32. I suspect some corruption; MS. Sh. has The wyse eknytte, Ph. has The wise I-knyt, and ed. 1561 has The Wise, eknit. As it stands, it means—'Her surname moreover is the Fair Ruthless one, (or) the Wise one, united with Good Fortune.' Fair Ruthless is a translation of the French phrase La Belle Dame sans Merci, which occurs as the title of a poem once attributed to Chaucer. The Wise one, &c., means that she is wise and fortunate, and will not impair her good fortune by bestowing any thought upon her lover. Shirley often writes e for initial y-.
35. Almost identical with Anelida, 222—'More then myself, an hundred thousand sythe.'
36. Obviously corrupt; neither sound nor sense is good. Read:—'Than al this worldes richest (or riche) creature.' Creature may mean 'created thing.' Or scan by reading world's richéss'.
39. Cf. Kn. Tale, l. 380 (A 1238)—'Wel hath Fortune y-turned thee the dys.'
41. My swete fo. So in Anelida, l. 272; and cf. l. 64 below.
42, 43. Cf. Parl. of Foules, ll. 439, 440.
44. Ed. 1561 also reads In. Perhaps the original reading was Inwith. Moreover, the copies omit eek in l. 45, which I supply.
47-49. This remarkable statement re-appears twice elsewhere; see Parl. Foules, 90, 91, and note; and Compl. of Pite, ll. 99-104.
50. Repeated in Anelida, 237.