The marginal Latin glosses, identified by a capital L in the left margin next to the text, are transcribed and translated in the notes and can be accessed by clicking on (see note) at the corresponding line.

1 Avarice obstructs the laws of nature, and those things that generous love requests, she (Avarice) too stingily denies. All gold that is excessive is called vicious; an avaricious man preserves his wealth as a sheep keeps its fleece. It is not fitting that coin should be kept for one alone. But in love, one single man ought to have his sole woman.

2 Lines 663-64: i.e., he is certain of her favor in all ways except the details of how they would meet

3 Lines 666-67: i.e., no amount of close scrutiny can prevent such a couple from meeting

4 The temples of the pagan gods are inscribed for deluded peoples; whence a blind race worships blind gods. No reason allows a created being to be equal to its creator; yet this is what pagan laws promote.

5 The cupidinous man joins fields to other fields, and houses to other houses, as if he alone might own the whole landscape. And he alone pursues the love of innumerable women, so that Venus, sacred to thousands, might be worshiped by him alone.

6 When a man is not able to deceive by his own fraud, he suborns witnesses, so that true faith in them is bent awry. Just as a greedy man seeks lands, a cupidinous lover seeks women as if he were seeking lands: he wants his own false witnesses. But not without punishment will the perjurer live in the sight of He who sees all the secrets of his heart. To deceive a girl by perjury is not a praiseworthy glory, but an action of false contract.

7 Usury takes for itself more than it is owed, and often does so by concealed fraud. Thus love frequently pursues its excesses like an avaricious man, and takes three instead of one.

8 It is fitting to pay back words with words, and a gift with a gift, so that balanced scales carry the weight. Wherefore Cupid (Cupido) does not give his gifts to the avaricious (cupido); for whoever sows nothing, harvests no hay.

9 Every creature, God, and all that He created, condemn the words and deeds of an ungrateful man. Sorrow does not stand far off from such a one who has drawn to himself a girlfriend, for ultimately she will cease to be his.

10 By violence Rapacity seizes things in broad daylight; he takes the flower's honey from the unwilling virgin.

11 That he might live off his spoils, the bandit frequently ambushes, in a great onslaught, the road on which people journey. Thus love fears nothing if the setting is suitable where by chance he might snatch his prey.

12 As the rose, born amidst thorns, prevails over its thorny thicket, and lily flowers are worth more than the sod, so virginity in itself triumphs over fleshly marital unions, and without sin gives birth to eternal offspring.

13 The thief, lying hidden, surreptitiously scopes out the time and hour, so that he might prepare his thefts at a hidden moment. Thus love finds leisure for treachery so that under cover, it might be able to take furtive frolicking when the night is favorable.

14 The sacrilegious man profanes sacred places simply by theft; he treats the cherished house of God as his own estate. Nor is there anywhere in which the lover does not attempt to possess what is beloved to him; and what Capability cannot seize, Will still grasps.

15 Prodigality and parsimony are two extremes, and generosity is their middle, a trait held good by the voice of the people.

ABBREVIATIONS: Bart. Ang.: Trevisa's translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus, On the Properties of Things; BD: Chaucer, Book of the Duchess; CA: Gower, Confessio Amantis; De nuptiis: Martianus Capella, De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii; CT: Chaucer, Canterbury Tales; De formis: Petrus Berchorius, De formis figurisque deorum; De Is: Plutarch, De Iside et Osiride; Did.: Hugh of St. Victor, Didascalion; Diod.: Diodorus Siculus, Historia Librii; Etym.: Isidore, Etymologiae (PL 82); Ful.: Fulgentius, Mythographies; Gen. deorum: Boccaccio, Genealogie deorum gentilium libri; HF: Chaucer, House of Fame; Hyg.: Hyginus, The Myths of Hyginus (Fabulae); LGW: Chaucer, Legend of Good Women; Mac: G. C. Macaulay (4 vol. Complete Works); MED: Middle English Dictionary; Met.: Ovid, Metamorphoses; MO: Gower, Mirour de l'Omme; OCCL: Oxford Companion to Classical Literature; OED: Oxford English Dictionary; PL: Patrologia Latina; Poet. astr.: Hyginus, Poetica astronomica; RR: Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun, Le Roman de la Rose; TC: Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde; Trésor: Brunetto Latini, The Book of the Treasure; Val. Max.: Valerius Maximus, Memorable Doings and Sayings; Vat. Myth.: Vatican Mythographer I, II, or III; VC: Gower, Vox Clamantis; Vit. Barl.: Vitae Sanctorum Barlaam Ermitae et Josaphat Indiae Regis. For manuscript abbreviations, see p. 34.

8 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic in quinto libro intendit Confessor tractare de Auaricia, que omnium malorum radix dicitur, necnon et de eiusdem vicii speciebus: set primo ipsius Auaricie naturam describens Amanti quatenus amorem concernit super hoc specialius opponit. [Here in the fifth book the Confessor intends to discourse about Avarice, which is called the root of all evils, and also about the species of this vice. But first, describing the nature of Avarice to the Lover insofar as it concerns love, the Confessor particularly questions the Lover about this.]

17-18 on honde . . . to londe. A poetic tag "with little semantic content" (OED lond n. 1[g]), which, with comen to, means "to occur," "happen." Compare 1.3288-89 and 5.4899-4900. See also 5.341-42 and 5.975-76.

49-57 Compare MO 7645 ff. on the idea that the money owns the avaricious person rather than the other way around.

79-90 Here Gower uses as many as six rimes riches in succession, a technique he had perfected in MO. Itô (John Gower, pp. 224-25) notes that Gower uses this kind of wordplay more in dialogue between the Confessor and Amans than in the tales themselves. For further discussion of Gower's use of rime équivoque in these lines, see Olsen, "Betwene Ernest and Game", pp. 55-56, and Zarins, "Poetic Justice," on rime riche.

123 ff. Unto the gold schal serve and bowe. Macaulay (2.514n127-36) notes how Gower emphasizes gold's mastery over its servants by placing gold as the first stressed word in lines 127, 134, and 136, as if the iteration exemplifies gold's control of its avaricious thralls.

141 ff. Gower's story of Midas is based on Met. 11.85-145. Midas' debate over the three choices is Gower's addition to the traditional story. See also Hyg. 191, and Ful. 2.10. For discussion of Gower's manipulation of Ovid's tale, see Moran, "Tale of Midas."

143 Cillenus. Silenus was a wise but truculent satyr, who was raised by Dionysus. Midas captured him and forced him to reveal his wisdom, namely, that it is best never to have been born, second best to die as soon as possible (Herodotus 8.138, Pseudo-Plutarch, Consolatio ad Apollonium 27, and Virgil, Eclogue 6). Godley draws a parallel between the capture of Silenus and Menelaus' capture of Proteus in The Odyssey (Herodotus, p.145n2). Silenus was notorious for his drunkenness.

146 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic loquitur contra istos Auaros. Et narrat qualiter Mida Rex Frigie Cillenum Bachi sacerdotem, quem rustici vinculis ferreis alligarunt, dissoluit, et in hospicium suum benignissime recollegit; pro quo Bachus quodcumque manus Rex exigere vellet donari concessit. Vnde Rex Auaricia ductus, ut quicquid tangeret in aurum conuerteretur, indiscrete peciit. Quo facto postea contigit quod cibos cum ipse sumere vellet, in aurum conuersos manducare non potuit. Et sic percipiens aurum pro tunc non posse sibi valere, illud auferri, et tunc ea que victui sufficerent necessaria iteratis precibus a deo mitissime postulauit. [Here he speaks against the avaricious, and he tells how Midas of Frigia released Silenus the priest of Bacchus, whom peasants had bound in iron chains, and how Midas most benignly nurtured him in his own residence. For this, Bacchus granted that the king be given as much as his hand might reach to. Wherefore the king, led by avarice, foolishly requested that whatever he touched be turned to gold. With this made so, it happened that the food he wanted to take turned to gold, and he could not eat; and thus perceiving that the gold now could not help him, he most humbly begged the god with repeated prayers to take it away, and then supply those necessities which might suffice for victuals.]

236 ff. Latin marginalia: Salomon. Pecunie obediunt omnia. [Solomon: "All things obey money" (Ecclesiastes 10:19).]

249 ff. Compare MO 7063-7108 on the likening of the avaricious man to one afflicted with dropsy, that dries up a man with unnatural thirst, regardless of how much he drinks.

334 Tofor the time. On Gower's ubi sunt nostalgic response within the rhetoric of complaint satire to the former age as a golden time before gold was smitten, see Peter, Complaint and Satire, p. 70.

363 ff. Latin marginalia: Nota de pena Tantali, cuius amara sitis dampnatos torquet auaros. [Note concerning the punishment of Tantalus, whose bitter thirst tortures the avaricious in hell.]

The story of Tantalus was well known: for example, Hyg. 82; Ful. 2.18; Vat. Myth. II 102; Gen. deorum 12.1. Ovid alludes to the story several times, though he never tells it fully.

388 which a wreche. The sense might be "what a miserable person." But I have followed Macaulay's gloss (2.515) "what a punishment" as being especially apt to the context.

389 couth. MED gives "known; well-known, familiar," couth, adj. (1a), citing this line. But I have preferred 1b, "evident." "Near" would be satisfactory, too, though "evident," meaning "in front of your face" is better.

461 ff. Latin marginalia: Nota de Ialousia, cuius fantastica suspicio amorem quamuis fidelissimum multociens sine causa corruptum ymaginatur. [Note concerning Jealousy, whose phantasmic suspicion very often baselessly imagines that love, even if most faithful, is corrupt.] Compare the fantastic rage of Jean de Meun's jealous husband in RR, lines 8455-9492. Both writers associate jealousy with Avarice. Chaucer likewise draws upon the tradition in creating jealous husbands like old Januarie in The Merchant's Tale, who would keep May locked in his garden; or John the carpenter and his sweet Alison in The Miller's Tale: "Jalous he was, and heeld hire narwe in cage" (CT I[A]3224). For women, jealousy is seen to be a self-protective virtue, though still the source of often baseless fantasies (though sometimes not so baseless) as it helps the women protect what is rightfully theirs. See RR, lines 3526-754, where li Jaloux stirs Daungier (Resistance) into action against Amans.

464 fievere . . . cotidian. Although jealousy is commonly seen to be a kind of rage, jealous love is often compared to a debilitating daily fever. See RR lines 1831 ff., where the god of love instructs the lover on the pains of love, along with the pains of the jealous lover described by Friend in lines 8455 ff.; or the feverish self-protective behavior of Troilus in TC 1.491, 1.916, 2.1520, or 3. 1213. See also Chaucer's Romaunt, lines 2391-2452, a passage close to Gower's portrayal of the indolent, love-sick, jealous Amans in CA 4.1648-1770, 4.2746-2916, and 5.467 ff.

468 of comun wone. "of common practice, custom, or habit." See 5.851 and 3.149 for similar use of the idiom.

513 aliche grene. Jealousy is the green sickness; see OED adj. (3a) on the green eye of jealousy and the green, bilious, pale, sickly complexion associated with jealousy. See also OED"green-eyed."

558-59 gold unpursed . . . leid upon the bok. See Macaulay (2.515n558-59): "The gold in question is that which is laid upon the service-book in payment of the marriage fees: 'and the Man shall give unto the Woman a Ring, laying the same upon the book with the accustomed duty to the Priest and Clerk.' Marriage Service."

564 The gloss is from Macaulay (2.515), who compares the usage to Prol. 154.

591-94 See Simpson, Sciences and the Self, p. 172, on the possibilities of "deceptive psychological 'information'" capable of transforming man from his ideal state. Much of Amans' reception of Genius' examples in Books 2-6, but especially in Book 3, illustrates the problems of feigned enformacion (line 593), as one chooses to give it and the other to receive it, a key, perhaps, to the main thrust of Genius and Amans' unstable debate in the middle books of the poem.

639-700 The author of Chaucer's Ghoast (1672) steals and adapts these lines as if they were his own in his Arg. 7, the story of Venus, Mars, and Vulcan. He presents the passage as if he were affecting Chaucer's style in presenting Ovidian tales, "penn'd after the ancient manner of writing in England." The plagiarism is proof that Gower is at least being read during the Restoration period, albeit considered obscure enough to pass as another's work. See also 5.6225-81 and 5.6715-80.

642 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic ponit exemplum contra istos maritos quos Ialousia maculauit. Et narrat qualiter Vulcanus, cuius vxor Venus extitit, suspicionem inter ipsam et Martem concipiens, eorum gestus diligencius explorabat: vnde contigit quod ipse quadam vice ambos inter se pariter amplexantes in lecto nudos inuenit, et exclamans omnem ceterum deorum et dearum ad tantum spectaculum conuocauit: super quo tamen derisum pocius quam remedium a tota cohorte consecutus est. [Here he presents an instructive example against those husbands whom jealousy has tainted. And he narrates how Vulcan, whose wife was Venus, conceiving a suspicion about something between her and Mars, scrutinized very diligently their activities. Whence it happened that he by a certain chance discovered both of them naked, entwined with one another in bed, and, crying out, he convened all the rest of the gods and goddesses to witness such a spectacle. Nonetheless, laughter from all the court, rather than a remedy, immediately followed.] Vulcan's capturing of Mars in bed with Venus is one of the favorites of all ancient stories. See Hyg. 148; Vat. Myth. II 121; Gen. deorum 9.3; and Met. 4.170; Ars amatoria 2.589; and Vit. Barl. (PL 78.551), to name a few.

729 ff. Macaulay's indignation at "the very ill-advised digression" (2.515) on pagan religions is sufficiently unsedate to be quoted in full:

There is no more reason why this should come in here than anywhere else, indeed if the question of false gods was to be raised at all, it ought to have come in as an explanation of the appearance of Venus and Cupid in the first book. Many stories have been told, for example those of Acteon, of the Gorgons, of Tiresias, of Phoebus and Daphne, of Phaeton, of Ceix, of Argus, and of Midas, which required the explanation quite as much as this one, and the awkwardness of putting it all into the mouth of the priest of Venus is inexcusable.

732-1302 Gower's principal authority in his discussion of the Chaldean, Egyptian, and Greek religions is Vit. Barl. 1.27 (PL 73.548-55), the cronique that he mentions in lines 816 and 837 (N.b. the ME translation Barlam and Iosaphat). Although that work includes lore on the Greek gods, Gower's generalizations about them range far beyond the information supplied by Vit. Barl. But Gower also draws on Etym., Book 8 (PL 82.293-326), which begins by discussing matters of religion, faith, heresy, and schism and deals with Christianity, Judaism, and the pagan gods, especially those of Greece and Egypt. For a succinct discussion of the history behind such catalogues of classical deities as Gower's, see Seznec, Survival of the Pagan Gods, especially ch. 1. The observations by Dindimus to Alexander at the end of the discussion could be drawn from any number of versions (Latin, Old French, Middle English) of the ever-popular history of Alexander, or of chronicles that include that history. Orus (line 798) apparently refers to Horus the Elder, while Orayn (line 806) would be Horus the Child.

