[208]. For nummore read more.
[209]. After barlic add sed or corn. In the earlier bestiaries barley stands for heretical writers: Eudes de Cheriton, p. 247, explains wheat as good works.
[210]. Omit to. hauen moten, must have, is feeble and does not rhyme. Holthausen suggests hauen geten, have to observe: moten geten, must get, or moten seken, which makes up for an indifferent rhyme by its contrast with sunen, seem better. ‘Ipse novam legem colligo, non veterem,’ T.
[211]. get as at l. 195 would be better metrically.
[212]. Transpose, god to don, and, us forbedeð.
[213]. ‘Hoc est quod binas lex habet una vias, | Quae terrena sonat, simul et celestia monstrat. | Nunc mentem pascit, et modo corpus alit,’ T. The corrections bet, offers, and erðliche are due to Mätzner. bodes, not ‘biddings,’ Specimens, but teachings, information. bekned, points to, indicates, proclaims. The meaning of the original depends on the special use of lex, according to Papias ‘a legendo dicta lexis græce, latine locutio, id est quælibet syllaba uel uox, quæ scribi potest,’ hence the written word, here the ‘facts’ of natural history, useful to know for our bodily sustenance, but also charged with spiritual instruction. The ant, as the Latin puts it, ‘in suis factis res monstrat spirituales.’ The English version has obscured the sense by adding, without authority, l. 212, where lex is taken in its natural meaning of law. euelike, heavenly (teachings).
[214]. o geuelike, on an equality, equally: OE. ge-efenlic adj. here used as noun: comp. 194/593.
[215], 216. ‘Nos utinam repleat, famis ut formido recedat, Tempore judicii, quod simile est hiemi,’ T.
[216]. The first half is short; add, in erd after nu.
[217]. Next to the Ant in T. comes the Fox and then the Hart.