14 Prologue i-ii 



And Zephirus and Flora gentilly 



Yaf to the floures, softe and tenderly, 



Hir swote breth, and made hem for to sprede, 



As god and goddesse of the floury mede.'" 



Cf. Lydgate, Balade for May Day at Bishop's Wood 1-16^" : 



Mighty Flourra, goddes of freshe floures, 

 Whiche clothed hast the soyle in lousty grene; 

 Made buddes springe with his swete showres. 

 By influence of the sonnes so sheene, 

 To do pleasaunce of entent ful clene, 

 Unto the states whiche that now sitte here; 

 Hath Veere doune sent hir owen doughter dere. 

 Making the vertue that dured in the roote, 

 Called of clerkes, the vertue vegytable. 

 For to trascend moste holsome and moste sweete. 

 Into the crope this saysoun so greable. 

 The bawmy lykour is so comendable, 

 That it rejoythe with the fresshe moysture, 

 Man, beeste, and foole, and every creature, 

 Whiche hathe repressed, swaged, and bore doune. 

 The grevous constreinte of the frostes heere. 



Zephyr is called 'the debonair wind' in Boeth. i m. 5. 15. 

 Deschamps has 'Zephirus, li doulz vens' (Oeuvres, ed. Saint- 

 Hilaire, 6. 98) and 'Doulz Zephirus, qui faiz naistre les fleurs' 

 (5. 229), the last clause of which looks like an original for Bk. 

 Duch. 403. Cf. Alain de Lille (ca. 1 128-1202), De Planctu 

 NaturcB, Metre III (tr. Moffat) : 'Flower-bearing Zephyrus had 

 softened the rugged year, and quelled the wars of Boreas with 

 its peace, and, bathed in a hail of flowers, rained privet-bloom, 

 and ordered the blossoming snows to be in the meadows. '^^ 



swete breeth (5). One is at first tempted to think of such a 

 passage as Par. Lost 4. 156-8: 



'' Cf. Bk. Duch. 402-3 : 



For bothe Flora and Zephirus, 

 They two that make floures growe. 



^"Chronicle of London, ed. Tyrrell and Nicolas, p. 257; cf. Gross, 

 Sources and Lit. of Eng. Hist., No. 1739; MacCracken, Lydgate Canon, 

 p. xviii. 



"Vale Studies in English 36. 21; cf. Wright. .Inglo-Latin Satirical 

 Poets 2. 447. 



