The Miller's name is _Robin_ (l. 3129).
3110. The reading _companye_ (as in old editions and Tyrwhitt) in place of
_route_ makes the line too long.
3115. I. e. the bag is unbuckled, the budget is opened; as when a packman
displays his wares. See Group I, l. 26.
3119. _To quyte with_, to requite the Knight with, for his excellent Tale.
This position of _with_, next its verb, is the almost invariable M. E.
idiom. Cf. F. 471, 641, C. 345; Notes to P. Pl., C. i. 133, &c.
3120. 'Very drunk, and all pale'; cf. A. 4150, H. 30.
3124. I. e. in a loud, commanding voice, such as that of Pilate in the
Mystery Plays. In the Chester Plays, Pilate is of rather a meek
disposition; but in the York Plays, pp. 270, 307, 320, he is represented as
boastful and tyrannical, as is evidently here intended. The expression
seems to have been proverbial. Palsgrave has: 'In a pylates voyce, _a
haulte voyx_'; p. 837. Udall, tr. of Erasmus' Apophthegms (repr. 1877),
last page, has--'speaking out of measure loude and high, and altogether in
_Pilates voice_.'
3125. _by armes_, i. e. by the arms of Christ; see note to C. 651.
3129. 'My dear brother'; a common form; cf. 3848, below, and 1136, above.
3131. _thriftily_, i. e. profitably, to a useful purpose; cf. B. 1165.
3134. _a devel wey_, in the devil's name; see Skelton, ed. Dyce, ii. 287;
originally, in the way to the devil, with all ill luck. Compare--
'Hundred, chapitle, court, and shire,
Al hit goth _a devel way_' [to the bad].
Polit. Songs, ed. Wright, Camd. Soc. p. 254.
See note to l. 3713 below.
3140. _Wyte it_, lay the blame for it upon. _of Southwerk_, i. e. of the
Tabard inn.
3143. 'Made a fool of the wright,' i. e. of the carpenter; cf. A. 586, 614;
also A. 3911, and the note.
3145. The Reeve interferes, because he was a carpenter himself (A. 614).
'Let alone your ignorant drunken ribaldry.'
3152. A reference to a proverbial expression which is given in Rob. of
Brunne's Handlyng Synne, 1892:--
'Men sey, ther a man ys gelous,
That "ther ys a kokewolde at hous."'
[96]
Compare also Le Roman de la Rose, 9167-9171, which expresses a similar
opinion.
3155-6. Tyrwhitt omits these two lines in his text, but admits, in his
Notes, that they should have been inserted. The former of the two lines is
repeated from l. 277 of the original (but rejected) Prologue to the Legend
of Good Women. _but-if thou madde_, unless thou art going mad.
3161. _oon_, one, i. e. a cuckold; or, possibly, an ox (l. 3159). As an ox
was a 'horned' animal, it comes to the same thing, according to the
miserable jest so common in our dramatists.
3165. _goddes foyson_, sufficient abundance, i. e. all he wants, all the
affection he expects. _there_, in his wife.
3166. A defective line; read--Of | the rém' | nant, &c.