3725. l’ille Colcos: cp. Trait. viii. 1, and Conf. Am. v. 3265: so also in Chaucer. Guido delle Colonne is the person mainly responsible for the idea.
3727. Medea la meschine, ‘Medea the maid.’ The word ‘meschine’ means ‘maidservant’ just above and in 5163, but it was also used generally for ‘girl,’ ‘young woman,’ as ‘meschin’ for ‘young man.’ The origin is said to be an Arabic word meaning ‘poor’ (cp. the meaning of ‘mesquin,’ ‘meschino,’ in modern French and Italian), hence ‘feeble,’ ‘delicate.’
3735. Rev. xii. 7, 10: ‘en oel’ stands apparently for ‘ante conspectum Dei.’
3747. The description of the basilisk is perhaps from Solinus, Collect. 27. He had it from Plin. Nat. Hist. viii. 121.
3773. Prov. xiv. 30, ‘putredo ossium invidia.’
3781. Levit. xiii. 46.
3801. Hor. Epist. i. 2. 58, ‘Invidia Siculi non invenere tyranni Maius tormentum.’ Our author did not understand it quite rightly.
3805. Cp. Conf. Am. ii. 20, and Prol. 329. In all these passages the reference is to the fire of Envy as a heat that consumes itself, rather than anything outside itself.
3823. Cp. Conf. Am. ii. 3122 ff.
3831. Conf. Am. ii. 3095 ff., where the saying is attributed to Seneca: cp. Dante, Inf. xiii. 64.