202 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 72. 



which, at the conclusion of his note, 6. has drawn 

 attention. 



The first is, that, " with respect to the time of 

 year at whicli the tournament takes pkice, there 

 seems to be an inconsistency." Theseus fixes 

 " this clay fifty wekes " from the fourth of May, 

 as the day on which the final contention must come 

 off, and yet the day previous to the final conten- 

 tion is afterwards alluded to as " the lusty seson 

 of that May," which, it is needless to say, would 

 be inconsistent with an interval of fifty ordinary 

 weeks. 



But fifty weeks, if taken in their literal sense of 

 350 days, would be a most unmeaning interval for 

 Theseus to fix upon, — it would almost require 

 explanation as much as the difiiculty itself: it is 

 therefore much easier to suppose that Chaucer 

 meant to imply the interval of a solar year. "Why 

 lie should choose to express that interval by fifty, 

 rather than by fifty-two, weeks, may be surmised 

 in two ways : first, because the latter phrase 

 would be unpoetical and unmanageable ; and, 

 secondly, because he might fancy that the week of 

 the Pagan Theseus would be more appropi lately 

 represented by a lunar quarter than by a Jewish 

 hebdomad. 



Chaucer sometimes makes the strangest jumble 

 — mixing up together Pagan matters and Chris- 

 tian, Roman and Grecian, ancient and modern; 

 so that although he names Sunday and Monday as 

 two of the days of the week in Athens, he does so 

 evidently for the purpose of introducing the allo- 

 cation of the hours, alluded to before, to which 

 the ]3lanetary names of the days of the week were 

 absolutely necessary. But in the fifty weeks ap- 

 pohited by Thesetis, the very same love of a little 

 display of erudition would lead Chaucer to choose 

 the hebdomas lunm, or lunar quarter, which the 

 Athenian youth were wont to mark out by the 

 celebration of a feast to Apollo on every seventh 

 day of the moon. But after the first twenty- 

 eight days of every lunar month, tlie weekly 

 reckoning must have been discontinued for about 

 a day and a half (when the new moon was what 

 was called " in coitu," or invisible), after which 

 a new reckoning of sevens would recommence. 

 Hence there could be but four hebdomades in 

 each lunar month; and as there are about twelve 

 and a half lunar mouths in a solar year, so must 

 there have been fifty lunar weeks in one solar 

 year. 



It will explain many anomalies, even in Shak- 

 speare, if we suppose that our early writers were 

 content to show their knowledge of a subject in a 

 few particulars, and were by no means solicitous 

 to preserve, what moderns would call keeping, in 

 the whole performance. 



The next difficulty, adverted to by 6., is the 

 mention of the third as the morning upon 

 which Palamon " brake his prison," and Arcite 



went into the woods " to don bis observaunce to 

 May." 



There is not perhaps in the whole of Chaucer's 

 writings a more exquisite passage than that ])y 

 which the latter circumstance is introduced; it is 

 well worth transcribing : — 



" The besy larke, tlie mcssagei" of day, 

 Saleweth in liiie song tlie raorwe gray ; 

 And firy Phebus riseth up so bright, 

 That all the orient laiigheth at the sight ; 

 And with his stremes drieth in tlie greves 

 The silver dropes hanging on the leves. " 



Such is the description of the morning of the 

 " thridde of JMay;" and perhaps, if no otlier men- 

 tion of that date were to be found throughout 

 Chaucer's works, we might be justified in setting 

 it down as a random expression, to which no [lar- 

 ticular meaning was attached. But when we find 

 it repeated in an entirely different poem, and the 

 same "observaunce to May" again associated with 

 it, the conviction is forced upon us that it cannot 

 be without some definite meaning. 



This repetition occurs in the opening of the 

 second book of Troilus and Crescide, where " the 

 thridde" has not only "observaunce to May" again 

 attributed to it, but also apparently some pecidiar 

 virtue in dreams. No sooner does Creseide behold 

 Pandarus on the morning of the third of May, than 

 " htj the liondon hie, she tuoke him fast" and tells 

 him that she had thrice dreamed of him tliat 

 night. Pandarus replies in what appears to have 

 been a set form of words siu.table to the occasion — 



" Yea, nece, ye shall faren well the bet, 

 If God wuli, all this yeare." 



Now unless the third of I\Iay were supposed to 

 possess some unusual virtue, the dreaming cm that 

 morning could scarcely confer a whole j'car's wel- 

 fare. But, be that as it ma)', there can at least be 

 no doubt that Chaucer designedly associated some 

 celebration of the advent of May with the morn- 

 ing of the third of that month. 



Without absolutely asserting that my exjjlana- 

 tion is the true one, I may nevertheless suggest 

 it until some better may be offered. It is, that 

 the association may have origimxted in the invo- 

 cation of the goddess Flora, by Ovid, on that day 

 {Fasti, v.), in order that she might inspire him 

 with an explanation of the Flondia, or Floral games, 

 which were celebrated in Kome irom tlia 28th of 

 April to the third'oi May. 



These games, if transferred by Chaucer to 

 Athens, would at once explain the "gret iiaste" 

 and the " lusty seson of that May." 



Supposing, then, that Ciiaucer, in the Knight's 

 Talc, meant, as I think he meant, to place the 

 great combat on the anniversary of the fourth of 

 May — that being the day on which Theseus ha<l 

 intercepted the duel, — then the entry into Athens 

 of the rival comjmuies would take place ou (Sun- 



