62. In her hour: in the hour of the day (two hours before
daybreak) which after the astrological system that divided the
twenty-four among the seven ruling planets, was under the
influence of Venus.
63. Adon: Adonis, a beautiful youth beloved of Venus, whose
death by the tusk of a boar she deeply mourned.
64. The third hour unequal: In the third planetary hour;
Palamon had gone forth in the hour of Venus, two hours before
daybreak; the hour of Mercury intervened; the third hour was
that of Luna, or Diana. “Unequal” refers to the astrological
division of day and night, whatever their duration, into twelve
parts, which of necessity varied in length with the season.
65. Smoking: draping; hence the word “smock;” “smokless,” in
Chaucer, means naked.
66. Cerrial: of the species of oak which Pliny, in his “Natural
History,” calls “cerrus.”
67. Stace of Thebes: Statius, the Roman who embodied in the
twelve books of his “Thebaid” the ancient legends connected
with the war of the seven against Thebes.
68. Diana was Luna in heaven, Diana on earth, and Hecate in
hell; hence the direction of the eyes of her statue to “Pluto’s
dark region.” Her statue was set up where three ways met, so
that with a different face she looked down each of the three;
from which she was called Trivia. See the quotation from
Horace, note 54.
69. Las: net; the invisible toils in which Hephaestus caught Ares
and the faithless Aphrodite, and exposed them to the
“inextinguishable laughter” of Olympus.
70. Saturnus the cold: Here, as in “Mars the Red” we have the
person of the deity endowed with the supposed quality of the
planet called after his name.
71. The astrologers ascribed great power to Saturn, and
predicted “much debate” under his ascendancy; hence it was
“against his kind” to compose the heavenly strife.