No More Learning

--Ed. ]


[Footnote B: In 'The Poems of Geoffrey Chaucer Modernised'. --Ed. ]


[Footnote C:

"In 'The Cuckoo and Nightingale', a poem of the third of May--a date
corresponding to the mid-May, the very heart of May according to our
modern reckoning--the poet after a wakeful night rises, and goes forth
at dawn, and comes to a 'laund' or plain 'of white and green. '

'So feire oon had I nevere in bene,
The grounde was grene, y poudred with dayse,
The floures and the gras ilike al hie,
Al grene and white, was nothing elles sene. '

Nothing seen but the short green grass and the white daisies,--grass
and daisies being of equal height. Unfortunately in Tyrwhitt's text
the description is nonsensical,

'The flowres and the greves like hie. '

The daisy flowers are as high as the _groves_! Wordsworth retained the
groves, but refused to make daisies of equal height with them.

'Tall were the flowers, the grove a lofty cover,
All green and white; and nothing else was seen. '"

(Professor Dowden, in the 'Transactions of the Wordsworth Society'. No.
III. )--Ed. ]


[Footnote D:

"In Chaucer's poem, after 'the cuckoo, bird unholy,' has said his evil
say, the Nightingale breaks forth 'so lustily,'

'That with her clere voys she made rynge
Thro out alle the grene wode wide,'

Wordsworth has taken a poet's licence with these lines:

'I heard the lusty Nightingale so sing,
That her clear voice made 'a loud rioting',
Echoing through all the green wood wide.
'

This 'loud rioting' is Wordsworth's, not Chaucer's; and it belongs, as
it were, to that other passage of his:

'O Nightingale, thou surely art
A creature of a fiery heart,
These notes of thine--they pierce and pierce;
Tumultuous harmony and fierce!
Thou sing'st as if the God of wine
Had helped thee to a Valentine. '"

(Professor Dowden, in the 'Transactions of the Wordsworth Society', No.
III. )--Ed. ]


[Footnote E: From a manuscript in the Bodleian, as are also stanzas 44
and 45--W. W.

(1841), which are necessary to complete the sense--W. W. (added in
1842). ]



* * * * *





TROILUS AND CRESIDA


Translated 1801. --Published 1841 [A]




Next morning Troilus began to clear
His eyes from sleep, at the first break of day,
And unto Pandarus, his own Brother dear,
For love of God, full piteously did say,
We must the Palace see of Cresida; 5
For since we yet may have no other feast,
Let us behold her Palace at the least!

And therewithal to cover his intent
A cause he found into the Town to go, [B]
And they right forth to Cresid's Palace went; 10
But, Lord, this simple Troilus was woe,
Him thought his sorrowful heart would break [1] in two;
For when he saw her doors fast bolted all,
Well nigh for sorrow down he 'gan to fall.

Therewith when this true Lover 'gan behold, 15
How shut was every window of the place,
Like frost he thought his heart was icy cold;
For which, with changed, pale, and deadly face,
Without word uttered, forth he 'gan to pace;
And on his purpose bent so fast to ride, 20
That no wight his continuance espied. [C]

Then said he thus,--O Palace desolate!
O house of houses, once so richly dight!