p. 26, l. [884]. Alloreynes of Loreynes and Aleroyse (l. 1699) are probably identical. Then Alloreynes would be an error of the scribe, who having already the following Loreynes in his mind wrote Alloreynes instead of Alleroyse.
p. 26, l. [900]. in fay = “truly,” fay= “faith, truth.” O.Fr. fei or feid, Lat. fides.
p. 26, l. [904]–5. Cf. Chanson de Roland, ll. 1903–4:
“Rollanz est proz e Oliviers est sages,
Ambedui unt merveillus vasselage.”
p. 27, l. [913]. I cannot tell what treyumple means, or whether it be a corruption.
p. 27, l. [939]. This kind of prayer or apostrophe addressed to the God of War is certainly taken from another English work, which I am unable to trace, but which must have been much known at the time of our author, as we find it referred to in different authors. That it has been taken from another poem is proved by some phrases of this prayer which are somewhat obscure or rather unintelligible here, and which we certainly should be able to explain if we knew the original context in which they occurred. Then the form hase (l. 940) is somewhat suspicious, as it is the only instance of the 2nd person singular present dropping the t, which it has always in this poem. The arrangement, too, of the following stanzas differs from that generally observed in the Sowdan. If we consider our poem as composed in eight-line stanzas (but see Introduction, p. xl) we mostly find the 1st and 3rd lines rhyming together, then the 2nd and 4th, the 5th and 7th, and finally the 6th and 8th, so that four different rhyme-endings are necessary to one stanza. If now we consider the stanza from l. 939 to 946, we only have two rhyme-endings, all the pair lines rhyming together, and all the odd ones [‹p112›] together. In ll. 947 to 950 the 1st and 4th rhyme together, whilst the 2nd and 3rd are paired off together.—ll. 939–941 we find alluded to in Chaucer, see Introduction, p. xlvi, and the Prioress’s Tale, ed. Skeat (Clarendon Press), p. xvii. Compare also Lindsay, The Historie of Squyer Meldrum, l. 390:
“Like Mars, the God Armipotent.”
p. 27, l. [939]. rede Mars. “Bocaccio uses the same epithet in the opening of his Teseide: ‘O rubiconde Marte.’ Rede refers to the colour of the planet.” Morris, note to Knight’s Tale, l. 889.
p. 27, l. [940]. Baye never means “sword,” as the editor of the Roxburghe Club ed. renders it, nor does this translation make any sense here at all; baye signifies “a wide, open room or space in a building.” See Mätzner’s Wörterbuch, p. 164. Morris, in the Glossary to the Alliterative Poems, has “bay = recess. The original meaning seems to be opening of any kind. Cf. bay, space in a building between two main beams.” Halliwell, s. v. bay, has: “A principal compartment or division in the architectural arrangement of a building.” It appears to be etymologically the same word as Ital. baja, French baie, “bay, gulf, harbour,” the French baie being equally used for “opening of any kind.” The Catalan form for baie is badia, which corresponds to the verb badar, meaning “to open.” See Diez, Etym. Wörterb. I. 46. Bay is retained in the Mod. E. compound “bay-window.” Cf. also the French “la bée d’une fenestre,” cited by Carpentier-Ducange, s. v. beare. With regard to the signification of trende, the editor of the Roxb. Club ed. wrongly guessed again in explaining it as “drawn” or “trenchant, cutting.” Trende means “turned, bent, vaulted in the form of an arch.” See Halliwell, p. 887, and Stratmann, p. 572, s. v. trenden (= “volvere”). But I am at a loss how to explain why Mars is said to have put up his throne in an arched recess, or compartment, of a building.