'Neustria, sub clypeo regis defensa Ricardi, Indefensa modo, gestu testare dolorem; Exundent oculi lacrimas; exterminet ora Pallor; connodet digitos tortura; cruentet Interiora dolor, et verberet aethera clamor; Tota peris ex morte sua. Mors non fuit eius, Sed tua, non una, sed publica mortis origo. _O Veneris lacrimosa_ dies! O sydus amarum! Illa dies tua nox fuit, et Venus illa venenum. Illa dedit vulnus,' &c. These lines are sufficient to show the object and the propriety of Chaucer's ridicule. The whole poem is printed in Leyser's Hist. Poet. Med. Ævi, pp. 862-978.'--Tyrwhitt. See a description of the poem, with numerous quotations, in Wright's Biographia Britannica Literaria, Anglo-Norman Period, p. 400; cf. Lounsbury, Studies, ii. 341. 4538. Richard I. died on April 6, 1199, on Tuesday; but he received his wound on Friday, March 26. 4540. _Why ne hadde I_ = O that I had. 4547. _streite swerd_ = drawn (naked) sword. Cf. Aeneid, ii. 333, 334:-- 'Stat _ferri acies_ mucrone corusco _Stricta_, parata neci.' 4548. See Aeneid, ii. 550-553. 4553. _Hasdrubal_; not Hannibal's brother, but the King of Carthage when the Romans burnt it, B.C. 146. Hasdrubal slew himself; and his wife and her two sons burnt themselves in despair; see Orosius, iv. 13. 3, or Ælfred's translation, ed. Sweet, p. 212. Lydgate has the story in his Fall of Princes, bk. v. capp. 12 and 27. 4573. See note to Ho. Fame, 1277 (in vol. iii. p. 273). '_Colle_ furit'; Morley, Eng. Writers, 1889, iv. 179. 4584. Walsingham relates how, in 1381, Jakke Straw and his men killed many Flemings 'cum clamore consueto.' He also speaks of the noise made by the rebels as 'clamor horrendissimus.' See _Jakke_ in [258] Tyrwhitt's Glossary. So also, in Riley's Memorials of London, p. 450, it is said, with respect to the same event--'In the Vintry was a very great massacre of Flemings.' 4590. _houped._ See Piers Plowman, B. vi. 174; '_houped_ after Hunger, that herde hym,' &c. 4616. Repeated in D. 1062. 4633. 'Mes retiengnent le grain et jettent hors la paille'; Test. de Jean de Meun, 2168. 4635. _my Lord._ A side-note in MS. E. explains this to refer to the Archbishop of Canterbury; doubtless William Courtenay, archbishop from 1381 to 1396. Cf. note to l. 4584, which shews that this Tale is later than 1381; and it was probably earlier than 1396. Note that _good men_ is practically a compound, as in l. 4630. Hence read _good_, not _g[=o]d-e_. EPILOGUE TO THE NONNE PREESTES TALE. 4641. Repeated from B. 3135. 4643. _Thee wer-e nede_, there would be need for thee.