Today | News | Books | Recipes Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History Bookces, of phrases such as _none kynnes riche_, _many kynnes maneres_, _summes kunnes wise_, _what kyns schape_, &c. 1550. 'Those that did pray her for her favour.' 1564. 'Because it does not please me.' 1570. I here alter _Vpon peyne_ to _Vp peyne_, as the former will not scan, and the latter is the usual idiom. See _up peyne_ in Kn. Tale, A 1707, 2543; Man of Lawes Tale, B 795, 884. Cf. _vp the toft_, upon the toft, P. Plowman, B. i. 12; _vp erthe_, upon earth, id. B. ix. 99. 1571. Cf. Rom. Rose, 18206--'Car Eolus, li diex des vens.' From Vergil, Æn. i. 52; cf. Ovid, Met. xiv. 223, where Æolus is said to reign over the Tuscan sea. The connection of Æolus with Thrace is not obvious; cf. l. 1585. Ovid, however, has 'Threicio Borea'; Art. Am. ii. 431. And see Lounsbury, Studies in Chaucer, ii. 382. 1596. _Took to_, delivered to. _Triton_, Triton; imitated from Ovid, Met. i. 333, where Neptune calls Triton, and bids him sound his 'shell,' the sound of which resounded everywhere. 1598. We rarely find _to_ used after _leet_; the usual formula is _leet go_. But cf. _leet to glyde_ in Cant. Ta., F 1415. Or read _to-go_, _to-glyde_. 1618. _Wite_ is badly spelt _wete_ or _wote_ in the MS. copies; but the very phrase _wite ye what_ occurs in C. T., E 2431. However, Ch. certainly uses the phrase _ye woot_ instead of _ye wite_, more than once. 1640. _Overthrowe_, be overthrown; as in the Tale of Gamelin, 512. Cf. Melibeus, B 2755. 1643. A _pelet_ was a stone ball, such as used to be fired from the earliest kind of cannon, of which this is a very early mention. See my glossary to P. Plowman (Clar. Press). 1670. _Lat goon_, let go, lay aside. 1702. The word _turned_, which is dissyllabic, has evidently been substituted here in the printed editions and in MS. P. for the older and rare word _clew_, which does not occur elsewhere in Chaucer. The line means--'With that (therupon) I rubbed my head all round'; which is a rustic way of expressing perplexity. The verb _clawen_, to scratch, stroke, is not uncommon, but the usual pt. t. is _clawed_. We find, however, at least one other example of the strong form of the past tense in the Seven Sages, ed. Weber, l. 925--He _clew_ the bor on the rigge,' he stroked the boar on the back, and made him go to sleep; cf. 'thi maister the _clawes_,' i.e. your master strokes you, to flatter you, in l. 937 of the same. Chaucer has, 'to _clawen_ [rub] him on his hele' [heel], Troil. iv. 728; 'he _clawed_ him on the bak,' he stroked him on the back, to encourage him, Cook's Prol., A 4326 (where _clew_ would suit the line better). See _claw_ in Jamieson's Scot. Dict. 1708. 'They would not give a leek.' Cf. 'dere ynough a leek'; Can. Yeom. Tale, Group G, 795. 1740. 'Although no brooch or ring was ever sent us.' 1742-4. 'Nor was it once intended in their heart to make us even friendly cheer, but they might (i.e. were ready to) bring us to our bier'; i.e. so far from caring to please us, they would be satisfied to see us dead. The M.E. _temen_, to produce, to bring, is the same word as mod. E. _teem_, to produce. _To temen on bere_ is parallel to the old phrase _to bringen on bere_; cf. Gaw. Douglas, tr. of Æneid, bk. x. ch. 10, l. 138 (ed. Small, iii. 326), where _brocht on beyr_ means 'brought to their grave.' See _Bier_ in the New Eng. Dictionary. 1747. _For wood_, as (if) mad, 'like mad.' The same phrase recurs in Leg. Good Women, _Phyllis_, l. 27; cf. _as it were wood_, Kn. Tale, A 2950; and _for pure wood_, Rom. Rose, 276. 