Notes and Queries, Number 72, March 15, 1851 | Page 3

designedly associated some celebration of the advent of May
with the morning of the third of that month.
Without absolutely asserting that my explanation is the true one, I may
nevertheless suggest it until some better may be offered. It is, that the
association may have originated in the invocation of the goddess Flora,
by Ovid, on that day (Fasti, v.), in order that she might inspire him with
an explanation of the Floralia, or Floral games, which were celebrated
in Rome from the 28th of April to the third of May.

These games, if transferred by Chaucer to Athens, would at once
explain the "gret feste" and the "lusty seson of that May."
Supposing, then, that Chaucer, in the Knight's Tale, meant, as I think he
meant, to place the great combat on the anniversary of the fourth of
May--that being the day on which Theseus had intercepted the
duel,--then the entry into Athens of the rival companies would take
place on {203} (Sunday) the second, and the sacrifices and feasting on
the third of May, the last of the Floralia.
A. E. B.
Leeds, March 4, 1851.
[Footnote 1: [Of which there can be no doubt. See further p. 205. of our
present Number.--ED.]]
* * * * *
INEDITED POETRY, NO. II.
CHORUS.
(Harleian MSS., No. 367. fo. 154.)
"Is, is there nothing cann withstand The hand Of Time: but that it must
Be shaken into dust? Then poore, poore Israelites are wee Who see, But
cannot shunn the Graue's captivitie.
"Alas, good Browne! that Nature hath No bath, Or virtuous herbes to
strayne, To boyle[2] thee yong againe; Yet could she (kind) but back
command Thy brand, Herself would dye thou should'st be unman'd.
"But (ah!) the golden Ewer by [a] stroke, Is broke, And now the
Almond Tree With teares, with teares, we see, Doth lowly lye, and with
its fall Do all The daughters dye, that once were musicall.
"Thus yf weake builded man cann saye, A day He lives, 'tis all, for why?
He's sure at night to dye, For fading man in fleshly lome[3] Doth rome

Till he his graue find, His eternall home.
"Then farewell, farewell, man of men, Till when (For us the morners
meet Pal'd visag'd in the street, To seale up this our britle birth In earth,)
We meet with thee triumphant in our mirth." Trinitäll Hall's Exequies.
Now, to what does Hall refer in the third stanza, in his mention of the
almond-tree? Is it a classical allusion, as in the preceding stanza, or has
it some reference to any botanical fact? I send the ballad, trusting that
as an inedited morsel you will receive it.
KENNETH R. H. MACKENZIE.
[We do not take Hall here to be the name of a man, but Trinity Hall at
Cambridge.]
[Footnote 2: The reader will recognise the classical allusion.]
[Footnote 3: Loam, earth; roam.]
* * * * *
ON A PASSAGE IN MARMION.
I venture for the first time to trespass upon the attention of your readers
in making the following remarks upon a passage in Marmion, which, as
far as I know, has escaped the notice of all the critical writers whose
comments upon that celebrated poem have hitherto been published.
It will probably be remembered, that long after the main action of the
poem and interest of the story have been brought to a close by the death
of the hero on the field of Flodden, the following incident is thus
pointedly described:--
Short is my tale:--Fitz-Eustace' care A pierced and mangled body bare
To moated Lichfield's lofty pile: And there, beneath the southern aisle,
A tomb, with Gothic sculpture fair Did long Lord Marmion's image
bear, &c. &c. &c.

"There erst was martial Marmion found, His feet upon a couchant
hound, His hands to Heaven upraised: And all around on scutcheon rich,
And tablet carved, and fretted niche, His arms and feats were blazed.
And yet, though all was carved so fair, And priest for Marmion
breathed the prayer, The last Lord Marmion lay not there. From Ettrick
woods a peasant swain Follow'd his lord to Flodden plain,-- &c. &c.
&c.
"Sore wounded Sybil's Cross he spied, And dragg'd him to its foot, and
died, Close by the noble Marmion's side. The spoilers stripp'd and
gash'd the slain, And thus their corpses were mista'en; And thus in the
proud Baron's tomb, The lowly woodsman took the room."
Now, I ask, wherefore has the poet dwelt with such minuteness upon
this forced and improbable incident? Had it indeed been with no other
purpose than to introduce the picturesque description and the moral
reflexions contained in the following section, the improbability might
well be forgiven. But such is not the real object. The critic of the
Monthly Review takes the