For general remarks upon this Tale, see vol. iii. p. 421.
1643. Cf. Ps. viii. 1-2. The Vulgate version has--'Domine Dominus noster,
quam admirabile est nomen tuum in uniuersa terra! Quoniam eleuata est
magnificentia tua super caelos! Ex ore infantium et lactentium perfecisti
laudem,' &c.
1650. _can or may_, know how to, or have ability to do.
1651. The 'white lily' was the token of Mary's perpetual virginity. See
this explained at length in Rock, Church of our Fathers, iii. 245.
1655. 'For she herself is honour, and, next after her Son, the root of
bounty, and the help (or profit) of souls.'
1658. Cf. Chaucer's A.B.C, or Hymn to the Virgin, (Minor Poems, vol. i. p.
266), where we find under the heading M--
'Moises, that saugh the bush with flaumes rede
Brenninge, of which ther never a stikke brende,
Was signe of thyn unwemmed maidenhede;
Thou art the bush, on which ther gan descende
The Holy Gost, the which that Moises wende
Had been a-fyr.'
[175] So also in st. 2 of an Alliterative Hymn in Warton, Hist. Eng.
Poetry, ed. Hazlitt, ii. 284.
1659. 'That, through thy humility, didst draw down from the Deity the
Spirit that alighted in thee.'
1660. _thalighte_ = _thee alighte_, the two words being run into one. Such
agglutination is more common when the def. art. occurs, or with the word
_to_; cf. _Texpounden_ in B. 1716.
1661. _lighte_ may mean either (1) cheered, lightened; or (2) illuminated.
Tyrwhitt and Richardson both take the latter view; but the following
passage, in which _hertes_ occurs, makes the former the more probable:--
'But nathelees, it was so fair a sighte
That it made alle hir _hertes_ for to _lighte_.'
Sq. Ta.; F. 395.