See also the poem on Alisoun, in Morris and Skeat, Spec. of Eng., part ii. p. 43. Again, we have a like mention of the May-season and of the singing of birds in the introduction to the Roman de la Rose; see vol. i. p. 96.
Nevertheless, the whole of the present passage is highly characteristic of the author, and extremely interesting. Cf. ll. 108, 176.
[40]. Condicioun, temperament, character, disposition. Prof. Corson here refers us to Shakespeare, Merch. Ven. i. 2. 143; Cor. v. 4. 10; Oth. iv. 1. 204; Jul. Cæs. ii. 1. 254, &c.
[41]. On the scansion, see note to l. 67.
[43]. Daysyes, daisies; here dissyllabic. But in l. 182 we have the full form day-es-y-e, of four syllables, answering to the A.S. dæges éage (or ége), lit. day's eye, or eye of day, as Chaucer himself says in l. 184. And it is worth adding that his etymology is perfectly correct; for, in the few instances in which etymologies are suggested in Middle English, they are usually ludicrously wrong. In l. 184, the word is only trisyllabic (day-es-y'), the last syllable suffering elision. The A.S. dægesége occurs in a list of plants in A.S. Leechdoms, ed. Cockayne, iii. 292, l. 8; and we also find in Wright's A.S. Vocabularies, ed. Wülker, col. 135, l. 22, and col. 322, l. 11, the following entries:—'Consolda, dægesege,' and 'Consolda, dægeseage.'
The primary meaning of dæges éage is doubtless the sun; the daisy is named from its supposed likeness to the sun, the white petals being the rays, and the yellow centre the sun's sphere.
Compare Lydgate's Troy-book, ed. 1555, fol. K 6, back:—
'And next, Appollo, so clere, shene, and bright,
The dayes eye, and voyder of the nyght.'
[46]. 'That, when in my bed, no day dawns upon me on which I am not (at once) up, and (am soon) walking in the meadow.' Nam = ne am, am not.