52. #xxx plates#: all the early MSS. of the Vulgate have ‘viginti
argenteis,’ but ‘triginta’ C., ‘deniers treis feiz dis,’ Joseph 414; the
change is due to the desire to perfect the parallel with Christ.
#plates#, silver coins: comp. ‘I nul sulle my Loverd [for] nones cunnes
eiste, | bote hit be for the thritti platen that he me bitaiste,’ Rel.
Ant. i. 144/25. The metrical stress requires ðo for ðe.
53, 54. ‘Melius est ut venundetur Ismaelitis, et manus nostrae non
polluantur,’ Gen. xxxvii. 27. #dan#, than that. #in here wold#, in their
power, at their hands.
57. #ðhogte swem#, felt sorrow, as in ‘Of paradis hem ðinkeð swem,’ GE
391, if so, the verb is impersonal and him must be supplied from #he#:
or perhaps, experienced a feeling of faintness: the OF. poem has ‘Quant
l’enfant ne trouva, | par poi ne forsena. | Il ne set que il face, |
pasmez chiet en la place,’ ll. 433-436.
58. #set up#, raised: ‘credens eum interemptum scissis vestibus
eiulabat,’ C. Comp. ‘ðis folc ðo sette up grot and gred,’ GE 3717.
59. #him cliued#: the MS. reading is meaningless; that in the text is
Mätzner’s, who explains, cleaves to him. But in view of, ‘And atter on
is tunge cliuen,’ GE 372; ‘Al egipte in his wil cliueð,’ 210/438, it is
doubtful whether even the pronoun can be used in this sense without a
preposition. Now cleave is associated with cling in ‘My hert doth clynge
and cleve as clay,’ Coventry Mysteries (54), where cling, wither up, is
used metaphorically for, shrink in fear (see 3/32 note and comp. ‘I
clynge as cleyȝ, icauȝt in care,’ Horstmann, S. A. Legenden, 178/388),
and it is also used transitively. Is it not probable that cleave had
also some such metaphorical meaning which would be suitable here?
62. If #in# is right, it goes with #ðe#, in which. But its absence would
improve the verse, and #ðe# alone can mean with which: see 46/292. In
any case #prud# is _adj._, splendid; comp. 209/422; ‘Wið gold and siluer
and wið srud, | ðis sonde made ðe mayden prud,’ GE 1413.
63. #wenten#, turned it round and round, rather than, altered it;
although the Latin, ‘tinxerunt,’ favours the latter.