247. Skeat explains #þane loþe#, the hostile one, and #lead#, keep on
one’s side, #so#, by fair words. T reads So mo{n} mai welþe lengest
helden, which is easier of interpretation, but is just as inept. I think
both scribes or their exemplars have altered as best they could a
displaced line to fit it into its new context. Its proper place is after
the good advice of ll. 248-51 (comp. l. 263), and it may have originally
run, So myght þu fayre lif · lenguste leden.
248. ‘Nolito quaedam referenti credere saepe: | Exigua est tribuenda
fides, qui multa locuntur,’ Cato 224/20.