husbandry; and the term is again found in 2nd Stat. 25 Edward III (A. D. 1351). In Stat. 37 Edward III (A. D. 1363), the deye is mentioned among others of a certain rank, not having goods or chattels of 40s. value. The deye was mostly a female, whose duty was to make butter and cheese, attend to the calves and poultry, and other odds and ends of the farm. dairy (in some parts of England, as in Shropshire, called a dey-house) was the department assigned to her.

The

1. 31. orgon. This is put for orgons or organs. It is plain, from goon in the next line, that Chaucer meant to use this word as a plural from the Lat. organa. Organ was used until lately only in the plural, like bellows, gallows, &c. Which is either sung or said or on the organs played.' (Becon's Acts of Christ, p. 534.) It was sometimes called a pair of organs.

6

11. 35, 36. The cock knew each ascension of the equinoctial, and crew at each; that is, he crew every hour, as 15° of the equinoctial make an hour. Chaucer adds [1. 34] that he knew the hour better than the abbey-clock. This tells us, clearly, that we are to reckon clock-hours, and not the unequal hours of the artificial day. Hence the prime, mentioned in l. 376, was at a clock-hour, at 6, 7, 8, or 9, suppose. The day meant certainly May 3, because the sun had passed the 21st degree of Taurus (see fig. 1 of Astrolabe)... The date May 3 is playfully denoted by saying that March was complete, and also (since March began) thirty-two days more had passed. The words since March began' are parenthetical; and we are, in fact, told that the whole of March, the whole of April, and two days of May were done with. March was then considered the first month in the year, though the year began with the 25th, not with the 1st; and Chaucer alludes to the idea that the Creation itself took place in March. The day, then, was May 3, with the sun past 21 degrees of Taurus. The hour must be had from the sun's altitude, rightly said (1. 378) to be Fourty degrees and oon. I use a globe, and find that the sun would attain the altitude 41° nearly at 9 o'clock. It follows that prime in this passage signifies the end of the first quarter of the day, reckoning from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.' (Skeat's Astrolabe, p. lxi.)

1. 37. Fifteen degrees of the equinoctial = an exact hour. See note to l. 374. 1. 38. knew (Harl.); crew (Elles.).

1.

40. and bataylld. Lansd. MS. reads embateled, indented like a battlement. 1. 41. as the geet, like the jet. Beads used for the repetition of prayers

were frequently formed of jet.

6

1. 50. damoysele Pertelote. Cp. our Dame Partlet.'

(The Ancient Drama, iii. p. 158.)

1. 54. in hold, in possession. Cp. He hath my heart in holde' (Webster's George a Greene, ed. Dyce, p. 256.)

1. 55. loken in every lith, locked in every limb.

1. 59. my lief is faren on londe, my beloved is gone away. Probably the refrain of a popular song of the time.

1. 69. herte deere. This expression corresponds to dear heart,' or 'deary heart,' which still survives in some part of the country.

1. 73. take it agrief = take it in grief, i. e. to take it amiss, to be offended.

1. 74. me mette, I dreamed; literally it dreamed to me.

1. 76. my swevene rede aright, bring my dream to a good issue; literally 'interpret my dream favourably.'

rede (Harl.); reche (Elles.).

1. 80. Was lik. The relative that is often omitted by Chaucer before a relative clause.

1. 88. Avoy (Elles.); Away (Harl.).

1. 104. fume, the effects arising from gluttony and drunkenness. 'Anxious black melancholy fumes.' (Burton's Anat. of Mel. p. 438, ed. 1845.) · All vapours arising out of the stomach,' especially those caused by gluttony and drunkenness. For when the head is heated it scorcheth the blood, and from thence proceed melancholy fumes that trouble the mind.' (Ibid. p. 269.)

1. 108. reede colera. . . red cholera caused by too much bile and blood (sometimes called red humour). Burton speaks of a kind of melancholy of which the signs are these 'the veins of their eyes red, as well as their faces.' 1. 109. dremen (Harl.); dreden (Elles.).

