716. There is no punctuation in S, but those MSS. which have stops, as CD, punctuate after ‘nephas’ and ‘soluit.’ The line is suggested by Ovid, Fasti, ii. 44, ‘Solve nefas, dixit; solvit et ille nefas.’ There it is quite intelligible, but here it is without any clear meaning.
It may be observed here that the passage of Ovid in which this line occurs, Fasti, ii. 35-46, is evidently one of the sources of Confessio Amantis, v. 2547 ff.
749. Sicut arena maris: cp. Rev. xx. 8, to which reference is made below, ll. 765 ff.
762. ‘All that they lay upon us, they equally bear themselves.’ Apparently this is the meaning, referring to the universal ruin which is likely to ensue.
765-776. These twelve lines are taken with some alterations of wording and order from Godfrey of Viterbo, Pantheon, p. 228 (ed. 1584). In l. 765 the reference to the Apocalypse is to Rev. xx.
774. forum: apparently ‘law.’
783 ff: This well-known chapter was very incorrectly printed in the Roxburghe edition, owing to the fact that a leaf has here been cut out of S, and the editor followed D. Fuller, whose translation of the opening lines has often been quoted, had a better text before him, probably that of the Cotton MS.
810. It is difficult to see how this line is to be translated, unless we suppose that ‘fossa’ is a grammatical oversight.
821. Cp. Ovid, Metam. i. 211, ‘Contigerat nostras infamia temporis aures.’
849 f. Adapted from Amores, iii. 9. 7 f., but not very happily.