44. #stinken#, smell, perceive: comp. ‘wrieð hore fulðe so ꝥ heo hit ne
muwen stinken,’ AR 86/17.
45. #steoren# &c., cense with golden censer: probably suggested by Rev.
viii. 3. #chelle#: OE. #cylle#, vessel; only here in ME.
46. #mid englene wille#, ‘with angels’ joy,’ Specimens; comparing
OWScand. vili. But this use of ME. wille for state of felicity is at
least rare, and besides something more concrete is needed to balance
‘mid guldene chelle’; wille represents OE. #wiell#, #wiella#, fountain,
with allusion to the ‘fluvium aquae vitae’ of Rev. xxii. 1, and to such
places as ‘Haurietis aquas in gaudio de fontibus salvatoris,’ Isa. xii.
3; ‘torrente voluptatis tuae potabis eos,’ Ps. xxxv. 9. The sense then
would be, and pour out for them eternal life by means of the water of
Paradise. The writer uses #englene# vaguely for, of Heaven; comp. ll.
16, 70.
47-50. An application of 1 Cor. ii. 9 already in Adgar, ‘Certes, nul ne
poet escrire, | De cuer penser, de buche dire | Les biens de la Dame
uaillante, | Ki de tuz biens est puissante, | Ke as soens fait chascun
ior, | Vers cels, ke el’ ad puint d’amur,’ 224/7. See 46/285, 119/85.
With l. 50 comp. ‘Nostre Dame serui nuit e ior, | El soen seruise out
grant amur,’ Adgar 117/27.
51. #ciclatune#, originally a fine silken stuff of Persian origin,
usually red. Almeria, in Spain, was the seat of a flourishing
manufacture of this stuff in the twelfth century. Comp. 140/37.
53. Comp. ‘eall heora neb-wlite wæron swilce rose and lilie,’ Ælf.,
Lives i. 536/780.
55. Comp. ‘þær se beorhta beag brogden wundrum | eorcnanstanum eadigra
gehwam | hlifað ofer heafde,’ Phoenix 602.
58. Comp. ‘Þær ne hægl ne hrim hreosað to foldan | ne windig wolcen, ne
þær wæter fealleþ | lyfte gebysgad,’ Phoenix 60.
60. #uihte#, variance: ‘gewindagas,’ days of strife, Phoenix 612. Comp.
also, ‘sib butan niþe,’ Christ 1660; 70/158 note.