110. fore, track, course, footsteps; glossed 'steppes' in MS. E. Some MSS. have the inferior lore, shewing that the scribes understood the word no better than the writer of the note in Bell's Chaucer, who says—'Harl. MS. reads fore, which is probably a mere clerical error.' Wright, however, correctly retains fore. It occurs again in D. 1935, q. v., where Tyrwhitt again alters it to lore. Bradley gives ten examples of it, to which I can add another, viz. 'he folowede the fore of an oxe,' Trevisa, ii. 343 (repeated from the example in i. 197, which Bradley cites). A. S. fōr, a course, way; from faran (pt. t. fōr), to go. Cf. Matt. xix. 21, which is quoted in Cp. and Pt.
115. 'Et cur, inquies, creata sunt genitalia, et sic a conditore sapientissimo fabricati sumus, &c. ... ipsa organa ... sexus differentiam praedicant'; Jerome (as above), p. 42.
117. I give the reading of E., which seems much the best. For wight, Cm. has wyf. Hn. has: And of so parfit wys a wight y-wroght; which is also good. But Cp. Pt. Ln. have: And of so parfyt wise and why y-wrought. Hl. has: And in what wise was a wight y-wrought. The last reading is the worst.
128. ther, where, wherein. With l. 130, cf. 1 Cor. vii. 3, where the Vulgate has 'Uxori uir debitum reddat.'
135. 'Nunquam ergo cessemus a libidine, ne frustra huiuscemodi membra portemus'; Jerome, p. 42.
144. hoten, be called; A. S. hātan. The sense is—'Let virgins be as bread made of selected wheaten flour; and let us wives be called barley-bread; nevertheless Jesus refreshed many a man with barley-bread, as St. Mark tells us.' Chaucer makes a slight mistake; it is St. John who speaks of barley-loaves; see John vi. 9 (cf. Mark vi. 38). For hoten, Tyrwhitt, Wright, Bell, and Morris, all give the mistaken reading eten, which misses the whole point of the argument; but
Gilman has hoten. There is no question as to what the Wife should eat, but only as to her condition in life. It is the Wife herself who is compared to something edible.
The comparison is from Jerome (as above), p. 21:—'Velut si quis definiat: Bonum est triticeo pane uesci, et edere purissimam similam. Tamen ne quis compulsus fame stercus bubulum: concedo ei, ut uescatur et hordeo.'
147. Alluding to 1 Cor. vii. 20, here quoted in E.
151. daungerous, difficult of access; cf. l. 514.