387. fret, for freteth, devours. 'Tempus edax rerum'; Ovid, Met. xv. 234. and shal, and will ever do so. thing is pl., as in 206.
396. Bell and Morris here print elde with a capital letter, shewing that they did not make out the sense. But it is here a verb, as in 391, 392. The sense is:—'Time ... had made her grow so extremely old that, as far as I knew, she could in no wise help herself.'
401. inwith, for within, is common in Chaucer; the occurrence of pith, just before, probably caused the scribe to omit with.
413. doon ther write, caused to be written (or described) there.
415. Pope-holy; properly an adjective, meaning 'holy as a pope,' hence, hypocritical. Here used as a sb., as equivalent to 'hypocrite,' to translate F. Papelardie. Used as an adj. in P. Plowman, C. vii. 37; see my note, which gives references to Dyce's Skelton, i. 209, 216, 240, 386; Barclay, Ship of Fools, ed. Jamieson, i. 154; and Polit. Poems, ed. Wright, ii. 251.
429. 'Devoted to a religious life,' viz. by having joined one of the religious orders. See note to P. Plowman, C. xi. 88.
438. haire, hair-shirt; the F. text has la haire, borrowed from O. H. G. hārrā, with the same sense. The A. S. word is hǣre, a derivative from hǣr, hair. See Haar in Kluge. See Cant. Ta., G 133; P. Plowman, C. vii. 6, and the note.
442. The reading ay possibly stands for aȝ, i. e. agh or ogh. Ogh (A. S. āh) is the (obsolete) pres. t. of ought, which takes its place in mod. E. Cf. ye owen, in Melibeus, B 2691. See ah in Stratmann. 'From her the gate of Paradise ought to be kept.' But it is simpler to read shal (F. text, ert = Lat. erit).
445. Alluding to Matt. vi. 16. For grace, read face (l. 444).
454. Cf. 'like a worm'; Clerkes Ta. E 880.