Glιpιan. Scurrilibus oblectamentis indulgere; scurram agere. Canon. Edgar. 58.
(2) Again, as the various attempts to please, practised by an order of men who owed their support to the public favour, might be considered by those grave censors, as mean and debasing: Hence came from the same root,
Glιpeꞃ. Parasitus, assentator; a fawner, a togger, a parasite, a flatterer.[1115] (Somn.)
IV.
To return to the Anglo-Saxon word Glιᵹᵹ: notwithstanding the various secondary senses in which this word (as we have seen above) was so early applied; yet
The derivative glee (though now chiefly used to express merriment and joy) long retained its first simple meaning, and is even applied by Chaucer to signify music and minstrelsy. (Vid. Jun. Etym.) E.g.
"For though that the best harper upon live
Would on the best sounid jolly harpe
That evir was, with all his fingers five
Touch aie o string, or aie o warble harpe
Were his nailes pointed nevir so sharpe
It shoulde makin every wight to dull
To heare is glee, and of his strokes full."
Troyl. L. ii.
Junius interprets glees by musica instrumenta, in the following passages of Chaucer's third boke of Fame:—