NOTES TO THE COKES TALE.
The Cook's Prologue.
4329. herbergage, lodging; alluding to l. 4123.
4331. Not from Solomon, but from Ecclesiasticus, xi. 31: 'Non omnem hominem inducas in domum tuum; multae enim sunt insidiae dolosi.' In the E. version, it is verse 29.
4336. Hogge, Hodge, for Roger (l. 4353). Ware, in Hertfordshire.
4346. laten blood, let blood, i. e. removed gravy from. It refers to a meat-pie, baked with gravy in it; as it was not sold the day it was made, the gravy was removed to make it keep longer; and so the pie was eaten at last, when far from being new.
4347. The meaning of 'a Jack of Dover' has been much disputed, but it probably meant a pie that had been cooked more than once. Some have thought it meant a sole (probably a fried sole), as 'Dover soles' are still celebrated; but this is only a guess, and seems to be wrong. Sir T. More, Works, p. 675 E, speaks of a 'Jak of Paris, an evil pye twyse baken'; which is probably the same thing. Roquefort's French Dict. has:—
'Jaquet, Jaket, impudent, menteur. C'est sans doute de ce mot que les pâtissiers ont pris leur mot d'argot jaques, pour signifier qu'une pièce de volaille, de viande ou de pâtisserie cuite au four, est vieille ou dure.'
See Hazlitt's Proverbs, p. 20; and Hazlitt's Shakespeare Jest-books, ii. 366. Hence, in a secondary sense, Jack of Dover meant an old story, or hashed up anecdote. Ray says:—'This he [T. Fuller] makes parallel to Crambe bis cocta, and applicable to such as grate the ears of their auditors with ungrateful tautologies of what is worthless in itself; tolerable as once uttered in the notion of novelty, but abominable if repeated.' This may explain the fact that an old jest-book was printed with the title A Jack of Dover in 1604, and again in 1615. The E. word jack has indeed numerous senses.
4350. The insinuation is that stray flies were mixed up with the parsley served up with the Cook's geese. Tyrwhitt quotes from MS. Harl. 279—'Take percely,' &c. in a receipt for stuffing a goose; so that parsley was sometimes used for this purpose. It was also used for stuffing chickens; see Liber Cure Cocorum, ed. Morris, p. 22.
4357. 'A true jest is an evil jest.' Hazlitt, in his Collection of Proverbs, gives, 'True jest is no jest,' and quotes 'Sooth bourd is no bourd' from Heywood, and from Harington's Brief Apologie of Poetrie, 1591. Kelly's Scotch Proverbs includes: 'A sooth bourd is nae bourd.' Tyrwhitt alters the second play to spel, as being a Flemish word, but he only found it in two MSS. (Askew 1 and 2), and nothing is gained by it. The fact is, that there is nothing Flemish about the proverb except the word quad, though there may have been an equivalent proverb in that language. We must take Chaucer's remark to mean that 'Sooth play is what a Fleming would call quaad play'; which is then quite correct. For just as Flemish does not use the English words sooth and play, so English seldom uses the Flemish form quaad, equivalent to the Dutch kwaad, evil, bad, spelt quade in Hexham's Du. Dict. (1658). Cf. also O. Friesic kwad, quad, East Friesic kwâd (still in common use). The Mid. Eng. form is not quad, but (properly) quēd or queed; see examples in Stratmann, s. v. cwêd. In P. Plowman, B. xiv. 189, the qued means the Evil One, the devil. Queed occurs as a sb. as late as in Skelton, ed. Dyce, i. 168. We find, however, the rare M. E. form quad in Gower, ed. Pauli, ii. 246, and in the Story of Genesis and Exodus, ed. Morris, 536; and in another passage of the Cant. Tales, viz. B. 1628. The oldest English examples seem to be those in the Blickling Glosses, viz. 'of cweade arærende, de stercore erigens'; and 'cwed uel meox, stercus.' There is no difficulty about the etymology; the corresponding O. H. G. word is quāt, whence G. Koth or Kot, excrement; and the root appears in the Skt. gu or gū, to void excrement; see Kot in Kluge.
4358. This is interesting, as giving us the Host's name. Herry is the mod. E. Harry, with the usual change from er to ar, as in M. E. derk, dark, &c. It is the same as the F. Herri (not uncommon in O. F.), made from F. Henri by assimilation of nr to rr.
