Produced by Jason Isbell, Taavi Kalju and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) [Transcriber's note: Until recently this work was attributed to John Lydgate, but now most scholars consider that the author is unknown. The first mention of Lydgate's authorship of this work was made by Stephen Hawes in 1505 as one of Lydgate's seven major works. But many scholars have doubted over the years that this poem was written by Lydgate, because the style used doesn't greatly resemble the style of Lydgate's other works, and the vocabulary is somewhat more modern than Lydgate is known to have used. Modern scholars believe that this work was written between 1478 and 1483 (about forty years after Lydgate's death). Analysis of style and vocabulary have led scholars to conclude that the author might have been a woman. For further information about this poem please see The Assembly of Gods, edited by Jane Chance, published by Medieval Institute Publications, Kalamazoo, Michigan, 1999, ISBN: 1580440223, which is also available online at http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/asint.htm. The book from which this e-book was transcribed is a fascimile reprint of the third printing of this book, made by Wynkyn de Worde circa 1500. The book was printed in blackletter font known as Wynkyn de Worde's type 3, and uses many abbreviations, which I have expanded and rendered inside parenthesis, eg., {x}. The abbreviations used in this book are: *Macron over the letter. The most common one, usually meaning missing "n" or "m" after the letter. But in some cases might also mean missing "e," "er" or "re" after the letter. This happens usually when p, q or r have macrons. *Little e over Middle-English thorn, meaning "the." *Little t over Middle-English thorn, meaning "that." *Little u over Middle-English thorn, meaning "thou." *Little t over w, meaning "with." *Middle-English yogh, representing "gh." *Superscripted 9 after letter, meaning missing "us." Used only at the end of the word. *Superscripted 2 after letter, meaning missing "e," "er" or "re." Used only at the end of the word. *Stretched s, looking like integral sign, meaning missing "e" or "i" before letter s. *Dot over the letter, meaning missing "e," "er" or "re" after the letter. Usually used with d, t, e and u. Combination q+d with dot means "quod." *Strike through letter, meaning missing "e," "er" or "re" after the letter. Usually used with p, v and s. Striked through p might also mean missing "ro" or "or" after p.