The chief correspondences are shewn in the following table.

Other passages are mainly original; as, e.g. ll. 1352-1757 at the end, and 1-264 at the beginning.

1-3. These lines somewhat resemble Dante, Purgat. i. 1-3.

7. calendes, the introduction to the beginning; see bk. v. l. 1634. Thus the 'kalends of January' precede that month, being the period from Dec. 14 to Dec. 31.

8. Cleo; so in most copies; H2. has Clyo; Clio, the muse of history.

14. Latin seems, in this case, to mean Italian, which was called Latino volgare.

21. 'A blind man cannot judge well of colours;' a proverb.

22. Doubtless from Horace's Ars Poetica, 71-3; probably borrowed at second-hand.

28. A proverb. In the Proverbs of Hendyng, l. 29, we have: 'Ase fele thede, ase fele thewes,' i.e. so many peoples, so many customs. See l. 42 below. Cf. Boethius, Bk. ii. Pr. 7. 49 (p. 47).

36. went, for wendeth; i.e. goes; pres. tense.

46. 'Yet all is told, or must be told.'

48. bitit, for bitydeth; i.e. betides, happens.

55. Bole, Bull, the sign Taurus. On the third of May, in Chaucer's time, the sun would be in about the 20th degree of Taurus. The epithet white is from Ovid, Met. ii. 852.

63. wente, sb., a turn; i.e. he tossed about.

64-68. forshapen, metamorphosed. Progne was changed into a swallow; Ovid, Met. vi. 668. Tereus carried off Progne's sister Philomela; see Leg. of Good Women (Philomela).

74. 'And knew that the moon was in a good plight (position) for him to take his journey.' That is, the moon's position was propitious; see note to Man of Lawes Tale, B 312.

77. 'Janus, god of (the) entry;' see Ovid, Fasti, i. 125.

81. 'And found (that) she and two other ladies were sitting.' Sete (A. S. s?ton) is the pt. t. pl., not the pp.

84. The celebrated story of the Siege of Thebes, known to Chaucer through the Thebais of Statius; see bk. v. 1484. And see l. 100.

87. Ey, eh! a note of exclamation, of frequent occurrence in the present poem.

103. lettres rede, i.e. the rubric describing the contents of the next section.

100-105. Œdipus unwittingly slew his father Laius; and the two sons of Œdipus contended for Thebes. For Amphiorax, see note to bk. v. 1500, and to Anelida, 57.

108. bokes twelve; the 12 Books of the Thebais. The death of Amphioraus is related at the end of Book vii.

110. barbe, 'part of a woman's dress, still sometimes worn by nuns, consisting of a piece of white plaited linen, passed over or under the chin, and reaching midway to the waist;' New E. Dict. She wore it because she was a widow; see the quotations in the New E. Dict., esp. 'wearing of barbes at funerals.' And see Barbuta in Ducange.

112. 'Let us perform some rite in honour of May;' see note to Kn. Ta. A 1500.

117. The right reading is necessarily sete, for A. S. s?te, 3 p. s. pt. t. subj. of sitten; 'it would befit.' Cf. seten, they sat, 81, 1192.

134. 'And I am your surety,' i.e. you may depend upon me; see bk. i. 1038.

151. unkouth, unknown, strange; hence, very; Sc. unco'.

154. wal, wall, defence; yerde, rod, scourge, as in bk. i. 740.

167. From Le Rom. de la Rose, 5684-6:—

Cf. Lucan, Phar. i. 92.

236. Withoute, excepting sweethearts; or, excepting by way of passionate love. The latter is the usual sense in Chaucer.

273. 'Therefore I will endeavour to humour her intelligence.'

294. so well bigoon, so well bestead, so fortunate. Cf. Parl. Foules, 171.

318. Which ... his, whose; cf. that ... his, Kn. Ta. A 2710.

328. 'Then you have fished to some purpose;' ironical. To fish fair is to catch many fish.

329. What mende ye, what do you gain, though we both lose?

344. Gems were supposed to have hidden virtues.

387. fele, find out, investigate.

391, 2. Cf. Ovid, Art. Amat. ii. 107: 'Ut ameris, amabilis esto.'

393. In the same, 113, we find: 'Forma bonum fragile est,' &c.

396. 'Go and love; for, when old, no one will have you.'

398. 'I am warned too late, when it has past away, quoth Beauty.'

