Et li autre que non aveit.’
Rom. de Troie, 28275.
2145. Menesteüs. This is a more correct form of the name than the ‘Menetius,’ which we have in Joly’s text of Benoît.
2148. of the goddes bede. Here we perhaps have Guido rather than Benoît.
2173. Egiona. The name is properly Erigona, and so it is given by Benoît. The moralization on her fate, 2183 ff., is due to our author, and it is rather out of place, considering the circumstances of the story.
2346. the trew man. In F we have ‘trew,’ altered apparently from ‘trewe,’ which is the usual and the more correct form: ‘the trew man to the plowh’ means the labourer who truly serves the plough.
2358. This is simply a repetition of 2355, ‘thei stonde of on acord.’ ‘As of corage’ means as regards their feeling or inclination: for this use of ‘as’ cp. Prol. 492, i. 557, &c.
2363 ff. A very common story, found shortly in Augustine, Civ. Dei, iv. 4, and repeated in the Gesta Romanorum and many other books. Gower has expanded it after his own fashion.
2424 f. ‘that men set their hearts to make gain by such wrong doing.’
2451. homward, i.e. ‘going homeward.’ The word included something of a verbal sense, as we see in i. 938, iii. 1021: so also ‘toward’ in l. 2643.