3095. This saying, which is here attributed to Seneca, and which appears also in the Mirour de l’omme in a slightly different form, 3831 ff., may be based really upon the well-known passage of Dante, Inf. xiii. 64.
Latin Verses. vi. 4. Dumque, for ‘Dum,’ as sometimes in the Vox Clamantis.
ethnica flamma: see note on l. 20.
3122 ff. Cp. Mirour, 3819 ff.
3160. See note on i. 232.
3187. The Latin books referred to are the current lives of Saint Silvester, the substance of which is reproduced in the Legenda Aurea. Gower tells the story in considerably better style than we have it there, with amplifications of his own, especially as regards the reflections of Constantine, 3243 ff., and the preaching of Silvester to the Emperor, 3383 ff. There are some variations in detail from the current account which may or may not point to a special source. For example, in the Life of Silvester we are told that the Emperor met the lamenting mothers as he was riding up to the Capitol to take his bath of blood, and in all forms of the legend that I have seen the mountain where Silvester lay in hiding was Soracte (or Saraptis) and not Celion. The name may however have been altered by Gower for metrical reasons, as was sometimes his habit; see note on i. 1407 (end).
3210. of Accidence. ‘Accidentia’ in its medical sense is explained as ‘affectus praeter naturam’: cp. v. 763.
3243 ff. These reflections, continued to l. 3300, are an expanded and improved form of the rather tasteless string of maxims given in the legend, the most pointed of which is that with which our author concludes, ‘Omnium se esse dominum comprobat, qui servum se monstraverit pietatis.’
3260. his oghne wone. This appears to mean ‘according to his own habits,’ like ‘his oghne hondes’ (i. 1427), ‘his oghne mouth’ (v. 5455), for ‘with his own hands,’ &c.
3507. vertu sovereine: a clear case of the French feminine inflexion, which must have been a very natural variation in such expressions as this; cp. i. 2677. In French as in English our author would feel at liberty to adapt the form to the rhyme or metre: so we have ‘sa joye soverein’ Mir. 4810, but ‘ma sovereine joie’ Bal. ix. 7.