Z.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Chaucer, Geoffrey and Purves, David Laing
Zachary you calleth the open well <9> That washed sinful soul out of his guilt; Therefore this lesson out I will to tell, That, n’ere* thy tender hearte, we were spilt.** *were it not for Now, Lady brighte! since thou canst and wilt, *destroyed, undone* Be to the seed of Adam merciable;* *merciful Bring us unto that palace that is built To penitents that be *to mercy able!* *fit to receive mercy*
Explicit.* *The end
Notes to Chaucer’s A. B. C.
1. Chaucer’s A. B. C. — a prayer to the Virgin, in twenty three verses, beginning with the letters of the alphabet in their order — is said to have been written “at the request of Blanche, Duchess of Lancaster, as a prayer for her private use, being a woman in her religion very devout.” It was first printed in Speght’s edition of 1597.
2. La Priere De Nostre Dame: French, “The Prayer of Our Lady.”
3. Thieves seven: i.e. the seven deadly sins
4. Mary’s name recalls the waters of “Marah” or bitterness (Exod. xv. 23), or the prayer of Naomi in her grief that she might be called not Naomi, but “Mara” (Ruth i. 20). Mary, however, is understood to mean “exalted.”
5. A typical representation. See The Prioress’s Tale, third stanza.
6. The reference evidently is to Luke i. 38 — “Ecce ancilla Domini,” (“Behold the handmaid of the Lord”) the Virgin’s humble answer to Gabriel at the Annunciation.
7. “Xpe” represents the Greek letters chi rho epsilon, and is a contraction for “Christe.”
8. According to tradition, the soldier who struck the Saviour to the heart with his spear was named Longeus, and was blind; but, touching his eyes by chance with the mingled blood and water that flowed down the shaft upon his hands, he was instantly restored to sight.
9. “In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness” (Zech. xiii. 1).