564. To selle, for sale; the true gerund, of which to is, in Anglo-Saxon, the sign. So also 'this house to let' is the correct old idiom, needing no such alteration as some would make. Cf. Morris, Hist. Outlines of Eng. Accidence, sect. 290, subsect. 4. Fish Street leads out of Lower Thames Street, close to the North end of London Bridge. The Harleian MS. alone reads Fleet Street, which is certainly wrong.
Considering that Thames Street is especially mentioned as a street for vintners (Liber Albus, p. 614), and that Chaucer's own father was a Thames Street vintner, there can be little doubt about this matter. The poet is here speaking from his own knowledge; a consideration which gives the present passage a peculiar interest. Chepe is Cheapside.
565. This is a fine touch. The poet here tells us that some of this strong Spanish wine used to find its way mysteriously into other wines; not (he ironically suggests) because the vintners ever mixed their wines, but because the vines of Spain notoriously grew so close to those of Gascony that it was not possible to keep them apart! Crepeth subtilly = finds its way mysteriously. Observe the humour in the word growing, which expresses that the mixture of wines must be due to the proximity of the vines producing them in the vineyards, not to any accidental proximity of the casks containing them in the vintners' cellars. In fact, the different kinds of wine were to be kept in different cellars, as the Regulations in the Liber Albus (pp. 615-618) shew. 'Item, that no Taverner shall put Rhenish wine and White wine in a cellar together.' 'Item, that new wines shall not be put in cellars with old wines.' 'Item, that White wine of Gascoigne, of la Rochele, of Spain, or other place shall not be put in cellars with Rhenish wines.' 'Item, that white wine shall not be sold for Rhenish wine.' 'Item, that no one shall expose for sale wines counterfeit or mixed, made by himself or by another, under pain of being set upon the pillory.' But pillories have vanished, and all such laws are obsolete.
570. 'He is in Spain'; i. e. he is, as it were, transported thither. He imagines he has never left Cheapside, yet is far from knowing where he is, as we should say.
571. 'Not at Rochelle,' where the wines are weak.
579. 'The death of Attila took place in 453. The commonly received account is that given by Jornandes, that he died by the bursting of a blood-vessel on the night of his marriage with a beautiful maiden, whom he added to his many other wives; some, with a natural suspicion, impute it to the hand of his bride. Priscus observes, that no one ever subdued so many countries in so short a time.... Jornandes, De Rebus Geticis, and Priscus, Excerpta de Legationibus, furnish the best existing materials for the history of Attila. For modern compilations, see Buat, Histoire des Peuples de l'Europe; De Guignes, Hist. des Huns; and Gibbon, capp. xxxiv and xxxv'; English Cyclopaedia. And see Amédée Thierry, Histoire d'Attila.
Mr. Jephson (in Bell's Chaucer) quotes the account of Attila's death given by Paulus Diaconus, Gest. Rom. lib. xv: 'Qui reuersus ad proprias sedes, supra plures quas habebat uxores, valde decoram, indicto nomine, sibi in matrimonium iunxit. Ob cuius nuptias profusa conuiuia exercens, dum tantum uini quantum nunquam antea insimul bibisset, cum supinus quiesceret, eruptione sanguinis, qui ei de naribus solitus erat effluere, suffocatus et extinctus est.'
The older account in Jornandes, De Rebus Geticis, § 82, is of more
interest. 'Qui [Attila], ut Priscus historicus refert, extinctionis suae tempore puellam, Ildico nomine, decoram valde, sibi in matrimonium post innumerabiles uxores, vt mos est gentis illius, socians: eiusque in nuptiis magna hilaritate resolutus, vino somnoque grauatus, resupinus iacebat; redundansque sanguis, qui ei solitè de naribus effluebat, dum consuetis meatibus impeditur, itinere ferali faucibus illapsus eum extinxit.'
585. Lamuel, i. e. King Lemuel, mentioned in Prov. xxxi. 1, q. v.; not to be confused, says Chaucer, with Samuel. The allusion is to Prov. xxxi. 4, 5; and not (as Mr. Wright suggests) to Prov. xxiii. In fact, in the margin of MSS. E. and Hn. is written 'Noli uinum dare,' words found in Prov. xxxi. 4. See note to l. 561.