Ad vada Maeandri concinit albus olor.’
It is difficult to see how our author translated these lines, but the result, which must have been chiefly due to his imagination, is rather creditable to him. Chaucer gives the true sense in the Legend of Good Women, 1355 ff.,
‘Ryght so,’ quod she, ‘as that the white swan
Ayenst his deth begynneth for to synge.
Ryght so to yow I make my compleynynge.’
128. such a lak of Slowthe, ‘such a fault of Sloth.’
137. That is, to put all the slothful in mind (of their duty).
147 ff. The general idea of this is taken from the letter of Penelope to Ulysses, Ovid, Her. Ep. i, but this is not closely followed in details, and it will be noticed that Gower represents the letter as sent while the siege of Troy still continued, and apparently he knows nothing of the great length of the wandering afterwards: cp. 226 ff.
170. The reading ‘Had’ for ‘Hath’ is given by many MSS., including F. We find ‘Hath’ in the following, H₁C, SAdTΔ, W, and it must certainly be the true reading.
196 ff. Ovid, Her. Ep. i. 2, ‘Nil mihi rescribas, attamen ipse veni.’