THE HOUSE OF FAME
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Chaucer, Geoffrey and Purves, David Laing
55. See imperial: a seat placed on the dais, or elevated portion of the hall at the upper end, where the lord and the honoured guests sat.
56. The starres seven: Septentrion; the Great Bear or Northern Wain, which in this country appears to be at the top of heaven.
57. The Apocalypse: The last book of the New Testament, also called Revelations. The four beasts are in chapter iv. 6.
58. “Oundy” is the French “ondoye,” from “ondoyer,” to undulate or wave.
59. Partridges’ wings: denoting swiftness.
60. Hercules lost his life with the poisoned shirt of Nessus, sent to him by the jealous Dejanira.
61. Of the secte Saturnine: Of the Saturnine school; so called because his history of the Jewish wars narrated many horrors, cruelties, and sufferings, over which Saturn was the presiding deity. See note 71 to the Knight’s tale.
62. Compare the account of the “bodies seven” given by the Canon’s Yeoman: “Sol gold is, and Luna silver we threpe; Mars iron, Mercury quicksilver we clepe; Saturnus lead, and Jupiter is tin, And Venus copper, by my father’s kin.”
63. Statius is called a “Tholosan,” because by some, among them Dante, he was believed to have been a native of Tolosa, now Toulouse. He wrote the “Thebais,” in twelve books, and the “Achilleis,” of which only two were finished.
64. Dares Phrygius and Dictys Cretensis were the names attached to histories of the Trojan War pretended to have been written immediately after the fall of Troy.
65. Lollius: The unrecognisable author whom Chaucer professes to follow in his “Troilus and Cressida,” and who has been thought to mean Boccaccio.
66. Guido de Colonna, or de Colempnis, was a native of Messina, who lived about the end of the thirteenth century, and wrote in Latin prose a history including the war of Troy.
67. English Gaufrid: Geoffrey of Monmouth, who drew from Troy the original of the British race. See Spenser’s “Faerie Queen,” book ii. canto x.
68. Lucan, in his “Pharsalia,” a poem in ten books, recounted the incidents of the war between Caesar and Pompey.
69. Claudian of Alexandria, “the most modern of the ancient poets,” lived some three centuries after Christ, and among other works wrote three books on “The Rape of Proserpine.”
70. Triton was a son of Poseidon or Neptune, and represented usually as blowing a trumpet made of a conch or shell; he is therefore introduced by Chaucer as the squire of Aeolus.
71. Sky: cloud; Anglo-Saxon, “scua;” Greek, “skia.”
72. Los: reputation. See note 5 to Chaucer’s Tale of Melibœus.
73. Swart: black; German, “schwarz.”
74. Tewell: the pipe, chimney, of the furnace; French “tuyau.” In the Prologue to The Canterbury Tales, the Monk’s head is described as steaming like a lead furnace.
75. Tetches: blemishes, spots; French, “tache.”
76. For the story of Belle Isaude see note 21 to the Assembly of Fowls.
77. Quern: mill. See note 6 to the Monk’s Tale.
78. To put an ape into one’s hood, upon his head, is to befool him; see the prologue to the Prioresses’s Tale, l.6.
79. Obviously Chaucer should have said the temple of Diana, or Artemis (to whom, as Goddess of the Moon, the Egyptian Isis corresponded), at Ephesus. The building, famous for its splendour, was set on fire, in B.C. 356, by Erostatus, merely that he might perpetuate his name.
80. “Now do our los be blowen swithe, As wisly be thou ever blithe.” i.e. Cause our renown to be blown abroad quickly, as surely as you wish to be glad.
81. The Labyrinth at Cnossus in Crete, constructed by Dedalus for the safe keeping of the Minotaur, the fruit of Pasiphae’s unnatural love.
82. The river Oise, an affluent of the Seine, in France.
83. The engine: The machines for casting stones, which in Chaucer time served the purpose of great artillery; they were called “mangonells,” “springolds,” &c.; and resembled in construction the “ballistae” and “catapultae” of the ancients.
84. Or it a furlong way was old: before it was older than the space of time during which one might walk a furlong; a measure of time often employed by Chaucer.
85. Shipmen and pilgrimes: sailors and pilgrims, who seem to have in Chaucer’s time amply warranted the proverbial imputation against “travellers’ tales.”
86. Pardoners: of whom Chaucer, in the Prologue to The Canterbury Tales, has given us no flattering typical portrait
87. Lath: barn; still used in Lincolnshire and some parts of the north. The meaning is, that the poet need not tell what tidings he wanted to hear, since everything of the kind must some day come out — as sooner or later every sheaf in the barn must be brought forth (to be threshed).
88. A somewhat similar heaping-up of people is de scribed in Spenser’s account of the procession of Lucifera (“The Faerie Queen,” book i. canto iv.), where, as the royal dame passes to her coach, “The heaps of people, thronging in the hall, Do ride each other, upon her to gaze.”