THE FIFTH BOOK.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Chaucer, Geoffrey and Purves, David Laing
88. The Roman kalends were the first day of the month, when a change of weather was usually expected.
89. Maker, and making, words used in the Middle Ages to signify the composer and the composition of poetry, correspond exactly with the Greek “poietes” and “poiema,” from “poieo,” I make.
90. My rather speech: my earlier, former subject; “rather” is the cormparative of the old adjective “rath,” early.
91. Up to the hollowness of the seventh sphere: passing up through the hollowness or concavity of the spheres, which all revolve round each other and are all contained by God (see note 5 to the Assembly of Fowls), the soul of Troilus, looking downward, beholds the converse or convex side of the spheres which it has traversed.
92. Sorted: allotted; from Latin, “sors,” lot, fortune.
93. Rascaille: rabble; French, “racaille” — a mob or multitude, the riff-raff; so Spencer speaks of the “rascal routs” of inferior combatants.
94. John Gower, the poet, a contemporary and friend of Chaucer’s; author, among other works, of the “Confessio Amantis.” See note 1 to the Man of Law’s Tale.
95. Strode was an eminent scholar of Merton College, Oxford, and tutor to Chaucer’s son Lewis.
96. Explicit Liber Troili et Cresseidis: “The end of the book of Troilus and Cressida.”