[314]. Hit am I, it is I; the usual M.E. idiom. See Kn. Tale, A 1736; Man of Law's Tale, B 1109, and note. Him neer, nearer to him: neer is the comparative of neh or nigh; cf. l. 316.
[318]. Dante has 'che noi siam vermi'; Purg. x. 124.
[323]. Servaunt in Chaucer frequently means 'lover'; such is necessarily the case here.
[329]. Chaucer here certainly seems to imply that he translated the whole of the Romance of the Rose, or at any rate that part of it which is especially directed against women. The existing English version consists of three fragments, apparently by different authors, and I see little reason for connecting more than fragment A (ll. 1-1705) with Chaucer. None of the fragments contain such passages as the God of Love would most have objected to; but we find some of them practically reproduced in the Prologue to the Wyf of Bathes Tale. We also find numerous imitations of passages from that poem scattered up and down throughout Chaucer's works; and it is remarkable that such passages usually lie outside the contents of the English fragments. Where they do not, Chaucer frequently varies from the English version of the Romance. Thus where Chaucer (Book Duch. 419) has:—
'And every tree stood by himselve
Fro other wel ten foot or twelve.
So grete trees, so huge of strengthe'—
the Eng. version of the Rom. of the Rose (1391) has:—
'These trees were set, that I devyse,
Oon from another, in assyse,