FOOTNOTES ON THE TEXT
57 lines✦
Footnote A: The following extracts from Dorothy Wordsworth's Journalshow the date of the composition of this poem. "Sunday, 6th December 1801. A very fine beautiful sun-shiny morning.William worked a while at Chaucer; then he set forward to walk intoEasdale.... In the afternoon I read Chaucer aloud." "Monday, 7th.... William at work with Chaucer, 'The God of Love'...." "8th November ... William worked at 'The Cuckoo and the Nightingale'till he was tired." "Wednesday, December 9th. I read 'Palemon and Arcite', William writingout his alterations of Chaucer's 'Cuckoo and Nightingale'." The question as to whether 'The Cuckoo and the Nightingale' was writtenby Chaucer or not, may be solved either way without affecting theliterary value of Wordsworth's "modernisation" of it.--Ed.] [Footnote B: In 'The Poems of Geoffrey Chaucer Modernised'.--Ed.] [Footnote C: "In 'The Cuckoo and Nightingale', a poem of the third of May--a datecorresponding to the mid-May, the very heart of May according to ourmodern reckoning--the poet after a wakeful night rises, and goes forthat dawn, and comes to a 'laund' or plain 'of white and green.' 'So feire oon had I nevere in bene,The grounde was grene, y poudred with daysé,The floures and the gras ilike al hie,Al grene and white, was nothing elles sene.' Nothing seen but the short green grass and the white daisies,--grassand daisies being of equal height. Unfortunately in Tyrwhitt's textthe description is nonsensical, 'The flowres and the greves like hie.' The daisy flowers are as high as the _groves_! Wordsworth retained thegroves, but refused to make daisies of equal height with them. 'Tall were the flowers, the grove a lofty cover,All green and white; and nothing else was seen.'" (Professor Dowden, in the 'Transactions of the Wordsworth Society'. No.III.)--Ed.] [Footnote D: "In Chaucer's poem, after 'the cuckoo, bird unholy,' has said his evilsay, the Nightingale breaks forth 'so lustily,' 'That with her clere voys she made ryngeThro out alle the grene wode wide,' Wordsworth has taken a poet's licence with these lines: 'I heard the lusty Nightingale so sing,That her clear voice made 'a loud rioting',Echoing through all the green wood wide.' This 'loud rioting' is Wordsworth's, not Chaucer's; and it belongs, asit were, to that other passage of his: 'O Nightingale, thou surely artA creature of a fiery heart,These notes of thine--they pierce and pierce;Tumultuous harmony and fierce!Thou sing'st as if the God of wineHad helped thee to a Valentine.'" (Professor Dowden, in the 'Transactions of the Wordsworth Society', No.III.)--Ed.] [Footnote E: From a manuscript in the Bodleian, as are also stanzas 44and 45--W. W. (1841), which are necessary to complete the sense--W. W. (added in1842).] * * * * *
✦