8. He was not that lyght: but to beare witnes of the lyght.

9. That was a true lyght, which lyghteth all men that come into the worlde.

10. He was in the worlde, and the worlde was made by him: and yet the worlde knewe him not. 11. He cam amonge his (awne) and his awne receaved him not.

12. But as meny as receaved him, to them he gave power to be the sonnes of God in that they beleved on his name:

13. which were borne, not of bloude nor of the will of the flesshe, nor yet of the will of man: but of God.

14. And the worde was made flesshe and dwelt amonge us, and we sawe the glory of it, as the glory of the only begotten sonne of the father, which worde was full of grace and verite.

8. He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light.

9. That was the true Light, which lighteth every man, that cometh into the world.

10. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.

11. He came unto his own, and his own received him not.

12. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:

13. Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. 14. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

CHAUCER

THE PROLOGUE

1. 1. Whan that Aprille, etc. When April with its sweet showers hath pierced the drought of March to the root, and bathed every vein in the moisture by means of which power the flower is grown.

8. The Ram. The expression means:
"When the sun had completed the half-
course in the zodiacal sign of the Ram."
During the first half of April the sun is
in Aries, the Ram; during the second, in
Taurus, the Bull. The time is therefore
about the middle of April.
53-65. Pruce-Palatye.

The proper names are those of various countries and cities in the regions involved in the wars between the Christian nations of western Europe and their Moslem enemies. Pruce, Lettow, Ruce-Prussia, Lithuania, Russia. Gernade, Algezir-Granada, Algeciras, in Spain. Belmarye, Tramissene-Moorish kingdoms in Africa. Lyeys, Satalye, Palatye-in Asia Minor.

2. 125. The scole of Stratford atte Bowe. A Benedictine convent at Stratford-le-Bow, near London. There is no slur here on the Prioress's French; Chaucer merely tells us that her pronunciation was not Parisian.

3. 159. Gauded. Furnished with gaudies," the five large beads in a rosary.

173. Seint Maure. St. Maur and St. Benedict. The latter founded the Benedictine order of monks; St. Maur was one of his disciples.

187. Austin. St. Augustine.

210. Ordres four. The Dominicans, Franciscans, Carmelites, and Augustinians.

4. 258. Love-dayes. Certain days which were appointed for settling disputes out of court, through the mediation of an umpire, often a friar.

310. Parvys. "The church-porch, or portico of St. Paul's, where the lawyers were wont to meet for consultation." (Skeat). 319. Al was fee simple. No matter how encumbered property might be, the Sergeant could handle it as if it were held in fee simple. His conveyancing could not be attacked.

5. 340. Seynt Iulian. Saint Julian was famed for his generous providing.

364. Fraternitee. They all belonged to one guild.

377. Vigilyës. Ceremonies on the eve of a church or guild festival.

6. 417-420. Well coude he fortunen, etc. The doctor was an astrologer; in addition, he was familiar with, the humors of the body, and knew the causes of all diseases.

In every person, according to the Galenic physiology, there were four humors, viz.: blood, phlegm, bile or choler, and black bile or melancholy. A person's health depended upon maintaining a proper proportion between the four. Thus if blood predominated, the person became too sanguine; if phlegm, he became too phlegmatic.

It

429. Esculapius, etc. These were the
chief physicians and medical writers of
the ancient and mediæval worlds.
460. Housbondes at chirche-door.
was customary for the wedding ceremony
to be performed at the door of the church.
486. Full looth were him. He did not ex-
communicate persons in order to force
them to pay their tithes.

7. 507. He sette nat his benefice. He did
not sub-let his parish, that he might be
appointed to a chantry in St. Paul's.
525. He wayted after. He did not look
for, or expect, pomp and ceremony.
563. He hadde a thombe of gold. He was
a prosperous fellow.

8. 624. Fyr-reed cherubinnes face. Cherubim, in medieval art, were painted with red faces.

646. Questio quid iuris? What is the law?

652. A finch eek coude he pulle. In the idiom of Wall Street, he knew how to shear a lamb. (Skeat).

9. 662. War him of a significavit. The writ of excommunication, which usually began with the word Significavit.

667. For an ale-stake. Ale-houses were usually marked by a pole, ale-stake, on which was hung a garland.

685. A vernicle. A copy of the picture of Christ supposed to have been miraculously imprinted on the handkerchief of

St. Veronica.

11. 826. The watering of seint Thomas. The watering place was at a brook a short distance out from Southwark.

