Part 1

, § 21, 1. 37. Cf. 'beasts' in Rev. iv. 6. The phrase recurs in l. 965 below; see also ll. 1003-7.

934. _Goon_, march along, walk on, like the Ram or Bull; _flee_, fly like the Eagle or Swan. He alludes to the apparent revolution of the heavens round the earth.

936. _Galaxye_, galaxy, or milky way, formed by streaks of closely crowded stars; already mentioned in the Parl. of Foules, 56; see note to the same, l. 50. Cary, in a note to Dante, Parad. xxv. 18, says that Dante, in the Convito, p. 74, speaks of _la galassia_--'the galaxy, that is, the white circle which the common people call the way of St. James'; on which Biscioni remarks:--'The common people formerly considered the milky way as a sign by night to pilgrims, who were going to St. James of Galicia; and this perhaps arose from the resemblance of the word _galaxy_ to _Galicia_; [which may be doubted]. I have often,' he adds, 'heard women and peasants call it the Roman road, _la strada di Roma_.'

The fact is simply, that the Milky Way looks like a sort of road or street; hence the Lat. name _uia lactea_, as in Ovid, Metam. i. 168. Hence also the Roman peasants called it _strada di Roma_; the pilgrims to Spain called it _the road to Santiago_ (Quarterly Review, Oct. 1873, p. 464); and the English called it the _Walsingham way_, owing to this being a route much frequented by pilgrims, or else _Watling-street_, which was a famous old road, and probably ran (not as usually said, from Kent to Cardigan Bay, but) from Kent to the Frith of Forth; see Annals of England, p. 6. The name of _Vatlant Streit_ (Watling Street) is given to the milky way in the Complaint of Scotland, ed. Murray, p. 58; and G. Douglas calls it _Watling Streit_ in his translation of Vergil, Æn. iii. 516, though there is no mention of it in the original; see Small's edition of the Works of G. Douglas, vol. ii. p. 151. And again, it is called _Wadlyng Strete_ in Henrysoun's Traite of Orpheus; see Jamieson's Scottish Dictionary. So also: 'Galaxia, that is Watling-Strete'; Batman on Bartholome, lib. viii. c. 33. See my note to P. Plowman, C. i. 52; Florence of Worcester, _sub anno_ 1013; Laws of Edward the Confessor, cap. 12; Towneley Myst., p. 308; Cutts, Scenes, &c. of the Middle Ages, p. 178; Grimm's Mythology, tr. by Stallybras, i. 357.

942. Gower also relates this story (Conf. Amant. ii. 34), calling the sun _Phebus_, and his son _Pheton_, and using _carte_ in the sense of 'chariot,' as Chaucer does. Both copy from Ovid, Metam. ii. 32-328.

944. _Cart-hors_, chariot-horses (plural). There were four horses, named Pyroeïs, Eous, Aethon, and Phlegon; Met. ii. 153. Hence _gonne_ and _beren_ are in the plural form; cf. l. 952.

948. _Scorpioun_, the well-known zodiacal constellation and sign; called _Scorpius_ in Ovid, Met. ii. 196.

972. _Boece_, Boethius. He refers to the passage which he himself thus translates: 'I have, forsothe, swifte fetheres that surmounten the heighte of the hevene. Whan the swifte thought hath clothed it-self in tho fetheres, it dispyseth the hateful erthes, and surmounteth the roundnesse of the greet ayr; and it seeth the cloudes behinde his bak'; bk. iv. met. 1. Hence, in l. 973, Ten Brink (Studien, p. 186) proposes to read--'That wryteth, Thought may flee so hye.'

981, 2. Imitated from 2 Cor. xii. 2.

985. _Marcian._ Cf. C. T., E 1732 (March. Tale):--

'Hold thou thy pees, thou poete Marcian, That wrytest us that ilke wedding murie Of hir, Philologye, and him, Mercurie.'

Martianus Minneus Felix Capella was a satirist of the fifth century, and wrote the Nuptials of Mercury and Philology, De Nuptiis inter Mercurium et Philologiam, above referred to. It consists of two books, followed by seven books on the Seven Sciences; see Warton's Hist. E. Poetry, ed. 1871, iii. 77. '