Certent soluere machinam. Hic sancto populos quoque
Iunctos foedere continet: Hic et coniugii sacrum
Castis nectit amoribus: Hic fidis etiam sua
Dictat iura sodalibus. O felix hominum genus,
Si uestros animos Amor Quo caelum regitur, regat!'
[1764]. halt to-hepe, holds together, preserves in concord. Bell and Morris have the corrupt reading to kepe. To hepe, to a heap, became the adv. to-hepe, together. It occurs again in Ch. Astrolabe, Part I. § 14, and in Boethius, Bk. iv. Pr. 6. 182. Cf. 'gaderen tresor to-hepe,' Polit. Songs, ed. Wright, p. 325; 'han brought it to-hepe,' P. Ploughman's Crede, l. 727.
[1766]. 'That Love, by means of his power, would be pleased,' &c.
[1779]. In tyme of trewe, in time of truce; as in Boccaccio, Fil. iii. st. 91. Bell wrongly has Out of Troy. Morris alters trewe to trewes; but see Bk. iv. l. 1312.
[1805]. These are four of the seven deadly sins; see Pers. Tale.
[1807]. lady, i. e. Venus, called Dionaea as being daughter of Dione; Æneid. iii. 19. Cf. Homer, Il. v. 370.