12. Dear enough a jane: worth nothing. A jane was a small coin
of little worth, so the meaning is “not worth a red cent”.
13. Mo: me. “This is one of the most licentious corruptions of
orthography,” says Tyrwhitt, “that I remember to have observed
in Chaucer;” but such liberties were common among the
European poets of his time, when there was an extreme lack of
certainty in orthography.
14. The fourteen lines that follow are translated almost literally
from Petrarch’s Latin.
15. For great skill is he proved that he wrought: for it is most
reasonable that He should prove or test that which he made.
16. Chichevache, in old popular fable, was a monster that fed
only on good women, and was always very thin from scarcity of
such food; a corresponding monster, Bycorne, fed only on
obedient and kind husbands, and was always fat. The origin of
the fable was French; but Lydgate has a ballad on the subject.
“Chichevache” literally means “niggardly” or “greedy cow.”
17. Countertail: Counter-tally or counter-foil; something exactly
corresponding.