130. leve, believe. L. 120 shews that he hopes for mercy and pity; we may safely conclude that he had been a Lollard once. Cf. ch. 14. 2-4.
Chap. XIV. 6. Proverbes. He refers to Prov. vii. 7-22: 'Considero uecordem iuuenem, qui ... graditur in obscuro, in noctis tenebris; et ecce occurrit illi mulier ornatu meretricio, praeparata ad capiendas animas, garrula et uaga, quietis impatiens ... dicens ... ueni, inebriemur uberibus, et fruamur cupitis amplexibus ... statim eam sequitur quasi bos ductus ad uictimam.'
25. skleren and wimplen, veil and cover over. He probably found
the word skleire, a veil, in P. Plowman, C. ix. 5 (cf. also B. vi. 7, A. vii. 7), as that is the only known example of the substantive. The verb occurs here only. Other spellings of skleire, sb., in the MSS., are sklayre, scleyre, slaire, skleir, sleire, sleyre. Cf. Du. sluier, G. Schleier.
29. by experience; i.e. the author had himself been inclined to 'heresy'; he was even in danger of 'never returning' (l. 38).
36. weyved, rejected; he had rejected temptations to Lollardry.
38. shewed thee thy Margarite; meaning (I suppose) shewn thee the excellence of the church as it is.
40. Siloë, Siloam. It is a wonder where the author found this description of the waters of the pool of Siloam; but I much suspect that it arose from a gross misunderstanding of Isaiah, viii. 6, 7, thus:—'the waters of Shiloah that go softly ... shall come up over all his channels, and go over all his banks.' In the Vulgate: 'aquas Siloë, quae uadunt cum silentio ... ascendet super omnes riuos eius, et fluet super uniuersas ripas eius.' Hence cankes in l. 44 is certainly an error for bankes; the initial c was caught from the preceding circuit.
46. After Mercurius supply servaunts or children. The children or servants of Mercury mean the clerks or writers. The expression is taken from Ch. C. T., D 697:—
'The children of Mercurie and of Venus