2001. See Chaucer's Legend of Hypermnestra.
2003. 'Discordia, _contake_'; Glossary in Reliquiae Antiquae, i. 7.
2004. _chirking_ is used of grating and creaking sounds; and sometimes, of
the cry of birds. The Lansd. MS. has _schrikeinge_ (shrieking). See House
of Fame, iii. 853 (or 1943). In Batman upon Bartholomè, lib. viii. c. 29,
the music of the spheres is attributed to the '_cherkyng_ of the mouing of
the circles, and of the roundnes of heauen.' In Chaucer's tr. of Boethius,
bk. i. met. 6, it is an adj., and translates _stridens_. Cf. D. 1804, I.
605.
2007. This line contains an allusion to the death of Sisera, Judges iv. But
Dr. Koch has pointed out (Essays on Chaucer, Chaucer Soc. iv. 371) that we
have here some proof that Chaucer may have altered his first draft of the
poem without taking sufficient heed to what he was about. The original line
may have stood--
'The sleer of _her husband_ saw I there'--
or something of that kind; for the reason that no suicide has ever yet been
known to drive a nail into his own head. That a wife might do so to her
husband is _Chaucer's own_ statement; for, in the Cant. Tales, D. 765-770,
we find--
'Of latter date, of wives hath he red,
That somme han slayn hir housbondes in hir bed ...
And somme han drive nayles in hir brayn,
Whyl that they slepte, and thus they han hem slayn.'
Of course it may be said that l. 2006 is entirely _independent_ of l. 2007,
and I have punctuated the text so as to suit this arrangement; but the
suggestion is worth notice.
2011. From Tes. vii. 35:--'Videvi ancora l'allegro Furore.'--Kölbing.
2017. _hoppesteres._ Speght explains this word by pilots (_gubernaculum
tenentes_); Tyrwhitt, female dancers (Ital. _ballatrice_). Others explain
it _hopposteres_ = _opposteres_ = opposing, hostile, so that _schippes
hoppesteres_ = _bellatrices carinae_ (Statius). As, however, it is
impossible to suppose that even _opposteres_ without the _h_ can ever have
been formed from the verb to _oppose_, the most likely solution is that
Chaucer mistook the word _bellatrices_ in Statius (vii. 57) or the
corresponding Ital. word _bellatrici_ in the Teseide, vii. 37, for
_ballatrices_ or _ballatrici_, which might be supposed to mean 'female
dancers'; an expression which would exactly correspond to an M. E. form
_hoppesteres_, from the A. S. _hoppestre_, a female dancer. Herodias'
daughter is mentioned (in the dative case) as _þære lyðran hoppystran_
(better spelt _hoppestran_) in Ælfric's A. S. Homilies, ed. Thorpe, i. 484.
Hence _shippes hoppesteres_ simply means 'dancing ships.' Shakespeare
likens the English fleet to 'A city on the inconstant billows _dancing_';
Hen. V. iii. prol. 15. Cf. O. F. _baleresse_, a female dancer, in
Godefroy's Dict., s. v. _baleor_. In § 55 of Cl. Ptolomaei Centum Dicta,
printed at Ulm in 1641, we are told that Mars is hostile to ships when in
the zenith or the [81] eleventh house. '_Incendetur_ autem nauis, si
ascendens ab aliqua stella fixa quae ex Martis mixtura sit, affligetur.' So
that, if a fixed star co-operated with Mars, the ships were burnt.
The following extract from Lewis' translation of Statius' Thebaid, bk.
vii., is of some interest:--
'Beneath the fronting height of Æmus stood
The fane of Mars, encompass'd by a wood.
The mansion, rear'd by more than mortal hands,
On columns fram'd of polish'd iron stands;
The well-compacted walls are plated o'er
With the same metal; just without the door
A thousand Furies frown. The dreadful gleam,
That issues from the sides, reflects the beam
Of adverse Phoebus, and with cheerless light
Saddens the day, and starry host of night.
Well his attendants suit the dreary place;
First frantic Passion, Wrath with redd'ning face,
And Mischief blind from forth the threshold start;
Within lurks pallid Fear with quiv'ring heart,
Discord, a two-edged falchion in her hand,
And Treach'ry, striving to conceal the brand.'
2020. _for al_, notwithstanding. Cf. Piers the Plowman, B. xix. 274.
2021. _infortune of Marte._ 'Tyrwhitt thinks that Chaucer might intend to
be satirical in these lines; but the introduction of such apparently
undignified incidents arose from the confusion already mentioned of the god
of war with the planet to which his name was given, and the influence of
which was supposed to produce all the disasters here mentioned. The
following extract from the Compost of Ptolemeus gives some of the supposed
effects of Mars:--"Under Mars is borne theves and robbers that kepe hye
wayes, and do hurte to true men, and nyght-walkers, and quarell-pykers,
bosters, mockers, and skoffers, and these men of Mars causeth warre and
murther, and batayle; they wyll be gladly _smythes_ or workers of yron,
lyght-fyngred, and lyers, gret swerers of othes in vengeable wyse, and a
great surmyler and crafty. He is red and angry, with blacke heer, and
lytell iyen; he shall be a great walker, and a maker of swordes and knyves,
and a sheder of mannes blode, and a fornycatour, and a speker of rybawdry
... and good to be a _barboure_ and a blode-letter, and to drawe tethe, and
is peryllous of his handes." The following extract is from an old
astrological book of the sixteenth century:--"Mars denoteth men with red
faces and the skinne redde, the face round, the eyes yellow, horrible to
behold, furious men, cruell, desperate, proude, sedicious, souldiers,
captaines, _smythes_, colliers, bakers, alcumistes, armourers, furnishers,
_butchers_, chirurgions, _barbers_, sargiants, and hangmen, according as
they shal be well or evill disposed."'--Wright. So also in Cornelius
Agrippa, De Occulta Philosophia, lib. i. c. 22. [82] Chaucer has 'cruel
Mars' in The Man of Lawes Tale, B. 301; and cf. note to A. 1087.