73. And upon new case lieth new advice: new counsels must be
adopted as new circumstances arise.
74. Hid in mew: hidden in a place remote from the world — of
which Pandarus thus betrays ignorance.
75. The modern phrase “sixes and sevens,” means “in
confusion:” but here the idea of gaming perhaps suits the sense
better — “set the world upon a cast of the dice.”
76. The controversy between those who maintained the doctrine
of predestination and those who held that of free-will raged
with no less animation at Chaucer’s day, and before it, than it
has done in the subsequent five centuries; the Dominicans
upholding the sterner creed, the Franciscans taking the other
side. Chaucer has more briefly, and with the same care not to
commit himself, referred to the discussion in The Nun’s Priest’s
Tale.
77. That have their top full high and smooth y-shore: that are
eminent among the clergy, who wear the tonsure.
78. Athamante: Athamas, son of Aeolus; who, seized with
madness, under the wrath of Juno for his neglect of his wife
Nephele, slew his son Learchus.
79. Simois: one of the rivers of the Troad, flowing into the
Xanthus.