Specimens of English literature from the 'Ploughmans crede' to the ...

. (B) JOHN LYDGATE.379Scottish king as fighting single-handed against no less than huo hundredenemies in a narrow pass. Barbour compares this exploit with that ofTydeus, in the course of which comparison he gives a full account ofthe latter, telling the story better than Lydgate does ; see Barbour'sBruce, ed, Skeat (Early English Text Society) bk. vi. 179-284.1 2 13. Worthed vp, got up; literally became up ; it is the past tense ofthe verb wortheti (Germ, werden), to become.1215. ' And verily, in his imagination, he was still all the while afraidof (further) treason,'12 19. Lygurgus, Lycurgus, In Statius, there is not a word about thispart of the story ; he makes Tydeus return to Argos immediately afterthe combat.1226. Be nyght, by night, shone against the moon, i. e. by reflectingthe light thrown on it by the moon.1 244. Grene requires a final e ; but in white and rede the final e isomitted, because elided, since they occur before vowels. See gretie andrede in 1. 1 260.1245. Beste and reste require each a finals; but I leave them out,because they are left out in the MS., and some writers object to thedoctrine of the final e, though it admits of very satisfactory proof. Thefinal e, in a plural adjective, is seen in 7iewe, 1. 1 251.1250. T'o, unto, till; i.e. till daybreak. Lydgate probably rememberedChaucer's lines in the Knightes Tale, 1. 633 :'The busy larke, messager of daye,Salueth in hire song the morwe graye;And fyry Phebus ryseth vp so brighteThat al the orient laugheth of the lighte.And with his stremes dryeth in the greuesThe siluer droppes, honging on the leues.'From this passage Lydgate borrows the word stremes for sunbeams(1. 1254), and the expression syluer dewe.1259. That, &c , that painted the soil, by means of the green beingmingled with the red.1262. The description of Lycurgus' daughter is clearly influenced byLydgate's reminiscences of Chaucer's Emelye, in the Knightes Tale,who was ' fresscher than the May with floures newe,' and of whomChaucer says that'in the gardyn at the sonne vpristeSche walketh vp and doun wher as hire liste.'1267. Allures. Warton say£i(Hist. Eng Poetry, ii. 300) that Lydgate,in his description (in his Troyboke) of the city of Troy, relates how the'sides of every street were covered with fresh alures of marble, or