Now to show tricks like apes,
Now lion-like to soar'; &c.
The idea here intended is precisely that expressed by Barclay. The Cook, being very dull and ill-humoured, is ironically termed ape-drunk, as if he were 'full of lawghter and of toyes,' and ready to play even with a straw. The satire was too much for the Cook, who became excited, and fell from his horse in his attempts to oppose the Manciple.
50. chiváchee, feat of horsemanship, exploit. See Prol. 85 for the serious use of the word, where in chivachye means on an (equestrian) expedition. Cf.
'Bot oute sal ride a chivauchè';
Ritson's Ancient Songs, vol. i. p. 46.
51. 'Alas! he did not stick to his ladle!' He should have been in a kitchen, basting meat, not out of doors, on the back of a horse.
57. dominacioun, dominion. See note to F. 352. Cf. 'the righteous shall have domination over them in the morning'; Ps. xlix. 14, Prayer-book Version. See Chaucer's Minor Poems, xv. 16 (vol. i. p. 394).
62. fneseth, blows, puffs; of which the reading sneseth is a poor corruption, though occurring in all the modern editions. To fnese does not mean to sneeze, but to breathe hard; though sneeze is its modern form.
I have no doubt that the word neesings in Job xli. 18, meaning not 'sneezings' but 'hard breathings,' is due to the word fnesynge, by which Wyclif translates the Latin sternutatio. In Jer. viii. 16, Wyclif represents the snorting of horses by fnesting. Cf. A. S. fnæst, a puff, blast, fnæstiað, the windpipe; fnēosung, a hard breathing. Grimm's law helps us to a further illustration; for, as the English f is a Greek p, a cognate word is at once seen in the common Greek verb πνέω, I breathe or blow. For further examples, see fnast in Stratmann.