“But whan the cocke, commune astrologer, Gan on his brest to bete and after crowe, And Lucifer, the dayes messanger, Gan for to rise and out his hemes throwe, And estward rose, to him that could it knowe, Fortuna Major .”

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Because the sun is following close behind. ↩

This “stammering woman” of Dante’s dream is Sensual Pleasure, which the imagination of the beholder adorns with a thousand charms. The “lady saintly and alert” is Reason, the same that tied Ulysses to the mast, and stopped the ears of his sailors with wax that they might not hear the song of the Sirens.