'N'encor n'avoit fet roi ne prince
Meffais qui l'autrui tolt et pince.
Trestuit pareil estre soloient,
Ne riens propre avoir ne voloient.
55, 6. 'Humility and peace, (and) good faith (who is) the empress (of all),
filled the earth full of ancient courtesy.' Line 56 I have supplied; Dr.
Koch supplies the line--'Yit hadden in this worlde the maistrie.' Either of
these suggestions fills up the sense intended.
57. Jupiter is mentioned in Ovid's Metamorphoses immediately after the
description of the golden, silver, brazen, and iron ages. At l. 568 of the
same book begins the story of the love of Jupiter for Io.
59. _Nembrot_, Nimrod; so that _his toures hye_ refers to the tower of
Babel. In Gen. x, xi, the sole connection of Nimrod with Babel is in ch. x.
10--'And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel.' But the usual medieval
account is that he built the tower. Thus, in the Cursor Mundi, l. 2223:--
'Nembrot than said on this wise, ...
"I rede we bigin a laboure,
And do we wel and make a toure,"' &c.
So also in Sir D. Lyndsay, Buke of the Monarché, bk. ii. l. 1625.
62-4. These last lines are partly imitated from Boethius; lines 33-61 are
independent of him.