30. _For to rede_, to read. The use of _for to_ with the gerundial infinitive is found in Layamon and the Ormulum, and may have been suggested by the like use of the French _pour_, O. Fr. _por_ (and even _por a_). See Mätzner, Engl. Grammatik, ii. 2. 54. Compare Parl. Foules, 16, 695; Ho. Fame, 657. 36. This connection of 'the month of May' with song and poetry is common in Mid. Eng. poetry, from the natural association of spring with a time of joy and hope. We even find something of the kind in A.S. poetry. See The Phoenix, l. 250; Menologium, l. 75. The earliest song in Middle English relates to the cuckoo; and, before Chaucer, we already find, in the Romance of Alexander, l. 2049, such lines as-- 'In tyme of May hot is in boure; Divers, in medewe, spryngith floure; The ladies, knyghtis honourith; Treowe love in heorte durith'; &c. See also the poem on Alisoun, in Morris and Skeat, Spec. of Eng., part ii. p. 43. Again, we have a like mention of the May-season and of the singing of birds in the introduction to the Roman de la Rose; see vol. i. p. 96. Nevertheless, the whole of the present passage is highly characteristic of the author, and extremely interesting. Cf. ll. 108, 176. 40. _Condicioun_, temperament, character, disposition. Prof. Corson here refers us to Shakespeare, Merch. Ven. i. 2. 143; Cor. v. 4. 10; Oth. iv. 1. 204; Jul. Cæs. ii. 1. 254, &c. 41. On the scansion, see note to l. 67. 43. _Daysyes_, daisies; here dissyllabic. But in l. 182 we have the full form _day-es-y-e_, of four syllables, answering to the A.S. _dæges éage_ (or _ége_), lit. day's eye, or eye of day, as Chaucer himself says in l. 184. And it is worth adding that his etymology is perfectly correct; for, in the few instances in which etymologies are suggested in Middle English, they are usually ludicrously wrong. In l. 184, the word is only trisyllabic (_day-es-y'_), the last syllable suffering elision. The A.S. _dægesége_ occurs in a list of plants in A.S. Leechdoms, ed. Cockayne, iii. 292, l. 8; and we also find in Wright's A.S. Vocabularies, ed. Wülker, col. 135, l. 22, and col. 322, l. 11, the following entries:--'_Consolda_, dægesege,' and '_Consolda_, dægeseage.' The primary meaning of _dæges éage_ is doubtless the sun; the daisy is named from its supposed likeness to the sun, the white petals being the rays, and the yellow centre the sun's sphere. Compare Lydgate's Troy-book, ed. 1555, fol. K 6, back:-- 'And next, Appollo, so clere, shene, and bright, The _dayes eye_, and voyder of the nyght.' 46. 'That, when in my bed, no day dawns upon me on which I am not (at once) up, and (am soon) walking in the meadow.' _Nam_ = _ne am_, am not. 49. _By the morwe_, with the (dawn of the) morning.