The title ‘Traitié’ is not in the MSS., but is inserted as that to which reference is made in the Glossary and elsewhere. What follows, ‘Puisqu’il ad dit,’ &c., is the heading found in those MSS. which give this series of balades together with the Confessio Amantis, that is in seven out of ten copies. In the other three the Traitié occurs independently, but in two of these, viz. the All Souls and the Trentham MSS., it is imperfect at the beginning, so that we cannot say what heading it had, while in the third, the Glasgow copy, it has that which is given in the critical note. It is certain in any case that the author did not regard it as inseparable from the Confessio Amantis.
I. The numbers are introduced for reference: there are none in the MSS.
4. per: so in the Fairfax MS. fully written, but we have ‘par’ fully written elsewhere, as xi. l. 16, therefore the contractions are usually so expanded, e.g. in the preceding line.
8. celle alme, ‘the soul,’ cp. Bal. iii. l. 1, and see note on Mir. 301.
9. Tant soulement, see Glossary, ‘tansoulement.’
II. 5. See note on Bal. ii. l. 23. For the substance of the passage cp. Mir. 17935 ff.
7. He means that continence is better than marriage, as we see from the margin of the next balade.
20. en son atour, ‘in its own condition.’
III. 1. parfit: this form is preferred as expansion of the MS. contraction, because it is more usual and is found fully written both in the Mirour (e.g. 1640) and in the present work, xviii. l. 28 (Trentham MS.), but ‘perfit’ occurs in Ded. i. l. 23 and Bal. xxvi. l. 15.
20. retenue, cp. Bal. viii. l. 17.