JOHN GOWER, CINKANTE BALADES: EXPLANATORY NOTES

Abbreviations: Boethius: Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy; BD: Chaucer, Book of the Duchess; CA: Gower, Confessio Amantis, ed. Peck; F: Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Fairfax 3; G: Glasgow, University of Glasgow Library, MS Hunter 59 (T.2.17); Mac: Macaulay, ed., The Complete Works of John Gower; MO: Gower, Mirour de l’Omme, trans. Wilson; OF: Old French; PF: Chaucer, Parliament of Fowls; RR: Chaucer, Romaunt of the Rose; Roman de la Rose Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun, Le Roman de la Rose; Whiting: Whiting, Chaucer’s Use of Proverbs.

A note on capitalization: in these translations capitalization usually adheres to Macaulay’s practice, which, in general, replicates forms in the manuscript. Wherever capitalization may help the modern reader better comprehend Gower’s intention — as for example, in the case of theological concepts (e.g., “Providence,” Cinkante Balades, Dedication I.3) or allegorical figures (e.g., “Danger,” Cinkante Balades, XXIII.10) — capitalization is added here.



DEDICATION I

1 Pité is translated as “mercy,” but diphthongs typically reduce in Anglo–Norman, thus “piety” is an alternative. It would not be out of poetic character for Gower to have desired, and so engineered, the dual resonance.

5 Par vous. Lit. “Through you.”

DEDICATION II

9–14 See Textual Notes, p. 149, for Macaulay’s reconstruction of the missing lines.

20 reçoit. Indicative present tense, third person, but following “vendra” a subjunctive or optative seems intended.

21 estre. From “esse” and “stare”; hence, “existed.”

24 d’ascune. “Of any[one]” but possibly also simply “any villainy.”

I (CINKANTE BALADES)

1–14 Part of fol. 12 is torn out, thus both recto and verso portions are missing.

8 en vostre grace. “In your grace”; see MO lines 6645, 11436, and 27536, where “grace” is paired with “mercy”; also MO line 15215, paired with “pité”; MO line 18926, paired with “pardoun.” “In your grace” is common in CA, with the same sense, e.g., 1.732, “I put me therof in your grace”; and see further Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde, e.g., III.472, Troilus “so ful stood in his lady grace”; and Canterbury Tales, e.g., of the Squire, General Prologue I(A)88, “in hope to stonden in his lady grace.”

13 –ssetz. Probably “[a]ssetz”; hence “enough,” “well enough.”

14 en autre place. Lit. “in another place.”

17 plesance. “Pleasures, happiness”; in context, perhaps ironic.

22 fortune. I.e., Fortuna; see Boethius, 2.pr.1.

II L’IVERN S’EN VAIT ET L’ESTÉE VIENT FLORI

4 renovelle. Lit. “renews,” “restores.”

5 De mes amours. Lit. “In accord with my affections.”

8 pres. [“soon after.”] Compare Modern French près, “near.”

21 que bon vous semblera. Lit. “whatever seems good to you.”

22 se poet tenir. Lit. “is able to maintain itself,” but Gower often uses present tense for future — as is clearly the sense here.

27 il vous remembrera. An impersonal construction normally, but here “il” seems meant to highlight the letter, since three lines earlier Gower — surprisingly, against his common practice throughout the balades and MO — makes “ce lettre” masculine.

III D’ARDANT DESIR CELLE AMOROUSE PEIGNE

4 Pour vous. Causal, i.e., “Because of you.”

6 De sa justice amour moun coer enhorte. I.e., “My heart exhorts Love to establish, bring about, or enforce justice”; alternatively, with “amour” as the subject, “Love exhorts my heart with its justice.”

16 A toutz les jours sanz departir me ploie. Lit. “Every day without [separating, taking leave] I fold [bend] (< ploier) myself”; but clearly both “me ploie” and “sanz departir” here are used figuratively, the former implying a contortionist’s effort, the latter in the sense of “unremittingly, without yielding or changing course.” N.b., the reappearance of “sanz departir” in the following two balades, IIII and IIII*, suggests purposive interconnection there, and with III here.

IIII D’ENTIER VOLOIR SANZ JAMMES DEPARTIR

17 Q’en mon pensant. Lit. “In my thought, recollection.”

V POUR UNE SOULE AVOIR ET REJOÏR

2 a noun chaloir. Impersonal: “to be of no importance” (compare Modern English “noncha­lant”).

16 la. “her”; alternatively, “it.”

18 Benoite soit. Present subjunctive, hence perhaps conditional: “might be.”

19 porra tenir. Lit. “is able to.”

25 ff. Marginalia in F: Les balades d’amont jesqes enci sont fait especialement pour ceaux q’attendont lours amours par droite mariage. [“The balades from the beginning up to this point are made especially for those who wait on their loves in expectation of marriage.”] q’attendont. Lit. “wait on.”

