COMMENTARY NOTES

Title Page The quotation is Martial II.lxxxvi.9f.
AD EDOARDUM MICHELBORNUM Edward Michelborne or Michelbourne [1565 - 1626]. Anthony à Wood’s biography is quoted in the Introduction. Poems addressed to him are I.50, II.1, II.2, II.16, II.102, II.127, III.99, and III.133. Also addressed to him are Thomas Campion’s epigrams I.180, I.192, II.63A, II.77, and II.121.
The author of this poem, who signs himself Hilarius Verus, was Fitzgeoffrey’s closest friend and is often addressed and mentioned in these poems. One would expect the name to be Englished as Hilary Vere, but the name was Digory Whear [1573 - 1647], who matriculated from Broadgates Hall on July 6, 1593 together with Fitzgeoffrey and the three Rous brothers (Clark II.197). Whear came from Jacobstow, Cornwall, was admitted to the B. A. in 1596 - 7, incepted for the M. A. in 1600, and two years later was appointed a Fellow of Exeter College. In 1622 he was created the first Camden Professor of History (Foster p. 1608). At Ath. Oxon. III.216 - 220 Anthony à Wood gives a biography and lists his publications. He concludes by stating that he bequeathed his private library to a close mutual friend of himself and Fitzgeoffrey, Francis Rous (for whom see the note on II.21), and with the rather ominous remark that “he left behind him a widow and children, who soon after became poor, and whether the females lived honestly, ‘tis not for me to dispute it.”
On the face of it, the identification of “Hilary Vere” as Whear seems intrinsically probable, but one problem must be acknowledged. At II.5 Fitzgeoffrey describes him as doctum theologum et bonum poetam, and in Fitzgeoffrey’s vocabulary theologus is regularly used to designate a member of the Anglican clergy, which Wheare was not. This difficulty may perhaps be explained by thinking that Whear read Divinity for a while, or possibly that this is some private joke between him and the poet. Certainly, the identification of Whear as Vere receives support from the fact that one of the gratulatory poems preceding Fitzgeoffrey’s Drake is signed “Diag. VVh.”
In my translations I render his Latinized surname as “Hillary Vere,” so Fitzgeoffrey’s frequent puns on his name can be reproduced with their English derivatives.
Meter: hendecasyllabi (in this edition all poems are identified by meter except those written in elegiac couplets).
7 Cf. Martial III.xx.9, lepore tinctos Attico sales.
12 - 14 Fitzgeoffrey alludes to Pliny the Younger’s Epistle VII.17, in which Pliny makes such a request of Celer and states that the tragic poet Pomponius Secundus is wont to do the same thing.
15 The fourth century poet Ausonius.
17 Patrima virgo = Minerva.
22 Suffenus is the incompetent verse-scribbler ridiculed in Catullus xxii. 
HILARIO VERO SUO 2 Cf. Catullus xxiv.1, O qui flosculus es iuventiorum.
7 The pun Carolus - Charites is exceedingly feeble.
9 For Raleigh, see the next poem. 
AD GULIELUM RALAEUM William Raleigh [b. 1563] matriculated from St. Mary Hall in 1581, migrated to All Souls College, and received the B. C. L. in 1592 (Foster p. 1230). I.37 is addressed to him, and from the tenor of both these poems one gathers that Fitzgeoffrey held his Latin scholarship in particular respect. Meter: hendecasyllabi.
8 Cf. Martial VIII.lxxii.1 - 3:

11 “Aonian” = Boeotian (Boeotia was the home of the Muses). 
I.1 I.1 - I.8 (together with I.10) are a series of book-introducing poems, while I.9 and I.11 - 14 are a series of Cordula poems. One cannot help wondering whether the printer may have mistakenly transposed I.9 and I.10.
Edward Michelborne (for whom see the note on the initial prefatory poem ) had two brothers, Laurence and Thomas. These are even more shadowy figures than Edward. No doubt it is their Catholicism that explains their absence from university records - students were required to subscribe to loyalty oaths to the Church of England as part of the matriculation process and before taking degrees - and perhaps also their reluctance to publish. Each of the three Books of Affaniae is dedicated to one of the Michelborne brothers, presumably in the order of their birth. Other poems addressed to Laurence Michelborne are I.2, I.58, and I.78, as is Thomas Campion’s epigram II.34.
I.1.1 For similar instructions cf. Martial X.civ.1, which begins:

I.1.11 a facie Veneres Compare I.5, En Venerem et genium fronte, libelle, geris. It seems as if Fitzgeoffrey expected his volume to have a woodcut of Venus on the frontispiece (in fact, it does not). 
I.2 Meter: hendecasyllabi. 
I.3.1 Catullus uses the word flexanimus at lxiv.330. 
I.5 See the note on I.1.11. 
I.7 Carew’s The Survey of Cornwall was published a year after Affaniae, and it begins with a verse “Prosopopeia to the Book,” in which the book directly addresses the reader. One suspects Carew got the idea from the present poem.
I.7.1 Booksellers’ stalls were set up in St. Paul’s churchyard.
I.7.3 The oak is called Iovis arbir by Ovid, Metamorphoses I.106.
I.7.4 An echo of Ovid, Amores I.vii.54, ut cum populeas ventilat aura comas.
I.7.9 George Bishop, a London printer.
I.7.13 For blatis . . . tineisque cf. Horace, Sermones II.iii.119, Martial VI.lxi.7, and XIV.xxxvii.2.
I.8 Meter: hendecasyllabi.
I.8.8 Momus, the Greek god of captious criticism. In 1592, in an epilogue to one of his plays, William Gager (for whom see the note on I.31) had lampooned the puritanical Dr. John Rainolds (for whom see the note on III.13) before the entire university under the name of Momus, for having criticized the practice of putting on plays in the university. This started a chain reaction which led to the Queen publically dressing down Rainolds during her visitation later that year, and it is likely that when Fitzgeoffrey came up to Oxford soon thereafter he heard a lot about this incident. Fitzgeoffrey alludes to Cato the Censor.
I.8.10 Aristophanes and Choerilus, two Attic comic poets.
I.8.12 Maccus is a traditional Roman clown’s name. 
I.9 Meter: hendecasyllabi.
I.9.7f. Taurus was the Greek name for the region of the Crimea, which the ancients regarded as remote and barbaric. It was to Taurus that Iphigeneia was transported, to be rescued by Orestes. From the Nemean forest issued the fierce Nemean Lion, killed by Hercules.
I.9.10 The pages are not to be torn out and used as sunshades. Fitzgeoffrey thought papyrus was feminine: cf. also II.22.32, III.15.6, III.39.5, and III.50.11.
I.9.11 Mollicella is taken from Catullus xxv.10.
I.10 Meter: hendecasyllabi.
I.10 6 Presumably a trumpet was employed to summon the audience.
I.10.10ff. The scene shifts to an academic disputation.
I.10.13 Harpocrates was the ancient god of silence, who was represented in art and sculpture as placing a cautionary finger to his lips. Fitzgeoffrey may have been thinking of Vergil, Eclogue v.37, infelix lolium et steriles nascuntur auenae (cf. also Georgics I.154).
I.11 The conceit that the beloved’s eyes are twin suns is a clichee of the stock rhetoric of the Petrarchan sonnet. Cf., as an example, the beginning of Sonnet XLV from Thomas Watson’s Hekatompathia (1582):

