1674. roon (in place of Rone); F. text, sous ciaus, 'under the skies.' Bell suggests that there is a reference to the river Rhone, and to the roses of Provence. But the prep. in must mean 'in' or 'upon'; and as roses do not grow on a river, but upon bushes, perhaps roon answers to Lowland Scotch rone, a bush; see Jamieson. Thus Henrysoun, Prol. to Moral Fables, l. 15, has:—'The roisis reid arrayit on rone and ryce'; and G. Douglas has ronnis, bushes. In Roon might mean 'in Rouen'; spelt Roan in Shakespeare.
1677. moysoun, size; Cotgrave has: 'Moyson, size, bignesse, quantity'; from Lat. mensionem, a measuring. See P. Plowman, C. xii. 120, and my note. Not connected with moisson, harvest, as suggested in Bell.
1701. 'The stalk was as upright as a rush.'
1705. Here ends Chaucer's portion of the translation, in the middle of an incomplete sentence, without any verb. It may have been continued thus (where dide fulfild = caused to be filled):—
The swote smelle sprong so wyde,
That it dide al the place aboute
Fulfild of baume, withouten doute.
We can easily understand that the original MS. ended here suddenly, the rest being torn away or lost. An attempt was made to join on another version, without observing the incompleteness of the sentence. Moreover, the rime is a false one, since swote and aboute have different vowel-sounds. Hence the point of junction becomes visible enough.
Dr. Max Kaluza was the first to observe the change of authorship at this point, though he made Chaucer's portion end at l. 1704. He remarked, very acutely, that Chaucer translates the F. bouton by the word knoppe; see ll. 1675, 1683, 1685, 1691, 1702, whereas the other translator merely keeps the word botoun; see ll. 1721, 1761, 1770.
It is easily seen that ll. 1706-5810 are by a second and less skilful hand. This portion abounds with non-Chaucerian rimes, as explained in the Introduction, and is not by any means remarkable for accuracy. Some of the false rimes are noted below.