I cannot explain the oracular notice of time in the heading; even if we alter _May_ to _day_, it contradicts l. 85, which mentions 'seint Valentines day.' The heading is--'And next folowyng begynnith an amerowse compleynte made at wyndesore in the laste May tofore Nouembre' (_sic_). The date is inexplicable[286]; but the mention of locality is interesting. Chaucer became a 'valet of the king's chamber' in 1367, and must frequently have been at Windsor, where the institution of the Order of the Garter was annually celebrated on St. George's Day (April 23). Some of the parallelisms in expression between the present poem and other passages in Chaucer's Works are pointed out in the Notes. This Complaint should be compared with the complaint uttered by Dorigen in the Cant. Tales, F. 1311-1325, which is little else than the same thing in a compressed form. There is also much resemblance to the 'complaints' in Troilus; see the references in the Notes. Since first printing the text in 1888, I found that it is precisely the same poem as one extant in MSS. F. and B., with the title 'Complaynt Damours.' I had noticed the latter some time previously, and had made a note that it ought to be closely examined; but unfortunately I forgot to do so, or I should have seen at once that it had strong claims to being considered genuine. These claims are considerably strengthened by the fact of the appearance of the poem in these two Chaucerian MSS., the former of which contains no less than _sixteen_, and the latter _seven_ of the Minor Poems, besides the Legend and the Hous of Fame. In reprinting the text in the present volume, I take occasion to give all the more important results of a collation of the text with these MSS. In most places, their readings are inferior to those in the text; but in other places they suggest corrections. In MS. F. the fourth stanza is mutilated; the latter half of lines 24-28 is missing. In B., below the word _Explicit_, another and later hand has scrawled 'be me Humfrey Flemy_ng_.' 'Be me' merely means--'this signature is mine.' It is a mere scribble, and does not necessarily relate to the poem at all. The readings of F. and B. do not help us much; for the text in Harl., on the whole, is better. It is not at all improbable that a better copy of this poem may yet be found. § 40. XXIII. BALADE OF COMPLEYNT.