Cf. 'When that he is dronke as a dreynt mous'; Ritson, Ancient Songs, i. 70 (Man in the Moon, l. 31). 'And I will pledge Tom Tosspot, till I be drunk as a mouse-a'; Old Plays, ed. Hazlitt, iii. 339. See also Skelton, Colin Clout, 803; and D. 246.

1262. This is from Boethius, De Consolatione, lib. iii. pr. 2: 'But I retorne ayein to the studies of men, of whiche men the corage alwey reherseth and seketh the sovereyn good, al be it so that it be with a derked memorie; but he not by whiche path, right as a dronken man not nat by whiche path he may retorne him to his hous.'—Chaucer's Translation of Boethius; vol. ii. p. 54, l. 57.

1264. slider, slippery; as in the Legend of Good Women, l. 648. Cf. the gloss—'Lubricum, slidere'; Reliquiae Antiquae, i. 7.

1279. pure fettres, the very fetters. 'So in the Duchesse, l. 583, the pure deeth. The Greeks used καθαρός in the same sense.'—Tyrwhitt.

1283. at thy large, at large. Cf. l. 2288.

1302. 'White like box-wood, or ashen-gray'; cf. l. 1364. Cf. 'And pale as box she wex'; Legend of Good Women, l. 866. Also 'asshen pale and dede'; Troil. ii. 539.

1308. Copied in Lydgate's Horse, Sheep, and Goose, 124:—'But here this schepe, rukkyng in his folde.' 'Rukkun, or cowre down'; Prompt. Parv. In B. 4416, MSS. Cp. Pt. Ln. have rouking in place of lurking.

1317. to letten of his wille, to refrain from his will (or lusts).

1333. Cf. the phrase 'paurosa gelosia'; Tes. v. 2.

1344. upon his heed, on pain of losing his head. 'Froissart has sur sa teste, sur la teste, and sur peine de la teste.'—T.

1347. this questioun. 'An implied allusion to the medieval courts of love, in which questions of this kind were seriously discussed.'—Wright.

1366. making his mone, making his complaint or moan.

1372. 'In his changing mood, for all the world, he conducted himself not merely like one suffering from the lover's disease of Eros, but rather (his disease was) like mania engendered of melancholy humour.' This is one of the numerous allusions to the four humours, viz. the choleric, phlegmatic, sanguine, and melancholic. An excess of the latter was supposed to produce 'melancholy madness.' gere, flighty manner, changeableness; 'Siche wilde gerys hade he mo'; Thornton Romances, Sir Percival, l. 1353. See note to l. 1536.

1376. in his celle fantastyk. Tyrwhitt reads Beforne his hed in his celle fantastike. Elles. has Biforn his owene celle fantastik. 'The division of the brain into cells, according to the different sensitive faculties, is very ancient, and is found depicted in medieval manuscripts. The fantastic cell (fantasia) was in front of the head.'—Wright. Hence Biforen means 'in the front part of his head.'

'Madnesse is infection of the formost cel of the head, with priuation of imagination, lyke as melancholye is the infection of the middle cell of the head, with priuation of reason, as Constant. saith in libro de Melancolia. Melancolia (saith he) is an infection that hath mastry of the soule, the which commeth of dread and of sorrow. And these passions be diuerse after the diuersity of the hurt of their workings; for by madnesse that is called Mania, principally the imagination is hurt; and in the other reson is hurted.'—Batman upon Bartholomè, lib. vii. c. 6. Vincent of Beauvais, bk. xxviii. c. 41, cites a similar statement from the Liber de Anatomia, which begins:—'Cerebrum itaque tribus cellulis est distinctum. Duae namque meringes cerebri faciunt tres plicaturas inter se denexas, in quibus tres sunt cellulae: phantastica scilicet ab anteriori parte capitis, in qua sedem habet imaginatio.' So in Batman upon Bartholomè, lib. v. c. 3:—'The Braine ... is diuided in three celles or dens.... In the formost cell ... imagination is conformed and made; in the middle, reason; in the hindermost, recordation and minde' [memory]. Cf. also Burton, Anat. of Melancholy, pt. 2. sec. 3. mem. 1. subsec. 2.

1385-8. Probably from Claudian, De Raptu Proserpinae, i. 77:—

See Lounsbury, Studies, ii. 382.

1390. Argus, Argus of the hundred eyes, whom Mercury charmed to sleep before slaying him. Ovid, Met. i. 714.

1401. Cf. 'Hir face ... Was al ychaunged in another kinde'; Troil. iv. 864.

1405. bar him lowe, conducted himself as one of low estate. Cf. E. 2013.

