the shepherds and the nymphs : the poem is conceived as the occasion of a legal dispute between the shepherds (men) and the nymphs (women) before Venus, the Goddess of Love, disputing whether men or women were responsible for the decline of Love.

Cyprian Queen : Venus, who, in some of the stories concerning her birth, came from the island of Cyprus.
brief : summary of the facts and legal points of a case drawn up for counsel. It forms part of the extended legal metaphor used in the poem.

deponent : a person making a deposition under oath.

daggled : to trail so as to wet or befoul. daggle-tail : a slovenly woman

Lent : period of abstinence, fasting and penitence in commemoration of Jesus' fasting for 40 days in the wilderness.

Clio : Muse of History

Lucina : Roman goddess of childbirth

Whom she or her assessors knew : ie there were few in the crowd of nymphs and shepherds who had anything to do with the arts.

Bracton : Henry of Bratton (Henricus de Brattona or Bractona c. 1210-1268) was an English judge of the court known as Coram Rege (later King’s bench) from 1247-50 and again from 1253-57. He was also a clergyman, having various benefices, the last of which being the chancellorship of Exeter Cathedral, where he was buried in 1268. He was the author of a treatise on law which sought to put in writing the unwritten law and custom on which judicial decisions were made, and in which he sought to define and limit the power of the king : 'the king must be under God and under the law, because the king's position owes its very existence to the wider framework of law....Let him therefore in his laws, observe the due process of law through which he himself exists. For the king is not fulfilling his legal obligations when he rules by personal will, rather than by due process of law under the ultimate will of God.'

Coke : Sir Edward Coke (1552-1634) : during the early sixteenth century he championed the common law against encroachments of royal prerogative. His 'Institutes of the Laws of England and the Reports of Sir Edward Coke Kt. in English in Thirteen Parts Compleat' became the basis for legal education in the 18th century.

Ovid : P Ovidius Naso (43BC - 18AD) was born in Sulmo, a town about 80 miles East of Rome. He is probably best known for his erotic verse contained in the Amores, the three books on The Art of Love, which appeared in 2AD (45), and The Remedy of Love.

Virgil : P Vergilius Maro (70BC-19BC) His last work was the Aeneid, an epic poem which traces the career of Aenaas from the ruins of Troy to his supposed foundation of Rome. 

Dido was the Queen of Carthage who, abandoned by Aeneas, committed suicide.

Tibullus : Albius Tibullus (c50BC-c19BC) a Roman poet known for his elegaic love poetry which survive in two volumes : Delia and Nemesis.

Cowley : Abraham Cowley (1618-1667) : published the Mistress in 1647 with the comment that 'poets are scarce thought freemen of their company without paying some duties or obliging themselves to be true to Love.' Samuel Johnson comments : 'Of Cowley, we are told by Barnes, who had means enough of information, that, whatever he may talk of his own inflammability, and the variety of characters by which his heart was divided, he in reality was in love but once, and then never had resolution to tell his passion,' passing the judgement that : 'No man needs to be so burthened with life as to squander it in voluntary dreams of fictitious occurrences'.

Waller : Edmund Waller (1606-1687) was educated at Eton and King's College Cambridge. He was a member of parliament at various time, about which one critic says of him 'His popularity in Parliament was great, but he did not take pains to understand its business, but only sought to gain applause, being a vain and empty, though a witty man.' Much of Waller's verse consisted of praise for 'Sacharissa', a pseudonym for Lady Dorothy Sidney, courted unsuccessfully by him in the 1630's.

imparlance : time given by the court to either party to answer the pleading of his opponent,

essoign : an excuse for not appearing in court at the return of process

Amaranthine : never fading

The Muses : goddesses who presided over the arts and sciences, the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, usually nine in number.

The Graces : beautiful goddesses, usually three in number, representing charm, grace and beauty.

Pallas Athena : goddess of wisdom, whose symbol is the owl. She sprang fully armed from the head of Zeus, uttering a war cry.

Apollo : son of Zeus and Leto, associated with the ideal type of masculine beauty.

Olympus : mountain in Greece, the mythical home of the gods.

chairs : carriages

Montaigne : Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) : French essayist who wrote about prominent personalities and ideas of his age.

toast : a beautiful woman, or one whose health is often drunk by men.

ombre : a card game.

Plutarch : L Mestruis Plutarchus (c46-c120) Greek biographer and philosopher, chiefly known for his Lives in which the moral character of his subjects illustrated by a series of anecdotes.

a bite : a cheat, or con.