8911. A reference to Wisd. iv. 3, ‘spuria vitulamina non dabunt radices altas,’ a text not unknown in English history.
8916. Matt. vii. 26.
8924. ‘Whereby she will deliver up her body free,’ i.e. since she gives presents as well as receiving them, she must be held not to sell herself, but to give herself away to her lover; and this, observes the author, is the worse alternative, because it impoverishes her husband.
8941. creroie, ‘ought to trust,’ see note on 1688.
8942. verroie, conditional for pret. subj.: see note on l. 25.
8952. Cp. Bal. xliii. 2, ‘Si es comun plus qe la halte voie’; also 9231 ff.
8984. soubgite et abandonnée, ‘as his subject and servant.’
9055. ‘If we consider well, we shall see that’ &c.: see note on 1244.
9068. The reference is to Job xxxi. 9-12. The verse quoted is ‘Ignis est usque ad perditionem devorans, et omnia eradicans genimina.’
9085. ‘Incest’ is here used in a much wider sense than belongs to the word in English. It includes the impure intercourse of those who are near of kin, as we see in ll. 9181 ff.; but the cases of it which are chiefly insisted on have to do with breach of the ecclesiastical vow of purity, and this not only where the confessor corrupts his penitent (who is his daughter in a spiritual sense), but also in general where monk, nun, or priest commits fornication.