1843. _Wil_, wills, desires. So in Matt. ix. 13, I _will_ have mercy = I
require mercy; Gk. [Greek: eleon thelô]; Vulgate, misericordiam uolo. Cf.
B. 45.
1848. In the Ellesmere MS. (which has the metrical pauses marked) the pause
in this line is marked after _lyf_. The word _sholde_ is dissyllabic here,
having more than the usual emphasis; it has the force of _ought to_. Cf. E.
1146.
1852. In the Cursor Mundi, 1373-6, Seth is told to place three pippins
under the root of Adam's tongue.
1857. _now_ is used in the sense of _take notice that_, without any [181]
reference to _time_. There is no necessity to alter the reading to _than_,
as proposed by Tyrwhitt. See Mätzner, Engl. Gram. ii. 2. 346, who refers to
Luke ii. 41, John i. 44, and quotes an apt passage from Maundeville's
Travels, p. 63--'_Now_ aftre that men han visited the holy places, _thanne_
will they turnen toward Jerusalem.' In A. S. the word used in similar cases
is _s[=o]þl[=i]ce_ = soothly, verily.
1873. _Ther_, where. _leve_, grant. No two words have been more confused by
editors than _lene_ and _leue_. Though sometimes written much alike in
MSS., they are easily distinguished by a little care. The A. S. _l[=y]fan_
or _l[=e]fan_, spelt _lefe_ in the Ormulum (vol. i. p. 308), answers to the
Germ. _erlauben_, and means _grant_ or _permit_, but it can only be used in
certain cases. The verb _lene_, A. S. _l[=æ]nan_, now spelt _lend_, often
means to give or grant in Early English, but again only in certain cases. I
quote from my article on these words in Notes and Queries, 4 Ser. ii.
127--'It really makes all the difference whether we are speaking of to
_grant_ a thing to a person, or to _grant_ that a thing may happen. "God
_lene_ thee grace," means "God _grant_ thee grace," where to grant is to
_impart_; but "God _leue_ we may do right" means "God _grant_ we may do
right," where to _grant_ is to permit.... Briefly, _lene_ requires _an
accusative case_ after it, _leue_ is followed by _a dependent clause_.'
_Lene_ occurs in Chaucer, Prol. A. 611, Milleres Tale, A. 3777, and
elsewhere. Examples of _leue_ in Chaucer are (1) in the present passage,
misprinted _lene_ by Tyrwhitt, Morris, Wright, and Bell, though five of our
MSS. have _leue_; (2) in the Freres Tale, D. 1644, printed _lene_ by
Tyrwhitt (l. 7226), _leene_ by Morris, _leeve_ by Wright and Bell; (3) (4)
(5) in three passages in Troilus and Criseyde (ii. 1212, iii. 56, v. 1750),
where Tyrwhitt prints _leve_, but unluckily recants his opinion in his
Glossary, whilst Morris prints _lene_. For other examples see Stratmann,
s. v. _lænan_ and _leven_.
It may be remarked that _leve_ in Old English has several other senses;
such as (1) to believe; (2) to live; (3) to leave; (4) to remain; (5)
leave, _sb._; (6) dear, _adj._ I give an example in which the first, sixth,
and third of these senses occur in one and the same line:--
'What! leuestow, leue lemman, that i the [_thee_] leue wold?'
Will. of Palerne, 2358.
1874. _Hugh of Lincoln._ The story of Hugh of Lincoln, a boy supposed to
have been murdered at Lincoln by the Jews, is placed by Matthew Paris under
the year 1255. Thynne, in his Animadversions upon Speght's editions of
Chaucer (p. 45 of the reprint of the E.E.T.S.), addresses Speght as
follows--'You saye, that in the 29 Henry iii. eightene Jewes were broughte
fro_m_ Lincolne, and hanged for crucyfyinge a childe of eight yeres olde.
Whiche facte was in the 39 Hen. iii., so that yo_u_ mighte verye well haue
sayed, that the same childe of eighte yeres olde was the same hughe of
Lincolne; of whiche name there were twoe, viz. thys younger Seinte Hughe,
and Seinte Hughe bishoppe of Lincolne, which dyed in the yere 1200, long
before this [182] little seinte hughe. And to prove that this childe of
eighte yeres olde and that yonge hughe of Lincolne were but one; I will
sett downe two auctoryties out of Mathewe Paris and Walsinghame, wherof the
fyrste wryteth, that in the yere of Christe 1255, being the 39 of Henry the
3, a childe called Hughe was sleyne by the Jewes at Lyncolne, whose
lamentable historye he delyvereth at large; and further, in the yere 1256,
being 40 Hen. 3, he sayeth, Dimissi sunt quieti 24 Judei á Turri London.,
qui ibidem infames tenebantur compediti pro crucifixione sancti Hugonis
Lincolniae: All which Thomas Walsingham, in Hypodigma Neustriae,
confirmeth: sayinge, Ao. 1255, Puer quidam Christianus, nomine Hugo, à
Judeis captus, in opprobriu_m_ Christiani nominis crudeliter est
crucifixus.' There are several ballads in French and English, on the
subject of Hugh of Lincoln, which were collected by M. F. Michel, and
published at Paris in 1834, with the title--'Hugues de Lincoln, Recueil de
Ballades Anglo-Normandes et Ecossoises relatives au Meurtre de cet Enfant.'
The day of St. Hugh, bishop of Lincoln, is Aug. 27; that of St. Hugh, boy
and martyr, is June 29. See also Brand's Pop. Antiq. ed. Ellis, i. 431. And
see vol. iii. p. 423.
1875. _With_, by. See numerous examples in Mätzner, Engl. Gram. ii. 1. 419,
amongst which we may especially notice--'Stolne is he _with_ Iues';
Towneley Mysteries, p. 290.