Watson’s poem shows how readily and how completely the rhetoric and imagery of the Petrarchan sonnet could be adapted for Latin.
I.11.2 The daedala diva is presumably Venus.
I.11.5f An English translation cannot do justice to the puns in the final couplet: dexter and laevus mean both “right” and “left,” and “favorable” and “unfavorable.”
I.12.5 Venus is sometimes called Cypria because Cyprus was the center of her cult.
I.13 Meter: hendecasyllabi.
I.13.16f. Instead of the black stones with which ancient Romans marked unlucky days on their calendars.
I.14.5 Nec mens nec manus may be suggested by Horace, Ars Poetica 348, nam neque chorda sonum reddit quem volt manus et mens.
I.14.7 A common image for sexual passion in Roman poetry. Cf., e. g., Catullus c.7, cum vesana meas torreret flamma medullas.
I.15 A number of Fitzgeoffrey’s epigrams are aimed at misers: cf. also I.16, I.17, II.44, III.56, and III.82.
I.15.7 Fitzgeoffrey usually writes timpora for tempora.
I.16 Meter: iambic trimeters.
I.16.2 The Attalids were one of the successor-dynasties that inherited the empire of Alexander the Great. They were proverbial for their luxury: cf., for example, the Vergilian Culex 62f.:

I.16.7 For the idiom cf. Horace, Epistulae II.ii.4, candidus et talos a vertice pulcher ad imos (cf. also Sermones I.ix.10).
I.18 Meter: hendecasyllabi.
I.18.6 Tempe was a valley in Thessaly notable in antiquity for its beauty.
I.18.10 This image makes especial sense according to the ancient theory of visual perception, whereby vision is a kind of long-range touch accomplished because the eye emits a visual ray.
I.18.11 Dione is a cult name for Venus; Cupid is of course meant.
I.18.12 For such a picture of feminine beauty, cf. (e. g.) Vergil, Aeneid XII.68f.:

This “roses and lilies” imagery is a particularly common stereotype in Elizabethan literature, because women’s cosmetics consisted of white lead and vermillion rouge (in III.68 Fitzgeoffrey pokes fun at the heavy use of this stuff).
I.18.13 There is a false quantity in gemellive, in which the first syllable ought to be short.
I.18.22 See the note on I.14.7.
I.19 Balbus, one of Fitzgeoffrey’s gallery of bad poets, is also the subject of II.36, II.76, and II.79.
I.20 Linus will come to a bad end: Fitzgeoffrey juxtaposes allusions to two tales from Ovid’s Metamorphoses about soothsayers who suffered unpleasant transformations. For line 1, cf. Met. II.636 (whence this story is taken), filia centauri, quam quondam nympha Chariclo. Likewise the Sibyl at Cumae was transformed into a spider: cf. ib. XIV.144 - 53 and Petronius, Satyricon xlviii.8 (admittedly, it is somewhat unusual to see a spider called a pecus).
I.20.2 Cf. Metamorphoses II.640f.:

I.20.3 Cf. ib. 639 , fatorum arcana canebat.
I.20.7 Cf. Vergil, Georgics IV.392f. (of the prophetic sea-god Nereus):\

I.21 Bardus, another bad poet, reappears at I.35 and II.64. 
I.22.2 See the note on I.11.
I.22.7 For conceperat ignes cf. Ovid, Fasti I.473 (also at line-end).
I.22.8 According to Roman tradition, Phaethon crashed his fiery chariot in the Po (Ovid, Metamorphoses III.324, Martial II.xii.2, Statius, Thebais XII.414, etc.
I.23 For “Hillary Vere” (Digory Whear) see the note on the initial prefatory poem. This was written after Fitzgeoffrey had gone down from Oxford. Meter: Sapphic stanzas.
I.23.1 Fitzgeoffrey is fond of manufacturing puns on “Vere’s” name, this time with verus (“true”).
I.23.2f. Fidius (perhaps an epithet of Jupiter) was the Roman god of faith, who presided over oaths. The phrase annis primulis suggests that Fitzgeoffrey and Whear had been boyhood friends in Cornwall before going up to Oxford. Possibly they had been under the hand of the same schoolmaster, the Rev. Richard Harvey (for whom see III.19).
I.24.6 This line seems suggested by Ps. - Tibullus III.xix.10, qua nulla humano sit via trita pede.
I.25 The present poem provides another illustration of how the stock rhetoric and imagery of the Petrarchan sonnet could percolate into Neo-Latin erotic verse.
I.26.11 Cf. Ovid, Heroides xvi.246, ille ego, si nescis, verus amator eram.
I.27 Like Phineas Fletcher’s poem In Thermas Bathoniae from his 1633 Sylva Poetica, this poem suggests that Bath already had a reputation as a place of romantic dalliance.
I.27.1 From Roman times, Minerva was considered the presiding deity of the hot spring; in the eighteeenth century a fine bronze head of Minerva was discovered there.
I.28 Meter: hendecasyllabi.
I.28.1 Minerva: see the note on I.27.1.
I.28.10 The liver was considered the seat of the passions.
I.28.13 Cross Bath.
I.28.18 The King’s Bath, visible from the Pump Room.
I.31 When he came up to Oxford in 1593, Fitzgeoffrey would have had plenty of opportunity to hear about the two revival performances of the tragedy Meleager by Oxford’s premier playwright, William Gager, during the Shrovetide holidays and again at the end of the summer of 1592, when a royal visit was hastily laid on so that Elizabeth could escape the plague raging in London. Meleager was also published in 1593 by Joseph Barnes, printer to the University. The play must have made an impression on him, both to supply the imagery for the present poem (the idea that all of his life reposes in a brand, which his stepmother casts in the fire recapitulates play’s plot), and because he writes of Gager’s “Sophoclean buskin” at II.73.3. This poem is written in hendecasyllabi.
I.32.2 Venus and Helen.
I.33 From I.41 we learn that Lytus has a monstrous nose because he is addicted to tobacco. Meter: iambic trimeters (although in the book it is printed with alternate lines indented, as though written in elegiac couplets).
I.33.12 - 15 I am no Prometheus.
I.33.39 There was supposedly an opening to the Underworld at Mt. Taenarum in Laconia, mentioned by (e. g.) Vergil, Georgics IV.467 and Lucan VI.648.
I.33.43 Not only the tusks of Indian elephants, but the ivory made from these, were called Indii dentes. Cf., for instance, Statius, Silvae III.iii.94f.:

I.33.44 Marble from the island of Paros was of excellent quality, and from it were made many of the best Greek statues.
I.33.52 Siculi… camini designates Mt. Aetna, as at Statius, Silvae I.i.3.
I.34 Meter: a single dactylic hexameter.
I.35 We have met Bardus at I.21 (cf. also II.64). In Fitzgeoffrey’s vocabulary, crux regularly = the gallows.
I.36.2 Cynthius = a cult name of Apollo.
I.37 For Raleigh see the note on the prefatory poem Ad Gulielmum Ralaeum.
I.38 Sir Thomas Overbury [b. 1581] matriculated from Queeen’s College in 1595 - 6 and admitted to the B. A. in 1598; he was a also a student of the Middle Temple commencing in 1597. His poisoning in the Tower in 1613 was the great scandal of James’ reign (Foster p. 1097; biography in D. N. B.).
I.38.3 Possibly Fitzgeoffrey was thinking of Lucretius II.505, Phoebeaque daedala chordis.
I.38.4 The Muses.
I.38.7 Luscus ought to mean “one-eyed,” but here and at III.117.1 Fitzgeoffrey applies this adjective to the blind Cupid. Is some allusion to his own condition intended?
I.38.12 See the note on I.18.11.
I.38.17 Cf. Martial IX.xl.7, mersus fluctibus obrutusque ponto.
I.39 The poet - composer - physician Thomas Campion [d. 1620]; biography in the D. N. B Fitzgeoffrey’s relationship with Campion, and Campion’s literary influence on him, is discussed in the Introduction. Mellea was one of Campion’s darlings addressed in his epigrams and elegies.
I.41 The hideous effect tobacco has produced on Lytus’ nose is described in I.33. Meter: iambic trimeters.
I.41.2 A standard Roman idiom for “his head has become swollen.” The Oxford Latin Dictionary cites as an example Juvenal iv.69f., et tamen illi / surgebant cristae.
I.42 The barber praises the treatise de Secretis Mulierum (“On the Secrets of Women”) by Albertus Magnus [d. 1280], because it promises to offer information on a subject of interest to him. When he discovers that the author of this work was a monk, he will lose interest.
I.43 A “man of three letters” is someone so illiterate that he only knows the first three letters of the alphabet. Oto is so ignorant that he only knows the first letter — but it’s a long A. Alternately, Oto is a thief — F U R — who has been abbreviated to a single letter, but that is a long one because his neck has been stretched.
I.44 Usually Fitzgeoffrey spells tempora (“temples”) timpora, but here he retains the classical spelling for the sake of punning with tempora = “times.”
I.44.1 The following couplet was written by Matthew Borbonius as one of his mottoes for various emperors, this one being for Lothaire I:

I.45 Other individuals in Fitzgeoffrey’s cast of characters are named Aulus, but there is no reason to think they are the same person: the bad critic (II.87), the man who loves his dog (II.118, II.119), and the high-born man (III.105).
I.46 Meter: hendecasyllabi.
I.46.5 Invisum scelus echoes Seneca, Hercules Furens 96.
I.46.15 Paestum was a town in southern Italy famous in antiquity for its roses (the Oxford Latin Dictionary cites Ovid, Metamorphoses XV.708 and Martial, XII.xxxi.3).
I.47 Fitzgeoffrey and many of his readers would presumably have been familiar with Martial I.lxxxiii:

I.50 For Edward Michelborne see the note on the initial prefatory poem. Meter: hendecasyllabi.
I.52 Meter: iambic trimeters. For other poems against usurers by Fitzgeoffrey cf. I.68 and II.65.
I.52.10 Universi noverint = the first words describing an obligation in a bond.
I.53 The idiom verba dare means to cheat or swindle. Fitzgeoffrey is not specific about Oblymus’ method of cheating. Maybe he borrows the money he lends out, but fails to repay his own debts.
I.54 It is ironic that diminutive suffixes produce a word larger than its ordinary form.
I.55 Fitzgeoffrey frequently finds humor in cuckoldry and in the situation of a man believing children are his own when they actually fathered by somebody else. In discussing the etymology of the place-name Cornwall Carew (p. 82] makes a remark that may be significant:, for many of his poems on this subject feature horn jokes:

I.56 Meter: hendecasyllabi.
I.56.8f. See the note on I.11.
I.58 For Laurence Michelborne cf. the note on I.1. Meter: scazons (iambic trimeters with a final spondee).
I.58.9 The umbicilius was the stick around which a papyrus scroll was wound.
I.58.13 - 19 Fitzgeoffrey plays with Michelborne’s Christian name, as if it were Laurus and had to do with Apollo’s sacred laurel tree (into which the god’s beloved Daphne was transformed).
I.60 When Jupiter caught Vulcan commiting adultery with Juno, he trapped them in a net.
I.61.1 Magnum Iovis incrementum is a quote from Vergil, Eclogue iv.49 (imitated at the Vergilian Ciris 398).
I.63.3 Cf. Ovid, Metamorphoses I.731 ( = Fasti II.75), tollens ad sidera vultus.
I.63.6 For sydera testor cf. Vergil, Aeneid III.599, IX.429, Martial IX.xxii.15, and Statius, Silvae I.iv.116.
I.63.7 Cf. Ovid, Tristia I.ii.51, nec letum timeo, genus est miserabile leti.
I.64 Cf. the note on I.22.8.
I.65.1 Cf. Propertius II.i.9, sive lyrae carmen digitis percussit eburnis.
I.65.2f. Perhaps influenced by Ovid, Fasti II.108, reddidit icta suos pollice chorda sonos.
I.65.9 For tenues . . . chordas cf. Statius, Silvae IV.iv.53.
I.67 Meter: scazons (iambic senarii with a spondaic sixth foot).
I.69 The first poem that indicates Cordula’s health is failing. But the fact that this otherwise pathetic poem is soon followed by a series of epigrams containing doctor jokes is rather unsettling.
I.70 The humor of this epigram depends a barely translatable pun between concoquo (“digest”) and decoquo (“squander”); the name Gulonus is calculated to remind the reader of gula (“gullet”). Meter: hendecasyllabi.
I.70.3 Machaon was a physician who accompanied the Greeks to Troy.
I.71.4 See the note on I.15.7.
I.71.6 Pene is dangerously ambiguous: it is the Neo-Latin spelling of paene, but at the same time it is the ablative singular of penis.
I.72.2 Asclepius.
I.77 The idea of this poem is remarkably similar to that of Thomas Morley’s ayre April is in my Mistress’s Face.
I.77.3 Cf. Catullus lxv.13f.:

And also Ovid, Fasti V.225, tu quoque nomen habes cultos, Narcisse, per hortos.
I.77.4 Liber et alma Ceres comes from Vergil, Georgics I.7.
I.78 For Laurence Michelborne see the note on the initial prefatory poem. See also the note on I.58.13 - 19.
I.80 For “Hillary Vere” (Digory Whear) see the note on the initial prefatory poem. Meter: first Archilochean (a dactylic hexameter + a dactylic trimeter catalectic).
I.82 Meter: iambic trimeters.
I.82.10 Pythagoras of Samos, who taught that we are endowed with immortal souls.
I.83 This epigram may represent the same kind of uncharitable humor directed against an older woman found in cruder form in Martial VII.lxxv:

I.85 Meter: iambic trimeters.
I.85.1 The beginning of this poem is calculated to resemble that of Catullus v, Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus.
I.85.7f. Here Sabina = “Roman,” i. e., with old Roman severity. For rigidam … frontem cf. Lucan II.375.
I.85.8 Cato the Censor was known for his gloomy uprightness (for the adjective Catoniana cf. Martial IX.xxvii.14).
I.86.3f. Minerva is presumably meant. For tela rotat cf. Statius, Thebais VIII.520, and
I.86.5 The fate suffered by Bacchus’ mother Semele.
I.87 Although she is not named, surely this poem is addressed to Cordula.
I.88 Meter: iambic dimeters.
I.90 The idea is that Antius already is burdened with pledges taken in exchange for previous loans to Cranius, of which he cannot profitably dispose. So why accept more?
I.91 Meter: hendecasyllabi.
I.91.3 Olive oil.
I.91.6 I have no idea what substance is designated by lapithum. Does he mean mint?
I.91.7 - 9 Pliny, Natural History XXVIII.clxxx.
I.92.2 The ignotus - notus pun is only possible because Fitzgeoffrey pronounced and wrote nothus as notus (cf. II.61.4).
I.93.3 For Fata vocant at the beginning of the hexameter line cf. Vergil, Aeneid XI.97 and Georgics IV.496.
I.94 What is the joke of this epigram? That some woman actually writes Obelius’ poetry? That the poet is henpecked
I.96.2 For the idiom verba reporto cf. Ovid, Metamorphoses III.369.
I.97 Meter: hendecasyllabi.
I.101 Meter: Sapphic stanzas.
I.101.3f His rival is Pluto.
I.102 Meter: hendecasyllabi.
I.102.8f. Cf. Ovid, Amores III.i.19, saepe aliquis digito vatem designat euntem, and ib. III.vi.77, quid moror et digitis designor adultera vulgi?
I.102.18 Elisiana is an adjectival form of Elisa (Elizabeth) that manages to incorporate a pun on “Elysian.”
II.1 For Edward Michelborne cf. the note on the initial prefatory poem.
II.1.5f. The combination of the future verb with the perfect infinitive is awkward. Delituisse sinu is appropriated from Ovid, Amores III.i.56.
II.2 Meter: hendecasyllabi.
II.2.12 There obol and the asterisk were critical marks developed by the Alexandrian scholars.
II.2.16 For the idiom lima uti cf. Ovid, Epistulae ex Ponto I.v.19.
II.2.17 As the ancient Romans used white pebbles to mark lucky days on their calendars.
II.2.19 Apinae is a word taken from Martial (I.cxiii.2, XIV.i.7).
II.4 William Percy [1574 - 1648], third son of Henry, the second Earl of Northumberland, matriculated from Gloucester Hall in 1589 (Foster p. 1147). In 1594 he had published Sonnets to the Fairest Coelia. Also addressed to William Percy is Thomas Campion’s epigram II.40. Meter: hendecasyllabi.
II.4.12 Phaleuci is another word for hendecasyllabi.
II.5 For “Hillary Vere” (Digory Whear), and for the problem involved in identifying him as a theologus, see the note on the initial prefatory poem. One gathers from line 7 that Fitzgeoffrey was writing to Whear at Oxford from someplace in Wiltshire where he wished Whear to join him. Meter: hendecasyllabi.
II.5.5 In mythology and Greek tragedy, Pylades was Orestes’ constant faithful companion. Hence is name became proverbial for a good friend, as at Ovid, Remedia Amoris 589, Semper habe Pyladen aliquem, qui curet Oresten.
II.5.8 University writers not infrequently referred to the academic gown as the toga.
II.5.10 In this context, aula does not designate the royal court or the lawcourt, but the university debating-hall.
II.5.21 For aestu pectoris cf. Ovid, Heroides xvi.25 and Lucan VIII.166.
II.5.31 For the idiom cf. Catullus xxxv.7, quare, si sapiet, viam vorabit.
II.5.32 For the idiom castigat moras cf. Vergil, Aeneid IV.407 and Martial X.civ.17.
II.5.38 Hippocrene was a fountain sacred to the Muses.
II.5.39 For acquiescet ardor cf. Catullus ii.8.
II.5.43 Asclepius (whose temple was at Epidaurus). The epithet Epidaurius is used (e.g.) by Ovid, Epistulae ex Ponto I.iii.21, and Metamorphoses XV.723.
II.5.48 = aestu.
II.5.52 See the note on II.4.12.
II.5.53 For truces iambos cf. Catullus xxxvi.5.
II.5.55f. Lycambus of Sparta was allegedly driven to suicide by the savage iambic satires written against him by his jilted son-in-law Archilochus. See Ovid, Ibis 53f.:

Cf. also Horace, Epistulae I.xix.25 and Martial VII.xii.6.
II.9 Meter: hendecasyllabi.
II.11 II.11 - II.25 are a series on distinguished contemporary English writers (interrupted only by II.21, addressed to the poet’s friend Francis Rous). The reader will observe the implied compliment paid to the poet’s friend Edward Michelborne (II.16) of bracketing him with such writers as Sidney, Spenser, and Jonson.
In life and in death, Sidney was especially lionized at Oxford because of his intellectual pursuits, because he had been a student of Christ Church, and because he took a friendly interest in the careers of a number of Oxford writers and scholars. Fitzgeoffrey evidently understood phrase equite aurato to refes to the golden spur, chain, and ring (enumerated in III.2) conferred on Knights of the Garter, although in fact the exact meaning of auratus appears to be far from certain.  According to William Camden in his 1607 Britannia, chapter Britanniae divisio, Caeterum hi sive milites sive equites appellare libet, quadruplici sunt apud nos discrimine, honoratissimi autem habentur illi ordinis Georgiani garterii sive periscelidis, secundi banneretti, tertii balnei, et quarti qui simpliciter nostra lingua knightes, Latine equites aurati sive milites sine additione dicuntur [“But these, call them milites or equites whether you will, are with us of foure distinct sorts. The most honorable and of greatest dignitie be those of the Order of S. George, or of the Garter. In a second degree are Banerets. In a third ranke, Knights of the Bath, and in a fourth place those who simply in our tongue be called Knights, in Latin equites aurati or milites without any addition at all.]”
II.12 Sidney’s Arcadia was first printed in 1590. 
II.13 The poet Edmund Spenser [1552? - 99]; biography in D. N. B. I do not recall any point in Spenser’s works where he explicitly compares Chaucer to Vergil. In The Shepheardes Calendar Spenser introduces Chaucer under the character of Tityrus, the name under which Vergil represented himself in his first Eclogue, and Fitzgeoffrey may have been thinking of this. He may also have been thinking of Nashe’s remark about “Spenser the Homer and Virgil of England” (Strange News of the Intercepting of Certaine Letters 1592, sig. G 3).
II.13.3 Ennius was an early Roman poet whose work, by comparison with the great ones who came later, seems crude. Ovid’s verdict (Tristia II.i.424) was Ennius ingenio maximus, arte rudis (“the greatest in his genius, rude in his art”).
II.14.3 This would appear not to be an allusion to a specific passage in Spenser; rather, in a general way, Fitzgeoffrey is saying that, by his excellence as a poet, Spenser has made Apollo leave Greece and come dwell by the Thames. For a similar conceit, see III.31 and the note ad loc.II.14.5 Homer was supposedly the son of Maeon. 
II.15 For Thomas Campion see the note on I.39. Here Fitzgeoffrey praises the elegies printed in Campion’s 1595 volume, discussed in the Introduction.
II.15.3f. For some unknown offence, Augustus Caesar banished Ovid to the Black Sea, where he lived out his life in exile.
II.15.5 The blue-eyed Celtic Britons were called caerulei by Martial XI.liii.1.
II.15.7f. The domitor is Julius Caesar, who first brought Roman civilization to Britain. Cassivelaunus was the Celtic ruler he confronted in Kent upon his first landing (Bellum Gallicum V.11 and 18 - 22). 
II.16 For Edward Michelborne and his reluctance to publish his Latin verse see the note on the initial prefatory poem.
II.16.3 For Iunone secunda cf. Vergil, Aeneid IV.45.
II.16.4 For caelo liberiore frui cf. Ovid, Metamorphoses XV.301.
II.16.5 He tears up his poems, the children of his brain, as Theseus tore up his son Hippolytus.
II.17 Samuel Daniel [1562 - 1619] published his sonnet cycle Delia in 1592. Biography in D. N. B.
II.18 Michael Drayton [1563 - 1631] published his sonnet cycle Ideas Mirrour in 1594. Biography in D. N. B
II.18.11 For mens . . . amantum cf. Ovid, Remedia Amoris 691.
II.18.12 For credula turba sumus cf. Ovid, Fasti IV.312 and Remedia Amoris 686.
II.18.16 Aonian = Boeotian.
II.19 This individual cannot be identified with security. Venn (II.286) lists two individuals named John Hall who were up at Cambridge during Fitzgeoffrey’s time: one who matriculated from Queens’ College in 1589, another who matriculated from St. John’s College in 1593. No literary activity is mentioned for either. A John Hall who received the M. A. from Peterhouse in 1578 wrote Italian verses on the death of Dr. R. Cosin in 1598. Searches under such names as Hale, Heale, and Hele are unrewarding. No satirical works by a John Hall are listed in the Short Title Catalogue. It therefore seems likely that the printer has erred and that this poem is addressed to the well-known Cambridge satirist, and future Bishop of Norwich, Joseph Hall [1574 - 1656]; biography in D. N. B.
II.19.3 Rhamnusia is another name for Nemesis.
II.19.4 Anne Prescott points out that Talus is the “”iron man” in Book V of The Faerie Queene who serves Artegall, the knight of justice. He is in effect the coercive arm of the law, the iron sword, the punitive part of iustitia.
II.19.6 Aonidum = citizens of Boeotia.
II.19.10 For telum trisulcum as a designation of Jove’s lightning, cf. Ovid, Amores II.v.52, Ovid, Ibis 469, and Seneca, Thyestes 1089.
II.20.7 Cf. Martial I.lii.9, inpones plagiario pudorem.
II.21 Francis Rous (or Rouse, or Rowse) of Halton, Cornwall [1581 - 1659]. For his family see the note on III.32. Matriculated from Broadgates Hall in 1591, B. A. 1596 - 7 (Foster p. 1283). Subsequently Speaker of the House for Cromwell’s Short Parliament, Provost of Eton College, etc. Biography in D. N. B. Rous had written a gratulatory poem for Fitzgeoffrey’s Drake, and, according to Grosart (p. xxiv), his 1640 translation of the Psalms became the basis for the metrical psalter adopted by the Scottish Kirk in 1650 and hence became known as “the Scotch psalms.”
II.21.1 The Tamar is the river in Cornwall on which Halton is located.
II.21.4 For agili . . . pede cf. Seneca, Oedipus 756f. and Phaedra 243.
II.21.5 For phrases like candore nivens cf. Vergil, Aeneid III.538, Ovid, Metamorphoses III.423, and Statius, Achilleis I.315.
II.21.6 Paphian = belonging to Venus.
II.21.9 Cupid is called volucer by Ovid, Metamorphoses IX.482 and Ps. - Seneca, Octavia 199.
II.21.12 Like the Thames, the river Cayster in Asia Minor was notable for its swans (mentioned at, e. g., Ovid, Metamorphoses V.387).
II.21.15 Leda.
II.21.16 Cf. Germanicus, Aratea 277, furta Iovis falsa volucer sub imagine texit, and also Ovid, Heroides viii.68, nec querar in plumis delituisse Iovem.
II.22 Ben Jonson [d. 1637] produced his first comedy, Every Man In His Humor, in 1598 (biography in D. N. B. ). Meter: hendecasyllabi.
II.22.24 Mercury, son of the nymph Maia, whose father was Atlas.
II.22.25f. Mercury was the patron god of thieves.
II.22.32 See the note on I.9.10.
II.23 Anthony à Wood provides a biographical sketch of the poet Joshua Sylvester [d. 1618] at Ath. Oxon. II.579f. Fitzgeoffrey praises his The Divine Weeks and Works, with a compleat Collection off all the other most delightful Works, of Will. de Saluste Sieur du Bartas. He must have read this work in ms., for it was not printed until 1604. Guillaume de Saluste, Seigneur du Bartas [1544 - 90] wrote scriptural epics.
II.23.2 Clarius is a favorite adjective for our poet. It means “belonging to Apollo.”
II.23.5 For compage soluta cf. Statius, Thebais VIII.31 (also at line-end).
II.23.7 The “old man of Samia” is the philosopher Pythagoras. In accordance with his teachings, Saluste’s soul has become reincarnated in Sylvester. (The last two letters in the line appear to have been added by accident.)
II.24 In his critical survey of contemporary English literature, Palladis Tamia (1598) Francis Meres [1565 - 1617] had praised Fitzgeoffrey’s Drake, and called him “the high towering falcon.” Fitzgeoffrey expresses his gratitude. Meres’ biography is in the in the D. N. B.
II.24.5 For pretiumque laboris at line-end cf. Statius, Achilleis I.844.
II.24.8 Cf. Ovid, Tristia II.i.172, ponat et in nitida laurea serta coma.
II.24.11 Cf. Horace, Epistles I.xix.37, non ego ventosae plebis suffragia venor. 
II.25 Thomas Storer [d. 1604] was a student of Christ Church and a poet, who in 1599 published The Life and Death of Tho. Wolsey, Cardinell, Divided into 3 parts; his aspiring, triumph and death (biography in D. N. B. ). Fitzgeoffrey contributed four gratulatory epigrams for this volume, two in Latin and two in English, but the present item does not reproduce one of those.
II.25.5 Libitina was the Roman goddess of death. 
II.26 Henry Phillipps [b. 1576], a Devonshire man, matriculated from Brasenose College in 1591 and received the B. A. in 1595 and the M. A. in 1599; he subsequently became rector of North Hill, Devon (Foster p. 1156). He is numbered among the poet’s intimates at III.131.7. Unlike most of Fitzgeoffrey’s characters with Latin names, “Leporinus” is conceivably not a fictional character (although there seems no point in trying to identify him), as our poet at least pretends to take offence at this individual for making fun of his missing eye (see the series of poems beginning at II.56).
II.26.3 For the idea, see the note on I.102.8f.
II.27 “With bound foot” and “freely” indicate writing in verse and prose, respecively (for the idioms cf., e. g., Ps. - Tibullus III.vii.36, undique quique canent vincto pede quique soluto.) But since the writer has been thrown in jail, he literally writes vincto pede. 
II.29 Philip Maret or Marret, of Merton College, supplicated B. A. in 1597 (Foster 970). 
II.30 Evidently it was customary for Oxford men to give each other a poem accompanied by a nosegay (Fitzgeoffrey did the same — see the series of poems beginning at II.82). Here he parodies the practice.
II.32 The humor of this poem is clarified by III.56, in which Matho is portrayed as a miserly host. In Fitzgeoffrey’s vocabulary (if not in the Oxford Latin Dictionary) lupus sometimes = “glutton” (as at II.52.2 and II.54.6). Here, the nameless wolfish glutton would like to tuck into a nice joint of mutton, but Matho’s watchdog-like presence discourages him. 
II.33.2 Sometimes the phrase verba dare means to cheat; here the words are to be interpreted literally. 
II.34 A thief’s lawyer is likely to be paid with ill-gotten gains, and so he profits by the crime. 
II.35 For a man of the cloth, Fitzgeoffrey frequently expressed a surprisingly mordant attitude towards marriage. Besides all his comic epigrams on adultery and bastardy, see the rather similar II.40, III.62, and III.73.
II.36 Balbus is also the subject of I.19, II.76, and II.79. 
II.37.10 Felons’ ears were cropped. 
II.40 Meters: hendecasyllabi through 10, then alternating iambic trimeters and dimeters.
II.40.1 Cf. Martial VI.lxvi.1, famae non nimium bonae puellam.
II.40.3 Martial writes of probitas oris at XI.ciii.1.
II.40.10 Tisiphone was one of the Furies. 
II.42 The owner of the wallet keeps his eye on it, as does the thief. Fitzgeoffrey is making fun of his own one-eyed condition. 
II.44 Meter: hendecasyllabi.
II.44.9 Falernian wine was of such a quality that it became proverbial for good wine.
II.44.12f. For the idiom cf. Juvenal v.12, quod tu discumbere iussus.
II.44.16 Apicius was a famous Roman chef, to whom a later Roman cookbook has wrongly been attributed.
II.44.23 Cf. Martial II.xxxix.9, nos accumbimus otiosa turba (a significant quote, as it comes from a description of another disastrous dinner). 
II.45 - 47 Even after consulting (through the agency of my Irvine colleague B. P. Reardon) the eminent French scholar Marc Bompaire, I cannot identify the “bull of Calais” which serves as the subject of this series of comical epigrams.
II.45.1 For vectorem Europae cf. Seneca, Hercules Furens 9.
II.45.2 Several ancient poets used the prase furta Iovis, for example Propertius, II.xxx (b).28, et canere antiqui dulcia furta Iovis. 
II.46 Farmers would attach a hank of hay to a dangerous bull’s horns by way of a warning. 
II.47 There is a wry joke on the recent English loss of Calais, as well as on French cuckoldry. 
II.48 Avitus (a bad poet with an unfortunate nose) is also the butt of III.63.
II.48.4 Mt. Parnassus was sometimes called bicornis because it had two peaks.
II.48.5 For patulo…hiatu cf. Ovid, Metamorphoses III.162, XI.60, Seneca, Thyestes 157, and Martial III.xix.3.
II.48.6 Aganippe was a fountain sacred to Apollo and the Muses. 
II.49 Sordula (which suggests sordida) is a name well suited to the woman’s character. 
II.50 Fitzgeoffrey’s Drake appeared in 1596. Meter: hendecasyllabi.
II.50.9 For Edmund Spenser see the note on II.143. For Samuel Daniel see the note on II.17. 
II.51.1 I am not quite sure what hoc…arietes means here (the book’s hunc makes no sense — to whom would it refer?). One dictionary definition of the word is “battering ram,” and evidently Fitzgeoffrey is using this figuratively, indicating that, while thrashing around in her deathbed, M.’s wife gave him a vigorous thump in the chest. 
II.52.2 For lupus = “glutton” see the note on II.32. Pinguem…aprum appears to involve a bilingual pun. 
II.54 Meter: hendecasyllabi.
II.54.6 For lupus = “glutton” see the note on II.32.
II.54.17f. By their honking geese once woke up the Romans and saved the Capitoline from a night attack by the Gauls. Ovid alludes to the incident at Metamorphoses II.538f.
II.54.22 For sani et valentes cf. Horace, Epistulae I.vii.3 and II.xvi.21.
II.54.24 Bidens (lit. “two-toother”) is a Latin word for “sheep.”
II.56 For Leporinus see the note on II.26. 
II.57 Meter: hendecasyllabi. 
II.58 Meter: iambic trimeters.
II.58.11 Ruffa is evidently a dog.
II.58.16 Cf. Ovid, Tristia II.i.565, nulla venenato littera tincta ioco est.
II.58.24 For salivae spurcidae cf. Catullus lxxviii (b).2 and cxix.10.
II.58.26 Amphitrite = the sea.
II.58.28 For alma…faustitas cf. Horace, Odes IV.v.18.
II.58.32 Sterculius (more properly Stercurus or Sterculinus) = Stercutus, a Roman agricultural deity, sometimes identified with Saturn, who is supposed to have invented manuring. Cloacina (“the purifier”) is actually a cult title of Venus, but we are supposed to think of her as the patron deity of the cloaca, i. e., of the sewer. 
II.59 In Fitzgeoffrey’s biography in Ath. Oxon. Philip Bliss quotes lines from Robet Hayman’s Quodlibets that appear to be the epigram to which Fitzgeoffrey is responding (Hauman was at Exeter College in the 1590’s, his biography at Ath. Oxon. II.54 mentions his friendship with Fitzgeoffrey):

