330. Cassodore, Cassiodorus. Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus, born about A.D. 468, was a statesman and author; his chief work being his Variarum Epistolarum Libri XII, which is six times quoted in Chaucer's Tale of Melibeus. Gower, in his Conf. Amantis, iii. 191, quotes this very passage again; thus—
'Cassiodore in his aprise telleth,
The regne is sauf, where pitè dwelleth.'
I find: 'Pietas est quae regit et celos'; Cass. Var. xi. 40.
332. assysed, fixed, set; cf. l. 236. Unless it means assessed, rated; a sense which is also found in Gower, viz. in his Conf. Amant. i. 5; see the New E. Dict. The passage is a little obscure.
336. 'On account of which mercy should turn aside.'
339. Constantyn, Constantine the Great, Roman emperor from A.D. 306 to 337. Eusebius wrote a life of him in four books, which is rather a panegyric than a biography. The story here told is hardly consistent
with the facts, as Constantine caused the death of his own son Crispus and of young Licinius; as to which Gibbon (c. xviii) remarks that 'the courtly bishop, who has celebrated in an elaborate work the virtues and pieties of his hero, observes a prudent silence on the subject of these tragic events.' In his Conf. Amantis, iii. 192, Gower again says:—
'Thus saide whylom Constantyn:—
What emperour that is enclyn