucer knew much about him. The poet certainly caught the name from Jerome's treatise against Jovinian, near the end of bk. i.; Epist. i. 52. We there find:--'Ridicule _Chrysippus_ ducendam uxorem sapienti praecipit, ne Iouem Gamelium et Genethlium uiolet.'

_Helowys_, Heloise, niece of Fulbert, a canon in the cathedral of Paris, was secretly married to the celebrated Abelard, a proficient in scholastic learning. She afterwards became a nun in the convent of Argenteuil, of which she was, in course of time, elected the prioress. Thence she removed, with her nuns, to the oratory of the Paraclete, near Troyes, where the last twenty years of her life were spent. She died in 1164, and was buried in Abelard's tomb. I have no doubt at all that Chaucer derived his knowledge of her from the short sketch of her life given in Le Roman de la Rose, ll. 8799-8870, where the title of 'abbess' (F. _abéesse_) is conferred upon her. Only a few lines above, we find the name of _Valerius_, who (it is there said, at l. 8727) declared that a modest woman was rarer than a phoenix; and again, at l. 8759, we find: 'Si cum Valerius raconte'; and, at l. 8767:--

'Valerius qui se doloit
De ce que Rufin se voloit
Marier,' &c.

This identifies Valerius as being the very one, whose name Walter Mapes assumed; as is explained above (note to l. 671).

As to _Trotula_, I may here observe, in addition to what is said in the note to l. 671, that Warton mentions a MS. in Merton College, with the title 'Trottula Mulier Salerniterna de passionibus mulierum'; another copy (which I have seen) is in the Camb. Univ. Library. He adds--'there is also extant, "Trottula, seu potius Erotis medici muliebrium liber"; Basil. 1586; 4to.' See Warton, Hist. E. Poet. 1840, ii. 188, _note_.

692. _peintede_, depicted; alluding to the fable in Æsop, where a sculptor represented a man conquering a lion. The lion's criticism was to the effect that he had heard of cases in which the lion conquered the man. So likewise, the Wife's view of clerks differed widely from the clerk's view of wives. In the margin of E. is the note--'Quis pinxit leonem?' The fable is amongst the 'Fables of Æsop' as [310] printed by Caxton, lib. iv. fab. 15; see Jacobs' edition, i. 251. In his note upon the sources of this fable, Mr. Jacobs refers us to--'Romulus, iv. 15. Man and Lion (statue). I. Lôqman, 7; Sophos, 58. II. Plutarch, Apophth., Laced. 69; Scol. Eurip., Kor., 103; Aphth. 38; Phaedrus, App. Burm., p. 20; Gabr., i. (not in Babrius); Avian, 24. III. Ademar, 52; Marie, 69; Berach., 56; Wright, ii. 28. IV. Kirch., i. 80; Lafontaine, iii. 10; Rob., Oest. V. Spectator, no. 11; L. 100, J. 84; Croxall, 30 (Lion and Statue).'

It is well put by Steele, in The Spectator, no. 11: 'Your quotations put me in mind of the Fable of the Lion and the Man. The Man, walking with that noble Animal, shewed him, in the Ostentation of Human Superiority, a Sign of a Man killing a Lion. Upon which the Lion said very justly, We Lions are none of us Painters, else we could shew you a hundred Men killed by Lions, for one Lion killed by a Man.' Observe that here, as in Chaucer, the reference is to a painting, not to sculpture.

696. _all the mark of Adam_, all beings made like Adam, i. e. all males. This idiomatic expression is cleared up by reference to F. 880, where _merk_ means 'image' or 'likeness'; see that passage.

697. The _children of Mercurie_ are the _clerks_, and those of _Venus_ are the _women_; see ll. 693, 694. See below.

699, 700. Here the reference is to astrology. The whole matter is explained in a side-note in E., which is copied from § 2 of Almansoris Astrologi Propositiones (see note to l. 613 above), and requires some correction. It should run as follows:--'Vniuscuiusque planetarum septem exaltacio in illo loco esse dicitur, in quo substantialiter patitur ab alio contrarium, veluti Sol in Ariete, qui Saturni casus est. Sol enim habet claritatem, Saturnus tenebrositatem.... Et sic Mercurius in Virgine, qui casus est Veneris. Alter [scilicet Mercurius] namque significat scientiam et philosophiam. Altera vero causat alacritates et quicquid est saporiferum corpori.' I take this to mean, that the sign which is called the 'exaltation' of one planet (in which it exhibits its greatest influence) is also the 'dejection' of another which is there weakest. Thus the sign Virgo was the 'exaltation' of Mercury; but it was also the 'dejection' of Venus, whose 'exaltation' was in Pisces. For the dejection of every planet occurs in the sign opposite to that in which is its exaltation; and Virgo and Pisces are opposite. The word _casus_ is here used in the astrological sense of 'dejection.' It further follows that Pisces was the 'depression' of Mercury, which Chaucer expresses by the term _desolat_. The note also tells us that the planet Mercury implies 'science and philosophy'; whilst Venus implies 'lively joys and whatever is agreeable to the body.'

Venus is again alluded to as being in her exaltation in Pisces, in F. 273. Gower refers to Virgo as being the exaltation of Mercury; Conf. Amant. iii. 121.

715. _Eva_, Eve. The spelling _Eva_ is frequently contrasted with that of _Ave_, the salutation of Gabriel to Mary. Tyrwhitt says:--'Most [311] of the following instances are mentioned in the Epistola Valerii ad Rufinum de non ducenda uxore. See also Rom. de la Rose, 9140, 9615, et suiv.' In Méon's edition of Le Rom. de la Rose, Deianira is mentioned in l. 9235, and Samson in l. 9243; I do not quite make out Tyrwhitt's numbering of the lines.

