astic, as may be seen in the following examples:

"But right as floures through the cold of night
Yclosed, stoupen in hir stalkes lowe,
Redressen hem ayen the Sunne bright,
And spreaden in hir kinde course by rowe."
_Troilus and Creseide_, b. ii.

"_Come fioretto dal notturno gelo_
_Chinato e chiuso, poi che il Sol l' imbianca,_
_S'apre, e si leva dritto sopra il stelo._"
Boccaccio, _Il Filostrato_, iii. st. 13.

"She was right soche to sene in her visage
As is that wight that men on bere ybinde."
_Troilus and Creseide_, b. iv.

"_Essa era tale, a guardarla nel viso,_
_Qual donna morta alla fossa portata._"
_Il Filostrato_, v. st. 83.

"As fresh as faucon coming out of mew."
_Troilus and Creseide_, b. iii.

"_Come falcon ch' uscisse dal cappello._"
_Il Filostrato_, iv. st. 83.

"The Song of Troilus," in the first book of _Troilus and Creseide_, is a
paraphrase from one of the Sonnets of Petrarca:

"_S' Amor non e, che dunque e quel ch' i' sento?_
_Ma s' egli e Amor, per Dio che cosa, e quale?_
_Se buona, ond' e l' effetto aspro mortale?_"
Petrarca, _Rime in Vita di Laura_, Son. cii.

"If no love is, O God, what feele I so?
And if love is, what thing and which is he?
If love be good, from whence cometh my wo?"
_Troilus and Creseide_, b. i.

Chaucer evidently had the following lines of the _Paradiso_ in view when
writing the invocation to the Virgin in _The Second Nonnes Tale_:

"Vergine Madre, figlia del tuo Figlio,
Umile e alta piu che creatura,
Termine fisso d' eterno consiglio,
Tu se' colei, che l' umana Natura,
_Nobilitasti_ si, che il suo Fattore
Non disdegno di farsi sua fattura."
_Paradiso_, xxxiii, I.

"Thou maide and mother, doughter of thy Son,
Thou well of mercy, sinful soules cure,
In whom that God of bountee chees to won;
Thou humble and high over every creature,
Thou _nobledest_ so fer forth our nature,
That no desdaine the maker had of kinde
His Son in blood and flesh to clothe and winde."
_The Second Nonnes Tale_, 15,504.

Traces of Chaucer's proficiency in Italian are discoverable in almost all
his poems; but I shall conclude with two citations from _The Assembly of
Foules_:

"The day gan failen, and the darke night,
That reveth beastes from hir businesse,
Berafte me my booke for