186. #þu#: T has hue, and Skeat alters here to _heo_, but the text may
very well mean, if you ever found yourself. Perhaps the original had:
For if þu hi myd worde · iwreþþed heuede | And heo iseye þe · bi vore
þine ivo alle. Comp. ‘confundet te in conspectu inimicorum,’ Ecclus.
xxv. 35.
188. #lete#, omit, refrain from: form and meaning from OE. #lǣtan#, but
with construction, _þat-_ clause with subj., of OE. #lettan#.
189. Omit #scholde#, a mere repetition from the preceding line. Comp.
‘gyf þonne þissa þreora þinga ænig hwylcne man lette, þæt hine to ðam
fæstene ne ónhágje,’ Wulfstan 285/3 (quoted in B.-T.). #forþ#, openly,
freely: comp. ‘ðane sei ðu forð mid seinte Petre: Tu es Christus,’ VV
25/31. #baleusyþes#, cast up to you your misfortunes: comp. 2/27. But
one expects, after l. 185, something like, will reveal all your secrets.
190. #woþ#: T has wod and wordwod may mean word-mad; in that case the
second half of the line is little more than repetition. But T has often
_d_ for _þ_, and so his reading may be the same in effect as that of J,
which does not put _þ_ for _d_. Now in Layamon the younger MS. writes
woþ for _wouh_, _woh_ in the elder, 3327, 4333, where the sense requires
the latter, and _word woh_, perverse of speech, would fit well here.
191. #wel wolde#, though she desired it ever so much, she cannot control
it at all.
194. #ouerprute#, excessive pride: the noun apparently only here; the
adj. ouerprut is commoner. In T, orgul prude. Comp. ‘Bruttes hafden
muchel mode[;] & vnimete prute,’ L 19408.