296. In the Milleres Tale, Chaucer describes a clerk of a very opposite
character, who loved dissipation and played upon a 'sautrye' or psaltery.
See A. 3200-20.
_fithel_ is the mod. E. _fiddle_. _sautrye_ is an O. F. spelling of our
_psaltery_.
297. _philosophre_ is used in a double sense; it sometimes meant an
alchemist, as in G. 1427. The clerk knew philosophy, but he was no
alchemist, and so had but little gold.
298. _Hadde_, possessed; as _hadde_ is here emphatic, the final _e_ is not
elided. So also in l. 386.
301. Chaucer often imitates his own lines. He here imitates Troil. iv.
1174--'And pitously gan for the soule preye.' _gan_, did.
302. _yaf him_, 'gave him (money) wherewith to attend school.' An allusion
to the common practice, at this period, of poor scholars in the
Universities, who wandered about the country begging, to raise money to
support them in their studies. Luther underwent a similar experience. Cf.
P. Plowman, B. vii. 31; also Ploughman's Crede, ed. Skeat, p. 71.