452. Wel-faring-e; four syllables.
455. John of Gaunt, born in June, 1340, was 29 years old in 1369. I do not know why a poet is never to make a mistake; nor why critics should lay down such a singular law. But if we are to lay the error on the scribes, Mr. Brock's suggestion is excellent. He remarks that nine and twenty was usually written xxviiij.; and if the v were omitted, it would appear as .xxiiij., i. e. four and twenty. The existing MSS. write 'foure and twenty' at length; but such is not the usual practice of earlier scribes. It may also be added that .xxiiij. was at that time always read as four and twenty, never as twenty-four; so that no ambiguity could arise as to the mode of reading it. See Richard the Redeless, iii. 260.
There is a precisely similiar confusion in Cant. Ta. Group B, l. 5, where eightetethe is denoted by 'xviijthe' in the Hengwrt MS., whilst the Harl. MS. omits the v, and reads threttenthe, and again the Ellesmere MS. inserts an x, and gives us eighte and twentithe. The presumption is, that Chaucer knew his patron's age, and that we ought to read nine for four; but even if he inadvertently wrote four, there is no crime in it.
475. The knight's lay falls into two stanzas, one of five, and one of six lines, as marked. In order to make them more alike, Thynne inserted an additional line—And thus in sorowe lefte me alone—after l. 479. This additional line is numbered 480 in the editions; so I omit l. 480 in the numbering. The line is probably spurious. It is not grammatical; grammar would require that has (not is, as in l. 479) should be understood before the pp. left; or if we take left-e as a past tense, then the line will not scan. But it is also unmetrical, as the arrangement of lines should be the same as in ll. 481-6, if the two stanzas are to be made alike. Chaucer says the lay consisted of 'ten verses or twelve' in l. 463, which is a sufficiently close description of a lay of eleven lines. Had he said twelve without any mention of ten, the case would have been different.
479. Lange proposes: 'Is deed, and is fro me agoon.' F. Tn. Th. agree as to the reading given; I see nothing against it.
481. If we must needs complete the line, we must read 'Allas! o deth!' inserting o; or 'Allas! the deth,' inserting the. The latter is proposed by Ten Brink, Sprache, &c. § 346.
490. Pure, very; cf. 'pure fettres,' Kn. Tale, A 1279. And see l. 583, below.
491. Cf. 'Why does my blood thus muster to my heart?' Meas. for Meas. ii. 4. 20.
501. The MSS. have seet, sat, a false form for sat (A.S. sæt); due to the plural form seet-e or sēt-e (A.S. sǽt-on). We certainly find seet for sat in the Kn. Tale, A 2075. Read sete, as the pt. t. subj. (A.S. sǣte); and fete as dative pl. form, as in Cant. Ta. B 1104.