[417], 418. These lines probably ran, Sipes on to festen | ⁊ alle up to gangen. festen on, moor.
[419], 420. ‘Accendunt vigilem quem navis portitat ignem,’ T.; ‘vigilem,’ ever burning, Virgil, Æn. iv. 200. wel to brennen may mean, to light a good fire, but such absolute use of brennen is without support. For wel read welm, blazing fire: OE. wielm, wylm; comp. ‘he wolde hine ifusen; to ane bare walme,’ L 22123: the word is common enough in OE. but rare in ME., and so may have puzzled the copyist, who would find wel in the next line. The sense is, They all go up on land to light a blazing fire on this monster by a spark struck out of flint by steel into tinder.
[421]. warmen . . . heten . . . drinken depend on gangen: ‘ut cale se faciant aut comedenda coquant,’ T.
[423]. grunde: see 188/401. For the whale mistaken for an island, comp. the South English Legendary, 224/155-176.
[426], 427. ‘Viribus est zabulus quasi cetus corpore magnus, | Ut monstrant magni quos facit ille magi,’ T. wið, of, as in ‘mekill of maine,’ Minot, i. 85.
[427]. hauen gives a fair sense with ‘wil ⁊ magt’ as object, but the original word was probably taunen (comp. 195/631), rendering ‘monstrant.’
[428], 429 are due to a misunderstanding of the original, ‘Mentes cunctorum qui sunt ubique virorum | Esurit atque sitit, quosque potest perimit;’ the devil hungers and thirsts for the souls of men and he destroys all he can.
[430]. tolleð, allures: the earliest occurrence of the word.
[431]. Omit he. sonde, shame.
[432]. in leue lage, low (weak) in faith; a phrase apparently without parallel. ‘Sed modicos fidei trahit in dulcedine verbi, | Namque fide firmos non trahit ille viros,’ T.