1409. Cf. 'in maniera di pover valletto'; Tes. iv. 22.

1428. In the Teseide, iv. 3, he takes the name of Penteo. Philostrato is the name of another work by Boccaccio, answering to Chaucer's Troilus. The Greek φιλόστρατος means, literally, 'army-lover'; but it is to be noted that Boccaccio did not so understand it. He actually connected it with the Lat. stratus, and explained it to mean 'vanquished or prostrated with love'; and this is how the name is here used.

1444. slyly, prudently, wisely. The M. E. sleigh, sly = wise, knowing: and sleight = wisdom, knowledge. (For change of meaning compare cunning, originally knowledge; craft, originally power; art, &c.)

1463. The third night is followed by the fourth day; so Palamon and Arcite meet on the 4th of May (l. 1574), which was a Friday (l. 1534); the first hour of which was dedicated to Venus (l. 1536) and to lovers' vows (l. 1501). The 4th of May was a Friday in 1386.

1471. clarree. 'The French term claré seems simply to have denoted a clear transparent wine, but in its most usual sense a compounded drink of wine with honey and spices, so delicious as to be comparable to the nectar of the gods. In Sloane MS. 2584, f. 173, the following directions are found for making clarré:—"Take a galoun of honi, and skome (skim) it wel, and loke whanne it is isoden (boiled), that ther be a galoun; thanne take viii galouns of red wyn, than take a pound of pouder canel (cinnamon), and half a pounde of pouder gynger, and a quarter of a pounde of pouder peper, and medle (mix) alle these thynges togeder and (with) the wyn; and do hym in a clene barelle, and stoppe it fast, and rolle it wel ofte sithes, as men don verious, iii dayes."'—Way; note to Prompt. Parv., p. 79. 'The Craft to make Clarre' is also given in Arnold's Chronicle of London; and see the Gloss. to the Babees Book. See Rom. of the Rose, 5971.

1472. Burton mentions 'opium Thebaicum,' which produced stupefaction; Anat. Met. pt. 3. sec. 2. mem. 6. subsec. 2. The words 'Opium Thebaicum' are written in the margin in MSS. E. and Hn.

1477. nedes-cost, for needes coste, by the force of necessity. It seems to be equivalent to M. E. needes-wyse, of necessity. Alre-coste (Icelandic alls-kostar, in all respects) signifies 'in every wise.' It occurs in Old English Homilies (ed. Morris), part i. p. 21: 'We ne maȝen alre-coste halden Crist(es) bibode,' we are not able in every wise to keep Christ's behests. The right reading in Leg. Good Women, 2697, is:—

1494. A beautiful line; but copied from Dante, Purg. i. 20—'Faceva tutto rider l'oriente.'

1500. See note to l. 1047, where the parallel line from Shakespeare is quoted. And cf. Troil. ii. 112—'And lat us don to May som observaunce.' See the interesting article on May-day Customs in Brand's Popular Antiquities (where the quotation from Stubbes will be found); also Chambers, Book of Days, i. 577, where numerous passages relating to May are cited from old poems. An early passage relative to the 1st of May occurs in the Orologium Sapientiae, printed in Anglia, x. 387:—'And thanne is the custome of dyuerse contrees that yonge folke gone on the nyghte or erely on the morow to Medowes and woddes, and there they kutten downe bowes that haue fayre grene leves, and arayen hem with flowres; and after they setten hem byfore the dores where they trowe to haue amykes [friends?] in her lovers, in token of frendschip and trewe loue.' And see May-day in Nares.

1502. From the Legend of Good Women, 1204.

1508. Were it = if it were only.

1509. So in Troilus, ii. 920:—

1522. 'Veld haueð hege, and wude haueð heare,' i. e. 'Field hath eye, and wood hath ear.'

This old proverb, with Latin version, occurs in MS. Trin. Coll. Cam. O. 2. 45, and is quoted by Mr. T. Wright in his Essays on England in the Middle Ages, vol. i. p. 168. Cf. Cotgrave's F. Dict. s. v. Oeillet.

'Das Feld hat Augen, der Wald hat Ohren'; Ida von Düringsfeld, Sprichwörter, vol. i. no. 453.

1524. at unset stevene, at a meeting not previously fixed upon, an unexpected meeting or appointment. This was a proverbial saying, as is evident from the way in which it is quoted in Sir Eglamour, 1282 (Thornton Romances, p. 174):—

'Thei setten steuen,' they made an appointment; Knight de la Tour-Landry, ch. iii. And see below, The Cokes Tale:

1531. hir queynte geres, their strange behaviours.