VI LA FAME ET LA TRESHALTE RENOMÉE

2 ff. Marginalia in F: Les balades d’ici jesqes au fin du livere sont universeles a tout le monde, selonc les propretés et les condicions des Amantz, qui sont diversement travailez en la fortune d’amour. [“The balades from here until the end of the book are universal, for everyone, according to the properties and conditions of Lovers who are diversely suffering the fortunes of Love.”] la fortune d’amour. Lit. singular, “fortune of Love”; idiomatically plural in English, i.e., “ups and downs.” Hence Fortuna as a personification is not intended.

5 M’ad trespercié l’oreille et est impresse. Lit. requires a singular subject, but Gower’s evident intention hearkens back to plural nouns in lines 1–2.

6–7 par quoi mon oill desire, / Vostre presence au fin qe jeo remire. N.b., Gower here extends the usual one-line refrain by a half a line.

7Vostre presence. Lit. “your [physical] presence,” so perhaps with pointedly high courtly intent (compare “noblesce,” “grant valour,” and “haltesse” in stanza 2), and thus to be taken less idiomatically than “in person.”

remire. “look on” with additional senses of “admire,” “contemplate”; “remirer” also carries a reflexive sense of “look at one’s self” (in a mirror).

20 Le bon amour. Lit. “good love,” by courtly tradition “loyal.”

VII DE FIN AMOUR C’EST LE DROIT ET NATURE

1 fin amour. I.e., “amour courtoise,” love as idealized in the courtly tradition: refined, pure, noble, ennobling, loyal, gentle, unwavering.

5 honourée. Both “honorable one” and (implied) “the one [I] honor.”

23–24 Plus . . . plus. “More” (quantity) as well as “more” (time): Gower plays upon the elasticity of the word for punning effect.

VIII D’ESTABLE COER, QUI NULLEMENT SE MUE

2 le penser. Lit. an infinitive, here presented as masculine: hence, e.g., “Ses Eles” (line 4), and throughout, indicating the wings of thought, not of the falcon.

4 souhaid et desirer. Allegorical personifications.

17 retenue. Macaulay (Mac, 1:463, note VIII.17) translates “engagement”; the central idea, however, seems to be a vow of loyalty, even of vassalage. Compare XV.14 and Traitié III.20.

22 Ceste balade a vous fait envoier. Lit. “This balade is made to send to you.”

IX TROP TART A CEO QE JEO DESIRE ET PROIE

5 amis. Lit. “friend” but in the courtly sense much larger: “one who loves you,” “lover.”

8 En vous remaint ma sovereine joie. N.b., Gower twice breaks patterns in this poem by a) adding a fourth and fifth stanza to the usual three, and b) closing only the first and final stanzas with this refrain line, rather than repeating throughout.

9–10 De mes deux oels ainçois qe jeo vous voie, / Millfoitz le jour mon coer y est tramis. I.e., the eye as the window to the oul/heart; see Roman de la Rose, e.g., lines 1692, 1741, etc.

14 Desir. Personification.

25 m’esbanoie. Lit. “I divert myself.”

28 fremis. Lit. “shake, quiver.”

37 ne suis poestis. Lit. “I am not powerful [enough].”

X MON TRESDOULS COER, MON COER AVETZ SOULEINE

6 plie. Lit. “bow, bend,” so perhaps here with a sense of the lover’s lowliness and the lady’s exaltation; compare “si halt lieu” (line 10) and “supplie” (line 20).

7 ameisté. “Amity” is a weak English substitute for a broader and more passionate courtly term; see “amis” (IX.5).

8 la fortune. Here taken as Fortuna, since it “leads” (“meine”).

10 si halt lieu. Lit. “so high a place,” e.g., “honored,” “exalted.”

13 s’allie. Lit. “binds itself” (“to you” implicit).

15 S’amour. Personification, since it “wishes” (“volt”).

16 Et faire tant qe jeo m’esjoierai. Lit. “And to act so that I may rejoice.”

20 supplie. Lit. “bend” but with broader resonances: “bend the knee,” i.e., “humbly beg” (feudal); “supplicate”; and compare as a reflexive, “prostrate one’s self”; see also “plie,” above (line 6).

24 balade escrite. “Written balade,” perhaps recalling the earlier, exclusively sung form (?) or to emphasize the lover’s originality (“this balade I have made”).

XI MES SENS FOREINS SE POURRONT BIEN MOVOIR

7 Si vous fuissetz un poi plus amerouse. Lit. “If you were a little bit more amorous”; so, perhaps, “more inclined to love.”

20 par reson. Lit. “by reason,” “according to reason.”

22 cest escris. Lit. “this writing.”

23 dangerouse. “Disdainful,” “rebuffing,” “blunt,” “uncourteous”; for Gower’s usage, see the personification “Danger” in Roman de la Rose and CA.

