'Zephirus et Flora, sa fame,
Qui des flors est deesse et dame,
Cil dui font les floretes nestre,' &c.
i.e. Zephirus and his wife Flora, who is the goddess and lady of flowers, these two make the little flowers grow. See Book of the Duchesse, 402; and the note upon it.
[184]. 'The daisy, or, otherwise, the eye of day'; see note to l. 43.
[186]. 'I pray that she may fall fairly,' that she may light upon good fortune. All the MSS. have she; otherwise we might read her, as such is the more usual idiom, in which case it would mean—'that it may befall her fairly.' We have a similar case in the Manciple's Prologue, H 40, where six MSS. have the usual idiom 'foule mot thee falle,' whilst the Ellesmere MS. alone has 'foule mot thou falle.' For a similar variation, cf. l. 277 below with A. 180, i.e. with the corresponding line in the earlier text.
[191]. 'For, as regards me, neither of them is dearer or more hateful than the other; I am not yet retained on the side of either of them.' The sense with-holden is detained, kept back, hence reserved to one side, committed to a particular view.
[195]. Thing = werk (A. 79), i.e. poem. Of another tonne, out of quite a different cask. Cf. 'Nay, thou shalt drinken of another tonne Er that I go'; C. T., D 170. Cf. Rom. Rose (French Text), 6838.
[196]. Swich thing, such a thing as the strife between the Leaf and the Flower. The A-text (l. [80]) helps us here, as it reads 'swich stryf.'
[203]. Herber, an arbour. This difficult word is fully explained in the New E. Dict., s.v. arbour. It is there shewn that the original sense of the M.E. herber or erber was 'a plot of ground covered with grass or turf; a garden-lawn or green.' In the Medulla Grammatices, ab. 1460, we find:—'Viretum, locus pascualis virens, a gres-yerd, or an herber.' Subsequently it meant a herb-garden or flower-garden; a fruit-garden or orchard; trees or shrubs trained on frame-work; and then a bower, or 'shady retreat, of which the sides and roof are formed by trees and shrubs closely planted or intertwined, or of lattice-work covered with climbing shrubs and plants, as ivy, vine, &c.' Dr. Murray remarks that 'the original characteristic of the arbour seems to have been the floor and benches of herbage [as here]; in the modern idea the leafy covering is the prominent feature.'