The parlament of foules, by Geoffrey Chaucer. Ed., with introduction, notes, and glossary, by T. R. Lounsbury.

88 NO TES.
The translation under line I69 was also pointed out at the same time by the same
correspondent.
i. AIacrobye. See Introduction, p. Io.
113. Cytherea. A common name among the ancient poets for Venus, from the
Island of Cythera in the Mediterranean, which received the goddess when she rose
from the sea.
For the confusion of the Island of Cythera with the Mount of Cithaeron, see
Introduction, p. 17. In the Prayer of Palremon, in "The Knight's Tale," Venus
is addressed as
" Thou gladere of the Mount of Citheroun."
Beside the instances from Chaucer and Boccaccio in the present text, see illustration of the same usage in the following references: -
Roman de la Rose, 1. x6597, Michel ii. i60; 1. 15862, Mdon iii. 78.
Gottfried von Strassburg, Tristran, 1. 4806 (Bechstein i. I68).
Kausler, Denkmaler altniederlandischer Sprache und Litteratur, B. 3, xvii. f.
127 ff. See Introduction, p. 21 if.
I69. From Dante:"E poiche la sua mano alla mia pose
Con lieto volto, ond' io mi confortai." -Inferno, iii. 19.
Translated by Longfellow: -
"And after he had laid his hand on mine
With joyful mien, whence I was comforted," &c.
See note to line 85.
I73. Treis clad with leuys that ay shal laste. This description of trees in the
twenty-sixth stanza was directly imitated by Spenser in the first canto of the first
book of "The Faery Queen." For the sake of comparison, Spenser's lines are subjoined: -
" Much can they praise the trees so straight and hy,
The sayling pine, the cedar proud and tall,
The vine-propp elme, the poplar never dry,
The builder oake, sole king of forrests all,
The aspine good for staves, the cypresse funerall.
The laurell, meed of mightie conquerours
And poets sage, the firre that weepeth still,
The willow, worne of forlorne paramours,
The eugh obedient to the benders will,
The birch for shaftes, the sallow for the mill,
The mirrhe sweete bleeding in the bitter wound,
The warlike beech, the ash for nothing ill,
The fruitful olive, and the platane round,
The carver holme, the maple seeldom inward sound."
The meaning of the epithets applied by Chaucer to the trees will occur to many
readers at once; but, as it is one of many illustrations of the manner in which he