24 Meilour de vous om sciet en null paiis. Lit. “Better than you one knows in no country.”

XII LA DAME A LA CHALANDRE COMPARER

1 la Chalandre. “Plover”: compare MO lines 10707–17. Wilson translates “lark,” apparently following Chaucer’s usage, RR lines 663 and 914, where “chelaundre/ chalaundres/chalaundre” appear, respectively, in lists of singing birds; hence Skeat’s glossary, s.v. “chalaundre,” “a species of lark (Alauda calandra).” But that the lark is Gower’s bird is doubtful. In MO, lines 10708–10, the chalandre is used to represent “Contemplacioun” and “au mye nuyt tout coy / Devers le ciel prent son voloy / Si halt comme puet en sa mesure” (“at midnight very quietly takes flight toward heaven, as high as it can possibly go,” trans. Wilson). Larks, rightly known for their singing, not their meditative example, are not night fliers, and Alaudra calandra, while common in France (whence Roman de la Rose, which Chaucer translates), did not inhabit fourteenth-century England. More likely Gower had in mind the “charadrius,” which in Deuteronomy 14:16–18 (at 18) and Leviticus 11:19 is listed among unclean birds of the shore and marsh (e.g., heron, swan, stork, cormorant, “porphirion” [sultana-hen, Fulica porphyrio], night heron, bittern, hoopoe); but his direct source was a version of Physiologus, which notes

If someone is ill, whether he will live or die can be known from the
charadrius. The bird turns his face away from the man whose illness will
bring death . . . if the disease is not fatal, the charadrius stares the sick
man in the face and the sick man stares back at the charadrius, who
releases him from his illness. Then, flying up to the atmosphere of the
sun, the charadrius burns away the sick man’s illness and scatters it
abroad. (trans. Curley, 7–8)

Plovers — properly birds of the order Charadriiformes, which includes the genus Charadrius (as well as the genus Vanellus, the lapwing) — are small waders common in England. Of particular interest to the Kentishman Gower might have been Charadrius alexandrinus, the Kentish or Snowy Plover, which until recently bred in England and gets its name from its all-white appearance when viewed in flight, from below. Perhaps not insignificantly, Physiologus describes the charadrius as “entirely white with no black part at all” (trans. Curley, p. 7). See also Bestiary, trans. White (a translation of Cambridge University Library MS II.4.26, a twelfth-century Latin prose bestiary possibly from Revesby Abbey in Lincolnshire), which argues (p. 115n1) for the “white wagtail (Motacilla alba Linn.) for wagtails are still regarded in Ireland with a superstitious dread. The markings of their heads are skull-like.” The most extensive study is G. C. Druce, “The Chalandrios and Its Legend, Sculpted upon the Twelfth Century Doorway of the Alne Church, Yorkshire,” Yorkshire Archaeological Journal 69 (1912–13), 381–416.

13 la feture. “Form” but also “face,” “features,” “bodily shape.”

22 vair. “Varius,” “variegated,” “mottled,” “parti-colored,” but also “various,” “changeable.” This is the standard eye-description for damsels of romance (see Oiseuse [Idleness], Roman de la Rose, line 521 [RR, line 546: “Hir yen grey as is a faucoun”]); for example, Guinevere, Iseult, and other beautiful women in romances are often praised for their “gray” eyes. “Gray” is usually translated as a color, blue and/or gray, sometimes as “bright, shining” (see Greimas, Dictionnaire, “clair”); but perhaps “changeable” is an intended part of the mix as well. See XXVII.1.

XIII AU MOIS DE MARSZ, U TANT Y AD MUANCE

7 Ore ai le coer en ease, ore en destance. N.b., predictably a line from this position would repeat throughout, but Gower avoids a refrain in this balade. See poems XIIII, XVI, and XVII below.

11 nature. Nature, personification; compare Alain of Lille, De planctu Naturae; PF.

21 desavance. “Diminishes,” or perhaps “dims.”

22 en aventure. Implies both randomness and risk.

XIIII POUR PENSER DE MA DAME SOVEREINE

7 Plus qe Paris ne soeffrist pour Heleine. N.b., predictably a line from this position would repeat throughout, but Gower avoids a refrain in this balade. See XIII, above, and XVI and XVII, below.

20 Ne puiss faillir del un avoir estreine. I follow Macaulay’s translation of this line; see Mac, 1:464, note 20.

23 Q’a vous parler me falt du bouche aleine. Lit. “Because to speak to you breath of/from the mouth fails me.”

XV COM L’ESPERVER QE VOLE PAR CREANCE

14 retenue. See VIII.17, above; compare >i III.20.

XVI CAMELION EST UNE BESTE FIERE

1 Camelion. That chameleons lived on air was common belief; see Dan Michel, Ayenbite of Inwyt, 1:62. This classical notion was carried into the Renaissance; see Shakespeare, Hamlet, III.ii.93.

8 Ne puiss de grace trover celle sente. N.b., predictably a line from this position would repeat throughout, but Gower avoids a refrain in this balade. See XIII and XIV, above, and XVII, below.

18 espoir. Here, allegorical personification; but compare “De vein espoir,” XVI.10.

19 A volenté sanz fait est chamberere. The subject must be “souhaid” above (XVI.17).

XVII NE SAI SI DE MA DAME LA DURTÉE

8 Tant meinz reprens, com plus l’averay doné [“The more I give, the greater is my rejection”]. N.b., predictably a line from this position would repeat throughout, but Gower avoids a refrain in this balade. See XIII, XIV, and XVI, above.

14 Om dist, poi valt service q’est sanz fée. [“Men say, poor is the service that is without reward.”] Cited as a proverb in Whiting (p. 296).

