[191]. wel wolde, though she desired it ever so much, she cannot control it at all.
[194]. ouerprute, excessive pride: the noun apparently only here; the adj. ouerprut is commoner. In T, orgul prude. Comp. ‘Bruttes hafden muchel mode; & vnimete prute,’ L 19408.
[196]. After þat, heo has dropped out.
[198]. That vice she would readily give up, if she were often in a sweat exhausted with toil. Comp. ‘moni swinc moni swæt; . . þolede ich on folde,’ L 2281, 7; ‘he swonc i þon fehte; þat al he lauede asweote,’ id. 7488.
[202]. Read, þat beon uulle treowe: lit. though it is ill to bend what are full-grown trees, i.e. though full-grown trees are hard to bend. It is not necessary to alter beo, but n of nule probably belongs to it; it is subjunctive in an object clause expressing a class of things. For uulle comp. 42/219; ‘min fulla freond,’ Thorpe, Diplom. 525/8; ‘heo beoð ure fulle feond,’ L 963; ‘Ech god giue ⁊ fule giue cumeð of heuene dunward,’ OEH ii. 105/17; ‘fulliche cristene mon,’ OEH i. 73/5. ‘Dum curuare potes, vel curuam tendere virgam, | Fac sit ut ad libitum plantula ducta tuum: | Cum vetus in magnum fuerit solidata vigorem | Non leviter flectes imperiale caput,’ Alanus 435. It is difficult to alter a grown-up.
[203]. after, following the example of: comp. ‘Prendere maternam bene discit cattula predam,’ Prov. Heinrici 169; ‘Muricipis proles cito discit prendere mures,’ id. 109: said of innate tendencies. The hindrances to the training of the young wife are that she is already grown up and has an inherited disposition.
[204]. þe mon þat . . . he: see 19/49. Comp. ‘Femina quem superat, nunquam uiuit sine pena; | Libertate caret, turpi constrictus habena,’ Flor. Gott. 724.
[205]. ihurd, listened to, or perhaps, spoken of, as having any independence in what he says. Had the writer in mind, ‘labia nostra a nobis sunt, quis noster Dominus est?’ Ps. xi. 5.
[207]. steorne is strange in form (it should be sturne in this text), and does not suit the context, and the verbs to-trayen, to-teonen are apparently found nowhere else. Read, turne to treye and to teone, change his life to sorrow and affliction: in that case the two lines should be printed as one alliterative long line. The combination is common; comp. Minot vi. 2 note, and 133/61. T has, ac he sal him rere dreiȝe, but he shall provide trouble for himself.
[210]. þe mon resumes he of l. 209. qued occurs again as quet T 702, in the metaphorical sense of devil, evil man. Here Skeat translates, aversion; Borgström, following Morris, contempt, scorn, without any support from other examples. The word is a coarse term of contempt for a ‘poor creature,’ based on the primitive sense of OE. cwead: it is easily paralleled in modern dialects.