"O _nyth_ þare springes mani bogh,
Þat ledes man to mikel wogh,
for _nithful_ man he luuves lest,
Þe quilk he wat es dughtiest."
—(Cursor Mundi, MS. Cott. Vesp. A iii. fol. 153b.)
_loð an liðer_, loathsome and vile.
372
_And atter on is tunge cliuen_,
And poison on his tongue shall cleave.
373 _san_ = _schand_, disgrace, shame. Did the scribe originally write
_sam_ = shame? 377 _pilches_. This word answers to the "coats of skin" in
our English version of the Scriptures. In modern English _pilch_ is merely
the flannel swathe of an infant, but it formerly signified a fur garment.
Cf. Ital. _pellicia_, _pelizza_, any kind of fur; also Fr. _pelisse_
(pelice), a furred garment.
"Here kirtle, here _pilche_ of ermine,
Here keuerchefs of silk, here smok o line,
Al-togidere, with both fest,
Sche to-rent binethen here brest."—(Seven Sages, 473.)
P. 12. l. 384.
_Cherubin hauet [haueð] ðe gates sperd_,
Cherubim have the gates bolted (barred, fastened).
391 _swem_ = sorrow, grief. See Gloss. to Allit. Poems, s.v. _swemande_.
Legends of Holy Rood, pp. 135, 201.
392
_Of iwel and dead hem stondeð greim_
Of evil and death they stand in awe.
A similar phrase occurs in l. 432, p. 13. The phrase _stande awe_ is not
uncommon in O.E. writers.
"Than sal be herd the blast of bem,
The demster sal com to dem,
That al thing of _standes awe_."
(_i. e._ stands _in_ awe of.)
—(Met. Hom. p. xii.)
"For Crist com sal be sa bright
Þat thoru þat mikel lauerd might
Him sal of _stand sa mikel au_,
Þat alle þe filthes of his maugh
Sal brist ute at his hindwin,
For dred he sal haf of drightin."
—(Antichrist and the Signs of the Doom,
in _Jahrbuch für Romanische und Englische Literatur_,
1863, p. 203, l. 408.)
"Thereof ne _stod him non owe_."—(Seven Sages, 1887.)
See Havelok the Dane, p. 9, l. 277.