243. It was already understood that cuckoo was, as Shakespeare says, 'a word of fear'; see Love's Labour's Lost, v. 2. 920. In the Parl. of Foules, 358, we find: 'the cukkow ever unkinde'; vol. i. p. 348.
252. blered is thyn ye, thine eye is bleared or dimmed, i. e. thou art deceived or cajoled. See A. 4049.
262. wryen, to turn aside hastily; see A. 3283.
271. scorpioun, scorpion. Alluding to the notion that the scorpion, though its sting was deadly, had a flattering tongue, and could beguile. See notes to B. 404, E. 2059.
278. rakel, rash, hasty; afterwards altered to rake-hell, by a curious popular etymology; and then shortened to rake, as in the phrase 'a dissolute rake.' See rake (2) in my Etym. Dictionary. Cf. l. 283.
279. trouble, adj., troubled, clouded, obscured. Tyrwhitt explains
it by 'dark, gloomy,' with reference to its occurrence in E. 465 above. And see Pers. Tale, I. 537.
Compare the Friar's sermon, on the subject of Ire, in D. 2005-2088, and the description of the same in the Pers. Tale, I. 535-561.
290. fordoon, destroyed. For and (as in E. Cm.) Hn. Cp. Pt. Ln. have or.
In place of this line, Hl. has the following extraordinary variation:—