1759-62. Cf. Rom. de la Rose, 9887-90:-- 'Si se sunt maint vanté de maintes; Par paroles fauces et faintes, Dont les cors avoir ne pooient, Lor non à grant tort diffamoient.' 1761. _The name_, the name of it, the credit of it. 1777. _Masty_ (miswritten _maisty_ in F., but _masty_ in the rest) means fat, fattened up, and hence unwieldy, sluggish. Bell alters it to _maisly_, and Moxon's edition to _nastie_; both being wrong. Palsgrave has: '_Masty_, fatte, as swyne be, _gras_.' The Promp. Parv. has: 'Mast-hog or swyne, [or] mastid swyne, _Maialis_'; and 'Mastyn beestys, _sagino, impinguo_.' Way rightly explains _masty_ as 'glutted with acorns or berries'; cf. 'Acorne, _mast_ for swyne, _gland_,' in Palsgrave. See The Former Age, l. 37. 1779. _Wher_, whether, 'is it the case that?' 1782. As the word _oughte_ is never followed by _to_ with a following gerund, it is certain that _to-hangen_ is all one word, the prefix _to-_ being intensive. MSS. F. and B. omit _to_, but the rest have it, and the syllable is wanted. I know of no other example of _to-hangen_, to hang thoroughly, but this is of little moment. The prefix _to-_ was freely added to all sorts of verbs expressing strong action; Stratmann gives _more than a hundred_ examples. Cf. note to l. 1598. 1783. We must read _sweynte_, the form preserved in MS. B, where the final _e_ is added to the pp. _sweynt_, as if it were an adjective used in the definite form. The reading _swynt_ is false, being an error for _sweynte_. The reading _slepy_ is a mere gloss upon this rare word, but fairly expresses the meaning. Bell's Chaucer has _swynt_, which the editor supposes to be put for _swinkt_ = _swinked_, pp. of _swinken_, to toil, as in Milton's 'swinkd hedger'; Comus, 293. He is, however, entirely wrong, for Milton's _swink'd_ is quite a late form; in Chaucer's time the verb _swinken_ was strong, and the pp. was _swunken_! Chaucer has _queynt_ as the pp. of _quenchen_, Kn. Tale, A 2321; and _dreynt_ as the pp. of _drenchen_, Non. Prest. Tale, B 4272. Similarly _sweynt_ is the pp. of _swenchen_, to cause to toil, to fatigue, tire out, the causal verb formed from the aforesaid strong intransitive verb _swinken_, to toil. For examples, see _swenchen_ in Stratmann; I may instance, 'Euwer feond eou ne scal ... _swenchen_,' your enemies shall not harass you, Old Eng. Homilies, ed. Morris, i. 13; and 'hi _swencten_ swiðe heom-seolfe,' they sore afflicted themselves, id. 101. Hence, 'the sweynte cat' means the over-toiled or tired-out cat; or, secondarily, a cat that will take no trouble, a slothful or _sleepy_ cat, as the gloss says. Compare Gower, Conf. Amant. ed. Pauli, ii. 39, where the same cat is brought forward as an example of the deadly sin of _Sloth_:-- 'For he [a knight] ne wol no travail take To ride for his ladies sake, But liveth al upon his wisshes, And--as a cat wolde ete fisshes Withoute weting of his clees-- So wolde he do, but netheles He faileth ofte of that he wolde.' The 'adage' is referred to in Macbeth, i. 7. 45. It occurs in MS. Harl. 2321, fol. 146, printed in Reliq. Antiquæ, i. 207, in the form: 'The cat doth love the fishe, she will not wett her foote.' In Heywood's Proverbs, 1562 (p. 28, ed. Spenser Soc.): 'The cat would eate fyshe, and would not wet her feete.' So also in Camden's Remains, 1614, p. 312. Hazlitt gives a rimed version:-- 'Fain would the cat fish eat, But she's loth to wet her feet.' In Piers the Plowman's Crede |