Juvenal saith of poverte merily:
The poore man, whan he goth by the way,
Beforn the theves he may sing and play.
_Poverte is hateful good_; and, as I gesse,
A ful gret _bringer out of besinesse_;
A _gret amender_ eke _of sapience_,
To him that taketh it in patience.
Poverte is this although it seme elenge,
_Possession that no wight wol challenge._
Poverte ful often, whan a man is low,
Maketh his God and eke himself to know:
Poverte a spectakel is, as thinketh me,
Thurgh which he may his veray frendes see.
And therfore, sire, sin that I you not greve,
Of my poverte no more me repreve.
The definition given in Piers Ploughman is taken from the Dialogues of
Secundus, where it is thus expressed:--"Quid est paupertas? Odibile bonum,
sanitatis mater, curarum remotio, absque sollicitudine semita, sapientiæ
reparatrix, negotium sine damno, intractabilis substantia, possessio absque
calumnia, incerta fortuna, sine sollicitudine felicitas." (MS. Reg. 9 A
xiv, fol. 140 v^o.) See also Roger de Hoveden, p. 816, and Vincent de
Beauvais, Spec. Hist. lib. x, c. 71.
9517. _the paas of Aultone._ Whitaker has _Haultoun_, and says that this
pass is Halton "in Cheshire, formerly infamous to a proverb as a haunt of
robbers."
9529. _Cantabit, etc._ The author has modified, or the scribes have
corrupted, the well-known line of Juvenal,
Cantabit vacuus coram latrone viator.
9665. These definitions will be found in Isidore, Etymol. lib. xl, c. 1,
and Different, lib. ii, c. 29. They are repeated by Alcuin, De Anim. Rat.
N. x, p. 149, _Anima_ est, dum vivificat; dum contemplatur, _spiritus_ est;
dum sentit, _sensus_ est; dum sapit, _animus_ est; dum intelligit, _mens_
est; dum discernit, _ratio_ est; dum consentit, _voluntas_ est; dum
recordatur, _memoria_ est.
9708. Prov. xxv, 27.
9740. Epist. ad Rom. xii, 3.
9751. _the seven synnes._ The seven deadly sins were--pride, anger, envy,
sloth, covetousness, gluttony, and lechery. "Now ben they cleped
chiefetaines, for as moche as they be chiefe, and of hem springen alle
other sinnes. The rote of thise sinnes than is pride, the general rote of
alle harmes. For of this rote springen certain braunches: as, ire, envie,
accidie or slouthe, avarice or coveitise, (to commun understonding)
glotonie, and lecherie: and eche of thise chief sinnes hath his braunches
and his twigges." Chaucer, Persones Tale, p. 40.
9766. Psal. xcvi, 7; iv, 3.
9828. _in Latyn._ The monks had collections of comparisons, similitudes,
proverbs, &c., to be introduced in their sermons, and even when preaching
in English they generally quoted them in Latin. This I suppose to be the
meaning of the expression here.
9918. Matth. xviii, 3.
9934. 1 Corinth. xiii, 4.
9946. 1 Corinth, xiii, 12.
9957. _a tunicle of Tarse._ Tarse was the name given to a kind of silk,
said to have been brought from a country of that name on the borders of
Cathai, or China. Chaucer (Cant. T. l. 2162), describing "the king of
Inde," says--
His coote armour was of a cloth of Tars,
Cowched of perlys whyte, round and grete.
Ducange (v. _Tarsicus_) quotes a visitation of the treasury of St. Paul's,
London, in 1295, where there is mention of Tunica et dalmatica de _panno
Indico Tarsico_ Besantato de auro, and of a Casula de _panno Tarsico_.
10004. Psal. vi, 7.
10009. Psal. l, 19.
10062. Matth. vi, 16.
10069. _Edmond and Edward._ St. Edmund the martyr, king of East Anglia, and
king Edward the Confessor.
10124. Psal. iv, 9.
10159. _Antony and Egidie._ Whitaker has _Antonie and Ersenie_. St. Antony
is well known as the father and patron of monks, and for the persecutions
he underwent from the devil. St. Giles, or Egidius, is said to have been a
Greek, who came to France about the end of the seventh century, and
established himself in a hermitage near the mouth of the Rhone, and
afterwards in the neighbourhood of Nismes. Arsenius was a noble Roman who,
at the end of the fourth century, retired to Egypt to live the life of an
anchoret in the desert.
10174. _after an hynde cride._ The monkish biographer of St. Giles relates,
that he was for some time nourished with the milk of a hind in the forest,
and that a certain prince discovered his retreat while hunting in his
woods, by pursuing the hind till it took shelter in St. Giles's hermitage.
10183. _Hadde a bird._ This incident is not found in the common lives of
St. Antony.
10187. _Poul._ Paul was a Grecian hermit, who lived in the tenth century in
the wilderness of Mount Latrus, and became the founder of one of the
monastic establishments there. He was famous for the rigorous severity of
his life.
10203. _Marie Maudeleyne._ By Mary Magdalen here is meant probably St. Mary
the Egyptian, who lived in the fifth century, and who, according to the
legend, after having spent her youth in unbridled debauchery, repented in
her twenty-ninth year, and lived during the remainder of her life
(forty-seven years) in the wilderness beyond the Jordan, without seeing one
human being during that time, and sustained only by the precarious food
which she found in the desert.