1. I do not follow Ten Brink in putting a comma after so. He says: 'That so refers to the verb [sought] and not to yore ago, is evident from l. 3. Compare the somewhat different l. 93.' I hope it shews no disrespect to a great critic if I say that I am not at all confident that the above criticism is correct; l. 93 rather tells against it. Observe the reading of l. 117 in MS. Sh. (in the footnotes, p. [276]).
4. With-oute dethe, i. e. without actually dying.
Shal not, am not to.
7. Doth me dye, makes me die.
9. Ever in oon, continually, constantly, always in the same way; cf. Cant. Tales, E 602, 677, F 417.
11. Me awreke. 'The e of me is elided'; Ten Brink. He compares also Cant. Ta. Prol. 148; (the correct reading of which is, probably—
'But sorë weep sche if oon of hem were deed';
the e of sche being slurred over before i in if). He also refers to the Prioresses Tale (B 1660), where thalighte = thee alighte; and to the Second Nonnes Tale (G 32), where do me endyte is to be read as do mendyte. Cf. note to A B C, l. 8.
14. The notion of Pity being 'buried in a heart' is awkward, and introduces an element of confusion. If Pity could have been buried out of the heart, and thus separated from it, the whole would have been a great deal clearer. This caution is worth paying heed to; for it will really be found, further on, that the language becomes confused in consequence of this very thing. In the very next line, for example, the hearse of Pity appears, and in l. 19 the corpse of Pity; in fact, Pity is never fairly buried out of sight throughout the poem.