Isirus (line 798) is, of course, Osiris, and Typhon (line 798) is Seth. In my glosses I have used modern spelling for the Greek deities except in those instances when I have not been able to identify the character. For example, when Genius calls the father of Ilia Mynitor (line 897), the reference is clearly to Numitor; so too his Ypolitus (line 967) is Hippotas, and his Sibeles (line 1135) is Cybele, and Philerem (line 1163) is Philyra. Of the two pits of Hell that Pluto swears by, Stige (line 1113) must be Styx, while, Andrew Galloway suggests, Segne is perhaps the river Seine (an anti-French joke of the Hundred Years War, as if the Parisian river were one of the pits of Hell).

748 ff. Latin marginalia: Quia secundum Poetarum fabulas in huius libelli locis quampluribus nomina et gestus deorum falsorum intitulantur, quorum infidelitas vt Cristianis clarius innotescat, intendit de ipsorum origine secundum varias Paganorum Sectas scribere consequenter. Et primo de Secta Chaldeorum tractare proponit. [Since, following the fables of the poets, the names and deeds of the false gods are inscribed in many places in this book, in order to describe their treachery and lack of Christian faith (infidelitas) he intends to write subsequently about their origin according to various pagan sects. And first he proposes to treat the sect of the Chaldeans.]

765 ben corrupt be sondri weie. The scornful tone with which Genius depicts the foolishness of a Chaldean theogony based on mutable elements comes from Vit. Barl. 1.27 (PL 73.548).

772 ff. Latin marginalia: Et nota quod Nembroth quartus a Noe ignem tanquam deum in Chaldea primus adorari decreuit. [And note that Nimrod, fourth after Noah, first ordered fire to be worshipped as a god.] See Genesis 10:8-9, where Nimrod is identified as a mighty hunter. In Cursor Mundi he is son of Chus, son of Cham, who becomes king of Babylon and builds the Tower of Babel, using bricks prepared by fire (lines 2195-2304).

774 hevenly figures. See Vit. Barl. 1.27 (PL 73.548) on the worshiping of features of the zodiac as gods. Martianus credits "the sanctums of Egyptian priests" with keeping of the secrets of such study "for almost forty thousand years" (8.812).

787 ff. Latin marginalia: De Secta Egipciorum. [Concerning the sect of the Egyptians.]

789 worst of alle. The Egyptian gods are worst because of the bestial (5.791), incestuous (5.801-03), fratricidal (5.805), and murderous ways (5.809) of Osiris, Isis, Horus, and the monstrous Typhon. N.b., the tone of Vit. Barl. 1.27 (PL 73.552: Ægyptii autem eos stultitia et stoliditate superantes, gravius quam ullæ aliæ nationes aberrarunt [But the Egyptians were more grossly aberrant than any other peoples, surpassing them all in stupidity and vulgarity]).

798 Orus, Typhon, and Isirus. On the Egyptian gods (also Isis, 5.801), see Vit. Barl. (PL 73.552), Vat. Myth. II 90-91 and Vat. Myth. III 6.3; and Gen. deorum 2.4. That they could turn themselves into animals, see Hyg. 196.

805 Typhon. Typhon, originating in Greek mythology, is only later identified with the Egyptian god Set. According to Hesiod, Ge lay with Tartarus to conceive her youngest child Typhon, a huge monster with a hundred dragon heads instead of hands. Typhon attacked Zeus, temporarily defeating him, until Zeus, using his thunderbolts, confined him beneath Etna, from which his rage still spews forth. According to the Homeric Hymns, Hera gave birth to him without benefit of a father, but that is a story Gower would not likely have known. Hyginus reports the details from Hesiod in Hyg. 152. Typhon appears again in Hyg. 196 and in Poet. astr. 2.28, where the gods change themselves into beasts to avoid Typhon's assault.

816-17 Ysis . . . Fro Grece into Egipte cam. Leonhard notes that Isis was traditionally associated with Io, whom Jupiter hid away from Juno and made a goddess in Egypt ("Classical Mythology," p. 52n4).

819 teche hem for to sowe and eere. Leonhard notes that Isis, "as wife of Osiris, began the cultivation of grain, when he, god of the Nile, taught the use of the plow. She was also the earth goddess (Vat. Myth. II 90). She was identified with Ceres, and, as goddess of the moon, with Io (Diod. 1.24.9-10; Vat. Myth. II 89). She was mother of Horus (De Is 19, 52, 65, 68)" ("Classical Mythology," p. 55n.). None of these sources suggest that she is goddess of childbirth (see CA 5.827-31).

835 ff. Latin marginalia: De Secta Grecorum. [Concerning the sect of the Greeks.]

839-41 here goddes and goddesses . . . weren full of vice. Itô ("Gower's Use of Vita Barlaam," pp. 11-12) notes that these lines are likely taken from Vit. Barl. (PL 73.550): Græci igitur sapientiæ laudem sibi arrogantes, stultiores etiam Chaldæis se præbuerunt, complures videlicet deos inducentes, partim masculos, partim feminas, vitiosarum omnis generis affectionum, ac scelerum architectos [The Greeks, while arrogating to themselves great fame for wisdom, revealed themselves to be stupider even than the Chaldeans, exhibiting a great many gods, some masculine and some feminine, as connivers of all types of vicious passions and wicked deeds].

845-63 Saturnus. Gower could have constructed his Saturn from various sources - Hyg. 139; Ful. 1.2; Vat. Myth. I (102, 104, 105); Vat. Myth. III 1; Gen. deorum 9.1; or, especially, Bart. Ang. 8.12, pp. 473-80. His castration is a central point in RR, lines 5505-18. Usually he is presented as cold, cruel, and malicious, an enemy of love. But Gower does give him some good traits as well, as the donor of agriculture in Italy (5.1221-44) and the discoverer of geomancy (6.1292-94), if that gift can be viewed as a favor. Gower cites three wives: Rhea, whose children he ate (5.849), Cybele (who in some instances may be the same as Rhea), by whom he sired Jupiter, Neptune, Juno, and Pluto (5.1133), and Ceres, who induced him to give the gift of agriculture to Italy (5.1221 ff.).

845 ff. Latin marginalia: Nota qualiter Saturnus deorum summus appellatur. [Note how Saturn is called the highest of the gods.]

864 Lo, which a god thei maden chief! The Greek gods get off to a bad start in Genius' review, as he presents the daddy of them all as a cannibal, emasculated by his own lecherous son, who casts him into exile.

870 ff. Latin marginalia: Iupiter deus deliciarum. [Jupiter the god of pleasure.]

870-72 Jupiter . . . the secounde . . . a lechour. Genius regards Saturn as the first. Jupiter in his pleasance and delicacy is often portrayed as a lecher (see Vat. Myth. III 15 on Jove's lecherous behavior in all signs of the zodiac). In Gower his lovers include: Juturna (3.821), Io (4.3318), Semele (5.1044), Latona (5.1245), Venus (5.1404), and Callisto (5.6249). He is the one who gives his son Cupid the two tuns of sweet and bitter love potions (6.330-36 and 8.2252-58). Elsewhere, Gower does give him other roles besides lechery. He is a benevolent, all-seeing god, almost like the Christian deity, in 2.291, the Tale of the Angel and the Travelers; so too when he answers Philomela's prayer (5.5741 ff.) or performs miracles in response to Bacchus' prayer in the desert (6.398-439). Also he often performs judiciously in matters of law. Bart. Ang. 8.12 offers a good summary of his traits. See also Vat. Myth. III 3.1-9.

883 ff. Latin marginalia: Mars deus belli. [Mars the god of war.]

885 Vegecius. Flavius Vegetius Renatus, author of Epitoma rei militaris (c. 383), a treatise of some influence on military thinking into the Renaissance. See Robert's edition of Jean de Meun's translation. No mention is made there of Mars' fathering of Romulus and Remus, however.

894 Dame Ylia. Rhea Silvia, the mother of Romulus and Remus. She was loved by Mars, who fathered the twins (see 5.899-900). Amulus, younger brother of Numitor, king of Alba, condemned her to be a Vestal Virgin (i.e., the "prioress" of 5.891). For early Latin versions of the story, see Livy, Ab urbe condita (On the Founding of the City) 1.3.10 ff.; Dionysus Halicarnassensis, Antiquitates Romanae 1.76.1 ff.; and Plutarch, Vitae Parallelae, Romulus. 3 ff.

897 Mynitor. Numitor, elder son of Proca, king of Alba, and father of Rhea Silvia. His younger brother overthrew him for a time. He gave his grandsons the land on which to found Rome. See Livy, Ab urbe condita 1.3-6.

915 ff. Latin marginalia: Appollo deus Sapiencie. [Apollo the god of wisdom.]

917-18 brother to Venus, / Appollo. I have not been able to identify a source that links Apollo's genealogy with Venus. Perhaps Genius is thinking of Venus Dione, "O Joves doughter deere," as Chaucer puts it (TC 3.3), in which case Apollo and Venus are kin, by consequence of father Jupiter's lechery. This would explain Genius' numerous accounts of Apollo's seduction of nymphs and women (the "lewed folk" that he deceives - 5.931) such as Cornide (3.783 ff.), Daphne (3.1688 ff.), and Leucothoe (5.6719 ff.). He also fathered Aescylapius (5.1072) and Phaeton (4.979). Mythographers regularly praise Apollo's skills at harping and hunting, which Genius begrudgingly here acknowledges by granting him the phrase "god of wit" (5.935), though he turns his harping skills into minstrelsy by which means he gets "[h]is sustenaunce" (5.925-26). Lewis (Allegory of Love, p. 211) sees Genius' grumbling expostulation as "mere abuse," though he finds the passage to be "irresistibly funny." But I suspect that the "irresistible" humor throughout this section is quite intentional. Gower is having an amusing time distorting the hijinks of the gods that he has worked hard with for so many years by means of just such cultural incongruities. In the neoplatonic tradition Apollo is viewed as an allegorical figure of Christ, a god of light and benefactor of nature. (See Assembly of Gods, ed. Chance, p. 95). Gower is having fun making Venus' priest so hostile and impatient with pagan lore, which well he might be, given the fact that he is an aspect of libido, even as Amans is, though for a different effect.

937 ff. Latin marginalia: Mercurius deus Mercatorum et furtorum. [Mercury the god of merchants and thieves.] See Ful. 1.18 on Mercury as the complete trader - mercium-curum.

938 Mercurie hihte. For a neat summary of Mercury's qualities - his name, his involvement with merchants, his thievery, his shape-shifting, his dress, his capricious activities, see Ful. 1.18. See also Vat. Myth. III 9 and Bart. Ang. 8.15.

940-43 On Mercury's sorcerie and his ability to be male or female, see Etym. 8.11.49 (PL 82.321), which links Mercury to sorcery and Hermes Trismegistus; Bart. Ang. 8.15, which comments on his being quasi medius currens (Mercury), "as rennynge in þe middil," a "nyöt planete, now male, now female"; and De formis, pp. 25-26: Quando enim volebat, de viro in feminam & de femina in masculum se mutabat, de albis vero nigra & de nigris candida faciebat. [For whenever he wanted, he changed himself from man to woman and from woman to man; and he could make black from white and brilliance from darkness.]

955 ff. Latin marginalia: Vulcanus deus Ignis. [Vulcan the god of fire.]

959 He was a schrewe in al his youthe. Perhaps Genius is alluding to Vulcan's being cast out of heaven (Vat. Myth. I 128 and II 40); or perhaps the shrew allusion is to his spying on his wife Venus to trap her in bed with her lover Mars (Hyg. 148; Vat. Myth. II 121; or Vit. Barl. [PL 78.551]), thereby offending the court of love.

967 ff. Latin marginalia: Eolus deus ventorum. [Eolus the god of the winds.]

981 ff. Latin marginalia: Neptunus deus maris. [Neptune the god of the sea.]

981 king of Crete Jupiter. Jupiter became king of Crete when he overthrew Saturn. See Gen. deorum 4.1; Vat. Myth. I 2.105; and Vit. Barl. (PL 73.550), though I do not find the specific phrase in these "sources." The phrase does appear in Giovanni Villani's c. 1300 Nuova Cronica ("Iove re di Creti"), Book 1, ch. 8.

983 Neptune. Glossators commonly equate Neptune with water (Vat. Myth. I 107 and Ful. 1-4). Vat. Myth. III 5 offers a useful summary compilation of his traits. See Chance on the natural allegorization of Neptune in Bernard Silvestris, Martianus Capella, William of Conches, and others (Medieval Mythography, pp. 711- 12). Gower sometimes uses him as a metaphor for the power of the sea (8.623 ff.), but that is not the point here. In his comic vilification of the pagan gods, Genius presents Neptune (Jupiter's brother - the lot of them are bad) as a sailor/pirate whose behavior is so outrageous that the "comun vois" (5.995) rises against him to force him into exile and give him a bad name (5.996- 1000). The implication is that in ancient times (and perhaps later, too) if someone is bad enough he may be made into a god. In Gower his founding of Troy does, however, bring him some honor (5.1002-04; compare 1.1152), a tradition found in Dictys 5.11; Benoît 25921 ff.; and Guido 30, p. 234.

1005 ff. Latin marginalia: Pan deus nature. [Pan the god of nature.]

1007 Pan. Gower gives Pan a more detailed and favorable review than the other pagan gods, partly because he helps people through "naturel experience" (5.1037). (See the discussion of Gower's ambiguous use of nature as part of the poem's setting in my introduction to volume 2, pp. 14 ff.) Gower includes no stories about Pan. Rather, he is a pastoral force, a god of shepherds, living in Arcadia and its environs (i.e., "Nonarcigne" [Nonacris], 5.1009), near the river Ladon on the "Mount of Parasie" (Parnassus). Most of the place names are found in Ovid's description of Pan in Met. 1.689 ff., 600 ff. Leonhard, "Classical Mythology," p. 76, suggests that Pigne may be the river Peneus, which Gower elsewhere calls "Peneie" (5.4006). The references to animal husbandry (the shepherd keeping his sheep, the breeder of oxen and tamer of horses, etc.) match up well with Fasti 2.271. His invention of double reed pipes (5.1029-34) is mentioned in Met. 1.705 ff. But to call him "god of nature" (5.1041) foolishly puts the foot above the head (5.1040).

1009 Nonarcigne. Nonacris, a mountain in Arcadia on whose slopes Pan saw the wood nymph Syrinx whom he pursued with passion only to end up embracing the marsh reeds into which she had been transformed. Pan's lament was so pathetic that pipes with reeds fitted together were devised to keep the name of the maiden. Music from the reeds is so sweet that it charms Argus to sleep, for all his eyes, whereby he is slain. See Met. 1.682-721. (N.b., CA 5.1029-34.)