400. The 'king's fool' got the hint from Ovid, Art. Amat. ii. 118: 'Iam uenient rugae,' &c.

403. crowes feet, crow's feet; wrinkles at the corners of the eyes; from the shape. So in Spenser, Shep. Kal. December, 136: 'And by myne eie the crow his clawe doth write.'

408. breste a wepe, burst out a-weeping.

413. Ret, for redeth, advises; cf. P. Plowman C. iv. 410, and note.

425. Pallas; perhaps invoked with reference to the Palladium of Troy; bk. I. l. 153. Moreover, Pallas was a virgin goddess.

434. 'Of me no consideration need be taken.'

477. 'Except that I will not give him encouragement;' see 1222.

483. 'But when the cause ceases, the disease ceases.'

507. gon, gone; 'not very long ago.'

525. mea culpa, by my fault; words used in confession: see P. Plowman, B. v. 77, and note.

527. Ledest the fyn, guidest the end; cf. Boeth. Bk. iv. Pr. 6. 149.

537. biwryen, used in place of biwreyen, to bewray. The same rather arbitrary form appears in Parl. Foules, 348.

539. 'Because men cover them up,' &c.

586. were never, never would be; were is in the subjunctive mood.

611. Thascry, for The ascry, the alarm. Ascry occurs in Wyclif, Prov. vii. 6.

615. latis, lattice. The reading yates, gates, is wrong, as shewn by l. 617.

618. Dardanus, ancestor of Priam. Cf. Dardanidae, i.e. Trojans, Verg. Aen. i. 560, ii. 72, &c. Troy had six gates, according to Guido; the strongest of these was Dardanus; see the allit. Destruction of Troy, ed. Panton and Donaldson, l. 1557, Lydgate, Siege of Troy, b. ii. c. 11, and Shakespeare's Prologue to his Troilus.

ther open is the cheyne, where the chain is open, or unfastened. Alluding to the chains sometimes drawn across a street, to block it against horsemen. The sense is, 'he will come down this street, because the others are blocked.'

621. happy, fortunate. It was a lucky day for him.

627. a pas, at a foot-pace; see Prol. A 825, and l. 620 above.

637. an heven, a beautiful sight; cf. Sq. Ta. F 558.

639. tissew, lace, twisted band; from F. tistre, to weave.

642. The shield was covered with horn, sinews or nerf, and skin or rind.

651. 'Who has given me a love-potion?'

656. for pure ashamed, for being completely ashamed, i.e. for very shame. A curious idiom.

666. envÝous, envious person; accented on y, as in l. 857.

677. Ma " de; two syllables. The first foot is imperfect.

681. The astrological term 'house' has two senses; it sometimes means a zodiacal sign, as when, e.g. Taurus is called the 'house' or mansion of Venus; and sometimes it has another sense, as, probably, in the present passage. See Chaucer's treatise on the Astrolabe, pt. ii. § 37, on 'the equations of houses.' In the latter case, the whole celestial sphere was divided into twelve equal parts, called 'houses,' by great circles passing through the north and south points of the horizon. The first of these, reckoning upwards from the eastern horizon, was called the first house, and the seventh house, being opposite to it, was reckoned downwards from the western horizon. The first and seventh houses were both considered very fortunate; and it is here said that Venus was in her seventh house, i.e. was just below the western horizon at the moment when Criseyde first saw him. The same planet was also 'well disposed,' i.e. in a favourable sign of the zodiac; and at the same time was 'pleased (or made propitious) by favourable aspects' of other planets, i.e. other planets were favourably situated as regards their angular distances from Venus. Moreover, Venus was no foe to Troilus in his nativity, i.e. she was also favourably situated at the moment of his birth.

716. Imitated from Le Rom. de la Rose, 5765-9, q.v.

746. 'I am one (who is) the fairest.' The -e in fairest-e is not elided; neither is the -e in wist-e in l. 745.

750. I.e. 'I am my own mistress.'

752. lese, pasture; 'I stand, unfastened, in a pleasant pasture.' From A. S. l?su. Cf. Ho. Fame, 1768. It does not mean 'leash,' as usually said; Chaucer's form of 'leash' is lees, as in Cant. Ta. G 19.

754. chekmat, check-mate, as in chess; see Book Duch. 659. Bell sees a pun in it; 'check to my mate,' i.e. wife; but it remains to be shewn that the form mate (wife) was known to Chaucer, who spells it make (Cant. Ta. E 2080).