721. Cf. the Monkes Tale, B. 3205, 3256.

725. Cf. the Monkes Tale, B. 3285, 3310.

727. From Jerome against Jovin., lib. i. (near the end); Epist. i. 52. 'Socrates Xantippen et Myron neptem Aristidis duas habebat uxores ... Quodam autem tempore cum infinita conuicia ex superiori loco ingerenti Xantippae restitisset, aqua perfusus immunda, nihil amplius respondit, quàm, capite deterso: Sciebam (inquit) futurum, ut ista tonitrua hymber sequeretur.' The story is thus told by Erasmus, as translated by Udall. 'Socrates, after that he had within dores forborne his wife Xantippe, a greate while scoldyng, and at the last beyng wearie, had set him doune without the strete doore, she beyng moche the more incensed, by reason of her housbandes quietnesse and stilnesse, powred down a pisse-bolle upon him out of a windore, and al beraied him. But upon soche persones as passed by, laughing and hauing a good sport at it, Socrates also, for his part, laughed again as fast as the best, saiyng: Naie, I thought verie well in my minde, and did easily prophecie, that after so great a thonder would come a raine.'--Udall, tr. of Erasmus' Apophthegmes, _Socrates_, § 59.

733. These instances are also from Jerome, some twenty lines further on (same page). 'Quid referam Pasiphaën, Clytemnestram, et Eriphylam; quarum prima deliciis diffluens, quippe regis uxor, tauri dicitur expetisse concubitus: altera occidisse uirum ob amorem adulteri: tertia prodidisse Amphiarãum, et saluti uiri monile aureum praetulisse.' This passage is quoted, almost in the same words, in the margin of E. As to Eriphyle, Chaucer shews that he possessed further information, as he mentions Thebes. He consulted, in fact, the Thebaid of Statius, bk. iv, where we learn that Eriphyle betrayed her husband Amphiaraus, for a golden necklace; he was thus forced to accompany Polynices to the siege of Thebes, where he perished by being swallowed up by an earthquake. Chaucer again calls him _Amphiorax_ in Anelida, 57, and in Troilus, ii. 105, v. 1500. Cf. Lydgate's Siege of Thebes, part 3.

747. Tyrwhitt says:--'In the Epistola Valerii, in MS. Reg. 12. D. iii. [in the British Museum], the story is told thus: "_Luna_ virum suum interfecit quem nimis odivit: _Lucilia_ suum quem nimis amavit. Illa sponte miscuit aconita: haec decepta furorem propinavit pro amoris poculo." _Lima_ and _Luna_ in many MSS. are only distinguishable by a small stroke over the _i_, which may easily be overlooked where it is, and supposed where it is not.' However, the right name is neither _Lima_ nor _Luna_, but _Liuia_ (Livia), which is easily confused with either of the other forms. Livia poisoned her husband Drusus (son of Tiberius), at the instigation of Sejanus, A. D. 23. See Ben Jonson's [312] Sejanus, Act ii. sc. 1. Lucia (or rather Lucilia) was the wife of Lucretius the poet; see Tennyson's poem of Lucretius (Lounsbury, Studies in Chaucer, ii. 369).

757. This is a stock story, told of various people. Tyrwhitt says that it occurs in the Epistola Valerii, of one _Pavorinus_, and that the story begins:--'Pavorinus flens ait Arrio.' Lounsbury (Studies in Chaucer, ii. 369) referring to the same story, gives the name as Pacuvius. It is, in fact, one of the stories in the Gesta Romanorum (tale 33), where it is ascribed to Valerius. (By Valerius is, of course, meant the Epistola Valerii of Walter Mapes, where it duly appears, as Tyrwhitt notes, and may be found in MS. Reg. 12. D. iii; as is observed by Sir F. Madden, in a note to Warton's Hist. E. Poet., ed. Hazlitt, 1871, i. 250. It does _not_ refer to Valerius Maximus, as I have ascertained.)

In the Gesta, it is told of Paletinus, who lamented to his friend Arrius that a certain tree in his garden was fatal, for three of his wives had, successively, hung themselves upon it. Arrius at once begged to have some slips of it; and Paletinus 'found this remarkable tree the most productive part of his estate.'

The story is really from Cicero, De Oratore, lib. ii. 69; 278. 'Salsa sunt etiam, quae habent suspicionem ridiculi absconditam; quo in genere est illud Siculi, cum familiaris quidam quereretur, quod diceret, uxorem suam suspendisse se de ficu. _Amabo te_, inquit, _da mihi ex ista arbore, quos seram, surculos_.'

Thus the original story only mentions _one_ wife. This is just how stories grow.

A similar story is ascribed to Diogenes. 'When he [Diogenes] had on a time espied women hanging upon an olive-tree, and there strangled to death with the halters: Would God (said he) that the other trees had like fruite hanging on them!'--Udall, tr. of Erasmus' Apophthegmes, Diogenes, § 124.

766. The horrible story of 'the Widow of Ephesus' is of this character, but not _quite_ so bad, as her husband died naturally. See Wright's introduction to his edition of The Seven Sages, p. lxvi; and the text of the same, pp. 84-9. It occurs in John of Salisbury, Policraticus, viii. 11. And see Exempla of Jacques de Vitry, ed. Crane, 1890, p. 228; Clouston's Pop. Tales, i. 29.

769. Alluding, doubtless, to Jael and Sisera; see note to A. 2007.

775. 'I had rather dwell with a lion and a dragon, than to keep house with a wicked woman'; Ecclus. xxv. 16. Cf. Prov. xxi. 19.