1015 Ladon. The river in Arcadia where Pan attempted to rape Syrinx. See Met. 1.702.

1019 cité Stinfalides. See Fasti 2.271 ff., where the Stymphalian waters bore witness to Pan's pastoral activities. The city of Stymphalus is near the Stymphalian lake from which Hercules, in his sixth labor, killed the detestable Stymphalian birds. See Met. 11.187 ff. Elsewhere in Gower it is the place where Pan teaches animal husbandry, including that of "foules" (5.1025). See Leonhard, "Classical Mythology," p. 92.

1043 ff. Latin marginalia: Bachus deus vini. [Bacchus the god of wine.]

1044 Jupiter upon Samele. Gower is following the tradition of Dionysus being conceived upon Semele found in Met. 3.259 ff., Vat. Myth. I 120, Ful. 2.12, and Gen. deorum 5.25.

1044-58 See Met. 3.256-315 on Semele's birthing of Dyon (Bachus); Met. 4.20, 605 and 15.413 on his conquest of India; and 13.650 ff. on his wine-making talents. Vat. Myth. III 12 summarizes the events and sources of his story. So too Gen. deorum 5.25. See Pliny, Naturalis historiae 4.39, 12.85, and 16.9 on his role as god of fields and vines.

1049 in Ynde. Dionysus' sojourn in India, which he conquered and where he then established the art of viniculture, is recorded in Euripides, Bacchae; Plutarch, On Rivers; Pausanias 10.29.2; Diod. 2.38; Strabo 9.5.5; Philostratus, Life of Apollonius 2.8.9. See De formis 15.1, p. 42, which cites Ful. 2.12, to the effect that Dionysus took his name from a mountain in India.

1059 ff. Latin marginalia: Esculapius deus medicine. [Esculapius the god of medicine.]

1059 ff. Esculapius. Gower's source here seems to be Vit. Barl. (PL 73.551), though, as Hamilton points out ("Studies in the Sources," p. 501), Genius converts Tyndareus' son into Daires dowhter (5.1063), perhaps to add lechery to the doctor's character traits. Vit. Barl. does not include details about Esculapius' travels to Rome or "Delphos" (line 1071) to do his father Apollo's bidding. But those travels are hinted at in Livy 10.47ff. In addition, Ovid's versions of the story in Met. 15.622-744 and Fasti 6.733-62 have some bearing on Genius' account. See also De nuptiis 9.926 (where Esculapius is called "Asclepiades").

1071 Delphos. Perhaps a slip for Delos (n.b., 5.1256, where Genius gets it right), though Mainzer ("John Gower's Use of the 'Mediaeval Ovid,'" p. 219) finds a similar reference to Delphi as an island in a gloss to an early fifteenth-century manuscript of Ovidius Moralizatus.

1083 ff. Latin marginalia: Hercules deus fortitudinis. [Hercules the god of strength.] See Vat. Myth. III 13.

1088 Merveiles tuelve. See Hyg. 30.

1096 The god of strengthe. Compare the marginal gloss at 1083. Hamilton ("Studies in the Sources," pp. 503-04) suggests Albericus' Poetarius as the source of the epithet, where fortitudo translates as strengthe, not moral courage.

1100 in a rage himself he brende. See the Tale of Deianira, Hercules, and Nessus, 2.2295-2302.

1103 ff. Latin marginalia: Pluto deus Inferni. [Pluto the god of the Underworld.]

1109-10 On the four rivers of Hades called Lethe, Flegeton, Acheron, and Cocytus, see De formis 15.1, pp. 43-45, Vat. Myth. III 6.2-4, or Gen. deorum 3.14-17. Berchorius' De formis glosses the names of the rivers to mean "forgetfulness," "ardor" (as in the burning ardor of avarice), "without salvation," and "mourning" (pp. 44-45).

1119 for Jupiteres sake. Compare 1.2474, "for Gourmoundes sake." The sense is "for the destruction of" or "out of disdain for" plus a genitive noun. See MED sake n. 4a(e).

1133 ff. Latin marginalia: Nota, qualiter Sibeles Dearum Mater et origo nuncupatur. [Note how Cybele is called the mother and source of the goddesses.]

1135-36 Sibeles of goddesses / The moder. Cybele, the mother of the gods. Also called Rhea and Berecynthia (Gower's "Bethincia," line 1141). See Vat. Myth. I 230, Vat. Myth III.2, Fasti 4.181-96, 359-64, and De formis 15.1, pp. 35-36. See also CA 5.1160. For a convenient summary of the activities of Rhea (Kybele), the great Mother, see Rose, Handbook of Greek Mythology, pp. 45-47.

1146 Juno, Neptunus, and Pluto. On the three children of Cybele, see Vat. Myth. I 2.102. Juno is sometimes called "moder" because she is Jupiter's wife, thus queen mother over the Olympian gods.

1157 ff. Latin marginalia: Iuno Dea Regnorum et diuiciarum. [Juno the goddess of kingdoms and riches.]

1163 Philerem. Itô, "Gower's Use of Vita Barlaam," p. 15, points out that the source of Gower's attribution of the mothering of Jupiter to Philyra appears to be De formis, Book 15, which reads: Cognovitque Philirem in qua Iovem genuit, que fingit se lapidem peperisse, ipsum Saturno devorandum dedit, Iovem vero in Archadia nutriri caute fecit, qui tamen ipsum postea de regno expulit & eiecit [And he knew Philyra, the one with whom he made Jove. She pretended to have given birth to a stone, gave that to Saturn to be devoured, and secretly had Jove brought up in Arcady, who nonetheless afterwards expelled Saturn from his kingdom] (p. 6). Both Vat. Myth. I 103 and Gen. deorum 7.62 identify Philyra, daughter of Ocean, as one of Saturn's wives, but her child by Saturn is Chiron, the centaur, who first invented medicine.

1176-88 Genius' presentation of Juno bears some likeness to De formis (especially pp. 32-33), which identifies her as a figure of air and the sky, served by Iris as the rainbow and nymphs as clouds (compare 5.1184-88). She is sister and wife of Jove, yet always a virgin, with great wealth both in kingdoms and riches (5.1177-80), and is said to be nourished by Neptune and sea nymphs (5.1182).

1189 ff. Latin marginalia: Minerva Dea sapienciarum. [Minerva the goddess of wise women.]

1189-1200 Gower's account of Minerva being found as an abandoned child by Lake Triton in Africa, whence she is borne to Thrace where she acquires a new name, Pallas, comes primarily from Etym. 8.9.71-75 (PL 82.322): Hæc Minerva, et Tritonia dicitur. Triton enim Africæ palus est, circa quam fertur virginali apparuisse ætate, propter quod Tritonia nuncupata est. Unde et tanto proclivius dea credita, quanto minus origo ejus innotuit. Pallas autem dicta, vel ab insula Pallene in Thracia, in qua nutrita est. [She is called Minerva and Tritonia. For Triton is a swamp of Africa, around which she is said to have appeared at a maidenly age, on account of which she is called Tritonia. Whence the more her origin has become less known, the more she is believed to be a goddess. She is also called Pallas from the island Palle in Thrace, where she was raised.] See also Vat. Myth. III 10.

1202-03 she fond ferst . . . cloth makinge of wolle and lyn. On Minerva as inventor of cloth making, see note to 4.2435, which cites Methodius' Apocalypse, Etym. 19.20.1-2, Did. 3.2, and Higden 2.11 (Trevisa's translation) for similar statements on Minerva's inventions.

1205 goddesse of sapience. See, for example, Bernardus Silvestris' Commentary, pp. 46-47, where Pallas [Minerva] represents the life of contemplation: "Minerva, as is media vel intima cogitatio, 'central or innermost thought,' is wisdom which resides in the brain" (p. 47). See also Vat. Myth. II 39 and De nuptiis 6.567 ff.

1207 ff. Latin marginalia: Pallas Dea bellorum. [Pallas the goddess of wars.]

That Genius presents Pallas and Minerva as separate deities is understandable if we think of the ancient gods as allegorical packages: Minerva as wisdom and Pallas as war, though of one character, are separate aspects. Gower seems well aware that differing traditions underlie all the gods, e.g., 5.1214: "Some ek seide . . ."

1207-20 Pallas. See note to lines 1189-1200 on Minerva's several names. Gower suggests that according to one tradition (sondri speche - 5.1208) this name derives from the giant Pallant, who was hire fader . . . a cruel man, a bataillous (5.1209-11); another that she was in his hous and was the cause why he deide (5.1212-13). Gower's source here might be Vat. Myth. III 10.1, which indicates that she got the name after she killed the giant Pallant near Lake Tritonia (Gigantem Pallentem juxta fluvium Tritonem interfecerit [p. 221]).

1214-15 some ek seide / That sche was Martes wif. Who the some might be is a puzzler. Ful. 2.11 and Vat. Myth. III 10.3-6 tell how Jupiter, for his amusement, gave Pallas to Vulcan in marriage, and the scene that follows is indeed amusing as the warrior woman defends her chastity so fiercely that Vulcan drops his seed on the floor, whereupon the serpentine Erichthonius is born, whom Pallas raises until he can invent chariots, become lord of Athens, and win blessings for the city when he accepts Pallas' gift of the olive branch. Perhaps the idea of pitting the divine female warrior [Pallas] against the divine male warrior [Mars] appealed to some commentator; or perhaps the idea that Pallas, as Vulcan's wife whom Mars beds, means that Mars made an attempt with Pallas rather than Venus. But whatever the idea, one component is certain: Pallas remains virgin and potent, regardless of whether Jupiter is amused. The Vit. Barl. makes no mention of either Minerva or Pallas.

1221 ff. Latin marginalia: Ceres dea frugum. [Ceres the goddess of grains.]

1223-24 Into the londes of Ytaile, / And ther he dede gret mervaile. On Saturn's great agricultural gifts to human kind, see Ful. 1.2, with its etymology of his name from saturando (glutting), along with his wife, the opulent Ops; and Bart. Ang. 8.12.

1227-44 On Ceres as goddess of grain and produce, see Ful. 1.11 and Bernardus Silvestris' Commentary (pp. 12, 48, 91, 96), where the plenty of Ceres and the wine of Bacchus are recurrently identified as that which keeps Venus from freezing.

1245 ff. Latin marginalia: Diana Dea Moncium et Siluarum. [Diana the goddess of mountains and woods.]

1250 Diane his dowhter he begat. Gower moves far beyond Vit. Barl. in his account of Diana, her conception, her birthing, and her life. All Barlam (the "cronique" of line 1270) reports is: "Also þei sayn þat Diana was his [Apollo's] suster and a goddesse, and she was a grete huntere, and bare bowe and arrowes, and sometyme an harpe. And she wolde walke alone with here doggis in hylles and wodis to hunte both herte and hynde. This is inconvenyent to a goddesse to be of þis condicion" (lines 4579-84). On her birthing, see Vat. Myth. III 8.3. Numerous sources celebrate her chastity.

1277 ff. Latin marginalia: Proserpina Dea Infernorum. [Proserpina the goddess of the lower regions.]

1277 See Vat. Myth. I 7, 112, and 186; Vat. Myth. II 94-95 and 100-101; Vat. Myth. III 7; Ful. 1.10; and Hyg. 146.

1277-1302 Proserpina. Gower's conversion of the story of Ceres' daughter into a romance format is based mainly on Fasti 4.393 ff., with some hints at Met. 5.291 ff. and Hyg. 146 for the place names of Sicily and Etna. Fasti refers to the "Trinacrian land" (4.420), another name for Sicily. See also Gen. deorum 8.4. Proserpina's story is not mentioned in Barlam and Iosaphat.

1323 ff. Latin marginalia: Nota, quod dii Montium Satiri vocantur. [Note that the gods of the mountains are called satyrs.]

1328 ff. Latin marginalia: Oreades Nimphe Montium. [Oreades the nymphs of the mountains.]

1328-35 Nimphes . . . Oreades . . . Driades . . . Naiades . . . of the see. The wood and sea nymphs are often cited together. E.g., Etym. 8.11.96-97 (PL 82.324-25). Itô suggests that "the four kinds of fairies attending Diana" derive from De formis ("Gower's Use of Vita Barlaam," p. 15).

1332 ff. Latin marginalia: Driades Siluarum. [Dryads of the woods.]

1334 ff. Latin marginalia: Naiades fontium. [Naiads of the streams.]

1336 ff. Latin marginalia: Nereides Marium. [Nereids of the seas.]

1337-45 Dorus whilom king of Grece . . . Nereides. Traditionally, as in Met. 2.268-69, Nereus is the father of the Nereids. Their mother is Doris, daughter of Oceanus and Tethys, Nereus' wife. But see Vat. Myth. III 5.1, where Dorus, king of Greece, was lost at sea, but his children survive to become the Nereids. (Dorus enim rex extitit Graeciae, qui in mari dicitur cum exercitu suo perisse. Quare a poëtis, adulationi et figmento ubique deservientibus, ipse dea marina et exercitus ejus filiae ipsius, id est Nymphae marinae dicti sunt. ["For Dorus was the king of Greece, who is said to have perished with his army in the ocean. Wherefore poets, always slaves to flattery and fiction, call him the goddess of the sea and his army his daughters, that is the Nymphs of the ocean."]) See also Servius, Servii Grammatici qui feruntur in Vergilii Carmina Commentarii, which identifies Dorus as the son of Poseidon and father of the sea nymphs. On the nymphs themselves, see Etym. 8.11.96-97. On the meaning of the name Dorus (bitterness, "since bitterness is dominant in sea water"), see Bernardus Silvestris, Commentary 3, p. 20. The etymology is especially apt when the sea takes your wife and all your daughters, as in 5.1339-42.

1358 ff. Latin marginalia: Manes dii mortuorum. [Manes the gods of the dead.]

1363 Manes. The name given by the Romans to the souls of the dead. Leonhard cites Vat. Myth. III 6.18 and 6.29 as well as Gen. deorum 1.34 to indicate "that there was some interest in the significance of the Manes" ("Classical Mythology," pp. 64-65). The soul of the departed were "sometimes regarded as gods and worshiped with divine honors" (p. 65n1), as Genius points out on 5.1361-62. Thus his conclusion that "Grekes law" accorded the deceased "ful gret honour" (5.1364-65). See also Etym. 8.100 (PL 82.325-26). The term also is used topographically to indicate the realm of the dead (e.g., Fasti 2.609 and Aeneid 3.565 and 11.181), or the underworld gods (Aeneid 10.39), or as an indicator of family ancestors (Met. 9.406 ff.). See the entry in the Oxford Classical Dictionary, p. 916.

1374-81 Amans' question to Genius about how he came to be in the service of Venus puts Genius on the spot. As Lewis observes, Gower has not "blundered into [the tension] by an oversight." Rather, Genius "is forced against his will to pass sentence on the very powers that he serves" (Allegory of Love, p. 219). Genius acknowledges that stories of Venus and Cupid often epitomize the absurdities he asks Amans to condemn. See also Bennett, "Gower's 'Honeste Love,'" pp. 109-10.