The name seems to have been taken from that of a real person. In the Subsidy Rolls, 4 Rich. II. (1380-1), for Southwark, occurs the entry—'Henri' Bayliff, Ostyler, Xpian [Christian] ux[or] eius ... ij s.' In the parliament held at Westminster, in 50 Edw. III. (1376-7), Henry Bailly was one of the representatives for that borough; and again, in the parliament at Gloucester, 2 Rich. II., the name occurs. See Notes and Queries, 2 S. iii. 228.
The Cokes Tale.
4368. 'Brown as a berry.' So in A. 207.
4377. 'There were sometimes Justs in Cheapside; Hollingshead, vol. ii. p. 348. But perhaps any procession may be meant.'—Tyrwhitt. 'Cheapside was the grand scene of city festivals and processions.'—Wright.
4379. T. has And til, but his note says that And was inserted by himself. Wright reads, 'And tyl he hadde'; but And is not in the Harleian MS. Observe that Wright insists very much on the fact that he reproduces this MS. 'with literal accuracy,' though he allows himself, according to his own account, to make silent alterations due to collation with the Lansdowne MS. But the word And is not to be found in any of the seven MSS., and this is only one example of the numerous cases in which he has silently altered his text without any MS. authority at all. His text, in fact, is full of treacherous pitfalls; and Bell's edition is quite as bad, though that likewise pretends to be accurate.
The easiest way of scanning the line is to ignore the elision of the final e in had-de, which is preserved, as often, by the cæsural pause.
4383. sette steven, made an appointment; see A. 1524.
4394. 'Though he (the master) may have,' &c.
4396. 'Though he (the apprentice) may know how to play,' &c. Opposed to l. 4394. The sense is—'The master pays for the revelling of the apprentice, though he takes no part in such revel; and conversely, the apprentice may gain skill in minstrelsy, but takes no part in paying for it; for, in his case, his rioting is convertible with theft.' The master pays, but plays not; the other pays not, but plays.
4397. 'Revelling and honesty, in the case of one of low degree (who has no money), are continually wrath with (i. e. opposed to) each other.'
4402. 'And sometimes carried off to Newgate, with revel (such as he might be supposed to approve of).' The point of the allusion lies in the fact that, when disorderly persons were carried to prison, they were preceded by minstrels, in order to call public attention to their disgrace. This is clearly shewn in the Liber Albus, pp. 459, 460, (p. 396 of the E. translation). E. g. 'Item, if any person shall be impeached of adultery, and be thereof lawfully attainted, let him be taken unto Newgate, and from thence, with minstrelsy, through Chepe, to the Tun on Cornhulle [Cornhill], there to remain at the will of the mayor and alderman.'
4404. paper. The allusion is not clear; perhaps it means that he was referring to his account-book, and found it unsatisfactory.
4406. In Hazlitt's Proverbs we find; 'The rotten apple injures its neighbour.' Cf. G. 964.
In the Ayenbite of Inwyt, p. 205, we are bidden to avoid bad company, because a rotten apple rots the sound ones, if left among them.
In Ida von Düringsfeld's Sprichwörter, 1872-5, no. 354, is:—'Ein fauler Apfel steckt den andern an. Pomum compunctum cito corrumpit sibi iunctum.'
4413. his leve, his leave to go, his dismissal, his congé.
4414. or leve, or leave it, i. e. or desist from it.
4415. for, because, since. louke, an accomplice who entices the dupe into the thief's company, a decoyer of victims. Not 'a receiver to a thief,' as Tyrwhitt guessed, but his assistant in thieving, one who helped him (as Chaucer says) to suck others by stealing or borrowing. It answers to an A. S. *lūca (not found), formed with the agential suffix -a from lūcan, lit. to pull, pluck, root up weeds, hence (probably) to draw, entice. The corresponding E. Friesic lūkan or lukan means not only to pull, pluck, but also to milk or suck (see Koolman). The Low G. luken means not only to pull up weeds, but also to suck down, or to take a long pull in drinking; hence O. F. louchier, loukier, to swallow. From the A. S. lūcan, to pluck up, comes the common prov. E. louk, lowk, look, to pluck up weeds; see Ray, Whitby Glossary, &c.
4417. brybe, to purloin; not to bribe in the modern sense; see the New E. Dict.
4422. Here the Tale suddenly breaks off; so it was probably never finished.
*** See Notes to Gamelin at the end of the Notes to the Tales.