590. Compare Pers. Tale, I. 793.
591. Hasard, gambling. In the margin of MSS. E. and Hn. is written—'Policratici libro primo; Mendaciorum et periuriarum mater est Alea.' This shews that the line is a quotation from lib. i. [cap. 5] of the Polycraticus of John of Salisbury, bishop of Chartres, who died in 1180. See some account of this work in Prof. Morley's Eng. Writers, iii. 180. 'In the first book, John treats of temptations and duties and of vanities, such as hunting, dice, music, mimes and minstrelsy, magic and soothsaying, prognostication by dreams and astrology.' See also the account of gaming, considered as a branch of Avarice in the Ayenbyte of Inwyt, ed. Morris, pp. 45, 46.
595. Cf. 'Nonne satis improbata est cuiusque artis exercitatio, qua quanto quisque doctior, tanto nequior? Aleator quidem omnis hic est.'—Joh. Sarisb. Polycrat. i. 5.
603. Stilbon. It should rather be Chilon. Tyrwhitt remarks—'John of Salisbury, from whom our author probably took this story and the following, calls him Chilon; Polycrat. lib. i. c. 5. "Chilon Lacedaemonius, iungendae societatis causa missus Corinthum, duces et seniores populi ludentes inuenit in alea. Infecto itaque negotio reuersus est [dicens se nolle gloriam Spartanorum, quorum uirtus constructo Byzantio clarescebat, hac maculare infamia, ut dicerentur cum aleatoribus contraxisse societatem]." Accordingly, in ver. 12539 [l. 605], MS. C. 1 [i. e. MS. Camb. Univ. Lib. Dd. 4. 24] reads very rightly Lacedomye instead of Calidone, the common reading [of the old editions]. Our author has used before Lacedomie for Lacedaemon, v. 11692 [Frank. Tale, F. 1380].'
In the Petw. MS., the name Stilbon is explained as meaning Mercurius. So, in Liddell and Scott's Gk. Lexicon, we have 'στιλβων, -οντος, ὁ the planet Mercury, Arist. Mund. 2. 9; cf. Cic. Nat. D. 2. 20.' The original sense of the word was 'shining,' from the verb στίλβειν, to glitter.
Chaucer has given the wrong name. He was familiar with the name Stilbon (for Mercury), as it occurs (1) in the Epistola Valerii ad Rufinum, c. 27; (2) in the work of Martianus referred to in E. 1732; and (3) in the Anticlaudian, Distinctio quarta, c. 6. Cf. D. 671; E. 1732; Ho. Fame, 986; Notes and Queries, 8th S. iv. 175.
608. The first foot has but one syllable, viz. Pley. atte, for at the. Tyrwhitt oddly remarks here, that 'atte has frequently been corrupted into at the,' viz. in the old editions. Of course atte is rather, etymologically, a corruption of at the; Tyrwhitt probably means that the editors might as well have let the form atte stand. If so, he is quite right; for, though etymologically a corruption, it was a recognised form in the fourteenth century.
621. This story immediately follows the one quoted from John of Salisbury in the note to l. 603. After 'societatem,' he proceeds:—'Regi quoque Demetrio, in opprobrium puerilis leuitatis, tali aurei a rege Parthorum dati sunt.' What Demetrius this was, we are not told; perhaps it may have been Demetrius Nicator, king of Syria, who was defeated and taken prisoner by the Parthians 138 B. C., and detained in captivity by them for ten years. This, however, is but a guess. Compare the story told of our own king, in Shakespeare's Henry V, Act i. sc. 2.
628. To dryve the day awey, to pass the time. The same phrase occurs in Piers Plowman, B. prol. 224, where it is said of the labourers who tilled the soil that they 'dryuen forth the longe day with Dieu vous saue, Dame emme,' i. e. amuse themselves with singing idle songs.