[161] First edition, pots.
[162] Derrick's edition, The.
[163] This line, containing a political allusion, is Dryden's exclusively. In Chaucer's time, the "churl's rebellion" excited the dreadful remembrance of the insurrection of Jack Straw in England, and that in France called the Jacquerie, both recent events.
[164] The court of chivalry, which, in 1631, regulated the intended judicial combat between David Ramsay and Lord Rae, appointed, that until the word lesser les armes was given, the combatants should have meat and drink, iron-nails, hammer, file, scissars, bodkin, needle and thread, armourer, and tailor, with their weapons to aid them as need required. See State Trials, Vol. XI. p. 130.
[165] That is, at disadvantage.
[166] Derrick's Edit, the.
[167] This fine passage does not occur in Chaucer, although his commencement of the battle is in the highest degree animated. Perhaps Dryden remembered Sidney's "Arcadia."
"And now the often-changing fortune began also to change the hue of the battles. For at the first, though it were terrible, yet Terror was decked so bravely with rich furniture, gilt swords, shining armours, pleasant pensils, that the eye with delight had scarcely leisure to be afraid: but now all universally defiled with dust, blood, broken armour, mangled bodies took away the masque, and set forth Horror in his own horrible manner."—Arcadia, Book III.
[168] Derrick's Edit. The.
[169] Emetrius.