1333. Cf. the phrase 'paurosa gelosia'; Tes. v. 2.
1344. upon his heed, on pain of losing his head. 'Froissart has sur sa teste, sur la teste, and sur peine de la teste.'—T.
1347. this questioun. 'An implied allusion to the medieval courts of love, in which questions of this kind were seriously discussed.'—Wright.
1366. making his mone, making his complaint or moan.
1372. 'In his changing mood, for all the world, he conducted himself not merely like one suffering from the lover's disease of Eros, but rather (his disease was) like mania engendered of melancholy humour.' This is one of the numerous allusions to the four humours, viz. the choleric, phlegmatic, sanguine, and melancholic. An excess of the latter was supposed to produce 'melancholy madness.' gere, flighty manner, changeableness; 'Siche wilde gerys hade he mo'; Thornton Romances, Sir Percival, l. 1353. See note to l. 1536.
1376. in his celle fantastyk. Tyrwhitt reads Beforne his hed in his celle fantastike. Elles. has Biforn his owene celle fantastik. 'The division of the brain into cells, according to the different sensitive faculties, is very ancient, and is found depicted in medieval manuscripts. The fantastic cell (fantasia) was in front of the head.'—Wright. Hence Biforen means 'in the front part of his head.'
'Madnesse is infection of the formost cel of the head, with priuation of imagination, lyke as melancholye is the infection of the middle cell of the head, with priuation of reason, as Constant. saith in libro de Melancolia. Melancolia (saith he) is an infection that hath mastry of the soule, the which commeth of dread and of sorrow. And these passions be diuerse after the diuersity of the hurt of their workings; for by madnesse that is called Mania, principally the imagination is hurt; and in the other reson is hurted.'—Batman upon Bartholomè, lib. vii. c. 6. Vincent of Beauvais, bk. xxviii. c. 41, cites a similar statement from the Liber de Anatomia, which begins:—'Cerebrum itaque tribus cellulis est distinctum. Duae namque meringes cerebri faciunt tres plicaturas inter se denexas, in quibus tres sunt cellulae: phantastica scilicet ab anteriori parte capitis, in qua sedem habet imaginatio.' So in Batman upon Bartholomè, lib. v. c. 3:—'The Braine ... is diuided in three celles or dens.... In the formost cell ... imagination is conformed and made; in the middle, reason; in the hindermost, recordation and minde' [memory]. Cf. also Burton, Anat. of Melancholy, pt. 2. sec. 3. mem. 1. subsec. 2.
1385-8. Probably from Claudian, De Raptu Proserpinae, i. 77:—
'Cyllenius astitit ales,