By _Libeux_ is meant Lybeaus Disconus, printed by Ritson in his Metrical Romances, vol. ii. from the Cotton MS. Caligula A. 2. A later copy, with the title Libius Disconius, is in the Percy Folio MS. ii. 404, where a good account of the romance may be found. The best edition is that by Dr. Max Kulaza, entitled Libeaus Desconus; Leipzig, 1890. The French original was discovered in 1855, in a MS. belonging to the Duc d'Aumale. Its title is Li Biaus Desconneus, which signifies The Fair Unknown. _Pleyndamour_ evidently means _plein d'amour_, full of love, and we may suspect that the original romance was in French; but there is now no trace of any romance of that name, though a Sir Playne de Amours is mentioned in Sir T. Malory's Morte Darthur, bk. ix. c. 7. Spenser probably borrowed hence his _Sir Blandamour_, F. Q. iv. 1. 32. 2092. After examining carefully the rimes in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Mr. Bradshaw finds that this is the _sole_ instance in which a word which ought etymologically to end in -_yë_ is rimed with a word ending in -_y_ without a following final e. A reason for the exception is easily found; for Chaucer has here adopted the swing of the ballad metre, and hence ventures to deprive _chiualryë_ of its final _e_, and to call it _chivalry'_ so that it may rime with _Gy_, after the manner of the ballad-writers; cf. Squyre of Lowe Degre, 79, 80. So again _chivalryë_, _druryë_ become _chivalry_, _drury_; ll. 2084, 2085. We even find _plas_ for _plac-e_, 1971; and _gras_ for _grac-e_, 2021. 2094. _glood_, glided. So in all the MSS. except E., which has the poor reading _rood_, rode. For the expression in l. 2095, compare-- 'But whenne he was horsede on a stede, He sprange als any sparke one [_read_ of] glede'; Sir Isumbras, ed. Halliwell, p. 107. 'Lybeaus was redy boun, And lepte out of the arsoun [_bow of the saddle_] As sperk thogh out of glede'; Lybeaus Disconus, in Ritson, ii. 27. [200] 'Then sir Lybius with ffierce hart, Out of his saddle swythe he start As sparcle doth out of fyer'; Percy Folio MS. ii. 440. 2106. The first few lines of the romance of Sir Perceval of Galles (ed. Halliwell, p. 1) will at once explain Chaucer's allusion. It begins-- 'Lef, lythes to me Two wordes or thre Of one that was faire and fre And felle in his fighte; His right name was _Percyvelle_, He was fostered in the felle, _He dranke water of the welle_, And [gh]itt was he wyghte!' Both Sir Thopas and Sir Perceval were water-drinkers, but it did not impair their vigour. In the same romance, p. 84, we find-- 'Of mete ne drynke he ne roghte, So fulle he was of care! Tille the nynte daye byfelle _That he come to a welle,_ _Ther he was wonte for to duelle_ _And drynk take hym thare_.'