[249] is a very lame verse; we might read, þat feole speken can.
[251]. With singen, comp. ‘Noli homines blando nimium sermone probare: | Fistula dulce canit, uolucrem dum decipit auceps,’ Cato 220/27.
[252]. swikelne, deceitful: comp. ‘Ueond þet þuncheð freond is swike ouer alle swike,’ AR 98/5; ‘Habet suum venenum blanda oratio,’ Syrus 80/214.
[254]. cuþe, give warning.
[256]. Alfred would hardly have said that a man learns wisdom from proverbs and prudence from good luck. Read for sawe, sorewe (the scribe has overlooked the contraction for re), and for hiselþe, uniselþe, misfortune. Comp. ‘In þes middeneardes iscole · selðen ⁊ uniselðen,’ OEH i. 243/7: ‘Vitat maiora sapiens post dampna minora,’ Prov. Hein. 240. Borgström reads his elde, where his is surely doubtful and þ interchanging with d without parallel.
[258]. The editors leave out And, which is not in T, but l. 257 is complete in itself; And vnwurþ, and despicable, is a sort of afterthought: for the combination comp. 4/37; ‘þat he biðe vnworð & lah’ (loþ, MS. O), L 3464, and further for this meaning of vnwurþ, 143/92; ‘þe idele ȝelp us beo eure unwurð,’ OEH i. 107/8.
[259]. hokede, thievish: in thieves’ slang, a hook is a pickpocket, his fingers are hooks. Comp. ‘Sutoribus custodem addidit et ut eorum curvos ungues observaret . . . rogavit,’ Disciplina Clericalis, ed. Hilka u. Söderhjelm, 28/19; ‘Arpiis similes armantur in ungue ferino,’ Fec. Ratis, de Predonibus, 173/1154. þat he bereþ is rejected by Skeat as a ‘gloss.’ It is certainly feeble; perhaps we should read, þat he herȝeþ, with which he plunders; the relative would be under the régime of the preceding þurh.
[261]. From—wune, (dis)accustom thyself from lying: a singular phrase.
[262]. þe may be the reflexive dat. as at 13/34, but it is more probably a mistake, due to þe in the previous line: its omission improves the metre.
[263]. on þeode, a tag beloved of Layamon: with him it is always local; comp. ‘he þohte to quellen; þe king on his þeoden,’ 20056 (in his londe, MS. O); ‘þa weoren Rom-leoden; bliðen on heore þeoden,’ id. 11144: it corresponds to ‘vpen eorþe,’ 22/123, and differs from in alle leode, among all the people, Layamon’s ‘on folke,’ 2218.