1532. Now in the top (i. e. elevated, in high spirits), now down in the briars (i. e. depressed, in low spirits).

1533. boket in a welle. Cf. Shakespeare's Richard II., iv. 1. 184. 'Like so many buckets in a well; as one riseth another falleth, one's empty, another's full.'—Burton's Anat. of Mel. p. 33.

1536. gery, changeable; so also gerful in l. 1538. Observe also the sb. gere, a changeable mood, in ll. 1372, 1531, and Book of the Duchesse, 1257. This very scarce word deserves illustration. Mätzner's Dictionary gives us some examples.

'Her gery Iaces,' their changeful ribands; Richard Redeless, iii. 130.

'In gerysshe Marche'; id. 243. 'Gerysshe, wylde or lyght-headed'; Palsgrave's Dict., p. 313. In Skelton's poem of Ware the Hauke (ed. Dyce, i. 157) we find:—

Dyce, in his note upon the word, quotes two passages from Lydgate's Fall of Princes, B. iii. c. 10. leaf 77, and B. vi. c. 1. leaf 134.

Two more occur in the same, B. iii. c. 8, and B. iv. c. 8.

See also in his Siege of Troye, ed. 1555, fol. B 6, back, col. 2; &c.

1539. A writer in Notes and Queries quotes the following Devonshire proverb: 'Fridays in the week are never aleek,' i. e. Fridays are unlike other days.

1566. Compare Legend of Good Women, 2629:—

So also in Troil. iii. 733.

1593. I drede noght, I have no fear, I doubt not.

1594. outher ... or = either ... or.

1609. To darreyne hir, to decide the right to her. Spenser is very fond of this word; see F. Q. i. 4. 40; i. 7. 11; ii. 2. 26; iii. i. 20; iv. 4. 26, 5. 24; v. 2. 15; vi. 7. 41. See deraisnier in Godefroy's O. Fr. Dict.

1622. to borwe. This expression has the same force as to wedde, in pledge. See l. 1218.

1625. The expression 'sooth is seyd' shews that Chaucer is here introducing a quotation. The original passage is the following, from the Roman de la Rose, 8487:—

Again, the expression 'cele parole' shews that Jean de Meun is also here quoting from another, viz. from Ovid, Met. ii. 846:—

1626. his thankes, willingly, with good-will; cf. l. 2107. Cf. M. E. myn unthonkes = ingratis. 'He faught with them in batayle their unthankes'; Hardyng's Chronicle, p. 112.—M.

1638. Cf. Teseide, vii. 106, 119; Statius, Theb. iv. 494-9.

1654. Foynen, thrust, push. It is a mistake to explain this, as usual, by 'fence,' as fence (= defence) suggests parrying; whereas foinen means to thrust or push, as in attack, not as in defence. It occurs again in l. 2550. Hence it is commonly used of the pushing with spears.

Strutt (Sports and Pastimes, bk. iii. c. 1. § 32) explains that a thrust is more dangerous than a cut, and quotes the old advice, that 'to foyne is better than to smyte.' 'And there kyng Arthur smote syr Mordred vnder the shelde wyth a foyne of his spere thorughoute the body more than a fadom'; Sir T. Malory, Morte Darthur, bk. xxi. c. 4. This was a foine indeed!

1656. Deficient in the first foot. Scan:—In | his fight | ing, &c. The usual insertion of as before a is wholly unauthorised.

1665. hath seyn biforn, hath foreseen. Cf. Teseide, vi. 1.

1668. From the Teseide, v. 77. Compare the medieval proverb:—'Hoc facit una dies quod totus denegat annus.' Quoted in Die älteste deutsche Litteratur; by Paul Piper (1884); p. 283.

1676. ther daweth him no day, no day dawns upon him.

1678. hunte, hunter, huntsman; whence Hunt as a surname. I find this form as late as in Gascoigne's Art of Venerie: 'I am the Hunte'; Works, ed. Hazlitt, ii. 306.

1698. Similarly, Adrastus stopped the fight between Tydeus and Polynices; Statius, Theb. i. Lydgate describes this in his Siege of Thebes, pt. ii, and takes occasion to borrow several expressions from this part of the Knightes Tale.

1706. Ho, an exclamation made by heralds, to stop the fight. It was also used to enjoin silence. See ll. 2533, 2656; Troil. iv. 1242.