XVIII LES GOUTES D’EAUE QE CHEONT MENU

8 Tiel esperver crieis unqes ne fu. “Esperver” is (technically) the Eurasian sparrow hawk (Accipter nisus), the most common hawk native to England; often, however, members of the families Accipitridae and Falconidae, true falcons, have been casually blended (e.g., the North American sparrow “hawk,” Falco sparverius; John Hill, History of Animals [1752], the sparrow hawk, a “yellow-legged falcon,” p. 341). Accipter nisus is not unusual in its cry; Gower is probably using the term generally, with reference to the piercing cry of all raptors. See MO lines 25285–87; Chaucer, The Squire’s Tale, Canterbury Tales V(F) 411–13: “Ther sat a faucon over hire heed ful hye, / That with a pitous voys so gan to crye / That all the wode resouned of hire crye.”

23 Diamant. “Diamond” in most lapidaries, e.g., Peterborough: “Diamand” [LIX]; North Midland: “Dyamaunde”; London: “Diamaunde” [XVII]; Sloane: “Diamonde” [I]; however, see Peterborough: “adamas” [V] for “diamond” (and the directive “Require ulterius in diamonde”) and its proximity there to “adamant” [VI] for “adamant”; see Sloane: “adamand” [IV] for “adamant.” Complicating the case further is that both share several characteristics, the most important one for determining Gower’s meaning here being impenetrable hardness. Thus, an alternative translation here must be “adamant,” “lodestone,” the iron-based, magnetic stone from India. See XXXVIII, stanza 1.

XIX OM SOLT DANTER LA BESTE PLUS SALVAGE

1–2 Om solt danter . . . soulement. Compare Arion, CA Prol.1057–65; compare also Orpheus, in Boethius, III.met.12.

14–15 Sibille le sage / S’estrange. Virgil’s Sybil inhabits a cave in Cumae opening into Hades (Aeneid VI) but she neither retreats there nor is difficult for Aeneas to find. Gower’s reference is probably to Ovid’s retelling of Aeneas’ encounter, Metamorphoses XIV.130–53, in which the Sybil explains that while Apollo granted her a thousand years of life, she did not think also to ask for continuing youth. When she discovered her error, he sought to exchange youth for her virginity. Refusing, she doomed herself to “shrivel / . . . from [her] full form to but a tiny thing, and [her] limbs, / consumed by age, [to] shrink to a feather’s weight” (lines 147–49, trans. Miller). Obviously to “remove herself” in that way has significant implications for the balade as a whole.

XX FORTUNE, OM DIST, DE SA ROE VIRE ADES

1 Fortune, om dist, de sa Roe vire ades. Lit. “Fortune, one says, about her wheel has to turn.” See Boethius, II.pr.1.

11 estat. “State,” or perhaps “place, position.”

17–18 Palamedes . . . Agamenon. “The clever one” helped Agamemnon by exposing Odysseus’ feigned madness; Gower’s source is Hyginus’ Fabulae, 95.2.

19–20 Diomedes . . . Troilus. See Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde, Book V.

22 Du fille au Calcas. I.e., Criseyde.

XXI AU SOLAIL, QE LES HERBES ESLUMINE

6 menerai. Lit. “pursue” (as in a hunt); “conduct,” “administer.” The choice of a verb with disparate nuances — all appropriate to and enriching the context — is common Gowerian practice.

8 vilenie. Lit. “churlishness, discourtesy, vulgarity” but in the “celestial” context of the subsequent stanza, perhaps also to be understood contrastingly in a modern sense, i.e., as “wickedness, evil.” In contrast with “honest affection” (line 23), the sense is lecherous deception. See also CA 8.1431, where “vileinie” describes the attempts by multiple young men to deflower Thaise in Leonin’s brothel, where the term equates with “lechery”and “villainous behavior.”

9–13 Si femme . . . conversacioun. The language of deification is noteworthy here and throughout. See especially XXIIII and XXXI.

19 Ne truist. Subjunctive third person singular.

20 Honte et paour. See Roman de la Rose, lines 3011–16.

XXII J’AI BIEN SOVENT OÏ PARLER D’AMOUR

8 en ris . . . en plour. “In laughter . . . in tears,” or perhaps “joyful . . . in lament.”

12 hoste et tolt. Both mean “remove”; pairs of synonyms are stylistic embellishments.

XXIII POUR UN REGARD AU PRIMERE ACQUEINTANCE

5 Du destre main jeo l’ai ma foi plevi. See Traitié XVII.2.

8 ymage. Lit. “image,” “likeness,” “figure.”

9 lui. One expects the feminine “la,” but Gower treats masculine and feminine forms interchangeably, guided by metrical need. Perhaps he has in mind some­thing like Bel Aceuil (Fair Welcome) in Roman de la Rose, who, though gram­mat­ically masculine, is the quality of the woman most ardently sought by her suitors who would hope to discover him revealed through her countenance, uninhibited by Danger (line 10).

17 esperance. Personification, “Hope”; see Roman de la Rose, e.g., lines 2615–25.

