2"* S. VI. 132., July 10. '68.] NOTES AND QUEKIES. 



37 



niards ; but I can find no authority to that effect 

 in connexion with the liturgy of the Virgin, in 

 which I have searched in vain for the words 

 Mater cara. Indeed, with a memory most reten- 

 tive of all that beautiful liturgy, I doubt that the 

 word cara is anywhere — amongst hundreds — 

 applied to the Virgin. She is, however, empha- 

 tically styled, with reference to the tempest- 

 tost : — 



" Fulgens Stella Maris, 

 Portus naufragorum." 



Andbew Steinmetz. 



DIFFICULTIES OF CHAUCER. 



(2°* S. iii. 299.) 



Carrenare. — These lines from The Booke of the 

 DxUchesse — 



" And bidde him faste, anone that he 

 Go hoodlesse into the drie see 

 And come home by the Carrenare" — 



are thus paraphrased by Mr. Bots, under the in- 

 cognito of Anon. : — 



" Nor would she strictly command him to go forthwith 

 bareheaded into the dry dock, and come back by the 

 careening dock"! I 



Than this nothing, methinks, could be further 

 from Chaucer's meaning. What may be the dif- 

 ference between a dry and a careening dock, or 

 whether it was lady-like, in the fourteenth cen- 

 tury, for high-born English dames to be well up 

 in matters belonging to the navy, I kftow not; but 

 this I do know, that a much more natural signi- 

 fication may be given than the one above to the 

 words of our old poet. In the Middle Ages, even 

 when Chaucer lived, writers of romance used to 

 make the young wooing knight go forth in search 

 of noble adventures at the bidding of the illus- 

 trious lady whose hand and heart he sought to 

 win. Almost always a visit to the Holy Land 

 was laid down as one part of his wanderings ; he 

 was told to fast as well as fight, and expected to 

 show himself a pious pilgrim as well as bear him 

 like a doughty man of war. One of the routes 

 followed by our countrymen for getting to Pales- 

 tine was to go by sea from Pisa to Alexandria, as 

 we learn from one of Chaucer's contemporaries, 

 Sir John Maundeville, who, in speaking of this 

 journey, says, — 



" Men gothe be the Kede see — and there passed 

 Moyses, with the children of Israel, overthwart the see 

 all drye," &c. — The Voiage, &c., ed. Halliwell, p. 67. 



Surely Chaucer's "drie see" may very fairly be 

 understood as meaning the Red Sea, es[)ecially as 

 he had but just .spoken of a great city in Egypt — 

 "Alisandrie." Furthermore, from this very "drie 

 see" mention is made of "coming home by the 

 Carrenare." To my mind there is no doubt that 



this word " Carrenare," which up to the present 

 moment has been unintelligible to the com- 

 mentators and readers of Chaucer, was the re- 

 ceived and well-known term for designating that 

 part of the wilderness wherein our Divine Lord 

 fasted forty days and forty nights (Matt. iv. 2.) ; 

 and was then, as it yet is, one of the places visited 

 by pilgrims to the Holy Land. In the Life of St. 

 Peregrin it is said, — 



" Cum pervenisset ad locum deserti, qui Quarantena 

 vocatur, in quo Dominus noster Jesus Christus quadra- 

 ginta diebus et quadraginta noctibus jejunaverat," &c. 

 AA. SS. t. i. Aug. p. 78. 



Sometimes it was called " quarentena," as 

 Du Cange shows from several authors in wee. 

 In the reprint, edited by Sir H. Ellis for the 

 Camden Society, of the Pylgryrnage of Sir 

 Richard Gui/lforde to the Holy Land, as late as 

 A.D. 1506, its writer tells us that — 



" Goynge frome Galylee to Iherico, on the ryght hande, 

 is the Moute of Quarentena, where our Lorde fasted .xl. 

 dayes and .xl. nyghts," &c. — P. 62. 



Among our old writers q and c are interchange- 

 able letters, in words derived from Latin ; and out 

 of quadragesima came quaresima, and, in French, 

 caresme, then careme for leiit, or the fast of forty 

 days. Perhaps a collection of MSS. might afford 

 another reading for the word "carrenare:" be 

 that as it may, it is not at all unlikely that in this 

 as in other instances Chaucer, to suit his purpose, 

 and to find a rhyme for "ware," may have, out of 

 "Quarentena," coined by an easy process "Carre- 

 nare." According, then, to such a gloss, Chaucer 

 wished to say that the Duchess whose praises he 

 sang was not, like many other high dames, so 

 freakish as to exact such hard proofs of regard. 



" She would not tell her knight to wander the world 

 over for her sake — to go to Alexandria, nay, fast and 

 walk bare-headed, under the scorching sun of Egypt, 

 into the Red Sea, and come home thence by the Holy 

 Land after having been to the wilderness, the ' carrenare ' 

 itself, wherein our -Lord fasted forty days and forty 

 nights." 



D. Rock. 



3ftcplu^ to Minax iSiuniei. 



Seal- Engravers' Seals (V* S. xii. 30.)— -Your 

 correspondent Adrian Adninan may find the fol- 

 lowing directions of use : — 



Employ a gas flame or (better) a spirit lamp. 

 Hold a stick of best red wax over the flame's 

 point (not in it) till it begins to fuse. Take care 

 it does not blaze, as the smallest portion of car- 

 bon will mar the brightness of the impression. 

 Dab the drop of melted wax on the paper, then 

 repeat the process till you have deposited enough. 

 Now get an assistant to stretch the paper evenly, 

 holding it at some distance over the flame, while 

 you stir the wax round as in making an ordinary 



