Envoy, whether it be by negligence of the copyist, or because the lover could not even summon up spirit to direct it to his mistress. Again (xxxiii), he has given her his all, body and soul, both without recall, as a gift for this New Year of which he has just now spoken: his sole delight is to serve her. Will she not reward him even by a look? He asks for no present from her, let him only have some sign which may bid him hope, ‘Si plus n’y soit, donetz le regarder.’ The coming of Saint Valentine encourages him somewhat (xxxiv) with the reflection that all nature yields to love, but (xxxv) he remembers with new depression that though birds may choose their mates, yet he remains alone. May comes on (xxxvii), and his lady should turn her thoughts to love, but she sports with flowers and pays no heed to the prayer of her prisoner. She is free, but he is strongly bound; her close is full of flowers, but he cannot enter it; in the sweet season his fortune is bitter, May is for him turned into winter: ‘Vous estes franche et jeo sui fort lié.’ Then the lady has her say, and in accordance with the prerogative of her sex her moods vary with startling abruptness. She has doubts (xli) about her lover’s promises. He who swears most loudly is the most likely to deceive, and some there are who will make love to a hundred and swear to each that she is the only one he loves. ‘To thee, who art one thing in the morning and at evening another, I send this balade for thy reproof, to let thee know that I leave thee and care not for thee.’ In xliii she is fully convinced of his treachery, he is falser than Jason to Medea or Eneas to Dido. How different from Lancelot and Tristram and the other good knights! ‘C’est ma dolour que fuist ainçois ma joie.’ With this is contrasted the sentiment of xliv, in which the lady addresses one whom she regards as the flower of chivalry and the ideal of a lover, and to whom she surrenders unconditionally. The lady speaks again in xlvi, and then the series is carried to its conclusion with rather a markedly moral tone. At the end comes an address to the Virgin, in which the author declares himself bound to serve all ladies, but her above them all. No lover can really be without a loving mistress, for in her is love eternal and invariable. He loves and serves her with all his heart, and he trusts to have his reward. The whole concludes with an Envoy addressed to ‘gentle England,’ describing the book generally as a memorial of the joy which has come to the poet’s country from its noble king Henry, sent by heaven to redress its ills.