XXIIII JEO QUIDE QE MA DAME DE SA MEIN

7 Q’en lui gist toute ma devocioun. See XXI, stanza 2, and XXXI, stanza 3, for other examples of the Lover worshipping the Lady.

22 faie. “Enchanted,” or perhaps “a faerie”; compare XXVII.22.

26 Soul apres dieu si m’estes soverein. Compare XXI, stanza 2.

XXV MA DAME, SI CEO FUIST A VO PLESIR

8 Car qui bien aime ses amours tard oblie. [“Because he who loves well forgets his loves late.”] Fisher, John Gower: Moral Philosopher (p. 76), notes — incorrectly — this line as “used by Chaucer in the rondel at the end of the Parliament of Fowls” (actually a note in the margin in several PF manuscripts, at line 680: “Qui bien aime a tard oublie”); similar (albeit octosyllabic) lines have been noted (e.g., in Machaut’s “Le lay de plour” [Oeuvres, I, 283] and Moniot d’Arras’ hymn to the Virgin; Deschamps uses the line exactly in Balade 1345 [Oeuvres, VII, 124–25]); cited in Whiting (p. 40) as a French proverb.

9–10 Ils sont . . . curroie. Compare perhaps Exeter Book Riddle 44.

25 bon amour. Personification, the God of Love; see Roman de la Rose, lines 863 ff.

26 De male langue. Compare Malebouche, Roman de la Rose, lines 2823 and 3871–92; see also Dedication I.22–25.

XXVI SALUTZ HONOUR ET TOUTE REVERENCE

14 Vous donne. There is no expressed object (one expects “myself”).

XXVII MA DAME, QUANT JEO VI VOSTRE OILL [VAIR ET] RIANT

1 vostre oill [vair et] riant. Macaulay notes (Mac, 1:466, note XXVII.1) “The first line is too long, but the mistake may be that of the author. Similarly in MO, lines 3116 and 14568, we have lines which are each a foot too long for the metre. In all cases it would be easy to correct: here, for example, by reading ‘Ma dame, quant jeo vi vostre oill riant.’” Compare XII.8.

8–9 Amour . . . desplaie. Compare Petrarch, Sonnet 140.

12 deslaie. Lit. “releases, lets go.”

16 manaie. “Care”; also “pity, mercy, protection.”

22 la bealté plus qe faie. Compare XXIIII.22, and CA 4.1321.

23 vilein. Compare XXI: “Sanz mal penser d’ascune vilenie” (lines 8, 16, 24, and 28).

XXVIII DAME, U EST ORE CELLE NATURESCE

7 Om voit sovent de petit poi doner. [“Often one sees little being given.”] Cited as a proverb in Whiting (p. 296).

11 Dont par dolour jeo sui sempres faili. Lit. “Thus through sadness I am always lacking.”

16 parmi. Lit. “throughout,” so perhaps “always”?

XXIX PAR DROITE CAUSE ET PAR NECESSITÉ

5 Mais fame, q’est par les paiis volable. Fame in its avatar of Rumor; see Shakespeare, Henry IV Part 2, Induction.

7 fable. Lit. “(untrue) story,” “falsehood.”

8 Q’est d’amour loigns est de desease pres. [“Whoever is far away from love is near distress.”] Cited as a proverb in Whiting (p. 296).

XXX SI COM LA NIEF, QUANT LE FORT VENT TEMPESTE

4 orra. Lit. future third person singular “will hear.”

10–13 N’ot tiel paour . . . de ma partie. I.e., “Ulysses’ fear of the Sirens or Circe was no greater than mine of you now.”

19 La chiere porte. Lit. “The dear door/gate” (porte=feminine); but masculine “port” (“harbor/port”), given both Gower’s general lack of concern about gender and the nautical imagery here, seems more likely. See also “port” (masculine)= “pass, narrow passage” in context of Ulysses’ voyage (and perhaps with a bawdy undertone as well).

XXXI MA BELLE DAME, BONE ET GRACIOUSE

8 bon amour. That is, “virtuous love.” Compare “fin amour” in XXI.5 and XXIIII.6.

XXXII CEST AUN NOVELL JANUS, Q’AD DOUBLE FACE

1 Janus. The two-faced Roman god of portals; hence Latin “Januarius,” the first month of the Roman calendar.

7 salue. “Saves”; possibly “greets,” but “point” suggests “saves.”

XXXIII AU COMENCER DEL AUN PRESENT NOVELL

4 Pour le tenir sicom vostre demeine. [“To hold as if it were your demesne.”] I.e., a feudal lordship, land solely owned by the lord and worked by peasant tenants. As a lawyer with demonstrable experience buying and selling property, Gower would have been familiar with the legal distinctions implicit in the term.

XXXIIII SAINT VALENTIN L’AMOUR ET LA NATURE

1–8 Saint Valentin . . . obeïr. See PF line 309 ff.; Nature here clearly is to be taken as the goddess. See also Chaucer, Legend of Good Women F line 145, G line 131; Alain of Lille, De planctu Naturae Prose 1.

8 U li coers est, le corps falt obeïr. [“Where the heart is, the body must follow.”] Cited as a proverb in Whiting (p. 296).

