25. See note to line 7 above; and cf. Troilus, iii. 1450-70:--'O cruel
day,' &c.
29. In the Proem to Troilus, bk. iii. st. 1, Chaucer places _Venus_ in the
third heaven; that is, he begins to reckon from the earth outwards, the
spheres being, successively, those of the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars,
Jupiter, and Saturn; see the description of the planets in Gower's
Confessio Amantis, bk. vii. So also, in Troilus, v. 1809, by the _seventh_
sphere he means the outermost sphere of Saturn. But in other poems he
adopts the more common ancient mode, of reckoning the spheres in the
reverse order, taking Saturn _first_; in which case Mars comes third. In
this he follows Macrobius, who, in his Commentary on the Somnium Scipionis,
lib. i. c. 19, has:--'A sphæra Saturni, quæ est _prima_ de septem,' &c.;
see further on this borrowing from Macrobius in the note to l. 69. The same
mode of reckoning places Venus in the _fifth_ sphere, as in Lenvoy to
Scogan, l. 9. In the curious manual of astronomy called The Shepheards
Kalendar (pr. in 1604) we find, in the account of Mars, the following: 'The
planet of Mars is called the God of battel and of war, and he is the
_third_ planet, for he raigneth next vnder the gentle planet of Jupiter....
And Mars goeth about the twelue signes _in two yeare_.' The account of
Venus has:--'Next after the Sun raigneth the gentle planet _Venus_, ... and
she is lady ouer all louers: ... and her two signes is _Taurus_ and
Libra.... This planet Venus runneth _in twelue months_ ouer the xii.
signes.' Also:--'Next under Venus is the faire planet Mercury ... and his
principall signes be these: _Gemini_ is the first ... and the other signe
is _Virgo_,' &c. See Furnivall's Trial Forewords, p. 121.
Hence the 'third heaven's lord' is _Mars_; and Chaucer tells us, that by
virtue of his motion in his orbit (as well as by desert) he had won Venus.
That is, Venus and Mars were seen in the sky very near each other. We may
explain _wonne_ by 'approached.'
36. _At alle_, in any and every case. There is a parallel passage to this
stanza in Troilus, bk. iii. st. 4 of the Proem.
38. _Talle_, obedient, docile, obsequious. See the account of this
difficult word in my Etym. Dictionary, s.v. _tall_.
42. _Scourging_, correction. Compare the phr. _under your yerde_; Parl.
Foules, 640, and the note. I see no reason for suspecting the reading.