279 ff. This letter is for the most part original. That which we have in Ovid is mainly narrative.
292. If that &c. The point of this as it occurs in Ovid depends upon the fact that her child has already been exposed and, as she conceives, torn by wild beasts, and she entreats her brother if possible to collect his remains and lay them by her,—a very natural and pathetic request. Gower has chosen for the sake of picturesque effect in this scene to make the exposure of the child come after the death of the mother, and he should therefore perhaps have omitted the reference to the child’s burial.
300 f. Ovid, Her. Ep. xi. 3, 4,
‘Dextra tenet calamum, strictum tenet altera ferrum,
Et iacet in gremio charta soluta meo.’
315. The word ‘baskleth’ is perhaps a genuine alternative reading.
331. ‘Of such a thing done as that was.’ We must not be tempted by the correction ‘tho’ for ‘that.’
352. A fatalistic maxim which is often repeated, e.g. i. 1714, ‘nede he mot that nede schal.’
355. The revision of this line for the third recension may indicate a preference for throwing back the accent of ‘nature’ in the English fashion: so ii. 1376, but ‘natúre’ ll. 175, 350.
361 ff. This is from Ovid, Met. iii. 324 ff. Gower has chosen to omit the sequel of the story, which was that after seven years Tiresias saw the same snakes again, and by striking them a second time recovered his former sex. This being so, he is obliged to make a separate story (736 ff.) of the dispute between Jupiter and Juno, which gave Ovid occasion for mentioning the incident of the snakes.