1707. Up peyne is the old phrase; as in 'up peyne of emprisonement of 40 days'; Riley's Memorials of London, p. 580.

1736. it am I. 'This is the regular construction in early English. In modern English the pronoun it is regarded as the direct nominative, and I as forming part of the predicate.'—M.

1739. 'Therefore I ask my death and my doom.'

1747. Mars the rede. Boccaccio uses the same epithet in the opening of his Teseide, i. 3: 'O Marte rubicondo.' Rede refers to the colour of the planet; cf. Anelida, 1.

1761. This line occurs again three times; March. Tale E. 1986; Squieres Tale, F. 479; Legend of Good Women, 503.

1780. can no divisoun, knows no distinction.

1781. after oon = after one mode, according to the same rule.

1783. eyen lighte, cheerful looks.

1785. See the Romaunt of the Rose, 878-884; vol. i. p. 130.

1799. 'Amare et Sapere vix Deo conceditur.'—Publius Syrus, Sent. 15. Cf. Adv. of Learning, ii. proem. § 15—'It is not granted to man to love and to be wise'; ed. Wright, p. 84. So also in Bacon's 10th Essay. The reading here given is correct. Fool is used with great emphasis; the sense is:—'Who can be a (complete) fool, unless he is in love?' The old printed editions have the same reading. The Harl. MS. alone has if that for but-if, giving the sense: 'Who can be fool, if he is in love?' As this is absurd, Mr. Wright silently inserted not after may, and is followed by Bell and Morris; but the latter prints not in italics. Observe that the line is deficient in the first foot. Read:—Whó | may bé | a fóol, &c.

1807. jolitee, joyfulness—said of course ironically.

1808. Can ... thank, acknowledges an obligation, owes thanks.

1814. a servant, i. e. a lover. This sense of servant, as a term of gallantry, is common in our dramatists.

1815, 1818. Cf. the Teseide, v. 92.

1837. looth or leef, displeasing or pleasing.

1838. pypen in an ivy leef is an expression like 'blow the buck's-horn' in A. 3387, meaning to console oneself with any frivolous employment; it occurs again in Troilus, v. 1433. Cf. the expression 'to go and whistle.' Cf. 'farwel the gardiner; he may pipe with an yue-leafe; his fruite is failed'; Test. of Love, bk. iii; ed. 1561, fol. 316. Boys still blow against a leaf, and produce a squeak. Lydgate uses similar expressions:—

Again, in Hazlitt's Proverbs, we find 'To go blow one's flute,' which is taken from an old proverb. In Vox Populi Vox Dei (circa 1547), pr. in Hazlitt's Popular Poetry, iii. 284, are the lines:—

The custom is old. Cf. Zenobius, i. 19 (Paroem. Graec. I. p. 6):—

ᾄδειν πρὸς μυρρίνην· ἔθος ἦν τὸν μὴ δυνάμενον ἐν τοῖς συμποσίοις ᾆσαι, δάφνης κλῶνα ἤ μυρρίνης λαβόντα πρὸς τοῦτον ᾄδειν.

1850. fer ne ner, farther nor nearer, neither more nor less. 'After some little trouble, I have arrived at the conclusion that Chaucer has given us sufficient data for ascertaining both the days of the month and of the week of many of the principal events of the "Knightes Tale." The following scheme will explain many things hitherto unnoticed.

'On Friday, May 4, before 1 A.M., Palamon breaks out of prison. For (l. 1463) it was during the "third night of May, but (l. 1467) a little after midnight." That it was Friday is evident also, from observing that Palamon hides himself at day's approach, whilst Arcite rises "for to doon his observance to May, remembring on the poynt of his desyr." To do this best, he would go into the fields at sunrise (l. 1491), during the hour dedicated to Venus, i. e. during the hour after sunrise on a Friday. If however this seem for a moment doubtful, all doubt is removed by the following lines:—

'All this is very little to the point unless we suppose Friday to be the day. Or, if the reader have still any doubt about this, let him observe the curious accumulation of evidence which is to follow.

'Palamon and Arcite meet, and a duel is arranged for an early hour on the day following. That is, they meet on Saturday, May 5. But, as Saturday is presided over by the inauspicious planet Saturn, it is no wonder that they are both unfortunate enough to have their duel interrupted by Theseus, and to find themselves threatened with death. Still, at the intercession of the queen and Emily, a day of assembly for a tournament is fixed for "this day fifty wykes" (l. 1850). Now we must understand "fifty wykes" to be a poetical expression for a year. This is not mere supposition, however, but a certainty; because the appointed day was in the month of May, whereas fifty weeks and no more would land us in April. Then "this day fyfty wekes" means "this day year," viz. on May 5. [In fact, Boccaccio has 'un anno intero'; Tes. v. 98.]

