FullReads

3. Galfrid: Geoffrey de Vinsauf to whose treatise on poetical composition a less flattering allusion is made in The Nun’s Priest’s Tale. See note 33 to that Tale.

4. Stirp: race, stock; Latin, “stirps.”

5. Calliope is the epic muse — “sister” to the other eight.

6. Melpomene was the tragic muse.

7. The same is said of Griselda, in The Clerk’s Tale; though she was of tender years, “yet in the breast of her virginity there was inclos’d a sad and ripe corage”

8. The confusion which Chaucer makes between Cithaeron and Cythera, has already been remarked. See note 41 to the Knight’s Tale.

9. Balais: Bastard rubies; said to be so called from Balassa, the Asian country where they were found. Turkeis: turquoise stones.

10. Spenser, in his description of the House of Busirane, speaks of the sad distress into which Phoebus was plunged by Cupid, in revenge for the betrayal of “his mother’s wantonness, when she with Mars was meint [mingled] in joyfulness”

11. Alcestis, daughter of Pelias, was won to wife by Admetus, King of Pherae, who complied with her father’s demand that he should come to claim her in a chariot drawn by lions and boars. By the aid of Apollo — who tended the flocks of Admetus during his banishment from heaven — the suitor fulfilled the condition; and Apollo further induced the Moirae or Fates to grant that Admetus should never die, if his father, mother, or wife would die for him. Alcestis devoted herself in his stead; and, since each had made great efforts or sacrifices for love, the pair are fitly placed as king and queen in the Court of Love.

12. In the prologue to the “Legend of Good Women,” Chaucer says that behind the God of Love, upon the green, he “saw coming in ladies nineteen;” but the stories of only nine good women are there told. In the prologue to The Man of Law’s Tale, sixteen ladies are named as having their stories written in the “Saints’ Legend of Cupid” — now known as the “Legend of Good Women” — (see note 5 to the Prologue to the Man of Law’s Tale); and in the “Retractation,” at the end of the Parson’s Tale, the “Book of the Twenty-five Ladies” is enumerated among the works of which the poet repents — but there “xxv” is supposed to have been by some copyist written for “xix.”

13. fele: many; German, “viele.”

14. Arras: tapestry of silk, made at Arras, in France.

15. Danger, in the Provencal Courts of Love, was the allegorical personification of the husband; and Disdain suitably represents the lover’s corresponding difficulty from the side of the lady.

16. In The Knight’s Tale, Emily’s yellow hair is braided in a tress, or plait, that hung a yard long behind her back; so that, both as regards colour and fashion, a singular resemblance seems to have existed between the female taste of 1369 and that of 1869.

17. In an old monkish story — reproduced by Boccaccio, and from him by La Fontaine in the Tale called “Les Oies de Frere Philippe” — a young man is brought up without sight or knowledge of women, and, when he sees them on a visit to the city, he is told that they are geese.

18. Tabernacle: A shrine or canopy of stone, supported by pillars.

19. Mister folk: handicraftsmen, or tradesmen, who have learned “mysteries.”

20. The loves “Of Queen Annelida and False Arcite” formed the subject of a short unfinished poem by Chaucer, which was afterwards worked up into The Knight’s Tale.

21. Blue was the colour of truth. See note 36 to the Squire’s Tale.

22. Blife: quickly, eagerly; for “blive” or “belive.”

23. It will be seen afterwards that Philogenet does not relish it, and pleads for its relaxation.

24. Feat: dainty, neat, handsome; the same as “fetis,” oftener used in Chaucer; the adverb “featly” is still used, as applied to dancing, etc.

25. Solomon was beguiled by his heathenish wives to forsake the worship of the true God; Samson fell a victim to the wiles of Delilah.