407. The metre, in ll. 407-69, is borrowed from Chaucer's Anelida.
410. blaiknit, is not a derivative of M.E. blak, black, but of M.E. blāk, bleik, bleak, pallid, cheerless. It is here used in the sense of 'rendered cheerless'; and bair means 'bare' or 'barren.' See blākien in Stratmann.
413. 'Thy bale is in the growth,' or is sprouting. See Braird, the first shoots of corn or grass, in the New E. Dict., where two more examples of this phrase are cited from Henryson.
417. 'With goodly bed, and convenient embroidered bench-covers.' Burelie (mod. E. burly, prov. E. bowerly) answers to an A.S. form būr-līc, i.e. suitable for a lady's bower. This explains why it was appropriately used as an epithet for a bed. Cf. 'Quhair ane burely bed was wrocht in that wane'; Rauf Coilyear, 264. Hence 'a burly knight' was one suitable for a lady's bower, and therefore handsome, strong, well-grown, large; and by a degradation of meaning, huge, corpulent. The changes in sense are curious and instructive. In the New E. Dict., the etymology is not given. For bene, see bain in the New E. Dict.; and for bankouris, see banker.
421. saipheroun sals, saffron sauce. Saffron and salt were often used together in medieval cookery; see Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery Books, ed. Austin (E. E. T. S.). The Glossary to that book gives the spellings safroun, saferon, saferoun, and sapheron.
423. This is a very early mention of lawn. It is also mentioned in st. 10 of Lydgate's 'London Lickpeny.'
429. walk, wake. The history of this spelling is not quite clear; but the l was, in any case, mute; another spelling is wauk. I suspect that it originated in the misunderstanding of a symbol. The scribe, who wished to write wakk, used a symbol resembling lk, where the l was really the first k, indicated by its down-stroke only. For example,
the word rokke was (apparently) written rolke. See my article on Ghost-words; Phil. Soc. Trans. 1885, p. 369.
tak the dew, gather May-dew. The old custom of bathing the face with fresh dew on the 1st of May is referred to in Brand's Popular Antiquities. He gives an example as late as 1791. See Pepys' Diary, May 28, 1667, May 11, 1669; where we find that any day in May was then considered suitable for this health-giving operation.
433. I take on every grane to mean 'in every particular'; cf. 'a grain of sense.' We may also note the Fr. teindre en graine, to dye in grain, to dye of a fast colour; and we occasionally find grain in the sense of 'tint.' Godefroy cites 'ung couvertoer d'une graigne vermeille'; and 'une manche vermeille, ne sçay se c'est graine ou autre taincture.' Grane also means 'groan,' and 'groin,' and 'fork of a tree'; but none of these senses suit.