75. The modern phrase “sixes and sevens,” means “in confusion:” but here the idea of gaming perhaps suits the sense better — “set the world upon a cast of the dice.”
76. The controversy between those who maintained the doctrine of predestination and those who held that of free-will raged with no less animation at Chaucer’s day, and before it, than it has done in the subsequent five centuries; the Dominicans upholding the sterner creed, the Franciscans taking the other side. Chaucer has more briefly, and with the same care not to commit himself, referred to the discussion in The Nun’s Priest’s Tale.
77. That have their top full high and smooth y-shore: that are eminent among the clergy, who wear the tonsure.
78. Athamante: Athamas, son of Aeolus; who, seized with madness, under the wrath of Juno for his neglect of his wife Nephele, slew his son Learchus.
79. Simois: one of the rivers of the Troad, flowing into the Xanthus.
80. Troilus was the son of Priam and Hecuba.
81. The son of Tydeus: Diomedes; far oftener called Tydides, after his father Tydeus, king of Argos.
82. Couthe more than the creed: knew more than the mere elements (of the science of Love).
83. Arache: wrench away, unroot (French, “arracher”); the opposite of “enrace,” to root in, implant.
84. It will be remembered that, at the beginning of the first book, Cressida is introduced to us as a widow.