107. The passage in brackets is conjectural: the copyist passed over a
line ending with the same word as that which he had just completed. For
the yellow cloth see 62/46 note.
109. #helfter#, halter, noose: OE. #hælfter#. The original had, no
doubt, laqueus diaboli. For similar expressions comp. ‘Revera ornatus
muliebris sagena diaboli est,’ Caesarius Heist., 287; ‘diaboli hamus,’
Vitas Patrum, 302. #þeos wimmen# &c.: comp. ‘Mundus est _la garanne au
diable_ in qua venatur ut capiat animas, et tendit ibi laqueos
infinitos. Unus laqueus ejus est pulchritudo corporalis et ornatus. Unde
istae dominae, quae tam pulchrae videntur esse et tam bene ornatae,
_acemées_, sunt muscipula diaboli, quam tendit ad capiendum fatuos;
ipsae sunt _la ratière au diable_,’ Hauréau, Notices, iv. 154. #lumeð#,
shine, are splendidly attired. The MS. reading luueð and Morris’s
conjecture liuieð give a poor sense. For _lumen_ comp. ‘Hire lure lumes
liht, | ase a launterne a nyht,’ Böddeker, AE. Dicht. 169/23; ‘þat lemeþ
al wiþ luefly lyt,’ id. 152/6, 155/8, 145/3. The transitive ‘alemeþ,’
illuminates, occurs in OEH ii. 109/1; ‘alumþ,’ id. 141/29. #musestoch#:
comp. ‘Similiter assatur caseus et ponitur in muscipula. Quem cum sentit
Ratus, intrat in muscipulam, capit caseum et capitur a muscipula. Sic
est de omni illicito. Caseus as[s]atur, quando mulier paratur, ornatur,
ut stultos ratos alliciat et capiat,’ Eudes de Cheriton, 221/1; ‘Mulier
pulchra . . . est caseus in muscipula. Mulier adornatur . . . Hoc est
caseus assatus,’ id. 328/1. See also 62/51 note.
114. #blanchet#, ‘fine wheaten flour,’ Halliwell, who quotes from MS.
Bowes of Robert of Brunne, ‘With blaunchette and other flour | To make
thaim qwytter of colour.’
116. #scawere#, mirror: comp. OEH ii. 29/9-13. #hindene#, Morris thinks
is miswritten for hid-ern, hiding-place; a word which does not occur
elsewhere; if it were connected with OE. #hȳdan# the first syllable
would be hud- in this text. In Specimens it is translated snare, with
comparison of OE. #hinderhōc#, stratagem, as if for hindere. I take it
to be the _adv._ hinden in substantive use, the hinder parts, the
‘behind’; in CM 22395, ‘hindwin.’ There is an ‘exemplum’ preserved in Le
Livre du Chevalier de la Tour Landry, ch. xxxi, which tells what the
lady who devoted a fourth of the day to her toilet once saw in her
mirror; it was probably in our writer’s mind here. The Book of the
Knight was written for the instruction of his daughters.
118. #wið#: comp. 48/299 and ‘þer wið,’ 82/121; ‘þe clenesse iscilt heo
wið unþeawes,’ OEH i. 111/17; but ‘from,’ 148/141; ‘Wiðtieð giu fro
flesliche lustes,’ OEH ii. 63/28.
_Cross-Reference_