Today | News | Books | Recipes Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History Bookboones blood'--the accent on the _a_ is preserved. The other spellings are inferior or false. 1192. _Falle_, pres. pl., fall; (or perhaps fallen, the past participle). 1194. _Habitacles_, niches; such as those which hold images of saints on the buttresses and pinnacles of our cathedrals. They are described as being _al withoute_, all on the outside. 1196. _Ful the castel_, the castle (being) full, on all sides. This line is parenthetical. 1197. Understand _Somme_, some, as nom. to _stoden_. 'In which stood ... (some) of every kind of minstrels.' So in l. 1239. As to minstrels, &c., see note to Sir Topas (B 2035). 1203. _Orpheus_, the celebrated minstrel, whose story is in Ovid, Met. x. 1-85; xi. 1-66. Chaucer again mentions him in C. T., E 1716; and in Troil. iv. 791. 1205. _Orion_; so in all the copies; put for _Arion_. His story is in Ovid, Fasti, ii. 79-118. Spelt _Arione_ in Gower, Conf. Amant. (end of prologue), ed. Pauli, i. 39. We might read _Arion_ here; see l. 1005. 1206. _Chiron_; called _Chiro_ in Gower, C. A. ii. 67 (bk. iv). Chiron, the centaur, was the tutor of Achilles; and Achilles, being the grandson of Æacus, was called Æacides; Ovid, Met. xii. 82; Fasti, v. 390. Hence _Eacides_ is here in the genitive case; and _Eacides Chiron_ means 'Achilles' Chiron,' i.e. Chiron, tutor of Achilles. In fact, the phrase is copied from Ovid's _Æacidæ Chiron_, Art of Love, i. 17. Another name for Chiron is _Phillyrides_; Ovid, Art of Love, i. 11; or _Philyrides_; Verg. Georg. iii. 550; cf. Ovid, Fasti, v. 391. In a similar way, Chaucer calls the paladin _Oliver_, friend of _Charles_ the Great, by the name of _Charles Olyuer_; Monkes Tale, B 3577. 1208. _Bret_, Briton, one of the British. This form is quite correct, being the A.S. _Bret_, a Briton (see A.S. Chronicle, an. 491), commonly used in the pl. _Brettas_. This correct spelling occurs in MS. B. only; MS. P. turns it into _Bretur_, Th. and Cx. read _Briton_, whilst MS. F. turns _Bret_ into _gret_, by altering the first letter. The forms _gret_ and _Bretur_ are clearly corruptions, whilst _Briton_ spoils the scansion. _Glascurion_; the same as Glasgerion, concerning whom see the Ballad in the Percy Folio MS., ed. Hales and Furnivall, i. 246. Of this 'a traditional version, under the name of _Glenkindie_, a various form of Glasgerion, is given in Jamieson's Popular Songs and Ballads, and in Alex. Laing's Thistle of Scotland (1823).' G. Douglas associates 'Glaskeriane' with Orpheus in his Palice of Honour, bk. i. (ed. Small, i. 21); this poem is a palpable imitation of Chaucer's House of Fame. The name is Celtic, as the epithet _Bret_ implies. Cf. Irish and Welsh _glas_, pale. 1213. 'Or as art imitates nature.' Imitated from Le Rom. de la Rose, where Art asks Nature to teach her; l. 16233 is-- 'E la _contrefait comme singes_.' 1218. There is a similar list of musical instruments in Le Rom. de la Rose, 21285-21308:-- 'Puis _chalemiaus_, et chalemele Et tabor, et _fléute_, et timbre ... Puis prent sa muse, et se travaille As estives de Cornoaille.' And in Le Remède de Fortune, by G. de Machault, 1849, p. 87, is a similar long list:-- '_Cornemuses_, flaios, chevrettes, Dousainnes, cimbales, clochettes, Timbre, la _flahute_ brehaigne, Et le grant cornet d'Alemaigne, Flaiot de saus, fistule, _pipe_'; &c. And a few lines below there is mention of the _muse de blez_ (see note to l. 1224). Warton, Hist. E. Poet., ed. Hazlitt, iii. 