1382-1443 See Nicholson (Annotated Index, pp. 332-34) on numerous discussions of Genius' denunciation of Venus and the incongruities of his dual role.

1383 ff. Latin marginalia: Qualiter Cupido et Venus deus et dea amoris nuncupantur. [How Cupid and Venus are called the god and goddess of love.]

1420 For he his moder dorste love. On sexual chaos in Gower and Gower's sympathy for the mother as the son's desire is projected upon her, see Watt (Amoral Gower, pp. 83-90). Gower "stops short of making Venus solely responsible for sexual sin; instead Cupid is made to share the blame" (p. 90).

1427-29 take / What man hire liste, and noght forsake / To ben als comun as sche wolde. Olsson cites this passage as an example of Venus' self-interested gentilesse that "blurs the very distinction of being gentle" ("Aspects of Gentilesse," p. 228). In Book 4, on Sloth, Genius had suggested the possibility of some ennobling effects of gentilesse, but here the goddess' form of gentilesse is "consistent with her own excessive regard for fleshly comfort and her desire to live [what Alanus de Insulis calls] 'the soft life of barren ease'" (p. 228).

1453 ff. Latin marginalia: Nota de Epistola Dindimi Regis Bragmannorum Alexandro magno directa, vbi dicit quod Greci tunc ad corporis conseruacionem pro singulis membris singulos deos specialiter apropriari credunt. [Note concerning the letter of Dindimus, king of the Brahmen, directed to Alexander the Great, where it states that the Greeks believe that, to protect the body, particular gods are assigned to particular members of the body.] Macaulay's note (2.517) is especially useful:

As for the letters said to have been exchanged between Alexander and the king of the Bragmans (or Brahmins), we find them at length in the Historia Alexandri Magni de Preliis, which was the source of most of the current stories about Alexander. The passage referred to is as follows: Tot deos colis quot in tuo corpore membra portas. Nam hominem dicis paruum mundum, et sicut corpus hominis habet multa membra, ita et in celo dicis multos deos existere. Iunonem credis esse deum cordis, eo quod iracundia nimia mouebatur. Martem vero deum pectoris esse dicis, eo quod preceps extitit preliorum. Mercurium deum lingue vocas, ex eo quod plurimum loquebatur. Herculem deum credis brachiorum, eo quod duodecim virtutes exercuit preliando. Bachum deum gutteris esse putas, eo quod ebrietatem primus inuenit. Cupidinem esse deam dicis, eo quod fornicatrix extitit; tenere dicis facem ardentem, cum qua libidinem excitat et accendit, et ipsam deam iecoris etiam existimas. Cererem deam ventris esse dicis, et Venerem, eo quod fuit mater luxurie, deam genitalium membrorum esse profers (e 2. ed. Argent, 1489 [You worship as many gods as you possess members of your body. For you say that man is a little world, and just as the body of man has many members, so too in the heaven, you say, many gods exist. You believe Juno to be the god of the heart, since she was moved by excessive wrath; Mars you say is the god of the breast, since he was the leader of wars. Mercury you call the god of the tongue, since he spoke a very great deal; Hercules you believe the god of the arms, since he had the strength of twelve in his warring. You think Bacchus was the god of the throat, since he first discovered drunkenness. You say that Cupid is a goddess, since she was a fornicator; you say she held a burning torch, with which she excited and kindled lust, and you judge her indeed to be a goddess of the liver. You say that Ceres was the goddess of the stomach, and you present Venus, since she was the mother of lust, as the goddess of the members of generation]). Cp. the English alliterative Wars of Alexander, E.E.T.S., 1886, ll. 4494 ff. There is no mention of Minerva in either of these.

1460-96 This practice of linking the dominion of gods to parts of the anatomy is ancient (see note to 7.1453 ff.). For a superb painting of the idea, see "The Anatomical/Zodiacal Man" in Cazelles and Rathofer, p. 63 (fol. 14v). Such conventions go hand in hand with the rhetoric of anatomical personification; see the note on "stomach," below, 7.479-80.

1498 ff. Latin marginalia: Nota de prima ydolorum cultura, que ex tribus precipue Statuis exorta est; quarum prima fuit illa, quam in filii sui memoriam quidam princeps nomine Cirophanes a sculptore Promotheo fabricari constituit. [Note concerning the worship of the first idols, which arose particularly from three statues, the first of which was one that a certain king by the name of Syrophanes ordered to be fashioned, in memory of his son by the sculptor Prometheus.] See Ful. 1.1.

1513 That such a stock mai helpe or grieve. Gower seems to be punning on the stock of a "ragged tre" (line 1509) in contrast to the stock of true religion, a stock that goes back to the Creator Himself to define the barrenness of idolatry, as in Chaucer's "Gentilesse," beginning "The firste stok, fader of gentilesse," that "was ful of rightwisnesse," etc. (line 8).

1541 ff. Latin marginalia: Secunda Statua fuit illa, quam ad sui patris Beli culturam Rex Ninus fieri et adorari decreuit. Et sic de nomine Beli postea Bel et Belzebub ydolum accreuit.[The second statue was one that King Ninus ordered to be made and adored for the worship of his father Belus. And thus from Belus' name, Bel and Belzebub later grew as idols.] Macaulay notes that Gower's account agrees "very nearly" with Godfrey of Viterbo, Pantheon 4, where Godfrey cites the image as the first example of an idol, titled, "Quare primum idolum in mundo et quo tempore fuit" ["Why and at what time was the first idol on earth"] (2.517).

1560 ff. Latin marginalia: Tercia Statua fuit illa, que ad honorem Apis Regis Grecorum sculpta fuit, cui postea nomen Serapis imponentes, ipsum quasi deum Pagani coluerunt. [The third statue was one that was sculpted in honor of Apis, king of the Greeks, whom pagans later gave the name Serapis, and worshipped him as if he were a god.] Macaulay cites Pantheon 4: "His temporibus apud Egyptios constructum est idolum magnum in honorem Apis, Regis Argivorum; quidam tamen dicunt in honorem Ioseph, qui liberavit eos a fame; quod idolum Serapis vocabatur, quasi idolum Apis" ["In those days, a great idol in honor of Apis, king of the Argives, was fashioned among the Egyptians; certain ones say it was in honor of Joseph, who liberated them from hunger, since the idol was called Serapis, as if to say 'the idol of Apis.'"] (2.517).

1571 Macaulay (2.517-18) cites Historia Alexandri magni de Preliis, fol. 1v, ed. Argent, 1489: "Exiens inde Alexander cum Candeolo profecti sunt iter diei vnius, et venerunt ad quandam speluncam magnam et hospitati sunt ibi. Dixitque Candeolus, 'Omnes dii concilium in ista spelunca concelebrant.' Cum hoc audisset Alexander, statim fecit victimas diis suis, et ingressus in speluncam solus vidit ibi caligines maximasque nubes stellasque lucentes, et inter ipsas stellas quendam deum maximum," etc. [Alexander, departing from there with Candeolus, made his way for a day until he came to a certain vast cavern, where they took their dwelling. And Candeolus said, "all the gods hold their council in this cavern." When Alexander heard that, he at once made sacrifices to his gods, and entering into the cave alone, he saw there mists and huge clouds and bright stars, and among the stars a certain highest god, etc.].

1598-1736 Ames suggests that Gower's attitude toward the Jews in this section of his history of religions defines well his position on the subject of Judaism. Although Genius ridicules the idolatries and immoralities of the pagans, he praises the beliefs of the Jews: "God Himself chose the Jews. While all the world worshiped foul idols, Abraham alone found out the right way, how men should obey only the high God." He forbad idolatry and offered sacrifice to God from his heart. God laid the foundation of faith on Abraham; to Moses He gave the Law and sent prophets to guide the people, then and now ("Source and Significance," p. 47).

1609 ff. Latin marginalia: De Hebreorum seu Iudeorum Secta, quorum Sinagoga, ecclesia Cristi superueniente, defecit. [Concerning the sect of the Hebrews or the Jews, whose synagogue fell when the church of Christ supervened.]

1741 ff. Latin marginalia: De fide Cristiana, in qua perfecte legis complementum, summi misterii sacramentum, nostreque saluacionis fundamentum infallibiliter consistere credimus. [Concerning the Christian faith, in which we believe to consist infallibly the completion of the perfect law, the sacrament of the highest mystery, and the foundation of our salvation.]

1756 ff. Latin marginalia: Gregorius. O necessarium Ade peccatum! O felix culpa, que talem ac tantum meruit habere redemptorem! [Gregory: O necessary sin of Adam! O fortunate guilt, which merited to have such and so great a redeemer!] See Gregory, In I Reg. 8.7 (PL 79.222).

1765 ff. Macaulay (2.518) cites Gregory, In I Reg. 8.7 ff. (PL 79.222): "Et quidem, nisi Adam peccaret, Redemptorem nostrum carnem suscipere nostram non oporteret. . . . Si ergo pro peccatoribus venit, si peccata deessent, eum venire non oporteret. . . . Magna quippe sunt mala quae per primae culpae meritum patimur, sed quis electus nollet peiora perpeti, quam tantum Redemptorem non habere?" [And indeed, if Adam had not sinned, there would have been no need for a Redeemer of us to take on our bodily form. . . . If therefore he came on behalf of sinners, if sin had been absent, it would not have been necessary for him to come. . . . Great, indeed, are the evils that we suffer through the just merit of the first sin; but who would not want to suffer worse, than not to have such a Redeemer?]

1800 ff. Latin marginalia: Iacobus. Fides sine operibus mortua est. [James: Faith without works is dead.] See James 2:26.

1807 ff. Latin marginalia: Nota hic contra istos qui iam lollardi dicuntur. [Note here against those who are now called Lollards.]

1825 ff. Latin marginalia: Incepit Jhesus facere et docere. [Jesus began to do and to teach.] See Acts 1:1.

1831-47 Gower's source for Thoaz and Antenor's desecration of the Temple of Minerva is Benoît's Roman de Troie, lines 25615-72.

1832 ff. Latin marginalia: Nota quod, cum Anthenor Palladium Troie a templo Minerue abstulit, Thoas ibidem summus sacerdos auro corruptus oculos auertit, et sic malum quasi non videns scienter fieri permisit. [Note that when Anthenor took away the Palladium from the temple of Minerva, Thoas the highest priest in that place, having been corrupted by gold, averted his eyes, and thus knowingly allowed the evil to take place as if not seeing it.]

1859-99 Stockton (p. 402n1) compares Gower's critique of false clergy with MO 20209-20832 and VC 3.16-29. Compare also CA 3.2490-2515.

1881 cokkel with the corn. The idea originates in Matthew 13:25, where the noxious weeds of heresy are said to mingle with the good seed. Gower also alludes to the idea in Carmen super multiplici viciorum pestilencia, line 20: Lollia messis habens granum perturbat et ipsum [The harvest with tares confuses the grain itself]. Compare Chaucer's Epilogue to The Man of Law's Tale (CT II[B1]1182-83) where the Shipman, in response to the Host's accusation that the Parson talks like a Lollard, warns, "He wolde sowen som difficulte / Or springen cokkel in our clene corn"; and Mum and the Sothsegger, line 1165a. See Richard the Redeless and Mum and the Sothsegger, ed. Dean, especially his note to line 1165a.

1900 ff. Latin marginalia: Gregorius. Quando Petrus cum Judea, Andreas cum Achaia, Thomas cum Yndea, et Paulus cum gente venient, quid dicemus nos moderni, quorum fossum talentum pro nichilo computabitur? [Gregory: When Peter will come with Judea, Andrew with the Greeks, Thomas with India, and Paul with the people, what will we moderns say, whose buried talent will be counted as nothing?]

1930 his lordes besant hedde. See Matthew 25:14-30. The one who hides the talent rather than invest it (25:18) is cast out as an unprofitable servant and left to weep and gnash his teeth (25:30).

1960-61 this matiere is bete / So fer. Gower seems to be making fun of himself and his long digression on religion by having Amans observe that the matter is bete so fer, i.e., explained so thoroughly that it has been beaten to death.

1975 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic tractat confessor super illa specie Auaricie, que Cupiditas dicitur, quam in amoris causa pertractans Amanti super hoc opponit. [Here the Confessor treats that species of Avarice called Cupidity, and, pursuing this in the cause of love, he questions the Lover about this.]

2031 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic ponit exemplum contra magnates cupidos. Et narrat de Crasso Romanorum Imperatore, qui turrim, in qua speculum Virgilii Rome fixum extiterat, dolosa circumuentus cupiditate euertit; vnde non solum sui ipsius perdicionem, set tocius Ciuitatis intollerabile dampnum contingere causauit. [Here he poses an instructive example against cupidinous (covetous) magnates. And he tells about Crassus the Roman emperor, who, tricked by treacherous cupidity, destroyed a tower in which the mirror of Virgil in Rome had been set up; whence he caused not only his own perdition, but also an intolerable loss to the whole city.]

2031-2224 Gower's version of the Tale of Virgil's Mirror is most similar to the version of Roman des Sept Sages identified as A by Gaston Paris (Hamilton, "Some Sources," p. 336n2), though it was popular and occurs in various forms in the Latin moralized tales (e.g., the Latin Gesta Romanorum, cap. clxxxvi). Macaulay notes that "Gower seems to be responsible for the introduction of Carthage and Hannibal" (3.495).

2034 the tounes ÿe. "The tower, with its mirror and distinguished architect, functions as an emblem of wisdom, recalling Genius' admonition to Amans in Book 1: 'thin yhe for to kepe and warde, / So that it passe noght his warde'" (1.331- 32; Peck, Kingship and Common Profit, p. 106). Crassus (5.2069), the dull-witted emperor whose name Gower derives from L crassus, meaning "dense or stupid" (in Roman des Sept Sages he is simply referred to as "Le Roy de Romme") guards his ear no better than his eye, so when Hannibal sends his three "philosophers," who whisper riht in his ere (5.2145) the news of the buried treasure, he undermines his tower digging for it and is destroyed. "By failing to keep proper vigil, Crassus, like Thoas, threw away the key to his own Palladion" (Peck, Kingship and Common Profit, p. 107). Other Middle English versions refer to the villain as "sire Cressus" and "Cresus the riche man," thereby conflating the avaricious king of Rome with the myth of Croesus, king of Lydia (p. 196n5.4).

2222-23 Into his mouth thei poure thanne; / And thus the thurst of gold was queynt. Wetherbee (Chaucer and the Poets, p. 198) notes that Gower explicitly has Crassus drink the molten gold (he does so implicitly in Dante and Chaucer), where in other sources he has already been killed in battle.

2273-2390 The Tale of the Two Coffers is similar to that told by Boccaccio in Decameron 10.1. Variations of the story are found in such collections of moral tales as Vit. Barl. 6 (PL 74.462, following the Trump of Death story); Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum Historiale 15.10; Legenda Aurea; and the English Gesta Romanorum (EETS e.s. 33, cap. lxvi). See also Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice.

