There are three MS. copies of this poem, viz. in MSS. F., B., and Harl.
7333. See remarks upon these in the Introduction, p. 89.
1. In Troil. iv. 516, the parallel line is--'Of me, that am the wofulleste
wight'; where _wofullest-e_ has four syllables. Chaucer constantly employs
_sorwe_ or _sorw_ so as to occupy the time of a monosyllable; hence the
right reading in this case is _sorw'fullest-e_, with final _-e_. See also
Troil. ii. 450--'So as she was the ferfulleste wight.' And 'Bicomen is the
sorwefulleste man'; Cant. Tales, E 2098.
3. _Recoverer_, recovery, cure; answering to O.F. _recovrier_, sb. succour,
aid, cure, recovery; see examples in La Langue et la Littérature Française,
by Bartsch and Horning, 1887. Gower uses _recoverir_ in a like sense; ed.
Pauli, i. 265. In Specimens of English, ed. Morris and Skeat, pt. ii. p.
156, l. 394, _recouerer_ may likewise mean 'succour'; and the whole line
may mean, 'they each of them cried for succour (to be obtained) from the
Creator.'