3414. that I nere of this lif, ‘would that I were out of this life.’ For ‘that I nere’ cp. note on 1422. For ‘of this lif’ cp. vii. 2883, ‘whan he were of dawe.’
3438 f. ‘And yet he (Obstinacy) cannot support his own cause by any argument but by headstrong wilfulness.’
For the expression ‘of hed’ we may compare the Latin expression quoted by Du Cange ‘de testa esse,’ explained ‘esse obstinatum’ (Ital. ‘essere di testa’), and the French adjective ‘testu,’
‘Car fol estoient et testu,’ &c.
Froissart says of Pope Urban VI that after his election ‘il s’en outrecuida et enorguilli, et volt user de poissance et de teste,’ which is translated by Berners, ‘he waxed proude and worked all on heed.’ We find also the Latin adjective ‘capitosus’ used by Gower in the margin at the beginning of the Cronica Tripertita, and the adverb ‘capitose,’ meaning ‘in a headstrong manner,’ in Walsingham, Hist. Anglica, e.g. ‘Regem contra regni consuetudinem Cancellarium deposuisse capitose,’ vol. ii. p. 70 (Rolls Series).
The usual way of reading the sentence has been to punctuate after ‘skile’ and to take ‘bot of hed’ with the next line, ‘but he wastes away in his condition’ (‘hed’ from a supposed ‘hǣd’ akin to the suffix ‘-hed’ or ‘-hede’). This word perhaps occurs Conf. Am. ii. 2066, but it would give no very good sense here, and it is doubtful whether it would be rhymed with ‘ded.’ The suffix ‘-hed’ ‘-hede’ apparently has ‘ẹ’ in Gower’s rhymes. Again, if so marked a break in the middle of the line were intended, the Fairfax MS. would almost certainly have had a stop to indicate it, as in 3423, 3431, 3458, 3459, 3484, 3485, to quote instances only from the same page of the MS.
For the use of ‘avowe’ in this sense, cp. v. 124.
3515 ff. The story is based upon Ovid, Metam. xiv. 698-761. Our author, however, has reversed the position of the lover and his mistress. In Ovid Anaxarete is a high-born maid of the race of Teucer, while Iphis is ‘humili de stirpe creatus.’ Moreover, the story is considerably developed by Gower, to whom belong the speech of Iphis, the whole account of the grief and self-condemnation of Araxarathen, the details of the funeral and the tomb, and finally the very successful epitaph. Ovid says that she saw from a window the body of Iphis being carried by for burial, and was forthwith turned into stone, and that as witness of the truth of his tale a statue may still be seen at Salamis. There is nothing said about remorse on her part, rather the opposite is implied.
3516. Our author supposes this to be the same as the person mentioned in iii. 2645 ff. (who is really Teuthras king of Mysia). This is Teucer son of Telamon, founder of Salamis in Cyprus.
3520 f. These lines are transposed for the sake of the rhyme. It means ‘on a maid of low estate compared with his’: cp. ii. 709, and below, l. 3616.