2278 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic ponit Confessor exemplum contra illos, qui in domibus Regum seruientes, pro eo quod ipsi secundum eorum cupiditatem promoti non existunt, de regio seruicio quamuis in eorum defectu indiscrete murmurant. [Here the Confessor presents an instructive example against those who, serving in kings' houses, because they were not promoted as seemed appropriate to their own cupidity, indiscretely grumble about royal service, however much it injures themselves.]

2296-98 Of o semblance and of o make / So lich that no lif . . . mai fro that other knowe. Unlike the coffers in The Merchant of Venice and its analogues, these two are indistinguishable. As Macaulay points out, "the choice is a purely fortuitous one" (3.496).

2391-2441 A similar story to that of the two pastries occurs in the Latin Gesta Romanorum, cap. cix.

2395 ff. Latin marginalia: Nota hic de diuiciarum Accidencia: vbi narrat qualiter Fredericus Romanorum Imperator duos pauperes audiuit litigantes, quorum vnus dixit, "Bene potest ditari, quem Rex vult ditare." Et alius dixit, "Quem deus vult ditare, diues erit." Que res cum ad experimentum postea probata fuisset, ille qui deum inuocabat pastellum auro plenum sortitus est, alius vero caponis pastellum sorte preelegit. [Note here concerning the superficial features of riches: where it is narrated and how Frederick the Roman emperor heard two paupers arguing, one of whom said, "He will be enriched whom the king wants to enrich," while the other said, "He will be wealthy whom God wants to enrich." When this matter had later been tested by experience, the one who had invoked God selected, by lot, a pasty full of gold, but the other chose, by lot, a pasty of capon.]

2400-01 Proverbial. See Whiting G246. Compare VC 2, Prol. 68. Ultimately derived from Proverbs 10:22.

2489 ff. Latin marginalia: Cecus non iudicat de coloribus. [A blind man makes no judgments about colors.] Proverbial. Compare Chaucer's TC, "A blind man cannot juggen wel in hewes" (2.21).

2497 commun as the strete. Proverbial. See Whiting, S831 and C64. Compare "As commune as þe Cartwey to knave and to all" in Piers Plowman B.3.132.

2648 affeccioun. I.e., the faculty of the soul concerned with emotion and volition.

2650 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic ponit exemplum contra istos qui non propter amorem sed propter diuicias sponsalia sumunt. Et narrat de quodam Regis Apulie Seneschallo, qui non solum propter pecuniam vxorem duxit, set eciam pecunie commercio vxorem sibi desponsatam vendidit. [Here he presents an instructive example against those who take marriage vows not on account of love but of wealth. And he narrates about a certain seneschal of the king of Apulia, who not only took his wife because of money, but also sold her, divorced from himself, in a commercial exchange.] The Tale of the King and the False Steward is based on Roman des Sept Sages.

2844 richesse. Richesse is a member of the Court of Idleness in Guillaume de Lorris' RR, lines 1017 ff. The world is in the power of Richesse, who is said to have great gifts at winning her way with her beauty that is defined by costly ornaments. She is accompanied by a youth accustomed to fine mansions, lavish spending, and rich clothing. She supports him as if coins grew out of granaries, a phenomenon Gower's Amans says he has not known.

2863 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic tractat super illis Auaricie speciebus, que falsum Testimonium et Periurium nuncupantur; quorum fraudulenta circumuencio tam in cupiditatis quam in amoris causa sui desiderii propositum quamsepe fallaciter attingit. [Here he treats those species of avarice that are called False Testimony and Perjury, whose fraudulent betrayal, both in the cause of cupidity and the cause of love, frequently and fallaciously achieves the goal of its desire.]

2872 hepe. From Middle Low German, Middle Dutch. A kind of pruning hook. MED and OED cite no other instance of the term in English. Perhaps Gower knows it from a Dutch proverb.

2961 ff. The Tale of Achilles and Deidamia is told fully in Statius, Achilleid 1.198-960. Condensed versions occur in collections of moralized tales (for example, the Latin Gesta Romanorum, cap. clvi). On the ethical implications of cross-dressing in Gower, see Watt, Amoral Gower, pp. 69-76.

2965 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic ponit exemplum de illis, qui falsum testificantes amoris innocenciam circumveniunt. Et narrat qualiter Thetis Achillem filium suum adolescentem, muliebri vestitum apparatu, asserens esse puellam inter Regis Lichomedis filias ad educandum produxit. Et sic Achilles decepto Rege filie sue Deidamie socia et cubicularia effectus super ipsam Pirrum genuit; qui postea mire probitatis miliciam assecutus mortem patris sui apud Troiam in Polixenen tirannice vindicauit. [Here he presents an instructive example about those who, bearing false witness, betray a woman innocent in love. And he narrates how Thetis placed Achilles, her youthful son, to be raised among the daughters of King Lichomede, dressed in woman's garb, asserting that he was a girl. And thus Achilles, with the king deceived, having been made the companion and roommate of the king's daughter, Deidamia, engendered on her Pirrus, who later, pursuing military endeavors of miraculous probity, tyrannically took revenge against Polyxenes for the death of his father at Troy.] See note to line 7591, below.

3062-69 In Statius, Achilles rapes Deidamia in a grove at a Bacchic festival, an act presented with graphic detail as Achilles grips her in his powerful arms and accomplishes his desire as she fills the grove and mountain with her cries, which the other women think to be the signal to dance (1.640-48). Genius converts the deed into an act of mutual arousal as nature first lets them kiss and then leads them down the hihe weie of loves lore (line 3066).

3063 Nature. Kelly observes that Nature, in this instance, implies the "mating instinct," noting that Gower characteristically avoids placing moral blame on the instincts of natural love (Love and Marriage, pp. 137-38).

3247 ff. Gower's story of Medea draws both from Benoît's Roman de Troie, lines 715- 2078, and Ovid's Met. 7.1-424. Macaulay discusses Gower's use of Benoît (3.497). Compare Chaucer's version of the Medea story in LGW, lines 1500- 1697. Lydgate offers a version, based mainly on Guido, that is more sprawling and somewhat less sympathetic to Medea (Troy Book 1.1513-3715). See Harbert, "Lessons from the Great Clerk," pp. 93-97; Morse, Medieval Medea; Grinnell, "Medea's Humanity"; and especially Bakalian (Aspects of Love, pp. 85-100). The tale of Medea in Traitié 8.1-3 is also highly sympathetic toward Medea. There the recurrent moral of the refrain is Freinte espousaile dieus le vengua, "God will avenge a broken marriage" (Traitié 8.3, lines 7, 14, and 21).

3249 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic in amoris causa ponit exemplum contra periuros. Et narrat qualiter Iason, priusquam ad insulam Colchos pro aureo vellere ibidem conquestando transmearet, in amorem et coniugium Medee Regis Othonis filie iuramento firmius se astrinxit; set suo postea completo negocio, cum ipsam secum navigio in Greciam perduxisset, vbi illa senectam patris sui Esonis in floridam iuuentutem mirabili sciencia reformauit, ipse Iason fidei sue ligamento aliisque beneficiis postpositis, dictam Medeam pro quadam Creusa Regis Creontis filia periurus dereliquit. [Here he presents an instructive example against perjurers in the cause of love. And he narrates how Jason, before he travelled to the island of Colchos for conquering the Golden Fleece, very firmly bound himself by oath to love and marry Medea, daughter of King Otho. But with his business having been completed, when he led her with him by ship to Greece where she reformed the old age of his father Eso into flowering youth by a miraculous science, this Jason, setting aside the ties of his faith and other favors owed, abandoned, as a perjurer, Medea in favor of a certain Creusa, daughter of King Creon.]

3303-09 For a lively Middle English retelling of Lamedon's offense to Jason and the subsequent destruction of the first Troy, see Lydgate's Troy Book (1.925-1196; 3721-4436), based on Guido de Columnis' Historia destructionis Troiae.

3416 Seint John to borwe. I.e., "committed himself to St. John's care." St. John was a visionary; the implication may be that Jason lends himself to (or puts himself in the hands of) what may come, which only St. John might foresee. Or, given Jason's assertion that "he wolde ferst beginne / At love" (lines 3417-18), it is remotely possible that Gower intends a parodic allusion to "God is love" (1 John 4:8) to define Jason's hypocrisy.

3484-92 Medea's piety here is notable. Their mutual consent and solemn vows at the altar of God would be taken, according to medieval custom, as the basis of a true and binding marriage, which is important to subsequent details in their relationship, as Jason proves unfaithful and destroys all. See Kelly (Love and Marriage, p. 131) on the gravity of Jason's infidelity. For discussion of Gower's manipulation of his sources to create a tale highly sympathetic to Medea, see Peck, Kingship and Common Profit, pp. 109-15.

3495 Ther cam a maide. No maid is mentioned in Benoît or Guido. Her loyal presence adds to Medea's dignity.

3590 Thre sithes toward orient. Genius gives Medea a good Hebrew sense of prayerful validation. See Daniel 6:10: "Daniel opening the windows in his upper chamber towards Jerusalem . . . knelt down three times a day, and adored, and gave thanks before his God, as he had been accustomed to do before." Compare 3 Kings (1 Kings) 8:22-53 (the prayer of Solomon to "pray thee towards the way of their land" -- 8:48).

3592-3601 To opne a buiste . . . of such oignement . . . Heroic women often cure or protect men by means of an ointment in a box. See Destruction of Troy, line 782 (compare Laud Troy Book, line 919); the Lady of Norison in Yvain (compare Ywain and Gawain, line 1761-82); see also Psyche's venture into Hell in Apuleius to get the box of beauty ointment, though that's for women.

3669 undren hih. Benoît writes "halte tierce" (Roman de Troie, line 1760).

3850-52 Proverbial. See Whiting, L517.

3957 ff. Latin marginalia: Nota quibus medicamentis Esonem senectute decrepitum ad sue iuuentutis adolescenciam prudens Medea reduxit. [Note by what medicines shrewd Medea led Eson, decrepit with age, back to the early part of his youth.]

3981-82 Echates . . . goddesse of sorcerie. Hecate, the goddess of night, is the deity to whom witches commonly pray. See Macbeth 3.5, where Hecate tells the three weird sisters of Macbeth's approach, and 4.1, where she appears with prophecies for Macbeth. The MED (ecate) cites Palladius (DukeH d.2) 1.586 and 11.253, where "Echates," here figured as the crescent moon, exerts her influence on things terrestrial.

4039 fieldwode and verveyne. Medicinal herbs. The MED identifies verveyne as a genus of verbena, especially Verbena officienalis. The plant is used in cookery recipes and medicinal remedies, veterinary remedies, magic, and rites. The juice was extracted by boiling the herb. Precisely what fieldwode is remains uncertain, though it too appears to have something to do with magic.

4136 medicine it wile. "medicinal formula dictates." See MED willen v. 7c and medicine n. 1a.

4175-84 This recapitulation of the heroine's virtues prior to disaster is unusual in medieval writing. It illustrates well Gower's keen sense of dramatic structure within his story as well as his detailed attention to female worth, particularly her intelligence, dedication, and powerful independence. "In Medea Gower has achieved his finest portrait of a powerful woman who loves her husband" (Bakalian, Aspects of Love, p. 87).

4213 moste untrewe creature. N.b., CA 8.2563-66, where Gower's sympathy for Medea, as the last among six forsaken women and four wives, is evidenced by the fact that she is the only one of the women who speaks: "Fy on alle untrewe" (8.2566). See Bakalian, Aspects of Love, p. 99.

4219 Pallas. The court of Pallas Athena is the suitable residence for Medea to retire in Gower's poem. Vat. Myth. I presents Pallas as the goddess of wisdom, invention, and ingenuity, as well as prowess in warfare -- all qualities characteristic of Medea (Vat. Myth. I 124-25).

4243 ff. Latin marginalia: Nota qualiter aureum vellus in partes insule Colchos primo deuenit. Athemas Rex Philen habuit coniugem, ex qua Frixum et Hellen genuit: mortua autem Philen [MS: Hellen] Athemas Ynonem Regis Cadmi filiam postea in vxorem duxit, que more Nouerce dictos infantes in tantum recollegit odium, quod ambos in mare proici penes Regem procurauit. Vnde Ivno compaciens quendam Arietem grandem aureo vestitum vellere ad litus natantem destinauit; super cuius dorsum pueros apponi iussit. Quo facto Aries super vndas regressus cum solo Frixo sibi adherente in Colchos applicuit, vbi Iuno dictum Arietem cum suo vellere, prout in aliis canetur cronicis, sub arta custodia collocauit. [Note how the Golden Fleece first came to the regions of the island of Colchos. King Athemas had Philen as a wife, on whom he begot Prixus and Hellen; but when Philen died, Athemas married Ino the daughter of King Cadmus, who, in the manner of step-mothers, held the aforenamed infants in such hatred that she procured both to be thrown into the sea that belonged to the king. Whence Juno, struck by sympathy, directed a certain huge ram clothed with a golden fleece to swim to shore, on whose back she ordered the children to be placed. With this done, the ram, retreating on the waves with only Prixus clinging on him, headed to Colchos, where Juno established the ram with its fleece under close watch, just as is presented in other chronicles.]

4243-4361 The story of Phrixus and Helle occurs without much variation of detail in Hyg. 2-3; Vat. Myth. I 23; II 134; Gen. deorum 13.67; and Fasti 3.851-76, though Gower's adaptation is closer to the Ovide Moralisé in the spelling of "Frixus" (line 4254), "Yno" (line 4271), and in details such as the mention of "soda whete" (line 4281) and the priest's instruction to the queen (lines 4292-4307) or Jupiter's sending the rain (line 4332). See Mainzer, "John Gower's Use of the 'Mediaeval Ovid,'" pp. 220-22, and Yeager, "John Gower and the Uses of Allusion," p. 210. In The Folktale, Thompson compares the couple's fleeing from their cruel stepmother to such a folk motif as Aarne, Type 450 (pp. 279-80).

4383 Genius' casting his observations upon Usury in the rhetorical format of a dream vision is unusual in moral diatribe but is well suited to his tale-telling format.

4383-4430 On Usury, with fraudulent brocours at hand (line 4387), compare VC 5.12.703 ff. Schmitz (Middel Weie, p. 104) points out Gower's comparison of usurers to packs of hounds (racches in a route, line 4388), noting Gower's skill in using animals to define mankind's loss of humanity through vice. Compare VC 1, with its nightmare on the Uprising of 1381.

4390 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic tractat de illa specie Auaricie, que Vsura dicitur, cuius creditor in pecunia tantum numerata plusquam sibi de iure debetur incrementum lucri adauget. [Here he narrates about that species of avarice which is called Usury, by which a lender of a certain price amasses returns of wealth more than by law he ought to.]

4452 I were a goddeshalf. See Macaulay's note: "This seems to mean, 'I should be content,' that is, I should be ready to say 'In God's name let it be so'" (3.501). Compare 5.5016 and BD lines 370 and 757.

