THOMAS USK, THE TESTAMENT OF LOVE: FOOTNOTES

1 eeres, ears; sprad, spread; swalowen, swallow.

2 queynt knyttyng coloures, strange (curious) complex (intricate) rhetorical figures.

3 hede, heed; els, else; Sothely, Truly.

4 myned, undermined; graffed in, dug down (lit., dug a grave).

5 endytyng, writing (composition); boystous, plain.

6 herer, hearer; inrest, innermost.

7 spring, grow.

8 semelych colours, decorous rhetoric; dolven, cultivated.

9 catchers, auditors; hent sentence, grasp meaning.

10 peynten, paint; vers, special, distinct modes of communication (such as verse), ornate composition.

11 coles, charcoal; leude, lay, uneducated.

12 thilke, that same; purtreyture, portraiture; as hem thynketh, as it seems to them.

13 yeven, gives; hem, them; for the first leudenesse, on account of the former lack of skill; sothly, truly; leude, uncultured.

14 clowdy, obscure, confused; to prayse, to be praised.

14-15 leude leudnesse commendeth, the uneducated commend uncultured [matters].

15 Eke, Also; yeve, give.

16 endyte, compose.

17 fulfylde, accomplished; speken, speak.

18 poysye mater, poetry.

19 heryng, hearing.

20 unneth, scarcely; connen, know how to; knowlegynge, comprehension of.

21 conne jumpere, know how to assemble; chatereth, chatters.

22 stretche, stretch.

23 privy, most peculiar; bosten, boast.

24 endyten, compose.

25 queynt, unfamiliar.

26 kyndely, natural; lerneden, learned.

27 dames, mothers'.

28 thankeworthy, praiseworthy; travaile, labor.

29 exciten, excite; thilke, those same.

30 perpetual, ever-available.

31 eschewe, avoid; catche after as, catch accordingly as.

32 Certes, Certainly.

34 mowen, may; werkyng, function; reasonable, [a] reasonable [person].

35 hem, them.

36 sothe, truth; entent disceyvable, intent to deceive.

37 inchaungeable, constant.

38 meane, means.

39 thylke, those same.

40 understonding, comprehensible; unsene privytees, unseen secrets.

42 sothe, truth.

44 tune, sense: harmonious totality of composition (see note).

46 lykyng, desire (affinity).

47 kyndely, natural.

48 me, men (one).

49 Herfore, Therefore; lyvely studye, animated and committed scholarship.

51 swetande travayle, sweating labor; leften of, bequeathed the knowledge of.

52 herty lust, healthy desire.

53 kyndely, natural; busy, intensive.

54 passed, past.

56 arn, are.

58 sterynge, guidance.

59 for wantynge of, i.e., lack of obtaining [the object] of; cleped, called.

60 thylke, that one.

61 rende out the swerde of Hercules handes, rip the sword from Hercules' hands.

62 Hercules Gades, the pillars of Hercules at Cadiz.

63 spere that, spear that; wagge, wield (lit., wage).

64 mayster, master.

67 Certes, Certainly; wote, know; jape, jest.

69 els, else; sythen, since; grettest, greatest; han had, have had.

70 clene toforne, thoroughly before and in front of; sythes, scythes, mowers.

71 connyng, intelligence; mowen, mowed; rekes, rakes, piles of hay; plentyes, plenties; fede, feed.

73 hayn, hatred; repers, reapers.

74 hyer, hire; sheves, sheaves; shockes, stacks.

75 ensample, example; crommes, crumbs; fullyn, fill; tho, those.

76 borde, table.

77 almoygner, almsman, who distributes the alms of another; remyssayles, leftovers; trenchours, brown-bread, in thick slices, serving as plates for food.

78 relyef, the rest (possibly,"succeeding dishes"); bere carry; almesse, those deserving of alms; leve, permission; husbande, cultivator.

79 connynge, knowledge.

80 glene, glean; shedynge, leavings.

81 by privytyes, privately, by myself; shocke, stacked sheaves of grain.

81-82 A slye . . . owne helpe, a servant expedient in helping himself.

83 more hardyer, more difficult; sechers, seekers; lyghter in, easier for.

84 passyng, surpassing, i.e., inimitably excellent; fresshed, refreshed.

86 Utterly, Absolutely; dremes, dreams; japes, jests; hogges, hogs; lyfelyche meate, living food.

87 me betiden, befell me; kyth, native land.

88 wether, weather; boystous, rough.

89 kynde, nature; wawes, waves; occian see, ocean.

90 unkyndely, unnaturally; commune, universal, i.e., all its banks (so that it was about to destroy all the earth); spyl, destroy.