778. From Prov. xxi. 9; and ll. 780, 781 seem to have been suggested by the following verse (xxi. 10).

782. This is from Jerome, near the end of bk. i. of his treatise against Jovinian (p. 52):--'Scribit Herodotus, quod mulier cum ueste deponat et uerecundiam.' This again is from Herodotus, bk. i. c. 8, where it is told as a saying of Gyges:--[Greek: hama de kithôni ekduomenôi, sunekduetai kai tên aidô gunê]. [313]

784. From Prov. xi. 22.

799. _breyde_, started, woke up. The A. S. verb _bregdan_ is properly a strong verb, with the pt. t. _brægd_; so that the true form of the pt. t. in M. E. is _breyd_, without a final e. But it was turned into a weak verb, with the pt. t. _breyd-e_ (as here), by confusion with such verbs as _seyd-e_, _deyd-e_, _leyd-e_, and the like. It is remarkable that our author is inconsistent in the use of the form for the pt. t. In his earlier poems, he has the older form _abrayd_, riming with _sayd_ (pp.), Book of the Duch. 192; or _abreyd_, riming with _seyd_ (pp.), Ho. of Fame, 110. But in the Cant. Tales, we find only the weak form _breyd-e_, riming with _seyd-e_, _preyd-e_, and _deyd-e_, B. 3728; with _seyd-e_, _leyd-e_, B. 837; and with _seyd-e_, A. 4285, F. 1027. Also _abreyd-e_, riming with _seyd-e_, _deyd-e_, A. 4190, E. 1061.

816. This is _one_ of the ways in which our MSS. have perished.

824. Cf. 'from Hulle to Cartage'; A. 404; and see C. 722.

844. _now elles_, now otherwise; i. e. and so you may; I defy you.

847. _Sidingborne_, Sittingbourne, about forty miles from London, and beyond Rochester, which is mentioned in the Monk's Prologue, B. 3116.

THE TALE OF THE WYF OF BATHE.

For a discussion of the source of this Tale, see vol. iii. p. 447.

A very similar story occurs in Gower's Confessio Amantis, bk. i. (p. 89, Pauli's edition), where the hero of the story is named Florent, and is said to have been a grandson of the Roman Emperor Claudius.

It also occurs in the Book of Ballymote, an Irish MS. of the fourteenth century. The Irish text was printed, together with a translation by Dr. Whitley Stokes, in The Academy, Apr. 23, 1892, p. 399. Dr. Stokes claims for the Tale a Celtic origin. See also The Academy, Apr. 30, 1892.

Chaucer's Tale has been modernised by Dryden. This later version contains many spirited lines, but lacks the grace of the original. It is interesting as a commentary, and is worth comparison.

This Tale has been well edited, with notes, in Mätzner's Altenglische Sprachproben, i. 338.

857. The author of the spurious Pilgrim's Tale, which, it is said, William Thynne wished to insert in his edition of Chaucer, has plagiarised from the opening lines of the Wife of Bath's Tale in the coolest manner. I quote some of his lines, for comparison, from Thynne's Animadversions, &c., ed. Furnivall, Appendix I., p. 79, ll. 85-98:--

'The cronikis old from kynge Arthur
He could rehers, and of his founder
Tell full many a whorthy story.
Wher this man walked, there was no farey
[314]
Ner other spiritis, for his blessynges
And munbling of his holy thinges
Did vanquyche them from euery buch and tre:
There is no nother incubus but he;
For Chaucer sathe, in the sted of the quen elfe,
"Ther walketh now the limitour himself."
For whan that the incubus dyd fle,
Yt was to bringe .vii. worse than he;
And that is the cause there beyn now no fareys
In hallis, bowris, kechyns, ner deyris.'

For a general discussion of the legends about King Arthur, see the essay in vol. i. (p. 401) of the Percy Folio MS., ed. Hales and Furnivall. In Malory's Morte Arthure we have an example of a fairy in Arthur's sister, Morgan le Fay, who was 'put to scole in a nonnery; and ther she lerned so moche that she was a grete clerke of nygromancye'; bk. i. cap. 2.

860. _elf-queen_, Proserpine, according to Chaucer; see E. 2229; also B. 754, 1978, and the notes.

861. Hence the 'fairy-rings,' as Dryden tells us:--

'And where the jolly troop had led the round,
The grass unbidden rose, and mark'd the ground.'

On the subject of Fairies, see Keightley's Fairy Mythology, and similar works. Tyrwhitt notes that few old authors tell us so much about them as Gervase of Tilbury.

866. _limitours_, limiters; see A. 209, and the note; D. 1711; P. Plowman, B. v. 138, C. xxiii. 346; Massingberd, Eng. Reformation, p. 110.

868. The number of mendicant friars in England, during the latter half of the fourteenth century, was indeed large. In Wyclif's Works, ed. Arnold, iii. 400, we read that 'now ben mony thousand of freris in Englond'; and, at p. 511, that they were, 'as who seith, withoute noumbre.' In P. Plowman, C. xxiii. 269, Conscience accuses the friars of waxing 'oute of numbre,' and reminds them that 'Hevene haveth evene numbre, and helle is withoute numbre.'

869. The occurrence here of _three consecutive lines_ (869-871) in which the first foot is deficient, consisting only of a single accented syllable, is worth notice. The way in which Tyrwhitt 'amends' these lines is most surprising. He inserts _and_ five times, and his first line defies scansion, though I suppose he made _hall's_ a monosyllable, and _kichen-es_ trisyllabic, whereas it plainly has but two syllables. Here is his result.

'Blissing halles, chambres, kichenes, _and_ boures,
Citees _and_ burghes, castles highe _and_ toures,
Thropes _and_ bernes, shepenes, _and_ dairies,
This maketh that ther ben no faeries.'

Note that he actually seems to have read _dairies_ and _faeries_ as [315] riming _dissyllabic_ words! In which case the last of these four lines would have but _four_ accents! But the rime merely concerns the two _final_ syllables of those quadrisyllabic words. The riming of the two _former_ syllables is unessential, and for the purpose of rime, accidental and otiose.

MS. Pt. admits _and_ before _boures_; and MS. Hl. admits _and_ before _toures_ and _dairies_ (which does not alter the character of the lines). With these exceptions, all the seven MSS. omit all the five _and's_ inserted by Tyrwhitt; and, in fact, they are all of them superfluous.

