1367. _bryberý-es_ (four syllables), i. e. modes of robbery. So in MSS. Hn.
Cm. Cp. MSS. Hl. Pt. Ln. have _bribours_, which will not scan, unless (as
in Hl.) we also read _Certeinly_, giving a line defective in the first
foot. Tyrwhitt inserts _many_ before _mo_, to fill up the line. [325]
1369. _dogge for the bowe_, a dog used to accompany an archer, to follow up
a stricken deer; see the next line. The docility of such a dog is alluded
to in E. 2014.
1373. 'And, because such acquaintance brought him in the chief part of all
his income.'
1377. _ribybe._ In l. 1573, she is called 'an old _rebekke_.' So in
Skelton's Elinour Rummyng, l. 492:--'There came an old _rybybe_.' And Ben
Jonson speaks of 'some good _ribibe_ ... you would hang now for a witch';
The Devil is an Ass, i. 1. 16. But probably Skelton and Ben Jonson merely
took the word from Chaucer. A _ribybe_ was, properly, a two-stringed
Moorish fiddle; see note to A. 3331. Gifford's note on the passage in Ben
Jonson, says:--'_Ribibe_, together with its synonym _rebeck_, is merely a
cant term for an old woman. A ribibe, the reader knows, is a rude kind of a
fiddle, and the allusion is, probably, to the inharmonious nature of its
sounds.' Halliwell suggests some (improbable) confusion between _vetula_
and _vitula_.
I suspect that this old joke, for such it clearly is, arose in a very
different way, viz. from a pun upon _rebekke_, a fiddle, and _Rebekke_, a
married woman, from the mention of _Rebecca_ in the marriage-service. For
Chaucer himself notices the latter in E. 1704, which see. Observe that the
form _rebekke_, as applied to the fiddle, is a corrupt one, though it is
found in other languages. See _rebebe_ in Godefroy's O. F. Dictionary, and
_rebec_ in Littré.
1378. _Cause_ and _wolde_ are dissyllabic; and _brybe_, to rob, is a verb.
But the editors ignore such elementary facts. The old editions insert _haue
a_ before _brybe_; and the modern editions insert _han a_; which, as Wright
observes, is not to be found in the MSS!
1381. See A. 103, 104, 108; and, for _courtepy_, A. 290.
1382. _hadde upon_, had on; cf. D. 559, 1018.
1384. 'Well overtaken, well met.' So in Partonope of Blois, 6390: 'Syr,
_wele atake_!' Cf. G. 556.
1394. _for the name_, because of the disgrace attaching to the very name.
The Friar is severe.
1405. _sworn-e_, a plural form; the word _sworn_ being here used
adjectivally. See note to A. 1132, p. 66.
1408. _venim_, spite. _wariangles_, shrikes. According to C. Swainson
(Provincial Names of British Birds), this is the Red-backed Shrike (_Lanius
collurio_), called in Yorkshire the Weirangle or Wariangle. Some make it
the Great Grey Shrike (_Lanius excubitor_). Thus Ray, in his Provincial
Words, ed. 1674, p. 83, gives _warringle_ as a name for the Great
Butcher-bird in the Peak of Derbyshire. 'This Bird,' says Willughby, 'in
the North of England is called _Wierangle_, a name, it seems, common to us
with the Germans, who (as Gesner witnesseth) about Strasburg, Frankfort,
and elsewhere, call it _Werkangel_ or _Warkangel_, perchance (saith he) as
it were _Wurchangel_, which literally rendered signifies "a suffocating
angel."' So also, the mod. G. name is _Würgengel_, as if from _würgen_ and
_Engel_. But this is a form [326] due to popular etymology, as will
presently appear. Cotgrave has '_Pie engrouée_, a Wariangle, or a small
Woodpecker'; but a wariangle is really a Shrike; indeed Cotgrave also has:
'_Arneat_, the ravenous birde called a Shrike, Nynmurder, Wariangle'; which
is correct. In the Wars of Alexander, ed. Skeat, l. 1706, the word
_wayryngle_ occurs as a term of abuse, signifying 'a little villain'; this
is probably the same word, and answers to a dimin. form of A. S. _wearg_
(Icel. _vargr_, O. H. G. _warg_, _warc_), a felon, with the suffix
_-incel_, as seen in A. S. _r[=a]p-incel_, a little rope, _h[=u]s-incel_, a
little house. Bradley cites, as parallel forms, the O. H. G. _warchengil_
(see below), and the M. L. G. _wargingel_, which are probably formed in a
similar way. The epithet 'little felon' or 'little murderer' agrees with
other names for the shrike, viz. 'butcher-bird,' 'murdering-bird,'
'nine-murder,' nine-killer,' so called because it impales beetles and small
birds on thorns, for the purpose of pulling them to pieces. This is why I
take _venim_ to mean 'spite' rather than 'poison' in this passage.
Schmeller, in his Bavarian Dict., ii. 999, says that the _Lanius excubitor_
is called, in O. H. G. glosses, _Warchengel_ (Graff, i. 349); also
_Wargengel_, _Würgengel_, and _Würger_.
1413. _north contree._ This is a sly joke, because, in the old Teutonic
mythology, hell was supposed to be in the _north_. Wright refers us, for
this belief, to his St. Patrick's Purgatory. See my note to P. Plowman, C.
ii. 111, about Lucifer's sitting _in the north_; cf. Isaiah, xiv. 13, 14;
Milton, P. L. v. 755-760; Myrour of our Lady, ed. Blunt, p. 189. In the
Icelandic Gylfaginning, we find--'niðr ok norðr liggr Helvegr,' i. e.
downwards and northwards lies the way to hell. Cf. l. 1448.
1428. _laborous_ is right; _offyc-e_ is trisyllabic.
1436. A proverbial expression; still in use in Lancashire and elsewhere;
see N. and Q., 7 S. x. 446, 498. Cf. 'a taker and a bribing [robbing]
feloe, and one for whom nothing was _to hotte nor to heauie_.' Udall, tr.
of Erasmus' Apophthegmes; Cicero, § 50.
'Their loues they on the tenter-hookes did racke,
Rost, boyl'd, bak'd, too too much white, claret, sacke,
Nothing they thought _too heavy nor too hot_,
Canne followed Canne, and pot succeeded pot.'
John Taylor; Pennilesse Pilgrimage.
Of course the sense is--'too hot to hold.' Tyrwhitt quotes a similar phrase
from Froissart, v. i. c. 229, 'ne laissoient riens a prendre, s'il n'estoit
_trop chaud_, trop froid, ou _trop pesant_.'