1. “With blearing of a proude miller’s eye”: dimming his eye; playing off a joke on him.
2. “Me list not play for age”: age takes away my zest for drollery.
3. The medlar, the fruit of the mespilus tree, is only edible when rotten.
4. Yet in our ashes cold does fire reek: “ev’n in our ashes live their wonted fires.”
5. A colt’s tooth; a wanton humour, a relish for pleasure.
6. Chimb: The rim of a barrel where the staves project beyond the head.
7. With olde folk, save dotage, is no more: Dotage is all that is left them; that is, they can only dwell fondly, dote, on the past.
8. Souter: cobbler; Scottice, “sutor;”’ from Latin, “suere,” to sew.
9. “Ex sutore medicus” (a surgeon from a cobbler) and “ex sutore nauclerus” (a seaman or pilot from a cobbler) were both proverbial expressions in the Middle Ages.
10. Half past prime: half-way between prime and tierce; about half-past seven in the morning.