For the benefit of those who are but little acquainted with this peculiarity of Middle English metre, I cite _four consecutive lines_ of a similar character from Lydgate's Siege of Thebes, ll. 1239-1242:--

'Drogh | the brydyl from his horses hede,
Let | hym goon, and took no maner hede,
Thorgh | the gardyn that enclosed was,
Hym | to pasture on the grene gras.'

There are plenty more of the same kind in the same poem; e. g. 1068, 1081, 1082, 1089, 1103, 1107, 1116, 1120, 1122, 1123, 1140, 1141, 1151, &c., &c., all printed in Specimens of English from 1394-1579, ed. Skeat, pp. 28-34. For similar lines in Hoccleve, see the same, p. 16, st. 604, l. 6; st. 605, l. 2; p. 20, st. 622, l. 2; p. 21, st. 624, l. 4.

871. _Thropes_ = _thorpes_, villages; see E. 199.

_shipnes_, stables, or cow-houses; see A. 2000. '_Shippen_, _Shuppen_, a cow-house'; E. D. S. Gloss. B. 1. '_Shippen_, an ox-house'; id. B. 6. '_Shuppen_, a cow-house'; id. B. 7; '_Shippen_, a cow-house'; id. B. 15.

875. _undermeles_, for _undern-meles_, undern-times. For the time of _undern_, see note to E. 260. _Meel_ (pl. _meles_) is the A. S. _m[=æ]l_, a time. The time referred to, _in this particular instance_, seems to be the middle of the afternoon; or simply 'afternoons,' as opposed to 'mornings.' For this sense, cf. 'Undermele, _Postmeridies_,' in the Prompt. Parv. Nares, s. v. _under-meal_, gives other instances; but he fails to realise the changeable sense of the word; and is quite wrong in saying (s. v. _undertime_) that the last-named word is unconnected with _undern_. He also wrongly dissociates _undern_ from _arndern_ and _orndern_.

876. 'All religious persons were bound, if possible, to recite the divine office ... at the proper hour, in the choir; but secular priests, not living in common, and friars, being by their rule obliged to walk about within their limitation, to beg their maintenance, were allowed to say it privately,... as they walked.'--Bell. Cf. B. 1281.

880. _incubus._ Milton (P. R. ii. 152) speaks of Belial as being, after Asmodai, 'the fleshliest incubus.' Mr. Jerram's note on the line says: 'Some of the ejected angels were believed not to have fallen into hell, but to have remained in the middle of the region of air (P. R. ii. 117), where in various shapes they tempt men to sin. It was said that they hoped to counteract the effects of Christ's coming by engendering with some virgin a semi-demon, who should be a power of evil. In this way Merlin, and even Luther, were reported to have been [316] begotten.' See the Romance of Merlin, ed. Wheatley, ch. i. pp. 9, 10; and the poem of Merlin in the Percy Folio MS.

881. Tyrwhitt and others adopt the reading _no dishonour_, as in the old black-letter editions; and MS. Cm. has the reading _non_. At first sight, this looks right, but a little reflection will incline us rather to adopt the reading of nearly all the MSS., as given in the present text. For to say that the friar was an incubus, and yet did women no dishonour, is contradictory. The meaning is, possibly, that the friar brought upon women dishonour, and nothing more; whereas the incubus never failed to cause conception. Lounsbury (Studies in Chaucer, i. 257) adopts the reading here given, but interprets it thus:--'The dishonour of a woman is, in the eyes of the Wife of Bath, to be reckoned not as a crime, but as a peccadillo.' (See the whole passage.) The subject will hardly bear further discussion; but it is impossible to ignore the repeated charges of immorality brought against the friars by Wyclif and others. Wyclif says--'thei slen wommen that withstonden hem in this synne'; Works, ed. Matthew, p. 6.

884. _fro river_, i. e. he was returning from hawking at the river-side. See B. 1927, and the note.

887. _maugree hir heed_, lit. 'in spite of her head,' i. e. in spite of all she could do, without her consent. Cf. A. 1169, 2618; also I. 974, where we find:--'if the womman, _maugree hir heed_, hath been afforced.' Mätzner remarks that, in some cases, we find a part of the head referred to, instead of the whole head. Hence the expressions: _maugre his nose_, Rob. of Gloucester, 2090 (p. 94, ed. Hearne); _maugree thyne yen_, Ch. C. T., D. 315; _maugree hir eyen two_, id., A. 1796; _maugree my chekes_, Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, C. 54; _m. here chekis_, P. Plowman, B. iv. 50; &c.

909. _lere_, learn; as in B. 181, 630, C. 325, 578, &c. But the right sense is 'teach.' See l. 921.

_twelf-month_, &c. 'There seems to have been some mysterious importance attached to this particular time of grace,' &c.--Bell. I think not. The solution is simply, that it takes an extra day to make the date agree. If we fix any date, as Nov. 21, 1890, the space of a year afterwards only brings us to Nov. 20, 1891; if we want to keep to the _same day_ of the month, we must make the space include 'a year and a day.' This is what any one would naturally do; and that is all. Cf. A. 1850, and the note. '_Year and Day_, is a time that determines a right in many cases;... So is the _Year and Day_ given in case of Appeal, in case of Descent after Entry or Claim,' &c.; Cowell, Intrepreter of Words and Terms. See l. 916 below; and cf. _Eight days_, i. e. a week, in the New Eng. Dictionary.

922. _cost_, coast, i. e. region; as in 1 Sam. v. 6; Matt. viii. 34, &c.

924. The scansion is--Two cré-a-túr-es áccordínge in-fére.

925. Cf. Gower, Conf. Amant. i. 92:--

'To som woman it is plesaunce
That to another is grevaunce'; &c.

