342. From 1 Tim. ii. 9, here quoted in the margin of E.
350. his, its. The pronoun is here neuter, and is the same in all the MSS. Tyrwhitt altered it to hire (her), but needlessly. But in l. 352, the sex of the cat is defined. As to the singed cat, 'that, as they say, does not like to roam,' see The Exempla of Jacques de Vitry, ed. Crane, (Folk Lore Soc.), 1890, pp. 219, 241.
354. goon a-caterwawed, go a-caterwauling. I explain the suffix -ed as put for -eth, A. S. -að, as in on huntað, a-hunting; where -að is a substantival suffix. I have given several examples of this curious substitution in the note to C. 406, q. v. Cotgrave has: 'Aller à gars, to hunt after lads; (a wench) to go a caterwawling.' And see Caterwaul in the New Eng. Dict.
357. Clearly from Le Rom. de la Rose, 14583:—
'Nus ne puet metre en fame garde,
S'ele meisme ne se garde:
Se c'iert Argus qui la gardast,
Qui de ses cent yex l'esgardast, ...
N'i vaudroit sa garde mès riens:
Fox est qui se garde tel mesriens.'