1259. _matere_; in the _matter_ of thinking to excel God's providence.
1260. 'We never know what thing it is that we pray for here below.' See
Romans viii. 26.
1261. _dronke is as a mous._ This phrase seems to have given way to 'drunk
as a rat.' 'Thus satte they swilling and carousyng, one to another, till
they were both _as dronke as rattes_.'--Stubbes, Anatomie of Abuses; ed.
Furnivall, p. 113.
'I am a Flemying, what for all that,
Although I wyll be _dronken_ otherwhyles _as a rat_.'
Andrew Boorde, ed. Furnivall, p. 147.
Cf. 'When that he is _dronke as a dreynt mous_'; Ritson, Ancient Songs, i.
70 (Man in the Moon, l. 31). 'And I will pledge Tom Tosspot, till I be
_drunk as a mouse-a_'; Old Plays, ed. Hazlitt, iii. 339. See also Skelton,
Colin Clout, 803; and D. 246.
1262. This is from Boethius, De Consolatione, lib. iii. pr. 2: 'But I
retorne ayein to the studies of men, of whiche men the corage alwey
reherseth and seketh the sovereyn good, al be it so that it be with a
derked memorie; but he not by whiche path, _right as a dronken man not nat
by whiche path he may retorne him to his hous_.'--Chaucer's Translation of
Boethius; vol. ii. p. 54, l. 57.
1264. _slider_, slippery; as in the Legend of Good Women, l. 648. Cf. the
gloss--'_Lubricum_, slidere'; Reliquiae Antiquae, i. 7.
1279. _pure fettres_, the very fetters. 'So in the Duchesse, l. 583, _the
pure deeth_. The Greeks used [Greek: katharos] in the same
sense.'--Tyrwhitt. [69]
1283. _at thy large_, at large. Cf. l. 2288.
1302. 'White like box-wood, or ashen-gray'; cf. l. 1364. Cf. 'And pale as
box she wex'; Legend of Good Women, l. 866. Also 'asshen pale and dede';
Troil. ii. 539.
1308. Copied in Lydgate's Horse, Sheep, and Goose, 124:--'But here this
schepe, rukkyng in his folde.' '_Rukkun_, or cowre down'; Prompt. Parv. In
B. 4416, MSS. Cp. Pt. Ln. have _rouking_ in place of _lurking_.
1317. _to letten of his wille_, to refrain from his will (or lusts).
1333. Cf. the phrase 'paurosa gelosia'; Tes. v. 2.
1344. _upon his heed_, on pain of losing his head. 'Froissart has _sur sa
teste, sur la teste_, and _sur peine de la teste_.'--T.
1347. _this questioun._ 'An implied allusion to the medieval courts of
love, in which questions of this kind were seriously discussed.'--Wright.
1366. _making his mone_, making his complaint or _moan_.
1372. 'In his changing mood, for all the world, he conducted himself not
merely like one suffering from the lover's disease of Eros, but rather (his
disease was) like _mania_ engendered of melancholy humour.' This is one of
the numerous allusions to the four humours, viz. the choleric, phlegmatic,
sanguine, and melancholic. An excess of the latter was supposed to produce
'melancholy madness.' _gere_, flighty manner, changeableness; 'Siche _wilde
gerys_ hade he mo'; Thornton Romances, Sir Percival, l. 1353. See note to
l. 1536.
1376. _in his celle fantastyk._ Tyrwhitt reads _Beforne his hed in his
celle fantastike_. Elles. has _Biforn his owene celle fantastik_. 'The
division of the brain into cells, according to the different sensitive
faculties, is very ancient, and is found depicted in medieval manuscripts.
The _fantastic cell_ (_fantasia_) was in front of the head.'--Wright. Hence
_Biforen_ means 'in the front part of his head.'
'Madnesse is infection of the formost cel of the head, with priuation of
imagination, lyke as melancholye is the infection of the middle cell of the
head, with priuation of reason, as Constant. saith in _libro de
Melancolia_. Melancolia (saith he) is an infection that hath mastry of the
soule, the which commeth of dread and of sorrow. And these passions be
diuerse after the diuersity of the hurt of their workings; for by madnesse
that is called _Mania_, principally the imagination is hurt; and in the
other reson is hurted.'--Batman upon Bartholomè, lib. vii. c. 6. Vincent of
Beauvais, bk. xxviii. c. 41, cites a similar statement from the _Liber de
Anatomia_, which begins:--'Cerebrum itaque tribus cellulis est distinctum.
Duae namque meringes cerebri faciunt tres plicaturas inter se denexas, in
quibus tres sunt cellulae: phantastica scilicet ab anteriori parte capitis,
in qua sedem habet imaginatio.' So in Batman upon Bartholomè, lib. v. c.
3:--'The Braine ... is diuided in three celles or dens.... In the formost
cell ... imagination is conformed and made; in the middle, reason; in the
hindermost, recordation and minde' [memory]. Cf. also Burton, Anat. of
Melancholy, pt. 2. sec. 3. mem. 1. subsec. 2. [70]