3171. _in metre._ For example, the tragedies of Seneca are in various metres, chiefly iambic. See also note to l. 3285. 3177. _After hir ages_, according to their periods; in chronological order. The probable allusion is to Boccaccio's De Casibus Virorum, which begins with Adam and Nimrod, and keeps tolerably to the right order. For further remarks on this, shewing how Chaucer altered the order of these Tragedies in the course of revision, see vol. iii. p. 428. THE MONKES TALE. For some account of this Tale, see vol. iii. p. 427. 3181. _Tragédie_; accented on the second syllable, and riming with _remédie_; cf. B. 3163. Very near the end of Troilus and Criseyde, we find Chaucer riming it with _comédie_. That poem he also calls a tragedie (v. 1786)-- 'Go, litel book, go, litel myn _tragédie_,' &c. 3183. _fillen_, fell. _nas no_, for _ne was no_, a double negative. Cf. Ch. tr. of Boethius--'the olde age of tyme passed, and eek of present tyme now, is ful of ensaumples how that kinges ben chaunged in-to wrecchednesse out of hir welefulnesse'; bk. iii. pr. 5. 3. 3186. The Harl. MS. has--'Ther may no man the cours of hir whiel holde,' which Mr. Wright prefers. But the reading of the Six-text is well enough here; for in the preceding line Chaucer is speaking of Fortune under the image of a person fleeing away, to which he adds, that no one can _stay her course_. Fortune is also sometimes represented as stationary, and holding an ever-turning wheel, as in the Book of the Duchesse, 643; but that is another picture. 3188. _Be war by_, take warning from. LUCIFER. 3189. _Lucifer_, a Latin name signifying _light-bringer_, and properly applied to the morning-star. In Isaiah xiv. 12 the Vulgate has--'Quomodo cecidisti de caelo, _Lucifer_, qui mane oriebaris? corruisti in terram, qui uulnerabas gentes?' &c. St. Jerome, Tertullian, St. Gregory, and [228] other fathers, supposed this passage to apply to the fall of Satan. It became a favourite topic for writers both in prose and verse, and the allusions to it are innumerable. See note to Piers the Plowman, B. i. 105 (Clar. Press Series). Gower begins his eighth book of the Confessio Amantis with the examples of Lucifer and Adam. Sandras, in his Étude sur Chaucer, p. 248, quotes some French lines from a 'Volucraire,' which closely agree with this first stanza. But it is a common theme. 3192. _sinne_, the sin of _pride_, as in all the accounts; probably from 1 Tim. iii. 6. Thus Gower, Conf. Amant. lib. i. (ed. Pauli, i. 153):-- 'For Lucifer, with them that felle, Bar _pride_ with him into helle. Ther was pride of to grete cost, Whan he for pride hath heven lost.'