4485 thoght is fre. Proverbial. See Whiting, T238.

4551-60 On the lawless nature of the law of love outlined here and elsewhere in Gower, see Collins, "Love, Nature and Law," pp. 117-19. N.b., CA 1.42-51, 1049-52, 2.2361-67, 3.169-75, 6.1262-65, 1278-84, and 8.2111-15. For comparison with Chaucer, see TC 3.1744-45, 1748 and 4.618, as well as The Knight's Tale (CT I[A]1164-69). Collins also considers passages in Chaucer's Monk's and Franklin's Tales, Scogan, and LGW (F-text), as well as several texts from Aquinas' Summa theologiae.

4556 love is lord in every place. Proverbial. See Whiting, L518. Compare CA 1.34-35 and Whiting, L509: "Love has no law."

4572 Genius modifies Ovid's version of the story considerably to suit his purpose. Compare Met. 3.359 ff.

4579 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic ponit exemplum contra istos maritos qui vltra id quod proprias habent vxores ad noue voluptatis incrementum alias mulieres superflue lucrari non verentur. Et narrat qualiter Iuno vindictam suam in Eccho decreuit, pro eo quod ipsa Eccho in huiusmodi mulierum lucris adquirendis de consilio mariti sui Iouis mediatrix extiterat. [Here he presents an instructive example against those husbands who are not ashamed to gain, in excess profit, other women beyond what they have as their own wives, for the purpose of the profit of novel pleasure.]

4583-4652 On Gower's expansion of Ovid's story of Echo by developing her character and punishment, see Zipf, "Tale of Echo."

4640 clappe it out as doth a belle. Proverbial. See Whiting, B236. Compare CA 1.2390-91.

4676 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic tractat super illa specie Auaricie que Parcimonia dicitur, cuius natura tenax aliqualem sue substancie porcionem aut deo aut hominibus participare nullatenus consentit. [Here he treats about that species of Avarice called Parsimony, whose stingy nature does not at all consent to share the least portion of its wealth with either God or men.]

4720 He was wys that ferst made mede. Proverbial. See Whiting, G78. Compare CA 5.7716-17. See also Havelok the Dane, ed. Smithers, p. 130, note to line 1636. The allusion is to that person who first established the institution of gift giving, which Genius takes as the best antidote to Skarsnesse. Generosity is an important social concept in Gower's system of social values.

4723-25 he faileth of his game / That wol with ydel hand reclame / His hauk. Genius' sententious remark borders on the proverbial. See Whiting, Chaucer's Use of Proverbs, p. 147. Compare Chaucer's Reeve: "With empty hand men may na haukes tulle" (CTI[A]4134) and the Wife of Bath's "With empty hand men may none haukes lure" (CTIII[D]415).

4730 Cresus. Cresus, the last king of Lydia, famed for his wealth (i.e., "rich as Croesus"). On his unhappy fate, see Chaucer's Monk's Tale (CT VII[B2]2727-66) and HF, lines 105-06.

4731 Octovien. The emperor Augustus Caesar (63 BC-AD 14), ruler of Rome during the "Golden Age" of Latin literature; thus Gower's pun on al the gold. For Christian commentators, the Golden Age and Octavian locate Christ's birth and the reign of peace.

4781-4869 The story of Babio and Croceus is derived from the Comoedia Babionis, a Latin poem in a quasi-dramatic form which was popular in the fourteenth century. See Wright, Early Mysteries, p. 65.

4785 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic loquitur contra istos, qui Auaricia stricti largitatis beneficium in amoris causa confundunt. Et ponit exemplum, qualiter Croceus largus et hillaris Babionem auarum et tenacem de amore Viole, que pulcherrima fuit, donis largissimis circumuenit. [Here he speaks against those who, constrained by Avarice, in the cause of love thwart the goodness of generosity. And he presents an instructive example, how generous and cheerful Croceus by large gifts undid the avaricious and stingy Babio in his love for Viola, who was extremely beautiful.]

4785-86 For sparinge of a litel cost / Fulofte time a man hath lost. Proverbial. See Whiting, Chaucer's Use of Proverbs, p. 273.

4799 mede kepeth love in house. Proverbial. See MO, line 25490.

4854-55 Bot for to prinche and for to spare, / Of worldes muk to gete encress. Proverbial. Whiting, M798.

4866 noght worthi for to duelle. In the RR, Richesse is one of the principal attendants in the garden of Love, while Poverte grimaces on the outside of the wall as a warning to all who enter.

4888 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic loquitur super illa aborta specie Auaricie, que Ingratitudo dicta est, cuius condicionem non solum creator, set eciam cuncte creature abhominabilem detestantur. [Here he speaks about that monstrous offspring of the species of Avarice, which is called Ingratitude, whose nature not only the Creator but also creatures detest as abominable.]

4937 ff. The Tale of Adrian and Bardus is Eastern in origin. It occurs near the end of the Speculum Stultorum and a variation of it is told by Richard I in Matthew Paris' Chronica Majora (entry for 1195). A variation is likewise present in the Middle English Gesta Romanorum (cap. lxv).

4941 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic dicit qualiter bestie in suis beneficiis hominem ingratum naturaliter precellunt. Et ponit exemplum de Adriano Rome Cenatore, qui in quadam Foresta venacionibus insistens, dum predam persequeretur, in Cisternam profundam nescia familia corrvit: vbi superueniens quidam pauper nomine Bardus, immissa cordula, putans hominem extraxisse, primo Simeam extraxit, secundo Serpentem, tercio Adrianum, qui pauperem despiciens aliquid ei pro benefacto reddere recusabat. Set tam Serpens quam Simea gratuita benevolencia ipsum singulis donis sufficienter remunerarunt. [Here he says how animals in their beneficence naturally surpass an ungrateful human being. And he presents an instructive example about Adrian, a senator of Rome, who, forging through a certain forest for hunting, fell into a deep cavern while he was pursuing his prey, with his family unaware of what had happened. A certain poor man arriving there, Bardus by name, having sent a rope down thinking to extract a man, pulled out first an ape, second a serpent, and third Adrian, who, despising the poor man, refused to reward him for his charitable action. But both the serpent and the ape in grateful benevolence remunerated him with separate gifts.]

5171 wel behote and evele laste. Proverbial. A variant on "great promise, small performance." See Whiting, P409 and P411.

5231 the poete. The story of Ariadne is told in Met. 8.169, and Hyg. 42-43; Gower does not follow either source closely, though the poete doubtless refers to Ovid. For a contemporary retelling of the story, compare Chaucer's LGW, lines 1886- 2227. See Bakalian, Aspects of Love, pp. 113-20, on Ariadne as the last of Gower's forsaken women tales.

5234 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic ponit exemplum contra viros amori ingratos. Et narrat qualiter Theseus Cadmi filius, consilio suffultus Adriagne Regis Mynos filie, in domo que laborinthus dicitur Minotaurum vicit: vnde Theseus Adriagne sponsalia certissime promittens ipsam vna cum Fedra sorore sua a Creta secum navigio duxit. Set statim postea oblito gratitudinis beneficio Adriagnam ipsum saluantem in insula Chio spretam post tergum reliquit; et Fedram Athenis sibi sponsatam ingratus coronauit. [Here he presents an instructive example against men ungrateful in love. And he narrates how Theseus, the son of Cadmus, supported by the counsel of Ariadne, daughter of King Mynos, conquered the Minotaur in the house called the Labyrinth. Wherefore Theseus, promising most emphatically marriage vows to Ariadne, led her along with her sister Phedra by ship with him from Crete. But immediately afterwards, forgetting the debt of gratitude, he left Ariadne who had saved him behind on the island of Chios, spurned; and, ingrate, awarded to himself Phedra as a bride at Athens.]

5339 al on. "Of one accord," with a hint of legality, in that they have come to an agreement. The sense might also be "alone," though that means of sealing the agreement, testifying, you might say, mainly comes later (5.5381-82).

5413 Chyo. Presumably Naxos, but where Gower comes up with this designation is uncertain. Ovid provides Dia as a name for Naxos, which may lie behind a faulty transcription.

5505 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic tractat super illa specie cupida que Rapina nuncupatur, cuius mater extorcio ipsam ad deseruiendum magnatum curiis specialius commendauit. [Here he treats that cupidinous species which is called Rapacity, whose mother, Extortion, particularly commends her (Rapacity) to the service of magnates in courts.]

5551 ff. Gower's story of Tereus, Procne, and Philomela comes loosely from Met. 6.424-674. The story was a favorite example of the cruelty of rape. See Chaucer's LGW, lines 2228-2393, and TC 2.64-73. Pearsall notes that "Ovid is Gower's major source of narrative material in the Confessio" and discusses in detail the stories of Procne and Philomela, Ceix and Alceone, and Medea ("Gower's Narrative Art," pp. 478-83). So too Lepley, "Tale of Tereus." See also Watt (Amoral Gower, pp. 90-97) on Tereus' tyrannous masculinity. Watt includes a reproduction of Pierpont Morgan Library MS M.126, fol. 122r, depicting the cutting out of Philomena's tongue and the end of Tereus' feast as Procne explains what he has done (p. 97). In tales such as these (Tereus, Medea, Rosamund and Albinus, Mundus and Paulina, and Nectanabus) the reader continually encounters "contradictions that are not and can never be fully resolved" (p. 103).

5557 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic ponit exemplum contra istos in amoris causa raptores. Et narrat qualiter Pandion Rex Athenarum duas filias, videlicet Progné et Philomenam, habuit. Progné autem Tereo Regi Tracie desponsata, contigit quod cum Tereus ad instanciam vxoris sue Philomenam de Athenis in Traciam sororie visitacionis causa secum quadam vice perduceret, in concupiscenciam Philomene tanta seueritate in itinere dilapsus est, quod ipse non solum sue violencia rapine virginitatem eius oppressit, set et ipsius linguam, ne factum detegeret, forpice mutulauit. Vnde in perpetue memorie Cronicam tanti raptoris austeritatem miro ordine dii postea vindicarunt. [Here he presents an instructive example against those who are rapists in the cause of love. And he narrates how Pandion the king of the Athenians had two daughters, namely Procne and Philomena. Now after Procne was betrothed to Tereus the king of Thracia, it happened that, when Tereus at the prompting of his wife led Philomena with him from Athens to Thracia by chance for the sake of a sisterly visit, on the journey he fell into lust for Philomena of such intensity that he not only by violent rape violated her virginity, but also with a pair of shears mutilated her tongue, lest she reveal the deed. Wherefore the gods by a miraculous means later took vengeance on the severity of such a rape, as a record of perpetual memory.]

5605-11 Gower efficiently shifts the focus from Ovid's sly Tereus, with his seductive language, to parental concern in general as the parents (no mother is mentioned in Ovid) wonder whether Philomene should go [b]ot if thei weren in presence (line 5607). At last they agree because of their delight in their son-in-law's company and because they do not wish him to fail. They have been made to feel proud of him and his attentions. In Gower the betrayal is of the fundamental domestic structure - the family.

5634-61 See Mast's discussion of Gower's sympathetic treatment of rape victims, particularly his presentation here of the emotional damage to Philomena ("Rape," pp. 112-16). As preface to her discussion of rape in CA, Mast (p. 106) cites MO (lines 8725-36), a passage worth quoting here:

As autres jofnes femelines
De Stupre et de ses disciplines
Sovent auci vient Grant dammage:
Quant de lour corps ne sont virgines,
Et que l'en sciet de leur covines,
Par ce perdont leur mariage,
Dont met esclandre en lour lignage,
Sique pour honte en leur putage
Tout s'enfuiont comme orphelines,
Dont croist sur honte plus hontage,
Quant au bordell pour l'avantage
De sustienance sont enclines.

[Great harm often comes to young women from Rape and her followers: when they are no longer virgins in body and the secret is out, they lose their chances at marriage, bring scandal to their family, so that (like orphans) they run away for shame, and, forced into brothels to support themselves, their shame increases into more shame. Trans. Wilson, p. 120.]

5668 felonie. Philomena calls attention to the legal implications of Tereus' crime, as does Gower. Rape of virgins was a felony punished by castration and blinding. See Bracton, De legibus f147, Appellum de raptu virginem (vol. 2, pp. 414-15), and Mast, "Rape," pp. 114 and 126n6.

5904-06 Here Gower gives rape and murder almost equal status (Mast, "Rape," p. 115).

5988 Schal no man se my chekes rede. Pearsall emphasizes the charm and tenderness with which Gower distances reactions to the horror of events by focusing on meaningful human behavior such as the nightingale's blush that it would poignantly hide ("Gower's Narrative Art," p. 479).

5993-95 love is a wofull blisse. Proverbial. See Whiting L513 and Tilley L505a.

6006 in wynter lith swounynge. The idea here is that the swallow sleeps in the mud through the winter, then appears in the spring and builds its nest out of mud. White, in his Book of Beasts, p. 117n1, cites Dr. Johnson's observation that swallows "certainly sleep all the winter. A number of them conglobulate together, by flying round and round, and then all in a heap throw themselves underwater, and lie in the bed of a river."

6059 every love hath drede. Proverbial. See Whiting L517.

6079 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic loquitur super illa Cupiditatis specie quam furtum vocant, cuius Ministri alicuius legis offensam non metuentes, tam in amoris causa quam aliter, suam quamsepe conscienciam offendunt. [Here he speaks about that species of Cupidity which is called Robbery, whose ministers, not fearing to offend any law, frequently offend conscience itself, both in the cause of love and elsewhere.]

6117 unmete. The sense is complex. As a shepherdess the woman might be "becoming," "incomparable"; or she might be "ugly," "hideous," "unsightly," "displeasing," all glosses common enough for unmete and suitable in defining the rapaciousness of the assailant, who rapes mainly because she is there, possibly for reasons of arousal, though more likely not. But given the fact that the "robber" is called "lord" and, as a hunter with hounds, must be of some station in life, a political sense may apply, such as "unworthy," or "of inferior station," in which case the passage is another in which Gower criticizes the privileged for their presumptuous treatment of common people, who would take from the poor simply because they would have what others have -- "For other mennes good is swete" (line 6118).

6118 other mennes good is swete. Mast suggests that in Gower's time "a woman's sexuality was largely thought of as a commodity" and rape "an assault on male property." Thus rape equates with theft more than passionate desire, the will "to dominate rather than to fornicate lecherously" ("Rape," p. 108). The assault of Tereus upon Philomena certainly seems passion driven, however (n.b., "in a rage on hire he ran" [line 5632]).

6145 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic loquitur contra istos in amoris causa predones, qui cum in suam furtiue concupiscenciam aspirant, fortuna in contrarium operatur. Et narrat quod cum Neptunus quamdam virginem nomine Cornicem solam iuxta mare deambulantem oppremere suo furto voluisset, superueniens Pallas ipsam e manibus eius virginitate seruata gracius liberauit. [Here he speaks against those bandits in the cause of love against whom fortune works contrariously, when they make pursuits in their furtive love. And he narrates that when Neptune wanted to assault by his robbery a certain virgin, Cornix by name, when she was wandering along the seashore, Pallas Athena intervened and graciously freed her from his hands, with her virginity intact.]

