'Alexander, and Hercules,
That with a sherte his lyf lees.'
3288. Hercules' first labour was the slaying of the Nemean lion, whose skin
he often afterwards wore.
3289. _Centauros_; this is _the very form_ used by Boethius, else we might
have expected _Centaurus_ or _Centaures_. After the destruction of the
Erymanthian boar, Hercules slew Pholus the centaur; and (by accident)
Chiron. His slaughter of the centaur Nessus ultimately brought about his
own death; cf. l. 3318.
3290. _Arpies_, harpies. The sixth labour was the destruction of the
Stymphalian birds, who ate human flesh.
3291. The eleventh labour was the fetching of the golden apples, guarded by
the dragon Ladon, from the garden of the Hesperides.
3292. The twelfth labour was the bringing of Cerberus from the lower world.
3293. _Busirus._ Here Chaucer has confused two stories. One is, that
Busiris, a king of Egypt, used to sacrifice all foreigners who came to
Egypt, till the arrival of Hercules, who slew him. The other is 'the eighth
labour,' when Hercules killed Diomedes, a king in Thrace, who fed his mares
with human flesh, till Hercules slew him and gave his body to be eaten by
the mares, as Chaucer _himself_ says in his translation. The confusion was
easy, because the story of Busiris is mentioned elsewhere by Boethius, bk.
ii. pr. 6, in a passage which Chaucer thus translates (see vol. ii. p.
43):--'I have herd told of Busirides, þat was wont to sleen his gestes
[_guests_] þat herberweden [_lodged_] in his hous; and he was sleyn
him-self of Ercules þat was his gest.' Lydgate tells the story of Busiris
correctly.
3295. _serpent_, i. e. the Lernean hydra, whom Chaucer, in the passage from
Boethius, calls 'Idra [_or_ Ydra] the serpent.'
3296. _Achelois_, seems to be used here as a genitive form from [233] a
nominative _Achelo_; in his translation of Boethius we find _Achelous_ and
_Achelaus_. The spelling of names by old authors is often vague. The line
means--he broke one of the two horns of Achelous. The river-god Achelous,
in his fight with Hercules, took the form of a bull, whereupon the hero
broke off one of his horns.
3297. The adventures with Cacus and Antaeus are well known.
3299. The fourth labour was the destruction of the Erymanthian boar.
3300. _longe_, for a long time; in the margin of MS. Camb. Univ. Lib. Dd.
4. 24, is written the gloss _diu_.
3307. The allusion is to the 'pillars' of Hercules. The expression 'both
ends of the world' refers to the extreme points of the continents of Europe
and Africa, _world_ standing here for _continent_. The story is that
Hercules erected two pillars, Calpe and Abyla, on the two sides of the
Strait of Gibraltar. The words 'seith Trophee' seem to refer to an author
named Trophaeus. In Lydgate's prologue to his Fall of Princes, st. 41, he
says of Chaucer that--
'In youth he made a translacion
Of a boke whiche called is _Trophe_
In Lumbarde tonge, as men may rede and se;
And in our vulgar, long er that he deyde,
Gave it the name of Troylus and Creseyde.'
This seems to say that _Trophe_ was the Italian name of a Book (or
otherwise, the name of a book in Italian), whence Chaucer drew his story of
Troilus. But the notion must be due to some mistake, since that work was
taken from the 'Filostrato' of Boccaccio. The only trace of the name of
_Trophaeus_ as an author is in a marginal note--possibly Chaucer's
own--which appears in both the Ellesmere and Hengwrt MSS., viz. 'Ille vates
Chaldeorum Tropheus.' See, however, vol. ii. p. lv, where I shew that, in
_this_ passage at any rate, _Trophee_ really refers to Guido delle Colonne,
who treats of the deeds of Hercules in the first book of his Historia
Troiana, and makes particular mention of the famous columns (as to which
Ovid and Boethius are alike silent).
3311. _thise clerkes_, meaning probably Ovid and Boccaccio. See Ovid's
Heroides, epist. ix., entitled Deianira Herculi, and Metamorph. lib. ix.;
Boccaccio, De Casibus Virorum Illustrium, lib. i. cap. xviii., and De
Mulieribus Claris, cap. xxii. See also the Trachineae of Sophocles, which
Chaucer of course never read.
3315. _wered_, worn; so in A. 75, and B. 3320, _wered_ is the form of the
past tense. Instances of verbs with weak preterites in Chaucer, but strong
ones in modern English, are rare indeed; but there are several instances of
the contrary, e.g. _wep_, _slep_, _wesh_, _wex_, now _wept_, _slept_,
_washed_, _waxed_. _Wore_ is due to analogy with _bore_; cf. _could_ for
_coud_.
3317. Both Ovid and Boccaccio represent Deianira as ignorant of the fatal
effects which the shirt would produce. See Ovid, Metam. [234] ix. 133. Had
Chaucer written later, he might have included Gower among the clerks, as
the latter gives the story of Hercules and Deianira in his Conf. Amantis,
lib. ii. (ed. Pauli, i. 236), following Ovid. Thus he says--
'With wepend eye and woful herte
She tok out thilke vnhappy sherte,
_As she that wende wel to do_.'
3326. For long upbraidings of Fortune, see The Boke of the Duchesse, 617;
Rom. Rose, 5407; Boethius, bk. i. met. 5; &c.