'Now, in the year following (supposed not a leap-year), the 5th of May would be Sunday. But this we are expressly told in l. 2188. It must be noted, however, that this is not the day of the tournament^[23], but of the muster for it, as may be gleaned from ll. 1850-1854 and 2096. The eleventh hour "inequal" of Sunday night, or the second hour before sunrise of Monday, is dedicated to Venus, as explained by Tyrwhitt (l. 2217); and therefore Palamon then goes to the temple of Venus. The next hour is dedicated to Mercury. The third hour, the first after sunrise on Monday, is dedicated to Luna or Diana, and during this Emily goes to Diana's temple. The fourth after sunrise is dedicated to Mars, and therefore Arcite then goes to the temple of Mars. But the rest of the day is spent merely in jousting and preparations—

The tournament therefore takes place on Tuesday, May 7, on the day of the week presided over by Mars, as was very fitting; and this perhaps helps to explain Saturn's exclamation in l. 2669, "Mars hath his wille."'—Walter W. Skeat, in Notes and Queries, Fourth Series, ii. 2, 3; Sept. 12, 1868 (since slightly corrected).

To this was added the observation, that May 5 was on a Saturday in 1386, and on a Sunday in 1387. Ten Brink (Studien, p. 189) thinks it is of no value; but the coincidence is curious.

1866. 'Except that one of you shall be either slain or taken prisoner'; i. e. one of you must be fairly conquered.

1884. listes, lists. 'The lists for the tilts and tournaments resembled those, I doubt not, appointed for the ordeal combats, which, according to the rules established by Thomas, duke of Gloucester, uncle to Richard II., were as follows. The king shall find the field to fight in, and the lists shall be made and devised by the constable; and it is to be observed, that the list must be 60 paces long and 40 paces broad, set up in good order, and the ground within hard, stable, and level, without any great stones or other impediments; also, that the lists must be made with one door to the east, and another to the west [see ll. 1893, 4]; and strongly barred about with good bars 7 feet high or more, so that a horse may not be able to leap over them.'—Strutt, Sports and Pastimes; bk. iii. c. 1. § 23.

1889. The various parts of this round theatre are subsequently described. On the North was the turret of Diana, with an oratory; on the East the gate of Venus, with altar and oratory above; on the West the gate of Mars, similarly provided.

1890. Ful of degrees, full of steps (placed one above another, as in an amphitheatre). 'But now they have gone a nearer way to the wood, for with wooden galleries in the church that they have, and stairy degrees of seats in them, they make as much room to sit and hear, as a new west end would have done.'—Nash's Red Herring, p. 21. See Shakespeare, Julius Cæsar, ii. 126, and also 2 Kings xx. 9. Cf. 'While she stey up from gre to gre.'—Lives of Saints, Roxb. Club, p. 59. Lines 1187-1894 are more or less imitated from the Teseide, vii. 108-110.

1910. Coral is a curious material to use for such a purpose; but we find posts of coral and a palace chiefly formed of coral and metal in Guy of Warwick, ed. Zupitza, 11399-11401.

1913. don wroght, caused (to be) made; observe this idiom. Cf. don yow kept, E. 1098; han doon fraught, B. 171; haf gert saltit, Bruce, xviii. 168.

1918-32. See the analysis of this passage in vol. iii. p. 390.

1919. on the wal, viz. on the walls within the oratory. The description is loosely imitated from Boccaccio's Teseide, vii. 55-59. It is remarkable that there is a much closer imitation of the same passage in Chaucer's Parl. of Foules, ll. 183-294. Thus at l. 246 of that poem we find:—

There is yet another description of the temple of Venus in the House of Fame, 119-139, where we have the very line 'Naked fletinge in a see' (cf. l. 1956 below), and a mention of the 'rose garlond' (cf. l. 1961), and of 'Hir dowves and daun Cupido' (cf. ll. 1962-3).

1929. golde, a marigold; Calendula. 'Goolde, herbe: Solsequium, quia sequitur solem, elitropium, calendula'; Prompt. Parv. The corn-marigold in the North is called goulans, guilde, or goles, and in the South, golds (Way). Gower says that Leucothea was changed

Yellow is the colour of jealousy; see Yellowness in Nares. In the Rom. de la Rose, 22037, Jealousy is described as wearing a 'chapel de soussie,' i. e. a chaplet of marigolds.

