'Stat _ferri acies_ mucrone corusco
_Stricta_, parata neci.'
4548. See Aeneid, ii. 550-553.
4553. _Hasdrubal_; not Hannibal's brother, but the King of Carthage when
the Romans burnt it, B.C. 146. Hasdrubal slew himself; and his wife and her
two sons burnt themselves in despair; see Orosius, iv. 13. 3, or Ælfred's
translation, ed. Sweet, p. 212. Lydgate has the story in his Fall of
Princes, bk. v. capp. 12 and 27.
4573. See note to Ho. Fame, 1277 (in vol. iii. p. 273). '_Colle_ furit';
Morley, Eng. Writers, 1889, iv. 179.
4584. Walsingham relates how, in 1381, Jakke Straw and his men killed many
Flemings 'cum clamore consueto.' He also speaks of the noise made by the
rebels as 'clamor horrendissimus.' See _Jakke_ in [258] Tyrwhitt's
Glossary. So also, in Riley's Memorials of London, p. 450, it is said, with
respect to the same event--'In the Vintry was a very great massacre of
Flemings.'
4590. _houped._ See Piers Plowman, B. vi. 174; '_houped_ after Hunger, that
herde hym,' &c.
4616. Repeated in D. 1062.
4633. 'Mes retiengnent le grain et jettent hors la paille'; Test. de Jean
de Meun, 2168.
4635. _my Lord._ A side-note in MS. E. explains this to refer to the
Archbishop of Canterbury; doubtless William Courtenay, archbishop from 1381
to 1396. Cf. note to l. 4584, which shews that this Tale is later than
1381; and it was probably earlier than 1396. Note that _good men_ is
practically a compound, as in l. 4630. Hence read _good_, not _g[=o]d-e_.