323. As stained glass windows were then rare and expensive, it is worth while observing that these gorgeous windows were not real ones, but only seen in a dream. This passage is imitated in the late poem called the Court of Love, st. 33, where we are told that 'The temple shone with windows al of glasse,' and that in the glass were portrayed the stories of Dido and Annelida. These windows, it may be observed, were equally imaginary.
328. The caesural pause comes after Ector, which might allow the intrusion of the word of before king. But Mr. Sweet omits of, and I follow him. The words of king are again inserted before Lamedon in l. 329, being caught from l. 328 above.
Lamedon is Laomedon, father of King Priam of Troy. Ector is Chaucer's spelling of Hector; Man of Lawes Tale, B 198. He here cites the usual examples of love-stories, such as those of Medea and Jason, and Paris and Helen. Lavyne is Lavinia, the second wife of Æneas; Vergil, Æn. bk. vii; Rom. Rose, 21087; cf. Ho. of Fame, 458. Observe his pronunciation of Médea, as in Ho. of Fame, 401; Cant. Ta., B 72.
332. 'There is reason to believe that Chaucer copied these imageries from the romance of Guigemar, one of the Lays of Marie de France; in which the walls of a chamber are painted with Venus and the Art of Love from Ovid. Perhaps Chaucer might not look further than the temples of Boccaccio's Theseid for these ornaments'; Warton, Hist. E. Poetry, 1871, iii. 63. Cf. Rom. of the Rose, ll. 139-146; see p. [99].
333. Bothe text and glose, i. e. both in the principal panels and in the margin. He likens the walls to the page of a book, in which the glose, or commentary, was often written in the margin. Mr. Sweet inserts with before text, and changes And into Of in the next line; I do not think the former change is necessary, but I adopt the latter.
334. It had all sorts of scenes from the Romance of the Rose on it. Chaucer again mentions this Romance by name in his Merchant's Tale; C. T., E 2032; and he tells us that he himself translated it; Prol. to Legend, 329. The celebrated Roman de la Rose was begun by Guillaume de Lorris, who wrote ll. 1-4070, and completed about forty years afterwards (in a very different and much more satirical style) by Jean de Meung (or Meun), surnamed (like his father) Clopinel, i. e. the Cripple, who wrote ll. 4071-22074; it was finished about the year 1305. The story is that of a young man who succeeded in plucking a rose in a walled garden, after overcoming extraordinary difficulties; allegorically, it means that he succeeded in obtaining the object of his love. See further above, pp. [16]-[19].
The E. version is invariably called the Romaunt of the Rose, and we find the title Rommant de la Rose in the original, l. 20082; cf. our romant-ic. But Burguy explains that romant is a false form, due to confusion with words rightly ending in -ant. The right O. F. form is
romans, originally an adverb; from the phrase parler romans, i. e. loqui Romanice. In the Six-text edition of the Cant. Tales, E 2032, four MSS. have romance, one has romans, and one romauns.
For examples of walls or ceilings being painted with various subjects, see Warton's Hist. of E. Poetry, ed. Hazlitt, ii. 131, 275; iii. 63.
340. The first accent is on Blew, not on bright. Cf. Rom. de la Rose, 124, 125 (see p. [98], above):—