contents of this ballade in his Lay de Franchise.' In both these places the flower is spoken of as "blanche et vermeille," and the lady is said to be endowed with admirable qualities which the different parts of the flower symbolize. In the latter respect, as already noted, there is inconsistency with the allegory of our poem, and the bit of descriptive detail-"blanche et vermeille"-is practically inevitable in writing of a "Wee, modest, crimsontipped flow'r." Hence the only thing especially worthy of note about Deschamps' love of the daisy is that his tribute in the Lay de Franchise occurs in a setting somewhat like that of F. L.3

Deschamps was primarily complimenting a lady named Marguerite; Froissart the chronicler, though not guiltless of complimentary intentions, seems really to have loved the flower somewhat as Chaucer loved it. He mentions it nearly everywhere. His best known poem on the subject is the ballade in Le Paradys d'Amours,' with the refrain:

Sus toutes flours j'aime la margherite.

In La Prison Amoureuse Froissart used

une fleur petite

Que nous appellons margherite,

for the seal, or cachet, of the lover in an amorous correspondence. He imitated Machaut, also, in devoting a whole poem to this favorite flower-Le Dittié de la Flour de la Margherite, in which the praise is similar to that by Chaucer in the Prologue to L. G. W. And his seventeenth Pastourelle' concludes each stanza with the refrain:

La margherite à la plus belle

that is, of the shepherdesses celebrated in the poem. It should perhaps be noted especially that in the ballade above referred to the daisy is praised for its enduring freshness (somewhat in contrast with its rôle in F. L.), but is associated with springtime and conventional love.

1 Euvres, Vol. II, pp. 203 ff., 11. 30 ff.

2 Compare F. L., 333, and L. G. W., A, 42.

5 Ibid., Vol. I, pp. 241 ff., 11. 898, 899.

6 Ibid., Vol. II, pp. 209 ff.

7 Ibid., Vol. II, pp. 343 ff.

3 See above, p. 135; below, chap. iii.

4 Poésies, ed. Scheler, Vol. I, p. 49.

Whatever cult of the daisy there was in England seems to have been due to the influence of Chaucer, and he doubtless was familiar with some at least of the French poems just mentioned.' His tribute in the Prologue to L. G. W.,2 in close connection as it is with his reference to the strife of the Flower and the Leaf,3 must have been in the mind of the author of our poem; even though he seem inconsistent in making the frivolous company of the Flower do homage to the daisy, whereas in Chaucer the faithful Alcestis is transformed into that flower. It hardly need be pointed out that this inconsistency resembles that between F. L. and Deschamps, who makes the green of the stalk of the daisy symbolize constancy. And it must be admitted that, in spite of the association of this flower with springtime festivities and light love, the exalted position given it by Chaucer and Deschamps is more fully in accord with the common mediæval belief in its healing powers, emphasized in Machaut's Dit de la Marguerite.*

Various references to Chaucer's happy bit of myth-making in regard to Alcestis have been pointed out by Professors Skeat and Schick. In one of these I find striking expression, heretofore unnoticed, of a prominent thought of F. L. Lydgate's Poem against Self-Love" contains these lines:

Alcestis flower, with white, with red and greene,
Displaieth hir crown geyn Phebus bemys brihte,
In stormys dreepithe, conseyve what I meene,

Look in thy myrour and deeme noon othir wihte.

The italicized words describe so exactly the state of the flower and its followers after the storm that comes upon them' as to suggest that Lydgate was directly alluding to our poem.

Other notable English references to the daisy during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries are as follows: In C. N., with its discussion of love, the setting is a land of daisies, and healing properties are attributed to the flower. The Compleynt which

1 See the articles by Kittredge and Lowes, cited above, p. 124, n. 1.

4 See p. 157 above, and the passage from Morley there referred to.

5 See Schick's note on 11. 70-74 of Lydgate's T. G., p. 74 of his edition, and the references there given.

6 M. P., ed. Halliwell, pp. 156 ff.; especially p. 161.

7 F. L., 11. 368-71.

8 Ll. 63, 243 ff.; ref. p. 155 above.

Professor Schick prints as an appendix to his edition of T. G. presents an extended tribute to the daisy,' in which most of the elements found in the French poets and Chaucer are repeated. If Lydgate wrote this poem (as is very doubtful, however) it is especially interesting on account of his very frequent reference to the flower." "A Ballad" beginning:

In the season of Feuerere whan it was full cold,

3

printed first with Stowe's Chaucer of 1561, but rejected by Tyrwhitt and subsequent editors, is a tribute to the daisy, which may allude to the worship of this flower by the Order of the Flower. Lovers are addressed, and told that they

Owe for to worship the lusty floures alway,

And in especiall one is called see' of the day,
The daisee, a floure white and rede,

And in French called La bele Margarete.

In two poems of some importance later than F. L. daisies form part of the setting: in A. L., ll. 57 ff., and in C. L., ll. 101 ff.

5

The refrain purporting to be quoted in F. L. from some French original "Si douce est la margarete"-I have not yet found elsewhere. The fact that the spelling "margarete," to rime with "swete," is not used in French-so far as I can learn-suggests the possibility that the line may have been composed by the English poet to suit the convenience of the rime.

On the whole, the use of the daisy in connection with May Day festivities is more or less conventional, but was probably directly suggested by Chaucer, with very likely a reference to Machaut, Deschamps, or Froissart for the lighter signification attached to the flower in F. L. It also seems probable that Lydgate knew our poem and directly alludes to it.

