—— bylles] i. e. letters: see Chaucer’s Troilus and Creseide.
v. 686. An ouche, or els a ryng] “Nouche. Monile.” Prompt. Parv. ed. 1499. “Ouche for a bonnet afficquet.” Palsgrave’s Lesclar. de la Lang. Fr., 1530. fol. li. (Table of Subst.). “He gaue her an ouche couched with perles, &c.... monile.” Hormanni Vulgaria, sig. k iii. ed. 1530.—Concerning ouche (jewel, ornament, &c.), a word whose etymology and primary signification are uncertain, see Tyrwhitt’s Gloss., to Chaucer’s Cant. Tales, v. Nouches, and Richardson’s Dict. in v. Ouch.—Here, perhaps, it means a brooch: for in the third book of Chaucer’s Troilus and Creseide, Cressid proposes that Pandarus should bear a “blew ring” from her to Troilus; and (ibid.) afterwards the lovers
“enterchaungeden her ringes,
Of which I can not tellen no scripture,
But well I wot, a broche of gold and azure,
In which a Rubbie set was like an herte,
Creseide him yaue, and stacke it on his sherte.”
Chaucer’s Workes, fol. 164. ed. 1602.
After Cressid becomes acquainted with Diomede, she gives him a brooch, which she had received from Troilus on the day of her departure from Troy. Id. fols. 179, 181. In Henrysoun’s Testament of Creseide (a poem of no mean beauty), Cressid, stricken with leprosy, bequeathes to Troilus a ring which he had given her. Id. fol. 184.
Page 72. v. 700. That made the male to wryng] So Skelton elsewhere;