375. _Fot-hoot_, foot-hot, immediately; see my note to Man of Lawes Tale, B
438.
376. _Moot_, notes upon a horn, here used as a plural. See Glossary. 'How
shall we blowe whan ye han sen the hert? I shal blowe after one _mote_, ij
_motes_ [i. e. 3 motes in all]; and if myn howndes come not hastily to me
as I wolde, I shall blowe iiij. _motes_'; Venery de Twety, in Reliquiæ
Antiquæ, i. 152.
Cf. a passage in the Chace du Cerf, quoted from the Collection Mouchet, i.
166, in Furnivall's Trial Forewords, p. 51 (though Chaucer probably wrote
his account quite independently of it):--
'Et puis si corneras apel
.iij. lons _mots_, pour les chiens avoir.'
379. _Rechased_, headed back. Men were posted at certain places, to keep
the hart within certain bounds. See next note.
386. _A forloyn_, a recall (as I suppose; for it was blown when the hounds
were all a long way off their object of pursuit). It is thus explained in
the Book of St. Alban's, fol. f I:--
'Yit mayster, wolde I fayn thus at yow leere,
What is a _forloyng_, for that is goode to here.
That shall I say the, quod he, the soth at lest.
When thy houndes in the wode sechyn any beest,
And the beest is stoll away owt of the fryth,
Or the houndes that thou hast meten therwith,
And any other houndes before than may with hem mete,
Thees oder houndes are then _forloyned_, I the hete.
For the beste and the houndes arn so fer before,
And the houndes behynde be weer[i]e and soore,
So that they may not at the best cum at ther will,
The houndes before _forloyne_ [distance] hem, and that is the skyll.
They be ay so fere before, to me iff thou will trust;
And thys is the _forloyne_; lere hit, iff thou lust.'
The 'chace of the forloyne' is explained (very obscurely) in the Venery de
Twety; see Reliquiæ Antiquæ, i. 152. But the following passage from the
same gives some light upon _rechased_: 'Another chace ther is whan a man
hath set up archerys and greyhoundes, and the best be founde, and passe out
the boundys, and myne houndes after; then shall y blowe on this maner a
mote, and aftirward the _rechace_ upon my houndys that be past the
boundys.'
387. _Go_, gone. The sense is--'I had gone (away having) walked from my
tree.' The idiom is curious. _My tree_, the tree at which I had been
posted. Chaucer dreamt that he was one of the men posted to watch which way
the hart went, and to keep the bounds.
396. The final _e_ in _fled-de_ is not elided, owing to the pause after it.
See note to l. 685.
398. _Wente_, path. Chaucer often rimes words that are pronounced alike, if
their meanings be different. See ll. 439, 440; and cf. ll. 627-630. The
very same pair of rimes occurs again in the Ho. of Fame, 181, 182; and in
Troil. ii. 62, 813; iii. 785, v. 603, 1192.
402. Read--_For both-e Flor-a_, &c. The _-a_ in _Flora_ comes at the
cæsural pause; cf. ll. 413, 414. Once more, this is from Le Roman de la
Rose, ll. 8449-51:--
'Zephirus et Flora, sa fame,
Qui des flors est déesse et dame,
Cil dui font les floretes nestre.'