734. _cheste._ Mr. Jephson (in Bell's edition) is puzzled here. He takes
_cheste_ to mean a coffin, which is certainly the sense in the Clerk's
Prologue, E. 29. The simple solution is that _cheste_ refers here, not to a
coffin, but to the box for holding clothes which, in olden times, almost
invariably stood in every bedroom, at the foot of the bed. 'At the foot of
the bed there was usually an iron-bound hutch or locker, which served both
as a seat, and as a repository for the apparel and wealth of the owner,
who, sleeping with his sword by his side, was prepared to protect it
against the midnight thief'; Our English Home, p. 101. It was also called a
coffer, a hutch, or an ark. The old man is ready, in fact, to exchange his
chest, containing all his worldly gear, for a single hair-cloth, to be used
as his shroud.
743. In the margin of MSS. E. Hn. and Pt. is the quotation 'Coram canuto
capite consurge,' from Levit. xix. 32. Hence we must understand _Agayns_,
in l. 743, to mean _before_, or _in presence of_. Cf. B. 3702.
748. _God be with you_ is said, with probability, to have been the original
of our modern unmeaning _Good bye!_ _go or ryde_, a general phrase for
locomotion; _go_ here means _walk_. Cp. 'ryde or go,' Kn. Tale, A. 1351.
Cf. note to l. 866.
771. The readings are:--E. Hn. Cm. _an .viij._; Ln. _a .vij._; Cp. Pt. Hl.
_a seuen_. The word _eighte_ is dissyllabic; cf. A. S. _eahta_, Lat.
_octo_. _Wel ny an eighte busshels_ = very nearly the quantity of eight
bushels. The mention of _florins_ is quite in keeping with the Italian
character of the poem. Those coins were so named because originally coined
at Florence, the first coinage being in 1252; note in Cary's Dante,
Inferno, c. xxx. The expression 'floreyn of florence' occurs in The Book of
Quintessence, ed. Furnivall, p. 6. The value of an English florin was 6s.
8d.; see note to Piers Plowman, B. ii. 143. There is an excellent note on
_florins_ in Thynne's Animadversions on Speght's Chaucer, ed. Furnivall, p.
45.
781. In allusion to the old proverb--'Lightly come, lightly go.' Cotgrave,
s. v. _Fleute_, gives the corresponding French proverb thus:--'Ce qui est
venu par la fleute s'en retourne avec le tabourin; that the pipe hath
gathered, the tabour scattereth; goods ill gotten are commonly ill spent.'
In German--'wie gewonnen, so zerronnen.'
782. _wende_, would have weened, would have supposed. It is the past tense
subjunctive.
790. _doon us honge_, lit. cause (men) to hang us; we should now say, cause
us to be hanged. 'The Anglo-Saxons nominally punished theft with death, if
above 12d. value; but the criminal could redeem [289] his life by a ransom.
In the 9th of Henry I. this power of redemption was taken away, 1108. The
punishment of theft was very severe in England, till mitigated by Peel's
Acts, 9 and 10 Geo. IV. 1829.'--Haydn, s. v. _Theft_.
793. To _draw cuts_ is to draw lots; see Prologue, 835, 838, 845. A number
of straws were held by one of the company; the rest drew one apiece, and
whoever drew the longest (or the shortest) was the one on whom the lot
fell. The fatal straw was the _cut_; cf. Welsh _cwtws_, a lot. In France,
the lot fell on him who drew the longest straw; so that their phrase
was--'tirer la longue paille.'
797. So in the Italian story--'rechi del pane e del vino,' let him fetch
bread and wine.
806-894. Here Chaucer follows the general sense of the Italian story rather
closely, but with certain amplifications.