13. This is the traditional character of Gawain ‘the Courteous’:
‘“Art thou not he whom men call light-of-love?”
“Ay,” said Gawain, “for women be so light.”’
Tennyson, Pelleas and Ettarre;
XVIII. 22. This Envoy, though it may be taken to have reference to the whole series of balades composing the Traitié, belongs in form to the concluding balade and speaks of it specially, ‘ceste Balade envoie.’ It is addressed to the world generally, ‘Al université de tout le monde,’ and, as was the wont of Englishmen who wrote in French, the author asks pardon for his deficiencies of language.
The Latin lines ‘Quis sit vel qualis’ follow the Traitié, so far as I know, in every existing copy, and must be taken in connexion with it. In all except one of the MSS. these first nine lines are followed, as in the text given, by the short Carmen de variis in amore passionibus beginning ‘Est amor in glosa,’ and this is followed by the eight lines beginning ‘Lex docet auctorum.’ In the Trentham copy, however, the intervening Carmen is omitted and these last eight lines are given as if they formed one piece with the first nine.
‘Quis sit vel qualis,’ &c.
2. mentalis sit amor, &c. I take this to mean, ‘so that there may be such spiritual love (as I have described) in the order’; but it is not very clear, and it must be noted that F punctuates after ‘mentalis.’
3 f. ‘We may fear what is to come by the example of what is past; to-morrow as yesterday the flesh may be lightly stirred.’
Carmen de variis, &c.