1. 113. the humour of malancolie. The name (melancholy) is imposed from the matter, and disease denominated from the material cause, as Bruel observes, μeλavxoλía quasi peλawaxóλn, from black choler.' Fracastorius, in his second book of Intellect, calls those melancholy 'whom abundance of that same depraved humour of black choler hath so misaffected, that they become mad thence, and dote in most things or in all, belonging to election, will, or other manifest operations of the understanding.' (Burton's Anat. of

Mel. p. 108, ed. 1805.)

'I

1. 118. That cause many a man in sleep to be very distressed. 1. 120. Catoun. Cato de Moribus, 1. ii. dist. 32; somnia ne cures. observe by the way, that this distich is quoted by John of Salisbury, Polycrat. 1. ii. c. 16, as a precept viri sapientis. In another place, 1. vii. c. 9, he introduces his quotation of the first verse of dist. 20 (1. iii.) in this manner :"Ait vel Cato vel alius, nam autor incertus est."' (Tyrwhitt.)

1. 121. do no fors of=take no notice of.

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1. 143. Wormwood, centaury, pennyroyal, are likewise magnified and much prescribed, especially in hypochondrian melancholy, daily to be used, sod in whey. And because the spleen and blood are often misaffected in melancholy I may not omit endive, succory, dandelion, fumitory, &c., which cleanse the blood.' (Burton's Anat. of Mel. pp. 432, 433. See also p. 438,

ed. 1845.)

1. 144. ellebor. Two kinds of hellebore are mentioned by old writers; 'white hellebore, called sneezing powder, a strong purger upward' (Burton's Anat. of Mel. p. 439), and black hellebore, that most renowned plant, a famous purger of melancholy.' (Ibid. p. 442, ed. 1845.)

1. 146. For that Elles. has ther (=where).

1. 150. graunt mercy, great thanks; this in later authors is corrupted into grammercy.

1. 156. so mot I the, so may I thrive, (or prosper).

1. 164. Oon of the gretteste auctours. Cicero, De Divin. 1. i. c. 27, relates this and the following story, but in a different order, and with so many other differences, that one might be led to suspect that he was here quoted at second-hand, if it were not usual with Chaucer, in these stories of familiar

M

life, to throw in a number of natural circumstances, not to be found in his original authors. (Tyrwhitt.)

1. 184. oxe stalle. Oxe is here a dissyllable. It is not quite certain that oxe stalle is a compound = ox-stall; is seem rather to be for the older English oxan stalle, the stall of an ox-oxe standing for oxen (as in Oxenford, see note on 1. 285 of Prologue), of an ox.

1. 190. took of this no keep, took no heed of this, paid no attention to it. 1. 201. soth to sayn, to say (tell) the truth.

1. 222. gapinge. The phrase gapyng upright occurs elsewhere (see Knightes Tale, l. 1150), and signifies lying flat on the back with the mouth open. Cp. Dede he sate uprighte,' i.e. he lay on his back dead. (The Sowdone of Babyloyne.)

'Harrow! alas! I swelt

1. 225. Harrow, a cry of distress; a cry for help. here as I go.' (The Ordinary; see vol. iii. p. 150, of the Ancient Drama.) 1. 227. outsterte (Elles); upsterte (Harl.).

1. 264. And prayde him his viage for to lette, And prayed him to abandon his journey.

1. 265. to abyde, to postpone his voyage.

1. 269. my thinges, my business matters.

1. 290. Kenelm succeeded his father Kenulph on the throne of the Mercians in 821, at the age of seven years, and was murdered by order of his aunt, Quenedreda. He was subsequently made a saint, and his legend will be found in Capgrave, or in the Golden Legend. (Wright.)

1. 297. For traisoun, i.e. for fear of treason.

1. 304. Cipioun. The Somnium Scipionis of Macrobius was a favourite work during the middle ages.

1. 321. Lo hire Andromacha.

Andromache's dream is not to be found

in Homer. It is related in chapter xxiv. of Dares Phrygius, the authority for the history of the Trojan war most popular in the middle ages. (Tyrwhitt.) 1. 331. as for conclusioun, in conclusion.