[317]

929-30. Cf. Rom. de la Rose, 9977-94. For _y-plesed_, Tyrwhitt and Wright read _y-preised_, contrary to the seven best MSS.; which gives an imperfect rime. _preysed_ rimes with _reysed_ (D. 706).

940. _galle_, sore place. '_Galle_, soore yn man or beeste'; Prompt. Parv. 'Let the _galled_ jade wince'; Hamlet, iii. 2. 253.

_clawe_ means 'to scratch'; and to _clawe upon the galle_ is to scratch or rub a sore. This may be taken in two ways; hence the difficulty about the reading in l. 941, where E. Cm. have _kike_, i. e. kick, whilst Hn. Hl. have _like_, and Cp. Pt. Ln. have _loke or he seith us soth_. The last of these three variations gives no sense, and is certainly wrong; but either of the other readings will serve. I take them in order.

(1) _kike_, kick. Here the sense is:--'if any one scratch us on a sore place (and so hurt us), we shall kick, because he tells us the truth (too plainly).' This goes well with the context, as it answers to the _repreve us of our vyce_ in l. 937.

(2) _like_, like (it), be pleased. Here the sense is:--'if any one stroke us on a sore place (and so soothe the itching), we shall be pleased, because he tells us the truth (or what we think to be the truth).' But I feel inclined to reject this reading, because it gives so forced a sense to the words--_for he seith us sooth_. There is, however, no difficulty about the use of _claw_ in the sense of 'to rub lightly, so as to soothe irritation'; for which see examples in the New English Dictionary. It is particularly used in the phrase _to claw_ one's _back_, i. e. to soothe, flatter; but the word _galle_ suggests a place where friction would rather hurt than soothe.

I leave it to the reader to settle this nice question.

949. _rake-stele_, the handle of a rake. The word _stele_ is still in use provincially. '_Stale_, any stick, or handle, such as the stick of a mop or a fork'; _South Warwickshire_; E. D. S. Gl. C. 6. '_Stale_ [stae·ul], s. handle; as, _mop-stale_, _pick-stale_, _broom-stale_'; Elworthy's West Somerset Words. And see _Steal_ in Ray's Glossary; _Stele_ in Nares; _Steale_ in Halliwell; &c. Cf. A. 3785; P. Plowman, C. xxii. 279. Golding translates Ovid's _hastile_ (Metam. vii. 676) by 'Iaueling-_steale_.' The _e_ is 'open'; cf. A. S. _stela_; hence the rime with _hele_ (A. S. _helan_) is perfect.

950. 'Car fame ne puet riens celer'; Rom. de la Rose, 19420. See also the same, 16549-70.

952. _Ovyde_; see Metamorph. xi. 174-193. But Chaucer seems to have purposely altered the story, since Ovid attributes the betrayal of the secret to Midas' _barber_, not his _wife_; and again, Ovid says that the barber dug a hole, and whispered it into the pit. Chaucer's version is an improved one. Cf. Troil. iii. 1389.

961. Cf. Rom. de la Rose, 16724-32.

968. Dryden is plainer, and less polite:--'But she must burst or blab.' Cf. Rom. de la Rose, 16568-9.

972. _bitore_, bittern; _bumbleth_, makes a bellowing noise, which is also expressed by _bumping_ or _booming_. Note that MS. Cm. has [318] _bumbith_. Owing to the loud booming note of the male bittern, it is called in A. S. _r[=a]re-dumle_ or _r[=a]re-dumbla_, from _r[=a]rian_, to roar; see Wright's Glossaries. In provincial English, it is called a _butter-bump_, or a _bumble_; or, from its frequenting moist places, a _bog-bumper_, a _bog-drum_, or a _bull o' the bog_; see Swainson's Provincial Names of British Birds, E. D. S., p. 146. It was formerly thought that the cry was produced by the bird plunging its bill into mud and then blowing, as in the present passage; others thought that it put its bill into a reed, a view taken by Dryden, as he here has the line:--'And, as a bittern _bumps within a reed_.' Sir T. Browne, in his Vulgar Errors, bk. iii. c. 27, controverts these notions, and attributes the note to the conformation of the bird's organs of voice. 'The same contradiction of the common notion is given, from personal experience, by the Rev. S. Fovargue, in his New Catalogue of Vulgar Errors, pp. 19-21'; note to Sir T. Browne, ed. S. Wilkin. The same editor further refers us to papers by Dr. Latham and Mr. Yarrell in the Linnaean Transactions, vols. iv, xv, and xvi. See Prof. Newton's Dict. of Birds.

981. There is not much 'remnant' of the tale; Ovid adds that some reeds grew out of the pit, which, when breathed upon by the South wind, uttered the words which had been buried.

992. This reminds us of Chaucer's own vision of Alcestis and her nineteen attendant ladies in the Prologue to the Legend of Good Women.

997. Cf. Gower, Conf. Amantis, i. 93:--

'In a forest, there under a tree
He sigh where sat a creature,
A lothly womannish figure,
That, for to speke of flesshe and boon,
So foul yet sigh he never noon.'

Also, in the Marriage of Sir Gawaine, st. 15:--

'And, as he rode over a more,
Hee see a lady where she sate
Betwixt an oake and a greene hollen [holly];
She was cladd in red scarlett....
Her nose was crooked and turnd outward,
Her mouth stood foule a-wry;
A worse formed lady than shee was
Neuer man saw with his eye.'

1004. _can_, know; but the form is singular, to agree with _folk_. Cf. the proverb--'older and wiser'--in Hazlitt's Collection; and see A. 2448.

1018. _wereth on_, wears upon (her), has on; cf. l. 559 above.

_calle_, caul; a close-fitting netted cap or head-dress, often richly ornamented; see Fairholt, Costume in England, s. v. _Caul_.

