71. betterer, better; not necessarily a misprint. The form bettyrer occurs in the Catholicon Anglicum.
72. his kyndely place, its natural position; cf. Ch. Boeth. bk. iii. pr. 11. 100-2.
77. blacke; cf. Troil. i. 642.
82. yeven by the ayre, endowed by the air with little goodness and virtue; because the dew that produced the pearl fell through the air; see note to ch. xii. 47 above. Hence matier is material, viz. the dew.
86. unpees, war. The general argument, with the contrast of colours above mentioned, occurs in P. Plowman, C. xxi. 209-21; cf. also ll. 144-66. Of these lines, ll. 210 and 212 have already been explicitly cited above: see notes to bk. i. ch. 3. 153, and to bk. ii. ch. 9. 178.
92. Pallas; we should have expected 'Minerva'; however, Pallas occurs five times in Troilus.
94. and Mercurie, if Mercury; but it is obscure.
99. a dewe and a deblys. Under Adieu, in the New E. Dict., we find: 'fig. an expression of regret at the loss or departure of anything; or a mere exclamatory recognition of its disappearance; = away, no longer, no more, all is over with. c. 1400 Test. Love ii. (1560) 292/1. Adewe and adewe blis.'
Something has gone wrong here; the edition of 1561 (not 1560) has, at fol. 306, back (not 292) the reading 'a dewe and a deblis'; as in the text. The same reading occurs in all the earlier black-letter editions and in Chalmers; there being no other authority except Thynne. I do not understand the passage; the apparent sense is: 'his name is given a dieu and to devils'; i.e. (I suppose) is renounced. Deblis for 'devils' is a possible form; at any rate, we find deblet, deblerie, for devilet and diablerie; see New E. Dict., under Dablet and Deblerie.
115-6. 'That which is good, seems to me to be wholly good.' This is extremely significant. 'The church is good, and therefore wholly good,' is evidently intended. In other words, it needs no reform; the Lollards should let it alone. In ch. 14. 24, he plainly speaks of 'heretics,' and of the errors of 'mismeninge people.'