The meter and rime of the original have been kept, in this translation, even at the risk of a few very slight changes in the order or in the phrasing of the original, because the versification is so illustrative of the transition from the old alliterative line to the elaborate stanza forms of the French period. Sir Penny This satire was evidently a popular one in the Middle Ages; it is found in various forms in Latin, in French, and in English. The following translation is made from a version, probably of about 1350, printed in Thomas Wright's "Latin Poems attributed to Walter Mapes," Camden Society, Vol. XVI, pp. 359-361. The poem is written in the six-line, tail-rime stanza of "Sir Thopas," and the translation seeks to preserve the cadences, movement, and structure of the original. It is interesting in connection with "Piers Plowman" and "The Pardoner's Tale," for it shows the great superiority of those satires, in imaginative appeal. The generalizations here are faithful, but they lack point and effectiveness because they do not drive home specific instances about individuals. We have a personal interest in Lady Meed and in the Pardoner, but we care little about classes and types. LAY Sir Orfeo This Middle English version of a French lay seems to offer so few difficulties that it is given in its original form, as it appears in the Auchinleck manuscript. The text is copied from that edited by Laing in "Select Pieces of Ancient Popular Poetry of Scotland," reprinted in Edinburgh, 1884. A critical edition of the poem was published by O. Zielke, Breslau, 1880. A very charming free translation in stanza form has been made by E. E. Hunt, Cambridge, 1909. "Sir Orfeo" is the mediæval interpretation of the story of Orpheus and Eurydice (Ovid's "Metamorphoses," bk. x, ll. 1-77), which was told in French, and then translated by some nameless but immortal English poet. The beauty of this Middle English version is undeniable. Despite its brevity and its occasionally laconic phrases, the poem shows real pathos in the account of the passionate grief of Orfeo, and his desolate wanderings in search of his lady. The concrete vividness of color and fragrance in nature, the dim stateliness of the retinue of the king of fairyland, the magic beauty of his strange abode, are described with true poetic sensitiveness. In choice of detail, in management of incident, in "discovery," and in conclusion the narrative is singularly well managed.