This story, of Eastern origin, is told in Ovid's Metamorphoses, bk. ii. ll.
534-550, whence Chaucer evidently took it. Gower, also following Ovid,
gives the story very briefly; see his Conf. Amantis, ed. Pauli, i. 305.
Compare the tale of the three cocks, Gesta Romanorum, cap. 68; also the
Seven Sages, ed. Weber, l. 2201 (Metrical Rom. vol. iii. p. 86). Somewhat
similar in idea is a tale in the Knight de la Tour, c. 16. See further in
vol. iii. p. 501.
109. _Phitoun_, the Python, shot by Apollo; see Ovid, Met. i. 438-444;
Dryden, trans. of Ovid's Met., i. 587.
116. _Amphioun_, Amphion; see note to E. 1716. Cf. Horace, De Arte Poetica,
l. 394.
133.
'Nam fuit haec quondam niveis argentea pennis
Ales, ut aequaret totas sine labe columbas.'
Ovid, Met. ii. 536.