4020. The mill lay a little way off the road on the left (coming from Trumpington); so it was necessary to 'know the way.'
4026. nede has na peer, necessity has no equal, or, is above all. More commonly, Nede ne hath no lawe, as in P. Plowman, B. xx. 10, or C. xxiii. 10; 'Necessitas non habet legem'; a common proverb.
4027. boës, contracted from behoves, a form peculiar to Chaucer. In northern poems, the word is invariably a monosyllable, spelt bos, or more commonly bus; and the pt. t. is likewise a monosyllable, viz. bud or bood, short for behoved. In Cursor Mundi, l. 9870, we have: 'Of a woman bos him be born; and in l. 10639: 'Than bus this may be clene and bright.' In M. E., it is always used impersonally; him boes or him bos means 'it behoves him,' or 'he must.' See Bus in the New E. Dictionary.
Chaucer here evidently alludes to some such proverb as 'He who has no servant must serve himself,' but I do not know the precise form of it. The expression 'as clerkes sayn' hints that it is a Latin one.
4029. hope, expect, fear. Cf. P. Plowman, C. x. 275, and see Hope in Nares, who cites the story of the tanner of Tamworth (from Puttenham's Arte of Poesie, bk. iii. c. 22) who said—'I hope I shall be hanged to-morrow.' Cf. also Thomas of Erceldoun, ed. Murray, l. 78:—
'But-if I speke with yone lady bryghte,
I hope myne herte will bryste in three!'
4030. 'So ache his molar teeth.' Wark, to ache, is common in Yorkshire: 'My back warks while I can hardly bide,' my back aches so that I can hardly endure; Mid. Yks. Gloss. (E. D. S.).
4032. ham, i. e. hām, haam, home.
4033. hethen, hence, is very characteristic of a Northern dialect; it occurs in Hampole, Havelok, Morris's Allit. Poems, Gawain, Robert of Brunne, the Ormulum, &c.; see examples in Mätzner.