4083. take it nat agrief = take it not in grief, i. e. take it not amiss, be not offended.
4084. me mette, I dreamed; literally it dreamed to me.
4086. my swevene recche (or rede) aright, bring my dream to a good issue; literally 'interpret my dream favourably.'
4090. Was lyk. The relative that is often omitted by Chaucer before a relative clause, as, again, in l. 4365.
4098. Avoy (Elles.); Away (Harl.). From O. F. avoi, interj. fie! It occurs in Le Roman de la Rose, 7284, 16634.
4113. See the Chapter on Dreams in Brand's Pop. Antiquities.
4114. fume, the effects arising from gluttony and drunkenness. 'Anxious black melancholy fumes.'—Burton's Anat. of Mel. p. 438, ed. 1845. 'All vapours arising out of the stomach,' especially those caused by gluttony and drunkenness. 'For when the head is heated it scorcheth the blood, and from thence proceed melancholy fumes that trouble the mind.'—Ibid. p. 269.
4118. rede colera ... red cholera caused by too much bile and blood (sometimes called red humour). Burton speaks of a kind of melancholy of which the signs are these—'the veins of their eyes red, as well as their faces.' The following quotation explains the matter. 'Ther be foure humours, Bloud, Fleame, Cholar, and Melancholy.... First, working heate turneth what is colde and moyst into the kind of Fleme, and then what is hot and moyst, into the kinde of Bloud; and then what is hot and drye into the kinde of Cholera; and then what is colde and drye into the kinde of Melancholia.... By meddling of other humours, Bloud chaungeth kinde and colour: for by meddling of Cholar, it seemeth red, and by Melancholy it seemeth black, and by Fleame it seemeth watrie, and fomie.'—Batman upon Bartholomè, lib. iv. c. 6. So also—'in bloud it needeth that there be red Cholera'; lib. iv. c. 10; &c.
The following explains the belief as to dreams caused by cholera. Men in which red Cholera is excesssive 'dreame of fire, and of lyghtening, and of dreadful burning of the ayre'; Batman upon Bartholomè, lib. iv. c. 10. Those in which Melancholia is excessive dream 'dredfull darke dreames, and very ill to see'; id. c. 11. And again: 'He that is Sanguine hath glad and liking dreames, the melancholious dremeth of sorrow, the Cholarike, of firy things, and the Flematike, of Raine, Snow,' &c.; id. lib. vi. c. 27.
4123. the humour of malencolye. 'The name (melancholy) is imposed from the matter, and disease denominated from the material cause, as Bruel observes, μελαγχολία quasi μελαιναχόλη, from black choler.' Fracastorius, in his second book of Intellect, calls those melancholy