Latin Verses. iv. 7 f. As punctuated in F the couplet runs,
‘Quod patet esse fides in eo, fraus est que politi
Principium pacti, finis habere negat.’
This does not seem to give any sense. The text may be translated thus: ‘What appears to be faith in him is in fact fraud, and the end of the smooth covenant disowns the beginning’ (lit. ‘denies that it has the beginning’).
1921. it scheweth, ‘there appeareth’: cp. iii. 809.
1943. how it were: subjunctive of indirect question; cp. 1243.
1950. of love, and. The punctuation is that of F.
2016. byme: see note on i. 232.
2018. For this I weene, ‘the other cause is because I ween,’ &c.
2025. Forwhy and, ‘provided that’: the same line occurs again in v. 2563. Compare the use of ‘for why that’ in Le Morte Arth. 389 (Roxb.), ‘Thou shalt haue yiftis good, For why þat thou wilte dwelle wyth me,’ quoted in the New Engl. Dict.