[218]-221. ‘Cervus habere duas naturas atque figuras | Dicitur a phisio, cum docet inde, logo,’ T. How the hart renews its youth is again told in the Deposition of Richard the Second, 15/8-20, and there is a curious use of the fable in Nova Legenda Anglie, i. 254/23-29.
[221]. fisiologet: the termination is probably borrowed from the familiar donet, a Latin grammar; OF. donet.
[223]. ðurg his nese, by drawing in his breath, ‘spiritu narium,’ or as T. puts it, ‘cum naribus extrahit.’ on on, continuously; at 207/339, forthwith.
[224]. stoc . . . ston: ‘de caveis terrae, de latebrisve petrae,’ T. The translator uses a familiar combination.
[225]. it: the adder.
[226]. sweleð, miswritten for swelgeð, swallows: the scribe was probably led by ‘brinneð’ in the next line to think of the word which for him represented swǣlan.
[227], 228. ðerof . . . of: tautology is frequent in this piece: comp. 184/260. The impersonal use of brinneð appears to be without parallel: the meaning is, that poisonous matter burns him afterwards.
[230]. ‘Estuat ad liquidas pergere fontis aquas,’ T.; estuat is glossed festinat, hence lepeð; comp. Psal. xli. 1. wið—list, displaying great prudence, wisdom: comp. ‘To the fischers hous þai went wiþ list,’ Gregorlegende, ed. Schulz, 52/1015.
[232]-238. ‘Quas cum forte bibit, his plenus toxica vincit, | Se juvenemque facit, cornua quando jacit,’ T.
[235]. non wigt, no whit, not at all.