“Sir Knight (quoth he), my master and my lord, Now draw the cut, for that is mine accord. Come near (quoth he), my Lady Prioress, And ye, Sir Clerk, let be your shamefastness, Nor study not: lay hand to, every man.” Anon to drawen every wight began, And shortly for to tellen as it was, Were it by a venture, or sort*, or cas**, *lot **chance The sooth is this, the cut fell to the Knight, Of which full blithe and glad was every wight; And tell he must his tale as was reason, By forword, and by composition, As ye have heard; what needeth wordes mo’? And when this good man saw that it was so, As he that wise was and obedient To keep his forword by his free assent, He said; “Sithen* I shall begin this game, *since Why, welcome be the cut in Godde’s name. Now let us ride, and hearken what I say.” And with that word we ridden forth our way; And he began with right a merry cheer His tale anon, and said as ye shall hear. Notes to the Prologue 1. Tyrwhitt points out that “the Bull” should be read here, not “the Ram,” which would place the time of the pilgrimage in the end of March; whereas, in the Prologue to the Man of Law’s Tale, the date is given as the “eight and twenty day of April, that is messenger to May.” 2. Dante, in the “Vita Nuova,” distinguishes three classes of pilgrims: palmieri - palmers who go beyond sea to the East, and often bring back staves of palm-wood; peregrini, who go the shrine of St Jago in Galicia; Romei, who go to Rome. Sir Walter Scott, however, says that palmers were in the habit of passing from shrine to shrine, living on charity — pilgrims on the other hand, made the journey to any shrine only once, immediately returning to their ordinary avocations. Chaucer uses “palmer” of all pilgrims. 3. “Hallows” survives, in the meaning here given, in All Hallows — All-Saints — day. “Couth,” past participle of “conne” to know, exists in “uncouth.” 4. The Tabard — the sign of the inn — was a sleeveless coat, worn by heralds. The name of the inn was, some three centuries after Chaucer, changed to the Talbot. 5. In y-fall,” “y” is a corruption of the Anglo-Saxon “ge” prefixed to participles of verbs. It is used by Chaucer merely to help the metre In German, “y-fall,” or y-falle,” would be “gefallen”, “y-run,” or “y-ronne”, would be “geronnen.” 6. Alisandre: Alexandria, in Egypt, captured by Pierre de Lusignan, king of Cyprus, in 1365 but abandoned immediately afterwards. Thirteen years before, the same Prince had taken Satalie, the ancient Attalia, in Anatolia, and in 1367 he won Layas, in Armenia, both places named just below. 7. The knight had been placed at the head of the table, above knights of all nations, in Prussia, whither warriors from all countries were wont to repair, to aid the Teutonic Order in their continual conflicts with their heathen neighbours in “Lettowe” or Lithuania (German. “Litthauen”), Russia, &c.