THE NUN'S PRIEST'S TALE

24. She fond no lak. She found no fault. 35. By nature knew he ech ascensioun.

This is one of the many passages in which Chaucer uses the language of astronomy for telling time. The meaning is that the cock crew each hour, when the sun had risen fifteen degrees higher.

12. 59. My lief is faren in londe. My loved one has gone away.

103. Swevenes engendren, etc. See note on Prol., 1. 417.

13. 120. Lo Catoun. Dionysius Cato, to whom was ascribed a collection of maxims, De Moribus, used in Chaucer's time as a text-book for beginners in Latin.

143. Lauriol, centaure, etc. For an explanation of these botanical names see the Oxford Chaucer, v. 252. 15. 303. Macrobeus. Latin writer of the fifth century, annotator of Cicero's

Somnium Scipionis.

16. 367. The month in which the world bigan. There was an old notion that the creation took place on the eighteenth of March.

369. Y-passed were also, etc. When March was gone, and thirty-two days more; i. e., when it was the third of May. 374. The signe of Taurus. The sun was in the zodiacal sign, or constellation, of Taurus, and had passed the twenty-first degree.

407. Genilon. The traitor who caused the death of Roland, in the Chanson de Roland. Sinon persuaded the Trojans to admit the wooden horse.

421. Augustyn . . . Boece... Bradwardyn. Famous ecclesiastical writers, St. Augustine, Boethius, and Thomas Bradwardine, Archbishop of Canterbury in 1349.

17. 451. Phisiologus. A work on natural history, in Latin, well known to the Middle Ages.

473. Boece.

Boethius (see 1. 421) was also author of a treatise on music.

492. Daun Burnel the Asse. A satirical poem of the twelfth century, by Nigel Wireker.

18. 527. O Gaufred. Geoffrey de Vinsauf, who wrote verses lamenting the death of Richard I.

536. Ilioun. The citadel of Troy.
574. Iakke Straw. One of the leaders in
the Peasants' Rebellion of 1381.

BALADE DE BON CONSEYL

25. 2. Suffyce unto thy good. Let thy wealth be sufficient unto thee.

9. In trust of hir. Fortune.

22. Thou Vache. Sir Philip la Vache, to whom the poem is addressed. See an article by Miss Edith Rickert in Modern Philology, xi. 209 f.

THE COMPLAINT OF CHAUCER

26. 22. Conquerour of Brutes Albioun. King Henry IV, who came to the throne in 1399 through the deposition of Richard II. Brutes Albioun-the Albion, or England, of Brutus, a legendary descendant of Aeneas, who first reigned in the island.

PIERS THE PLOWMAN 26. Of this poem, which until lately has been accepted as the work of William Langland, there are several versions, the work of different men, and produced at different times during the last forty years of the fourteenth century. The earliest, or so-called A-text, was written about 1365, and was the basis of subsequent revisions. The question of authorship has been argued at great length by Professor John M. Manly, and others, in Modern Philology; and though uncertainties still exist, it is hardly to be questioned that several people had a share in the work, and that the traditional ascription to Langland is erroneous.

27. 39. Qui loquitur, etc. He who speaks

evil.

55. Al the foure ordres. The mendicant friars were the Carmelites, or white friars; the Augustinians; the Dominicans, or black friars; and the Minorites, or grey friars.

NOAH'S FLOOD

The play is taken from the Chester miracle cycle. The text here followed is that of Harleian MS. 2124, edited by Dr. Hermann Deimling for the Early English Text Society (Extra Series, lxii). The text has been modernized, except that rhyme-words and the original word order have been preserved. Stage directions have been translated from the original Latin. Waterleaders and Drawers of Dee. Members of the gild of water-carriers, who presented the play. The River Dee flows through Chester.

LE MORTE DARTHUR: PREFACE

44. William Caxton. Caxton (c. 1422-1491), the first English printer. The first book to be printed in English was issued at Bruges in 1474; two years later Caxton set up his press in Westminster.

The Morte Darthur was published in 1485.

37. Stalled. Installed.

72. Aretted. Considered to be.

76. Polichronicon. A history of the world, and encyclopædia of universal knowledge, by Ranulph Higden (d. 1364). 82. Bochas. Boccaccio. De Casu, etc: Concerning the Fall of Great Men.

84. Galfridus. Geoffrey of Monmouth, author of the Historia Regum Britanniae, (c. 1136), the most famous of all AngloLatin chronicles.

In reading Spenser's verse, a final -ed should always be given syllabic value. Book I narrates the adventures of the Knight of Holiness.

