Book xxv
; see the allit. Destruct. of Troy, ll. 9942-9959, and Lydgate's Siege of Troye, Bk. iv. ch. 30, ed. 1557, fol. U 4.
1051. I cannot find this in Guido.
1062. 'My bell shall be rung;' my story shall be told.
1104. I.e. 'on the morrow of which.'
1107. Cf. 'laurigero ... Phoebo'; Ovid, Art. Am. iii. 389.
1110. 'Nisus' daughter,' i.e. Scylla, changed into the bird _ciris_, which some explain as a lark; see Leg. Good Wom. 1908, and note; Ovid, Met. viii. 9-151; Vergil, Georg. i. 404-9.
1114. _noon_, noon, mid-day; the time for dinner (see l. 1129, and Cant. Ta. E 1893). See my note to Piers Plowm. C. ix. 146.
1133. _cape_, gape; see Miller's Tale, A 3444, 3841 (footnotes).
1140, 1. _yate_, i.e. port-cullis. _As nought ne were_, as if there were no special reason for it. I.e. I will make them do it, without telling them why.
1151. Deficient in the first foot; hardly a good line.
1155. 'Think it not tedious to (have to) wait.'
1162. _fare-cart_, cart for provisions; cf. our phrase 'to enjoy good _fare_.' It might mean 'travelling-car,' but that is inapplicable. B. has simply 'carro;' Fil. vii. 8.
1163-9. Cf. Romeo's speech in Rom. v. 1. 1-11.
1174. 'The happiness which you expect will come out of the wood,' i.e. if it comes at all. A jocular form of expressing unlikelihood. There is evidently a reference to some popular song or saying; compare the Jeu de Robin in Toynbee's Specimens of Old French, p. 224. In the Rom. of the Rose, 7455, we have an allusion to a 'ioly Robin,' who was a gay dancer and a minstrel, and the exact opposite of a Jacobin friar. Shakespeare's clown in Twelfth Night (iv. 2. 78) sings of a 'jolly Robin' whose lady 'loves another.' And Ophelia sang 'bonny sweet Robin is all my joy;' Haml. iv. 5. 187.
1176. Another proverbial saying, _ferne yere_, last year; see _fern, fürn_, in Stratmann, and cf. A. S. _fyrng[=e]arum fr[=o]d_, wise with the experience of past years, Phoenix, 219. Last year's snow will not be seen again.
1190. He persuades himself that the moon is to pass well beyond the end of the sign Leo; thus allowing another day.
1222. _by potente_, with a stick, or staff with a spiked end and crutch-like top; cf. Somp. Ta. D 1776. A _potent_, in heraldry, is a figure resembling the top of a crutch, consisting of a rectangle laid horizontally above a small square. See Rom. of the Rose, 368.
1274. 'Whereas I daily destroy myself by living.'
1313. _rolleth_, revolves; see Pard. Ta. C 838; Somn. Ta. D 2217.
1335. 'And for that which is defaced, ye may blame the tears.'
1354. 'I sigh with sorrowful sighs.' MS. Cm. has _sikis I sike_.
1368. 'I can only say that, being a receptacle for every sorrow, I was still alive.' _cheste_, box; like that of Pandora.
1372. 'Until I see the contents of your reply.'
1431. 'Bottomless promises;' i. e. that held nothing.
1433. See the parallel line, Kn. Ta. A 1838, and note.
1450. _Sibille_, the Sibyl, the prophetess; not here a proper name, but an epithet of Cassandra. Cf. Æneid. vi. 98.
1464. (Ll. 1457-1512 are not in Boccaccio.) The story of Meleager and the Calydonian boar-hunt is told at length in Ovid, Met. viii. 271, &c.; whence Chaucer doubtless took it; cf. l. 1469 with Met. viii. 282. The 'mayde,' in l. 1473, was Atalanta.
1480. Chaucer seems to be mistaken here. Tydeus, according to one account, was Meleager's brother; and, according to another, his half-brother. He does not tell us to what 'olde bokes' he refers.
1483. _moder_; his mother Althaea; see Ovid, Met. viii. 445.
LATIN LINES: Argument of the 12 books of the Thebaid of Statius. These lines are placed, in the MSS., after l. 1498, interrupting the connection. I therefore insert them after l. 1484, which is certainly their proper place. Ll. 1485-1510 give a loose rendering of them. I subjoin an epitome, in a more intelligible form; but suppress many details not mentioned in Chaucer.
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