Today | News | Books | Recipes Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History Books his mind by soaring 'upper,' resumes his good temper, and proposes to speak 'all of game.' 888. Cf. Dante, Par. xxii. 128, which Cary thus translates: 'Look downward, and contemplate, what a world Already stretch'd under our feet there lies.' 900. _Unethes_, with difficulty; because large animals could only just be discerned. The graphic touches here are excellent. 901. _Rivér-es_, with accent on the former _e_ (pronounced as _a_ in _bare_). Cf. Ital. _riviera_. 907. _Prikke_, a point. 'Al the environinge of the erthe aboute ne halt nat but the resoun of a _prikke_ at regard of the greetnesse of hevene'; tr. of Boethius, bk. ii. pr. 7. 17. 'And doun fro thennes faste he gan avyse This litel spot of erthe, that with the see Enbraced is'; Troilus, bk. v. ll. 1814-6. 'Vidi questo globo Tal, ch' io sorriso del suo vil sembiante.' Dante, Parad. xxii. 134. See also Parl. Foules, 57, 58; and note that the above passage from Troilus is copied from the Teseide (xi. 2). 915. The note in Gilman's Chaucer as to Alexander's _dreams_ is entirely beside the mark. The word _dreme_ (l. 917) refers to Scipio only. The reference is to the wonderful mode in which Alexander contrived to soar in the air in a car upborne by four gigantic griffins. 'Now is he won þur[gh]e þar wingis vp to the wale cloudis; So hi[gh]e to heuen þai him hale in a hand-quile, Midil-erth bot as a mylnestane, na mare, to him semed.' Wars of Alexander, ed. Skeat (E.E.T.S.), 5523. _Macedo_, the Macedonian. 916. _King_, kingly hero; not king in the strict sense. _Dan Scipio_, lord Scipio. See notes to Parl. Foules, 29; Book of the Duch. 284; Ho. Fame, 514. 917. _At point devys_, with great exactness; see Rom. Rose, 830, 1215. 919. _Dedalus_ (i.e. Dædalus) and _Ycarus_ (Icarus) are mentioned in the Rom. de la Rose, 5242; and cf. Gower, Conf. Amant. bk. iv., ed. Pauli, ii. 36; and Dante, Inf. xvii. 109. All take the story from Ovid, Metam. viii. 183. Dædalus constructed wings for himself and his son Icarus, and flew away from Crete. The latter flew too high, and the sun melted the wax with which some of the feathers were fastened, so that he fell into the sea and was drowned. Hence Dædalus is here called _wrecche_, i.e. miserable, because he lost his son; and Icarus _nyce_, i.e. foolish, because he disobeyed his father's advice, not to fly too high. 922. _Malt_, melted. Gower has the same word in the same story; ed. Pauli, ii. 37. 925. Cf. Dante, Par. xxii. 19, which Cary thus translates: 'But elsewhere now I bid thee turn thy view.' 930. See note to l. 986 below, where the original passage is given. 931. This line seems to refer solely to the word _citizein_ in l. 930. The note in Bell's Chaucer says: 'This appears to be an allusion to Plato's Republic.' But it was probably suggested by the word _respublica_ in Alanus (see note to l. 986). 932. _Eyrish bestes_, aerial animals; alluding to the signs of the zodiac, such as the Ram, Bull, Lion, Goat, Crab, Scorpion, &c.; and to other constellations, such as the Great Bear, Eagle, Swan, Pegasus, &c. Chaucer himself explains that the 'zodiak is cleped the cercle of the signes, or the cercle of the _bestes_; for _zodia_ in langage of Greek sowneth _bestes_ in Latin tonge'; Astrolabe, Part 1, § 21, 1. 37. Cf. 'beasts' in Rev. iv. 6. The phrase recurs in l. 965 below; see also ll. 1003-7. 934. _Goon_, march along, walk on, like the Ram or Bull; _flee_, fly like the Eagle or Swan. He alludes to the apparent revolution of the heavens round the earth. 936. _Galaxye_, galaxy, or milky way, formed by streaks of closely crowded stars; already mentioned in the Parl. of Foules, 56; see note to the same, l. 50. Cary, in a note to Dante, Parad. xxv. 18, says that Dante, in the Convito, p. 74, speaks of _la galassia_--'the galaxy, that is, the white circle which the common people call the way of St. James'; on which Biscioni remarks:--'The common people formerly considered the milky way as a sign by night to pilgrims, who were going to St. James of Galicia; and this perhaps arose from the resemblance of the word _galaxy_ to _Galicia_; [which may be doubted]. I have often,' he adds, 'heard women and peasants call it the Roman road, _la strada di Roma_.' The fact is simply, that the Milky Way looks like a sort of road or street; hence the Lat. name _uia lactea_, as in Ovid, Metam. i. 168. Hence also the Roman peasants called it _strada di Roma_; the pilgrims to Spain called it _the road to Santiago_ (Quarterly Review, Oct. 1873, p. 464); and the English called it the _Walsingham way_, owing to this being a route much frequented by pilgrims, or else _Watling-street_, which was a famous old road, and probably ran (not as usually said, from Kent to Cardigan Bay, but) from Kent to the Frith of Forth; see Annals of England, p. 6. The name of _Vatlant Streit_ (Watling Street) is given to the milky way in the Complaint of Scotland, ed. Murray, p. 58; and G. Douglas calls it _Watling Streit_ in his translation of Vergil, Æn. iii. 516, though there is no mention of it in the original; see Small's edition of the Works of G. Douglas, vol. ii. p. 151. And again, it is called _Wadlyng Strete_ in Henrysoun's Traite of Orpheus; see Jamieson's Scottish Dictionary. So also: 'Galaxia, that is Watling-Strete'; Batman on Bartholome, lib. viii. c. 33. See my note to P. Plowman, C. i. 52; Florence of Worcester, _sub anno_ 1013; Laws of Edward the Confessor, cap. 12; Towneley Myst., p. 308; Cutts, Scenes, &c. of the Middle Ages, p. 178; Grimm's Mythology, tr. by Stallybras, i. 357. 942. Gower also relates this story (Conf. Amant. ii. 34), calling the sun _Phebus_, and his son _Pheton_, and using _carte_ in the sense of 'chariot,' as Chaucer does. Both copy from Ovid, Metam. ii. 32-328. 944. _Cart-hors_, chariot-horses (plural). There were four horses, named Pyroeïs, Eous, Aethon, and Phlegon; Met. ii. 153. Hence _gonne_ and _beren_ are in the plural form; cf. l. 952. 948. _Scorpioun_, the well-known zodiacal constellation and sign; called _Scorpius_ in Ovid, Met. ii. 196. 972. _Boece_, Boethius. He refers to the passage which he himself thus translates: 'I have, forsothe, swifte fetheres that surmounten the heighte of the hevene. Whan the swifte thought hath clothed it-self in tho fetheres, it dispyseth the hateful erthes, and surmounteth the roundnesse of the greet ayr; and it seeth the cloudes behinde his bak'; bk. iv. met. 1. Hence, in l. 973, Ten Brink (Studien, p. 186) proposes to read--'That wryteth, Thought may flee so hye.' 981, 2. Imitated from 2 Cor. xii. 2. 985. _Marcian._ Cf. C. T., E 1732 (March. Tale):-- 'Hold thou thy pees, thou poete Marcian, That wrytest us that ilke wedding murie Of hir, Philologye, and him, Mercurie.' Martianus Minneus Felix Capella was a satirist of the fifth century, and wrote the Nuptials of Mercury and Philology, De Nuptiis inter Mercurium et Philologiam, above referred to. It consists of two books, followed by s |