And Treach'ry, striving to conceal the brand.'
2020. for al, notwithstanding. Cf. Piers the Plowman, B. xix. 274.
2021. infortune of Marte. 'Tyrwhitt thinks that Chaucer might intend to be satirical in these lines; but the introduction of such apparently undignified incidents arose from the confusion already mentioned of the god of war with the planet to which his name was given, and the influence of which was supposed to produce all the disasters here mentioned. The following extract from the Compost of Ptolemeus gives some of the supposed effects of Mars:—"Under Mars is borne theves and robbers that kepe hye wayes, and do hurte to true men, and nyght-walkers, and quarell-pykers, bosters, mockers, and skoffers, and these men of Mars causeth warre and murther, and batayle; they wyll be gladly smythes or workers of yron, lyght-fyngred, and lyers, gret swerers of othes in vengeable wyse, and a great surmyler and crafty. He is red and angry, with blacke heer, and lytell iyen; he shall be a great walker, and a maker of swordes and knyves, and a sheder of mannes blode, and a fornycatour, and a speker of rybawdry ... and good to be a barboure and a blode-letter, and to drawe tethe, and is peryllous of his handes." The following extract is from an old astrological book of the sixteenth century:—"Mars denoteth men with red faces and the skinne redde, the face round, the eyes yellow, horrible to behold, furious men, cruell, desperate, proude, sedicious, souldiers, captaines, smythes, colliers, bakers, alcumistes, armourers, furnishers, butchers, chirurgions, barbers, sargiants, and hangmen, according as they shal be well or evill disposed."'—Wright. So also in Cornelius Agrippa, De Occulta Philosophia, lib. i. c. 22.
Chaucer has 'cruel Mars' in The Man of Lawes Tale, B. 301; and cf. note to A. 1087.
2022. From Statius, Theb. vii. 58:—
'Et uacui currus, protritaque curribus ora.'
2029. For the story of Damocles, see Cicero, Tuscul. 5. 61; cf. Horace, Od. iii. 1. 17. And see Chaucer's tr. of Boethius, bk. iii. pr. 5. 17. Most likely Chaucer got it from Boethius or from the Gesta Romanorum, cap. 143, since the name of Damocles is omitted.
2037. sterres (Harl.) Elles. &c. have certres (sertres); but this strange reading can hardly be other than a mistake for sterres, which is proved to be the right word by the parallel passage in The Man of Lawes Tale, B. 194-6.
2041. In the note to l. 1955, I have quoted part of cap. v. of a work by Albricus. In cap. iii. (De Marte) of the same, we have a description of Mars, which should be compared. I quote all that is material. 'Erat enim eius figura tanquam unius hominis furibundi, in curru sedens, armatus lorica, et caeteris armis offensiuis et defensiuis.... Ante illum uero lupus ouem portans pingebatur, quia illud scilicet animal ab antiquis gentibus ipsi Marti specialiter consecratum est. Iste enim Mauors est, id est mares uorans, eo quod bellorum deus a gentibus dictus est.' Chaucer seems to have taken the notion of the wolf devouring a man from this singular etymology of Mauors.
In cap. vii. (De Diana) of the same, there is a description of 'Diana, quae et Luna, Proserpina, Hecate nuncupatur.' Cf. l. 2313 below.