[222]Pepwell adds: "or counsel."
[223]Of thyself thou hast nought but sin.
[224]So the MSS.: Pepwell has: "to God."
[225]Pepwell changes to "divers."
[226]Cf. Dante, De Monarchia, iii. 16: "Man alone of beings holds a mid-place between corruptible and incorruptible; wherefore he is rightly likened by the philosophers to the horizon which is between two hemispheres. For man, if considered after either essential part, to wit soul and body is corruptible if considered only after the one, to wit the body, but if after the other, to wit the soul, he is incorruptible. . . . If man then, is a kind of mean between corruptible and incorruptible things, since every mean savours of the nature of the extremes, it is necessary that man should savour of either nature. And since every nature is ordained to a certain end, it follows that there must be a twofold end of man, so that like as he alone amongst all beings partakes of corruptibility and incorruptibilty, so he alone amongst all beings should be ordained for two final goals of which the one should be his goal as a corruptible being, and the other as an incorruptible" (P. H. Wicksteed's translation).
[227]Pepwell modernises this throughout to "dwelling alone."
[228]Pepwell substitutes "doubt." Cf. Chaucer, Legend of Good Women, 2686: "Thryes doun she fil in swiche a were."
[229]Pepwell adds: "in keeping of silence."
[230]Harl. MS. 674 reads: "more holiness than thou art worthy."
[231]Nature.