177. quotes a similar passage from Lydgate's poem entitled Reason and Sensualite, ending with-- 'There were trumpes, and trumpettes, Lowde shallys [shalmys?] and _doucettes_.' Cf. also Spenser, F. Q. vi. 9, 5; Shep. Kal. _Feb._ 35-40. In the latter passage, the imitation of ll. 1224-6 is obvious. _Cornemuse_ is a bagpipe; _shalmye_ is a shawm, which was a wind-instrument, being derived from Lat. _calamus_, a reed; Chaucer classes both instruments under _pipe_. Willert (on the House of Fame, p. 36) suggests (and, I think, correctly) that _doucet_ and _rede_ are both adjectival. Thus _doucet_ would refer to _pipe_; cf. '_Doucet_, dulcet, pretty and sweet, or, a little sweet'; Cotgrave. _Rede_ would also refer to _pipe_, and would mean 'made with a reed.' A reed-instrument is one 'in which the sound was produced by the vibration of a reed, as in the clarionet or hautboys'; note in Bell's Chaucer. There is no instrument properly called a _doucet_ in Old French, but only _dousainne_ (see above) and _doucine_ (Godefroy). 1222. _Brede_, roast meat; A.S. _br['æ]de_, glossed by '_assura_, vel _assatura_' in Ælfric's Glossary, ed. Wülcker, col. 127, l. 17. Cf. G. _Braten_. Not elsewhere in Chaucer, but found in other authors. 'To meit was greithed beef and motoun, _Bredes_, briddes, and venysoun.' Kyng Alisaunder, ed. Weber, 5248. In the allit. Morte Arthure, it occurs no less than five times. Also in Havelok, l. 98, where the interpretation 'bread' is wrong. Also in Altenglische Dichtungen, ed. Böddeker, p. 146, l. 47--'Cud as Cradoc in court that carf the _brede_,' i.e. carved the roast meat; but the glossary does not explain it. The scribe of MS. F. turns _brede_ into _bride_, regardless of the rime. I cannot agree with the wholly groundless conjecture of Willert, who reads _rude_ in l. 1221, in order to force _brude_ into the text. For minstrelsy at feasts, see C. T., A 2197. 1223. Cf. G. Douglas, tr. of Vergil, Æn. vii. 513, 4:--'And in ane bowand _horne_, at hir awyne will, A feindlych hellis voce scho _lyltis_ schyll.' 1224. Alluding to the simple pipes fashioned by rustics. The glossary to Machault's Works (1849) has: '_Muse de blez_, chalumeau fait avec des brins de paille.' The O.F. _estive_, in the quotation in the note to l. 1218, has a like sense. Godefroy has: '_estive_, espèce de flûte, de flageolet ou pipeau rustique, qui venait, ce semble, de Cornouaille.' Cf. the term _corne-pipe_, in the Complaint of Scotland, ed. Murray, p. 65, l. 22; also my note to R. Rose, 4250 (vol. i. p. 436). 1227-8. Nothing is known as to Atiteris (or Cytherus); nor as to Pseustis (or Proserus). The forms are doubtless corrupt; famous musicians or poets seem to have been intended. I shall venture, however, to record my guess, that _Atiteris_ represents _Tyrtaeus_, and that _Pseustis_ is meant for _Thespis_. Both are mentioned by Horace (Ars Poet. 276, 402); and Thespis was a native of Attica, whose plays were acted at Athens. Another guess is that _Atiteris_ means Vergil's _Tityrus_; Athenæum, Apr. 13, 1889. Willert suggests that there is here an allusion to the so-called Ecloga Theoduli, a Latin poem of the seventh or eighth century, wherein the shepherd Pseustis and the shepherdess Alithia [who represent Falsehood and Truth] contend about heathendom and Christianity; and Pseustis adduces various myths and tales, from Ovid, Vergil, and Statius. He refers us to H. Dunger, Die Sage v. troj. Kriege in den Bearbeitungen des Mittelalters: Dresden, 1869, p. 76; cf. |