381. corone, nuptial garland; Lat. 'corona.' See Brand's Pop. Antiq. ed. Ellis, ii. 123.
388. snow-whyt; Lat. 'niueo.' Perhaps Spenser took a hint from this; F. Q. i. 1. 4. In the Leg. of Good Women, l. 1198, Chaucer calls a horse paper-whyt.
393. Repeated, slightly altered, from l. 341.
409. thewes, mental qualities. So also in E. 1542; Gower, Conf. Amant. lib. vii. sect. 1 (ed. Pauli, iii. 85); Spenser, F. Q. i. 9. 3; i. 10. 4; ii. 1. 33, &c. 'The common signification of the word thews in our old writers, is manners, or qualities of mind and disposition.... By thews Shakespeare means unquestionably brawn, nerves, muscular vigour (Jul. Caes. i. 3; 2 Hen. IV, iii. 2; Hamlet, i. 3). And to this sense, and this only, the word has now settled down; the other sense, which was formerly so familiar in our literature, is quite gone out and forgotten. [With respect to theawe = sinew, in Layamon, l. 6361] Sir F. Madden remarks (iii. 471):—"This is the only instance in the poem of the word being applied to bodily qualities, nor has any other passage of an earlier date than the sixteenth century been found in which it is so used." It may be conjectured that it had only been a provincial word in this sense, till Shakespeare adopted it'; Craik's English of Shakespeare; note on Jul. Caesar, i. 3. 81.
412. embrace, hold fast; 'omnium animos nexu sibi magni amoris astrinxerat.' Compare Tennyson's Lord of Burleigh with ll. 394-413.
413. Nearly identical with Troil. i. 1078.
421. royally; alluding to the royal virtues of Griseldis.
429. Not only the context, but the Latin text, justifies the reading homlinesse. Feet is fact, i. e. act. The Latin is—'Neque uero solers sponsa muliebria tantum haec domestica, sed, ubi res posceret, publica etiam obibat officia.' Lines 432-434 are Chaucer's own.
444. 'Although it would have been liefer to her to have borne a male child'; i. e. she would rather, &c. The Latin has—'quamuis filium maluisset.'
449-462. Expanded from—'Cepit (ut fit) interim Gualtherum, cum iam ablactata esset infantula (mirabilis quaedam quàm laudabilis, [aliter, an mirabile quidem magis quam laudabile,] doctiores iudicent) cupiditas satis expertam charae fidem coniugis experiendi altius [aliter, ulterius], et iterum atque iterum retentandi.'