Were passed of the month of Juil, befill,' &c.
And it is the fact, that, with the reading of, we also should have to accept the reading Juin. But we must set against this the fact that no MS. (at least of any authority) reads either Juin or of! Tyrwhitt has made this alteration silently, and Wright and Bell have silently adopted it. Morris also makes the alteration, but prints of in italics to shew that it is not the reading of his MS. These silent conjectural emendations are very troublesome, as they are copied by one editor after another without any enquiry as to the sense of the context.
The Harl. MS., supposed to be followed by Wright, actually has a stop before 'er'; the reading being—'were passid . er the moneth of Iuyl bifille.' The reading bifille (might befal) is probably due to taking Iuyl as the nominative to this verb, whereas bifil is meant to be impersonal, with the sense—'it happened.'
2138-2148. This passage is almost entirely composed of fragments of Solomon's Song. We may compare ll. 2138-2140 with ch. ii. vv. 10, 11, 12; l. 2141 with ch. i. v. 15; l. 2142 with ch. iv. v. 10; l. 2143 with ch. iv. vv. 12, 16; ll. 2144, 2145 with ch. iv. vv. 9, 10; l. 2146 with ch. iv. v. 7.
2194. The first foot is defective (in all seven MSS.). To fill out the line, Tyrwhitt inserts owen before lord; a 'correction' which Wright and Bell silently adopt. There is no hint as to the source of this owen. Thynne's edition (as frequently elsewhere) agrees with the seven MSS.
2200. This drowning in a sack is quite oriental. Cf. 'There yawns the sack, and yonder rolls the sea'; Byron, The Corsair, iii. 8.
2202. wenche. For this word, cf. H. 220, and Ho. of Fame, 206.
2222. in Geminis, in the sign of Gemini. We are also told that he was near his 'declination of Cancer,' i. e. his maximum northern declination, which he obtains when entering Cancer, at the summer solstice. In Chaucer's time, the sun entered Cancer about June 12, and therefore just before that day was in Gemini. Taking this statement in conjunction with the 'eight days' of the summer season mentioned in l. 2132, we may feel sure that the date meant is June 8, just four days before the sun left Gemini, and attained his maximum declination. See my edition of Chaucer's Astrolabe (E. E. T. S.), p. lv., which requires partial correction, as shewn in the note to l. 2132 above.
2224. The 'exaltation' of a planet was the sign in which it was (quite arbitrarily) supposed to exercise its greatest power. The exaltation of Jupiter was Cancer, as Chaucer correctly says.
2227. This notion of identifying Pluto with the king of Fairyland occurs again in the Romance of Sir Orpheo; see Ritson, Met. Rom. ii. 259. Sir Orpheo is the Greek Orpheus, who redeemed Eurydice from 'the kyng of fayrè,' i. e. from Pluto. See the remarks on this poem in Warton, Hist. E. Poet. ed. 1871, i. 31, 32.