The occurrence of an unpronounceable P at the beginning of Ptolomee made the scribes think something must be omitted. Hence several of them introduced a stroke through the p, which stood as an abbreviation for 'ro,' and this turned it into Protholomee, which looked right, but made the second as superfluous. Thus MSS. Cp. Hl. both have 'protholome,' with the mark of abbreviation; in MSS. E. Hn. Dd. it is expanded into 'Protholomee' at length. We again find the scribes in the same difficulty in D. 324. A still stranger spelling is plotolomee, for which see vol. iii. p. 359, l. 18. Cf. the note on Ptolemy in the same volume, at p. 354.
NOTES TO GROUP E.
The Clerkes Prologue.
1. clerk. See the description of him, Prol. A. 285.
3. were newe spoused, who should be (i. e. is) newly wedded; see Rom. de la Rose, (F. version), 1004; in vol. i. p. 136.
6. See Eccles. iii. 1; 'To every thing there is a season,' &c.
7. as beth, pray be. The word as, nearly equivalent to 'I pray,' is sometimes used thus with the imperative mood. Since as is short for al-so, it means literally even so, just so. Cp. as keep, A. 2302; as sende, A. 2317; as doth, F. 458; 'as beth not wroth with me,' Troil. and Cress. v. 145; 'as go we seen,' i. e. pray let us go to see, id. 523; see also A. 3777. See Mätzner, Engl. Gram. ii. 2. 505.
10. A French proverb. 'Ki en jeu entre jeu consente,' i. e. approves of; Le Roux de Lincy, Proverbes Français, ii. 85.