1128. This debate is an imitation of the longer debate (in the Teseide), where Palamon and Arcite meet in the grove; cf. l. 1580 below.
1129. It nere = it were not, it would not be.
1132. 'It was a common practice in the middle ages for persons to take formal oaths of fraternity and friendship; and a breach of the oath was considered something worse than perjury. This incident enters into the plots of some of the medieval romances. A curious example will be found in the Romance of Athelston; Reliquiæ Antiquæ, ii. 85.'—Wright. A note in Bell's Chaucer reminds us that instances occur also in the old heroic times; as in the cases of Theseus and Peirithous, Achilles and Patroclus, Pylades and Orestes, Nysus and Euryalus. See Sworn Brothers in Nares' Glossary; Rom. of the Rose, 2884.
1133. 'That never, even though it cost us a miserable death, a death by torture.' So in Troilus, i. 674: 'That certayn, for to deyen in the peyne.' Also in the E. version of The Romaunt of the Rose, 3326.
1134. 'Till that death shall part us two.' Cf. the ingenious alteration in the Marriage Service, where the phrase 'till death us depart' was altered into 'do part' in 1661.
1136. cas, case. It properly means event, hap. See l. 1074.
my leve brother, my dear brother.
1141. out of doute, without doubt, doubtless.
1147. to my counseil, to my adviser. See l. 1161.
1151. I dar wel seyn, I dare maintain.