Part 133

of which this line is an exact reproduction.

904. pleith an aftercast. This looks like a metaphor from casting dice, but it is difficult to see the exact application. It means of course here that he is always too late in what he says and does.

914. come at thin above, i.e. attain to success: cp. Mirour, 25350,

‘Car lors est Triche a son dessus.’

964. See note on i. 2677.

979 ff. The story may probably enough be taken from Ovid, Metam. ii. 1-324, but if so it is much abbreviated.

which is the Sonne hote, ‘which is called the Sun’; cp. ii. 131 f. Possibly, however, ‘hote’ may be the adjective, with definite termination for the sake of the rhyme. There would be no objection to rhyming with it the adverb of the same form.

1030 ff. The moral drawn by Gower from the story of Phaeton is against going too low, that is abandoning the higher concerns of love owing to slothful negligence. The next story is against aiming too high and neglecting the due claims of service.

1035 ff. Ovid, Metam. viii. 183-235.

1090 f. Cp. Mirour, 5389 ff.

1096. who as evere take: so ‘what man’ is very commonly used with subjunctive, iii. 2508 &c., but the uncertainty of the construction is shown by ‘And thinkth’ in the next line. See notes on Prol. 13, 460.

1108 ff. Cp. Mirour, 5395 ff.

1131. A superfluous syllable, such as we have at the pause in this line, is very unusual in Gower’s verse; but cp. v. 447.

1153. lete I ne mai, ‘I may not neglect’: see note on i. 3365.

1180. Cp. i. 698, ‘And many a contenance he piketh.’ It means here perhaps ‘thus I keep up a pretence (for staying).’

1245 ff. A somewhat similar story to this is to be found in Andreas Capellanus, De Amore, to which my attention was first called by Mr. Archer. This book (written about 1220) gives imaginary colloquies between different kinds of persons, to illustrate the ways of courtship, ‘Plebeius loquitur plebeiae,’ ‘Plebeius nobili,’ ‘Nobilis plebeiae,’ ‘Nobilis nobili.’ In this last occurs the story of a squire who saw the god of love leading a great company of ladies in three bands, the first well mounted and well attended, the second well mounted but attended by so many that it was a hindrance rather than a help, and the third in wretched array with lame horses and no attendance. The meaning of the sight is explained to the squire by one of these last, and he is taken to see the appropriate rewards and punishments of each band. He relates what he has seen to his mistress in order to make her more ready to accept his suit (pp. 91-108, ed. Trojel, 1892).

There are some expressions which resemble those which Gower uses, as ‘quarum quaelibet in equo pinguissimo et formoso et suavissime ambulante sedebat’ (p. 92), cp. 1309 f.,

‘On faire amblende hors thei sete That were al whyte, fatte and grete.’

And again, ‘domina quaedam ... habens equum macerrimum et turpem et tribus pedibus claudicantem,’ cp. 1343 ff. The story, however, is different in many ways from that of Gower. For other similar stories see the article in Romania for January 1900 on the ‘Purgatory of Cruel Beauties’ by W. A. Neilson.

The tale of Rosiphelee is well told by Gower, and in more than one passage it bears marks of having been carefully revised by the author. The alteration of 1321 f. is peculiarly happy, and gives us one of the best couplets in the Confessio Amantis.

1285. the Sonne Ariste: cp. iii. 1224. The capital letter was perhaps intended to mark ‘Ariste’ as a substantive.

1307. comen ryde: cp. i. 350.

1309. ‘hors’ is evidently plural here: so i. 2036 and often.

1320. long and smal, i.e. tall and slender. Adjectives used predicatively with a plural subject take the plural inflection or not according to convenience. Thus in Prol. 81 we have ‘Bot for my wittes ben to smale’ in rhyme with ‘tale.’

1323. beere. This is pret. plur., as 1376: the same form for pret. subj. 2749.

1330. For pure abaissht: cp. Chaucer, Troilus, ii. 656, ‘And with that thought for pure ashamed she Gan in hir hed to pulle.’ The parallel, to which my attention was called by Prof. M^cCormick, suggests the idea that ‘abaissht’ is a participle rather than a noun, and the use of the past participle with ‘for’ in this manner occurs several times in Lydgate, e.g. ‘for unknowe,’ ‘meaning from ignorance,’ Temple of Glas, 632, ‘for astonied,’ 934, 1366, and so with an adjective, ‘for pure wood’ in the English Rom. of the Rose, 276. See Dr. Schick’s note on Lydgate, Temple of Glas, 632.

1422. That I ne hadde, ‘I would that I had’: cp. v. 3747,

‘Ha lord, that he ne were alonde!’