[134]. Atte kirke dure, at the font, placed symbolically at the entrance to the church: comp. ‘heore godfaderes ⁊ heore godmoderes scullen onswerie for hem et þe chirche dure ⁊ beo in borȝes et þe fonstan,’ OEH i. 73/29.
[135]. Transpose, on him to leuen. For leuen . . . luuien see [143/73 note].
[136]. For bodes, hestes should probably be read; comp. 130/78; ‘þe heste of hali chirche,’ OEH i. 85/18.
[137]-140. Re-arrange, If ðu hauest is broken. al ðu forbredes. | forwurðes ⁊ forwelkes. eche lif to wolden. | Elded art fro blis. so ðis wirm o werld is. forgelues: only here; it may be connected with OE. geolwian, and so mean, to spoil by becoming yellow, to fade. But it is suspect; possibly the original word was forwelkes, dost wither. There is nothing in the original to correspond with l. 138; the adapter had perhaps in mind ‘decidat, induret et arescat,’ Ps. lxxxix. 6. Eche lif to wolden, so far as the attainment of eternal life is concerned. Elded, severed by age, is the writer’s interpretation of silicernus. Silicernium, a funeral feast, is used in Terence, Andria iv. 2. 48, as an abusive term for an old man, hence L.L. silicernus, senex; but the Catholicon, citing this place in T., says ‘Item silicernus ponitur quandoque pro firmo et duro ut silex.’
[141]. Add at the end, him bi, meaning, in his own case. For the rhyme comp. ‘And manige of ðo greten forði | ðat he adden ben hard hem bi,’ GE 3207, 3208; for the use of bi, see [13/18 note].
[142]. See 123/210.
[143-151.] Based on, ‘Sit cibus parcus, minuantur artus. | Unde non mandis miseros (a. l. pauperes) juvabis | Penitens defle dominoque semper | dic miserere,’ T.
[143]. Feste &c. is explained, confirm thyself in steadfastness; but for this ethical sense festnen is used everywhere else (see 147/142) and of seems to be without parallel, though ‘steðeluest . . . of’ occurs at 129/24. The expression is rather pointless and corresponds to nothing in the ways of the serpent, while ll. 109, 110 are the only ones which have no interpretation in the ‘significacio.’ Furthermore the last half of the line is defective. Now l. 144 clearly represents the second line of the original quoted above, which means, from what you do not eat you will help the poor, and it depends for its point on the sparing of food enjoined in the preceding line of the original. Accordingly we should expect something in l. 143 to correspond to it, which as printed above means, let your food be sparing and your limbs reduced by bloodletting (minutio, see 66/103-105 notes). If the poet had before him, or misread his copy so, muniantur artes, he might translate, Feste þe of fastenes. ⁊ filste þe of þewes, that is, fortify thyself by fastings and help thyself by virtues. For he would find ars explained by Papias as bene recteque vivendi virtus . . . ἀπὸ τῆς ἀρετῆς, id est a virtute. And the scribe by anticipating ste þe from the last half of the line might readily produce stedefastnesse.
[145]. wurði—loken, worthy to presume to look.
[146]. ward: see [178/89 note].