peigne: this form of spelling does not indicate any difference in pronunciation, for the rhymes ‘pleine,’ ‘meine,’ are used to correspond with it in the next stanza. It is intended to produce visible conformity with the verb ‘compleigne,’ to which it rhymes, and so in l. 15 we have ‘halteigne’ pairing with ‘atteigne.’ The verbal ending ‘eigne’ rhymes regularly with ‘eine’ both in the French and English of our author, and the ‘g’ often falls out of the spelling.
10. Milfoitz: one word in the MS.; so ‘millfoitz’ ix. l. 10.
IIII. 3. s’ad fait unir, ‘has united itself’: see note on Mir. 1135.
4. As toutz jours mais: cp. Mir. 2856.
11. sufficaunce: endings of this kind represent the MS. ‘-a̅n̅ce,’ cp. note on i. l. 16.
16. la: so in the MS. The Roxb. ed. gives ‘sa’ by mistake.
IIII*. The number is repeated by inadvertence, so that the whole series consists really of fifty-one balades, apart from the religious dedication at the end and the Envoy.
4. Por toi cherir: see note on Mir. 6328. The address in the second person singular is unusual in the Balades and hardly occurs except here and in the contemptuously hostile pieces, xli-xliii.
11. dont, answering to ‘auci’: see note on Mir. 217.
17. tes: see Glossary under ‘ton’: cp. ‘vos amis,’ ix. l. 5.