1936. Citheroun = Cithaeron, sacred to Venus; as said in the Rom. de la Rose, 15865, q.v.

1940. In the Romaunt of the Rose, Idleness is the porter of the garden in which the rose (Beauty) is kept. In the Parl. of Foules, 261, the porter's name is Richesse. Cf. ll. 2, 3 of the Second Nonnes Tale (G. 2, 3).

1941. of yore agon, of years gone by. Cf. Ovid, Met. iii. 407.

1953-4. Imitated from Le Roman de la Rose, 16891-2.

1955. The description of Venus here given has some resemblance to that given in cap. v (De Venere) of Albrici Philosophi De Deorum Imaginibus Libellus, in an edition of the Mythographi Latini, Amsterdam, 1681, vol. ii. p. 304. I transcribe as much as is material. 'Pingebatur Venus pulcherrima puella, nuda, et in mari natans; et in manu sua dextra concham marinam tenens atque gestans; rosisque candidis et rubris sertum gerebat in capite ornatum, et columbis circa se volando, comitabatur.... Hinc et Cupido filius suus alatus et caecus assistebat, qui sagitta et arcu, quos tenebat, Apollinem sagittabat.' It is clear that Chaucer had consulted some such description as this; see further in the note to l. 2041.

1958. Cf. 'wawes ... clere as glas'; Boeth. bk. i. met. 7. 4.

1971. estres, the inner parts of a building; as also in A. 4295 and Leg. of Good Women, 1715. 'To spere the estyrs of Rome'; Le Bone Florence, 293; in Ritson, Met. Rom. iii. 13. See also Cursor Mundi, 2252.

'His sportis [portes?] and his estris'; Tale of Beryn, ed. Furnivall, 837. Cf. 'Qu'il set bien de l'ostel les estres'; Rom. de la Rose, 12720; and see Rom. of the Rose, 1448 (vol. i. p. 153).

By mistaking the long s (ſ) for f, this word has been misprinted as eftures in the following: 'Pleaseth it yow to see the eftures of this castel?'—Sir Thomas Malory, Mort Arthure, b. xix. c. 7.

1979. a rumbel and a swough, a rumbling and a sound of wind.

1982. Mars armipotente.

The word armipotent is borrowed from Boccaccio's armipotente, in the Teseide, vii. 32. Other similar borrowings occur hereabouts, too numerous for mention. Note that this description of the temple of Mars once belonged to the end of the poem of Anelida, which see.

Let the reader take particular notice that the temple here described (ll. 1982-1994) is merely a painted temple, depicted on one of the walls inside the oratory of Mars. The walls of the other temples had paintings similar to those inside the temple of which the outside is here depicted. Chaucer describes the painted temple as if it were real, which is somewhat confusing. Inconsistent additions were made in revision.

1984. streit, narrow; 'la stretta entrata'; Tes. vii. 32.

1985. vese is glossed impetus in the Ellesmere MS., and means 'rush' or 'hurrying blast.' It is allied to M.E. fesen, to drive, which is Shakespeare's pheeze. Copied from 'salit Impetus amens E foribus'; Theb. vii. 47, 48.

1986. rese = to shake, quake. 'Þe eorðe gon to-rusien,' 'the earth gan to shake.'—Laȝamon, l. 15946. To resye, to shake, occurs in Ayenbite of Inwyt, pp. 23, 116. Cf. also—'The tre aresede as hit wold falle'; Seven Sages, ed. Weber, l. 915. A.S. hrysian.

1987. 'I suppose the northern light is the aurora borealis, but this phenomenon is so rarely mentioned by mediaeval writers, that it may be questioned whether Chaucer meant anything more than the faint and cold illumination received by reflexion through the door of an apartment fronting the north.' (Marsh.) The fact is, however, that Chaucer here copies Statius, Theb. vii. 40-58; see the translation in the note to l. 2017 below. The 'northern light' seems to be an incorrect rendering of 'aduersum Phoebi iubar'; l. 45.

1990. 'E le porte eran d'eterno diamante'; Teseide, vii. 32. Such is the reading given by Warton. However, the ultimate source is the phrase in Statius—'adamante perenni ... fores'; Theb. vii. 68.

1991. overthwart, &c., across and along (i. e. from top to bottom). The same phrase occurs in Rich. Coer de Lion, 2649, in Weber, Met. Romances, ii. 104.

