133.
'Nam fuit haec quondam niveis argentea pennis
Ales, ut aequaret totas sine labe columbas.'
Ovid, Met. ii. 536.
Gower has:—'Wel more white than any swan.'
139. Ovid gives her name, Coronis of Larissa.
148. As indicated by a side-note in Hn., this passage is taken directly from the Liber Aureolus de Nuptiis of Theophrastus, as cited by St. Jerome near the end of the first Book of his treatise against Jovinian. Cf. note to D. 221.
The passage from Theophrastus is:—'Verum quid prodest etiam diligens custodia: cum uxor seruari impudica non possit, pudica non debeat? Infida enim custos est castitatis necessitas: et illa uere pudica dicenda est, cui licuit peccare si uoluit. Pulchra cito adamatur, foeda facile concupiscit. Difficile custoditur, quod plures amant.'—Hieron. Opus Epistolarum (Basil. 1534); ii. 51.
161. Cf. Horace, Epist. I. x. 24—'Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret,' &c. And this is the very passage which Chaucer had
in view, as it is quoted and commented on in Le Roman de la Rose, 14221-8, &c. Jean de Meun adds the comment:—