940. more and lesse, greater or smaller; i. e. everybody. So also in the Frank. Tale, 'riveres more and lesse'; F. 1054. So also moche and lyte, great and small, Prol. 494; moste and leste, greatest and least, A. 2198. Spenser has, F. Q. vi. 6. 12,—
''Gainst all, both bad and good, both most and least.'
941. alle and some, i. e. all and one, one and all. See Morris's Eng. Accidence, sect. 218, p. 142.
960. wommen; some MSS. have womman, as in Tyrwhitt. But MS. E. is right. Petrarch uses the word foeminas, not foeminam.
965. yvel biseye, ill provided; lit. ill beseen. The word yvel is pronounced here almost as a monosyllable (as it were yv'l), as is so commonly the case with ever; indeed generally, words ending with el and er are often thus clipped. A remarkable instance occurs in the Milleres Tale (A. 3715), where we not only have a similar ending, but the word ever in the same line—
'That trewë love was ever so yvel biset.'
See also yvel apayed in line 1052 below. The converse to yvel biseye, is richely biseye, richly provided or adorned, in l. 984 below.
981. Lat. 'Proximae lucis hora tertia comes superuenerat'; see note to l. 260.
995-1008. These two stanzas are Chaucer's own, and are so good that they must have been a later addition; Prof. Ten Brink suggests the date 1387 (Eng. Lit. ii. 123, Eng. version). In MS. E. the word Auctor is inserted in the margin, and l. 995 begins with a large capital letter. At the beginning of l. 1009 is a paragraph-mark, shewing where the translation begins again. unsad, unsettled. Cf. Shakesp. Cor. i. 1. 186, Jul. Caesar, i. 1. 55; Scott, Lady of the Lake, v. 30.
999. 'Ever full of tittle-tattle, which would be dear enough at a halfpenny.' See n. to l. 1200. Iane, a small coin of Genoa (Janua); see Rime of Sir Thopas, B. 1925. The first stanza (995-1001) is supposed