Note 42 — CHAUCER’S Friar’s Tale; Or, The Sumner And The Devil.

“We possess,” says Satan in Paradise Lost, “the quarters of the north.” The old legend that Milton followed placed Satan in the north parts of heaven, following the passage in Isaiah concerning Babylon on which that legend was constructed (Isa. xiv. 12–15), “Thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation in the sides of the north.”