Didot’s edition, Paris, 1814, is founded on very early and valuable texts; but it is difficult to read. Chaucer has translated a text some twenty or thirty years later in style; and his English is quite trustworthy as far as it is carried. For the rest of the Romanee, Fournier’s text is practically good enough, and easily readable. [↑]
[5] Fr. ‘chetive,’ rhyming accurately to ‘ententive.’ [↑]
[7] Even after eighteen hundred years of sermons, the Christian public do not clearly understand that ‘two coats,’ in the brief sermon of the Baptist to repentance, mean also, two petticoats, and the like.
I am glad that Fors obliges me to finish this letter at Lucca, under the special protection of St. Martin. [↑]
[8] Fr.,
“Si que par oula la chemise
Lui blancheoit la char alise.”
Look out ‘Alice,’ in Miss Yonge’s Dictionary of Christian Names and remember Alice of Salisbury. [↑]
[9] I believe the pale roses are meant to be white, but are tinged with red that they may not contend with the symbolic brightness of the lilies. [↑]