2411. Which, for ‘that’ in consecutive sense, answering to ‘thilke,’ see note on l. 492. In this case it does not even stand as the subject of the verb, for we have ‘he overthroweth.’
2421. tok. This is second person singular, and we might rather expect ‘toke,’ which in fact is the reading of some good copies: cp. ii. 234, iii. 2629, viii. 2076.
2443. daunger. See note on Balades, xii. 8. The name represents the influences which are unfavourable to the lover’s suit, and chiefly the feelings in the lady’s own mind which tend towards prudence or prompt her to disdain. The personification in the Roman de la Rose is well known. There Danger is the chief guardian of the rose-bush, and has for his helpers Malebouche, who spreads unfavourable reports of the lover, with Honte and Paour, who represent the feelings in the lady’s mind which lead her to resist his advances: see Roman de la Rose, 2837 ff., Chaucer, Leg. of G. Women, B 160, Troilus, ii. 1376. Danger, however, also stands without personification for scornfulness or reluctance in love, and so the adjective ‘dangereus’ Rom. de la Rose, 479 (Eng. ‘dangerous,’ Cant. Tales, D 1090, ‘Is every knight of his so dangerous?’).
In the Confessio Amantis the principal passages relating to Danger as a person are iii. 1537 ff. and v. 6613 ff. Such expressions also frequently occur as ‘hire daunger,’ iv. 2813; ‘thi Daunger,’ iv. 3589; ‘make daunger,’ ii. 1110; ‘withoute danger,’ iv. 1149: cp. Chaucer, Troilus, ii. 384.
For the references to Danger in Lydgate see Dr. Schick’s note on Temple of Glas, 156 (E. E. T. S.).
2459 ff. The story of Alboin and Rosemund is related by Paulus Diaconus, Gest. Langob. ii. 28, and after him by many others. This historian declares that he has himself seen the cup made of a skull from which the queen was invited to drink. According to him, Helmichis, the king’s foster-brother and shield-bearer, plotted with Rosemunda against the king and induced her to gain the support of one Peredeus by the device of substituting herself for her waiting-maid. In some versions of the story this Peredeus was omitted. For example, in the Pantheon of Godfrey of Viterbo (xvii), where the story is related first in prose and then in verse, he is only slightly mentioned in the prose account and not at all in the verse, Helmegis being substituted for him in both as the object of the queen’s artifice. It seems probable that Gower followed this author, with whose book we know he was acquainted (viii. 271). The name of the waiting-maid, Glodeside, seems to have been supplied by our author, who took it no doubt from ‘Glodosinda,’ the name of Alboin’s former wife. Helmege the king’s ‘boteler’ is the ‘Helmegis pincerna regis’ of the Pantheon, and some expressions correspond closely, as 2474 (margin), ‘ciphum ex ea gemmis et auro circumligatum ... fabricari constituit,’ with the line ‘Arte scyphum fieri statuens auroque ligari.’
The tale is well told by Gower, but he alters the final catastrophe, so as not to lengthen the story unnecessarily and divert attention from his principal object, which has to do with Alboin’s punishment for boasting and not with the fate of the adulterous pair. He is responsible for most of the details: in the Pantheon the story occupies only sixty lines of Latin verse and is rather meagre in style. Compare, for example, the following with the account given by Gower of the holding of the banquet, the cruel boast of Alboin, and the feelings of the queen (2495-2569),
‘Ipse caput soceri, quem fecerat ense necari,
Arte scyphum fieri statuens auroque ligari,
Vina suae sponsae praecipit inde dari.