751. Oure Hooste: see Introduction.

754. A fairer burgeys is ther noon in Chepe: 'the Chepe,' whose name is preserved in 'Cheapside,' was the great marketplace of London. To understand the full force of the line we must remember that in 1327 the City of London had obtained a charter from Edward III. giving it authority over Southwark, on the ground that the latter was a harbour for rogues. Southwark regained its freedom a few years later and kept it until 1550, when it was once more placed under the City of London. But though it was independent of the city in Chaucer's days it was a very inferior place, and to say of one of its inhabitants that he was as good as any citizen in Cheapside was a high compliment.

761. lordynges, my masters, gentlemen. Used only in addressing a company.

763. if that I shal nat lye: ‘if I am to speak truth,' or 'sooth to say.'

767. I am... bythoght, I have thought of.

772. Ye shapen yow to talen and to pleye: you are preparing to tell stories and jest. See Introduction.

777. you liketh alle: 'liketh' is impersonal, 'you,' dative.

781. Now, by my fader soule, that is deed: 'fader' is here the uninflected genitive, as in B 1178; cp. 'fader kin' (C 3121), 'fader day' (E 1136). Save in such common phrases Chaucer uses 'faders' or 'fadres,' as in E 809, "Retourneth to your faders hous, quod he."

783. Hoold up youre hond: probably another proverbial phrase, and so influenced by the old plural form 'honde, cp. в 606, "For which ful ofte he weep and wrong his hond." Chaucer's usual form is 'hondes,' as in G 189, "Urban for joye his hondes gan up holde." But after all hond' may here be singular, for each man would only hold up one hand.

784. Oure conseil was nat longe for to seche: our resolution did not take long to arrive at. From implying absence, as here, 'to seek' came to suggest non-existence, as in G 874, of success in alchemy, "I warne yow wel, it is to seken ever."

785. Us thoughte it was noght worth to mak it wys: it seemed to us (cp. 682) not worth while to treat the matter seriously. 'Wys,' denotes worldly wisdom, as in the war and wys' applied to the Sergeant of Law. For the phrase 'make it wys,' cp. A 3980, "And strange he made it of hir mariage," i.e. he was stand-off-like about her marriage, and Boke of Duchesse, 531, "He made it neither tough ne queynte," he was neither obstinate nor affected about it.

810. and oure othes swore: i.e. and we swore our oaths and prayed him, etc. It is too frequent a practice with our author

to omit the governing pronoun before his verbs. B 621-23:

"But nathelees, ther was gret moornyng

Among the peple, and seyn they kan nat gesse
That she had doon so gret a wikkednese.

See below,

Where and seyn' is for 'and they seyn.' (Adapted from Tyrwhitt.) 815. And sette a soper at a certeyn pris: i.e. a festival supper on their return, at which the teller of the best story would be the guest and the other pilgrims pay their own reckonings and his as well. The fact that it was to be a special entertainment explains the arrangement as to cost, without obliging us to suppose with Professor Corson that the bills mentioned in 1. 760 had been too high.

817. In heigh and lough it would seem enough to explain high and low as equivalent to "in things both great and small," i.e. in all respects, but Tyrwhitt assures us that 'de alto et basso' and 'haut et bas' are respectively medieval Latin and French expressions "of entire submission on one side and sovereignty on the other."

823. oure aller cok, the cock, or waker, of us all.

825. a litel moore than paas: i.e. at rather more than a walking pace, cp. A 2897, of the procession at the funeral of Arcite : "And riden forth a paas with sorweful cheere,"

and Troilus, ii. 626-7:

"And wounded was his hors, and gan to blede,
On whiche he rood a pas, ful softely,"

quotations which prove the existence of this sense. On the other hand, in 1535, in Coverdale's version of the Bible 'apace' has undoubtedly its modern meaning 'quickly.'

826. Unto the wateryng of Seint Thomas: a brook near the second milestone on the Canterbury Road, where pilgrims watered their horses. In Tudor times, and perhaps earlier, Surrey criminals were hanged there as Middlesex ones at Tyburn. "In Carey's Map of 15 miles round London, so late as 1786, we have at the two milestone the Kent Road Watering's Bridge, a remnant of the old "(Nares' Glossary, under the heading Watering,' St.

name

Thomas à).

829. I it yow recorde: Dr. Liddell follows MSS. E. Hn. and Camb. in omitting 'I,' but the ellipse is more awkward than in 1. 810. 830. If even-song and morwe-song accorde: if you will sing the same tune in the morning as you sang overnight.

838 etc. draweth... cometh... studieth: polite plural imperatives. Harry Baily is represented as very careful in using these in talking to the pilgrims of good position or special worth, but to the Pardoner, the Monk, the Nun's Priest, etc., he uses the unceremonious singular, and the poet is himself addressed in the same way: "What man artow,' quod he," etc. (B 1885 sqq.).

841. Ne studieth noght. We are told of the Clerk (1. 304) "noght o word spak he moore than was neede," and so the Host took it for granted that he was always working out some philosophical problem: cp. E 1-5:

"Sire Clerk of Oxenford,' our Hoste sayde,
'Ye ryde as coy and stille as doth a mayde,
Were newe spoused, sittyng at the bord;
This day ne herd I of youre tonge a word.
I trowe ye studie aboute som sophyme;
But Salomon seith every thyng hath tyme.
For Goddes sake! as beth of bettre cheere !
It is no tyme for to studien heere.'"

It was said of S. Thomas Aquinas that once when dining with the King of France' he fell into such a study, and woke from it only to strike his fist on the table and cry "They could never answer that," much to the King's delight.

844. by aventure, or sort, or cas: perhaps the three nearest equivalents we can propose for these words are 'luck, fate, and

chance.'

GLOSSARY.

NOTE.-y in the middle of a word is arranged as i.

M