Chaucer's Works, Volume 2 — Boethius and Troilus

by Geoffrey Chaucer

[588]. Cf. the phrase 'a nine days' wonder.' Lat. nouendiale sacrum; Livy, i. 31.

[600]. 'Audentes Fortuna iuuat;' Æneid. x. 284; 'Fortes Fortuna adiuuat'; Terence, Phormio, i. 4. 26.

[602]. 'Unhardy is unsely;' Reves Ta. A 4210.

[603]. For litel, MS. H. and Thynne have lite. It makes no difference, either to the sense or the scansion.

[607]. for ferd, for fear (H2. for drede; Thynne, for feare). Properly for ferde, as in Ho. Fame, 950; but often shortened to for ferd. Ferde or ferd is tolerably common as a sb., but some scribes hardly understood it. Hence MSS. Cl. and H. have of-fered, i.e. greatly frightened.

[618]. Cf. Kn. Ta. A 1163-8; and the notes.

[622]. 'Boldly stake the world on casts of the dice.' Cf. Cant. Tales, B 125, C 653, and the notes.

[627]. Nearly repeated in Kn. Tale, A 1010.

[630]. 'The devil help him that cares about it.'

[659-61]. From Boccaccio, Fil. iv. st. 78; cf. Æneid. iv. 188.