Geoffrey Chaucer

“ A natural day means a period of twenty-four hours, as distinguished from the artificial day, which was the old technical name for the time from sunrise to sunset. This Chaucer says plainly, in his Treatise on the Astrolabe, pt. ii. § 7, l. 12—'the day natural, that is to seyn 24 houris.'
We thus see that the cave here mentioned is a name for the second degree of the sign Gemini.
This being so, I have no doubt at all, that cave is here merely a translation of the Latin technical astrological term puteus. In Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum Naturale, lib. xv. c. ”

“ The bliss of lovers is so unstable, that in every case lovers have more woes than the moon has changes. Many a fish is mad after the bait; but when he is hooked, he finds his penance, even though the line should break. ”

“ If the correction of valance to fallance be disallowed, I should plead that valance might be short for avalance (mod. E. avalanche, literally descent) , just as every reader of our old literature knows that vale is a common form instead of avale, to descend or lower, being the verb from which avalance is derived. This valance (= avalance) is a fair translation of the Lat. occasus, which was an alternative name for the sign called detrimentum; see my edition of the Astrolabe, as above. The result would then be just the same as before, and would bring us back to the sign of Aries again. ”

“ Venus passes out of Taurus into the next sign Gemini. 'The sign Gemini is also domus Murcurii, so that when Venus fled into "the tour" of Cyllenius, she simply slipped into the next door to her own house of Taurus, leaving poor Mars behind to halt after her as he best might'; A.E. Brae, in Notes and Queries, 1st Series, iii. 235.
114. Voide, solitary; Mars is left behind in Taurus. Besides (according to l. 116) there was no other planet in Gemini at that time.
117. But litil myght. A planet was supposed to exercise its greatest influence in the sign which was called its exaltation ”

“ That is, the apparent motion of Venus was twice as great as that of Mars. Chaucer here follows Macrobius, Comment. in Somnium Scipionis, lib. i. ch. 19, who says:—'Rursus tantum a Iove sphæra Martis recedit, ut eundum cursum biennio peragat. Venus autem tanto est regione Martis inferior, ut ei annus satis sit ad zodiacum peragrandum'; that is, Mars performs his orbit in two years, but Venus in one; accordingly, she moves as much in one day as Mars does in two days. ”

“ The closely related word chivachye, in Prologue to C. T. 85, means a military (equestrian) expedition. In the present case it simply means 'swift course,' with reference to the rapid movement of Mercury, which completes its orbit in about 88 days. Thus the line means—'Mercury, advancing in his swift course.'
145. Fro Venus valance. This is the most difficult expression in the poem, but I explain it by reading fallance, which of course is only a guess. ”

“ Lines 1-28 form the proem; the rest give the story of Mars and Venus, followed by the Complaint of Mars at l. 155. The first 22 stanzas are in the ordinary 7-line stanza. The Complaint is very artificial, consisting of an Introductory Stanza, and five Terns, or sets of three stanzas, making sixteen stanzas of nine lines each, or 144 lines. Thus the whole poem has 298 lines.
Each tern is occupied with a distinct subject, which I indicate by headings, viz. Devotion to his Love; Description of a Lady in an anxiety of fear and woe; the Instability of Happiness ”

“ Bad her fleen, bade her flee; because her motion in her orbit was faster than his. Cf. l. 112.
107. 'In the palace (Taurus) in which thou wast disturbed.'
111. Stremes, beams, rays; for the eyes of Mars emitted streams of fire (l. 95) . Venus is already half past the distance to which Mars's beams extend. Obscure and fanciful.
113. Cylenius, Cyllenius, i. e. Mercury, who was born on Mount Cyllene in Arcadia; Vergil, Æn. viii. 139. Tour, tower; another word for mansion. The tower of Cyllenius, or mansion of Mercury, is the sign Gemini; see note to l. 29. ”