2713. The punctuation follows F.
2714 ff. This refers to the well-known story of Virgil and the daughter of the Emperor, who left him suspended in a box from her window.
2718. Sortes. It is impossible that this can be for ‘Socrates,’ with whose name Gower was quite well acquainted. Perhaps it stands for the well-known ‘Sortes Sanctorum’ (Virgilianae, &c.), personified here as a magician, and even figuring, in company with Virgil and the rest, as an elderly lover.
2799. Cp. i. 143 ff.
2823. syhe, subj., ‘should see.’
2828. deface: apparently intransitive, ‘suffer defacement’: cp. iv. 2844.
2833. Outwith, ‘outwardly’: so ‘inwith’ often for ‘within,’ ‘inwardly.’ Dr. Murray refers me to Orm. i. 165, ‘utenn wiþþ,’ and Hampole, Prick of Conscience, 6669, ‘outwith.’ The best MSS. have a stop after ‘Outwith.’
2904. A Peire of Bedes: the usual expression for a rosary: cp. Cant. Tales, Prol. 158 f.,
‘Of smal coral aboute hire arm she bar
A peire of bedes gauded al with grene.’