1021. _pistell_, (1) an epistle, as in E. 1154; hence (2), a short lesson, as here. [319]

1024. _holde his day_, kept his time, come back at the specified time. _hight_, promised.

1028. 'Queen Guenever is here represented sitting as judge in a Court of Love, similar to those in fashion in later ages.... Fontenelle (in the third volume of his works, Paris, 1742) has given a description of one of the fantastic suits tried in these courts.... The best source of information on these strange follies is a book entitled _Erotica, seu Amatoria, Andreæ Capellarii Regis_, &c., written about A.D. 1170, and published at Dorpmund in 1610.'--Bell.

1038. Cf. Gower, Conf. Amantis, i. 96:--

'That alle women levest wolde
Be soverein of mannes love,' &c.

So also in the Marriage of Sir Gawaine, st. 28:--

--'a woman will have her will,
And this is all her cheef desire.'

1069. The scansion is--'Shold' ev'r | so foul | e dis | pará | ged be.'

1074. It is curious to note how Chaucer seems to have felt that romance-writers were constrained to describe feasts, a duty which he usually evades. Cf. A. 2197, B. 419, 1120, E. 1710, F. 278. In fact, the original business of the minstrel was to praise his lord's bounty, especially on grand occasions.

1081. So in Gower's Conf. Amantis, i. 100:--

'But as _an oule_ fleeth by nighte
Out of all other briddes sighte,
Right so this knight, on daies brode,' &c.

This line, for a wonder, is unaltered by Dryden in his paraphrase.

1085. _walweth_, rolls from side to side, turns about restlessly; cf. Leg. Good Wom. 1166; Troil. i. 699; Rom. Rose, 2562.

1088. _Fareth_, pronounced as _Far'th_; cf. _tak'th_ in 1072.

1090. _dangerous_, distant, unapproachable; see D. 151.

1109. _Gentilesse._ See my notes (in vol. i. 431, 553) on R. R. 2190, and Gentilesse. Compare Boethius, bk. iii. pr. 6 and met. 6; Roman de la Rose, ed. Méon, 6603-6616, and 18807-19096; and see B. 2831.

1114. Cf. _privee n'apert_ in l. 1136; 'in private and in public.'

1117. _wol we_, desires that we; see 1130 below.

1121. Cf. Balade of Gentilesse, ll. 16, 17.

1128. Cf. Dante, _Purgat._ vii. 121:--

'Rade volte risurge per li rami
L'umana probitate: e questo vuole
Quei che la dâ, perchè da lui si chiami.'

Cary's translation is:--

'Rarely into the branches of the tree
Doth human worth mount up: and so ordains
He who bestows it, that as His free gift
It may be called.'

[320] Marsh notes that similar sentiments occur in the Canzone prefixed to the fourth Trattato in Dante's Convito.

1135. The general sense is--'if gentle conduct were naturally implanted in a particular family, none of that family could ever behave badly.' Cf. ll. 1150, 1151.

'Were virtue by descent, a noble name
Could never villanise his father's fame.'
Dryden's paraphrase.

1140. Chaucer's tr. of Boethius, bk. ii. pr. 7. 43, mentions 'the mountaigne that highte _Caucasus_.' This is probably where he got the name from. Cf. Shakespeare's 'frosty _Caucasus_'; Rich. II. i. 3. 295. The whole passage is imitated from another place in Boethius, where Chaucer's translation has:--'Certes, yif that honour of poeple were a natural yift to dignitees, it ne mighte never cesen ... to don his office, right as fyr in every contree ne stinteth nat to eschaufen and to ben hoot'; bk. iii. pr. 4. 44-8. In l. 1139, Dryden merely alters _in_ to _to_.

1142. _lye_, i. e. blaze. 'Hevene _y-leyed_ wose syth,' whoever sees heaven in a blaze; Relig. Antiq. i. 266. The sb. _lye_, a flame, occurs in P. Pl. C. xx. 172. Cf. A. S. _l[=y]g_, _l[=i]g_, flame.

1146-56. Much altered and expanded in Dryden.

1158. Cf. Rom. of the Rose, 2181:--

'For vilany makith vilayn;
And by his dedis a cherl is seyn.'

1165. 'Incunabula Tulli Hostilii agreste tugurium cepit: ejusdem adolescentia in pecore pascendo fuit occupata: validior aetas imperium Romanum rexit, et duplicavit: senectus excellentissimis ornamentis decorata in altissimo majestatis fastigio fulsit.'--Valerius Maximus, lib. iii. c. 4 (De Humili Loco Natis). Cf. Livy, i. 22; Dionysius Halicarnasseus, iii; Ælian, xiv. 36.

1168. _Senek_, Seneca. _Boece_, Boethius; see note to 1109.

1184. Ll. 1183-1190 are imitated from the following; 'Honesta, inquit [Epicurus], res est laeta paupertas. Illa uero non est paupertas, si laeta est. Cui enim cum paupertate bene conuenit, diues est. Non qui parum habet, sed qui plus cupit, pauper est.'--Seneca, Epist. ii. § 4. This passage is quoted by John of Salisbury, Policraticus, l. vii. c. 13.

_Othere clerkes_ also includes Epicurus, whose sentiments Seneca here expresses; see Diogenes Laertius, x. 11. MS. E. here quotes the words 'honesta res est laeta paupertas' in the margin, and refers to 'Seneca, in epistola.' It also has:--'Pauper est qui eget, eo quod non habet; sed qui non habet, nec appetit habere, ille diues est; de quo intelligitur id Apocalypsis tertio [Rev. iii. 17]--dicis quia diues sum.' With l. 1187 cf. Rom. de la Rose, 18766:--'Et convoitise fait povrece.'

1191. All the editions adopt the reading _is sinne_, as in all the MSS. except E. and Cm. (the two best); see footnote, p. 354. But surely this is nonsense, and exactly contradicts l. 1183.

