Ayenst his brother (!) that called was Arcite,
Y-led in his chare with foure boles whyte,
Upon his bed a wreth of gold ful fyn.'
The term brother must refer to l. 1147 above. See further, as to Lycurgus, in the note to Leg. Good Women, 2423, in vol. iii. p. 344.
2134. 'kempe heres, shaggy, rough hairs. Tyrwhitt and subsequent editors have taken for granted that kempe = kemped, combed (an impossible equation); but kempe is rather the reverse of this, and instead of smoothly combed, means bristly, rough, or shaggy. In an Early English poem it is said of Nebuchadnezzar that
"Holghe (hollow) were his yghen anunder (under) campe hores."
Early Eng. Alliterative Poems, p. 85, l. 1695.
Campe hores = shaggy hairs (about the eyebrows), and corresponds exactly in form and meaning to kempe heres,'—M. See Glossary.
2141. I. e. the nails of the bear were yellow. In Cutts, Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages, p. 345, the bad guess is hazarded that these 'nails' were metal studs. But Chaucer was doubtless thinking of the tiger's skin described in the Thebaid, vi. 722:—
'Tunc genitus Talao uictori tigrin inanem