593 ff. Cp. Trésor, p. 115.
597. Latini says that this is the explanation given by some people of the tides, but he adds that the astronomers do not agree with them (Trésor, p. 172).
611. Aristotle does in fact make of αἰθήρ a fifth element, of which the heaven and the heavenly bodies consist, but Gower takes this account of it and the name Orbis from the Trésor, p. 110, where also we find the comparison to the shell of an egg.
652 ff. ‘Sapiens dominabitur astris,’ an opinion which is developed in the Vox Clamantis, ii. 217 ff.
694. Bot thorizonte, ‘beyond the horizon’: so perhaps in the first text of v. 3306, ‘But of his lond’ stood for ‘Out of his lond.’ However, this use of ‘but’ is not clearly established in Southern ME. and perhaps the reading of the second recension, ‘Be thorizonte,’ may be right. As regards sense, one is much the same as the other: neither is very intelligible, unless ‘thorizonte’ means the ecliptic.
699. thei, that is the planets, not the signs.
725 ff. Cp. Trésor, p. 141.
831. is that on, i. e. ‘is one,’ or ‘is the first.’
853. The sun’s horses are named by Fulgentius, Mythol. ii, in the same order as we have here, ‘Erythreus, Actæon, Lampos, Philogeus.’ They are said there to represent four divisions of the day, Erythreus, for example, having his name from the red light of morning, and Philogeus from the inclination of the sun towards the earth at evening. Ovid gives a different set of names.
944. ‘In whatever degree he shall exercise his powers.’