quod fremit, exigua quum summum stringitur aura'; 133.
[869-82]. Fourteen lines where Ovid has eight. Chaucer has greatly improved l. 882, where Ovid makes Thisbe ask Pyramus to lift up his head:—'uultusque attolle iacentes'; 144.
[887]. This line is original. Bost, noise, outcry; such is the original sense of the word now spelt boast, which see in the New E. Dict. Cf. 'Now ariseth cry and boost'; King Alisaunder, 5290; and see P. Plowman, C. xvii. 89. Whitaker, writing in 1813, remarks that boost, in the sense of noise, is 'a provincial word still familiar in the Midland counties.'
'Persequar extinctum; letique miserrima dicar
caussa comesque tui'; 151.
[905-12]. Admirably substituted for Thisbe's address to the mulberry-tree, requesting it to keep its berries always black thenceforth.
'Dixit; et aptato pectus mucrone sub imum
incubuit ferro, quod adhuc a caede tepebat'; 162.