141. Governeresse; copied from the French text, l. 214. This rare word occurs, as the last word, in a poem beginning 'Mother of norture, printed in the Aldine Edition of Chaucer's Poems, vi. 275. Chaucer himself uses it again in the Complaint to Pity, l. 80 (p. [275]).
144. Compare the expressions Regina Celi, Veni coronaberis, 'Heil crowned queene,' and the like; Polit., Religious, and Love Poems, ed. Furnivall, p. 147; Hymns to the Virgin, ed. Furnivall, pp. 1, 4. Suggested by Rev. xii. 1.
146. Koch notes that the reading depriued arose from its substitution for the less familiar form priued.
150. The reference is, obviously, to Gen. iii. 18; but thorns here mean sins. Cf. 'Des espines d'iniquite'; F. text, l. 224.
158. Copied from the French, l. 239—'Ou tu a la court m'ajournes.' It means 'fix a day for me to appear at thy court,' cite me to thy court.
159. Not in the original. Chaucer was thinking of the courts of the Common Bench and King's Bench, as mentioned, for example, in Wyclif's Works, ed. Arnold, iii. 215.
161. The word Xristus, i. e. Christus, is written Xpc (with a mark of contraction) in MSS. C., Gl., Gg., and Xpūs in F. Xpc is copied from the French; but it is very common, being the usual contracted form of the Gk. Χριστός, or, in capital letters, XPICTOC, obtained by taking the two first and the last letters. The old Greek sigma was written C; as above. De Deguileville could think of no French word beginning with X; so he substituted for it the Greek chi, which resembled it in form.
163, 164. These lines answer to ll. 243, 247 of the French; 'For me He had His side pierced; for me His blood was shed.' Observe that the word Christus has no verb following it; it is practically an objective case, governed by thanke in l. 168. 'I thank thee because of Christ and for what He has done for me.' In l. 163, the word suffre is understood from the line above, and need not be repeated. Unfortunately, all the scribes have repeated it, to the ruin of the metre; for the line then contains two syllables too many. However, it is better omitted. Longius is trisyllabic, and herte (as in the next line) is dissyllabic. The sense is—'to suffer His passion on the cross, and also (to suffer) that Longius should pierce His heart, and make,' &c. Pighte, made, are in the subjunctive. The difficulty really resides in the word that in l. 161. If Chaucer had written eek instead of it, the whole could be parsed.
Koch reads 'Dreygh eek' for 'And eek,' in l. 163, where 'Dreygh' means 'endured.' But I do not think Dreygh could be used in this connection, with the word that following it.