656. toke, subjunctive, ‘how he should take it.’
662. After this line a couplet is inserted by Pauli from the Harleian MS. 7184 (H₃),
To take metes and drinkes newe,
For it shulde alwey eschewe.’
The lines are nonsense and have no metre. They come originally from K, the copyist of which apparently inserted them out of his own head, to fill up a space left by the accidental omission of two lines (645 f.) a little above in the same column. He was making his book correspond column for column with the copy, and therefore discovered his mistake when he reached the bottom, but did not care to draw attention to it by inserting what he had omitted.
663. ‘Physique’ is apparently meant for the Physics of Aristotle, and something very like this maxim is to be found there, but the quotation, ‘Consuetudo est altera natura,’ is actually taken from the Secretum Secretorum (ed. 1520, f. 21).
664. The transposition after this line of the passage ll. 665-964, which occurs in MSS. of the second recension, is not accidental, as we see by the arrangements made afterwards for fitting in the passage (l. 1146). The object apparently was to lay down the principle ‘Delicie corporis militant aduersus animam,’ illustrated by the parable of Dives and Lazarus, before proceeding to the discussion of ‘Delicacie’ in the case of love, and this is perhaps the more logical arrangement; but the alteration, as it is made, involves breaking off the discussion here of the ill effects of change, and resuming it after an interval of nearly two hundred lines.
674. Avise hem wel, i. e. ‘let them take good heed.’
683. ‘Without regard to her honour’: cp. Balades, xxii. 4, ‘Salvant toutdis l’estat de vostre honour.’
709. abeched, from the French ‘abechier,’ to feed, used properly of feeding young birds. The word ‘refreched’ is conformed to it in spelling.