Entre les autres l'une
Qui, tout aussi com li solaus la lune
Veint de clarté,
Avait-elle les autres sormonté
De pris, d'onneur, de grace, de biauté;' &c.
Fontaine Amoureuse (in Trial Forewords, p. 47).
These are, no doubt, the lines to which Tyrwhitt refers in his remarks on the present passage in a note to the last paragraph of the Persones Tale. Observe also how closely the fifth line of the latter passage answers to l. 812.
823. Is, which is; as usual. I propose this reading. That of the MSS. is very bad, viz. 'Than any other planete in heven.'
824. 'The seven stars' generally mean the planets; but, as the sun and moon and planets have just been mentioned, the reference may be to the well-known seven stars in Ursa Major commonly called Charles's Wain. In later English, the seven stars sometimes mean the Pleiades; see Pleiade in Cotgrave's French Dictionary, and G. Douglas, ed. Small, i. 69. 23, iii. 147. 15. The phrase is, in fact, ambiguous; see note to P. Plowman, C. xviii. 98.
831. Referring to Christ and His twelve apostles.