[189] Games which we now leave to children were formerly as popular with grown-up people. Hunt-the-slipper and blind-man’s-buff were 200 years ago the common recreation of ladies and gentlemen, and wrestling and other romping was indulged in far more commonly than now by young men. Playing at ball was a favourite pastime.
[190] Tyrwhitt. Outrely, utterly, beyond all things. Vide the French—outre mesure, beyond measure. The common mediæval expressions, ‘out of measure,’ ‘out of doubt,’ were probably from the same word, outre = beyond.
[191] Tyrwhitt.
[192] Cast, as in ‘cast a nativity,’ means fix upon, arrange, discover.
[193] Tyrwhitt.
[194] Avicen, Ebn Sina, an Arabian physician of the 10th century. Fen, apparently an Arabic word, is the name given to the sections of Avicenna’s great work on physic, entitled Canun.—Tyrwhitt.
[195] A play on the word: light meant also fickle or untrue.
[196] Tyrwhitt has treasure; Morris has tresorere, treasurer. The former seems the most appropriate to a lady-love. A similar expression is found in ‘Li Congiés Adan d’Aras’ (MS. de la Vallière, No. 2736 Bibl. Imp.), ‘De mon cuer serós tresoriere.’
[197] Bereft of money as a friar’s tonsure is of hair.
[198] Bell’s edition reads tene, taken.