THOMAS USK, THE TESTAMENT OF LOVE: NOTES

As readers will have already surmised from the Introduction to the edition as a whole, annotating TL is no easy task. This is a matter of great concern to me. There are about 800 annotations in the edition. On the one hand, we can argue that, of course, there should be no upper limit to the explanatory matter offered. On the other hand, however, realistically speaking, there has to be some limit. Knowing that practically there is an upper limit, I have endeavored to include information, wherever it is needed, that will get the reader started: from simple definitions to core bibliography and across a wide spectrum of information between, I have followed the guiding principle of helping readers know enough to decide when they need to know more.
   All annotations originating with me are unmarked. All material originating with other editors and/or scholars is marked typically by their surnames (Skeat's surname refers, unless otherwise indicated, to his 1897 edition of TL). Regarding the work of Jellech, Leyerle, and Skeat, I should observe that material originating with them usually refers to their notes on a particular word, phrase, or moment in TL within the sequence of their textual notes. I am particularly grateful to Schaar for his closely reasoned emendations of corrupt passages.
   Of Skeat's annotations, I have retained generally those that provide source and background information and have omitted those that are primarily his speculations. With the work of Jellech, Leyerle, and Schaar, I have exercised my judgment always on the principle of helping the reader get started.

Abbreviations: Boece: Chaucer's translation of the Consolation of Philosophy; BD: Book of the Duchess; CA: Confessio Amantis; CT: Canterbury Tales; Conc.: De Concordia Praescientiae et Praedestinationis et Gratiae Dei cum Libero Arbitrio; Conf.: Confessions; Cons.: Consolation of Philosophy; EETS: Early English Text Society (o.s., Original Series and e.s., Extra Series); HF: House of Fame; MED: Middle English Dictionary; N&Q: Notes and Queries; OED: Oxford English Dictionary; PPl: Piers Plowman; PL: Patrologia Latina; Purg.: Purgatorio; T&C: Troilus and Criseyde; Th: Thynne; TL: The Testament of Love

Prologue

2 jestes. According to Leyerle, jestes means "a form of composition distinct from that     in ryme or prose" (p. 219).

by queynt knyttyng coloures. Skeat glosses as "curious fine phrases, that knit or join the words or verses together" (p. 451). The word knytting anticipates or even prefigures an entire complex of imagery of knots in TL; see the Introduction iii c (pp. 8-13) and below, Book 2, lines 98ff.

3-6 The reader should note the general similarity between Usk's situation and that of Boethius at the beginning of Cons. Usk makes extensive use of that work and of Chaucer's translation of it as well.

6 inrest. Skeat emends to in[ne]rest, thereby displacing one neologism with another.

20 whiche. Skeat emends to [of] whiche.

31 necessaryes to catche. Skeat: "to lay hold of necessary ideas. Throughout this treatise, we frequently find the verb placed after the substantive which it governs, or relegated to the end of the clause or sentence" (p. 451).

32 Certes, the soveraynst. Skeat emends to Certes, [perfeccion is] the soveraynest. The syntax of the sentence is certainly contorted, but emendation may not be necessary. The sense is: "Certainly, reasonable creatures have, or should have, the most sovereign thing of desire and the greatest, [that is], the full appetite of their perfection." For the general argument, see Boece, 3. pr. 10 and 11, where superlative fulfillment is represented by suffisaunce, as, e.g., in 3. pr. 11, line 25 (pp. 451-52).

39 be. Usk typically has be for by. Normally I will gloss this at the foot of the page, but not always.

42 knowlegynge sothe. Skeat emends to knowleginge [of] sothe, followed by Leyerle.

