31. Losengeour: deceiver, cozener; the word had analogues in
the French “losengier,” and the Spanish “lisongero.” It is
probably connected with “leasing,” falsehood; which has been
derived from Anglo-Saxon “hlisan,” to celebrate — as if it meant
the spreading of a false renown
32. Dan Russel: Master Russet; a name given to the fox, from
his reddish colour.
33. Geoffrey de Vinsauf was the author of a well-known
mediaeval treatise on composition in various poetical styles of
which he gave examples. Chaucer’s irony is therefore directed
against some grandiose and affected lines on the death of
Richard I., intended to illustrate the pathetic style, in which
Friday is addressed as “O Veneris lachrymosa dies” (“O tearful
day of Venus”).
34. “Priamum altaria ad ipsa trementem
Traxit, et in multo lapsantem sanguine nati
Implicuitque comam laeva, dextraque coruscum
Extulit, ac lateri capulo tenus abdidit ensem.
Haec finis Priami fatorum.”
(“He dragged Priam trembling to his own altar, slipping on the
blood of his child; He took his hair in his left hand, and with the
right drew the flashing sword, and hid it to the hilt [in his body].
Thus an end was made of Priam”)
— Virgil, Aeneid. ii. 550.
35. Jack Straw: The leader of a Kentish rising, in the reign of
Richard II, in 1381, by which the Flemish merchants in London
were great sufferers.