'Beneath the fronting height of Æmus stood The fane of Mars, encompass'd by a wood. The mansion, rear'd by more than mortal hands, On columns fram'd of polish'd iron stands; The well-compacted walls are plated o'er With the same metal; just without the door A thousand Furies frown. The dreadful gleam, That issues from the sides, reflects the beam Of adverse Phoebus, and with cheerless light Saddens the day, and starry host of night. Well his attendants suit the dreary place; First frantic Passion, Wrath with redd'ning face, And Mischief blind from forth the threshold start; Within lurks pallid Fear with quiv'ring heart, Discord, a two-edged falchion in her hand, And Treach'ry, striving to conceal the brand.' 2020. _for al_, notwithstanding. Cf. Piers the Plowman, B. xix. 274. 2021. _infortune of Marte._ 'Tyrwhitt thinks that Chaucer might intend to be satirical in these lines; but the introduction of such apparently undignified incidents arose from the confusion already mentioned of the god of war with the planet to which his name was given, and the influence of which was supposed to produce all the disasters here mentioned. The following extract from the Compost of Ptolemeus gives some of the supposed effects of Mars:--"Under Mars is borne theves and robbers that kepe hye wayes, and do hurte to true men, and nyght-walkers, and quarell-pykers, bosters, mockers, and skoffers, and these men of Mars causeth warre and murther, and batayle; they wyll be gladly _smythes_ or workers of yron, lyght-fyngred, and lyers, gret swerers of othes in vengeable wyse, and a great surmyler and crafty. He is red and angry, with blacke heer, and lytell iyen; he shall be a great walker, and a maker of swordes and knyves, and a sheder of mannes blode, and a fornycatour, and a speker of rybawdry ... and good to be a _barboure_ and a blode-letter, and to drawe tethe, and is peryllous of his handes." The following extract is from an old astrological book of the sixteenth century:--"Mars denoteth men with red faces and the skinne redde, the face round, the eyes yellow, horrible to behold, furious men, cruell, desperate, proude, sedicious, souldiers, captaines, _smythes_, colliers, bakers, alcumistes, armourers, furnishers, _butchers_, chirurgions, _barbers_, sargiants, and hangmen, according as they shal be well or evill disposed."'--Wright. So also in Cornelius Agrippa, De Occulta Philosophia, lib. i. c. 22. [82] Chaucer has 'cruel Mars' in The Man of Lawes Tale, B. 301; and cf. note to A. 1087. 2022. From Statius, Theb. vii. 58:-- 'Et uacui currus, protritaque curribus ora.' 2029. For the story of Damocles, see Cicero, Tuscul. 5. 61; cf. Horace, Od. iii. 1. 17. And see Chaucer's tr. of Boethius, bk. iii. pr. 5. 17. Most likely Chaucer got it from Boethius or from the Gesta Romanorum, cap. 143, since the _name_ of Damocles is _omitted_.