Citole: a kind of dulcimer.
The picke-purse: The plunderers that followed armies, and gave to war a horror all their own.
Shepen: stable; Anglo-Saxon, “scypen;” the word “sheppon” still survives in provincial parlance.
This line, perhaps, refers to the deed of Jael.
The shippes hoppesteres: The meaning is dubious. We may understand “the dancing ships,” “the ships that hop” on the waves; “steres” being taken as the feminine adjectival termination: or we may, perhaps, read, with one of the manuscripts, “the ships upon the steres” — that is, even as they are being steered, or on the open sea — a more picturesque notion.
Freting: devouring; the Germans use “Fressen” to mean eating by animals, “essen” by men.
Julius: i.e. Julius Caesar
Puella and Rubeus were two figures in geomancy, representing two constellations-the one signifying Mars retrograde, the other Mars direct.
Calistope: or Callisto, daughter of Lycaon, seduced by Jupiter, turned into a bear by Diana, and placed afterwards, with her son, as the Great Bear among the stars.
Dane: Daphne, daughter of the river-god Peneus, in Thessaly; she was beloved by Apollo, but to avoid his pursuit, she was, at her own prayer, changed into a laurel-tree.
As the goddess of Light, or the goddess who brings to light, Diana — as well as Juno — was invoked by women in childbirth: so Horace, Odes iii. 22, says:—
“Montium custos nemorumque, Virgo, Quae laborantes utero puellas Ter vocata audis adimisque leto, Diva triformis.”
(“Virgin custodian of hills and groves, three-formed goddess who hears and saves from death young women who call upon her thrice when in childbirth”)
Every deal: in every part; “deal” corresponds to the German “Theil” a portion.
Sikerly: surely; German, “sicher;” Scotch, “sikkar,” certain. When Robert Bruce had escaped from England to assume the Scottish crown, he stabbed Comyn before the altar at Dumfries; and, emerging from the church, was asked by his friend Kirkpatrick if he had slain the traitor. “I doubt it,” said Bruce. “Doubt,” cried Kirkpatrick. “I’ll mak sikkar;” and he rushed into the church, and despatched Comyn with repeated thrusts of his dagger.
Kemped: combed; the word survives in “unkempt.”
Alauns: greyhounds, mastiffs; from the Spanish word “Alano,” signifying a mastiff.
Y-ment: mixed; German, “mengen,” to mix.
Prime: The time of early prayers, between six and nine in the morning.
On the dais: see note 32 to the Prologue.
In her hour: in the hour of the day (two hours before daybreak) which after the astrological system that divided the twenty-four among the seven ruling planets, was under the influence of Venus.
Adon: Adonis, a beautiful youth beloved of Venus, whose death by the tusk of a boar she deeply mourned.
The third hour unequal: In the third planetary hour; Palamon had gone forth in the hour of Venus, two hours before daybreak; the hour of Mercury intervened; the third hour was that of Luna, or Diana. “Unequal” refers to the astrological division of day and night, whatever their duration, into twelve parts, which of necessity varied in length with the season.
Smoking: draping; hence the word “smock;” “smokless,” in Chaucer, means naked.
Cerrial: of the species of oak which Pliny, in his “Natural History,” calls “cerrus.”
Stace of Thebes: Statius, the Roman who embodied in the twelve books of his “Thebaid” the ancient legends connected with the war of the seven against Thebes.
Diana was Luna in heaven, Diana on earth, and Hecate in hell; hence the direction of the eyes of her statue to “Pluto’s dark region.” Her statue was set up where three ways met, so that with a different face she looked down each of the three; from which she was called Trivia. See the quotation from Horace, note 54.
Las: net; the invisible toils in which Hephaestus caught Ares and the faithless Aphrodite, and exposed them to the “inextinguishable laughter” of Olympus.