56. 'To the honour of your life and the benefit of your soul.'
65. The exclamation shews that Chaucer was then dead.
67. The quotation is inexact; cf. ll. 120, 121 below. The reference is to the Wyf of Bathes Tale, D 1121:—
'Yet may they [our eldres] nat biquethe us, for no-thing,
To noon of us hir virtuous living.'
81. Read Think'th; so also Dryv'th in l. 86; Tak'th in l. 89.
97. Here the quotation, again from the Wyf of Bathes Tale (D 1131), is very close:—
'For of our eldres may we no-thing clayme
But temporel thing, that man may hurte and mayme.'
100. 'Therefore God is the source of virtuous nobleness.' This depends on a passage in Boethius, bk. iii. met. 6. l. 2; see notes to poem XIV, in vol. i. pp. 553-5.