1192. In the margin of MS. E. are quoted two lines from Juvenal, [321] Sat. x. 21,22:--'Cantabit uacuus coram latrone uiator; Et nocte ad lumen trepidabit arundinis umbram.' The latter of these lines should come first, and the usual readings are _motae_ (not _nocte_), _lunam_, and _trepidabis_. However, it is only the other (and favourite) line that is here alluded to. The same line is quoted in Piers Plowman, B. xiv. 305; and is alluded to in Chaucer's tr. of Boethius, bk. ii. pr. 5. 129-130. In Wyclif's Works, ed. Arnold, ii. 364, is the remark:--'For _it is said comounli_, that a wey-goer, whan he is voide, singith sure bi the theef.'

1195. In the margin of E. is written:--'Secundus philosophus: Paupertas est odibile bonum, sanitatis mater, curarum remocio, sapientie reparatrix, possessio sine calumpnia.' This is the very passage quoted, even more fully, in Piers Plowman, B. xiv. 275 (C. xvii. 117). Tyrwhitt's note is--'In this commendation of Poverty, our author seems plainly to have had in view the following passage of a fabulous conference between the emperor Adrian and Secundus the philosopher, reported by Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum Historiale, lib. x. cap. 71. "Quid est paupertas? Odibile bonum, sanitatis mater, remotio curarum, sapientie repertrix, negotium sine damno, possessio absque calumnia, sine sollicitudine felicitas." What Vincent has there published seems to have been extracted from a larger collection of _Gnomae_ under the name of Secundus, which are still extant in Greek and Latin. See Fabricius, Bib. Gr., l. vi. c. x, and MS. Harl. 399.' Thus l. 1195 is a translation of _Paupertas est odibile bonum_, so that the proposal by Dr. Morris (Aldine edition of Chaucer, vol. i. p. vi) to adopt the reading _hatel_ from MSS. Cp. Pt. Ln. instead of _hateful_, is founded on a mistake. The expression is contradictory, but it is so intentionally. 'Poverty is a gift which its possessors hate' is, of course, the meaning. Dryden well explains it:--

'Want is a bitter and a hateful good,
Because its virtues are not understood.'

1196. This translates 'remotio curarum.'

1197. This translates 'sapientie reparatrix,' not 'repertrix.'

1199. _elenge_, miserable, hard to bear. _Elenge_ is also spelt _alenge_, _alinge_, _alange_; see _Alange_ in the New English Dictionary, though the proper form is rather _alenge_. It is a derivative of the intensive A. S. prefix _[=æ]_ and _lenge_, a secondary form of _lang_, long; so that A. S. _[=æ]lenge_ meant protracted, tedious, wearisome, as in Alfred's tr. of Boethius, xxxix. 4. But it was confused with the M. E. _elend_, strange, foreign, and so acquired the sense of 'strange' as well as 'trying' or 'miserable.' See _Elynge_ in the Gl. to P. Plowman, and the note to P. Pl. C. i. 204; also Mätzner's note to the Land of Cokayne, l. 15.

1200. This line translates 'possessio absque calumnia.' The E. _challenge_ is, in fact, derived from _calumnia_, through Old French.

1202. Understand _him_: 'maketh (him) know his God and himself'; see Dryden's paraphrase. Against this line, in the margin of MS. E., [322] is written:--'Unde et Crates ille Thebanus, proiecto in mari non paruo auri pondere, Abite (inquit) pessime male cupiditates! Ego uos mergam, ne ipse mergar a uobis.' Probably Chaucer once intended to introduce this story into the text. It relates, apparently, to Crates of Thebes, the Cynic philosopher, who flourished about B. C. 320.

1203. _spectacle_, i. e. an optic glass, a kind of telescope. In the modern sense, the word was used in the plural, as at present. From Lydgate's London Lickpenny, st. 7, we learn that 'spectacles to reede' was, in his time, one of the cries of London. Cf. _prospectyves_, i. e. perspective glasses, in F. 234. Chaucer is here thinking of a passage in Le Roman de la Rose, where the E. version (l. 5551) has:--

'For infortune makith anoon
To knowe thy freendis fro thy foon.'

This, again, is from Boethius, bk. ii. pr. 8. 22-33. Compare Chaucer's poem on Fortune, ll. 9, 32, 34, and my notes upon these lines; vol. i. pp. 383, 544.

1208. See note to l. 1276 below; and cf. D. 1.

1210. Compare C. 743, and the note.

1215. For _also_, Tyrwhitt reads _also so_, against all authority, as he admits. The text is right as it stands. _Eld-e_ is dissyllabic, the final _e_ being preserved by the cæsura; and _also_ means no more than 'so.' I suspect this is quoted from some French proverb. Dryden alters 'filth' to 'ugliness.'

1224. _repair_, great resort, viz. of visitors.

1234. 'I care not which of the two it shall be.' Cf. Gower, Conf. Amantis, i. 103:--

'Chese for us bothe, I you praie,
And what as ever that ye saie,
Right as ye wolle, so wol I.
My lord, she saide, grauntmercy.
For of this word that ye now sain,
That ye have made me soverein,
My destinè is overpassed'; &c.

1260. _toverbyde_, to over-bide, to outlive. Tyrwhitt substitutes _to overlive_, from the black-letter editions. _Gra-ce_ is dissyllabic.

1261. _shorte_, shorten; see D. 365.

THE FRIAR'S PROLOGUE.

1276. _auctoritees_; a direct reference to l. 1208 above. This goes far to show that the Friar's Tale was written immediately after the Wife's Tale. The Friar says, quite truly, that the Wife's Tale contains passages not unlike 'school-matter,' or disquisitions in the schools. Such a passage is that in ll. 1109-1212. Tyrwhitt shews that _auctoritas_ was the usual word applied to a text of scripture; Bell adds, that it was applied, as now, to _any_ authority for a statement. We might very well translate _auctoritees_ by 'quotations.' [323]

1284. _mandements_, 'citations, or summonses, addressed to those accused of breaches of the canons, to appear and answer in the archdeacon's court'; Bell. Hence the name _somnour_, i. e. a server of summonses.

