30. From cast of stones ware him in the werre: let him beware
of casting stones in battle. The proverb in its modern form
warns those who live in glass houses of the folly of throwing
stones.
31. Westren: to west or wester — to decline towards the west;
so Milton speaks of the morning star as sloping towards
heaven’s descent “his westering wheel.”
32. A pike with ass’s feet etc.: this is merely another version of
the well-known example of incongruity that opens the “Ars
Poetica” of Horace.
33. Tristre: tryst; a preconcerted spot to which the beaters
drove the game, and at which the sportsmen waited with their
bows.
34. A kankerdort: a condition or fit of perplexed anxiety;
probably connected with the word “kink” meaning in sea phrase
a twist in an rope — and, as a verb, to twist or entangle.
35. They feel in times, with vapour etern: they feel in their
seasons, by the emission of an eternal breath or inspiration (that
God loves, &c.)
36. The idea of this stanza is the same with that developed in
the speech of Theseus at the close of The Knight’s Tale; and it is
probably derived from the lines of Boethius, quoted in note 91
to that Tale.
37. In this and the following lines reappears the noble doctrine
of the exalting and purifying influence of true love, advanced in
“The Court of Love,” “The Cuckoo and the Nightingale,” &c.
38. Weir: a trap or enclosed place in a stream, for catching fish.
See note 10 to The Assembly of Fowls.
39. Nor might one word for shame to it say: nor could he
answer one word for shame (at the stratagem that brought
Cressida to implore his protection)
40. “All n’ere he malapert, nor made avow
Nor was so bold to sing a foole’s mass;”
i.e. although he was not over-forward and made no confession
(of his love), or was so bold as to be rash and ill-advised in his
declarations of love and worship.
41. Pandarus wept as if he would turn to water; so, in The
Squire’s Tale, did Canace weep for the woes of the falcon.
42. If I breake your defence: if I transgress in whatever you may
forbid; French, “defendre,” to prohibit.
43. These lines and the succeeding stanza are addressed to
Pandarus, who had interposed some words of incitement to
Cressida.
44. In “The Court of Love,” the poet says of Avaunter, that
“his ancestry of kin was to Lier; and the stanza in which that
line occurs expresses precisely the same idea as in the text.
Vain boasters of ladies’ favours are also satirised in “The House
of Fame”.