The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• General Introduction.
• Life of Geoffrey Chaucer.
• List of Chaucer’s Works.
• Errata and Addenda.
• Introduction.: the Romaunt of the Rose.
• Introduction: the Minor Poems.
• The Romaunt of the Rose.
• Fragment A.: Le Roman De La Rose.
• Fragment B.
• Fragment C.
• The Minor Poems.
• I.: An A. B. C.
• II.: The Compleynte Unto Pite.
• III.: The Book of the Duchesse.
• IV.: The Compleynt of Mars.
• V.: The Parlement of Foules.
• VI.: A Compleint to His Lady.
• VII.: Anelida and Arcite.
• VIII.: Chaucers Wordes Unto Adam, His Owne Scriveyn.
• IX.: The Former Age.
• X.: Fortune.
• XI.: Merciles Beaute: a Triple Roundel.
• XII.: To Rosemounde. a Balade.
• XIII.: Truth.
• XIV.: Gentilesse.
• XV.: Lak of Stedfastnesse.
• XVI.: Lenvoy De Chaucer a Scogan.
• XVII.: Lenvoy De Chaucer a Bukton.
• XVIII.: The Compleynt of Venus.
• XIX.: The Compleint of Chaucer to His Empty Purse.
• XX.: Proverbs.
• Appendix.
• XXI.: Against Women Unconstant.
• XXII.: An Amorous Compleint. (compleint Damours.)
• XXIII.: A Balade of Compleynt.
• Notes to the Romaunt of the Rose.
• Notes to the Minor Poems.

XXI.

AGAINST WOMEN UNCONSTANT.

Title.None in Ct.; Balade in F.; ed. 1561 has—A Balade which Chaucer made agaynst woman unconstaunt.

The text is from Ct. (Cotton, Cleopatra D. 7); that in ed. 1561 is much the same, except in spelling. Another copy in F. (Fairfax 16). A third in Ha. (Harl. 7578); of less value.

• Balade.
• • Madame, for your newe-fangelnesse,
  • Many a servaunt have ye put out of grace,
  • I take my leve of your unstedfastnesse,
  • For wel I wot , whyl ye havelyves space,
  • Ye can not love ful half yeer in a place;^[ ]5
  • To newe thing your lust is ever kene ;
  • In stede of blew , thus may ye were al grene.^[ ]
• • Right as a mirournothing may enpresse,^[ ]
  • But, lightly as it cometh, so mot it pace,^[ ]
  • So fareth your love, your werkes bereth witnesse.^[ ]10
  • Ther is no feith that may your herte enbrace;
  • But, as a wedercok , that turneth his face^[ ]
  • With every wind, ye fare, and that is sene;^[ ]
  • In stede of blew, thus may ye were al grene.
  • Ye might be shryned, for your brotelnesse,^[ ]15
  • Bet than Dalyda , Creseide or Candace;^[ ]
  • For ever in chaungingstant your sikernesse,
  • That tache may no wight fro your herte arace;^[ ]
  • If ye lese oon, ye can wel tweyn purchace;^[ ]
  • Al light for somer, ye woot wel what I mene,^[ ]20
  • In stede of blew, thus may ye were al grene.

Explicit.

[2. ]Ct. Manie; F. many. Ct. F. of youre; Ha. om. youre.

[4. ]Ct. wote while. F. have lyves; Ct. to lyve haue.

[5. ]Ct. kunnought; F. Ha. kan not.

[6. ]F. thing; Ct. Ha. thinges. Ct. inserts so before kene; ed. (1561) omits so; F. has ay so.

[7. ]Ct. sted; F. stede. Ct. Blue; F. blew.

[8. ]Ct. Mirrour; ed. mirour. Ct. Ha. ed. ins. that bef. nothing; F. om.

[11. ]Ct. F. hert; Ha. ed. herte.

[12. ]Ha. om. a. Ha. wethirkoc.

[14. ]Ct. om. al; F. Ha. ed. retain it.

[15. ]Ct. om. your; F. Ha. ed. retain it.

[16 ]Ct. Bettir; F. Ha. ed. Better; read Bet. F. Dalyda; Ct. Dalide. Ct. Cresside; F. Creseyde.

[17. ]Ct. Changeng; F. chaungyng. All stondeth; read stant.

