'Ludite; eunt anni more fluentis aquae.
Nec quae praeteriit, cursu reuocabitur unda;
Nec, quae praeteriit, hora redire potest.
Utendum est aetate; cito pede labitur aetas.'
25. Seneca wrote a treatise De Breuitate Temporis, but this does not contain any passage very much resembling the text. I have no doubt that Chaucer was thinking of a passage which may easily have caught
his eye, as being very near the beginning of the first of Seneca's epistles. 'Quaedam tempora eripiuntur nobis, quaedam subducuntur, quaedam effluunt. Turpissima tamen est iactura, quae per negligentiam fit. Quem mihi dabis, qui aliquod pretium tempori ponat? qui diem aestimet?... In huius rei unius fugacis ac lubricae possessionem natura nos misit, ex qua expellit quicumque uult; et tanta stultitia mortalium est, ut, quae minima et uilissima sint, certe reparabilia, imputari sibi, quum impetrauere, patiantur; nemo se iudicet quidquam debere, qui tempus accepit, quum interim hoc unum est, quod ne gratus quidem potest reddere'; Epist. I.; Seneca Lucilio suo.
30. Malkin; a proverbial name for a wanton woman; see P. Plowman, C. ii. 181 (B. i. 182), and my note. 'There are more maids than Malkin'; Heywood's Proverbs.
32. moulen, lit. 'become mouldy'; hence, be idle, stagnate, remain sluggish, rot. See Mouldy in the Appendix to my Etym. Dict. 2nd ed. 1884; and cf. note to A. 3870.
33. Man of Lawe. This is the 'sergeant of the lawe' described in the Prologue, ll. 309-330. So have ye blis, so may you obtain bliss; as you hope to reach heaven.
34. as forward is, as is the agreement. See Prologue, A. 33, 829.