We may also note the passage in Vincent of Beauvais, _Speculum Naturale_, lib. xv. c. 66, entitled _De Vere_:--'Sol vero ad radices herbarum et arborum penetrans, humorem quem ibi coadunatum hyeme reperit, attrahit; herba vero, vel arbor suam inanitionem sentiens a terra attrahit humorem, quem ibi sui similitudine adiuuante calore Solis transmutat, sicque reuiuiscit; inde est quod quidam mensis huius temporis _Aprilis_ dicitur, quia tunc terra praedicto modo aperitur.'
2. _droght-e_, dryness; A. S. _dr[=u]gathe_; essentially dissyllabic, but the final _e_ is elided. Pron. (druuht'). _perced_, pierced, _rot-e_, dat. of _root_, a root; Icel. _r[=o]t_; written for _roote_. The double _o_ is not required to shew vowel-length, when a single consonant and an _e_ follow.
4. _vertu_, efficacy, productive agency, vital energy. 'And bathed every vein (of the tree or herb) in such moisture, by means of which quickening power the flower is generated.' Pron. (vertü').
5. _Zephirus_, the zephyr, or west wind. Cf. Chaucer's Book of the Duchess, l. 402, and the note. There are two more references to Zephirus in the translation of Boethius, bk. i. met. 5; bk. ii. met. 3.
6. _holt_, wood, grove; A. S. _holt_; cf. G. _Holz_.
7. _croppes_, shoots, extremities of branches, especially towards the top of a tree; hence simply tree-tops, tops of plants, &c. Hence _to crop_ is 'to cut the tops off.' Cf. A. 1532; tr. of Boethius, bk. iii. met. 2. 24; Rom. Rose, 1396; and note to P. Plowman, B. xvi. 69.
_yonge sonne_ (yungg[*e] sunn[*e]); see the next note. The _-e_ in _yong-e_ denotes the definite form of the article. _Sonn-e_, A. S. _sunna_, is essentially dissyllabic.
8. _the Ram._ The difficulty here really resides in the expression 'his halfe cours,' which means what it says, viz. 'his half-course,' and not, as Tyrwhitt unfortunately supposed, 'half his course.' The results of the two explanations are quite different. Taking Chaucer's own expression as it stands, he tells us that, a little past the middle of April, 'the young sun has run his half-course in the Ram.' Turning to Fig. 1 in The Astrolabe (see vol. iii.), we see that, against the month 'Aprilis,' there appears in the circle of zodiacal signs, the _latter_ half (roughly speaking) of Aries, and the _former_ half of Taurus. Thus the sun in April runs a half-course in the Ram and a half-course in the Bull. 'The former of these was completed,' says the poet; which is as much [3] as to say, that _it was past the eleventh of April_; for, in Chaucer's time, the sun entered Aries on March 12, and left that sign on April 11. See note to l. 1.
