'Tunc quoque, iam moriens, ne non procumbat honeste,
respicit. Haec etiam cura cadentis erat.'
[1861]. Chaucer here tells the tale more succinctly. Ll. 1864-5 answer to ll. 849, 850 in Ovid; l. 1866 answers to l. 847 and l. 1869 to l. 852. The rest is, practically, all Chaucer's own.
[1871]. This canonisation of Lucretia is strikingly medieval. It was evidently suggested by the fact that Ovid gives her story under a particular date, so that she seemed to have her own day, like a saint. Cf. note to l. 1680.
[1880]. Probably the syllables That in Is- form the first foot of the line. Otherwise, Israel is dissyllabic.
[1881]. The reference must be to the Syro-phenician woman; Matt. xv. 28; Mark, vii. 29. But it may be feared that Chaucer was really thinking of the centurion; Matt. viii. 10; Luke, vii. 9. Read he ne as he n'.
[1883, 4]. As of, in the case of. Alday, always; F. toujours. 'Let whoever wishes (it) test them.'
VI. THE LEGEND OF ARIADNE.
For a remark upon the title, see note to l. 1966.
It is difficult to say whence Chaucer derived all of this Legend. The beginning is from Ovid, Metam. vii. 456-8, viii. 6-176; the main part of the story is like Plutarch's Life of Theseus, or some similar source; and the conclusion from Ovid's Heroides, epist. x. Further, ll. 2222-4 refer to Met. viii. 176-182. See also Hyginus, Fabulae, capp. xli-xliii; Æneid, vi. 20-30; and cf. Gower, C. A. ii. 302-311.