[1505]. 'To lose the substance, for the sake of something accidentally representing it;' as when the dog dropped the piece of meat, in his anxiety to get the shadow (or reflected image) of it. As to the famous words substance and accident, see note to Pard. Ta. C 539.
[1525]. go we, let us go; also written gowe, P. Plowm. B. Pr. 226.
[1538-40]. Juno caused Athamas, the husband of Ino, to run mad. As Ovid tells the story, Juno descended into hell, and crossed the Styx, in order to persuade the fury Tisiphone to haunt Athamas. Hence the mention of the Styx was readily suggested. See Ovid, Met. iv. 416-561, esp. l. 434. Styx was not, as Chaucer says, 'the pit of hell,' but a river that flowed through it.
[1544]. Satiry and Fauny, Satyri and Fauni, Satyrs and Fauns. Chaucer was probably thinking of Ovid, Met. vi. 392-4, where the Fauni, Satyri, and Nymphae are described as 'ruricolae, siluarum numina.' For halve goddes, we now say demigods.
[1548]. Simois, a river of Troas; Æneid. i. 100.
[1560]. laye, would lie; subj. The e is elided.
[1562]. take, take place, be made. Thynne has be take, but be clogs the line, and is not in the MSS.
[1584]. 'Vincit qui patitur;' see Frank. Ta. F 773.
[1585]. 'He who will have what he wants must give up what he likes.' Such seems to be the sense intended. Leef means 'dear.' One of Heywood's proverbs is—'Nought lay down, nought take up;' and very similar to this is—'Nothing venture, nothing have.' For the second leef, MS. H. has lyfe, a reading adopted by Bell and Morris. This takes all point out of the saying, and does not seem applicable to the case. Ll. 1587 and 1588 repeat the saying in another form, and confirm the reading in the text. Cf. Boeth. Bk. ii. Pr. 4. 98.
[1591, 2]. Lucina, i. e. Diana, or the moon; cf. Kn. Ta. A 2085. 'Before the moon pass out of the sign of Aries beyond that of Leo.' In order to this, the moon would have to pass wholly through Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, and Leo, thus traversing a distance represented by about 4 signs, or a third part of the whole zodiac: this would take up about the third part of 28 days, or more than 9 days. This brings us, as Criseyde says, to the 10th day (l. 1595). Such a method of counting is natural enough to those that watch the moon's course; and lovers are generally credited with taking a special interest in that luminary; cf. l. 1608. In the sequel, a good deal turns upon this 'tenth day.' Cf. ll. 1320, 1328, 1685; V. 239, 642, 681, 1103, 1206.