18–19 Alceone et Ceïx . . . figure. See Ovid, Metamorphoses XI.410 ff.; see also BD lines 62–220.

XXXV SAINT VALENTIN PLUS QE NULL EMPEROUR

8–9 Com la fenix . . . regioun. [“As the phoenix . . . region of Arabia.”] On the regeneration of phoenix in fire, see Physiologus (trans. Curley, p. 13) where, however, the bird is said to originate in India, and is apparently a species, not a unique bird; Ovid, Metamorphoses XV.391 ff., includes its singularity, but locates its habitat as Assyria; Isidore, Etymologies XII.vii.22, and Bestiary (trans. White, pp. 125–28) list all the ele­ments: uniqueness, fiery reproduction, Arabia. Assuming Cambridge Uni­versity Library MS II.4.26 is of English origin, Gower would seem to be following an English tradition. See the Black Knight’s praise of the “goode Faire White” as “the soleyn fenix of Arabye, / For ther livyth never but oon” (BD lines 982–83).

22 Chascun Tarcel . . . falcoun. See PF lines 393 ff.

XXXVI POUR COMPARER CE JOLIF TEMPS DE MAII

3 Car lors chantont et Merle et Papegai. The British blackbird (Turdus merula) is the most tuneful of the three major indigenous thrushes, singing from January to June; the parrot (or perhaps a woodpecker) has a song only in poetry (see Chaucer’s Sir Thopas, Canterbury Tales VII[B2]767, although probably a joke). Gower seems to have considered the “papegai” a generally exotic — and sinless? — bird; see MO line 26781.

15 Rose. See Roman de la Rose lines 1613 ff., especially 1652–87.

16 chapeals. Chaplet-making in May is traditional for lovers; see also Roman de la Rose line 1651.

18 j’ai mon coer mis. Lit. “I have placed my heart.”

XXXVII EL MOIS DE MAII LA PLUS JOIOUSE CHOSE

15 se desclose. Lit. “discloses itself.”

16 Maii m’ad hosté de sa blanche banere. Or perhaps “bright banner,” i.e., with color, flowers, etc.?

XXXVIII SICOM LA FINE PIERE DAIAMAND

1–2 Daiamand. Not “diamond” here (as in XVIII.23) but “lodestone, magnet”; compare OF “aimant”=both “diamond” or “lodestone” (Greimas, Dictionnaire); compare also lapidaries, e.g., Sloane: “adamand” [IV]; Peterborough: “adamant” (VI), an entry ending “Require ulterius in magnetes,” and which follows “adamas” [V], an entry ending “Require ulterius in diamonde”; compare also Peterborough: “magnes” [CVII]), Old English: “magneten,” London: “magnete” (XXI), North Midland: “magnete” (XX). The common denominator appears to be ferrous metals — iron and steel — which the hardness of diamond breaks or cuts through, and the lodestone attracts, or vice versa: see, e.g., the preference of the “piere dyamant tresfine” for an iron over a gold setting in MO line 12463 ff.

13 ravi. “Carried away,” or perhaps “ravished.”

15–18 Toutes vertus . . . mours. Gower has in mind the cardinal virtues (Prudence, Justice, Temperance, and Fortitude) and the theological or divine virtues (Faith, Hope, and Charity; see 1 Corinthians 13:13). The former are products of nature, the latter gifts of God; see Aquinas, Summa Theologica Q.61.1–2, Q.62.1–4, and Q.63.1–4.

18 mours. “Mores, morals,” or perhaps “customs” in the sense of “habits,” as Aquinas’ “mos” is often translated (e.g., by Pegis).

XL OM DIST, PROMESSES NE SONT PAS ESTABLES

5–6 Heleine . . . Menelai. See XIIII and Traitié X.

13 Et prendre ailours la chose q’est foreine. See lines 5–6 above; Helen and Menelaus are Greeks, Paris a Trojan.

XLI DES FALS AMANTZ TANTZ SONT AU JOUR PRESENT

1–2 Des fals amantz . . . doloir. N.b., XLI–XLIV and LXVI are in the voice of the lady.

8 bien s’avise. Lit. “advises herself well.”

25 Tu. N.b., in her contempt, the lady adopts the familiar pronoun (second person singular) when addressing the rejected suitor throughout XLI–XLIII.

XLII SEMBLABLES SONT LA FORTUNE ET LES DÉES

1 la fortune. Clearly the goddess Fortune, who “pretends to be friendly to those she intends to cheat” (Boethius, II.pr.1).

12 constreignte. Lit. “constraint, binding” but also with the sense of “compulsion,” as is perhaps intended here.

21–22 la conscience . . . fraude et malengin. Clearly allegorically imagined, as figures capable of pregnancy and being born.

XLIII PLUS TRICHEROUS QE JASON A MEDÉE

1–5 Jason . . . Phillis. See Jason and Medea, CA 5.3247 ff., Traitié VIII; Deianira and Hercules, >i 2.2258 ff., Traitié VII; Aeneas and Dido, CA 4.77 ff.; Theseus and Ariadne, CA 5.5231 ff.; Demophon and Phyllis, CA 4.731 ff.; see also Ovid, Heroides XII, IX, VII, X, and II; see also note 9 below. Fisher, John Gower: Moral Philosopher (p. 76), compares this opening list to Oton de Graunson’s “Ho! Doulce Yseult, qui fus a la fontaine / Avec Tristan, Jason et Medea” (as cited by Fisher, p. 344n21); see also Yeager, Gower’s Poetic, pp. 109–10.

