2927 ff. This is from Ovid, Metam. xi. 266-748, where the story is told at great length. Gower follows some parts of it, as the description of the House of Sleep and its surroundings, very closely.
Chaucer tells the story in the Book of the Duchess, but he has not been so successful in reproducing it as Gower. It is here introduced only as an illustration of the truth of dreams, but with its description of the House of Sleep it is very appropriate also in other respects to the subject of Somnolence, which is under discussion.
2928. Trocinie, from the adjective ‘Trachinia,’ in such expressions as ‘Trachinia tellus,’ Metam. xi. 269.
2973. The reading of all the best MSS. in this line is ‘he’: (S however is defective). We cannot doubt that the author meant to write ‘sche,’ for in what follows he regularly refers to Iris as female; but the mistake apparently escaped his notice, and we must regard the reading ‘she’ in the two copies in which I have found it as an unauthorized correction. Chaucer makes the messenger male, but does not name him.
2977-3055. This passage very happily follows Ovid, Met. xi. 589-645. Our author gives all the essential features, but rearranges them freely and adds details of his own.
2996. Metam. xi. 608,
‘Ianua, ne verso stridores cardine reddat,
Nulla domo tota.’
3009 ff. Metam. xi. 602 ff.,
‘saxo tamen exit ab imo