converses with the page of her chamber—anything as an excuse to stay; and when it grows late and he must perforce depart, he goes indeed, but returns with the pretence of having forgotten something, in order that he may bid her good-night once more. He rises in the night and looks out of his window over the houses towards the chamber where she sleeps, and loses himself in imagination of the love-thefts which he would commit if by any necromancy he had the power. Yet he is not extravagantly romantic: he will go wherever his lady bids him, but he will not range the world in arms merely in order to gain renown, losing his lady perhaps in the meantime at home. We take his side when he complains of the Confessor’s want of feeling for a pain which he does not himself experience, and his readiness to prescribe for a wound of the heart as if it were a sore of the heel. Even while we smile, we compassionate the lover who is at last disqualified on account of age, and recommended to make a ‘beau retret’ while there is yet time.

[Pg xv]

But there is also another character in whom we are interested, and that is the lady herself. Gower certainly appreciated something of the delicacy and poetical refinement which ideal love requires, and this appreciation he shows also in his Balades; but here we have something more than this. The figure of the lady, which we see constantly in the background of the dialogue, is both attractive and human. We recognize in her a creature of flesh and blood, no goddess indeed, as her lover himself observes, but a charming embodiment of womanly grace and refinement. She is surrounded by lovers, but she is wise and wary. She is courteous and gentle, but at the same time firm: she will not gladly swear, and therefore says nay without an oath, but it is a decisive nay to any who are disposed to presume. She does not neglect her household duties merely because a lover insists upon hanging about her, but leaves him to amuse himself how he may, while she busies herself elsewhere. If she has leisure and can sit[Pg xvi] down to her embroidery, he may read to her if he will, but it must be some sound romance, and not his own rondels, balades, and virelays in praise of her. Custom allows him to kiss her when he takes his leave, but if he comes back on any pretext and takes his leave again, there is not often a second kiss permitted. She lets him lead her up to the offering in church, and ride by her side when she drives out, but she will take no presents from him, though with some of her younger admirers, whose passion she knows is a less serious matter, she is not so strict, but takes and gives freely. Even the description of her person is not 

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