43-45 Lo, David sayth . . . makynge. Skeat, Schaar, Jellech, and Leyerle comment on the obscurity of this passage. Skeat makes no change in the text, but calls it hopelessly corrupt. He sees a possible reference to Ps. cxxxix. 14 (p. 452). But Jellech argues against that reference citing instead Psalm 91.4: Quia delectasti me, Domine, in factura, which Usk translates literally: The explanation which Usk provides [Jellech continues] would also seem to be a literal translation of some now lost commentary, but the English meaning is quite obscure. In the context of the first three verses of the psalm, the word tune would not be impossible; these are: Bonum est confiteri Domino, et psallere nomine tuo, Altissime. / Ad annuntiandum mane misericordiam tuam, et veritatem tuam per noctem. / In decachordo psalterio, eum cantico in cithara [It is good to give praise to the Lord: and to sing to thy name, O most High. To shew forth thy mercy in the morning, and thy truth in the night: Upon an instrument of ten strings, upon the psaltery: with a canticle upon the harp]. According to the OED, tune, from L. tonus, began to be differentiated from "tone" in the fourteenth century, and usually refers to the human voice. Still, the passage remains only partially intelligible and no reasonable emendation has suggested itself to me, so the passage has been left unchanged." (p. 132 ) Jellech's hunch is probably a good one, except for the assumption that the commentary is "lost." I suspect it is the commentary of St. Augustine, who writes, e.g., (Expositions 4, p. 313) that . . . God teacheth us no other hymn but that of faith, hope, and charity: that our faith may be firm in Himself, as long as we do not see Him, believing in Him Whom we do not see, that we may rejoice when we see Him . . . Augustine continues with this emphasis on the invisibility of God and the need for faith as the Christian waits for the day when s/he will see God: ". . . endure the present, hope for the future, love Whom he seeth not, that he may embrace Him when he seeth Him" (Expositions 4, p. 314). Usk, then, is probably recalling from memory (my speculation) a well-known interpretation of Psalm 91, which is also consonant with the famous Pauline dictum, "for the invisible things of him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made" (Romans 1.20). Hence, my gloss for tune, "harmonious totality of composition," attempts to capture the sense of the whole creation as the song-like communication ("eum cantico in cithara") that brings us "the ful knowlegynge sothe." I think then, in sum, that although the English is corrupt, the sense is recuperable, and therefore I have not emended: the gist of the passage is that the harmonious totality of the creation intimates for us the "unsene privytees" of God.

44 tune, how God hath lent. Schaar would emend to: time, thou god hast sent.

45 Wherof Aristotle. Skeat adduces De Animalibus 1.5. In this quite famous passage, Aristotle says, at one point, "For even in the study of animals unattractive to the senses, the nature that fashioned them offers immeasurable pleasures . . . to those who can learn the causes and are naturally lovers of wisdom" (pp. 17-18).

47 consydred. The passage implies for Skeat that, "the forms of natural things and their creation being considered, men should have a great natural love to the Workman that made them" (p. 452). Skeat imagines the term to be head of the next clause: Considred, forsoth, the formes. . . . But the formes . . . and the shap is simply an appositional phrase, the antecedent of hem (line 48). Such constructions are typical of Usk's prose; we can think of them as loose ablative absolutes; Leyerle (p. 316) also observes this phenomenon.

48 me. In Middle English me is commonly written for men. Skeat labels it "the unemphatic form of man, in the impersonal sense of `one' or `people' . . . . Strict grammar requires the form him for hem . . . as me is properly singular; but the use of hem is natural enough in this passage, as me really signifies created beings in general" (p. 452).

51 of causes the propertyes. Skeat emends to of causes [of] the propertees. But the repetition of of is unnecessary. The sense is that philosophers have left to us causes of the properties in the nature of things, where of causes is a kind of affixation. The source of the idea may be Boece, I. m. 2. 15ff., where Philosophy describes the healthy Boethius as one who not only appreciated the things of nature but also "was wont to seken the causes." The greatest expression of this idea in the Latin tradition is probably Virgil's: "Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas" (Georgics 2.490): "Happy is he who can discern the causes of things" (my translation). Leyerle speculates that the phrase of causes the propertyes in natures of thynges is a reference to De Proprietatibus Rerum, by Bartholomaeus Anglicus (p. 222).

56-57 Stixe, the foule pytte of helle. See T&C 4.1540. Jellech notes that Spenser pointed out ["Chaucer's Hell, A Study in Medieval Convention," Speculum 2 (1927), p. 181], that Chaucer's reference to Styx as the "pit of hell" is used as the part for the whole, and that there are many medieval references to hell pit (p. 134).

58-59 the pryme causes of sterynge . . . for wantynge of desyre. Jellech observes: "The primary causes governing the activity of loving, along with the suffering and unhappiness brought about by lack of fulfillment of the lover's desire. Usk generally uses the term `steer' for `control' or `govern'" (p. 134).

61ff. Leyerle (pp. 222-24) proposes a source in Trevisa's translation of Higden's Polychronicon (which Usk certainly knew) and concludes: "wresting the sword from the hands of Hercules is a metaphor for direct use of texts written by auctours, that is by authoritative writers of the past" (p. 224).

62 Gades a myle. Gades marks the pillars of Hercules, located by medieval geographers at Cadiz. Skeat suggests that the reference may come from Guido delle Colonne (p. 452).

