Chaucer's Works, Volume 3 — The House of Fame; The Legend of Good Women; The Treatise on the Astrolabe; The Sources of the Canterbury Tales

by Geoffrey Chaucer

[978-82]. Translated from Æn. i. 321-4.

[982]. Y-tukked up, with robe tucked up; 'Succinctam.' This settles the meaning of tukked in Ch. Prol. 621.

[983-93]. Shortened from Æn. i. 325-340.

[986]. 'Phoebus' sister'; Vergil has 'Phoebi soror'; 329.

[994-1001]. Alluding to Æn. i. 341-410.

[997]. Hit nere but, it would only be; nere = ne were.

[998]. Al and som, the whole matter; wholly and in particulars.

[1005]. Sitheo, so in all the copies. Nothing is commoner than a confusion between c and t in old MSS.; hence Sitheo is for Sichco, i.e. Sichaeus. Sichaeus (Æn. i. 343) is Vergil's name for Acerbas, a wealthy Tyrian priest, who married Elissa (Vergil's Dido) sister of Pygmalion. Pygmalion murdered Acerbas, hoping to appropriate his treasure; but Elissa fled from Tyre, taking the treasure with her, and founded Carthage. Dante has the form Sicheo; Inf. v. 62.

[1010]. Fredom, liberality; the old sense of free being 'liberal.' Of here means 'for'; in l. [1012] it means 'by.'

[1016]. Maister-temple, chief temple; cf. maistre-strete, chief street (Kn. Ta., A 2902), and maistre-tour, chief tower (Squi. Tale, F 226). It was the temple of Juno; Æn. i. 446.