Poma cadunt ramis agitataque ilice glandes.’
1204 ff. Note the repeated use of ‘modo’ in the sense of ‘now’: cp. 1210, 1218, 1222, 1232, 1235, 1243, 1263, 1280, &c. The usual word for ‘formerly’ is ‘nuper’; see 1241, 1245, 1279, &c.
1205. Metam. ii. 541.
1223. Oza, that is Uzzah (2 Sam. vi.), who is selected as a type of carnal lust, apparently on the strength of the quite gratuitous assumption adopted in Lib. III. 1885 ff. Apparently ‘luxus’ in the next line is genitive, in spite of the metre: cp. ‘excercitus,’ i. 609, ‘ducatus,’ Cron. Trip. iii. 117.
1236. Giesi, i.e. Gehazi.
1238. Cuius enim: cp. note on l. 740.
1243. Liberius: pope from 352-366 A. D. He is mentioned here as a type of unfaithfulness to his charge, because he was induced to condemn Athanasius.
1251. defunctis, ‘for the dead,’ that is, to bury them charitably, as Tobit did.
1261. Cp. John xii. 24.
1267. Perhaps an allusion to Wycliffe, who seems to be referred to as a new Jovinianus in a later poem, p. 347.