551. 'Juniperus, ... Graece dicta, ... quod conceptum diu teneat ignem: adeo ut si prunae ex eius cinere fuerint opertae, usque ad annum perueniant; πυρ enim apud Graecos ignis dicitur'; S. Isidorus, Etymologiarum lib. xvii. c. 7; ed. Migne, vol. 82, col. 615. This is one of Isidore's delicious 'etymologies.' This remarkable story is founded on the imaginary fact that juniper is derived from the Gk. πῦρ, fire!
562. hate, &c. This expression is from St. Augustine:—'Quid est odium? ira inueterata. Ira inuerata si facta est, iam odium dicitur'; Sermo lviii. c. 7; ed. Migne, vol. 38, col. 397.
565. six thinges; evidently an error for three. The three are: (1) hate; (2) backbiting; (3) deceitful counsel. The error may easily have arisen from misreading iij as uj. Most of the MSS. have '.vj.'; but '.ui.' and '.uj.' were also in use. See 1 John iii. 15.
566. Probably due to an imperfect remembrance of Prov. xxv. 18:—'Iaculum, et gladius, et sagitta acuta, homo qui loquitur contra proximum suum falsum testimonium.' Cf. xii. 18, xxx. 14.
568. From Prov. xxviii. 15; cf. iii. 27.
shepe, hire, is a rare word; hence the addition, either by Chaucer or by a scribe, of the words or the hyre, by way of a gloss. The writer of the Ayenbite writes ss for sh; and we there find the word ssepe, in the sense of 'hire' or 'pay,' no less than five times; at pp. 33, 40, 86, 113, 146, also the pl. ssepes, wages, at p. 39. Cf. A. S. scipe, pay, in Ælfric's Lives of Saints, ed. Skeat, xxxi. 55 (vol. ii. p. 222). See note to Anelida, 193.
569. From Prov. xxv. 21.
572. in his defendaunt, in his (own) defence; it looks like an imitation of the French phrase en se defendant.
575. Note the double use of homicide; it here translates homicidium; just above, it translates homicida.