1. Escoulte cea &c. This is addressed to lovers of sin and of the world, not to lovers in the ordinary sense, as we shall see if we read the first stanzas carefully.
2. perestes: see ‘perestre’ in Glossary. The 3rd pers. sing. ‘perest’ is fully written out in the MS. several times, e.g. 1760, 2546.
4. ove tout s’enfant, ‘together with her children,’ ‘s’enfant’ (for ‘si enfant’) being plural. For ‘ove tout’ cp. 27662,
‘Le piere et miere ove tout l’enfant,’
where ‘l’enfant’ is singular. This shows that ‘ove tout’ should be combined, and not ‘tout s’enfant.’ For other adverbial uses of ‘tout’ see Glossary. ‘Ove’ counts always as a monosyllable in the verse, and so also ‘come’: see l. 28.
6. chapeal de sauls, the wreath of willow being a sign of mourning.
23. Changeast: pret. subjunctive for conditional, a very common use with our author.
25. porroit: conditional used for pret. subjunctive, cp. 170, 322, Bal. i. 3, &c.
28. come, also written ‘comme’ and ‘com,’ has always, like ‘ove,’ the value of a monosyllable in the metre.
31. l’amour seculer, ‘the love of the world.’