She was so ful of torment and of rage,
That wilfully into the fyr she sterte,

And brende hir-selven with a stedfast herte.
O woful hennes, right so cryden ye,

As, whan that Nero brende the citee
Of Rome, cryden senatoures wyves,
For that hir housbondes losten alle hir lyves;
Withouten gilt this Nero hath hem slayn.
Now wol I torne1 to my tale agayn:

This sely widwe, and eek hir doghtres two,
Herden thise hennes crye and maken wo,
And out at dores sterten thay anoon,
And syen the fox toward the grove goon,
And bar upon his bak the cok away;
And cryden, 'Out! harrow! and weylaway!
Ha, ha, the fox!' and after him they ran,
And eek with staves many another man;

Ran Colle our dogge, and Talbot, and Gerland,
And Malkin, with a distaf in hir hand;

550

(4561)

555

560

(4571)

Ran cow and calf, and eek the verray hogges 565

4

So were they fered for berking of the dogges

And shouting of the men and wimmen eke,

5

They ronne so, hem thoughte hir herte breke.
They yelleden as feendes doon in helle;
The dokes cryden as men wolde hem quelle;
The gees for fere flowen over the trees;
Out of the hyve cam the swarm of bees;
So hidous was the noyse, a! benedicite!
Certes, he Iakke Straw, and his meynee,
Ne maden nevere shoutes half so shrille",

1 E. Now turne I wole. 3 E. om. eek.

5 E. yolleden.

570

(4581)

2 Hl. Pt. They.
+ HI. were they; rest om.
E. Ln. shille.

575

Whan that they wolden any Fleming kille,
As thilke day was maad upon the fox.

Of bras thay broghten bemes, and of box,

Of horn, of boon, in whiche they blewe and pouped,
And therwithal thay shryked1 and they houped; 580
It semed as that hevene sholde falle.

Now, gode men, I pray yow herkneth alle!
Lo, how fortune turneth sodeinly
The hope and pryde eek of hir enemy!
This cok, that lay upon the foxes bak,
In al his drede, un-to the fox he spak,
And seyde, sire, if that I were as ye,

3

Yet sholde I seyn (as wis God helpe me),
Turneth agayn, ye proude cherles alle!
A verray pestilence up-on yow falle !

4

Now am I come un-to this wodes syde,
Maugree your heed, the cok shal heer abyde;
I wol him ete in feith, and that anon.'-
The fox answerde, 'In feith, it shal be don,'—
And as he spak that word, al sodeinly
This cok brak from his mouth deliverly,
And heighe up-on a tree he fleigh anon.
And whan the fox saugh that he was y-gon,
'Allas!' quod he, 'O Chauntecleer, allas!

I have to yow,' quod he, "y-doon trespas,
In-as-muche as I maked yow aferd,

7

6

(4591)

585

590

(4601)

595

600

(4611)

Whan I yow hente, and broghte out of the yerd;
But, sire, I dide it in no wikke entente;
Com doun, and I shal telle yow what I mente.
I shal seye sooth to yow, God help me so.'

605

'Nay than,' quod he, 'I shrewe us bothe two, And first I shrewe my-self, bothe blood and bones, If thou bigyle me1 ofter than ones.

Thou shalt namore, thurgh thy flaterye

Do me to singe and winke with myn yë.

For he that winketh, whan he sholde see,
Al wilfully, God lat him never thee!'

610

(4621)

'Nay,' quod the fox, 'but God yive him meschaunce, That is so undiscreet of governaunce,

That iangleth whan he sholde holde his pees.'

615

Lo, swich it is for to be recchelees,

And necligent, and truste on flaterye.
But ye that holden this tale a folye,

As of a fox, or of a cok and hen,
Taketh the moralitee therof2, good men.
For seint Paul seith, that al that writen is,
To our doctryne it is y-write, y-wis.
Taketh the fruyt, and lat the chaf be stille.
Now, gode God, if that it be thy wille,
As seith my lord, so make us alle good men ;
And bringe us to his heighe blisse. Amen.

3

Here is ended the Nonne preestes tale.

620

(4631)

625

1 E. Hn. Hl. ins. any.

2 Hl. therof; which the rest omit.

3

Cp. Nonne; E. Hn. Nonnes.

