5319. This expression occurs also in ll. 5598 and 7553.
5360. fawht. Elsewhere this verb has preterite ‘foghte,’ as iii. 2651, iv. 2095, but the strong form ‘faught’ is used by Chaucer, e. g. Cant. Tales, B 3519, and this in fact is the originally correct form.
5413. Chyo. Ovid says ‘Dia,’ that is Naxos.
5507. His rihte name: cp. Mirour, 409, ‘par son droit noun Je l’oi nommer Temptacioun,’ 4243, ‘Si ot a noun par droit nommant,’ &c. and other similar expressions.
5510. as men telleth: cp. l. 6045, ‘men seith.’
5511. According to the margin Extortion is the mother of Ravine.
5550. femeline, used repeatedly both as adjective and as substantive in the Mirour de l’Omme.
5551 ff. The tale of Tereus is from Ovid, Metam. vi. 424-674, in some parts abbreviated and in others expanded, with good judgement usually in both cases, so that this is one of Gower’s best-told tales. He omits the long account given by Ovid of the way in which Pandion was persuaded to allow Philomela to accompany Tereus (Metam. vi. 447-510), the incidents of the rescue of Philomela from her imprisonment, which no doubt he felt would be unintelligible to his readers (587-600), and many of the more shocking details connected with the death of Itys and the feast upon his flesh. On the other hand he has added the prayer and reflections of Philomene in her prison (ll. 5734-5768), the prayers of the two sisters (5817-5860), the words of Progne to Tereus (5915-5927), and especially the reflections on the nightingale and the swallow at the end of the story (5943-6029). This latter part is quite characteristic of our author, and as usual it is prettily conceived.
Chaucer, who tells the story in the Legend of Good Women, 2228-2393, was weary of it even from the beginning (2257 f.), and omits the conclusion altogether, either as too shocking or as not suiting with his design. So far as he goes, however, he follows Ovid more closely than Gower.
5555. See note on Prol. 460.