Chaucer is sneering at Boccacio's pompous account of the
passage of Arcite's soul to heaven. Up to this point, the
description of the death-scene is taken literally from the
"Theseida."

85. With sluttery beard, and ruggy ashy hairs: With neglected
beard, and rough hair strewn with ashes. "Flotery" is the general
reading; but "sluttery" seems to be more in keeping with the
picture of abandonment to grief.

86. Master street: main street; so Froissart speaks of "le
souverain carrefour."

87. Y-wrie: covered, hid; Anglo-Saxon, "wrigan," to veil.

88. Emily applied the funeral torch. The "guise" was, among the
ancients, for the nearest relative of the deceased to do this, with
averted face.

89. It was the custom for soldiers to march thrice around the
funeral pile of an emperor or general; "on the left hand" is
added, in reference to the belief that the left hand was
propitious -- the Roman augur turning his face southward, and
so placing on his left hand the east, whence good omens came.
With the Greeks, however, their augurs facing the north, it was
just the contrary. The confusion, frequent in classical writers, is
complicated here by the fact that Chaucer's description of the
funeral of Arcite is taken from Statius' "Thebaid" -- from a
Roman's account of a Greek solemnity.