'Donec eris felix, multos numerabis amicos,
Tempora si fuerint nubila, solus eris.'
Chaucer has the same thought again in his Tale of Melibeus (p. 227, B. 2749)—'and if thy fortune change, that thou wexe povre, farewel freendshipe and felaweshipe!' See also note to B. 3436.
123. as in this cas, as relates to this condition or lot in life. In Chaucer, cas often means chance, hap.
124. ambes as, double aces, two aces, in throwing dice. Ambes is Old French for both, from Lat. ambo. The line in the Monkes Tale—'Thy sys fortune hath turned into as' (B. 3851)—helps us out here in some measure, as it proves that a six was reckoned as a good throw, but an ace as a bad one. So in Shakespeare, Mids. Nt. Dream, v. 1. 314, we find less than an ace explained as equivalent to nothing. In the next line, sis cink means a six and a five, which was often a winning throw. The allusion is probably, however, not to the mere attempt as to which of two players could throw the highest, but to the particular game called hazard, in which the word chance (here used) has a special sense. There is a good description of it in the Supplemental volume to the English Cyclopaedia, div. Arts and Sciences. The whole description has to be read, but it may suffice to say here that, when the caster is going to throw, he calls a main, or names one of the numbers five, six, seven, eight, or nine; most often, he calls seven. If he then throws either seven or eleven (Chaucer's sis cink), he wins; if he throws aces (Chaucer's ambes as) or deuce-ace (two and one), or double sixes, he loses. If he throws some other number, that number is called the caster's chance, and he goes on playing till either the main or the chance turns up. In the first case he loses, in the second, he wins. If he calls some other number, the winning and losing throws are somewhat varied; but in all cases, the double ace is a losing throw.
Similarly, in The Pardoneres Tale, where hazard is mentioned by name (C. 591), we find, at l. 653—'Seven is my chaunce, and thyn is cinq and treye,' i. e. eight.
In Lydgate's Order of Fools, printed in Queen Elizabeth's Academy, ed. Furnivall, p. 81, one fool is described—
'Whos chaunce gothe nether yn synke or syse;
With ambes ase encressithe hys dispence.'