AGAINST VENEMOUS TONGUES.
Page 132. Psalm cxlij.] Vulg. cxix. 3.
Psal. lxvii.] Vulg. li. 7.
v. 4. Hoyning] “Hoigner. To grumble, mutter, murmure; to repine; also, to whyne as a child or dog.” Cotgrave’s Dict. “Hoi, a word vsed in driuing hogges,” says Minsheu; who proceeds to derive it “a Gr. κοΐ, quod est imitatio vocis porcellorum.” Guide into Tongues.
—— groynis] See note, p. 180. v. 2.
—— wrotes] i. e. roots.
Page 132. v. 2. made ... a windmil of an olde mat] The same expression occurs again in our author’s Magnyfycence, v. 1040. vol. i. 258.
v. 4. commaunde] i. e. commend.
—— Cok wat] See note, p. 108. v. 173.
Page 133. v. 2. lack] i. e. fault, blame.
v. 3. In your crosse rowe nor Christ crosse you spede]—crosse rowe, i. e. alphabet; so called, it is commonly said, because a cross was prefixed to it, or perhaps because it was written in the form of a cross. See Nares’s Gloss. in v. Christ-cross. Christ crosse you spede alludes to some other elementary form of instruction:
“How long agoo lerned ye Crist crosse me spede?”
Lydgate’s Prohemy of a mariage, &c.,—MS. Harl. 372. fol. 50.
and see title of a poem cited p. 167. v. 296.
v. 7. cognisaunce] i. e. badge.
v. 1. scole] i. e. school, teaching.
—— haute] i. e. high, lofty.
v. 2. faute] i. e. fault.
v. 2. faitours] Has been explained before (see p. 91. v. 172)—deceivers, dissemblers; and is rendered by Tyrwhitt (Gloss. to Chaucer’s Cant. Tales), lazy, idle fellows; but here the word seems to be used as a general term of reproach,—scoundrels.
—— half straught] i. e. half in their senses.
v. 4. liddrous] See note, p. 193. v. 146.
—— lewde] i. e. ignorant, vile.
v. 3. vale of bonet of their proude sayle]—vale, i. e. lower: bonet means a small sail attached to the larger sails.
v. 4. ill hayle] See note, p. 176. v. 617.
Page 134. v. 4. vntayde] i. e. untied, loose.
—— renning] i. e. running.
v. 7. lewdly alowed] i. e., perhaps, ignorantly approved of.
v. 9. vertibilite] i. e. variableness.
v. 10. folabilite] i. e. folly.
v. 12. coarte] i. e. coarct, constrain.
v. 13. hay the gy of thre] Perhaps an allusion to the dance called heydeguies (a word variously spelt).
v. 2. Pharaotis] i. e. (I suppose) Pharaoh.
v. 1. vnhappy] i. e. mischievous.
Page 135. v. 2. atame] i. e. tame.
v. 1. tratlers] i. e. prattlers, tattlers.
v. 3. Scalis Malis] i. e. Cadiz. “The tounes men of Caleis, or Caleis males, sodainly rong their common bell,” &c. Hall’s Chronicle (Hen. viii.), fol. xiii. ed. 1548. “His fortunatest piece I esteem the taking of Cadiz Malez.” A Parallel of the Earl of Essex and the Duke of Buckingham,—Reliquiæ Wottonianæ, p. 177. ed. 1672.
Page 135. v. 4. nut shalis] i. e. nutshells.
v. 7. ren] i. e. run.
—— lesinges] i. e. falsehoods.
v. 8. wrate suche a bil] i. e. wrote such a letter.
v. 10. ill apayed] i. e. ill pleased, ill satisfied.
v. 1. hight] i. e. is called.
v. 2. quight] i. e. requite.
v. 5. Although he made it neuer so tough] The expression, to make it tough, i. e. to make difficulties, occurs frequently, and with several shades of meaning, in our early writers; see R. of Gloucester’s Chronicle, p. 510. ed. Hearne, and the various passages cited in Tyrwhitt’s Gloss. to Chaucer’s Cant. Tales in v. Tough. Palsgrave has “I Make it tough I make it coye as maydens do or persons that be strange if they be asked a questyon.” Lesclar. de la Lang. Fr., 1530. fol. ccxcii. (Table of Verbes).