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NOTES TO THE PROLOGUE 1. Bob-up-and-down: Mr Wright supposes this to be the village of Harbledown, near Canterbury, which is situated on a hill, and near which there are many ups and downs in the road. Like Boughton, where the Canon and his Yeoman overtook the pilgrims, it stood on the skirts of the Kentish forest of Blean or Blee. 2. Dun is in the mire: a proverbial saying. "Dun" is a name for an ass, derived from his colour. 3. The mention of the Cook here, with no hint that he had already told a story, confirms the indication given by the imperfect condition of his Tale, that Chaucer intended to suppress the Tale altogether, and make him tell a story in some other place. 4. The quintain; called "fan" or "vane," because it turned round like a weather-cock. 5. Referring to the classification of wine, according to its effects on a man, given in the old "Calendrier des Bergiers," The man of choleric temperament has "wine of lion;" the sanguine, "wine of ape;" the phlegmatic, "wine of sheep;" the melancholic, "wine of sow." There is a Rabbinical tradition that, when Noah was planting vines, Satan slaughtered beside them the four animals named; hence the effect of wine in making those who drink it display in turn the characteristics of all the four. 6. The pose: a defluxion or rheum which stops the nose and obstructs the voice. 7. Bring thee to his lure: A phrase in hawking -- to recall a hawk to the fist; the meaning here is, that the Cook may one day bring the Manciple to account, or pay him off, for the rebuke of his drunkenness. NOTES TO THE TALE 1. "The fable of 'The Crow,' says Tyrwhitt, "which is the subject of the Manciple's Tale, has been related by so many authors, from Ovid down to Gower, that it is impossible to say whom Chaucer principally followed. His skill in new dressing an old story was never, perhaps, more successfully exerted." 2. See the parallel to this passage in the Squire's Tale, and note 34 to that tale. 3. Wantrust: distrust -- want of trust; so "wanhope," despair - - want of hope. 4. This is quoted in the French "Romance of the Rose," from Cato "De Moribus," 1. i., dist. 3: "Virtutem primam esse puta compescere linguam." ("The first virtue is to be able to control the tongue") 5. "Semel emissum volat irrevocabile verbum." ("A word once uttered flies away and cannot be called back") -- Horace, Epist. 1., 18, 71. 6. This caution is also from Cato "De Moribus," 1. i., dist. 12: "Rumoris fuge ne incipias novus auctor haberi." ("Do not pass on rumours or be the author of new ones")
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