[117]. his, them. scyft, separates, is a mere synonym of ‘to ȝesceodeð.’ Perhaps scryft = scrifeþ, fixes their destiny.
[119]. morȝe mete, the ‘forme mete’ of 12/11.
[120]. more mete, the ‘fulle mete’ of 16/127; ‘none,’ 12/12; ‘vii sandon,’ 13/29.
[121]. witetlice of the MS. may represent OE. witodlīce, assuredly.
[122]. uuantruce, failure; as being compounded of wan, wanting, and the noun of trucian, to fail, it should mean absence of failure. hað: for omission of nom. see 6/18.
[123]. For the pain of dying as penance, comp. ‘Quidam autem electi in fine suo purgantur a levibus quibusdam peccatis,’ Isidore vi. 361; ‘Nullus tui Ordinis peribit, si Ordinem amaverit; aut in morte purgabitur, aut in brevi post mortem,’ Arnulf of Boheries in S. Bern. Opera, ii. 802.
[124]. eðelice lette, easy hindrance, i.e. slight delay. merchestowe: Morris suggests ‘merthestowe, a place of mirth,’ or alternatively translates the MS. reading, place marked out, place of separation. The word is not found elsewhere; it is probably a special coinage for the intermediate state, the place of the soul waiting for the body, the place of the ‘morȝemete,’ the limited joy of which the soul is capable in its severed state (‘requies ei, sed in anima sola, interim datur,’ Anselm, in Eadmer, 161 col. 2 B); the banquet of perfect felicity, ‘se fulle mete,’ follows when soul and body meet again at the resurrection, 17/157 (‘in anima simul & corpore laetabuntur,’ Ans.). Comp. March, ‘myddys be-twyn ij cuntreys,’ Prompt. Parv. ed. Mayhew, 282.
[128]. belimpð hit: a superfluous nominative, as if, what is it that happens?
[129]. letes in Specimens is resolved into lete + his, the latter being gen. of hit, governed by fandie, and so like ‘ȝif we his abiriȝdon,’ OEH i. 223/22. But support is lacking for enclitic es = his: it seems better to take letes as lete + es, pl. acc., them, or even as s. a. f. used incorrectly as neuter.
[131]. anu is taken by Morris as for anum, but neither his ‘at once,’ Specimens, nor ‘only,’ OEH, is satisfactory. Probably the original had anūge (= ānunge) gerǣde, entirely, quite ready, very keen.