120. In this line, as in ll. 509 and 697, the word _se-ynt_ seems to be
dissyllabic. Six MSS. agree here; and the seventh (Harleian) has _nas_ for
_was_, which keeps the same rhythm. Edd. 1532, 1550, and 1561 have the same
words, omitting _but_.
_seynt Loy. Loy_ is from _Eloy_, i. e. St. _Eligius_, whose day is Dec. 1;
see the long account of him in Butler's Lives of the Saints. He was a
goldsmith, and master of the mint to Clotaire II., Dagobert I., and Clovis
II. of France; and was also bishop of Noyon. He became the patron saint of
goldsmiths, farriers, smiths, and carters. The Lat. _Eligius_ necessarily
became _Eloy_ in O. French, and is _Eloy_ or _Loy_ in English, the latter
form being the commoner. The Catholicon Anglicum (A.D. 1483) gives:
'_Loye_, elegius (_sic_), nomen proprium.' Sir T. More, Works, ed. 1577, p.
194, says: '_St. Loy_ we make an horse-leche.' Barnaby Googe, as cited in
Brand, Pop. Antiq. i. 364 (ed. Ellis), says:--
'And _Loye_ the smith doth looke to horse, and smithes of all degree,
If they with iron meddle here, or if they goldesmithes bee.'
There is a district called _St. Loye's_ in Bedford; a _Saint Loyes_ chapel
[14] near Exeter; &c. Churchyard mentions 'sweete _Saynct Loy_'; Siege of
Leith, st. 50. In Lyndesay's Monarchè, bk. ii. lines 2299 and 2367, he is
called 'sanct _Eloy_.' In D. 1564, the carter prays to God and Saint Loy,
joining the names according to a common formula; but the Prioress dropped
the divine name. Perhaps she invoked _St. Loy_ as being the patron saint of
goldsmiths; for she seems to have been a little given to a love of gold and
corals; see ll. 158-162. Warton's notion, that _Loy_ was a form of _Louis_,
only shews how utterly unknown, in his time, were the phonetic laws of Old
French.
Many more illustrations might be added; such as--'_By St. Loy_, that draws
deep'; Nash's Lenten Stuff, ed. Hindley, p. xiv. 'God save her and _Saint
Loye_'; Jack Juggler, ed. Roxburgh Club, p. 9; and see _Eligius_ in the
Index to the Parker Society's publications.
We already find, in Guillaume de Machault's Confort d'Ami, near the end,
the expression:--'Car je te jur, par _saint Eloy_'; Works, ed. 1849, p.
120.
The life of St. Eligius, as given in Alban Butler's Lives of the Saints,
contains a curious passage, which seems worth citing:--'St. Owen relates
many miracles which followed his death, and informs us that _the holy
abbess_, St. Aurea, who was swept off by a pestilence, ... was advertised
of her last hour some time before it, by a comfortable vision of _St.
Eligius_.' See also Mrs. Jameson's Sacred and Legendary Art, 3rd ed., p.
728.
There is, perhaps, a special propriety in selecting _St. Loy_ for mention
in the present instance. In an interesting letter in _The Athenæum_ for
Jan. 10, 1891, p. 54, Prof. Hales drew attention to the story about St.
Eligius cited in Maitland's Dark Ages, pp. 83-4, ed. 1853. When Dagobert
asked Eligius to swear upon the relics of the saints, the bishop _refused_.
On being further pressed to do so, he burst into tears; whereupon Dagobert
exclaimed that he would believe him _without an oath_. Hence, to swear by
St. Loy was to swear by one who refused to swear; and the oath became (at
second-hand) no oath at all. See Hales, Folia Literaria, p. 102. At any
rate, it was a very mild one for those times. Cf. Amis and Amiloun,
877:--'Than answered that maiden bright, And swore "by Jesu, ful of
might."'
121. _cleped_, called, named; A. S. _cleopian_, _clypian_, to call. Cf. Sir
David Lyndesay's Monarchè, bk. iii. l. 4663:--
'The seilye Nun wyll thynk gret schame
Without scho callit be _Madame_.'
122. 'She sang the divine service.' Here _sér-vic-è_ is trisyllabic, with a
secondary accent on the last syllable.
123. _Entuned_, intoned. _nose_ is the reading of the best MSS. The old
black-letter editions read _voice_ (wrongly).
_semely_, in a seemly manner, is in some MSS. written _semily_. The _e_ is
here to be distinctly sounded; _hertily_ is sometimes written for
_hertely_. See ll. 136, 151. [15]