9. The 'harmony' or music of the spheres; see Troil. v. 1812-3; Parl. Foules, 59-63, and the note in vol. i. p. 507.
37-8. sugre ... soot; cf. 'sucre be or soot,' Troil. iii. 1194; and 'in her hony galle'; C. T., B 3537.
54. Flebring; omitted in the New E. Dict., as being a false form; there is no such word. Mr. Bradley suggests flekring or flekering, which is probable enough. The M.E. flekeren, also spelt flikeren, meant not only to flutter, but to be in doubt, to vacillate, and even to caress. We may take it to mean 'light speech' or 'gossip.'
65. 'Good and yvel ben two contraries'; Ch. Boeth. bk. iv. pr. 2. 10.
74. in that mores, in the possession of that greater thing.
77-8. Cf. l. 81 below. Hence the sense is: 'and that thing which belongs to it (i.e. to the knot) ought to incline to its superior cause out of honour and good-will.' But it is clumsy enough; and even to get this sense (which seems to have been that intended) we must alter mores to more. The form was probably miswritten mores here owing to the occurrence of mores just above (l. 74) and just below (l. 79). It proceeds thus:—'otherwise, it is rebellious, and ought to be rejected from protection by its superior.'
116. From Troil. iii. 1656-9.
129-38. Perhaps the finest passage in the treatise, but not very original. Cf. P. Plowman, C. xxi. 456-7; Ch. Boeth. bk. iv. met. 6. 20-3.
133. Cf. 'ones a yere al thinges renovelen'; Ch. C. T., I 1027.
134. Cf. 'To be gayer than the heven'; Book of the Duch. 407.