THE NIGHTINGALE

The nightingale in F. L. flies to Diana, the lady of the Leaf; the goldfinch, to Flora, the lady of the Flower. The former represents the more serious side of man's nature, shown in affairs of

1 Ll. 394 ff.

2 See Schick's note, p. 74.

3 See Skeat: Chaucerian and Other Pieces, p. xiii. Most easily accessible in Chalmers' English Poets, Vol. I, p. 562.

4 Apparently an error for "ee."

5 Chaucerian and Other Pieces, pp. 380 ff.

6 F. L., 1. 350.

love by steadfastness; the latter, the more frivolous side, with a suggestion of inconstancy in love. Here the conformity with literary tradition is not so strict as in relation to most of the other matters discussed in this chapter.

The nightingale, with other birds, was an element of the conventional springtime setting,' and as such became inevitably associated with the festivities of love, whether serious and steadfast, or the lighter love with which we have found green garments and garlands of flowers associated. The general popularity of the nightingale in medieval poetry (or, for that matter, in the poetry of all times and all nations where the bird is found) is too well known to require comment. A very large number, perhaps even a majority, of all the poems I have read which present the springtime setting give the nightingale a place of prominence-or the place of most prominence-among the birds that rejoice the poet's heart, or cheer the lover and remind him of his mistress."

Along with this general association with love, however, there is a tendency to exalt the character of the nightingale, to associate her with the better sort of love with inspiration to brave deeds and even with religion-and thus make it more appropriate that she should be the singer for the brave and steadfast company of the Leaf. Giving the nightingale a serious character is probably due, in part at least, to the bird's association with the classical story of Philomela, and to the medieval superstition that she

1 To be discussed in chap. iii below.

2 See Uhland, Abhandlung über die deutschen Volkslieder, passim.

3 On the association of the nightingale with the affairs of love see Neilson, Harvard Studies, Vol. VI, pp. 217 ff. The following additions may be made to the examples there referred to: The nightingale cries on the green leaf for love (Mahn, Gedichte der Troubadours, Vol. I, p. 173). The nightingale is sent with a message of love to the "jardin d'amour" (Tarbé's Romancero de Champagne, Vol. II, p. 159). On the nightingale as a messenger see also Appel, Provenzalische Chrestomathie, 2d ed., p. 97; Romania, Vol. III, pp. 97, 98; Vol. VII, pp. 55, 57; Chansons du XVme siècle, Nos. lxxvii, civ, cxxxix, etc.; Rolland, Faune populaire de la France (Paris, 1879), Vol. II, pp. 275 ff. Christine de Pisan, in her Dit de Poissy (Œuvres, Vol. II, pp. 164, 165), describes the singing of nightingales against "le faulz jaloux." In Chaucer's T. C. (II, 11. 918-24) a nightingale sings a love song that lulls Criseyde to sleep. In Lydgate's B. K. (Chaucerian and Other Pieces, pp. 245 ff.)—

"the nightingale

(47)

With so gret mighte her voys gan out-wreste
Right as her herte for love wolde breste."

Cf. this with F. L., 11. 99-102, 447-49.

Though it is in fact the male nightingale that sings, the medieval poets generally thought otherwise.

sang with her heart impaled upon a thorn.' The following examples will illustrate the tendency:

The burden of the first part of Fablel (ed. Jubinal, Paris, 1834) is the nightingale's complaint of the degeneracy of love.

In Venus (ed. Förster, Bonn, 1880) the nightingale writes a charter containing a decree of love, in which loyal love is commanded.

Uhland cites examples of the inspiration of warriors by the nightingale's song (Abhandlung, ed. Fischer, p. 87).

In Froissart's Loenge de May (Poésies, ed. Scheler, Vol. II, pp. 194 ff.) the song of the nightingale inspires the lover to ardent praise of his mistress and resolutions of loyalty to her.

In C. O. and many of the Chansons (e. g., cvi, cix) the nightingale sings to gladden the hearts of those in pain for love.2

The part of the bird is very prominent in the Chansons. She "praises true lovers in her pretty song" (lxvii). She is the messenger of a neglected mistress to remind her lover of his duty (lxxii, cxxiii). She is asked for advice in a love affair (cxvii).

3

The nightingale in C. N. speaks in defense of true love against the scoffing cuckoo (see p. 155 above, and p. 163 below).

Lydgate's Two Nightingale Poems are mainly religious allegories, in which the nightingale represents Christ; but in II, ll. 16, 17, the poet says he "understood that she was asking Venus for vengeance on false lovers." In 1. 68 she praises pure love.

In the Devotions of the Fowls, printed by Halliwell with Lydgate's M. P. (pp. 78 ff.), but of doubtful authenticity, the nightingale sings of Christ's resurrection.

In The Thrush and the Nightingale (Hazlitt's Popular Poetry, Vol. I, pp. 50 ff.; and Reliquiæ Antiquæ, Vol. I, p. 241) the nightingale defends women against the attacks of the thrush, and is admitted by the latter to win the victory.

In the Buke of the Howlat (Scottish Alliterative Poems, ed. Amours; S. T. S., 1897) nightingales (with other birds) sing a hymn to the virgin (11. 716 ff.).

Dunbar has the nightingale defend the thesis that "All luve is lost bot vpon God allone" (Poems, S. T. S., Vol. II, pp. 174 ff.).*

So far as a relation of any of the above poems with F. L. is concerned, the function of the nightingale is most important in

1 See Chambers, Book of Days, Vol. I, p. 515; Schick's note on Kyd's Spanish Tragedy, II, ii, 50.

2 She does not always rejoice the lover, however; see cxx, cxxi.

3 See other examples of use of the nightingale as a messenger, n. 3, p. 161 above.

4 The role of the bird in the Owl and the Nightingale is not exalted, but this poem is considerably earlier than any but a very few of those here considered, and seems to have little, if any, connection with any of them.