128-9. _ys_: _flessh_: The rime requires the alternative forms _es_ (as
in l. 7) and _fles(s)_. Cp. note to VII 4.
132. _Ȝow þar nat aske_: 'There is no need for you to ask'; _ȝow_
is dative after the impersonal _þar_.
156-7. _werynes_: _dos_. The rime is false. Perhaps Mannyng wrote: _As
many body for goyng es_ [sc. _wery_], and a copyist misplaced _es_,
writing: _As many body es for goyng_. If _body es_ were read as
_bodyes_, a new verb would then be added.
169. Note the irony of the refrain. The Letter of Otbert adds the
picturesque detail that they gradually sank up to their waists in the
ground through dancing on the same spot.
172. _Þe Emperoure Henry_: Probably Henry II of Germany, Emperor from
1014 to 1024. A certain vagueness in points of time and place would save
the bearers of the letter from awkward questions.
188-9. _banned_: _woned_. The rime (OE. _bannan_ and _wunian_) is false,
and the use of _woned_ 'remained' is suspicious. Mannyng perhaps wrote
_bende_ 'put in bonds': _wende_ (= _ȝede_ l. 191) 'went'; or (if the
form _band_ for _banned(e)_ could be evidenced so early) _band_
'cursed': _wand_, pret. of _winden_, 'went'.
195. _fal yn a swone_: So MS., showing that by the second half of the
fourteenth century the pp. adj. _aswon_ had been wrongly analysed into
the indef. article _a_ and a noun _swon_. Mannyng may have written
_fallen aswone_. See Glossary, _s.v._ _aswone_.
234. _Wyth sundyr lepys_: 'with separate leaps'; but _Wyth_ was probably
added by a scribe who found in his original _sundyrlepys_, adv., meaning
'separately',—
_Kar suvent par les mains
Des malvais escrivains
Sunt livre corrumput._
240. _Seynt Edyght._ St. Edith (d. 984) was daughter of King Edgar, and
abbess of Wilton. The rime is properly _Edit_: _Teodric_, for _t_ and
_k_ are sufficiently like in sound to rime together in the best ME.
verse; cp. note to XV _g_ 27.
246. _Brunyng... seynt Tolous_: Latin _Bruno Tullanus_. Robert probably
did not hesitate to provide a rime by turning Toul into Toulouse. Bruno
afterwards became Pope Leo IX (1049-54).
254-5. _trowed_: _God_. Read _trŏd_, a shortened form, revealed by
rimes in North Midland texts. The identical rime occurs three times in
Mannyng's _Chronicle_ (ed. Hearne, p. 339; ed. Furnivall, ll. 7357-8,
8111-12); and, again with substitution of _troud_ for _trod_, in
_Havelok_, ll. 2338-9. Cp. note to XVII 56.