919. Imitated from Machault's Remède de Fortune (see Trial Forewords, p.
48):--
'_Et sa gracieuse parole_,
Qui n'estoit diverse ne folle,
Etrange, _ne mal ordenée_,
Hautaine, mès bien affrenèe,
Cueillie à point et de saison,
_Fondée sur toute raison_,
Tant plaisant et _douce à oïr_,
Que chascun faisoit resjoir'; &c.
Line 922 is taken from this word for word.
927-8. 'Nor that scorned less, nor that could better heal,' &c.
943. _Canel-boon_, collar-bone; lit. channel-bone, i. e. bone with a
channel behind it. See Three Metrical Romances (Camden Soc.), p. 19; Gloss.
to Babees Book, ed. Furnivall; and the Percy Folio MS., i. 387. I put _and_
for _or_; the sense requires a conjunction.
948. Here _Whyte_, representing the lady's name, is plainly a translation
of _Blaunche_. The insertion of _whyte_ in l. 905, in the existing
authorities, is surely a blunder, and I therefore have omitted it. It
anticipates the climax of the description, besides ruining the scansion of
the line.
950. There is here some resemblance to some lines in G. Machault's Remède
de Fortune (see Trial Forewords, p. 49):--
--'ma Dame, qui est clamée
De tous, sur toutes belle et bonne,
_Chascun por droit ce nom li donne_.'