201-2. _barouns_: _renouns_. Forms like _renouns_ in rime are usually
taken over from a French original.
215. The overloaded metre points to a shorter word like _wite_ for
_vnderstond_.
216. _Make ȝou þan a parlement_: _ȝou_ is not nom., but dat. 'for
yourselves'. Observe that Orfeo acts like a constitutional English king.
241. _þe fowe and griis_: A half translation of OFr. _vair et gris_.
_Vair_ (Lat. _varius_) was fur made of alternate pieces of the grey back
and white belly of the squirrel. Hence it is rendered by _fowe_, OE.
_fāg_ 'varicolor'. _Griis_ is the grey back alone, and the French
word is retained for the rime with _biis_, which was probably in the
OFr. original.
258. _berien_: The MS. may be read _berren_, but as this form is
incorrect it is better to assume that the _i_ has been carelessly shaped
by the scribe.
289. _him se_, 'see (for himself), and similarly _slep þou þe_ XV _g_
13. This reflexive use of the dative pronoun, which cannot be reproduced
in a modern rendering, is common in OE. and ME., especially with verbs
of motion; cp. note to XV _g_ 24. But distinguish _went him_ 475, 501,
where _him_ is accusative, not dative (OE. _wente hine_), because the
original sense of _went_ is 'turned', which naturally takes a reflexive
object.
342. _me no reche_ = _I me no reche_. The alternative would be the
impersonal _me no recheþ_.
343. _also spac_ = _also bliue_ 142 = _also swiþe_ 574: 'straightway',
&c.
363. MS. _auowed_ (or _anowed_) is meaningless here. _Anow<rn>ed_, or
the doubtful by-form _anow<r>ed_ 'adorned', is probably the true
reading.
382. The line is too long—a fault not uncommon where direct speech is
introduced, e.g. l. 419 and I 78. Usually a correct line can be obtained
by dropping words like _quath he_, which are not as necessary in spoken
verse as they are where writing alone conveys the sense. But sometimes
the flaw may lie in the forms of address: l. 382 would be normal without
_Parfay_; l. 419 may once have been:
_And seyd 'Lord, ȝif þi wille were'._
There is no task more slippery than the metrical reconstruction of ME.
poems, particularly those of which the extant text derives from the
original not simply through a line of copyists, but through a line of
minstrels who passed on the verses from memory and by word of mouth.
388. The line seems to be corrupt, and, as usual, the Harleian and
Ashmole MSS. give little help. _Ful_ can hardly be a sb. meaning
'multitude' from the adj. _full_. Some form of _fele_ (OE. _fela_) 'a
great number' would give possible grammar and sense (cp. l. 401), but
bad metre. Perhaps _ful_ should be deleted as a scribe's anticipation
of _folk_ in the next line; for the construction _seiȝe... of folk_
cp. XVI 388; and _Hous of Fame_, Bk. iii, ll. 147 ff.
433. _Þei we nouȝt welcom no be_: Almost contemporary with _Sir
Orfeo_ is the complaint of an English writer that the halls of the
nobles stood open to a lawyer, but not to a poet:
_Exclusus ad ianuam poteris sedere
Ipse licet venias, Musis comitatus, Homere!_
'Though thou came thyself, Homer, with all the Muses, thou mightst sit
at the door, shut out!', T. Wright, _Political Songs_ (1839), p. 209.