Prologue i-ii 15 



Now gentle gales 

 Fanning their odoriferous wings, dispense 

 Native perfumes, and whisper whence they stole 

 Those balmy spoils^" ; 



or of the Shakespearean Hnes from which it was perhaps imitated 



(T. iV. I. I. 5-7): 



Like the sweet South, 



That breathes upon a bank of violets, 



Stealing and giving odor. 



And SO it was evidently taken by Hawes {Pastime of Pleasure 



1.2): 



Encensying out the aromatike odoure 



Of Zepherus breath, whiche that every floure 



Through his fume doth alwaye engender. 



But szvete does not, I beheve, here mean 'odorous.' Chaucer 

 first uses the phrase in Rom. Rose 547, as a translation of douce 

 alene, and there it clearly does mean 'odorous' : 



With swete breeth and wel savoured. 



We have noted above the sivote dezves of Rom. Rose 60, and 

 this may account for Bk. Duch. 415: 



Swetnesse of dewe had mad it waxe. 



In neither case should we be tempted to define the word by 

 'fragrant,' 'fragrance' ; see the remark under shoures sote, above. 

 To understand what is meant by the sweet breath of Zephyrus, 

 we must first see what is meant by his breath in general. The 

 'tepentibus auris' of Georg. 2. 330 is a plural, so that one is 

 tempted to look for a singular in another author whom Chaucer 

 is known to have translated. Such a singular we find in the 

 Third Metre of the Second Book of Boethius : 



Cum nemus flatu Zephyri tepentis 

 Vernis inrubuit rosis. 



*^ Cf . Herodotus 3. 113; Lucian, True History 2. 5; Evelyn, Dedication 

 of Fumifugium to Chiles II (Misc. Writings, ed. Upcott, p. 208) ; 

 Memoirs, ed. Bray, i. 127 (Diary, ed. Bray-Wheatley, i. 95) ; Voyage 

 de Frangois Leguat (Hakluyt Soc.) I. 39, cf. i. Ix; Tennent, Ceylon I. 4, 

 note; Longfellow, Tales of a Wayside Inn, Part I, Prelude 195-200; 

 Maupassant, A Repulse (English Works 4. 51) ; Countess Martinengo 

 Cesaresco, Lombard Studies, p. 104; T. Moore, Epist. 3 (from Bermuda, 

 Jan., 1804). Add Diodorus Siculus 2. 49; Stisted, Life of Burton, p. 176. 



'' Emendation for sound. 



