CHARLES OF ORLEANS. THE COMPLAINT. Line 5. Prins. An inaccurate pedantic past participle of prendre. Line 14. Faulse. There is to be noted here and elsewhere throughout these extracts, until the modern spelling at the close of the period, the redundant "1" in many words. It was an effect of pure pedantry. The latin "1" had become u in northern French. Falsa made, naturally, "Fausse." The partial learning of the later middle ages reintroduced an "1" which was not known to be transformed, but was thought omitted. Line 24. Liesse. One of the commonest words of this epoch, lost to modern French. It means joy - laetitia. Line 25. Note the gender of "Amour," feminine even in the singular throughout the middle ages and renaissance-right up to the seventeenth century. THE TWO ROUNDELS OF SPRING. I Line 1. Fourriers. The servants who go before to find lodging. The term survives in French military terminology. The Fourriers are the non-commissioned officers and party who go forward and mark the Billeting of a regiment. = Line 9. Piega il y a pièce; "lately". Cf. naguère="il n'y a guère.... Line 11. Prenez pais: ="take the fields," begone. Line 19. Note "Chant," the regular form of the subjunctive= Cantet. The only latin vowel preserved after the tonic syllable is a= French e (mute). Thus contat=" chante " which form has in modern French usurped the subjunctive. Line 23. Livrée="Liberata," i.e., things given out. A term originally applied not only to clothing, but to the general allowance of the king's household. Hence our word "livery." THE FAREWELL. Line 2. Chiere lie. "Happy countenance." Chiere here is the substantive, lie=laeta, is the adjectve. Bonne chère means "a good time" where chère is an old word for "head" (kapa). = Line 5. Baillie Bailliwick, "For Age that has me now within her bounds." Line 7. Mye. "Crumb." "I am not a whit (not a crumb) with her (Foie) to-day." Line 15. "Well braced," literally "well girthed" (as a horse is). VILLON. THE DEAD LADIES. Stanza 1, line 1. Note the redundant negative; it is characteristic of mediaeval French, as of all primitive work, that the general suggestion of doubt is sufficient to justify a redundant negative. Line 2. Flora, etc. It is worth while knowing who these women were. Flora is Juvenal's Flora (Sat. II. 9), a legend in the university. Of Archipiada I know nothing. Thaïs was certainly the Egyptian courtesan turned anchoress and canonized, famous in the middle ages and revived to-day in the repulsive masterpiece of M. Anatole France. Elois is, of course, Heloïse, and Esbaillart is Abelard. The queen, who in the legend had Buridan (and many others) drowned, was the Dowager of Burgundy that lived in the Tour de Nesle, where the Palais Mazarin |