6024. 'They act like fools who are outrageous,' i. e. they act foolishly. F. 'Il ne feront mie que sage'; which seems to mean just the contrary.
6025. forsworn, with trilled r, seems to be trisyllabic; see note to l. 5978. But it is better to read forsworen.
6026. Ne lette, nor cease. Cf. l. 5967. But read let, pp. prevented.
6027. piment is much the same as clarree; in fact, in l. 5967, where the E. has clarree, the F. text has piment. Tyrwhitt says, s. v. clarre; 'wine mixed with honey and spices, and afterwards strained till it is clear. It is otherwise called Piment, as appears from the title of the following receipt, in the Medulla Cirurgiae Rolandi, MS. Bodl. 761, fol. 86: Claretum bonum, sive Pigmentum,' &c., shewing that piment is spiced wine, with a third part of honey; see Piment in Halliwell.
6033. vicaire, deputy. In Méon's edition, the F. text has: 'Ja n'i querés autres victaires'; but Kaluza quotes five MSS. that read vicaires.
6037. Lat ladies worche, let ladies deal.
6044. 'Shall there never remain to them' (F. demorra).
6057. This, a common contraction for This is; cf. E. 'tis; see 3548.
6068. King of harlots; F. 'rois des ribaus.' The sense is 'king of rascals.' There is a note on the subject in Méon's edition. It quotes Fauchet, Origine des Dignités, who says that the roi des ribauds was an officer of the king's palace, whose duty it was to clear out of it the men of bad character who had no business to be there. M. Méon quotes an extract from an order of the household of king Philippe, A.D. 1290:—'Le Roy des Ribaus, vi. d. de gages, une provende de xl. s. pour robbe pour tout l'an, et mengera à court et n'aura point de livraison.'
It further appears that the title of Roi des ribaus was often jocularly conferred on any conspicuous vagabond; as e.g. on the chief of a gang of strolling minstrels. See the note at p. 369 of Political Songs, ed. T. Wright, where it is shewn that the ribaldi were usually 'the lowest class of retainers, who had no other mode of living than following the courts of the Barons, and who were employed on all kinds of disgraceful and wicked actions.' The word harlot had, in Middle English, a similar sense.