89. The French text refers to Exod. iii. 2. Cf. The Prioresses Tale, C. T.
Group B, l. 1658.
97. Koch points out that _per-e_ is here dissyllabic; as in the Compleint
to His Purse, l. 11. The French has _per_, l. 146. Read--Nóble princésse,
&c.
100. _Melodye or glee_; here Koch remarks that Chaucer 'evidently mistook
_tirelire_ for _turelure_.' The Fr. _tirelire_ means a money-box, and the
sense of l. 150 of the original is--'We have no other place in which to
secure what we possess.' See l. 107 of Chaucer's translation below. But
Chaucer's mistake was easily made; he was thinking, not of the mod. Fr.
_turelure_ (which, after all, does not mean a 'melody,' but the refrain of
a song, like the Eng. _tooral looral_) but of the O. F. _tirelire_. This
word (as Cotgrave explains) not only meant 'a box having a cleft on the lid
for mony to enter it,' but 'also the warble, or song of a lark.' Hence
Shakespeare speaks of 'the lark, that _tirra-lyra_ chants,' Wint. Tale, iv.
3. 9.
102. Read _N'advócat noón_. That the M. E. _advocat_ was sometimes accented
on the _o_, is proved by the fact that it was sometimes cut down to
_vócat_; see P. Plowman, B. ii. 60; C. iii. 61.