759. I.e. 'I am not a nun,' nor vowed to chastity.

767, 769. sprat, for spredeth, spreads, pres. t.; spradde, pt. t. Cf. Boethius, Bk. i. Met. 3. 9-12.

777. According to Bell, MS. Harl. 1239 also has why, i.e. wherefore, a reason why, cause.

784. Cf. 'S'il fait folie, si la boive;' Rom. Rose, 12844.

797. 'No one stumbles over it;' for it is too unsubstantial.

802. 'Yet all things seem to them to be harmful, wherein folks please their friends.'

807. 'Nothing venture, nothing have.'

830. hertes lust, heart's pleasure; to rente, by way of rent.

831. no wight, to no one; dat. case.

861. See Hazlitt's notes on the proverb—'Many talk of Robin Hood, that never shot in his bow,' &c.

866. 'Who cannot endure sorrow deserves no joy.'

867. 'And therefore let him, who has a glass head, beware of stones cast in battle.'

882. let, short for ledeth, leads (Stratmann).

884. The MSS. end the line with syke. It has been pointed out that syke is not a perfect rime to endyte, whyte, but only an assonance. It is difficult to believe Chaucer guilty of this oversight; and hence I would suggest, with all submission to the critics, that possibly Chaucer wrote syte. The M. E. syte means to be anxious, and occurs in the Cursor Mundi, 11675; where Joseph says to Mary:—'Bot I site for an other thing That we o water has nu wanting,' i.e. but I am anxious about another thing, that we lack water. The sb. site, grief, occurs in the Midland dialect as well as in Northumbrian; see site in Stratmann. As the word is unusual, it would naturally be altered by the scribes to the familiar syke, to sigh, with a cognate meaning.

920. 'And loude he song ageyn the sonne shene;' Kn. Ta. A 1509.

959. 'Unless lack of pursuit is the cause (of failure),' &c.; cf. 1075.

964. hameled, cut off, docked; cf. P. Pl. Crede, 300.

1001. 'Your ill hap is not owing to me.'

1017. Read And Úpon mÉ, where me is emphatic.

1022. When people's ears glow, it is because they are being talked of; according to folk-lore. See Brand's Popular Antiquities, ed. Ellis, iii. 171.

1026. 'Sed lateant uires, nec sis in fronte disertus;' Ovid, Art. Am. i. 463.

1027. 'Quascunque adspicies, lacrimae fecere lituras;' Ovid, Heroid. iii. 3.

1033. 'Or always harp one tune.'

1041. 'Humano capiti,' &c.; Horace, Ars Poet. 1-5. pyk, a pike (fish), as in the Balade to Rosemounde, 17.

1062. Accent MÍnervÁ on the first and third syllables.

1075-7. it made, was the cause of it. ley, lied.

1107. hoppe, dance. 'I always dance in the rear.'

1108. to-laugh (H2, to lagh, Cm. to law), laughed exceedingly. I know of no other example. A better form is to-lough; see l. 1163, and Pard. Ta. C 476.

1119. spek-e, might speak, should say; pt. t. subjunctive.

1123. sent, i.e. sendeth, sends; the pt. t. is sent-e or send-e.

1177-8. Avysed, she took notice; pt. tense. So also fond, found, which Bell takes to be a pp.; but the pp. is founden. Coude good, knew what was becoming. So, in l. 1197, Can he means 'has he skill.'

1201, 1204. sowe, to sew the pieces of parchment together. Tyrwhitt remarks, s. v. sowe; 'It was usual, and indeed necessary, formerly to sew letters, when they were written upon parchment; but the practice continued long after the invention of paper.' plyte, to fold it up.

1229. 'A cushion, beaten with gold;' cf. Kn. Ta. A 979.

1238. A proverb: 'slight impressions soon fade.'

1249. Tyrwhitt, s. v. somme, boggles over this line, but it is quite right. Bell takes occasion to speak of the 'rugged lines' to be found in this poem; which is true enough of his own peculiar text. In Beowulf, l. 207, we have fiftena sum, one of fifteen, where the cardinal number is used; and this is the usual idiom. But the ordinal number is used also. In St. Juliana, p. 79, we read that 'te sea sencte him on his thrituthe sum,' the sea drowned him and 'thirtieth some' of his men, which I understand to mean 'and twenty-nine of his men,' the master being the thirtieth; but Mr. Cockayne and Mr. Bradley make it mean 'him and thirty others.' So again, in Sir Tristrem, 817, we have: 'He busked and made him yare hi[s] fiftend som of knight,' he made ready for himself his 'fifteenth some' of knights, which I should explain to mean a band of fifteen knights, himself included, or, himself being the fifteenth. Some in such phrases has a collective force. However, the examples in Bosworth and Toller's A. S. Dict., s. v. sum, shew that this mode of expression is also sometimes used exclusively of the leader.

