'_Que venue est en une grant valee,_
_De deus grans mons entour environnee,_
Et d'un russel qui par my la contree,' &c.
See Ten Brink, Studien, p. 200; Furnivall, Trial Forewords, p. 44.
It is worth notice that the visit of Iris to Somnus is also fully described
by Statius, Theb. x. 81-136; but Chaucer does not seem to have copied him.
158, 159. Two bad lines in the MSS. Both can be mended by changing _nought_
into _nothing_, as suggested by Ten Brink, Chaucers Sprache, § 299.
160. See a very similar passage in Spenser, F. Q. i. 1. 39, 40, 41, 42, 43.
And cf. Ho. of Fame, 70.
167. _Eclympasteyre._ 'I hold this to be a name of Chaucer's own invention.
In Ovid occurs a son of Morpheus who has two different names: "Hunc
_Icelon_ superi, mortale _Phobetora_ vulgus Nominat;" _Met._ xi. 640.
_Phobetora_ may have been altered into _Pastora_: _Icelonpastora_ (the two
names linked together) would give _Eclympasteyre_.'--Ten Brink, Studien, p.
11, as quoted in Furnivall's Trial Forewords, p. 116. At any rate, we may
feel sure that _Eclym-_ is precisely Ovid's _Icelon_. And perhaps
_Phobetora_ comes nearer to _-pasteyre_ than does _Phantasos_, the name of
another son of Morpheus, whom Ovid mentions immediately below. Gower (ed.
Pauli, ii. 103) calls them _Ithecus_ and _Panthasas_; and the fact that he
here actually turns _Icelon_ into _Ithecus_ is a striking example of the
strange corruption of proper names in medieval times. Prof. Hales suggests
that _Eclympasteyre_ represents _Icelon plastora_, where _plastora_ is the
acc. of Gk. [Greek: plastôr], i. e. moulder or modeller, a suitable epithet
for a god of dreams; compare the expressions used by Ovid in ll. 626 and
634 of this passage. _Icelon_ is the acc. of Gk. [Greek: ikelos], or
[Greek: eikelos], like, resembling. For my own part, I would rather take
the form _plastera_, acc. of [Greek: plastêr], a form actually given by
Liddell and Scott, and also nearer to the form in Chaucer. Perhaps Chaucer
had seen a MS. of Ovid in which _Icelon_ was explained by _plastora_ or
_plastera_, written beside or over it as a gloss, or by way of explanation.
This would explain the whole matter. Mr. Fleay thinks the original reading
was _Morpheus_, _Ecelon_, _Phantastere_; but this is impossible, because
Morpheus had but _one_ heir (l. 168).
Froissart has the word _Enclimpostair_ as the name of a son of the god of
sleep, in his poem called Paradis d'Amour. But _as he is merely copying
this precise passage_, it does not at all help us.
For the remarks by Prof. Hales, see the Athenæum, 1882, i. 444; for those
by Mr. Fleay, see the same, p. 568. Other suggestions have been made, but
are not worth recording.
173. To _envye_; to be read as _Tenvý-e_. The phrase is merely an
adaptation of the F. _à l'envi_, or of the vb. _envier_. Cotgrave gives:
'_à l'envy l'vn de l'autre_, one to despight the other, or in emulation one
of the other'; also '_envier_ (au _ieu_), to vie.' Hence E. _vie_; see
_Vie_ in my Etym. Dict. It is etymologically connected with Lat.
_inuitare_, not with Lat. _inuidia_. See l. 406, below.