According to Chaucer, then, or rather, according to Pope Innocent III., (of all people), the cooks who toil to satisfy man's appetite change the nature of the things cooked so effectually as to confound substance with accident. Translated into plain language, it means that those who partook of the meats so prepared, could not, by means of their taste and smell, form any precise idea as to what they were eating. The art is not lost. Cf. Troil. iv. 1505.
547. haunteth, practises, indulges in; cf. l. 464. In the margin of MSS. E. and Hn. is written—'Qui autem in deliciis est, viuens mortuus est.' This is a quotation from the Vulgate version of 1 Tim. v. 6, but with Qui for quae, and mortuus for mortua.
549. In the margin of MSS. E. and Hn. is written—'Luxuriosa res vinum, et contumeliosa ebrietas.' The Vulgate version of Prov. xx. 1
agrees with this nearly, but has tumultuosa for contumeliosa. This is of course the text to which Chaucer refers. And see note to the parallel passage at B. 771-7. The variant contumeliosa occurs in the text as quoted by St. Jerome, Contra Jovinianum, lib. ii. 10 (Köppel).
554. He means that the drunkard's stertorous breathing seems to repeat the sound of the word Sampsoún. The word was probably chosen for the sake of its nasal sounds, to imitate a sort of grunt. Perhaps we should here pronounce the m and n as in French, but with exaggerated emphasis. So also in l. 572.
555. See note to the Monkes Tale, B. 3245. In Judges, xiii. 4, 7, the command to drink no wine is addressed, not to Samson, but to his mother. Of Samson himself it is said that he was 'a Nazarite,' which implies the same thing; see Numbers, vi. 3, 5.
558. sepulture, burial; see Pers. Tale, I. 822.
561. In Chaucer's Tale of Melibeus (B. 2383) we find—'Thou shalt also eschewe the conseiling of folk that been dronkelewe; for they ne can no conseil hyde; for Salomon seith, Ther is no privetee ther-as regneth dronkenesse'; and see B. 776. The allusion is to Prov. xxxi. 4: 'Noli regibus, O Lamuel, noli regibus dare uinum; quia nullum secretum est ubi regnat ebrietas.' This last clause is quite different from that in our own version; which furnishes, perhaps, a reason why the allusion here intended has not been perceived by previous editors.
563. namely, especially. Tyrwhitt's note is as follows: 'According to the geographers, Lepe was not far from Cadiz. This wine, of whatever sort it may have been, was probably much stronger than the Gascon wines, usually drunk in England. La Rochelle and Bordeaux (l. 571), the two chief ports of Gascony, were both, in Chaucer's time, part of the English dominions.
'Spanish wines might also be more alluring upon account of their great rarity. Among the Orders of the Royal Household, in 1604, is the following (MS. Harl. 293, fol. 162): "And whereas, in tymes past, Spanish wines, called Sacke, were little or noe whit used in our courte, and that in later years, though not of ordinary allowance, it was thought convenient that noblemen ... might have a boule or glas, &c. We understanding that it is now used as common drinke ... reduce the allowance to xii. gallons a day for the court,"' &c. Several regulations to be observed by London vintners are mentioned in the Liber Albus, ed. Riley, pp. 614-618. Amongst them is—'Item, that white wine of Gascoigne, of la Rochele, of Spain, or other place, shall not be put in cellars with Rhenish wines.' See also note to l. 565.