v. 791. With slaiis, with tauellis, with hedellis well drest]—slaiis, i. e. sleys, weavers’ reeds: tauellis, see note, p. 94. v. 34: “Heddles, Hedeles, Hiddles. The small cords through which the warp is passed in a loom, after going through the reed.” Et. Dict. of Scot. Lang. by Jamieson, who cites from G. Douglas’s Æneid;
“With subtell slayis, and hir hedeles slee,
Riche lenze wobbis naitly weiffit sche.”
B. vii. p. 204. 45. ed. Rudd.
Page 393. v. 793. warke] i. e. work.
v. 794. to enbrowder put them in prese] i. e. put themselves in press (applied themselves earnestly) to embroider.
v. 795. glowtonn] Does it mean—ball, clue? or, as Mr. Albert Way suggests,—a sort of needle, a stiletto as it is now called,—something by which the silk was to be inwrought?
v. 796. pirlyng] “I Pyrle wyer of golde or syluer I wynde it vpon a whele as sylke women do.” Palsgrave’s Lesclar. de la Lang. Fr., 1530. fol. cccxvii. (Table of Verbes).
v. 798. tewly sylk] Richardson in his Dict. under the verb Tew places tewly, as derived from it, and cites the present passage. But tewly seems to have nothing to do with that verb. “Tuly colowre. Puniceus vel punicus.” Prompt. Parv. MS. Harl. 221. In MS. Sloane, 73. fol. 214, are directions “for to make bokerham tuly or tuly thred,” where it appears that this colour was “a manere of reed colour as it were of croppe mader,” that is, probably, of the tops or sprouts of the madder, which would give a red less intense or full: the dye was “safflour” (saffron?) and “asches of wyn [whin] ballis ybrent;” and a little red vinegar was to be used to bring the colour up to a fuller red.—For this information I am indebted to Mr. Albert Way.