8 C’est ma dolour, qe fuist ainçois ma joie. Fisher, John Gower: Moral Philosopher (p. 76), notes the echo of the refrain in Machaut XXIV: “C’est ma dolour et la fin de ma joie”; see also Yeager, Gower’s Poetic, pp. 110–11.

9 Ector . . . Pantasilée. See CA 4.2138 ff., 5.2547 ff.; and Benoît de Ste.-More, Roman de Troie lines 23283 ff. (also a main source for Jason and Medea, CA 5.3247 ff. and perhaps for note 1–5, above).

17–19 Lancelot . . . Partonopé. All eponymous knights of romances; Lancelot and Tristran, see CA 8.2500 ff., Traitié XV; Florent, see CA 1.1407 ff. Generides and Partonopé (of Blois) appear here uniquely; for manuscripts and early editions, see Loomis and Loomis, Medieval Romances.

XLIIII VAILANT, COURTOIS, GENTIL ET RENOMÉE

2 de vo promesse. N.b., addressing her new, loyal suitor, the lady uses the formal pronoun (third person singular).

5 Si jeo de Rome fuisse l’emperesse. Fisher, John Gower: Moral Philosopher (p. 76): echoes Deschamps balade CCCCVII (3.20) “Telle dame estre emperies de Romme”; see also Yeager, Gower’s Poetic, pp. 110–11.

7 ami . . . amie. “Your friendship . . . good friend.” Or perhaps “lover . . . lover” (or even “boyfriend . . . girlfriend,” noting gender distinction available in French).

XLV MA DAME, JEO VOUS DOI BIEN COMPARER

1 Ma dame. N.b., XLV and XLVII are spoken by the new lover.

2–4 cristall . . . medicine. Not universally cited in the lapidaries; properties include focusing the sun’s rays to start fires and increasing the milk of nursing women: see London XXXVI; also, probably more pertinent: “Touch ye Christall with ye stone that hath lost his vertue through ye sine of him / that bereth him uppon him, so yt he amend him of his sinne he shall returne his strength as in his kind through ye vertue of ye Christall stone” (Sloane XXVI); and see also Peterborough XXXIX.

17 Le Cristall est de soi et blanc et clier. “Christall is cleare and white,” Sloane XXVI; “Manye trowen that snowe or yesse is mad hard in spas of many yers,” Peterborough XXXIX, describing the origin of crystal.

XLVI EN RESEMBLANCE D’AIGLE, QUI SURMONTE

1–2 d’aigle . . . dessure. Eagles, when they age, are said to fly to the sun to restore youth. See Physiologus (trans. Curley, p. 12) and Bestiary (trans. White, p. 105).

20 m’esmai. “frighten myself,” or perhaps “I am troubled.”

XLVIII AMOUR EST UNE CHOSE MERVEILOUSE

20 la merle est forsbanie. Lit. “the blackbird is banished” (i.e., the bird kept for its melodious song is replaced by a goose).

XLIX AS BONS EST BON ET A LES MALS MALVOIS

9–12 Qui son dieu . . . semblablement. See Matthew 22:37–39, Mark 12:29–31.

L DE VRAI HONOUR EST AMOUR TOUT LE CHIEF

1 De vrai honour est amour tout le chief [“Of true honor wholly the chief is Love”]. Cited as a proverb in Whiting (p. 296).

4 franc et loial. “Free and loyal”; or perhaps “openhanded and trustworthy, honorable.”

8 Amour s’acorde a nature et resoun. By “Love” here Gower means the god of Love; yet probably also the universal God who is Love: see Dante, Paradiso XXXIII.145: “l’amor che move il sole e l’altre stele”; and Boethius, II.met.8.

12–13 Sibien les choses . . . resonal. [“Both to the things . . . rational to man.”] Broadly, the two parts of human nature: see Aquinas, Summa Theologica Q.75.a.6. See also Traitié I.

26 Mais en droit moi c’est la conclusioun. Very likely marks the original end of the Cinkante Balades. Along with the two dedicatory balades to Henry IV at the beginning, LI and the seven-line prayer for England under Henry’s rule are best taken — as Macaulay suggested (see below) — as original to British Library MS Additional 59495 and occasionally composed. Absent these poems, no reference restricts what can be called the Cinkante Balades proper to an origin after the accession of Henry in 1399.

LI AMOUR DE SOI EST BON EN TOUTE GUISE

Macaulay (Mac, 1:470, note LI) notes: “This balade is not numbered [i.e., in the manuscript] and does not form one of the ‘Cinkante Balades’ of which the title speaks. It is a kind of devotional conclusion to the series. The envoy which follows, ‘O gentile Engleterre,’ does not belong to this balade, being divided from it by a space in the MS. and having a different system of rhymes. It is in fact the envoy of the whole book of balades.”