1. 334. telle . . . no store, set no store by them; reckon them of no value; count them as useless.

1. 335. venymous, Elles. &c. read venymes.

1. 336. nevere a del, never a whit, not in the slightest degree.

11. 343-346. By way of quiet retaliation for Partlet's sarcasm, he cites a Latin proverbial saying, in l. 344, Mulier est hominis confusio,' which he turns into a pretended compliment by the false translation in ll. 345, 346. (Marsh.)

1. 354. lay, for that lay. Chaucer omits the relative, as is frequently done in Early English poetry.

1. 374. See note on ll. 35, 36 (p. 160).

1. 394. col-fox, a treacherous fox. Tyrwhitt quotes Heywood for coleprophet and colepoysoun. See Glossary for the explanation of the prefix col. 1. 419. bulte it to the bren, sift the matter; cp. the phrase to boult the bran. 1. 421. Boece, i. e. Boethius.

Bradwardyn. Thomas Bradwardine was Proctor in the University of Oxford in the year 1325, and afterwards became Divinity Professor and Chancellor of the University. His chief work is On the Cause of God' (De Causâ Dei). See Morley's English Writers. ii. p. 52.

1. 423. for was probably inserted by the scribe, who did not know that needely was a word of three syllables. See l. 424, where it is properly written. 1. 450. Phisiologus. He alludes to a book in Latin metre, entitled Physiologus de Naturis xii. Animalium, by one Thetbaldus, whose age is not known. The chapter De Sirenis begins thus :

'Sirenae sunt monstra maris resonantia magnis,

Vocibus et modulis cantus formantia multis,

Ad quas incaute veniunt saepissime nautae,

Quae faciunt sompnum nimia dulcedine vocum.' (Tyrwhitt.) See Bestiary, in Dr. Morris's Old English Miscellany, pp. 18, 207. 1. 479. So Havelok, 1. 2545:—

'So mote ich brouke mi Rith eie!'

And l. 1743:-'So mote ich brouke finger or to.' And 1. 311: 'So brouke i euere mi blake swire !' swire = neck.

1. 491. daun Burnel the Asse. The story alluded to is in a poem of Nigellus Wireker, entitled Burnellus seu Speculum Stultorum, written in the time of Richard I. In the Chester Whitsun Playes, Burnell is used as a nickname for an ass. The original was probably brunell, from its brown colour; as the fox below is called Russel, from its red colour. (Tyrwhitt.)

1. 526. O Gaufred. He alludes to a passage in the Nova Poetria of Geoffrey de Vinsauf, published not long after the death of Richard I. In this work the author has not only given instructions for composing in the different styles of poetry, but also examples. His specimen of the plaintive style begins thus:—

'Neustria, sub clypeo regis defensa Ricardi,
Indefensa modo, gestu testare dolorem;
Exundent oculi lacrymas; exterminet ora
Pallor; connodet digitos tortura; cruentet
Interiora dolor, et verberet aethera clamor ;
Tota peris ex morte sua. Mors non fuit ejus,
Sed tua, non una, sed publica mortis origo.
O veneris lacrymosa dies! O sydus amarum!
Illa dies tua nox fuit, et Venus illa venenum
Illa dedit vulnus,' &c.

These lines are sufficient to show the object and the propriety of Chaucer's ridicule. The whole poem is printed in Leyser's Hist. Poet. Med. Ævi, pp. 862-978. (Tyrwhitt.)

1. 527. Richard I died on April 6, 1199, on Tuesday; but he received his wound on Friday, March 26.

1. 529. Why ne hadde I=0 that I had.

1. 536. streite swerd = drawn (naked) sword. Cp. Aeneid, ii. 333, 334Stat ferri acies mucrone corusco Stricta, parata neci.'

1. 537. See Aeneid, ii. 550-553.

1. 579. howpede. See Piers Plowman, ed. Wright, p. 127, 'houped after Hunger, that herde hym,' &c.; or ed. Skeat (Clarendon Press), p. 73.

A = Prologue. B=
B Knightes Tale. c=Nonne Prestes Tale.

Prompt. Parv.