I. THE ROBIN. 39 



De calendre, et de mesangel. 

 II semblait que ce fut une angle 

 Qui fuz tout droit venuz du ciel. 



* 36. There are several points of philology in 

 this tT-gnsitional French, and in Chaucer's 

 translation, which it is well worth your patience 

 to observe. The monkish Latin "angelus," 

 you see, is passing through the very unpoetical 

 form "angle," into "ange;" but, in order to 

 get a rhyme with it in that angular form, the 

 French troubadour expands the bird's name, 

 " mesange," quite arbitrarily, into "mesangel." 

 Then Chaucer, not liking the " mes " at the 

 beginning of the word, changes that unscrupu- 

 lously into " arch ; " and gathers in, though 

 too shortl}'', a lovely bit from another place 

 about the nightingales flying so close round 

 Love's head that they strike some of the leaves 

 off his crown of roses ; so that the English 

 runs thus : 



But nightingales, a full great rout 

 That flien over his head about, 

 The leaves felden as they flien 

 And he was all with birds wrien. 

 With popinjay, with nightingale. 

 With chelaundre, and with v.odewale, 



