planets, as here and in Richard de Redeles, iii. 352; with which cf. Additional Note to Piers the Plowman, p. 460 (C. xviii. 98); (2) the Pleiades, as in Cotgrave's "Pleiade, one of the seven stars," and (3) the seven stars in the Greater Bear, of which I cannot adduce any decisive instance, though the phrase most readily suggests this sense. The Lat. word septentriones refers to the Lesser Bear.
481. Side, wide, ample; a word retained till the 15th century. See Prompt. Parv. p. 455, note 2.
485. The translation is at fault. The sense is that the waves, however boisterous, do not eat away the sea coast.
489. The Lat. text is clearly corrupt; and the translator is also at fault, and has given us nonsense. For in the English text, he can only be the wind (cf. his in l. 488); which gives—'the wind embraces and encloses the clear water.' He seems to have taken the reading amplectitur, and to have connected this sentence with the preceding one, with which it has no obvious connection beyond the reference of illud to mare. Instead of its being the wind which embraces the sea, the true reference is to the sea which embraces the land. This comes out more clearly in the other Latin text (see Preface) in Bisse's Palladius, p. 92. "Certamus etiam pelagus colore purpureo venustare, quod placidis et amicis excitatur semper fluctibus; non ferire germanam terram creditur sed amplecti, cujus multiformes pisces vagique delphini æquoris madidas undas atque saltus innocenter exercerent." It is clear that it was this text that suggested the mention of dolphins in l. 492.
492. 'There dolphins make a din.' Mr. Stevenson prints diue, against which there are two reasons:—(1) the MS. has dine; and (2) maken diue is not a correct expression. It is explained by the next line, 'that there they swim very quickly, and lash about with their tails.' The expressive word swangen is not mentioned in Stratmann; but Halliewell duly records the provincial "swang, to swing with violence," as an East of England word. Cf. G. schwang, a swinging motion, schwanz, a tail.
500. 'We much desire to go about in the dense woods.'
507. That we the rede holde, which we advise thee to observe.
509. Thi pres, thy press, i.e. throng of men, host.
510. 'Though it seem disagreeable (to you), it is not owing to us.' Long in must be an error either for long on or long of, i.e. along of, owing to.
512. Balful no tened, injurious nor vexed.
524-527. Strondus, streams; cf. l. 151. By the river Erenus is ment the Hermus (Gk. ἕρμος), a considerable river of Asia Minor, of which the still more celebrated Pactolus is a tributary.
529. Drinkinke drawht = drinking-draught, i.e. the draught of their drinking; not a very happily formed compound.
533. Oxian, the ocean; a singular corruption. But the Latin has horribile mare, which can mean nothing else. Still clearer is the
