2741. All the copies have _power_; but, as Mätzner remarks, we should read
_poverte_; the Fr. text has _povrete_.
2743. _Richesses ben goode_; the Lat. text here quotes 1 Tim. iv. 4.
2744. 'Homo sine pecunia est quasi corpus sine anima' is written on a
fly-leaf of a MS.; see my Pref. to P. Plowman, C-text, p. xx.
2746. All the MSS. have _Pamphilles_ instead of _Pamphilus_. The allusion
is to Pamphilus Maurilianus, who wrote a poem, well-known in the fourteenth
century, entitled _Liber de Amore_, which is extant in MSS. (e.g. in MS.
Bodley 3703) and has been frequently printed. Tyrwhitt cites the lines here
alluded to from the Bodley MS.
'Dummodo sit diues cuiusdam nata bubulci,
Eligit e mille, quem libet, illa uirum.'
Sundby quotes the same (with _ipsa_ for _illa_) from the Paris edition of
1510, fol. a iiii, recto. Chaucer again refers to Pamphilus in F. 1110, on
which see the note.
2748. This quotation is not in the Latin text, and is certainly not from
Pamphilus; but closely follows Ovid's lines in his Tristia, i. 9. 5:--
'Donec eris felix, multos numerabis amicos;
Tempora si fuerint nubila, solus eris.'
See notes to B. 120 and B. 3436.
2751. Neither is this from Pamphilus, but from some author quoted by Petrus
Alfonsi, Discip. Cler. vi. 4, who says:--'ait quidam uersificator,
Clarificant [_al._ Glorificant] gazae priuatos nobilitate.'
2752. We know, from the Lat. text, that there is here an allusion to
Horace, Epist. i. 6. 37:--
'Et genus et formam regina pecunia donat.'
2754. The Lat. text has _mater criminum_, and the Fr. text, _mere des
crimes_. It is clear that Chaucer has misread _ruines_ for _crimes_, or his
MS. was corrupt; and he has attempted an explanation by subjoining a gloss
of his own--'that is to seyn ... overthrowinge or fallinge doun.' The
reference is to Cassiodorus, Variarum lib. ix. epist. 13:--'Ut dum _mater
criminum_ necessitas tollitur, peccandi ambitus auferatur.'
2756. 'Est una de aduersitatibus huius saeculi grauioribus libero homini,
quod necessitate cogitur, ut sibi subueniat, requirere inimicum'; Petrus
Alfonsi, Disciplina Clericalis, iv. 4.
2758. Lat. text:--'O miserabilis mendicantis conditio! Nam, si petit,
pudore confunditur; et si non petit, egestate consumitur; sed ut [220]
mendicet necessitate compellitur'; Innocentius III (Papa), De Contemptu
Mundi, lib. i. c. 16. See note to B. 99, at p. 142.
2761. 'Melius est enim mori quam indigere'; Ecclus. xl. 29; cf. A. V.,
Ecclus. xl. 28. See note to B. 114, at p. 142.
2762. 'Melior est mors quam uita amara'; Ecclus. xxx. 17. The Fr. text
has:--'Mieulx vault la mort amere que telle vie'; where, as in Chaucer, the
adjective is shifted.
2765. _How ye shul have yow_, how you ought to behave yourself. In fact,
_behave_ is merely a compound of _be-_ and _have_.
2766. _Sokingly_, gradually. In the Prompt. Parv. we find 'Esyly, or
_sokyngly_, Sensim, paulatim.' And compare the following:--'Domitius
Corbulo vsed muche to saie, that a mannes enemies in battaill are to be
ouercomed (_sic_) with a carpenters squaring-axe, that is to saie,
_sokingly_, one pece after another. A common axe cutteth through at the
first choppe; a squaring-axe, by a little and a little, werketh the same
effecte.'--Udall, tr. of Erasmus' Apophthegmes, Julius Caesar, § 32.
2768. From Prov. xxviii. 20.
2769. From Prov. xiii. 11.
2773. Not in the Latin text.
2775. 'Detrahere igitur alteri aliquid, et hominem hominis incommodo suum
augere commodum, magis est contra naturam, quam mors, quam paupertas, quam
dolor, quam cetera, quae possunt aut corpori accidere aut rebus externis';
Cicero, De Officiis, iii. 5.
2779. 'For idleness teacheth much evil'; Ecclus. xxxiii. 27.
2780. From Prov. xxviii. 19; cf. xii. 11.
2783. Cf. Prov. xx. 4.