These lines are sufficient to show the object and the propriety of Chaucer's ridicule. The whole poem is printed in Leyser's Hist. Poet. Med. Ævi, pp. 862-978.'—Tyrwhitt. See a description of the poem, with numerous quotations, in Wright's Biographia Britannica Literaria, Anglo-Norman Period, p. 400; cf. Lounsbury, Studies, ii. 341.
4538. Richard I. died on April 6, 1199, on Tuesday; but he received his wound on Friday, March 26.
4540. Why ne hadde I = O that I had.
4547. streite swerd = drawn (naked) sword. Cf. Aeneid, ii. 333, 334:—
'Stat ferri acies mucrone corusco
Stricta, parata neci.'
4548. See Aeneid, ii. 550-553.
4553. Hasdrubal; not Hannibal's brother, but the King of Carthage when the Romans burnt it, B.C. 146. Hasdrubal slew himself; and his wife and her two sons burnt themselves in despair; see Orosius, iv. 13. 3, or Ælfred's translation, ed. Sweet, p. 212. Lydgate has the story in his Fall of Princes, bk. v. capp. 12 and 27.
4573. See note to Ho. Fame, 1277 (in vol. iii. p. 273). 'Colle furit'; Morley, Eng. Writers, 1889, iv. 179.
4584. Walsingham relates how, in 1381, Jakke Straw and his men killed many Flemings 'cum clamore consueto.' He also speaks of the noise made by the rebels as 'clamor horrendissimus.' See Jakke in