219. AND GOOD SUCCESSES, etc., and good results which follow their foes.
221. OR BREAKE THE CHAYNE, refers to Jove's proposition to fasten a golden chain to the earth by which to test his strength. Homer's _Iliad_, viii, 19. Cf. Milton's _Paradise Lost_, ii, 1051.
225. BAD EXCHEAT, bad gain by exchange. _Escheat_ is an old legal term, meaning any lands or goods which fall to the lord of a fief by forfeiture. Cf. "rob Peter to pay Paul."
229. SHALL WITH HIS OWNE BLOUD, etc., shall pay the price of the blood that he has spilt with his own.
263. Here Spenser imitates Homer's _Odyssey_, xvi, 163.
267. THE GHASTLY OWLE. The poet follows the Latin rather than the Greek poets, who regard the owl as the bird of wisdom.
273. OF DEEP AVERNUS HOLE. Avernus in the poets is a cavern (in an ancient crater), supposed to be the entrance to the infernal regions. Cf. Vergil's _Æneid_, vi, 237. In Strabo's Geography it is a lake in Campania.
298. CERBERUS, the dog which guarded the lower regions. This stanza is an imitation of Vergil's _Æneid_, vi, 417 _seq_. In Dante's _Inferno_ Vergil appeases him by casting handfuls of earth into his maw.
xxxv. In this stanza we see the influence of Homer and Vergil. Ixion, the king of Lapithæ, was chained by order of Zeus to a fiery-winged wheel for aspiring to the love of the goddess Hera (Juno). Sisyphus had to roll a huge stone forever up a hill for betraying the designs of the gods. Tantalus, for divulging the secrets of Zeus, was condemned to stand tormented by thirst in a lake. Tityus, for an assault on Artemis, was pinioned to the ground with two vultures plucking at his vitals. Typhoeus, a hundred-headed giant, was slain by Zeus' thunderbolt, and buried under Ætna. The gin on which he was tortured was probably the rack of the Middle Ages. Cf. the bed of Procrustes. Theseus, for attempting to carry off Persephone, was fixed to a rock in Tartarus. The "fifty sisters" are the fifty Danaides, who, for slaying their husbands, were condemned to pour water forever into a vessel full of holes.
322. SAD AESCULAPIUS, the god of medicine, slain by Zeus for arresting death and diseases.
354. AND FATES EXPIRED, and the threads of life which the fates (Parcæ) had severed.