a 197. The halcyon, usually identified with the kingfisher, was supposed to build a floating nest on the sea in midwinter, and to have power to calm the winds and waves at that season, bringing 'halcyon weather'.
b 2. I finde. Matthew Paris in his Chronica Maiora (ed. Luard, Rolls Series, vol. ii, pp. 413 ff.) gives a similar story, which, he says, King Richard the First often told to rebuke ingratitude. In this version, Vitalis of Venice falls into a pit dug as a trap for wild beasts. The rescued animals are a lion and a serpent; the rescuer is nameless, and the gem given to him by the serpent has not the magic virtue of returning whenever sold. Nearer to Gower is the story told in Nigel Wireker's Speculum Stultorum, a late twelfth-century satire in Latin verse, which, from the name of its principal character Burnellus the Ass, who is ambitious to have a longer tail, is sometimes called Burnellus; cp. Chaucer, Nun's Priest's Tale, l. 492:
I have wel rad in Daun Burnel the Asse
Among his vers, &c.
The poem is printed in T. Wright's Anglo-Latin Satirical Poets and Epigrammatists of the Twelfth Century (Rolls Series, 1872), vol. i. At the end the Ass returns disappointed to his master Bernardus (= Bardus). Bernardus, when gathering wood, hears Dryanus (= Adrian), a rich citizen of Cremona, call from a pit for help. The rescued animals are a lion, a serpent, and an ape. The gem given by the serpent in token of gratitude always returns to Bernardus, who, with more honesty than Gower's poor man shows, takes it back to the buyer. The fame of the marvellous stone reaches the king; his inquiries bring to light the whole story; and Dryanus is ordered to give half his goods to Bernardus.
Gower probably worked on a later modification of Nigel's story.
b 86. blessed, 'crossed (himself)'.
b 89. Betwen him and his asse, i.e. pulling together with the ass. The ass is, of course, the distinguished Burnellus.
b 116. his ape: for this ape (?).
b 191. Justinian, Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire (d. 565), was best known for his codification of the Roman Law, and so is named here as the type of a lawgiver.