“Nowe, _of good felowshyp_, let me by thy dogge.”
Skelton’s _Magnyfycence_, v. 1095. vol. i. 260.
“_Yng._ But yf thou wylt haue a song that is good I haue one of robynhode The best that euer was made.
_Interlude of the iiii Elementes_, n. d. sig. E vii.
v. 259. _bobbe me on the noll_] i. e. beat me on the head.
v. 275. _vnneth_] i. e. scarcely, not without difficulty.
Page 41. v. 276. _But I requyre you no worde that I saye_] i. e. But I beg you not to mention a word of what I say.
v. 278. _agayne you_] i. e. against you, to your disadvantage.
—— _wetynge_] i. e. knowledge, intelligence.
v. 283. _wonderly besene_] i. e. of strange appearance, or array. “Well _bysene_: Bien _accoustré_.” Palsgrave’s _Lesclar. de la Lang. Fr._, 1530. fol. ccccxlvi. (Table of Aduerbes).
v. 287. _by Cockes blode_] i. e. by God’s blood (_Cock_ a corruption of _God_). “The Host’s oath in Lydgate,” says Warton, note on _Hist. of E. P._, ii. 349. ed. 4to. It occurs often in other writers.
v. 289. _His face was belymmed, as byes had him stounge_] i. e. His face was disfigured, as if bees had stung him.—In a fragment of Lydgate’s _Fall of Prynces, MS. Harl._ 2251. fol. 97, we find
“So that a _by_ myght close hem both two Vnder his wynges;”
where Wayland’s ed. (B. ii. leaf li.) has “a _Bee_.”
Page 41. v. 294. _this comerous crabes hyghte_] i. e. (I suppose) this troublesome crab was called.—Warton (_Hist. of E. P._ ii. 350) cites, without the authority of any ed., “—— crab is _hyghte_.”
v. 298. _euyll apayed_] i. e. ill satisfied, ill pleased.
v. 301. _Dawes_] Equivalent to—simpleton; the _daw_ being reckoned a silly bird: so again, in the next line but one, “doctour _Dawcocke_.”
Page 42. v. 302. _in conceyte_] i. e. in the good opinion, favour of our Lady Fortune: compare v. 270.
v. 304. _sleyte_] i. e. sleight, artful contrivance.
v. 315. _And soo outface hym with a carde of ten_] “A common phrase,” says Nares, “which we may suppose to have been derived from some game, (possibly _primero_), wherein the standing boldly upon a _ten_ was often successful. _A card of ten_ meant a tenth card, a ten.... I conceive the force of the phrase to have expressed originally the confidence or impudence of one who with a ten, as at brag, _faced_, or _outfaced_ one who had really a faced card against him. To face meant, as it still does, to bully, to attack by impudence of face.” _Gloss._ in v. _Face it_, &c. “The phrase of _a card of ten_ was possibly derived, by a jocular allusion, from that of _a hart of ten_, in hunting, which meant a full grown deer, one past six years of age.” _Ibid._ in v. _Card of ten_.