2580. _Wirdes_, Fates; Lat. Parcæ; Gk. Moiræ. Corson shews that G. Douglas translates the Lat. _fata_ by _werdes_ in Æn. i. 18, and _Parcæ_ by _werd sisteris_ in the same, iii. 379. He also quotes from Holinshed's Hist. of Scotland--'the _weird sisters_, that is, as ye would say, the goddesses of destinie'; reproduced by Shakespeare in Macb. iv. 1. 136. 2582. The scansion suggests that _Pitous-e_, _sad-de_, are treated like French adjectives, the final _e_ denoting the feminine gender. This is natural in the case of _pitous-e_, fem. of _pitous_, just as we have _dispitous-e_, Book of the Duch. 624; but the distinction is not often made in M.E. Sweet's A.S. grammar gives _til-u_ as an occasional fem. form of the nom. of the indef. adjective; so that _sæd-u_ might have been used. _Wys-e_ is likewise dissyllabic, though the A.S. form was _wís_ even in the feminine. But the _definite_ forms of the M.E. adj. were _sad-de_, _wys-e_; and there may have been consequent confusion. In fact, Prof. Child gives a list of adjectives of this kind, being monosyllabic in A.S., but dissyllabic in Chaucer. He includes _wise_, but not _sad_, his examples being taken from the Canterbury Tales only, and thence only in clear cases. _Dispitous-e_ occurs as a vocative case, in Troil. ii. 435. 2584. Here comes in the old belief in astrology. Venus, Jupiter, Mars, and Saturn, as here mentioned, are not the gods, but the planets; and each planet had (it was thought) its peculiar influence, which was stronger or weaker according to its position in the heavens at the time of birth of the person whom it affected. The influences of Venus and Jupiter were for good (see note to Troil. iii. 1417); whilst the influences of Mars and Saturn were evil. See further below. 2585. _With_ is explained by Corson to mean 'by'; and such a sense is, of course, usual and common. For all that, it may here mean 'with.' The sense seems to me to be--'For, though the influence of the planet Venus gave her great beauty, she was (also) so compounded with a share of Jupiter,' &c. It does not make much difference, and the reader can choose. 2588. _Thoughte her_, it seemed to her. 2589. _Rede Mars_, red Mars, because the planet is reddish; see note to l. 533. Cf. Kn. Ta., 1111 (A 1969). As to the bad influence of Mars, compare the following:-- 'Allas! thou _felle_ Mars!' Kn. Ta. 701 (A 1559). 'Noght was foryeten by the _infortune_ of Marte'; id. 1163 (A 2021). 'By _manasyng_ of Mars'; id. 1177 (A 2035). ... 'that no _wykkid_ planete, as Saturne or Mars' Treatise on the Astrolabe, ii. 4. 22 (p. 192, above).