1997, 8. Cf. the Teseide, vii. 33:—

But Chaucer follows Statius still more closely. Ll. 1195-2012 answer to Theb. vii. 48-53:—

1999. Cf. Rom. of the Rose, 7419-20.

2001. See Chaucer's Legend of Hypermnestra.

2003. 'Discordia, contake'; Glossary in Reliquiae Antiquae, i. 7.

2004. chirking is used of grating and creaking sounds; and sometimes, of the cry of birds. The Lansd. MS. has schrikeinge (shrieking). See House of Fame, iii. 853 (or 1943). In Batman upon Bartholomè, lib. viii. c. 29, the music of the spheres is attributed to the 'cherkyng of the mouing of the circles, and of the roundnes of heauen.' In Chaucer's tr. of Boethius, bk. i. met. 6, it is an adj., and translates stridens. Cf. D. 1804, I. 605.

2007. This line contains an allusion to the death of Sisera, Judges iv. But Dr. Koch has pointed out (Essays on Chaucer, Chaucer Soc. iv. 371) that we have here some proof that Chaucer may have altered his first draft of the poem without taking sufficient heed to what he was about. The original line may have stood—

or something of that kind; for the reason that no suicide has ever yet been known to drive a nail into his own head. That a wife might do so to her husband is Chaucer's own statement; for, in the Cant. Tales, D. 765-770, we find—

Of course it may be said that l. 2006 is entirely independent of l. 2007, and I have punctuated the text so as to suit this arrangement; but the suggestion is worth notice.

2011. From Tes. vii. 35:—'Videvi ancora l'allegro Furore.'—Kölbing.

2017. hoppesteres. Speght explains this word by pilots (gubernaculum tenentes); Tyrwhitt, female dancers (Ital. ballatrice). Others explain it hopposteres = opposteres = opposing, hostile, so that schippes hoppesteres = bellatrices carinae (Statius). As, however, it is impossible to suppose that even opposteres without the h can ever have been formed from the verb to oppose, the most likely solution is that Chaucer mistook the word bellatrices in Statius (vii. 57) or the corresponding Ital. word bellatrici in the Teseide, vii. 37, for ballatrices or ballatrici, which might be supposed to mean 'female dancers'; an expression which would exactly correspond to an M. E. form hoppesteres, from the A. S. hoppestre, a female dancer. Herodias' daughter is mentioned (in the dative case) as þære lyðran hoppystran (better spelt hoppestran) in Ælfric's A. S. Homilies, ed. Thorpe, i. 484. Hence shippes hoppesteres simply means 'dancing ships.' Shakespeare likens the English fleet to 'A city on the inconstant billows dancing'; Hen. V. iii. prol. 15. Cf. O. F. baleresse, a female dancer, in Godefroy's Dict., s. v. baleor. In § 55 of Cl. Ptolomaei Centum Dicta, printed at Ulm in 1641, we are told that Mars is hostile to ships when in the zenith or the eleventh house. 'Incendetur autem nauis, si ascendens ab aliqua stella fixa quae ex Martis mixtura sit, affligetur.' So that, if a fixed star co-operated with Mars, the ships were burnt.

The following extract from Lewis' translation of Statius' Thebaid, bk. vii., is of some interest:—

2020. for al, notwithstanding. Cf. Piers the Plowman, B. xix. 274.

2021. infortune of Marte. 'Tyrwhitt thinks that Chaucer might intend to be satirical in these lines; but the introduction of such apparently undignified incidents arose from the confusion already mentioned of the god of war with the planet to which his name was given, and the influence of which was supposed to produce all the disasters here mentioned. The following extract from the Compost of Ptolemeus gives some of the supposed effects of Mars:—"Under Mars is borne theves and robbers that kepe hye wayes, and do hurte to true men, and nyght-walkers, and quarell-pykers, bosters, mockers, and skoffers, and these men of Mars causeth warre and murther, and batayle; they wyll be gladly smythes or workers of yron, lyght-fyngred, and lyers, gret swerers of othes in vengeable wyse, and a great surmyler and crafty. He is red and angry, with blacke heer, and lytell iyen; he shall be a great walker, and a maker of swordes and knyves, and a sheder of mannes blode, and a fornycatour, and a speker of rybawdry ... and good to be a barboure and a blode-letter, and to drawe tethe, and is peryllous of his handes." The following extract is from an old astrological book of the sixteenth century:—"Mars denoteth men with red faces and the skinne redde, the face round, the eyes yellow, horrible to behold, furious men, cruell, desperate, proude, sedicious, souldiers, captaines, smythes, colliers, bakers, alcumistes, armourers, furnishers, butchers, chirurgions, barbers, sargiants, and hangmen, according as they shal be well or evill disposed."'—Wright. So also in Cornelius Agrippa, De Occulta Philosophia, lib. i. c. 22. Chaucer has 'cruel Mars' in The Man of Lawes Tale, B. 301; and cf. note to A. 1087.

