[504-7]. The omission of these lines in F. and B. is simply due to the scribe slipping from bright in l. 503 to brighte in l. 507. Cf. note to l. 280.
BOOK II.
[511]. Listeth, pleases, is pleased; the alteration (in MS. F.) to listeneth is clearly wrong, and due to confusion with herkneth above. (I do not think listeth is the imp. pl. here.)
[514]. Isaye, Isaiah; actually altered, in various editions, to I saye, as if it meant 'I say.' The reference is to 'the vision of Isaiah'; Isa. i. 1; vi. 1. Scipioun, Scipio; see note to Parl. Foules, 31, and cf. Book of the Duch. 284.
[515]. Nabugodonosor, Nebuchadnezzar. The same spelling occurs in the Monkes Tale (Group B, 3335), and is a mere variant of the form Nabuchodonosor in the Vulgate version, Dan. i-iv. Gower has the same spelling; Conf. Amant. bk. i., near the end.
[516]. Pharo; spelt Pharao in the Vulgate, Gen. xli. 1-7. See Book of the Duchesse, 280-3.
Turnus; alluding to his vision of Iris, the messenger of Juno; Æneid ix. 6. Elcanor; this name somewhat resembles Elkanah (in the Vulgate, Elcana), 1 Sam. i. 1; but I do not know where to find any account of his vision, nor do I at all understand who is meant. The name Alcanor occurs in Vergil, but does not help us.
[518]. Cipris, Venus, goddess of Cyprus; called Cipryde in Parl. Foules, 277. Dante has Ciprigna; Par. viii. 2.
[519]. Favour, favourer, helper, aid; not used in the ordinary sense of Lat. fauor, but as if it were formed from O.F. faver, Lat. fauere, to be favourable to. Godefroy gives an example of the O.F. verb faver in this sense.
[521]. Parnaso; the spelling is imitated from the Ital. Parnaso, i.e. Parnassus, in Dante, Par. i. 16. So also Elicon is Dante's Elicona, i.e. Helicon, Purg. xxix. 40. But the passage in Dante which Chaucer here especially imitates is that in Inf. ii. 7-9:—