51. 20. Gloriana. Standing in the allegory for Queen Elizabeth.

28. Lovely ladie. Una, the personification of Truth.

52. 79. Warlike beech. Lances were frequently of beech wood.

53. 127-234. The passage omitted gives an account of the Knight's combat with the foul monster Error, and of his ultimate triumph.

54. 253. Aged sire. Archimago, the enchanter, represents hypocrisy or false religion.

55. 314. Saintes and popes. In accordance with the purpose of the allegory, Archimago is made a Catholic.

regions.

332. Gorgon. Demogorgon, one of the
greatest of the infernal powers, whose
name it was dangerous to utter.
333. Cocytus, Styx. Rivers of Hades.
348. Tethys. The ocean.
349. Cynthia. The moon.

352. Double gates. According to clas-
sical legend, true dreams, sent to men
from the house of Sleep, issued forth
through a door of horn; false dreams,
through a door of ivory.
Cf. 1. 393.
Spenser substitutes silver for horn.
361ff. Note in this stanza the skilful sug-
gestion of sense by sound.

56. 376. Dryer braine. Brain too dry or feverish. It was supposed that lack of moisture in the brain was the cause of fitful, dream-broken sleep.

Stanza XLV. Archimago fashions one of his sprites into the likeness of Una, and by the aid of the false dream deceives the Red Cross Knight into believing Una false to him. In Canto II the Knight deserts Una and flees from Archimago's cabin. Meeting on his way a Saracen knight Sansfoy, with a beautiful lady, he kills the knight and takes the lady Duessa (Falsehood, though she is at present going under the name of Fidessa-Faith), as his companion. Una meanwhile has set forth in search of her knight, and has lost her way in a wood.

Shalt be a saint, and thine own nation's frend

And patrone: thou Saint George shalt called be,

Saint George of mery England, the signe of victoree." (I. x. 66).

Then follows the struggle between George and the dragon (the devil), occupying the entire eleventh canto, which is here reprinted without omission.

58. 43. Faire ympe of Phoebus, etc. Clio, muse of History, daughter of Phoebus and Mnemosyne (Memory). 56. Till I of warres, etc. 66 Spenser was apparently planning for his later books or for his second part, some celebration of the war with Philip II. Bryton fieldes

with Sarazin blood bedyde' suggests imitation of the war of the Saracens in France, as narrated in the Orlando Furioso." (Dodge.)

62. Thy second tenor. pitch.' (Dodge.)

"Melody of lower

63. Man of God his . . . armes. Manof-God's arms.

59. 74. So couched neare. Placed so close together.

60. 167. Hagard hauke. A wild hawk.

168. Above his hable might. Beyond the limit of his strength.

172. He so disseized, etc. He, the dragon, being thus relieved of his great burden. 61. 186. His neighbour element. The earth. 187. The blustring brethren. Sometimes explained as the winds; possibly refers to both winds and sea, combining against the land. Take ven

189. Each other to avenge.

geance on each other.

230. Him. The Knight.

62. 235. That great champion. Hercules, the occasion of whose death was the shirt poisoned by blood of the centaur Nessus. 267. Silo. The pool of Siloam.

269. Cephise (Cephissus) ... Hebrus. Greek rivers.

278. Above his wonted pitch.

than usual.

Higher

63. 300. As eagle, fresh out of the ocean wave. "Every ten years the eagle mounts to the circle of fire and thence plunges into the ocean, from which it emerges with fresh plumage." (Dodge.) 303. Eyas hauke. Newly fledged hawk. 337. Ne living wight, etc. Nor would any living person have promised him life. 64. 356. Engorged. This is the reading in editions of Spenser, but it makes no good sense; engorged means glutted with. Spenser have intended engored-wounded. hence, aroused, infuriated (?) as in Faerie Queene, II. viii. 42:

May

"As salvage bull, whom two fierce mastives bayt,

When rancour doth with rage him once engore."

381. The warlike pledge. The shield.

65. 414. The crime of our first father's fell. The occasion of the crime, etc.

459. Her. Object of salutes.
465. He.
knight.

The dragon. Himself. The

PROTHALAMION

66. The poem was written in honor of the approaching double marriage of the Ladies Elizabeth and Katherine Somerset, daughters of the Earl of Worcester, in 1596. It commemorates a visit made by the ladies, in barges on the river, to Essex House, residence of the Earl of Essex.

6-9. Discontent . . . empty shaddowes. A reference to Spenser's vain effort for