2022. From Statius, Theb. vii. 58:—

2029. For the story of Damocles, see Cicero, Tuscul. 5. 61; cf. Horace, Od. iii. 1. 17. And see Chaucer's tr. of Boethius, bk. iii. pr. 5. 17. Most likely Chaucer got it from Boethius or from the Gesta Romanorum, cap. 143, since the name of Damocles is omitted.

2037. sterres (Harl.) Elles. &c. have certres (sertres); but this strange reading can hardly be other than a mistake for sterres, which is proved to be the right word by the parallel passage in The Man of Lawes Tale, B. 194-6.

2041. In the note to l. 1955, I have quoted part of cap. v. of a work by Albricus. In cap. iii. (De Marte) of the same, we have a description of Mars, which should be compared. I quote all that is material. 'Erat enim eius figura tanquam unius hominis furibundi, in curru sedens, armatus lorica, et caeteris armis offensiuis et defensiuis.... Ante illum uero lupus ouem portans pingebatur, quia illud scilicet animal ab antiquis gentibus ipsi Marti specialiter consecratum est. Iste enim Mauors est, id est mares uorans, eo quod bellorum deus a gentibus dictus est.' Chaucer seems to have taken the notion of the wolf devouring a man from this singular etymology of Mauors.

In cap. vii. (De Diana) of the same, there is a description of 'Diana, quae et Luna, Proserpina, Hecate nuncupatur.' Cf. l. 2313 below.

2045. 'The names of two figures in geomancy, representing two constellations in heaven. Puella signifieth Mars retrogade, and Rubeus Mars direct.'—Note in Speght's Chaucer. It is obvious that this explanation is wrong as regards 'Mars retrograde' and 'Mars direct,' because a constellation cannot represent a single planet. It happens to be also wrong as regards 'constellations in heaven.' But Speght is correct in the main point, viz., that Puella and Rubeus are 'the names of two figures in geomancy.' Geomancy was described, under the title of 'Divination by Spotting,' in The Saturday Review, Feb. 16, 1889. To form geomantic figures, proceed thus. Take a pencil, and hurriedly jot down on a paper a number of dots in a line, without counting them. Do the same three times more. Now count the dots, to see whether they are odd or even. If the dots in a line are odd, put down one dot on another small paper, half-way across it. If they are even, put down two dots, one towards each side; arranging the results in four rows, one beneath the other.

Three of the figures thus formed require our attention; the whole number being sixteen. Fig. 1 results from the dots being odd, even, odd, odd. Fig. 2, from even, odd, even, even. Fig. 3, from odd, odd, even, odd. These (as well as the rest of the sixteen figures) are given in Cornelius Agrippa, De Occulta Philosophia, lib. ii. cap. 48: De Figuris Geomanticis. Each 'Figure' had a 'Name,' belonged to an 'Element,' and possessed a 'Planet' and a Zodiacal 'Sign.' Cornelius Agrippa gives our three 'figures' as below.

Fig. 1 (Puella). Fig. 2 (Rubeus). Fig. 3 (Puer). That is, Fig. 1 is 'Puella,' or 'Mundus facie'; element, water; planet, Venus; sign, Libra.

Fig. 2 is 'Rubeus' or 'Rufus'; element, fire; planet, Mars; sign, Gemini.

Fig. 3 is 'Puer,' or 'Flavus,' or 'Imberbis'; element, fire; planet, Mars; sign, Aries.

Chaucer (or some one else) seems to have confused figures 1 and 3, or Puer with Puella; for Puella was dedicated to Venus. Rubeus is clearly right, as Mars was the red planet (l. 1747). I first explained this, somewhat more fully, in The Academy, March 2, 1889.

2049. From Tes. vii. 38:—'E tal ricetto edificato avea Mulcibero sottil colla sua arte.'—Kölbing, in Engl. Studien, ii. 528.

2056. Calistopee = Callisto, a daughter of Lycaon, King of Arcadia, and companion of Diana. See Ovid's Fasti, ii. 153; Gower, Conf. Amantis, ed. Pauli, ii. 336.

2059, 2061. 'Cf. Ovid's Fasti, ii. 153-192; especially 189, 190,