"Envie is lavender of the court alway,
For she ne parteth neither night ne day,
Out of the house of Cesar, thus saith Dant."
Prologue to the Legend of Good Women, 359.
"Dant that it tellen can" is mentioned in the House of Fame, book i.; and Chaucer is indebted to him for some lines in that fine poem, as in the description of the "egle, that with feathers shone all of gold" = un' aquila nel ciel con penne d'oro; and the following line:
"O thought, that wrote all that I met."
House of Fame, ii. 18.
"O mente, che scrivesti ciò ch' io vidi."
Inferno, ii. 8.
The Knightes Tale exhibits numerous passages, lines, and expressions verbally translated from the Teseide of Boccaccio, upon which it is founded; such as Idio armipotente = Mars armipotent; Eterno admante = Athamant eterne; Paura palida = pale drede; Le ire rosse come focho = the cruel ire red as any glede. Boccaccio describes the wood in which "Mars hath his sovereine mansion" as—