1274. on to pyke, for her to pick upon, or pick at; i.e. for her to pull out; see l. 1273. See examples in Halliwell, s. v. pike, of 'to pyke out thornes,' to pick out thorns.

1276. Cf. 'to strike while the iron is hot;' see Melibeus, B 2226.

1289. 'But therein he had much to heave at and to do.'

1291. 'And why? for fear of shame.' Cm. has for speche, i.e. for fear of talk or scandal.

1315. accesse, attack, as of fever. See New E. Dict.

1343. refreyde, grow cool; cf. Balade to Rosemounde, l. 21.

1349. after his gestes, according to his deeds, or adventures.

1390. forbyse, to give (thee) instances. Hardly a correct form; it should rather be forbysne, short for forbysnen, as the verb is formed from the sb. forbysne, A. S. foreb?sen, an example, instance. The word was obsolescent.

1398. Deiphebus (= DÉ'phebÚs) is always trisyllabic.

1410. He means that he would do more for him than for any one, 'except for him whom he loves most,' i.e. Troilus.

1427. 'With spur and whip,' i.e. with all expedition.

1495. word and ende, beginning and end; cf. iii. 702, v. 1669. The right phrase is ord and ende, where ord is 'beginning;' but it would seem that, by Chaucer's time, word had been corruptly substituted for the obsolescent ord. See Monk. Ta. B 3911, and the note.

1534. triste, station for a huntsman to shoot from. See Tristre in Stratmann.

1554. renne, to run, like an excited madman.

1564. 'Bon fait prolixite foÏr;' Rom. de la Rose, 18498.

1581. 'Although it does not please her to recommend (a remedy).'

1594. To mowen, to have it in her power; A. S. mugan.

1650. for my bettre arm, not even to save my right arm.

1661. him thar nought, 'him needeth not,' he need not do.

1735. An obscure allusion. 'Perhaps it means, in regard for the king and queen, his parents;' Bell. My own guess is different. I think it quite possible that Chaucer is referring to the two 'crowns' or garlands, one of roses and one of lilies, about which so much is said in his early work entitled the Lyf of Seint Cecile, afterwards called the Second Nonnes Tale (see G 270). Thus Pandarus, with his usual impudence, conjures Criseyde to pity Troilus by two solemn adjurations, viz. for the sake of Him who gave us all our souls, and by the virtue of the two heavenly crowns which an angel once brought to a chaste couple. He thus boldly insinuates that the proposed meeting is of the most innocent character. This I take to be the whole point of the allusion.

1737. 'Fie on the devil!' I.e. despise detraction.

1738. com of, come off; we now say 'come on!' See ll. 1742, 1750.

1751. 'But now (I appeal) to you.'

1752. cankedort, a state of suspense, uncertainty, or anxiety; as appears from the context. The word occurs nowhere else. Only one MS. (H2) has the spelling kankerdort, usually adopted in modern editions; Thynne has cankedorte, but it needs no final e. The etymology is unknown nor do we even know how to divide it. There is a verb kanka, to shake, be unsteady, &c., in Swedish dialects (Rietz), and the Swed. ort is a place, quarter; if there is any relationship, kanked-ort might mean 'shaky place,' or ticklish position. Another theory is that canker relates to canker, a cancer, disease, and that dort is related to Lowl. Sc. dort, sulkiness. But this is assuming that the right spelling is canker-dort, a theory which the MSS. do not favour. Neither does the sense of 'ill-humour' seem very suitable. As I am bound, in this difficult case, to suggest what I can, I must add that it is also possible to suppose that cankedort is of French origin, answering to an O. F. quant que dort, lit. 'whenever he is asleep (?),' or 'although he is asleep(?);' and hence (conceivably) meaning 'in a sleepy state.' The phrase quant que, also spelt kan ke (and in many other ways) is illustrated by a column of examples in Godefroy's Dictionary; but its usual sense is 'as well as,' or 'whatever'; thus kan ke poet = as well as he can. Or can we make it = com ki dort, like one who sleeps?