[1116]. 'Fama tenet, summaque domum sibi legit in arce'; Ovid, Met. xii. 43. Cf. Dante, Purg. iii. 46-48; also Ovid, Met. ii. 1-5.
[1131]. 'And swoor hir ooth by Seint Thomas of Kent'; C. T., A 3291. It alludes to the celebrated shrine of Beket at Canterbury.
[1136]. Half, side; al the half, all the side of the hill which he was ascending, which we find was the south side (l. 1152).
[1152]. This suggests that Chaucer, in his travels, had observed a snow-clad mountain; the snow lies much lower on the north side than on the south side; see ll. 1160 (which means that it, i.e. the writing, was preserved by the shade of a castle), 1163, 1164.
[1159]. What hit made, what caused it, what was the cause of it.
[1167-80]. This passage somewhat resembles one in Dante, Par. i. 4-12.
[1177]. Craft, art; cast, plan. Craft, in the MSS., has slipt into l. 1178.
[1183]. Gyle, Giles; St. Ægidius. His day is Sept. 1; see note to Can. Yem. Tale, G 1185, where the phrase by seint Gyle recurs.
[1189]. Babewinnes is certainly meant; it is the pl. of babewin (O. Fr. babuin, Low Lat. babewynus, F. babouin), now spelt baboon. It was particularly used of a grotesque figure employed in architectural decoration, as in Early Eng. Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, B. 1411, where the pl. form is spelt baboynes, and in Lydgate, Chron. Troy, II. xi; both passages are given in Murray's Dict., s.v. Baboon. 'Babewyn, or babewen, detippus, ipos, figmentum, chimera'; Prompt. Parv. 'Babwyne, beest, baboyn'; Palsgrave. In Shak. Macb. iv. 1. 37—'Coole it with a báboones blood'—the accent on the a is preserved. The other spellings are inferior or false.
[1192]. Falle, pres. pl., fall; (or perhaps fallen, the past participle).