[493]. Comp. 212/526.
[494]. strif: ‘Militia est vita hominis super terram,’ Job vii. 1. Comp. ‘He made on werlde al erue tame, | ðe sulde him her, in swinkes strif, | to fode and srud, to helpen ðe lif,’ GE 174.
[498]. bi waken, ‘waked,’ watched by his body: comp. ‘He was biwaked richeliche, | And wel faire browt on erthe,’ Seuyn Sages (Weber), 2578.
[502]. biqueðen, ‘bewail,’ Morris, whom Mätzner follows. But this use is without parallel and is not a natural development of OE. becweðan: possibly it descends from cwīþan, to lament. In NED, bigreden, lament, or bigreiðen, prepare, make ready, are suggested. Perhaps biwreðen, representing OE. bewrīðan, to surround with bands: the line would then mean, to anoint, shroud and enwrap.
[504]. migt, power, that is, means, wealth.
[506]. Not to bury it speedily with iron tool. For wið yre, comp. Minot iii. 102 note.
[507]. rigt, properly, carefully.
[510-522.] This passage is based on ‘Fideles modo quia mortuos suos fide et virtutibus conditos aiunt .xxx. diebus eos plangunt .i. speciales missas sub numero tot dierum pro ipsis celebrant. Quidam tertiam diem maxime celebrant · pro spiritu anima et corpore. Alii septimam,’ C.
[510-512.] Christian folk have other customs. They are anointed during their lifetime with chrism and oil; with chrism and the oleum catechumenorum at baptism, with the oleum infirmorum in Extreme Unction. in trewðe geuen: administered with faith in their efficacy: in Extreme Unction, the ministrant said, ‘da fiduciam tui muneris exequendi.’ ‘Oratio fidei salvabit infirmum,’ S. Jac. v. 15.
[513], 514. For ðon, Morris read don, Mätzner, ðor. More probably it is a mistake for ðo induced by the ending of the next word, ðan also has been corrupted out of ðam. For acts of faith accompanied by charity, those are for Christians in place of all that watching of the dead: an idea repeated in ll. 519-521. Strunk, Mod. Lang. Notes, xxvi. 51, proposes for ðon ben, don bet, with meaning, For truth and good deeds therewith avail more than that vigil. For mide, see 177/57, 212/532.