1285. _tounes ende_ (whence the name _Townsend_); we should now say, 'at the entry to every town'; cf. l. 1537. The Somnour was often opposed with violence, and was a very unpopular character.

1294. The limiters had to cultivate the art of flattery, because they lived by begging from house to house.

*** After this line all the MSS. (except Hl.) wrongly insert lines 1307, 1308 (on p. 359). Perhaps the poet himself introduced these lines here at first, and afterwards perceived how much better they came in after l. 1306. It is not an important matter.

1296. MS. Hl. has:--'Our host answerd and sayd the sompnour this'; which cannot be right.

THE FRERES TALE.

With respect to the source of this Tale, see vol. iii. p. 450.

1300. _erchedeken._ As to the duties of the archdeacon, here described, compare A. 655, 658. He enforced discipline by threats of excommunication, and inflicted fines for various offences. Compare Wyclif's Works, ed. Arnold, iii. 166.

1305. I. e. he punished church-reeves if they did ill, and all cases in which wills or contracts had been wantonly violated. 'Lakke of sacraments' refers, chiefly, to the neglect of the precept to communicate at Easter; also to neglect of baptism, and, possibly, of matrimony, as that was also a 'sacrament' in the church of our fathers.

1307-8. These two lines occur here in MS. Hl. only; see note to 1294 above.

1309. Usury was prohibited by the Canon Law; cf. P. Plowman, C. vii. 239.

1314. 'No fine could save the accused from punishment.'

1315. 'The neglect to pay tithes and Easter offerings came under the archdeacon's jurisdiction, as the bishop's diocesan officer. The friar does not scruple to make an invidious use of this subject at the expense of the parochial clergy, because, being obliged by his rule to gain his livelihood by begging, he had no interest in tithes.'--Bell.

1317. Alluding to the shape of the bishop's crosier. In P. Plowman, C. xi. 92, the crosier is described as having a hook at one end, by which he draws men back to a good life, and a spike at the other, which he uses against hardened offenders. On the crosier, see Rock, Church of Our Fathers, ii. 181. The bishop dealt with such offenders as were contumacious to the archdeacon.

1321. For the character of a Somnour, see A. 623.

1323. _espiaille_, set of spies; see note to B. 2509, p. 213. [324]

1324. _taughte_, informed; the final _e_ is _not_ elided.

1327. _wood were_, should be, were to be as mad as a hare. See 'As mad as a March hare' in Hazlitt's Proverbs.

1329. The mendicant orders were subject only to their own general or superior, not to the bishops. In the piece called Jack Upland (§ 11), Jack asks the friars--'Why be ye not vnder your bishops visitations, and leegemen to our king?'--British Poets, ed. Chalmers, 1810; i. 567.

1331. _terme_, i. e. during the term.

1332. _Peter_, by saint Peter. 'The summoner's repartee is founded upon the law by which houses of ill-fame were exempted from ecclesiastical interference, and licensed.'--Bell. '_Stewes_, are those places which were permitted in England to women of professed incontinency.... But king Henry VIII., about the year 1546, prohibited them for ever.'--Cowel's Interpreter. Cock Lane, Smithfield, contained such houses; see my notes to P. Plowman, C. vii. 366, 367.

1343. _approwours_, agents, men who looked after his profits. From the O. Fr. _approuer_, _apprower_, to cause to profit, to enrich; from the O. Fr. sb. _prou_, profit, whence also E. _prowess_. Miswritten as _approver_ in the seventeenth century, though distinct from _approve_ (from _approbare_). See the New Eng. Dictionary. Tyrwhitt has the spelling _approvers_.

1347. _Cristes curs_, i. e. excommunication.

1349. _atte nale_, put for _atten ale_, lit. at the ale, where _ale_ is put for 'ale-house.' _Atten_ is for A. S. _æt tham_, where _tham_ is the dat. neut. of the def. article. The expression is common; as in 'fouhten _atten ale_,' fought at the ale-house, P. Plowman, C. i. 43; 'with ydel tales _atte nale_,' id. C. viii. 19. 'Thou hast not so much charity in thee as to goe to the Ale with a Christian'; Two Gent. of Verona, ii. v. 61. So also _atte noke_, for _atten oke_, at the oak; see note to P. Pl. C. vii. 207.

1350. See John, xii. 6; and cf. the Legend of Judas Iscariot, printed (from MS. Harl. 2277) in Early Eng. Poems, ed. Furnivall, 1862; p. 107.

1352. _duetee_ (Cp. _dewete_) is trisyllabic; see l. 1391. It is a coined word, having no Latin equivalent. The spelling _duete_ occurs, in Anglo-French, in the Liber Albus, p. 211, l. 23.

1356. _Sir Robert_; the title of _Sir_ was usually given to one of the secular clergy; cf. note to B. 4000, p. 248.

1364. _hir_, her; so in E. Hn., but other MSS. have _thee_. The reading given is the better. The Somnour fined the man, but let the woman go; and then said that he let her go out of friendship for the man. This is intelligible; but the reading _thee_ gives no sense to the words _for thy sake_.

1365. 'You need not take any more trouble in this matter.'

1367. _bryberý-es_ (four syllables), i. e. modes of robbery. So in MSS. Hn. Cm. Cp. MSS. Hl. Pt. Ln. have _bribours_, which will not scan, unless (as in Hl.) we also read _Certeinly_, giving a line defective in the first foot. Tyrwhitt inserts _many_ before _mo_, to fill up the line. [325]

1369. _dogge for the bowe_, a dog used to accompany an archer, to follow up a stricken deer; see the next line. The docility of such a dog is alluded to in E. 2014.