lo Prologue i-ii 



If this be compared with the extract from the Georgics, it will 

 be seen that not only are individual Chaucerian words and 

 phrases accounted for — shoures, Zephirus, tendre croppes 

 (reading germina, in the sense of 'sprigs, sprouts, buds'), yonge 

 Sonne, smale fozules — but that the general thought of the whole 

 eleven lines, with the exception of 8, lo, and ii, is to be found 

 in the Virgilian passage. 



Certain individual points remain to be considered. These 

 will now be taken up in order. 



Aprille (i). The month, regarded as masculine,^^ takes the 

 place of Aether (Jupiter),^" which would have been less intel- 

 ligible or appealing to Chaucer's English readers. April, we 

 have seen, suggests Venus; cf. the Venerem of Georg. i. 329. 



shoures sote. This corresponds to Virgil's fecundis imbribiis 

 (325). Showers and rain are assigned to April in T. and C. 

 4. 751 ; A. and A. 309. One suspects sote of having been 

 employed partly for the sake of the rhyme (rhymed in Squire's 

 Tale 389; L. G. W. 2612, with rote; cf. szvote, Rom. Rose 1661 ; 

 L. G. W. 1077; Miller's Tale 19; Pari. Fozvls 274); on the 

 other hand, see szvote dewes, R. R. 60 (where the original has 

 only rousee), and note the fact that sote (szvote) is often 

 employed in the middle of the line. It is several times used in 



Wenn Zephyr dann mit seinem siissen Hauch 

 In Wald und Haide jeden zarten Strauch 

 Durchwehet; wenn der Strahl der jungen Sonnen 

 Zur HJilfte schon dem Widder ist entronnen; 

 Wenn lust'ge Melodic das Voglein macht, 

 Das offnen Auges schlaft die ganze Nacht 

 — So stachelt die Natur es in der Brust. 



" May is regarded as feminine in T. and C. 2. 50 : 



In May, that moder is of monthes glade. 

 On the other hand, it is masculine, like April, in Franklin's Tale 179-180: 

 Which May had peynted with his softe shoures 

 This gardin ful of leves and of floures. 



*• Perhaps Juppiter (Joves) most nearly illustrates the conception out- 

 lined above, in such passages as T. and C. 3. 15 ff. (based upon the 

 Filostrato of Boccaccio; see O.vford Chaucer 2. 474-5) and Monk's 

 Tale 762. 



