Page 117. v. 23. _blake Baltazar with hys basnet routh as a bere_] Does _blake Baltazar_ mean one of the Magi, or, as they were commonly called, the Three Kings of Cologne? “the third, Balthasar, a black or Moor, with a large spreading beard,” &c. _Festa Anglo-Romana_, p. 7, cited in Brand’s _Pop. Ant._ i. 19 (note), ed. 1813: _with hys basnet routh as a bere_, i. e. with his cap (not helmet, it would seem,) rough as a bear.
v. 24. _Lycon, that lothly luske_]—_Lycon_ is probably Lycaon; see note, p. 127. v. 311. “Here is a great knaue i. a great lyther _luske_, or a stout ydell lubbar.” Palsgrave’s _Acolastus_, 1540. sig. X ii. “_Luske_ a vyle parsone _ribavlt, esclaue, lovrdavlt_.” Palsgrave’s _Lesclar. de la Lang. Fr._, 1530. fol. xlvi. (Table of Subst.). The word is often used as a term of reproach in general.
v. 25. _brymly_] i. e. fiercely, ruggedly.
v. 30. _a camoke_] Is explained—a crooked stick, or tree; a crooked beam, or knee of timber.
v. 31. _teggys_] See note, p. 164. v. 151.
Page 117. v. 33. _Orwelle hyr hauyn_] By Harwich.
v. 36. _Sarson_] i. e. Saracen. So in _The Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedy_ (see note, p. 177. v. 4), “_Sarazene_, syphareit,” &c. Dunbar’s _Poems_, ii. 75. ed. Laing.
v. 37. _As a glede glowynge_] i. e. glowing like a burning coal:—but qy. did Skelton write “as a glede _glowrynge_?” i. e. staring like a kite. He uses _glede_ in this latter sense in _Magnyfycence_, v. 1059. vol. i. p. 259: and in _The Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedy_ (see note, p. 177. v. 4) we find,—
“hungry _gled_.” ... “Lyke to ane stark theif _glowrand_ in ane tedder.”
v. 40. _Howkyd as an hawkys beke, lyke Syr Topyas_] i. e. Hooked, &c. The allusion is to Chaucer’s _Sire Thopas_, who “had a semely nose.” v. 13659. ed. Tyr.
v. 41. _buske_] i. e. prepare, or rather, perhaps, hie.
_Godfrey_] Concerning this person, who assisted Garnesche in his compositions, and is afterwards called his _scribe_, I can give the reader no information.
Page 118. v. 2. _[Your] gronynge, ȝour grontynge, your groinynge lyke a swyne_] Skelton has elsewhere;
“Hoyning like hogges that _groynis_ and wrotes.”
“The Gruntyng and the _groynninge_ of the gronnyng swyne.”
_Garlande of Laurell_, v. 1376. vol. i. 415.