3115. I. e. the bag is unbuckled, the budget is opened; as when a packman displays his wares. See Group I, l. 26.
3119. To quyte with, to requite the Knight with, for his excellent Tale. This position of with, next its verb, is the almost invariable M. E. idiom. Cf. F. 471, 641, C. 345; Notes to P. Pl., C. i. 133, &c.
3120. 'Very drunk, and all pale'; cf. A. 4150, H. 30.
3124. I. e. in a loud, commanding voice, such as that of Pilate in the Mystery Plays. In the Chester Plays, Pilate is of rather a meek disposition; but in the York Plays, pp. 270, 307, 320, he is represented as boastful and tyrannical, as is evidently here intended. The expression seems to have been proverbial. Palsgrave has: 'In a pylates voyce, a haulte voyx'; p. 837. Udall, tr. of Erasmus' Apophthegms (repr. 1877), last page, has—'speaking out of measure loude and high, and altogether in Pilates voice.'
3125. by armes, i. e. by the arms of Christ; see note to C. 651.
3129. 'My dear brother'; a common form; cf. 3848, below, and 1136, above.
3131. thriftily, i. e. profitably, to a useful purpose; cf. B. 1165.
3134. a devel wey, in the devil's name; see Skelton, ed. Dyce, ii. 287; originally, in the way to the devil, with all ill luck. Compare—
'Hundred, chapitle, court, and shire,
Al hit goth a devel way' [to the bad].