Seized. ↩
Tortured. ↩
Racked. ↩
Confessed. ↩
I am not prating idly, or lying. ↩
As they wish. ↩
Prepared, resolved. ↩
Dreamed. ↩
Depart. ↩
Delay. ↩
Dismay. ↩
Transact my business. ↩
Dreams. ↩
Tricks. ↩
Incoherent, wild imagining. ↩
Spend or lose in sloth, loiter away. ↩
Time. ↩
I am sorry for thee. ↩
By an accident. ↩
Time. ↩
Learn. ↩
Kenelm succeeded his father as king of the Saxon realm of Mercia in 811, at the age of seven years; but he was slain by his ambitious aunt Quendrada. The place of his burial was miraculously discovered, and he was subsequently elevated to the rank of a saint and martyr. His life is in the English Golden Legend. ↩
The kingdom of Mercia; Anglo-Saxon, Myrcnarice. Compare the second member of the compound in the German, Frankreich, France; Oesterreich, Austria. ↩
Saw. ↩
Nurse. ↩
In all points. ↩
Guard. ↩
Little significance has he attached to. ↩
Cicero (De Republica, lib. VI) wrote the Dream of Scipio, in which the Younger relates the appearance of the Elder Africanus, and the counsels and exhortations which the shade addressed to the sleeper. Macrobius wrote an elaborate Commentary on the Dream of Scipio—a philosophical treatise much studied and relished during the Middle Ages. ↩
Significance. ↩
Realms. ↩
Lost. Andromache’s dream will not be found in Homer; It is related in the book of the fictitious Dares Phrygius, the most popular authority during the Middle Ages for the history of the Trojan War. ↩
Hold laxatives of no value. ↩
Distrust. ↩
Not a whit. ↩
Cease. ↩
Liberal. ↩
Certain. ↩
This line is taken from the same fabulous conference between the Emperor Adrian and the philosopher Secundus, whence Chaucer derived some of the arguments in praise of poverty employed in the “Wife of Bath’s Tale” proper. See note 2116. The passage transferred to the text is the commencement of a description of woman. “Quid est mulier? hominis confusio,” etc. ↩
Meaning. ↩
Delight. ↩
Natural instinct. ↩
Learning. ↩
Voice. ↩
Assuredly. ↩
Casualty. ↩
Rhetorician, orator. ↩
A thing supremely notable. ↩
A blackish fox, so called because of its likeness to coal, according to Skinner; though more probably the prefix has a reproachful meaning, and is in some way connected with the word “cold” as, some forty lines below, it is applied to the prejudicial counsel of women, and as frequently it is used to describe “sighs” and other tokens of grief, and “cares” or “anxieties.” ↩
Dwelt. ↩
Burst. ↩
Cabbages. ↩
In this case, the meaning of “evening” or “afternoon” can hardly be applied to the word, which must be taken to signify some early hour of the forenoon. ↩
Crouching. ↩
Rafters. ↩
Foreknows. ↩
Examine the matter thoroughly; a metaphor taken from the sifting of meal, to divide the fine flour from the bran. ↩
Thomas Bradwardine, Archbishop of Canterbury in the thirteenth century, who wrote a book, De Causa Dei, in controversy with Pelagius; and also numerous other treatises, among them some on predestination. ↩
Foreknowledge. ↩
Of inevitable necessity. ↩
Foreknows. ↩
Knowledge. ↩
Constrains, necessitates. ↩
Not at all. ↩
Mischievous, unwise. ↩
Know not. ↩
Jest. ↩
Conjecture, imagine. ↩
Bask. ↩
Certainly. ↩
In a popular mediaveal Latin treatise by one Theobaldus, entitled Physiologus de Naturis XII Animalium, sirens or mermaids are described as skilled in song, and drawing unwary mariners to destruction by the sweetness of their voices. ↩
Cabbages. ↩
Then he had no inclination. ↩
Enemy. ↩
Never before. ↩
Voice. ↩
Satisfaction. ↩
Enjoy, possess, or use. ↩
Make such an exertion. ↩
“Nigellus Wireker,” says Urry’s Glossary, “a monk and precentor of Canterbury, wrote a Latin poem intituled ‘Speculum Speculorum,’ dedicated to William Longchamp, Bishop of Ely, and Lord Chancellor; wherein, under the fable of an Ass (which he calls ‘Burnellus’) that desired a longer tail, is represented the folly of such as are not content with their own condition. There is introduced a tale of a cock, who having his leg broke by a priest’s son (called Gundulfus) watched an opportunity to be revenged; which at
