5136. Livius Virginius, a mistake for ‘Lucius Virginius.’
5151. Ilicius, that is, Icilius.
5209. til that he come, ‘till he should come,’ the verb being pret. subjunctive.
5254 ff. The sentence is irregular in construction, but intelligible and vigorous: ‘but as to that command, like the hunted wild boar, who when he feels the hounds hard upon him, throws them off on both sides and goes his way, so (we may say) this knight,’ &c. The simile is due to Gower.
5261. kepte, ‘waited for.’
5307 ff. From the Book of Tobit, ch. vi-viii. The moral of the story is given by vi. 17, where Raphael says to Tobias, ‘Hi namque qui coniugium ita suscipiunt, ut Deum a se et a sua mente excludant, et suae libidini ita vacent sicut equus et mulus, quibus non est intellectus, habet potestatem daemonium super eos.’ This, however, is absent from the English version (which follows the LXX), as are also the precepts which follow, about nights to be spent in prayer by the newly married couple. The same is the case with the five precepts given to Sara by her parents, which are mentioned in the Mirour, 17701 ff.
5390. This line, written in F as follows,
‘Hov trewe · hou large · hou ioust · hov chaste,’
is enough to show that v and u are used indifferently in this kind of position: cp. movþe: couþe, 5285 f.
5408. Do wey, ‘Have done’: see New English Dictionary, ‘do,’ 52.