3189. _Lucifer_, a Latin name signifying _light-bringer_, and properly
applied to the morning-star. In Isaiah xiv. 12 the Vulgate has--'Quomodo
cecidisti de caelo, _Lucifer_, qui mane oriebaris? corruisti in terram, qui
uulnerabas gentes?' &c. St. Jerome, Tertullian, St. Gregory, and [228]
other fathers, supposed this passage to apply to the fall of Satan. It
became a favourite topic for writers both in prose and verse, and the
allusions to it are innumerable. See note to Piers the Plowman, B. i. 105
(Clar. Press Series). Gower begins his eighth book of the Confessio Amantis
with the examples of Lucifer and Adam.
Sandras, in his Étude sur Chaucer, p. 248, quotes some French lines from a
'Volucraire,' which closely agree with this first stanza. But it is a
common theme.
3192. _sinne_, the sin of _pride_, as in all the accounts; probably from 1
Tim. iii. 6. Thus Gower, Conf. Amant. lib. i. (ed. Pauli, i. 153):--
'For Lucifer, with them that felle,
Bar _pride_ with him into helle.
Ther was pride of to grete cost,
Whan he for pride hath heven lost.'
3195. _artow_, art thou. _Sathanas_, Satan. The Hebrew _sâtân_ means simply
an _adversary_, as in 1 Sam. xxix. 4; 2 Sam. xix. 22; &c. A remarkable
application of it to the evil spirit is in Luke x. 18. Milton also
indentifies Lucifer with Satan; Par. Lost, vii. 131; x. 425; but they are
sometimes distinguished, and made the names of two different spirits. See,
for example, Piers Plowman, B. xviii. 270-283.
3196. Read _misérie_, after which follows the metrical pause.