25–31 O gentile Engleterre . . . prosperité. Compare with envoys to Dedicatory balades I and II, with which this stanza must be contemporaneous, and logically part of the same project, i.e., to collect and reshape work previously and independently composed into a presentation manuscript for Henry IV, one assumes not long after his coronation. Compare too with the controversial Latin explicit dedicating the Confessio Amantis to “Derbeie Comiti” (“the Count of Derby,” i.e., Henry Boling­broke) in F (Mac, 3:478; CA I.226) and similar manuscripts, seemingly also an attempt after the fact (whether in 1392 or 1400) to adapt earlier work to suit new and possibly urgent political circumstances.

JOHN GOWER, CINKANTE BALADES: TEXTUAL NOTES

Abbreviations: G: Glasgow, Glasgow University Library, MS Hunterian T.2.17; Mac: Macaulay, ed., The Complete Works of John Gower; S: Oxford, All Souls College, MS 98; MS: London, British Library, MS Additional 59495 (Trentham).

DEDICATION I

9–14 H. aquile pullus . . . non apponet nocere ei. Macaulay notes: “Owing to the loss of a part of the leaf (f. 12) on which the Latin occurs, the text of ll. 9–12 and of the first prose quotation which follows is imperfect. It runs thus:

. . . . . pullus quo nunquam gracior vllus
. . . . regit que tirannica colla subegit
. . . ile cepit oleum quo regna recepit
. . . ri iuncta stipiti noua stirps redit vncta.
. . il proficiet inimicus in eo et filius iniqui
. . . non apponet nocere ei.

The missing words are supplied from other copies of the same lines, which are found in a somewhat different arrangement in the All Souls’ and Glasgow MSS. of the ‘Vox Clamantis’ (the prose quota-tions in the latter only)” (Mac, 1:336).

14 faciat. So G. MS: faciet.

DEDICATION II

Macaulay notes: “The damage to f. 12 of the MS. has caused the loss of a part of this Balade and of the next” (Mac, 1:336).

26–28 Mac: “The ends of these lines are somewhat damaged and have been conjecturally restored.”

27 Court. MS: Courte.

CINKANTE BALADES

II L'IVERN S'EN VAIT ET L'ESTÉE VIENT FLORI

17 novelle. MS: noue[. . . ].

III D'ARDANT DESIR CELLE AMOROUSE PEIGNE

10 tielement. MS: tielment.

IIII* SANZ DEPARTIR J’AI TOUT MON COER ASSIS

1 Mac: “In the MS. this and the preceding Balade are both numbered IIII.”

VII DE FIN AMOUR C’EST LE DROIT ET NATURE

5 Pourceo. MS: Pouceo.

IX TROP TART A CEO QE JEO DESIRE ET PROIE

37 poestis. MS: poestes.

XI MES SENS FOREINS SE POURRONT BIEN MOVOIR

15 Jeo. MS: Iieo.

XIII AU MOIS DE MARSZ, U TANT Y AD MUANCE

8 al oill. MS: al loill.

XIIII POUR PENSER DE MA DAME SOVEREINE

2 En. MS: Een.

15 douls. MS: doules.

XIX OM SOLT DANTER LA BESTE PLUS SALVAGE

24 cage. MS: Cage.VII.

XXI AU SOLAIL, QE LES HERBES ESLUMINE

18 Trestout. MS: Terstout.

XXV MA DAME, SI CEO FUIST A VO PLESIR

4 m’ont. MS: mout (?).

XXX SI COM LA NIEF, QUANT LE FORT VENT TEMPESTE

5 Le Nief. MS: Perhaps rather “Le vent.”

12 Circes. MS: circes.

XXXII CEST AUN NOVELL JANUS, Q'AD DOUBLE FACE

5 nuisant. MS: nuisand.

9 siq’ au devant. MS: si siqau devant.

XXXVI POUR COMPARER CE JOLIF TEMPS DE MAII

14, 25 Nai. MS: nai.

XXXVII EL MOIS DE MAII LA PLUS JOIOUSE CHOSE

3 ruge. MS: Ruge.

19 refiere. MS: refiers.

XXXVIII SICOM LA FINE PIERE DAIAMAND

23 hostell. MS: hoste[. . .].

XLI DES FALS AMANTZ TANTZ SONT AU JOUR PRESENT

18 les sciet. MS: le sciet.

XLII SEMBLABLES SONT LA FORTUNE ET LES DÉES

12 constreignte. MS: constregnte.

XLIII PLUS TRICHEROUS QE JASON A MEDÉE

19 Partonopé. MS: par Tonope.

XLVIII AMOUR EST UNE CHOSE MERVEILOUSE

4 et. MS: e.

8 L’amier. MS: La mier.

11 Le halt. MS: La halt.

25 toutz. MS: touz.

XLIX AS BONS EST BON ET A LES MALS MALVOIS

19 ces. MS: cest.

LI AMOUR DE SOI EST BON EN TOUTE GUISE

15 celle. MS: ce[. . .].

Latin prose following text: Expliciunt carmina Iohannis Gower, que Gallice composita Balades dicuntur.