'Citeron est une montaigne ...
Venus, qui les dames espire,
Fist là son principal manoir'; ll. 15865-71.
Hence Chaucer makes the same confusion, but in a different way. Chaucer preserves the right name of the mountain, in the form Citheroun, which he rimes with mencioun (A 1936) and with Adoun (A 2223); but here we have the form Citharee, riming with see. For all this, the scribe corrects it to Citheron in l. 69, where he has no rime to deal with.
56. Cf. 'the winged god, Mercurie'; C. T., A 1385.
58. The MS. has costes that it drewe; Bell alters this to had to it drew, under the impression that drew is the pp. of draw! So again, in l. 78, he alters saphir ind, which is correct, to saphir of Inde; and
in general, alters the text at will without the least hint that he has done so.
78. ind, blue; as in The Black Knight, 127.
80. Baleis Turkeis (MS. Bales turkes). Baleis is a better spelling, answering to F. balais in Littré. It also occurs as balai in O.F.; and the word was probably suggested by the mention of it in Rom. de la Rose, 20125:—'Que saphirs, rubis, ne balai.' Hence also the mention of it in the King's Quhair, st. 46, which see; and in the Assembly of Ladies, 536. Turkeis is the A. F. equivalent of O.F. Turkois, i.e. Turkish, as in C. T., A 2895, on which see the note (vol. v. p. 93).
81. shene, a misspelling of shine, intimating that the author has confused the adj. shene with the verb; or rather, that the poem was written at a time when the word shine could be used as riming to been; since we find similar examples in lines 561, 768. So also we find pretily riming with be in The Flower and the Leaf, 89. The pt. t. shoon occurs in l. 83.