1-22. These lines, found also in Lai le Freine, would serve as preface to any of the Breton lays, with the couplet ll. 23-4 as the special connecting link. In the Auchinleck MS., Orfeo begins on a fresh leaf at l. 25, without heading or capitals to indicate that it is a new poem. The leaf preceding has been lost. There is good reason to suppose that it contained the lines supplied in the text from the Harleian MS.
4. frely, 'goodly': Lai le Freine has ferly 'wondrous'.
12. MS. moost to lowe: means 'most (worthy) to be praised', and there are two or three recorded examples of to lowe = to alowe in this sense. But MS. Ashmole and the corresponding lines in Lai le Freine point to most o loue 'mostly of love' as the common reading. The typical 'lay' is a poem of moderate length, telling a story of love, usually with some supernatural element, in a refined and courtly style.
13. Brytayn, 'Brittany': so Brytouns 16 = 'Bretons'. Cp. Chaucer, Franklin's Tale, Prologue, beginning
Thise olde gentil Britons in hir dayes
Of diverse aventures maden layes
Rymeyed in hir firste Briton tonge,
Whiche layes with hir instrumentz they songe, &c.
20. The curious use of it after the plural layes is perhaps not original. Lai le Freine has: And maked a lay and yaf it name.