499. 'First cause of our misfortune'; alluding to the Fall of Adam. See l. 505.
501. boght us agayn, redeemed us; a translation of the Latin redemit. Hence we find Christ called, in Middle English, the Aȝenbyer. 'See now how dere he [Christ] boughte man, that he made after his owne ymage, and how dere he aȝenboght us, for the grete love that he hadde to us'; Sir J. Maundeville, Prologue to his Voiage (Specimens of Eng. 1298-1393, p. 165). See l. 766 below.
504. Cf. Pers. Tale, I. 819.
505. Here, in the margin of MS. E. Hn. Cp. Pt. Hl., is a quotation from 'Hieronymus contra Jovinianum' (i. e. from St. Jerome): 'Quamdiu ieiunauit Adam, in Paradiso fuit; comedit et eiectus est; eiectus, statim duxit uxorem.' See Hieron. contra Jov. lib. ii. c. 15; ed. Migne, ii. 305.
510. defended, forbidden. Even Milton has it; see P. Lost, xi. 86. See also l. 590 below.
512. 'O gluttony! it would much behove us to complain of thee!' See vol. iii. pp. 444, 445. The quotation 'Noli auidus' (iii. 445) is from the close of Ecclus. xxxvii.
517. Here Chaucer is thinking of a passage in Jerome, which also occurs in John of Salisbury's Policraticus, lib. viii. c. 6. In such cases, Chaucer consulted Jerome himself, rather than his copyist, as might be shewn. I therefore quote from the former.
'Propter breuem gulae uoluptatem, terrae lustrantur et maria: et ut mulsum uinum preciosusque cibus fauces nostras transeat, totius uitae opera desudamus.'—Hieronymus, contra Iouinianum, lib. ii.; in Epist. Hieron. Basil. 1524, t. ii. p. 76.
At the same time, he had an eye to the passage in Pope Innocent, quoted in vol. iii. p. 445. 'The shorte throte' answers to 'Tam breuis est,' &c.