501. It is impossible to make sense without reading _nolde_ for _wolde_.
The Fr. text clearly shews that _nolde_ is meant:--'Que _n_'en preisse
_pas_ ... Que ge _n_'entrasse.' The scribe stumbled over the double
negative.
505. G. has:--'Thassemble, god kepe it fro care Of briddis, whiche therynne
ware'; and Th. has the same reading. It cannot be right, because _care_ and
_were_ give a false rime. Even the scribe has seen this, and has altered
_were_ to _ware_, to give a rime to the eye. Perhaps such a rime may have
passed in Northern English, but certainly not in Midland. I have no
hesitation in restoring the reading, which must have been 'God _it kepe and
were_,' or something very near it. It is obvious that _were_ is the
original word in this passage, because it is the precise etymological
equivalent of _garisse_ in the French text; and it is further obvious that
the reason for expelling it from the text, was to avoid the apparent
repetition of _were_ in the rime; a repetition which the scribe too hastily
assumed to be a defect, though examples of it are familiar to the student
of Chaucer; cf. Prol. 17, 18. Chaucer has _were_, to defend, riming with
_spere_, Cant. Ta. A 2550; and _were_ (were) also riming with _spere_, Ho.
Fame, 1047. He would therefore have had no hesitation in riming these words
together; and we cannot doubt that he here did so. Cf. ll. 515, 516 below.