5286. Alluding to Cicero, De Amicitia: capp. xiii, xvii.
5292. The sense is; one friend must help another in every reasonable
request; if the request seem unjust, he need not do so, except in two
cases, viz. when his friend's life is in danger, or his honour is attacked:
'in quibus eorum aut caput agatur aut fama.' Read _in cases two_; F. 'en
deux cas.'
5330. _bit not_, abides not, at any time; _bit_ = _bideth_.
5341. For _hir_ read _the_.
5353. The original reading would be _It hit_, i. e. it hideth; then _It_
was dropped, and _hit_ became _hidith_.
5384. _gote_, goat; but the F. text has _cers_, i. e. stag, _ramage_, wild.
5443. Obscure. The F. text has: 'Et que por seignors ne les tiengnent'
Perhaps it means: 'They perform it (their will) wholly'; see l. 5447.
5452. Here _chere of_ is for _there of_, with the common mistake of _c_ for
_t_.
5470. _Of_, i. e. off, off from.
5484. _arn_, with trilled _r_, is dissyllabic; as in l. 5047.
5486. 'Friend from affection (_affect_), and friend in appearance.'
Chaucer, in his Balade on Fortune, l. 34, has 'Frend of _effect_ [i. e. in
reality], and frend of countenance.' And as the passage is not in the
French, but is probably borrowed from Chaucer, we see that _effect_ (not
_affect_) is the right reading here; see l. 5549.
5491. The reading of Th. and G. is clearly wrong. The F. text helps but
little. I read _al she_, i. e. all that she.
5507. _flaterye_ is very inappropriate; we should expect _iaperye_, i. e.
mockery. F. text, 'a vois jolie.'
5510. I. e. 'Begone, and let us be rid of you.' See Troilus, iii. 861, and
note. (Probably borrowed from Chaucer.)
5513. From Prov. xvii. 17.
5523-9. 'This appears to be taken from Ecclus. xxii. 26.'--Bell. This
reference is to the Vulgate; in the A.V., it is Ecclus. xxii. 22. Compare
ll. 5521-2 with the preceding verse. With l. 5534 cf. Eccles. vii. 28.
5538. _valoure_, value; F. text, 'valor.' See 5556.
5541. So in Shakespeare; 2 Hen. IV. v. 1. 34. Michel cites: 'Verus amicus
omni praestantior auro.'
5569. F. text; 'Que vosist-il acheter lores'; &c.
5585, 6. I fill up the lines so as to make sense. _miches_, F. 'miches.' A
_miche_ is a loaf of fine manchet bread, of good quality; see Cotgrave.
_chiche_ (l. 5588) is 'niggardly.'
5590. _mauis_, (as in G. and Th.) is clearly an error for _muwis_, or,
_muis_, bushels. The F. text has _muis_, i. e. bushels (from Lat.
_modius_). For the M.E. form _muwe_ or _mue_, cf. M.E. _puwe_ or _pue_
(Lat. _podium_). The A.F. form _muy_ occurs in the Liber Custumarum, ed.
Riley, i. 62.
5598. _that_, perhaps 'that gold'; see l. 5592. 'And though that (gold) lie
beside him in heaps.' It is better to read _it_.
5600. _Asseth_, a sufficiency, enough; see note to P. Plowman, C. xx. 203;
and the note to Catholicon Anglicum, p. 13, n. 6.
5619. _maysondewe_, hospital, lit. 'house of God.' See Halliwell.
5649. _Pictagoras_, Pythagoras; the usual form, as in Book Duch. 1167. He
died about B. C. 510. He was a Greek philosopher, who taught the doctrine
of the transmigration of souls, and he is here said to have taught the
principle of the absorption of the soul into the supreme divinity. None of
his works are extant. Hierocles of Alexandria, in the fifth century, wrote
a commentary on the Golden Verses, which professed to give a summary of the
views of Pythagoras.
5661. From Boethius, de Consolatione Philosophiæ, lib. i. pr. 5; lib. v.
pr. 1. See notes to the Balade of Truth, ll. 17, 19.