4242. A common proverb. Skelton, ed. Dyce, i. 50, has 'I drede mordre wolde
come oute.'
4274. _And preyde him his viáge for to lette_, And prayed him to abandon
his journey. [254]
4275. _to abyde_, to stay where he was.
4279. _my thinges_, my business-matters.
4300. 'Kenelm succeeded his father Kenulph on the throne of the Mercians in
821 [Haydn, Book of Dates, says 819] at the age of seven years, and was
murdered by order of his aunt, Quenedreda. He was subsequently made a
saint, and his legend will be found in Capgrave, or in the Golden
Legend.'--Wright.
St. Kenelm's day is Dec. 13. Alban Butler, in his Lives of the Saints,
says:--[Kenulph] 'dying in 819, left his son Kenelm, a child only seven
years old [see l. 4307] heir to his crown, under the tutelage of his sister
Quindride. This ambitious woman committed his person to the care of one
Ascobert, whom she had hired to make away with him. The wicked minister
decoyed the innocent child into an unfrequented wood, cut off his head, and
buried him under a thorn-tree. His corpse is said to have been discovered
by a heavenly ray of light which shone over the place, and by the following
inscription:--
In Clent cow-pasture, under a thorn,
Of head bereft, lies Kenelm, king born.'
Milton tells the story in his History of Britain, bk. iv. ed. 1695, p. 218,
and refers us to Matthew of Westminster. He adds that the 'inscription' was
inside a note, which was miraculously dropped by a dove on the altar at
Rome. Our great poet's verson of it is:--
'Low in a Mead of Kine, under a thorn,
Of Head bereft, li'th poor _Kenelm_ King-born.'
Clent is near the boundary between Staffordshire and Worcestershire.
Neither of these accounts mentions Kenelm's dream, but it is given in his
Life, as printed in Early Eng. Poems, ed. Furnivall (Phil. Soc. 1862), p.
51, and in Caxton's Golden Legend. St. Kenelm dreamt that he saw a noble
tree with waxlights upon it, and that he climbed to the top of it;
whereupon one of his best friends cut it down, and he was turned into a
little bird, and flew up to heaven. The little bird denoted his soul, and
the flight to heaven his death.
4307. _For traisoun_, i. e. for fear of treason.
4314. _Cipioun._ The Somnium Scipionis of Cicero, as annotated by
Macrobius, was a favourite work during the middle ages. See note to l. 31
of the Parl. of Foules.
4328. See the Monkes Tale, B. 3917, and the note, p. 246.
4331. _Lo heer Andromacha._ Andromache's dream is not to be found in Homer.
It is mentioned in chapter xxiv. of Dares Phrygius, the authority for the
history of the Trojan war most popular in the middle ages. See the
Troy-book, ed. Panton and Donaldson (E.E.T.S.), l. 8425; or Lydgate's Siege
of Troye, c. 27.
4341. _as for conclusioun_, in conclusion.
4344. _telle ... no store_, set no store by them; reckon them of no value;
count them as useless.