e saw a choir of ladies in a round,
That featly footing seemed to skim the ground:
Thus dancing hand in hand, so light they were,
He knew not where they trod, on earth or air.]

[Footnote 60: The author of the apocryphal book of Ecclesiasticus.
Chaucer says that he seldom speaks of women with reverence, which is
correct. The statement of Pope that the son of Sirach asserted, like
Solomon, that there was no such thing as a good woman, is in direct
contradiction to various passages among his precepts.]

[Footnote 61: There is no specification of "these ladies" in Chaucer.]

[Footnote 62:

Now by my mother Ceres' soul, I swear
That I shall give her suffisaunt answere,
And alle women after for her sake;
That though they be in any guilt i-take,
With face bold they shall themselves excuse,
And bear them down that woulde them accuse.
For lack of answer none of them shall dyen.
All had ye seen a thing with both your eyen,
Yet shall we women visage it hardily,
And weep, and swear, and chide subtilely.]

[Footnote 63:

I wot well that this Jew, this Solomon,
Found of us women fooles many one;
But though he be founde no good woman,
Yet hath there founde many another man
Women full true, full good, and vertuous;
Witness on them that dwell in Christes house;
With martyrdom they proved their constaunce.]

[Footnote 64: Pluto and Proserpine each select that portion of the
meaning which is convenient. Both senses are included in the words of
Solomon, who at once asserts the general wickedness of mankind, and the
comparative worthlessness of women.]

[Footnote 65: The queen has just been boasting that she will endow the
sex with the art of ingenious lying to cover the violation of their most
solemn vows, and now she tauntingly tells her husband that it is not in
woman to break her word. This contradiction is imported into the story
by Pope. The original is as follows:--

Dame, quoth this Pluto, be no longer wroth,
I give it up; but since I swore mine oath,
That I will grante him his sight again,
My word shall stand, I warne you certain;
I am a king it sit me not to lie.
And I, quoth she, am queen of faierie.
Her answer shall she have I undertake,
Let us no more wordes hereof make.]

[Footnote 66: The allusion is to the common longing of pregnant women
for particular articles of diet. May cries out that she