Today | News | Books | Recipes Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History BookLeyser, Hist. Poet. Medii Aevi, p. 295. This only accounts for Pseustis; Atiteris can hardly be Alithia. 1229. This is a curious example of how names are corrupted. _Marcia_ is Dante's _Marsia_, mentioned in the very passage which Chaucer partly imitates in ll. 1091-1109 above. Dante addresses Apollo in the words-- 'Entra nel petto mio, e spira tue Si come quando Marsia traesti Della vagina delle membra sue.' As Chaucer had here nothing to guide him to the gender of _Marsia_, he guessed the name to be feminine, from its termination; and Dante actually has _Marzia_ (Inf. iv. 128), with reference to _Marcia_, wife of Cato. But Dante's _Marsia_ represents the accus. case of Marsyas, or else the Lat. nom. _Marsya_, which also occurs. Ovid, Met. vi. 400, has '_Marsya_ nomen habet,' and tells the story. Apollo defeated the satyr Marsyas in a trial of musical skill, and afterwards flayed him alive; so that he 'lost his skin.' 1231. _Envyën_ (accent on _y_), vie with, challenge (at a sport). So strong is the accent on the _y_, that the word has been reduced in E. to the clipped form '_vie_; see _Vie_ in my Etym. Dict. It represents Lat. _inuitare_, to challenge; and has nothing to do with E. _envy_. Florio's Ital. Dict. has: '_Inuito_, a vie at play, a vie at any game; also an inuiting.' 1234. 'Pipers of every Dutch (German) tongue.' 1236. _Reyes_, round dances, dances in a ring. The term is Dutch. Hexham's Du. Dict. (1658), has: _een Rey_, or _een Reye_, a Daunce, or a round Daunce'; and '_reyen_, to Daunce, or to lead a Daunce.' Cf. G. _Reihen_, a dance, _Reihentanz_, a circular dance; M.H.G. _reie_, _reige_; which does not seem to be connected, as might be thought, with G. _Reihe_, a row; see Kluge and Weigand. Perhaps the Du. word was borrowed from O.F. _rei_, _roi_, order, whence also the syllable _-ray_ in E. _ar-ray_; and the G. word may have been borrowed from the Dutch; but this is a guess. 'I can daunce the raye'; Barclay's First Egloge, sig. A ii. ed. 1570; quoted in Dyce's Skelton, ii. 194. 1239. Understand _Somme_, some; see note to l. 1197. The expression _blody soun_ recurs in Kn. Tale, A 2512, in connection with _trumpe_ and _clarioun_. Our author explains his meaning here; ll. 1241-2. 1243. _Missenus_, Misenus, son of Æolus, trumpeter to Hector, and subsequently to Æneas; Verg. Æn. iii. 239; vi. 162-170. 1245. _Joab_ and _Theodomas_ are again mentioned together in a like passage in the Merch. Tale (C. T., E 1719). 'Joab blew a trumpet'; 2 Sam. ii. 28; xviii. 16; xx. 22. Theodomas is said by Chaucer (Merch. Tale) to have blown a trumpet 'At Thebes, when the citee was in doute.' He was therefore a trumpeter mentioned in some legendary history of Thebes. With this hint, it is easy to identify him with Thiodamas, mentioned in books viii. and x. of the Thebaid of Statius. He succeeded Amphiaraus as augur, and furiously excited the besiegers to attack Thebes. His invocation was succeeded by a great sound of trumpets (Theb. viii. 343), to which Chaucer here refers. But Statius does not expressly say that Thiodamas blew a trumpet himself. 1248. _Cataloigne and Aragon_, Catalonia and Arragon, in Spain, immediately to the S. of the Pyrenees. Warton remarks: 'The martial musicians of English tournaments, so celebrated in story, were a more natural and obvious allusion for an English poet'; Hist. E. P. ii. 331. The remark is, I think, entirely out of place. Chaucer is purposely taking a wide range; and, after mentioning even the pipers of the Dutch tongue, as well as Joab of Judæa and Thiodamas of Thebes, is quite consistent in mentioning the musicians of Spain. 1257. Repeated, at greater length, in C. T., Group B, ll. 19-28; see note to that passage. 1259. _Iogelours_, jugglers. See Squi. Tale, F 219. 1260. _Tregetours_; see C. T., F 1141, on which Tyrwhitt has a long note. A _jogelour_ was one who amused people, either by playing, singing, dancing, or tricks requiring sleight of hand; a _tregetour_ was one who brought about elaborate illusions, by the help of machinery or mechanical contrivance. Thus Chaucer tells us (in the Frank. Tale, as above) that _tregetoures_ even caused to appear, in a dining-hall, a barge floating in water, or what seemed like a lion, or a vine with grapes upon it, or a castle built of lime and stone; which vanished at their pleasure. Sir John Maundeville, in his Travels, ch. 22, declares that the 'enchanters' of the Grand Khan could turn day into night, or cause visions of damsels dancing or carrying cups of gold, or of knights justing; 'and many other thinges thei don, be craft of hire Enchauntementes; that it is marveyle for to see.' See note to l. 1277 below. Gawain Douglas imitates this passage in his Palice of Honour; see his Works, ed. Small, i. 65. 1261. _Phitonesses_, pythonesses. The witch of Endor is called a _phitonesse_ in the Freres Tale, C. T., D 1510; and in Gower, Conf. Amant. bk. iv, ed. Pauli, ii. 66; in Barbour's Bruce, ed. Skeat, iv. 753; and in Skelton's Phyllyp Sparowe, 1345. The Vulgate version has _mulier pythonem habens_, 1 Sam. xxviii. 7 (cf. Acts xvi. 16); but also the very word _pythonissam_ in 1 Chron. x. 13, where the witch of Endor is again referred to. Ducange notices _phitonissa_ as another spelling of _pythonissa_. 1266. Cf. Chaucer's Prologue, 417-420. There is a parallel passage in Dante, Inf. xx. 116-123, where the word _imago_ occurs in the sense of 'waxen image.' This of course refers to the practice of sticking needles into a waxen image, with the supposed effect of injuring the person represented. See Ovid, Heroid. vi. 91, and Ben Jonson's Masque of Queens (_3rd Charm_). But this is only a particular case of a much more general principle. Images of men or animals (or even of the things representing the zodiacal signs) could be made of various substances, according to the effect intended; and by proper treatment were supposed to cause good or evil to the patient, as required. Much could be done, it was supposed, by choosing the right time for making them, or for subjecting them to celestial influences. To know the right time, it was necessary to observe the _ascendent_ (see note to l. 1268). See much jargon on this subject in Cornelius Agrippa, De Occulta Philosophia, lib. ii. capp. 35-47. 1268. The _ascendent_ is that point of the zodiacal circle which is seen to be just ascending above the horizon at a given moment. Chaucer defines it in his Treatise on the Astrolabe, and adds that astrologers, in calculating horoscopes, were in the habit of giving it a wider meaning; they further reckoned in 5 degrees of the zodiac above the horizon, and 25 degrees below the ascending point, so as to make the whole _ascendent_ occupy 30 degrees, which was the length of a 'sign.' In calculating nativities, great importance was attached to this ascendent, the astrological concomitants of which determined the horoscope. The phrase to be 'in the ascendant' is still in use. Thus _in certeyn ascend |