236. Afterwards repeated, very nearly, in Kn. Tale, l. 338 (A. 1196).
243. savour undernom, perceived the scent; Lat. 'sensisset odorem.'
246. Cf. the South-E. Legendary (see note to l. 120), l. 89.
'Brother, he seyde, how goth this? This tyme of the yere
So swote smul ne smelde I neuere, me thinkth, as I do here.'
248. rose. We should have expected roses. Perhaps this is due to the peculiar form of the Latin text, which has—'roseus hic odor et liliorum.'
Compare the words of Theophilus in the Virgin Martyr, v. 1:—
'What flowers are these?' &c.
270. Ll. 270-283 are certainly genuine, and the passage is in the Latin text. It is also in the French version, but it does not appear in the Early English version of the story printed by Mr. Furnivall from MS. Ashmole 43, nor in the English version printed by Caxton in 1483;
nor in the version in the South-E. Legendary. Tyrwhitt's supposition is no doubt correct, viz. that this passage 'appears evidently to have been at first a marginal observation and to have crept into the [Latin] text by the blunder of some copyist.' He truly observes that these fourteen lines 'interrupt the narrative awkwardly, and to little purpose.'