6145 For the story of Neptune and Cornix, see Met. 2.542-632. Gower's adaptation of the story of Cornix is more detailed than Ovid's and shifts the focus from competition among gods to a victim of male aggression as Neptune uses Cornix's beauty as an excuse for his lechery to become a pillager, not of broaches and rings, but of her most personal treasure, her maidenhead. In Ovid the god simply pursues; in Gower he is a robber, a rapist who seizes her in his arms and thrusts his hand toward the coffer (5.6177), none of which detail is in Ovid. Cornix, in turn, is given a touching prayer as she defends the flower she has always kept under lock and key. Pallas comes to her aid, transforming her into a crow that slips through Neptune's greedy hands: "The bridd is flowe and he was let" (5.6214). Thwarted and shamed, he becomes a fool forever, "scorned of that he hath lore" (5.6217).

6150 wif to Marte. Compare 5.1214 ff. where, as "goddess of batailles" (5.1218, Pallas Dea bellorum, as the marginal gloss points out), she is said to be "Martes wif" (5.1215). This does not, of course, inhibit Mars' attraction to Venus, and adds additional voltage to the Judgment of Paris.

6204-11 In Ovid there is none of the delit (line 6207) that Cornix experiences, a feeling of freedom as she flees off in front of Neptune's eyes. The sharp contrast between her white virginity and her black feathers is also Gower's. Gower raises "our sympathy and compassion for the innocent girl by making the plea to the goddess as emotional as possible" as he focuses on the horror of rape for women (Mast, "Rape," pp. 121-22).

6225 The source of the Tale of Calistona is most likely Met. 2.409-541, where she is not given a name but is only called virgo Nonacrina (he does name Arcas); and Fasti 2.153-92, where she is called Callisto. Another Latin source might be Poet. astr. 2.1, for the story of Calistona, and 2.4 for an account of her son Arcas; and Hyg. 176-77, which, though brief, discusses the stars in Callisto's constellation. The Tale of Calistona pairs well with that of Cornix in that the fate of the two women, though similar in that they are both translated into animals, is, nonetheless, very different. Here the god succeeds in having his way with the woman, and she, a rape victim, is left trapped by pregnancy. Gower is sensitive to her shame and touching effort to remain a part of Diana's sacred community. But Diana offers no sympathy. After the child is born Juno transforms Calistona into a bear and, almost cruelly, leaves her human sensibilities intact: "For though she hadde hire forme lore, / The love was noght lost therfore / Which kinde hath set under his lawe" (5.6321-23). When her son Archas grows up and, as a hunter, pursues her, Gower focuses on the mother's love as she would embrace her son despite her vulnerability. The moment is so poignant that Jupiter, the culprit who raped her, intercedes to protect them both. In this instance, the forces of nature win out, moderating even Jupiter's behavior.

6225-81 The author of Chaucer's Ghoast (1672), Arg. 10, adapts these lines without acknowledgment in his Ovidian tale of Calisto and Jupiter. He cuts out the birthing of Archas, however.

6231 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic ponit exemplum contra istos in causa virginitatis lese predones. Et narrat quod cum Calistona Lichaontis mire pulcritudinis filia suam virginitatem Diane conseruandam castissima vouisset, et in Siluam que Tegea dicitur inter alias ibidem Nimphas moraturam se transtulisset, Iupiter virginis castitatem subtili furto surripiens, quendam filium, qui postea Archas nominatus est, ex ea genuit: vnde Ivno in Calistonam seuiens eius pulcritudinem in vrse turpissime deformitatem subito transfigurauit. [Here he presents an instructive example against those robbers who assault women in the cause of love. And he narrates that when most chaste Calistona, the most wondrously beautiful daughter of Lichaon, vowed to Diana to preserve her virginity, and betook herself into the forest called Tegea to dally there with other nymphs, Jupiter stole away the chastity of this virgin by a deceitful robbery, and bore from her a certain son, who later was named Archas. Wherefore Juno, raging against Calistona, instantly transfigured her beauty into the hideous deformity of a bear.]

6359 ff. See MO, lines 17119 ff., where the saying is attributed to Jerome. Valerius does speak of a man named Spurinna (Val. Max. 4.5, ext. 1) who destroys the beauty of his face to protect his virginity. Compare MO, lines 18301 ff. The subsequent reference to the Apocalypse is 14:4. The account of Valentinian's virginity occurs in Epistola Valerii ad Rufinum, where the emperor is said to be octogenarius. See Macaulay, p. xix of the introduction to CA, who finds it odd that the priest of Venus praises virginity. On this point see White (Division and Failure, pp. 608-10. Compare MO, lines 18301 ff., where "Phirinus, who was so handsome that all the women of the neighborhood were forced to love him . . . , cut out parts of his body with his own hands, thus overcoming Wantonness" (trans. Wilson, p. 251). Mutilation of one's God-given nature was considered a sin by the Christian Church (n.b., the condemnation of Origen for his self-castration to avoid lechery), but Gower gets around the problem by noting that Phirinus is an unbeliever who, even so, values virginity so passionately that he might, nonetheless, serve as an exemplum "for our edification" (p. 251).

6365 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic loquitur de virginitatis commendacione, vbi dicit quod nuper Imperatores ob tanti status dignitatem virginibus cedebant in via. [Here he speaks about the commendation of virginity, saying that, formerly, emperors would give way to virgins in the street on account of the dignity such status possessed.]

6372 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic loquitur, qualiter Phyrinus, iuuenum Rome pulcherrimus, ut illesam suam conseruaret virginitatem, ambos oculos eruens vultus sui decorem abhominabilem constituit. [Here he says how Phyrinus, the most handsome of the young men of Rome, made his beauty horrible by plucking both eyes from his face, so that he might preserve his virginity undamaged.]

6395 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic loquitur qualiter Valentinianus Imperator, cum ipse octogenarius plures prouincias Romano Imperio belliger subiugasset, dixit se super omnia magis gaudere de eo, quod contra sue carnis concupiscenciam victoriam obtinuisset; nam et ipse virgo omnibus diebus vite sue castissimus permansit. [Here he speaks how Emperor Valentinian, when at eighty years old he had subjugated as a conqueror many provinces to the Roman empire, said that above all things he took pleasure in having won victory over the lusts of his flesh; for he remained a most chaste virgin for all the days of his life.]

6433 ff. Not Chaucer's Criseyde, but Briseis. See Heroides 3.

6498 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic tractat super illa Cupiditatis specie, que secretum latrocinium dicitur, cuius natura custode rerum nesciente ea que cupit tam per diem quam per noctem absque strepitu clanculo furatur. [Here he discourses about that species of Cupidity which is called secret robbery, whose nature it is to rob clandestinely those things it desires, both by day and by night, without a cry, with the guardian of the goods unawares.]

6584 The servant lede agein the lord. Amans is meticulously correct here in the politics of love. His heart can imagine many things it would like to do, especially were he to touch her knee (line 6566), though he dares not; but even if he had the strength of ten, he, as servant, would still not commit treason by rebelling against his lord (i.e., the lady), whom he honors. The point here is not so much that he is cowardly (though he may be, in plenty of ways), but that he abides by the hierarchies of vassalage.

6620 Danger. In RR Danger is the primary component in the woman's defense mechanism. Thus he is particularly the enemy of Amans, the would-be lover. See RR, lines 2809-4028, as the base churl interrupts Amans just as he is becoming familiar with Bel Acueil (Fair Welcome) and imprisons the lover's hoped for success, as Gower puts it, "under lock and under keie" (5.6621).

6632 stronge lokes maken trewe. Proverbial. See Whiting, L419.

6659-69 Burrow compares the passage to a miniature painting of the lover's confession; the technique is akin to that found in Froissart's Espinette Amoureuse ("Portrayal of Amans," p. 6). "This lover, gazing across the rooftops to the window of the room where his lady is sleeping, is first cousin to Froissart's lover gazing up at the window of his lady's house. Both poets favour a kind of realistic detailing which, so far from disturbing the graceful courtly style, makes it more poignant and delectable" (p. 7).

6713 ff. Based on Met. 4.190-270. See Gaston's remarks on Gower's alterations of Ovid to create a more stealthy Phoebus in "Tale of Leucothoe."

6715 The author of Chaucer's Ghoast (1672), Arg. 9, includes these lines in his penning "in the ancient manner of writing in England" of Ovid's tale of Phoebus and Leucothoë.

6718 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic in amoris causa super isto Latrocinio quod de die contigit ponit exemplum. Et narrat quod, cum Leuchotoe Orchami filia in cameris sub arta matris custodia virgo preseruabatur, Phebus eius pulcritudinem concupiscens, in conclave domus clara luce subintrans, virginis pudiciciam matre nescia deflorauit: vnde ipsa inpregnata iratus pater filiam suam ad sepeliendum viuam effodit; ex cuius tumulo florem, quem Solsequium vocant, dicunt tunc consequenter primitus accreuisse. [Here he presents an instructive example about that robbery in the cause of love that happens by day; and he narrates that, when Leuchotoe, the daughter of Orchamus, was kept a virgin in a chamber under the strict guard of her mother, Phebus, lusting after her beauty, slipped into the house's chamber in a beam of light and deflowered the virgin's modesty, with her mother unawares. Wherefore, with her pregnant, her enraged father buried his daughter alive in a tomb, out of which they say that the flower called "sunflower" first subsequently grew.]

6745 The which were al his worldes welthe. The sense seems to be that the only worldly treasure Apollo wants at the moment is Leucothoë's treasure, which he would steal at any price.

6807-6935 For the story of Hercules and Faunus, see Fasti 2.303-58. Ovid refers to the story as a merry tale handed down from days of old (traditur antiqui fabula plena ioci) to explain why celebrants of the feast of Bacchus wear no clothes. Ovid concludes: "Thus betrayed by vesture, the god loves not garments which deceive the eye, and bids his worshipers come naked to his rites" (veste deus lusus fallentes lumina vestes / non amat et nudos ad sua sacra vocat - Fasti 2.357-58). Genius shifts the focus of Ovid's fabliau from the practices of a religious festival to a farce on stealth and pilfering (micherie).

6807 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic ponit exemplum super eodem quod de nocte contigit. Et narrat qualiter Hercules cum Eole in quadam spelunca nobili, Thophis dicta, sub monte Thymolo, vbi silua Bachi est, hospicio pernoctarunt. Et cum ipsi variis lectis seperatim iacentes dormierunt, contigit lectum Herculis vestimentis Eole lectumque Eole pelle leonis, qua Hercules induebatur, operiri. Super quo Favnus a silua descendens speluncam subintrauit, temptans si forte cum Eole sue concupiscencie voluptatem nesciente Hercule furari posset. Et cum ad lectum Herculis muliebri palpata veste ex casu peruenisset, putans Eolen fuisse, cubiculum nudo corpore ingreditur; quem senciens Hercules manibus apprehensum ipsum ad terram ita fortiter allisit, ut impotens sui corporis effectus usque mane ibidem requieuit, vbi Saba cum Nimphis siluestribus superueniens ipsum sic illusum deridebat. [Here he presents an instructive example concerning the same thing that occurred by night. And he narrates how Hercules took his lodging for the night with Eolen in a certain elegant cave, called Thopis, under Mount Thymolus where the woods of Bacchus are. And while they were sleeping, lying separately in different beds, it happened that the bed of Hercules was made up with the clothes of Eolen, while the bed of Eolen was made up with the lionskin that Hercules wore. Whereupon Faunus, descending from the woods, went down into the cave, seeing if by chance he might fulfill his lust for Eolen while Hercules was unaware. And when by chance he arrived at Hercules' bed, after having stroked the womanly clothing thinking it was Eolen, he entered the bed with his body naked; perceiving him, Hercules, seizing him with his hands, thus powerfully smashed him to the ground, so that, bodily paralyzed, he remained there until morning, where Saba arriving with the wood nymphs mocked him for having been thus deceived.]

6810 pelrinage. In Ovid they are on pilgrimage to the festival of the god of wine in the grove of Bacchus and the vineyard of Tmolus, details which Gower does not mention, though he does call the place where they bed down for the night "Bachus wode" (5.6837).

6852 ff. Nou take good hiede hou love afaiteth / Him which withal is overcome. When a lover dresses in his lady's clothing the implication is, for Gower, that his wit has been overwhelmed. See VC 5.1-6 (trans. Stockton, pp. 196-206) on the effeminization of the knight who would become a lover. In Ovid there seems to be no moral opprobrium connected with cross-dressing.

6892 bothe abedde. I.e.,"in separate beds." In Ovid they sleep in separate beds, since they are preparing to celebrate the festival in honor of Bacchus next morning and wish to be in all purity (quae facerent pure - Fasti 2.330). The separate-beds detail is necessary for Faunus' plan to work (or not work, as the case may be).

6894 drunke swyn. Proverbial, not a political commentary on the servants, who here have a good start on the festival to be celebrated in the morning. To be drunk as a swine is a common saying that is more descriptive than pejorative. See Whiting, S955. In Ovid there is no swine metaphor: the attendants only fall into a drunken slumber after they finish their tasks.

6921-23 wende wel it were sche . . . he profreth him to love. Ovid does not mention any confusion on Hercules' part; rather Faunus, his penis "harder than horn" (Fasti 2.346), lifts the bottom edge of the garment only to encounter the rough hair that bristles from Hercules' legs, at which moment the Tirynthian hero, apparently having just awakened, tosses him out of bed.

6961 ff. In some manuscripts of CA (but not the Stafford or Sidney Sussex College manuscripts), about two hundred additional lines on sacrilege follow line 6980 and include the Tale of Lucius and the Statue, a tale told also in MO, lines 7093-7128, and which is to be found in various fourteenth-century Latin and Middle English story books (e.g., see the Middle English Gesta Romanorum, cap. lxviii) as well as classical sources including Cicero's De natura deorum and Val. Max. 1.1, ext.3. The story may be summarized as follows: Before Rome was Christian, Caesar made a statue of Apollo, gorgeously adorned with a gold beard, a gold mantle, and a fine carbuncle ring. It happened that a famous clerk named Lucius, a courtier of wit and amusement, squandered all his goods and fell into poverty. To make up for his losses he robbed the statue of its ring, mantle, and beard. The king was informed of the desecration, and Lucius was discovered in possession of the loot. When questioned about the robbery Lucius replied: "When I beheld the god, his hand was outstretched, offering me the ring, which I took in appreciation of his largesse. Moreover, in gratitude I removed the cold heavy gold mantle which so encumbered his shoulders - a garment too cold for winter and too heavy for summer. Then, as I looked at him, I saw his large beard and remembered that his father, who stood there before him, was a beardless youth. So I removed the beard that he might be like his father. Therefore I ask to be excused of the charges against me." See how men lighten their consciences with sacrilege!

