631-58. Not in the original. A later insertion, of much beauty.
634. 'And bound Satan; and he still lies where he (then) lay.' In the Apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus, Christ descends into hell, and (according to some versions) binds him with chains; see Piers Plowman, B. xviii. 401.
639. Susanne; see the story of Susannah, in the Apocrypha.
641. The Virgin's mother is called Anna in the Apocryphal Gospel of James. Her day is July 26. See Aurea Legenda, ed. Grässe, cap. cxxxi; Cowper's Apocryphal Gospels, p. 4.
647. 'Where that he gat (could get) for himself no favour.'
660. 'For pitee renneth sone in gentil herte'; Knightes Tale, A. 1761. And see note to Sq. Tale, F. 479.
664. us avyse, deliberate with ourselves, consider the matter again. Compare the law-phrase Le roi s'avisera, by which the king refuses assent to a measure proposed. 'We will consider whom to appoint as judge.'
666. I. e. a copy of the Gospels in Welsh or British, called in the French prose version 'liure des Ewangeiles.' Agreements were
sometimes written on the fly-leaves of copies of the Gospels, as may be seen in two copies of the A. S. version of them.
669. A very similar miracle is recorded in the old alliterative romance of Joseph of Arimathea, l. 362. The French version has:—'a peine auoit fini la parole, qe vne mayn close, com poyn de homme, apparut deuant Elda et quant questoient en presence, et ferri tiel coup en le haterel le feloun, que ambedeus lez eus lui enuolerent de la teste, & les dentz hors de la bouche; & le feloun chai abatu a la terre; et a ceo dist vne voiz en le oyance de touz: Aduersus filiam matris ecclesie ponebas scandalum; hec fecisti, et tacui.' I. e. 'Scarcely had he ended the word, when a closed hand, like a man's fist, appeared before Elda and all who were in the presence, and smote such a blow on the nape of the felon's neck that both his eyes flew out of his head, and the teeth out of his mouth; and the felon fell smitten down to the earth; and thereupon a voice said in the hearing of all, "Against the daughter of Mother Church thou wast laying a scandal; this hast thou done, and I held my peace."' The reading tacui suggests that, in l. 676, the word holde should rather be held; but the MSS. do not recognise this reading.