v. 98. The false accuser.] Potiphar’s wife.
CANTO XXXI.
v. 1. The very tongue.] Vulnus in Herculeo quae quondam fecerat hoste Vulneris auxilium Pellas hasta fuit. Ovid, Rem. Amor. 47. The same allusion was made by Bernard de Ventadour, a Provencal poet in the middle of the twelfth century: and Millot observes, that it was a singular instance of erudition in a Troubadour. But it is not impossible, as Warton remarks, (Hist. of Engl. Poetry, vol. ii. sec. x. p 215.) but that he might have been indebted for it to some of the early romances.
In Chaucer’s Squier’s Tale, a sword of similar quality is
introduced:
And other folk have wondred on the sweard,
That could so piercen through every thing;
And fell in speech of Telephus the king,
And of Achillcs for his queint spere,
For he couth with it both heale and dere.
So Shakspeare, Henry VI. p. ii. a. 5. s. 1.
Whose smile and frown like to Achilles’ spear