6966 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic tractat super vltima Cupiditatis specie, que Sacrilegium dicta est, cuius furtum ea que altissimo sanctificantur bona depredans ecclesie tantum spoliis insidiatur. [Here he treats the last species of Cupidity, which is called Sacrilege, whose robbery assaults those things which the Highest has sanctified, seizing the goods of the church as its spoils.]

7012 proude king Antiochus. Perhaps Antiochus II, III, or IV alluded to but not named in the latter part of Daniel, though it is doubtful that Gower would have known commentaries that spoke of him. The boastful Antiochus Epiphanes, known for his loud mouth in Daniel 7:8 and 7:25, and evoked as antichrist in Apocalypse 13:6, is a possibility too. But probably Gower is speaking of Antiochus, the namesake of Antioch, who appears as the evil, incestuous king at the beginning of Gower's Tale of Apollonius (8.274 ff.).

7013 Nabuzardan. According to 4 Kings (2 Kings) 25:8-21, Nebuzaradan, captain of Nebuchadnezzar's guard, looted Jerusalem, burnt the house of the Lord, the king's house, and all the houses of Jerusalem, then delivered the priests and keepers of the door to Nebuchadnezzar, who executed them. MO, lines 7177-88, links him with Belshazzar as one upon whom God took vengeance for his sacrilege.

7018 Nabugodonosor. "At the end of the book we find our old friend Nebuchadnezzar" (Fisher, John Gower, p. 196). Genius uses the Babylonian king for many purposes, mainly as an exemplum of Pride in Prol. 585-662 and 1.2785-3042, and then again here to exemplify sacrilege. The Book of Daniel is Gower's source for the more extended exempla on pride (see Peck, "John Gower and the Book of Daniel"), though here the sacrilege allusions are more akin to 4 Kings (2 Kings) 25, where the king of Babylon is the destroyer of Jerusalem and its priesthood rather than the inquisitor of Daniel who is so often brought to see the light, despite his pride.

7022 ff. The accounts of Nebuchadnezzar and Balthazar and the writing on the wall appear in Daniel 3-5.

7022-23 Baltazar . . . Mane, Techel, Phares. See Belshazzar's feast and the writing on the wall in Daniel 5.5. Daniel's interpretation of the inscription "is built on a paronomastic reworking of the Aramaic" (Dictionary of Biblical Tradition, p. 329), where Mene indicates that "God hath numbered thy kingdom and finished it"; Tekel, "Thou art weighed in the balances and found wanting"; and Peres, "Thy kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians."

7070-72 he loketh on the fleissh / Riht as an hauk. Proverbial. See Whiting, H201.

7187 "There is a time and place for all things." See Ecclesiastes 3:1-8.

7195 ff. Gower's account of Paris' abduction of Helen is found in Benoît, Roman de Troie, lines 3845-3928 and 4167-4936. See also Dares, Books 7-10, and Guido, Books 6-7. For a Middle English retelling of the story, based on Guido, see Lydgate's Troy Book, Books 2-5.

7197 of Troie. On Gower's disenchantment with chivalry and his pervasive use of Troy for social commentary on his own time, see Wetherbee, "John Gower," pp. 595-96 (on VC) and 601-02 (on CA): "The world of chivalry is for Gower an uncentered world of ceaseless, random movement, its activities often directly at odds with social order. . . . The career of Paris (5.7195-7590) exposes a society unable to acknowledge the reckless desire to which it owes its origin, and committed by its blind pursuit of that desire to inevitable dissolution." See also the explanatory note to 6.1391 ff.

7201 ff. Latin marginalia: Hic in amoris causa super istius vicii articulo ponit exemplum. Et narrat, pro eo quod Paris Priami Regis filius Helenam Menelai vxorem in quadam Grecie insula a templo Veneris Sacrilegus abduxit, illa Troie famossima obsidio per vniuersi orbis climata divulgata precipue causabatur. Ita quod huiusmodi Sacrilegium non solum ad ipsius regis Priami omniumque suorum interitum, set eciam ad perpetuam vrbis desolacionem vindicte fomitem ministrabat. [Here he presents an instructive example about that vice (Sacrilege) in the cause of love. And he narrates that, because Paris the son of King Priamus sacrilegiously abducted Helen the wife of Menelaus from a temple of Venus on a certain Greek island, that most famous siege of Troy, eminently described through all the regions of the world, was set in motion. So it was that this sacrilege furnished the kindling of revenge, leading not only to the death of King Priamus himself and all his people, but also to the perpetual desolation of the city.]

7228-57 For another ME account of the rebuilding of Troy, so wondrous in its entaile (line 7247), see Lydgate's Troy Book 2.481-768.

7341 thridde parti. The other two parts are Asia and Africa. Traditionally, each continent was settled by one of Noah's sons: Europe by Japheth, Asia by Shem, and Africa by Ham. See Cursor Mundi, lines 2081 ff. Also Higden's Polychronicon, trans. Trevisa, 1.6: "De orbis divisione," with citations from Augustine, Isidore, and Pliny. For a splendid map showing the three sons and their parts of the orb, accompanied by drawings of strange creatures from the diverse continents, see Schedel, ed., Chronicle of the World, pl. 13.

7353 Wicke is to stryve and have the worse. Proverbial. See Whiting, S842, and compare CA 3.1651.

7441-62 Genius calls upon his books (line 7453) as authority for the three premonitory prophesies by Cassandra, Sybil, and Helenus. But given the predilection of the company their words are thought to be "bot a jape" (line 7463) and thus are ignored. The passage links such choices to their doom, at the heart of which is sacrilege.

7591 Lydgate gives an account of Achilles' infatuation for Polixena in much greater detail in Troy Book 4.551-3267.

7642 ff. Latin marginalia: Nota hic de virtute Largitatis, que ad oppositum Auaricie inter duo extrema, videlicet Parcimoniam et Prodegalitatem, specialiter consistit. [Note here concerning the virtue of generosity, which in opposition to avarice, particularly stands between two extremes, namely parsimony and prodigality.]

7719 ff. Latin marginalia: Lucas. Omni habenti dabitur. [Luke: To whoever has, it will be given. (Luke 8:18.)]

What man hath hors men give him hors. Proverbial. See Whiting, H537.

7720-21 [The one who has no horse] . . . he mai thanne on fote go. Proverbial. See Whiting, H512.

7725 ff. Latin marginalia: Beacius est dare quam accipere. ["Betre is to give than to take" - line 7725.] Proverbial. See Whiting, G93.

7726 With gifte a man mai frendes make. Proverbial. See Whiting, G87.

7735 ff. Latin marginalia: Seneca. Si res tue tibi non sufficiant, fac vt rebus tuis sufficias. [Seneca: If your goods are not sufficient for you, see that you suffice for your goods. (Attributed to Seneca, but actually from Caecilius Balbus, De nugis philosophorum 11.3.)]

7736-39 Bot if thi good suffise . . . be to thi good sufficant. Proverbial. See Whiting, G346. Compare Chaucer, "Truth," line 2.

7743 ff. Latin marginalia: Apostolus. Ordinata caritas incipit a seipsa. [The Apostle: "Ordered charity begins from itself."] See Canticle of Canticles 2:4.

7774 Despended al thi time in wast. Right use of time is a central philosophical concept for Gower. See the Introduction to volume 1 of CA. Compare Harry Bailly's criticism of the pilgrim Chaucer who with his rhyming in The Tale of Sir Thopas "doost noght elles but despendest tyme" (CT VII[B2]931).

Abbreviations: A: Bodleian Library MS Bodley 902 (SC 27573), fols. 2r–183r; B: Bodleian Library MS Bodley 294 (SC 2449), fols. 1r–197r; C: Corpus Christi College, Oxford MS 67, fols. 1r–209r; F: Bodleian Library MS Fairfax 3 (SC 3883; copy text for this edition), fols. 2r–186r; J: St. John’s College, Cambridge MS B.12 (34), fols. 1r–214r; Mac: G. C. Macaulay; S: Stafford, now Ellesmere 26, fols. 1r–169v; T: Trinity College, Cambridge MS R.3.2 (581), fols. 1r–147v.

69 For. So S, B, J, Mac. F: ffro.


57-213 Omitted in J (missing leaf).

306 wisshe. So F, J. S: wyssh. B, Mac: wissh.

412 take. So F, J. S, B, Mac: tak.

448 understode. So F, S. B: understood. J, Mac: understod.

630 Mi. So F, S, J. B, Mac: My.

650 Omitted in J (eyeskip).

786 Thei. So F, S, J. B, Mac: They.

787 Chaldeus. So F, S, B, J. Mac: Caldeus.

811 th'Egipciens. So F, S, J. B, Mac: thegipcienes.

821 th'Egipciens. So F, S, J. B, Mac: thegipcienes.

890 hire. So S, B, Mac. F: hirer. J: hir.

901 Which. So F, B, J. S, Mac: Whiche.

955 Bot. So F, S. B, Mac: But. J: Bote.

1220 thei. So F, S, B, J. Mac: they.

1275 Thei. So F, S, B, J. Mac: They.

1316 priestes. So F, S. B, J, Mac: Prestes.

1322 The small capital, signified here by an indent, appears at line 1323 in F, S, B, J, Mac.

1452 The small capital, signified here by an indent, appears at line 1453 in F, S, B, J, Mac.

1535 set. So F, J. S, B, Mac: sette.

1540 thei. So F, S, B, J. Mac: they.

1615-1770 1615-1770 Omitted in J (missing leaf).

1685 tok. So F. S, Mac: toke. B: tooke.

1715 stond. So F. S, B, Mac: stonde.

1724-43 Altered in B:

Which mannes soule haþ set in euene
And haþ his grace reconsiled
Fro which þe man was ferst exiled
And in himself so sore falle

1781-92 Altered in B:

Þurgh vertu of his hihe might
Which in marie was alight
To bigge mannes soule aðein
And þis bilieue is so certein
So ful of grace and of vertu
That what men clepeþ to Ihesu
In cleene lyf forþ wiþ good dede
He may nought faile of heuene meede
So þat it stant vpon bilieue
Þat euery man may wel achieue

1835 Antenor. So F (though see lines 1836 and 1841). S, B, J, Mac: Anthenor.

1950 ben. So B, Mac. F, S, J: be.

2057 knihthod. So Mac. F: knithode. S: knyhthod. B: knighthode. J: knyhthode.

2098 eche. So F. S, B, J, Mac: ech.

2167 thei. So F, S, B, J. Mac: they.

2179 Thei. So F, S, B, J. Mac: They.

2434 infortune. So S, B, J, Mac. F: infortume.

2551 rescousse. So S, B, J, Mac (and elsewhere in F). F: recousse.

2598 comelihied. So F, S. B: comlihede. J: comelihed. Mac: comlihied.

2735 told. So F, B. S, J, Mac: tolde.

2761 faste by. So S, B, J, Mac. F: fastby.

2904 Ther. So F, S, B, J. Mac: There.
such. So F. S, B, J, Mac: suche.

2906 here. So S, B, J, Mac. F: hire.
procurours. So S, J, Mac. F, B: procurous.

2932 salvely. So F, S, Mac. B, A, J: sauely.

3199 seene. So F, S, B, J. Mac: sene.

3218 mi. So F, S. B, J, Mac: my.

3242 yit. So F, S, B, J. Mac: yet.

3393 mad. So F, S. B, J, Mac: made.

3542 wol. So F, S, B, J. Mac: woll.

3823 seid. So F, S, J. B, Mac: seide.

3892 That. So F, S, J. B, Mac: The.

3990 And. So S, B, J, Mac. F: An.

4020 Altered in B: To make wiþ þis medicine.

4040 be. So F, S, J. B, Mac: ben.
tueyne. So F. B: tweyne. J: tweine. Mac: tueine.

4427 wher it is noght. So F, J. S, B, Mac: wher is noght.

4504 miht. So F. S, Mac: mihte. B: might. J: myht.

4663 Mi. So F, S, J. B, Mac: My.

4728 thi. So F, S, B, J. Mac: thy.

4854 prinche. See MED pinch(e.

4990 the. Added above the line in F. Not noted in Mac. S, B, J omit.

5001 Bot. So F, S, J. B, Mac: But.

5039 Bot. So F, S, J. B, Mac: But.

5056 trasse. So F. S, B, J: trusse. Mac: trosse.

5131 eke. So F. S, T, C, A, J, Mac: ek. B: eek.

5236 bare. So F, S. B, T, C, A, J, Mac: bar.

5302 manye. So F. S: manie. B, C, A, Mac: many. J: monie.

5349 toke. So F. S, C, A, J, Mac: tok. B: took.

5364 wondre. So F, S, J. B, T, C, A, Mac: wonder.

5464 tresces. So T, C, A, Mac. F, S, J: trescess. B: tresses.

5552 worldee. So F. S, B, J, Mac: worldes.

5684 thanne. So F, S, B. J: thenne. Mac: than.

5721 Sche. So F, S, B. J: Heo. Mac: She.

5769 tyt. So S, Mac. F, J: tyd. B: tit.

5846 myhti. So F, S. B: mighty. J: mihti. Mac: myghti.

5918 be. So S, B, J. F, Mac: ben.

5925 remembrance. So S, B, J, Mac. F: remenbrance.

5962 largesse. So S, B, J, Mac. F: larchesse.

6020 here. So F, S. B: hir. J, Mac: hire.

6084 water. So B, C, A, Mac. F, S, J: watre.

6103 Mi. So F, S, J. B, Mac: My.

6110 wylde. So S, J, Mac. F: wyldee. B: wilde.

6130 hire. So F, S, B, J. Mac: her.

6190 and. So S, B, J, Mac. F: ad.

6395-6405 Altered in S, B, and other second recension manuscripts, with additional lines that cite Gregory's comparing the life of a virgin to that of an angel before proceeding to the story of Valentinan's chastity (see Mac 3.121-23 [S text]).

6407 hise. So F, S. B, J, Mac: his.

6585 wolde. So S, B, A, J, Mac. F: wold.

6694 thoghte. So F, A, J. S, Mac: thoght. B: thought. J: thouhte.

6821-7000 6821-7000 Omitted in S (missing leaf).

6862 leon. So F. B: lioun. J, Mac: leoun.

6877 A later hand has placed a "Note" in the margin of F.

6883 Ech. So B, C, A, J, Mac. F: Eche.

6981-82 Additional lines in B (see Mac 3.139).

7032-33 Additional lines in S, B: The Tale of Lucius and the Statue (see Mac 3.141-45 [S text]).

7274 Antenor. So F. S, B, J, Mac: Anthenor. See also note to line 1835.

7303 Omitted in B (eyeskip).

7586 Nou. So F, J. S, B, Mac: Now.

7619 Skarsnesse. So J, Mac. F: Skarnesse. S, B: scarsnesse.

7701-46 Omitted in S, B.

7815-16 Omitted in J (eyeskip).

7819 Tell. So F, A. S, C, B, J, Mac: Telle.