This poem is addressed To the reverend, learned, acute and witty master Charles Fitz-Geoffrey, bachelor in divinity, my especiall kind friend, most excellent poet, and so one imagines that Fitzgeoffrey is responding in mock-anger to his friend’s compliments.
II.59.2 Cf. emunctae naris at Horace, Sermones I.iv.8.
II.59.4 See the note on II.14.5. 
II.60 Balbus is also the subject of I.19, II.32, and II.79. 
II.61 Avitus happily carries his dead father, for now he will inherit the family property. Meter: iambic trimeters.
II.61.1 Aeneas, born of Venus, carried his elderly father out of burning Troy.
II.61.2 For grandaevum patrem cf. Ovid, Fasti II.815, Metamorphoses VII.160, VIII.520, and Statius, Achilleis I.50.
II.61.4 See the note on I.92. 
II.62 Fitzgeoffrey appears to be describing some street-corner mountebank with such bad teeth that he crams his mouth full of spices to conceal the stench. Nevertheless his breath has a vinegary smell, and his teeth are so loose that he can easily yank them out. 
II.63.1 Cf. Catullus lxvii.45, praeterea addebat quendam, quem dicere nolo.
II.63.5f. Fitzgeoffrey’s modesty contrasts with Martial’s boast (V.xv.1 - 4):

II.63.9f. Sir John Davies [1569 - 1626], writer of satirical epigrams; biography in D. N. B. For Ben Jonson see the note on II.22. For Thomas Nashe see the note on Cen. 29. 
II.64 Bardus (another of Fitzgeoffrey’s roster of bad writers) also appears at I.21 and I.64.
II.64.1 For seram . . . posteritatem cf. Ovid, Epistulae ex Ponto I.iv.24 and IV.viii.48. 
II.65 See the note on I.52.
II.65.5 For lanigeras…oves cf. Vergil, Aeneid III.660 and Ovid, Fasti I.334. For oviumque magistros cf. Vergil, Eclogue ii.33 (also at line-end).
II.65.9 Caius Mucius plunged his hand in the fire to impress the enemy king Lars Porsenna with the Romans’ ability to withstand suffering in defense of their national freedom (Livy II.xii). Corvinus’ hand is worthy of being burnt off too. 
II.66.1 There is no visible reason for identifying this Avitus with the latter-day Aeneas of II.61.
II.67.3f. Mercury was the god of thieves. Lyaeus is a cult epithet for Bacchus.   
II.68 I imagine the answer is a pair of scissors. 
II.69 R was known as the littera canina, and so the answer is CRVX, i. e., the gallows.
II.72 The humor turns on the pun capio (“seize”) and capto (“steal”). 
II.73.3 For William Gager see the note on I.31. Fitzgeoffrey echoes Vergil, Eclogue viii.11, sola Sophocleo tua carmina digna coturno.
II.73.4 For Richard Latewar see the note on Cen. 38.
II.73.5 For Laurence Michelborne see the note on the initial prefatory poem. For Thomas Storer see the note on II.25.
II.74 There seems no reason for identifying this Lycus with the bad poet of II.37 and II.74, or with the sacrificial priest of III.103.
II.74.4 Ovid in fact wrote (Heroides xvii.98) est virtus placitis abstinuisse bonis.
II.75 The composer Anthony Holborne [floruit 1597] published The Cittharn Schoole in that year. Biography in D. N. B. Fitzgeoffrey playfully pretends that he is opening an actual school. Meter: hendecasyllabi.
II.75.2 Cytherea (“she of Cythera”) is a cult-epithet of Venus, but there is obviously an intend pun on “cittharn.”
II.75.16 Orbilius was Horace’s schoolmaster, prone to apply the whip (Epistulae II.i.71 — see Pomponius’ commentary note ad loc).
II.75.35 Literally, of a liver (the liver was regarded as the seat of the passions).
II.75.45 The adjective dentifrangibulus is found at Plautus, Bacchides 596 andf 605. 
II.78 In this poem Apollo is addressed as a god of healing, as well as the patron of poetry. Meter: hendecasyllabi.
II.78.3 Asclepius (who had a famous temple at Epidaurus) and his snake.
II.78.5 For pater vatum cf. Statius, Silvae I.ii.220 and I.iv.117.
II.78.9 For oculus mundi cf. Ovid, Metamorphoses IV.228.
II.78.22 For Clarii cf. the note on II.23.2.
II.78.24 For vanam . . . linguam cf. Ovid, Amores III.xi (a.).21. 
II.79 Balbus is also the subject of I.19, II.32, and II.60. Cf. omne tulit punctum at Horace, Ars Poetica 343. The paper on which Balbus writes his poems is useful for making twists for holding pepper, as at Martial III.ii.1 - 5:

II.80 Fitzgeoffrey is playing with the boast at Ovid, Metamorphoses XV.871f.:

II.81 I have been unable to identify the addressee of this poem, presumably a temporary visitor at Oxford.
II.81.2 “Clarian” = belonging to Apollo. 
II.82 II.82 - 85 constitute a sequence of poems to accompany the gift of a nosegay. Their mawkishness is sabotage by the wicked parody that has already been planted at II.30.
II.82.3 He is thinking of the fleur-de-lys.
II.82.5 Cf. iucundo…odore at Catullus lxiv.284. 
II.83 John Rice matriculated from Exeter College in 1583 - 84 and was admitted to the M. A. in 1590; subsequently he was Rector of Cornwood, Devonshire (Foster p. 1250). III.46 is also addressed to him.
II.83.4 See the note on II.23.2.  
II.84 Richard Carpenter of Somerset [b. 1573], matriculated from Exeter College in 1593 and received his B. A. three years later. “In his supplicate he says he is teaching boys in Cornwall.” (Foster p. 240). He entered holy orders, became Rector of Sherwill in Devonshire, and published several sermons (Ath. Ox. II.421 - à Wood partially quotes the elaborate Latin epitaph over his grave - could it be by Fitzgeoffrey?). From III.101 we learn he was a mutual friend of the poet and “Hillary Vere” (Digory Whear). 
II.85 Thomas Michelborne was the younger brother of Edward (for whom see the commentary note on the initial prefatory poem) and Laurence (for whom see the commentary note on I.1). Book III is dedicated to him. Other poems addressed to him are III.1, III.2, and III.143, as is Thomas Campion’s epigram II.69. Michelborne in turn wrote a gratulatory poem for Fitzgeoffrey’s Drake.
Meter: scazons (iambic trimeters with a spondaic sixth foot).
II.85.4f. Gnatius Matius, a contemporary of Sulla, is supposed to have translated the Iliad into Latin hexameters, and also to have introduced scazons into Latin verse in his mimes (called mimiambi). These are rather frequently cited by Aulus Gellius in his Attic Nights. They are also described by Terentianus Maurus, a third century grammarian who wrote a verse treatise in the letters, syllables and meters of Horace (2416 - 8), which Fitzgeoffrey imitates here:

II.85.9 Cf. Seneca, Oedipus 880, i, perge, propero regiam gressu pete.
II.8.14 Cf. Ps. - Seneca, Hercules Oetaeus 10, quid tamen nectis moras? 
II.86 William Vaughan Maridunensis is, I presume, the William Vaughan of Carmarthen, Wales [b. 1578] who matriculated from Jesus College in 1591 - 2; B. A. 1594 - 5, M. A. 1597, supplicated B. C. L. 1605, LL. D. Vienna (incorporated 1605). In later life he was “chief undertaker for the plantation in Cambriol, the southernmost part of Newfoundland” (Foster p. 1459, and Ath. Oxon. II.444 - 6, where his literary works are listed).
This poem plays with the problem set forth by Horace, Ars Poetica 408f.:

II.88 The reference in the first line is to Apollo’s oracular tripod at Delphi. 
II.89 Meter: hendecasyllabi. 
II.91 Meter: hendecasyllabi.
II.91.6 For the idiom cf. (e. g.) Martial VII.lx.3 (addressed to Jupiter): Cum votis sibi quisque te fatiget.
II.91.19 The Muse of Silence. 
II.93 Meter: iambic trimeters.
II.93.7 Priscian, an ancient grammarian, and Cicero.
II.93.9f. For William Camden and his Britannia cf. the note on III.100. 
II.94 George Chapman [d. 1634] issued the first portions of his translation of the Iliad in 1598. Biography in D. N. B.
II.94.1 These cities all claimed to be Homer’s birthplace.
II.94.4 See the note on II.14.5. 
II.96 The poet - playwright John Marston [d. 1634] published his 3 Bookes of Satyres in 1598. Biography in D. N. B.  
II.99 George Spry of Cornwall [1579 - 1658] matriculated from Broadgates Hall in 1594 and was admitted to the B. A. in 1598 - 9 (Foster p. 1402).
II.99.8 The Lynher, which meets the sea at in inlet by Anthony House, Cornwall, the family seat of Fitzgeoffrey’s friend Richard Carew (for whom see the note on III.33), and not far from the Halton home of his friends the Rouses. Evidently when he wrote this he was staying with Carew.
II.99.9 See the note on II.21.1.
II.99.15 Perhaps Sprye’s sister actually died and was buried in Germany, but it seems more likely that Fitzgeoffrey is stating her grave was in the parish churchyard at the Cornish town of St. Germans Church, for which the note on III.45.
II.99.19 Cf. Vergil, Aeneid XII.871, unguibus ora soror foedans (from a scene of mourning).
II.99.20 Lacerare pectus describes another traditional gesture of mourning (cf., e. g. , Lucan VII.38).
II.100 Meter: iambic trimeters (with no resolutions, hence their “purity”).
II.100.3f. The book has Theoris in line 4, but I believe Fitzgeoffrey wrote Thooris. Harpalus (“Snatcher”) and Thoos (“Swift-runner”) are included in Ovid’s list of Actaeon’s hounds at Metamorphoses III.220 - 222. For rictibus feris cf. Seneca, Hercules Furens 797 and Thyestes 77.
II.100.7 See the note on II.5.55f.
II.100.10ff. Jan Dousa [Johan Van Der Does, 1545 - 1609], Dutch Humanist, poet, and historian. Especially because of his close association with Sir Philip Sidney and his visit to England in 1585, he well known and admired by educated Englishmen of his time. Thalia was the Muse of poetry.
II.100.17 For “Hillary Vere” (Digory Whear) see the note on the initial prefatory poem .
II.100.19 See the note on II.85.14.
II.101 Richard More or Moore of Devonshire [b. 1574] matriculated from Broadgates Hall in 1592 - 3: B. A. 1596, M. A. 1600, B. D. 1612, incorporated at Cambridge 1617; in later life he served as rector of various parishes in Devonshire (Foster p. 1024). According to Fitzgeoffrey, his namesake, Sir Thomas More, was the first Englishman to write Latin epigrams; the poet then goes on to praise Thomas Campion (cui campus nomen) as the leading contemporary practitioner of the art. Cf. the note on I.39 as well as the discussion of Campion’s influence on Fitzgeoffrey in the Introduction.
II.102 For Edward Michelborne and his mentorship of Fitzgeoffrey’s literary efforts, cf. the note on the initial prefatory poem .
II.102.5 See the note on II.2.16.
II.103 John Bancroft [1574 - 1640] matriculated from Christ Church in 1592. B. A. 1596, M. A. 1599. Created Bishop of Oxford 1632 (Foster p. 65, biography in D. N. B. ).
II.103.4 Mercury’s mother Maia was the daughter of Atlas. 
II.104.1 For vera cano cf. Tibullus II.v.63.
II.104.2 Fitzgeoffrey appears to have been thinking of Ovid, Metamorphoses XV.153 - 5:

II.104.15 Cf. Vergil, Aeneid IV.13, degeneres animos timor arguit. For inania murmura cf. ib. IV.210. 
II.106 - 13 One of the purposes of publishing a volume like Affaniae, especially when the author was an aspiring young professional, was to display one’s loyalty and orthodoxy, as well as one’s talent and erudition. Therefore anti-papist items like this were standard fare. With the present series of poems, juxtapositions are important. They follow two poems about atheists, and in turn are followed by two poems against “Albo-Vicus,” which hints that this individual is a Catholic.
II.107.1 Atlas and Hercules. 
II.110 According to an old medieval legend, the apocryphal Pope Joan reigned in the ninth century, between Leo IV and Benedict III. 
II.111 Pope Clement VIII declared a Jubilee in 1600.
II.111.3f. Fitzgeoffrey puns on two meanings of licet, “be allowed” and “be for sale.”
II.115 Although Fitzgeoffrey’s ostensible reason for railing against “Albo-Vicus” is that the man is wealthy, arrogant, and exploitive (see the next poem), the last line of this epigram suggests that the poet at least suspected him of being a crypto-Catholic, for Fitzgeoffrey appears to be referring to the doctrine of equivocation, which taught it was acceptable for Catholics to lie about their faith to civic authorities (the reader may be interested in Attorney General Coke’s explanation of this doctrine in the trial of the Gunpowder Plotters, set forth here). The same impression is created by the immediate juxtaposition of these poems with a series of explicitly anti-Catholic ones. In consequence it would, I think, have been difficult for any Cornish reader to read this and the next poem without thinking that they are aimed against the powerful and wealthy Arundell family, “the chief mainstay of Catholicism in Cornwall” (Rowse, p. 342) “Aristocratic, aloof, increasingly isolated in the life of the county, they were in an exposed position: the object of much jealousy on the part of those less wealthy and well-connected, of disapproval by those who have gone in with the new régime” (ib. p. 344). In his capacity as sheriff and Deputy Lieutenant, Fitzgeoffrey’s adopted uncle Sir William Mohun had done much to break the power of the Arundells (see the entries for Sir William in Rowse’s index). “Albo-Vicus,” then, might be Thomas, the younger brother of Sir John Arundell of Lanherne (see the pedigree given by Vivian and Drake p. 2). 
II.116 Meter: iambic trimeters.
II.116.15 Et partis abstinent probably that they neglect their own small plots because they are so busy working their master’s lands.
II.116.17 Phalaris was a proverbially cruel Greek tyrant.
II.116.18 For ventrem popam cf. Persius vi.74.
II.116.22 The adjective multivola is found at Catullus lxviii (b).128.
II.116.24 Fitzgeoffrey found the noun veredus in Martial (XII.xiv.1, XIV.lxxxvi.1). 
II.117 There is a pun on the two meanings of gravis (“serious” and “heavy”): because his posterior is so large, his pallbearers will have a hard job of it. 
II.118f. There seems no reason for identifying the subject of these poems with Aulus the cuckold (I.45) or Aulus the bad critic (II.87). 
II.119.1 The quotation is Vergil, Eclogue iii.90. 
II.120 The close proximity of this invective to the ones against “Albo-Vicus” is eloquent. Rowse (pp.355f.) observed that:

“Cacula” is probably the brother of one such Catholic who had attended the Catholic college at Louvain, before it was moved to Douai. “Cacula” himself was not a Catholic, but had accompanied his brother for the sake of the education. Fitzgeoffrey manages to hold even this against him, and to disparage the quality of the education he had received.
II.120.2 For imbelles manus cf. Propertius IV.iii.24.
II.120.7 See the note on II.5.55f.
II.120.9 Cf., perhaps, Ovid, Ars Amatoria III.503, ora tument ira.
II.120.16f. See the note on II.59.2.
II.120.20 There appears to have been a Roman proverb, “cheaper than seaweed”: cf. Horace, Sermones II.v.8, and Vergil, Eclogues vii.42.
II.120.28 Cicero.
II.120.31 Vergil.
II.120.33 Sophos is a Greek nominative singular. 
II.121 This and the next two epigrams perhaps lampoon someone who contended against Fitzgeoffrey in an academic disputation. The possibility that Stephanus is a Christian name of an individual whose surname begins with the letters Bl- can be excluded, because nobody in the Oxford records for Fitzgeoffrey’s time fits that description. Stephens is therefore perhaps a surname. Fitzgeoffrey’s closest contemporary of that name was Humphrey Stephens or Stevens, B. A. from Magdalene College 1596 - 7, M. A. 1600, subsequently rector of Stoke Dry, Rutland (Foster p. 1418). There seems no reason for identifying him with the individual Latinized as Ambrosius Stephanius, the butt of III.93 - 95.
II.121.1f. Fitzgeoffrey places a very cynical interpretation on the motives of one of the interlocutors in Cicero’s dialogue de Oratore.
II.122.3 The famous Delphic injunction.
II.122.11f. For the donkey that patiently carried around the drunken Silenus, see Ovid, Ars Amatoria I.543, Fasti I.399, I.433, VI.339, and Seneca, Oedipus 429: do you want to reduce yourself to being little more than a beast of burden, whose braying frightens those who hear it (Fasti I.433ff., VI.339ff.)?
II.122.14 Cf. praeconia laudis at Ps. - Tibullus III.vii.177.
II.122.22 His ears will be cropped and nailed to poles.
II.123.2 His ears would already be cropped.
II.124 Charles Tripp of Kent [b. 1583] matriculated from St. Mary Hall in 1597 - 8 (Foster 1511). He was probably an adolescent who had not yet gotten his growth. Meter: hendecasyllabi.
II.125 Edward Vernon of Cheshire [b. 1567] matriculated from Brasenose College in 1593; B. A. 1597, M A. 1600; subsequently vicar of Gidney, Lincs. (Foster p. 1542). Henry Sheward of Herts. [b. 1577] matriculated from Brasenose in 1594; B. A. 1598, M. A. 1600 - 1, B. D. 1608 - 9, D. D. 1616 (Foster p. 1350). 
II.126 For “Hillary Vere” (Digory Whear) see the note on the initial prefatory poem . In this poem Fitzgeoffrey assays two puns on his name, with ver (“springtime”) and verus (“true”).
II.126.13 For the idiom cf. Ovid, Metamorphoses XI.278, copia cum facta est adeundi prima tyranni.
II.126.15 For the idiom usurpo oculis cf. Lucretius I.301.
II.127 For Edward Michelborne and his mentorship of Fitzgeoffrey’s literary efforts, cf. the note on the initial prefatory poem .