Five fadome or sixe, I trowe so,
But they were hye and grete also.'
We may here note the variation between ten foot or twelve and five fadom or six; the original has cinq toises, ou de sis. Other passages in the Book of the Duchesse which resemble the existing E. version of the Rom. of the Rose are these. (1) Book Duch. 424; cf. R. R. 1396. (2) Book Duch. 291; cf. R. R. 49. (3) Book Duch. 410; cf. R. R. 59. (4) Book Duch. 283; R. R. 7. (5) Book Duch. 340; R. R. 130. (6) Book Duch. 1152; R. R. 2084.
For a fuller discussion of this question, see the Pref. to Ch. Minor Poems, in vol. i. p. 1.
—A. [260]. Paramours seems to be an adverb here, meaning 'with a lover's affection.' So in the Kn. Tale, A 1155:—
'For par amour I loved hir first er thow.'
And again, in A 2112:—
'Ye knowen wel, that every lusty knight
That loveth paramours, and hath his might.'
So also in Troilus, v. 158, 332, and in Barbour's Bruce, xiii. 485—'he lufit his [Ross's] sistir paramouris.' Tyrwhitt quotes from Froissart, bk. i. c. 196—'Il aima adonc par amours, et depuis espousa, Madame Ysabelle de Juiliers.'