En Mai estoie, ce songoie.'
And again, cf. ll. 295, &c. with the same, ll. 67-74. See pp. 95, 96.
301. Read songen, not songe, to avoid the hiatus.
304. Chaucer uses som as a singular in such cases as the present. A clear case occurs in 'Som in his bed'; Kn. Tale, 2173. (C. T. A 3031.) Hence song is the sing. verb.
309. Entunes, tunes. Cf. entuned, pp.; C. T. Prol. 123.
310. Tewnes, Tunis; vaguely put for some distant and wealthy town; see ll. 1061-4, below. Its name was probably suggested by the preceding word entunes, which required a rime. Gower mentions Kaire (Cairo) just as vaguely:—
'That me were lever her love winne
Than Kaire and al that is therinne'; Conf. Amant, ed. Pauli, ii. 57.
The sense is—'that certainly, even to gain Tunis, I would not have (done other) than heard them sing.' Lange thinks these lines corrupt; but I believe the idiom is correct.