62-63 he had power . . . might never wagge. Skeat notes: "There seems to be some confusion here. It was King Arthur who drew the magic sword out of the stone . . . Alexander's task was to untie the Gordian knot" (p. 452). Jellech points out, however, that "neither the medieval English versions of the Alexander story nor the French Roman de Alexander contains the episode of the cutting of the Gordian knot. Cary, The Medieval Alexander . . . does not list the incident. What anecdote of Alexander Usk had in mind remains unexplained. Usk's point is that Alexander, or some hero, was unable to lift the spear: Arthur did succeed in withdrawing the sword from the rock" (p. 135).

64-66 And that . . . conquere? Skeat paraphrases: "and who says that, surpassing all wonders, he will be master of France by might, whereas even King Edward III could not conquer all of it" (p. 452). The allusion is to the Hundred Years' War between England and France over the English claim to the throne of France.

68 the cloudy cloude of unconnynge. Jellech questions a possible reference to the famous, anonymous mystical treatise of the fourteenth century, The Cloud of Unknowing: "[it] is not appropriate here because Dyonysius's theme is that the cloud of unknowing is a spiritual benefit, whereas Usk, following Boethius, uses the image of the cloud to refer to ignorance which prevents the viewer from understanding his true situation" (p. 135). I am less secure about this matter. I would prefer to leave open the possibility that there may be a connection between the two texts. I have as yet to explore the connection at any length, but in my opinion, there is a mystical tendency in Usk, underdeveloped I would admit, that may have led him to appropriate the phrase for his own uses. However, against my opinion and in support of Jellech's can be adduced such a passage as Book 1, lines 246-47.

72-73 Envye forsothe commendeth . . . it never so trusty. Jellech glosses: "Envy will not approve the plans of anyone he scorns, even if they are good."

73-74 good workmen and worthy theyr hyer. Usk paraphrases Luke 10.7.

73-78 these noble repers . . . to the almesse. This extended image relates perhaps to Chaucer's Legend of Good Women, F Prol. 73-77; it also recalls Dante's use of a similar image in Convivio 1.1.67-86. Perhaps it is part of an elaborate exegetical trope on reaping and glossing; see the essay by Martin.

81-82 A slye servaunt . . . moche commended. See Luke 16.1-8, the parable of the steward.

83 Aristotle. Skeat cites Nicomachean Ethics 1.7, here. In the Loeb translation, the possibly relevant passage reads and in this working out of details Time seems to be a good inventor or at all events coadjutor. This indeed is how advances in the arts have actually come about, since anyone can fill in the gaps. (1.7.17) I can find no passage any closer in sense to Usk's statement than this. I can report, though, that this passage is also translated, quite closely, in Oresme's Le Livre de éthiques d'Aristote (c. 1370; p. 122), which may have been known in England in the 1380s (see Shoaf [1983], p. 244).

84 Leyerle comments here and elsewhere on the frequent absence of grammatical concord between subject and predicate in TL (pp. 226 et alia). I would emphasize, as does Leyerle, but more generally, that often Usk "feels" grammatically singular subjects as conceptually plural.

86 Utterly, these thynges . . . to throwe to hogges. Jellech (p. 138) sees a possible reference to Matthew 7.6: Nolite dare sanctum canibus neque mittatis margaritas vestras ante porcos, ne forte conculcent eas pedibus suis et conversi dirumpant vos. [Give not that which is holy to dogs; neither cast ye your pearls before swine, less perhaps they trample them under their feet, and turning upon you, they tear you.] However, the connection between dreams and sacred or valuable objects is uncertain; no use is made of the reference to pearls in the biblical passage.

86-87 It is lyfelyche meate for chyldren of trouthe. Compare Boethius, Cons. I. p. 2. 36 (Boece, p. 399).

87 and as they me betiden. Schaar corrects Th and Sk as follows: Skeat is not satisfied with this passage, which seems to him to contain a gap: "this sudden transition to the mention of the author's pilgrimage suggests that a portion of the Prologue is missing here." This, however, hardly does justice to the paragraph. The author's pilgrimage into a wild and desolate landscape, ravaged by furious elements, is a symbol of deep melancholy, of an existence in grief and spiritual agony. . . . This wintry existence, however, as the whole treatise shows, is made endurable by the life-giving rays of Philosophy: the Consolation of Philosophy. Lyflich mete, in our passage, goes with both for children of trouthe and the as-clause: these thinges, then, are no empty dreams but vital nourishment for those who love truth and when they happened to me in a period of great spiritual need and distress. (pp. 8-9 ) Leyerle also comments that "the incomplete syntax [between "and" and "as they me betiden"] indicates, as Skeat suggests, that some material is missing . . ." (p. 226) at this juncture.