203. Basiliscus: cp. Mirour, 3748 ff.
209 f. Ovid, Pont. ii. 3. 39 f. (but ‘lasso’ for ‘lapso’).
217. nam nemo dolose Mentis, &c. ‘for no man of a crafty mind can have sure speech.’
225. tenebrescunt, ‘darken.’ So other inceptives are used transitively, e.g. ‘ditescere,’ ii. 607, Cron. Trip. iii. 119.
233 f. ‘And this lex, legis, from ledo, ledis, as ius from iurgo, administers justice at this present time.’ It is meant that the administration of law, as we see it, suggests the above etymologies. The use of ‘isto’ for ‘hoc’ is quite regular.
241 ff. Cp. Mirour, 24253 ff.
249 ff. Cp. Mirour, 24349 ff., and see Pulling, Order of the Coif, ch. iv.
269. The reference is to Ecclus. xx. 31, ‘Xenia et dona excaecant oculos iudicum.’
274. ‘Fear puts to flight the discernment of justice.’
313-326. These fourteen lines are taken with some alterations (not much for the better) from Neckam, De Vita Monachorum, pp. 180 f.