1315. Compare B. 1199, and I. 1068.
1318. This parenthetical line is Chaucer's very own.
1319. 'Sacramentum hoc magnum est'; Eph. v. 32. Marriage, in the Romish Church, is one of the seven sacraments.
1323-35. All from Albertano of Brescia's Liber de Amore Dei (Köppel).
1326. Hl. has body-naked; but all the rest (like the old editions) have bely-naked, which is the usual expression; see examples in Halliwell.
1328. In the margin of E.—'Faciamus ei adiutorium,' &c. From Gen. ii. 18, 24.
1335-6. From Le Roman de la Rose, 16640-4.
1337. Seint-e is feminine; ben'cite is trisyllabic.
1358-61. Of course these lines are genuine; they occur in nearly every MS. but E. and Trin. Coll. R. 3. 3. The scribe of E. slipped from reed in 1357 to rede in 1362; a common mistake. Dr. Furnivall objects that wyse in 1359 is made to rime with wyse in 1360, and rede in 1361 with rede in 1362; the riming words being used in the same sense. This is not the case. The first wyse is plural; the second is singular, and used generally. The first rede means 'advise'; the second, 'read.' To leave them out would give a rime of reed (monosyllable) with rede (dissyllable).
1362. The examples of Rebecca, Judith, Abigail, and Esther are quoted, in the same order and in similar terms, in the Tale of Melibeus; see B. 2288-2291, and the Notes.