[18. ]F. tache; Ct. tacche; ed. tatche. F. Ha. herte; Ct. ed. hert.

[19. ]Ct. Ha. lese; F. ed. lose. Ct. kunne; F. kan; ed. can; Ha. kanne. Ct. ed. tweine; F. tweyn.

[20. ]Ct. All; ed. Al. Ct. F. wote; Ha. woote; ed. wot; cf. Cant. Ta. A 740, 829.

[21. ]Ct. om. al; F. ed. retain it. Ct. adds Explicit.

[5.]In a place, in one place. In the New E. Dictionary, the following is quoted from Caxton’s print of Geoffroi de la Tour, leaf 4, back:—‘They satte att dyner in a hall and the quene in another.’

[7.]From Machault, ed. Tarbé, p. 56 (see p. 88 above):—‘Qu’en lieu de bleu, Damë, vous vestez vert’; on which M. Tarbé has the following note:—‘Bleu. Couleur exprimant la sincérité, la pureté, la constance; le vert, au contraire, exprimait les nouvelles amours, le changement, l’infidélité; au lieu de bleu se vétir de vert, c’était avouer que l’on changeait d’ami.’ Blue was the colour of constancy, and green of inconstancy; see Notes to Anelida, l. 330; and my note to the Squire’s Tale, F 644.

In a poem called Le Remède de Fortune, Machault explains that pers, i. e. blue, means loyalty; red, ardent love; black, grief; white, joy; green, fickleness; yellow, falsehood.

[8.]Cf. James i. 23, 24; and see The Marchantes Tale (Group E, ll. 1582-5).

[9.]It, i. e. the transient image; relative to the word thing, which is implied in no-thing in l. 8.

[10.]Read far’th, ber’th; as usual in Chaucer. So turn’th in l. 12.

[12.]Cf. ‘chaunging as a vane’; Clerkes Tale, E 996.

[13.]Sene, evident; A. S. ge-séne, ge-sýne, adj., evident, quite distinct from the pp. of the verb, which appears in Chaucer as seen or yseen. Other examples of the use of this adjective occur in ysene, C. T. Prol. 592; C. T. 11308 (Frank. Tale, F 996); sene, Compl. of Pite, 112; Merciless Beauty, 10.

[15.]Brotelnesse, fickleness. Cf. ‘On brotel ground they bilde, and brotelnesse They finde, whan they wene sikernesse,’ with precisely the same rime, Merch. Tale, 35 (E 1279).

[16.]Dalýda, Delilah. It is Dálida in the Monkes Tale, Group B, 3253; but see Book of the Duchesse, 738.

Creseide, the heroine of Chaucer’s Troilus.

Candáce, hardly for Canace; see note to Parl. of Foules, 288. Rather, it is the queen Candace who tricked Alexander; see Wars of Alexander, ed. Skeat, p. 264; Gower, Conf. Amant. ii. 180.

[18.]Tache, defect; cf. P. Plowman, B. ix. 146. This is the word which best expresses the sense of touch (which Schmidt explains by trait) in the famous passage—‘One touch of nature makes the whole world kin’; Shak. Troil. iii. 3. 175. I do not assert that touch is an error for tache, though even that is likely; but I say that the context shews that it is used in just the sense of tache. The same context also entirely condemns the forced sense of the passage, as commonly misapplied. It is somewhat curious that touchwood is corrupted from a different tache, which had the sense of dried fuel or tinder.

Arace, eradicate; precisely as in VI. 20, q. v.

[19.]Compare the modern proverb—‘She has two strings to her bow.’

[20.]Al light for somer; this phrase begins l. 15 of the Canon’s Yeoman’s Prologue, Group G, 568; and the phrase wot what I mene occurs again in C. T., Group B, 93. This allusion to the wearing of light summer garments seems here to imply wantonness or fickleness. Canacee in the Squi. Tale was arrayed lightly (F 389, 390); but she was taking a walk in her own park, attended by her ladies. Skelton has, ‘he wente so all for somer lyghte’; Bowge of Courte, 355; and again, in Philip Sparowe, 719, he tells us that Pandarus won nothing by his help of Troilus but ‘lyght-for-somer grene.’ It would seem that green was a favourite colour for summer garments.