l. 32: Orgilus, a common name for giants, sometimes dwarfs in Medieval romance, but having the common meaning of Pride (q.v. the French word for pride, orgueil; the Old French word was Orgoillos: Qui plus orgoillos vousist querre, in “Roman de Troie”, of Benoit de Sainte-Maure.)

ll. 33, 35: the love potion of Tristan and Isolde (Gottfried von Stassburg), also gift in German means poison.

l. 36: Otto Rank’s “Art and Artist”

l. 36: Chaucer’s “Troilus and Crysede.”

l. 41: Orpheus' Harp.

l. 54: Goethe’s “Faust”; it was an homunculus, but the Latin word for “word” is neuter, hence the ending.

l. 60: resembling dew

ll. 61-64: from Tristan, when the handmaiden sleeps with the king who thinks it is the virgin, Isolde, who isn’t.

l. 73: armed with sharp rigid points

l. 74: “words of a sparrow;” my own macoronic verse.

ll. 75, 123; from Skelton’s “Philip Sparrow;” itself a parody of Catullus’ poem about the sparrow in his girlfriend’s lap (Carmen II); it is also a parody of an older Greek funeral poem; and the words, “I shall please,” and “I have loved,” are words in the Catholic Mass for the dead, also used in Skelton’s poem, “Philip Sparrow,” (?1509) when Latin was still a living language.

Carmen 2

—Catullus

Passer, deliciae meae puellae,

quicum ludere, quem in sinu tenere,

cui primum digitum dare appetenti

et acris solet incitare morsus,

cum desiderio meo nitenti

carum nescio quid lubet iocare,

et solaciolum sui doloris,

credo, ut tum grauis acquiescat ardor:

tecum ludere sicut ipsa possem