One blunt, and tipped with lead, whose base allay
Provokes disdain, and drives desire away.'
1317. There is here a gap in the story. The speaker is Rosial, and she is addressing Philogenet, expressing herself favourably.
1319-20. hight, promised. had, would have.
1324. she, i.e. Pity, as in l. 701.
1328. MS. tender reich; Stowe, tenderiche; which must be wrong; read tender reuth. Confusion between ch and th is common. where I found, where I (formerly) found much lack.
1332. For Pity's golden shrine, see l. 694.
1353. This notion of making the birds sing matins and lauds is hinted at in the Cuckoo and Nightingale—'That they begonne of May to don hir houres'; l. 70. It is obviously varied from Chaucer's Parl. Foules, where all the birds sing a roundel before departing. Next, we find the idea expanded by Lydgate, in the poem called Devotions of the Fowls; Minor Poems, ed. Halliwell, p. 78; the singers are the popinjay, the pelican, the nightingale, the lark, and the dove. All these reappear here, except the pelican. A chorus of birds, including the mavis, merle, lark, and nightingale, is introduced at the close of Dunbar's Thistle and Rose. The present passage was probably suggested by Lydgate's poem, but is conceived in a lighter vein.
The Latin quotations are easily followed by comparing them with The Prymer, or Lay Folks' Prayer-Book, ed. Littlehales (E. E. T. S.). They all appear in this 'common medieval Prayer-book'; and, in particular, in the Matins and Lauds of the Hours of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Matins end at l. 1407. The Matins contain:—the opening, the Venite, a Hymn, three Psalms, an Antiphon, Versicles and Responses, three Lessons (each with Versicles and Responses), and the Te Deum. The Lauds contain:—the opening, eight Psalms (the Benedicite considered as one), Antiphon, Chapter, Hymn, the Benedictus; &c. I point out the correspondences below.
1354. Observe that the nightingale sings in a hawthorn in the Cuckoo and Nightingale, 287 (p. 358).