Unkinde, unnatural; because of its behaviour to the hedge-sparrow; K. Lear, i. 4. 235.
359. Delicasye, wantonness. 'Auis est luxuriosa nimium, bibitque vinum'; Vincent (quoting from Liber de Naturis Rerum), lib. xvi. c. 135, De Psittaco; and again (quoting from Physiologus)—'cum vino inebriatur.' So in Holland's Pliny, bk. x. c. 42—'She loueth wine well, and when shee hath drunk freely, is very pleasant, plaifull, and wanton.'
360. 'The farmers' wives find the drake or mallard the greatest enemy of their young ducks, whole broods of which he will destroy unless removed.'—Bell. Chaucer perhaps follows the Liber de Naturis Rerum, as quoted in Vincent, lib. xvi. c. 27 (De Anate):—'Mares aliquando cum plures fuerint simul, tanta libidinis insania feruntur, vt fœminam solam ... occidant.'
361. From A. Neckam, Liber de Naturis Rerum (ed. Wright, lib. i. c. 64); cited in Vincent, lib. xvi. c. 48. The story is, that a male stork, having discovered that the female was unfaithful to him, went away; and presently returning with a great many other storks, the avengers tore the criminal to pieces. Another very different story may also be cited. 'The stork is the Embleme of a grateful Man. In which respect Ælian writeth of a storke, which bred on the house of one who had a very beautiful wife, which in her husband's absence used to commit adultry with one of her base servants: which the storke observing, in gratitude to him who freely gave him house-roome, flying in the villaines face, strucke out both his eyes.'—Guillim, Display of Heraldry, sect. iii. c. 19.
In Thynne's Animadversions on Speght's Chaucer, ed. Furnivall, p. 68 (Chau. Soc.), we find:—'for Aristotle sayethe, and Bartholomeus de proprietatibus rerum, li. 12. c. 8, with manye other auctors, that yf the storke by any meanes perceve that his female hath brooked spousehedde, he will no moore dwell with her, but strykethe and so cruelly beateth her, that he will not surcease vntill he hathe killed her yf he maye, to wreake and reuenge that adulterye.' Cf. Batman vppon Bartholome, ed. 1582, leaf 181, col. 2; Stanley, Hist, of Birds, 6th ed. p. 322; and story no. 82 in Swan's translation of the Gesta Romanorum. Many other references are given in Oesterley's notes to the Gesta; and see the Exempla of Jacques de Vitry, ed. Crane (Folklore Soc.), 1890, p. 230. Cf. Skelton's Phyllyp Sparowe, 469-477.
362. 'The voracity of the cormorant has become so proverbial, that a greedy and voracious eater is often compared to this bird'; Swainson, Prov. Names of British Birds, p. 143. See Rich. II, ii. 1. 38.
363. Wys; because it could predict; it was therefore consecrated to Apollo; see Lewis and Short, s. v. corvus. Care, anxiety; hence, ill luck. 'In folk-lore the crow always appears as a bird of the worst and most sinister character, representing either death, or night, or winter'; Prov. Names of British Birds, by C. Swainson, p. 84; which see.
Chaucer here mistranslates Vergil precisely as Batman does (l. xii. c. 9).
'Nunc plena cornix pluuiam uocat improba uoce'; Georg. i. 388. 'That is to vnderstande, Nowe the Crowe calleth rayne with an eleinge voyce'; Batman vppon Bartholome, as above.