In the Notes, 'CH. 2' refers to the Clarendon Press edition of Chaucer's Prioresses Tåle, &c.; and 'CH. 3' to the same of Chaucer's Man of Law's Tale, &c.

THE PROLOGUE.

1. Aprille. It appears that Chaucer's Prologue refers to the 16th and 17th of April. See Man of Law's Prol. 11. 1-6; and CH. 2, p. 129 and p. xi.

soote, pl. of soot. swete in 1. 5 is the definite form of sweet.

4. vertu, power, corresponding to the A.S. miht, might.

4-6. Hawes seems to have had Chaucer's opening lines in view in the first and second stanzas, chap. i, of his Pastime of Pleasure:When that Aurora did well appeare

In the depured ayre and cruddy firmament,
Forth then I walked without impediment
Into a medowe both gaye and glorious,
Whiche Flora depainted with many a colour,
Lyke a place of pleasure moste solacious,
Encensyng out the aromatike odoure

Of Zepherus breath, whiche that every floure
Through his fume doth alwaye engender.'

Lydgate (Minor Poems, ed. Halliwell, pp. 243, 244) copies Chaucer still more closely in his description of Ver (spring).

On the other hand, Chaucer seems to have had in his mind some passage like the following account in Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum Naturale, lib. xv. c. 66, entitled De Vere:-'Sol vero ad radices herbarum et arborum penetrans, humorem quem ibi coadunatum hyeme reperit, attrahit; herba vero, vel arbor suam inanitionem sentiens a terra attrahit humorem, quem ibi sui similitudine adiuuante calore Solis transmutat, sicque reuiuiscit; inde est quod quidem mensis huius temporis Aprilis dicitur, quia tunc terra praedicto modo aperitur.'

5. Chaucer twice refers again to Zephirus, in his translation of Boethius, bk. i. met 5; bk. ii. met. 3.

7. yonge sonne. The sun is here said to be young because it had not long entered upon its annual course through the signs of the zodiac.

8. the Ram. The difficulty here really resides in the expression "his halfe cours," which means what it says, viz. "his half-course," and not, as Tyrwhitt unfortunately supposed, "half his course." The results of the two explanations are quite different. Taking Chaucer's own expression as it stands, he tells us that, a little past the middle of April, "the young sun has run his half-course in the Ram." Turning to Fig. 1 (in The Astrolabe, ed. Skeat) we see that, against the month " Aprilis" there appears in the circle of zodiacal signs, the latter half (roughly speaking) of Aries, and the former half of Taurus. . Thus the sun in April runs a half-course in the Ram and a half-course in the Bull. "The former of these was completed," says the poet; which is as much as to say, that it was past the eleventh of April.

The sun had, in fact, only just completed his course through the first of the twelve signs, as the said course was supposed to begin at the vernal equinox. This is why it may well be called "the yonge sonne," an expression which Chaucer repeats under similar circumstances in the Squyeres Tale, Part ii. 1. 39.'-Chaucer's Astrolabe, ed. Skeat, p. xlvii. Mr. Brae, in his edition of Chaucer's Astrolabe, shews that Chaucer never refers to the constellations, but always to the signs. 'Also twelue monpes ben in the 3ere, and eueriche monpe pe sonne entrep into a signe as it falleþ for þe monpe. And so in March þey entrep into pe Weper; in Auerel in-to pe Boole.'-Trevisa's transl. of Higden's Polychronicon, ii. 207.

10. open ye.

'Hit bifelle bytwyxte March and Maye,
Whan kynd corage begynneth to pryke,
Whan frith and felde[s] wexen gaye,
Whan lovers slepen with opyn yze,

As nightyngalis on grene tre.'

The Sowdone of Babyloyne, ll. 41–46. 12, 13. Professor Ten Brink thinks that a colon should be placed after pilgrimages, and wenden understood after palmers. According to ordinary English construction the verb longen must be supplied after palmers, and seken before To ferne halwes.

13. palmer, originally one who made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and brought home a palm-branch as a token. Chaucer, says Tyrwhitt, seems to consider all pilgrims to foreign parts as palmers. The essential difference between the two classes of persons here mentioned, the palmer