1198. Shamefastness, Bashfulness; borrowed from Honte in the Rom. de la Rose, 2821; called Shame in the E. version, 3034. Hence the reference to roses in l. 1203, though it comes in naturally enough.
1211. were not she, if it had not been for her.
1213. returnith, turns them back again; used transitively.
1218. 'When Bashfulness is dead, Despair will be heir' (will succeed in her place). Too bold lovers would be dismissed.
1219. Avaunter, Boaster; as in Troil. iii. 308-14. The line sounds like an echo of 'Have at thee, Jason! now thyn horn is blowe!' Legend of Good Women, 1383.
1222. wowe, woo; evidently the right reading; so in Morris. Cf. The Letter of Cupid, V. 274-80 (p. 226).
1238. statut, i.e. the sixteenth statute (l. 435).
1242. 'Avauntour and a lyere, al is on'; Troil. iii. 309.
1253. sojoure, sojourn, dwell, used quite wrongly; for O.F. sojur (originally sojorn) is a sb. only, like mod. F. séjour. The O.F. verb was sojorner, sojourner, whence M.E. sojornen, sojournen, correctly used by Chaucer. The sb. sojour occurs in Rom. Rose, 4282, 5150. The mistake is so bad that even the scribe has here written soiorne; but, unluckily, this destroys the rime.
1255. 'Envy is admirably represented as rocking himself to and fro with vexation, as he sits, dark, in a corner.'—Bell. For all this, I suspect the right word is rouketh, i.e. cowers, as in C. T., A 1308. Rokken is properly transitive, as in C. T., A 4157.