289. him se, 'see (for himself), and similarly slep þou þe XV g 13. This reflexive use of the dative pronoun, which cannot be reproduced in a modern rendering, is common in OE. and ME., especially with verbs of motion; cp. note to XV g 24. But distinguish went him 475, 501, where him is accusative, not dative (OE. wente hine), because the original sense of went is 'turned', which naturally takes a reflexive object.
342. me no reche = I me no reche. The alternative would be the impersonal me no recheþ.
343. also spac = also bliue 142 = also swiþe 574: 'straightway', &c.
363. MS. auowed (or anowed) is meaningless here. Anow<rn>ed, or the doubtful by-form anow<r>ed 'adorned', is probably the true reading.
382. The line is too long—a fault not uncommon where direct speech is introduced, e.g. l. 419 and 178. Usually a correct line can be obtained by dropping words like quath he, which are not as necessary in spoken verse as they are where writing alone conveys the sense. But sometimes the flaw may lie in the forms of address: l. 382 would be normal without Parfay; l. 419 may once have been:
And seyd 'Lord, ȝif þi wille were'.
There is no task more slippery than the metrical reconstruction of ME. poems, particularly those of which the extant text derives from the original not simply through a line of copyists, but through a line of minstrels who passed on the verses from memory and by word of mouth.
388. The line seems to be corrupt, and, as usual, the Harleian and Ashmole MSS. give little help. Ful can hardly be a sb. meaning 'multitude' from the adj. full. Some form of fele (OE. fela) 'a great number' would give possible grammar and sense (cp. l. 401), but bad metre. Perhaps ful should be deleted as a scribe's anticipation of folk in the next line; for the construction seiȝe... of folk cp. XVI 388; and Hous of Fame, Bk. iii, ll. 147 ff.
433. Þei we nouȝt welcom no be: Almost contemporary with Sir Orfeo is the complaint of an English writer that the halls of the nobles stood open to a lawyer, but not to a poet:
Exclusus ad ianuam poteris sedere