a divine meeting of souls. This playful tone continues
in the second stanza, where the poet, hoping to enter-
tain his mistress in the “grove” of love, declares they
will spend their time “Flying, dying, in desire” (2.9),
making use of the common Elizabethan pun on death
as sexual ecstasy.
The third stanza makes the poem’s most obvious
appeal to the carpe diem argument, exhorting the
beloved not to waste her beauty. In declaring that
beauty “should rise, / Like to the naked morne” (3.2–
3), the poet also alludes to the mythical birth of Venus,
who in legend rose naked from the sea near Cyprus, an
impression strengthened by the reference to “Cyprian
fl owers.” The poet, after fl attering his mistress with this
comparison to Venus, fi nally admonishes her with the
reproach of pride. Nonetheless, this remains light-
hearted, in keeping with the rest of the poem.
The poet’s sense of urgency is emphasized by the
internal rhymes of line 9 of each stanza (and line 6 of
the second stanza). It is given added impetus and
energy by the alternating iambic and trochaic meter,
which also provides Dowland with a rhythmically
interesting lyric for his music.
See also AYRE.
FURTHER READING
Doughtie, Edward. Lyrics from English Airs. Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1970.
Susan L. Anderson
COMITATUS Tacitus, the Roman historian,
coined this term—from the Latin for company, or
armed group—to describe members of an Anglo-Saxon
king’s personal retinue. Germanic tribes were led by
chieftains (“kings”) who kept their warriors’ loyalties
by providing booty from raids. In return, the warriors
protected their king at all costs and swore never to
abandon him. Breaking this bond is a serious breach of
the warrior code. For instance, Beowulf’s comitatus
abandons him during the fi ght with the dragon (see
BEOWULF). Similarly, comitatus fl ees in The BATTLE OF
MALDON. In both cases, this forsaking of duty symbol-
izes the imminent destruction of Anglo Saxon society.
See also “WANDERER, THE”; “WAR-BAND’S RETURN,
THE.”
COMPLAINT A poetic complaint focuses on a
speaker complaining about his/her condition; as a sub-
set of the LAMENT, the complaint is distinguished from
the larger set by its tendency to request or seek a rem-
edy for the condition under discussion. With no fi xed
verse form, the complaint’s common topics include
unrequited love, injustice, misfortune, and general
undeserved misery. GEOFFREY CHAUCER’s canon, for
example, includes fi ve poems titled complaints, includ-
ing one parody, “The COMPLAINT OF CHAUCER TO HIS
PURSE.” Complaints are often intertwined with longer
texts, as in “The FRANKLIN’S TALE” when Dorigen com-
plains about her dishonorable situation. WILLIAM
SHAKESPEARE’s poem A LOVER’S COMPLAINT also features a
female speaker facing dishonor.
FURTHER READING
Peter, John Desmond. Complaint and Satire in Early English
Literature. Oxford: Clarendon, 1956.
Van Dyke, Carolynn. “ ‘To Whom Shul We Compleyn?’: The
Poetics of Agency in Chaucer’s Complaints.” Style 31, no.
3 (1997): 370–390.
Carol E. Harding“COMPLAINT OF CHAUCER TO HIS
PURSE, THE” GEOFFREY CHAUCER (ca. 1400)
Unlike most of Chaucer’s work, “The Complaint of
Chaucer to his Purse” can be dated relatively precisely,
probably sometime between late 1399 and Chaucer’s
death the following year. It is a 26-line ballade contain-
ing three STANZAs and a fi nal fi ve-line ENVOI rhyming
aabba, in iambic pentameter.
The poem is a parody of the traditional COMPLAINT
genre popular during the Middle Ages. In this case, the
narrator pleads to his purse to “Be heavy again, or else
I must die” (ll. 7, 14, 21). The poem uses standard lan-
guage from lovers’ complaints, calling the purse his
“lady dere” (l. 5) and pleading “unto your mercy” (l. 6)
and “unto your curtesye” (l. 20). The threat of death in
each REFRAIN is also traditional of complaint poetry.
The envoi appears in only fi ve of the poem’s 11
manuscripts. It changes the poem from a parodic com-
plaint to a begging poem, for these lines ask the “con-
querour of Brutes Albyon” (l. 22)—Henry IV—to be
mindful of the narrator’s “supplicacion” (l. 26), indi-
cating a plea for money.“COMPLAINT OF CHAUCER TO HIS PURSE, THE” 121