Prologue I- 1 1 II 



connection with grene, and to characterize grass. For softe 

 shoures, see p. lo, note 19.-^ 



droghte (2). That this can hardly refer to a typical EngHsh 

 March is indicated by the proverb, occurring in sHghtly different 

 forms from 1530, that a bushel (peck) of March dust-^ is worth 

 a king's ransom (see N. E. D., s. v. March, i.b and 2. a), 

 explained by Robert Boyle, in 1685 {Works, ed. 1772, 5. 51): 

 'So unfrequent is dry weather during that month in our climate.' 

 As early as the middle of the nth century, the Old English 

 Menologiiim characterizes March by frost and hail-storms. 

 Droghte can hardly mean 'dryness, lack of rain' (N. E. D.), but 

 rather 'dry land' (cf. Lat. arida, Gr. i7]pa, of Gen. i. 9; Matt. 

 23. 15, etc.; Milton, P. R. 3. 274). Rain, under these circum- 

 stances, naturally suggests a dry soil on which to descend; an 

 example is Virgil, Eel. 7. 57, 60 : 



Aret ager. . . . 



Juppiter et Iseto descendet plurimus imbri."^ 



Moreover, the Euripidean fragment expressly mentions the 

 'dry soil, barren by reason of drought' ; Chaucer, however, would 

 of course have knowm nothing directly of this, though he may 

 easily have been acquainted with the Eclogue, if he knew the 

 Georgics. Drought, then, seems like a literary reminiscence of 

 more tropic conditions, and not an attempt to render his English 

 experience. There is, however, one other possibility. It is that 

 droghte is here employed to denote a caked condition of the soil, 

 due, not to heat, but to cold — 



^ Since writing this paper, I see that Lowes {Mod. Phil. 15. 707, April, 

 1918) compares with Prol. 2-4 the following from Boccaccio, Filocolo 2. 238 : 

 'Se quella terra che noi incalchiamo lungamente alle tue radici presti 

 grasioso umore, per lo quale esse diligentcmente nutrite le tue fronde 

 nutrichino.' 



" It is interesting, however, that Hertzberg renders droghte by Staub. 



^ Translated by Lonsdale and Lee : 'The field is scorched. . , 

 Jove in a gladdening shower shall plenteously descend.' 



And by Dryden : 



Parched are the plains, and frying is the field. . . . 

 And Jove descends in showers of kindly rain. 



