If this tradition be true, the date of the poem must be not very many years after 1372, when the Princess Isabel came to England. We may date it, conjecturally, about 1374. See further in Furnivall's _Trial Forewords_, pp. 78-90. I may add that an attempt has been made to solve the problem of the date of this poem by astronomy (see _Anglia_, ix. 582). It is said that Mars and Venus were in conjunction on April 14, 1379. This is not wholly satisfactory; for Chaucer seems to refer to the 12th of April as the time of conjunction. If we accept this result, then the year was 1379. The date 1373-9 is near enough. The poem is remarkable for its astronomical allusions, which are fully explained in the notes. The story of Mars and Venus was doubtless taken from Ovid, _Metam._ iv. 170-189. The story of the brooch of Thebes is from Statius, ii. 265, &c.; see note to l. 245. I shall here add a guess of mine which possibly throws some light on Chaucer's reason for referring to the brooch of Thebes. It is somewhat curious that the Princess Isabel, in a will made twelve years before her death, and dated Dec. 6, 1382, left, amongst other legacies, 'to the Duke of Lancaster, a _Tablet of Jasper which the King of Armonie gave her_'; see Furnivall's _Trial Forewords_, p. 82. Here _Armonie_ means, of course, Armenia; but it is also suggestive of _Harmonia_, the name of the first owner of the brooch of Thebes. It seems just possible that the brooch of Thebes was intended to refer to this tablet of jasper, which was doubtless of considerable value and may have been talked about as being a curiosity. MSS. F. Tn. and Lt. are much alike; the rest vary. I follow F. mainly, in constructing the text. § 22. V. THE PARLEMENT OF FOULES. This poem is undoubtedly genuine; both Chaucer and Lydgate mention it. It is remarkable as being the first of the Minor Poems which exhibits the influence upon Chaucer of Italian literature, and was therefore probably written somewhat later than the Complaint of Mars. It is also the first of the Minor Poems in which touches of true humour occur; see ll. 498-500, 508, 514-6, 563-575, 589-616. Dr. Furnivall (_Trial Forewords_, p. 53) notes that the MSS. fall into two principal groups; in the first he places Gg., Trin., Cx., Harl., O., the former part of Ff., (part of) Ar., and the fragments in Hh. and Laud 416; in the second he places F., Tn., D., and the latter part of Ff. Lt. also belongs to the second group. See further in _Anglia_, vol. iv. Anzeiger, p. 97. The whole poem, except the Roundel in ll. 680-692, is in Chaucer's favourite 7-line stanza, often called the ballad-stanza, or simply _balade_ in the MSS.