11243. ‘There shall be no bodily fear by which’ &c.
11245. pour deviser, cp. 12852, so ‘a diviser’ 5031.
11305. Prov. xxiii. 34, amplified: ‘Et eris sicut dormiens in medio mari, et quasi sopitus gubernator, amisso clavo.’
11309. prist: this tense is for the sake of the rhyme instead of ‘prent.’
11332. Job iv. 13.
11343. Luke xv. 11.
11354. Tout quatre: for this use of ‘tout’ with numerals cp. 11570, ‘Ad tout quatre oils.’ It seems to be an adverb, as in the expression ‘ove tout’ ll. 4, 12240, &c., and has no particular meaning apparently.
11396. au fin que, ‘until.’
11404. This ‘Mestre Helemauns’ is Hélinand, the monk of Froidmont, whose Vers de la Mort were so popular in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The lines which are quoted here are quoted also in the Somme des Vices et des Vertus, with a slight difference of text. See M. Paul Meyer in Romania i. 365, where a preliminary list of the MSS. is given. Death is supposed to be the speaker here, ‘Do away your mockery and your boasting, for many a man who thinketh himself sound and strong hath me already hatching within him.’ The usual reading is ‘Laissiez vos chiffles’ (or ‘chifflois’), but ‘Ostez’ and ‘trufes’ are also found in the MSS.
11410. ‘Death has warned thee of his tricks,’ because in the preceding lines Death is supposed to be the speaker.