3446. Boccaccio says (de Mul. Clar.)—'Dicunt autem hanc a pueritia sua spretis omnino muliebribus officiis, cum iam corpusculum eduxisset in robur, syluas & nemora incoluisse plurimum, & accinctam pharetra, ceruis caprisque cursu atque sagittis fuisse infestam. Inde cum in acriores deuenisset uires, ursus amplecti ausam, pardos, leonesque insequi, obuios expectare, capere & occidere, ac in praedam trahere.' This accounts for the word office, and may shew how closely Chaucer has followed his original.
3496. lafte not, forbore not; see A. 492.
3497. She was acquainted with Egyptian literature, and studied Greek under the philosopher Longinus, author of a celebrated treatise on 'The Sublime.'
3502. housbonde. Her husband was Odenathus, or Odenatus, the ruler of Palmyra, upon whom the emperor Gallienus had bestowed the title of Augustus. He was murdered by some of his relations, and some have even insinuated that Zenobia consented to the crime. Most scribes spell the name Onedake, by metathesis for Odenake (Odenate), like the spelling Adriane for Ariadne.
3507. doon hem flee, cause them (her and her husband) to flee.
3510. Sapor I. reigned over Persia A.D. 240-273. He defeated the emperor Valerian, whom he kept in captivity for the rest of his life. After conquering Syria and taking Caesarea, he was defeated by Odenatus and Zenobia, who founded a new empire at Palmyra. See Gibbon, Decline, &c., chap. x.
3511. proces, succession of events. fil, fell, befell.
3512. title, pronounced nearly as title in French, the e being elided before had.
3515. Petrark. Tyrwhitt suggests that perhaps Boccaccio's book had fallen into Chaucer's hands under the name of Petrarch. We may, however, suppose that Chaucer had read the account in a borrowed book, and did not certainly know whether Petrarch or Boccaccio was the author. Instances of similar mistakes are common enough in Early English. Modern readers are apt to forget that, in the olden times, much information had to be carried in the memory, and there was seldom much facility for verification or for a second perusal of a story.
3519. cruelly. The Harl. MS. has the poor reading trewely, miswritten for crewely.