With much good taste, Chaucer omits the next three lines, just as he has omitted to tell us that the trysting-tree was 'a faire high Mulberie with fruite as white as snow,' as Golding says. The blood of Pyramus turned this fruit black, and so it remains to this day! Gower likewise suppresses the mulberry-tree, but Shakespeare mentions it; see Mid. Nt. Dr. v. 1. 149.

[853-61]. Admirably expanded out of three lines:—

'Ecce metu nondum posito, ne fallat amantem,

illa redit; iuuenemque oculis animoque requirit;

quantaque uitarit narrare pericula gestit'; 128.

[859]. The first syllable of Bothe forms a foot by itself. So also in ll. 863, 901, 911, &c.

[862-8].

'Dum dubitat, tremebunda uidet pulsare cruentum

membra solum; retroque pedem tulit; oraque buxo

pallidiora gerens, exhorruit aequoris instar,