136. _spycerye_, grocery, &c., lit. spicery. The old name for a grocer was a _spicer_; and _spicery_ was a wide term. 'It should be noted that the Ital. _spezerie_ included a vast deal more than ginger and other "things hot i' the mouth." In one of Pegoletti's lists of _spezerie_ we find drugs, dye-stuffs, metals, wax, cotton,' &c.--Note by Col. Yule in his ed. of Marco Polo; on bk. i. c. 1. 143. _Were_ it, whether it were. 144. _message_, messenger, _not_ message; see l. 333, and the note. 145. The final _e_ in _Rome_ is pronounced, as in l. 142; but the words _the ende_ are to be run together, forming but _one_ syllable, _thende_, according to Chaucer's usual practice; cf. note to l. 255. Indeed in ll. 423, 965, it is actually so spelt; just as, in l. 150, we have _thexcellent_, and in l. 151, _themperoures_. 151. _themperoures_, the emperor's. Gower calls him Tiberius Constantine, who was Emperor (not of Rome, but) of the East, A. D. 578, and was succeeded, as in the story, by Maurice, A. D. 582. His capital was Constantinople, whither merchants from Syria could easily repair; but the greater fame of Rome caused the substitution of the Western for the Eastern capital. 156. _God him see_, God protect him. See note to C. 715. 161. _al Europe._ In the margin of MSS. E. Hn. Cp. Pt. Ln. is written the note 'Europa est tercia pars mundi.' 166. _mirour_, mirror. Such French words are frequently accented on the _last_ syllable. Cf. _minístr'_ in l. 168. 171. _han doon fraught_, have caused to be freighted. All the MSS. have _fraught_, not _fraughte_. In the Glossary to Specimens of English, I marked _fraught_ as being the infinitive mood, as Dr. Stratmann [146] supposes, though he notes the lack of the final e. I have now no doubt that _fraught_ is nothing but the past participle, as in William of Palerne, l. 2732-- 'And feithliche _fraught_ ful of fine wines,' which is said of a ship. The use of this past participle after a _perfect_ tense is a most remarkable idiom, but there is no doubt about its occurrence in the Clerkes Tale, Group E. 1098, where we find 'Hath doon yow _kept_,' where Tyrwhitt has altered _kept_ to _kepe_. On the other hand, Tyrwhitt actually notes the occurrence of 'Hath don _wroght_' in Kn. Tale, 1055, (A. 1913), which he calls an irregularity. A better name for it is idiom. I find similar instances of it in another author of the same period, 'Thai strak his hed of, and syne it Thai _haf gert saltit_ in-til a kyt.' Barbour's Bruce, ed. Skeat, xviii. 167. I. e. they have caused it (to be) salted. And again in the same, bk. viii. l. 13, we have the expression _He gert held_, as if 'he caused to be held'; but it may mean 'he caused to incline.' Compare also the following:-- 'And thai sall _let thame trumpit_ ill'; id. xix. 712. I. e. and they shall consider themselves as evilly deceived.