Injure. ↩
Completely. ↩
What he asked. ↩
Will he, nill he. ↩
“He must go whistle.” ↩
As is decreed, prepared, for him. ↩
Reply. ↩
Where he pleases. ↩
Neither farther nor nearer. ↩
Contend for. ↩
Promise. ↩
May God as surely have mercy on my soul. ↩
Opinion. ↩
Satisfied. ↩
Kind of. ↩
Especially. ↩
Oftentimes; the Thebans are the rival lovers. ↩
Expenditure. ↩
Was not. ↩
Steps, benches, as in the ancient amphitheatre. ↩
Either the building was sixty paces high; or, more probably, there were sixty of the steps or benches. ↩
Hindred. ↩
Arithmetic. ↩
Painter of figures or portraits. ↩
Caused. ↩
A great amount, heap. ↩
Caused. ↩
Describe. ↩
Sighs. ↩
Lamentings. ↩
Falsehoods. ↩
The flower turnsol, or girasol, which turns with and seems to watch the sun, as a jealous lover his mistress. ↩
The Isle of Venus, Cythera, in the Aegean Sea; now called Cerigo: not, as Chaucer’s form of the word might imply, Mount Cithaeron, in the southwest of Boetia, which was appropriated to other deities than Venus—to Jupiter, to Bacchus, and the Muses. ↩
Pleasantness. ↩
Olden time. ↩
Abased into slavery. It need not be said that Chaucer pays slight heed to chronology in this passage, where the deeds of Turnus, the glory of King Solomon, and the fate of Croesus are made memories of the far past in the time of fabulous Theseus, the Minotaur-slayer. ↩
Divided power or possession; an old law-term, signifying the maintenance of a person in a lawsuit on the condition of receiving part of the property in dispute, if recovered. ↩
Or “guy;” guide, rule. ↩
Snare. ↩
A kind of dulcimer. ↩
Breadth. ↩
Interior, chambers. ↩
That. ↩
Gnarled. ↩
Groaning noise. ↩
Slope. ↩
Such a furious voice. ↩
Crossways and lengthways. ↩
Thick as a tun. ↩
Live coal. ↩
The plunderers that followed armies, and gave to war a horror all their own. ↩
Stable; Anglo-Saxon, scypen; the word “sheppon” still survives in provincial parlance. ↩
Contention, discord. ↩
Creaking, jarring noise. ↩
Hair of the head; the line, perhaps, refers to the deed of Jael. ↩
Madness. ↩
Outcry. ↩
Carrion, corpse. ↩
Slashed, cut. ↩
Not dead of sickness. ↩
The meaning is dubious. We may understand “the dancing ships,” “the ships that hop” on the waves; “steres” being taken as the feminine adjectival termination: or we may, perhaps, read, with one of the manuscripts, “the ships upon the steres”—that is, even as they are being steered, or on the open sea—a more picturesque notion. ↩
Devouring; the Germans use fressen to mean eating by animals, essen by men. ↩
Through the misfortune of war. ↩
Maker of bows. ↩
Stithy, anvil. ↩
That. ↩
Julius Caesar. ↩
Chariot. ↩
Mad. ↩
Puella and Rubeus were two figures in geomancy, representing two constellations—the one signifying Mars retrograde, the other Mars direct. ↩
In reverence, fear. ↩
Or Callisto: daughter of Lycaon, seduced by Jupiter, turned into a bear by Diana, and placed afterwards, with her son, as the Great Bear among the stars. ↩
Polestar. ↩
Farther; for “farre” or “ferre.” ↩
Daphne, daughter of the river-god Peneus, in Thessaly; she was beloved by Apollo, but to avoid his pursuit, she was, at her own prayer, changed into a laurel-tree. ↩
Made. ↩
Devour. ↩
Seated. ↩
Quiver. ↩
As the goddess of Light, or the goddess who brings to light, Diana—as well as Juno—was invoked by women in childbirth: so Horace, Odes III 22, says:—
“Montium custos nemorumque, Virgo,
Quae laborantes utero puellas
Ter vocata audis adimisque leto, Diva triformis.”
In every part: deal corresponds to the German theil, a portion. ↩
Cease speaking. ↩
Little. ↩
Set in array; contest. ↩
Surely; German, sicher; Scotch, sikkar, certain. When Robert Bruce had escaped from England to assume the Scottish crown, he stabbed Comyn before the altar at Dumfries; and, emerging from the church, was asked by his friend Kirkpatrick if he had slain the traitor. “I doubt it,” said Bruce. “Doubt,” cried Kirkpatrick. “I’ll mak sikkar;” and he rushed into the church, and despatched Comyn with repeated thrusts of his dagger. ↩
Believed. ↩
Since. ↩
Never since the world began was there assembled from every
