Specimens of English literature from the 'Ploughmans crede' to the ...

XIII. GAWIN DOUGLAS. 43325. First fane, viz. the streamer already mentioned in st. 8. Thiswas an ornament upon the helmet, so that Verity must have taken thehead out of its helmet, and then placed it on the spike with the silkenstreamer.Of Y;naginacion, i.e. the head on which was the helmet, bearing theornament inscribed ' Imagination.'26. The three ladies have a faint resemblance to Spenser's Fidelia,Speranza, and Charissa (Faith, Hope, and Charity), in Bk. i. canto 10.Instead of a portress, ' fayre Obsei-vaunce,' Spenser has a porter namedHumilta (Humility), a franklin named Zele (Zeal), and a squire calledReverence. However inferior Hawes is to Spenser, it is very likely thatvSpenser took a few hints from him, although the poet to whom theauthor of the Faerie Queene was really indebted to a far larger extentwas Sackville. See Extract XXIV.XIII,GAWIN DOUGLAS.For a sketch of the life of Gawin or Gawain Douglas, see Warton,Hist. Eng. Poetry, sect. xxxi. and Irving's Lives of the ScottishPoets, vol. ii.I. Dyonea, Diongea ; an epithet of Venus, from the name of hermother Dione. As Venus is mentioned separately in 1. 4, Dione herselfmay here be intended. Dione was a daughter of Oceanus andTethys, or of Uranus and Ge, or of Aether and Ge. The poet hereassigns to her the epithet of night-herd, or guardian of the night, andrepresents her as chasing the stars from the sky.3. Cynthia, the Moon. In old times, the seven planets, supposed torevolve round the Earth, were the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun,Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. The poet mentions all of these, giving toMercury the name of Cyllenius, and to the Sun that of Phoebus.5. Cyllene w^as the highest mountain in Peloponnesus, on the frontiersof Arcadia and Achaia, sacred to Mercury, who had a temple on the* summit, and was hence called Cyllenius. There is a passage much likethis in Chaucer'Now fleeth Venus into Ciclijiius toure . .Within the gate she fledde into a cave.'Complaynt of Mars and Venus, st. xvii.Here Ciclinius is an evident mistake for Cyllenius, as was pointed out byMr. Brae, in Notes and Queries, in 1851, and Cyllenius toure means the