60. eft, once again hot. These sudden transitions from cold to heat are common; see Temple of Glas, 356:—'For thoughe I brenne with feruence and with hete.'
64. Lydgate is always deploring his lack of eloquence; cf. notes to Temple of Glas, ed. Schick, ll. 1393, 1400.
69. I can find no such word as jouesse, so I alter it to jonesse, i.e. youth. For the spelling jonesce in the 14th century, see Littré, s.v.
jeunesse. The expression have more yet implies that the phrase or motto je serve jonesse is added as a postscript, and that there was some special point in it; but the application of it is now lost to us. Cf. 'Princes of youthe, and flour of gentilesse,' Temple of Glas, 970.
This poem really consists of twelve precepts, intended to redress twelve abuses. The twelve abuses are given by the Latin lines above, which should be compared throughout. The whole poem is thus easily understood.
The accent is on the first syllable of the line in most of the lines. In l. 3, the word Lord stands alone in the first foot. The lines are somewhat unsteady, quite in Lydgate's usual manner. In l. 6, jug-e is probably dissyllabic. See further in the Introduction.
This late piece abounds with imitations of Lydgate, especially of his Temple of Glas; many of the resemblances are pointed out in Schick's edition of that poem, which I refer to by the contraction 'T. G.'
1. Cf. 'With quaking hert[e] of myn inward drede'; T. G. 978.