1121. _atte leeste weye_, at the least. Cf. _leastwise_ = _at the
leastwise_: '_at leastwise_'; Bacon's Advancement of Learning, ed. Wright,
p. 146, l. 23. See English Bible (Preface of 'The Translators to the
Reader').
1122. 'I am not but (no better than) dead, there is no more to say.'
Chaucer uses _ne_--_but_ much in the same way as the Fr. _ne--que_. Cf.
North English 'I'm _nobbut_ clemmed' = I am almost dead of hunger.
1126. _by my fey_, by my faith, in good faith.
1127. _me list ful yvele pleye_, it pleaseth me very badly to play.
1128. This debate is an imitation of the longer debate (in the Teseide),
where Palamon and Arcite meet in the grove; cf. l. 1580 below.
1129. _It nere_ = _it were not_, it would not be.
1132. 'It was a common practice in the middle ages for persons to take
formal oaths of fraternity and friendship; and a breach of the oath was
considered something worse than perjury. This incident enters into the
plots of some of the medieval romances. A curious example will be found in
the Romance of Athelston; Reliquiæ Antiquæ, ii. 85.'--Wright. A note in
Bell's Chaucer reminds us that instances occur also in the old heroic
times; as in the cases of Theseus and Peirithous, Achilles and Patroclus,
Pylades and Orestes, Nysus and Euryalus. See _Sworn Brothers_ in Nares'
Glossary; Rom. of the Rose, 2884.
1133. 'That never, even though it cost us a miserable death, a death by
torture.' So in Troilus, i. 674: 'That certayn, for to deyen in the peyne.'
Also in the E. version of The Romaunt of the Rose, 3326.
1134. 'Till that death shall part us two.' Cf. the ingenious alteration in
the Marriage Service, where the phrase 'till death us depart' was altered
into 'do part' in 1661.
1136. _cas_, case. It properly means event, hap. See l. 1074.
_my leve brother_, my dear brother.
1141. _out of doute_, without doubt, doubtless.
1147. _to my counseil_, to my adviser. See l. 1161.