Now Hist. or arch. Forms: 4–7, 9 virelai (5 virallay, 7 virilai, 9 -lay), 5–6 vyrelay; 4 verelai, 6–7, 9 verilay, 6 ver(re)lay. [a. OF. virelai (14th c.), an alteration (prob. after lai LAY sb.4) of vireli: see VIRLY.] A song or short lyric piece, of a type originating in France in the 14th century, usu. consisting of short lines arranged in stanzas with only two rhymes, the end-rhyme of one stanza being the chief one of the next.
Chiefly current in the Chaucerian period, from c. 1575 to 1610, and in the 19th cent.
c. 1385. Chaucer, L. G. W., 423, Balade. He made … manye an ympne for your halydayis That hightyn baladis, roundelys, & vyrelayes.
1390. Gower, Conf., I. 133. Ek he can carolles make, Rondeal, balade and virelai.
14[?]. Lydg., To Soverain Lady, 40. Thus many a roundel and many a virelay In fresshe Englisshe … I do recorde.
1483. Caxton, G. de la Tour, A j. For in that time I made … vyrelayes in the mooste best wyse I cowde.
a. 1500. Chaucer’s Dreme, 975. Som to make verelaies & laies, And som to othere diverse pleyes.
1525. Ld. Berners, Froiss., II. xxvi. 30/1. Whiche boke was called the Melyader, conteyninge all the songes, baladdes, rundeaux, and vyrelayes, whiche the gentyll duke had made in his tyme.
1579. Spenser, Sheph. Cal., Nov., 21.
| But if thou algate lust light virelayes, | |
| And looser songs of loue to vnderfong. |
1593. Drayton, Ecl., iii. 55. With daintie and delightsome straynes of dapper Verilayes.
1614. J. Davies (Heref.), Eclogue, 34. Let thy Virilaies Kill enuious cunning swaines … With enuy.
1700. Dryden, Flower & Leaf, 365 And then the Band of Flutes began to play, To which a Lady sung a Virelay.
1795. H. Walpole, Lett. to Mrs. H. More, 13 Feb. I received your letter and packet of lays and virelays.
1812. D’Israeli, Calam. Auth. (1867), 76. Thus he lived, like some old troubadour, by his rhymes, and his chants, and his virelays.
1851. Mrs. Browning, Casa Guidi Wind., I. 233. O Dend, ye shall no longer … Drag us backward by the garment thus, To stand and laud you in long-drawn virelays!
1880. F. Hueffer in Macm. Mag., No. 253. 51. Every one will admit that a halting rondel or virelai is simply an abomination.
transf. 1642. H. More, Song of Soul, II. I. iii. 5. You chearfull chaunters of the flowring woods,… To mournfull noto turn your light verilayes, Death be your song, and Winters hoary sprayes.
1818. Milman, Samor, 171. The merry birds … spring-tide virelays carolling.
