Chaucer's Alaunts 



137 



which is thus translated by Rose : 



As mastiff that below the deer-hound lies, 

 Fixed by the gullet fast, with holding bite, 

 Vainly bestirs himself and vainly tries, 

 With lips besmeared with foam and eyes alight, 

 And cannot from beneath the conqueror rise. 

 Who foils his foe by force, and not despite. 



Vendetta, a Great Dane. 

 (From Leighton, New Book of the Dog, p. 88.) 



The New English Dictionary furnishes no instance between 

 Chaucer and Berners' Froissart (1525).^^ In literature proper 



But in the Sowdone of Bahylone (ca. 1400), we have (54-6) 

 To chase the Bore or the Veneson, 

 The Wolfe, the Bere, and the Bawson, 

 With Alauntes, Lymmeris, and Racches free. 



